The proper name of Lewis Carroll was Charles Lutwidge
Dodgson, and he was born at Daresbury, England, on January 27,
1832. Educated at Rugby and at Christchurch, Oxford, he
specialised in mathematical subjects. Elected a student of his
college, he became a mathematical lecturer in 1855, continuing
in that occupation until 1881. His fame rests on the
children's classic, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," issued
in 1865, which has been translated into many languages. No
modern fairy-tale has approached it in popularity. The charms
of the book are its unstrained humour and its childlike fancy,
held in check by the discretion of a particularly clear and
analytical mind. Though it seems strange that an authority on
Euclid and logic should have been the inventor of so diverting
and irresponsible a tale, if we examine his story critically
we shall see that only a logical mind could have derived so
much genuine humour from a deliberate attack on reason, in
which a considerable element of fun arises from efforts to
reconcile the irreconcilable. The book has probably been read
as much by grown-ups as by young people, and no work of humour
is more heartily to be commended as a banisher of care. The
original illustrations by Sir John Tenniel are almost as
famous as the book itself.
_I.--What Happened Down the Rabbit-Hole_
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the
bank, and of having nothing to do; once or twice she had peeped into the
book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in
it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or
conversations?"
So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the
hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid) whether the pleasure of
making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and
picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran
close by her.
There was nothing so _very_ remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it
so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to himself: "Oh,
dear! Oh, dear! I shall be too late!" But when the Rabbit actually _took
a watch out of his waistcoat pocket_, and looked at it, and then hurried
on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she
had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat pocket or a watch
to take out of it, and, burning with curiosity, she ran across the field
after him, and was just in time to see him pop down a large rabbit-hole
under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after him, never once considering how
in the world she was to get out again.
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then
dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think
about stopping herself before she found herself falling down what seemed
to be a very deep well.
Either the well was very deep or she fell very slowly, for she had
plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what
was going to happen next.
"Well," thought Alice to herself, "after such a fall as this, I shall
think nothing of tumbling downstairs."
Down, down, down. Would the fall _never_ come to an end? "I wonder if I
shall fall right _through_ the earth? How funny it'll seem to come out
among the people that walk with their heads downwards! The Antipathies,
I think" (she was rather glad there was no one listening this time, as
it didn't sound at all the right word).
Down, down, down. Then suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap
of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment.
She looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another long
passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it.
There was not a moment to be lost. Away went Alice like the wind, and
was just in time to hear him say, as he turned a corner, "Oh, my ears
and whiskers, how late it is getting!" She was close behind him when she
turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen. She found
herself in a long narrow hall, which was lit up by lamps hanging from
the roof.
In the hall she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid
glass. There was nothing on it but a tiny golden key, and Alice's first
idea was that this might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but,
alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, for, at
any rate, it would not open any of them. However, on the second time
round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and
behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high. She tried the
little golden key in the lock, and, to her great delight, it fitted.
Alice opened the door, and found that it led into a small passage, not
much larger than a rat-hole. She knelt down and looked along the passage
into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of
that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and
those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the
doorway.
There seemed to be no use in waiting near the little door, so she went
back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at
any rate, a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes. This
time she found a little bottle on it ("which certainly was not here
before," said Alice), and tied round the neck of the bottle was a paper
label, with the words DRINK ME beautifully printed on it in large
letters. Alice tasted it, and very soon finished it off.
"What a curious feeling!" said Alice. "I must be shutting up like a
telescope."
And so it was, indeed; she was now only ten inches high, and her face
brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going
through the little door into that lovely garden.... But, alas for poor
Alice, when she got to the door she found she had forgotten the little
golden key, and when she went back to the table for it she found she
could not possibly reach it.
Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table.
She opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words EAT
ME were beautifully marked in currants.
She very soon finished off the cake.
"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice (she was so much surprised that
for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). "Now I'm
opening out like the largest telescope that ever was. Good-by feet!"
(for when she looked down at her feet they seemed to be almost out of
sight, they were getting so far off). "Oh, my poor little feet! I wonder
who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears?"
Just at this moment her head struck against the roof of the hall; in
fact, she was now more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the
little golden key, and hurried off to the garden door.
Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to
look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more
hopeless than ever. She sat down and began to cry again, shedding
gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about four
inches deep, and reaching half down the hall.
After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and
she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White
Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in
one hand and a large fan in the other. He came trotting along in a great
hurry, muttering to himself as he came, "Oh, the Duchess! the Duchess!
