“Craving pardon, my lord is deceived. Bardianna was not at all proud; though he had a queer way of showing the absence of pride. In his essay, entitled,—“On the Tendency to curl in Upper Lips,” he thus discourses. “We hear much of pride and its sinfulness in this Mardi wherein we dwell: whereas, I glory in being brimmed with it;—my sort of pride. In the presence of kings, lords, palm-trees, and all those who deem themselves taller than myself, I stand stiff as a pike, and will abate not one vertebra of my stature. But accounting no Mardian my superior, I account none my inferior; hence, with the social, I am ever ready to be sociable.”
“An agrarian!” said Media; “no doubt he would have made the headsman the minister of equality.”
“At bottom we are already equal, my honored lord,” said Babbalanja, profoundly bowing—“One way we all come into Mardi, and one way we withdraw. Wanting his yams a king will starve, quick as a clown; and smote on the hip, saith old Bardianna, he will roar as loud as the next one.”
“Roughly worded, that, Babbalanja.—Vee-Vee! my crown!—So; now, Babbalanja, try if you can not polish Bardianna’s style in that last saying you father upon him.”
“I will, my ever honorable lord,” said Babbalanja, salaming. “Thus we’ll word it, then: In their merely Mardian nature, the sublimest demi-gods are subject to infirmities; for struck by some keen shaft, even a king ofttimes dons his crown, fearful of future darts.”
“Ha, ha!—well done, Babbalanja; but I bade you polish, not sharpen the arrow.”
“All one, my thrice honored lord;—to polish is not to blunt.”
CHAPTER XLVII.
Babbalanja Philosophizes, And My Lord Media Passes Round The Calabashes
An interval of silence passed; when Media cried, “Out upon thee, Yoomy! curtail that long face of thine.”
“How can he, my lord,” said Mohi, “when he is thinking of furlongs?”