with them?" So, rising quickly, he took the Princess Maybloom by the
hand. The fawn followed them; the maids and the chamberlain followed
it, and all followed the music through the forest. At last they came
to the flowery green. Robin Goodfellow welcomed the company for
Fairyfoot's sake, and gave every one a drink of the fairies' wine. So
they danced there from sunset till the grey morning, and nobody was
tired; but before the lark sang, Robin Goodfellow took them all safe
home, as he used to take Fairyfoot.
There was great joy that day in the palace because Princess Maybloom's
feet were made small again. The king gave Fairyfoot all manner of fine
clothes and rich jewels; and when they heard his wonderful story, he
and the queen asked him to live with them and be their son. In process
of time Fairyfoot and Princess Maybloom were married, and still live
happily. When they go to visit at Stumpinghame, they always wash their
feet in the Growing Well, lest the royal family might think them a
disgrace, but when they come back, they make haste to the Fair
Fountain; and the fairies and the nightingales are great friends to
them, as well as to the maids and the chamberlain, because they have
told nobody about it, and there is peace and quiet yet in the grove of
rose-trees.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND
_Few books have given more real pleasure to young people than "Alice
in Wonderland" by Charles L. Dodgson, a professor of mathematics in
Oxford University, who signed his stories Lewis Carroll. He was always
a great favorite with the children, from the time he began acting
little plays in a little theatre for his nine brothers and sisters,
and up to the time of his death in 1898 there were hundreds of happy
boys and girls, but mostly girls, who delighted to call him friend.
"Through the Looking-Glass" is a continuation of "Alice in Wonderland."_
DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE
By Lewis Carroll
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 itself, "Oh
dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" (when she thought it over
afterward, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this,
but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but, when the Rabbit
actually _took a watch out of its 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 it, and was just in time to
see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, 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. First, she tried to look down and make out
what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything: then she
looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled
with cupboards and book-shelves: here and there she saw maps and
pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves
as she passed: it was labeled "ORANGE MARMALADE," but to her great
disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar, for
fear of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of
the cupboards as she fell past it.
"Well!" thought Alice to herself. "After such a fall as this, I shall
think nothing of tumbling downstairs! How brave they'll all think me
at home! Why, I wouldn't say anything about it, even if I fell off the
top of the house!" (Which was very likely true.)
Down, down, down. Would the fall _never_ come to an end? "I wonder how
many miles I've fallen by this time?" she said aloud. "I must be
getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would
be four thousand miles down, I think--" (for, you see, Alice had
learned several things of this sort in her lessons in the school-room,
and though this was not a _very_ good opportunity for showing off her
knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good
practice to say it over) "--yes, that's about the right distance--but
then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to?" (Alice had not
the slightest idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but she
thought they were nice grand words to say).
Presently she began again. "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 downward! 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) "--but I shall have to ask them what the name of the
country is, you know. Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand? Or
Australia?" (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke--fancy, _curtseying_
as you're falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?)
"And what an ignorant little girl she'll think me for asking! No,
it'll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere."
Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began
talking again. "Dinah'll miss me very much to-night, I should think!"
(Dinah was the cat.) "I hope they'll remember her saucer of milk at
tea-time. Dinah, my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are
no mice in the air, I'm afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that's
very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?" And here
Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a
dreamy sort of way, "Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?" and
sometimes, "Do bats eat cats?" for, you see, as she couldn't answer
either question, it didn't much matter which way she put it. She felt
that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was
walking hand in hand with Dinah, and was saying to her, very
earnestly, "Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?"
when 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 it say, as it turned a
corner, "Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!" She was
close behind it when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no
longer to be seen: she found herself in a long, low hall, which was
lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof.
There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and
when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying
every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was
ever to get out again.
Suddenly 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,
but 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; "and even if my head _would_ go through," thought
poor Alice, "it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh,
how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I
only knew how to begin." For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things
had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few
things indeed were really impossible.
There seemed to be no use in waiting by 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.
It was all very well to say "Drink me," but the wise little Alice was
not going to do _that_ in a hurry. "No, I'll look first," she said,
"and see whether it's marked '_poison_' or not"; for she had read
several nice little stories about children who had got burned, and
eaten up by wild beasts, and other unpleasant things, all because they
_would_ not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them:
such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long;
and that, if you cut your finger _very_ deeply with a knife, it usually
bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a
bottle marked "poison," it is almost certain to disagree with you,
sooner or later.
However, this bottle was _not_ marked "poison," so Alice ventured
to taste it, and, finding it very nice (it had, in fact, a sort of
mixed flavor of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffy,
and hot buttered toast), she 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. First, however, she
waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any
further: she felt a little nervous about this; "for it might end, you
know," said Alice to herself, "in my going out altogether, like a
candle. I wonder what I should be like then?" And she tried to fancy
what the flame of a candle looks like after the candle is blown out,
for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.
After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on
going into the garden at once; 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: she could see it quite plainly through the glass,
and she tried her best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but
it was too slippery; and when she had tired herself out with trying,
the poor little thing sat down and cried.
"Come, there's no use in crying like that!" said Alice to herself
rather sharply. "I advise you to leave off this minute!" She generally
gave herself very good advice (though she very seldom followed it),
and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into
her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for
having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against
herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two
people. "But it's no use now," thought poor Alice, "to pretend to be
two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make _one_
respectable person!"
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. "Well, I'll eat
it," said Alice, "and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key;
and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door: so either
way I'll get into the garden, and I don't care which happens!"
