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Said Media, “The lark soars high, cares for no auditor, yet its sweet
notes are heard here below. It sings, too, in company with myriads of
mates. Your soliloquists, Yoomy, are mostly herons and owls.”
Said Babbalanja, “Very clever, my lord; but think you not, there are
men eloquent, who never babble in the marketplace?”
“Ay, and arrant babblers at home. In few words, Babbalanja, you espouse
a bad cause. Most of you mortals are peacocks; some having tails, and
some not; those who have them will be sure to thrust their plumes in
your face; for the rest, they will display their bald cruppers, and
still screech for admiration. But when a great genius is born into
Mardi, he nods, and is known.”
“More wit, but, with deference, perhaps less truth, my lord. Say what
you will, Fame is an accident; merit a thing absolute. But what matter?
Of what available value reputation, unless wedded to power, dentals, or
place? To those who render him applause, a poet’s may seem a thing
tangible; but to the recipient, ’tis a fantasy; the poet never so
stretches his imagination, as when striving to comprehend what it is;
often, he is famous without knowing it.”
“At the sacred games of Lazella,” said Yoomy, “slyly crowned from
behind with a laurel fillet, for many hours, the minstrel Jarmi
wandered about ignorant of the honors he bore. But enlightened at last,
he doffed the wreath; then, holding it at arm’s length, sighed
forth—Oh, ye laurels! to be visible to me, ye must be removed from my
brow!”
“And what said Botargo,” cried Babbalanja, “hearing that his poems had
been translated into the language of the remote island of Bertranda?—
‘It stirs me little; already, in merry fancies, have I dreamed of their
being trilled by the blessed houris in paradise; I can only imagine the
same of the damsels of Bertranda.’ Says Boldo, the
Materialist,—‘Substances alone are satisfactory.’”
“And so thought the mercenary poet, Zenzi,” said Yoomy. “Upon receiving
fourteen ripe yams for a sonnet, one for every line, he said to me,
Yoomy, I shall make a better meal upon these, than upon so many
compliments.”
“Ay,” cried Babbalanja, “‘Bravos,’ saith old Bardianna, but induce
flatulency.’”
Said Media, “And do you famous mortals, then, take no pleasure in
hearing your bravos?”
“Much, my good lord; at least such famous mortals, so enamored of a
clamorous notoriety, as to bravo for themselves, when none else will
huzza; whose whole existence is an unintermitting consciousness of
self; whose very persons stand erect and self-sufficient as their
infallible index, the capital letter I; who relish and comprehend no
reputation but what attaches to the carcass; who would as lief be
renowned for a splendid mustache, as for a splendid drama: who know not
how it was that a personage, to posterity so universally celebrated as
the poet Vavona, ever passed through the crowd unobserved; who deride
the very thunder for making such a noise in Mardi, and yet disdain to
manifest itself to the eye.”
“Wax not so warm, Babbalanja; but tell us, if to his contemporaries
Vavona’s person was almost unknown, what satisfaction did he derive
from his genius?”
“Had he not its consciousness?—an empire boundless as the West. What to
him were huzzas? Why, my lord, from his privacy, the great and good
Logodora sent liniment to the hoarse throats without. But what said
Bardianna, when they dunned him for autographs?—‘Who keeps the register
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.”
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