Lewis Carroll in Wonderland and at Home Part 7

Perhaps it was just here that the children's merriment broke forth; the idea of _Alice_ being nine feet high was _too_ ridiculous, but the poor dream "Alice" didn't think so, for she sat down and began to cry again.

"'You ought to be ashamed of yourself,' said Alice, 'a great girl like you' (she might well say this) 'to go on crying in this way! Stop this moment I tell you!' But she went on all the same, shedding gallons of tears until there was a large pool all around her about four inches deep and reaching half down the hall."

This change she found more puzzling still: everything seemed mixed up, the Multiplication Table, Geography, even the verses which had been familiar to her from babyhood. She tried to say "_How doth the little busy bee_,"

but the words would not come right; instead she began repeating, in a hoa.r.s.e, strange voice, the following n.o.ble lines:

"How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale!

"How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spreads his claws, And welcomes little fishes in, With gently smiling jaws!"

Naturally this produced a sensation, for where is the child who speaks English who does not know that the busy bee "improves the shining hours!"

When the book was translated into French, however, this odd little rhyme not being known to the French children, the translator, M. Henri Bu, had to subst.i.tute something else which they could understand--one of their own French rhymes made into a parody of La Fontaine's "Matre Corbeau" (Master Raven).

When _Alice_ began to shrink again, she went suddenly _splash_ into that immense pool of tears she had shed when she was nine feet high. _Now_ she was only two feet high and the water was up to her chin. It was so salty, being tear-water, that she thought she had fallen into the sea, and in this sly fashion Lewis Carroll managed to smuggle in a timely word about the sad way some little girls have of shedding "oceans of tears" on the most trifling occasion.

It was on this briny trip that she fell in with the numbers of queer animals who had also taken refuge in the "Pool of Tears," from the _Mouse_ to the _Lory_, who had all fallen into the water and were eagerly swimming toward the sh.o.r.e. They gained it at last and sat there, "the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable," including _Alice_ herself, whose long hair hung wet and straggling on her shoulders.

The _Lory_, of all the odd animals, was probably the oddest. _Alice_ found herself talking familiarly with them all, and entering into quite a lengthy argument with the _Lory_ in particular about how to get dry. But the _Lory_ "turned sulky and would only say: 'I am older than you and must know better,' and this 'Alice' would not allow without knowing how old it was, and as the 'Lory' positively refused to tell its age, there was nothing more to be said."

Lewis Carroll himself made some interesting notes on the life history of this remarkable animal, which were first produced in _The Rectory Umbrella_ long before he thought of popping it into "Wonderland." "This creature," he writes, "is, we believe, a species of parrot. Southey informs us that it is a bird of gorgeous plumery [plumage], and it is our private opinion that there never existed more than one, whose history, as far as practicable, we will now lay before our readers."

"The time and place of the Lory's birth is uncertain; the egg from which it was hatched was most probably, to judge from the color of the bird, one of those magnificent Easter eggs which our readers have doubtless seen.

The experiment of hatching an Easter egg is at any rate worth trying."

After a lengthy and confusing description he winds up as follows:

"Having thus stated all we know and a great deal we don't know on this interesting subject, we must conclude."

_Alice_ looked upon this domineering old bird of uncertain age quite as a matter of course, as, indeed, she looked upon everything that happened in Wonderland.

There is fun bubbling over in every situation. Sir John Tenniel has given us a clever picture of the wet, woe-begone animals, all cl.u.s.tering around the _Mouse_, who had undertaken to make them dry. "Ahem!" said the Mouse, with an important air, "are you all ready? This is the driest thing I know," and off he rambled into some dull corner of English history, most probably taken out of _Alice's_ own lesson book, not unknown to Lewis Carroll.

The Caucas race was suggested by the _Dodo_ as an excellent method for getting dry, and as it was a race in which everyone came in ahead, everyone of course was satisfied, and in the distribution of prizes no one was forgotten. _Alice_ herself received her own thimble, which she fished out of her pocket, and which the _Dodo_ solemnly handed back to her, "saying: 'We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble,' and when it had finished this short speech they all cheered."

