51. CHAPTER LI.
IN WHICH AZZAGEDDI SEEMS TO USE BABBALANJA FOR A
MOUTH-PIECE.
Porpheero far astern, the spirits of the company rose.
Once again, old Mohi serenely unbraided, and rebraided his
beard; and sitting Turk-wise on his mat, my lord Media
smoking his gonfalon, diverted himself with the wild songs
of Yoomy, the wild chronicles of Mohi, or the still wilder
speculations of Babbalanja; now and then, as from pitcher
to pitcher, pouring royal old wine down his soul.
Among other things, Media, who at times turned over
Babbalanja for an encyclopædia, however unreliable, demanded
information upon the subject of neap tides and their
alleged slavish vassalage to the moon.
When true to his cyclopædiatic nature, Babbalanja quoted
from a still older and better authority than himself; in
brief, from no other than eternal Bardianna. It seems that
that worthy essayist had discussed the whole matter in a
chapter thus headed: “On Seeing into Mysteries through
Mill-Stones;” and throughout his disquisitions he evinced
such a profundity of research, though delivered in a style
somewhat equivocal, that the company were much struck
by the erudition displayed.
“Babbalanja, that Bardianna of yours must have been a
wonderful student,” said Media after a pause, “no doubt he
consumed whole thickets of rush-lights.”
“Not so, my lord.—`Patience, patience, philosophers,' said
Bardianna; `blow out your tapers, bolt not your dinners,
take time, wisdom will be plenty soon.”'
“A notable hint! Why not follow it, Babbalanja?”
“Because, my lord, I have overtaken it, and passed on.”
“True to your nature, Babbalanja; you stay nowhere.”
“Ay, keep moving is my motto; but speaking of hard
students, did my lord ever hear of Midni the ontologist and
entomologist?”
“No.”
“Then, my lord, you shall hear of him now. Midni
was of opinion that day-light was vulgar; good enough for
taro-planting and traveling; but wholly unadapted to the
sublime ends of study. He toiled by night; from sunset to
sunrise poring over the works of the old logicans. Like
most philosophers, Midni was an amiable man; but one
thing invariably put him out. He read in the woods by
glow-worm light; insect in hand, tracing over his pages,
line by line. But glow-worms burn not long: and in the
midst of some calm intricate thought, at some imminent
comma, the insect often expired, and Midni groped for a
meaning. Upon such an occasion, `Ho, Ho,' he cried; `but
for one instant of sun-light to see my way to a period!' But
sun-light there was none; so Midni sprang to his feet, and
parchment under arm, raced about among the sloughs and
bogs for another glow-worm. Often, making a rapid descent
with his turban, he thought he had caged a prize; but nay.
Again he tried; yet with no better success. Nevertheless,
at last he secured one; but hardly had he read three lines
by its light, when out it went. Again and again this
occurred. And thus he forever went halting and stumbling
through his studies, and plunging through his quagmires
after a glim.”
At this ridiculous tale, one of our silliest paddlers burst
into uncontrollable mirth. Offended at which breach of
decorum, Media sharply rebuked him.
But he protested he could not help laughing.
Again Media was about to reprimand him, when Babbalanja
begged leave to interfere.
“My lord, he is not to blame. Mark how earnestly he
struggles to suppress his mirth; but he can not. It has
often been the same with myself. And many a time have
I not only vainly sought to check my laughter, but at some
recitals I have both laughed and cried. But can opposite
emotions be simultaneous in one being? No. I wanted to
weep; but my body wanted to smile; and between us we
almost choked. My lord Media, this man's body laughs; not
the man himself.”
“But his body is his own, Babbalanja; and he should
have it under better control.”
“The common error, my lord. Our souls belong to our
bodies, not our bodies to our souls. For which has the care
of the other? which keeps house? which looks after the
replenishing of the aorta and auricles, and stores away the
secretions? Which toils and ticks while the other sleeps?
Which is ever giving timely hints, and elderly warnings?
Which is the most authoritative?—Our bodies, surely. At
a hint, you must move; at a notice to quit, you depart.
