"Oh, morning life!" cried Yoomy, with a Persian air; "would that all time were a sunrise, and all life a youth."
"Ah! but these striplings whimper of youth," said Mohi, caressing his braids, "as if they wore this beard."
"But natural, old man," said Babbalanja. "We Mardians never seem young to ourselves; childhood is to youth what manhood is to age:-something to be looked back upon, with sorrow that it is past. But childhood reeks of no future, and knows no past; hence, its present passes in a vapor."
"Mohi, how's your appetite this morning?" said Media.
"Thus, thus, ye gods," sighed Yoomy, "is feeling ever scouted. Yet, what might seem feeling in me, I can not express."
"A good commentary on old Bardianna, Yoomy," said Babbalanja, "who somewhere says, that no Mardian can out with his heart, for his unyielding ribs are in the way. And indeed, pride, or something akin thereto, often holds check on sentiment. My lord, there are those who like not to be detected in the possession of a heart."
"Very true, Babbalanja; and I suppose that pride was at the bottom of your old Ponderer's heartless, unsentimental, bald-pated style."
"Craving pardon, my lord is deceived. Bardianna was not at all proud; though he had a queer way of showing the absence of pride. In his essay, entitled, — "On the Tendency to curl in Upper Lips," he thus discourses. "We hear much of pride and its sinfulness in this Mardi wherein we dwelclass="underline" whereas, I glory in being brimmed with it;-my sort of pride. In the presence of kings, lords, palm-trees, and all those who deem themselves taller than myself, I stand stiff as a pike, and will abate not one vertebra of my stature. But accounting no Mardian my superior, I account none my inferior; hence, with the social, I am ever ready to be sociable."
"An agrarian!" said Media; "no doubt he would have made the headsman the minister of equality."
"At bottom we are already equal, my honored lord," said Babbalanja, profoundly bowing-"One way we all come into Mardi, and one way we withdraw. Wanting his yams a king will starve, quick as a clown; and smote on the hip, saith old Bardianna, he will roar as loud as the next one."
"Roughly worded, that, Babbalanja.-Vee-Vee! my crown! — So; now, Babbalanja, try if you can not polish Bardianna's style in that last saying you father upon him."
"I will, my ever honorable lord," said Babbalanja, salaming. "Thus we'll word it, then: In their merely Mardian nature, the sublimest demi-gods are subject to infirmities; for struck by some keen shaft, even a king ofttimes dons his crown, fearful of future darts."
"Ha, ha! — well done, Babbalanja; but I bade you polish, not sharpen the arrow."
"All one, my thrice honored lord;-to polish is not to blunt."
CHAPTER XLVII
Babbalanja Philosophizes, And My Lord Media Passes Round The Calabashes
An interval of silence passed; when Media cried, "Out upon thee, Yoomy! curtail that long face of thine."
"How can he, my lord," said Mohi, "when he is thinking of furlongs?"
"Fathoms you mean, Mohi; see you not he is musing over the gunwale?
And now, minstrel, a banana for thy thoughts. Come, tell me how you poets spend so many hours in meditation."
"My lord, it is because, that when we think, we think so little of ourselves."
"I thought as much," said Mohi, "for no sooner do I undertake to be sociable with myself, than I am straightway forced to beat a retreat."
"Ay, old man," said Babbalanja, "many of us Mardians are but sorry hosts to ourselves. Some hearts are hermits."
"If not of yourself, then, Yoomy, of whom else do you think?" asked Media.
"My lord, I seldom think," said Yoomy, "I but give ear to the voices in my calm."
"Did Babbalanja speak?" said Media. "But no more of your reveries;" and so saying Media gradually sunk into a reverie himself.
The rest did likewise; and soon, with eyes enchanted, all reclined: gazing at each other, witless of what we did.
It was Media who broke the spell; calling for Vee-Vee our page, his calabashes and cups, and nectarines for all.
Eyeing his goblet, Media at length threw himself back, and said:
"Babbalanja, not ten minutes since, we were all absent-minded; now, how would you like to step out of your body, in reality; and, as a spirit, haunt some shadowy grove?"
"But our lungs are not wholly superfluous, my lord," said Babbalanja, speaking loud.
"No, nor our lips," said Mohi, smacking his over his wine.
"But could you really be disembodied here in Mardi, Babbalanja, how would you fancy it?" said Media.
"My lord," said Babbalanja, speaking through half of a nectarine,
"defer putting that question, I beseech, till after my appetite is satisfied; for, trust me, no hungry mortal would forfeit his palate, to be resolved into the impalpable."
"Yet pure spirits we must all become at last, Babbalanja," said Yoomy,
"even the most ignoble."
"Yes, so they say, Yoomy; but if all boors be the immortal sires of endless dynasties of immortals, how little do our pious patricians bear in mind their magnificent destiny, when hourly they scorn their companionship. And if here in Mardi they can not abide an equality with plebeians, even at the altar; how shall they endure them, side by side, throughout eternity? But since the prophet Alma asserts, that Paradise is almost entirely made up of the poor and despised, no wonder that many aristocrats of our isles pursue a career, which, according to some theologies, must forever preserve the social distinctions so sedulously maintained in Mardi. And though some say, that at death every thing earthy is removed from the spirit, so that clowns and lords both stand on a footing; yet, according to the popular legends, it has ever been observed of the ghosts of boors when revisiting Mardi, that invariably they rise in their smocks. And regarding our intellectual equality here, how unjust, my lord, that after whole years of days end nights consecrated to the hard gaining of wisdom, the wisest Mardian of us all should in the end find the whole sum of his attainments, at one leap outstripped by the veriest dunce, suddenly inspired by light divine. And though some hold, that all Mardian lore is vain, and that at death all mysteries will be revealed; yet, none the less, do they toil and ponder now.
Thus, their tongues have one mind, and their understanding another."
"My lord," said Mohi, "we have come to the lees; your pardon, Babbalanja."
"Then, Vee-Vee, another calabash! Fill up, Mohi; wash down wine with wine. Your cup, Babbalanja; any lees?"
"Plenty, my lord; we philosophers come to the lees very soon."
"Flood them over, then; but cease not discoursing; thanks be to the gods, your mortal palates and tongues can both wag together; fill up, I say, Babbalanja; you are no philosopher, if you stop at the tenth cup; endurance is the test of philosophy all Mardi over; drink, I say, and make us wise by precept and example.-Proceed, Yoomy, you look as if you had something to say."
"Thanks, my lord. Just now, Babbalanja, you flew from the subject;-you spoke of boors; but has not the lowliest peasant an eye that can take in the vast horizon at a sweep: mountains, vales, plains, and oceans? Is such a being nothing?"