Red
. . . . . . N .
. . . . . . . .
. . K . . . . .
. . . . . N . .
. . . . K . . .
. . . . . . . .
. . . P Q . . .
. . Q . . R . .
|
White
White Pawn (Alice) to play, and win in eleven moves.
| 1. |
Alice meets R.Q. |
1. |
R.Q. to K.R's 4th |
| 2. |
Alice through Q's 3d (by railway) to Q's 4th (Tweedledum and Tweedledee) |
2. |
W.Q. to Q.B's 4th (after shawl) |
| 3. |
Alice meets W.Q. (with shawl) |
3. |
W.Q. to Q. B's 5th (becomes sheep) |
| 4. |
Alice to Q's 5th (shop, river, shop) |
4. |
W.Q. to K. B's 8th (leaves egg on shelf) |
| 5. |
Alice to Q's 6th (Humpty Dumpty) |
5. |
W.Q. to Q.B's 8th (flying from R. Kt.) |
| 6. |
Alice to Q's 7th (forest) |
6. |
R. Kt. to K's 2nd (ch.) |
| 7. |
W. Kt. takes R. Kt. |
7. |
W. Kt. to K. B's 5th |
| 8. |
Alice to Q's 8th (coronation) |
8. |
R. Q. to K's sq. (examination) |
| 9. |
Alice becomes Queen |
9. |
Queens castle |
| 10. |
Alice castles (feast) |
10. |
W.Q. to Q. R's 6th (soup) |
| 11. |
Alice takes R. Q. and wins |
PREFACE
As the chess-problem, given on the previous page, has puzzled some
of my readers, it may be well to explain that it is correctly worked
out, so far as the moves are concerned. The alternation of
Red and White is perhaps not so strictly observed as it might be, and
the castling
of the three Queens is merely a way of saying that
they entered the palace; but the check
of the White King at move
6, the capture of the Red Knight at move 7, and the final checkmate
of the Red King, will be found, by any one who will take the trouble to
set the pieces and play the moves as directed, to be strictly in
accordance with the laws of the game.
The new words, in the poem Jabberwocky
, have
given rise to some difference of opinion as to their pronunciation: so
it may be well to give instructions on that point also. Pronounce slithy
as if it were the two words sly, the
: make the g
hard
in gyre
and gimble
: and pronounce rath
to rhyme
with bath
.
CHAPTER ONE
LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE
ONE thing was certain, that the white
kitten had had nothing to do with it--it was the black kitten's fault
entirely. For the white kitten had been having its face washed by the
old cat for the last quarter of an hour (and bearing it pretty well,
considering): so you see that it couldn't have had any hand in
the mischief.
The way Dinah washed her children's faces was this: first she held
the poor thing down by its ear with one paw, and then with the other paw
she rubbed its face all over, the wrong way, beginning at the nose: and
just now, as I said, she was hard at work on the white kitten, which as
lying quite still and trying to purr--no doubt feeling that it was all
meant for its good.
But the black kitten had been finished with earlier in the
afternoon, and so, while Alice was sitting curled up in a corner of the
great armchair, half talking to herself and half asleep, the kitten had
been having a grand game of romps with the ball of worsted Alice had
been trying to wind up, and had been rolling it up and down till it had
all come undone again; and there it was, spread over the hearth-rug, all
knots and tangles, with the kitten running after its own tail in the
middle.
`Oh, you wicked, wicked little thing!' cried Alice, catching up the
kitten, and giving it a little kiss to make it understand that it was in
disgrace. `Really, Dinah ought to have taught you better manners! You ought,
Dinah, you know you ought!' she added, looking reproachfully at the old
cat, and speaking in as cross a voice as she could manage--and then she
scrambled back into the arm-chair, taking the kitten and the worsted
with her, and began winding up the ball again. But she didn't get on
very fast, as she was talking all the time, sometimes to the kitten, and
sometimes to herself. Kitty sat very demurely on her knee, pretending to
watch the progress of the winding, and now and then putting out one paw
and gently touching the ball, as if it would be glad to help if it
might.
`Do you know what to-morrow is, Kitty?' Alice began. `You'd have
guessed if you'd been up in the window with me--only Dinah was making
you tidy, so you couldn't. I was watching the boys getting in sticks for
the bonfire--and it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! Only it got so cold,
and it snowed so, they had to leave off. Never mind, we'll go and see
the bonfire to-morrow.' Here Alice wound two or three turns of the
worsted round the kitten's neck, just to see how it would look: this led
to a scramble, in which the ball rolled down upon the floor, and yards
and yards of it got unwound again.
`Do you know, I was so angry, Kitty,' Alice went on, as soon as they
were comfortably settled again, `when I saw all the mischief you had
been doing, I was very nearly opening the window, and putting you out
into the snow! And you'd have deserved it, you little mischievous
darling! What have you got to say for yourself? Now don't interrupt
me!' she went on, holding up one finger. `I'm going to tell you all
your faults. Number one: you squeaked twice while Dinah was washing
your face this morning. Now you ca'n't deny it, Kitty: I heard you!
What's that you say?' (pretending that the kitten was speaking). `Her
paw went into your eye? Well, that's your fault, for keeping
your eyes open--if you'd shut them tight up, it wouldn't have happened.
Now don't make any more excuses, but listen! Number two: you pulled
Snowdrop away by the tail just as I had put down the saucer of milk
before her! What, you were thirsty, were you? How do you know she
wasn't thirsty too? Now for number three: you unwound every bit of the
worsted while I wasn't looking!
`That's three faults, Kitty, and you've not been punished for any of
them yet. You know I'm saving up all your punishments for Wednesday
week--Suppose they had saved up all my punishments?' she went on,
talking more to herself than the kitten. `What would they do at
the end of a year? I should be sent to prison, I suppose, when the day
came. Or--let me see--suppose each punishment was to be going without a
dinner: then, when the miserable day came, I should have to go without
fifty dinners at once! Well, I shouldn't mind that much! I'd far
rather go without them than eat them!
`Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty? How nice and
soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over
outside. I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it
kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with
a white quilt; and perhaps it says `Go to sleep, darlings, till the
summer comes again.' And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they
dress themselves all in green, and dance about--whenever the wind
blows--oh, that's very pretty!' cried Alice, dropping the ball of
worsted to clap her hands. `And I do so wish it was true! I'm
sure the woods look sleepy in the autumn, when the leaves are getting
brown.
`Kitty, can you play chess? Now, don't smile, my dear, I'm asking
it seriously. Because, when we were playing just now, you watched just
as if you understood it: and when I said "Check!" you purred! Well, it was
a nice check, Kitty, and really I might have won, if it hadn't been for
that nasty Knight, that came wriggling down among my pieces. Kitty,
dear, let's pretend--' And here I wish I could tell you half the things
Alice used to say, beginning with her favourite phrase `Let's pretend'.
She had had quite a long argument with her sister only the day
before--all because Alice had begun with `Let's pretend we're kings and
queens'; and her sister, who liked being very exact, had argued that
they couldn't, because there were only two of them, and Alice had been
reduced at last to say `Well, you can be one of them, then, and I'll
be all the rest.' And once she had really frightened her old nurse by
shouting suddenly in her ear, `Nurse! Do let's pretend that I'm a hungry
hyaena, and you're a bone!'
But this is taking us away from Alice's speech to the kitten. `Let's
pretend that you're the Red Queen, Kitty! Do you know, I think if you
sat up and folded your arms, you'd look exactly like her. Now do try,
there's a dear!' And Alice got the Red Queen off the table, and set it
up before the kitten as a model for it to imitate: however, the thing
didn't succeed, principally, Alice said, because the kitten wouldn't
fold its arms properly. So, to punish it, she held it up to the
Looking-glass, that it might see how sulky it was, `--and if you're not
good directly,' she added, `I'll put you through in to Looking-glass
House. How would you like that?
`Now, if you'll only attend, Kitty, and not talk so much, I'll tell
you all my ideas about Looking-glass House. First, there's the room you
can see through the glass--that's just the same as our drawing-room,
only the things go the other way. I can see all of it when I get upon a
chair--all but the bit just behind the fireplace. Oh! I do so wish I
could see that bit! I want so much to know whether they've a fire
in the winter: you never can tell, you know, unless our fire
smokes, and then smoke comes up in that room too--but that may be only
pretence, just to make it look as if they had a fire. Well then, the
books are something like our books, only the words go the wrong way: I
know that, because I've held up one of our books to the glass,
and then they hold up one in the other room.
`How would you like to live in Looking-glass House, Kitty? I wonder
if they'd give you milk in there? Perhaps Looking-glass milk isn't good
to drink--but oh, Kitty, now we come to the passage. You can just see a
little peep of the passage in Looking-glass House, if you leave
the door of our drawing-room wide open and it's very like our passage as
far as you can see, only you know it may be quite different on beyond.
Oh, Kitty, how nice it would be if we could only get through into
Looking-glass House! I'm sure it's got, oh! such beautiful things in it!
Let's pretend there's a way of getting through into it, somehow, Kitty.
Let's pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we can get
through. Why, it's turning into a sort of mist now, I declare! It'll be
easy enough to get through--' She was up on the chimney-piece while she
said this, though she hardly knew how she had got there. And certainly
the glass was beginning to melt away, just like a bright silvery
mist.
In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had jumped
lightly down into the Looking-glass room. The very first thing she did
was to look whether there was a fire in the fireplace, and she was quite
pleased to find that there was a real one, blazing away as brightly as
the one she had left behind. `So I shall be as warm here as I was in the
old room,' thought Alice: `warmer, in fact, because there'll be no one
here to scold me away from the fire. Oh, what fun it'll be, when they
see me through the glass in here, and ca'n't get at me!'
Then she began looking about, and noticed that what could be seen
from the old room was quite common and uninteresting, but that all the
rest was as different as possible. For instance, the pictures on the
wall next the fire seemed to be all alive, and the very clock on the
chimney-piece (you know you can only see the back of it in the
Looking-glass) had got the face of a little old man, and grinned at
her.
`They don't keep this room so tidy as the other,' Alice thought to
herself, as she noticed several of the chessmen down in the hearth among
the cinders; but in another moment, with a little `Oh!' of surprise, she
was down on her hands and knees watching them. The chessmen were walking
about, two and two!
`Here are the Red King and the Red Queen,' Alice said (in a whisper,
for fear of frightening them), `and there are the White King and the
White Queen sitting on the edge of the shovel--and here are two Castles
walking arm in arm--I don't think they can hear me,' she went on, as she
put her head closer down, `and I'm nearly sure they ca'n't see me, I
feel somehow as if was getting invisible--'
Here something began squeaking on the table behind Alice, and made
her turn her head just in time to see one of the White Pawns roll over
and begin kicking: she watched it with great curiosity to see what would
happen next.
`It is the voice of my child!' the White Queen cried out, as she
rushed past the King, so violently that she knocked him over among the
cinders. `My precious Lily! My imperial kitten!' and she began
scrambling wildly up the side of the fender.
`Imperial fiddlestick!' said the King, rubbing his nose, which had
been hurt by the fall. He had a right to be a little annoyed with
the Queen, for he was covered with ashes from head to foot.
