“Babbalanja,” said Media, “you have fairly turned yourself inside out.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Mohi, “and he has so unsettled me, that I begin to think all Mardi a square circle.”

“How is that, Babbalanja,” said Media, “is a circle square?”

“No, my lord, but ever since Mardi began, we Mardians have been essaying our best to square it.”

“Cleverly retorted.  Now, Babbalanja, do you not imagine, that you may do harm by disseminating these sophisms of yours; which like your devil theory, would seem to relieve all Mardi from moral accountability?”

“My lord, at bottom, men wear no bonds that other men can strike off; and have no immunities, of which other men can deprive them.  Tell a good man that he is free to commit murder,—­will he murder?  Tell a murderer that at the peril of his soul he indulges in murderous thoughts,—­will that make him a saint?”

“Again on the verge, Babbalanja?  Take not the leap, I say.”

“I can leap no more, my lord.  Already I am down, down, down.”

“Philosopher,” said Media, “what with Azzageddi, and the mysterious indweller you darkly hint of, I marvel not that you are puzzled to decide upon your identity.  But when do you seem most yourself?”

“When I sleep, and dream not, my lord.”

“Indeed?”

“Why then, a fool’s cap might be put on you, and you would not know it.”

“The very turban he ought to wear,” muttered Mohi.

“Yet, my lord, I live while consciousness is not mine, while to all appearances I am a clod.  And may not this same state of being, though but alternate with me, be continually that of many dumb, passive objects we so carelessly regard?  Trust me, there are more things alive than those that crawl, or fly, or swim.  Think you, my lord, there is no sensation in being a tree? feeling the sap in one’s boughs, the breeze in one’s foliage? think you it is nothing to be a world? one of a herd, bison-like, wending its way across boundless meadows of ether?  In the sight of a fowl, that sees not our souls, what are our own tokens of animation?  That we move, make a noise, have organs, pulses, and are compounded of fluids and solids.  And all these are in this Mardi as a unit.  Daily the slow, majestic throbbings of its heart are perceptible on the surface in the tides of the la-goon.  Its rivers are its veins; when agonized, earthquakes are its throes; it shouts in the thunder, and weeps in the shower; and as the body of a bison is covered with hair, so Mardi is covered with grasses and vegetation, among which, we parasitical things do but crawl, vexing and tormenting the patient creature to which we cling.  Nor yet, hath it recovered from the pain of the first foundation that was laid.  Mardi is alive to its axis.  When you pour water, does it not gurgle?  When you strike a pearl shell, does it not ring?  Think you there is no sensation in being a rock?—­To exist, is to be; to be, is to be something:  to be something, is—­”