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- 7174
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:09.927Z
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- 7119
- text
- myself. And many a time have I not only vainly sought to check my
laughter, but at some recitals I have both laughed and cried. But can
opposite emotions be simultaneous in one being? No. I wanted to weep;
but my body wanted to smile, and between us we almost choked. My lord
Media, this man’s body laughs; not the man himself.”
“But his body is his own, Babbalanja; and he should have it under
better control.”
“The common error, my lord. Our souls belong to our bodies, not our
bodies to our souls. For which has the care of the other? which keeps
house? which looks after the replenishing of the aorta and auricles,
and stores away the secretions? Which toils and ticks while the other
sleeps? Which is ever giving timely hints, and elderly warnings? Which
is the most authoritative?—Our bodies, surely. At a hint, you must
move; at a notice to quit, you depart. Simpletons show us, that a body
can get along almost without a soul; but of a soul getting along
without a body, we have no tangible and indisputable proof. My lord,
the wisest of us breathe involuntarily. And how many millions there are
who live from day to day by the incessant operation of subtle processes
in them, of which they know nothing, and care less? Little ween they,
of vessels lacteal and lymphatic, of arteries femoral and temporal; of
pericranium or pericardium; lymph, chyle, fibrin, albumen, iron in the
blood, and pudding in the head; they live by the charity of their
bodies, to which they are but butlers. I say, my lord, our bodies are
our betters. A soul so simple, that it prefers evil to good, is lodged
in a frame, whose minutest action is full of unsearchable wisdom.
Knowing this superiority of theirs, our bodies are inclined to be
willful: our beards grow in spite of us; and as every one knows, they
sometimes grow on dead men.”
“You mortals are alive, then, when you are dead, Babbalanja.”
“No, my lord; but our beards survive us.”
“An ingenious distinction; go on, philosopher.”
“Without bodies, my lord, we Mardians would be minus our strongest
motive-passions, those which, in some way or other, root under our
every action. Hence, without bodies, we must be something else than we
essentially are. Wherefore, that saying imputed to Alma, and which, by
his very followers, is deemed the most hard to believe of all his
instructions, and the most at variance with all preconceived notions of
immortality, I Babbalanja, account the most reasonable of his doctrinal
teachings. It is this;—that at the last day, every man shall rise in
the flesh.”
“Pray, Babbalanja, talk not of resurrections to a demi-god.”
“Then let me rehearse a story, my lord. You will find it in the ‘Very
Merry Marvelings’ of the Improvisitor Quiddi; and a quaint book it is.
Fugle-fi is its finis:—fugle-fi, fugle-fo, fugle-fogle-orum!”
“That wild look in his eye again,” murmured Yoomy. “Proceed,
Azzageddi,” said Media.
- title
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