Alice was very anxious to be of use, and, as the poor little Lily
was nearly screaming herself into a fit, she hastily picked up the Queen
and set her on the table by the side of her noisy little daughter.
The Queen gasped, and sat down: the rapid journey through the air
had quite taken away her breath, and for a minute or two she could do
nothing but hug the little Lily in silence. As soon as she had
recovered her breath a little, she called out to the White King, who
was sitting sulkily among the ashes, `Mind the volcano!'
`What volcano?' said the King, looking up anxiously into the fire,
as if he thought that was the most likely place to find one.
`Blew--me--up,' panted the Queen, who was still a little out of
breath. `Mind you come up--the regular way--don't get blown up!'
Alice watched the White King as he slowly struggled up from bar to
bar, till at last she said `Why, you'll be hours and hours getting to
the table, at that rate. I'd far better help you, hadn't I?' But the
King took no notice of the question: it was quite clear that he could
neither hear her nor see her.
So Alice picked him up very gently, and lifted him across more
slowly than she had lifted the Queen, that she mightn't take his breath
away; but, before she put him on the table, she thought she might as
well dust him a little, he was so covered with ashes.
She said afterwards that she had never seen in all her life such a
face as the King made, when he found himself held in the air by an
invisible hand, and being dusted: he was far too much astonished to cry
out, but his eyes and his mouth went on getting larger and larger, and
rounder and rounder, till her hand shook so with laughing that she
nearly let him drop upon the floor.
`Oh! please don't make such faces, my dear!' she cried out,
quite forgetting that the King couldn't hear her. `You make me laugh so
that I can hardly hold you! And don't keep your mouth so wide open! All
the ashes will get into it--there, now I think you're tidy enough!' she
added, as she smoothed his hair, and set him upon the table near the
Queen.
The King immediately fell flat on his back, and lay perfectly still;
and Alice was a little alarmed at what she had done, and went round the
room to see if she could find any water to throw over him. However, she
could find nothing but a bottle of ink, and when she got back with it
she found he had recovered, and he and the Queen were talking together
in a frightened whisper--so low, that Alice could hardly hear what they
said.
The King was saying `I assure you, my dear, I turned cold to the
very ends of my whiskers!'
To which the Queen replied `You haven't got any whiskers.'
`The horror of that moment,' the King went on, `I shall never, never
forget!'
`You will, though,' the Queen said, `if you don't make a memorandum
of it.'
Alice looked on with great interest as the King took an enormous
memorandum book out of his pocket, and began writing. A sudden thought
struck her, and she took hold of the end of the pencil, which came some
way over his shoulder, and began writing for him.
The poor King looked puzzled and unhappy, and struggled with the
pencil for some time without saying anything; but Alice was too strong
for him, and at last he panted out `My dear! I really must get a
thinner pencil. I ca'n't manage this one a bit: it writes all manner of
things that I don't intend--'
`What manner of things?' said the Queen, looking over the book (in
which Alice had put "The White Knight is sliding down the poker. He
balances very badly"). `That's not a memorandum of your
feelings!'
There was a book lying near Alice on the table, and while she sat
watching the White King (for she was still a little anxious about him,
and had the ink all ready to throw over him, in case he fainted again),
she turned over the leaves, to find some part that she could read,
`--for it's all in some language I don't know,' she said to
herself.
It was like this.
YKCOWREBBAJ
sevot yhtils eht dna ,gillirb sawT'
:ebaw eht ni elbmig dna eryg diD
sevogorob eht erew ysmim llA
.ebargtuo shtar emom eht dnA
She puzzled over this for some time, but at last a bright thought
struck her. `Why, it's a Looking-glass book, of course! And, if I hold
it up to a glass, the words will all go the right way again.'
This was the poem that Alice read
JABBERWOCKY
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
`Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Fubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!'
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
`And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
`It seems very pretty,' she said when she had finished it, `but it's rather
hard to understand!' (You see she didn't like to confess, even to
herself, that she couldn't make it out at all.) `Somehow it seems to
fill my head with ideas--only I don't exactly know what they are!
However, somebody killed something: that's clear, at any
rate--'
`But oh!' thought Alice, suddenly jumping up, `if I don't make
haste, I shall have to go back through the Looking-glass, before I've
seen what the rest of the house is like! Let's have a look at the garden
first!' She was out of the room in a moment, and ran down stairs--or, at
least, it wasn't exactly running, but a new invention for getting down
stairs quickly and easily, as Alice said to herself. She just kept the
tips of her fingers on the handrail, and floated gently down without
even touching the stairs with her feet: then she floated on through the
hall, and would have gone straight out at the door in the same way, if
she hadn't caught hold of the door-post She was getting a little giddy
with so much floating in the air, and was rather glad to find herself
walking again in the natural way.
CHAPTER TWO
THE GARDEN OF LIVE FLOWERS
`I SHOULD see the garden far better,' said
Alice to herself, `if I could get to the top of that hill; and here's a
path that leads straight to it--at least, no, it doesn't do that--'
(after going a few yards along the path, and turning several sharp
corners), `but I suppose it will at last. But how curiously it twists!
It's more like a corkscrew than a path! Well this turn goes to
the hill, I suppose--no, it doesn't! This goes straight back to the
house! Well then, I'll try it the other way.'
And so she did: wandering up and down, and trying turn after turn,
but always coming back to the house, do what she would. Indeed, once,
when she turned a corner rather more quickly than usual, she ran against
it before she could stop herself.
`It's no use talking about it,' Alice said, looking up at the house
and pretending it was arguing with her. `I'm not going in again
yet. I know I should have to get through the Looking-glass again--back
into the old room--and there'd be an end of all my adventures!'
So, resolutely turning her back upon the house, she set out once
more down the path, determined to keep straight on till she got to the
hill. For a few minutes all went on well, and she was just saying `I
really shall do it this time--' when the path gave a sudden twist
and shook itself (as she described it afterwards), and the next moment
she found herself actually walking in at the door.
`Oh, it's too bad!' she cried. `I never saw such a house for getting
in the way! Never!'
However, there was the hill full in sight, so there was nothing to
be done but start again. This time she came upon a large flower-bed,
with a border of daisies, and a willow-tree growing in the middle.
`O Tiger-lily!' said Alice, addressing herself to one that was
waving gracefully about in the wind, `I wish you could
talk!'
`We can talk!' said the Tiger-lily, `when there's anybody
worth talking to.'
Alice was so astonished that she couldn't speak for a minute: it
quite seemed to take her breath away. At length, as the Tiger-lily only
went on waving about, she spoke again, in a timid voice--almost in a
whisper. `And can all the flowers talk?'
`As well as you can,' said the Tiger-lily. `And a great deal
louder.'
`It isn't manners for us to begin, you know,' said the Rose, `and I
really was wondering when you'd speak! Said I to myself, "Her face has
got some sense in it, though it's not a clever one!" Still,
you're the right colour, and that goes a long way.'
`I don't care about the colour,' the Tiger-lily remarked. `If only
her petals curled up a little more, she'd be all right.'
Alice didn't like being criticised, so she began asking questions.
`Aren't you sometimes frightened at being planted out here, with nobody
to take care of you?'
`There's the tree in the middle,' said the Rose. `What else is it
good for?'
`But what could it do, if any danger came?' Alice asked.
`It could bark,' said the Rose.
`It says "Boughwough!"' cried a Daisy. `That's why its branches are
called boughs!'
`Didn't you know that?' cried another Daisy. And here they
all began shouting together, till the air seemed quite full of little
shrill voices. `Silence, every one of you!' cried the Tiger-lily, waving
itself passionately from side to side, and trembling with excitement.
`They know I ca'n't get at them!` it panted, bending its quivering head
towards Alice, `or they wouldn't dare to do it!'
`Never mind!' Alice said in a soothing tone, and, stooping down to
the daisies, who were just beginning again, she whispered `If you don't
hold your tongues, I'll pick you!'
There was silence in a moment, and several of the pink daisies
turned white.
`That's right!' said the Tiger-lily. `The daisies are worst of all.
When one speaks, they all begin together, and it's enough to make one
wither to hear the way they go on!'
`How is it you can all talk so nicely?' Alice said, hoping to get it
into a better temper by a compliment. `I've been in many gardens before,
but none of the flowers could talk.'
`Put your hand down, and feel the ground,' said the Tiger-lily.
`Then you'll know why.'
Alice did so. `It's very hard,' she said; `but I don't see what that
has to do with it.'
`In most gardens,' the Tiger-lily said, `they make the beds too
soft--so that the flowers are always asleep.'
This sounded a very good reason, and Alice was quite pleased to know
it. `I never thought of that before!' she said.
`It's my opinion that you never think at all,' the
Rose said, in a rather severe tone.
`I never saw anybody that looked stupider,' a Violet said, so
suddenly, that Alice quite jumped; for it hadn't spoken before.
`Hold your tongue!' cried the Tiger-lily. `As if you
ever saw anybody! You keep your head under the leaves, and snore away
there, till you know no more what's going on in the world, than if you
were a bud!'
`Are there any more people in the garden besides me?' Alice said,
not choosing to notice the Rose's last remark.
`There's one other flower in the garden that can move about like
you,' said the Rose. `I wonder how you do it--' (`You're always
wondering,' said the Tiger-lily), `but she's more bushy than you
are.'
`Is she like me?' Alice asked eagerly, for the thought crossed her
mind, `There's another little girl in the garden, somewhere!'
`Well, she has the same awkward shape as you,' the Rose said; `but
she's redder--and her petals are shorter, I think.'
`They're done up close, like a dahlia,' said the Tiger-lily: `not
tumbled about, like yours.'
`But that's not your fault,' the Rose added kindly. `You're
beginning to fade, you know--and then one ca'n't help one's petals
getting a little untidy.'
Alice didn't like this idea at all: so, to change the subject, she
asked `Does she ever come out here?'
`I daresay you'll see her soon,' said the Rose. `She's one of the
kind that has nine spikes, you know.'
`Where does she wear them?' Alice asked with some curiosity.
`Why, all round her head, of course,' the Rose replied. `I was
wondering you hadn't got some too. I thought it was the regular
rule.'
`She's coming!' cried the Larkspur. `I hear her footstep, thump,
thump, along the gravel-walk!'
Alice looked round eagerly and found that it was the Red Queen.
`She's grown a good deal!' was her first remark. She had indeed: when
Alice first found her in the ashes, she had been only three inches
high--and here she was, half a head taller than Alice herself!
`It's the fresh air that does it,' said the Rose: `wonderfully fine
air it is, out here.'
`I think I'll go and meet her,' said Alice, for, though the flowers
were interesting enough, she felt that it would be far grander to have a
talk with a real Queen.
`You ca'n't possibly do that,' said the Rose: `I should advise
you to walk the other way.'
This sounded nonsense to Alice, so she said nothing, but set off at
once towards the Red Queen. To her surprise she lost sight of her in a
moment, and found herself walking in at the front-door again.
A little provoked, she drew back, and, after looking everywhere for
the Queen (whom she spied out at last, a long way off), she thought she
would try the plan, this time, of walking in the opposite
direction.
