nt, my lord; he'll recover
presently. You were talking of Lombardo, Babbalanja.

BABBALANJA--I was, your Highness. Of all Mardians, by nature, he was
the most inert. Hast ever seen a yellow lion, all day basking in the
yellow sun:--in reveries, rending droves of elephants; but his vast
loins supine, and eyelids winking? Such, Lombardo; but fierce Want,
the hunter, came and roused his roar. In hairy billows, his great mane
tossed like the sea; his eyeballs flamed two hells; his paw had
stopped a rolling world.

ABRAZZA--In other words, yams were indispensable, and, poor devil, he
roared to get them.

BABBALANJA (_bowing_)--Partly so, my literal lord. And as with your
own golden scepter, at times upon your royal teeth, indolent tattoos
you beat; then, potent, sway it o'er your isle; so, Lombardo. And ere
Necessity plunged spur and rowel into him, he knew not his own paces.
_That_ churned him into consciousness; and brought ambition, ere then
dormant, seething to the top, till he trembled at himself. No mailed
hand lifted up against a traveler in woods, can so, appall, as we
ourselves. We are full of ghosts and spirits; we are as grave-yards
full of buried dead, that start to life before us. And all our dead
sires, verily, are in us; _that_ is their immortality. From sire to
son, we go on multiplying corpses in ourselves; for all of which, are
resurrections. Every thought's a soul of some past poet, hero, sage.
We are fuller than a city. Woe it is, that reveals these things. He
knows himself, and all that's in him, who knows adversity. To scale
great heights, we must come out of lowermost depths. The way to heaven
is through hell. We need fiery baptisms in the fiercest flames of our
own bosoms. We must feel our hearts hot--hissing in us. And ere
their fire is revealed, it must burn its way out of us; though it
consume us and itself. Oh, sleek-cheeked Plenty! smiling at thine own
dimples;--vain for thee to reach out after greatness. Turn! turn! from
all your tiers of cushions of eider-down--turn! and be broken on the
wheels of many woes. At white-heat, brand thyself; and count the
scars, like old war-worn veterans, over camp-fires. Soft poet!
brushing tears from lilies--this way! and howl in sackcloth and in
ashes! Know, thou, that the lines that live are turned out of a
furrowed brow. Oh! there is a fierce, a cannibal delight, in the grief
that shrieks to multiply itself. That grief is miserly of its own; it
pities all