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- Continued Babbalanja, “Previous to the time assigned to their
fulfillment, those prophecies were bruited through Mardi; hence,
previous to the time assigned to their fulfillment, full knowledge of
them may have come to the nations concerned. Now, my lord, was it
possible for those nations, thus forwarned, so to conduct their
affairs, as at, the prophesied time, to prove false the events revealed
to be in store for them?”
“However that may be,” said Mohi, “certain it is, those events did
assuredly come to pass:—Compare the ruins of Babbelona with book ninth,
chapter tenth, of the chronicles. Yea, yea, the owl inhabits where the
seers predicted; the jackals yell in the tombs of the kings.”
“Go on, Babbalanja,” said Media. “Of course those nations could not
have resisted their doom. Go on, then: vault over your premises.”
“If it be, then, my lord, that—”
“My very worshipful lord,” interposed Mohi, “is not our philosopher
getting off soundings; and may it not be impious to meddle with these
things?”
“Were it so, old man, he should have known it. The king of Odo is
something more than you mortals.”
“But are we the great gods themselves,” cried Yoomy, “that we discourse
of these things.”
“No, minstrel,” said Babbalanja; “and no need have the great gods to
discourse of things perfectly comprehended by them, and by themselves
ordained. But you and I, Yoomy, are men, and not gods; hence is it for
us, and not for them, to take these things for our themes. Nor is there
any impiety in the right use of our reason, whatever the issue. Smote
with superstition, shall we let it wither and die out, a dead, limb to
a live trunk, as the mad devotee’s arm held up motionless for years? Or
shall we employ it but for a paw, to help us to our bodily needs, as
the brutes use their instinct? Is not reason subtile as
quicksilver—live as lightning—a neighing charger to advance, but a
snail to recede? Can we starve that noble instinct in us, and hope that
it will survive? Better slay the body than the soul; and if it be the
direst of sins to be the murderers of our own bodies, how much more to
be a soul-suicide. Yoomy, we are men, we are angels. And in his
faculties, high Oro is but what a man would be, infinitely magnified.
Let us aspire to all things. Are we babes in the woods, to be scared by
the shadows of the trees? What shall appall us? If eagles gaze at the
sun, may not men at the gods?”
“For one,” said Media, “you may gaze at me freely. Gaze on. But talk
not of my kinsmen so fluently, Babbalanja. Return to your argument.”
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