It succeeded beautifully. She had not been walking a minute before
she found herself face to face with the Red Queen, and full in sight of
the hill she had been so long aiming at.
`Where do you come from?' said the Red Queen. `And where are you
going? Look up, speak nicely, and don't twiddle your fingers all the
time.'
Alice attended to all these directions, and explained, as well as
she could, that she had lost her way.
`I don't know what you mean by your way,' said the Queen:
`all the ways about here belong to me--but why did you come out
here at all?' she added in a kinder tone. `Curtsey while you're thinking
what to say. It saves time.'
Alice wondered a little at this, but she was too much in awe of the
Queen to disbelieve it. `I'll try it when I go home,' she thought to
herself, `the next time I'm a little late for dinner.'
`It's time for you to answer now,' the Queen said looking at her
watch: `open your mouth a little wider when you speak, and always
say "your Majesty".'
`I only wanted to see what the garden was like, your
Majesty--'
`That's right,' said the Queen, patting her on the head, which Alice
didn't like at all: `though, when you say "garden"--I've seen
gardens, compared with which this would be a wilderness.'
Alice didn't dare to argue the point, but went on: `--and I thought
I'd try and find my way to the top of that hill--'
`When you say "hill",' the Queen interrupted, `I could show you
hills, in comparison with which you'd call that a valley.'
`No, I shouldn't,' said Alice, surprised into contradicting her at
last: `a hill ca'n't be a valley, you know. That would be
nonsense--'
The Red Queen shook her head. `You may call it "nonsense" if you
like,' she said, `but I've heard nonsense, compared with which
that would be as sensible as a dictionary!'
Alice curtseyed again, as she was afraid from the Queen's tone that
she was a little offended: and they walked on in silence till
they got to the top of the little hill.
For some minutes Alice stood without speaking, looking out in all
directions over the country--and a most curious country it was. There
were a number of tiny little brooks running straight across it from side
to side, and the ground between was divided up into squares by a number
of little green hedges, that reached from brook to brook.
`I declare it's marked out just like a large chess-board!' Alice
said at last' `There ought to be some men moving about somewhere--and so
there are!. she added in a tone of delight, and her heart began to beat
quick with excitement as she went on. `It's a great huge game of chess
that's being played--all over the world--if this is the world at
all, you know. Oh, what fun it is! How I wish I was one of them!
I wouldn't mind being a Pawn, if only I might join--though of course I
should like to be a Queen, best.'
She glanced rather shyly at the real Queen as she said this, but her
companion only smiled pleasantly, and said `That's easily managed. You
can be the White Queen's Pawn, if you like, as Lily's too young to play:
and you're in the Second Square to begin with: when you get to the
Eighth Square you'll be a Queen--' Just at this moment, somehow or
other, they began to run.
Alice never could quite make out, in thinking it over afterwards,
how it was that they began: all she remembers is, that they were running
hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do to
keep up with her: and still the Queen kept crying `Faster! Faster!' but
Alice felt she could not go faster, though she had no breath left
to say so.
The most curious part of the thing was, that the trees and the other
things round them never changed their places at all: however fast they
went, they never seemed to pass anything. `I wonder if all the things
move along with us?' thought poor puzzled Alice. And the Queen seemed to
guess her thoughts, for she cried `Faster! Don't try to talk!'
Not that Alice had any idea of doing that. She felt as if
she would never be able to talk again, she was getting so much out of
breath: and still the Queen cried `Faster! Faster!' and dragged her
along. `Are we nearly there?' Alice managed to pant out at last.
`Nearly there!' the Queen repeated. `Why, we passed it ten minutes
ago! Faster!' And they ran on for a time in silence, with the wind
whistling in Alice's ears, and almost blowing her hair off her head, she
fancied.
`Now! Now!' cried the Queen. `Faster! Faster!' And they went so fast
that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the
ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite
exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground,
breathless and giddy.
The Queen propped her up against a tree, and said kindly, `You may
rest a little, now.'
Alice looked round her in great surprise. `Why, I do believe we've
been under this tree the whole time! Everything's just as it was!'
`Of course it is,' said the Queen. `What would you have it?'
`Well, in our country,' said Alice, still panting a little,
`you'd generally get to somewhere else--if you ran very fast for a long
time as we've been doing.'
`A slow sort of country!' said the Queen. `Now, here, you
see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same
place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as
fast as that!'
`I'd rather not try, please!' said Alice. `I'm quite content to stay
here--only I am so hot and thirsty!'
`I know what you'd like!' the Queen said good-naturedly,
taking a little box out of her pocket. `Have a biscuit?'
Alice thought it would not be civil to say `No', though it wasn't at
all what she wanted. She took it, and ate it as well as she could: and
it was very dry: and she thought she had never been so nearly
choked in all her life.
`While you're refreshing yourself,' said the Queen, `I'll just take
the measurements.' And she took a ribbon out of her pocket, marked in
inches, and began measuring the ground, and sticking little pegs in here
and there.
`At the end of two yards,' she said, putting in a peg to mark the
distance, `I shall give you your directions--have another
biscuit?'
`No, thank you,' said Alice: `one's quite enough!'
`Thirst quenched, I hope?' said the Queen.
Alice did not know what to say to this, but luckily the Queen did
not wait for an answer, but went on. `At the end of three yards I
shall repeat them--for fear of your forgetting them. At the end of four,
I shall say good-bye. And at the end of five, I shall
go!'
She had got all the pegs put in by this time, and Alice looked on
with great interest as she returned to the tree, and then began slowly
walking down the row.
At the two-yard peg she faced round, and said `A pawn goes two
squares in its first move, you know. So you'll go very quickly
through the Third Square--by railway, I should think--and you'll find
yourself in the Fourth Square in no time. Well, that square
belongs to Tweedledum and Tweedledee--the Fifth is mostly water--the
Sixth belongs to Humpty Dumpty--But you make no remark?'
`I--I didn't know I had to make one--just then,' Alice faltered
out.
`You should have said,' the Queen went on in a tone of grave
reproof, `"It's extremely kind of you to tell me all this"--however,
we'll suppose it said--the Seventh Square is all forest--however, one of
the Knights will show you the way--and in the Eighth Square we shall be
Queens together, and it's all feasting and fun!' Alice got up and
curtseyed, and sat down again.
At the next peg the Queen turned again, and this time she said
`Speak in French when you ca'n't think of the English for a thing--turn
out your toes as you walk--and remember who you are!' She did not wait
for Alice to curtsey, this time, but walked on quickly to the next peg,
where she turned for a moment to say `Good-bye', and then hurried on to
the last.
How it happened, Alice never knew, but exactly as she came to the
last peg, she was gone. Whether she vanished into the air, or whether
she ran quickly into the wood (`and she can run very fast!'
thought Alice), there was no way of guessing, but she was gone, and
Alice began to remember that she was a Pawn, and that it would soon be
time for her to move.
CHAPTER THREE
LOOKING-GLASS INSECTS
OF course the first thing to do was to make a
grand survey of the country she was going to travel through. `It's
something very like learning geography,' thought Alice, as she stood on
tiptoe in hopes of being able to see a little further. `Principal
rivers--there are none. Principal mountains--I'm on the only one,
but I don't think it's got any name. Principal towns--why, what are
those creatures, making honey down there? They ca'n't be bees--nobody
ever saw bees a mile off, you know--' and for some time she stood
silent, watching one of them that was bustling about among the flowers,
poking its proboscis into them, `just as if it was a regular bee,'
thought Alice.
However, this was anything but a regular bee: in fact, it was an
elephant--as Alice soon found out, though the idea quite took her breath
away at first. `And what enormous flowers they must be!' was her next
idea. `Something like cottages with the roofs taken off, and stalks put
to them--and what quantities of honey they must make! I think I'll go
down and--no, I wo'n't go just yet,' she went on, checking
herself just as she was beginning to run down the hill, and trying to
find some excuse for turning shy so suddenly. `It'll never do to go down
among them without a good long branch to brush them away--and what fun
it'll be when they ask me how I liked my walk. I shall say "Oh, I liked
it well enough--" (here came the favourite little toss of the head),
"only it was so dusty and hot, and the elephants did tease
so!"'
`I think I'll go down the other way,' she said after a pause; `and
perhaps I may visit the elephants later on. Besides, I do so want
to get into the Third Square!'
So, with this excuse, she ran down the hill, and jumped over the
first of the six little brooks.
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
`Tickets, please!' said the Guard, putting his head in at the
window. In a moment everybody was holding out a ticket: they were about
the same size as the people, and quite seemed to fill the
carriage.
`Now then! Show your ticket, child!' the Guard went on, looking
angrily at Alice. And a great many voices all said together (`like the
chorus of a song,' thought Alice) `Don't keep him waiting, child! Why,
his time is worth a thousand pounds a minute!'
`I'm afraid I haven't got one,' Alice said in a frightened tone:
`there wasn't a ticket-office where I came from.' And again the chorus
of voices went on. `There wasn't room for one where she came from. The
land there is worth a thousand pounds an inch!'
`Don't make excuses,' said the Guard: `you should have bought one
from the engine-driver.' And once more the chorus of voices went on with
`The man that drives the engine. Why, the smoke alone is worth a
thousand pounds a puff!'
Alice thought to herself `Then there's no use in speaking.' The
voices didn't join in, this time, as she hadn't spoken, but, to
her great surprise, they all thought in chorus (I hope you
understand what thinking in chorus means--for I must confess that I
don't), `Better say nothing at all. Language is worth a thousand pounds
a word!'
`I shall dream about a thousand pounds to-night, I know I shall!'
thought Alice.
All this time the Guard was looking at her, first through a
telescope, then through a microscope, and then through an opera-glass.
At last he said `You're travelling the wrong way,' and shut up the
window, and went away.
`So young a child,' said the gentleman sitting opposite to her, (he
was dressed in white paper), `ought to know which way she's going, even
if she doesn't know her own name!'
A Goat that was sitting next to the gentleman in white, shut his
eyes and said in a loud voice, `She ought to know her way to the
ticket-office, even if she doesn't know her alphabet!'
There was a Beetle sitting next the Goat (it was a very queer
carriage-full of passengers altogether), and, as the rule seemed to be
that they should all speak in turn, he went on with `She'll have
to go back from here as luggage!'
Alice couldn't see who was sitting beyond the Beetle, but a hoarse
voice spoke next. `Change engines--' it said, and there it choked and
was obliged to leave off.
`It sounds like a horse,' Alice thought to herself. And an extremely
small voice, close to her ear, said `You might make a
joke on that -- something about "horse" and "hoarse", you know.'
Then a very gentle voice in the distance said, `She must be labelled
"Lass, with care", you know--'
And after that other voices went on (`What a number of people there
are in the carriage!' thought Alice), saying `She must go by post, as
she's got a head on her--' `She must be sent as a message by the
telegraph--' `She must draw the train herself the rest of the way--',
and so on.
But the gentleman dressed in white paper leaned forwards and
whispered in her ear, `Never mind what they all say, my dear, but take a
return-ticket every time the train stops.'
