THE COMPLETE WORKS OF

LEWIS CARROLL

(1832-1898)

Contents

The Novels

ALICE'S ADVENTURES UNDER GROUND

ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS

SYLVIE AND BRUNO

SYLVIE AND BRUNO CONCLUDED

The Short Stories

A TANGLED TALE

BRUNO'S REVENGE AND OTHER STORIES

WHAT THE TORTOISE SAID TO ACHILLES

The Poetry Collections

EARLY VERSE

PROLOGUES TO PLAYS

COLLEGE RHYMES AND NOTES BY AN OXFORD CHIEL

PHANTASMAGORIA AND OTHER POEMS

THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK

THREE SUNSETS AND OTHER POEMS

PUZZLES FROM WONDERLAND

ACROSTICS, INSCRIPTIONS AND OTHER VERSES

The Poems

LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

Selected Mathematical Works

SYMBOLIC LOGIC

THE GAME OF LOGIC

THE ALPHABET CIPHER

FEEDING THE MIND

The Biographies

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF LEWIS CARROLL BY STUART DODGSON COLLINGWOOD

LEWIS CARROLL IN WONDERLAND AND AT HOME BY BELLE MOSES

THE STORY OF LEWIS CARROLL BY ISA BOWMAN

© Delphi Classics 2011

Version 1

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF

LEWIS CARROLL

The Novels

Carroll’s birthplace - Hatton, Warrington

ALICE'S ADVENTURES UNDER GROUND

First published in 1865, this famous novel tells the story of a girl called Alice, who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by anthropomorphic creatures. The novel’s genre has been termed as literary nonsense, which has had an enormous influence in literature, in particular on the fantasy genre. 

Three years before the novel was published, Carroll, with friends, rowed in a boat up the Isis with the three young daughters of Henry Liddell, the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University and Dean of Christ Church.  The journey began at Folly Bridge near Oxford and ended five miles away in the village of Godstow. During the trip Carroll told the girls a story featuring a bored little girl named Alice who goes looking for an adventure. The girls loved the tale, particularly the ten year old Alice, who asked Carroll to write it down for her. He began writing the manuscript of the story the next day, although that earliest version no longer exists. The girls and Carroll took another boat trip a month later when he elaborated the plot to the story of Alice, and in November he began working on the manuscript in earnest.

To add the finishing touches he researched natural history for the animals presented in the book, and then had the book examined by other children to test its merit. Carroll added his own illustrations but approached John Tenniel to illustrate the book for publication, telling him that the story had been well liked by children.

On 26 November Carroll gave Alice the handwritten manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground, with illustrations by himself, dedicating it as "A Christmas Gift to a Dear Child in Memory of a Summer's Day".  But before Alice received her copy, Carroll was already preparing it for publication and expanding the 15,500-word original to 27,500 words, most notably adding the episodes featuring the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Tea-Party.  This later version was to be called Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  Both versions are presented in this edition of Carroll’s works.  Alice’s Adventures Under Ground contains Carroll’s original illustrations.

The first edition front page

Alice Liddell—the real life inspiration for Alice—aged 7, photographed by Carroll in 1860

Alice Liddell as a young woman,

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

POSTSCRIPT.

AN EASTER GREETING TO EVERY CHILD WHO LOVES "Alice."

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS.

CHAPTER I

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, and where is the use of a book, thought Alice, without pictures or conversations? So she was considering in her own mind, (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid,) whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain was worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when a white rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

There was nothing very remarkable in that, nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the rabbit say to itself "dear, dear! I shall be too late!" (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket or a watch to take out of it, and, full of curiosity, she hurried across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In a moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly, that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself, before she found herself falling down what seemed a deep well. Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what would happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything: then, she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves: here and there were maps and pictures hung on pegs. She took a jar down off one of the shelves as she passed: it was labelled "Orange Marmalade," but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar, for fear of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.

"Well!" thought Alice to herself, "after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they'll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn't say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!" (which was most likely true.)

Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end? "I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?" she said aloud, "I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think—" (for you see Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a very good opportunity of showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to hear her, still it was good practice to say it over,) "yes that's the right distance, but then what Longitude or Latitude-line shall I be in?" (Alice had no idea what Longitude was, or Latitude either, but she thought they were nice grand words to say.)

Presently she began again: "I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it'll be to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards! But I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand or Australia?"—and she tried to curtsey as she spoke (fancy curtseying as you're falling through the air! do you think you could manage it?) "and what an ignorant little girl she'll think me for asking! No, it'll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere."

Down, down, down: there was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again. "Dinah will miss me very much tonight, I should think!" (Dinah was the cat.) "I hope they'll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time! Oh, dear Dinah, I wish I had you here! There are no mice in the air, I'm afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that's very like a mouse, you know, my dear. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?" And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and kept on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way "do cats eat bats? do cats eat bats?" and sometimes, "do bats eat cats?" for, as she couldn't answer either question, it didn't much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and was saying to her very earnestly, "Now, Dinah, my dear, tell me the truth. Did you ever eat a bat?" when suddenly, bump! bump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and shavings, and the fall was over.

Alice was not a bit hurt, and jumped on to her feet directly: she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another long passage, and the white rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, and just heard it say, as it turned a corner, "my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!" She turned the corner after it, and instantly found herself in a long, low hall, lit up by a row of lamps which hung from the roof.

There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked, and when Alice had been all round it, and tried them all, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again: suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass; there was nothing lying upon it, but a tiny golden key, and Alice's first idea was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall, but alas! either the locks were too large, or the key too small, but at any rate it would open none of them. However, on the second time round, she came to a low curtain, behind which was a door about eighteen inches high: she tried the little key in the keyhole, and it fitted! Alice opened the door, and looked down a small passage, not larger than a rat-hole, into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the doorway, "and even if my head would go through," thought poor Alice, "it would be very little use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to begin." For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice began to think very few things indeed were really impossible.

There was nothing else to do, so she went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting up people like telescopes: this time there was a little bottle on it—"which certainly was not there before" said Alice—and tied round the neck of the bottle was a paper label with the words DRINK ME beautifully printed on it in large letters.

It was all very well to say "drink me," "but I'll look first," said the wise little Alice, "and see whether the bottle's marked "poison" or not," for Alice had read several nice little stories about children that got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts, and other unpleasant things, because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had given them, such as, that, if you get into the fire, it will burn you, and that, if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it generally bleeds, and she had never forgotten that, if you drink a bottle marked "poison," it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.

However, this bottle was not marked poison, so Alice tasted it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffy, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off.

"What a curious feeling!" said Alice, "I must be shutting up like a telescope."

It was so indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up as it occurred to her that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see whether she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little nervous about this, "for it might end, you know," said Alice to herself, "in my going out altogether, like a candle, and what should I be like then, I wonder?" and she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember having ever seen one. However, nothing more happened so she decided on going into the garden at once, but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the door, she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she went back to the table for the key, she found she could not possibly reach it: she could see it plainly enough through the glass, and she tried her best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery, and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried.

"Come! there's no use in crying!" said Alice to herself rather sharply, "I advise you to leave off this minute!" (she generally gave herself very good advice, and sometimes scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes, and once she remembered boxing her own ears for having been unkind to herself in a game of croquet she was playing with herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people,) "but it's no use now," thought poor Alice, "to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!"

Soon her eyes fell on a little ebony box lying under the table: she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which was lying a card with the words EAT ME beautifully printed on it in large letters. "I'll eat," said Alice, "and if it makes me larger, I can reach the key, and if it makes me smaller, I can creep under the door, so either way I'll get into the garden, and I don't care which happens!"

She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself "which way? which way?" and laid her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was growing, and was quite surprised to find that she remained the same size: to be sure this is what generally happens when one eats cake, but Alice had got into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the way things to happen, and it seemed quite dull and stupid for things to go on in the common way.

So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.

"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice, (she was so surprised that she quite forgot how to speak good English,) "now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Goodbye, feet!" (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed almost out of sight, they were getting so far off,) "oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I'm sure I can't! I shall be a great deal too far off to bother myself about you: you must manage the best way you can—but I must be kind to them," thought Alice, "or perhaps they won't walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I'll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas."

And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it "they must go by the carrier," she thought, "and how funny it'll seem, sending presents to one's own feet!

And how odd the directions will look!

ALICE'S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ.

THE CARPET,

with ALICE'S LOVE

oh dear! what nonsense I am talking!"

Just at this moment, her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact, she was now rather more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden key, and hurried off to the garden door.

Poor Alice! it was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to look through into the garden with one eye, but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and cried again.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Alice, "a great girl like you," (she might well say this,) "to cry in this way! Stop this instant, I tell you!" But she cried on all the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool, about four inches deep, all round her, and reaching half way across the hall. After a time, she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the white rabbit coming back again, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand, and a nosegay in the other. Alice was ready to ask help of any one, she felt so desperate, and as the rabbit passed her, she said, in a low, timid voice, "If you please, Sir—" the rabbit started violently, looked up once into the roof of the hall, from which the voice seemed to come, and then dropped the nosegay and the white kid gloves, and skurried away into the darkness, as hard as it could go.

Alice took up the nosegay and gloves, and found the nosegay so delicious that she kept smelling at it all the time she went on talking to herself—"dear, dear! how queer everything is today! and yesterday everything happened just as usual: I wonder if I was changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I think I remember feeling rather different. But if I'm not the same, who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!" And she began thinking over all the children she knew of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them.

"I'm sure I'm not Gertrude," she said, "for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn't go in ringlets at all—and I'm sure I ca'n't be Florence, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a very little! Besides, she's she, and I'm I, and—oh dear! how puzzling it all is! I'll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is fourteen—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at this rate! But the Multiplication Table don't signify—let's try Geography. London is the capital of France, and Rome is the capital of Yorkshire, and Paris—oh dear! dear! that's all wrong, I'm certain! I must have been changed for Florence! I'll try and say "How doth the little,"" and she crossed her hands on her lap, and began, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words did not sound the same as they used to do:

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

"How cheerfully it seems to grin! How neatly spreads its claws! And welcomes little fishes in With gently-smiling jaws!"

"I'm sure those are not the right words," said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears as she thought "I must be Florence after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No! I've made up my mind about it: if I'm Florence, I'll stay down here! It'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying 'come up, dear!' I shall only look up and say 'who am I then? answer me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up: if not, I'll stay down here till I'm somebody else—but, oh dear!" cried Alice with a sudden burst of tears, "I do wish they would put their heads down! I am so tired of being all alone here!"

As she said this, she looked down at her hands, and was surprised to find she had put on one of the rabbit's little gloves while she was talking. "How can I have done that?" thought she, "I must be growing small again." She got up and went to the table to measure herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly: soon she found out that the reason of it was the nosegay she held in her hand: she dropped it hastily, just in time to save herself from shrinking away altogether, and found that she was now only three inches high.

"Now for the garden!" cried Alice, as she hurried back to the little door, but the little door was locked again, and the little gold key was lying on the glass table as before, and "things are worse than ever!" thought the poor little girl, "for I never was as small as this before, never! And I declare it's too bad, it is!"

At this moment her foot slipped, and splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that she had fallen into the sea: then she remembered that she was under ground, and she soon made out that it was the pool of tears she had wept when she was nine feet high. "I wish I hadn't cried so much!" said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out, "I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! Well! that'll be a queer thing, to be sure! However, every thing is queer today." Very soon she saw something splashing about in the pool near her: at first she thought it must be a walrus or a hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was herself, and soon made out that it was only a mouse, that had slipped in like herself.

"Would it be any use, now," thought Alice, "to speak to this mouse? The rabbit is something quite out-of-the-way, no doubt, and so have I been, ever since I came down here, but that is no reason why the mouse should not be able to talk. I think I may as well try."

So she began: "oh Mouse, do you know how to get out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, oh Mouse!" The mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing.

"Perhaps it doesn't understand English," thought Alice; "I daresay it's a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror!" (for,with all her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened,) so she began again: "où est ma chatte?" which was the first sentence out of her French lesson-book. The mouse gave a sudden jump in the pool, and seemed to quiver with fright: "oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal's feelings, "I quite forgot you didn't like cats!"

"Not like cats!" cried the mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice, "would you like cats if you were me?"

"Well, perhaps not," said Alice in a soothing tone, "don't be angry about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah: I think you'd take a fancy to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear quiet thing," said Alice, half to herself, as she swam lazily about in the pool, "she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face: and she is such a nice soft thing to nurse, and she's such a capital one for catching mice—oh! I beg your pardon!" cried poor Alice again, for this time the mouse was bristling all over, and she felt certain that it was really offended, "have I offended you?"

"Offended indeed!" cried the mouse, who seemed to be positively trembling with rage, "our family always hated cats! Nasty, low, vulgar things! Don't talk to me about them any more!"

"I won't indeed!" said Alice, in a great hurry to change the conversation, "are you—are you—fond of—dogs?" The mouse did not answer, so Alice went on eagerly: "there is such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed terrier, you know, with oh! such long curly brown hair! And it'll fetch things when you throw them, and it'll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts of things—I ca'n't remember half of them—and it belongs to a farmer, and he says it kills all the rats and—oh dear!" said Alice sadly, "I'm afraid I've offended it again!" for the mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the pool as it went.

So she called softly after it: "mouse dear! Do come back again, and we won't talk about cats and dogs any more, if you don't like them!" When the mouse heard this, it turned and swam slowly back to her: its face was quite pale, (with passion, Alice thought,) and it said in a trembling low voice "let's get to the shore, and then I'll tell you my history, and you'll understand why it is I hate cats and dogs."

It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite full of birds and animals that had fallen into it. There was a Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious creatures. Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore.

CHAPTER II

They were indeed a curious looking party that assembled on the bank—the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them—all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable. The first question of course was, how to get dry: they had a consultation about this, and Alice hardly felt at all surprised at finding herself talking familiarly with the birds, as if she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument with the Lory, who at last turned sulky, and would only say "I am older than you, and must know best," and this Alice would not admit without knowing how old the Lory was, and as the Lory positively refused to tell its age, there was nothing more to be said.

At last the mouse, who seemed to have some authority among them, called out "sit down, all of you, and attend to me! I'll soon make you dry enough!" They all sat down at once, shivering, in a large ring, Alice in the middle, with her eyes anxiously fixed on the mouse, for she felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon.

"Ahem!" said the mouse, with a self-important air, "are you all ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please!

"William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria—"

"Ugh!" said the Lory with a shiver.

"I beg your pardon?" said the mouse, frowning, but very politely, "did you speak?"

"Not I!" said the Lory hastily.

"I thought you did," said the mouse, "I proceed. Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him; and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him the crown. William's conduct was at first moderate—how are you getting on now, dear?" said the mouse, turning to Alice as it spoke.

"As wet as ever," said poor Alice, "it doesn't seem to dry me at all."

"In that case," said the Dodo solemnly, rising to his feet, "I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies—"

"Speak English!" said the Duck, "I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and what's more, I don't believe you do either!" And the Duck quacked a comfortable laugh to itself. Some of the other birds tittered audibly.

"I only meant to say," said the Dodo in a rather offended tone, "that I know of a house near here, where we could get the young lady and the rest of the party dried, and then we could listen comfortably to the story which I think you were good enough to promise to tell us," bowing gravely to the mouse.

The mouse made no objection to this, and the whole party moved along the river bank, (for the pool had by this time began to flow out of the hall, and the edge of it was fringed with rushes and forget-me-nots,) in a slow procession, the Dodo leading the way. After a time the Dodo became impatient, and, leaving the Duck to bring up the rest of the party, moved on at a quicker pace with Alice, the Lory, and the Eaglet, and soon brought them to a little cottage, and there they sat snugly by the fire, wrapped up in blankets, until the rest of the party had arrived, and they were all dry again.

Then they all sat down again in a large ring on the bank, and begged the mouse to begin his story.

"Mine is a long and a sad tale!" said the mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing.

"It is a long tail, certainly," said Alice, looking down with wonder at the mouse's tail, which was coiled nearly all round the party, "but why do you call it sad?" and she went on puzzling about this as the mouse went on speaking, so that her idea of the tale was something like this:

We lived beneath the mat

Warm and snug and fat

But one woe, & that

Was the cat!

To our joys

a clog, In

our eyes a

fog, On our

hearts a log

Was the dog!

When the

cat's away,

Then

the mice

will

play,

But, alas!

one day, (So they say)

Came the dog and

cat, Hunting

for a

rat,

Crushed

the mice

all flat;

Each

one

as

he

sat.

U

n

d

e

r

n

e

a

t

h

t

h

e

m

a

t

,

m r a W

g u n s &

t a f &

T h i n k?

o f t h a t!

"You are not attending!" said the mouse to Alice severely, "what are you thinking of?"

"I beg your pardon," said Alice very humbly, "you had got to the fifth bend, I think?"

"I had not!" cried the mouse, sharply and very angrily.

"A knot!" said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking anxiously about her, "oh, do let me help to undo it!"

"I shall do nothing of the sort!" said the mouse, getting up and walking away from the party, "you insult me by talking such nonsense!"

"I didn't mean it!" pleaded poor Alice, "but you're so easily offended, you know."

The mouse only growled in reply.

"Please come back and finish your story!" Alice called after it, and the others all joined in chorus "yes, please do!" but the mouse only shook its ears, and walked quickly away, and was soon out of sight.

"What a pity it wouldn't stay!" sighed the Lory, and an old Crab took the opportunity of saying to its daughter "Ah, my dear! let this be a lesson to you never to lose your temper!" "Hold your tongue, Ma!" said the young Crab, a little snappishly, "you're enough to try the patience of an oyster!"

"I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!" said Alice aloud, addressing no one in particular, "she'd soon fetch it back!"

"And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?" said the Lory.

Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about her pet, "Dinah's our cat. And she's such a capital one for catching mice, you can't think! And oh! I wish you could see her after the birds! Why, she'll eat a little bird as soon as look at it!"

This answer caused a remarkable sensation among the party: some of the birds hurried off at once; one old magpie began wrapping itself up very carefully, remarking "I really must be getting home: the night air does not suit my throat," and a canary called out in a trembling voice to its children "come away from her, my dears, she's no fit company for you!" On various pretexts, they all moved off, and Alice was soon left alone.

She sat for some while sorrowful and silent, but she was not long before she recovered her spirits, and began talking to herself again as usual: "I do wish some of them had stayed a little longer! and I was getting to be such friends with them—really the Lory and I were almost like sisters! and so was that dear little Eaglet! And then the Duck and the Dodo! How nicely the Duck sang to us as we came along through the water: and if the Dodo hadn't known the way to that nice little cottage, I don't know when we should have got dry again—" and there is no knowing how long she might have prattled on in this way, if she had not suddenly caught the sound of pattering feet.

It was the white rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking anxiously about it as it went, as if it had lost something, and she heard it muttering to itself "the Marchioness! the Marchioness! oh my dear paws! oh my fur and whiskers! She'll have me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where can I have dropped them, I wonder?" Alice guessed in a moment that it was looking for the nosegay and the pair of white kid gloves, and she began hunting for them, but they were now nowhere to be seen—everything seemed to have changed since her swim in the pool, and her walk along the river-bank with its fringe of rushes and forget-me-nots, and the glass table and the little door had vanished.

Soon the rabbit noticed Alice, as she stood looking curiously about her, and at once said in a quick angry tone, "why, Mary Ann! what are you doing out here? Go home this moment, and look on my dressing-table for my gloves and nosegay, and fetch them here, as quick as you can run, do you hear?" and Alice was so much frightened that she ran off at once, without saying a word, in the direction which the rabbit had pointed out.

She soon found herself in front of a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name W. RABBIT, ESQ. She went in, and hurried upstairs, for fear she should meet the real Mary Ann and be turned out of the house before she had found the gloves: she knew that one pair had been lost in the hall, "but of course," thought Alice, "it has plenty more of them in its house. How queer it seems to be going messages for a rabbit! I suppose Dinah'll be sending me messages next!" And she began fancying the sort of things that would happen: "Miss Alice! come here directly and get ready for your walk!" "Coming in a minute, nurse! but I've got to watch this mousehole till Dinah comes back, and see that the mouse doesn't get out—" "only I don't think," Alice went on, "that they'd let Dinah stop in the house, if it began ordering people about like that!"

By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room, with a table in the window on which was a looking-glass and, (as Alice had hoped,) two or three pairs of tiny white kid gloves: she took up a pair of gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when her eye fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking-glass: there was no label on it this time with the words "drink me," but nonetheless she uncorked it and put it to her lips: "I know something interesting is sure to happen," she said to herself, "whenever I eat or drink anything, so I'll see what this bottle does. I do hope it'll make me grow larger, for I'm quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!"

It did so indeed, and much sooner than she expected: before she had drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing against the ceiling, and she stooped to save her neck from being broken, and hastily put down the bottle, saying to herself "that's quite enough—I hope I sha'n't grow any more—I wish I hadn't drunk so much!"

Alas! it was too late: she went on growing and growing, and very soon had to kneel down: in another minute there was not room even for this, and she tried the effect of lying down, with one elbow against the door, and the other arm curled round her head. Still she went on growing, and as a last resource she put one arm out of the window, and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself "now I can do no more—what will become of me?"

Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full effect, and she grew no larger; still it was very uncomfortable, and as there seemed to be no sort of chance of ever getting out of the room again, no wonder she felt unhappy. "It was much pleasanter at home," thought poor Alice, "when one wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits—I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-hole, and yet, and yet—it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life. I do wonder what can have happened to me! When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that sort of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! There out to be a book written about me, that there ought! and when I grow up I'll write one—but I'm grown up now" said she in a sorrowful tone, "at least there's no room to grow up any more here."

"But then," thought Alice, "shall I never get any older than I am now? That'll be a comfort, one way—never to be an old woman—but then—always to have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn't like that!"

"Oh, you foolish Alice!" she said again, "how can you learn lessons in here? Why, there's hardly room for you, and no room at all for any lesson-books!"

And so she went on, taking first one side, and then the other, and making quite a conversation of it altogether, but after a few minutes she heard a voice outside, which made her stop to listen.

"Mary Ann! Mary Ann!" said the voice, "fetch me my gloves this moment!" Then came a little pattering of feet on the stairs: Alice knew it was the rabbit coming to look for her, and she trembled till she shook the house, quite forgetting that she was now about a thousand times as large as the rabbit, and had no reason to be afraid of it. Presently the rabbit came to the door, and tried to open it, but as it opened inwards, and Alice's elbow was against it, the attempt proved a failure. Alice heard it say to itself "then I'll go round and get in at the window."

"That you wo'n't!" thought Alice, and, after waiting till she fancied she heard the rabbit, just under the window, she suddenly spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall and a crash of breaking glass, from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen into a cucumber-frame, or something of the sort.

Next came an angry voice—the rabbit's—"Pat, Pat! where are you?" And then a voice she had never heard before, "shure then I'm here! digging for apples, anyway, yer honour!"

"Digging for apples indeed!" said the rabbit angrily, "here, come and help me out of this!"—Sound of more breaking glass.

"Now, tell me, Pat, what is that coming out of the window?"

"Shure it's an arm, yer honour!" (He pronounced it "arrum".)

"An arm, you goose! Who ever saw an arm that size? Why, it fills the whole window, don't you see?"

"Shure, it does, yer honour, but it's an arm for all that."

"Well, it's no business there: go and take it away!"

There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear whispers now and then, such as "shure I don't like it, yer honour, at all at all!" "do as I tell you, you coward!" and at last she spread out her hand again and made another snatch in the air. This time there were two little shrieks, and more breaking glass—"what a number of cucumber-frames there must be!" thought Alice, "I wonder what they'll do next! As for pulling me out of the window, I only wish they could! I'm sure I don't want to stop in here any longer!"

She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at last came a rumbling of little cart-wheels, and the sound of a good many voices all talking together: she made out the words "where's the other ladder?—why, I hadn't to bring but one, Bill's got the other—here, put 'em up at this corner—no, tie 'em together first—they don't reach high enough yet—oh, they'll do well enough, don't be particular—here, Bill! catch hold of this rope—will the roof bear?—mind that loose slate—oh, it's coming down! heads below!—" (a loud crash) "now, who did that?—it was Bill, I fancy—who's to go down the chimney?—nay, I sha'n't! you do it!—that I won't then—Bill's got to go down—here, Bill! the master says you've to go down the chimney!"

"Oh, so Bill's got to come down the chimney, has he?" said Alice to herself, "why, they seem to put everything upon Bill! I wouldn't be in Bill's place for a good deal: the fireplace is a pretty tight one, but I think I can kick a little!"

She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and waited till she heard a little animal (she couldn't guess what sort it was) scratching and scrambling in the chimney close above her: then, saying to herself "this is Bill," she gave one sharp kick, and waited again to see what would happen next.

The first thing was a general chorus of "there goes Bill!" then the rabbit's voice alone "catch him, you by the hedge!" then silence, and then another confusion of voices, "how was it, old fellow? what happened to you? tell us all about it."

Last came a little feeble squeaking voice, ("that's Bill" thought Alice,) which said "well, I hardly know—I'm all of a fluster myself—something comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box, and the next minute up I goes like a rocket!" "And so you did, old fellow!" said the other voices.

"We must burn the house down!" said the voice of the rabbit, and Alice called out as loud as she could "if you do, I'll set Dinah at you!" This caused silence again, and while Alice was thinking "but how can I get Dinah here?" she found to her great delight that she was getting smaller: very soon she was able to get up out of the uncomfortable position in which she had been lying, and in two or three minutes more she was once more three inches high.

She ran out of the house as quick as she could, and found quite a crowd of little animals waiting outside—guinea-pigs, white mice, squirrels, and "Bill" a little green lizard, that was being supported in the arms of one of the guinea-pigs, while another was giving it something out of a bottle. They all made a rush at her the moment she appeared, but Alice ran her hardest, and soon found herself in a thick wood.

CHAPTER III

"The first thing I've got to do," said Alice to herself, as she wandered about in the wood, "is to grow to my right size, and the second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I think that will be the best plan."

It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged: the only difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea how to set about it, and while she was peering anxiously among the trees round her, a little sharp bark just over her head made her look up in a great hurry.

An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round eyes, and feebly stretching out one paw, trying to reach her: "poor thing!" said Alice in a coaxing tone, and she tried hard to whistle to it, but she was terribly alarmed all the while at the thought that it might be hungry, in which case it would probably devour her in spite of all her coaxing. Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick, and held it out to the puppy: whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off all its feet at once, and with a yelp of delight rushed at the stick, and made believe to worry it then Alice dodged behind a great thistle to keep herself from being run over, and, the moment she appeared at the other side, the puppy made another dart at the stick, and tumbled head over heels in its hurry to get hold: then Alice, thinking it was very like having a game of play with a cart-horse, and expecting every moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle again: then the puppy begin a series of short charges at the stick, running a very little way forwards each time and a long way back, and barking hoarsely all the while, till at last it sat down a good way off, panting, with its tongue hanging out of its mouth, and its great eyes half shut.

This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making her escape. She set off at once, and ran till the puppy's bark sounded quite faint in the distance, and till she was quite tired and out of breath.

"And yet what a dear little puppy it was!" said Alice, as she leant against a buttercup to rest herself, and fanned herself with her hat. "I should have liked teaching it tricks, if—if I'd only been the right size to do it! Oh! I'd nearly forgotten that I've got to grow up again! Let me see; how is it to be managed? I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other, but the great question is what?"

The great question certainly was, what? Alice looked all round her at the flowers and the blades of grass but could not see anything that looked like the right thing to eat under the circumstances. There was a large mushroom near her, about the same height as herself, and when she had looked under it, and on both sides of it, and behind it, it occurred to her to look and see what was on the top of it.

She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large blue caterpillar, which was sitting with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the least notice of her or of anything else.

For some time they looked at each other in silence: at last the caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and languidly addressed her.

"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 been changed several times since that."

"What do you mean by that?" said the caterpillar, "explain yourself!"

"I ca'n'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 ca'n't understand it myself, and really to be so many different sizes in one 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 know, and then after that into a butterfly, I should think it'll feel a little queer, don't you think so?"

"Not a bit," said the caterpillar.

"All I know is," said Alice, "it would feel queer to me."

"You!" said the caterpillar contemptuously, "who are you?"

Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation: Alice felt a little irritated at the caterpillar making such very short remarks, and she drew herself up and said very gravely "I think you ought to tell me who you are, first."

"Why?" said the caterpillar.

Here was another puzzling question: and as Alice had no reason ready, and the caterpillar seemed to be in a very bad temper, she turned round and walked away.

"Come back!" the caterpillar called after her, "I've something important to say!"

This sounded promising: Alice turned and came back again.

"Keep your temper," said the caterpillar.

"Is that all?" said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she could.

"No," said the caterpillar.

Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all the caterpillar might tell her something worth hearing. For some minutes it puffed away at its hookah without speaking, but at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said "so you think you're changed, do you?"

"Yes, sir," said Alice, "I ca'n't remember the things I used to know—I've tried to say "How doth the little busy bee" and it came all different!"

"Try and repeat "You are old, father William"," said the caterpillar.

Alice folded her hands, and began:

1.

"You are old, father William," the young man said, "And your hair is exceedingly white: And yet you incessantly stand on your head— Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

2.

"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."

3.

"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?"

4.

"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, five shillings the box— Allow me to sell you a couple."

5.

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

6.

"In my youth," said the old man, "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."

7.

"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?"

8.

"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 down stairs!"

"That is not said right," said the caterpillar.

"Not quite right, I'm afraid," said Alice timidly, "some of the words have got altered."

"It is wrong from beginning to end," said the caterpillar decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes: the caterpillar was the first to speak.

"What size do you want to be?" it asked.

"Oh, I'm not particular as to size," Alice hastily replied, "only one doesn't like changing so often, you know."

"Are you content now?" said the caterpillar.

"Well, I should like to be a little larger, sir, if you wouldn't mind," said Alice, "three inches is such a wretched height to be."

"It is a very good height indeed!" said the caterpillar loudly and angrily, rearing itself straight up as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high).

"But I'm not used to it!" pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone, and she thought to herself "I wish the creatures wouldn't be so easily offended!"

"You'll get used to it in time," said the caterpillar, and it put the hookah into its mouth, and began smoking again.

This time Alice waited quietly until it chose to speak again: in a few minutes the caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and got down off the mushroom, and crawled away into the grass, merely remarking as it went; "the top will make you grow taller, and the stalk will make you grow shorter."

"The top of what? the stalk of what?" thought Alice.

"Of the mushroom," said the caterpillar, just as if she had asked it aloud, and in another moment was out of sight.

Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, and then picked it and carefully broke it in two, taking the stalk in one hand, and the top in the other.

"Which does the stalk do?" she said, and nibbled a little bit of it to try; the next moment she felt a violent blow on her chin: it had struck her foot!

She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but as she did not shrink any further, and had not dropped the top of the mushroom, she did not give up hope yet. There was hardly room to open her mouth, with her chin pressing against her foot, but she did it at last, and managed to bite off a little bit of the top of the mushroom.

"Come! my head's free at last!" said Alice in a tone of delight, which changed into alarm in another moment, when she found that her shoulders were nowhere to be seen: she looked down upon an immense length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves that lay far below her.

"What can all that green stuff be?" said Alice, "and where have my shoulders got to? And oh! my poor hands! how is it I ca'n't see you?" She was moving them about as she spoke, but no result seemed to follow, except a little rustling among the leaves. Then she tried to bring her head down to her hands, and was delighted to find that her neck would bend about easily in every direction, like a serpent. She had just succeeded in bending it down in a beautiful zig-zag, and was going to dive in among the leaves, which she found to be the tops of the trees of the wood she had been wandering in, when a sharp hiss made her draw back: a large pigeon had flown into her face, and was violently beating her with its wings.

"Serpent!" screamed the pigeon.

"I'm not a serpent!" said Alice indignantly, "let me alone!"

"I've tried every way!" the pigeon said desperately, with a kind of sob: "nothing seems to suit 'em!"

"I haven't the least idea what you mean," said Alice.

"I've tried the roots of trees, and I've tried banks, and I've tried hedges," the pigeon went on without attending to her, "but them serpents! There's no pleasing 'em!"

Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no use in saying anything till the pigeon had finished.

"As if it wasn't trouble enough hatching the eggs!" said the pigeon, "without being on the look out for serpents, day and night! Why, I haven't had a wink of sleep these three weeks!"

"I'm very sorry you've been annoyed," said Alice, beginning to see its meaning.

"And just as I'd taken the highest tree in the wood," said the pigeon raising its voice to a shriek, "and was just thinking I was free of 'em at last, they must needs come down from the sky! Ugh! Serpent!"

"But I'm not a serpent," said Alice, "I'm a—I'm a—"

"Well! What are you?" said the pigeon, "I see you're trying to invent something."

"I—I'm a little girl," said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she remembered the number of changes she had gone through.

"A likely story indeed!" said the pigeon, "I've seen a good many of them in my time, but never one with such a neck as yours! No, you're a serpent, I know that well enough! I suppose you'll tell me next that you never tasted an egg!"

"I have tasted eggs, certainly," said Alice, who was a very truthful child, "but indeed I do'n't want any of yours. I do'n't like them raw."

"Well, be off, then!" said the pigeon, and settled down into its nest again. Alice crouched down among the trees, as well as she could, as her neck kept getting entangled among the branches, and several times she had to stop and untwist it. Soon she remembered the pieces of mushroom which she still held in her hands, and set to work very carefully, nibbling first at one and then at the other, and growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until she had succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual size.

It was so long since she had been of the right size that it felt quite strange at first, but she got quite used to it in a minute or two, and began talking to herself as usual: "well! there's half my plan done now! How puzzling all these changes are! I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to another! However, I've got to my right size again: the next thing is, to get into that beautiful garden—how is that to be done, I wonder?"

Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a doorway leading right into it. "That's very curious!" she thought, "but everything's curious today: I may as well go in." And in she went.

Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little glass table: "now, I'll manage better this time" she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key, and unlocking the door that led into the garden. Then she set to work eating the pieces of mushroom till she was about fifteen inches high: then she walked down the little passage: and then—she found herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flowerbeds and the cool fountains.

CHAPTER IV

A large rose tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily painting them red. This Alice thought a very curious thing, and she went near to watch them, and just as she came up she heard one of them say "look out, Five! Don't go splashing paint over me like that!"

"I couldn't help it," said Five in a sulky tone, "Seven jogged my elbow."

On which Seven lifted up his head and said "that's right, Five! Always lay the blame on others!"

"You'd better not talk!" said Five, "I heard the Queen say only yesterday she thought of having you beheaded!"

"What for?" said the one who had spoken first.

"That's not your business, Two!" said Seven.

"Yes, it is his business!" said Five, "and I'll tell him: it was for bringing in tulip-roots to the cook instead of potatoes."

Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun "well! Of all the unjust things—" when his eye fell upon Alice, and he stopped suddenly; the others looked round, and all of them took off their hats and bowed low.

"Would you tell me, please," said Alice timidly, "why you are painting those roses?"

Five and Seven looked at Two, but said nothing: Two began, in a low voice, "why, Miss, the fact is, this ought to have been a red rose tree, and we put a white one in by mistake, and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off. So, you see, we're doing our best, before she comes, to—" At this moment Five, who had been looking anxiously across the garden called out "the Queen! the Queen!" and the three gardeners instantly threw themselves flat upon their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps, and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen.

First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped like the three gardeners, flat and oblong, with their hands and feet at the corners: next the ten courtiers; these were all ornamented with diamonds, and walked two and two, as the soldiers did. After these came the Royal children: there were ten of them, and the little dears came jumping merrily along, hand in hand, in couples: they were all ornamented with hearts. Next came the guests, mostly kings and queens, among whom Alice recognised the white rabbit: it was talking in a hurried nervous manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went by without noticing her. Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying the King's crown on a cushion, and, last of all this grand procession, came THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS.

When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped and looked at her, and the Queen said severely "who is this?" She said it to the Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply.

"Idiot!" said the Queen, turning up her nose, and asked Alice "what's your name?"

"My name is Alice, so please your Majesty," said Alice boldly, for she thought to herself "why, they're only a pack of cards! I needn't be afraid of them!"

"Who are these?" said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners lying round the rose tree, for, as they were lying on their faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same as the rest of the pack, she could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her own children.

"How should I know?" said Alice, surprised at her own courage, "it's no business of mine."

The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a minute, began in a voice of thunder "off with her—"

"Nonsense!" said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was silent.

The King laid his hand upon her arm, and said timidly "remember, my dear! She is only a child!"

The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to the Knave "turn them over!"

The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot.

"Get up!" said the Queen, in a shrill loud voice, and the three gardeners instantly jumped up, and began bowing to the King, the Queen, the Royal children, and everybody else.

"Leave off that!" screamed the Queen, "you make me giddy." And then, turning to the rose tree, she went on "what have you been doing here?"

"May it please your Majesty," said Two very humbly, going down on one knee as he spoke, "we were trying—"

"I see!" said the Queen, who had meantime been examining the roses, "off with their heads!" and the procession moved on, three of the soldiers remaining behind to execute the three unfortunate gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection.

"You sha'n't be beheaded!" said Alice, and she put them into her pocket: the three soldiers marched once round her, looking for them, and then quietly marched off after the others.

"Are their heads off?" shouted the Queen.

"Their heads are gone," the soldiers shouted in reply, "if it please your Majesty!"

"That's right!" shouted the Queen, "can you play croquet?"

The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question was evidently meant for her.

"Yes!" shouted Alice at the top of her voice.

"Come on then!" roared the Queen, and Alice joined the procession, wondering very much what would happen next.

"It's—it's a very fine day!" said a timid little voice: she was walking by the white rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her face.

"Very," said Alice, "where's the Marchioness?"

"Hush, hush!" said the rabbit in a low voice, "she'll hear you. The Queen's the Marchioness: didn't you know that?"

"No, I didn't," said Alice, "what of?"

"Queen of Hearts," said the rabbit in a whisper, putting its mouth close to her ear, "and Marchioness of Mock Turtles."

"What are they?" said Alice, but there was no time for the answer, for they had reached the croquet-ground, and the game began instantly.

Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in all her life: it was all in ridges and furrows: the croquet-balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live ostriches, and the soldiers had to double themselves up, and stand on their feet and hands, to make the arches.

The chief difficulty which Alice found at first was to manage her ostrich: she got its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck straightened out nicely, and was going to give a blow with its head, it would twist itself round, and look up into her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very confusing to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all this, there was generally a ridge or a furrow in her way, wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog to, and as the doubled-up soldiers were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed.

The players all played at once without waiting for turns, and quarrelled all the while at the tops of their voices, and in a very few minutes the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about and shouting "off with his head!" of "off with her head!" about once in a minute. All those whom she sentenced were taken into custody by the soldiers, who of course had to leave off being arches to do this, so that, by the end of half an hour or so, there were no arches left, and all the players, except the King, the Queen, and Alice, were in custody, and under sentence of execution.

Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to Alice "have you seen the Mock Turtle?"

"No," said Alice, "I don't even know what a Mock Turtle is."

"Come on then," said the Queen, "and it shall tell you its history."

As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low voice, to the company generally, "you are all pardoned."

"Come, that's a good thing!" thought Alice, who had felt quite grieved at the number of executions which the Queen had ordered.

They very soon came upon a Gryphon, which lay fast asleep in the sun: (if you don't know what a Gryphon is, look at the picture): "Up, lazy thing!" said the Queen, "and take this young lady to see the Mock Turtle, and to hear its history. I must go back and see after some executions I ordered," and she walked off, leaving Alice with the Gryphon. Alice did not quite like the look of the creature, but on the whole she thought it quite as safe to stay as to go after that savage Queen: so she waited.

The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes: then it watched the Queen till she was out of sight: then it chuckled. "What fun!" said the Gryphon, half to itself, half to Alice.

"What is the fun?" said Alice.

"Why, she," said the Gryphon; "it's all her fancy, that: they never executes nobody, you know: come on!"

"Everybody says 'come on!' here," thought Alice as she walked slowly after the Gryphon; "I never was ordered about so before in all my life—never!"

They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the distance, sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and, as they came nearer, Alice could here it sighing as if its heart would break. She pitied it deeply: "what is its sorrow?" she asked the Gryphon, and the Gryphon answered, very nearly in the same words as before, "it's all its fancy, that: it hasn't got no sorrow, you know: come on!"

So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with large eyes full of tears, but said nothing.

"This here young lady" said the Gryphon, "wants for to know your history, she do."

"I'll tell it," said the Mock Turtle, in a deep hollow tone, "sit down, and don't speak till I've finished."

So they sat down, and no one spoke for some minutes: Alice thought to herself "I don't see how it can ever finish, if it doesn't begin," but she waited patiently.

"Once," said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, "I was a real Turtle."

These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only by an occasional exclamation of "hjckrrh!" from the Gryphon, and the constant heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. Alice was very nearly getting up and saying, "thank you, sir, for your interesting story," but she could not help thinking there must be more to come, so she sat still and said nothing.

"When we were little," the Mock Turtle went on, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, "we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle—we used to call him Tortoise—"

"Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn't one?" asked Alice.

"We called him Tortoise because he taught us," said the Mock Turtle angrily, "really you are very dull!"

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple question," added the Gryphon, and then they both sat silent and looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth: at last the Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, "get on, old fellow! Don't be all day!" and the Mock Turtle went on in these words:

"You may not have lived much under the sea—" ("I haven't," said Alice,) "and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster—" (Alice began to say "I once tasted—" but hastily checked herself, and said "no, never," instead,) "so you can have no idea what a delightful thing a Lobster Quadrille is!"

"No, indeed," said Alice, "what sort of a thing is it?"

"Why," said the Gryphon, "you form into a line along the sea shore—"

"Two lines!" cried the Mock Turtle, "seals, turtles, salmon, and so on—advance twice—"

"Each with a lobster as partner!" cried the Gryphon.

"Of course," the Mock Turtle said, "advance twice, set to partners—"

"Change lobsters, and retire in same order—" interrupted the Gryphon.

"Then, you know," continued the Mock Turtle, "you throw the—"

"The lobsters!" shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air.

"As far out to sea as you can—"

"Swim after them!" screamed the Gryphon.

"Turn a somersault in the sea!" cried the Mock Turtle, capering wildly about.

"Change lobsters again!" yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice, "and then—"

"That's all," said the Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping its voice, and the two creatures, who had been jumping about like mad things all this time, sat down again very sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice.

"It must be a very pretty dance," said Alice timidly.

"Would you like to see a little of it?" said the Mock Turtle.

"Very much indeed," said Alice.

"Come, let's try the first figure!" said the Mock Turtle to the Gryphon, "we can do it without lobsters, you know. Which shall sing?"

"Oh! you sing!" said the Gryphon, "I've forgotten the words."

So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice, every now and then treading on her toes when they came too close, and waving their fore-paws to mark the time, while the Mock Turtle sang, slowly and sadly, these words:

"Beneath the waters of the sea Are lobsters thick as thick can be— They love to dance with you and me, My own, my gentle Salmon!"

The Gryphon joined in singing the chorus, which was:

"Salmon come up! Salmon go down! Salmon come twist your tail around! Of all the fishes of the sea There's none so good as Salmon!"

"Thank you," said Alice, feeling very glad that the figure was over.

"Shall we try the second figure?" said the Gryphon, "or would you prefer a song?"

"Oh, a song, please!" Alice replied, so eagerly, that the Gryphon said, in a rather offended tone, "hm! no accounting for tastes! Sing her 'Mock Turtle Soup', will you, old fellow!"

The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes choked with sobs, to sing this:

"Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, Waiting in a hot tureen! Who for such dainties would not stoop? Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! Beau—ootiful Soo—oop! Soo—oop of the e—e—evening, Beautiful beautiful Soup!

"Chorus again!" cried the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle had just begun to repeat it, when a cry of "the trial's beginning!" was heard in the distance.

"Come on!" cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand, he hurried off, without waiting for the end of the song.

"What trial is it?" panted Alice as she ran, but the Gryphon only answered "come on!" and ran the faster, and more and more faintly came, borne on the breeze that followed them, the melancholy words:

"Soo—oop of the e—e—evening, Beautiful beautiful Soup!"

The King and Queen were seated on their throne when they arrived, with a great crowd assembled around them: the Knave was in custody: and before the King stood the white rabbit, with a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in the other.

"Herald! read the accusation!" said the King.

On this the white rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and then unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows:

"The Queen of Hearts she made some tarts All on a summer day: The Knave of Hearts he stole those tarts, And took them quite away!"

"Now for the evidence," said the King, "and then the sentence."

"No!" said the Queen, "first the sentence, and then the evidence!"

"Nonsense!" cried Alice, so loudly that everybody jumped, "the idea of having the sentence first!"

"Hold your tongue!" said the Queen.

"I won't!" said Alice, "you're nothing but a pack of cards! Who cares for you?"

At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her: she gave a little scream of fright, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some leaves that had fluttered down from the trees on to her face.

"Wake up! Alice dear!" said her sister, "what a nice long sleep you've had!"

"Oh, I've had such a curious dream!" said Alice, and she told her sister all her Adventures Under Ground, as you have read them, and when she had finished, her sister kissed her and said "it was a curious dream, dear, certainly! But now run in to your tea: it's getting late."

So Alice ran off, thinking while she ran (as well she might) what a wonderful dream it had been.

But her sister sat there some while longer, watching the setting sun, and thinking of little Alice and her Adventures, till she too began dreaming after a fashion, and this was her dream:

She saw an ancient city, and a quiet river winding near it along the plain, and up the stream went slowly gliding a boat with a merry party of children on board—she could hear their voices and laughter like music over the water—and among them was another little Alice, who sat listening with bright eager eyes to a tale that was being told, and she listened for the words of the tale, and lo! it was the dream of her own little sister. So the boat wound slowly along, beneath the bright summer-day, with its merry crew and its music of voices and laughter, till it passed round one of the many turnings of the stream, and she saw it no more.

Then she thought, (in a dream within the dream, as it were,) how this same little Alice would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman: and how she would keep, through her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather around her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a wonderful tale, perhaps even with these very adventures of the little Alice of long-ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.

THE END.

POSTSCRIPT.

The profits, if any, of this book will be given to Children's Hospitals and Convalescent Homes for Sick Children; and the accounts, down to June 30 in each year, will be published in the St. James's Gazette, on the second Tuesday of the following December.

P.P.S.—The thought, so prettily expressed by the little boy, is also to be found in Longfellow's "Hiawatha," where he appeals to those who believe

"That the feeble hands and helpless, Groping blindly in the darkness, Touch God's right hand in that darkness, And are lifted up and strengthened."

"Who will Riddle me the How and the Why?"

So questions one of England's sweetest singers. The "How?" has already been told, after a fashion, in the verses prefixed to "Alice in Wonderland"; and some other memories of that happy summer day are set down, for those who care to see them, in this little book—the germ that was to grow into the published volume. But the "Why?" cannot, and need not, be put into words. Those for whom a child's mind is a sealed book, and who see no divinity in a child's smile, would read such words in vain: while for any one that has ever loved one true child, no words are needed. For he will have known the awe that falls on one in the presence of a spirit fresh from God's hands, on whom no shadow of sin, and but the outermost fringe of the shadow of sorrow, has yet fallen: he will have felt the bitter contrast between the haunting selfishness that spoils his best deeds and the life that is but an overflowing love—for I think a child's first attitude to the world is a simple love for all living things: and he will have learned that the best work a man can do is when he works for love's sake only, with no thought of name, or gain, or earthly reward. No deed of ours, I suppose, on this side the grave, is really unselfish: yet if one can put forth all one's powers in a task where nothing of reward is hoped for but a little child's whispered thanks, and the airy touch of a little child's pure lips, one seems to come somewhere near to this.

There was no idea of publication in my mind when I wrote this little book: that was wholly an afterthought, pressed on me by the "perhaps too partial friends" who always have to bear the blame when a writer rushes into print: and I can truly say that no praise of theirs has ever given me one hundredth part of the pleasure it has been to think of the sick children in hospitals (where it has been a delight to me to send copies) forgetting, for a few bright hours, their pain and weariness—perhaps thinking lovingly of the unknown writer of the tale—perhaps even putting up a childish prayer (and oh, how much it needs!) for one who can but dimly hope to stand, some day, not quite out of sight of those pure young faces, before the great white throne. "I am very sure," writes a lady-visitor at a Home for Sick Children, "that there will be many loving earnest prayers for you on Easter morning from the children."

I would like to quote further from her letters, as embodying a suggestion that may perhaps thus come to the notice of some one able and willing to carry it out.

"I want you to send me one of your Easter Greetings for a very dear child who is dying at our Home. She is just fading away, and 'Alice' has brightened some of the weary hours in her illness, and I know that letter would be such a delight to her—especially if you would put 'Minnie' at the top, and she could know you had sent it for her. She knows you, and would so value it.... She suffers so much that I long for what I know would so please her." ... "Thank you very much for sending me the letter, and for writing Minnie's name.... I am quite sure that all these children will say a loving prayer for the 'Alice-man' on Easter Day: and I am sure the letter will help the little ones to the real Easter joy. How I do wish that you, who have won the hearts and confidence of so many children, would do for them what is so very near my heart, and yet what no one will do, viz. write a book for children about God and themselves, which is not goody, and which begins at the right end, about religion, to make them see what it really is. I get quite miserable very often over the children I come across: hardly any of them have an idea of really knowing that God loves them, or of loving and confiding in Him. They will love and trust me, and be sure that I want them to be happy, and will not let them suffer more than is necessary: but as for going to Him in the same way, they would never think of it. They are dreadfully afraid of Him, if they think of Him at all, which they generally only do when they have been naughty, and they look on all connected with Him as very grave and dull: and, when they are full of fun and thoroughly happy, I am sure they unconsciously hope He is not looking. I am sure I don't wonder they think of Him in this way, for people never talk of Him in connection with what makes their little lives the brightest. If they are naughty, people put on solemn faces, and say He is very angry or shocked, or something which frightens them: and, for the rest, He is talked about only in a way that makes them think of church and having to be quiet. As for being taught that all Joy and all Gladness and Brightness is His Joy—that He is wearying for them to be happy, and is not hard and stern, but always doing things to make their days brighter, and caring for them so tenderly, and wanting them to run to Him with all their little joys and sorrows, they are not taught that. I do so long to make them trust Him as they trust us, to feel that He will 'take their part' as they do with us in their little woes, and to go to Him in their plays and enjoyments and not only when they say their prayers. I was quite grateful to one little dot, a short time ago, who said to his mother 'when I am in bed, I put out my hand to see if I can feel Jesus and my angel. I thought perhaps in the dark they'd touch me, but they never have yet.' I do so want them to want to go to Him, and to feel how, if He is there, it must be happy."