Simpletons show us, that a body can get along almost without
a soul; but of a soul getting along without a body,
we have no tangible and indisputable proof. My lord, the
wisest of us breathe involuntarily. And how many millions
there are who live from day to day by the incessant operation
of subtle processes in them, of which they know nothing,
and care less? Little ween they, of vessels lacteal and
lymphatic, of arteries femoral and temporal; of pericranium
or pericardium; lymph, chyle, fibrin, albumen, iron in the
blood, and pudding in the head; they live by the charity
of their bodies, to which they are but butlers. I say, my
lord, our bodies are our betters. A soul so simple, that it
prefers evil to good, is lodged in a frame, whose minutest
action is full of unsearchable wisdom. Knowing this superiority
of theirs, our bodies are inclined to be willful: our
beards grow in spite of us; and as every one knows, they
sometimes grow on dead men.”
“You mortals are alive, then, when you are dead, Babbalanja.”
“No, my lord; but our beards survive us.”
“An ingenious distinction; go on, philosopher.”
“Without bodies, my lord, we Mardians would be minus
our strongest motive-passions, those which, in some way or
other, root under our every action. Hence, without bodies,
we must be something else than we essentially are. Wherefore,
that saying imputed to Alma, and which, by his very
followers, is deemed the most hard to believe of all his instructions,
and the most at variance with all preconceived
notions of immortality, I Babbalanja, account the most reasonable
of his doctrinal teachings. It is this;—that at the
last day, every man shall rise in the flesh.”
“Pray, Babbalanja, talk not of resurrections to a demi-god.”
“Then let me rehearse a story, my lord. You will find
it in the `Very Merry Marvelings' of the Improvisitor Quiddi;
and a quaint book it is. Fugle-fi is its finis:—fugle-fi, fugle-fo,
fugle-fogle-orum!”
“That wild look in his eye again,” murmured Yoomy.
“Proceed, Azzageddi,” said Media.
“The philosopher Grando had a sovereign contempt for
his carcass. Often he picked a quarrel with it; and always
was flying out in its disparagement. `Out upon you, you
beggarly body! you clog, drug, drag! You keep me from
flying; I could get along better without you. Out upon
you, I say, you vile pantry, cellar, sink, sewer; abominable
body! what vile thing are you not? And think you, beggar!
to have the upper hand of me? Make a leg to that man
if you dare, without my permission. This smell is intolerable;
but turn from it, if you can, unless I give the word.
Bolt this yam!—it is done. Carry me across yon field!—
off we go. Stop!—it's a dead halt. There, I've trained
you enough for to-day; now, sirrah, crouch down in the
shade, and be quiet.—I'm rested. So, here's for a stroll,
and a reverie homeward:—Up, carcass, and march.' So
the carcass demurely rose and paced, and the philosopher
meditated. He was intent upon squaring the circle; but
bump he came against a bough. `How now, clodhopping
bumpkin! you would take advantage of my reveries, would
you? But I'll be even with you;' and seizing a cudgel,
he laid across his shoulders with right good will. But one
of his backhanded thwacks injured his spinal cord; the
philosopher dropped; but presently came to. `Adzooks!
I'll bend or break you! Up, up, and I'll run you home for
this.' But wonderful to tell, his legs refused to budge; all
sensation had left them. But a huge wasp happening to
sting his foot, not him, for he felt it not, the leg incontinently
sprang into the air, and of itself, cut all manner of capers.
`Be still! Down with you!' But the leg refused. `My
arms are still loyal,' thought Grando; and with them he at
last managed to confine his refractory member. But all
commands, volitions, and persuasions, were as naught to
induce his limbs to carry him home. It was a solitary
place; and five days after, Grando the philosopher was found
dead under a tree.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed Media, “Azzageddi is full as merry
as ever.”
“But, my lord,” continued Babbalanja, “some creatures
have still more perverse bodies than Grando's. In the fables
of Ridendiabola, this is to be found. `A fresh-water Polyp,
despising its marine existence, longed to live upon air. But
all it could do, its tentacles or arms still continued to cram
its stomach. By a sudden preternatural impulse, however,
the Polyp at last turned itself inside out; supposing that
after such a proceeding it would have no gastronomic interior.
But its body proved ventricle outside as well as in.
Again its arms went to work; food was tossed in, and
digestion continued.”'
“Is the literal part of that a fact?” asked Mohi.