`Indeed I sha'n't!' Alice said rather impatiently. `I don't belong
to this railway journey at all--I was in a wood just now--and I wish I
could get back there!'
`You might make a joke on that,' said
the little voice close to her ear: `something about
"you would if you could", you know.'
`Don't tease so,' said Alice, looking about in vain to see where the
voice came from. `If you're so anxious to have a joke made, why don't
you make one yourself?'
The little voice sighed deeply. It was very unhappy,
evidently, and Alice would have said something pitying to comfort it,
`if it would only sigh like other people!' she thought. But this was
such a wonderfully small sigh, that she wouldn't have heard it at all,
if it hadn't come quite close to her ear. The consequence of this
was that it tickled her ear very much, and quite took off her thoughts
from the unhappiness of the poor little creature.
`I know you are a friend,' the little voice
went on: `a dear friend, and an old friend. And you
wo'n't hurt me, though I am an insect.'
`What kind of insect?' Alice inquired, a little anxiously. What she
really wanted to know was, whether it could sting or not, but she
thought this wouldn't be quite a civil question to ask.
`What, then you don't--' the little voice
began, when it was drowned by a shrill scream from the engine, and
everybody jumped up in alarm, Alice among the rest.
The Horse, who had put his head out of the window, quietly drew it
in and said `It's only a brook we have to jump over.' Everybody seemed
satisfied with this, though Alice felt a little nervous at the idea of
trains jumping at all. `However, it'll take us into the Fourth Square,
that's some comfort!' she said to herself. In another moment she felt
the carriage rise straight up into the air, and in her fright she caught
at the thing nearest to her hand, which happened to be the Goat's beard.
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
But the beard seemed to melt away as she touched it, and she found
herself sitting quietly under a tree--while the Gnat (for that was the
insect she had been talking to) was balancing itself on a twig just over
her head, and fanning her with its wings.
It certainly was a very large Gnat: `about the size of a
chicken,' Alice thought. Still, she couldn't feel nervous with it, after
they had been talking together so long.
`--then you don't like all insects?' the Gnat went on, as
quietly as if nothing had happened.
`I like them when they can talk,' Alice said. `None of them ever
talk, where I come from.'
`What sort of insects do you rejoice in, where you come
from?' the Gnat inquired.
`I don't rejoice in insects at all,' Alice explained,
`because I'm rather afraid of them--at least the large kinds. But I can
tell you the names of some of them.'
`Of course they answer to their names?' the Gnat remarked
carelessly.
`I never knew them do it.'
`What's the use of their having names,' the Gnat said, `if they
wo'n't answer to them?'
`No use to them,' said Alice; `but it's useful to the people
that name them, I suppose. If not, why do things have names at
all?'
`I ca'n't say,' the Gnat replied. `Further on, in the wood down
there, they've got no names--however, go on with your list of insects:
you're wasting time.'
`Well, there's the Horse-fly,' Alice began, counting off the names
on her fingers.
`All right,' said the Gnat. `Half way up that bush, you'll see a
Rocking-horse-fly, if you look. It's made entirely of wood, and gets
about by swinging itself from branch to branch.'
`What does it live on?' Alice asked, with great curiosity.
`Sap and sawdust,' said the Gnat. `Go on with the list.'
Alice looked at the Rocking-horse-fly with great interest, and made
up her mind that it must have been just repainted, it looked so bright
and sticky; and then she went on.
`And there's the Dragon-fly.'
`Look on the branch above your head,' said the Gnat, `and there
you'll find a Snap-dragon-fly. Its body is made of plum-pudding, its
wings of holly-leaves, and its head is a raisin burning in
brandy.'
`And what does it live on?' Alice asked, as before.
`Frumenty and mince-pie,' the Gnat replied; `and it makes its nest
in a Christmas-box.'
`And then there's the Butterfly,' Alice went on, after she had taken
a good look at the insect with its head on fire, and had thought to
herself, `I wonder if that's the reason insects are so fond of flying
into candles--because they want to turn into Snap-dragon-flies!'
`Crawling at your feet,' said the Gnat (Alice drew her feet back in
some alarm), `you may observe a Bread-and-butter-fly. Its wings are thin
slices of bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump
of sugar.'
`And what does it live on?'
`Weak tea with cream in it.'
A new difficulty came into Alice's head. `Supposing it couldn't find
any?' she suggested.
`Then it would die, of course.'
`But that must happen very often,' Alice remarked
thoughtfully.
`It always happens,' said the Gnat.
After this, Alice was silent for a minute or two, pondering. The
Gnat amused itself meanwhile by humming round and round her head: at
last it settled again and remarked `I suppose you don't want to lose
your name?'
`No, indeed,' Alice said, a little anxiously.
`And yet I don't know,' the Gnat went on in a careless tone: `only
think how convenient it would be if you could manage to go home without
it! For instance, if the governess wanted to call you to your lessons,
she would call out "Come here--", and there she would have to leave off,
because there wouldn't be any name for her to call, and of course you
wouldn't have to go, you know.'
`That would never do, I'm sure,' said Alice: `the governess would
never think of excusing me lessons for that. If she couldn't remember my
name, she'd call me "Miss", as the servants do.'
`Well, if she said "Miss", and didn't say anything more,' the Gnat
remarked, `of course you'd miss your lessons. That's a joke. I wish you
had made it.'
`Why do you wish I had made it?' Alice asked. `It's a very
bad one.'
But the Gnat only sighed deeply, while two large tears came rolling
down its cheeks.
`You shouldn't make jokes,' Alice said, `if it makes you so
unhappy.'
Then came another of those melancholy little sighs, and this time
the poor Gnat really seemed to have sighed itself away, for, when Alice
looked up, there was nothing whatever to be seen on the twig, and, as
she was getting quite chilly with sitting still so long, she got up and
walked on.
She very soon came to an open field, with a wood on the other side
of it: it looked much darker than the last wood, and Alice felt a
little timid about going into it. However, on second thoughts, she made
up her mind to go on: `for I certainly won't go back,' she
thought to herself, and this was the only way to the Eighth
Square.
`This must be the wood,' she said thoughtfully to herself, `where
things have no names. I wonder what'll become of my name when I
go in? I shouldn't like to lose it at all--because they'd have to give
me another, and it would be almost certain to be an ugly one. But then
the fun would be, trying to find the creature that had got my old name!
That's just like the advertisements, you know, when people lose dogs-- "answers
to the name of `Dash': had on a brass collar"--just fancy calling
everything you met "Alice", till one of them answered! Only they
wouldn't answer at all, if they were wise.'
She was rambling on in this way when she reached the wood: it looked
very cool and shady. `Well, at any rate it's a great comfort,' she said
as she stepped under the trees, `after being so hot, to get into
the--into the--into what?' she went on, rather surprised at not
being able to think of the word. `I mean to get under the--under
the--under this, you know!' putting her hand on the trunk of the
tree. `What does it call itself, I wonder? I do believe it's got
no name--why, to be sure it hasn't!'
She stood silent for a minute, thinking: then she suddenly began
again. `Then it really has happened, after all! And now, who am
I? I will remember, if I can! I'm determined to do it!' But being
determined didn't help her much, and all she could say, after a great
deal of puzzling, was `L, I know it begins with L!'
Just then a Fawn came wandering by: it looked at Alice with its
large gentle eyes, but didn't seem at all frightened. `Here then! Here
then!' Alice said, as she held out her hand and tried to stroke it; but
it only started back a little, and then stood looking at her
again.
`What do you call yourself?' the Fawn said at last. Such a soft
sweet voice it had!
`I wish I knew!' thought poor Alice. She answered, rather sadly,
`Nothing just now.'
`Think again,' it said: `that wo'n't do.'
Alice thought, but nothing came of it. `Please, would you tell me
what you call yourself?' she said timidly. `I think that might
help a little.'
`I'll tell you, if you'll come a little further on,' the Fawn said.
`I ca'n't remember here.'
So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms
clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out
into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the
air, and shook itself free from Alice's arm., I'm a Fawn!' it cried out
in a voice of delight. `And, dear me! you're a human child!' A sudden
look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment
it had darted away at full speed.
Alice stood looking after it, almost ready to cry with vexation at
having lost her dear little fellow-traveller so suddenly. `However, I
know my name now,' she said: `that's some comfort.
Alice--Alice--I won't forget it again. And now which of these
finger-posts ought I to follow, I wonder?'
It was not a very difficult question to answer, as there was only
one road through the wood, and the two finger-posts both pointed along
it. `I'll settle it,' Alice said to herself, `when the road divides and
they point different ways.'
But this did not seem likely to happen. She went on and on, a long
way, but wherever the road divided, there were sure to be two
finger-posts pointing the same way, one marked `TO TWEEDLEDUM'S HOUSE',
and the other `TO THE HOUSE OF TWEEDLEDEE'.
`I do believe,' said Alice at last, `that they live in the same
house! I wonder I never thought of that before--But I ca'n't stay there
long. I'll just call and say "How d'ye do?" and ask them the way out of
the wood. If I could only get to the Eighth Square before it gets dark!'
So she wandered on, talking to herself as she went, till, on turning a
sharp corner, she came upon two fat little men, so suddenly that she
could not help starting back, but in another moment she recovered
herself, feeling sure that they must be.
CHAPTER FOUR
TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE
THEY were standing under a tree, each with an
arm round the other's neck, and Alice knew which was which in a moment,
because one of them had "DUM" embroidered on his collar, and the other
"DEE". `I suppose they've each got "TWEEDLE" round at the back of the
collar,' she said to herself.
They stood so still that she quite forgot they were alive, and she
was just going round to see if the word "TWEEDLE" was written at the
back of each collar, when she was startled by a voice coming from the
one marked "DUM".
`If you think we're wax-works,' he said, `you ought to pay, you
know. Wax-works weren't made to be looked at for nothing. Nohow.'
`Contrariwise,' added the one marked "DEE", `if you think we're
alive, you ought to speak.'
`I'm sure I'm very sorry,' was all Alice could say; for the words of
the old song kept ringing through her head like the ticking of a clock,
and she could hardly help saying them out loud:
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle!
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.
Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel!
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel.'
`I know what you're thinking about,' said Tweedledum; `but it isn't
so, nohow.'
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be;
and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's
logic.'
`I was thinking,' Alice said politely, `which is the best way out of
this wood: it's getting so dark. Would you tell me, please?'
But the fat little men only looked at each other and grinned.
They looked so exactly like a couple of great schoolboys, that Alice
couldn't help pointing her finger at Tweedledum, and saying `First
Boy!'
`Nohow!' Tweedledum cried out briskly, and shut his mouth up again
with a snap.
`Next Boy!' said Alice, passing on to Tweedledee, though she felt
quite certain he would only shout out `Contrariwise!' and so he
did.
`You've begun wrong!' cried Tweedledum. `The first thing in a visit
is to say "How d'ye do?" and shake hands!' And here the two brothers
gave each other a hug, and then they held out the two hands that were
free, to shake hands with her.
