{"id":"01KG8AKTV1VKSE0309YNR38670","cid":"bafkreidup75xflbv5ci4nwtc7wzsyxwkwsa7tsobtcbmgw56bqgdsucofm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":11815,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:09.931Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J1954N2G0NAERBNJXEX9","start_line":11751,"text":"your graves, while ye may? Time to die, when death comes, without dying\r\nby inches. ’Tis no death, to die; the only death is the fear of it. I,\r\na demi-god, fear death not.”\r\n\r\n“But when the jackals howl round you?” said Babbalanja.\r\n\r\n“Drive them off! Die the demi-god’s death! On his last couch of crossed\r\nspears, my brave old sire cried, ‘Wine, wine; strike up, conch and\r\ncymbal; let the king die to martial melodies!’”\r\n\r\n“More valiant dying, than dead,” said Babbalanja. “Our end of the\r\nwinding procession resounds with music and flaunts with banners with\r\nbrave devices: ‘Cheer up!’ ‘Fear not!’ ‘Millions have died before!’—\r\nbut in the endless van, not a pennon streams; all there, is silent and\r\nsolemn. The last wisdom is dumb.”\r\n\r\nSilence ensued; during which, each dip of the paddles in the now calm\r\nwater, fell full and long upon the ear.\r\n\r\nAnon, lifting his head, Babbalanja thus:—“Yillah still eludes us. And\r\nin all this tour of Mardi, how little have we found to fill the heart\r\nwith peace: how much to slaughter all our yearnings.”\r\n\r\n“Croak no more, raven!” cried Media. “Mardi is full of spring-time\r\nsights, and jubilee sounds. I never was sad in my life.”\r\n\r\n“But for thy one laugh, my lord, how many groans! Were all happy, or\r\nall miserable,—more tolerable then, than as it is. But happiness and\r\nmisery are so broadly marked, that this Mardi may be the retributive\r\nfuture of some forgotten past.—Yet vain our surmises. Still vainer to\r\nsay, that all Mardi is but a means to an end; that this life is a state\r\nof probation: that evil is but permitted for a term; that for specified\r\nages a rebel angel is viceroy.—Nay, nay. Oro delegates his scepter to\r\nnone; in his everlasting reign there are no interregnums; and Time is\r\nEternity; and we live in Eternity now. Yet, some tell of a hereafter,\r\nwhere all the mysteries of life will be over; and the sufferings of the\r\nvirtuous recompensed. Oro is just, they say.—Then always,—now, and\r\nevermore. But to make restitution implies a wrong; and Oro can do no\r\nwrong. Yet what seems evil to us, may be good to him. If he fears not,\r\nnor hopes,—he has no other passion; no ends, no purposes. He lives\r\ncontent; all ends are compassed in Him; He has no past, no future; He\r\nis the everlasting now; which is an everlasting calm; and things that\r\nare, have been,— will be. This gloom’s enough. But hoot! hoot! the\r\nnight-owl ranges through the woodlands of Maramma; its dismal notes\r\npervade our lives; and when we would fain depart in peace, that bird\r\nflies on before:— cloud-like, eclipsing our setting suns, and filling\r\nthe air with dolor.”\r\n\r\n“Too true!” cried Yoomy. “Our calms must come by storms. Like helmless\r\nvessels, tempest-tossed, our only anchorage is when we founder.”\r\n\r\n“Our beginnings,” murmured Mohi, “are lost in clouds; we live in\r\ndarkness all our days, and perish without an end.”\r\n\r\n“Croak on, cowards!” cried Media, “and fly before the hideous phantoms\r\nthat pursue ye.”\r\n\r\n“No coward he, who hunted, turns and finds no foe to fight,” said\r\nBabbalanja. “Like the stag, whose brow is beat with wings of hawks,\r\nperched in his heavenward antlers; so I, blinded, goaded, headlong,\r\nrush! this way and that; nor knowing whither; one forest wide around!”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJWK41W0P7JYW27FK0XVM","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1954N2G0NAERBNJXEX9","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKT5R4NGE2HNJQ67XWWS9","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:17.249Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:29.037Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}