“True as truth,” said Babbalanja; “the Polyp will live
turned inside out.”
“Somewhat curious, certainly,” said Media.—“But methinks,
Babbalanja, that somewhere I have heard something
about organic functions, so called; which may account for
the phenomena you mention; and I have heard too, methinks,
of what are called reflex actions of the nerves, which,
duly considered, might deprive of its strangeness that story
of yours concerning Grando and his body.”
“Mere substitutions of sounds for inexplicable meanings,
my lord. In some things science cajoles us. Now, what
is undeniable of the Polyp some physiologists analogically
maintain with regard to us Mardians; that forasmuch, as
the lining of our interiors is nothing more than a continuation
of the epidermis, or scarf-skin, therefore, that in a
remote age, we too must have been turned wrong side out:
an hypothesis, which, indirectly might account for our moral
perversities: and also, for that otherwise nonsensical term
—`the coat of the stomach;' for originally it must have
been a surtout, instead of an inner garment.”
“Pray, Azzageddi,” said Media, “are you not a fool?”
“One of a jolly company, my lord; but some creatures
besides wearing their surtouts within, sport their skeletons
without: witness the lobster and turtle, who alive, study
their own anatomies.”
“Azzageddi, you are a zany.”
“Pardon, my lord,” said Mohi, “I think him more of a
lobster; it's hard telling his jaws from his claws.”
“Yes, Braid-Beard, I am a lobster, a mackerel, any thing
you please; but my ancestors were kangaroos, not monkeys,
as old Boddo erroneously opined. My idea is more susceptible
of demonstration than his. Among the deepest discovered
land fossils, the relics of kangaroos are discernible, but
no relics of men. Hence, there were no giants in those days;
but on the contrary, kangaroos; and those kangaroos formed
the first edition of mankind, since revised and corrected.”
“What has become of our finises, or tails, then?” asked
Mohi, wriggling in his seat.
“The old question, Mohi. But where are the tails of
the tadpoles, after their gradual metamorphosis into frogs?
Have frogs any tails, old man? Our tails, Mohi, were
worn off by the process of civilization; especially at the
period when our fathers began to adopt the sitting posture:
the fundamental evidence of all civilization, for neither apes,
nor savages, can be said to sit; invariably, they squat on their
hams. Among barbarous tribes benches and settles are
unknown. But, my lord Media, as your liege and loving
subject I can not sufficiently deplore the deprivation of your
royal tail. That stiff and vertebrated member, as we find it
in those rustic kinsmen we have disowned, would have been
useful as a supplement to your royal legs; and whereas my
good lord is now fain to totter on two stanchions, were he
only a kangaroo, like the monarchs of old, the majesty of
Odo would be dignified, by standing firm on a tripod.”
“A very witty conceit! But have a care, Azzageddi;
your theory applies not to me.”
“Babbalanja,” said Mohi, “you must be the last of the
kangaroos.”
“I am, Mohi.”
“But the old fashioned pouch or purse of your grandams?”
hinted Media.
“My lord, I take it, that must have been transferred;
nowadays our sex carries the purse.”
“Ha, ha!”
“My lord, why this mirth? Let us be serious. Although
man is no longer a kangaroo, he may be said to be an
inferior species of plant. Plants proper are perhaps insensible
of the circulation of their sap: we mortals are physically
unconscious of the circulation of the blood; and for many
ages were not even aware of the fact. Plants know nothing
of their interiors:—three score years and ten we trundle
about ours, and never get a peep at them; plants stand on
their stalks:—we stalk on our legs; no plant flourishes over
its dead root:—dead in the grave, man lives no longer above
ground; plants die without food:—so we. And now for
the difference. Plants elegantly inhale nourishment, without
looking it up: like lords, they stand still and are served;
and though green, never suffer from the colic:—whereas,
we mortals must forage all round for our food: we cram our
insides; and are loaded down with odious sacks and intestines.
Plants make love and multiply; but excel us in all
amorous enticements, wooing and winning by soft pollens
and essences. Plants abide in one place, and live: we
must travel or die. Plants flourish without us: we must
perish without them.”
“Enough Azzageddi!” cried Media. “Open not thy
lips till to-morrow.”