Alice did not like shaking hands with either of them first, for fear
of hurting the other one's feelings; so, as the best way out of the
difficulty, she took hold of both hands at once: the next moment they
were dancing round in a ring. This seemed quite natural (she remembered
afterwards), and she was not even surprised to hear music playing: it
seemed to come from the tree under which they were dancing, and it was
done (as well as she could make it out) by the branches rubbing one
across the other, like fiddles and fiddle-sticks.
`But it certainly was funny,' (Alice said afterwards, when
she was telling her sister the history of all this), `to find myself
singing "Here we go round the mulberry bush". I don't know when I
began it, but somehow I felt as if I'd been singing it a long long
time!'
The other two dancers were fat, and very soon out of breath. `Four
times round is enough for one dance,' Tweedledum panted out, and they
left off dancing as suddenly as they had begun: the music stopped at the
same moment.
Then they let go of Alice's hands, and stood looking at her for a
minute: there was a rather awkward pause, as Alice didn't know how to
begin a conversation with people she had just been dancing with. `It
would never do to say "How d'ye do?" now,' she said to herself:
`we seem to have got beyond that, somehow!'
`I hope you're not much tired?' she said at last.
`Nohow. And thank you very much for asking,' said
Tweedledum.
`So much obliged!' added Tweedledee. `You like poetry?'
`Ye-es, pretty well--some poetry,' Alice said doubtfully.
`Would you tell me which road leads out of the wood?'
`What shall I repeat to her?' said Tweedledee, looking round at
Tweedledum with great solemn eyes, and not noticing Alice's
question.
`"The Walrus and the Carpenter" is the longest,' Tweedledum
replied, giving his brother an affectionate hug.
Tweedledee began instantly:
`The sun was shining--'
Here Alice ventured to interrupt him. `If it's very long,'
she said, as politely as she could, `would you please tell me first
which road--'
Tweedledee smiled gently, and began again:
`The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright--
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.
The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done--
"It's very rude of him", she said,
"To come and spoil the fun!"
The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead--
There were no birds to fly.
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand:
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, "it would be grand!"
"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.
"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The Walrus did beseech.
"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each."
The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head--
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.
But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat--
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet.
Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more--
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."
"But wait a bit," the Oysters cried,
"Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!"
"No hurry!" said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.
"A loaf of bread," the Walrus said,
"Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed--
Now, if you're ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed."
"But not on us!" the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
"After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!"
"The night is fine," the Walrus said.
"Do you admire the view?
"It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"Cut us another slice.
I wish you were not quite so deaf--
I've had to ask you twice!"
"It seems a shame," the Walrus said,
"To play them such a trick.
After we've brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"The butter's spread too thick!"
"I weep for you," the Walrus said:
"I deeply sympathise."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.
"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?"
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.'
`I like the Walrus best,' said Alice: `because he was a little
sorry for the poor oysters.'
`He ate more than the Carpenter, though,' said Tweedledee. `You see
he held his handkerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn't count
how many he took: contrariwise.'
`That was mean!' Alice said indignantly. `Then I like the Carpenter
best--if he didn't eat so many as the Walrus.'
`But he ate as many as he could get,' said Tweedledum.
This was a puzzler. After a pause, Alice began, `Well! They were both
very unpleasant characters--' Here she checked herself in some alarm, at
hearing something that sounded to her like the puffing of a large
steam-engine in the wood near them, though she feared it was more likely
to be a wild beast. `Are there any lions or tigers about here?' she
asked timidly.
`It's only the Red King snoring,' said Tweedledee.
`Come and look at him!' the brothers cried, and they each took one
of Alice's hands, and led her up to where the King was sleeping.
`Isn't he a lovely sight?' said Tweedledum.
Alice couldn't say honestly that he was. He had a tall red night-cap
on, with a tassel, and he was lying crumpled up into a sort of untidy
heap, and snoring loud-- `fit to snore his head off!' as Tweedledum
remarked.
`I'm afraid he'll catch cold with lying on the damp grass,' said
Alice, who was a very thoughtful little girl.
`He's dreaming now,' said Tweedledee: `and what do you think he's
dreaming about?'
Alice said `Nobody can guess that.'
`Why, about you!' Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands
triumphantly. `And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you
suppose you'd be?'
`Where I am now, of course,' said Alice.
`Not you!' Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. `You'd be nowhere.
Why, you're only a sort of thing in his dream!'
`If that there King was to wake,' added Tweedledum, `you'd go out--
bang!--just like a candle!'
`I shouldn't!' Alice exclaimed indignantly. `Besides, if I'm
only a sort of thing in his dream, what are you, I should like
to know?'
`Ditto,' said Tweedledum.
`Ditto, ditto!' cried Tweedledee.
He shouted this so loud that Alice couldn't help saying `Hush!
You'll be waking him, I'm afraid, if you make so much noise.'
`Well, it's no use your talking about waking him,' said
Tweedledum, `when you're only one of the things in his dream. You know
very well you're not real.'
`I am real!' said Alice, and began to cry.
`You wo'n't make yourself a bit realer by crying,' Tweedledee
remarked: `there's nothing to cry about.'
`If I wasn't real,' Alice said--half laughing through her tears, it
all seemed so ridiculous--`I shouldn't be able to cry.'
`I hope you don't suppose those are real tears?' Tweedledum
interrupted in a tone of great contempt.
`I know they're talking nonsense,' Alice thought to herself: `and
it's foolish to cry about it.' So she brushed away her tears, and went
on, as cheerfully as she could, `At any rate, I'd better be getting out
of the wood, for really it's coming on very dark. Do you think it's
going to rain?'
Tweedledum spread a large umbrella over himself and his brother, and
looked up into it. `No, I don't think it is,' he said: `at least--not
under here. Nohow.'
`But it may rain outside?'
`It may--if it chooses,' said Tweedledee: `we've no objection.
Contrariwise.'
`Selfish things!' thought Alice, and she was just going to say
`Good-night' and leave them, when Tweedledum sprang out from under the
umbrella, and seized her by the wrist.
`Do you see that?' he said, in a voice choking with passion,
and his eyes grew large and yellow all in a moment, as he pointed with a
trembling finger at a small white thing lying under the tree.
`It's only a rattle,' Alice said, after a careful examination of the
little white thing. `Not a rattle-snake, you know,' she added
hastily, thinking that he was frightened: `only an old rattle--quite
old and broken.'
`I knew it was!' cried Tweedledum, beginning to stamp about wildly
and tear his hair. `It's spoilt, of course!' Here he looked at
Tweedledee, who immediately sat down on the ground, and tried to hide
himself under the umbrella.
Alice laid her hand upon his arm and said, in a soothing tone, `You
needn't be so angry about an old rattle.'
`But it isn't old!' Tweedledum cried, in a greater fury than
ever. `It's new, I tell you--I bought it yesterday--my nice NEW RATTLE!' and his voice rose to a perfect
scream.
All this time Tweedledee was trying his best to fold up the
umbrella, with himself in it: which was such an extraordinary thing to
do, that it quite took off Alice's attention from the angry brother. But
he couldn't quite succeed, and it ended in his rolling over, bundling up
in the umbrella, with only his head out: and there he lay, opening and
shutting his mouth and his large eyes--`looking more like a fish than
anything else,' Alice thought.
`Of course you agree to have a battle?' Tweedledum said in a calmer
tone.
`I suppose so,' the other sulkily replied, as he crawled out of the
umbrella: `only she must help us to dress up, you know.'
So the two brothers went off hand-in-hand into the wood, and
returned in a minute with their arms full of things--such as bolsters,
blankets, hearth-rugs, table-cloths, dish-covers, and coal-scuttles. `I
hope you're a good hand at pinning and tying strings?' Tweedledum
remarked. `Every one of these things has got to go on, somehow or
other.'
Alice said afterwards she had never seen such a fuss made about
anything in all her life--the way those two bustled about--and the
quantity of things they put on--and the trouble they gave her in tying
strings and fastening buttons--`Really they'll be more like bundles of
old clothes than anything else, by the time they're ready!' she said to
herself, as she arranged a bolster round the neck of Tweedledee, `to
keep his head from being cut off,' as he said.
`You know,' he added very gravely, `it's one of the most serious
things that can possibly happen to one in a battle--to get one's head
cut off.'
Alice laughed loud: but she managed to turn it into a cough, for
fear of hurting his feelings.
`Do I look very pale?' said Tweedledum, coming up to have his
helmet tied on. (He called it a helmet, though it certainly
looked much more like a saucepan.)
`Well--yes--a little,' Alice replied gently.
`I'm very brave, generally,' he went on in a low voice: `only
to-day I happen to have a headache.'
`And I've got a toothache!' said Tweedledee, who had
overheard the remark. `I'm far worse than you!'
`Then you'd better not fight to-day,' said Alice, thinking it a good
opportunity to make peace.
`We must have a bit of a fight, but I don't care about going
on long,' said Tweedledum. `What's the time now?'
Tweedledee looked at his watch, and said `Half-past four.'
`Let's fight till six, and then have dinner,' said Tweedledum.
`Very well,' the other said, rather sadly: `and she can watch
us--only you'd better not come very close,' he added: `I
generally hit every thing I can see--when I get really excited.'
`And I hit everything within reach,' cried Tweedledum,
`whether I can see it or not!'
Alice laughed. `You must hit the trees pretty often, I
should think,' she said.
Tweedledum looked round him with a satisfied smile. `I don't
suppose,' he said, `there'll be a tree left standing, for ever so far
round, by the time we've finished!'
`And all about a rattle!' said Alice, still hoping to make them a little
ashamed of fighting for such a trifle.
`I shouldn't have minded it so much,' said Tweedledum, `if it hadn't
been a new one.'
`I wish the monstrous crow would come!' thought Alice.
`There's only one sword, you know,' Tweedledum said to his brother:
`but you can have the umbrella -- it's quite as sharp. Only we
must begin quick. It's getting as dark as it can.'
`And darker,' said Tweedledee.
It was getting dark so suddenly that Alice thought there must be a
thunderstorm coming on. `What a thick black cloud that is!' she said.
`And how fast it comes! Why, I do believe it's got wings!'
`It's the crow!' Tweedledum cried out in a shrill voice of alarm;
and the two brothers took to their heels and were out of sight in a
moment.
Alice ran a little way into the wood, and stopped under a large
tree. `It can never get at me here,' she thought: `it's far too
large to squeeze itself in among the trees. But I wish it wouldn't flap
its wings so -- it makes quite a hurricane in the wood -- here's
somebody's shawl being blown away!'
CHAPTER FIVE
WOOL AND WATER
SHE caught the shawl as she spoke and looked
about for the owner: in another moment the White Queen came running
wildly through the wood, with both arms stretched out wide, as if she
were flying, and Alice very civilly went to meet her with the
shawl.
`I'm very glad I happened to be in the way,' Alice said, as she
helped her to put on her shawl again.
The White Queen only looked at her in a helpless frightened sort of
way, and kept repeating something in a whisper to herself that sounded
like `Bread-and-butter, bread-and-butter', and Alice felt that if there
was to be any conversation at all, she must manage it herself. So she
began rather timidly: `Am I addressing the White Queen?'