Let me add—for I feel I have drifted into far too serious a vein for a preface to a fairy-tale—the deliciously naïve remark of a very dear child-friend, whom I asked, after an acquaintance of two or three days, if she had read 'Alice' and the 'Looking-Glass.' "Oh yes," she replied readily, "I've read both of them! And I think" (this more slowly and thoughtfully) "I think 'Through the Looking-Glass' is more stupid than 'Alice's Adventures.' Don't you think so?" But this was a question I felt it would be hardly discreet for me to enter upon.

LEWIS CARROLL.

Dec. 1886.

AN EASTER GREETING TO EVERY CHILD WHO LOVES "Alice."

Dear Child,

Please to fancy, if you can, that you are reading a real letter, from a real friend whom you have seen, and whose voice you can seem to yourself to hear wishing you, as I do now with all my heart, a happy Easter.

Do you know that delicious dreamy feeling when one first wakes on a summer morning, with the twitter of birds in the air, and the fresh breeze coming in at the open window—when, lying lazily with eyes half shut, one sees as in a dream green boughs waving, or waters rippling in a golden light? It is a pleasure very near to sadness, bringing tears to one's eyes like a beautiful picture or poem. And is not that a Mother's gentle hand that undraws your curtains, and a Mother's sweet voice that summons you to rise? To rise and forget, in the bright sunlight, the ugly dreams that frightened you so when all was dark—to rise and enjoy another happy day, first kneeling to thank that unseen Friend, who sends you the beautiful sun?

Are these strange words from a writer of such tales as "Alice"? And is this a strange letter to find in a book of nonsense? It may be so. Some perhaps may blame me for thus mixing together things grave and gay; others may smile and think it odd that any one should speak of solemn things at all, except in church and on a Sunday: but I think—nay, I am sure—that some children will read this gently and lovingly, and in the spirit in which I have written it.

For I do not believe God means us thus to divide life into two halves—to wear a grave face on Sunday, and to think it out-of-place to even so much as mention Him on a week-day. Do you think He cares to see only kneeling figures, and to hear only tones of prayer—and that He does not also love to see the lambs leaping in the sunlight, and to hear the merry voices of the children, as they roll among the hay? Surely their innocent laughter is as sweet in His ears as the grandest anthem that ever rolled up from the "dim religious light" of some solemn cathedral?

And if I have written anything to add to those stores of innocent and healthy amusement that are laid up in books for the children I love so well, it is surely something I may hope to look back upon without shame and sorrow (as how much of life must then be recalled!) when my turn comes to walk through the valley of shadows.

This Easter sun will rise on you, dear child, feeling your "life in every limb," and eager to rush out into the fresh morning air—and many an Easter-day will come and go, before it finds you feeble and gray-headed, creeping wearily out to bask once more in the sunlight—but it is good, even now, to think sometimes of that great morning when the "Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings."

Surely your gladness need not be the less for the thought that you will one day see a brighter dawn than this—when lovelier sights will meet your eyes than any waving trees or rippling waters—when angel-hands shall undraw your curtains, and sweeter tones than ever loving Mother breathed shall wake you to a new and glorious day—and when all the sadness, and the sin, that darkened life on this little earth, shall be forgotten like the dreams of a night that is past!

Your affectionate friend,

LEWIS CARROLL.

Easter, 1876.

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS.

From A Fairy To A Child.

Lady dear, if Fairies may For a moment lay aside Cunning tricks and elfish play, 'Tis at happy Christmas-tide.

We have heard the children say— Gentle children, whom we love— Long ago, on Christmas Day, Came a message from above.

Still, as Christmas-tide comes round, They remember it again— Echo still the joyful sound "Peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Yet the hearts must childlike be Where such heavenly guests abide: Unto children, in their glee, All the year is Christmas-tide!

Thus, forgetting tricks and play For a moment, Lady dear, We would wish you, if we may, Merry Christmas, glad New Year!

LEWIS CARROLL.

Christmas, 1867.

ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

Illustrated by Sir John Tenniel

First published in 1865, this famous novel tells the story of a girl called Alice, who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by anthropomorphic creatures. The novel’s genre has been termed as literary nonsense, which has had an enormous influence in literature, in particular on the fantasy genre. 

On 26 November Carroll gave Alice Liddell the handwritten manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, with illustrations by himself, dedicating it as "A Christmas Gift to a Dear Child in Memory of a Summer’s Day".  But before Alice received her copy, Carroll was already preparing it for publication and expanding the 15,500-word original to 27,500 words, most notably adding the episodes featuring the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Tea-Party.  This later version was to be called Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  It was published late in 1865 under the Lewis Carroll pen-name, which had first been used nine years earlier.  The illustrations this time were by Sir John Tenniel, as Carroll felt that a published book deserved the skills of a professional artist.  Sir John Tenniel’s original illustrations are provided in this version of the text.

The first edition

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

Down the Rabbit-Hole

CHAPTER II

The Pool of Tears

CHAPTER III

A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale

CHAPTER IV

The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill

CHAPTER V

Advice from a Caterpillar

CHAPTER VI

Pig and Pepper

CHAPTER VII

A Mad Tea-Party

CHAPTER VIII

The Queen’s Croquet-Ground

CHAPTER IX

The Mock Turtle’s Story

CHAPTER X

The Lobster Quadrille

CHAPTER XI

Who Stole the Tarts?

CHAPTER XII

Alice’s Evidence

The famous 1951 Disney adaptation

Tim Burton’s 2010 film adaptation

The original frontispiece

CHAPTER I

Down the Rabbit-Hole

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice ‘without pictures or conversation?’

So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!’ (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

White Rabbit checking watch

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled ‘ORANGE MARMALADE’, but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.

‘Well!’ thought Alice to herself, ‘after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!’ (Which was very likely true.)

Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end! ‘I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?’ she said aloud. ‘I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think—’ (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a very good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) ‘—yes, that’s about the right distance—but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?’ (Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to say.)

Presently she began again. ‘I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think—’ (she was rather glad there was no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at all the right word) ‘—but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia?’ (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke—fancy curtseying as you’re falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) ‘And what an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.’

Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again. ‘Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I should think!’ (Dinah was the cat.) ‘I hope they’ll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that’s very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?’ And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, ‘Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?’ and sometimes, ‘Do bats eat cats?’ for, you see, as she couldn’t answer either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, ‘Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?’ when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.

Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, ‘Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!’ She was close behind it when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof.

There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again.

Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice’s first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!

Alice finding tiny door behind curtain

Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head though the doorway; ‘and even if my head would go through,’ thought poor Alice, ‘it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only know how to begin.’ For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.

There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this time she found a little bottle on it, (‘which certainly was not here before,’ said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words ‘DRINK ME’ beautifully printed on it in large letters.

Alice taking "Drink Me" bottle

It was all very well to say ‘Drink me,’ but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. ‘No, I’ll look first,’ she said, ‘and see whether it’s marked "poison" or not’; for she had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.

However, this bottle was not marked ‘poison,’ so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off.

‘What a curious feeling!’ said Alice; ‘I must be shutting up like a telescope.’

And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little nervous about this; ‘for it might end, you know,’ said Alice to herself, ‘in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?’ And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.

After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going into the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the door, she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it, she found she could not possibly reach it: she could see it quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery; and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried.

‘Come, there’s no use in crying like that!’ said Alice to herself, rather sharply; ‘I advise you to leave off this minute!’ She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. ‘But it’s no use now,’ thought poor Alice, ‘to pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!’

Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words ‘EAT ME’ were beautifully marked in currants. ‘Well, I’ll eat it,’ said Alice, ‘and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I’ll get into the garden, and I don’t care which happens!’

She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, ‘Which way? Which way?’, holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was growing, and she was quite surprised to find that she remained the same size: to be sure, this generally happens when one eats cake, but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.

So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.

CHAPTER II

 The Pool of Tears

‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); ‘now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!’ (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). ‘Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m sure I shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can; —but I must be kind to them,’ thought Alice, ‘or perhaps they won’t walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.’

Alice stretched tall

And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. ‘They must go by the carrier,’ she thought; ‘and how funny it’ll seem, sending presents to one’s own feet! And how odd the directions will look!

ALICE’S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ.

HEARTHRUG,

NEAR THE FENDER,

(WITH ALICE’S LOVE).

Oh dear, what nonsense I’m talking!’

Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was now more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.

Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again.

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

After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, ‘Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won’t she be savage if I’ve kept her waiting!’ Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any one; so, when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, ‘If you please, sir—’ The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go.

Giant Alice watching Rabbit run away

Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking: ‘Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle!’ And she began thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them.

‘I’m sure I’m not Ada,’ she said, ‘for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn’t go in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I can’t be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a very little! Besides, she’s she, and I’m I, and—oh dear, how puzzling it all is! I’ll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate! However, the Multiplication Table doesn’t signify: let’s try Geography. London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome, and Rome—no, that’s all wrong, I’m certain! I must have been changed for Mabel! I’ll try and say "How doth the little—"‘ and she crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons, and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words did not come the same as they used to do:—

‘How doth the little crocodile

Improve his shining tail,

And pour the waters of the Nile

On every golden scale!

‘How cheerfully he seems to grin,

How neatly spread his claws,

And welcome little fishes in

With gently smiling jaws!’

‘I’m sure those are not the right words,’ said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, ‘I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I’ve made up my mind about it; if I’m Mabel, I’ll stay down here! It’ll be no use their putting their heads down and saying "Come up again, dear!" I shall only look up and say "Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up: if not, I’ll stay down here till I’m somebody else"—but, oh dear!’ cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, ‘I do wish they would put their heads down! I am so very tired of being all alone here!’

As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was surprised to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit’s little white kid gloves while she was talking. ‘How can I have done that?’ she thought. ‘I must be growing small again.’ She got up and went to the table to measure herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly: she soon found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether.

‘That was a narrow escape!’ said Alice, a good deal frightened at the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence; ‘and now for the garden!’ and she ran with all speed back to the little door: but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as before, ‘and things are worse than ever,’ thought the poor child, ‘for I never was so small as this before, never! And I declare it’s too bad, that it is!’

As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, ‘and in that case I can go back by railway,’ she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high.

Alice in pool of tears

‘I wish I hadn’t cried so much!’ said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. ‘I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That will be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.’

Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.

Alice with Mouse in pool of tears

‘Would it be of any use, now,’ thought Alice, ‘to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there’s no harm in trying.’ So she began: ‘O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!’ (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen in her brother’s Latin Grammar, ‘A mouse—of a mouse—to a mouse—a mouse—O mouse!’ The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing.

‘Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,’ thought Alice; ‘I daresay it’s a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.’ (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened.) So she began again: ‘Ou est ma chatte?’ which was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon!’ cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal’s feelings. ‘I quite forgot you didn’t like cats.’

‘Not like cats!’ cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. ‘Would you like cats if you were me?’

‘Well, perhaps not,’ said Alice in a soothing tone: ‘don’t be angry about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah: I think you’d take a fancy to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear quiet thing,’ Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about in the pool, ‘and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face—and she is such a nice soft thing to nurse—and she’s such a capital one for catching mice—oh, I beg your pardon!’ cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all over, and she felt certain it must be really offended. ‘We won’t talk about her any more if you’d rather not.’

‘We indeed!’ cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of his tail. ‘As if I would talk on such a subject! Our family always hated cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don’t let me hear the name again!’

‘I won’t indeed!’ said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of conversation. ‘Are you—are you fond—of—of dogs?’ The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on eagerly: ‘There is such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed terrier, you know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it’ll fetch things when you throw them, and it’ll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts of things—I can’t remember half of them—and it belongs to a farmer, you know, and he says it’s so useful, it’s worth a hundred pounds! He says it kills all the rats and—oh dear!’ cried Alice in a sorrowful tone, ‘I’m afraid I’ve offended it again!’ For the Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the pool as it went.

So she called softly after it, ‘Mouse dear! Do come back again, and we won’t talk about cats or dogs either, if you don’t like them!’ When the Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam slowly back to her: its face was quite pale (with passion, Alice thought), and it said in a low trembling voice, ‘Let us get to the shore, and then I’ll tell you my history, and you’ll understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.’

It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded with the birds and animals that had fallen into it: there were a Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious creatures. Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore.

CHAPTER III

A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale

They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank—the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable.

The first question of course was, how to get dry again: they had a consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed quite natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with them, as if she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument with the Lory, who at last turned sulky, and would only say, ‘I 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 no more to be said.

At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority among them, called out, ‘Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! I’ll soon make you dry enough!’ They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon.

‘Ahem!’ said the Mouse with an important air, ‘are you all ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please! "William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria—"‘

‘Ugh!’ said the Lory, with a shiver.

‘I beg your pardon!’ said the Mouse, frowning, but very politely: ‘Did you speak?’

‘Not I!’ said the Lory hastily.

‘I thought you did,’ said the Mouse. ‘—I proceed. "Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him: and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable—"‘

‘Found what?’ said the Duck.

‘Found it,’ the Mouse replied rather crossly: ‘of course you know what "it" means.’

‘I know what "it" means well enough, when I find a thing,’ said the Duck: ‘it’s generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?’

The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on, ‘"—found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him the crown. William’s conduct at first was moderate. But the insolence of his Normans—" How are you getting on now, my dear?’ it continued, turning to Alice as it spoke.

‘As wet as ever,’ said Alice in a melancholy tone: ‘it doesn’t seem to dry me at all.’

‘In that case,’ said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, ‘I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies—’

‘Speak English!’ said the Eaglet. ‘I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!’ And the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a smile: some of the other birds tittered audibly.

‘What I was going to say,’ said the Dodo in an offended tone, ‘was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.’

‘What is a Caucus-race?’ said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.

‘Why,’ said the Dodo, ‘the best way to explain it is to do it.’ (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)

First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (‘the exact shape doesn’t matter,’ it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no ‘One, two, three, and away,’ but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out ‘The race is over!’ and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, ‘But who has won?’

This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, ‘Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.’

‘But who is to give the prizes?’ quite a chorus of voices asked.

‘Why, she, of course,’ said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out in a confused way, ‘Prizes! Prizes!’

Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, (luckily the salt water had not got into it), and handed them round as prizes. There was exactly one a-piece all round.

‘But she must have a prize herself, you know,’ said the Mouse.

‘Of course,’ the Dodo replied very gravely. ‘What else have you got in your pocket?’ he went on, turning to Alice.

‘Only a thimble,’ said Alice sadly.

‘Hand it over here,’ said the Dodo.

Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly presented the thimble, saying ‘We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble’; and, when it had finished this short speech, they all cheered.

Dodo presenting thimble

Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could.

The next thing was to eat the comfits: this caused some noise and confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not taste theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on the back. However, it was over at last, and they sat down again in a ring, and begged the Mouse to tell them something more.

‘You promised to tell me your history, you know,’ said Alice, ‘and why it is you hate—C and D,’ she added in a whisper, half afraid that it would be offended again.

‘Mine is a long and a sad tale!’ said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing.

‘It is a long tail, certainly,’ said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse’s tail; ‘but why do you call it sad?’ And she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the tale was something like this:—

‘Fury said to a

         mouse, That he

        met in the

       house,

     "Let us

      both go to

       law: I will

        prosecute

         YOU.—Come,

           I’ll take no

           denial; We

          must have a

        trial: For

      really this

     morning I’ve

    nothing

    to do."

     Said the

      mouse to the

       cur, "Such

        a trial,

         dear Sir,

            With

          no jury

        or judge,

       would be

      wasting

      our

      breath."

       "I’ll be

        judge, I’ll

         be jury,"

            Said

         cunning

          old Fury:

          "I’ll

          try the

            whole

            cause,

              and

           condemn

           you

          to

           death."‘

‘You are not attending!’ said the Mouse to Alice severely. ‘What are you thinking of?’

Mouse telling story to birds and Alice

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Alice very humbly: ‘you had got to the fifth bend, I think?’

‘I had not!’ cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily.

‘A knot!’ said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking anxiously about her. ‘Oh, do let me help to undo it!’

‘I shall do nothing of the sort,’ said the Mouse, getting up and walking away. ‘You insult me by talking such nonsense!’

‘I didn’t mean it!’ pleaded poor Alice. ‘But you’re so easily offended, you know!’

The Mouse only growled in reply.

‘Please come back and finish your story!’ Alice called after it; and the others all joined in chorus, ‘Yes, please do!’ but the Mouse only shook its head impatiently, and walked a little quicker.

‘What a pity it wouldn’t stay!’ sighed the Lory, as soon as it was quite out of sight; and an old Crab took the opportunity of saying to her daughter ‘Ah, my dear! Let this be a lesson to you never to lose your temper!’ ‘Hold your tongue, Ma!’ said the young Crab, a little snappishly. ‘You’re enough to try the patience of an oyster!’

‘I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!’ said Alice aloud, addressing nobody in particular. ‘She’d soon fetch it back!’

‘And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?’ said the Lory.

Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about her pet: ‘Dinah’s our cat. And she’s such a capital one for catching mice you can’t think! And oh, I wish you could see her after the birds! Why, she’ll eat a little bird as soon as look at it!’

This speech caused a remarkable sensation among the party. Some of the birds hurried off at once: one old Magpie began wrapping itself up very carefully, remarking, ‘I really must be getting home; the night-air doesn’t suit my throat!’ and a Canary called out in a trembling voice to its children, ‘Come away, my dears! It’s high time you were all in bed!’ On various pretexts they all moved off, and Alice was soon left alone.

‘I wish I hadn’t mentioned Dinah!’ she said to herself in a melancholy tone. ‘Nobody seems to like her, down here, and I’m sure she’s the best cat in the world! Oh, my dear Dinah! I wonder if I shall ever see you any more!’ And here poor Alice began to cry again, for she felt very lonely and low-spirited. In a little while, however, she again heard a little pattering of footsteps in the distance, and she looked up eagerly, half hoping that the Mouse had changed his mind, and was coming back to finish his story.

CHAPTER IV

The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill

It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something; and she heard it muttering to itself ‘The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! She’ll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where can I have dropped them, I wonder?’ Alice guessed in a moment that it was looking for the fan and the pair of white kid gloves, and she very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, but they were nowhere to be seen—everything seemed to have changed since her swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and the little door, had vanished completely.

Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about, and called out to her in an angry tone, ‘Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!’ And Alice was so much frightened that she ran off at once in the direction it pointed to, without trying to explain the mistake it had made.

‘He took me for his housemaid,’ she said to herself as she ran. ‘How surprised he’ll be when he finds out who I am! But I’d better take him his fan and gloves—that is, if I can find them.’ As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name ‘W. RABBIT’ engraved upon it. She went in without knocking, and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the real Mary Ann, and be turned out of the house before she had found the fan and gloves.

‘How queer it seems,’ Alice said to herself, ‘to be going messages for a rabbit! I suppose Dinah’ll be sending me on messages next!’ And she began fancying the sort of thing that would happen: ‘"Miss Alice! Come here directly, and get ready for your walk!" "Coming in a minute, nurse! But I’ve got to see that the mouse doesn’t get out." Only I don’t think,’ Alice went on, ‘that they’d let Dinah stop in the house if it began ordering people about like that!’

By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with a table in the window, and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white kid gloves: she took up the fan and a pair of the gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when her eye fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking-glass. There was no label this time with the words ‘DRINK ME,’ but nevertheless she uncorked it and put it to her lips. ‘I know something interesting is sure to happen,’ she said to herself, ‘whenever I eat or drink anything; so I’ll just see what this bottle does. I do hope it’ll make me grow large again, for really I’m quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!’

It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected: before she had drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing against the ceiling, and had to stoop to save her neck from being broken. She hastily put down the bottle, saying to herself ‘That’s quite enough—I hope I shan’t grow any more—As it is, I can’t get out at the door—I do wish I hadn’t drunk quite so much!’

Alas! it was too late to wish that! She went on growing, and growing, and very soon had to kneel down on the floor: in another minute there was not even room for this, and she tried the effect of lying down with one elbow against the door, and the other arm curled round her head. Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window, and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself ‘Now I can do no more, whatever happens. What will become of me?’

Alice cramped in Rabbit’s house

Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full effect, and she grew no larger: still it was very uncomfortable, and, as there seemed to be no sort of chance of her ever getting out of the room again, no wonder she felt unhappy.

‘It was much pleasanter at home,’ thought poor Alice, ‘when one wasn’t always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn’t gone down that rabbit-hole—and yet—and yet—it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what can have happened to me! When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! There ought to be a book written about me, that there ought! And when I grow up, I’ll write one—but I’m grown up now,’ she added in a sorrowful tone; ‘at least there’s no room to grow up any more here.’

‘But then,’ thought Alice, ‘shall I never get any older than I am now? That’ll be a comfort, one way—never to be an old woman— but then—always to have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn’t like that!’

‘Oh, you foolish Alice!’ she answered herself. ‘How can you learn lessons in here? Why, there’s hardly room for you, and no room at all for any lesson-books!’

And so she went on, taking first one side and then the other, and making quite a conversation of it altogether; but after a few minutes she heard a voice outside, and stopped to listen.

‘Mary Ann! Mary Ann!’ said the voice. ‘Fetch me my gloves this moment!’ Then came a little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look for her, and she trembled till she shook the house, quite forgetting that she was now about a thousand times as large as the Rabbit, and had no reason to be afraid of it.

Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it; but, as the door opened inwards, and Alice’s elbow was pressed hard against it, that attempt proved a failure. Alice heard it say to itself ‘Then I’ll go round and get in at the window.’

‘That you won’t’ thought Alice, and, after waiting till she fancied she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall, and a crash of broken glass, from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen into a cucumber-frame, or something of the sort.

Alice’s hand grabbing at Rabbit

Next came an angry voice—the Rabbit’s—’Pat! Pat! Where are you?’ And then a voice she had never heard before, ‘Sure then I’m here! Digging for apples, yer honour!’

‘Digging for apples, indeed!’ said the Rabbit angrily. ‘Here! Come and help me out of this!’ (Sounds of more broken glass.)

‘Now tell me, Pat, what’s that in the window?’

‘Sure, it’s an arm, yer honour!’ (He pronounced it ‘arrum.’)

‘An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one that size? Why, it fills the whole window!’

‘Sure, it does, yer honour: but it’s an arm for all that.’

‘Well, it’s got no business there, at any rate: go and take it away!’

There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear whispers now and then; such as, ‘Sure, I don’t like it, yer honour, at all, at all!’ ‘Do as I tell you, you coward!’ and at last she spread out her hand again, and made another snatch in the air. This time there were two little shrieks, and more sounds of broken glass. ‘What a number of cucumber-frames there must be!’ thought Alice. ‘I wonder what they’ll do next! As for pulling me out of the window, I only wish they could! I’m sure I don’t want to stay in here any longer!’

She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at last came a rumbling of little cartwheels, and the sound of a good many voices all talking together: she made out the words: ‘Where’s the other ladder?—Why, I hadn’t to bring but one; Bill’s got the other—Bill! fetch it here, lad!—Here, put ‘em up at this corner—No, tie ‘em together first—they don’t reach half high enough yet—Oh! they’ll do well enough; don’t be particular— Here, Bill! catch hold of this rope—Will the roof bear?—Mind that loose slate—Oh, it’s coming down! Heads below!’ (a loud crash)—’Now, who did that?—It was Bill, I fancy—Who’s to go down the chimney?—Nay, I shan’t! You do it!—That I won’t, then!—Bill’s to go down—Here, Bill! the master says you’re to go down the chimney!’

‘Oh! So Bill’s got to come down the chimney, has he?’ said Alice to herself. ‘Shy, they seem to put everything upon Bill! I wouldn’t be in Bill’s place for a good deal: this fireplace is narrow, to be sure; but I think I can kick a little!’

She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and waited till she heard a little animal (she couldn’t guess of what sort it was) scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close above her: then, saying to herself ‘This is Bill,’ she gave one sharp kick, and waited to see what would happen next.

The first thing she heard was a general chorus of ‘There goes Bill!’ then the Rabbit’s voice along—’Catch him, you by the hedge!’ then silence, and then another confusion of voices—’Hold up his head—Brandy now—Don’t choke him—How was it, old fellow? What happened to you? Tell us all about it!’

"There goes Bill!"

Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, (‘That’s Bill,’ thought Alice,) ‘Well, I hardly know—No more, thank ye; I’m better now—but I’m a deal too flustered to tell you—all I know is, something comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes like a sky-rocket!’

‘So you did, old fellow!’ said the others.

‘We must burn the house down!’ said the Rabbit’s voice; and Alice called out as loud as she could, ‘If you do. I’ll set Dinah at you!’

There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice thought to herself, ‘I wonder what they will do next! If they had any sense, they’d take the roof off.’ After a minute or two, they began moving about again, and Alice heard the Rabbit say, ‘A barrowful will do, to begin with.’

‘A barrowful of what?’ thought Alice; but she had not long to doubt, for the next moment a shower of little pebbles came rattling in at the window, and some of them hit her in the face. ‘I’ll put a stop to this,’ she said to herself, and shouted out, ‘You’d better not do that again!’ which produced another dead silence.

Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all turning into little cakes as they lay on the floor, and a bright idea came into her head. ‘If I eat one of these cakes,’ she thought, ‘it’s sure to make some change in my size; and as it can’t possibly make me larger, it must make me smaller, I suppose.’

So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was delighted to find that she began shrinking directly. As soon as she was small enough to get through the door, she ran out of the house, and found quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting outside. The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out of a bottle. They all made a rush at Alice the moment she appeared; but she ran off as hard as she could, and soon found herself safe in a thick wood.

‘The first thing I’ve got to do,’ said Alice to herself, as she wandered about in the wood, ‘is to grow to my right size again; and the second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I think that will be the best plan.’

It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged; the only difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea how to set about it; and while she was peering about anxiously among the trees, a little sharp bark just over her head made her look up in a great hurry.

An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round eyes, and feebly stretching out one paw, trying to touch her. ‘Poor little thing!’ said Alice, in a coaxing tone, and she tried hard to whistle to it; but she was terribly frightened all the time at the thought that it might be hungry, in which case it would be very likely to eat her up in spite of all her coaxing.

Dog looking at tiny Alice

Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick, and held it out to the puppy; whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off all its feet at once, with a yelp of delight, and rushed at the stick, and made believe to worry it; then Alice dodged behind a great thistle, to keep herself from being run over; and the moment she appeared on the other side, the puppy made another rush at the stick, and tumbled head over heels in its hurry to get hold of it; then Alice, thinking it was very like having a game of play with a cart-horse, and expecting every moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle again; then the puppy began a series of short charges at the stick, running a very little way forwards each time and a long way back, and barking hoarsely all the while, till at last it sat down a good way off, panting, with its tongue hanging out of its mouth, and its great eyes half shut.

This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making her escape; so she set off at once, and ran till she was quite tired and out of breath, and till the puppy’s bark sounded quite faint in the distance.

‘And yet what a dear little puppy it was!’ said Alice, as she leant against a buttercup to rest herself, and fanned herself with one of the leaves: ‘I should have liked teaching it tricks very much, if—if I’d only been the right size to do it! Oh dear! I’d nearly forgotten that I’ve got to grow up again! Let me see—how is it to be managed? I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other; but the great question is, what?’

The great question certainly was, what? Alice looked all round her at the flowers and the blades of grass, but she did not see anything that looked like the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances. There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the same height as herself; and when she had looked under it, and on both sides of it, and behind it, it occurred to her that she might as well look and see what was on the top of it.

She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else.

Alice meets the Caterpillar

CHAPTER V

 Advice from a Caterpillar

The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice.

‘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 been changed several times since then.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ said the Caterpillar sternly. ‘Explain yourself!’

‘I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, sir’ said Alice, ‘because I’m not myself, you see.’

‘I don’t see,’ said the Caterpillar.

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

‘It isn’t,’ said the Caterpillar.

‘Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,’ said Alice; ‘but when you have to turn into a chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel it a little queer, won’t you?’

‘Not a bit,’ said the Caterpillar.

‘Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,’ said Alice; ‘all I know is, it would feel very queer to me.’

‘You!’ said the Caterpillar contemptuously. ‘Who are you?’

Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. Alice felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar’s making such very short remarks, and she drew herself up and said, very gravely, ‘I think, you ought to tell me who you are, first.’

‘Why?’ said the Caterpillar.

Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could not think of any good reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in a very unpleasant state of mind, she turned away.

‘Come back!’ the Caterpillar called after her. ‘I’ve something important to say!’

This sounded promising, certainly: Alice turned and came back again.

‘Keep your temper,’ said the Caterpillar.

‘Is that all?’ said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she could.

‘No,’ said the Caterpillar.

Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth hearing. For some minutes it puffed away without speaking, but at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said, ‘So you think you’re changed, do you?’

‘I’m afraid I am, sir,’ said Alice; ‘I can’t remember things as I used—and I don’t keep the same size for ten minutes together!’

‘Can’t remember what things?’ said the Caterpillar.

‘Well, I’ve tried to say "How Doth the Little Busy Bee," but it all came different!’ Alice replied in a very melancholy voice.

‘Repeat, "You are Old, Father William,"‘ said the Caterpillar.

Alice folded her hands, and began:—

   ‘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.’

Father William standing on head

   ‘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 grey 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?’

Father William somersaulting in the door

   ‘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.’

Father William balancing eel on nose

‘That is not said right,’ said the Caterpillar.

‘Not quite right, I’m afraid,’ said Alice, timidly; ‘some of the words have got altered.’

‘It is wrong from beginning to end,’ said the Caterpillar decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes.

The Caterpillar was the first to speak.

‘What size do you want to be?’ it asked.

‘Oh, I’m not particular as to size,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘only one doesn’t like changing so often, you know.’

‘I don’t know,’ said the Caterpillar.

Alice said nothing: she had never been so much contradicted in her life before, and she felt that she was losing her temper.

‘Are you content now?’ said the Caterpillar.

‘Well, I should like to be a little larger, sir, if you wouldn’t mind,’ said Alice: ‘three inches is such a wretched height to be.’

‘It is a very good height indeed!’ said the Caterpillar angrily, rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high).

‘But I’m not used to it!’ pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone. And she thought of herself, ‘I wish the creatures wouldn’t be so easily offended!’

‘You’ll get used to it in time,’ said the Caterpillar; and it put the hookah into its mouth and began smoking again.

This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again. In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely remarking as it went, ‘One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.’

‘One side of what? The other side of what?’ thought Alice to herself.

‘Of the mushroom,’ said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight.

Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying to make out which were the two sides of it; and as it was perfectly round, she found this a very difficult question. However, at last she stretched her arms round it as far as they would go, and broke off a bit of the edge with each hand.

‘And now which is which?’ she said to herself, and nibbled a little of the right-hand bit to try the effect: the next moment she felt a violent blow underneath her chin: it had struck her foot!

She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but she felt that there was no time to be lost, as she was shrinking rapidly; so she set to work at once to eat some of the other bit. Her chin was pressed so closely against her foot, that there was hardly room to open her mouth; but she did it at last, and managed to swallow a morsel of the lefthand bit.

‘Come, my head’s free at last!’ said Alice in a tone of delight, which changed into alarm in another moment, when she found that her shoulders were nowhere to be found: all she could see, when she looked down, was an immense length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves that lay far below her.

‘What can all that green stuff be?’ said Alice. ‘And where have my shoulders got to? And oh, my poor hands, how is it I can’t see you?’ She was moving them about as she spoke, but no result seemed to follow, except a little shaking among the distant green leaves.

As there seemed to be no chance of getting her hands up to her head, she tried to get her head down to them, and was delighted to find that her neck would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent. She had just succeeded in curving it down into a graceful zigzag, and was going to dive in among the leaves, which she found to be nothing but the tops of the trees under which she had been wandering, when a sharp hiss made her draw back in a hurry: a large pigeon had flown into her face, and was beating her violently with its wings.

‘Serpent!’ screamed the Pigeon.

‘I’m not a serpent!’ said Alice indignantly. ‘Let me alone!’

‘Serpent, I say again!’ repeated the Pigeon, but in a more subdued tone, and added with a kind of sob, ‘I’ve tried every way, and nothing seems to suit them!’

‘I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about,’ said Alice.

‘I’ve tried the roots of trees, and I’ve tried banks, and I’ve tried hedges,’ the Pigeon went on, without attending to her; ‘but those serpents! There’s no pleasing them!’

Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no use in saying anything more till the Pigeon had finished.

‘As if it wasn’t trouble enough hatching the eggs,’ said the Pigeon; ‘but I must be on the look-out for serpents night and day! Why, I haven’t had a wink of sleep these three weeks!’

‘I’m very sorry you’ve been annoyed,’ said Alice, who was beginning to see its meaning.

‘And just as I’d taken the highest tree in the wood,’ continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, ‘and just as I was thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!’

‘But I’m not a serpent, I tell you!’ said Alice. ‘I’m a—I’m a—’

‘Well! what are you?’ said the Pigeon. ‘I can see you’re trying to invent something!’

‘I—I’m a little girl,’ said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she remembered the number of changes she had gone through that day.

‘A likely story indeed!’ said the Pigeon in a tone of the deepest contempt. ‘I’ve seen a good many little girls in my time, but never one with such a neck as that! No, no! You’re a serpent; and there’s no use denying it. I suppose you’ll be telling me next that you never tasted an egg!’

‘I have tasted eggs, certainly,’ said Alice, who was a very truthful child; ‘but little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do, you know.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ said the Pigeon; ‘but if they do, why then they’re a kind of serpent, that’s all I can say.’

This was such a new idea to Alice, that she was quite silent for a minute or two, which gave the Pigeon the opportunity of adding, ‘You’re looking for eggs, I know that well enough; and what does it matter to me whether you’re a little girl or a serpent?’

‘It matters a good deal to me,’ said Alice hastily; ‘but I’m not looking for eggs, as it happens; and if I was, I shouldn’t want yours: I don’t like them raw.’

‘Well, be off, then!’ said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as it settled down again into its nest. Alice crouched down among the trees as well as she could, for her neck kept getting entangled among the branches, and every now and then she had to stop and untwist it. After a while she remembered that she still held the pieces of mushroom in her hands, and she set to work very carefully, nibbling first at one and then at the other, and growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until she had succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height.

It was so long since she had been anything near the right size, that it felt quite strange at first; but she got used to it in a few minutes, and began talking to herself, as usual. ‘Come, there’s half my plan done now! How puzzling all these changes are! I’m never sure what I’m going to be, from one minute to another! However, I’ve got back to my right size: the next thing is, to get into that beautiful garden—how is that to be done, I wonder?’ As she said this, she came suddenly upon an open place, with a little house in it about four feet high. ‘Whoever lives there,’ thought Alice, ‘it’ll never do to come upon them this size: why, I should frighten them out of their wits!’ So she began nibbling at the righthand bit again, and did not venture to go near the house till she had brought herself down to nine inches high.

CHAPTER VI

Pig and Pepper

For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering what to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the wood—(she considered him to be a footman because he was in livery: otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a fish)—and rapped loudly at the door with his knuckles. It was opened by another footman in livery, with a round face, and large eyes like a frog; and both footmen, Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled all over their heads. She felt very curious to know what it was all about, and crept a little way out of the wood to listen.

Fish and Frog servants

The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great letter, nearly as large as himself, and this he handed over to the other, saying, in a solemn tone, ‘For the Duchess. An invitation from the Queen to play croquet.’ The Frog-Footman repeated, in the same solemn tone, only changing the order of the words a little, ‘From the Queen. An invitation for the Duchess to play croquet.’

Then they both bowed low, and their curls got entangled together.

Alice laughed so much at this, that she had to run back into the wood for fear of their hearing her; and when she next peeped out the Fish-Footman was gone, and the other was sitting on the ground near the door, staring stupidly up into the sky.

Alice went timidly up to the door, and knocked.

‘There’s no sort of use in knocking,’ said the Footman, ‘and that for two reasons. First, because I’m on the same side of the door as you are; secondly, because they’re making such a noise inside, no one could possibly hear you.’ And certainly there was a most extraordinary noise going on within—a constant howling and sneezing, and every now and then a great crash, as if a dish or kettle had been broken to pieces.

‘Please, then,’ said Alice, ‘how am I to get in?’

‘There might be some sense in your knocking,’ the Footman went on without attending to her, ‘if we had the door between us. For instance, if you were inside, you might knock, and I could let you out, you know.’ He was looking up into the sky all the time he was speaking, and this Alice thought decidedly uncivil. ‘But perhaps he can’t help it,’ she said to herself; ‘his eyes are so very nearly at the top of his head. But at any rate he might answer questions.—How am I to get in?’ she repeated, aloud.

‘I shall sit here,’ the Footman remarked, ‘till tomorrow—’

At this moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate came skimming out, straight at the Footman’s head: it just grazed his nose, and broke to pieces against one of the trees behind him.

‘—or next day, maybe,’ the Footman continued in the same tone, exactly as if nothing had happened.

‘How am I to get in?’ asked Alice again, in a louder tone.

‘Are you to get in at all?’ said the Footman. ‘That’s the first question, you know.’

It was, no doubt: only Alice did not like to be told so. ‘It’s really dreadful,’ she muttered to herself, ‘the way all the creatures argue. It’s enough to drive one crazy!’

The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for repeating his remark, with variations. ‘I shall sit here,’ he said, ‘on and off, for days and days.’

‘But what am I to do?’ said Alice.

‘Anything you like,’ said the Footman, and began whistling.

‘Oh, there’s no use in talking to him,’ said Alice desperately: ‘he’s perfectly idiotic!’ And she opened the door and went in.

The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of smoke from one end to the other: the Duchess was sitting on a three-legged stool in the middle, nursing a baby; the cook was leaning over the fire, stirring a large cauldron which seemed to be full of soup.

‘There’s certainly too much pepper in that soup!’ Alice said to herself, as well as she could for sneezing.

There was certainly too much of it in the air. Even the Duchess sneezed occasionally; and as for the baby, it was sneezing and howling alternately without a moment’s pause. The only things in the kitchen that did not sneeze, were the cook, and a large cat which was sitting on the hearth and grinning from ear to ear.

Cook, Duchess, Cheshire Cat, Baby, and Alice

‘Please would you tell me,’ said Alice, a little timidly, for she was not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first, ‘why your cat grins like that?’

‘It’s a Cheshire cat,’ said the Duchess, ‘and that’s why. Pig!’

She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on again:—

‘I didn’t know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn’t know that cats could grin.’

‘They all can,’ said the Duchess; ‘and most of ‘em do.’

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

‘You don’t know much,’ said the Duchess; ‘and that’s a fact.’

Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought it would be as well to introduce some other subject of conversation. While she was trying to fix on one, the cook took the cauldron of soup off the fire, and at once set to work throwing everything within her reach at the Duchess and the baby —the fire-irons came first; then followed a shower of saucepans, plates, and dishes. The Duchess took no notice of them even when they hit her; and the baby was howling so much already, that it was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not.

‘Oh, please mind what you’re doing!’ cried Alice, jumping up and down in an agony of terror. ‘Oh, there goes his precious nose’; as an unusually large saucepan flew close by it, and very nearly carried it off.

‘If everybody minded their own business,’ the Duchess said in a hoarse growl, ‘the world would go round a deal faster than it does.’

‘Which would not be an advantage,’ said Alice, who felt very glad to get an opportunity of showing off a little of her knowledge. ‘Just think of what work it would make with the day and night! You see the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn round on its axis—’

‘Talking of axes,’ said the Duchess, ‘chop off her head!’

Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to see if she meant to take the hint; but the cook was busily stirring the soup, and seemed not to be listening, so she went on again: ‘Twenty-four hours, I think; or is it twelve? I—’

‘Oh, don’t bother me,’ said the Duchess; ‘I never could abide figures!’ And with that she began nursing her child again, singing a sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a violent shake at the end of every line:

        ‘Speak roughly to your little boy,

          And beat him when he sneezes:

        He only does it to annoy,

          Because he knows it teases.’

      CHORUS.

(In which the cook and the baby joined):—

  ‘Wow! wow! wow!’

While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song, she kept tossing the baby violently up and down, and the poor little thing howled so, that Alice could hardly hear the words:—

        ‘I speak severely to my boy,

          I beat him when he sneezes;

        For he can thoroughly enjoy

          The pepper when he pleases!’

      CHORUS.

  ‘Wow! wow! wow!’

‘Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like!’ the Duchess said to Alice, flinging the baby at her as she spoke. ‘I must go and get ready to play croquet with the Queen,’ and she hurried out of the room. The cook threw a frying-pan after her as she went out, but it just missed her.

Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-shaped little creature, and held out its arms and legs in all directions, ‘just like a star-fish,’ thought Alice. The poor little thing was snorting like a steam-engine when she caught it, and kept doubling itself up and straightening itself out again, so that altogether, for the first minute or two, it was as much as she could do to hold it.

As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it, (which was to twist it up into a sort of knot, and then keep tight hold of its right ear and left foot, so as to prevent its undoing itself,) she carried it out into the open air. ‘If I don’t take this child away with me,’ thought Alice, ‘they’re sure to kill it in a day or two: wouldn’t it be murder to leave it behind?’ She said the last words out loud, and the little thing grunted in reply (it had left off sneezing by this time). ‘Don’t grunt,’ said Alice; ‘that’s not at all a proper way of expressing yourself.’

The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into its face to see what was the matter with it. There could be no doubt that it had a very turn-up nose, much more like a snout than a real nose; also its eyes were getting extremely small for a baby: altogether Alice did not like the look of the thing at all. ‘But perhaps it was only sobbing,’ she thought, and looked into its eyes again, to see if there were any tears.

No, there were no tears. ‘If you’re going to turn into a pig, my dear,’ said Alice, seriously, ‘I’ll have nothing more to do with you. Mind now!’ The poor little thing sobbed again (or grunted, it was impossible to say which), and they went on for some while in silence.

Alice and pig baby

Alice was just beginning to think to herself, ‘Now, what am I to do with this creature when I get it home?’ when it grunted again, so violently, that she looked down into its face in some alarm. This time there could be no mistake about it: it was neither more nor less than a pig, and she felt that it would be quite absurd for her to carry it further.

So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it trot away quietly into the wood. ‘If it had grown up,’ she said to herself, ‘it would have made a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.’ And she began thinking over other children she knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying to herself, ‘if one only knew the right way to change them—’ when she was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought: still it had very long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

‘Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. ‘Come, it’s pleased so far,’ thought Alice, and she went on. ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’

Alice speaks to Cheshire Cat

‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.

‘I don’t much care where—’ said Alice.

‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.

‘—so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation.

‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.’

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. ‘What sort of people live about here?’

‘In that direction,’ the Cat said, waving its right paw round, ‘lives a Hatter: and in that direction,’ waving the other paw, ‘lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.’

‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.

‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’

‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.

‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’

Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; however, she went on ‘And how do you know that you’re mad?’

‘To begin with,’ said the Cat, ‘a dog’s not mad. You grant that?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Alice.

‘Well, then,’ the Cat went on, ‘you see, a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.’

‘I call it purring, not growling,’ said Alice.

‘Call it what you like,’ said the Cat. ‘Do you play croquet with the Queen to-day?’

‘I should like it very much,’ said Alice, ‘but I haven’t been invited yet.’

‘You’ll see me there,’ said the Cat, and vanished.

Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used to queer things happening. While she was looking at the place where it had been, it suddenly appeared again.

‘By-the-bye, what became of the baby?’ said the Cat. ‘I’d nearly forgotten to ask.’

‘It turned into a pig,’ Alice quietly said, just as if it had come back in a natural way.

‘I thought it would,’ said the Cat, and vanished again.

Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in which the March Hare was said to live. ‘I’ve seen hatters before,’ she said to herself; ‘the March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad—at least not so mad as it was in March.’ As she said this, she looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a branch of a tree.

‘Did you say pig, or fig?’ said the Cat.

‘I said pig,’ replied Alice; ‘and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.’

‘All right,’ said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

Cheshire Cat fading to smile

‘Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,’ thought Alice; ‘but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!’

She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the house of the March Hare: she thought it must be the right house, because the chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was thatched with fur. It was so large a house, that she did not like to go nearer till she had nibbled some more of the lefthand bit of mushroom, and raised herself to about two feet high: even then she walked up towards it rather timidly, saying to herself ‘Suppose it should be raving mad after all! I almost wish I’d gone to see the Hatter instead!’

CHAPTER VII

A Mad Tea-Party

There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. ‘Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,’ thought Alice; ‘only, as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.’

The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: ‘No room! No room!’ they cried out when they saw Alice coming. ‘There’s plenty of room!’ said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.

Mad Tea Party

‘Have some wine,’ the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.

Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. ‘I don’t see any wine,’ she remarked.

‘There isn’t any,’ said the March Hare.

‘Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,’ said Alice angrily.

‘It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,’ said the March Hare.

‘I didn’t know it was your table,’ said Alice; ‘it’s laid for a great many more than three.’

‘Your hair wants cutting,’ said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.

‘You should learn not to make personal remarks,’ Alice said with some severity; ‘it’s very rude.’

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, ‘Why is a raven like a writing-desk?’

‘Come, we shall have some fun now!’ thought Alice. ‘I’m glad they’ve begun asking riddles.—I believe I can guess that,’ she added aloud.

‘Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?’ said the March Hare.

‘Exactly so,’ said Alice.

‘Then you should say what you mean,’ the March Hare went on.

‘I do,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘at least—at least I mean what I say—that’s the same thing, you know.’

‘Not the same thing a bit!’ said the Hatter. ‘You might just as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!’

Hatter engaging in rhetoric

‘You might just as well say,’ added the March Hare, ‘that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!’

‘You might just as well say,’ added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, ‘that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!’

‘It is the same thing with you,’ said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn’t much.

The Hatter was the first to break the silence. ‘What day of the month is it?’ he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.

Alice considered a little, and then said ‘The fourth.’

‘Two days wrong!’ sighed the Hatter. ‘I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!’ he added looking angrily at the March Hare.

‘It was the best butter,’ the March Hare meekly replied.

‘Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,’ the Hatter grumbled: ‘you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.’

The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, ‘It was the best butter, you know.’

Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. ‘What a funny watch!’ she remarked. ‘It tells the day of the month, and doesn’t tell what o’clock it is!’

‘Why should it?’ muttered the Hatter. ‘Does your watch tell you what year it is?’

‘Of course not,’ Alice replied very readily: ‘but that’s because it stays the same year for such a long time together.’

‘Which is just the case with mine,’ said the Hatter.

Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. ‘I don’t quite understand you,’ she said, as politely as she could.

‘The Dormouse is asleep again,’ said the Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea upon its nose.

The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its eyes, ‘Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.’

‘Have you guessed the riddle yet?’ the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.

‘No, I give it up,’ Alice replied: ‘what’s the answer?’

‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ said the Hatter.

‘Nor I,’ said the March Hare.

Alice sighed wearily. ‘I think you might do something better with the time,’ she said, ‘than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.’

‘If you knew Time as well as I do,’ said the Hatter, ‘you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Alice.

‘Of course you don’t!’ the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. ‘I dare say you never even spoke to Time!’

‘Perhaps not,’ Alice cautiously replied: ‘but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.’

‘Ah! that accounts for it,’ said the Hatter. ‘He won’t stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!’

(‘I only wish it was,’ the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.)

‘That would be grand, certainly,’ said Alice thoughtfully: ‘but then—I shouldn’t be hungry for it, you know.’

‘Not at first, perhaps,’ said the Hatter: ‘but you could keep it to half-past one as long as you liked.’

‘Is that the way you manage?’ Alice asked.

The Hatter shook his head mournfully. ‘Not I!’ he replied. ‘We quarrelled last March—just before he went mad, you know—’ (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) ‘—it was at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing

"Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!

How I wonder what you’re at!"

You know the song, perhaps?’

‘I’ve heard something like it,’ said Alice.

‘It goes on, you know,’ the Hatter continued, ‘in this way:—

"Up above the world you fly,

Like a tea-tray in the sky.

      Twinkle, twinkle—"‘

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep ‘Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle—’ and went on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop.

‘Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,’ said the Hatter, ‘when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, "He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!"‘

‘How dreadfully savage!’ exclaimed Alice.

‘And ever since that,’ the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, ‘he won’t do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.’

A bright idea came into Alice’s head. ‘Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?’ she asked.

‘Yes, that’s it,’ said the Hatter with a sigh: ‘it’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.’

‘Then you keep moving round, I suppose?’ said Alice.

‘Exactly so,’ said the Hatter: ‘as the things get used up.’

‘But what happens when you come to the beginning again?’ Alice ventured to ask.

‘Suppose we change the subject,’ the March Hare interrupted, yawning. ‘I’m getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know one,’ said Alice, rather alarmed at the proposal.

‘Then the Dormouse shall!’ they both cried. ‘Wake up, Dormouse!’ And they pinched it on both sides at once.

The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. ‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he said in a hoarse, feeble voice: ‘I heard every word you fellows were saying.’

‘Tell us a story!’ said the March Hare.

‘Yes, please do!’ pleaded Alice.

‘And be quick about it,’ added the Hatter, ‘or you’ll be asleep again before it’s done.’

‘Once upon a time there were three little sisters,’ the Dormouse began in a great hurry; ‘and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well—’

‘What did they live on?’ said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.

‘They lived on treacle,’ said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two.

‘They couldn’t have done that, you know,’ Alice gently remarked; ‘they’d have been ill.’

‘So they were,’ said the Dormouse; ‘very ill.’

Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: ‘But why did they live at the bottom of a well?’

‘Take some more tea,’ the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

‘I’ve had nothing yet,’ Alice replied in an offended tone, ‘so I can’t take more.’

‘You mean you can’t take less,’ said the Hatter: ‘it’s very easy to take more than nothing.’

‘Nobody asked your opinion,’ said Alice.

‘Who’s making personal remarks now?’ the Hatter asked triumphantly.

Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and repeated her question. ‘Why did they live at the bottom of a well?’

The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then said, ‘It was a treacle-well.’

‘There’s no such thing!’ Alice was beginning very angrily, but the Hatter and the March Hare went ‘Sh! sh!’ and the Dormouse sulkily remarked, ‘If you can’t be civil, you’d better finish the story for yourself.’

‘No, please go on!’ Alice said very humbly; ‘I won’t interrupt again. I dare say there may be one.’

‘One, indeed!’ said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he consented to go on. ‘And so these three little sisters—they were learning to draw, you know—’

‘What did they draw?’ said Alice, quite forgetting her promise.

‘Treacle,’ said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time.

