71. CHAPTER LXXI.
A BOOK FROM THE “PONDERINGS OF OLD BARDIANNA.”
“Now,” said Babbalanja, lighting his trombone as we
sailed from the isle, “who are the monsters, we or the
cripples?”
“You yourself are a monster, for asking the question,”
said Mohi.
“And so, to the cripples I am; though not, old man, for
the reason you mention. But I am, as I am; whether
hideous, or handsome, depends upon who is made judge.
There is no supreme standard yet revealed, whereby to judge
of ourselves; `Our very instincts are prejudices,' saith Alla
Mallolla; `Our very axioms, and postulates are far from
infallible.' `In respect of the universe, mankind is but
a sect,' saith Diloro: `and first principles but dogmas.'
What ethics prevail in the Pleiades? What things have
the synods in Sagittarius decreed?”
“Never mind your old authors,” said Media. “Stick to
the cripples; enlarge upon them.”
“But I have done with them now, my lord; the sermon
is not the text. Give ear to old Bardianna. I know him
by heart. Thus saith the sage in Book X. of the Ponderings,
`Zermalmende,' the title: `Je pense,' the motto:—
`My supremacy over creation, boasteth man, is declared in
my natural attitude:—I stand erect! But so do the palm-trees;
and the giraffes that graze off their tops. And the
fowls of the air fly high over our heads; and from the place
where we fancy our heaven to be, defile the tops of our
temples. Belike, the eagles, from their eyries look down
upon us Mardians, in our hives, even as upon the beavers in
their dams, marveling at our incomprehensible ways. And
cunning though we be, some things, hidden from us, may
not be mysteries to them. Having five keys, hold we all
that open to knowledge? Deaf, blind, and deprived of the
power of scent, the bat will steer its way unerringly:—
could we? Yet man is lord of the bat and the brute; lord
over the crows; with whom, he must needs share the grain
he garners. We sweat for the fowls, as well as ourselves.
The curse of labor rests only on us. Like slaves, we toil:
at their good leisure they glean.
“ `Mardi is not wholly ours. We are the least populous
part of creation. To say nothing of other tribes, a census
of the herring would find us far in the minority. And what
life is to us,—sour or sweet,—so is it to them. Like us,
they die, fighting death to the last; like us, they spawn and
depart. We inhabit but a crust, rough surfaces, odds and
ends of the isles; the abounding lagoon being its two-thirds,
its grand feature from afar; and forever unfathomable.
“ `What shaft has yet been sunk to the antipodes? What
underlieth the gold mines?
“ `But even here, above-ground, we grope with the sun at
meridian. Vainly, we seek our Northwest Passages,—old
alleys, and thoroughfares of the whales.
“ `Oh men! fellow men! we are only what we are; not
what we would be; nor every thing we hope for. We are
but a step in a scale, that reaches further above us than
below. We breathe but oxygen. Who in Arcturus hath
heard of us? They know us not in the Milky Way. We
prate of faculties divine: and know not how sprouteth a
spear of grass; we go about shrugging our shoulders: when
the firmament-arch is over us; we rant of etherealities: and
long tarry over our banquets; we demand Eternity for a
lifetime: when our mortal half-hours too often prove tedious.
We know not of what we talk. The Bird of Paradise outflies
our flutterings. What it is to be immortal, has not
yet entered into our thoughts. At will, we build our futurities;
tier above tier, all galleries full of laureates: resounding
with everlasting oratorios! Pater-nosters forever, or
eternal Misereres! forgetting that in Mardi, our breviaries
oft fall from our hands. But divans there are, some say,
whereon we shall recline, basking in effulgent suns, knowing
neither Orient nor Occident. Is it so? Fellow men! our
mortal lives have an end; but that end is no goal: no
place of repose. Whatever it may be, it will prove but as
the beginning of another race. We will hope, joy, weep,
as before; though our tears may be such as the spice-trees
shed. Supine we can only be, annihilated.
“`The thick film is breaking; the ages have long been
circling. Fellow-men! if we live hereafter, it will not be
in lyrics; nor shall we yawn, and our shadows lengthen,
while the eternal cycles are revolving. To live at all, is a
high vocation; to live forever, and run parallel with Oro,
may truly appall us. Toil we not here? and shall we be
forever slothful elsewhere? Other worlds differ not much
from this, but in degree. Doubtless, a pebble is a fair
specimen of the universe.
“`We point at random. Peradventure at this instant,
there are beings gazing up to this very world as their future
heaven. But the universe is all over a heaven: nothing
but stars on stars, throughout infinities of expansion. All
we see are but a cluster. Could we get to Bootes, we
would be no nearer Oro, than now; he hath no place; but
is here. Already, in its unimaginable roamings, our system
may have dragged us through and through the spaces,
where we plant cities of beryl and jasper. Even now, we
may be inhaling the ether, which we fancy seraphic wings
are fanning. But look round. There is much to be seen
here, and now. Do the archangels survey aught more
glorious than the constellations we nightly behold? Continually
we slight the wonders, we deem in reserve. We
await the present. With marvels we are glutted, till we
hold them no marvels at all. But had these eyes first
opened upon all the prodigies in the Revelation of the
Dreamer, long familiarity would have made them appear,
even as these things we see. Now,
now, the page is outspread:
to the simple, easy as a primer; to the wise, more
puzzling than hieroglyphics. The eternity to come, is but
a prolongation of time present: and the beginning may be
more wonderful than the end.
