For there are many bedeviled Bedlamites in Mardi, doing an infinity of mischief, who are too brawny in the arms to be tied." "A very devilish doctrine that," cried Mohi.

"I don't believe it." "My lord," said Babbalanja, "here's collateral proof;--the sage lawgiver Yamjamma, who flourished long before Bardianna, roundly asserts, that all men who knowingly do evil are bedeviled; for good is happiness; happiness the object of living; and evil is not good." "If the sage Yamjamma said that," said old Mohi, "the sage Yamjamma might have bettered the saying; it's not quite so plain as it might be." "Yamjamma disdained to be plain; he scorned to be fully comprehended by mortals.

Like all oracles, he dealt in dark sayings.

But old Bardianna was of another sort; he spoke right out, going straight to the point like a javelin; especially when he laid it down for a universal maxim, that minus exceptions, all men are bedeviled." "Of course, then," said Media, "you include yourself among the number." "Most assuredly; and so did old Bardianna; who somewhere says, that being thoroughly bedeviled himself, he was so much the better qualified to discourse upon the deviltries of his neighbors.

But in another place he seems to contradict himself, by asserting, that he is not so sensible of his own deviltry as of other people's." "Hold!" cried Media, "who have we here ?" and he pointed ahead of our prow to three men in the water, urging themselves along, each with a paddle.
We made haste to overtake them.
"Who are you ?" said Media, "where from, and where bound ?" "From Variora," they answered, "and bound to Mondoldo." "And did that devil Tribonnora swamp your canoe ?" asked Media, offering to help them into ours.
"We had no such useless incumbrance to lose," they replied, resting on their backs, and panting with their exertions.