‘I want a clean cup,’ interrupted the Hatter: ‘let’s all move one place on.’

He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the March Hare moved into the Dormouse’s place, and Alice rather unwillingly took the place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal worse off than before, as the March Hare had just upset the milk-jug into his plate.

Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very cautiously: ‘But I don’t understand. Where did they draw the treacle from?’

‘You can draw water out of a water-well,’ said the Hatter; ‘so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well—eh, stupid?’

‘But they were in the well,’ Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last remark.

‘Of course they were’, said the Dormouse; ‘—well in.’

This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for some time without interrupting it.

‘They were learning to draw,’ the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; ‘and they drew all manner of things—everything that begins with an M—’

‘Why with an M?’ said Alice.

‘Why not?’ said the March Hare.

Alice was silent.

The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on: ‘—that begins with an M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness— you know you say things are "much of a muchness"—did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?’

‘Really, now you ask me,’ said Alice, very much confused, ‘I don’t think—’

‘Then you shouldn’t talk,’ said the Hatter.

This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.

Hatter and Hare dunking Dormouse

‘At any rate I’ll never go there again!’ said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. ‘It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!’

Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a door leading right into it. ‘That’s very curious!’ she thought. ‘But everything’s curious today. I think I may as well go in at once.’ And in she went.

Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little glass table. ‘Now, I’ll manage better this time,’ she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key, and unlocking the door that led into the garden. Then she went to work nibbling at the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a foot high: then she walked down the little passage: and then—she found herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains.

CHAPTER VIII

The Queen’s Croquet-Ground

A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily painting them red. Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she went nearer to watch them, and just as she came up to them she heard one of them say, ‘Look out now, Five! Don’t go splashing paint over me like that!’

Two, Five, and Seven painting the rosebush

‘I couldn’t help it,’ said Five, in a sulky tone; ‘Seven jogged my elbow.’

On which Seven looked up and said, ‘That’s right, Five! Always lay the blame on others!’

‘You’d better not talk!’ said Five. ‘I heard the Queen say only yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!’

‘What for?’ said the one who had spoken first.

‘That’s none of your business, Two!’ said Seven.

‘Yes, it is his business!’ said Five, ‘and I’ll tell him—it was for bringing the cook tulip-roots instead of onions.’

Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun ‘Well, of all the unjust things—’ when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood watching them, and he checked himself suddenly: the others looked round also, and all of them bowed low.

‘Would you tell me,’ said Alice, a little timidly, ‘why you are painting those roses?’

Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low voice, ‘Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So you see, Miss, we’re doing our best, afore she comes, to—’ At this moment Five, who had been anxiously looking across the garden, called out ‘The Queen! The Queen!’ and the three gardeners instantly threw themselves flat upon their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps, and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen.

First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped like the three gardeners, oblong and flat, with their hands and feet at the corners: next the ten courtiers; these were ornamented all over with diamonds, and walked two and two, as the soldiers did. After these came the royal children; there were ten of them, and the little dears came jumping merrily along hand in hand, in couples: they were all ornamented with hearts. Next came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, and among them Alice recognised the White Rabbit: it was talking in a hurried nervous manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went by without noticing her. Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying the King’s crown on a crimson velvet cushion; and, last of all this grand procession, came the King and Queen of Hearts.

Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie down on her face like the three gardeners, but she could not remember ever having heard of such a rule at processions; ‘and besides, what would be the use of a procession,’ thought she, ‘if people had all to lie down upon their faces, so that they couldn’t see it?’ So she stood still where she was, and waited.

When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped and looked at her, and the Queen said severely ‘Who is this?’ She said it to the Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply.

‘Idiot!’ said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and, turning to Alice, she went on, ‘What’s your name, child?’

‘My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,’ said Alice very politely; but she added, to herself, ‘Why, they’re only a pack of cards, after all. I needn’t be afraid of them!’

‘And who are these?’ said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners who were lying round the rosetree; for, you see, as they were lying on their faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same as the rest of the pack, she could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her own children.

‘How should I know?’ said Alice, surprised at her own courage. ‘It’s no business of mine.’

The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, screamed ‘Off with her head! Off—’

"OFF WITH HER HEAD!"

‘Nonsense!’ said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was silent.

The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said ‘Consider, my dear: she is only a child!’

The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to the Knave ‘Turn them over!’

The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot.

‘Get up!’ said the Queen, in a shrill, loud voice, and the three gardeners instantly jumped up, and began bowing to the King, the Queen, the royal children, and everybody else.

‘Leave off that!’ screamed the Queen. ‘You make me giddy.’ And then, turning to the rose-tree, she went on, ‘What have you been doing here?’

‘May it please your Majesty,’ said Two, in a very humble tone, going down on one knee as he spoke, ‘we were trying—’

‘I see!’ said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the roses. ‘Off with their heads!’ and the procession moved on, three of the soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection.

‘You shan’t be beheaded!’ said Alice, and she put them into a large flower-pot that stood near. The three soldiers wandered about for a minute or two, looking for them, and then quietly marched off after the others.

‘Are their heads off?’ shouted the Queen.

‘Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!’ the soldiers shouted in reply.

‘That’s right!’ shouted the Queen. ‘Can you play croquet?’

The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question was evidently meant for her.

‘Yes!’ shouted Alice.

‘Come on, then!’ roared the Queen, and Alice joined the procession, wondering very much what would happen next.

‘It’s—it’s a very fine day!’ said a timid voice at her side. She was walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her face.

‘Very,’ said Alice: ‘—where’s the Duchess?’

‘Hush! Hush!’ said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone. He looked anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised himself upon tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and whispered ‘She’s under sentence of execution.’

‘What for?’ said Alice.

‘Did you say "What a pity!"?’ the Rabbit asked.

‘No, I didn’t,’ said Alice: ‘I don’t think it’s at all a pity. I said "What for?"‘

‘She boxed the Queen’s ears—’ the Rabbit began. Alice gave a little scream of laughter. ‘Oh, hush!’ the Rabbit whispered in a frightened tone. ‘The Queen will hear you! You see, she came rather late, and the Queen said—’

‘Get to your places!’ shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and people began running about in all directions, tumbling up against each other; however, they got settled down in a minute or two, and the game began. Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in her life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.

The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it would twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all this, there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed.

Alice trying to play croquet with flamingo and hedgehog

The players all played at once without waiting for turns, quarrelling all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short time the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about, and shouting ‘Off with his head!’ or ‘Off with her head!’ about once in a minute.

Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not as yet had any dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might happen any minute, ‘and then,’ thought she, ‘what would become of me? They’re dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there’s any one left alive!’

She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering whether she could get away without being seen, when she noticed a curious appearance in the air: it puzzled her very much at first, but, after watching it a minute or two, she made it out to be a grin, and she said to herself ‘It’s the Cheshire Cat: now I shall have somebody to talk to.’

‘How are you getting on?’ said the Cat, as soon as there was mouth enough for it to speak with.

Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. ‘It’s no use speaking to it,’ she thought, ‘till its ears have come, or at least one of them.’ In another minute the whole head appeared, and then Alice put down her flamingo, and began an account of the game, feeling very glad she had someone to listen to her. The Cat seemed to think that there was enough of it now in sight, and no more of it appeared.

‘I don’t think they play at all fairly,’ Alice began, in rather a complaining tone, ‘and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can’t hear oneself speak—and they don’t seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them—and you’ve no idea how confusing it is all the things being alive; for instance, there’s the arch I’ve got to go through next walking about at the other end of the ground—and I should have croqueted the Queen’s hedgehog just now, only it ran away when it saw mine coming!’

‘How do you like the Queen?’ said the Cat in a low voice.

‘Not at all,’ said Alice: ‘she’s so extremely—’ Just then she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on, ‘—likely to win, that it’s hardly worth while finishing the game.’

The Queen smiled and passed on.

‘Who are you talking to?’ said the King, going up to Alice, and looking at the Cat’s head with great curiosity.

‘It’s a friend of mine—a Cheshire Cat,’ said Alice: ‘allow me to introduce it.’

‘I don’t like the look of it at all,’ said the King: ‘however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.’

‘I’d rather not,’ the Cat remarked.

‘Don’t be impertinent,’ said the King, ‘and don’t look at me like that!’ He got behind Alice as he spoke.

‘A cat may look at a king,’ said Alice. ‘I’ve read that in some book, but I don’t remember where.’

‘Well, it must be removed,’ said the King very decidedly, and he called the Queen, who was passing at the moment, ‘My dear! I wish you would have this cat removed!’

The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. ‘Off with his head!’ she said, without even looking round.

‘I’ll fetch the executioner myself,’ said the King eagerly, and he hurried off.

Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game was going on, as she heard the Queen’s voice in the distance, screaming with passion. She had already heard her sentence three of the players to be executed for having missed their turns, and she did not like the look of things at all, as the game was in such confusion that she never knew whether it was her turn or not. So she went in search of her hedgehog.

The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog, which seemed to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them with the other: the only difficulty was, that her flamingo was gone across to the other side of the garden, where Alice could see it trying in a helpless sort of way to fly up into a tree.

By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back, the fight was over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight: ‘but it doesn’t matter much,’ thought Alice, ‘as all the arches are gone from this side of the ground.’ So she tucked it away under her arm, that it might not escape again, and went back for a little more conversation with her friend.

When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to find quite a large crowd collected round it: there was a dispute going on between the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who were all talking at once, while all the rest were quite silent, and looked very uncomfortable.

Executioner argues with King about cutting off Cheshire Cat’s head

The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to settle the question, and they repeated their arguments to her, though, as they all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed to make out exactly what they said.

The executioner’s argument was, that you couldn’t cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn’t going to begin at his time of life.

The King’s argument was, that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you weren’t to talk nonsense.

The Queen’s argument was, that if something wasn’t done about it in less than no time she’d have everybody executed, all round. (It was this last remark that had made the whole party look so grave and anxious.)

Alice could think of nothing else to say but ‘It belongs to the Duchess: you’d better ask her about it.’

‘She’s in prison,’ the Queen said to the executioner: ‘fetch her here.’ And the executioner went off like an arrow.

The Cat’s head began fading away the moment he was gone, and, by the time he had come back with the Dutchess, it had entirely disappeared; so the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down looking for it, while the rest of the party went back to the game.

CHAPTER IX

The Mock Turtle’s Story

‘You can’t think how glad I am to see you again, you dear old thing!’ said the Duchess, as she tucked her arm affectionately into Alice’s, and they walked off together.

Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant temper, and thought to herself that perhaps it was only the pepper that had made her so savage when they met in the kitchen.

‘When I’m a Duchess,’ she said to herself, (not in a very hopeful tone though), ‘I won’t have any pepper in my kitchen at all. Soup does very well without—Maybe it’s always pepper that makes people hot-tempered,’ she went on, very much pleased at having found out a new kind of rule, ‘and vinegar that makes them sour—and camomile that makes them bitter—and—and barley-sugar and such things that make children sweet-tempered. I only wish people knew that: then they wouldn’t be so stingy about it, you know—’

She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and was a little startled when she heard her voice close to her ear. ‘You’re thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can’t tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.’

Alice (with flamingo) chats with the Duchess

‘Perhaps it hasn’t one,’ Alice ventured to remark.

‘Tut, tut, child!’ said the Duchess. ‘Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.’ And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice’s side as she spoke.

Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first, because the Duchess was very ugly; and secondly, because she was exactly the right height to rest her chin upon Alice’s shoulder, and it was an uncomfortably sharp chin. However, she did not like to be rude, so she bore it as well as she could.

‘The game’s going on rather better now,’ she said, by way of keeping up the conversation a little.

‘‘Tis so,’ said the Duchess: ‘and the moral of that is—"Oh, ‘tis love, ‘tis love, that makes the world go round!"‘

‘Somebody said,’ Alice whispered, ‘that it’s done by everybody minding their own business!’

‘Ah, well! It means much the same thing,’ said the Duchess, digging her sharp little chin into Alice’s shoulder as she added, ‘and the moral of that is—"Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves."‘

‘How fond she is of finding morals in things!’ Alice thought to herself.

‘I dare say you’re wondering why I don’t put my arm round your waist,’ the Duchess said after a pause: ‘the reason is, that I’m doubtful about the temper of your flamingo. Shall I try the experiment?’

‘He might bite,’ Alice cautiously replied, not feeling at all anxious to have the experiment tried.

‘Very true,’ said the Duchess: ‘flamingoes and mustard both bite. And the moral of that is—"Birds of a feather flock together."‘

‘Only mustard isn’t a bird,’ Alice remarked.

‘Right, as usual,’ said the Duchess: ‘what a clear way you have of putting things!’

‘It’s a mineral, I think,’ said Alice.

‘Of course it is,’ said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to everything that Alice said; ‘there’s a large mustard-mine near here. And the moral of that is—"The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours."‘

‘Oh, I know!’ exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this last remark, ‘it’s a vegetable. It doesn’t look like one, but it is.’

‘I quite agree with you,’ said the Duchess; ‘and the moral of that is—"Be what you would seem to be"—or if you’d like it put more simply—"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."‘

‘I think I should understand that better,’ Alice said very politely, ‘if I had it written down: but I can’t quite follow it as you say it.’

‘That’s nothing to what I could say if I chose,’ the Duchess replied, in a pleased tone.

‘Pray don’t trouble yourself to say it any longer than that,’ said Alice.

‘Oh, don’t talk about trouble!’ said the Duchess. ‘I make you a present of everything I’ve said as yet.’

‘A cheap sort of present!’ thought Alice. ‘I’m glad they don’t give birthday presents like that!’ But she did not venture to say it out loud.

‘Thinking again?’ the Duchess asked, with another dig of her sharp little chin.

‘I’ve a right to think,’ said Alice sharply, for she was beginning to feel a little worried.

‘Just about as much right,’ said the Duchess, ‘as pigs have to fly; and the m—’

But here, to Alice’s great surprise, the Duchess’s voice died away, even in the middle of her favourite word ‘moral,’ and the arm that was linked into hers began to tremble. Alice looked up, and there stood the Queen in front of them, with her arms folded, frowning like a thunderstorm.

‘A fine day, your Majesty!’ the Duchess began in a low, weak voice.

‘Now, I give you fair warning,’ shouted the Queen, stamping on the ground as she spoke; ‘either you or your head must be off, and that in about half no time! Take your choice!’

The Duchess took her choice, and was gone in a moment.

‘Let’s go on with the game,’ the Queen said to Alice; and Alice was too much frightened to say a word, but slowly followed her back to the croquet-ground.

The other guests had taken advantage of the Queen’s absence, and were resting in the shade: however, the moment they saw her, they hurried back to the game, the Queen merely remarking that a moment’s delay would cost them their lives.

All the time they were playing the Queen never left off quarrelling with the other players, and shouting ‘Off with his head!’ or ‘Off with her head!’ Those whom she sentenced were taken into custody by the soldiers, who of course had to leave off being arches to do this, so that by the end of half an hour or so there were no arches left, and all the players, except the King, the Queen, and Alice, were in custody and under sentence of execution.

Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to Alice, ‘Have you seen the Mock Turtle yet?’

‘No,’ said Alice. ‘I don’t even know what a Mock Turtle is.’

‘It’s the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from,’ said the Queen.

‘I never saw one, or heard of one,’ said Alice.

‘Come on, then,’ said the Queen, ‘and he shall tell you his history,’

As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low voice, to the company generally, ‘You are all pardoned.’ ‘Come, That’s a good thing!’ she said to herself, for she had felt quite unhappy at the number of executions the Queen had ordered.

Gryphon asleep

They very soon came upon a Gryphon, lying fast asleep in the sun. (If you don’t know what a Gryphon is, look at the picture.) ‘Up, lazy thing!’ said the Queen, ‘and take this young lady to see the Mock Turtle, and to hear his history. I must go back and see after some executions I have ordered’; and she walked off, leaving Alice alone with the Gryphon. Alice did not quite like the look of the creature, but on the whole she thought it would be quite as safe to stay with it as to go after that savage Queen: so she waited.

The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes: then it watched the Queen till she was out of sight: then it chuckled. ‘What fun!’ said the Gryphon, half to itself, half to Alice.

‘What is the fun?’ said Alice.

‘Why, she,’ said the Gryphon. ‘It’s all her fancy, that: they never executes nobody, you know. Come on!’

‘Everybody says "come on!" here,’ thought Alice, as she went slowly after it: ‘I never was so ordered about in all my life, never!’

They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the distance, sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and, as they came nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart would break. She pitied him deeply. ‘What is his sorrow?’ she asked the Gryphon, and the Gryphon answered, very nearly in the same words as before, ‘It’s all his fancy, that: he hasn’t got no sorrow, you know. Come on!’

So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with large eyes full of tears, but said nothing.

‘This here young lady,’ said the Gryphon, ‘she wants for to know your history, she do.’

‘I’ll tell it her,’ said the Mock Turtle in a deep, hollow tone: ‘sit down, both of you, and don’t speak a word till I’ve finished.’

So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes. Alice thought to herself, ‘I don’t see how he can even finish, if he doesn’t begin.’ But she waited patiently.

‘Once,’ said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, ‘I was a real Turtle.’

These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only by an occasional exclamation of ‘Hjckrrh!’ from the Gryphon, and the constant heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. Alice was very nearly getting up and saying, ‘Thank you, sir, for your interesting story,’ but she could not help thinking there must be more to come, so she sat still and said nothing.

‘When we were little,’ the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, ‘we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle—we used to call him Tortoise—’

‘Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?’ Alice asked.

‘We called him Tortoise because he taught us,’ said the Mock Turtle angrily: ‘really you are very dull!’

‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple question,’ added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. At last the Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, ‘Drive on, old fellow! Don’t be all day about it!’ and he went on in these words:

‘Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn’t believe it—’

‘I never said I didn’t!’ interrupted Alice.

‘You did,’ said the Mock Turtle.

‘Hold your tongue!’ added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak again. The Mock Turtle went on.

‘We had the best of educations—in fact, we went to school every day—’

‘I’ve been to a day-school, too,’ said Alice; ‘you needn’t be so proud as all that.’

‘With extras?’ asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously.

‘Yes,’ said Alice, ‘we learned French and music.’

‘And washing?’ said the Mock Turtle.

‘Certainly not!’ said Alice indignantly.

‘Ah! then yours wasn’t a really good school,’ said the Mock Turtle in a tone of great relief. ‘Now at ours they had at the end of the bill, "French, music, and washing—extra."‘

‘You couldn’t have wanted it much,’ said Alice; ‘living at the bottom of the sea.’

‘I couldn’t afford to learn it.’ said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. ‘I only took the regular course.’

‘What was that?’ inquired Alice.

‘Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,’ the Mock Turtle replied; ‘and then the different branches of Arithmetic— Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.’

‘I never heard of "Uglification,"‘ Alice ventured to say. ‘What is it?’

The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. ‘What! Never heard of uglifying!’ it exclaimed. ‘You know what to beautify is, I suppose?’

‘Yes,’ said Alice doubtfully: ‘it means—to—make—anything—prettier.’

‘Well, then,’ the Gryphon went on, ‘if you don’t know what to uglify is, you are a simpleton.’

Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said ‘What else had you to learn?’

‘Well, there was Mystery,’ the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the subjects on his flappers, ‘—Mystery, ancient and modern, with Seaography: then Drawling—the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel, that used to come once a week: He taught us Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.’

‘What was that like?’ said Alice.

‘Well, I can’t show it you myself,’ the Mock Turtle said: ‘I’m too stiff. And the Gryphon never learnt it.’

‘Hadn’t time,’ said the Gryphon: ‘I went to the Classics master, though. He was an old crab, he was.’

‘I never went to him,’ the Mock Turtle said with a sigh: ‘he taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say.’

‘So he did, so he did,’ said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn; and both creatures hid their faces in their paws.

‘And how many hours a day did you do lessons?’ said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.

‘Ten hours the first day,’ said the Mock Turtle: ‘nine the next, and so on.’

‘What a curious plan!’ exclaimed Alice.

‘That’s the reason they’re called lessons,’ the Gryphon remarked: ‘because they lessen from day to day.’

This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a little before she made her next remark. ‘Then the eleventh day must have been a holiday?’

‘Of course it was,’ said the Mock Turtle.

‘And how did you manage on the twelfth?’ Alice went on eagerly.

‘That’s enough about lessons,’ the Gryphon interrupted in a very decided tone: ‘tell her something about the games now.’

CHAPTER X

The Lobster Quadrille

The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and drew the back of one flapper across his eyes. He looked at Alice, and tried to speak, but for a minute or two sobs choked his voice. ‘Same as if he had a bone in his throat,’ said the Gryphon: and it set to work shaking him and punching him in the back. At last the Mock Turtle recovered his voice, and, with tears running down his cheeks, he went on again:—

‘You may not have lived much under the sea—’ (‘I haven’t,’ said Alice)— ‘and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster—’ (Alice began to say ‘I once tasted—’ but checked herself hastily, and said ‘No, never’) ‘—so you can have no idea what a delightful thing a Lobster Quadrille is!’

‘No, indeed,’ said Alice. ‘What sort of a dance is it?’

‘Why,’ said the Gryphon, ‘you first form into a line along the sea-shore—’

‘Two lines!’ cried the Mock Turtle. ‘Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on; then, when you’ve cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way—’

‘That generally takes some time,’ interrupted the Gryphon.

‘—you advance twice—’

‘Each with a lobster as a partner!’ cried the Gryphon.

‘Of course,’ the Mock Turtle said: ‘advance twice, set to partners—’

‘—change lobsters, and retire in same order,’ continued the Gryphon.

‘Then, you know,’ the Mock Turtle went on, ‘you throw the—’

‘The lobsters!’ shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air.

‘—as far out to sea as you can—’

‘Swim after them!’ screamed the Gryphon.

‘Turn a somersault in the sea!’ cried the Mock Turtle, capering wildly about.

‘Change lobster’s again!’ yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice.

‘Back to land again, and that’s all the first figure,’ said the Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping his voice; and the two creatures, who had been jumping about like mad things all this time, sat down again very sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice.

‘It must be a very pretty dance,’ said Alice timidly.

‘Would you like to see a little of it?’ said the Mock Turtle.

‘Very much indeed,’ said Alice.

‘Come, let’s try the first figure!’ said the Mock Turtle to the Gryphon. ‘We can do without lobsters, you know. Which shall sing?’

‘Oh, you sing,’ said the Gryphon. ‘I’ve forgotten the words.’

Mock Turtle and Gryphon singing to Alice

So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice, every now and then treading on her toes when they passed too close, and waving their forepaws to mark the time, while the Mock Turtle sang this, very slowly and sadly:—

‘"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail.

 "There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.

 See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!

 They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance?

 Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?

 Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?

 "You can really have no notion how delightful it will be

 When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!"

 But the snail replied "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance—

 Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.

 Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.

 Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.

 ‘"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied.

 "There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.

 The further off from England the nearer is to France—

 Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.

 Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?

 Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?"‘

‘Thank you, it’s a very interesting dance to watch,’ said Alice, feeling very glad that it was over at last: ‘and I do so like that curious song about the whiting!’

Mock Turtle and Gryphon demonstrating the Lobster Quadrille to Alice

‘Oh, as to the whiting,’ said the Mock Turtle, ‘they—you’ve seen them, of course?’

‘Yes,’ said Alice, ‘I’ve often seen them at dinn—’ she checked herself hastily.

‘I don’t know where Dinn may be,’ said the Mock Turtle, ‘but if you’ve seen them so often, of course you know what they’re like.’

‘I believe so,’ Alice replied thoughtfully. ‘They have their tails in their mouths—and they’re all over crumbs.’

‘You’re wrong about the crumbs,’ said the Mock Turtle: ‘crumbs would all wash off in the sea. But they have their tails in their mouths; and the reason is—’ here the Mock Turtle yawned and shut his eyes.—’Tell her about the reason and all that,’ he said to the Gryphon.

‘The reason is,’ said the Gryphon, ‘that they would go with the lobsters to the dance. So they got thrown out to sea. So they had to fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in their mouths. So they couldn’t get them out again. That’s all.’

‘Thank you,’ said Alice, ‘it’s very interesting. I never knew so much about a whiting before.’

‘I can tell you more than that, if you like,’ said the Gryphon. ‘Do you know why it’s called a whiting?’

‘I never thought about it,’ said Alice. ‘Why?’

‘It does the boots and shoes.’ the Gryphon replied very solemnly.

Alice was thoroughly puzzled. ‘Does the boots and shoes!’ she repeated in a wondering tone.

‘Why, what are your shoes done with?’ said the Gryphon. ‘I mean, what makes them so shiny?’

Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she gave her answer. ‘They’re done with blacking, I believe.’

‘Boots and shoes under the sea,’ the Gryphon went on in a deep voice, ‘are done with a whiting. Now you know.’

‘And what are they made of?’ Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity.

‘Soles and eels, of course,’ the Gryphon replied rather impatiently: ‘any shrimp could have told you that.’

‘If I’d been the whiting,’ said Alice, whose thoughts were still running on the song, ‘I’d have said to the porpoise, "Keep back, please: we don’t want you with us!"‘

‘They were obliged to have him with them,’ the Mock Turtle said: ‘no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.’

‘Wouldn’t it really?’ said Alice in a tone of great surprise.

‘Of course not,’ said the Mock Turtle: ‘why, if a fish came to me, and told me he was going a journey, I should say "With what porpoise?"‘

‘Don’t you mean "purpose"?’ said Alice.

‘I mean what I say,’ the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And the Gryphon added ‘Come, let’s hear some of your adventures.’

‘I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,’ said Alice a little timidly: ‘but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.’

‘Explain all that,’ said the Mock Turtle.

‘No, no! The adventures first,’ said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: ‘explanations take such a dreadful time.’

So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first saw the White Rabbit. She was a little nervous about it just at first, the two creatures got so close to her, one on each side, and opened their eyes and mouths so very wide, but she gained courage as she went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part about her repeating ‘You are Old, Father William,’ to the Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said ‘That’s very curious.’

‘It’s all about as curious as it can be,’ said the Gryphon.

‘It all came different!’ the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. ‘I should like to hear her try and repeat something now. Tell her to begin.’ He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of authority over Alice.

‘Stand up and repeat "‘Tis the Voice of the Sluggard,"‘ said the Gryphon.

‘How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!’ thought Alice; ‘I might as well be at school at once.’ However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of the Lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came very queer indeed:—

    ‘‘Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare,

    "You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair."

    As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose

    Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.’

Lobster primping before a mirror

    When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,

    And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark,

    But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,

    His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.

‘That’s different from what I used to say when I was a child,’ said the Gryphon.

‘Well, I never heard it before,’ said the Mock Turtle; ‘but it sounds uncommon nonsense.’

Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her hands, wondering if anything would ever happen in a natural way again.

‘I should like to have it explained,’ said the Mock Turtle.

‘She can’t explain it,’ said the Gryphon hastily. ‘Go on with the next verse.’

‘But about his toes?’ the Mock Turtle persisted. ‘How could he turn them out with his nose, you know?’

‘It’s the first position in dancing.’ Alice said; but was dreadfully puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the subject.

‘Go on with the next verse,’ the Gryphon repeated impatiently: ‘it begins "I passed by his garden."‘

Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:—

    ‘I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,

    How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie—’

        [later editions continued as follows

    The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat,

    While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat.

    When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon,

    Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon:

    While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl,

    And concluded the banquet—]

‘What is the use of repeating all that stuff,’ the Mock Turtle interrupted, ‘if you don’t explain it as you go on? It’s by far the most confusing thing I ever heard!’

‘Yes, I think you’d better leave off,’ said the Gryphon: and Alice was only too glad to do so.

‘Shall we try another figure of the Lobster Quadrille?’ the Gryphon went on. ‘Or would you like the Mock Turtle to sing you a song?’

‘Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle would be so kind,’ Alice replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather offended tone, ‘Hm! No accounting for tastes! Sing her "Turtle Soup," will you, old fellow?’

The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes choked with sobs, to sing this:—

    ‘Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,

    Waiting in a hot tureen!

    Who for such dainties would not stoop?

    Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

    Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

        Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

        Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

    Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,

        Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

    ‘Beautiful Soup!  Who cares for fish,

    Game, or any other dish?

    Who would not give all else for two p

    ennyworth only of beautiful Soup?

    Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?

        Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

        Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

    Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,

        Beautiful, beauti—FUL SOUP!’

‘Chorus again!’ cried the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle had just begun to repeat it, when a cry of ‘The trial’s beginning!’ was heard in the distance.

‘Come on!’ cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand, it hurried off, without waiting for the end of the song.

‘What trial is it?’ Alice panted as she ran; but the Gryphon only answered ‘Come on!’ and ran the faster, while more and more faintly came, carried on the breeze that followed them, the melancholy words:—

    ‘Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,

        Beautiful, beautiful Soup!’

CHAPTER XI

Who Stole the Tarts?

The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when they arrived, with a great crowd assembled about them—all sorts of little birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards: the Knave was standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on each side to guard him; and near the King was the White Rabbit, with a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in the other. In the very middle of the court was a table, with a large dish of tarts upon it: they looked so good, that it made Alice quite hungry to look at them—’I wish they’d get the trial done,’ she thought, ‘and hand round the refreshments!’ But there seemed to be no chance of this, so she began looking at everything about her, to pass away the time.

Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but she had read about them in books, and she was quite pleased to find that she knew the name of nearly everything there. ‘That’s the judge,’ she said to herself, ‘because of his great wig.’

The judge, by the way, was the King; and as he wore his crown over the wig, (look at the frontispiece if you want to see how he did it,) he did not look at all comfortable, and it was certainly not becoming.

King and Queen inspecting tart in courtroom

‘And that’s the jury-box,’ thought Alice, ‘and those twelve creatures,’ (she was obliged to say ‘creatures,’ you see, because some of them were animals, and some were birds,) ‘I suppose they are the jurors.’ She said this last word two or three times over to herself, being rather proud of it: for she thought, and rightly too, that very few little girls of her age knew the meaning of it at all. However, ‘jury-men’ would have done just as well.

The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on slates. ‘What are they doing?’ Alice whispered to the Gryphon. ‘They can’t have anything to put down yet, before the trial’s begun.’

‘They’re putting down their names,’ the Gryphon whispered in reply, ‘for fear they should forget them before the end of the trial.’

‘Stupid things!’ Alice began in a loud, indignant voice, but she stopped hastily, for the White Rabbit cried out, ‘Silence in the court!’ and the King put on his spectacles and looked anxiously round, to make out who was talking.

Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their shoulders, that all the jurors were writing down ‘stupid things!’ on their slates, and she could even make out that one of them didn’t know how to spell ‘stupid,’ and that he had to ask his neighbour to tell him. ‘A nice muddle their slates’ll be in before the trial’s over!’ thought Alice.

One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked. This of course, Alice could not stand, and she went round the court and got behind him, and very soon found an opportunity of taking it away. She did it so quickly that the poor little juror (it was Bill, the Lizard) could not make out at all what had become of it; so, after hunting all about for it, he was obliged to write with one finger for the rest of the day; and this was of very little use, as it left no mark on the slate.

‘Herald, read the accusation!’ said the King.

On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and then unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows:—

 ‘The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,

All on a summer day:

The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,

And took them quite away!’

White Rabbit, dressed as herald, blowing trumpet

‘Consider your verdict,’ the King said to the jury.

‘Not yet, not yet!’ the Rabbit hastily interrupted. ‘There’s a great deal to come before that!’

‘Call the first witness,’ said the King; and the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, ‘First witness!’

The first witness was the Hatter. He came in with a teacup in one hand and a piece of bread-and-butter in the other. ‘I beg pardon, your Majesty,’ he began, ‘for bringing these in: but I hadn’t quite finished my tea when I was sent for.’

Mad Hatter arrives hastily in court to testify

‘You ought to have finished,’ said the King. ‘When did you begin?’

The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had followed him into the court, arm-in-arm with the Dormouse. ‘Fourteenth of March, I think it was,’ he said.

‘Fifteenth,’ said the March Hare.

‘Sixteenth,’ added the Dormouse.

‘Write that down,’ the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence.

‘Take off your hat,’ the King said to the Hatter.

‘It isn’t mine,’ said the Hatter.

‘Stolen!’ the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who instantly made a memorandum of the fact.

‘I keep them to sell,’ the Hatter added as an explanation; ‘I’ve none of my own. I’m a hatter.’

Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and began staring at the Hatter, who turned pale and fidgeted.

‘Give your evidence,’ said the King; ‘and don’t be nervous, or I’ll have you executed on the spot.’

This did not seem to encourage the witness at all: he kept shifting from one foot to the other, looking uneasily at the Queen, and in his confusion he bit a large piece out of his teacup instead of the bread-and-butter.

Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation, which puzzled her a good deal until she made out what it was: she was beginning to grow larger again, and she thought at first she would get up and leave the court; but on second thoughts she decided to remain where she was as long as there was room for her.

‘I wish you wouldn’t squeeze so.’ said the Dormouse, who was sitting next to her. ‘I can hardly breathe.’

‘I can’t help it,’ said Alice very meekly: ‘I’m growing.’

‘You’ve no right to grow here,’ said the Dormouse.

‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ said Alice more boldly: ‘you know you’re growing too.’

‘Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace,’ said the Dormouse: ‘not in that ridiculous fashion.’ And he got up very sulkily and crossed over to the other side of the court.

All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the Hatter, and, just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to one of the officers of the court, ‘Bring me the list of the singers in the last concert!’ on which the wretched Hatter trembled so, that he shook both his shoes off.

‘Give your evidence,’ the King repeated angrily, ‘or I’ll have you executed, whether you’re nervous or not.’

‘I’m a poor man, your Majesty,’ the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, ‘—and I hadn’t begun my tea—not above a week or so—and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin—and the twinkling of the tea—’

‘The twinkling of the what?’ said the King.

‘It began with the tea,’ the Hatter replied.

‘Of course twinkling begins with a T!’ said the King sharply. ‘Do you take me for a dunce? Go on!’

‘I’m a poor man,’ the Hatter went on, ‘and most things twinkled after that—only the March Hare said—’

‘I didn’t!’ the March Hare interrupted in a great hurry.

‘You did!’ said the Hatter.

‘I deny it!’ said the March Hare.

‘He denies it,’ said the King: ‘leave out that part.’

‘Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said—’ the Hatter went on, looking anxiously round to see if he would deny it too: but the Dormouse denied nothing, being fast asleep.

‘After that,’ continued the Hatter, ‘I cut some more bread-and-butter—’

‘But what did the Dormouse say?’ one of the jury asked.

‘That I can’t remember,’ said the Hatter.

‘You must remember,’ remarked the King, ‘or I’ll have you executed.’

The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread-and-butter, and went down on one knee. ‘I’m a poor man, your Majesty,’ he began.

‘You’re a very poor speaker,’ said the King.

Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea-pig, head first, and then sat upon it.)

‘I’m glad I’ve seen that done,’ thought Alice. ‘I’ve so often read in the newspapers, at the end of trials, "There was some attempts at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court," and I never understood what it meant till now.’

‘If that’s all you know about it, you may stand down,’ continued the King.

‘I can’t go no lower,’ said the Hatter: ‘I’m on the floor, as it is.’

‘Then you may sit down,’ the King replied.

Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed.

‘Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!’ thought Alice. ‘Now we shall get on better.’

‘I’d rather finish my tea,’ said the Hatter, with an anxious look at the Queen, who was reading the list of singers.

‘You may go,’ said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the court, without even waiting to put his shoes on.

...and just as hastily leaves

‘—and just take his head off outside,’ the Queen added to one of the officers: but the Hatter was out of sight before the officer could get to the door.

‘Call the next witness!’ said the King.

The next witness was the Duchess’s cook. She carried the pepper-box in her hand, and Alice guessed who it was, even before she got into the court, by the way the people near the door began sneezing all at once.

‘Give your evidence,’ said the King.

‘Shan’t,’ said the cook.

The King looked anxiously at the White Rabbit, who said in a low voice, ‘Your Majesty must cross-examine this witness.’

‘Well, if I must, I must,’ the King said, with a melancholy air, and, after folding his arms and frowning at the cook till his eyes were nearly out of sight, he said in a deep voice, ‘What are tarts made of?’

‘Pepper, mostly,’ said the cook.

‘Treacle,’ said a sleepy voice behind her.

‘Collar that Dormouse,’ the Queen shrieked out. ‘Behead that Dormouse! Turn that Dormouse out of court! Suppress him! Pinch him! Off with his whiskers!’

For some minutes the whole court was in confusion, getting the Dormouse turned out, and, by the time they had settled down again, the cook had disappeared.

‘Never mind!’ said the King, with an air of great relief. ‘Call the next witness.’ And he added in an undertone to the Queen, ‘Really, my dear, you must cross-examine the next witness. It quite makes my forehead ache!’

Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over the list, feeling very curious to see what the next witness would be like, ‘—for they haven’t got much evidence yet,’ she said to herself. Imagine her surprise, when the White Rabbit read out, at the top of his shrill little voice, the name ‘Alice!’

CHAPTER XII

Alice’s Evidence

‘Here!’ cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the moment how large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she jumped up in such a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with the edge of her skirt, upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below, and there they lay sprawling about, reminding her very much of a globe of goldfish she had accidentally upset the week before.

Giant Alice upsets the jury (literally)

‘Oh, I beg your pardon!’ she exclaimed in a tone of great dismay, and began picking them up again as quickly as she could, for the accident of the goldfish kept running in her head, and she had a vague sort of idea that they must be collected at once and put back into the jury-box, or they would die.

‘The trial cannot proceed,’ said the King in a very grave voice, ‘until all the jurymen are back in their proper places— all,’ he repeated with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as he said do.

Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, in her haste, she had put the Lizard in head downwards, and the poor little thing was waving its tail about in a melancholy way, being quite unable to move. She soon got it out again, and put it right; ‘not that it signifies much,’ she said to herself; ‘I should think it would be quite as much use in the trial one way up as the other.’

As soon as the jury had a little recovered from the shock of being upset, and their slates and pencils had been found and handed back to them, they set to work very diligently to write out a history of the accident, all except the Lizard, who seemed too much overcome to do anything but sit with its mouth open, gazing up into the roof of the court.

‘What do you know about this business?’ the King said to Alice.

‘Nothing,’ said Alice.

‘Nothing whatever?’ persisted the King.

‘Nothing whatever,’ said Alice.

‘That’s very important,’ the King said, turning to the jury. They were just beginning to write this down on their slates, when the White Rabbit interrupted: ‘Unimportant, your Majesty means, of course,’ he said in a very respectful tone, but frowning and making faces at him as he spoke.

‘Unimportant, of course, I meant,’ the King hastily said, and went on to himself in an undertone, ‘important—unimportant— unimportant—important—’ as if he were trying which word sounded best.

Some of the jury wrote it down ‘important,’ and some ‘unimportant.’ Alice could see this, as she was near enough to look over their slates; ‘but it doesn’t matter a bit,’ she thought to herself.

King reflecting in court

At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily writing in his note-book, cackled out ‘Silence!’ and read out from his book, ‘Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.’

Everybody looked at Alice.

‘I’m not a mile high,’ said Alice.

‘You are,’ said the King.

‘Nearly two miles high,’ added the Queen.

‘Well, I shan’t go, at any rate,’ said Alice: ‘besides, that’s not a regular rule: you invented it just now.’

‘It’s the oldest rule in the book,’ said the King.

‘Then it ought to be Number One,’ said Alice.

The King turned pale, and shut his note-book hastily. ‘Consider your verdict,’ he said to the jury, in a low, trembling voice.

‘There’s more evidence to come yet, please your Majesty,’ said the White Rabbit, jumping up in a great hurry; ‘this paper has just been picked up.’

‘What’s in it?’ said the Queen.

‘I haven’t opened it yet,’ said the White Rabbit, ‘but it seems to be a letter, written by the prisoner to—to somebody.’

‘It must have been that,’ said the King, ‘unless it was written to nobody, which isn’t usual, you know.’

‘Who is it directed to?’ said one of the jurymen.

‘It isn’t directed at all,’ said the White Rabbit; ‘in fact, there’s nothing written on the outside.’ He unfolded the paper as he spoke, and added ‘It isn’t a letter, after all: it’s a set of verses.’

‘Are they in the prisoner’s handwriting?’ asked another of they jurymen.

‘No, they’re not,’ said the White Rabbit, ‘and that’s the queerest thing about it.’ (The jury all looked puzzled.)

‘He must have imitated somebody else’s hand,’ said the King. (The jury all brightened up again.)

‘Please your Majesty,’ said the Knave, ‘I didn’t write it, and they can’t prove I did: there’s no name signed at the end.’

‘If you didn’t sign it,’ said the King, ‘that only makes the matter worse. You must have meant some mischief, or else you’d have signed your name like an honest man.’

There was a general clapping of hands at this: it was the first really clever thing the King had said that day.

‘That proves his guilt,’ said the Queen.

‘It proves nothing of the sort!’ said Alice. ‘Why, you don’t even know what they’re about!’

‘Read them,’ said the King.

The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. ‘Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?’ he asked.

‘Begin at the beginning,’ the King said gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end: then stop.’

These were the verses the White Rabbit read:—

   'They told me you had been to her,

    And mentioned me to him:

   She gave me a good character,

    But said I could not swim.

   He sent them word I had not gone

    (We know it to be true):

   If she should push the matter on,

    What would become of you?

   I gave her one, they gave him two,

    You gave us three or more;

   They all returned from him to you,

    Though they were mine before.

   If I or she should chance to be

    Involved in this affair,

   He trusts to you to set them free,

    Exactly as we were.

   My notion was that you had been

    (Before she had this fit)

   An obstacle that came between

    Him, and ourselves, and it.

   Don't let him know she liked them best,

    For this must ever be

   A secret, kept from all the rest,

    Between yourself and me.'

‘That’s the most important piece of evidence we’ve heard yet,’ said the King, rubbing his hands; ‘so now let the jury—’

‘If any one of them can explain it,’ said Alice, (she had grown so large in the last few minutes that she wasn’t a bit afraid of interrupting him,) ‘I’ll give him sixpence. I don’t believe there’s an atom of meaning in it.’

The jury all wrote down on their slates, ‘She doesn’t believe there’s an atom of meaning in it,’ but none of them attempted to explain the paper.

‘If there’s no meaning in it,’ said the King, ‘that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn’t try to find any. And yet I don’t know,’ he went on, spreading out the verses on his knee, and looking at them with one eye; ‘I seem to see some meaning in them, after all. "—Said I could not swim—" you can’t swim, can you?’ he added, turning to the Knave.

The Knave shook his head sadly. ‘Do I look like it?’ he said. (Which he certainly did NOT, being made entirely of cardboard.)

‘All right, so far,’ said the King, and he went on muttering over the verses to himself: ‘"We know it to be true—" that’s the jury, of course— "I gave her one, they gave him two—" why, that must be what he did with the tarts, you know—’

‘But, it goes on "They all returned from him to you,"‘ said Alice.

‘Why, there they are!’ said the King triumphantly, pointing to the tarts on the table. ‘Nothing can be clearer than that. Then again—"Before she had this fit—" you never had fits, my dear, I think?’ he said to the Queen.

‘Never!’ said the Queen furiously, throwing an inkstand at the Lizard as she spoke. (The unfortunate little Bill had left off writing on his slate with one finger, as he found it made no mark; but he now hastily began again, using the ink, that was trickling down his face, as long as it lasted.)

‘Then the words don’t fit you,’ said the King, looking round the court with a smile. There was a dead silence.

‘It’s a pun!’ the King added in an offended tone, and everybody laughed, ‘Let the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first—verdict afterwards.’

‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Alice loudly. ‘The idea of having the sentence first!’

‘Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple.

‘I won’t!’ said Alice.

‘Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved.

‘Who cares for you?’ said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) ‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards!’

"You’re nothing but a pack of cards!"

At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her: she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face.

‘Wake up, Alice dear!’ said her sister; ‘Why, what a long sleep you’ve had!’

‘Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!’ said Alice, and she told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about; and when she had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, ‘It was a curious dream, dear, certainly: but now run in to your tea; it’s getting late.’ So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been.

But her sister sat still just as she left her, leaning her head on her hand, watching the setting sun, and thinking of little Alice and all her wonderful Adventures, till she too began dreaming after a fashion, and this was her dream:—

First, she dreamed of little Alice herself, and once again the tiny hands were clasped upon her knee, and the bright eager eyes were looking up into hers—she could hear the very tones of her voice, and see that queer little toss of her head to keep back the wandering hair that would always get into her eyes—and still as she listened, or seemed to listen, the whole place around her became alive the strange creatures of her little sister’s dream.

The long grass rustled at her feet as the White Rabbit hurried by—the frightened Mouse splashed his way through the neighbouring pool—she could hear the rattle of the teacups as the March Hare and his friends shared their never-ending meal, and the shrill voice of the Queen ordering off her unfortunate guests to execution—once more the pig-baby was sneezing on the Duchess’s knee, while plates and dishes crashed around it—once more the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the Lizard’s slate-pencil, and the choking of the suppressed guinea-pigs, filled the air, mixed up with the distant sobs of the miserable Mock Turtle.

So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality—the grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds—the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep-bells, and the Queen’s shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd boy—and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all thy other queer noises, would change (she knew) to the confused clamour of the busy farm-yard—while the lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle’s heavy sobs.

Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.

THE END

THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS

AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE

This 1871 novel is a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which was published six years previously.  In Through the Looking-Glass, Carroll depicts themes and settings that simulate a mirror image of Wonderland.  Other common devices in the novel include frequent changes in size, the imagery of playing cards and chess, and frequent changes in time and spatial directions.

 The novel begins with Alice playing with a white kitten and a black kitten—posing the first opposites—who are the offspring of Dinah, Alice's cat in the first novel.  When Alice ponders what the world is like on the other side of a mirror's reflection, she pokes at a wall-hung mirror behind the fireplace and discovers she is able to step through it to an alternative world.

The novel is also notable for containing the two famous poems Jabberwocky and The Walrus and the Carpenter, which can both be accessed easily via the following contents page.

The first edition

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

"Looking-glass house"

JABBERWOCKY

CHAPTER 2

"The Garden of Live Flowers"

CHAPTER 3

"Looking-glass Insects"

CHAPTER 4

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER

CHAPTER 5

Wool and Water

CHAPTER 6

"Humpty Dumpty"

CHAPTER 7

"The Lion and The Unicorn"

CHAPTER 8

"It's my own Invention"

CHAPTER 9

"Queen Alice"

CHAPTER 10

"Shaking"

CHAPTER 11

"Waking"

CHAPTER 12

"Which Dreamed It?"

CHAPTER 1

"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 like 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 was 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 arm-chair, 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 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, Kitty, 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 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 morinng. Now you can't deny it, Kitty, for 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 puinshments!" she went on, talking more to herself than the kitten. "What would they do at the end of a year? I should be sent off 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 windowpanes, 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 into 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, 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 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 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 and lazing 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 can'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 can't see me. I feel as if I were invisible—-"

Here something began squeaking on the table, and made Alice 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 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 upon 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 nobut 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 down very carefully 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 can'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.

"JABBERWOCKY"

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe

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 jubjub 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 has 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 downstairs—or, at least, it wasn't exactly running, but a new invention for getting downstairs quickly and easily, as Alice said to herself. She just kept the tips of her fingers on the hand-rail, 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 2

"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 turinng 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 couId 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 "Bough-wough," 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 can't get at them!" panted, bending its quivering head towards Alice, "or they wouldn"t dare do it!"

"Never mind!" Alice said in a soothing tone, and stooping down to the daisies, who were just be ginning 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 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."

"Her petals are done up close, almost like a dahlia," the Tiger-lily interrupted: "not tumbled about anyhow, like yours."

"But that's not your fault," the Rose added kindly: "you're beginning to fade, you know—and then one can'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 thorny kind."

"Where does she wear the thorns?" 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 very interesting, she felt that it would be far grander to have a talk with a real Queen.

"You can'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 disbelleve 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 aiways 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 can't be a valley, you know, That would be nonsense—-"

The Red Queen shook her head. "You may call it `nonsense' if you llke," 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 little brooks running across from side to side, and the ground between was divided up into squares by a number of hedges, that reached from brook to brook.

"I declare it's marked out just like a large chessboard!" 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 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! don'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 into 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!" but Alice felt she could not go faster, though she had no breath 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 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 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 all the 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. So 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 out 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 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 said, "Speak in French when you can'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 to say "good-bye,"

and then hurried on to the last.

How it happened, Allce never knew, but exactly as she came to the last peg, she was gone. Whether she vainshed into the air, or 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 to move.

CHAPTER 3

"Looking-glass Insects"

OF course the first thing to do was 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 can't be bees—nobody ever saw bees a mile off you know—-" and for some minutes 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 enomous 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 won'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 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 tonight, 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 set 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—— "

An 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 shan'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 ea : "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 won'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 to do it."

"What's the use of their having names," the Gnat said, "if they won'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 can't' say," said the Gnat. "In the wood down there, they've got no names—however, go on with your list of insects."

"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?" Allce 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 anxious.

"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 lesson, 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 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 detemined 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 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."

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 can't remember here."

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 arms. "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 difficult question to answer, as there was only one road, and the 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 can'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 4

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 looking 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 very 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 instantly 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 fiddlesticks.

"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.

They then 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. "If it's very long," she said, as politely as she could, "would you tell me first which road—-"

Tweedledee smiled gently, and began again:

THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER

"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 sympathize.'

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 you see he was a little story 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 puffng 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.

"lt'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 llke 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 won'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, bundled 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, hearthrugs, 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 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 everything 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 5

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 addressing," 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 only 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 a little more 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 can'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 deep 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 maid!"

"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 can'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!"

"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 can'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 wouId 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 asked, 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 can't believe that!" said Alice.

"Can'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 can'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 her shawl across a little brook. The Queen spread out her arms again, and went flying after it, and this time succeeded in catching it for 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 beetter! Be-etter! Be-e-e-etter! B-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 can'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 than ever), and sometimes under trees, but always with the same tall river banks 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 won'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 dreamrushes, 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 farther 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 6

"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 can't be anybody else! she said to herself. "I'm as certain of it, as if his name was written all over his face!"

lt 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.

"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!"l

"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 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 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 can't quite remember it," Alice said very politely.

"In that case we may 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 can't help growing older."

"One can'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 were really 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—oh, 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 replied 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 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, "—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 doubtfuly. "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 very 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 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 a 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 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! 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 meant to do next, as I suppose you don't intend 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.

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 can'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 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 "gymble'?"

"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 sundial, 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, the "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. "If I'm not giving you too much 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 explained.

"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. "Goodbye."

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 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, on 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 7

"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 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've 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 that 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 wih 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 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 faintly murmured.