`Well, yes, if you call that a-dressing,' the Queen said. `It isn't my
notion of the thing, at all.'
Alice thought it would never do to have an argument at the very
beginning of their conversation, so she smiled and said `if your Majesty
will only tell me the right way to begin, I'll do it as well as I
can.'
`But I don't want it done at all!' groaned the poor Queen. `I've
been a-dressing myself for the last two hours.'
It would have been all the better, as it seemed to Alice, if she had
got some one else to dress her, she was so dreadfully untidy. `Every
single thing's crooked,' Alice thought to herself, `and she's all over
pins! -- May I put your shawl straight for you?' she added aloud.
`I don't know what's the matter with it!' the Queen said, in a
melancholy voice. `It's out of temper, I think. I've pinned it here, and
I've pinned it there, but there's no pleasing it!'
`It ca'n't go straight, you know, if you pin it all on one
side,' Alice said, as she gently put it right for her; `and dear me,
what a state your hair is in!'
`The brush has got entangled in it!' the Queen said with a sigh.
`And I lost the comb yesterday.'
Alice carefully released the brush, and did her best to get the hair
into order. `Come, you look rather better now!' she said, after altering
most of the pins. `But really you should have a lady's-mind!'
`I'm sure I'll take you with pleasure!' the Queen said.
`Twopence a week and jam every other day.'
Alice couldn't help laughing, as she said `I don't want you to hire me
-- and I don't care for jam.'
`It's very good jam,' said the Queen.
`Well, I don't want any to-day, at any rate.'
`You couldn't have it if you did want it,' the Queen said.
`The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday -- but never jam to-day.'
`It must come sometimes to "jam to-day",' Alice
objected.
`No, it ca'n't, said the Queen. `It's jam every other day:
to-day isn't any other day, you know.'
`I don't understand you,' said Alice. `It's dreadfully
confusing!'
`That's the effect of living backwards,' the Queen said kindly: `it
always makes one a little giddy at first --'
`Living backwards!' Alice repeated in great astonishment. `I never
heard of such a thing!'
`-- but there's one great advantage in it, that one's memory works
both ways.'
`I'm sure mine only works one way,' Alice remarked. `I ca'n't
remember things before they happen.'
`It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,' the Queen
remarked.
`What sort of things do you remember best?' Alice ventured to
ask.
`Oh, things that happened the week after next,' the Queen replied in
a careless tone. `For instance, now,' she went on, sticking a large
piece of plaster on her finger as she spoke, `there's the King's
Messenger. He's in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesn't
even begin till next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of
all.'
`Suppose he never commits the crime?' said Alice.
`That would be all the better, wouldn't it?' the Queen said, as she
bound the plaster round her finger with a bit of ribbon.
Alice felt there was no denying that. `Of course it would be
all the better,' she said: `but it wouldn't be all the better his being
punished.'
`You're wrong there, at any rate,' said the Queen. `Were you
ever punished?'
`Only for faults,' said Alice.
`And you were all the better for it, I know!' the Queen said
triumphantly.
`Yes, but then I had done the things I was punished for,'
said Alice: `that makes all the difference.'
`But if you hadn't done them,' the Queen said, `that would
have been better still; better, and better, and better!' Her voice went
higher with each `better', till it got quite to a squeak at last.
Alice was just beginning to say `There's a mistake somewhere --,'
when the Queen began screaming, so loud that she had to leave the
sentence unfinished. `Oh, oh, oh!' shouted the Queen, shaking her hand
about as if she wanted to shake it off. `My finger's bleeding! Oh, oh,
oh, oh!'
Her screams were so exactly like the whistle of a steam-engine, that
Alice had to hold both her hands over her ears.
`What is the matter?' she said, as soon as there was a chance
of making herself heard. `Have you pricked your finger?'
`I haven't pricked it yet,' the Queen said, `but I soon
shall -- oh, oh, oh!'
`When do you expect to do it?' Alice said, feeling very much
inclined to laugh.
`When I fasten my shawl again,' the poor Queen groaned out: `the
brooch will come undone directly. Oh, oh!' As she said the words the
brooch flew open, and the Queen clutched wildly at it, and tried to
clasp it again.
`Take care!' cried Alice. `You're holding it all crooked!' And she
caught at the brooch; but it was too late: the pin had slipped, and the
Queen had pricked her finger.
`That accounts for the bleeding, you see,' she said to Alice with a
smile. `Now you understand the way things happen here.'
`But why don't you scream now?' Alice asked, holding her
hands ready to put over her ears again.
`Why, I've done all the screaming already,' said the Queen. `What
would be the good of having it all over again?'
By this time it was getting light. `The crow must have flown away,
I think,' said Alice: `I'm so glad it's gone. I thought it was the night
coming on.'
`I wish I could manage to be glad!' the Queen said. `Only I
never can remember the rule. You must be very happy, living in this
wood, and being glad whenever you like!'
`Only it is so very lonely here!' Alice said in a melancholy
voice; and, at the thought of her loneliness, two large tears came
rolling down her cheeks.
`Oh, don't go on like that!' cried the poor Queen, wringing her
hands in despair. `Consider what a great girl you are. Consider what a
long way you've come to-day. Consider what o'clock it is. Consider
anything, only don't cry!'
Alice could not help laughing at this, even in the midst of her
tears. `Can you keep from crying by considering things?' she
asked.
`That's the way it's done,' the Queen said with great decision:
`nobody can do two things at once, you know. Let's consider your age to
begin with -- how old are you?'
`I'm seven and a half, exactly.'
`You needn't say "exactly",' the Queen remarked. `I can believe it
without that. Now I'll give you something to believe. I'm just
one hundred and one, five months and a day.'
`I ca'n't believe that!' said Alice.
`Ca'n't you?' the Queen said in a pitying tone. `Try again: draw a
long breath, and shut your eyes.'
Alice laughed. `There's no use trying,' she said `one ca'n't
believe impossible things.'
`I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I
was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes
I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There
goes the shawl again!'
The brooch had come undone as she spoke, and a sudden gust of wind
blew the Queen's shawl across a little brook. The Queen spread out her
arms again and went flying after it, and this time she succeeded in
catching it herself. `I've got it!' she cried in a triumphant tone. `Now
you shall see me pin it on again, all by myself!'
`Then I hope your finger is better now?' Alice said very politely,
as she crossed the little brook after the Queen.
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
`Oh, much better!' cried the Queen, her voice rising into a squeak
as she went on. `Much be-etter! Be-etter! Be-e-e-etter! Be-e-ehh!' The
last word ended in a long bleat, so like a sheep that Alice quite
started.
She looked at the Queen, who seemed to have suddenly wrapped herself
up in wool. Alice rubbed her eyes, and looked again. She couldn't make
out what had happened at all. Was she in a shop? And was that really --
was it really a sheep that was sitting on the other side of the
counter? Rub as she would, she could make nothing more of it: she was in
a little dark shop, leaning with her elbows on the counter, and opposite
to her was an old Sheep, sitting in an arm-chair, knitting, and every
now and then leaving off to look at her through a great pair of
spectacles.
`What is it you want to buy?' the Sheep said at last, looking up for
a moment from her knitting.
`I don't quite know yet,' Alice said very gently. `I should
like to look all round me first, if I might.'
`You may look in front of you, and on both sides, if you like,' said
the Sheep; `but you ca'n't look all round you -- unless you've
got eyes at the back of your head.'
But these, as it happened, Alice had not got: so she
contented herself with turning round, looking at the shelves as she came
to them.
The shop seemed to be full of all manner of curious things -- but
the oddest part of it all was that, whenever she looked hard at any
shelf, to make out exactly what it had on it, that particular shelf was
always quite, empty, though the others round it were crowded as full as
they could hold.
`Things flow about so here!' she said at last in a plaintive tone,
after she had spent a minute or so in vainly pursuing a large bright
thing that looked sometimes like a doll and sometimes like a work-box,
and was always in the shelf next above the one she was looking at. `And
this one is the most provoking of all -- but I'll tell you what --' she
added, as a sudden thought struck her. `I'll follow it up to the very
top shelf of all. It'll puzzle it to go through the ceiling, I
expect!'
But even this plan failed: the `thing' went through the ceiling as
quietly as possible, as if it were quite used to it.
`Are you a child or a teetotum?' the Sheep said, as she took up
another pair of needles. `You'll make me giddy soon, if you go on
turning round like that.' She was now working with fourteen pairs at
once, and Alice couldn't help looking at her in great
astonishment.
`How can she knit with so many?' the puzzled child thought to
herself. `She gets more and more like a porcupine every minute!'
`Can you row?' the Sheep asked, handing her a pair of
knitting-needles as she spoke.
`Yes, a little -- but not on land -- and not with needles --' Alice
was beginning to say, when suddenly the needles turned into oars in her
hands, and she found they were in a little boat, gliding along between
banks: so there was nothing for it but to do her best.
`Feather!' cried the Sheep, as she took up another pair of
needles.
This didn't sound like a remark that needed any answer: so Alice
said nothing, but pulled away. There was something very queer about the
water, she thought, as every now and then the oars got fast in it, and
would hardly come out again.
`Feather! Feather!' the Sheep cried again, taking more needles.
`You'll be catching a crab directly.'
`A dear little crab!' thought Alice. `I should like that.'
`Didn't you hear me say "Feather"?' the Sheep cried angrily, taking
up quite a bunch of needles.
`Indeed I did,' said Alice: `you've said it very often -- and very
loud. Please where are the crabs?'
`In the water, of course!' said the Sheep, sticking some of the
needles into her hair, as her hands were full. `Feather, I say!'
`Why do you say "Feather" so often?' Alice asked at last,
rather vexed. `I'm not a bird!'
`You are,' said the Sheep: "you're a little goose.'
This offended Alice a little, so there was no more conversation for
a minute or two, while the boat glided gently on, sometimes among beds
of weeds (which made the oars stick fast in the water, worse then ever),
and sometimes under trees, but always with the same tall riverbanks
frowning over their heads.
`Oh, please! There are some scented rushes!' Alice cried in a sudden
transport of delight. `There really are -- and such
beauties!'
`You needn't say "please" to me about 'em,' the Sheep said,
without looking up from her knitting: `I didn't put 'em there, and I'm
not going to take 'em away.'
`No, but I meant -- please, may we wait and pick some?' Alice
pleaded. `If you don't mind stopping the boat for a minute.'
`How am I to stop it?' said the Sheep. `If you leave off
rowing, it'll stop of itself.'
So the boat was left to drift down the stream as it would, till it
glided gently in among the waving rushes. And then the little sleeves
were carefully rolled up, and the little arms were plunged in
elbow-deep, to get hold of the rushes a good long way down before
breaking them off -- and for a while Alice forgot all about the Sheep
and the knitting, as she bent over the side of the boat, with just the
ends of her tangled hair dipping into the water -- while with bright
eager eyes she caught at one bunch after another of the darling scented
rushes.
`I only hope the boat wo'n't tipple over!' she said to herself. `Oh, what
a lovely one! Only I couldn't quite reach it.' And it certainly did
seem a little provoking (`almost as if it happened on purpose,' she
thought) that, though she managed to pick plenty of beautiful rushes as
the boat glided by, there was always a more lovely one that she couldn't
reach.
