ALICE IN WONDERLAND AND WHAT SHE DID THERE.
A certain little girl who had been poring over "Through the Looking-Glass
and What Alice Found There" with eager interest, when asked which of the
"Alices" she preferred, answered at once that she thought "Through the
Looking-Glass" was "stupider" than "Alice in Wonderland," and when people
laughed she was surprised, for she had enjoyed both books.
_Stupid_ was certainly not the word she meant to use, nor yet _silly_,
which might have suggested itself if she had stopped to think. _Nonsense_
is really what she meant, and only very poor nonsense can be stupid or
silly. Good nonsense is exceedingly clever; it takes clever people to
write it and only clever people can understand and appreciate it, so when
the real Alice hoped "there would be nonsense in it" she was only looking
for what she was sure to find: something odd, bright, and funny, with a
laugh tucked away in unexpected places.
Nonsense is very ancient and respectable, tracing its origin back to the
days of the Court Fool, whose office it was to make merry for the king and
courtiers. An undersized man was usually selected, one with some deformity
being preferred, whereat the courtiers might laugh; one with sharp tongue
and ready wit, to make the time fly. He was clothed in "motley"--that is,
his dress, cut in the fashion of the times, was of many ill-assorted hues,
while the fool's cap with its bells, and the bauble or rattle which he
held in his hand, completed his grotesque appearance.
To the Fool was allowed the freedom of the court and a close intimacy with
his royal master, to whom he could say what he pleased without fear of
offense; his duty was to amuse, and the sharper his wit the better. It was
called nonsense, though a sword could not thrust with keener malice, and
historic moments have often hung upon a fool's jest. The history of the
Court Fool is the history of mediaeval England, France, Spain, and Italy,
of a time when a quick figure of speech might turn the tide of war, and
the Fool could reel off his "nonsense" when others dared not speak. No one
was spared; the king himself was often the victim of the fool's tongue,
and under the guise of nonsense much wisdom lurked.
So it has been ever since; the Court Jester has passed away with other old
court customs, but the nonsense that was "writ in books" lived after
them, so good, so wholesome that we laugh at it with its old-time swing
and sting.
The nonsense that we find in books to-day is of a higher order than that
of the poor little Court Fool who, swaggering outwardly, trembled
inwardly, as he sent his barbed shaft of wit against some lordly breast.
The wisdom hides in the simple fun of everyday that makes life a thing of
sunshine and holds the shadows back.
Lewis Carroll had this gift of nonsense more than any other writer of his
time. Dickens and Thackeray possessed wit and humor of a high quality, but
they could not command so large an audience, for children turn to healthy
nonsense as sunflowers to the sun, and Lewis Carroll gave them all they
wanted. "Grown-ups," too, began to listen, detecting behind the fun much,
perhaps, which had escaped even the author himself, until he put on his
"grown-up" glasses and began to ponder.
Where the real charm lies in "Alice in Wonderland" would be very difficult
to say. If a thousand children were asked to pick out their favorite
parts, it is probable that not ten of them would think alike. A great many
would say "I like _any_ part," and really with such a fascinating book how
can one choose? The very opening is enough to cure any little girl of
drowsiness on a summer day, and the picture of the pompous little _White
Rabbit_ with his bulging waistcoat and his imposing watch chain, for all
the world like an everyday Englishman, is a type no doubt that the lively
little girls and the grave young "don" knew pretty well.
Every page gives one something to think about. To begin with, the fact
that _Alice_ is dreaming, is plain from the beginning, and that very odd
sensation of falling through space often comes during the first few
moments of sleep. A busy dreamer can accomplish a great deal in a very
short time, as we all know, and the most remarkable things happen in the
simplest way. There is a story, for instance, of one little girl, who,
after a nice warm bath, was carried to bed and tucked in up to her rosy
chin. Her heavy eyes shut immediately and lo! in half a minute she was
back in the big porcelain tub, splashing about like a little mermaid; then
nurse pulled the stopper out, and through the waste-pipe went water, small
girl, and all. When she opened her eyes with a start, she found she had
been dreaming _not quite two minutes_. So suppose the real Alice had been
dreaming a half an hour; it was quite long enough to skip through
"Wonderland," and to have delightful and curious things constantly
happening.
