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- 3036
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:09.927Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
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- 3001
- text
- of great men? who decides upon noble actions? and how long may ink
last? Alas! Fame has dropped more rolls than she displays; and there
are more lost chronicles, than the perished books of the historian
Livella.’ But what is lost forever, my lord, is nothing to what is now
unseen. There are more treasures in the bowels of the earth, than on
its surface.”
“Ah! no gold,” cried Yoomy, “but that comes from dark mines.”
Said Babbalanja, “Bear witness, ye gods! cries fervent old Bardianna,
that besides disclosures of good and evil undreamed of now, there will
be other, and more astounding revelations hereafter, of what has passed
in Mardi unbeheld.”
“A truce to your everlasting pratings of old Bardianna,” said King
Media; why not speak your own thoughts, Babbalanja? then would your
discourse possess more completeness; whereas, its warp and woof are of
all sorts,—Bardianna, Alla-Malolla, Vavona, and all the writers that
ever have written. Speak for yourself, mortal!”
“May you not possibly mistake, my lord? for I do not so much quote
Bardianna, as Bardianna quoted me, though he flourished before me; and
no vanity, but honesty to say so. The catalogue of true thoughts is but
small; they are ubiquitous; no man’s property; and unspoken, or
bruited, are the same. When we hear them, why seem they so natural,
receiving our spontaneous approval? why do we think we have heard them
before? Because they but reiterate ourselves; they were in us, before
we were born. The truest poets are but mouth-pieces; and some men are
duplicates of each other; I see myself in Bardianna.”
“And there, for Oro’s sake, let it rest, Babbalanja; Bardianna in you,
and you in Bardianna forever!”
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