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

Continuing our route to Jiji's, we presently came to a miserable
hovel. Half projecting from the low, open entrance, was a bald
overgrown head, intent upon an upright row of dark-colored bags:--
pelican pouches--prepared by dropping a stone within, and suspending
them, when moist.

Ever and anon, the great head shook with a tremulous motion, as one by
one, to a clicking sound from the old man's mouth, the stri