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- 2386
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:09.927Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2357
- text
- “Truly, Oh-Oh,” said Babbalanja, “your discoveries must ere long result
in something grand; since you furnish such invaluable data for
theorists. Pray, attend, my lord Media. If, at one spring, a flea leaps
two hundred times its own length, then, with the like proportion of
muscles in his calves, a bandit might pounce upon the unwary traveler
from a quarter of a mile off. Is it not so, Oh-Oh?”
“Indeed, but it is, my masters. And one of the greatest consolations I
draw from these studies, is the ever-strengthening conviction of the
beneficent wisdom that framed our Mardi. For did men possess thighs in
proportion to fleas, verily, the wicked would grievously leap about,
and curvet in the isles.”
“But Oh-Oh,” said Babbalanja, “what other discoveries have you made?
Hast yet put a usurer under your lens, to find his conscience? or a
libertine, to find his heart? Hast yet brought your microscope to bear
upon a downy peach, or a rosy cheek?”
“I have,” said Oh-Oh, mournfully; “and from the moment I so did, I have
had no heart to eat a peach, or salute a cheek.”
“Then dash your lens!” cried Media.
“Well said, my lord. For all the eyes we get beyond our own, but
minister to infelicity. The microscope disgusts us with our Mardi; and
the telescope sets us longing for some other world.”
- title
- Chunk 3