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- critics; who are more rare than true poets. A great critic is a sultan
among satraps; but pretenders are thick as ants, striving to scale a
palm, after its aerial sweetness. And they fight among themselves.
Essaying to pluck eagles, they themselves are geese, stuck full of
quills, of which they rob each other.
ABRAZZA (_to Media._)—Oro help the victim that falls in Babbalanja’s
hands!
MEDIA.—Ay, my lord; at times, his every finger is a dagger: every
thought a falling tower that whelms! But resume, philosopher—what of
Lombardo now?
BABBALANJA—“For this thing,” said he, “I have agonized over it
enough.—I can wait no more. It has faults—all mine;—its merits all its
own;—but I can toil no longer. The beings knit to me implore; my heart
is full; my brain is sick. Let it go—let it go—and Oro with it.
Somewhere Mardi has a mighty heart—-_that_ struck, all the isles shall
resound!”
ABRAZZA—Poor devil! he took the world too hard.
MEDIA.-As most of these mortals do, my lord. That’s the load, self-
imposed, under which Babbalanja reels. But now, philosopher, ere Mardi
saw it, what thought Lombardo of his work, looking at it objectively,
as a thing out of him, I mean.
ABRAZZA—No doubt, he hugged it.
BABBALANJA—Hard to answer. Sometimes, when by himself, he thought
hugely of it, as my lord Abrazza says; but when abroad, among men, he
almost despised it; but when he bethought him of those parts, written
with full eyes, half blinded; temples throbbing; and pain at the heart—
ABRAZZA—Pooh! pooh!
BABBALANJA—He would say to himself, “Sure, it can not be in vain!” Yet
again, when he bethought him of the hurry and bustle of Mardi,
dejection stole over him. “Who will heed it,” thought he; “what care
these fops and brawlers for me? But am I not myself an egregious
coxcomb? Who will read me? Say one thousand pages—twenty-five lines
each—every line ten words—every word ten letters. That’s two million
five hundred thousand _a_’s, and _i_’s, and _o_’s to read! How many are
superfluous? Am I not mad to saddle Mardi with such a task? Of all men,
am I the wisest, to stand upon a pedestal, and teach the mob? Ah, my
own Kortanza! child of many prayers!—in whose earnest eyes, so
fathomless, I see my own; and recall all past delights and silent
agonies-thou may’st prove, as the child of some fond dotard:— beauteous
to me; hideous to Mardi! And methinks, that while so much slaving
merits that thou should’st not die; it has not been intense, prolonged
enough, for the high meed of immortality. Yet, things immortal have
been written; and by men as me;—men, who slept and waked; and ate; and
talked with tongues like mine. Ah, Oro! how may we know or not, we are
what we would be? Hath genius any stamp and imprint, obvious to
possessors? Has it eyes to see itself; or is it blind? Or do we delude
ourselves with being gods, and end in grubs? Genius, genius?—a thousand
years hence, to be a household-word?—I?— Lombardo? but yesterday cut in
the market-place by a spangled fool!— Lombardo immortal?—Ha, ha,
Lombardo! but thou art an ass, with vast ears brushing the tops of
palms! Ha, ha, ha! Methinks I see thee immortal! ‘Thus great Lombardo
saith; and thus; and thus; and thus:— thus saith he—illustrious
Lombardo!—Lombardo, our great countryman! Lombardo, prince of
poets—Lombardo! great Lombardo!’—Ha, ha, ha!— go, go! dig thy grave,
and bury thyself!”
ABRAZZA—He was very funny, then, at times.
BABBALANJA—Very funny, your Highness:—amazing jolly! And from my
nethermost soul, would to Oro, thou could’st but feel one touch of that
jolly woe! It would appall thee, my Right Worshipful lord Abrazza!
ABRAZZA (_to Media_)—My dear lord, his teeth are marvelously white and
sharp: some she-shark must have been his dam:—does he often grin thus?
It was infernal!
MEDIA—Ah! that’s Azzageddi. But, prithee, Babbalanja, proceed.
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