It was the _White Rabbit_ talking to himself that first attracted her, but
a short stay in "Wonderland" got her quite used to all sorts of animals
and their funny talk, and the way _she_ had of growing larger or smaller
on the shortest notice was very puzzling and amusing. How like real people
was this dream-child; how many everyday folks find themselves too small
for great places, and too great for the small ones, and how many
experiments they try to make themselves larger or smaller! You see Lewis
Carroll thought of all this, though he did not spoil his story by stopping
to explain. It is, indeed, poor nonsense that has to be explained every
step of the way.
The dream "Alice" just at first was apt to cry if anything unusual or
unpleasant happened; a bad habit with some children, the _real_ Alice was
given to understand. At any rate, when she drank out of the bottle that
tasted of "cherry tart, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, toffy, and hot
buttered toast," and found herself growing smaller and smaller, she cried,
because she was only ten inches high and could not possibly reach the
Golden Key on the glass table. Then she took herself to task very sharply,
saying: "Come, there's no use in crying like that! I advise you to leave
off this minute!"
"She generally gave herself very good advice (though she 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, when
there's hardly enough left of me to make _one_ respectable person.'"
Then when she found the little glass box with a cake in it marked "_Eat
Me_" in currants, she decided that if she ate it something different might
happen, for otherwise she would go out like a candle if she grew any
smaller. Of course, as soon as she swallowed the whole cake, she took a
start and soon stood nine feet high in her slippers.
"'Curiouser and curiouser!' cried Alice (she was so surprised that for the
moment she quite forgot to speak good English), 'now I'm opening out like
the largest telescope that ever was. Good-bye, 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.'"
Perhaps it was just here that the children's merriment broke forth; the
idea of _Alice_ being nine feet high was _too_ ridiculous, but the poor
dream "Alice" didn't think so, for 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 around her about four inches deep
and reaching half down the hall."
This change she found more puzzling still: everything seemed mixed up, the
Multiplication Table, Geography, even the verses which had been familiar
to her from babyhood. She tried to say "_How doth the little busy bee_,"
but the words would not come right; instead she began repeating, in a
hoarse, strange voice, the following noble lines:
"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!"
Naturally this produced a sensation, for where is the child who speaks
English who does not know that the busy bee "improves the shining hours!"
When the book was translated into French, however, this odd little rhyme
not being known to the French children, the translator, M. Henri Bue, had
to substitute something else which they could understand--one of their own
French rhymes made into a parody of La Fontaine's "Maitre Corbeau" (Master
Raven).
When _Alice_ began to shrink again, she went suddenly _splash_ into that
immense pool of tears she had shed when she was nine feet high. _Now_ she
was only two feet high and the water was up to her chin. It was so salty,
being tear-water, that she thought she had fallen into the sea, and in
this sly fashion Lewis Carroll managed to smuggle in a timely word about
the sad way some little girls have of shedding "oceans of tears" on the
most trifling occasion.
It was on this briny trip that she fell in with the numbers of queer
animals who had also taken refuge in the "Pool of Tears," from the _Mouse_
to the _Lory_, who had all fallen into the water and were eagerly swimming
toward the shore. They gained it at last and sat there, "the birds with
draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them, and
all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable," including _Alice_ herself,
whose long hair hung wet and straggling on her shoulders.
The _Lory_, of all the odd animals, was probably the oddest. _Alice_ found
herself talking familiarly with them all, and entering into quite a
lengthy argument with the _Lory_ in particular about how to get dry. But
the _Lory_ "turned sulky and would only say: 'I am 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
nothing more to be said."
Lewis Carroll himself made some interesting notes on the life history of
this remarkable animal, which were first produced in _The Rectory
Umbrella_ long before he thought of popping it into "Wonderland." "This
creature," he writes, "is, we believe, a species of parrot. Southey
informs us that it is a bird of gorgeous plumery [plumage], and it is our
private opinion that there never existed more than one, whose history, as
far as practicable, we will now lay before our readers."
"The time and place of the Lory's birth is uncertain; the egg from which
it was hatched was most probably, to judge from the color of the bird, one
of those magnificent Easter eggs which our readers have doubtless seen.