She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, "Which way? Which
way?" holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was
growing; and she was quite surprised to find that she remained the
same size. To be sure, this is what generally happens when one eats
cake; but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but
out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid
for life to go on in the common way.
So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.
* * * * *
THE POOL OF TEARS
By Lewis Carroll
"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?
I'm sure _I_ shan't be able! I shall be a great deal too far off
to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can--but
I must be kind to them," thought Alice, "or perhaps they won't walk
the way I want to go! Let me see. I'll give them a new pair of boots
every Christmas."
And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. "They
must go by the carrier," she thought; "and how funny it'll seem,
sending presents to one's own feet! And how odd the directions will
look!
_Alice's Right Foot, Esq.,
Hearthrug,
near the Fender,
(with Alice's love)._
Oh dear, what nonsense I'm talking!"
Just at this moment her head struck against the roof of the hall: in
fact she was now rather 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.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Alice, "a great girl like
you" (she might well say this), "to go on crying in this way! Stop
this moment, I tell you!"
But she went on all the same, 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! Oh! _Won't_ she be savage if I've kept her waiting!"
Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any one: so,
when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, "If
you please, Sir--" The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white
kid-gloves and the fan, and skurried 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! And yesterday things went on just as
usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: _was_
I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember
feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question
is, 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, _that's_ the great puzzle!"
And she began thinking over all the children she knew that were of the
same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of
them.
"I'm sure I'm not Ada," she said, "for her hair goes in such long
ringlets, and mine doesn't go in ringlets at all; and I'm sure I can't
be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh, she knows such
a very little! Besides, _she's_ she, and _I'm_ I, and--oh dear, 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! However, the Multiplication-Table doesn't signify: let's try
Geography. London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of
Rome, and Rome--no, _that's_ all wrong, I'm certain! I must have been
changed for Mabel! I'll try and say '_How doth the little_--,'" and
she crossed her hands on her lap, as if she were saying lessons, and
began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the
words did not come the same as they used to do:--
"How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!"
"How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!"
"I'm sure those are not the right words," said poor Alice, and her
eyes filled with tears again as she went on, "I must be Mabel after
all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and
have next to no toys to play with, and oh, ever so many lessons to
learn! No, I've made up my mind about it: if I'm Mabel, I'll stay down
here! It'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying, 'Come
up again, dear!' I shall only look up and say, 'Who am I, then? Tell
me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up: if
not, I'll stay down here till I am somebody else'--but, oh dear!"
cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, "I do wish they _would_ put
their heads down! I am so _very_ tired of being all alone here!"
As she said this she looked down at her hands, and 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.
"That _was_ a narrow escape!" said Alice, a good deal frightened at
the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence.
"And now for the garden!" And she ran with all speed back to the
little door; but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little
golden key was lying on the glass table as before, "and things are
worse than ever," thought the poor child, "for I never was so small as
this before, never! And I declare it's too bad, that it is!"
As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment,
splash! she was up to her chin in salt-water.
Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, "and in
that case I can go back by railway," she said to herself. (Alice had
been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general
conclusion that, wherever you go to on the English coast, you find a
number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in the
sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging-houses, and behind them
a railway station.) However, she soon made out that she was in the
pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high.
"I wish I hadn't cried so much!" said Alice, as she swam about, trying
to find her way out. "I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by
being drowned in my own tears! That _will_ be a queer thing, to be
sure! However, everything is queer to-day."
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!" (Alice thought this must be the
right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing
before, but she remembered having seen, in her brother's Latin
Grammar, "A mouse--of a mouse--to a mouse--a mouse--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 dare say
it's a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror." (For with
all her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long
ago anything had happened.)
So she began again: "Où 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 feelings. "I quite forgot
you didn't like cats."
"Not like cats!" cried the Mouse in a shrill, passionate voice. "Would
_you_ like cats if you were me?"
"Well, perhaps not," said Alice in a soothing tone: "don't be angry
about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah. I think you'd
take a fancy to cats, if you could only see her. She is such a dear
quiet thing," Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about
in the pool, "and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her
paws and washing her face--and she is such a nice soft thing to
nurse--and she's such a capital one for catching mice--oh, I beg your
pardon!" cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all
over, and she felt certain it must be really offended. "We won't talk
about her any more, if you'd rather not."
"We, indeed!" cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of
its tail. "As if _I_ would talk on such a subject! Our family always
_hated_ cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don't let me hear the name
again!"
"I won't indeed!" said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject
of conversation. "Are you--are you fond--of--of dogs?" The Mouse did
not answer, so Alice went on eagerly: "There is such a nice little
dog, near our house, I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed
terrier, you know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it'll
fetch things when you throw them, and it'll sit up and beg for its
dinner, and all sorts of things--I can't remember half of them--and it
belongs to a farmer, you know, and he says it's so useful, it's worth
a hundred pounds! He says it kills all the rats, and--oh dear!" cried
Alice in a sorrowful tone, "I'm afraid I've offended it again!" For
the Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and
making quite a commotion in the pool as it went.
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 then 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 was a Duck and a
Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious creatures.
Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore.
A CAUCUS-RACE AND A LONG TALE
By Lewis Carroll
They were, indeed, a queer-looking party that assembled on the
bank--the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur
clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and
uncomfortable.
The first question of course was, how to get dry again: they had a
consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed quite
natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with them, as if
she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument
with the Lory, who at last turned sulky, and would only say, "I'm
older than you, and must know better."
And this Alice would not allow, without knowing how old it was, and,
as the Lory positively refused to tell its age, there was no more to
be said.