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 more 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 can'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,"

"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.

Some gave them white bread and some gave them brown;

Some gave them plum-cake and drummed them out of town."

"Does—the one—that wins—get the crown?" she asked, as well as she could, for the long run was putting her quite out of breath.

"Dear me, no!" said the King. "What an idea!"

"Would you—be good enough—-" Alice panted out, after running a little further, "to stop a minute—just to get—one's breath again?"

"I'm good enough," the King said, "only I'm not strong enough. You see, a minute goes by so fearfully quick. You might as well try to stop a Bandersnatch!"

Alice had no more breath for talking, so they trotted on in silence, till they came in sight of a great crowd, in the middle of which the Lion and Unicorn were fighting. They were in such a cloud of dust, that at first Alice could not make out which was which: but she soon managed to distinguish the Unicorn by his horn.

They placed themselves close to where Hatta, the other Messenger, was standing watching the fight, with a cup of tea in one hand and a piece of bread and butter in the other.

"He's only just out of prison, and he hadn't finished his tea when he was sent in," Haigha whispered to Alice: "and they only give them oyster-shells in there—so you see he's very hungry and thirsty. How are you, dear child?" he went on, putting his arm affectionately round Hatta's neck.

Hatta looked round and nodded, and went on with his bread-and-butter.

"Were you happy in prison, dear child?" said Haigha.

Hatta looked round once more, and this time a tear or two trickled down his cheek: but not a word would he say.

"Speak, can't You!" Haigha cried impatiently. But Hatta only munched away, and drank some more tea.

"Speak, won't you!" cried the King. "How are they getting on with the fight?"

Hatta made a desperate effort, and swallowed a large piece of bread-and-butter. "They're getting on very well," he said in a choking voice: "each of them has been down about eighty-seven times."

"Then I suppose they'll soon bring the white bread and the brown?" Alice ventured to remark.

"It's waiting for 'em now," said Hatta: "this is a bit of it as I'm eating."

There was a pause in the fight just then, and the Lion and the Unicorn sat down, panting, while the King called out "Ten minutes allowed for refreshments!" Haigha and Hatta set to work at once, carrying round trays of white and brown bread. Alice took a piece to taste, but it was very dry.

"I don't think they'll fight any more to-day," the King said to Hatta: "go and order the drums to begin." And Hatta went bounding away like a "grasshopper.

For a minute or two Alice stood silently watching him. suddenly she brightened up look, look!" she cried, pointing eagerly. "There's the White Queen running across the country! She came flying out of the wood over yonder—how fast those Queens can run!"

"There's some enemy after her, no doubt," the King said, without even looking round. "That wood's full of them."

"But aren't you going to run and help her?" Alice asked, very much surprised at his taking it so quietly.

"No use, no use!" said the King. "She runs so fearfully quick. You might as well try to catch a Bandersnatch! But I'll make a memorandum about her, if you like—she's a dear good creature," he repeated softly to himself, as he opened his memorandum-book. "Do you spell "creature' with a double 'e'?"

At this moment the Unicorn sauntered by them, with his hands in his pockets. "I had the best of it this time!" he said to the King, just glancing at him as he passed.

"A little—a little," the King replied, rather nervously. "You shouldn't have run him through with your horn, you know."

"It didn't hurt him" the Unicorn said carelessly, and he was going on, when his eye happened to fall upon Alice : he turned round instantly, and stood for some time looking at her with an air of the deepest disgust.

"What—is—this?" he said at last.

"This is a child!" Haigha replied eagerly, coming in front of Alice to introduce her, and spreading out both his hands towards her in an Anglo-Saxon attitude. "We only found it to-day. It's as large as life, and twice as natural!"

"I always thought they were fabulous monsters!" said the Unicorn. "Is it alive?"

"It can talk," said Haigha, solemnly.

The unicorn looked dreamily at Alice, and said, child."

Alice could not help her lips curling up into a smile as she began: "Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too! I never saw one alive before!"

"Well, now that we have seen each other: said The Unicorn,"if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you. Is that a bargain?

"Yes, if you like," said Alice.

"Come, fetch out the plum-cake, old man!" the Unicorn went on, turning from her to the King.

"None of your brown bread for me!"

"Certainly Certainly!" the king muttered, and beckoned to Haigha. "Open the bag!" he whispered. "Quick! Not that one—that's full of hay!"

 Haigha took a large cake out of the bag, and gave it to Alice to hold, while he got out a dish and carving-knife. How they all came out of it Alice couldn't guess. It was just like a conjuring trick, she thought.

The Lion had joined them while this was going on: he looked very tired and sleepy, and his eyes were half shut. "What's this?" he said, blinking lazily at Alice, and speaking in a deep hollow tone that sounded like the tolling of a great bell.

"Ah, what is it, now ?" the Unicorn cried eagerly, "You'll never guess! I couldn't."

The Lion looked at Alice wearily. "Are you animal—-or vegetable—or mineral?" he said, yawning at every other word.

"It's a fabulous monster!" the Unicorn cried out, before Alice could reply.

"Then hand round the plum-cake, Monster," the Lion said, lying down and putting his chin on his paws. "And sit down, both of you" (to the King and the Unicorn) : "fair play with the cake, you know!"

The king was evidently very uncomfortable at having to sit down between the two great creatures ; but there was no other place for him.

"What a fight we might have for the crown, now!" the Unicorn said, looking slyly up at the crown, which the poor King was nearly shakin off his head, he trembled so much.

"I should win easy," said the Lion.

"I'm not so sure of that," said the Unicorn.

"Why, I beat you all round the town, you chicken!" the Lion replied angrily, half getting up as he spoke.

Here the king interupted, to prevent the quarrel going on: he was very nervous, and his voice quite quivered. "Ali round the town?" he said. "That's a good long way. Did you go by the old bridge, or the market-place? You get the best view by the old bridge as he lay down again. "There was too much dust to see anything. What a time the Monster is, cutting up that cake!"

Alice had seated herself on the bank of a little brook, with the great dish on her knees',and 'wer"as provoking!" she said, in reply to the Lion (she was getting quite used to being called "the Monster)". "I've cut off several slices already, but they always join on again!"

"You don't know how to manage Looking-glass cakes," the Unicorn remarked. "Hand it round first, and cut it afterwards."

 This sounded nonsense, but Alice very obediently got up, and carried the dish round, and the cake divided itself into three pieces as she did so. "Now cut it up," said the Lion, as she returned to her place with the empty dish.

"I say, this isn't fair!" cried the Uincorn, as Alice sat with the knife in her hand, very much puzzled how to begin. "The Monster has given the Lion twice as much as me!"

"She's kept none for herself, anyhow," said the Lion. "Do you like plum-cake, Monster?"

 But before Alice could answer him the drums began.

 Where the noise came from she couldn't make out: the air seemed full of it, and it rang through She started to her feet, and sprang across the little brook in her terror, and had just time to see the Lion and the Unicorn rise to their feet, with angry looks at being interrupted in their feast, before she dropped to her knees and put her hands over her ears, vainly trying to shut out the dreadful uproar.

"If that doesn't "drum them out of town,' " she thought to herself, "nothing ever will!"

CHAPTER 8

"It's my own Invention"

 AFTER a while the noise seemed gradually to die away, till all was dead silence, and Alice lifted up her head in some alarm. There was no one to be seen, and her first thought was that she must have been dreaming about the Lion and the Unicorn and those queer Anglo-Saxon Messengers, however, there was the great dish still lying at her feet, on which she had tried to cut the plum-cake' "So I wasn't dreaming, after all." she said to herself, "unless—unless we're all part of the same dream. Only I do hope it's my dream and not the Red King's! I don't like belonging to another person's dream," she went on in a rather complaining tone: "I've a great mind to go and wake him, and see what happens!"

At this moment her thoughts were interrupted by a loud shouting of "Ahoy! Ahoy! Check!" and a Knight, dressed in crimson armour, came galloping down upon her, brandishing a great club. just as he reached her, the horse stopped suddenly: "You're my prisoner!" the Knight cried, as he tumbled off his horse.

Startled as she was, Alice was more frightened for him than for herself at the moment, and watched him with some anxiety as he mounted again. As soon as he was comfortably in the saddle, he began once more, "You're my—-" but here another voice broke in, "Ahoy! Ahoy! Check!" and Alice looked round in some surprise for the new enemy.

This time it was a White Knight. He drew up at Alice's side, and tumbled off his horse just as the Red Knight had done: then he got on again, and the two Knights sat and looked at each other without speaking. Alice looked from one to the other in some bewilderment.

"She's my prisoner, you know!" the Red-Knight said at last.

"Yes, but then I came and rescued her!" the White Knight replied.

"Well, we must fight for her, then," said the Red Knight, as he took up his helmet (which hung from the saddle, and was something the shape of a horse's head), and put it on.

"You will observe the Rules of Battle, of course?" the White Knight remarked, putting on his helmet too.

"I always do," said the Red Knight, and they began banging away at each other with such fury that Alice got behind a tree to be out of the way of the blows.

"I wonder, now, what the Rules of Battle are," she said to herself, as she watched the fight, timidly peeping out from her hiding-place: "one Rule seems to be that, if one Knight hits the other, he knocks him off his horse, and if he misses, he tumbles off-himself—and another Rule seems to be that they hold their clubs in their arms, as if they were Punch and Judy. What a noise they make when they tumble! Just like fire-irons falling into the fender! And how quiet the horses are! They let them get on and off them just as if they were tables!"

Another Rule of Battle, that Alice had not noticed, seemed to be that they always fell on their heads, and the battle ended with their both falling off in this way, side by side : when they got up again, they shook hands, and then the Red Knight mounted and galloped off.

"It was a glorious victory, wasn't it?" said the White Knight, as he came up panting.

"I don't know," Alice said doubtfully. "I don't want to be anybody's prisoner. I want to be Queen."

"So you will, when you've crossed the next brook," said the White Knight. "I'll see you safe to the end of the wood—and then I must go back, you know. That's the end of my move."

"Thank you very much," said Alice. "May I help you off with your helmet?" It was evidently more than he could manage by himself; however she managed to shake him out of it at last.

"Now one can breathe more easily," said the Knight, putting back his shaggy hair with both hands, and turning nis gentle face and large mild eyes to Alice. She thought she had never seen such a strange-looking soldier in all her life. He was dressed in tin armour, which seemed to fit him very badly, and he had a queer little deal box fastened across his shoulders upside-down, and with the lid hanging open. Alice looked at it with great curiosity.

"I see you're admiring my little box," the Knight said in a friendly tone. "It's my own invention—to keep clothes and sandwiches in. You see I carry it upside-down, so that the rain can't get in."

"But the things can get out," Alice gently remarked. "Do you know the lid's open?"

"I didn't know it," the Knight said, a shade of vexation passing over his face. "Then all the things must have fallen out! And the box is no use without them." He unfastened it as he spoke, and was just going to throw it into the bushes, when a sudden thought seemed to strike , and he hung it carefully on a tree. "Can you guess why I did that!" he said to Alice.

Alice shook her head. "In hopes some bees may make a nest in it—then I should get the honey."

"But you've got a bee-hive—or something like one—fastened to the saddle," said Alice.

"Yes, it's a very good bee-hive," the Knight said in a discontented tone, "one of the best kind. But not a single bee has come near it yet. And the other thing is a mouse-trap. I suppose the mice keep the bees out—or the bees keep the mice out, I don't know which."

"I was wondering what the mouse-trap was for," said Alice. "It isn't very likely there would be any mice on the horse's back."

"Not very likely, perhaps," said the Knight; "but if they do come, I don't choose to have them running all about."

"You see," he went on after a pause, "it's as well to be provided for everything. That's the reason the horse has anklets round his feet."

"But what are they for?" Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity.

"To guard against the bites of sharks," the Knight replied. "It's an invention of my own. And now help me on. I'll go with you to the end of the wood—what's that dish for?"

"It's meant for plum-cake," said Alice.

"We'd better take it with us," the Knight said.

"It'll come in handy if we find any plum-cake. Help me to get it into this bag."

This took a long time to manage, though Alice held the bag open very carefully, because the Knight was so very awkward in putting in the dish: the first two or three times that he tried he fell in himself instead. "It's rather a tight fit, you see," he said, as they got it in at last; "there are so many candlesticks in the bag." And he hung it to the saddle, which was already loaded with bunches of carrots, and fire-irons, and many other things.

"I hope you've got you hair well fastened on?" he continued, as they set off.

"Only in the usual way," Alice said, smiling.

"That's hardly enough," he said, anxiously. "You see the wind is so very strong here. It's as strong as soup."

"Have you invented a plan for keeping one's hair from being blown off?" Alice enquired.

"Not yet," said the Knight. "But I've got a plan for keeping it from falling off."

"I should like to hear it very much."

"First you take an upright stick," said the Knight. "Then you make your hair creep up it, Like a fruit-tree. Now the reason hair falls off is because it hangs down—things never fall upwards, you know. It's my own invention. You may try it if you like."

It didn't sound a comfortable plan, Alice thought, and for a few minutes she walked on in silence, puzzling over the idea, and every now and then stopping to help the poor Knight, who certainly was not a good rider.

Whenever the horse stopped (which it did very often), he fell off in front; and whenever it went on again (which it generally did rather suddenly), he fell off behind. Otherwise he kept on pretty well, except that he had a habit of now and then falling off sideways; and as he generally did this on the side on which Alice was walking, she soon found that it was the best plan not to walk quite close to the horse.

"I'm afraid you've not had much practice in riding," she ventured to say, as she was helping him up from his fifth tumble.

The Knight looked very much surprised, and a little offended at the remark. "What makes you say that?" he asked, as he scrambled back into the saddle, keeping hold of Alice's hair with one hand, to save himself from falling over on the other side "Because people don't fall off quite so often, when they've had much practice."

"I've had plenty of practice," the Knight said very gravely: "plenty of practice!"

Alice could think of nothing better to say than "Indeed?" but she said it as heartily as she could. They went on a little way in silence after this, the Knight with his eyes shut, muttering to himself, and Alice watching anxiously for the next tumble.

"The great art of riding," the Knight suddenly began in a loud voice, waving his right arm as he spoke "is to keep—" Here the sentence ended as suddenly as it had begun, as the Knight fell heavily on the top of his head exactly in the path where Alice was walking. She was quite frightened this time, and said in an anxious tone, as she picked him up, "I hope no bones are broken?"

"None to speak of," the Knight said, as if he didn't mind breaking two or three of them. "The great art of riding as I was sayin is—to keep your balance. Like this, you know—-"

He let go the bridle, and stretched out both his arms to show Alice what he meant, and this time he fell flat on his back, right under the horse's feet.

"Plenty of practice!" he went on repeating, all the time that Alice was getting him on his feet again. "Plenty of practice!"

"It's too ridiculous!" cried Alice, getting quite out of patience. "You ought to have a wooden horse on wheels, that you ought!"

"Does that kind go smoothly?" the Knight asked in a tone of great interest, clasping his arms round the horses' neck as he spoke, just in time to save himself from tumbling off again.

"Much more smoothly than a live horse," Alice said, with a little scream of laughter, in spite of all she could do to prevent it.

"I'll get one," the Knight said thoughtfully to himself. "One or two—several."

There was a short silence after this; then the night went on again. "I'm a great hand at inventing things. Now, I daresay you noticed, the last time you picked me up, that I was looking thoughtful?"

"You were a little grave," said Alice.

"Well, just then I was inventing a new way of getting over a gate—would you like to hear it?"

"Very much indeed," Alice said politely.

"I'll tell you how I came to think of it," said the Knight. "You see, I said to myself, "The only diffculty is with the feet: the head is high enough already.' Now, first I put my head on the top of the gate—then the head's high enough—then I stand on my head—then the feet are high enough, you see—then I'm over you see."

"Yes, I suppose you'd be over when that was done," Alice said thoughtfully: "but don't you think it would be rather hard?"

"I haven't tried it yet," the Knight said, gravely, "so I can't tell for certain—but I'm afraid it would be a little hard."

He looked so vexed at the idea, that Alice changed the subject hastily. "What a curious helmet you've got!" she said cheerfully. "Is that your invention too?"

The Knight looked down proudly at his helmet which hung from the saddle. "Yes," he said, "but I've invented a better one than that—like a sugar loaf. When I used to wear it, if I fell off the horse, it always touched the ground directly. So I had very little way to fall, you see—but there was the danger of falling into it, to be sure. That happened to me once—and the worst of it was, before I could get out again, the other White Knight came and put it on. He thought it was his own helmet."

The Knight looked so solemn about it that Alice did not dare to laugh. "I'm afraid you must have hurt him," she said in a trembling voice, "being on the top of his head."

"I had to kick him, of course," the Knight said very seriously. "And then he took the helmet off again—but it took hours and hours to get me out. I was as fast as—as lightning, you know." "But that's a different kind of fastness," Alice objected.

The Knight shook his head. "It was all kinds of fastness with me, I can assure you!" he said. He raised his hands in some excitement as he said this, and instantly rolled out of the saddle, and fell headlong into a deep ditch.

Alice ran to the side of the ditch to look for him. She was rather startled by the fall, as for some time he had kept on very well, and she was afraid that he really was hurt this time. However, though she could see nothing but the soles of his feet, she was he was talking on in his usual tone. "All kinds of fastness," he repeated: "but it was careless of him to put another man's helmet on—with the man in it, too."

"How can you go on talking so quietly, head downwards?" Alice asked, as she dragged him out by the feet, and laid him in a heap on the bank.

The Knight looked surprised at the question. "What does it matter where my body happens to be?" he said. "My mind goes on working all the same. In fact, the more head-downwards I am, the more I keep inventing new things."

"Now the cleverest thing that I ever did," he went on after a pause, "was inventing a new pudding during the meat-course."

"In time to have it cooked for the next course?" said Alice. "Well, that was quick work, certainly." "Well, not the next course," the Knight said in a slow thoughtful tone: "no, certainly not the next course."

"Then it would have, to be the next day. I suppose you wouldn't have two pudding-courses in one dinner?"

"Well, not the next day," the Knight repeated as before: "not the next day. In fact," he went on, holding his head down, and his voice getting lower and lower, "I don't believe that pudding ever was

cooked! In fact, I don't believe that pudding ever will be cooked! And yet it was a very clever pudding to invent."

"What did you mean it to be made of?" Alice asked, hoping to cheer him up, for he seemed quite low-spirited about it.

"It began with blotting-paper," the Knight answered with a groan.

"That wouldn't be very nice, I'm afraid—-"

"Not very nice alone," he interrupted, quite eagerly: "but you've no idea what a difference it makes, mixing it with other things—such as gunpowder and sealing-wax. And here I must leave you." Alice could only look puzzled: she was thinking of the pudding.

"You are sad," the Knight said in an anxious tone: "let me sing you a song to comfort you."

"Is it very long?" Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.

"It's long," said the Knight, "but it's very, very

beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it—either it brings the tears into their eyes, or else—-"

"Or else what?" said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.

"Or else it doesn't, you know. The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes.' "

"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested.

"No, you don't understand," the Kinght said, looking a little vexed. "That's what the name is called. The name really is 'The Aged Aged Man.'"

"Then I ought to have said, 'That's what the song is called'?" Alice corrected herself.

"No, you oughtn't: that's another thing. The song is called 'Ways and Means': but that's only what it's called, you know!"

"Well, what is the song, then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.

"I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is 'A sitting on a Gate': and the tune's my own invention."

So saying, he stopped his horse and let the reins fall on its neck: then, slowly beating time with one hand, and with a faint smile lighting up his gentle, foolish face, he began.

Of all the strange things that Alice saw in her journey Through the Looking-glass, this was the one that she always remembered most clearly. Years afterwards she could bring the whole scene back again, as if it had been only yesterday—the mild blue eyes and kindly smile of the Knight—the setting sun gleaming through his hair, and shining on his armour in a blaze of light that quite dazzled her—the horse quietly moving about, with the reins hanging loose on his neck, cropping the grass at her feet—and the black shadows of the forest behind—all this she took in like a picture, as, with one hand shading her eyes, she leant against a tree, watching the strange pair, and listening, in a half-dream, to the melancholy music of the song.

"But the tune isn't his own invention," she said to herself: "it's "I give thee all, I can no more.'" She stood and listened very attentively, but no tears came into her eyes.

"I'll tell thee everything I can;

There's little to relate.

I saw 'n aged aged man,

A-sitting on a gate.

'Who are you, aged man?' I said.

'And how is it you live?'

And his answer trickled through my head

Like water through a sieve.

He said 'I look for butterflies

That sleep among the wheat:

I make them into mutton pies,

And sell them in the street.

I sell them unto men,' he said,

'Who sail on stormy seas;

And that's the way I get my bread —

A trifle, if you please.'

But I was thinking of a plan

To dye one's whiskers green,

And always use so large a fan

That they could not be seen.

So, having no reply to give

To what the old man said,

I cried 'Come, tell me how you live!'

And thumped him on the head.

His accents mild took up the tale:

He said, 'I go my ways,

And when I find a mountain-rill,

I set it in a blaze;

And thence they make a stuff they call

Rowland's Macassar Oil —

Yet twopence-halfpenny is all,

They give me for my toil.'

But I was thinking of a way

To feed oneself on batter,

And so go on from day to day

Getting a little fatter.

I shook him well from side to side,

Until his face was blue:

'Come, tell me how you live,' I cried,

'And what it is you do.!'

He said 'I hunt for haddock eyes

Among the heather bright,

And work them into waistcoat-buttons

In the silent night.

And these I do not sell for gold

or coin of silvery shine,

but for a copper halfpenny,

And that will purchase nine.

'I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,

Or set limed twigs for crabs;

I sometimes search the grassy knolls

For wheels of hansom-cabs.

And that's the way' (he gave a wink)

By which I get my wealth —

And very gladly will I drink

Your Honour's noble health.'

I heard him then, for I had just

Completed my design

To keep the Menai bridge from rust

By boiling it in wine.

I thanked him much for telling me

The way he got his wealth,

But chiefly for his wish that he

Might drink my noble health.

And now, if e'er by chance I put

My fingers into glue,

Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot

Into a left-hand shoe,

Or if I drop upon my toe

A very heavy weight,

I weep,for it reminds me so

Of that old man I used to know —

Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,

Whose hair was whiter than the snow,

Whose face was very like a crow,

With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,

Who seemed distracted with his woe,

Who rocked his body to and fro,

And muttered mumblingly and low,

As if his mouth were full of dough,

That summer evening long ago

A sitting on a gate"

As the Knight sang the last words of the ballad he gathered up the reins, and turned his horse's head along the road by which they had come. "You've only a few yards to go," he said, "down the hill and over that little brook and then you'll be a Queen—but you'll stay and see me off first?" he added as Alice turned away with an eager look.

"I shan't be long. You'll wait and wave your handkerchief when I get to that turn in the road? I think it'll encourage me, you see."

"Of course I'll wait," said Alice: "and thank you very much for coming so far—and for the song—I liked it very much."

"I hope so," the Knight said doubtfully: "but you didn't cry so much as I expected."

So they shook hands, and then the Knight rode slowly away into the forest. "It won"t take long to see him off, I expect," Alice said to herself, as she stood watching him. "There he goes! Right on his head as usual! However, he gets on again pretty easily—that comes of having so many things hung round the horse—-" So she went on talking to herself, as she watched the horse walking leisurely along the road, and the Knight tumbling off, first on one side and then on the other. After the fourth or fifth tumble he reached the turn, and then she waved her handkerchief to him, and waited till he was out of sight.

"I hope it encouraged him," she said, as she turned to run down the hill: "and now for the last brook, and to be a Queen! How grand it sounds!" A very few steps brought her to the edge of the brook. "The Eighth Square at last!" she cried as she bounded across and threw herself down to rest on a lawn as soft as moss, with little flower-beds dotted all about it here and there. "Oh, how glad I am to get here! And what is this on my head?" she exclaimed in a tone of dismay, as she put her hands up to something very heavy, that fitted tight round her head.

"But how can it have got there without my knowing it?" she said to herself, as she lifted it off, and set it on her lap to make out what it could possibly be. It was a golden crown.

CHAPTER 9

"Queen Alice"

 "WELL, this is grand!" said Alice. "I never expected I should be a Queen so soon—and I'll tell you what it is, your Majesty," she went on in a severe tone (she was always rather fond of scolding hersef), "it'll never do to loll about on the grass like that! Queens have to be dignified, you know"

So she got up and walked about—rather stiffly just at first, as she was afraid that the crown might come off: but she comforted herself with the thought that there was nobody to see her, "and if I really am a Queen," she said as she sat down again, "I shall be able to manage it quite well in time."

Everything was happening so oddly that she didn't feel a bit surprised at finding the Red Queen and the White Queen sitting close to her, one on each side: she would have liked very much to ask them how they came there, but she feared it would not be quite civil. However, there would be no harm, she thought, in asking if the game was over. "Please, would you tell me—-" she began, looking timidly at the Red Queen.

"Speak when you're spoken to!" the Red Queen sharply interrupted her.

"But if everybody obeyed that rule," said Alice, who was always ready for a little argument, "and if you only spoke when you were spoken to, and the other person always waited for you to begin, you see nobody would ever say anything, so that—-"

"Ridiculous!" cried the Queen. "Why, don't you see, child—-" here she broke off with a frown, and after thinking for a minute, suddenly changed the subject of the conversation. "What do you mean by 'If you really are a Queen'? What right have you to call yourself so? You can't be a Queen, you know, till you've passed the proper examination. And the sooner we begin it, the better."

"I only said 'if'!" poor Alice pleaded in a piteous tone.

The two Queens looked at each other, and the Red Queen remarked, with a little shudder, "She says she only said 'if'—-"

"But she said a great deal more than that!" the White Queen moaned, wringing her hands. "Oh, ever so much more than that!"

"So you did, you know," the Red Queen said to Alice. "Always speak the truth—think before you speak—and write it down afterwards."

"I'm sure I didn't mean—-" Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen interrupted.

"That's just what I complain of! You should have meant! What do you suppose is the use of a child without any meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning—and a chiId's more important than a joke, I hope. You couldn't deny that, even if you tried with both hands."

"I don't deny things with my hands," Alice objected.

"Nobody said you did," said the Red Queen, "I said you couldn't if you tried."

"She's in that state of mind," said the White Queen, "that she wants to deny something—only she doesn't know what to deny!"

"A nasty, vicious temper," the Red Queen remarked; and then there was an uncomfortable silence for a minute or two.

The Red Queen broke the silence by saying to the White Queen, "I invite you to Alice's dinner-party this afternoon."

The White Queen smiled feebly, and said, "And I invite you."

"I didn't know I was to have a party at all," said Alice; "but if there is to be one, I think I ought to invite the guests."

"We gave you the opportunity of doing it," the Red Queen remarked: "but I daresay you've not had many lessons in manners yet?"

"Manners are not taught in lessons," said Alice.

"Lessons teach you to do sums, and things of that sort."

"Can you do Addition?" the White Queen asked.

"What's one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?"

"I don't know," said Alice. "I lost count."

"She can't do Addition," the Red Queen interrupted. "Can you do Subtraction? Take nine from eight."

"Nine from eight I can't, you know," Alice replied very readily: "but—-"

"She can't do Subtraction," said the White Queen. "Can you do Division? Divide a loaf by a knife—what's the answer to that?"

"I suppose—-" Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen answered for her. "Bread-and-butter, of course. Try another Subtraction sum. Take a bone from a dog. What remains?"

Alice considered. "The bone wouldn't remain, of course, if I took it—and the dog wouldn't remain; it would come to bite me—and I'm sure I shouldn't remain!"

"Then you think nothing would remain?" said the Red Queen.

"I think that's the answer."

"Wrong, as usual," said the Red Queen; "the dog's temper would remain."

"But I don't see how—-"

"Why, look here!" the Red Queen cried. "The dog would lose its temper, wouldn't it?"

"Perhaps it would," Alice replied cautiously.

"Then if the dog went away, its temper would remain!" the Queen exclaimed.

Alice said, as gravely as she could, "They might go different ways." But she couldn't help thinking to herself, "What dreadful nonsense we are talking!"

"She can't do sums a bit!" the Queens said together, with great emphasis.

"Can you do sums?" Alice said, turning suddenly on the White Queen, for she didn't like being found fault with so much.

The Queen gasped and shut her eyes. "I can do Addition," she said, "if you give me time—but I can't do Subtraction under any circumstances! "

"Of course you know your A B C?" said the Red Queen.

"To be sure I do," said Alice.

"So do I," the White Queen whispered. "We'll often say it over together, dear. And I'll tell you a secret—I can read words of one letter! Isn't that grand? However, don't be discouraged. You'll come to it in time."

Here the Red Queen began again. "Can you answer useful questions?" she said. "How is bread made?"

"I know that!" Alice cried eagerly. "You take some flour—-"

"Where do you pick the flower?" the White Queen asked. "In a garden, or in the hedges?"

"Well, it isn't picked at all," Alice explained: "it's ground-—"

"How many acres of ground?" said the White Queen. "You mustn't leave out so many things."

"Fan her head!" the Red Queen anxiously interupted. "She'll be feverish after so much thinking."

So they set to work and fanned her with bunches of leaves, till she had to beg them to leave off, it blew her hair about so.

"She's all right again now," said the Red Queen. "Do you know Languages? What's the French for fiddle-de-dee ?"

"Fiddle-de-dee's not English," Alice replied gravely.

"Who said it was?" said the Red Queen.

Alice thought she saw a way out of the difficulty this time. "If you'll tell me what language "fiddle-de-dee' is, I'll tell you the French for it!" she exclaimed triumphantly.

But the Red Queen drew herself up rather stiffly, and said, "Queens never make bargains."

"I wish Queens never asked questions," Alice thought to herself.

"Don't let us quarrel," the White Queen said in an anxious tone. "What is the cause of lightning ?"

"The cause of lightning," Alice said very decidedly, for she felt quite sure about this, "is the thunder—no, no!" she hastily corrected herself.

"I meant the other way."

"It's too late to correct it," said the Red Queen: "when you've once said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences."

"Which reminds me—" the White Queen said, looking down and nervously clasping and unclasping'her hands, "we had such a thunderstorm last Tuesday—I mean one of the last set of Tuesdays, you know."

"In our country," Alice remarked, "there's only " one day at a time."

The Red Queen said. "That's a poor thin way of doing things. Now here, we mostly have days and nights two or three at a time, and sometimes in the winter we take as many as five'nights together—for warmth, you know."

"Are five nights warmer than one night, then?" Alice ventured to ask.

"Five times as warm, of course."

"But they should be five times as cold, by the same rule—-"

"just so!" cried the Red Queen. "Five times as warm, and five times as cold—just as I'm five times as rich as you are, and five times as clever!"

Alice sighed and gave it up. "It's exactly like a riddle with no answer!" she thought.

"Humpty Dumpty saw it too," the White Queen went on in a low voice, more as if she were talking to herself. "He came to the door with a corkscrew in his hand—-"

"What for?" said the Red Queen.

"He said he would come in," the White Queen went on, "because he was looking for a hippopotamus. Now, as it happened, there wasn't such a thing in the house, that morning."

"Is there generally ?" Alice asked in an astonished tone.

"Well, only on Thursdays," said the Queen.

"I know what he came for," said Alice: "he wanted to punish the fish, because—-"

Here the White Queen began again. "It was such

a thunderstorm, you can't think!" ("She never could, you know," said the Red Queen.) "And part of the roof came off, and ever so much thunder got in—and it went rolling round the room in great lumps—and knocking over the tables and things—till I was so frightened, I couldn't remember my own name!"

Alice thought to herself, "I never should try to remember my name in the middle of an accident! Where would be the use of it?" But she did not say this aloud, for fear of hurting the poor Queen's feelings.

"Your Majesty must excuse her," the Red Queen said to Alice, taking one of the White Queen's hands in her own, and gently stroking it: "she means well, but she can't help saying foolish things, as a general rule."

The White Queen looked timidly at Alice, who felt she ought to say something kind, but really couldn't think of anything.

"She never was really well brought up," the Red Queen went on: "but it's amazing how good-tempered she is! Pat her on the head, and see how pleased she'll be!" But this was more than Alice had courage to do.

"A little kindness—and putting her hair in papers—would do wonders with her—-"

The White Queen gave a deep sigh, and laid her head on Alice's shoulder. "I am so sleepy!" she moaned.

"She"s tired, poor thing!" said the Red Queen, "Smooth her hair—lend her your nightcap—and sing her a soothing lullaby."

"I haven't got a nightcap with me," said Alice, as she tried to obey the first direction: "and I don't know any soothing lullabies."

"I must do it myself, then," said the Red Queen, and she began:

"Hush-a-by lady, in Alice's lap!

Till the feast's ready, we've time for a nap:

Till the feast's over, we'll go to the ball —

Red Queen, and White Queen, and Alice, and all!.

 "And now you know the words," she added, as she put her head down on Alice's other shoulder, "just sing it through to me. I'm getting sleepy too." In another moment both Queens were fast asleep, and snoring loud.

"What am I to do?" exclaimed Alice, looking about in great perplexity, as first one round head, and then the other, rolled down from her shoulder, and lay like a heavy lump in her lap. "I don't think it ever happened before, that anyone had to take "care of two Queens asleep at once! No, not in all the History of England—it couldn't, you know, because there never was more than one Queen at a time. Do wake up, you heavy things!" she went on in an impatient tone; but there was no answer but a gentle snoring.

The snoring got more distinct every minute, and sounded more like a tune: at last she could even make out words, and she listened so eagerly that when the two great heads suddenly vanished from her lap, she hardly missed them.

She was standing before an arched doorway, over which were the words QUEEN ALICE in large letters, and on each side of it there was a bell-handle ; one marked "Visitors' Bell," and the other "Servants' Bell."

"I'll wait till the song's over," thought Alice, "and then I'll ring the—the—which bell must ring?" she went on, very much puzzled by the names. "I'm not a visitor, and I'm not a servant. There ought to be one marked "Queen,' you know—-"

Just then the door opened a little way, and a creature with a long beak put its head out for a moment and said, "No admittance till the week after next!" and shut the door again with a bang.

Alice knocked and rang in vain for a long time, but at last a very old Frog, who was sitting under a tree, got up, and hobbled slowly towards her : he was dressed in bright yellow, and had enormous boots on.

"What is it now?" the Frog said in a deep hoarse whisper.

Alice turned round, ready to find fault with anybody. "Where's the servant whose business it is to answer the door?" she began angrily.

"Which door?" said the Frog.

Alice almost stamped with irritation at the slow drawl in which he spoke. "This door, of course!

The Frog looked at the door with his large dull eyes for a minute : then he went nearer and rubbed it with his thumb, as if he were trying whether the paint would come off; then he looked at Alice. "To answer the door?" he said. "What's it been asking of?" He was so hoarse that Alice could scarcely hear him.

"I don't know what you mean," she said.

"I speaks English, doesn't I?" the Frog went on.

"Or are you deaf? What did it ask you?"

"Nothing!" Alice said impatiently. "I've been knocking at it!"

"Shouldn't do that—shouldn't do that—" the Frog muttered. "Wexes it, you know." Then he went up and gave the door a kick with one off his great feet. "You let it alone," he panted out, as he hobbled back to his tree, "and it'll let you alone, you know."

At this moment the door was flung open, and a shrill voice was heard singing:

To the Looking-glass world it was Alice that said,

"I've a sceptre in hand, I've a crown on my head;

Let the Looking-glass creatures, whatever they be,

Come and dine with the Red Queen, the White

Queen, and me.

 And hundreds of voices joined in the chorus:

"Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can,

And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran:

Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the tea —

And welcome Queen Alice with thirty-times-three!

 Then followed a confused noise of cheering, and Alice thought to herself, "Thirty times three makes ninety. I wonder if anyone's counting?" In a minute there was silence again, and the same shrill voice, sang another verse:

"`O Looking-glass creatures,' quoth Alice, `draw near!

'Tis an honour to see me, a favour to hear:

'Tis a privilege high to have dinner and tea

Along with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me!'"

Then came the chorus again:

"Then fill up the glasses with treacle and ink,

Or anything else that is pleasant to drink;

Mix sand with the cider, and wool with the wine —

And welcome Queen Alice with ninety-times-nine"

"Ninety-times-nine!" Alice repeated in despair. "Oh, that'll never be done! I'd better go in at once—" and in she went, and there was a dead silence the moment she appeared.

Alice glanced nervously along the table, as she walked up the large hall, and noticed that there were about fifty guests, of all kinds: some were animals, some birds, and there were even a few flowers among them. "I'm glad they've come without waiting to be asked," she thought: "I should never have known who were the right people to invite!"

There were three chairs at the head of the table; the Red and White Queens had taken two of them, but the middle one was empty. Alice sat down, rather uncomfortable at the silence, and longing for someone to speak.

At last the Red Queen began. "You've missed the soup and fish," she said. "Put on the joint!" And the waiters set a leg of mutton before Alice, who looked at it rather anxiously, as she had never had to carve one before.

"You look a little shy; let me introduce you to that leg of mutton," said the Red Queen. "Alice—Mutton; Mutton—Alice." The leg of mutton got up in the dish and made a little bow to Alice; and she returned the bow, not knowing whether to be frightened or amused.

"May I give you a slice?" she said, taking up the knife and fork, and looking from one Queen to the other.

"Certainly not," the Red Queen said, very decidedly; "it isn't etiquette to cut anyone you've been introduced to. Remove the joint!" And the waiters carried it off, and brought a large plum-pudding in its place.

"I won't be introduced to the pudding, please," Alice said rather hastily, "or we shall get no dinner at all. May I give you some?"

But the Red Queen looked sulky, and growled, "Pudding—Alice; Alice—Pudding. Remove the pudding!" and the waiters took it away before Alice could return its bow.

However, she didn't see why the Red Queen should be the only one to give orders, so, as an experiment, she called out, "Waiter! Bring back the pudding!" and there it was again in a moment, like a conjuring trick. It was so large that she couldn't help feeling a little shy with it, as she had been with the mutton; however, she conquered her shyness by a great effort, and handed a slice to the Red Queen.

"What impertinence!" said the Pudding. " I wonder how you'd like it, if I were to cut a slice out of you, you creature!"

Alice could only look at it and gasp.

"Make a remark," said the Red Queen: "it's ridiculous to leave all the conversation to the pudding!"

"Do you know, I've had such a quantity of poetry repeated to me to-day," Alice began, a little frightened at finding that, the moment she opened her lips, there was dead silence, and all eyes were fixed upon her; "and it's a very curious thing, I think—every poem was about fishes in some way. Do you know why they're so fond of fishes, all about here?"

She spoke to the Red Queen, whose answer was a little wide of the mark. "As to fishes," she said, very slowly and solemnly, putting her mouth close to Alice's ear, "her White Majesty knows a lovely riddle—all in poetry—all about fishes. Shall she repeat it?"

"Her Red Majesty's very kind to mention it," the White Queen murmured into Alice's other ear, in a voice like the cooing of a pigeon. "It would be such a treat! May I?"

"Please do," Alice said very politely. The White Queen laughed with delight, and stroked Alice's cheek. Then she began:

"`First the fish must be caught.'

That is easy: a baby, I think, could have caught it.

`Next, the fsh must be bought.'

That is easy: a penny, I think, would have bought it.

`Now cook me the fish!'

That is easy, and will not take more than a minute.

`Let it lie in a dish!'

That is easy, because it already is in it.

`Bring it here! Let me sup!'

It is easy to set such a dish on the table.

`Take the dish-cover up!'

Ah that is so hard that I fear I'm unable!

For it holds it like glue —

Holds the lid to the dish, while it lies in the middle:

Which is easiest to do,

un-dish-cover the fish, or dish-cover the riddle?"

 "Take a minute to think about it, then and guess," said the Red Queen. "Meanwhile, we'll drink your health—Queen Alice's health!" she screamed at the top of her voice, and all the guests began drinking it directly, and very queerly they managed it: some of them put their glasses upon their heads like extinguishers, and drank all that trickled down their faces—others upset the decanters, and drank the wine as it ran off the edges of the table—and three of them (who looked like kangaroos) scrambled into the dish of roast mutton, and began to lap up the gravy, "just like pigs in a trough!" thought Alice.

"You ought to return thanks in a neat speech," the Red Queen said, frowning at Alice as she spoke. "We must support you, you know," the White Queen whispered, as Alice got up to do it, very obediently, but a little frightened.

"Thank you very much," she whispered in reply, "but I can do quite well without."

"That wouldn't be at all the thing," the Red Queen said very decidedly: so Alice tried to submit to it with a good grace.

("And they did push so!" she said afterwards, when she was telling her sister the history of the feast. "You would have thought they wanted to squeeze me flat!")

In fact it was rather difficult for her to keep in her place while she made her speech: the two Queens pushed her so, one on each side, that they nearly lifted her up into the air: "I rise to return thanks—" Alice began: and she really did rise as she spoke, several inches; but she got hold of the edge of the table, and managed to pull herself down again.

"Take care of yourself!" screamed the White Queen, seizing Alice's hair with both her hands. "Something's going to happen!"

And then (as Alice afterwards described it) all sorts of things happened in a moment. The candles grew up to the ceiling, looking something like a bed of bushes with fireworks at the top. As to the bottles, they each took a pair of plates, which they hastily fitted on as wings, and so, with forks for legs, went fluttering about: "and very like birds they look," Alice thought to herself, as well as she could in the dreadful confusion that was beginning. At this moment she heard a hoarse laugh at her side, and turned to see what was the matter with the White Queen; but, instead of the Queen, there was the leg of mutton sitting in the chair. "Here I am!" cried a voice from the soup-tureen, and Alice turned again, just in time to see the Queen's broad good-natured face grinning at her for a moment over the edge of the tureen, before she disappeared into the soup.

There was not a moment to be lost. Already several of the guests were lying down in the dishes, and the soup-ladle was walking up the table to Alice, and signing to her to get out of its way.

"I can't stand this any longer!" she cried, as she seized the table-cloth with both hands: one good pull, and plates, dishes, guests, and candles came crashing down together in a heap on the floor.

"And as for you," she went on, turning fiercely upon the Red Queen, whom she considered as the cause of all the mischief—but the Queen was no longer at her side—she had suddenly dwindled down to the size of a little doll, and was now on the table, merrily running round and round after her own shawl, which was trailing behind her.

At any other time, Alice would have felt surprised at this, but she was far too much excited to be surprised at anything now. "As for you," she repeated, catching hold of the little creature in the very act of jumping over a bottle which had just lighted upon the table, "I'll shake you into a kitten, that I will!"

CHAPTER 10

"Shaking"

She took her off the table as she spoke, and shook her backwards and forwards with all her might.

The Red Queen made no resistance whatever; only her face grew very small, and her eyes got large and green: and still, as Alice went on shaking her, she kept on growing shorter—and fatter—and softer—and rounder—and—-

CHAPTER 11

"Waking"

—and it really was a kitten, after all.

CHAPTER 12

"Which Dreamed It?"

 YOUR Red Majesty shouldn't purr so loud," Alice said, rubbing her eyes, and addressing the kitten respectfully, yet with some severity. "You woke me out of—oh! such a nice dream! And you've been along with me, Kitty—all through the Looking-glass world. Did you know it, dear?"

It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens (Alice had once made the remark) that, whatever you say to them, they always purr. "If they would only purr for "yes,' and mew for "no,' or any rule of that sort," she had said, "so that one could keep up a conversation! But how can you talk with a person if they always say the same thing?"

On this occasion the kitten only purred: and it was impossible to guess whether it meant "yes' or 'no.'

So Alice hunted among the chessmen on the table till she had found the Red Queen: then she went down on her knees on the hearthrug, and put the Kitten and the Queen to look at each other. "Now, Kitty!" she cried, clapping her hands triumphantly. "You've got to confess that that was what you turned into!"

("But it wouldn't look at it," she said, when she was explaining the thing afterwards to her sister : "it turned away its head, and pretended not to see it: but it looked a little ashamed of itself, so I think it must have been the Red Queen.")

"Sit up a little more stiffly, dear!" Alice cried with a merry laugh. "And curtsey while you're thinking what to—what to purr. It saves time, remember!" And she caught it up in her arms, and gave it one little kiss "just in honour of its having been a Red Queen, you know!"

"Snowdrop, my pet!" she went on, looking over her shoulder at the White Kitten, which was still patiently undergoing its toilet, "when will Dinah have finished with your White Majesty, I wonder? That must be the reason you were so untidy in my dream.—Dinah! Do you know that you're -211-

scrubbing a White Queen? Really, it's most disrespectful you, and I'm quite surprised at you!"

"And what did Dinah turn to, I wonder?" she prattled on, as she settled comfortably down, with one elbow on the rug, and her chin in her hand, to watch the kittens. "Tell me, Dinah, did you turn to Humpty Dumpty? I think you did—however,

you'd better not mention it to your friends just yet, for I"m not sure.

"By the way, Kitty, if only you'd been really with me in my dream, there was one thing you would have enjoyed—I had such a quantity of poetry said to me, all about fishes! To-morrow morning you shall have a real treat. All the time you're eating your breakfast, I'll repeat "The Walrus and the Carpenter" to you; and then you can make believe it's oysters, my dear!

"Now, Kitty, let's consider who it was that dreamed it all. This is a serious question, my dear, and you should not go on licking your paw like that—as if Dinah hadn't washed you this morning!

You see, Kitty, it must have been either me or the Red King. He was part of my dream, of course—but then I was part of his dream, too! Was it the Red King, Kitty? You were his wife, my dear, so you ought to know—oh, Kitty, do help to settle it! I'm sure your paw can wait!" But the provoking kitten only began on the other paw, and pretended it hadn't heard the question.

Which do you think it was?

THE END

SYLVIE AND BRUNO

This novel was first published in 1889, followed by a sequel volume in 1893, and both volumes were illustrated by Harry Furniss.  Over twenty years before that, Carroll had written two short stories titled Fairy Sylvie and Bruno's Revenge which appeared in Aunt Judy's Magazine in 1867. Later, Carroll decided to use them as the core for a longer story.  Much of the rest of the novel he compiled from notes of ideas and dialogue which he had collected over the years.

The novel has two main plots, with one set in the real world at the time the novel was published, whilst the other concerns a fantasy Fairyland. While the latter plot contains many nonsense elements and poems, similar to Carroll’s Alice books, the other plot is poignant for its portrayal of Victorian Britain, offering important social views of religion, philosophy and morality at the time of publication.

The novel is now chiefly remembered for the poem The Mad Gardener's Song, which has been widely reprinted elsewhere.

CONTENTS

PREFACE.

CHAPTER 1.

LESS BREAD! MORE TAXES!

CHAPTER 2.

L'AMIE INCONNUE.

CHAPTER 3.

BIRTHDAY-PRESENTS.

CHAPTER 4.

A CUNNING CONSPIRACY.

CHAPTER 5.

A BEGGAR'S PALACE.

CHAPTER 6.

THE MAGIC LOCKET.

CHAPTER 7.

THE BARONS EMBASSY.

CHAPTER 8.

A RIDE ON A LION.

CHAPTER 9.

A JESTER AND A BEAR.

CHAPTER 10.

THE OTHER PROFESSOR.

CHAPTER 11.

PETER AND PAUL.

CHAPTER 12.

A MUSICAL GARDENER.

CHAPTER 13.

A VISIT TO DOGLAND.

CHAPTER 14.

FAIRY-SYLVlE.

CHAPTER 15.

BRUNO'S REVENGE.

CHAPTER 16.

A CHANGED CROCODILE.

CHAPTER 17.

THE THREE BADGERS.

CHAPTER 18.

QUEER STREET, NUMBER FORTY.

CHAPTER 19.

HOW TO MAKE A PHLIZZ.

CHAPTER 20.

LIGHT COME, LIGHT GO.

CHAPTER 21.

THROUGH THE IVORY DOOR.

CHAPTER 22.

CROSSING THE LINE.

CHAPTER 23.

AN OUTLANDISH WATCH.

CHAPTER 24.

THE FROGS' BIRTHDAY-TREAT.

CHAPTER 25.

LOOKING EASTWARD.

PREFACE.

One little picture in this book, the Magic Locket, at p. 77, was drawn by 'Miss Alice Havers.' I did not state this on the title-page, since it seemed only due, to the artist of all these (to my mind) wonderful pictures, that his name should stand there alone.

The descriptions, at pp. 386, 387, of Sunday as spent by children of the last generation, are quoted verbatim from a speech made to me by a child-friend and a letter written to me by a lady-friend.

The Chapters, headed 'Fairy Sylvie' and 'Bruno's Revenge,' are a reprint, with a few alterations, of a little fairy-tale which I wrote in the year 1867, at the request of the late Mrs. Gatty, for 'Aunt Judy's Magazine,' which she was then editing.

It was in 1874, I believe, that the idea first occurred to me of making it the nucleus of a longer story. As the years went on, I jotted down, at odd moments, all sorts of odd ideas, and fragments of dialogue, that occurred to me—who knows how?—with a transitory suddenness that left me no choice but either to record them then and there, or to abandon them to oblivion. Sometimes one could trace to their source these random flashes of thought—as being suggested by the book one was reading, or struck out from the 'flint' of one's own mind by the 'steel' of a friend's chance remark but they had also a way of their own, of occurring, a propos of nothing—specimens of that hopelessly illogical phenomenon, 'an effect without a cause.' Such, for example, was the last line of 'The Hunting of the Snark,' which came into my head (as I have already related in 'The Theatre' for April, 1887) quite suddenly, during a solitary walk: and such, again, have been passages which occurred in dreams, and which I cannot trace to any antecedent cause whatever. There are at least two instances of such dream-suggestions in this book— one, my Lady's remark, 'it often runs in families, just as a love for pastry does', at p. 88; the other, Eric Lindon's badinage about having been in domestic service, at p. 332.

And thus it came to pass that I found myself at last in possession of a huge unwieldy mass of litterature—if the reader will kindly excuse the spelling—which only needed stringing together, upon the thread of a consecutive story, to constitute the book I hoped to write. Only! The task, at first, seemed absolutely hopeless, and gave me a far clearer idea, than I ever had before, of the meaning of the word 'chaos': and I think it must have been ten years, or more, before I had succeeded in classifying these odds-and-ends sufficiently to see what sort of a story they indicated: for the story had to grow out of the incidents, not the incidents out of the story I am telling all this, in no spirit of egoism, but because I really believe that some of my readers will be interested in these details of the 'genesis' of a book, which looks so simple and straight-forward a matter, when completed, that they might suppose it to have been written straight off, page by page, as one would write a letter, beginning at the beginning; and ending at the end.