Or, won't she be savage if I've kept her waiting!"
Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of anyone; so,
when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a timid voice: "If you
please, sir----"
The Rabbit started violently, dropped the gloves and the fan, and
scurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go.
Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she
kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking.
"Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! How puzzling it all is!
I'll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times
five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven
is--oh, dear, I shall never get to twenty at that rate!" But presently
on looking down at her hands, she was surprised to see that she had put
on one of the rabbit's little white kid gloves while she was talking.
"How _can_ I have done that?" she thought. "I must be growing small
again."
She got up and went to the table to measure herself by it, and found
that, as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high, and
was going on shrinking rapidly. She soon found out that the cause of
this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it hastily, just in
time to save herself from shrinking away altogether. Now she hastened to
the little door, but alas, it was shut again. "I declare it's too bad,
that it is!" she said aloud, and just as she spoke her foot slipped, and
in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. It was
the pool of tears she had wept when she was nine feet high!
_II.--The Pool of Tears and the Animals' Party_
Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way
off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was. At first she thought
it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small
she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had
slipped in like herself.
"Would it be of any use, now," thought Alice, "to speak to this mouse?
Everything is so out-of-the-way down here that I should think very
likely it can talk; at any rate, there's no harm in trying." So she
began, "O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired
of swimming about here. O Mouse." The Mouse looked at her rather
inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes,
but it said nothing.
"Perhaps it doesn't understand English," thought Alice; "I daresay it's
a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror." So she began
again, "_ou est ma chatte?_" which was the first sentence in her French
lesson book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water, and seemed
to quiver all over with fright. "Oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Alice
hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal's feeling. "I quite
forgot you don't like cats."
"Not like cats!" cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. "Would
_you_ like cats if you were me?" The Mouse was swimming away from her as
hard as it could go. So she called softly after it.
"Mouse dear! Do come back again, and we won't talk about cats, or dogs
either, if you don't like them!" When the Mouse heard this, it turned
round and swam slowly back to her; its face was quite pale (with
passion, Alice thought), and it said in a low, trembling voice, "Let us
get to the shore, and I'll tell you my history, and you'll understand
why it is I hate cats and dogs."
It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded with the
birds and animals that had fallen into it; there were a duck and a dodo,
a lory and an eaglet, and other curious creatures. Alice led the way,
and the whole party swam to the shore.
A very queer-looking party of dripping birds and animals now gathered on
the bank of the Pool of Tears; but they were not so queer as their talk.
First the Mouse, who was quite a person of authority among them, tried
to dry them by telling them frightfully dry stories from history. But
Alice confessed she was as wet as ever after she had listened to the
bits of English history; so the Dodo proposed a Caucus race. They all
started off when they liked, and stopped when they liked. The Dodo said
everybody had won, and Alice had to give the prizes. Luckily she had
some sweets, which were not wet, and there was just one for each of
them, but none for herself. The party were anxious she, too, should have
a prize, and as she happened to have a thimble, the Dodo commanded her
to hand it to him, and then, with great ceremony, the Dodo presented it
to her, saying, "We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble," and
they all cheered.
Of course, Alice thought this all very absurd; but they were dry now,
and began eating their sweets. Then the Mouse began to tell Alice its
history, and to explain why it hated C and D--for it was afraid to say
cats and dogs. But she soon offended the Mouse, first by mistaking its
"long and sad tale" for a "long tail," and next by thinking it meant
"knot" when it said "not," so that it went off in a huff. Then when she
mentioned Dinah to the others, and told them that was the name of her
cat, the birds got uneasy, and one by one the whole party gradually went
off and left her all alone. Just when she was beginning to cry, she
heard a pattering of little feet, and half thought it might be the Mouse
coming back to finish its story.
It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking
anxiously about as he went, as if he had lost something and she heard
him muttering to himself, "The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh, my dear paws!
Oh, my fur and whiskers! She'll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are
ferrets! Where _can_ I have dropped them, I wonder?"
Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, and called out to her in an angry
tone, "Why, Mary Ann, what _are_ you doing out here? Run home this
moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan. Quick, now!"
"He took me for his housemaid," she said to herself as she ran. "How
surprised he'll be when he finds out who I am! But I'd better take him
his fan and gloves--that is, if I can find them." As she said this, she
came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass
plate with the name W. RABBIT engraved upon it. Inside the house she had
a strange adventure, for she tried what the result of drinking from a
bottle she found in the room would be, and grew so large that the house
could hardly hold her. The White Rabbit and some of his friends,
including Bill, the Lizard, threw a lot of little pebbles through the
window, and these turned into tiny cakes. So Alice ate some and was
delighted to find that she began shrinking directly. As soon as she was
small enough to get through the door, she ran out of the house, and
found quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting outside. The
poor Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs,
who were giving it something out of a bottle. They all made a rush at
Alice the moment she appeared but she ran off as hard as she could, and
soon found herself safe in a thick wood.
