ut at some recitals I have both laughed and cried. But can
opposite emotions be simultaneous in one being? No. I wanted to weep;
but my body wanted to smile, and between us we almost choked. My lord
Media, this man's body laughs; not the man himself."

"But his body is his own, Babbalanja; and he should have it under
better control."

"The common error, my lord. Our souls belong to our bodies, not our
bodies to our souls. For which has the care of the other? which keeps
house? which looks after the replenishing of the aorta and auricles,
and stores away the secretions? Which toils and ticks while the other
sleeps? Which is ever giving timely hints, and elderly warnings? Which
is the most authoritative?--Our bodies, surely. At a hint, you must
move; at a notice to quit, you depart. Simpletons show us, that a body
can get along almost without a soul; but of a soul getting along
without a body, we have no tangible and indisputable proof. My lord,
the wisest of us breathe involuntarily. And how many millions there
are who live from day to day by the incessant operation of subtle
processes in them, of which they know nothing, and care less? Little
ween they, of vessels lacteal and lymphatic, of arteries femoral and
temporal; of pericranium or pericardium; lymph, chyle, fibrin,
albumen, iron in the blood, and pudding in the head; they live by the
charity of their bodies, to which they are but butlers. I say, my
lord, our bodies are our betters. A soul so simple, that it prefers
evil to good, is lodged in a frame, whose minutest action is full of
unsearchable wisdom. Knowing this superiority of theirs, our bodies
are inclined to be willful: our beards grow in spite of us; and as
every one knows, they sometimes grow on dead men."

"You mortals are alive, then, when you are dead, Babbalanja."

"No, my lord; but our beards survive us."

"An ingenious distinction; go on, philosopher."

"Without bodies, my lord, we Mardians would be minus our strongest
motive-passions, those which, in some way or other, root under our
every action. Hence, without bodies, we must be something else than we
essentially are. Wherefore, that saying imputed to Alma, and which, by
his very followers, is deemed the most hard to believe of all his
instructions, and the most at variance with all preconceived notions
of immortality, I Babbalanja, account the most reasonable of his
doctrinal teachings. It is this;--that at the last day, every man
shall