It is, no doubt, possible to write a story in that way: and, if it be not vanity to say so, I believe that I could, myself,—if I were in the unfortunate position (for I do hold it to be a real misfortune) of being obliged to produce a given amount of fiction in a given time,— that I could 'fulfil my task,' and produce my 'tale of bricks,' as other slaves have done. One thing, at any rate, I could guarantee as to the story so produced—that it should be utterly commonplace, should contain no new ideas whatever, and should be very very weary reading!

This species of literature has received the very appropriate name of 'padding' which might fitly be defined as 'that which all can write and none can read.' That the present volume contains no such writing I dare not avow: sometimes, in order to bring a picture into its proper place, it has been necessary to eke out a page with two or three extra lines: but I can honestly say I have put in no more than I was absolutely compelled to do.

My readers may perhaps like to amuse themselves by trying to detect, in a given passage, the one piece of 'padding' it contains. While arranging the 'slips' into pages, I found that the passage, whichnow extends from the top of p. 35 to the middle of p. 38, was 3 lines too short. I supplied the deficiency, not by interpolating a word here and a word there, but by writing in 3 consecutive lines. Now can my readers guess which they are?

A harder puzzle if a harder be desired would be to determine, as to the Gardener's Song, in which cases (if any) the stanza was adapted to the surrounding text, and in which (if any) the text was adapted to the stanza.

Perhaps the hardest thing in all literature—at least I have found it so: by no voluntary effort can I accomplish it: I have to take it as it come's is to write anything original. And perhaps the easiest is, when once an original line has been struck out, to follow it up, and to write any amount more to the same tune. I do not know if 'Alice in Wonderland' was an original story—I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it—but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen story-books have appeared, on identically the same pattern. The path I timidly explored believing myself to be 'the first that ever burst into that silent sea'— is now a beaten high-road: all the way-side flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust: and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again.

Hence it is that, in 'Sylvie and Bruno,' I have striven with I know not what success to strike out yet another new path: be it bad or good, it is the best I can do. It is written, not for money, and not for fame, but in the hope of supplying, for the children whom I love, some thoughts that may suit those hours of innocent merriment which are the very life of Childhood; and also in the hope of suggesting, to them and to others, some thoughts that may prove, I would fain hope, not wholly out of harmony with the graver cadences of Life.

If I have not already exhausted the patience of my readers, I would like to seize this opportunity perhaps the last I shall have of addressing so many friends at once of putting on record some ideas that have occurred to me, as to books desirable to be written—which I should much like to attempt, but may not ever have the time or power to carry through—in the hope that, if I should fail (and the years are gliding away very fast) to finish the task I have set myself, other hands may take it up.

First, a Child's Bible. The only real essentials of this would be, carefully selected passages, suitable for a child's reading and pictures. One principle of selection, which I would adopt, would be that Religion should be put before a child as a revelation of love no need to pain and puzzle the young mind with the history of crime and punishment. (On such a principle I should, for example, omit the history of the Flood.) The supplying of the pictures would involve no great difficulty: no new ones would be needed: hundreds of excellent pictures already exist, the copyright of which has long ago expired, and which simply need photo-zincography, or some similar process, for their successful reproduction. The book should be handy in size with a pretty attractive looking cover—in a clear legible type—and, above all, with abundance of pictures, pictures, pictures!

Secondly, a book of pieces selected from the Bible—not single texts, but passages of from 10 to 20 verses each—to be committed to memory. Such passages would be found useful, to repeat to one's self and to ponder over, on many occasions when reading is difficult, if not impossible: for instance, when lying awake at night—on a railway-journey —when taking a solitary walk-in old age, when eye-sight is failing of wholly lost—and, best of all, when illness, while incapacitating us for reading or any other occupation, condemns us to lie awake through many weary silent hours: at such a time how keenly one may realise the truth of David's rapturous cry 'O how sweet are thy words unto my throat: yea, sweeter than honey unto my mouth!'

I have said 'passages,' rather than single texts, because we have no means of recalling single texts: memory needs links, and here are none: one may have a hundred texts stored in the memory, and not be able to recall, at will, more than half-a-dozen—and those by mere chance: whereas, once get hold of any portion of a chapter that has been committed to memory, and the whole can be recovered: all hangs together.

Thirdly, a collection of passages, both prose and verse, from books other than the Bible. There is not perhaps much, in what is called 'un-inspired' literature (a misnomer, I hold: if Shakespeare was not inspired, one may well doubt if any man ever was), that will bear the process of being pondered over, a hundred times: still there are such passages—enough, I think, to make a goodly store for the memory.

These two books of sacred, and secular, passages for memory—will serve other good purposes besides merely occupying vacant hours: they will help to keep at bay many anxious thoughts, worrying thoughts, uncharitable thoughts, unholy thoughts. Let me say this, in better words than my own, by copying a passage from that most interesting book, Robertson's Lectures on the Epistles to the Corinthians, Lecture XLIX. "If a man finds himself haunted by evil desires and unholy images, which will generally be at periodical hours, let him commit to memory passages of Scripture, or passages from the best writers in verse or prose. Let him store his mind with these, as safeguards to repeat when he lies awake in some restless night, or when despairing imaginations, or gloomy, suicidal thoughts, beset him. Let these be to him the sword, turning everywhere to keep the way of the Garden of Life from the intrusion of profaner footsteps."

Fourthly, a "Shakespeare" for girls: that is, an edition in which everything, not suitable for the perusal of girls of (say) from 10 to 17, should be omitted. Few children under 10 would be likely to understand or enjoy the greatest of poets: and those, who have passed out of girlhood, may safely be left to read Shakespeare, in any edition, 'expurgated' or not, that they may prefer: but it seems a pity that so many children, in the intermediate stage, should be debarred from a great pleasure for want of an edition suitable to them. Neither Bowdler's, Chambers's, Brandram's, nor Cundell's 'Boudoir' Shakespeare, seems to me to meet the want: they are not sufficiently 'expurgated.' Bowdler's is the most extraordinary of all: looking through it, I am filled with a deep sense of wonder, considering what he has left in, that he should have cut anything out! Besides relentlessly erasing all that is unsuitable on the score of reverence or decency, I should be inclined to omit also all that seems too difficult, or not likely to interest young readers. The resulting book might be slightly fragmentary: but it would be a real treasure to all British maidens who have any taste for poetry.

If it be needful to apologize to any one for the new departure I have taken in this story—by introducing, along with what will, I hope, prove to be acceptable nonsense for children, some of the graver thoughts of human life—it must be to one who has learned the Art of keeping such thoughts wholly at a distance in hours of mirth and careless ease. To him such a mixture will seem, no doubt, ill-judged and repulsive. And that such an Art exists I do not dispute: with youth, good health, and sufficient money, it seems quite possible to lead, for years together, a life of unmixed gaiety—with the exception of one solemn fact, with which we are liable to be confronted at any moment, even in the midst of the most brilliant company or the most sparkling entertainment. A man may fix his own times for admitting serious thought, for attending public worship, for prayer, for reading the Bible: all such matters he can defer to that 'convenient season', which is so apt never to occur at all: but he cannot defer, for one single moment, the necessity of attending to a message, which may come before he has finished reading this page,' this night shalt thy soul be required of thee.'

The ever-present sense of this grim possibility has been, in all ages,* Note…At the moment, when I had written these words, there was a knock at the door, and a telegram was brought me, announcing the sudden death of a dear friend. an incubus that men have striven to shake off. Few more interesting subjects of enquiry could be found, by a student of history, than the various weapons that have been used against this shadowy foe. Saddest of all must have been the thoughts of those who saw indeed an existence beyond the grave, but an existence far more terrible than annihilation—an existence as filmy, impalpable, all but invisible spectres, drifting about, through endless ages, in a world of shadows, with nothing to do, nothing to hope for, nothing to love! In the midst of the gay verses of that genial 'bon vivant' Horace, there stands one dreary word whose utter sadness goes to one's heart. It is the word 'exilium' in the well-known passage

Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium
Versatur urna serius ocius
Sors exitura et nos in aeternum
Exilium impositura cymbae.

Yes, to him this present life—spite of all its weariness and all its sorrow—was the only life worth having: all else was 'exile'! Does it not seem almost incredible that one, holding such a creed, should ever have smiled?

And many in this day, I fear, even though believing in an existence beyond the grave far more real than Horace ever dreamed of, yet regard it as a sort of 'exile' from all the joys of life, and so adopt Horace's theory, and say 'let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'

We go to entertainments, such as the theatre—I say 'we', for I also go to the play, whenever I get a chance of seeing a really good one and keep at arm's length, if possible, the thought that we may not return alive. Yet how do you know—dear friend, whose patience has carried you through this garrulous preface that it may not be your lot, when mirth is fastest and most furious, to feel the sharp pang, or the deadly faintness, which heralds the final crisis—to see, with vague wonder, anxious friends bending over you to hear their troubled whispers perhaps yourself to shape the question, with trembling lips, "Is it serious?", and to be told "Yes: the end is near" (and oh, how different all Life will look when those words are said!)—how do you know, I say, that all this may not happen to you, this night?

And dare you, knowing this, say to yourself "Well, perhaps it is an immoral play: perhaps the situations are a little too 'risky', the dialogue a little too strong, the 'business' a little too suggestive. I don't say that conscience is quite easy: but the piece is so clever, I must see it this once! I'll begin a stricter life to-morrow." To-morrow, and to-morrow, and tomorrow!

"Who sins in hope, who, sinning, says,
'Sorrow for sin God's judgement stays!'
Against God's Spirit he lies; quite stops
Mercy with insult; dares, and drops,
Like a scorch'd fly, that spins in vain
Upon the axis of its pain,
Then takes its doom, to limp and crawl,
Blind and forgot, from fall to fall."

Let me pause for a moment to say that I believe this thought, of the possibility of death—if calmly realised, and steadily faced would be one of the best possible tests as to our going to any scene of amusement being right or wrong. If the thought of sudden death acquires, for you, a special horror when imagined as happening in a theatre, then be very sure the theatre is harmful for you, however harmless it may be for others; and that you are incurring a deadly peril in going. Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to live in any scene in which we dare not die.

But, once realise what the true object is in life—that it is not pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself, 'that last infirmity of noble minds'—but that it is the development of character, the rising to a higher, nobler, purer standard, the building-up of the perfect Man—and then, so long as we feel that this is going on, and will (we trust) go on for evermore, death has for us no terror; it is not a shadow, but a light; not an end, but a beginning!

One other matter may perhaps seem to call for apology—that I should have treated with such entire want of sympathy the British passion for 'Sport', which no doubt has been in by-gone days, and is still, in some forms of it, an excellent school for hardihood and for coolness in moments of danger. But I am not entirely without sympathy for genuine 'Sport': I can heartily admire the courage of the man who, with severe bodily toil, and at the risk of his life, hunts down some 'man-eating' tiger: and I can heartily sympathize with him when he exults in the glorious excitement of the chase and the hand-to-hand struggle with the monster brought to bay. But I can but look with deep wonder and sorrow on the hunter who, at his ease and in safety, can find pleasure in what involves, for some defenceless creature, wild terror and a death of agony: deeper, if the hunter be one who has pledged himself to preach to men the Religion of universal Love: deepest of all, if it be one of those 'tender and delicate' beings, whose very name serves as a symbol of Love—'thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women'— whose mission here is surely to help and comfort all that are in pain or sorrow!

'Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.'

CHAPTER 1.

LESS BREAD! MORE TAXES!

—and then all the people cheered again, and one man, who was more excited than the rest, flung his hat high into the air, and shouted (as well as I could make out) "Who roar for the Sub-Warden?" Everybody roared, but whether it was for the Sub-Warden, or not, did not clearly appear: some were shouting "Bread!" and some "Taxes!", but no one seemed to know what it was they really wanted.

All this I saw from the open window of the Warden's breakfast-saloon, looking across the shoulder of the Lord Chancellor, who had sprung to his feet the moment the shouting began, almost as if he had been expecting it, and had rushed to the window which commanded the best view of the market-place.

"What can it all mean?" he kept repeating to himself, as, with his hands clasped behind him, and his gown floating in the air, he paced rapidly up and down the room. "I never heard such shouting before— and at this time of the morning, too! And with such unanimity! Doesn't it strike you as very remarkable?"

I represented, modestly, that to my ears it appeared that they were shouting for different things, but the Chancellor would not listen to my suggestion for a moment. "They all shout the same words, I assure you!" he said: then, leaning well out of the window, he whispered to a man who was standing close underneath, "Keep'em together, ca'n't you? The Warden will be here directly. Give'em the signal for the march up!" All this was evidently not meant for my ears, but I could scarcely help hearing it, considering that my chin was almost on the Chancellor's shoulder.

The 'march up' was a very curious sight:

a straggling procession of men, marching two and two, began from the other side of the market-place, and advanced in an irregular zig-zag fashion towards the Palace, wildly tacking from side to side, like a sailing vessel making way against an unfavourable wind so that the head of the procession was often further from us at the end of one tack than it had been at the end of the previous one.

Yet it was evident that all was being done under orders, for I noticed that all eyes were fixed on the man who stood just under the window, and to whom the Chancellor was continually whispering. This man held his hat in one hand and a little green flag in the other: whenever he waved the flag the procession advanced a little nearer, when he dipped it they sidled a little farther off, and whenever he waved his hat they all raised a hoarse cheer. "Hoo-roah!" they cried, carefully keeping time with the hat as it bobbed up and down. "Hoo-roah! Noo! Consti! Tooshun! Less! Bread! More! Taxes!"

"That'll do, that'll do!" the Chancellor whispered. "Let 'em rest a bit till I give you the word. He's not here yet!" But at this moment the great folding-doors of the saloon were flung open, and he turned with a guilty start to receive His High Excellency. However it was only Bruno, and the Chancellor gave a little gasp of relieved anxiety.

"Morning!" said the little fellow, addressing the remark, in a general sort of way, to the Chancellor and the waiters. "Doos oo know where Sylvie is? I's looking for Sylvie!"

"She's with the Warden, I believe, y'reince!" the Chancellor replied with a low bow. There was, no doubt, a certain amount of absurdity in applying this title (which, as of course you see without my telling you, was nothing but 'your Royal Highness' condensed into one syllable) to a small creature whose father was merely the Warden of Outland: still, large excuse must be made for a man who had passed several years at the Court of Fairyland, and had there acquired the almost impossible art of pronouncing five syllables as one.

But the bow was lost upon Bruno, who had run out of the room, even while the great feat of The Unpronounceable Monosyllable was being triumphantly performed.

Just then, a single voice in the distance was understood to shout "A speech from the Chancellor!" "Certainly, my friends!" the Chancellor replied with extraordinary promptitude. "You shall have a speech!" Here one of the waiters, who had been for some minutes busy making a queer-looking mixture of egg and sherry, respectfully presented it on a large silver salver. The Chancellor took it haughtily, drank it off thoughtfully, smiled benevolently on the happy waiter as he set down the empty glass, and began. To the best of my recollection this is what he said.

"Ahem! Ahem! Ahem! Fellow-sufferers, or rather suffering fellows—" ("Don't call 'em names!" muttered the man under the window. "I didn't say felons!" the Chancellor explained.) "You may be sure that I always sympa—" ("'Ear, 'ear!" shouted the crowd, so loudly as quite to drown the orator's thin squeaky voice) "—that I always sympa—" he repeated. ("Don't simper quite so much!" said the man under the window. "It makes yer look a hidiot!" And, all this time, "'Ear, 'ear!" went rumbling round the market-place, like a peal of thunder.) "That I always sympathise!" yelled the Chancellor, the first moment there was silence. "But your true friend is the Sub-Warden! Day and night he is brooding on your wrongs—I should say your rights— that is to say your wrongs—no, I mean your rights—" ("Don't talk no more!" growled the man under the window. "You're making a mess of it!") At this moment the Sub-Warden entered the saloon. He was a thin man, with a mean and crafty face, and a greenish-yellow complexion; and he crossed the room very slowly, looking suspiciously about him as if be thought there might be a savage dog hidden somewhere. "Bravo!" he cried, patting the Chancellor on the back. "You did that speech very well indeed. Why, you're a born orator, man!"

"Oh, that's nothing! the Chancellor replied, modestly, with downcast eyes. "Most orators are born, you know."

The Sub-Warden thoughtfully rubbed his chin. "Why, so they are!" he admitted. "I never considered it in that light. Still, you did it very well. A word in your ear!"

The rest of their conversation was all in whispers: so, as I could hear no more, I thought I would go and find Bruno.

I found the little fellow standing in the passage, and being addressed by one of the men in livery, who stood before him, nearly bent double from extreme respectfulness, with his hands hanging in front of him like the fins of a fish. "His High Excellency," this respectful man was saying, "is in his Study, y'reince!" (He didn't pronounce this quite so well as the Chancellor.) Thither Bruno trotted, and I thought it well to follow him.

The Warden, a tall dignified man with a grave but very pleasant face, was seated before a writing-table, which was covered with papers, and holding on his knee one of the sweetest and loveliest little maidens it has ever been my lot to see. She looked four or five years older than Bruno, but she had the same rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes, and the same wealth of curly brown hair. Her eager smiling face was turned upwards towards her father's, and it was a pretty sight to see the mutual love with which the two faces—one in the Spring of Life, the other in its late Autumn—were gazing on each other.

"No, you've never seen him," the old man was saying: "you couldn't, you know, he's been away so long—traveling from land to land, and seeking for health, more years than you've been alive, little Sylvie!" Here Bruno climbed upon his other knee, and a good deal of kissing, on a rather complicated system, was the result.

"He only came back last night," said the Warden, when the kissing was over: "he's been traveling post-haste, for the last thousand miles or so, in order to be here on Sylvie's birthday. But he's a very early riser, and I dare say he's in the Library already. Come with me and see him. He's always kind to children. You'll be sure to like him."

"Has the Other Professor come too?" Bruno asked in an awe-struck voice.

"Yes, they arrived together. The Other Professor is—well, you won't like him quite so much, perhaps. He's a little more dreamy, you know."

"I wiss Sylvie was a little more dreamy," said Bruno.

"What do you mean, Bruno?" said Sylvie.

Bruno went on addressing his father. "She says she ca'n't, oo know.
But I thinks it isn't ca'n't, it's wo'n't."

"Says she ca'n't dream!" the puzzled Warden repeated.

"She do say it," Bruno persisted. "When I says to her 'Let's stop lessons!', she says 'Oh, I ca'n't dream of letting oo stop yet!'"

"He always wants to stop lessons," Sylvie explained, "five minutes after we begin!"

"Five minutes' lessons a day!" said the Warden. "You won't learn much at that rate, little man!"

"That's just what Sylvie says," Bruno rejoined. "She says I wo'n't learn my lessons. And I tells her, over and over, I ca'n't learn 'em. And what doos oo think she says? She says 'It isn't ca'n't, it's wo'n't!'"

"Let's go and see the Professor," the Warden said, wisely avoiding further discussion. The children got down off his knees, each secured a hand, and the happy trio set off for the Library—followed by me. I had come to the conclusion by this time that none of the party (except, for a few moments, the Lord Chancellor) was in the least able to see me.

"What's the matter with him?" Sylvie asked, walking with a little extra sedateness, by way of example to Bruno at the other side, who never ceased jumping up and down.

"What was the matter—but I hope he's all right now—was lumbago, and rheumatism, and that kind of thing. He's been curing himself, you know: he's a very learned doctor. Why, he's actually invented three new diseases, besides a new way of breaking your collar-bone!"

"Is it a nice way?" said Bruno.

"Well, hum, not very," the Warden said, as we entered the Library. "And here is the Professor. Good morning, Professor! Hope you're quite rested after your journey!"

A jolly-looking, fat little man, in a flowery dressing-gown, with a large book under each arm, came trotting in at the other end of the room, and was going straight across without taking any notice of the children. "I'm looking for Vol. Three," he said. "Do you happen to have seen it?"

"You don't see my children, Professor!" the Warden exclaimed, taking him by the shoulders and turning him round to face them.

The Professor laughed violently: then he gazed at them through his great spectacles, for a minute or two, without speaking.

At last he addressed Bruno. "I hope you have had a good night, my child?"
Bruno looked puzzled. "I's had the same night oo've had," he replied.
"There's only been one night since yesterday!"

It was the Professor's turn to look puzzled now.
He took off his spectacles, and rubbed them with his handkerchief.
Then he gazed at them again. Then he turned to the Warden.
"Are they bound?" he enquired.

"No, we aren't," said Bruno, who thought himself quite able to answer this question.

The Professor shook his head sadly. "Not even half-bound?"

"Why would we be half-bound?" said Bruno.

"We're not prisoners!"

But the Professor had forgotten all about them by this time, and was speaking to the Warden again. "You'll be glad to hear," he was saying, "that the Barometer's beginning to move—"

"Well, which way?" said the Warden—adding, to the children, "Not that I care, you know. Only he thinks it affects the weather. He's a wonderfully clever man, you know. Sometimes he says things that only the Other Professor can understand. Sometimes he says things that nobody can understand! Which way is it, Professor? Up or down?"

"Neither!" said the Professor, gently clapping his hands. "It's going sideways—if I may so express myself."

"And what kind of weather does that produce?" said the Warden.
"Listen, children! Now you'll hear something worth knowing!"

"Horizontal weather," said the Professor, and made straight for the door, very nearly trampling on Bruno, who had only just time to get out of his way.

"Isn't he learned?" the Warden said, looking after him with admiring eyes. "Positively he runs over with learning!"

"But he needn't run over me!" said Bruno.

The Professor was back in a moment: he had changed his dressing-gown for a frock-coat, and had put on a pair of very strange-looking boots, the tops of which were open umbrellas. "I thought you'd like to see them," he said. "These are the boots for horizontal weather!"

"But what's the use of wearing umbrellas round one's knees?"

"In ordinary rain," the Professor admitted, "they would not be of much use. But if ever it rained horizontally, you know, they would be invaluable—simply invaluable!"

"Take the Professor to the breakfast-saloon, children," said the Warden. "And tell them not to wait for me. I had breakfast early, as I've some business to attend to." The children seized the Professor's hands, as familiarly as if they had known him for years, and hurried him away. I followed respectfully behind.

CHAPTER 2.

L'AMIE INCONNUE.

As we entered the breakfast-saloon, the Professor was saying "—and he had breakfast by himself, early: so he begged you wouldn't wait for him, my Lady. This way, my Lady," he added, "this way!" And then, with (as it seemed to me) most superfluous politeness, he flung open the door of my compartment, and ushered in "—a young and lovely lady!" I muttered to myself with some bitterness. "And this is, of course, the opening scene of Vol. I. She is the Heroine. And I am one of those subordinate characters that only turn up when needed for the development of her destiny, and whose final appearance is outside the church, waiting to greet the Happy Pair!"

"Yes, my Lady, change at Fayfield," were the next words I heard (oh that too obsequious Guard!), "next station but one." And the door closed, and the lady settled down into her corner, and the monotonous throb of the engine (making one feel as if the train were some gigantic monster, whose very circulation we could feel) proclaimed that we were once more speeding on our way. "The lady had a perfectly formed nose," I caught myself saying to myself, "hazel eyes, and lips—" and here it occurred to me that to see, for myself, what "the lady" was really like, would be more satisfactory than much speculation.

I looked round cautiously, and—was entirely disappointed of my hope. The veil, which shrouded her whole face, was too thick for me to see more than the glitter of bright eyes and the hazy outline of what might be a lovely oval face, but might also, unfortunately, be an equally unlovely one. I closed my eyes again, saying to myself "—couldn't have a better chance for an experiment in Telepathy! I'll think out her face, and afterwards test the portrait with the original."

At first, no result at all crowned my efforts, though I 'divided my swift mind,' now hither, now thither, in a way that I felt sure would have made AEneas green with envy: but the dimly-seen oval remained as provokingly blank as ever—a mere Ellipse, as if in some mathematical diagram, without even the Foci that might be made to do duty as a nose and a mouth. Gradually, however, the conviction came upon me that I could, by a certain concentration of thought, think the veil away, and so get a glimpse of the mysterious face—as to which the two questions, "is she pretty?" and "is she plain?", still hung suspended, in my mind, in beautiful equipoise.

Success was partial—and fitful—still there was a result: ever and anon, the veil seemed to vanish, in a sudden flash of light: but, before I could fully realise the face, all was dark again. In each such glimpse, the face seemed to grow more childish and more innocent: and, when I had at last thought the veil entirely away, it was, unmistakeably, the sweet face of little Sylvie!

"So, either I've been dreaming about Sylvie," I said to myself, "and this is the reality. Or else I've really been with Sylvie, and this is a dream! Is Life itself a dream, I wonder?"

To occupy the time, I got out the letter, which had caused me to take this sudden railway-journey from my London home down to a strange fishing-town on the North coast, and read it over again:-

"DEAR OLD FRIEND,

    "I'm sure it will be as great a pleasure to me, as it can possibly
    be to you, to meet once more after so many years: and of course I
    shall be ready to give you all the benefit of such medical skill as
    I have: only, you know, one mustn't violate professional etiquette!
    And you are already in the hands of a first-rate London doctor,
    with whom it would be utter affectation for me to pretend to compete. (I make no doubt he
is right in saying the heart is affected:
    all your symptoms point that way.) One thing, at any rate, I have
    already done in my doctorial capacity—secured you a bedroom on the
    ground-floor, so that you will not need to ascend the stairs at all.

    "I shalt expect you by last train on Friday, in accordance with your
    letter: and, till then, I shalt say, in the words of the old song,
    'Oh for Friday nicht! Friday's lang a-coming!'

"Yours always,

"ARTHUR FORESTER.

"P.S. Do you believe in Fate?"

This Postscript puzzled me sorely. "He is far too sensible a man," I thought, "to have become a Fatalist. And yet what else can he mean by it?" And, as I folded up the letter and put it away, I inadvertently repeated the words aloud. "Do you believe in Fate?"

The fair 'Incognita' turned her head quickly at the sudden question.
"No, I don't!" she said with a smile. "Do you?"

"I—I didn't mean to ask the question!" I stammered, a little taken aback at having begun a conversation in so unconventional a fashion.

The lady's smile became a laugh—not a mocking laugh, but the laugh of a happy child who is perfectly at her ease. "Didn't you?" she said. "Then it was a case of what you Doctors call 'unconscious cerebration'?"

"I am no Doctor," I replied. "Do I look so like one? Or what makes you think it?"

She pointed to the book I had been reading, which was so lying that its title, "Diseases of the Heart," was plainly visible.

"One needn't be a Doctor," I said, "to take an interest in medical books. There's another class of readers, who are yet more deeply interested—"

"You mean the Patients?" she interrupted, while a look of tender pity gave new sweetness to her face. "But," with an evident wish to avoid a possibly painful topic, "one needn't be either, to take an interest in books of Science. Which contain the greatest amount of Science, do you think, the books, or the minds?"

"Rather a profound question for a lady!" I said to myself, holding, with the conceit so natural to Man, that Woman's intellect is essentially shallow. And I considered a minute before replying. "If you mean living minds, I don't think it's possible to decide. There is so much written Science that no living person has ever read: and there is so much thought-out Science that hasn't yet been written. But, if you mean the whole human race, then I think the minds have it: everything, recorded in books, must have once been in some mind, you know."

"Isn't that rather like one of the Rules in Algebra?" my Lady enquired. ("Algebra too!" I thought with increasing wonder.) "I mean, if we consider thoughts as factors, may we not say that the Least Common Multiple of all the minds contains that of all the books; but not the other way?"

"Certainly we may!" I replied, delighted with the illustration. "And what a grand thing it would be," I went on dreamily, thinking aloud rather than talking, "if we could only apply that Rule to books! You know, in finding the Least Common Multiple, we strike out a quantity wherever it occurs, except in the term where it is raised to its highest power. So we should have to erase every recorded thought, except in the sentence where it is expressed with the greatest intensity."

My Lady laughed merrily. "Some books would be reduced to blank paper,
I'm afraid!" she said.

"They would. Most libraries would be terribly diminished in bulk.
But just think what they would gain in quality!"

"When will it be done?" she eagerly asked. "If there's any chance of it in my time, I think I'll leave off reading, and wait for it!"

"Well, perhaps in another thousand years or so—"

"Then there's no use waiting!", said my Lady. "Let's sit down.
Uggug, my pet, come and sit by me!"

"Anywhere but by me!" growled the Sub-warden. "The little wretch always manages to upset his coffee!"

I guessed at once (as perhaps the reader will also have guessed, if, like myself, he is very clever at drawing conclusions) that my Lady was the Sub-Warden's wife, and that Uggug (a hideous fat boy, about the same age as Sylvie, with the expression of a prize-pig) was their son. Sylvie and Bruno, with the Lord Chancellor, made up a party of seven.

"And you actually got a plunge-bath every morning?" said the Sub-Warden, seemingly in continuation of a conversation with the Professor. "Even at the little roadside-inns?"

"Oh, certainly, certainly!" the Professor replied with a smile on his jolly face. "Allow me to explain. It is, in fact, a very simple problem in Hydrodynamics. (That means a combination of Water and Strength.) If we take a plunge-bath, and a man of great strength (such as myself) about to plunge into it, we have a perfect example of this science. I am bound to admit," the Professor continued, in a lower tone and with downcast eyes, "that we need a man of remarkable strength. He must be able to spring from the floor to about twice his own height, gradually turning over as he rises, so as to come down again head first."

"Why, you need a flea, not a man!" exclaimed the Sub-Warden.

"Pardon me," said the Professor. "This particular kind of bath is not adapted for a flea. Let us suppose," he continued, folding his table-napkin into a graceful festoon, "that this represents what is perhaps the necessity of this Age—the Active Tourist's Portable Bath. You may describe it briefly, if you like," looking at the Chancellor, "by the letters A.T.P.B."

The Chancellor, much disconcerted at finding everybody looking at him, could only murmur, in a shy whisper, "Precisely so!"

"One great advantage of this plunge-bath," continued the Professor, "is that it requires only half-a-gallon of water—"

"I don't call it a plunge-bath," His Sub-Excellency remarked, "unless your Active Tourist goes right under!"

"But he does go right under," the old man gently replied. "The A.T. hangs up the P. B. on a nail—thus. He then empties the water-jug into it—places the empty jug below the bag—leaps into the air—descends head-first into the bag—the water rises round him to the top of the bag—and there you are!" he triumphantly concluded. "The A.T. is as much under water as if he'd gone a mile or two down into the Atlantic!"

"And he's drowned, let us say, in about four minutes—"

"By no means!" the Professor answered with a proud smile. "After about a minute, he quietly turns a tap at the lower end of the P. B.—all the water runs back into the jug and there you are again!"

"But how in the world is he to get out of the bag again?"

"That, I take it," said the Professor, "is the most beautiful part of the whole invention. All the way up the P.B., inside, are loops for the thumbs; so it's something like going up-stairs, only perhaps less comfortable; and, by the time the A. T. has risen out of the bag, all but his head, he's sure to topple over, one way or the other—the Law of Gravity secures that. And there he is on the floor again!"

"A little bruised, perhaps?"

"Well, yes, a little bruised; but having had his plunge-bath: that's the great thing."

"Wonderful! It's almost beyond belief!" murmured the Sub-Warden.
The Professor took it as a compliment, and bowed with a gratified smile.

"Quite beyond belief!" my Lady added—meaning, no doubt, to be more complimentary still. The Professor bowed, but he didn't smile this time. "I can assure you," he said earnestly, "that, provided the bath was made, I used it every morning. I certainly ordered it—that I am clear about—my only doubt is, whether the man ever finished making it. It's difficult to remember, after so many years—"

At this moment the door, very slowly and creakingly, began to open, and Sylvie and Bruno jumped up, and ran to meet the well-known footstep.

CHAPTER 3.

BIRTHDAY-PRESENTS.

"It's my brother!" the Sub-warden exclaimed, in a warning whisper.
"Speak out, and be quick about it!"

The appeal was evidently addressed to the Lord Chancellor, who instantly replied, in a shrill monotone, like a little boy repeating the alphabet, "As I was remarking, your Sub-Excellency, this portentous movement—"

"You began too soon!" the other interrupted, scarcely able to restrain himself to a whisper, so great was his excitement. "He couldn't have heard you. Begin again!" "As I was remarking," chanted the obedient Lord Chancellor, "this portentous movement has already assumed the dimensions of a Revolution!"

"And what are the dimensions of a Revolution?" The voice was genial and mellow, and the face of the tall dignified old man, who had just entered the room, leading Sylvie by the hand, and with Bruno riding triumphantly on his shoulder, was too noble and gentle to have scared a less guilty man: but the Lord Chancellor turned pale instantly, and could hardly articulate the words "The dimensions your— your High Excellency? I—I—scarcely comprehend!"

"Well, the length, breadth, and thickness, if you like it better!"
And the old man smiled, half-contemptuously.

The Lord Chancellor recovered himself with a great effort, and pointed to the open window. "If your High Excellency will listen for a moment to the shouts of the exasperated populace—" ("of the exasperated populace!" the Sub-Warden repeated in a louder tone, as the Lord Chancellor, being in a state of abject terror, had dropped almost into a whisper) "—you will understand what it is they want. "

And at that moment there surged into the room a hoarse confused cry, in which the only clearly audible words were "Less—bread—More—taxes!" The old man laughed heartily. "What in the world—" he was beginning: but the Chancellor heard him not. "Some mistake!" he muttered, hurrying to the window, from which he shortly returned with an air of relief. "Now listen!" he exclaimed, holding up his hand impressively. And now the words came quite distinctly, and with the regularity of the ticking of a clock, "More—bread—Less taxes!'"

"More bread!" the Warden repeated in astonishment. "Why, the new Government Bakery was opened only last week, and I gave orders to sell the bread at cost-price during the present scarcity! What can they expect more?"

"The Bakery's closed, y'reince!" the Chancellor said, more loudly and clearly than he had spoken yet. He was emboldened by the consciousness that here, at least, he had evidence to produce: and he placed in the Warden's hands a few printed notices, that were lying ready, with some open ledgers, on a side-table.

"Yes, yes, I see!" the Warden muttered, glancing carelessly through them. "Order countermanded by my brother, and supposed to be my doing! Rather sharp practice! It's all right!" he added in a louder tone. "My name is signed to it: so I take it on myself. But what do they mean by 'Less Taxes'? How can they be less? I abolished the last of them a month ago!"

"It's been put on again, y'reince, and by y'reince's own orders!", and other printed notices were submitted for inspection.

The Warden, whilst looking them over, glanced once or twice at the
Sub-Warden, who had seated himself before one of the open ledgers,
and was quite absorbed in adding it up; but he merely repeated
"It's all right. I accept it as my doing."

"And they do say," the Chancellor went on sheepishly—looking much more like a convicted thief than an Officer of State, "that a change of Government, by the abolition of the Sub-Warden—-I mean," he hastily added, on seeing the Warden's look of astonishment, "the abolition of the office of Sub-Warden, and giving the present holder the right to act as Vice-Warden whenever the Warden is absent —would appease all this seedling discontent I mean," he added, glancing at a paper he held in his hand, "all this seething discontent!"

"For fifteen years," put in a deep but very harsh voice, "my husband has been acting as Sub-Warden. It is too long! It is much too long!" My Lady was a vast creature at all times: but, when she frowned and folded her arms, as now, she looked more gigantic than ever, and made one try to fancy what a haystack would look like, if out of temper.

"He would distinguish himself as a Vice!" my Lady proceeded, being far too stupid to see the double meaning of her words. "There has been no such Vice in Outland for many a long year, as he would be!"

"What course would you suggest, Sister?" the Warden mildly enquired.

My Lady stamped, which was undignified: and snorted, which was ungraceful. "This is no jesting matter!" she bellowed.

"I will consult my brother, said the Warden. "Brother!"

"—and seven makes a hundred and ninety-four, which is sixteen and two-pence," the Sub-Warden replied. "Put down two and carry sixteen."

The Chancellor raised his hands and eyebrows, lost in admiration.
"Such a man of business!" he murmured.

"Brother, could I have a word with you in my Study?" the Warden said in a louder tone. The Sub-Warden rose with alacrity, and the two left the room together.

My Lady turned to the Professor, who had uncovered the urn, and was taking its temperature with his pocket-thermometer. "Professor!" she began, so loudly and suddenly that even Uggug, who had gone to sleep in his chair, left off snoring and opened one eye. The Professor pocketed his thermometer in a moment, clasped his hands, and put his head on one side with a meek smile

"You were teaching my son before breakfast, I believe?" my Lady loftily remarked. "I hope he strikes you as having talent?"

"Oh, very much so indeed, my Lady!" the Professor hastily replied, unconsciously rubbing his ear, while some painful recollection seemed to cross his mind. "I was very forcibly struck by His Magnificence, I assure you!"

"He is a charming boy!" my Lady exclaimed. "Even his snores are more musical than those of other boys!"

If that were so, the Professor seemed to think, the snores of other boys must be something too awful to be endured: but he was a cautious man, and he said nothing.

"And he's so clever!" my Lady continued. "No one will enjoy your
Lecture more by the way, have you fixed the time for it yet?
You've never given one, you know: and it was promised years ago,
before you—

"Yes, yes, my Lady, I know! Perhaps next Tuesday or Tuesday week—"

"That will do very well," said my Lady, graciously. "Of course you will let the Other Professor lecture as well?"

"I think not, my Lady? the Professor said with some hesitation.
"You see, he always stands with his back to the audience.
It does very well for reciting; but for lecturing—"

"You are quite right," said my Lady. "And, now I come to think of it, there would hardly be time for more than one Lecture. And it will go off all the better, if we begin with a Banquet, and a Fancy-dress Ball—"

"It will indeed!" the Professor cried, with enthusiasm.

"I shall come as a Grass-hopper," my Lady calmly proceeded.
"What shall you come as, Professor?"

The Professor smiled feebly. "I shall come as—as early as I can, my Lady!"

"You mustn't come in before the doors are opened," said my Lady.

"I ca'n't," said the Professor. "Excuse me a moment. As this is Lady
Sylvie's birthday, I would like to—" and he rushed away.

Bruno began feeling in his pockets, looking more and more melancholy as he did so: then he put his thumb in his mouth, and considered for a minute: then he quietly left the room.

He had hardly done so before the Professor was back again, quite out of breath. "Wishing you many happy returns of the day, my dear child!" he went on, addressing the smiling little girl, who had run to meet him. "Allow me to give you a birthday-present. It's a second-hand pincushion, my dear. And it only cost fourpence-halfpenny!"

"Thank you, it's very pretty!" And Sylvie rewarded the old man with a hearty kiss.

"And the pins they gave me for nothing!" the Professor added in high glee. "Fifteen of 'em, and only one bent!"

"I'll make the bent one into a hook!" said Sylvie. "To catch Bruno with, when he runs away from his lessons!"

"You ca'n't guess what my present is!" said Uggug, who had taken the butter-dish from the table, and was standing behind her, with a wicked leer on his face.

"No, I ca'n't guess," Sylvie said without looking up. She was still examining the Professor's pincushion.

"It's this!" cried the bad boy, exultingly, as he emptied the dish over her, and then, with a grin of delight at his own cleverness, looked round for applause.

Sylvie coloured crimson, as she shook off the butter from her frock: but she kept her lips tight shut, and walked away to the window, where she stood looking out and trying to recover her temper.

Uggug's triumph was a very short one: the Sub-Warden had returned, just in time to be a witness of his dear child's playfulness, and in another moment a skilfully-applied box on the ear had changed the grin of delight into a howl of pain.

"My darling!" cried his mother, enfolding him in her fat arms.
"Did they box his ears for nothing? A precious pet!"

"It's not for nothing!" growled the angry father. "Are you aware,
Madam, that I pay the house-bills, out of a fixed annual sum?
The loss of all that wasted butter falls on me! Do you hear, Madam!"

"Hold your tongue, Sir!" My Lady spoke very quietly—almost in a whisper. But there was something in her look which silenced him. "Don't you see it was only a joke? And a very clever one, too! He only meant that he loved nobody but her! And, instead of being pleased with the compliment, the spiteful little thing has gone away in a huff!"

The Sub-Warden was a very good hand at changing a subject. He walked across to the window. "My dear," he said, "is that a pig that I see down below, rooting about among your flower-beds?"

"A pig!" shrieked my Lady, rushing madly to the window, and almost pushing her husband out, in her anxiety to see for herself. "Whose pig is it? How did it get in? Where's that crazy Gardener gone?"

At this moment Bruno re-entered the room, and passing Uggug (who was blubbering his loudest, in the hope of attracting notice) as if he was quite used to that sort of thing, he ran up to Sylvie and threw his arms round her. "I went to my toy-cupboard," he said with a very sorrowful face, "to see if there were somefin fit for a present for oo! And there isn't nuffin! They's all broken, every one! And I haven't got no money left, to buy oo a birthday-present! And I ca'n't give oo nuffin but this!" ("This" was a very earnest hug and a kiss.)

"Oh, thank you, darling!" cried Sylvie. "I like your present best of all!" (But if so, why did she give it back so quickly?)

His Sub-Excellency turned and patted the two children on the head with his long lean hands. "Go away, dears!" he said. "There's business to talk over. "

Sylvie and Bruno went away hand in hand: but, on reaching the door, Sylvie came back again and went up to Uggug timidly. "I don't mind about the butter," she said, "and I—I'm sorry he hurt you!" And she tried to shake hands with the little ruffian: but Uggug only blubbered louder, and wouldn't make friends. Sylvie left the room with a sigh.

The Sub-Warden glared angrily at his weeping son. "Leave the room, Sirrah!" he said, as loud as he dared. His wife was still leaning out of the window, and kept repeating "I ca'n't see that pig! Where is it?"

"It's moved to the right now it's gone a little to the left," said the Sub-Warden: but he had his back to the window, and was making signals to the Lord Chancellor, pointing to Uggug and the door, with many a cunning nod and wink.

The Chancellor caught his meaning at last, and, crossing the room, took that interesting child by the ear the next moment he and Uggug were out of the room, and the door shut behind them: but not before one piercing yell had rung through the room, and reached the ears of the fond mother.

"What is that hideous noise?" she fiercely asked, turning upon her startled husband.

"It's some hyaena—or other," replied the Sub-Warden, looking vaguely up to the ceiling, as if that was where they usually were to be found. "Let us to business, my dear. Here comes the Warden." And he picked up from the floor a wandering scrap of manuscript, on which I just caught the words 'after which Election duly holden the said Sibimet and Tabikat his wife may at their pleasure assume Imperial—' before, with a guilty look, he crumpled it up in his hand.

CHAPTER 4.

A CUNNING CONSPIRACY.

The Warden entered at this moment: and close behind him came the Lord Chancellor, a little flushed and out of breath, and adjusting his wig, which appeared to have been dragged partly off his head.

"But where is my precious child?" my Lady enquired, as the four took their seats at the small side-table devoted to ledgers and bundles and bills.

"He left the room a few minutes ago with the Lord Chancellor," the Sub-Warden briefly explained.

"Ah!" said my Lady, graciously smiling on that high official. "Your Lordship has a very taking way with children! I doubt if any one could gain the ear of my darling Uggug so quickly as you can!" For an entirely stupid woman, my Lady's remarks were curiously full of meaning, of which she herself was wholly unconscious.

The Chancellor bowed, but with a very uneasy air. "I think the Warden was about to speak," he remarked, evidently anxious to change the subject.

But my Lady would not be checked. "He is a clever boy," she continued with enthusiasm, "but he needs a man like your Lordship to draw him out!"

The Chancellor bit his lip, and was silent. He evidently feared that, stupid as she looked, she understood what she said this time, and was having a joke at his expense. He might have spared himself all anxiety: whatever accidental meaning her words might have, she herself never meant anything at all.

"It is all settled!" the Warden announced, wasting no time over preliminaries. "The Sub-Wardenship is abolished, and my brother is appointed to act as Vice-Warden whenever I am absent. So, as I am going abroad for a while, he will enter on his new duties at once."

"And there will really be a Vice after all?" my Lady enquired.

"I hope so!" the Warden smilingly replied.

My Lady looked much pleased, and tried to clap her hands: but you might as well have knocked two feather-beds together, for any noise it made. "When my husband is Vice," she said, "it will be the same as if we had a hundred Vices!"

"Hear, hear!" cried the Sub-Warden.

"You seem to think it very remarkable," my Lady remarked with some severity, "that your wife should speak the truth!"

"No, not remarkable at all!" her husband anxiously explained.
"Nothing is remarkable that you say, sweet one!"

My Lady smiled approval of the sentiment, and went on.
"And am I Vice-Wardeness?"

"If you choose to use that title," said the Warden: "but 'Your Excellency' will be the proper style of address. And I trust that both 'His Excellency' and 'Her Excellency' will observe the Agreement I have drawn up. The provision I am most anxious about is this." He unrolled a large parchment scroll, and read aloud the words "'item, that we will be kind to the poor.' The Chancellor worded it for me," he added, glancing at that great Functionary. "I suppose, now, that word 'item' has some deep legal meaning?"

"Undoubtedly!" replied the Chancellor, as articulately as he could with a pen between his lips. He was nervously rolling and unrolling several other scrolls, and making room among them for the one the Warden had just handed to him. "These are merely the rough copies," he explained: "and, as soon as I have put in the final corrections—" making a great commotion among the different parchments, "—a semi-colon or two that I have accidentally omitted—" here he darted about, pen in hand, from one part of the scroll to another, spreading sheets of blotting-paper over his corrections, "all will be ready for signing."

"Should it not be read out, first?" my Lady enquired.

"No need, no need!" the Sub-Warden and the Chancellor exclaimed at the same moment, with feverish eagerness.

"No need at all," the Warden gently assented. "Your husband and I have gone through it together. It provides that he shall exercise the full authority of Warden, and shall have the disposal of the annual revenue attached to the office, until my return, or, failing that, until Bruno comes of age: and that he shall then hand over, to myself or to Bruno as the case may be, the Wardenship, the unspent revenue, and the contents of the Treasury, which are to be preserved, intact, under his guardianship."

All this time the Sub-Warden was busy, with the Chancellor's help, shifting the papers from side to side, and pointing out to the Warden the place whew he was to sign. He then signed it himself, and my Lady and the Chancellor added their names as witnesses.

"Short partings are best," said the Warden. "All is ready for my journey. My children are waiting below to see me off" He gravely kissed my Lady, shook hands with his brother and the Chancellor, and left the room.

The three waited in silence till the sound of wheels announced that the Warden was out of hearing: then, to my surprise, they broke into peals of uncontrollable laughter.

"What a game, oh, what a game!" cried the Chancellor. And he and the Vice-Warden joined hands, and skipped wildly about the room. My Lady was too dignified to skip, but she laughed like the neighing of a horse, and waved her handkerchief above her head: it was clear to her very limited understanding that something very clever had been done, but what it was she had yet to learn.

"You said I should hear all about it when the Warden had gone," she remarked, as soon as she could make herself heard.

"And so you shall, Tabby!" her husband graciously replied, as he removed the blotting-paper, and showed the two parchments lying side by side. "This is the one he read but didn't sign: and this is the one he signed but didn't read! You see it was all covered up, except the place for signing the names—"

"Yes, yes!" my Lady interrupted eagerly, and began comparing the two
Agreements.

"'Item, that he shall exercise the authority of Warden, in the Warden's absence.' Why, that's been changed into 'shall be absolute governor for life, with the title of Emperor, if elected to that office by the people.' What! Are you Emperor, darling?"

"Not yet, dear," the Vice-Warden replied. "It won't do to let this paper be seen, just at present. All in good time."

My Lady nodded, and read on. "'Item, that we will be kind to the poor.'
Why, that's omitted altogether!"

"Course it is!" said her husband. "We're not going to bother about the wretches!"

"Good," said my Lady, with emphasis, and read on again. "'Item, that the contents of the Treasury be preserved intact.' Why, that's altered into 'shall be at the absolute disposal of the Vice-Warden'! "Well, Sibby, that was a clever trick! All the Jewels, only think! May I go and put them on directly?"

"Well, not just yet, Lovey," her husband uneasily replied. "You see the public mind isn't quite ripe for it yet. We must feel our way. Of course we'll have the coach-and-four out, at once. And I'll take the title of Emperor, as soon as we can safely hold an Election. But they'll hardly stand our using the Jewels, as long as they know the Warden's alive. We must spread a report of his death. A little Conspiracy—"

"A Conspiracy!" cried the delighted lady, clapping her hands.
"Of all things, I do like a Conspiracy! It's so interesting!"

The Vice-Warden and the Chancellor interchanged a wink or two. "Let her conspire to her heart's content!" the cunning Chancellor whispered. "It'll do no harm!"

"And when will the Conspiracy—"

"Hist!', her husband hastily interrupted her, as the door opened, and Sylvie and Bruno came in, with their arms twined lovingly round each other—Bruno sobbing convulsively, with his face hidden on his sister's shoulder, and Sylvie more grave and quiet, but with tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Mustn't cry like that!" the Vice-Warden said sharply, but without any effect on the weeping children. "Cheer 'em up a bit!" he hinted to my Lady.

"Cake!" my Lady muttered to herself with great decision, crossing the room and opening a cupboard, from which she presently returned with two slices of plum-cake. "Eat, and don't cry!" were her short and simple orders: and the poor children sat down side by side, but seemed in no mood for eating.

For the second time the door opened—or rather was burst open, this time, as Uggug rushed violently into the room, shouting "that old Beggars come again!"

"He's not to have any food—" the Vice-warden was beginning, but the Chancellor interrupted him. "It's all right," he said, in a low voice: "the servants have their orders."

"He's just under here," said Uggug, who had gone to the window, and was looking down into the court-yard.

"Where, my darling?" said his fond mother, flinging her arms round the neck of the little monster. All of us (except Sylvie and Bruno, who took no notice of what was going on) followed her to the window. The old Beggar looked up at us with hungry eyes. "Only a crust of bread, your Highness!" he pleaded.

He was a fine old man, but looked sadly ill and worn. "A crust of bread is what I crave!" he repeated. "A single crust, and a little water!"

"Here's some water, drink this!"

Uggug bellowed, emptying a jug of water over his head.

"Well done, my boy!" cried the Vice-Warden.

"That's the way to settle such folk!"

"Clever boy!", the Wardeness chimed in. "Hasn't he good spirits?"

"Take a stick to him!" shouted the Vice-Warden, as the old Beggar shook the water from his ragged cloak, and again gazed meekly upwards.

"Take a red-hot poker to him!" my Lady again chimed in.

Possibly there was no red-hot poker handy: but some sticks were forthcoming in a moment, and threatening faces surrounded the poor old wanderer, who waved them back with quiet dignity. "No need to break my old bones," he said. "I am going. Not even a crust!"