The experiment of hatching an Easter egg is at any rate worth trying."
After a lengthy and confusing description he winds up as follows:
"Having thus stated all we know and a great deal we don't know on this
interesting subject, we must conclude."
_Alice_ looked upon this domineering old bird of uncertain age quite as a
matter of course, as, indeed, she looked upon everything that happened in
Wonderland.
There is fun bubbling over in every situation. Sir John Tenniel has given
us a clever picture of the wet, woe-begone animals, all clustering around
the _Mouse_, who had undertaken to make them dry. "Ahem!" said the Mouse,
with an important air, "are you all ready? This is the driest thing I
know," and off he rambled into some dull corner of English history, most
probably taken out of _Alice's_ own lesson book, not unknown to Lewis
Carroll.
The Caucas race was suggested by the _Dodo_ as an excellent method for
getting dry, and as it was a race in which everyone came in ahead,
everyone of course was satisfied, and in the distribution of prizes no one
was forgotten. _Alice_ herself received her own thimble, which she fished
out of her pocket, and which the _Dodo_ solemnly handed back to her,
"saying: 'We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble,' and when it had
finished this short speech they all cheered."
Dinah, the real Alice's real cat, plays an important part in the drama of
Wonderland, although she was left at home dozing in the sun; _Alice_
mortally offended the _Mouse_, and frightened many of her bird friends
almost to death, simply by bringing her into the conversation.
It is certainly delightful to follow in the footsteps of this dream-child
of Lewis Carroll's; we lose ourselves in the mazes of Wonderland, and even
as we grow older we do not feel that we have to stoop in the least to pass
through the portals.
There was a certain air of sociability in Wonderland that pleased _Alice_
immensely, for her visiting-list was quite astonishing, and she was
continually meeting new--well, not exactly people, but experiences. Her
talk with a caterpillar during one of those periods when she was barely
tall enough to peep over the mushroom on which he was sitting is "highly
amusing and instructive."
"'Who are you?' said the Caterpillar.
"This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied
rather shyly: 'I--I hardly know, sir, just at present: at least I know who
I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several
times since then.'
"'What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly. 'Explain
yourself!'
"'I can't explain _myself_, I'm afraid, sir,' said Alice, 'because I'm not
myself, you see.'
"'I don't see,' said the Caterpillar.
"'I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,' Alice replied, very politely,
'for I can't understand it myself to begin with, and being so many
different sizes in a day is very confusing.'
"'It isn't,' said the Caterpillar.
"'Well, perhaps you haven't found it so yet,' said Alice, 'but when you
have to turn into a chrysalis--you will some day, you know--and then after
that into a butterfly, I should think you'll feel it a little queer, won't
you?'
"'Not a bit,' said the Caterpillar.
"'Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,' said Alice; 'all I know
is, it would feel very queer to _me_.'
"'You!' said the Caterpillar, contemptuously, 'Who are _you_?' Which
brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation."
It was the _Caterpillar_ who asked her to recite "You are old, Father
William," and _Alice_ began in this fashion:
"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think at your age it is right?"
"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."
"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back somersault in at the door--
Pray, what is the reason of that?"
"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his gray locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment--one shilling the box--
Allow me to sell you a couple."
"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"
"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw
Has lasted the rest of my life."
"You are old," said the youth; "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--
What made you so awfully clever?"
"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father; "don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!"
Now _Alice_ knew well enough that she had given an awful twist to a pretty
and old-fashioned piece of poetry, but for the life of her the old words
refused to come. It seemed that with her power to grow large or small on
short notice, her memory performed queer antics; she was never sure of it
for two minutes together.
One odd thing about her change of size was that she never grew up or
dwindled away unless she ate something or drank something. Now every
little girl has had similar experience when it came to eating and
drinking. "Eat so and so," says a "grown-up," "and you will be tall and
strong," and "if you _don't_ eat this thing or that, you will be little
all your life," so _Alice_ was only going through the same trials in
Wonderland.
Her meeting with the _Duchess_ and the peppery _Cook_, and the screaming
_Baby_, and the grinning _Cheshire Cat_, occupied some thrilling moments.