Dinah, the real Alice's real cat, plays an important part in the drama of Wonderland, although she was left at home dozing in the sun; _Alice_ mortally offended the _Mouse_, and frightened many of her bird friends almost to death, simply by bringing her into the conversation.

It is certainly delightful to follow in the footsteps of this dream-child of Lewis Carroll's; we lose ourselves in the mazes of Wonderland, and even as we grow older we do not feel that we have to stoop in the least to pa.s.s through the portals.

There was a certain air of sociability in Wonderland that pleased _Alice_ immensely, for her visiting-list was quite astonishing, and she was continually meeting new--well, not exactly people, but experiences. Her talk with a caterpillar during one of those periods when she was barely tall enough to peep over the mushroom on which he was sitting is "highly amusing and instructive."

"'Who are you?' said the Caterpillar.

"This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied rather shyly: 'I--I hardly know, sir, just at present: at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then.'

"'What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly. 'Explain yourself!'

"'I can't explain _myself_, I'm afraid, sir,' said Alice, 'because I'm not myself, you see.'

"'I don't see,' said the Caterpillar.

"'I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,' Alice replied, very politely, 'for I can't understand it myself to begin with, and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.'

"'It isn't,' said the Caterpillar.

"'Well, perhaps you haven't found it so yet,' said Alice, 'but when you have to turn into a chrysalis--you will some day, you know--and then after that into a b.u.t.terfly, I should think you'll feel it a little queer, won't you?'

"'Not a bit,' said the Caterpillar.

"'Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,' said Alice; 'all I know is, it would feel very queer to _me_.'

"'You!' said the Caterpillar, contemptuously, 'Who are _you_?' Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation."

It was the _Caterpillar_ who asked her to recite "You are old, Father William," and _Alice_ began in this fashion:

"You are old, Father William," the young man said, "And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head-- Do you think at your age it is right?"

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son, "I feared it might injure the brain; But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, And have grown most uncommonly fat; Yet you turned a back somersault in at the door-- Pray, what is the reason of that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his gray locks, "I kept all my limbs very supple By the use of this ointment--one shilling the box-- Allow me to sell you a couple."

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet; Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak-- Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth; "one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever; Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose-- What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"

Said his father; "don't give yourself airs!

Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?

Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!"

Now _Alice_ knew well enough that she had given an awful twist to a pretty and old-fashioned piece of poetry, but for the life of her the old words refused to come. It seemed that with her power to grow large or small on short notice, her memory performed queer antics; she was never sure of it for two minutes together.

One odd thing about her change of size was that she never grew up or dwindled away unless she ate something or drank something. Now every little girl has had similar experience when it came to eating and drinking. "Eat so and so," says a "grown-up," "and you will be tall and strong," and "if you _don't_ eat this thing or that, you will be little all your life," so _Alice_ was only going through the same trials in Wonderland.

Her meeting with the _d.u.c.h.ess_ and the peppery _Cook_, and the screaming _Baby_, and the grinning _Cheshire Cat_, occupied some thrilling moments.

She found the _d.u.c.h.ess_ conversational but cross, and the _Cook_ sprinkling pepper lavishly into _the_ soup she was stirring, and _out_ of it for the matter of that, so that everybody was sneezing. The _Cat_ was the sole exception; it sat on the hearth and grinned from ear to ear.

_Alice_ opened the conversation by asking the _d.u.c.h.ess_, who was holding the _Baby_ and jumping it up and down so roughly that it howled dismally, why the _Cat_ grinned in that absurd way.

"'It's a Cheshire Cat,' said the d.u.c.h.ess, and that's why. 'Pig!' She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the Baby and not to her, so she took courage and went on again:

"'I didn't know that Cheshire Cats always grinned--in fact I didn't know that Cats _could_ grin.'

"'They all can,' said the d.u.c.h.ess, 'and most of 'em do.'

"'I don't know of any that do,' said Alice, very politely, feeling quite pleased to have got into a conversation.