"Poor, poor old man!" exclaimed a little voice at my side, half choked with sobs. Bruno was at the window, trying to throw out his slice of plum-cake, but Sylvie held him back.

"He shalt have my cake!" Bruno cried, passionately struggling out of
Sylvie's arms.

"Yes, yes, darling!" Sylvie gently pleaded. "But don't throw it out! He's gone away, don't you see? Let's go after him." And she led him out of the room, unnoticed by the rest of the party, who were wholly absorbed in watching the old Beggar.

The Conspirators returned to their seats, and continued their conversation in an undertone, so as not to be heard by Uggug, who was still standing at the window.

"By the way, there was something about Bruno succeeding to the
Wrardenship," said my Lady. "How does that stand in the new Agreement?"

The Chancellor chuckled. "Just the same, word for word," he said, "with one exception, my Lady. Instead of 'Bruno,' I've taken the liberty to put in—" he dropped his voice to a whisper, "to put in 'Uggug,' you know!"

"Uggug, indeed!" I exclaimed, in a burst of indignation I could no longer control. To bring out even that one word seemed a gigantic effort: but, the cry once uttered, all effort ceased at once: a sudden gust swept away the whole scene, and I found myself sitting up, staring at the young lady in the opposite corner of the carriage, who had now thrown back her veil, and was looking at me with an expression of amused surprise.

CHAPTER 5.

A BEGGAR'S PALACE.

That I had said something, in the act of waking, I felt sure: the hoarse stifled cry was still ringing in my ears, even if the startled look of my fellow-traveler had not been evidence enough: but what could I possibly say by way of apology?

"I hope I didn't frighten you?" I stammered out at last.
"I have no idea what I said. I was dreaming."

"You said 'Uggug indeed!'" the young lady replied, with quivering lips that would curve themselves into a smile, in spite of all her efforts to look grave. "At least—you didn't say it—you shouted it!"

"I'm very sorry," was all I could say, feeling very penitent and helpless. "She has Sylvie's eyes!" I thought to myself, half-doubting whether, even now, I were fairly awake. "And that sweet look of innocent wonder is all Sylvie's too. But Sylvie hasn't got that calm resolute mouth nor that far-away look of dreamy sadness, like one that has had some deep sorrow, very long ago—" And the thick-coming fancies almost prevented my hearing the lady's next words.

"If you had had a 'Shilling Dreadful' in your hand," she proceeded, "something about Ghosts or Dynamite or Midnight Murder—one could understand it: those things aren't worth the shilling, unless they give one a Nightmare. But really—with only a medical treatise, you know—" and she glanced, with a pretty shrug of contempt, at the book over which I had fallen asleep.

Her friendliness, and utter unreserve, took me aback for a moment; yet there was no touch of forwardness, or boldness, about the child for child, almost, she seemed to be: I guessed her at scarcely over twenty—all was the innocent frankness of some angelic visitant, new to the ways of earth and the conventionalisms or, if you will, the barbarisms—of Society. "Even so," I mused, "will Sylvie look and speak, in another ten years."

"You don't care for Ghosts, then," I ventured to suggest, unless they are really terrifying?"

"Quite so," the lady assented. "The regular Railway-Ghosts—I mean the Ghosts of ordinary Railway-literature—are very poor affairs. I feel inclined to say, with Alexander Selkirk, 'Their tameness is shocking to me'! And they never do any Midnight Murders. They couldn't 'welter in gore,' to save their lives!"

"'Weltering in gore' is a very expressive phrase, certainly.
Can it be done in any fluid, I wonder?"

"I think not," the lady readily replied—quite as if she had thought it out, long ago. "It has to be something thick. For instance, you might welter in bread-sauce. That, being white, would be more suitable for a Ghost, supposing it wished to welter!"

"You have a real good terrifying Ghost in that book?" I hinted.

"How could you guess?" she exclaimed with the most engaging frankness, and placed the volume in my hands. I opened it eagerly, with a not unpleasant thrill like what a good ghost-story gives one) at the 'uncanny' coincidence of my having so unexpectedly divined the subject of her studies.

It was a book of Domestic Cookery, open at the article Bread Sauce.'

I returned the book, looking, I suppose, a little blank, as the lady laughed merrily at my discomfiture. "It's far more exciting than some of the modern ghosts, I assure you! Now there was a Ghost last month—I don't mean a real Ghost in in Supernature—but in a Magazine. It was a perfectly flavourless Ghost. It wouldn't have frightened a mouse! It wasn't a Ghost that one would even offer a chair to!"

"Three score years and ten, baldness, and spectacles, have their advantages after all!", I said to myself. "Instead of a bashful youth and maiden, gasping out monosyllables at awful intervals, here we have an old man and a child, quite at their ease, talking as if they had known each other for years! Then you think," I continued aloud, "that we ought sometimes to ask a Ghost to sit down? But have we any authority for it? In Shakespeare, for instance—there are plenty of ghosts there—does Shakespeare ever give the stage-direction 'hands chair to Ghost'?"

The lady looked puzzled and thoughtful for a moment: then she almost clapped her hands. "Yes, yes, he does!" she cried. "He makes Hamlet say 'Rest, rest, perturbed Spirit!"'

"And that, I suppose, means an easy-chair?"

"An American rocking-chair, I think—"

"Fayfield Junction, my Lady, change for Elveston!" the guard announced, flinging open the door of the carriage: and we soon found ourselves, with all our portable property around us, on the platform.

The accommodation, provided for passengers waiting at this Junction, was distinctly inadequate—a single wooden bench, apparently intended for three sitters only: and even this was already partially occupied by a very old man, in a smock frock, who sat, with rounded shoulders and drooping head, and with hands clasped on the top of his stick so as to make a sort of pillow for that wrinkled face with its look of patient weariness.

"Come, you be off!" the Station-master roughly accosted the poor old man. "You be off, and make way for your betters! This way, my Lady!" he added in a perfectly different tone. "If your Ladyship will take a seat, the train will be up in a few minutes." The cringing servility of his manner was due, no doubt, to the address legible on the pile of luggage, which announced their owner to be "Lady Muriel Orme, passenger to Elveston, via Fayfield Junction."

As I watched the old man slowly rise to his feet, and hobble a few paces down the platform, the lines came to my lips:-

    "From sackcloth couch the Monk arose,
    With toil his stiffen'd limbs he rear'd;
    A hundred years had flung their snows
    On his thin locks and floating beard."

But the lady scarcely noticed the little incident. After one glance at the 'banished man,' who stood tremulously leaning on his stick, she turned to me. "This is not an American rocking-chair, by any means! Yet may I say," slightly changing her place, so as to make room for me beside her, "may I say, in Hamlet's words, 'Rest, rest—'" she broke off with a silvery laugh.

"—perturbed Spirit!"' I finished the sentence for her. "Yes, that describes a railway-traveler exactly! And here is an instance of it," I added, as the tiny local train drew up alongside the platform, and the porters bustled about, opening carriage-doors—one of them helping the poor old man to hoist himself into a third-class carriage, while another of them obsequiously conducted the lady and myself into a first-class.

She paused, before following him, to watch the progress of the other passenger. "Poor old man!" she said. "How weak and ill he looks! It was a shame to let him be turned away like that. I'm very sorry—" At this moment it dawned on me that these words were not addressed to me, but that she was unconsciously thinking aloud. I moved away a few steps, and waited to follow her into the carriage, where I resumed the conversation.

"Shakespeare must have traveled by rail, if only in a dream: 'perturbed Spirit' is such a happy phrase."

"'Perturbed' referring, no doubt," she rejoined, "to the sensational booklets peculiar to the Rail. If Steam has done nothing else, it has at least added a whole new Species to English Literature!"

"No doubt of it," I echoed. "The true origin of all our medical books—and all our cookery-books—"

"No, no!" she broke in merrily. "I didn't mean our Literature! We are quite abnormal. But the booklets—the little thrilling romances, where the Murder comes at page fifteen, and the Wedding at page forty —surely they are due to Steam?"

"And when we travel by Electricity if I may venture to develop your theory we shall have leaflets instead of booklets, and the Murder and the Wedding will come on the same page."

"A development worthy of Darwin!", the lady exclaimed enthusiastically. "Only you reverse his theory. Instead of developing a mouse into an elephant, you would develop an elephant into a mouse!" But here we plunged into a tunnel, and I leaned back and closed my eyes for a moment, trying to recall a few of the incidents of my recent dream.

"I thought I saw—" I murmured sleepily: and then the phrase insisted on conjugating itself, and ran into "you thought you saw—he thought he saw—" and then it suddenly went off into a song:—

    "He thought he saw an Elephant,
    That practised on a fife:
    He looked again, and found it was
    A letter from his wife.
    'At length I realise,' he said,
    "The bitterness of Life!'"

And what a wild being it was who sang these wild words! A Gardener he seemed to be yet surely a mad one, by the way he brandished his rake—madder, by the way he broke, ever and anon, into a frantic jig—maddest of all, by the shriek in which he brought out the last words of the stanza!

It was so far a description of himself that he had the feet of an Elephant: but the rest of him was skin and bone: and the wisps of loose straw, that bristled all about him, suggested that he had been originally stuffed with it, and that nearly all the stuffing had come out.

Sylvie and Bruno waited patiently till the end of the first verse. Then Sylvie advanced alone (Bruno having suddenly turned shy) and timidly introduced herself with the words "Please, I'm Sylvie!"

"And who's that other thing?', said the Gardener.

"What thing?" said Sylvie, looking round. "Oh, that's Bruno.
He's my brother."

"Was he your brother yesterday?" the Gardener anxiously enquired.

"Course I were!" cried Bruno, who had gradually crept nearer, and didn't at all like being talked about without having his share in the conversation.

"Ah, well!" the Gardener said with a kind of groan. "Things change so, here. Whenever I look again, it's sure to be something different! Yet I does my duty! I gets up wriggle-early at five—"

"If I was oo," said Bruno, "I wouldn't wriggle so early. It's as bad as being a worm!" he added, in an undertone to Sylvie.

"But you shouldn't be lazy in the morning, Bruno," said Sylvie.
"Remember, it's the early bird that picks up the worm!"

"It may, if it likes!" Bruno said with a slight yawn. "I don't like eating worms, one bit. I always stop in bed till the early bird has picked them up!"

"I wonder you've the face to tell me such fibs!" cried the Gardener.

To which Bruno wisely replied "Oo don't want a face to tell fibs wiz—only a mouf."

Sylvie discreetly changed the subject. "And did you plant all these flowers?" she said.

"What a lovely garden you've made! Do you know, I'd like to live here always!"

"In the winter-nights—" the Gardener was beginning.

"But I'd nearly forgotten what we came about!" Sylvie interrupted. "Would you please let us through into the road? There's a poor old beggar just gone out—and he's very hungry—and Bruno wants to give him his cake, you know!"

"It's as much as my place is worth!', the Gardener muttered, taking a key from his pocket, and beginning to unlock a door in the garden-wall.

"How much are it wurf? "Bruno innocently enquired.

But the Gardener only grinned. "That's a secret!" he said. "Mind you come back quick!" he called after the children, as they passed out into the road. I had just time to follow them, before he shut the door again.

We hurried down the road, and very soon caught sight of the old Beggar, about a quarter of a mile ahead of us, and the children at once set off running to overtake him.

Lightly and swiftly they skimmed over the ground, and I could not in the least understand how it was I kept up with them so easily. But the unsolved problem did not worry me so much as at another time it might have done, there were so many other things to attend to.

The old Beggar must have been very deaf, as he paid no attention whatever to Bruno's eager shouting, but trudged wearily on, never pausing until the child got in front of him and held up the slice of cake. The poor little fellow was quite out of breath, and could only utter the one word "Cake!" not with the gloomy decision with which Her Excellency had so lately pronounced it, but with a sweet childish timidity, looking up into the old man's face with eyes that loved 'all things both great and small.'

The old man snatched it from him, and devoured it greedily, as some hungry wild beast might have done, but never a word of thanks did he give his little benefactor—only growled "More, more!" and glared at the half-frightened children.

"There is no more!", Sylvie said with tears in her eyes.
"I'd eaten mine. It was a shame to let you be turned away like that.
I'm very sorry—"

I lost the rest of the sentence, for my mind had recurred, with a great shock of surprise, to Lady Muriel Orme, who had so lately uttered these very words of Sylvie's—yes, and in Sylvie's own voice, and with Sylvie's gentle pleading eyes!

"Follow me!" were the next words I heard, as the old man waved his hand, with a dignified grace that ill suited his ragged dress, over a bush, that stood by the road side, which began instantly to sink into the earth. At another time I might have doubted the evidence of my eyes, or at least have felt some astonishment: but, in this strange scene, my whole being seemed absorbed in strong curiosity as to what would happen next.

When the bush had sunk quite out of our sight, marble steps were seen, leading downwards into darkness. The old man led the way, and we eagerly followed.

The staircase was so dark, at first, that I could only just see the forms of the children, as, hand-in-hand, they groped their way down after their guide: but it got lighter every moment, with a strange silvery brightness, that seemed to exist in the air, as there were no lamps visible; and, when at last we reached a level floor, the room, in which we found ourselves, was almost as light as day.

It was eight-sided, having in each angle a slender pillar, round which silken draperies were twined. The wall between the pillars was entirely covered, to the height of six or seven feet, with creepers, from which hung quantities of ripe fruit and of brilliant flowers, that almost hid the leaves. In another place, perchance, I might have wondered to see fruit and flowers growing together: here, my chief wonder was that neither fruit nor flowers were such as I had ever seen before. Higher up, each wall contained a circular window of coloured glass; and over all was an arched roof, that seemed to be spangled all over with jewels.

With hardly less wonder, I turned this way and that, trying to make out how in the world we had come in: for there was no door: and all the walls were thickly covered with the lovely creepers.

"We are safe here, my darlings!" said the old man, laying a hand on Sylvie's shoulder, and bending down to kiss her. Sylvie drew back hastily, with an offended air: but in another moment, with a glad cry of "Why, it's Father!", she had run into his arms.

"Father! Father!" Bruno repeated: and, while the happy children were being hugged and kissed, I could but rub my eyes and say "Where, then, are the rags gone to?"; for the old man was now dressed in royal robes that glittered with jewels and gold embroidery, and wore a circlet of gold around his head.

CHAPTER 6.

THE MAGIC LOCKET.

"Where are we, father?" Sylvie whispered, with her arms twined closely around the old man's neck, and with her rosy cheek lovingly pressed to his.

"In Elfland, darling. It's one of the provinces of Fairyland."

"But I thought Elfland was ever so far from Outland: and we've come such a tiny little way!"

"You came by the Royal Road, sweet one. Only those of royal blood can travel along it: but you've been royal ever since I was made King of Elfland that's nearly a month ago. They sent two ambassadors, to make sure that their invitation to me, to be their new King, should reach me. One was a Prince; so he was able to come by the Royal Road, and to come invisibly to all but me: the other was a Baron; so he had to come by the common road, and I dare say he hasn't even arrived yet."

"Then how far have we come?" Sylvie enquired.

"Just a thousand miles, sweet one, since the Gardener unlocked that door for you."

"A thousand miles!" Bruno repeated. "And may I eat one?"

"Eat a mile, little rogue?"

"No," said Bruno. "I mean may I eat one of that fruits?"

"Yes, child," said his father: "and then you'll find out what Pleasure is like—the Pleasure we all seek so madly, and enjoy so mournfully!"

Bruno ran eagerly to the wall, and picked a fruit that was shaped something like a banana, but had the colour of a strawberry.

He ate it with beaming looks, that became gradually more gloomy, and were very blank indeed by the time he had finished.

"It hasn't got no taste at all!" he complained. "I couldn't feel nuffin in my mouf! It's a—what's that hard word, Sylvie?"

"It was a Phlizz," Sylvie gravely replied. "Are they all like that, father?"

"They're all like that to you, darling, because you don't belong to
Elfland—yet. But to me they are real."

Bruno looked puzzled. "I'll try anuvver kind of fruits!" he said, and jumped down off the King's knee. "There's some lovely striped ones, just like a rainbow!" And off he ran.

Meanwhile the Fairy-King and Sylvie were talking together, but in such low tones that I could not catch the words: so I followed Bruno, who was picking and eating other kinds of fruit, in the vain hope of finding some that had a taste. I tried to pick so me myself—but it was like grasping air, and I soon gave up the attempt and returned to Sylvie.

"Look well at it, my darling," the old man was saying, "and tell me how you like it."

"'It's just lovely," cried Sylvie, delightedly. "Bruno, come and look!" And she held up, so that he might see the light through it, a heart-shaped Locket, apparently cut out of a single jewel, of a rich blue colour, with a slender gold chain attached to it.

"It are welly pretty," Bruno more soberly remarked: and he began spelling out some words inscribed on it. "All—will—love—Sylvie," he made them out at last. "And so they doos!" he cried, clasping his arms round her neck. "Everybody loves Sylvie!"

"But we love her best, don't we, Bruno?" said the old King, as he took possession of the Locket. "Now, Sylvie, look at this." And he showed her, lying on the palm of his hand, a Locket of a deep crimson colour, the same shape as the blue one and, like it, attached to a slender golden chain.

"Lovelier and lovelier!" exclaimed Sylvie, clasping her hands in ecstasy. "Look, Bruno!"

"And there's words on this one, too," said Bruno.
"Sylvie—will—love—all."

"Now you see the difference," said the old man: "different colours and different words.

Choose one of them, darling. I'll give you which ever you like best."

Sylvie whispered the words, several times over, with a thoughtful smile, and then made her decision. "It's very nice to be loved," she said: "but it's nicer to love other people! May I have the red one, Father?"

The old man said nothing: but I could see his eyes fill with tears, as he bent his head and pressed his lips to her forehead in a long loving kiss. Then he undid the chain, and showed her how to fasten it round her neck, and to hide it away under the edge of her frock. "It's for you to keep you know he said in a low voice, not for other people to see. You'll remember how to use it?

Yes, I'll remember, said Sylvie.

"And now darlings it's time for you to go back or they'll be missing you and then that poor Gardener will get into trouble!"

Once more a feeling of wonder rose in my mind as to how in the world we were to get back again—since I took it for granted that wherever the children went I was to go—but no shadow of doubt seemed to cross their minds as they hugged and kissed him murmuring over and over again "Good-bye darling Father!" And then suddenly and swiftly the darkness of midnight seemed to close in upon us and through the darkness harshly rang a strange wild song:—

    He thought he saw a Buffalo
    Upon the chimney-piece:
    He looked again, and found it was
    His Sister's Husband's Niece.
    'Unless you leave this house,' he said,
    'I'll send for the Police!'

"That was me!" he added, looking out at us, through the half-opened door, as we stood waiting in the road.' "And that's what I'd have done—as sure as potatoes aren't radishes—if she hadn't have tooken herself off! But I always loves my pay-rints like anything."

"Who are oor pay-rints?" said Bruno.

"Them as pay rint for me, a course!" the Gardener replied.
"You can come in now, if you like."

He flung the door open as he spoke, and we got out, a little dazzled and stupefied (at least I felt so) at the sudden transition from the half-darkness of the railway-carriage to the brilliantly-lighted platform of Elveston Station.

A footman, in a handsome livery, came forwards and respectfully touched his hat. "The carriage is here, my Lady," he said, taking from her the wraps and small articles she was carrying: and Lady Muriel, after shaking hands and bidding me "Good-night!" with a pleasant smile, followed him.

It was with a somewhat blank and lonely feeling that I betook myself to the van from which the luggage was being taken out: and, after giving directions to have my boxes sent after me, I made my way on foot to Arthur's lodgings, and soon lost my lonely feeling in the hearty welcome my old friend gave me, and the cozy warmth and cheerful light of the little sitting-room into which he led me.

"Little, as you see, but quite enough for us two. Now, take the easy-chair, old fellow, and let's have another look at you! Well, you do look a bit pulled down!" and he put on a solemn professional air. "I prescribe Ozone, quant. suff. Social dissipation, fiant pilulae quam plurimae: to be taken, feasting, three times a day!"

"But, Doctor!" I remonstrated. "Society doesn't 'receive' three times a day!"

"That's all you know about it!" the young Doctor gaily replied.
"At home, lawn-tennis, 3 P.M. At home, kettledrum, 5 P.M.
At home, music (Elveston doesn't give dinners), 8 P.M. Carriages at 10.
There you are!"

It sounded very pleasant, I was obliged to admit. "And I know some of the lady-society already," I added. "One of them came in the same carriage with me"

"What was she like? Then perhaps I can identify her."

"The name was Lady Muriel Orme. As to what she was like—well, I thought her very beautiful. Do you know her?"

"Yes—I do know her." And the grave Doctor coloured slightly as he added "Yes, I agree with you. She is beautiful."

"I quite lost my heart to her!" I went on mischievously. "We talked—"

"Have some supper!" Arthur interrupted with an air of relief, as the maid entered with the tray. And he steadily resisted all my attempts to return to the subject of Lady Muriel until the evening had almost worn itself away. Then, as we sat gazing into the fire, and conversation was lapsing into silence, he made a hurried confession.

"I hadn't meant to tell you anything about her," he said (naming no names, as if there were only one 'she' in the world!) "till you had seen more of her, and formed your own judgment of her: but somehow you surprised it out of me. And I've not breathed a word of it to any one else. But I can trust you with a secret, old friend! Yes! It's true of me, what I suppose you said in jest.

"In the merest jest, believe me!" I said earnestly. "Why, man, I'm three times her age! But if she's your choice, then I'm sure she's all that is good and—"

"—and sweet," Arthur went on, "and pure, and self-denying, and true-hearted, and—" he broke off hastily, as if he could not trust himself to say more on a subject so sacred and so precious. Silence followed: and I leaned back drowsily in my easy-chair, filled with bright and beautiful imaginings of Arthur and his lady-love, and of all the peace and happiness in store for them.

I pictured them to myself walking together, lingeringly and lovingly, under arching trees, in a sweet garden of their own, and welcomed back by their faithful gardener, on their return from some brief excursion.

It seemed natural enough that the gardener should be filled with exuberant delight at the return of so gracious a master and mistress and how strangely childlike they looked! I could have taken them for Sylvie and Bruno less natural that he should show it by such wild dances, such crazy songs!

    "He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
    That questioned him in Greek:
    He looked again, and found it was
    The Middle of Next Week.
    'The one thing I regret,' he said,
    'Is that it cannot speak!"

—least natural of all that the Vice-Warden and 'my Lady' should be standing close beside me, discussing an open letter, which had just been handed to him by the Professor, who stood, meekly waiting, a few yards off.

"If it were not for those two brats," I heard him mutter, glancing savagely at Sylvie and Bruno, who were courteously listening to the Gardener's song, "there would be no difficulty whatever."

"Let's hear that bit of the letter again," said my Lady.
And the Vice-Warden read aloud:-

"—and we therefore entreat you graciously to accept the Kingship, to which you have been unanimously elected by the Council of Elfland: and that you will allow your son Bruno of whose goodness, cleverness, and beauty, reports have reached us—to be regarded as Heir-Apparent."

"But what's the difficulty?" said my Lady.

"Why, don't you see? The Ambassador, that brought this, is waiting in the house: and he's sure to see Sylvie and Bruno: and then, when he sees Uggug, and remembers all that about 'goodness, cleverness, and beauty,' why, he's sure to—"

"And where will you find a better boy than Uggug?" my Lady indignantly interrupted. "Or a wittier, or a lovelier?"

To all of which the Vice-Warden simply replied "Don't you be a great blethering goose! Our only chance is to keep those two brats out of sight. If you can manage that, you may leave the rest to me. I'll make him believe Uggug to be a model of cleverness and all that."

"We must change his name to Bruno, of course?" said my Lady.

The Vice-Warden rubbed his chin. "Humph! No!" he said musingly. "Wouldn't do. The boy's such an utter idiot, he'd never learn to answer to it."

"Idiot, indeed!" cried my Lady. "He's no more an idiot than I am!"

"You're right, my dear," the Vice-Warden soothingly I replied.
"He isn't, indeed!"

My Lady was appeased. "Let's go in and receive the Ambassador," she said, and beckoned to the Professor. "Which room is he waiting in?" she inquired.

"In the Library, Madam."

"And what did you say his name was?" said the Vice-Warden.

The Professor referred to a card he held in his hand.
"His Adiposity the Baron Doppelgeist."

"Why does he come with such a funny name?" said my Lady.

"He couldn't well change it on the journey," the Professor meekly replied, "because of the luggage."

"You go and receive him," my Lady said to the Vice-Warden, "and I'll attend to the children."

CHAPTER 7.

THE BARONS EMBASSY.

I was following the Vice-Warden, but, on second thoughts, went after my Lady, being curious to see how she would manage to keep the children out of sight.

I found her holding Sylvie's hand, and with her other hand stroking Bruno's hair in a most tender and motherly fashion: both children were looking bewildered and half-frightened.

"My own darlings," she was saying, "I've been planning a little treat for you! The Professor shall take you a long walk into the woods this beautiful evening: and you shall take a basket of food with you, and have a little picnic down by the river!"

Bruno jumped, and clapped his hands. "That are nice!" he cried.
"Aren't it, Sylvie?"

Sylvie, who hadn't quite lost her surprised look, put up her mouth for a kiss. "Thank you very much," she said earnestly.

My Lady turned her head away to conceal the broad grin of triumph that spread over her vast face, like a ripple on a lake. "Little simpletons!" she muttered to herself, as she marched up to the house. I followed her in.

"Quite so, your Excellency," the Baron was saying as we entered the Library. "All the infantry were under my command." He turned, and was duly presented to my Lady.

"A military hero?" said my Lady. The fat little man simpered.
"Well, yes," he replied, modestly casting down his eyes.
"My ancestors were all famous for military genius."

My Lady smiled graciously. "It often runs in families," she remarked: "just as a love for pastry does."

The Baron looked slightly offended, and the Vice-Warden discreetly changed the subject. "Dinner will soon be ready," he said. "May I have the honour of conducting your Adiposity to the guest-chamber?"

"Certainly, certainly!" the Baron eagerly assented. "It would never do to keep dinner waiting!" And he almost trotted out of the room after the Vice-Warden.

He was back again so speedily that the Vice-warden had barely time to explain to my Lady that her remark about "a love for pastry" was "unfortunate. You might have seen, with half an eye," he added, "that that's his line. Military genius, indeed! Pooh!"

"Dinner ready yet?" the Baron enquired, as he hurried into the room.

"Will be in a few minutes," the Vice-Warden replied. "Meanwhile, let's take a turn in the garden. You were telling me," he continued,

as the trio left the house, "something about a great battle in which you had the command of the infantry—"

"True," said the Baron. "The enemy, as I was saying, far outnumbered us: but I marched my men right into the middle of—what's that?" the Military Hero exclaimed in agitated tones, drawing back behind the Vice-Warden, as a strange creature rushed wildly upon them, brandishing a spade.

"It's only the Gardener!" the Vice-Warden replied in an encouraging tone.
"Quite harmless, I assure you. Hark, he's singing!
Its his favorite amusement."

And once more those shrill discordant tones rang out:—

    "He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk
    Descending from the bus:
    He looked again, and found it was
    A Hippopotamus:
    'If this should stay to dine,' he said,
    'There won't be mutch for us!'"

Throwing away the spade, he broke into a frantic jig, snapping his fingers, and repeating, again and again,

    "There won't be much for us!
    There won't be much for us!"

Once more the Baron looked slightly offended, but the Vice-Warden hastily explained that the song had no allusion to him, and in fact had no meaning at all. "You didn't mean anything by it, now did you?" He appealed to the Gardener, who had finished his song, and stood, balancing himself on one leg, and looking at them, with his mouth open.

"I never means nothing," said the Gardener: and Uggug luckily came up at the moment, and gave the conversation a new turn.

"Allow me to present my son," said the Vice-warden; adding, in a whisper, "one of the best and cleverest boys that ever lived! I'll contrive for you to see some of his cleverness. He knows everything that other boys don't know; and in archery, in fishing, in painting, and in music, his skill is—but you shall judge for yourself. You see that target over there? He shall shoot an arrow at it. Dear boy,"he went on aloud, "his Adiposity would like to see you shoot. Bring his Highness' bow and arrows!"

Uggug looked very sulky as he received the bow and arrow, and prepared to shoot. Just as the arrow left the bow, the Vice-Warden trod heavily on the toe of the Baron, who yelled with the pain.

"Ten thousand pardons! "he exclaimed. "I stepped back in my excitement.
See! It is a bull's-eye!"

The Baron gazed in astonishment. "He held the bow so awkwardly, it seemed impossible!" he muttered. But there was no room for doubt: there was the arrow, right in the centre of the bull's-eye!

"The lake is close by," continued the Vice-warden. "Bring his Highness' fishing-rod!" And Uggug most unwillingly held the rod, and dangled the fly over the water.

"A beetle on your arm!" cried my Lady, pinching the poor Baron's arm
worse than if ten lobsters had seized it at once.
"That kind is poisonous," she explained. "But what a pity!
You missed seeing the fish pulled out!"

An enormous dead cod-fish was lying on the bank, with the hook in its mouth.

"I had always fancied," the Baron faltered, "that cod were salt-water fish?"

"Not in this country," said the Vice-Warden. "Shall we go in?
Ask my son some question on the way any subject you like!"
And the sulky boy was violently shoved forwards, to walk at the Baron's
side.

"Could your Highness tell me," the Baron cautiously began, "how much seven times nine would come to?"

"Turn to the left!" cried the Vice-Warden, hastily stepping forwards to show the way—-so hastily, that he ran against his unfortunate guest, who fell heavily on his face.

"So sorry!" my Lady exclaimed, as she and her husband helped him to his feet again. "My son was in the act of saying 'sixty-three' as you fell!"

The Baron said nothing: he was covered with dust, and seemed much hurt, both in body and mind. However, when they had got him into the house, and given him a good brushing, matters looked a little better.

Dinner was served in due course, and every fresh dish seemed to increase the good-humour of the Baron: but all efforts, to get him to express his opinion as to Uggug's cleverness, were in vain, until that interesting youth had left the room, and was seen from the open window, prowling about the lawn with a little basket, which he was filling with frogs.

"So fond of Natural History as he is, dear boy!" said the doting mother. "Now do tell us, Baron, what you think of him!"

"To be perfectly candid, said the cautious Baron, "I would like a little more evidence. I think you mentioned his skill in—"

"Music?" said the Vice-Warden. "Why, he's simply a prodigy!
You shall hear him play the piano? And he walked to the window.
"Ug—I mean my boy! Come in for a minute, and bring the music-master
with you! To turn over the music for him," he added as an explanation.

Uggug, having filled his basket with frogs, had no objection to obey, and soon appeared in the room, followed by a fierce-looking little man, who asked the Vice-Warden "Vot music vill you haf?"

"The Sonata that His Highness plays so charmingly," said the Vice-Warden. "His Highness haf not—" the music-master began, but was sharply stopped by the Vice-warden.

"Silence, Sir! Go and turn over the music for his Highness.
My dear," (to the Wardeness) "will you show him what to do?
And meanwhile, Baron, I'll just show you a most interesting map we
have—of Outland, and Fairyland, and that sort of thing."

By the time my Lady had returned, from explaining things to the music-master, the map had been hung up, and the Baron was already much bewildered by the Vice-Warden's habit of pointing to one place while he shouted out the name of another.

My Lady joining in, pointing out other places, and shouting other names, only made matters worse; and at last the Baron, in despair, took to pointing out places for himself, and feebly asked "Is that great yellow splotch Fairyland?"

"Yes, that's Fairyland," said the Vice-warden: "and you might as well give him a hint," he muttered to my Lady, "about going back to-morrow. He eats like a shark! It would hardly do for me to mention it."

His wife caught the idea, and at once began giving hints of the most subtle and delicate kind. "Just see what a short way it is back to Fairyland! Why, if you started to-morrow morning, you'd get there in very little more than a week!"

The Baron looked incredulous. "It took me a full month to come," he said.

"But it's ever so much shorter, going back, you know!'

The Baron looked appealingly to the Vice-warden, who chimed in readily. "You can go back five times, in the time it took you to come here once—if you start to-morrow morning!"

All this time the Sonata was pealing through the room. The Baron could not help admitting to himself that it was being magnificently played: but he tried in vain to get a glimpse of the youthful performer. Every time he had nearly succeeded in catching sight of him, either the Vice-Warden or his wife was sure to get in the way, pointing out some new place on the map, and deafening him with some new name.

He gave in at last, wished a hasty good-night, and left the room, while his host and hostess interchanged looks of triumph.

"Deftly done!" cried the Vice-Warden. "Craftily contrived! But what means all that tramping on the stairs?" He half-opened the door, looked out, and added in a tone of dismay, "The Baron's boxes are being carried down!"

"And what means all that rumbling of wheels?" cried my Lady. She peeped through the window curtains. "The Baron's carriage has come round!" she groaned.

At this moment the door opened: a fat, furious face looked in: a voice, hoarse with passion, thundered out the words "My room is full of frogs—I leave you!": and the door closed again.

And still the noble Sonata went pealing through the room: but it was Arthur's masterly touch that roused the echoes, and thrilled my very soul with the tender music of the immortal 'Sonata Pathetique': and it was not till the last note had died away that the tired but happy traveler could bring himself to utter the words "good-night!" and to seek his much-needed pillow.

CHAPTER 8.

A RIDE ON A LION.

The next day glided away, pleasantly enough, partly in settling myself in my new quarters, and partly in strolling round the neighbourhood, under Arthur's guidance, and trying to form a general idea of Elveston and its inhabitants. When five o'clock arrived, Arthur proposed without any embarrassment this time—to take me with him up to 'the Hall,' in order that I might make acquaintance with the Earl of Ainslie, who had taken it for the season, and renew acquaintance with his daughter Lady Muriel.

My first impressions of the gentle, dignified, and yet genial old man were entirely favourable: and the real satisfaction that showed itself on his daughter's face, as she met me with the words "this is indeed an unlooked-for pleasure!", was very soothing for whatever remains of personal vanity the failures and disappointments of many long years, and much buffeting with a rough world, had left in me.

Yet I noted, and was glad to note, evidence of a far deeper feeling than mere friendly regard, in her meeting with Arthur though this was, as I gathered, an almost daily occurrence—and the conversation between them, in which the Earl and I were only occasional sharers, had an ease and a spontaneity rarely met with except between very old friends: and, as I knew that they had not known each other for a longer period than the summer which was now rounding into autumn, I felt certain that 'Love,' and Love alone, could explain the phenomenon.

"How convenient it would be," Lady Muriel laughingly remarked, a propos of my having insisted on saving her the trouble of carrying a cup of tea across the room to the Earl, "if cups of tea had no weight at all! Then perhaps ladies would sometimes be permitted to carry them for short distances!"

"One can easily imagine a situation," said Arthur, "where things would necessarily have no weight, relatively to each other, though each would have its usual weight, looked at by itself."

"Some desperate paradox!" said the Earl. "Tell us how it could be.
We shall never guess it."

"Well, suppose this house, just as it is, placed a few billion miles above a planet, and with nothing else near enough to disturb it: of course it falls to the planet?"

The Earl nodded. "Of course though it might take some centuries to do it."

"And is five-o'clock-tea to be going on all the while?" said Lady Muriel.

"That, and other things," said Arthur. "The inhabitants would live their lives, grow up and die, and still the house would be falling, falling, falling! But now as to the relative weight of things. Nothing can be heavy, you know, except by trying to fall, and being prevented from doing so. You all grant that?"

We all granted that.

"Well, now, if I take this book, and hold it out at arm's length, of course I feel its weight. It is trying to fall, and I prevent it. And, if I let go, it fails to the floor. But, if we were all falling together, it couldn't be trying to fall any quicker, you know: for, if I let go, what more could it do than fall? And, as my hand would be falling too—at the same rate—it would never leave it, for that would be to get ahead of it in the race. And it could never overtake the failing floor!"

"I see it clearly," said Lady Muriel. "But it makes one dizzy to think of such things! How can you make us do it?"

"There is a more curious idea yet," I ventured to say. "Suppose a cord fastened to the house, from below, and pulled down by some one on the planet. Then of course the house goes faster than its natural rate of falling: but the furniture—with our noble selves—would go on failing at their old pace, and would therefore be left behind."

"Practically, we should rise to the ceiling," said the Earl.
"The inevitable result of which would be concussion of brain."

"To avoid that, "said Arthur, "let us have the furniture fixed to the floor, and ourselves tied down to the furniture. Then the five-o'clock-tea could go on in peace."

"With one little drawback!', Lady Muriel gaily interrupted.
"We should take the cups down with us: but what about the tea?"

"I had forgotten the tea," Arthur confessed. "That, no doubt, would rise to the ceiling unless you chose to drink it on the way!"

"Which, I think, is quite nonsense enough for one while!" said the
Earl. "What news does this gentleman bring us from the great world of
London?"

This drew me into the conversation, which now took a more conventional tone. After a while, Arthur gave the signal for our departure, and in the cool of the evening we strolled down to the beach, enjoying the silence, broken only by the murmur of the sea and the far-away music of some fishermen's song, almost as much as our late pleasant talk.

We sat down among the rocks, by a little pool, so rich in animal, vegetable, and zoophytic —or whatever is the right word—life, that I became entranced in the study of it, and, when Arthur proposed returning to our lodgings, I begged to be left there for a while, to watch and muse alone.

The fishermen's song grew ever nearer and clearer, as their boat stood in for the beach; and I would have gone down to see them land their cargo of fish, had not the microcosm at my feet stirred my curiosity yet more keenly.

One ancient crab, that was for ever shuffling frantically from side to side of the pool, had particularly fascinated me: there was a vacancy in its stare, and an aimless violence in its behaviour, that irresistibly recalled the Gardener who had befriended Sylvie and Bruno: and, as I gazed, I caught the concluding notes of the tune of his crazy song.

The silence that followed was broken by the sweet voice of Sylvie.
"Would you please let us out into the road?"

"What! After that old beggar again?" the Gardener yelled, and began singing :—

    "He thought he saw a Kangaroo
    That worked a coffee-mill:
    He looked again, and found it was
    A Vegetable-pill
    'Were I to swallow this,' he said,
    'I should be very ill!'"

"We don't want him to swallow anything," Sylvie explained.
"He's not hungry. But we want to see him. So Will you please—"

"Certainly!" the Gardener promptly replied. "I always please.
Never displeases nobody.

There you are!" And he flung the door open, and let us out upon the dusty high-road.

We soon found our way to the bush, which had so mysteriously sunk into the ground: and here Sylvie drew the Magic Locket from its hiding-place, turned it over with a thoughtful air, and at last appealed to Bruno in a rather helpless way. "What was it we had to do with it, Bruno? It's all gone out of my head!"

"Kiss it!" was Bruno's invariable recipe in cases of doubt and difficulty.
Sylvie kissed it, but no result followed.

"Rub it the wrong way," was Bruno's next suggestion.

"Which is the wrong way?", Sylvie most reasonably enquired.
The obvious plan was to try both ways.

Rubbing from left to right had no visible effect whatever.

From right to left— "Oh, stop, Sylvie!" Bruno cried in sudden alarm.
"Whatever is going to happen?"

For a number of trees, on the neighbouring hillside, were moving slowly upwards, in solemn procession: while a mild little brook, that had been rippling at our feet a moment before, began to swell, and foam, and hiss, and bubble, in a truly alarming fashion.

"Rub it some other way!" cried Bruno. "Try up-and-down! Quick!"

It was a happy thought. Up-and-down did it: and the landscape, which had been showing signs of mental aberration in various directions, returned to its normal condition of sobriety with the exception of a small yellowish-brown mouse, which continued to run wildly up and down the road, lashing its tail like a little lion.

"Let's follow it," said Sylvie: and this also turned out a happy thought. The mouse at once settled down into a business-like jog-trot, with which we could easily keep pace. The only phenomenon, that gave me any uneasiness, was the rapid increase in the size of the little creature we were following, which became every moment more and more like a real lion.

Soon the transformation was complete: and a noble lion stood patiently waiting for us to come up with it. No thought of fear seemed to occur to the children, who patted and stroked it as if it had been a Shetland-pony.

"Help me up!" cried Bruno. And in another moment Sylvie had lifted him upon the broad back of the gentle beast, and seated herself behind him, pillion-fashion. Bruno took a good handful of mane in each hand, and made believe to guide this new kind of steed. "Gee-up!', seemed quite sufficient by way of verbal direction: the lion at once broke into an easy canter, and we soon found ourselves in the depths of the forest. I say 'we,' for I am certain that I accompanied them though how I managed to keep up with a cantering lion I am wholly unable to explain. But I was certainly one of the party when we came upon an old beggar-man cutting sticks, at whose feet the lion made a profound obeisance, Sylvie and Bruno at the same moment dismounting, and leaping in to the arms of their father.

"From bad to worse!" the old man said to himself, dreamily, when the children had finished their rather confused account of the Ambassador's visit, gathered no doubt from general report, as they had not seen him themselves. "From bad to worse! That is their destiny. I see it, but I cannot alter it. The selfishness of a mean and crafty man—the selfishness of an ambitious and silly woman—- the selfishness of a spiteful and loveless child all tend one way, from bad to worse! And you, my darlings, must suffer it awhile, I fear. Yet, when things are at their worst, you can come to me. I can do but little as yet—"

Gathering up a handful of dust and scattering it in the air, he slowly and solemnly pronounced some words that sounded like a charm, the children looking on in awe-struck silence:—

    "Let craft, ambition, spite,
    Be quenched in Reason's night,
    Till weakness turn to might,
    Till what is dark be light,
    Till what is wrong be right!"

The cloud of dust spread itself out through the air, as if it were alive, forming curious shapes that were for ever changing into others.

"It makes letters! It makes words!" Bruno whispered, as he clung, half-frightened, to Sylvie. "Only I ca'n't make them out! Read them, Sylvie!"

"I'll try," Sylvie gravely replied. "Wait a minute—if only I could see that word—"

"I should be very ill!', a discordant voice yelled in our ears.

    "Were I to swallow this,' he said,
    'I should be very ill!'"

CHAPTER 9.

A JESTER AND A BEAR.

Yes, we were in the garden once more: and, to escape that horrid discordant voice, we hurried indoors, and found ourselves in the library—Uggug blubbering, the Professor standing by with a bewildered air, and my Lady, with her arms clasped round her son's neck, repeating, over and over again, "and did they give him nasty lessons to learn? My own pretty pet!"

"What's all this noise about?" the Vice-warden angrily enquired, as he strode into the room. "And who put the hat-stand here?"

And he hung his hat up on Bruno, who was standing in the middle of the room, too much astonished by the sudden change of scene to make any attempt at removing it, though it came down to his shoulders, making him look something like a small candle with a large extinguisher over it.

The Professor mildly explained that His Highness had been graciously pleased to say he wouldn't do his lessons.

"Do your lessons this instant, you young cub!" thundered the Vice-Warden.
"And take this!" and a resounding box on the ear made the unfortunate
Professor reel across the room.

"Save me!" faltered the poor old man, as he sank, half-fainting, at my
Lady's feet.

"Shave you? Of course I will!" my Lady replied, as she lifted him into a chair, and pinned an anti-macassar round his neck. "Where's the razor?"

The Vice-Warden meanwhile had got hold of Uggug, and was belabouring him with his umbrella. "Who left this loose nail in the floor?" he shouted, "Hammer it in, I say!

Hammer it in!" Blow after blow fell on the writhing Uggug, till he dropped howling to the floor.

Then his father turned to the 'shaving' scene which was being enacted, and roared with laughter. "Excuse me, dear, I ca'n't help it!" he said as soon as he could speak. "You are such an utter donkey! Kiss me, Tabby!"

And he flung his arms round the neck of the terrified Professor, who raised a wild shriek., but whether he received the threatened kiss or not I was unable to see, as Bruno, who had by this time released himself from his extinguisher, rushed headlong out of the room, followed by Sylvie; and I was so fearful of being left alone among all these crazy creatures that I hurried after them.

We must go to Father!" Sylvie panted, as they ran down the garden. "I'm sure things are at their worst! I'll ask the Gardener to let us out again."

"But we ca'n't walk all the way!" Bruno whimpered. "How I wiss we had a coach-and-four, like Uncle!"

And, shrill and wild, rang through the air the familiar voice:—

    "He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four
    That stood beside his bed:
    He looked again, and found it was
    A Bear without a Head.
    'Poor thing,' he said, 'poor silly thing!
    It's waiting to be fed!'"

"No, I can't let you out again!" he said, before the children could speak. "The Vice-warden gave it me, he did, for letting you out last time! So be off with you!" And, turning away from them, he began digging frantically in the middle of a gravel-walk, singing, over and over again, "'Poor thing,' he said, 'poor silly thing! It's waiting to be fed!'" but in a more musical tone than the shrill screech in which he had begun.

The music grew fuller and richer at every moment: other manly voices joined in the refrain: and soon I heard the heavy thud that told me the boat had touched the beach, and the harsh grating of the shingle as the men dragged it up. I roused myself, and, after lending them a hand in hauling up their boat, I lingered yet awhile to watch them disembark a goodly assortment of the hard-won 'treasures of the deep.'

When at last I reached our lodgings I was tired and sleepy, and glad enough to settle down again into the easy-chair, while Arthur hospitably went to his cupboard, to get me out some cake and wine, without which, he declared, he could not, as a doctor, permit my going to bed.

And how that cupboard-door did creak! It surely could not be Arthur, who was opening and shutting it so often, moving so restlessly about, and muttering like the soliloquy of a tragedy-queen!

No, it was a female voice. Also the figure half-hidden by the cupboard-door—was a female figure, massive, and in flowing robes,

Could it be the landlady? The door opened, and a strange man entered the room.

"What is that donkey doing?" he said to himself, pausing, aghast, on the threshold.

The lady, thus rudely referred to, was his wife. She had got one of the cupboards open, and stood with her back to him, smoothing down a sheet of brown paper on one of the shelves, and whispering to herself "So, so! Deftly done! Craftily contrived!"

Her loving husband stole behind her on tiptoe, and tapped her on the head. "Boh!" he playfully shouted at her ear. "Never tell me again I ca'n't say 'boh' to a goose!"

My Lady wrung her hands. "Discovered!" she groaned. "Yet no—he is one of us! Reveal it not, oh Man! Let it bide its time!"

"Reveal what not?" her husband testily replied, dragging out the sheet of brown paper. "What are you hiding here, my Lady? I insist upon knowing!"

My Lady cast down her eyes, and spoke in the littlest of little voices. "Don't make fun of it, Benjamin!" she pleaded. "It's—it's—-don't you understand? It's a DAGGER!"

"And what's that for?" sneered His Excellency. "We've only got to make people think he's dead! We haven't got to kill him! And made of tin, too!" he snarled, contemptuously bending the blade round his thumb. Now, Madam, you'll be good enough to explain. First, what do you call me Benjamin for?"

"It's part of the Conspiracy, Love! One must have an alias, you know—"

"Oh, an alias, is it? Well! And next, what did you get this dagger for?
Come, no evasions! You ca'n't deceive me!"

"I got it for—for—for—" the detected Conspirator stammered, trying her best to put on the assassin-expression that she had been practising at the looking-glass. "For—"

"For what, Madam!"

"Well, for eighteenpence, if you must know, dearest! That's what I got it for, on my—"

"Now don't say your Word and Honour!" groaned the other Conspirator.
"Why, they aren't worth half the money, put together!"

"On my birthday," my Lady concluded in a meek whisper.
"One must have a dagger, you know. It's part of the—"

"Oh, don't talk of Conspiracies!" her husband savagely interrupted, as he tossed the dagger into the cupboard. "You know about as much how to manage a Conspiracy as if you were a chicken. Why, the first thing is to get a disguise. Now, just look at this!"

And with pardonable pride he fitted on the cap and bells, and the rest of the Fool's dress, and winked at her, and put his tongue in his cheek. "Is that the sort of thing, now." he demanded.

My Lady's eyes flashed with all a Conspirator's enthusiasm.
"The very thing!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands.
"You do look, oh, such a perfect Fool!"

The Fool smiled a doubtful smile. He was not quite clear whether it was a compliment or not, to express it so plainly. "You mean a Jester? Yes, that's what I intended. And what do you think your disguise is to be?" And he proceeded to unfold the parcel, the lady watching him in rapture.

"Oh, how lovely!" she cried, when at last the dress was unfolded.
"What a splendid disguise! An Esquimaux peasant-woman!"

"An Esquimaux peasant, indeed!" growled the other. "Here, put it on, and look at yourself in the glass. Why, it's a Bear, ca'n't you use your eyes?" He checked himself suddenly, as a harsh voice yelled through the room

    "He looked again, and found it was
    A Bear without a Head!"

But it was only the Gardener, singing under the open window. The Vice-Warden stole on tip-toe to the window, and closed it noiselessly, before he ventured to go on. "Yes, Lovey, a Bear: but not without a head, I hope! You're the Bear, and me the Keeper. And if any one knows us, they'll have sharp eyes, that's all!"

"I shall have to practise the steps a bit," my Lady said, looking out through the Bear's mouth: "one ca'n't help being rather human just at first, you know. And of course you'll say 'Come up, Bruin!', won't you?"

"Yes, of course," replied the Keeper, laying hold of the chain, that hung from the Bear's collar, with one hand, while with the other he cracked a little whip. "Now go round the room in a sort of a dancing attitude. Very good, my dear, very good. Come up, Bruin! Come up, I say!"

He roared out the last words for the benefit of Uggug, who had just come into the room, and was now standing, with his hands spread out, and eyes and mouth wide open, the very picture of stupid amazement. "Oh, my!" was all he could gasp out.

The Keeper pretended to be adjusting the bear's collar, which gave him an opportunity of whispering, unheard by Uggug, "my fault, I'm afraid! Quite forgot to fasten the door. Plot's ruined if he finds it out! Keep it up a minute or two longer. Be savage!" Then, while seeming to pull it back with all his strength, he let it advance upon the scared boy: my Lady, with admirable presence of mind, kept up what she no doubt intended for a savage growl, though it was more like the purring of a cat: and Uggug backed out of the room with such haste that he tripped over the mat, and was heard to fall heavily outside— an accident to which even his doting mother paid no heed, in the excitement of the moment.

The Vice-Warden shut and bolted the door. "Off with the disguises!" he panted. "There's not a moment to lose. He's sure to fetch the Professor, and we couldn't take him in, you know!" And in another minute the disguises were stowed away in the cupboard, the door unbolted, and the two Conspirators seated lovingly side-by-side on the sofa, earnestly discussing a book the Vice-Warden had hastily snatched off the table, which proved to be the City-Directory of the capital of Outland.