She found the _Duchess_ conversational but cross, and the _Cook_
sprinkling pepper lavishly into _the_ soup she was stirring, and _out_ of
it for the matter of that, so that everybody was sneezing. The _Cat_ was
the sole exception; it sat on the hearth and grinned from ear to ear.
_Alice_ opened the conversation by asking the _Duchess_, who was holding
the _Baby_ and jumping it up and down so roughly that it howled dismally,
why the _Cat_ grinned in that absurd way.
"'It's a Cheshire Cat,' said the Duchess, and that's why. 'Pig!' She said
the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite jumped; but she
saw in another moment that it was addressed to the Baby and not to her, so
she took courage and went on again:
"'I didn't know that Cheshire Cats always grinned--in fact I didn't know
that Cats _could_ grin.'
"'They all can,' said the Duchess, 'and most of 'em do.'
"'I don't know of any that do,' said Alice, very politely, feeling quite
pleased to have got into a conversation.
"'You don't know much,' said the Duchess; 'and that's a fact.'
"Alice did not like the tone of this remark and thought it would be well
to introduce some other subject of conversation."
Then the _Cook_ began throwing things about, and the _Duchess_, to quiet
the howling _Baby_, sang the following beautiful lullaby, which she
emphasized by a violent shake at the end of every line. Considering Lewis
Carroll's rather strong feeling on the boy question, they were most
appropriate lines, indeed.
Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he sneezes;
He only does it to annoy,
Because he know it teases.
_Chorus._
(In which the Cook and the Baby joined.)
Wow! wow! wow!
I speak severely to my boy,
I beat him when he sneezes,
For he can thoroughly enjoy
The pepper when he pleases!
_Chorus._
Wow! wow! wow!
Imagine the quiet "don" beating time to this beautiful measure, his blue
eyes gleaming with fun, his expressive voice shaded to just the right
tones to give color to the chorus, while the little girls chimed in at the
proper moment. It was no trouble for him to make rhymes, being endowed
with this wonderful gift of nonsense, and in conversation he was equally
clever. He gave the _Duchess_ quite the air of a learned lady, even though
she did not know that mustard was a vegetable. When _Alice_ suggested that
it was a mineral, she was quite ready to agree. "'There's a large mustard
mine near here,' she observed, 'and the moral of that is' [the Duchess had
a moral for everything], 'The more there is of mine--the less there is of
yours.' 'Oh, I know!' exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this last
remark, 'it's a vegetable. It doesn't look like one but it is.'
"'I quite agree with you,' said the Duchess, 'and the moral of that is,
"Be what you would seem to be," or if you'd like to put it more simply,
"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to
others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what
you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."'
"'I think I should understand that better,' said Alice, very politely, 'if
I had it written down, but I can't quite follow it as you say it.'
"'That's nothing to what I could say if I chose,'" the Duchess replied in
a pleasant tone.
_Alice's_ talk with the _Cheshire Cat_, which had the remarkable power of
appearing and vanishing in portions, the table gossip at the Mad Tea
Party, to which she was an uninvited guest, are too well-known to quote.
Many a time the Mad Tea Party has been the theme of some nursery play or
school entertainment. The _Mad Hatter_ and the _March Hare_ were certainly
the maddest things that ever were. When the _Hatter_ complained of his
watch being two days wrong, he turned angrily to the _March Hare_, saying:
"'I told you butter wouldn't suit the works.'
"'It was the _best_ butter,' the March Hare meekly replied.
"'Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,' the Hatter grumbled;
'you shouldn't have put it in with the bread knife.'
"The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily; then he dipped
it into his cup of tea and looked at it again; but he could think of
nothing better to say than his first remark, 'It was the _best_ butter you
know.'"
Surely nothing could be more amusing that this party of mad ones, and the
sleepy _Dormouse_, who sat between the _March Hare_ and the _Hatter_,
contributed his share to the fun, while the _Hatter's_ songs, which he
sang at the concert given by the _Queen of Hearts_, was certainly very
familiar to _Alice_. It began:
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat--
How I wonder what you're at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle.
