But poor fellows! like shabby Scotch lords in London in King James's time, the very multitude of them confounded distinction.

And since they could show no rent-roll, they were permitted to fume unheeded.
Upon the whole, so numerous were living and breathing gods in Mardi, that I held my divinity but cheaply.

And seeing such a host of immortals, and hearing of multitudes more, purely spiritual in their nature, haunting woodlands and streams; my views of theology grew strangely confused; I began to bethink me of the Jew that rejected the Talmud, and his all-permeating principle, to which Goethe and others have subscribed.
Instead, then, of being struck with the audacity of endeavoring to palm myself off as a god--the way in which the thing first impressed me--I now perceived that I might be a god as much as I pleased, and yet not whisk a lion's tail after all at least on that special account.
As for Media's reception, its graciousness was not wholly owing to the divine character imputed to me.

His, he believed to be the same.

But to a whim, a freakishness in his soul, which led him to fancy me as one among many, not as one with no peer.
But the apparent unconcern of King Media with respect to my godship, by no means so much surprised me, as his unaffected indifference to my amazing voyage from the sun; his indifference to the sun itself; and all the wonderful circumstances that must have attended my departure.