The door opened, very slowly and cautiously, and the Professor peeped in, Uggug's stupid face being just visible behind him.

"It is a beautiful arrangement!" the Vice-warden was saying with enthusiasm. "You see, my precious one, that there are fifteen houses in Green Street, before you turn into West Street."

"Fifteen houses! Is it possible?" my Lady replied. "I thought it was fourteen!" And, so intent were they on this interesting question, that neither of them even looked up till the Professor, leading Uggug by the hand, stood close before them.

My Lady was the first to notice their approach.
"Why, here's the Professor!" she exclaimed in her blandest tones.
"And my precious child too! Are lessons over?"

"A strange thing has happened!" the Professor began in a trembling tone.
"His Exalted Fatness" (this was one of Uggug's many titles)
"tells me he has just seen, in this very room, a Dancing-Bear and a
Court-Jester!"

The Vice-Warden and his wife shook with well-acted merriment.

Not in this room, darling!" said the fond mother. "We've been sitting here this hour or more, reading—," here she referred to the book lying on her lap, "—reading the—the City-Directory."

"Let me feel your pulse, my boy!" said the anxious father.
"Now put out your tongue. Ah, I thought so! He's a little feverish,
Professor, and has had a bad dream. Put him to bed at once, and give
him a cooling draught."

"I ain't been dreaming!" his Exalted Fatness remonstrated, as the
Professor led him away.

"Bad grammar, Sir!" his father remarked with some sternness. "Kindly attend to that little matter, Professor, as soon as you have corrected the feverishness. And, by the way, Professor!" (The Professor left his distinguished pupil standing at the door, and meekly returned.) "There is a rumour afloat, that the people wish to elect an—in point of fact, an —you understand that I mean an—"

"Not another Professor!" the poor old man exclaimed in horror.

"No! Certainly not!" the Vice-Warden eagerly explained.
"Merely an Emperor, you understand."

"An Emperor!" cried the astonished Professor, holding his head between his hands, as if he expected it to come to pieces with the shock. "What will the Warden—"

"Why, the Warden will most likely be the new Emperor!" my Lady explained. "Where could we find a better? Unless, perhaps—" she glanced at her husband.

"Where indeed!" the Professor fervently responded, quite failing to take the hint.

The Vice-Warden resumed the thread of his discourse. "The reason I mentioned it, Professor, was to ask you to be so kind as to preside at the Election. You see it would make the thing respectable—no suspicion of anything, underhand—"

"I fear I ca'n't, your Excellency!" the old man faltered.
"What will the Warden—"

"True, true!" the Vice-Warden interrupted. "Your position, as
Court-Professor, makes it awkward, I admit. Well, well!
Then the Election shall be held without you."

"Better so, than if it were held within me!" the Professor murmured
with a bewildered air, as if he hardly knew what he was saying.
"Bed, I think your Highness said, and a cooling-draught?"
And he wandered dreamily back to where Uggug sulkily awaited him.

I followed them out of the room, and down the passage, the Professor murmuring to himself, all the time, as a kind of aid to his feeble memory, "C, C, C; Couch, Cooling-Draught, Correct-Grammar," till, in turning a corner, he met Sylvie and Bruno, so suddenly that the startled Professor let go of his fat pupil, who instantly took to his heels.

CHAPTER 10.

THE OTHER PROFESSOR.

"We were looking for you!" cried Sylvie, in a tone of great relief.
"We do want you so much, you ca'n't think!"

"What is it, dear children?" the Professor asked, beaming on them with a very different look from what Uggug ever got from him.

"We want you to speak to the Gardener for us," Sylvie said, as she and
Bruno took the old man's hands and led him into the hall.

"He's ever so unkind!" Bruno mournfully added. "They's all unkind to us, now that Father's gone. The Lion were much nicer!"

"But you must explain to me, please," the Professor said with an anxious look, "which is the Lion, and which is the Gardener. It's most important not to get two such animals confused together. And one's very liable to do it in their case—both having mouths, you know—"

"Doos oo always confuses two animals together?" Bruno asked.

"Pretty often, I'm afraid," the Professor candidly confessed. "Now, for instance, there's the rabbit-hutch and the hall-clock." The Professor pointed them out. "One gets a little confused with them—both having doors, you know. Now, only yesterday—would you believe it?—I put some lettuces into the clock, and tried to wind up the rabbit!"

"Did the rabbit go, after oo wounded it up?" said Bruno.

The Professor clasped his hands on the top of his head, and groaned. "Go? I should think it did go! Why, it's gone? And where ever it's gone to—that's what I ca'n't find out! I've done my best—I've read all the article 'Rabbit' in the great dictionary—Come in!"

"Only the tailor, Sir, with your little bill," said a meek voice outside the door.

"Ah, well, I can soon settle his business," the Professor said to the children, "if you'll just wait a minute. How much is it, this year, my man?" The tailor had come in while he was speaking.

"Well, it's been a doubling so many years, you see," the tailor replied, a little gruffly, "and I think I'd like the money now. It's two thousand pound, it is!"

"Oh, that's nothing!" the Professor carelessly remarked, feeling in his pocket, as if he always carried at least that amount about with him. "But wouldn't you like to wait just another year, and make it four thousand? Just think how rich you'd be! Why, you might be a King, if you liked!"

"I don't know as I'd care about being a King," the man said thoughtfully. "But it; dew sound a powerful sight o' money! Well, I think I'll wait—"

"Of course you will!" said the Professor. "There's good sense in you,
I see. Good-day to you, my man!"

"Will you ever have to pay him that four thousand pounds?" Sylvie asked as the door closed on the departing creditor.

"Never, my child!" the Professor replied emphatically. "He'll go on doubling it, till he dies. You see it's always worth while waiting another year, to get twice as much money! And now what would you like to do, my little friends? Shall I take you to see the Other Professor? This would be an excellent opportunity for a visit," he said to himself, glancing at his watch: "he generally takes a short rest —of fourteen minutes and a half—about this time."

Bruno hastily went round to Sylvie, who was standing at the other side of the Professor, and put his hand into hers. "I thinks we'd like to go," he said doubtfully: "only please let's go all together. It's best to be on the safe side, oo know!"

"Why, you talk as if you were Sylvie!" exclaimed the Professor.

"I know I did," Bruno replied very humbly. "I quite forgotted I wasn't
Sylvie. Only I fought he might be rarver fierce!"

The Professor laughed a jolly laugh. "Oh, he's quite tame!" he said. "He never bites. He's only a little—a little dreamy, you know." He took hold of Bruno's other hand; and led the children down a long passage I had never noticed before—not that there was anything remarkable in that: I was constantly coming on new rooms and passages in that mysterious Palace, and very seldom succeeded in finding the old ones again.

Near the end of the passage the Professor stopped. "This is his room," he said, pointing to the solid wall.

"We ca'n't get in through there!" Bruno exclaimed.

Sylvie said nothing, till she had carefully examined whether the wall opened anywhere. Then she laughed merrily. "You're playing us a trick, you dear old thing!" she said. "There's no door here!"

"There isn't any door to the room," said the Professor.
"We shall have to climb in at the window."

So we went into the garden, and soon found the window of the Other Professor's room. It was a ground-floor window, and stood invitingly open: the Professor first lifted the two children in, and then he and I climbed in after them.

The Other Professor was seated at a table, with a large book open before him, on which his forehead was resting: he had clasped his arms round the book, and was snoring heavily. "He usually reads like that," the Professor remarked, "when the book's very interesting: and then sometimes it's very difficult to get him to attend!"

This seemed to be one of the difficult times: the Professor lifted him up, once or twice, and shook him violently: but he always returned to his book the moment he was let go of, and showed by his heavy breathing that the book was as interesting as ever.

"How dreamy he is!" the Professor exclaimed. "He must have got to a very interesting part of the book!" And he rained quite a shower of thumps on the Other Professor's back, shouting "Hoy! Hoy!" all the time. "Isn't it wonderful that he should be so dreamy?" he said to Bruno.

"If he's always as sleepy as that," Bruno remarked, "a course he's dreamy!"

"But what are we to do?" said the Professor. "You see he's quite wrapped up in the book!"

"Suppose oo shuts the book?" Bruno suggested.

"That's it!" cried the delighted Professor. "Of course that'll do it!" And he shut up the book so quickly that he caught the Other Professor's nose between the leaves, and gave it a severe pinch.

The Other Professor instantly rose to his feet, and carried the book away to the end of the room, where he put it back in its place in the book-case. "I've been reading for eighteen hours and three-quarters," he said, "and now I shall rest for fourteen minutes and a half. Is the Lecture all ready?"

"Very nearly, "the Professor humbly replied. "I shall ask you to give me a hint or two—there will be a few little difficulties—"

"And Banquet, I think you said?"

"Oh, yes! The Banquet comes first, of course. People never enjoy
Abstract Science, you know, when they're ravenous with hunger.
And then there's the Fancy-Dress-Ball. Oh, there'll be lots of
entertainment!"

"Where will the Ball come in?" said the Other Professor.

"I think it had better come at the beginning of the Banquet—it brings people together so nicely, you know."

"Yes, that's the right order. First the Meeting: then the Eating: then the Treating—for I'm sure any Lecture you give us will be a treat!" said the Other Professor, who had been standing with his back to us all this time, occupying himself in taking the books out, one by one, and turning them upside-down. An easel, with a black board on it, stood near him: and, every time that he turned a book upside-down, he made a mark on the board with a piece of chalk.

"And as to the 'Pig-Tale'—which you have so kindly promised to give us—" the Professor went on, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. "I think that had better come at the end of the Banquet: then people can listen to it quietly."

"Shall I sing it?" the Other Professor asked, with a smile of delight.

"If you can," the Professor replied, cautiously.

"Let me try," said the Other Professor, seating himself at the pianoforte. "For the sake of argument, let us assume that it begins on A flat." And he struck the note in question. "La, la, la! I think that's within an octave of it." He struck the note again, and appealed to Bruno, who was standing at his side. "Did I sing it like that, my child?"

"No, oo didn't," Bruno replied with great decision. "It were more like a duck."

"Single notes are apt to have that effect," the Other Professor said with a sigh. "Let me try a whole verse.

   There was a Pig, that sat alone,
   Beside a ruined Pump.
   By day and night he made his moan:
   It would have stirred a heart of stone
   To see him wring his hoofs and groan,
   Because he could not jump.

Would you call that a tune, Professor?" he asked, when he had finished.

The Professor considered a little. "Well," he said at last, "some of the notes are the same as others and some are different but I should hardly call it a tune."

"Let me try it a bit by myself," said the Other Professor. And he began touching the notes here and there, and humming to himself like an angry bluebottle.

"How do you like his singing?" the Professor asked the children in a low voice.

"It isn't very beautiful," Sylvie said, hesitatingly.

"It's very extremely ugly!" Bruno said, without any hesitation at all.

"All extremes are bad," the Professor said, very gravely. "For instance, Sobriety is a very good thing, when practised in moderation: but even Sobriety, when carried to an extreme, has its disadvantages."

"What are its disadvantages?" was the question that rose in my mind— and, as usual, Bruno asked it for me. "What are its lizard bandages?'

"Well, this is one of them," said the Professor. "When a man's tipsy (that's one extreme, you know), he sees one thing as two. But, when he's extremely sober (that's the other extreme), he sees two things as one. It's equally inconvenient, whichever happens.

"What does 'illconvenient' mean?" Bruno whispered to Sylvie.

"The difference between 'convenient' and 'inconvenient' is best explained by an example," said the Other Professor, who had overheard the question. "If you'll just think over any Poem that contains the two words—such as—"

The Professor put his hands over his ears, with a look of dismay. "If you once let him begin a Poem," he said to Sylvie, "he'll never leave off again! He never does!"

"Did he ever begin a Poem and not leave off again?" Sylvie enquired.

"Three times," said the Professor.

Bruno raised himself on tiptoe, till his lips were on a level with
Sylvie's ear. "What became of them three Poems?" he whispered.
"Is he saying them all, now?"

"Hush!" said Sylvie. "The Other Professor is speaking!"

"I'll say it very quick," murmured the Other Professor, with downcast eyes, and melancholy voice, which contrasted oddly with his face, as he had forgotten to leave off smiling. ("At least it wasn't exactly a smile," as Sylvie said afterwards: "it looked as if his mouth was made that shape."

"Go on then," said the Professor. "What must be must be."

"Remember that!" Sylvie whispered to Bruno, "It's a very good rule for whenever you hurt yourself."

"And it's a very good rule for whenever I make a noise," said the saucy little fellow. "So you remember it too, Miss!"

"Whatever do you mean?" said Sylvie, trying to frown, a thing she never managed particularly well.

"Oftens and oftens," said Bruno, "haven't oo told me ' There mustn't be so much noise, Bruno!' when I've tolded oo 'There must!' Why, there isn't no rules at all about 'There mustn't'! But oo never believes me!"

"As if any one could believe you, you wicked wicked boy!" said Sylvie. The words were severe enough, but I am of opinion that, when you are really anxious to impress a criminal with a sense of his guilt, you ought not to pronounce the sentence with your lips quite close to his cheek—since a kiss at the end of it, however accidental, weakens the effect terribly.

CHAPTER 11.

PETER AND PAUL.

"As I was saying," the Other Professor resumed, "if you'll just think over any Poem, that contains the words—such as

   'Peter is poor,' said noble Paul,
   'And I have always been his friend:
    And, though my means to give are small,
    At least I can afford to lend.
    How few, in this cold age of greed,
    Do good, except on selfish grounds!
    But I can feel for Peter's need,
    And I WILL LEND HIM FIFTY POUNDS!'

    How great was Peter's joy to find
    His friend in such a genial vein!
    How cheerfully the bond he signed,
    To pay the money back again!
    'We ca'n't,' said Paul, 'be too precise:
    'Tis best to fix the very day:
    So, by a learned friend's advice,
    I've made it Noon, the Fourth of May.

    But this is April! Peter said.
    'The First of April, as I think.
    Five little weeks will soon be fled:
    One scarcely will have time to wink!
    Give me a year to speculate—
    To buy and sell—to drive a trade—'
    Said Paul 'I cannot change the date.
    On May the Fourth it must be paid.'

    'Well, well!' said Peter, with a sigh.
    'Hand me the cash, and I will go.
    I'll form a Joint-Stock Company,
    And turn an honest pound or so.'
    'I'm grieved,' said Paul, 'to seem unkind:
    The money shalt of course be lent:
    But, for a week or two, I find
    It will not be convenient.'

    So, week by week, poor Peter came
    And turned in heaviness away;
    For still the answer was the same,
    'I cannot manage it to-day.'
    And now the April showers were dry—
    The five short weeks were nearly spent—
    Yet still he got the old reply,
    'It is not quite convenient!'

    The Fourth arrived, and punctual Paul
    Came, with his legal friend, at noon.
    'I thought it best,' said he, 'to call:
    One cannot settle things too soon.'
    Poor Peter shuddered in despair:
    His flowing locks he wildly tore:
    And very soon his yellow hair
    Was lying all about the floor.

    The legal friend was standing by,
    With sudden pity half unmanned:
    The tear-drop trembled in his eye,
    The signed agreement in his hand:
    But when at length the legal soul
    Resumed its customary force,
    'The Law,' he said, 'we ca'n't control:
    Pay, or the Law must take its course!'

    Said Paul 'How bitterly I rue
    That fatal morning when I called!
    Consider, Peter, what you do!
    You won't be richer when you're bald!
    Think you, by rending curls away,
    To make your difficulties less?
    Forbear this violence, I pray:
    You do but add to my distress!'

'Not willingly would I inflict,'
    Said Peter, 'on that noble heart
    One needless pang. Yet why so strict?
    Is this to act a friendly part?
    However legal it may be
    To pay what never has been lent,
    This style of business seems to me
    Extremely inconvenient!

    'No Nobleness of soul have I,
    Like some that in this Age are found!'
    (Paul blushed in sheer humility,
    And cast his eyes upon the ground)
    'This debt will simply swallow all,
    And make my life a life of woe!'
    'Nay, nay, nay Peter!' answered Paul.
    'You must not rail on Fortune so!

    'You have enough to eat and drink:
    You are respected in the world:
    And at the barber's, as I think,
    You often get your whiskers curled.
    Though Nobleness you ca'n't attain
    To any very great extent—
    The path of Honesty is plain,
    However inconvenient!'

    "Tis true, 'said Peter,' I'm alive:
    I keep my station in the world:
    Once in the week I just contrive
    To get my whiskers oiled and curled.
    But my assets are very low:
    My little income's overspent:
    To trench on capital, you know,
    Is always inconvenient!'

    'But pay your debts!' cried honest Paul.
    'My gentle Peter, pay your debts!
    What matter if it swallows all
    That you describe as your "assets"?
    Already you're an hour behind:
    Yet Generosity is best.
    It pinches me—but never mind!
    I WILL NOT CHARGE YOU INTEREST!'

    'How good! How great!' poor Peter cried.
    'Yet I must sell my Sunday wig—
    The scarf-pin that has been my pride—
    My grand piano—and my pig!'
    Full soon his property took wings:
    And daily, as each treasure went,
    He sighed to find the state of things
    Grow less and less convenient.

    Weeks grew to months, and months to years:
    Peter was worn to skin and bone:
    And once he even said, with tears,
    'Remember, Paul, that promised Loan!'
    Said Paul' I'll lend you, when I can,
    All the spare money I have got—
    Ah, Peter, you're a happy man!
    Yours is an enviable lot!

    'I'm getting stout, as you may see:
    It is but seldom I am well:
    I cannot feel my ancient glee
    In listening to the dinner-bell:
    But you, you gambol like a boy,
    Your figure is so spare and light:
    The dinner-bell's a note of joy
    To such a healthy appetite!'

    Said Peter 'I am well aware
    Mine is a state of happiness:
    And yet how gladly could I spare
    Some of the comforts I possess!
    What you call healthy appetite
    I feel as Hunger's savage tooth:
    And, when no dinner is in sight,
    The dinner-bell's a sound of ruth!

    'No scare-crow would accept this coat:
    Such boots as these you seldom see.
    Ah, Paul, a single five-pound-note
    Would make another man of me!'
    Said Paul 'It fills me with surprise
    To hear you talk in such a tone:
    I fear you scarcely realise
    The blessings that are all your own!

    'You're safe from being overfed:
    You're sweetly picturesque in rags:
    You never know the aching head
    That comes along with money-bags:
    And you have time to cultivate
    That best of qualities, Content—
    For which you'll find your present state
    Remarkably convenient!'

    Said Peter 'Though I cannot sound
    The depths of such a man as you,
    Yet in your character I've found
    An inconsistency or two.
    You seem to have long years to spare
    When there's a promise to fulfil:
    And yet how punctual you were
    In calling with that little bill!'

    'One can't be too deliberate,'
    Said Paul, 'in parting with one's pelf.
    With bills, as you correctly state,
    I'm punctuality itself:
    A man may surely claim his dues:
    But, when there's money to be lent,
    A man must be allowed to choose
    Such times as are convenient!'

    It chanced one day, as Peter sat
    Gnawing a crust—his usual meal—
    Paul bustled in to have a chat,
    And grasped his hand with friendly zeal.
    'I knew,' said he, 'your frugal ways:
    So, that I might not wound your pride
    By bringing strangers in to gaze,
    I've left my legal friend outside!

    'You well remember, I am sure,
    When first your wealth began to go,
    And people sneered at one so poor,
    I never used my Peter so!
    And when you'd lost your little all,
    And found yourself a thing despised,
    I need not ask you to recall
    How tenderly I sympathised!

    'Then the advice I've poured on you,
    So full of wisdom and of wit:
    All given gratis, though 'tis true
    I might have fairly charged for it!
    But I refrain from mentioning
    Full many a deed I might relate
    For boasting is a kind of thing
    That I particularly hate.

    'How vast the total sum appears
    Of all the kindnesses I've done,
    From Childhood's half-forgotten years
    Down to that Loan of April One!
    That Fifty Pounds! You little guessed
    How deep it drained my slender store:
    But there's a heart within this breast,
    And I WILL LEND YOU FIFTY MORE!'

    'Not so,' was Peter's mild reply,
    His cheeks all wet with grateful tears;
    No man recalls, so well as I,
    Your services in bygone years:
    And this new offer, I admit,
    Is very very kindly meant—
    Still, to avail myself of it
    Would not be quite convenient!'

You'll see in a moment what the difference is between 'convenient' and 'inconvenient.' You quite understand it now, don't you?" he added, looking kindly at Bruno, who was sitting, at Sylvie's side, on the floor.

"Yes," said Bruno, very quietly. Such a short speech was very unusual, for him: but just then he seemed, I fancied, a little exhausted. In fact, he climbed up into Sylvie's lap as he spoke, and rested his head against her shoulder. "What a many verses it was!" he whispered.

CHAPTER 12.

A MUSICAL GARDENER.

The Other Professor regarded him with some anxiety. "The smaller animal ought to go to bed at once," he said with an air of authority.

"Why at once?" said the Professor.

"Because he can't go at twice," said the Other Professor.

The Professor gently clapped his hands. 'Isn't he wonderful!" he said to Sylvie. "Nobody else could have thought of the reason, so quick. Why, of course he ca'n't go at twice! It would hurt him to be divided."

This remark woke up Bruno, suddenly and completely.
"I don't want to be divided," he said decisively.

"It does very well on a diagram," said the Other Professor.
"I could show it you in a minute, only the chalk's a little blunt."

"Take care!" Sylvie anxiously exclaimed, as he began, rather clumsily, to point it. "You'll cut your finger off, if you hold the knife so!"

"If oo cuts it off, will oo give it to me, please? Bruno thoughtfully added.

"It's like this," said the Other Professor, hastily drawing a long line upon the black board, and marking the letters 'A,' 'B,' at the two ends, and 'C' in the middle: "let me explain it to you. If AB were to be divided into two parts at C—"

"It would be drownded," Bruno pronounced confidently.

The Other Professor gasped. "What would be drownded?"

"Why the bumble-bee, of course!" said Bruno. "And the two bits would sink down in the sea!"

Here the Professor interfered, as the Other Professor was evidently too much puzzled to go on with his diagram.

"When I said it would hurt him, I was merely referring to the action of the nerves—"

The Other Professor brightened up in a moment. "The action of the nerves," he began eagerly, "is curiously slow in some people. I had a friend, once, that, if you burnt him with a red-hot poker, it would take years and years before he felt it!"

"And if you only pinched him?" queried Sylvie.

"Then it would take ever so much longer, of course. In fact, I doubt if the man himself would ever feel it, at all. His grandchildren might."

"I wouldn't like to be the grandchild of a pinched grandfather, would you, Mister Sir?" Bruno whispered. "It might come just when you wanted to be happy!"

That would be awkward, I admitted, taking it quite as a matter of course that he had so suddenly caught sight of me. "But don't you always want to be happy, Bruno?"

"Not always," Bruno said thoughtfully. "Sometimes, when I's too happy, I wants to be a little miserable. Then I just tell Sylvie about it, oo know, and Sylvie sets me some lessons. Then it's all right."

"I'm sorry you don't like lessons," I said.

"You should copy Sylvie. She's always as busy as the day is long!"

"Well, so am I!" said Bruno.

"No, no!" Sylvie corrected him. "You're as busy as the day is short!"

"Well, what's the difference?" Bruno asked. "Mister Sir, isn't the day as short as it's long? I mean, isn't it the same length?"

Never having considered the question in this light, I suggested that they had better ask the Professor; and they ran off in a moment to appeal to their old friend. The Professor left off polishing his spectacles to consider. "My dears," he said after a minute, "the day is the same length as anything that is the same length as it." And he resumed his never-ending task of polishing.

The children returned, slowly and thoughtfully, to report his answer.
"Isn't he wise?"

Sylvie asked in an awestruck whisper. "If I was as wise as that,
I should have a head-ache all day long. I know I should!"

"You appear to be talking to somebody—that isn't here," the Professor said, turning round to the children. "Who is it?"

Bruno looked puzzled. "I never talks to nobody when he isn't here!" he replied. "It isn't good manners. Oo should always wait till he comes, before oo talks to him!"

The Professor looked anxiously in my direction, and seemed to look through and through me without seeing me. "Then who are you talking to?" he said. "There isn't anybody here, you know, except the Other Professor and he isn't here!" he added wildly, turning round and round like a teetotum. "Children! Help to look for him! Quick! He's got lost again!"

The children were on their feet in a moment.

"Where shall we look?" said Sylvie.

"Anywhere!" shouted the excited Professor. "Only be quick about it!" And he began trotting round and round the room, lifting up the chairs, and shaking them.

Bruno took a very small book out of the bookcase, opened it, and shook it in imitation of the Professor. "He isn't here," he said.

"He ca'n't be there, Bruno!" Sylvie said indignantly.

"Course he ca'n't!" said Bruno. "I should have shooked him out, if he'd been in there!"

"Has he ever been lost before?" Sylvie enquired, turning up a corner of the hearth-rug, and peeping under it.

"Once before," said the Professor: "he once lost himself in a wood—"

"And couldn't he find his-self again?" said Bruno. "Why didn't he shout? He'd be sure to hear his-self, 'cause he couldn't be far off, oo know."

"Lets try shouting," said the Professor.

"What shall we shout?" said Sylvie.

"On second thoughts, don't shout," the Professor replied.
"The Vice-Warden might hear you. He's getting awfully strict!"

This reminded the poor children of all the troubles, about which they had come to their old friend. Bruno sat down on the floor and began crying. "He is so cruel!" he sobbed. "And he lets Uggug take away all my toys! And such horrid meals!"

"What did you have for dinner to-day?" said the Professor.

"A little piece of a dead crow," was Bruno's mournful reply.

"He means rook-pie," Sylvie explained.

"It were a dead crow," Bruno persisted. "And there were a apple-pudding —and Uggug ate it all—and I got nuffin but a crust! And I asked for a orange—and—didn't get it!" And the poor little fellow buried his face in Sylvie's lap, who kept gently stroking his hair,as she went on. "It's all true, Professor dear! They do treat my darling Bruno very badly! And they're not kind to me either," she added in a lower tone, as if that were a thing of much less importance.

The Professor got out a large red silk handkerchief, and wiped his eyes.
"I wish I could help you, dear children!" he said. "But what can I do?"

"We know the way to Fairyland—where Father's gone—quite well," said Sylvie: "if only the Gardener would let us out."

"Won't he open the door for you?" said the Professor.

"Not for us," said Sylvie: "but I'm sure he would for you.
Do come and ask him, Professor dear!"

"I'll come this minute!" said the Professor.

Bruno sat up and dried his eyes. "Isn't he kind, Mister Sir?"

"He is indeed," said I. But the Professor took no notice of my remark. He had put on a beautiful cap with a long tassel, and was selecting one of the Other Professor's walking-sticks, from a stand in the corner of the room. "A thick stick in one's hand makes people respectful," he was saying to himself. "Come along, dear children!" And we all went out into the garden together.

"I shall address him, first of all," the Professor explained as we went along, "with a few playful remarks on the weather. I shall then question him about the Other Professor. This will have a double advantage. First, it will open the conversation (you can't even drink a bottle of wine without opening it first): and secondly, if he's seen the Other Professor, we shall find him that way: and, if he hasn't, we sha'n't."

On our way, we passed the target, at which Uggug had been made to shoot during the Ambassador's visit.

"See!" said the Professor, pointing out a hole in the middle of the bull's-eye. "His Imperial Fatness had only one shot at it; and he went in just here!

Bruno carefully examined the hole. "Couldn't go in there," he whispered to me. "He are too fat!"

We had no sort of difficulty in finding the Gardener. Though he was hidden from us by some trees, that harsh voice of his served to direct us; and, as we drew nearer, the words of his song became more and more plainly audible:-

    "He thought he saw an Albatross
    That fluttered round the lamp:
    He looked again, and found it was
    A Penny-Postage-Stamp.
    'You'd best be getting home,' he said:
    'The nights are very damp!'"

"Would it be afraid of catching cold?" said Bruno.

If it got very damp," Sylvie suggested, "it might stick to something, you know."

"And that somefin would have to go by the post, what ever it was!" Bruno eagerly exclaimed. "Suppose it was a cow! Wouldn't it be dreadful for the other things!"

"And all these things happened to him," said the Professor.
"That's what makes the song so interesting."

"He must have had a very curious life," said Sylvie.

"You may say that!" the Professor heartily rejoined.

"Of course she may!" cried Bruno.

By this time we had come up to the Gardener, who was standing on one leg, as usual, and busily employed in watering a bed of flowers with an empty watering-can.

"It hasn't got no water in it!" Bruno explained to him, pulling his sleeve to attract his attention.

"It's lighter to hold," said the Gardener. "A lot of water in it makes one's arms ache." And he went on with his work, singing softly to himself

"The nights are very damp!"

"In digging things out of the ground which you probably do now and then," the Professor began in a loud voice; "in making things into heaps—which no doubt you often do; and in kicking things about with one heel—which you seem never to leave off doing; have you ever happened to notice another Professor something like me, but different?"

"Never!" shouted the Gardener, so loudly and violently that we all drew back in alarm. "There ain't such a thing!"

"We will try a less exciting topic," the Professor mildly remarked to the children. "You were asking—"

"We asked him to let us through the garden-door," said Sylvie: "but he wouldn't: but perhaps he would for you!"

The Professor put the request, very humbly and courteously.

"I wouldn't mind letting you out," said the Gardener. "But I mustn't open the door for children. D'you think I'd disobey the Rules? Not for one-and-sixpence!"

The Professor cautiously produced a couple of shillings.

"That'll do it!" the Gardener shouted, as he hurled the watering-can across the flower-bed, and produced a handful of keys—one large one, and a number of small ones.

"But look here, Professor dear!" whispered Sylvie. "He needn't open the door for us, at all. We can go out with you."

"True, dear child!" the Professor thankfully replied, as he replaced the coins in his pocket. "That saves two shillings!" And he took the children's hands, that they might all go out together when the door was opened. This, however, did not seem a very likely event, though the Gardener patiently tried all the small keys, over and over again.

At last the Professor ventured on a gentle suggestion. "Why not try the large one? I have often observed that a door unlocks much more nicely with its own key."

The very first trial of the large key proved a success: the Gardener opened the door, and held out his hand for the money.

The Professor shook his head. "You are acting by Rule," he explained, "in opening the door for me. And now it's open, we are going out by Rule—the Rule of Three."

The Gardener looked puzzled, and let us go out; but, as he locked the door behind us, we heard him singing thoughtfully to himself

    "He thought he saw a Garden-Door
    That opened with a key:
    He looked again, and found it was
    A Double Rule of Three:
    'And all its mystery,' he said,
    'Is clear as day to me!'"

"I shall now return," said the Professor, when we had walked a few yards: "you see, it's impossible to read here, for all my books are in the house."

But the children still kept fast hold of his hands. "Do come with us!"
Sylvie entreated with tears in her eyes.

"Well, well!" said the good-natured old man. "Perhaps I'll come after you, some day soon. But I must go back now. You see I left off at a comma, and it's so awkward not knowing how the sentence finishes! Besides, you've got to go through Dogland first, and I'm always a little nervous about dogs. But it'll be quite easy to come, as soon as I've completed my new invention—for carrying one's-self, you know. It wants just a little more working out."

"Won't that be very tiring, to carry yourself?" Sylvie enquired.

"Well, no, my child. You see, whatever fatigue one incurs by carrying, one saves by being carried! Good-bye, dears! Good-bye, Sir!" he added to my intense surprise, giving my hand an affectionate squeeze.

"Good-bye, Professor!" I replied: but my voice sounded strange and far away, and the children took not the slightest notice of our farewell. Evidently they neither saw me nor heard me, as, with their arms lovingly twined round each other, they marched boldly on.

CHAPTER 13.

A VISIT TO DOGLAND.

"There's a house, away there to the left," said Sylvie, after we had walked what seemed to me about fifty miles. "Let's go and ask for a night's lodging."

"It looks a very comfable house," Bruno said, as we turned into the road leading up to it. "I doos hope the Dogs will be kind to us, I is so tired and hungry!"

A Mastiff, dressed in a scarlet collar, and carrying a musket, was pacing up and down, like a sentinel, in front of the entrance. He started, on catching sight of the children, and came forwards to meet them, keeping his musket pointed straight at Bruno, who stood quite still, though he turned pale and kept tight hold of Sylvie's hand, while the Sentinel walked solemnly round and round them, and looked at them from all points of view.

"Oobooh, hooh boohooyah!" He growled at last. "Woobah yahwah oobooh!
Bow wahbah woobooyah? Bow wow?" he asked Bruno, severely.

Of course Bruno understood all this, easily enough. All Fairies understand Doggee—-that is, Dog-language. But, as you may find it a little difficult, just at first, I had better put it into English for you. "Humans, I verily believe! A couple of stray Humans! What Dog do you belong to? What do you want?"

"We don't belong to a Dog!" Bruno began, in Doggee.
("Peoples never belongs to Dogs!" he whispered to Sylvie.)

But Sylvie hastily checked him, for fear of hurting the Mastiff's feelings. "Please, we want a little food, and a night's lodging—if there's room in the house," she added timidly. Sylvie spoke Doggee very prettily: but I think it's almost better, for you, to give the conversation in English.

"The house, indeed!" growled the Sentinel. "Have you never seen a
Palace in your life?

Come along with me! His Majesty must settle what's to be done with you."

They followed him through the entrance-hall, down a long passage, and into a magnificent Saloon, around which were grouped dogs of all sorts and sizes. Two splendid Blood-hounds were solemnly sitting up, one on each side of the crown-bearer. Two or three Bull-dogs—-whom I guessed to be the Body-Guard of the King—were waiting in grim silence: in fact the only voices at all plainly audible were those of two little dogs, who had mounted a settee, and were holding a lively discussion that looked very like a quarrel.

"Lords and Ladies in Waiting, and various Court Officials," our guide gruffly remarked, as he led us in. Of me the Courtiers took no notice whatever: but Sylvie and Bruno were the subject of many inquisitive looks, and many whispered remarks, of which I only distinctly caught one—made by a sly-looking Dachshund to his friend "Bah wooh wahyah hoobah Oobooh, hah bah?" ("She's not such a bad-looking Human, is she?")

Leaving the new arrivals in the centre of the Saloon, the Sentinel advanced to a door, at the further end of it, which bore an inscription, painted on it in Doggee, "Royal Kennel—scratch and Yell."

Before doing this, the Sentinel turned to the children, and said
"Give me your names."

"We'd rather not!" Bruno exclaimed, pulling' Sylvie away from the door.
"We want them ourselves. Come back, Sylvie! Come quick!"

"Nonsense!', said Sylvie very decidedly: and gave their names in Doggee.

Then the Sentinel scratched violently at the door, and gave a yell that made Bruno shiver from head to foot.

"Hooyah wah!" said a deep voice inside. (That's Doggee for "Come in!")

"It's the King himself!" the Mastiff whispered in an awestruck tone. "Take off your wigs, and lay them humbly at his paws." (What we should call "at his feet.")

Sylvie was just going to explain, very politely, that really they couldn't perform that ceremony, because their wigs wouldn't come off, when the door of the Royal Kennel opened, and an enormous Newfoundland Dog put his head out. "Bow wow?" was his first question.

"When His Majesty speaks to you," the Sentinel hastily whispered to Bruno, "you should prick up your ears!"

Bruno looked doubtfully at Sylvie. "I'd rather not, please," he said.
"It would hurt."

"It doesn't hurt a bit!" the Sentinel said with some indignation. "Look!
It's like this!" And he pricked up his ears like two railway signals.

Sylvie gently explained matters. "I'm afraid we ca'n't manage it," she said in a low voice. "I'm very sorry: but our ears haven't got the right—" she wanted to say "machinery" in Doggee: but she had forgotten the word, and could only think of "steam-engine."

The Sentinel repeated Sylvie's explanation to the King.

"Can't prick up their ears without a steam-engine!" His Majesty exclaimed.
"They must be curious creatures! I must have a look at them!"
And he came out of his Kennel, and walked solemnly up to the children.

What was the amazement—nor to say the horror of the whole assembly, when Sylvie actually patted His Majesty on the head, while Bruno seized his long ears and pretended to tie them together under his chin!

The Sentinel groaned aloud: a beautiful Greyhound who appeared to be one of the Ladies in Waiting—fainted away: and all the other Courtiers hastily drew back, and left plenty of room for the huge Newfoundland to spring upon the audacious strangers, and tear them limb from limb.

Only—he didn't. On the contrary his Majesty actually smiled so far as a Dog can smile—and (the other Dogs couldn't believe their eyes, but it was true, all the same) his Majesty wagged his tail!

"Yah! Hooh hahwooh!" (that is "Well! I never!") was the universal cry.

His Majesty looked round him severely, and gave a slight growl, which produced instant silence. "Conduct my friends to the banqueting-hall!" he said, laying such an emphasis on "my friends" that several of the dogs rolled over helplessly on their backs and began to lick Bruno's feet.

A procession was formed, but I only ventured to follow as far as the door of the banqueting-hall, so furious was the uproar of barking dogs within. So I sat down by the King, who seemed to have gone to sleep, and waited till the children returned to say good-night, when His Majesty got up and shook himself.

"Time for bed!" he said with a sleepy yawn. "The attendants will show you your room," he added, aside, to Sylvie and Bruno. "Bring lights!" And, with a dignified air, he held out his paw for them to kiss.

But the children were evidently not well practised in Court-manners.
Sylvie simply stroked the great paw: Bruno hugged it: the Master of the
Ceremonies looked shocked.

All this time Dog-waiters, in splendid livery, were running up with lighted candles: but, as fast as they put them upon the table, other waiters ran away with them, so that there never seemed to be one for me, though the Master kept nudging me with his elbow, and repeating" I ca'n't let you sleep here! You're not in bed, you know!"

I made a great effort, and just succeeded in getting out the words
"I know I'm not. I'm in an arm-chair."

"Well, forty winks will do you no harm," the Master said, and left me.
I could scarcely hear his words: and no wonder: he was leaning over the
side of a ship, that was miles away from the pier on which I stood.
The ship passed over the horizon and I sank back into the arm-chair.

The next thing I remember is that it was morning: breakfast was just over: Sylvie was lifting Bruno down from a high chair, and saying to a Spaniel, who was regarding them with a most benevolent smile, "Yes, thank you we've had a very nice breakfast. Haven't we, Bruno?"

There was too many bones in the—Bruno began, but Sylvie frowned at him, and laid her finger on her lips, for, at this moment, the travelers were waited on by a very dignified officer, the Head-Growler, whose duty it was, first to conduct them to the King to bid him farewell and then to escort them to the boundary of Dogland. The great Newfoundland received them most affably but instead of saying "good-bye he startled the Head-growler into giving three savage growls, by announcing that he would escort them himself.

It is a most unusual proceeding, your Majesty! the Head-Growler exclaimed, almost choking with vexation at being set aside, for he had put on his best Court-suit, made entirely of cat-skins, for the occasion.

"I shall escort them myself," his Majesty repeated, gently but firmly, laying aside the Royal robes, and changing his crown for a small coronet, "and you may stay at home."

"I are glad!" Bruno whispered to Sylvie, when they had got well out of hearing. "He were so welly cross!" And he not only patted their Royal escort, but even hugged him round the neck in the exuberance of his delight.

His Majesty calmly wagged the Royal tail. "It's quite a relief," he said, "getting away from that Palace now and then! Royal Dogs have a dull life of it, I can tell you! Would you mind" (this to Sylvie, in a low voice, and looking a little shy and embarrassed) "would you mind the trouble of just throwing that stick for me to fetch?"

Sylvie was too much astonished to do anything for a moment: it sounded such a monstrous impossibility that a King should wish to run after a stick. But Bruno was equal to the occasion, and with a glad shout of "Hi then! Fetch it, good Doggie!" he hurled it over a clump of bushes. The next moment the Monarch of Dogland had bounded over the bushes, and picked up the stick, and came galloping back to the children with it in his mouth. Bruno took it from him with great decision. "Beg for it!" he insisted; and His Majesty begged. "Paw!" commanded Sylvie; and His Majesty gave his paw. In short, the solemn ceremony of escorting the travelers to the boundaries of Dogland became one long uproarious game of play!

"But business is business!" the Dog-King said at last. "And I must go back to mine. I couldn't come any further," he added, consulting a dog-watch, which hung on a chain round his neck, "not even if there were a Cat insight!"

They took an affectionate farewell of His Majesty, and trudged on.

"That were a dear dog!" Bruno exclaimed. "Has we to go far, Sylvie?
I's tired!"

"Not much further, darling!" Sylvie gently replied. "Do you see that shining, just beyond those trees? I'm almost sure it's the gate of Fairyland! I know it's all golden—Father told me so and so bright, so bright!" she went on dreamily.

"It dazzles!" said Bruno, shading his eyes with one little hand, while the other clung tightly to Sylvie's hand, as if he were half-alarmed at her strange manner.

For the child moved on as if walking in her sleep, her large eyes gazing into the far distance, and her breath coming and going in quick pantings of eager delight. I knew, by some mysterious mental light, that a great change was taking place in my sweet little friend (for such I loved to think her) and that she was passing from the condition of a mere Outland Sprite into the true Fairy-nature.

Upon Bruno the change came later: but it was completed in both before they reached the golden gate, through which I knew it would be impossible for me to follow. I could but stand outside, and take a last look at the two sweet children, ere they disappeared within, and the golden gate closed with a bang.

And with such a bang! "It never will shut like any other cupboard-door," Arthur explained. "There's something wrong with the hinge. However, here's the cake and wine. And you've had your forty winks. So you really must get off to bed, old man! You're fit for nothing else. Witness my hand, Arthur Forester, M.D."

By this time I was wide-awake again. "Not quite yet!" I pleaded.
"Really I'm not sleepy now. And it isn't midnight yet."

"Well, I did want to say another word to you," Arthur replied in a relenting tone, as he supplied me with the supper he had prescribed. "Only I thought you were too sleepy for it to-night."

We took our midnight meal almost in silence; for an unusual nervousness seemed to have seized on my old friend.

"What kind of a night is it?" he asked, rising and undrawing the window-curtains, apparently to change the subject for a minute. I followed him to the window, and we stood together, looking out, in silence.

"When I first spoke to you about—" Arthur began, after a long and embarrassing silence, "that is, when we first talked about her—for I think it was you that introduced the subject—my own position in life forbade me to do more than worship her from a distance: and I was turning over plans for leaving this place finally, and settling somewhere out of all chance of meeting her again. That seemed to be my only chance of usefulness in life.

Would that have been wise?" I said. "To leave yourself no hope at all?"

"There was no hope to leave," Arthur firmly replied, though his eyes glittered with tears as he gazed upwards into the midnight sky, from which one solitary star, the glorious 'Vega,' blazed out in fitful splendour through the driving clouds. "She was like that star to me— bright, beautiful, and pure, but out of reach, out of reach!"

He drew the curtains again, and we returned to our places by the fireside.

"What I wanted to tell you was this," he resumed. "I heard this evening from my solicitor. I can't go into the details of the business, but the upshot is that my worldly wealth is much more than I thought, and I am (or shall soon be) in a position to offer marriage, without imprudence, to any lady, even if she brought nothing. I doubt if there would be anything on her side: the Earl is poor, I believe. But I should have enough for both, even if health failed."

"I wish you all happiness in your married life!" I cried.
"Shall you speak to the Earl to-morrow?"

"Not yet awhile," said Arthur. "He is very friendly, but I dare not think he means more than that, as yet. And as for—as for Lady Muriel, try as I may, I cannot read her feelings towards me. If there is love, she is hiding it! No, I must wait, I must wait!"

I did not like to press any further advice on my friend, whose judgment, I felt, was so much more sober and thoughtful than my own; and we parted without more words on the subject that had now absorbed his thoughts, nay, his very life.

The next morning a letter from my solicitor arrived, summoning me to town on important business.

CHAPTER 14.

FAIRY-SYLVlE.

For a full month the business, for which I had returned to London, detained me there: and even then it was only the urgent advice of my physician that induced me to leave it unfinished and pay another visit to Elveston.

Arthur had written once or twice during the month; but in none of his letters was there any mention of Lady Muriel. Still, I did not augur ill from his silence: to me it looked like the natural action of a lover, who, even while his heart was singing "She is mine!", would fear to paint his happiness in the cold phrases of a written letter, but would wait to tell it by word of mouth. "Yes," I thought, "I am to hear his song of triumph from his own lips!"

The night I arrived we had much to say on other matters: and, tired with the journey, I went to bed early, leaving the happy secret still untold. Next day, however, as we chatted on over the remains of luncheon, I ventured to put the momentous question. "Well, old friend, you have told me nothing of Lady Muriel—nor when the happy day is to be?"

"The happy day," Arthur said, looking unexpectedly grave, "is yet in the dim future. We need to know—or, rather, she needs to know me better. I know her sweet nature, thoroughly, by this time. But I dare not speak till I am sure that my love is returned."

"Don't wait too long!" I said gaily. "Faint heart never won fair lady!"

"It is 'faint heart,' perhaps. But really I dare not speak just yet."

"But meanwhile," I pleaded, "you are running a risk that perhaps you have not thought of. Some other man—"

"No," said Arthur firmly. "She is heart-whole: I am sure of that. Yet, if she loves another better than me, so be it! I will not spoil her happiness. The secret shall die with me. But she is my first— and my only love!"

"That is all very beautiful sentiment," I said, "but it is not practical.
It is not like you.

    He either fears his fate too much,
    Or his desert is small,
    Who dares not put it to the touch,
    To win or lose it all."

"I dare not ask the question whether there is another!" he said passionately. "It would break my heart to know it!"

"Yet is it wise to leave it unasked? You must not waste your life upon an 'if'!"

"I tell you I dare not!', "May I find it out for you?" I asked, with the freedom of an old friend.

"No, no!" he replied with a pained look. "I entreat you to say nothing.
Let it wait."

"As you please," I said: and judged it best to say no more just then. "But this evening," I thought, "I will call on the Earl. I may be able to see how the land lies, without so much as saying a word!"

It was a very hot afternoon—too hot to go for a walk or do anything— or else it wouldn't have happened, I believe.

In the first place, I want to know—dear Child who reads this!—why Fairies should always be teaching us to do our duty, and lecturing us when we go wrong, and we should never teach them anything? You can't mean to say that Fairies are never greedy, or selfish, or cross, or deceitful, because that would be nonsense, you know. Well then, don't you think they might be all the better for a little lecturing and punishing now and then?

I really don't see why it shouldn't be tried, and I'm almost sure that, if you could only catch a Fairy, and put it in the corner, and give it nothing but bread and water for a day or two, you'd find it quite an improved character—it would take down its conceit a little, at all events.

The next question is, what is the best time for seeing Fairies?
I believe I can tell you all about that.

The first rule is, that it must be a very hot day—that we may consider as settled: and you must be just a little sleepy—but not too sleepy to keep your eyes open, mind. Well, and you ought to feel a little—what one may call "fairyish "—the Scotch call it "eerie," and perhaps that's a prettier word; if you don't know what it means, I'm afraid I can hardly explain it; you must wait till you meet a Fairy, and then you'll know.

And the last rule is, that the crickets should not be chirping.
I can't stop to explain that: you must take it on trust for the present.

So, if all these things happen together, you have a good chance of seeing a Fairy—or at least a much better chance than if they didn't.

The first thing I noticed, as I went lazily along through an open place in the wood, was a large Beetle lying struggling on its back, and I went down upon one knee to help the poor thing to its feet again. In some things, you know, you ca'n't be quite sure what an insect would like: for instance, I never could quite settle, supposing I were a moth, whether I would rather be kept out of the candle, or be allowed to fly straight in and get burnt—or again, supposing I were a spider, I'm not sure if I should be quite pleased to have my web torn down, and the fly let loose—but I feel quite certain that, if I were a beetle and had rolled over on my back, I should always be glad to be helped up again.

So, as I was saying, I had gone down upon one knee, and was just reaching out a little stick to turn the Beetle over, when I saw a sight that made me draw back hastily and hold my breath, for fear of making any noise and frightening the little creature a way.

Not that she looked as if she would be easily frightened: she seemed so good and gentle that I'm sure she would never expect that any one could wish to hurt her. She was only a few inches high, and was dressed in green, so that you really would hardly have noticed her among the long grass; and she was so delicate and graceful that she quite seemed to belong to the place, almost as if she were one of the flowers. I may tell you, besides, that she had no wings (I don't believe in Fairies with wings), and that she had quantities of long brown hair and large earnest brown eyes, and then I shall have done all I can to give you an idea of her.

Sylvie (I found out her name afterwards) had knelt down, just as I was doing, to help the Beetle; but it needed more than a little stick for her to get it on its legs again; it was as much as she could do, with both arms, to roll the heavy thing over; and all the while she was talking to it, half scolding and half comforting, as a nurse might do with a child that had fallen down.

"There, there! You needn't cry so much about it. You're not killed yet—though if you were, you couldn't cry, you know, and so it's a general rule against crying, my dear! And how did you come to tumble over? But I can see well enough how it was—I needn't ask you that— walking over sand-pits with your chin in the air, as usual. Of course if you go among sand-pits like that, you must expect to tumble. You should look."

The Beetle murmured something that sounded like "I did look," and Sylvie went on again.

"But I know you didn't! You never do! You always walk with your chin up—you're so dreadfully conceited. Well, let's see how many legs are broken this time. Why, none of them, I declare! And what's the good of having six legs, my dear, if you can only kick them all about in the air when you tumble? Legs are meant to walk with, you know. Now don't begin putting out your wings yet; I've more to say. Go to the frog that lives behind that buttercup—give him my compliments—Sylvie's compliments—can you say compliments'?"

The Beetle tried and, I suppose, succeeded.

"Yes, that's right. And tell him he's to give you some of that salve I left with him yesterday. And you'd better get him to rub it in for you. He's got rather cold hands, but you mustn't mind that."

I think the Beetle must have shuddered at this idea, for Sylvie went on in a graver tone. "Now you needn't pretend to be so particular as all that, as if you were too grand to be rubbed by a frog. The fact is, you ought to be very much obliged to him. Suppose you could get nobody but a toad to do it, how would you like that?"

There was a little pause, and then Sylvie added "Now you may go. Be a good beetle, and don't keep your chin in the air." And then began one of those performances of humming, and whizzing, and restless banging about, such as a beetle indulges in when it has decided on flying, but hasn't quite made up its mind which way to go. At last, in one of its awkward zigzags, it managed to fly right into my face, and, by the time I had recovered from the shock, the little Fairy was gone.