`The prettiest are always further!' she said at last with a sigh at
the obstinacy of the rushes in growing so far off, as, with flushed
cheeks and dripping hair and hands, she scrambled back into her place,
and began to arrange her new-found treasures.
What mattered it to her just then that the rushes had begun to fade,
and to lose all their scent and beauty, from the very moment that she
picked them? Even real scented rushes, you know, last only a very little
while -- and these, being dream-rushes, melted away almost like snow, as
they lay in heaps at her feet -- but Alice hardly noticed this, there
were so many other curious things to think about.
They hadn't gone much farther before the blade of one of the oars
got fast in the water and wouldn't come out again (so Alice
explained it afterwards), and the consequence was that the handle of it
caught her under the chin, and, in spite of a series of little shrieks
of `Oh, oh, oh!' from poor Alice, it swept her straight off the seat,
and down among the heap of rushes.
However, she wasn't a bit hurt, and was soon up again: the Sheep
went on with her knitting all the while, just as if nothing had
happened. `That was a nice crab you caught!' she remarked, as Alice got
back into her place, very much relieved to find herself still in the
boat.
`Was it? I didn't see it,' said Alice, peeping cautiously over the
side of the boat into the dark water. `I wish it hadn't let go -- I
should so like a little crab to take home with me!' But the Sheep only
laughed scornfully, and went on with her knitting.
`Are there many crabs here?' said Alice.
`Crabs, and all sorts of things,' said the Sheep: `plenty of choice,
only make up your mind. Now, what do you want to buy?'
`To buy!' Alice echoed in a tone that was half astonished and half
frightened -- for the oars, and the boat, and the river, had vanished
all in a moment, and she was back again in the little dark shop.
`I should like to buy an egg, please,' she said timidly.
`How do you sell them?'
`Fivepence farthing for one -- twopence for two,' the Sheep
replied.
`Then two are cheaper than one?' Alice said in a surprised tone,
taking out her purse.
`Only you must eat them both, if you buy two,' said the
Sheep.
`Then I'll have one, please,' said Alice, as she put the
money down on the counter. For she thought to herself, `They mightn't be
at all nice, you know.'
The Sheep took the money, and put it away in a box: then she said `I
never put things into people's hands -- that would never do -- you must
get it for yourself.' And so saying, she went off to the other end of
the shop, and set the egg upright on a shelf.
`I wonder why it wouldn't do?' thought Alice, as she groped
her way among the tables and chairs, for the shop was very dark towards
the end. `The egg seems to get further away the more I walk towards it.
Let me see, is this a chair? Why, it's got branches, I declare! How very
odd to find trees growing here! And actually here's a little brook!
Well, this is the very queerest shop I ever saw!'
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
So she went on, wondering more and more at every step, as everything
turned into a tree the moment she came up to it, and she quite expected
the egg to do the same.
CHAPTER SIX
HUMPTY DUMPTY
HOWEVER, the egg only got larger and larger,
and more and more human: when she had come within a few yards of it, she
saw that it had eyes and a nose and mouth; and, when she had come close
to it, she saw clearly that it was HUMPTY DUMPTY himself. `It ca'n't be
anybody else!' she said to herself. `I'm as certain of it, as if his
name were written all over his face!'
It might have been written a hundred times, easily, on that enormous
face. Humpty Dumpty was sitting, with his legs crossed like a Turk, on
the top of a high wall -- such a narrow one that Alice quite wondered
how he could keep his balance -- and, as his eyes were steadily fixed in
the opposite direction, and he didn't take the least notice of her, she
thought he must be a stuffed figure, after all.
`And how exactly like an egg he is!' she said aloud, standing with
her hands ready to catch him, for she was every moment expecting him to
fall.
`It's very provoking,' Humpty Dumpty said after a long
silence, looking away from Alice as he spoke, `to be called an egg -- very!'
`I said you looked like an egg, Sir,' Alice gently explained.
`And some eggs are very pretty, you know,' she added, hoping to turn her
remark into a sort of compliment.
`Some people,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking away from her as usual,
`have no more sense than a baby!'
Alice didn't know what to say to this: it wasn't at all like
conversation, she thought, as he never said anything to her; in
fact, his last remark was evidently addressed to a tree -- so she stood
and softly repeated to herself:
`Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall:
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses and all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty in his place again.'
`That last line is much too long for the poetry,' she added, almost
out loud, forgetting that Humpty Dumpty would hear her.
`Don't stand chattering to yourself like that,' Humpty Dumpty said,
looking at her for the first time, `but tell me your name and your
business.'
`My name is Alice, but --'
`It's a stupid name enough!' Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently.
`What does it mean?'
`Must a name mean something?' Alice asked doubtfully.
`Of course it must,' Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh: `my
name means the shape I am -- and a good handsome shape it is, too. With
a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost.'
`Why do you sit out here all alone?' said Alice, not wishing to
begin an argument.
`Why, because there's nobody with me!' cried Humpty Dumpty. `Did you
think I didn't know the answer to that? Ask another.'
`Don't you think you'd be safer down on the ground?' Alice went on,
not with any idea of making another riddle, but simply in her
good-natured anxiety for the queer creature. `That wall is so very
narrow!'
`What tremendously easy riddles you ask!' Humpty Dumpty growled out.
`Of course I don't think so! Why, if ever I did fall off -- which
there's no chance of -- but if I did --' Here he pursed up his
lips, and looked so solemn and grand that Alice could hardly help
laughing. `If I did fall,' he went on, `the King has
promised me -- ah, you may turn pale, if you like! You didn't think I
was going to say that, did you? The King has promised me -- with his
very own mouth -- to -- to --'
`To send all his horses and all his men,' Alice interrupted, rather
unwisely.
`Now I declare that's too bad!' Humpty Dumpty cried, breaking into a
sudden passion. `You've been listening at doors -- and behind trees --
and down chimneys -- or you couldn't have known it!'
`I haven't indeed!' Alice said very gently. `It's in a book.'
`Ah, well! They may write such things in a book,' Humpty
Dumpty said in a calmer tone. `That's what you call a History of
England, that is. Now, take a good look at me! I'm one that has spoken
to a King, I am: mayhap you'll never see such another: and, to
show you I'm not proud, you may shake hands with me!' And he grinned
almost from ear to ear, as he leant forwards (and as nearly as possible
fell off the wall in doing so) and offered Alice his hand. She watched
him a little anxiously as she took it. `If he smiled much more the ends
of his mouth might meet behind,' she thought: `And then I don't know what
would happen to his head! I'm afraid it would come off!'
`Yes, all his horses and all his men,' Humpty Dumpty went on.
`They'd pick me up again in a minute, they would! However, this
conversation is going on a little too fast: let's go back to the last
remark but one.'
`I'm afraid I ca'n't quite remember it,' Alice said, very
politely.
`In that case we start afresh,' said Humpty Dumpty, `and it's my
turn to choose a subject --' (`He talks about it just as if it was a
game!' thought Alice.) `So here's a question for you. How old did you
say you were?'
Alice made a short calculation, and said `Seven years and six
months.'
`Wrong!' Humpty Dumpty exclaimed triumphantly. `You never said a
word like it!'
`I thought you meant "How old are you?"' Alice
explained.
`If I'd meant that, I'd have said it,' said Humpty Dumpty.
Alice didn't want to begin another argument, so she said
nothing.
`Seven years and six months!' Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully.
`An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked my advice, I'd
have said "Leave off at seven" -- but it's too late now.'
`I never ask advice about growing,' Alice said indignantly.
`Too proud?' the other enquired.
Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. `I mean,' she
said, `that one ca'n't help growing older.'
`One ca'n't, perhaps,' said Humpty Dumpty; `but two
can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven.'
`What a beautiful belt you've got on!' Alice suddenly remarked.
(They had had quite enough of the subject of age, she thought: and, if
they really were to take turns in choosing subjects, it was her
turn now.) `At least,' she corrected herself on second thoughts, `a
beautiful cravat, I should have said -- no, a belt, I mean -- I beg your
pardon!' she added in dismay, for Humpty Dumpty looked thoroughly
offended, and she began to wish she hadn't chosen that subject. `If
only I knew,' she thought to herself, `which was neck and which was
waist!'
Evidently Humpty Dumpty was very angry, though he said nothing for a
minute or two. When he did speak again, it was in a deep
growl.
`It is a -- most -- provoking -- thing,' he said at
last, `when a person doesn't know a cravat from a belt!'
`I know it's very ignorant of me,' Alice said, in so humble a tone
that Humpty Dumpty relented.
`It's a cravat, child, and a beautiful one, as you say. It's a
present from the White King and Queen. There now!'
`Is it really?' said Alice, quite pleased to find that she had
chosen a good subject after all.
`They gave it me,' Humpty Dumpty continued thoughtfully as he
crossed one knee over the other and clasped his hands round it, `they
gave it me -- for an un-birthday present.'
`I beg your pardon?' Alice said with a puzzled air.
`I'm not offended,' said Humpty Dumpty.
`I mean, what is an un-birthday present?'
`A present given when it isn't your birthday, of course.'
Alice considered a little. `I like birthday presents best,' she said
at last.
`You don't know what you're talking about!' cried Humpty Dumpty.
`How many days are there in a year?'
`Three hundred and sixty-five,' said Alice.
`And how many birthdays have you?'
`One.'
`And if you take one from three hundred and sixty-five what
remains?'
`Three hundred and sixty-four, of course.'
Humpty Dumpty looked doubtful. `I'd rather see that done on paper,'
he said.
Alice couldn't help smiling as she took out her memorandum book, and
worked the sum for him:
365
1
----
364
----
Humpty Dumpty took the book and looked at it carefully. `That seems
to be done right --' he began.
`You're holding it upside down!' Alice interrupted.
`To be sure I was!' Humpty Dumpty said gaily as she turned it round
for him. `I thought it looked a little queer. As I was saying, that seems
to be done right -- though I haven't time to look it over thoroughly
just now -- and that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four
days when you might get un-birthday presents --'
`Certainly,' said Alice.
`And only one for birthday presents, you know. There's glory
for you!'
`I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I
tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice
objected.
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful
tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor
less.'
`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words
mean so many different things.'
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master --
that's all.'
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty
Dumpty began again. `They've a temper, some of them -- particularly
verbs: they're the proudest -- adjectives you can do anything with, but
not verbs -- however, I can manage the whole lot of them!
Impenetrability! That's what I say!'
`Would you tell me please,' said Alice, `what that means?'
`Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking
very much pleased. `I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough
of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you
mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest
of your life.'
`That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a
thoughtful tone.
`When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty,
`I always pay it extra.'
`Oh!' said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other
remark.
`Ah, you should see 'em come round me of a Saturday night,' Humpty
Dumpty went on, wagging his head gravely from side to side, `for to get
their wages, you know.'
(Alice didn't venture to ask what he paid them with; and so you see
I ca'n't tell you.)
`You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,' said Alice. `Would
you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called "Jabberwocky"?'