“`Then let us be wise. But much of the knowledge we
seek, already we have in our cores. Yet so simple it is, we
despise it; so bold, we fear it.
“`In solitude, let us exhume our ingots. Let us hear our
own thoughts. The soul needs no mentor, but Oro; and
Oro, without proxy. Wanting Him, it is both the teacher
and the taught. Undeniably, reason was the first revelation;
and so far as it tests all others, it has precedence over
them. It comes direct to us, without suppression or interpolation;
and with Oro's indisputable imprimatur. But inspiration
though it be, it is not so arrogant as some think.
Nay, far too humble, at times it submits to the grossest indignities.
Though in its best estate, not infallible; so far
as it goes, for us, it is reliable. When at fault, it stands
still. We speak not of visionaries. But if this our first
revelation stops short of the uttermost, so with all others.
If, often, it only perplexes: much more the rest. They leave
much unexpounded; and disclosing new mysteries, add to
the enigma. Fellow-men; the ocean we would sound is
unfathomable; and however much we add to our line, when
it is out, we feel not the bottom. Let us be truly lowly,
then; not lifted up with a Pharisaic humility. We crawl not
like worms; nor wear we the liveries of angels.
“`The firmament-arch has no key-stone; least of all, is
man its prop. He stands alone. We are every thing to
ourselves, but how little to others. What are others to us?
Assure life everlasting to this generation, and their immediate
forefathers;—and what tears would flow, were there
no resurrection for the countless generations from the first
man to five cycles since? And soon we ourselves shall
have fallen in with the rank and file of our sires. At a
blow, annihilate some distant tribe, now alive and jocund—
and what would we reck? Curiosity apart, do we really
care whether the people in Bellatrix are immortal or no?
“`Though they smite us, let us not turn away from these
things, if they be really thus.
“`There was a time, when near Cassiopeia, a star of the
first magnitude, most lustrous in the North, grew lurid as a
fire, then dim as ashes, and went out. Now, its place is a
blank. A vast world, with all its continents, say the astronomers,
blazing over the heads of our fathers; while in Mardi
were merry-makings, and maidens given in marriage. Who
now thinks of that burning sphere? How few are aware
that ever it was?
“`These things are so.
“`Fellow-men! we must go, and obtain a glimpse of what
we are from the Belts of Jupiter and the Moons of Saturn,
ere we see ourselves aright. The universe can wax old
without us; though by Oro's grace we may live to behold a
wrinkle in the sky. Eternity is not ours by right; and,
alone, unrequited sufferings here, form no title thereto, unless
resurrections are reserved for maltreated brutes. Suffering
is suffering; be the sufferer man, brute, or thing.
“`How small;—how nothing, our deserts! Let us stifle
all vain speculations; we need not to be told what righteousness
is; we were born with the whole Law in our hearts. Let
us do: let us act: let us down on our knees. And if, after
all, we should be no more forever;—far better to perish
meriting immortality, than to enjoy it unmeritorious. While
we fight over creeds, ten thousand fingers point to where
vital good may be done. All round us, Want crawls to her
lairs; and, shivering, dies unrelieved. Here, here, fellowmen,
we can better minister as angels, than in heaven, where
want and misery come not.
“`We Mardians talk as though the future was all in all;
but act as though the present was every thing. Yet so far
as, in our theories, we dwarf our Mardi; we go not beyond
an archangel's apprehension of it, who takes in all suns and
systems at a glance. Like pebbles, were the isles to sink
in space, Sirius, the Dog-star, would still flame in the sky.
But as the atom to the animalculae, so Mardi to us. And
lived aright, these mortal lives are long; looked into, these
souls, fathomless as the nethermost depths.
“`Fellow-men; we split upon hairs; but stripped, mere
words and phrases cast aside, the great bulk of us are orthodox.
None who think, dissent from the grand belief. The
first man's thoughts were as ours. The paramount revelation
prevails with us; and all that clashes therewith, we do
not so much believe, as believe that we can not disbelieve.
Common sense is a sturdy despot; that, for the most part, has
its own way. It inspects and ratifies much independent of
it. But those who think they do wholly reject it, are but
held in a sly sort of bondage; under a semblance of something
else, wearing the old yoke.”'
“Cease, cease, Babbalanja,” said Media, “and permit me
to insinuate a word in your ear. You have long been in the
habit, philosopher, of regaling us with chapters from your old
Bardianna; and with infinite gusto, you have just recited
the longest of all. But I do not observe, oh, Sage! that
for all these things, you yourself are practically the better
or wiser. You live not up to Bardianna's main thought.
Where he stands, he stands immovable; but you are a
Dog-vane. How is this?”
“Gogle-goggle, fugle-fi, fugle-fogle-orum!”
“Mad, mad again,” cried Yoomy.
