{"id":"01KG8AKS9KBGEZY3JNC6PYCSV0","cid":"bafkreid45pz3avah5ctunras5vntkqqbpkryfnk7ri7ngcloxw5iqjwftm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":6355,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:09.927Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1954N2G0NAERBNJXEX9","start_line":6262,"text":"Sultan, Xerxes-like, moves on: the Dawn his standard, East and West his\r\ncymbals.\r\n\r\n“Oh, morning life!” cried Yoomy, with a Persian air; “would that all\r\ntime were a sunrise, and all life a youth.”\r\n\r\n“Ah! but these striplings whimper of youth,” said Mohi, caressing his\r\nbraids, “as if they wore this beard.”\r\n\r\n“But natural, old man,” said Babbalanja. “We Mardians never seem young\r\nto ourselves; childhood is to youth what manhood is to age:—something\r\nto be looked back upon, with sorrow that it is past. But childhood\r\nreeks of no future, and knows no past; hence, its present passes in a\r\nvapor.”\r\n\r\n“Mohi, how’s your appetite this morning?” said Media.\r\n\r\n“Thus, thus, ye gods,” sighed Yoomy, “is feeling ever scouted. Yet,\r\nwhat might seem feeling in me, I can not express.”\r\n\r\n“A good commentary on old Bardianna, Yoomy,” said Babbalanja, “who\r\nsomewhere says, that no Mardian can out with his heart, for his\r\nunyielding ribs are in the way. And indeed, pride, or something akin\r\nthereto, often holds check on sentiment. My lord, there are those who\r\nlike not to be detected in the possession of a heart.”\r\n\r\n“Very true, Babbalanja; and I suppose that pride was at the bottom of\r\nyour old Ponderer’s heartless, unsentimental, bald-pated style.”\r\n\r\n“Craving pardon, my lord is deceived. Bardianna was not at all proud;\r\nthough he had a queer way of showing the absence of pride. In his\r\nessay, entitled,—“On the Tendency to curl in Upper Lips,” he thus\r\ndiscourses. “We hear much of pride and its sinfulness in this Mardi\r\nwherein we dwell: whereas, I glory in being brimmed with it;—my sort of\r\npride. In the presence of kings, lords, palm-trees, and all those who\r\ndeem themselves taller than myself, I stand stiff as a pike, and will\r\nabate not one vertebra of my stature. But accounting no Mardian my\r\nsuperior, I account none my inferior; hence, with the social, I am ever\r\nready to be sociable.”\r\n\r\n“An agrarian!” said Media; “no doubt he would have made the headsman\r\nthe minister of equality.”\r\n\r\n“At bottom we are already equal, my honored lord,” said Babbalanja,\r\nprofoundly bowing—“One way we all come into Mardi, and one way we\r\nwithdraw. Wanting his yams a king will starve, quick as a clown; and\r\nsmote on the hip, saith old Bardianna, he will roar as loud as the next\r\none.”\r\n\r\n“Roughly worded, that, Babbalanja.—Vee-Vee! my crown!—So; now,\r\nBabbalanja, try if you can not polish Bardianna’s style in that last\r\nsaying you father upon him.”\r\n\r\n“I will, my ever honorable lord,” said Babbalanja, salaming. “Thus\r\nwe’ll word it, then: In their merely Mardian nature, the sublimest\r\ndemi-gods are subject to infirmities; for struck by some keen shaft,\r\neven a king ofttimes dons his crown, fearful of future darts.”\r\n\r\n“Ha, ha!—well done, Babbalanja; but I bade you polish, not sharpen the\r\narrow.”\r\n\r\n“All one, my thrice honored lord;—to polish is not to blunt.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER XLVII.\r\nBabbalanja Philosophizes, And My Lord Media Passes Round The Calabashes\r\n\r\n\r\nAn interval of silence passed; when Media cried, “Out upon thee, Yoomy!\r\ncurtail that long face of thine.”\r\n\r\n“How can he, my lord,” said Mohi, “when he is thinking of furlongs?”\r\n\r\n“Fathoms you mean, Mohi; see you not he is musing over the gunwale? And\r\nnow, minstrel, a banana for thy thoughts. Come, tell me how you poets\r\nspend so many hours in meditation.”\r\n\r\n“My lord, it is because, that when we think, we think so little of\r\nourselves.”\r\n\r\n“I thought as much,” said Mohi, “for no sooner do I undertake to be\r\nsociable with myself, than I am straightway forced to beat a retreat.”\r\n\r\n“Ay, old man,” said Babbalanja, “many of us Mardians are but sorry\r\nhosts to ourselves. Some hearts are hermits.”\r\n\r\n“If not of yourself, then, Yoomy, of whom else do you think?” asked\r\nMedia.\r\n\r\n“My lord, I seldom think,” said Yoomy, “I but give ear to the voices in\r\nmy calm.”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJSY0QRGFVSXCEAR0PXHV","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1954N2G0NAERBNJXEX9","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKS9EFCFP8QNNAN10V1WY","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.667Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:24.089Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}