“Go on,” said Media.

“And what is it, to be something?” said Yoomy artlessly.  “Bethink yourself of what went before,” said Media.

“Lose not the thread,” said Mohi.

“It has snapped,” said Babbalanja.

“I breathe again,” said Mohi.

“But what a stepping-off place you came to then, philosopher,” said Media.  “By the way, is it not old Bardianna who says, that no Mardian should undertake to walk, without keeping one foot foremost?”

“To return to the vagueness of the notion I have of myself,” said Babbalanja.

“An appropriate theme,” said Media, “proceed.”

“My lord,” murmured Mohi, “Is not this philosopher like a centipede?  Cut off his head, and still he crawls.”

“There are times when I fancy myself a lunatic,” resumed Babbalanja.

“Ah, now he’s beginning to talk sense,” whispered Mohi.

“Surely you forget, Babbalanja,” said Media.  “How many more theories have you?  First, you are possessed by a devil; then rent yourself out to the indweller; and now turn yourself into a mad-house.  You are inconsistent.”

“And for that very reason, my lord, not inconsistent; for the sum of my inconsistencies makes up my consistency.  And to be consistent to one’s self, is often to be inconsistent to Mardi.  Common consistency implies unchangeableness; but much of the wisdom here below lives in a state of transition.”

“Ah!” murmured Mold, “my head goes round again.”

“Azzageddi aside, then, my lord, and also, for the nonce, the mysterious indweller, I come now to treat of myself as a lunatic.  But this last conceit is not so much based upon the madness of particular actions, as upon the whole drift of my ordinary and hourly ones; those, in which I most resemble all other Mardians.  It seems like going through with some nonsensical whim-whams, destitute of fixed purpose.  For though many of my actions seem to have objects, and all of them somehow run into each other; yet, where is the grand result?  To what final purpose, do I walk about, eat, think, dream?  To what great end, does Mohi there, now stroke his beard?”

“But I was doing it unconsciously,” said Mohi, dropping his hand, and lifting his head.

“Just what I would be at, old man.  ‘What we do, we do blindly,’ says old Bardianna.  Many things we do, we do without knowing,—­as with you and your beard, Mohi.  And many others we know not, in their true bearing at least, till they are past.  Are not half our lives spent in reproaches for foregone actions, of the true nature and consequences of which, we were wholly ignorant at the time?  Says old Bardianna, ’Did I not so often feel an appetite for my yams, I should think every thing a dream;’—­so puzzling to him, seemed the things of this Mardi.  But Alla-Malolla goes further.  Says he, ’Let us club together, fellow-riddles:—­Kings, clowns, and intermediates.  We are bundles of comical sensations; we bejuggle ourselves into strange phantasies:  we are air, wind, breath, bubbles; our being is told in a tick.’”