Who but Lewis Carroll could invent such a scene? Who could better plan the
little sparkling sentences which gave the nonsense just the glitter which
children found so fascinating and so laughable. Yet what did they laugh at
after all? What do we laugh at even to-day in glancing over the familiar
pages? What is it in the mysterious depths of childhood which Lewis
Carroll has caught in his golden web? Perhaps, it is not all mere
childhood; we are ourselves but "children of a larger growth," and deep
down within us at some time or other fancy runs riot and imagination does
the rest. So it was with Lewis Carroll, only _his_ fancy soared into
genius, carrying with it, as someone has said, "a suggestion of clear and
yet soft laughing sunshine. He never made us laugh _at_ anything, but
always _with_ him and his knights and queens and heroes of the nursery
rhymes."
Behind much of the world's laughter tears may be hiding, but not so in the
case of Lewis Carroll; all is pure mirth that flows from him to us, and
above all he possesses that indescribable thing called charm. It lurks in
the quaint conversations, in the fluent measure of the songs, in the
fantastic scenes so full of ideas that seem to vanish before we quite
grasp them--like the _Cheshire Cat_--leaving only the smile behind.
To those of us--the world in short--who were denied the privilege of
hearing Lewis Carroll tell his own story, the Tenniel pictures bring
Wonderland very close. Our natural history alone would not help us in the
least when it came to classifying the many strange animals _Alice_ met on
her journey. The _Mock Turtle_, the _Gryphon_, the _Lory_, the _Dodo_, the
_Cheshire Cat_, the _Fish_ and _Frog_ footmen--how could we imagine them
without the Tenniel "guidebook"? The numberless transformations of _Alice_
could hardly be understood without photographs of her in the various
stages. And certainly at the croquet party, given by the _Queen of
Hearts_, how could anyone imagine a game played with bent-over soldiers
for wickets, hedgehogs for croquet balls, and flamingoes for mallets,
unless there were accompanying illustrations?
One specially interesting picture shows the _Gryphon_ in the foreground;
he and _Alice_ paid a visit to the _Mock Turtle_, who, by way of
entertaining his guests, gave the following description of the Lobster
Quadrille. With tears running down his cheeks he began:
"'You have never lived much under the sea' ('I haven't,' said Alice) 'and
perhaps you were never introduced to a lobster--' (Alice began to say 'I
once tasted--' but she checked herself hastily, and said, 'No, never'),
'so you can have no idea what a delightful thing a Lobster Quadrille is!'
"'No, indeed,' said Alice. 'What sort of a dance is it?'
"'Why,' said the Gryphon, 'you first form into a line along the seashore.'
"'Two lines!' cried the Mock Turtle. 'Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on;
then when you've cleared all the jellyfish out of the way--'
"'_That_ generally takes some time,' interrupted the Gryphon.
"'You advance twice.'
"'Each with a lobster as a partner!' cried the Gryphon.
"'Of course,' the Mock Turtle said; 'advance twice, set to partners--'
"'Change lobsters and retire in same order,' continued the Gryphon.
"'Then, you know,' the Mock Turtle went on, 'you throw the--'
"'The lobsters!' shouted the Gryphon with a bound into the air.
"'As far out to sea as you can--'
"'Swim after them!' screamed the Gryphon.
"'Turn a somersault in the sea!' cried the Mock Turtle, capering wildly
about.
"'Change lobsters again!' yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice.
"'Back to land again, and--that's all the first figure,' said the Mock
Turtle, suddenly dropping his voice, and the two creatures who had been
jumping about like mad things all this time sat down again, very sadly and
quietly, and looked at Alice."
Who could read this without laughing, with no reason for the laugh but
sheer delight and sympathy with the story-teller, and with dancing and
motion and all the rest of it. If anyone begins to hunt for the reasons
why we like "Alice in Wonderland" that person is either very, very sleepy,
or she has left her youth so far behind her that, like the _Lory_, she
absolutely refuses to tell her age, in which case she must be as old as
the hills.
Then the dance, which the two gravely performed for the little girl, and
who can forget the song of the _Mock Turtle_?
"Will you walk a little faster!" said a whiting to a snail,
"There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle--will you come and join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?
"You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!"
But the snail replied, "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance--
Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.
"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied,
"There is another shore, you know, upon the other side,
The farther off from England the nearer is to France;
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?"
