{"id":"01KG8AKSF033CQAPTKM7PZR707","cid":"bafkreihk5lyvuskcyfcdhk44zxmxkj6c7xllkuyryphnkczq5wqifo7xay","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":10948,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:09.931Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 7","source_file":"01KG89J1954N2G0NAERBNJXEX9","start_line":10880,"text":"princes, lord it over these beggarly authors!’ Well read in the history\r\nof their woes, Pollo pitied them all, particularly the famous; and\r\nwrote little essays of his own, which he read to himself.”\r\n\r\nMEDIA—Well: and what said Lombardo to those good friends of his,—\r\nZenzori, Hanto, and Roddi?\r\n\r\nBABBALANJA—Nothing. Taking home his manuscript, he glanced it over;\r\nmaking three corrections.\r\n\r\nABRAZZA—And what then?\r\n\r\nBABBALANJA—Then, your Highness, he thought to try a conclave of\r\nprofessional critics; saying to himself, “Let them privately point out\r\nto me, now, all my blemishes; so that, what time they come to review me\r\nin public, all will be well.” But curious to relate, those professional\r\ncritics, for the most part, held their peace, concerning a work yet\r\nunpublished. And, with some generous exceptions, in their vague,\r\nlearned way, betrayed such base, beggarly notions of authorship, that\r\nLombardo could have wept, had tears been his. But in his very grief, he\r\nground his teeth. Muttered he, “They are fools. In their eyes, bindings\r\nnot brains make books. They criticise my tattered cloak, not my soul,\r\ncaparisoned like a charger. He is the great author, think they, who\r\ndrives the best bargain with his wares: and no bargainer am I. Because\r\nhe is old, they worship some mediocrity of an ancient, and mock at the\r\nliving prophet with the live coal on his lips. They are men who would\r\nnot be men, had they no books. Their sires begat them not; but the\r\nauthors they have read. Feelings they have none: and their very\r\nopinions they borrow. They can not say yea, nor nay, without first\r\nconsulting all Mardi as an Encyclopedia. And all the learning in them,\r\nis as a dead corpse in a coffin. Were they worthy the dignity of being\r\ndamned, I would damn them; but they are not. Critics?—Asses! rather\r\nmules!—so emasculated, from vanity, they can not father a true thought.\r\nLike mules, too, from dunghills, they trample down gardens of roses:\r\nand deem that crushed fragrance their own.—Oh! that all round the\r\ndomains of genius should lie thus unhedged, for such cattle to uproot!\r\nOh! that an eagle should be stabbed by a goose-quill! But at best, the\r\ngreatest reviewers but prey on my leavings. For I am critic and\r\ncreator; and as critic, in cruelty surpass all critics merely, as a\r\ntiger, jackals. For ere Mardi sees aught of mine, I scrutinize it\r\nmyself, remorseless as a surgeon. I cut right and left; I probe, tear,\r\nand wrench; kill, burn, and destroy; and what’s left after that, the\r\njackals are welcome to. It is I that stab false thoughts, ere hatched;\r\nI that pull down wall and tower, rejecting materials which would make\r\npalaces for others. Oh! could Mardi but see how we work, it would\r\nmarvel more at our primal chaos, than at the round world thence\r\nemerging. It would marvel at our scaffoldings, scaling heaven; marvel\r\nat the hills of earth, banked all round our fabrics ere completed.—How\r\nplain the pyramid! In this grand silence, so intense, pierced by that\r\npointed mass,—could ten thousand slaves have ever toiled? ten thousand\r\nhammers rung?—There it stands, —part of Mardi: claiming kin with\r\nmountains;—was this thing piecemeal built?—It was. Piecemeal?—atom by\r\natom it was laid. The world is made of mites.”\r\n\r\nYOOMY (_musing._)—It is even so.\r\n\r\nABRAZZA—Lombardo was severe upon the critics; and they as much so upon\r\nhim;—of that, be sure.\r\n\r\nBABBALANGA—Your Highness, Lombardo never presumed to criticise true\r\ncritics; who are more rare than true poets. A great critic is a sultan\r\namong satraps; but pretenders are thick as ants, striving to scale a\r\npalm, after its aerial sweetness. And they fight among themselves.\r\nEssaying to pluck eagles, they themselves are geese, stuck full of\r\nquills, of which they rob each other.\r\n\r\nABRAZZA (_to Media._)—Oro help the victim that falls in Babbalanja’s\r\nhands!\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 7"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJW03Z0Q25AN0GF175AXF","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1954N2G0NAERBNJXEX9","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKSF05SAG2A52HMNTCZHV","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKSF0V8Y8D21ZWV9Z7A5Y","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.840Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:28.437Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}