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- sober me; its magic fumes breathe over me like the Indian summer, which
steeps all nature in repose. To me, wine is no vulgar fire, no fosterer
of base passions; my heart, ever open, is opened still wider; and
glorious visions are born in my brain; it is then that I have all Mardi
under my feet, and the constellations of the firmament in my soul.”
“Superb!” cried Yoomy.
“Pooh, pooh!” said Mohi, “who does not see stars at such times? I see
the Great Bear now, and the little one, its cub; and Andromeda, and
Perseus’ chain-armor, and Cassiopea in her golden chair, and the
bright, scaly Dragon, and the glittering Lyre, and all the jewels in
Orion’s sword-hilt.”
“Ay,” cried Media, “the study of astronomy is wonderfully facilitated
by wine. Fill up, old Ptolemy, and tell us should you discover a new
planet. Methinks this fluid needs stirring. Ho, Vee-Vee, my scepter! be
we sociable. But come, Babbalanja, my gold-headed aquila, return to
your theme;—the imagination, if you please.”
“Well, then, my lord, I was about to say, that the imagination is the
Voli-Donzini; or, to speak plainer, the unical, rudimental, and all-
comprehending abstracted essence of the infinite remoteness of things.
Without it, we were grass-hoppers.”
“And with it, you mortals are little else; do you not chirp all over,
Mohi? By my demi-god soul, were I not what I am, this wine would almost
get the better of me.”
“Without it—” continued Babbalanja.
“Without what?” demanded Media, starting to his feet. “This wine?
Traitor, I’ll stand by this to the last gasp, you are inebriated,
Babbalanja.”
“Perhaps so, my lord; but I was treating of the imagination, may it
please you.”
“My lord,” added Mohi, “of the unical, and rudimental fundament of
things, you remember.”
“Ah! there’s none of them sober; proceed, proceed, Azzageddi!”
“My lord waves his hand like a banner,” murmured Yoomy.
“Without imagination, I say, an armless man, born, blind, could not be
made to believe, that he had a head of hair, since he could neither see
it, nor feel it, nor has hair any feeling of itself.”
“Methinks though,” said Mohi, “if the cripple had a Tartar for a wife,
he would not remain skeptical long.”
“You all fly off at tangents,” cried Media, “but no wonder: your mortal
brains can not endure much quaffing. Return to your subject,
Babbalanja. Assume now, Babbalanja,—assume, my dear prince—assume it,
assume it, I say!—Why don’t you?”
“I am willing to assume any thing you please, my lord: what is it?”
“Ah! yes!—Assume that—that upon returning home, you should find your
wife had newly wedded, under the—the—the metaphysical presumption, that
being no longer visible, you—_you_ Azzageddi, had departed this life;
in other words, out of sight, out of mind; what then, my dear prince?”
“Why then, my lord, I would demolish my rival in a trice.”
“Would you?—then—then so much for your metaphysics, Bab—Babbalanja.”
Babbalanja rose to his feet, muttering to himself—“Is this assumed, or
real?—Can a demi-god be mastered by wine? Yet, the old mythologies make
bacchanals of the gods. But he was wondrous keen! He felled me, ere he
fell himself.”
“Yoomy, my lord Media is in a very merry mood to-day,” whispered Mohi,
“but his counterfeit was not well done. No, no, a bacchanal is not used
to be so logical in his cups.”
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