Then _Alice_ tried to repeat "'Tis the voice of the Sluggard," but she was
so full of the Lobster Quadrille that the words came like this:
'Tis the voice of the lobster, I heard him declare,
"You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair."
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.
The whole time she was in Wonderland she never by any chance recited
anything correctly, and through all of her wanderings she never met
anything in the shape of a little boy, except the infant son of the
_Duchess_, who after all turned out to be a pig and vanished in the woods.
The "roundabouts" played no parts in "Alice in Wonderland," and yet--to a
man--they love it to this day.
When at last _Alice_ bade farewell to the _Mock Turtle_, she left it
sobbing of course, and singing with much emotion the following song,
entitled:
TURTLE SOUP.
Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!
Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,
Game, or any other dish
Who would not give all else for two
pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
Beautiful, beauti--FUL SOUP!
We might spend a whole chapter over the great trial scene of the _Knave of
Hearts_. We all know that the wretched fellow stole some tarts upon a
summer's day, and that he was brought in chains before the _King_ and
_Queen_, to face the charges. What we did not know was that it was the
fourth of July, and that _Alice_ was one of the witnesses.
This, in a certain way, is the cleverest chapter in the book, for all the
characters in Wonderland take part in the proceedings, which are so like,
and yet so comically unlike, a real court. We forget, as _Alice_ did, that
all these royalties are but a pack of cards, and follow all the evidence
with the greatest interest, including the piece of paper which the _White
Rabbit_ had just found and presented to the Court. It contained the
following verses:
They told me you had been to her,
And mentioned me to him:
She gave me a good character,
But said I could not swim.
He sent them word I had not gone
(We know it to be true):
If she should push the matter on,
What would become of you?
I gave her one, they gave him two,
You gave us three or more:
They all returned from him to you,
Though they were mine before.
If I or she should chance to be
Involved in this affair,
He trusts to you to set them free,
Exactly as we were.
My notion was that you had been
(Before she had this fit)
An obstacle that came between
Him, and ourselves, and it.
Don't let him know she liked them best,
For this must ever be
A secret, kept from all the rest,
Between yourself and me.
This truly clear explanation touches the _Queen of Hearts_ so closely that
the outsider is led to believe that she is indirectly responsible for the
theft, that the poor knave is but the tool of her Majesty, whose fondness
for tarts led her into temptation. Lewis Carroll had a keen eye for the
dramatic climax--the packed court room, the rambling evidence, the
mystifying scrap of paper, and _Alice's_ defiance of the _King_ and
_Queen_.
"'Off with her head!' the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody
moved. 'Who cares for you?' said Alice (she had grown to her full size by
this time), 'you're nothing but a pack of cards.'
"At this, the whole pack rose up in the air and came flying down upon her;
she gave a little scream, half of fright, half of anger, and tried to beat
them off and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of
her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had
fluttered down from the trees on to her face...."
And so Alice woke up, shook back the elf-locks, and laughed as she rubbed
her eyes.
"Such a curious dream!" she said, as the wonder of it all came back to
her, and she told her sister of the queer things she had seen and heard,
and long after she had run away, this big sister sat with closed eyes,
dreaming and wondering.
"The long grass rustled at her feet as the White Rabbit hurried by; the
frightened Mouse splashed his way through the neighboring pool; she could
hear the rattle of the teacups as the March Hare and his friends shared
their never-ending meal, and the shrill voice of the Queen ordering off
her unfortunate guests to execution. Once more the pig-baby was sneezing
on the Duchess's knee, while plates and dishes crashed around it; once
more the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the Lizard's slate
pencil, and the choking of the suppressed Guinea Pigs filled the air,
mixed up with the distant sob of the miserable Mock Turtle."
Yet when she opened her eyes she knew that Wonderland must go. In reality
"the grass would only be rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to
the waving of the reeds, the rattling teacups would change to tinkling
sheep bells and the Queen's shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd boy,
and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other
queer noises would change ... to the confused clamor of the busy farmyard,
while the lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of
the Mock Turtle's heavy sobs."
So _we_ have dreamed of Wonderland from that time till now, when Lewis
Carroll looks out from the pages of his book and says:
"That's all--for to-night--there may be more to-morrow."