`Let's hear it,' said Humpty Dumpty. `I can explain all the poems
that ever were invented -- and a good many that haven't been invented
just yet.'
This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated the first verse:
`'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.'
`That's enough to begin with,' Humpty Dumpty interrupted: `there are
plenty of hard words there. "Brillig" means four o'clock in the
afternoon -- the time when you begin broiling things for
dinner.'
`That'll do very well,' said Alice: `and "slithy"?'
`Well, "slithy" means "lithe and slimy". "Lithe" is the same
as "active". You see it's like a portmanteau -- there are two meanings
packed up into one word.'
`I see it now,' Alice remarked thoughtfully: `and what are "toves"?'
`Well, "toves" are something like badgers -- they're
something like lizards -- and they're something like corkscrews.'
`They must be very curious-looking creatures.'
`They are that,' said Humpty Dumpty; `also they make their nests
under sun-dials -- also they live on cheese.'
`And what's to "gyre" and to "gimble"?'
`To "gyre" is to go round and round like a gyroscope. To "gimble"
is to make holes like a gimlet.'
`And "the wabe" is the grass-plot round a sun-dial, I
suppose?' said Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity.
`Of course it is. It's called "wabe" you know, because it
goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it --'
`And a long way beyond it on each side,' Alice added.
`Exactly so. Well then, "mimsy" is "flimsy and miserable"
(there's another portmanteau for you). And a "borogove" is a thin
shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round --
something like a live mop.'
`And then "mome raths"?' said Alice. `I'm afraid I'm giving
you a great deal of trouble.'
`Well, a "rath" is a sort of green pig: but "mome" I'm
not certain about. I think it's short for "from home" -- meaning that
they'd lost their way, you know.'
`And what does "outgrabe" mean?'
`Well, "outgribing" is something between bellowing and
whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle: however, you'll hear it
done, maybe -- down in the wood yonder -- and, when you've once heard
it, you'll be quite content. Who's been repeating all that hard
stuff to you?'
`I read it in a book,' said Alice. `But I had some poetry
repeated to me much easier than that, by -- Tweedledee, I think.'
`As to poetry, you know,' said Humpty Dumpty, stretching out one of
his great hands, `I can repeat poetry as well as other folk, if
it comes to that --'
`Oh, it needn't come to that!' Alice hastily said, hoping to keep
him from beginning.
`The piece I'm going to repeat,' he went on without noticing her
remark, `was written entirely for your amusement.'
Alice felt that in that case she really ought to listen to
it; so she sat down, and said `Thank you' rather sadly,
`In winter, when the fields are white,
I sing this song for your delight --
only I don't sing it,' he added, as an explanation.
`I see you don't,' said Alice.
`If you can see whether I'm singing or not, you've sharper
eyes than most,' Humpty Dumpty remarked severely. Alice was silent.
`In spring, when woods are getting green,
I'll try and tell you what I mean:
`Thank you very much,' said Alice.
`In summer, when the days are long,
Perhaps you'll understand the song:
In autumn, when the leaves are brown,
Take pen and ink, and write it down.'
`I will, if I can remember it so long,' said Alice.
`You needn't go on making remarks like that,' Humpty Dumpty said:
`they're not sensible, and they put me out.'
`I sent a message to the fish:
I told them "This is what I wish."
The little fishes of the sea,
They sent an answer back to me.
The little fishes' answer was
"We cannot do it, Sir, because --"'
`I'm afraid I don't quite understand,' said Alice.
`It gets easier further on,' Humpty Dumpty replied.
`I sent to them again to say
"It will be better to obey."
The fishes answered, with a grin,
"Why, what a temper you are in!"
I told them once, I told them twice:
They would not listen to advice.
I took a kettle large and new,
Fit for the deed I had to do.
My heart went hop, my heart went thump:
I filled the kettle at the pump.
Then some one came to me and said
"The little fishes are in bed."
I said to him, I said it plain,
"Then you must wake them up again."
I said it very loud and clear:
I went and shouted in his ear.'
Humpty Dumpty raised his voice almost to a scream as he repeated
this verse, and Alice thought with a shudder, `I wouldn't have been
the messenger for anything!'
`But he was very stiff and proud:
He said, "You needn't shout so loud!"
And he was very proud and stiff:
He said "I'd go and wake them, if --"
I took a corkscrew from the shelf:
I went to wake them up myself.
And when I found the door was locked,
I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked.
And when I found the door was shut,
I tried to turn the handle, but--'
There was a long pause.
`Is that all?' Alice timidly asked.
`That's all,' said Humpty Dumpty. `Good-bye.'
This was rather sudden, Alice thought: but, after such a very
strong hint that she ought to be going, she felt that it would hardly be
civil to stay. So she got up, and held out her hand. `Good-bye, till we
meet again!' she said as cheerfully as she could.
`I shouldn't know you again if we did meet,' Humpty Dumpty
replied in a discontented tone, giving her one of his fingers to shake:
`you're so exactly like other people.'
`The face is what one goes by, generally,' Alice remarked in a
thoughtful tone.
`That's just what I complain of,' said Humpty Dumpty. `Your face is
the same as everybody has -- the two eyes, so --' (marking their places
in the air with his thumb) `nose in the middle, mouth under. It's always
the same. Now if you had the two eyes on the same side of the nose, for
instance -- or the mouth at the top -- that would be some
help.'
`It wouldn't look nice,' Alice objected. But Humpty Dumpty only shut
his eyes, and said `Wait till you've tried.'
Alice waited a minute to see if he would speak again, but, as he
never opened his eyes or took any further notice of her, she said
`Good-bye!' once more, and, getting no answer to this, she quietly
walked away: but she couldn't help saying to herself, as she went, `of
all the unsatisfactory --' (she repeated this aloud, as it was a great
comfort to have such a long word to say) `of all the unsatisfactory
people I ever met --' She never finished the sentence, for at
this moment a heavy crash shook the forest from end to end.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE LION AND THE UNICORN
THE next moment soldiers came running through
the wood, at first in twos and threes, then ten or twenty together, and
at last in such crowds that they seemed to fill the whole forest. Alice
got behind a tree, for fear of being run over, and watched them go
by.
She thought that in all her life she had never seen soldiers so
uncertain on their feet: they were always tripping over something or
other, and whenever one went down, several more always fell over him, so
that the ground was soon covered with little heaps of men.
Then came the horses. Having four feet, these managed rather better
than the foot-soldiers; but even they stumbled now and then; and
it seemed to be a regular rule that, whenever a horse stumbled, the
rider fell off instantly. The confusion got worse every moment, and
Alice was very glad to get out of the wood into an open place, where she
found the white King seated on the ground, busily writing in his
memorandum-book.
`I've sent them all!' the King cried in a tone of delight, on seeing
Alice. `Did you happen to meet any soldiers, my dear, as you came
through the wood?'
`Yes, I did,' said Alice: `several thousand, I should think.'
`Four thousand two hundred and seven, that's the exact number,' the
King said, referring to his book. `I couldn't send all the horses, you
know, because two of them are wanted in the game. And I haven't sent the
two Messengers, either. They're both gone to the town. Just look along
the road, and tell me if you can see either of them.'
`I see nobody on the road,' said Alice.
`I only wish I had such eyes,' the King remarked in a fretful
tone. `To be able to see Nobody! And at the distance too! Why, it's as
much as I can do to see real people, by this light!'
All this was lost on Alice, who was still looking intently along the
road, shading her eyes with one hand. `I see somebody now!' she
exclaimed at last. `But he's coming very slowly -- and what curious
attitudes he goes into!'
(For the Messenger kept skipping up and down, and wriggling like an
eel, as he came along, with his great hands spread out like fans on each
side.)
`Not at all,' said the King. `He's an Anglo-Saxon Messenger -- and
those are Anglo-Saxon attitudes. He only does them when he's happy.
His name is Haigha.' (He pronounced it so as to rhyme with
`mayor'.)
`I love my love with an H,' Alice couldn't help beginning, `because
he is Happy. I hate him with an H, because he is Hideous. I fed him
with -- with -- with Ham-sandwiches and Hay. His name is Haigha, and he
lives --'
`He lives on the Hill,' the King remarked simply, without the least
idea that he was joining in the game, while Alice was still hesitating
for the name of a town beginning with H. `The other Messenger's called
Hatta. I must have two, you know -- to come and go. One to come,
and one to go.'
`I beg your pardon?' said Alice.
`It isn't respectable to beg,' said the King.
`I only meant that I didn't understand,' said Alice. `Why one to
come and one to go?'
`Don't I tell you?' the King repeated impatiently. `I must have two
-- to fetch and carry. One to fetch, and one to carry.'
At this moment the Messenger arrived: he was far too much out of
breath to say a word, and could only wave his hands about, and make the
most fearful faces at the poor King.
`This young lady loves you with an H,' the King said, introducing
Alice in the hope of turning off the Messenger's attention from himself
-- but it was of no use -- the Anglo-Saxon attitudes only got more
extraordinary every moment, while the great eyes rolled wildly from side
to side.
`You alarm me!' said the King. `I feel faint -- Give me a
ham-sandwich!'
On which the Messenger, to Alice's great amusement, opened a bag
that hung round his neck, and handed a sandwich to the King, who
devoured it greedily.
`Another sandwich!' said the King.
`There's nothing but hay left now,' the Messenger said, peeping into
the bag.
`Hay, then,' the King murmured in a faint whisper.
Alice was glad to see that it revived him a good deal. `There's
nothing like eating hay when you're faint,' he remarked to her, as he
munched away.
`I should think throwing cold water over you would be better,' Alice
suggested: `-- or some sal-volatile.'
`I didn't say there was nothing better,' the King replied.
`I said there was nothing like it.' Which Alice did not venture
to deny.
`Who did you pass on the road?' the King went on, holding out his
hand to the Messenger for some hay.
`Nobody,' said the Messenger.
`Quite right,' said the King: `this young lady saw him too. So of
course Nobody walks slower than you.'
`I do my best,' the Messenger said in a sullen tone. `I'm sure
nobody walks much faster than I do!'
`He ca'n't do that,' said the King, `or else he'd have been here
first.
However, now you've got your breath, you may tell us what's happened
in the town.'
`I'll whisper it,' said the Messenger, putting his hands to his
mouth in the shape of a trumpet and stooping so as to get close to the
King's ear. Alice was sorry for this, as she wanted to hear the news
too. However, instead of whispering, he simply shouted, at the top of
his voice, `They're at it again!'
`Do you call that a whisper?' cried the poor King, jumping up
and shaking himself. `If you do such a thing again I'll have you
buttered! It went through and through my head like an earthquake!'
`It would have to be a very tiny earthquake!' thought Alice. `Who
are at it again?' she ventured to ask.
`Why the Lion and the Unicorn, of course,' said the King.
`Fighting for the crown?'
`Yes, to be sure,' said the King: `and the best of the joke is, that
it's my crown all the while! Let's run and see them.' And they
trotted off, Alice repeating to herself, as she ran, the words of the
old song:
`The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the crown:
The Lion beat the Unicorn all round the town.