_III.--The Adventures in the Wood_
Once in the wood, she was anxious to get back to her right size again,
and then to get into that lovely garden. But how? Peeping over a
mushroom, she beheld a large blue caterpillar sitting on the top with
its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the
smallest notice of her or of anything else. At length, in a sleepy sort
of way, it began talking to her, and she told it what she wanted so
much--to grow to her right size again.
"I should like to be a _little_ longer," she said. "Three inches is such
a wretched height to be."
"It is a very good height indeed," said the Caterpillar angrily, rearing
itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high).
"But I'm not used to it," pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone. And she
thought to herself, "I wish the creatures wouldn't be so easily
offended."
"You'll get used to it in time," said the Caterpillar; and it put the
hookah into its mouth and began smoking again.
This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again. In a
minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and
yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the
mushroom, and crawled away into the grass, merely remarking as it went,
"One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you
grow shorter."
"One side of _what_? The other side of what?" thought Alice to herself.
"Of the mushroom," said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it
aloud and in another moment it was out of sight.
Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying
to make out which were the two sides of it and as it was perfectly
round, she found this a very difficult question. However, at last she
stretched her arms round it as far as they would go, and broke off a bit
of the edge with each hand.
"And now which is which?" she said to herself, and nibbled a little of
the right-hand bit to try the effect. The next moment she felt a violent
blow underneath her chin; it had struck her foot!
She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but she felt
that there was no time to be lost, as she was shrinking rapidly, so she
set to work at once to eat some of the other bit. Her chin was pressed
so closely against her foot that there was hardly room to open her
mouth; but she did it at last, and managed to swallow a morsel of the
left-hand bit.
The next minute she had grown so tall that her neck rose like a stalk
out of a sea of green leaves, and these green leaves were the trees of
the wood. But, by nibbling bits of mushroom, she at last succeeded in
bringing herself down to her usual height. But, oh dear, in order to get
into the first house she saw, she had to eat some more of the mushroom
from her right hand and bring herself down to nine inches. Outside the
house she saw the Fish-footmen and the Frog-footmen with invitations
from the Queen to the Duchess, asking her to play croquet. The Duchess
lived in the house, and a terrible noise was going on inside, and when
the door was opened a plate came crashing out. But Alice got in at last,
and found a strange state of things. The Duchess and her cook were
quarrelling because there was too much pepper in the soup. The cook
threw everything she could lay hands on at the Duchess, and nearly
knocked the baby's nose off with a saucepan.
The Duchess had the baby in her lap, and tossed it about ridiculously,
finally throwing it in the most heartless way to Alice. She took it out
of doors, and behold, it turned into a little pig, jumped out of her
arms, and ran away into the wood.
"If it had grown up," she said, "it would have made a dreadfully ugly
child; but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think."
She was a little startled now by seeing the Cheshire Cat--which she had
first seen in the house of the Duchess--sitting on a bough of a tree.
The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she
thought; still it had _very_ long claws and a great many teeth, so she
felt that it ought to be treated with respect.
"Cheshire Puss," she said, "what sort of people live about here?"
"In _that_ direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives
a Hatter; and in _that_ direction"--waving the other paw--"lives a March
Hare. Visit either you like; they're both mad."
She had not gone very far before she came in sight of the house of the
March Hare. She thought it must be the right house, because the chimneys
were shaped like ears and the roof was thatched with fur. It was so
large a house that she did not like to go nearer till she had nibbled
some more of the left-hand bit of mushroom, and raised herself to about
two feet high; even then she walked up towards it rather timidly, saying
to herself, "Suppose it should be raving mad after all. I almost wish
I'd gone to see the Hatter instead."
_IV.--Alice at the Mad Tea Party_
There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the
March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it; a Dormouse was sitting
between them fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion,
resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head.
The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at
one corner.
"No room! No room!" they cried out when they saw Alice coming.
"There's _plenty_ of room!" said Alice indignantly. And she sat down in
a large armchair at one end of the table.
"What day of the month is it?" asked the Hatter, turning to Alice.
He had taken his watch out of his pocket and was looking at it uneasily,
shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.