“And call you that righteousness, my lord, which is but the price paid down for something else?”

“I called it not righteousness; it is religion so called.  But let us prate no more of these things; with which I, a demi-god, have but little in common.  It ever impairs my digestion.  No more, Babbalanja.”

“My lord! my lord! out of itself, Religion has nothing to bestow.  Nor will she save us from aught, but from the evil in ourselves.  Her one grand end is to make us wise; her only manifestations are reverence to Oro and love to man; her only, but ample reward, herself.  He who has this, has all.  He who has this, whether he kneel to an image of wood, calling it Oro; or to an image of air, calling it the same; whether he fasts or feasts; laughs or weeps;—­that man can be no richer.  And this religion, faith, virtue, righteousness, good, whate’er you will, I find in this book I hold.  No written page can teach me more.”

“Have you that, then, of which you speak, Babbalanja?  Are you content, there where you stand?”

“My lord, you drive me home.  I am not content.  The mystery of mysteries is still a mystery.  How this author came to be so wise, perplexes me.  How he led the life he did, confounds me.  Oh, my lord, I am in darkness, and no broad blaze comes down to flood me.  The rays that come to me are but faint cross lights, mazing the obscurity wherein I live.  And after all, excellent as it is, I can be no gainer by this book.  For the more we learn, the more we unlearn; we accumulate not, but substitute; and take away, more than we add.  We dwindle while we grow; we sally out for wisdom, and retreat beyond the point whence we started; we essay the Fondiza, and get but the Phe.  Of all simpletons, the simplest!  Oh! that I were another sort of fool than I am, that I might restore my good opinion of myself.  Continually I stand in the pillory, am broken on the wheel, and dragged asunder by wild horses.  Yes, yes, Bardianna, all is in a nut, as thou sayest; but all my back teeth can not crack it; I but crack my own jaws.  All round me, my fellow men are new-grafting their vines, and dwelling in flourishing arbors; while I am forever pruning mine, till it is become but a stump.  Yet in this pruning will I persist; I will not add, I will diminish; I will train myself down to the standard of what is unchangeably true.  Day by day I drop off my redundancies; ere long I shall have stripped my ribs; when I die, they will but bury my spine.  Ah! where, where, where, my lord, is the everlasting Tekana?  Tell me, Mohi, where the Ephina?  I may have come to the Penultimate, but where, sweet Yoomy, is the Ultimate?  Ah, companions!  I faint, I am wordless:- -something, nothing, riddles,—­does Mardi hold her?”

“He swoons!” cried Yoomy.

“Water! water!” cried Media.

“Away:”  said Babbalanja serenely, “I revive.”

CHAPTER XXI They Visit A Wealthy Old Pauper