Volume II Part 46 (1/2)
”Your pardon,” said Mohi, ”for beshrew me, they are not yet all cut
At threescore and ten, here have I a new tooth co now”
”Old man! it but clears the way for another The teeth sown by the alphabet-founder, were eye-teeth, not yet all sprung fro-wheat, blade by blade, they break ground late; like spring-wheat, lebe Oh, alvanize corpses into St Vitus' dances, we raise not the dead froh we have discovered the circulation of the blood, raze, sheep bleat, babies bawl, asses bray--loud and lusty as the day before the flood Men fight and h and weep; pray and curse; cheat, chaffer, trick, truckle, cozen, defraud, fib, lie, beg, borrow, steal, hang, drown--as in the laughing and weeping, tricking and truckling, hanging and drowning tih much be new-fashi+oned: new fashi+ons but revivals of things previous In the books of the past we learn naught but of the present; in those of the present, the past All Mardi's history--beginning middle, and finis--ritten out in capitals in the first page penned The whole story is told in a title- page An exclaraphy”
”Who speaks now?” said Media, Bardianna, Azzageddi, or Babbalanja?”
”All three: is it not a pleasant concert?”
”Very fine: very fine--Go on; and tell us so of the future”
”I have never departed this life yet, my lord”
”But just now you said you were risen from the dead” ”From the buried dead within me; not fro of the future--did Bardianna?”
”If he did, naught did he reveal I have ever observed, my lord, that even in their deepest lucubrations, the profoundest, frankest, ponderers always reserve a vast deal of precious thought for their own private behoof They think, perhaps, that 'tis too good, or too bad; too wise, or too foolish, for the multitude And this unpleasant vibration is ever consequent upon striking a new vein of ideas in the soul As with buried treasures, the ground over thee and hollow At any rate, the profoundest ponderer seldom tells us all he thinks; seldom reveals to us the ultimate, and the innermost; seldom makes us open our eyes under water; seldom throws open the totus-in-toto; and never carries us with him, to the unconsubsistent, the ideaimmanens, the super-essential, and the One”
Confusion! Remember the Quadammodatatives!”
”Ah!” said Braid-Beard, ”that's the crack in his calabash, which all the Dicibles of Doxdox will not ives us to drink, old Mohi”
”But never heed his leaky gourd nor its contents, my lord Let these philosophers muddle themselves as they will, ise ones refuse to partake”
”And fools like me drink till they reel,” said Babbalanja ”But in these o round to keep afloat
Fogle-orum!”
CHAPTER LXXIII At Last, The Last Mention Is Made Of Old Bardianna; And His Last Will And Testa And, as after ipsies silent sit; watching the ruddy glow kindling each other's faces;--so, noe solemn sat; the crimson West our fire; all our faces flushed
”Testators!” then cried Media, when your last wills are all round settled, speak, andbeen fixed,” said Babbalanja
”And how runs it?”
”Fugle-fogle--”