Stumbling in the dark

"Ay, keep moving is my motto; but speaking of hard students, did my lord ever hear of Midni the ontologist and entomologist?” 

“No.” 

“Then, my lord, you shall hear of him now. Midni was of opinion that day-light was vulgar; good enough for taro-planting and traveling; but wholly unadapted to the sublime ends of study. He toiled by night; from sunset to sunrise poring over the works of the old logicans. Like most philosophers, Midni was an amiable man; but one thing invariably put him out. He read in the woods by glow-worm light; insect in hand, tracing over his pages, line by line. But glow-worms burn not long: and in the midst of some calm intricate thought, at some imminent comma, the insect often expired, and Midni groped for a meaning. Upon such an occasion, ‘Ho, Ho,’ he cried; ‘but for one instant of sun-light to see my way to a period!’ But sun-light there was none; so Midni sprang to his feet, and parchment under arm, raced about among the sloughs and bogs for another glow-worm. Often, making a rapid descent with his turban, he thought he had caged a prize; but nay. Again he tried; yet with no better success. Nevertheless, at last he secured one; but hardly had he read three lines by its light, when out it went. Again and again this occurred. And thus he forever went halting and stumbling through his studies, and plunging through his quagmires after a glim.”  --Melville's Mardi vol. 2 chapter 51

Fruits of "A night-watch in the mountains," the narrator's insight from the March 1853 installment of Scenes Beyond the Western Border:

We wander at most in the dark—stumbling on temptations,—walking on the thorns of passions; or in an awful, but obscure light, refracted by the cloudy medium of philosophy.  --also in the later book version, Scenes and Adventures in the Army

restates the moral of Babbalanja's story of Midni the midnight philosopher:

And thus he forever went halting and stumbling through his studies, and plunging through his quagmires after a glim.