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- CHAPTER LXXI.
A Book From The “Ponderings Of Old Bardianna”
“Now,” said Babbalanja, lighting his trombone as we sailed from the
isle, “who are the monsters, we or the cripples?”
“You yourself are a monster, for asking the question,” said Mohi.
“And so, to the cripples I am; though not, old man, for the reason you
mention. But I am, as I am; whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon
who is made judge. There is no supreme standard yet revealed, whereby
to judge of ourselves; ‘Our very instincts are prejudices,’ saith Alla
Mallolla; ‘Our very axioms, and postulates are far from infallible.’
‘In respect of the universe, mankind is but a sect,’ saith Diloro: ‘and
first principles but dogmas.’ What ethics prevail in the Pleiades? What
things have the synods in Sagittarius decreed?”
“Never mind your old authors,” said Media. “Stick to the cripples;
enlarge upon them.”
“But I have done with them now, my lord; the sermon is not the text.
Give ear to old Bardianna. I know him by heart. Thus saith the sage in
Book X. of the Ponderings, ‘Zermalmende,’ the title: ‘Je pense,’ the
motto:—‘My supremacy over creation, boasteth man, is declared in my
natural attitude:—I stand erect! But so do the palm-trees; and the
giraffes that graze off their tops. And the fowls of the air fly high
over our heads; and from the place where we fancy our heaven to be,
defile the tops of our temples. Belike, the eagles, from their eyries
look down upon us Mardians, in our hives, even as upon the beavers in
their dams, marveling at our incomprehensible ways. And cunning though
we be, some things, hidden from us, may not be mysteries to them.
Having five keys, hold we all that open to knowledge? Deaf, blind, and
deprived of the power of scent, the bat will steer its way
unerringly:—could we? Yet man is lord of the bat and the brute; lord
over the crows; with whom, he must needs share the grain he garners. We
sweat for the fowls, as well as ourselves. The curse of labor rests
only on us. Like slaves, we toil: at their good leisure they glean.
“‘Mardi is not wholly ours. We are the least populous part of creation.
To say nothing of other tribes, a census of the herring would find us
far in the minority. And what life is to us,—sour or sweet,—so is it to
them. Like us, they die, fighting death to the last; like us, they
spawn and depart. We inhabit but a crust, rough surfaces, odds and ends
of the isles; the abounding lagoon being its two-thirds, its grand
feature from afar; and forever unfathomable.
“‘What shaft has yet been sunk to the antipodes? What underlieth the
gold mines?
“‘But even here, above-ground, we grope with the sun at meridian.
Vainly, we seek our Northwest Passages,—old alleys, and thoroughfares
of the whales.
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