{"id":"01KG8AKQYT3RR2HNHXXTADJRF7","cid":"bafkreihkxlkq2ve5zn5otvifdg6gvr422cvsy4nmol5ltmkxneqylzftvq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5407,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:09.927Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG89J1954N2G0NAERBNJXEX9","start_line":5331,"text":"parasitical things do but crawl, vexing and tormenting the patient\r\ncreature to which we cling. Nor yet, hath it recovered from the pain of\r\nthe first foundation that was laid. Mardi is alive to its axis. When\r\nyou pour water, does it not gurgle? When you strike a pearl shell, does\r\nit not ring? Think you there is no sensation in being a rock?—To exist,\r\nis to be; to be, is to be something: to be something, is—”\r\n\r\n“Go on,” said Media.\r\n\r\n“And what is it, to be something?” said Yoomy artlessly. “Bethink\r\nyourself of what went before,” said Media.\r\n\r\n“Lose not the thread,” said Mohi.\r\n\r\n“It has snapped,” said Babbalanja.\r\n\r\n“I breathe again,” said Mohi.\r\n\r\n“But what a stepping-off place you came to then, philosopher,” said\r\nMedia. “By the way, is it not old Bardianna who says, that no Mardian\r\nshould undertake to walk, without keeping one foot foremost?”\r\n\r\n“To return to the vagueness of the notion I have of myself,” said\r\nBabbalanja.\r\n\r\n“An appropriate theme,” said Media, “proceed.”\r\n\r\n“My lord,” murmured Mohi, “Is not this philosopher like a centipede?\r\nCut off his head, and still he crawls.”\r\n\r\n“There are times when I fancy myself a lunatic,” resumed Babbalanja.\r\n\r\n“Ah, now he’s beginning to talk sense,” whispered Mohi.\r\n\r\n“Surely you forget, Babbalanja,” said Media. “How many more theories\r\nhave you? First, you are possessed by a devil; then rent yourself out\r\nto the indweller; and now turn yourself into a mad-house. You are\r\ninconsistent.”\r\n\r\n“And for that very reason, my lord, not inconsistent; for the sum of my\r\ninconsistencies makes up my consistency. And to be consistent to one’s\r\nself, is often to be inconsistent to Mardi. Common consistency implies\r\nunchangeableness; but much of the wisdom here below lives in a state of\r\ntransition.”\r\n\r\n“Ah!” murmured Mold, “my head goes round again.”\r\n\r\n“Azzageddi aside, then, my lord, and also, for the nonce, the\r\nmysterious indweller, I come now to treat of myself as a lunatic. But\r\nthis last conceit is not so much based upon the madness of particular\r\nactions, as upon the whole drift of my ordinary and hourly ones; those,\r\nin which I most resemble all other Mardians. It seems like going\r\nthrough with some nonsensical whim-whams, destitute of fixed purpose.\r\nFor though many of my actions seem to have objects, and all of them\r\nsomehow run into each other; yet, where is the grand result? To what\r\nfinal purpose, do I walk about, eat, think, dream? To what great end,\r\ndoes Mohi there, now stroke his beard?”\r\n\r\n“But I was doing it unconsciously,” said Mohi, dropping his hand, and\r\nlifting his head.\r\n\r\n“Just what I would be at, old man. ‘What we do, we do blindly,’ says\r\nold Bardianna. Many things we do, we do without knowing,—as with you\r\nand your beard, Mohi. And many others we know not, in their true\r\nbearing at least, till they are past. Are not half our lives spent in\r\nreproaches for foregone actions, of the true nature and consequences of\r\nwhich, we were wholly ignorant at the time? Says old Bardianna, ‘Did I\r\nnot so often feel an appetite for my yams, I should think every thing a\r\ndream;’—so puzzling to him, seemed the things of this Mardi. But\r\nAlla-Malolla goes further. Says he, ‘Let us club together,\r\nfellow-riddles:—Kings, clowns, and intermediates. We are bundles of\r\ncomical sensations; we bejuggle ourselves into strange phantasies: we\r\nare air, wind, breath, bubbles; our being is told in a tick.’”\r\n\r\n“Now, then, Babbalanja,” said Media, “what have you come to in all this\r\nrhapsody? You everlastingly travel in a circle.”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJSXQ4NYSBNDXGDVJNG87","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1954N2G0NAERBNJXEX9","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKQYPCT8CDB9CA3FRQ0XD","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKQYT2QV4AQKWE263SSGX","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:14.298Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:23.111Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}