I looked about in all directions for the little creature, but there was no trace of her—and my 'eerie' feeling was quite gone off, and the crickets were chirping again merrily—so I knew she was really gone.

And now I've got time to tell you the rule about the crickets. They always leave off chirping when a Fairy goes by—because a Fairy's a kind of queen over them, I suppose—at all events it's a much grander thing than a cricket—so whenever you're walking out, and the crickets suddenly leave off chirping, you may be sure that they see a Fairy.

I walked on sadly enough, you may be sure. However, I comforted myself with thinking "It's been a very wonderful afternoon, so far. I'll just go quietly on and look about me, and I shouldn't wonder if I were to come across another Fairy somewhere."

Peering about in this way, I happened to notice a plant with rounded leaves, and with queer little holes cut in the middle of several of them. "Ah, the leafcutter bee!" I carelessly remarked—you know I am very learned in Natural History (for instance, I can always tell kittens from chickens at one glance)—and I was passing on, when a sudden thought made me stoop down and examine the leaves.

Then a little thrill of delight ran through me —for I noticed that the holes were all arranged so as to form letters; there were three leaves side by side, with "B," "R," and "U" marked on them, and after some search I found two more, which contained an "N" and an "O."

And then, all in a moment, a flash of inner light seemed to illumine a part of my life that had all but faded into oblivion—the strange visions I had experienced during my journey to Elveston: and with a thrill of delight I thought "Those visions are destined to be linked with my waking life!"

By this time the 'eerie' feeling had come back again, and I suddenly observed that no crickets were chirping; so I felt quite sure that "Bruno was somewhere very near.

And so indeed he was—so near that I had very nearly walked over him without seeing him; which would have been dreadful, always supposing that Fairies can be walked over my own belief is that they are something of the nature of Will-o'-the-wisps: and there's no walking over them.

Think of any pretty little boy you know, with rosy cheeks, large dark eyes, and tangled brown hair, and then fancy him made small enough to go comfortably into a coffee-cup, and you'll have a very fair idea of him.

"What's your name, little one?" I began, in as soft a voice as I could manage. And, by the way, why is it we always begin by asking little children their names? Is it because we fancy a name will help to make them a little bigger? You never thought of as king a real large man his name, now, did you? But, however that may be, I felt it quite necessary to know his name; so, as he didn't answer my question, I asked it again a little louder. "What's your name, my little man?"

"What's oors?" he said, without looking up.

I told him my name quite gently, for he was much too small to be angry with.

"Duke of Anything?" he asked, just looking at me for a moment, and then going on with his work.

"Not Duke at all," I said, a little ashamed of having to confess it.

"Oo're big enough to be two Dukes," said the little creature.
"I suppose oo're Sir Something, then?"

"No," I said, feeling more and more ashamed. "I haven't got any title."

The Fairy seemed to think that in that case I really wasn't worth the trouble of talking to, for he quietly went on digging, and tearing the flowers to pieces.

After a few minutes I tried again. "Please tell me what your name is."

"Bruno," the little fellow answered, very readily. "Why didn't oo say 'please' before?"

"That's something like what we used to be taught in the nursery," I thought to myself, looking back through the long years (about a hundred of them, since you ask the question), to the time when I was a little child. And here an idea came into my head, and I asked him "Aren't you one of the Fairies that teach children to be good?"

"Well, we have to do that sometimes," said Bruno, "and a dreadful bother it is." As he said this, he savagely tore a heartsease in two, and trampled on the pieces.

"What are you doing there, Bruno?" I said.

"Spoiling Sylvie's garden," was all the answer Bruno would give at first. But, as he went on tearing up the flowers, he muttered to himself "The nasty cross thing wouldn't let me go and play this morning,—said I must finish my lessons first—lessons, indeed! I'll vex her finely, though!"

"Oh, Bruno, you shouldn't do that!" I cried.

"Don't you know that's revenge? And revenge is a wicked, cruel, dangerous thing!"

"River-edge?" said Bruno. "What a funny word! I suppose oo call it cruel and dangerous 'cause, if oo wented too far and tumbleded in, oo'd get drownded."

"No, not river-edge," I explained: "revenge" (saying the word very slowly). But I couldn't help thinking that Bruno's explanation did very well for either word.

"Oh!" said Bruno, opening his eyes very wide, but without trying to repeat the word.

"Come! Try and pronounce it, Bruno!" I said, cheerfully. "Re-venge, re-venge."

But Bruno only tossed his little head, and said he couldn't; that his mouth wasn't the right shape for words of that kind. And the more I laughed, the more sulky the little fellow got about it.

"Well, never mind, my little man!" I said.

"Shall I help you with that job?"

"Yes, please," Bruno said, quite pacified.

"Only I wiss I could think of somefin to vex her more than this.
Oo don't know how hard it is to make her angry!"

"Now listen to me, Bruno, and I'll teach you quite a splendid kind of revenge!"

"Somefin that'll vex her finely?" he asked with gleaming eyes.

"Something that will vex her finely. First, we'll get up all the weeds in her garden. See, there are a good many at this end quite hiding the flowers."

"But that won't vex her!" said Bruno.

"After that," I said, without noticing the remark, "we'll water this highest bed—up here. You see it's getting quite dry and dusty."

Bruno looked at me inquisitively, but he said nothing this time.

"Then after that," I went on, "the walks want sweeping a bit; and I think you might cut down that tall nettle—it's so close to the garden that it's quite in the way—"

"What is oo talking about?" Bruno impatiently interrupted me.
"All that won't vex her a bit!"

"Won't it?" I said, innocently. "Then, after that, suppose we put in some of these coloured pebbles—just to mark the divisions between the different kinds of flowers, you know. That'll have a very pretty effect."

Bruno turned round and had another good stare at me. At last there came an odd little twinkle into his eyes, and he said, with quite a new meaning in his voice, "That'll do nicely. Let's put 'em in rows— all the red together, and all the blue together. "

"That'll do capitally," I said; "and then—what kind of flowers does
Sylvie like best?"

Bruno had to put his thumb in his mouth and consider a little before he could answer. "Violets," he said, at last.

"There's a beautiful bed of violets down by the brook—"

"Oh, let's fetch 'em!" cried Bruno, giving a little skip into the air. "Here! Catch hold of my hand, and I'll help oo along. The grass is rather thick down that way."

I couldn't help laughing at his having so entirely forgotten what a big creature he was talking to. "No, not yet, Bruno," I said: "we must consider what's the right thing to do first. You see we've got quite a business before us."

"Yes, let's consider," said Bruno, putting his thumb into his mouth again, and sitting down upon a dead mouse.

"What do you keep that mouse for?" I said. "You should either bury it, or else throw it into the brook."

"Why, it's to measure with!" cried Bruno.

"How ever would oo do a garden without one? We make each bed three mouses and a half long, and two mouses wide."

I stopped him, as he was dragging it off by the tail to show me how it was used, for I was half afraid the 'eerie' feeling might go off before we had finished the garden, and in that case I should see no more of him or Sylvie. "I think the best way will be for you to weed the beds, while I sort out these pebbles, ready to mark the walks with."

"That's it!" cried Bruno. "And I'll tell oo about the caterpillars while we work."

"Ah, let's hear about the caterpillars," I said, as I drew the pebbles together into a heap and began dividing them into colours.

And Bruno went on in a low, rapid tone, more as if he were talking to himself. "Yesterday I saw two little caterpillars, when I was sitting by the brook, just where oo go into the wood. They were quite green, and they had yellow eyes, and they didn't see me. And one of them had got a moth's wing to carry—a great brown moth's wing, oo know, all dry, with feathers. So he couldn't want it to eat, I should think—perhaps he meant to make a cloak for the winter?"

"Perhaps," I said, for Bruno had twisted up the last word into a sort of question, and was looking at me for an answer.

One word was quite enough for the little fellow, and he went on merrily. "Well, and so he didn't want the other caterpillar to see the moth's wing, oo know—so what must he do but try to carry it with all his left legs, and he tried to walk on the other set. Of course he toppled over after that."

"After what?" I said, catching at the last word, for, to tell the truth, I hadn't been attending much.

"He toppled over," Bruno repeated, very gravely, "and if oo ever saw a caterpillar topple over, oo'd know it's a welly serious thing, and not sit grinning like that—and I sha'n't tell oo no more!"

"Indeed and indeed, Bruno, I didn't mean to grin. See, I'm quite grave again now."

But Bruno only folded his arms, and said "Don't tell me.
I see a little twinkle in one of oor eyes—just like the moon."

"Why do you think I'm like the moon, Bruno?" I asked.

"Oor face is large and round like the moon," Bruno answered, looking at me thoughtfully. "It doosn't shine quite so bright—but it's more cleaner."

I couldn't help smiling at this. "You know I sometimes wash my face,
Bruno. The moon never does that."

"Oh, doosn't she though!" cried Bruno; and he leant forwards and added in a solemn whisper, "The moon's face gets dirtier and dirtier every night, till it's black all across. And then, when it's dirty all over—so—" (he passed his hand across his own rosy cheeks as he spoke) "then she washes it."

"Then it's all clean again, isn't it?"

"Not all in a moment," said Bruno. "What a deal of teaching oo wants! She washes it little by little—only she begins at the other edge, oo know."

By this time he was sitting quietly on the dead mouse with his arms folded, and the weeding wasn't getting on a bit: so I had to say "Work first, pleasure afterwards: no more talking till that bed's finished."

CHAPTER 15.

BRUNO'S REVENGE.

After that we had a few minutes of silence, while I sorted out the pebbles, and amused myself with watching Bruno's plan of gardening. It was quite a new plan to me: he always measured each bed before he weeded it, as if he was afraid the weeding would make it shrink; and once, when it came out longer than he wished, he set to work to thump the mouse with his little fist, crying out "There now! It's all gone wrong again! Why don't oo keep oor tail straight when I tell oo!"

"I'll tell you what I'll do," Bruno said in a half-whisper, as we worked. "Oo like Fairies, don't oo?"

"Yes," I said: "of course I do, or I shouldn't have come here.
I should have gone to some place where there are no Fairies."

Bruno laughed contemptuously. "Why, oo might as well say oo'd go to some place where there wasn't any air—supposing oo didn't like air!"

This was a rather difficult idea to grasp. I tried a change of subject. "You're nearly the first Fairy I ever saw. Have you ever seen any people besides me?"

"Plenty!" said Bruno. "We see'em when we walk in the road."

"But they ca'n't see you. How is it they never tread on you?"

"Ca'n't tread on us," said Bruno, looking amused at my ignorance. "Why, suppose oo're walking, here—so—" (making little marks on the ground) "and suppose there's a Fairy—that's me—walking here. Very well then, oo put one foot here, and one foot here, so oo doosn't tread on the Fairy."

This was all very well as an explanation, but it didn't convince me.
"Why shouldn't I put one foot on the Fairy?" I asked.

"I don't know why," the little fellow said in a thoughtful tone.
"But I know oo wouldn't. Nobody never walked on the top of a Fairy.
Now I'll tell oo what I'll do, as oo're so fond of Fairies.
I'll get oo an invitation to the Fairy-King's dinner-party.
I know one of the head-waiters."

I couldn't help laughing at this idea.
"Do the waiters invite the guests?" I asked.

"Oh, not to sit down!" Bruno said. "But to wait at table.
Oo'd like that, wouldn't oo? To hand about plates, and so on."

"Well, but that's not so nice as sitting at the table, is it?"

"Of course it isn't," Bruno said, in a tone as if he rather pitied my ignorance; "but if oo're not even Sir Anything, oo ca'n't expect to be allowed to sit at the table, oo know."

I said, as meekly as I could, that I didn't expect it, but it was the only way of going to a dinner-party that I really enjoyed. And Bruno tossed his head, and said, in a rather offended tone that I might do as I pleased—there were many he knew that would give their ears to go.

"Have you ever been yourself, Bruno?"

"They invited me once, last week," Bruno said, very gravely. "It was to wash up the soup-plates—no, the cheese-plates I mean that was grand enough. And I waited at table. And I didn't hardly make only one mistake."

"What was it?" I said. "You needn't mind telling me."

"Only bringing scissors to cut the beef with," Bruno said carelessly.
"But the grandest thing of all was, I fetched the King a glass of cider!"

"That was grand!" I said, biting my lip to keep myself from laughing.

"Wasn't it?" said Bruno, very earnestly. "Oo know it isn't every one that's had such an honour as that!"

This set me thinking of the various queer things we call "an honour" in this world, but which, after all, haven't a bit more honour in them than what Bruno enjoyed, when he took the King a glass of cider.

I don't know how long I might not have dreamed on in this way, if Bruno hadn't suddenly roused me. "Oh, come here quick!" he cried, in a state of the wildest excitement. "Catch hold of his other horn! I ca'n't hold him more than a minute!"

He was struggling desperately with a great snail, clinging to one of its horns, and nearly breaking his poor little back in his efforts to drag it over a blade of grass.

I saw we should have no more gardening if I let this sort of thing go on, so I quietly took the snail away, and put it on a bank where he couldn't reach it. "We'll hunt it afterwards, Bruno," I said, "if you really want to catch it.

But what's the use of it when you've got it?" "What's the use of a fox when oo've got it?" said Bruno. "I know oo big things hunt foxes."

I tried to think of some good reason why "big things" should hunt foxes, and he should not hunt snails, but none came into my head: so I said at last, "Well, I suppose one's as good as the other. I'll go snail-hunting myself some day."

"I should think oo wouldn't be so silly," said Bruno, "as to go snail-hunting by oor-self. Why, oo'd never get the snail along, if oo hadn't somebody to hold on to his other horn!"

"Of course I sha'n't go alone," I said, quite gravely. "By the way, is that the best kind to hunt, or do you recommend the ones without shells?"

"Oh, no, we never hunt the ones without shells," Bruno said, with a little shudder at the thought of it. "They're always so cross about it; and then, if oo tumbles over them, they're ever so sticky!"

By this time we had nearly finished the garden. I had fetched some violets, and Bruno was just helping me to put in the last, when he suddenly stopped and said "I'm tired."

"Rest then," I said: "I can go on without you, quite well."

Bruno needed no second invitation: he at once began arranging the dead mouse as a kind of sofa. "And I'll sing oo a little song," he said, as he rolled it about.

"Do," said I: "I like songs very much."

"Which song will oo choose?" Bruno said, as he dragged the mouse into a place where he could get a good view of me. "'Ting, ting, ting' is the nicest."

There was no resisting such a strong hint as this: however, I pretended to think about it for a moment, and then said "Well, I like
'Ting, ting, ting,' best of all."

"That shows oo're a good judge of music," Bruno said, with a pleased look. "How many hare-bells would oo like?" And he put his thumb into his mouth to help me to consider.

As there was only one cluster of hare-bells within easy reach, I said very gravely that I thought one would do this time, and I picked it and gave it to him. Bruno ran his hand once or twice up and down the flowers, like a musician trying an instrument, producing a most delicious delicate tinkling as he did so. I had never heard flower-music before—I don't think one can, unless one's in the 'eerie' state and I don't know quite how to give you an idea of what it was like, except by saying that it sounded like a peal of bells a thousand miles off. When he had satisfied himself that the flowers were in tune, he seated himself on the dead mouse (he never seemed really comfortable anywhere else), and, looking up at me with a merry twinkle in his eyes, he began. By the way, the tune was rather a curious one, and you might like to try it for yourself, so here are the notes.

    "Rise, oh, rise! The daylight dies:
     The owls are hooting, ting, ting, ting!
     Wake, oh, wake! Beside the lake
     The elves are fluting, ting, ting, ting!
     Welcoming our Fairy King,
     We sing, sing, sing."

He sang the first four lines briskly and merrily, making the hare-bells chime in time with the music; but the last two he sang quite slowly and gently, and merely waved the flowers backwards and forwards. Then he left off to explain. "The Fairy-King is Oberon, and he lives across the lake—and sometimes he comes in a little boat—and we go and meet him and then we sing this song, you know."

"And then you go and dine with him?" I said, mischievously.

"Oo shouldn't talk," Bruno hastily said: "it interrupts the song so."

I said I wouldn't do it again.

"I never talk myself when I'm singing," he went on very gravely: "so oo shouldn't either." Then he tuned the hare-bells once more, and sang:—-

    "Hear, oh, hear! From far and near
    The music stealing, ting, ting, ting!
    Fairy belts adown the dells
    Are merrily pealing, ting, ting, ting!
    Welcoming our Fairy King,
    We ring, ring, ring.

    "See, oh, see! On every tree
    What lamps are shining, ting, ting, ting!
    They are eyes of fiery flies
    To light our dining, ting, ting, ting!
    Welcoming our Fairy King
    They swing, swing, swing.

    "Haste, oh haste, to take and taste
    The dainties waiting, ting, ting, ting!
    Honey-dew is stored—"

"Hush, Bruno!" I interrupted in a warning whisper. "She's coming!"

Bruno checked his song, and, as she slowly made her way through the long grass, he suddenly rushed out headlong at her like a little bull, shouting "Look the other way! Look the other way!"

"Which way?" Sylvie asked, in rather a frightened tone, as she looked round in all directions to see where the danger could be.

"That way!" said Bruno, carefully turning her round with her face to the wood. "Now, walk backwards walk gently—don't be frightened: oo sha'n't trip!"

But Sylvie did trip notwithstanding: in fact he led her, in his hurry, across so many little sticks and stones, that it was really a wonder the poor child could keep on her feet at all. But he was far too much excited to think of what he was doing.

I silently pointed out to Bruno the best place to lead her to, so as to get a view of the whole garden at once: it was a little rising ground, about the height of a potato; and, when they had mounted it, I drew back into the shade, that Sylvie mightn't see me.

I heard Bruno cry out triumphantly "Now oo may look!" and then followed a clapping of hands, but it was all done by Bruno himself. Sylvie: was silent—she only stood and gazed with her hands clasped together, and I was half afraid she didn't like it after all.

Bruno too was watching her anxiously, and when she jumped down off the mound, and began wandering up and down the little walks, he cautiously followed her about, evidently anxious that she should form her own opinion of it all, without any hint from him. And when at last she drew a long breath, and gave her verdict—in a hurried whisper, and without the slightest regard to grammar— "It's the loveliest thing as I never saw in all my life before!" the little fellow looked as well pleased as if it had been given by all the judges and juries in England put together.

"And did you really do it all by yourself, Bruno?" said Sylvie.
"And all for me?"

"I was helped a bit," Bruno began, with a merry little laugh at her surprise. "We've been at it all the afternoon—I thought oo'd like—" and here the poor little fellow's lip began to quiver, and all in a moment he burst out crying, and running up to Sylvie he flung his arms passionately round her neck, and hid his face on her shoulder.

There was a little quiver in Sylvie's voice too, as she whispered "Why, what's the matter, darling?" and tried to lift up his head and kiss him.

But Bruno only clung to her, sobbing, and wouldn't be comforted till he had confessed. "I tried—to spoil oor garden—first—but I'll never— never—" and then came another burst of tears, which drowned the rest of the sentence. At last he got out the words "I liked—putting in the flowers—for oo, Sylvie —and I never was so happy before." And the rosy little face came up at last to be kissed, all wet with tears as it was.

Sylvie was crying too by this time, and she said nothing but "Bruno, dear!" and "I never was so happy before," though why these two children who had never been so happy before should both be crying was a mystery to me.

I felt very happy too, but of course I didn't cry: "big things" never do, you know we leave all that to the Fairies. Only I think it must have been raining a little just then, for I found a drop or two on my cheeks.

After that they went through the whole garden again, flower by flower, as if it were a long sentence they were spelling out, with kisses for commas, and a great hug by way of a full-stop when they got to the end.

"Doos oo know, that was my river-edge, Sylvie?" Bruno solemnly began.

Sylvie laughed merrily. "What do you mean?" she said. And she pushed back her heavy brown hair with both hands, and looked at him with dancing eyes in which the big teardrops were still glittering.

Bruno drew in a long breath, and made up his mouth for a great effort. "I mean revenge," he said: "now oo under'tand." And he looked so happy and proud at having said the word right at last, that I quite envied him. I rather think Sylvie didn't "under'tand" at all; but she gave him a little kiss on each cheek, which seemed to do just as well.

So they wandered off lovingly together, in among the buttercups, each with an arm twined round the other, whispering and laughing as they went, and never so much as once looked back at poor me. Yes, once, just before I quite lost sight of them, Bruno half turned his head, and nodded me a saucy little good-bye over one shoulder. And that was all the thanks I got for my trouble. The very last thing I saw of them was this— Sylvie was stooping down with her arms round Bruno's neck, and saying coaxingly in his ear, "Do you know, Bruno, I've quite forgotten that hard word. Do say it once more. Come! Only this once, dear!"

But Bruno wouldn't try it again.

CHAPTER 16.

A CHANGED CROCODILE.

The Marvellous—the Mysterious—had quite passed out of my life for the moment: and the Common-place reigned supreme. I turned in the direction of the Earl's house, as it was now 'the witching hour' of five, and I knew I should find them ready for a cup of tea and a quiet chat.

Lady Muriel and her father gave me a delightfully warm welcome. They were not of the folk we meet in fashionable drawing-rooms who conceal all such feelings as they may chance to possess beneath the impenetrable mask of a conventional placidity. 'The Man with the Iron Mask' was, no doubt, a rarity and a marvel in his own age: in modern London no one would turn his head to give him a second look! No, these were real people. When they looked pleased, it meant that they were pleased: and when Lady Muriel said, with a bright smile, "I'm very glad to see you again!", I knew that it was true.

Still I did not venture to disobey the injunctions—crazy as I felt them to be—of the lovesick young Doctor, by so much as alluding to his existence: and it was only after they had given me full details of a projected picnic, to which they invited me, that Lady Muriel exclaimed, almost as an after-thought, "and do, if you can, bring Doctor Forester with you! I'm sure a day in the country would do him good. I'm afraid he studies too much—"

It was 'on the tip of my tongue' to quote the words "His only books are woman's looks!" but I checked myself just in time—with something of the feeling of one who has crossed a street, and has been all but run over by a passing 'Hansom.'

"—and I think he has too lonely a life," she went on, with a gentle earnestness that left no room whatever to suspect a double meaning. "Do get him to come! And don't forget the day, Tuesday week. We can drive you over. It would be a pity to go by rail—- there is so much pretty scenery on the road. And our open carriage just holds four."

"Oh, I'll persuade him to come!" I said with confidence—thinking "it would take all my powers of persuasion to keep him away!"

The picnic was to take place in ten days: and though Arthur readily accepted the invitation I brought him, nothing that I could say would induce him to call—either with me or without me on the Earl and his daughter in the meanwhile. No: he feared to " wear out his welcome," he said: they had "seen enough of him for one while": and, when at last the day for the expedition arrived, he was so childishly nervous and uneasy that I thought it best so to arrange our plans that we should go separately to the house—my intention being to arrive some time after him, so as to give him time to get over a meeting.

With this object I purposely made a considerable circuit on my way to the Hall (as we called the Earl's house): "and if I could only manage to lose my way a bit," I thought to myself, "that would suit me capitally!"

In this I succeeded better, and sooner, than I had ventured to hope for. The path through the wood had been made familiar to me, by many a solitary stroll, in my former visit to Elveston; and how I could have so suddenly and so entirely lost it—even though I was so engrossed in thinking of Arthur and his lady-love that I heeded little else—was a mystery to me. "And this open place," I said to myself, "seems to have some memory about it I cannot distinctly recall—surely it is the very spot where I saw those Fairy-Children! But I hope there are no snakes about!" I mused aloud, taking my seat on a fallen tree. "I certainly do not like snakes—and I don't suppose Bruno likes them, either!"

"No, he doesn't like them!" said a demure little voice at my side.
"He's not afraid of them, you know. But he doesn't like them.
He says they're too waggly!"

Words fail me to describe the beauty of the little group—couched on a patch of moss, on the trunk of the fallen tree, that met my eager gaze: Sylvie reclining with her elbow buried in the moss, and her rosy cheek resting in the palm of her hand, and Bruno stretched at her feet with his head in her lap.

"Too waggly?" was all I could say in so sudden an emergency.

"I'm not praticular," Bruno said, carelessly: "but I do like straight animals best—"

"But you like a dog when it wags its tail, Sylvie interrupted.
"You know you do, Bruno!"

"But there's more of a dog, isn't there, Mister Sir?" Bruno appealed to me. "You wouldn't like to have a dog if it hadn't got nuffin but a head and a tail?"

I admitted that a dog of that kind would be uninteresting.

"There isn't such a dog as that," Sylvie thoughtfully remarked.

"But there would be," cried Bruno, "if the Professor shortened it up for us!"

"Shortened it up?" I said. "That's something new. How does he do it?"

"He's got a curious machine "Sylvie was beginning to explain.

"A welly curious machine," Bruno broke in, not at all willing to have the story thus taken out of his mouth, "and if oo puts in—some-finoruvver—at one end, oo know and he turns the handle—and it comes out at the uvver end, oh, ever so short!"

"As short as short! "Sylvie echoed.

"And one day when we was in Outland, oo know—before we came to Fairyland me and Sylvie took him a big Crocodile. And he shortened it up for us. And it did look so funny! And it kept looking round, and saying 'wherever is the rest of me got to?' And then its eyes looked unhappy—"

"Not both its eyes," Sylvie interrupted.

"Course not!" said the little fellow. "Only the eye that couldn't see wherever the rest of it had got to. But the eye that could see wherever—"

"How short was the crocodile?" I asked, as the story was getting a little complicated.

"Half as short again as when we caught it —so long," said Bruno, spreading out his arms to their full stretch.

I tried to calculate what this would come to, but it was too hard for me.
Please make it out for me, dear Child who reads this!

"But you didn't leave the poor thing so short as that, did you?"

"Well, no. Sylvie and me took it back again and we got it stretched to—to—how much was it, Sylvie?"

"Two times and a half, and a little bit more," said Sylvie.

"It wouldn't like that better than the other way, I'm afraid?"

"Oh, but it did though!" Bruno put in eagerly. "It were proud of its new tail! Oo never saw a Crocodile so proud! Why, it could go round and walk on the top of its tail, and along its back, all the way to its head!"

Not quite all the way," said Sylvie. "It couldn't, you know."

"Ah, but it did, once!" Bruno cried triumphantly. "Oo weren't looking—but I watched it. And it walked on tippiety-toe, so as it wouldn't wake itself, 'cause it thought it were asleep. And it got both its paws on its tail. And it walked and it walked all the way along its back. And it walked and it walked on its forehead. And it walked a tiny little way down its nose! There now!"

This was a good deal worse than the last puzzle. Please, dear Child, help again!

"I don't believe no Crocodile never walked along its own forehead!" Sylvie cried, too much excited by the controversy to limit the number of her negatives.

"Oo don't know the reason why it did it!', Bruno scornfully retorted. "It had a welly good reason. I heerd it say 'Why shouldn't I walk on my own forehead?' So a course it did, oo know!"

"If that's a good reason, Bruno," I said, "why shouldn't you get up that tree?"

"Shall, in a minute," said Bruno: "soon as we've done talking. Only two peoples ca'n't talk comfably togevver, when one's getting up a tree, and the other isn't!"

It appeared to me that a conversation would scarcely be 'comfable' while trees were being climbed, even if both the 'peoples' were doing it: but it was evidently dangerous to oppose any theory of Bruno's; so I thought it best to let the question drop, and to ask for an account of the machine that made things longer.

This time Bruno was at a loss, and left it to Sylvie.
"It's like a mangle," she said: "if things are put in, they get squoze—"

"Squeezeled!" Bruno interrupted.

"Yes." Sylvie accepted the correction, but did not attempt to pronounce the word, which was evidently new to her. "They get—like that—and they come out, oh, ever so long!"

"Once," Bruno began again, "Sylvie and me writed—"

"Wrote!" Sylvie whispered.

"Well, we wroted a Nursery-Song, and the Professor mangled it longer for us. It were 'There was a little Man, And he had a little gun, And the bullets—'"

"I know the rest," I interrupted. "But would you say it long I mean the way that it came out of the mangle?"

"We'll get the Professor to sing it for you," said Sylvie.
"It would spoil it to say it."

"I would like to meet the Professor," I said. "And I would like to take you all with me, to see some friends of mine, that live near here. Would you like to come?"

"I don't think the Professor would like to come," said Sylvie. "He's very shy. But we'd like it very much. Only we'd better not come this size, you know."

The difficulty had occurred to me already: and I had felt that perhaps there would be a slight awkwardness in introducing two such tiny friends into Society. "What size will you be?" I enquired.

"We'd better come as—common children," Sylvie thoughtfully replied.
"That's the easiest size to manage."

"Could you come to-day?" I said, thinking "then we could have you at the picnic!"

Sylvie considered a little. "Not to-day," she replied. "We haven't got the things ready. We'll come on—Tuesday next, if you like. And now, really Bruno, you must come and do your lessons."

"I wiss oo wouldn't say 'really Bruno!'" the little fellow pleaded, with pouting lips that made him look prettier than ever. "It always show's there's something horrid coming! And I won't kiss you, if you're so unkind."

"Ah, but you have kissed me!" Sylvie exclaimed in merry triumph.

"Well then, I'll unkiss you!" And he threw his arms round her neck for this novel, but apparently not very painful, operation.

"It's very like kissing!" Sylvie remarked, as soon as her lips were again free for speech.

"Oo don't know nuffin about it! It were just the conkery!" Bruno replied with much severity, as he marched away.

Sylvie turned her laughing face to me. "Shall we come on Tuesday?" she said.

"Very well," I said: "let it be Tuesday next.
But where is the Professor? Did he come with you to Fairyland?"

"No," said Sylvie. "But he promised he'd come and see us, some day.
He's getting his Lecture ready. So he has to stay at home."

"At home?" I said dreamily, not feeling quite sure what she had said.

"Yes, Sir. His Lordship and Lady Muriel are at home.
Please to walk this way."

CHAPTER 17.

THE THREE BADGERS.

Still more dreamily I found myself following this imperious voice into a room where the Earl, his daughter, and Arthur, were seated. "So you're come at last!" said Lady Muriel, in a tone of playful reproach.

"I was delayed," I stammered. Though what it was that had delayed me I should have been puzzled to explain! Luckily no questions were asked.

The carriage was ordered round, the hamper, containing our contribution to the Picnic, was duly stowed away, and we set forth.

There was no need for me to maintain the conversation. Lady Muriel and Arthur were evidently on those most delightful of terms, where one has no need to check thought after thought, as it rises to the lips, with the fear 'this will not be appreciated—this will give' offence— this will sound too serious—this will sound flippant': like very old friends, in fullest sympathy, their talk rippled on.

"Why shouldn't we desert the Picnic and go in some other direction?" she suddenly suggested. "A party of four is surely self-sufficing? And as for food, our hamper—"

"Why shouldn't we? What a genuine lady's argument!" laughed Arthur. "A lady never knows on which side the onus probandi—the burden of proving—lies!"

"Do men always know?" she asked with a pretty assumption of meek docility.

"With one exception—the only one I can think of Dr. Watts, who has asked the senseless question

    'Why should I deprive my neighbour
    Of his goods against his will?'

Fancy that as an argument for Honesty! His position seems to be 'I'm only honest because I see no reason to steal.' And the thief's answer is of course complete and crushing. 'I deprive my neighbour of his goods because I want them myself. And I do it against his will because there's no chance of getting him to consent to it!'"

"I can give you one other exception," I said: "an argument I heard only to-day—-and not by a lady. 'Why shouldn't I walk on my own forehead?'"

"What a curious subject for speculation!" said Lady Muriel, turning to me, with eyes brimming over with laughter. "May we know who propounded the question? And did he walk on his own forehead?"

"I ca'n't remember who it was that said it!" I faltered. "Nor where I heard it!"

"Whoever it was, I hope we shall meet him at the Picnic!" said Lady Muriel.
"It's a far more interesting question than 'Isn't this a picturesque ruin?'
Aren't those autumn-tints lovely?' I shall have to answer those two
questions ten times, at least, this afternoon!"

"That's one of the miseries of Society!" said Arthur. "Why ca'n't people let one enjoy the beauties of Nature without having to say so every minute? Why should Life be one long Catechism?"

"It's just as bad at a picture-gallery," the Earl remarked. "I went to the R.A. last May, with a conceited young artist: and he did torment me! I wouldn't have minded his criticizing the pictures himself: but I had to agree with him—or else to argue the point, which would have been worse!"

"It was depreciatory criticism, of course?" said Arthur.

"I don't see the 'of course' at all."

"Why, did you ever know a conceited man dare to praise a picture? The one thing he dreads (next to not being noticed) is to be proved fallible! If you once praise a picture, your character for infallibility hangs by a thread. Suppose it's a figure-picture, and you venture to say 'draws well.' Somebody measures it, and finds one of the proportions an eighth of an inch wrong. You are disposed of as a critic! 'Did you say he draws well?' your friends enquire sarcastically, while you hang your head and blush. No. The only safe course, if any one says 'draws well,' is to shrug your shoulders. 'Draws well?' you repeat thoughtfully. 'Draws well? Humph!' That's the way to become a great critic!"

Thus airily chatting, after a pleasant drive through a few miles of beautiful scenery, we reached the rendezvous—a ruined castle—where the rest of the picnic-party were already assembled. We spent an hour or two in sauntering about the ruins: gathering at last, by common consent, into a few random groups, seated on the side of a mound, which commanded a good view of the old castle and its surroundings.

The momentary silence, that ensued, was promptly taken possession of or, more correctly, taken into custody—by a Voice; a voice so smooth, so monotonous, so sonorous, that one felt, with a shudder, that any other conversation was precluded, and that, unless some desperate remedy were adopted, we were fated to listen to a Lecture, of which no man could foresee the end!

The speaker was a broadly-built man, whose large, flat, pale face was bounded on the North by a fringe of hair, on the East and West by a fringe of whisker, and on the South by a fringe of beard—the whole constituting a uniform halo of stubbly whitey-brown bristles. His features were so entirely destitute of expression that I could not help saying to myself—helplessly, as if in the clutches of a night-mare— "they are only penciled in: no final touches as yet!" And he had a way of ending every sentence with a sudden smile, which spread like a ripple over that vast blank surface, and was gone in a moment, leaving behind it such absolute solemnity that I felt impelled to murmur "it was not he: it was somebody else that smiled!"

"Do you observe?" (such was the phrase with which the wretch began each sentence) "Do you observe the way in which that broken arch, at the very top of the ruin, stands out against the clear sky? It is placed exactly right: and there is exactly enough of it. A little more, or a little less, and all would be utterly spoiled!"

"Oh gifted architect!" murmured Arthur, inaudibly to all but Lady Muriel and myself. "Foreseeing the exact effect his work would have, when in ruins, centuries after his death!"

"And do you observe, where those trees slope down the hill, (indicating them with a sweep of the hand, and with all the patronising air of the man who has himself arranged the landscape), "how the mists rising from the river fill up exactly those intervals where we need indistinctness, for artistic effect? Here, in the foreground, a few clear touches are not amiss: but a back-ground without mist, you know! It is simply barbarous! Yes, we need indistinctness!"

The orator looked so pointedly at me as he uttered these words, that I felt bound to reply, by murmuring something to the effect that I hardly felt the need myself—and that I enjoyed looking at a thing, better, when I could see it.

"Quite so!" the great man sharply took me up. "From your point of view, that is correctly put. But for anyone who has a soul for Art, such a view is preposterous. Nature is one thing. Art is another. Nature shows us the world as it is. But Art—as a Latin author tells us—Art, you know the words have escaped my memory "Ars est celare Naturam," Arthur interposed with a delightful promptitude.

"Quite so!" the orator replied with an air of relief. "I thank you! Ars est celare Naturam but that isn't it." And, for a few peaceful moments, the orator brooded, frowningly, over the quotation. The welcome opportunity was seized, and another voice struck into the silence.

"What a lovely old ruin it is!" cried a young lady in spectacles, the very embodiment of the March of Mind, looking at Lady Muriel, as the proper recipient of all really original remarks. "And don't you admire those autumn-tints on the trees? I do, intensely!"

Lady Muriel shot a meaning glance at me; but replied with admirable gravity. "Oh yes indeed, indeed! So true!"

"And isn't strange, said the young lady, passing with startling suddenness from Sentiment to Science, "that the mere impact of certain coloured rays upon the Retina should give us such exquisite pleasure?"

"You have studied Physiology, then?" a certain young Doctor courteously enquired.

"Oh, yes! Isn't it a sweet Science?"

Arthur slightly smiled. "It seems a paradox, does it not," he went on, "that the image formed on the Retina should be inverted?"

"It is puzzling," she candidly admitted. "Why is it we do not see things upside-down?"

"You have never heard the Theory, then, that the Brain also is inverted?"

"No indeed! What a beautiful fact! But how is it proved?"

"Thus," replied Arthur, with all the gravity of ten Professors rolled into one. "What we call the vertex of the Brain is really its base: and what we call its base is really its vertex: it is simply a question of nomenclature."

This last polysyllable settled the matter.

"How truly delightful!" the fair Scientist exclaimed with enthusiasm. "I shall ask our Physiological Lecturer why he never gave us that exquisite Theory!"

"I'd give something to be present when the question is asked!" Arthur whispered to me, as, at a signal from Lady Muriel, we moved on to where the hampers had been collected, and devoted ourselves to the more substantial business of the day.

We 'waited' on ourselves, as the modern barbarism (combining two good things in such a way as to secure the discomforts of both and the advantages of neither) of having a picnic with servants to wait upon you, had not yet reached this out-of-the-way region—and of course the gentlemen did not even take their places until the ladies had been duly provided with all imaginable creature-comforts. Then I supplied myself with a plate of something solid and a glass of something fluid, and found a place next to Lady Muriel.

It had been left vacant—apparently for Arthur, as a distinguished stranger: but he had turned shy, and had placed himself next to the young lady in spectacles, whose high rasping voice had already cast loose upon Society such ominous phrases as "Man is a bundle of Qualities!", "the Objective is only attainable through the Subjective!". Arthur was bearing it bravely: but several faces wore a look of alarm, and I thought it high time to start some less metaphysical topic.

"In my nursery days," I began, "when the weather didn't suit for an out-of-doors picnic, we were allowed to have a peculiar kind, that we enjoyed hugely. The table cloth was laid under the table, instead of upon it: we sat round it on the floor: and I believe we really enjoyed that extremely uncomfortable kind of dinner more than we ever did the orthodox arrangement!"

"I've no doubt of it," Lady Muriel replied.

"There's nothing a well-regulated child hates so much as regularity. I believe a really healthy boy would thoroughly enjoy Greek Grammar— if only he might stand on his head to learn it! And your carpet-dinner certainly spared you one feature of a picnic, which is to me its chief drawback."

"The chance of a shower?" I suggested.

"No, the chance—or rather the certainty of live things occurring in combination with one's food! Spiders are my bugbear. Now my father has no sympathy with that sentiment—have you, dear?" For the Earl had caught the word and turned to listen.

"To each his sufferings, all are men," he replied in the sweet sad tones that seemed natural to him: "each has his pet aversion."

"But you'll never guess his!" Lady Muriel said, with that delicate silvery laugh that was music to my ears.

I declined to attempt the impossible.

"He doesn't like snakes!" she said, in a stage whisper. "Now, isn't that an unreasonable aversion? Fancy not liking such a dear, coaxingly, clingingly affectionate creature as a snake!"

"Not like snakes!" I exclaimed. "Is such a thing possible?"

"No, he doesn't like them," she repeated with a pretty mock-gravity.
"He's not afraid of them, you know. But he doesn't like them.
He says they're too waggly!"

I was more startled than I liked to show. There was something so uncanny in this echo of the very words I had so lately heard from that little forest-sprite, that it was only by a great effort I succeeded in saying, carelessly, "Let us banish so unpleasant a topic. Won't you sing us something, Lady Muriel? I know you do sing without music."

"The only songs I know—without music—are desperately sentimental,
I'm afraid! Are your tears all ready?"

"Quite ready! Quite ready!" came from all sides, and Lady Muriel—not being one of those lady-singers who think it de rigueur to decline to sing till they have been petitioned three or four times, and have pleaded failure of memory, loss of voice, and other conclusive reasons for silence—began at once:—

     "There be three Badgers on a mossy stone,
     Beside a dark and covered way:
     Each dreams himself a monarch on his throne,
     And so they stay and stay
     Though their old Father languishes alone,
     They stay, and stay, and stay.

     "There be three Herrings loitering around,
     Longing to share that mossy seat:
     Each Herring tries to sing what she has found
     That makes Life seem so sweet.
     Thus, with a grating and uncertain sound,
     They bleat, and bleat, and bleat,

     "The Mother-Herring, on the salt sea-wave,
     Sought vainly for her absent ones:
     The Father-Badger, writhing in a cave,
     Shrieked out ' Return, my sons!
     You shalt have buns,' he shrieked,' if you'll behave!
     Yea, buns, and buns, and buns!'

     "'I fear,' said she, 'your sons have gone astray?
     My daughters left me while I slept.'
     'Yes 'm,' the Badger said: 'it's as you say.'
     'They should be better kept.'
     Thus the poor parents talked the time away,
     And wept, and wept, and wept."

Here Bruno broke off suddenly. "The Herrings' Song wants anuvver tune,
Sylvie," he said. "And I ca'n't sing it not wizout oo plays it for me!"

Instantly Sylvie seated herself upon a tiny mushroom, that happened to grow in front of a daisy, as if it were the most ordinary musical instrument in the world, and played on the petals as if they were the notes of an organ. And such delicious tiny music it was! Such teeny-tiny music!

Bruno held his head on one side, and listened very gravely for a few moments until he had caught the melody. Then the sweet childish voice rang out once more:—

     "Oh, dear beyond our dearest dreams,
     Fairer than all that fairest seems!
     To feast the rosy hours away,
     To revel in a roundelay!
     How blest would be
     A life so free—-
     Ipwergis-Pudding to consume,
     And drink the subtle Azzigoom!

     "And if in other days and hours,
     Mid other fluffs and other flowers,
     The choice were given me how to dine—-
     'Name what thou wilt: it shalt be thine!'
     Oh, then I see
     The life for me
     Ipwergis-Pudding to consume,
     And drink the subtle Azzigoom!"

"Oo may leave off playing now, Sylvie. I can do the uvver tune much better wizout a compliment."

"He means 'without accompaniment,'" Sylvie whispered, smiling at my puzzled look: and she pretended to shut up the stops of the organ.

    "The Badgers did not care to talk to Fish:
    They did not dote on Herrings' songs:
    They never had experienced the dish
    To which that name belongs:
    And oh, to pinch their tails,' (this was their wish,)
    'With tongs, yea, tongs, and tongs!'"

I ought to mention that he marked the parenthesis, in the air, with his finger. It seemed to me a very good plan. You know there's no sound to represent it—any more than there is for a question.

Suppose you have said to your friend "You are better to-day," and that you want him to understand that you are asking him a question, what can be simpler than just to make a "?". in the air with your finger? He would understand you in a moment!

     "'And are not these the Fish,' the Eldest sighed,
     'Whose Mother dwells beneath the foam'
     'They are the Fish!' the Second one replied.
     'And they have left their home!'
     'Oh wicked Fish,' the Youngest Badger cried,
     'To roam, yea, roam, and roam!'
     "Gently the Badgers trotted to the shore
     The sandy shore that fringed the bay:
     Each in his mouth a living Herring bore—
     Those aged ones waxed gay:
     Clear rang their voices through the ocean's roar,
     'Hooray, hooray, hooray!'"

"So they all got safe home again," Bruno said, after waiting a minute to see if I had anything to say: he evidently felt that some remark ought to be made. And I couldn't help wishing there were some such rule in Society, at the conclusion of a song—that the singer herself should say the right thing, and not leave it to the audience. Suppose a young lady has just been warbling ('with a grating and uncertain sound') Shelley's exquisite lyric 'I arise from dreams of thee': how much nicer it would be, instead of your having to say "Oh, thank you, thank you!" for the young lady herself to remark, as she draws on her gloves, while the impassioned words 'Oh, press it to thine own, or it will break at last!' are still ringing in your ears, "—but she wouldn't do it, you know. So it did break at last."

"And I knew it would!" she added quietly, as I started at the sudden crash of broken glass. "You've been holding it sideways for the last minute, and letting all the champagne run out! Were you asleep, I wonder? I'm so sorry my singing has such a narcotic effect!"

CHAPTER 18.

QUEER STREET, NUMBER FORTY.

Lady Muriel was the speaker. And, for the moment, that was the only fact I could clearly realise. But how she came to be there and how I came to be there—and how the glass of champagne came to be there—all these were questions which I felt it better to think out in silence, and not commit myself to any statement till I understood things a little more clearly.

'First accumulate a mass of Facts: and then construct a Theory.'
That, I believe, is the true Scientific Method.
I sat up, rubbed my eves, and began to accumulate Facts.

A smooth grassy slope, bounded, at the upper end, by venerable ruins half buried in ivy, at the lower, by a stream seen through arching trees—a dozen gaily-dressed people, seated in little groups here and there—some open hampers—the debris of a picnic—such were the Facts accumulated by the Scientific Researcher. And now, what deep, far-reaching Theory was he to construct from them? The Researcher found himself at fault. Yet stay! One Fact had escaped his notice. While all the rest were grouped in twos and in threes, Arthur was alone: while all tongues were talking, his was silent: while all faces were gay, his was gloomy and despondent. Here was a Fact indeed! The Researcher felt that a Theory must be constructed without delay.

Lady Muriel had just risen and left the party. Could that be the cause of his despondency? The Theory hardly rose to the dignity of a Working Hypothesis. Clearly more Facts were needed.

The Researcher looked round him once more: and now the Facts accumulated in such bewildering profusion, that the Theory was lost among them. For Lady Muriel had gone to meet a strange gentleman, just visible in the distance: and now she was returning with him, both of them talking eagerly and joyfully, like old friends who have been long parted: and now she was moving from group to group, introducing the new hero of the hour: and he, young, tall, and handsome, moved gracefully at her side, with the erect bearing and firm tread of a soldier. Verily, the Theory looked gloomy for Arthur! His eye caught mine, and he crossed to me.

"He is very handsome," I said.

"Abominably handsome!" muttered Arthur: then smiled at his own bitter words. "Lucky no one heard me but you!"

"Doctor Forester," said Lady Muriel, who had just joined us, "let me introduce to you my cousin Eric Lindon Captain Lindon, I should say."

Arthur shook off his ill-temper instantly and completely, as he rose and gave the young soldier his hand. "I have heard of you," he said. "I'm very glad to make the acquaintance of Lady Muriel's cousin."

"Yes, that's all I'm distinguished for, as yet!" said Eric (so we soon
got to call him) with a winning smile. "And I doubt," glancing at Lady
Muriel, "if it even amounts to a good-conduct-badge!
But it's something to begin with."

"You must come to my father, Eric," said Lady Muriel. "I think he's wandering among the ruins." And the pair moved on.

The gloomy look returned to Arthur's face: and I could see it was only to distract his thoughts that he took his place at the side of the metaphysical young lady, and resumed their interrupted discussion.

"Talking of Herbert Spencer," he began, "do you really find no logical difficulty in regarding Nature as a process of involution, passing from definite coherent homogeneity to indefinite incoherent heterogeneity?"

Amused as I was at the ingenious jumble he had made of Spencer's words,
I kept as grave a face as I could.

No physical difficulty," she confidently replied: "but I haven't studied Logic much. Would you state the difficulty?"

"Well," said Arthur, "do you accept it as self-evident? Is it as obvious, for instance, as that 'things that are greater than the same are greater than one another'?"

"To my mind," she modestly replied, "it seems quite as obvious. I grasp both truths by intuition. But other minds may need some logical—I forget the technical terms."

"For a complete logical argument," Arthur began with admirable solemnity, "we need two prim Misses—"

"Of course!" she interrupted. "I remember that word now.
And they produce—?"

"A Delusion," said Arthur.

"Ye—es?" she said dubiously. "I don't seem to remember that so well.
But what is the whole argument called?"

"A Sillygism?

"Ah, yes! I remember now. But I don't need a Sillygism, you know, to prove that mathematical axiom you mentioned."

"Nor to prove that 'all angles are equal', I suppose?"

"Why, of course not! One takes such a simple truth as that for granted!"

Here I ventured to interpose, and to offer her a plate of strawberries and cream. I felt really uneasy at the thought that she might detect the trick: and I contrived, unperceived by her, to shake my head reprovingly at the pseudo-philosopher. Equally unperceived by her, Arthur slightly raised his shoulders, and spread his hands abroad, as who should say "What else can I say to her?" and moved away, leaving her to discuss her strawberries by 'involution,' or any other way she preferred.

By this time the carriages, that were to convey the revelers to their respective homes, had begun to assemble outside the Castle-grounds: and it became evident—now that Lady Muriel's cousin had joined our party that the problem, how to convey five people to Elveston, with a carriage that would only hold four, must somehow be solved.

The Honorable Eric Lindon, who was at this moment walking up and down with Lady Muriel, might have solved it at once, no doubt, by announcing his intention of returning on foot. Of this solution there did not seem to be the very smallest probability.

The next best solution, it seemed to me, was that I should walk home: and this I at once proposed.

"You're sure you don't mind?', said the Earl. "I'm afraid the carriage wont take us all, and I don't like to suggest to Eric to desert his cousin so soon."

"So far from minding it," I said, "I should prefer it. It will give me time to sketch this beautiful old ruin."

"I'll keep you company," Arthur suddenly said. And, in answer to what
I suppose was a look of surprise on my face, he said in a low voice,
"I really would rather. I shall be quite de trop in the carriage!"

"I think I'll walk too," said the Earl. "You'll have to be content with Eric as your escort," he added, to Lady Muriel, who had joined us while he was speaking.

"You must be as entertaining as Cerberus—'three gentlemen rolled into one'—" Lady Muriel said to her companion. "It will be a grand military exploit!"

"A sort of Forlorn Hope?" the Captain modestly suggested.

"You do pay pretty compliments!" laughed his fair cousin. "Good day to you, gentlemen three—or rather deserters three!" And the two young folk entered the carriage and were driven away.

"How long will your sketch take?" said Arthur.

"Well," I said, "I should like an hour for it. Don't you think you had better go without me? I'll return by train. I know there's one in about an hour's time."

"Perhaps that would be best," said the Earl. "The Station is quite close."

So I was left to my own devices, and soon found a comfortable seat, at the foot of a tree, from which I had a good view of the ruins.

"It is a very drowsy day," I said to myself, idly turning over the leaves of the sketch-book to find a blank page. "Why, I thought you were a mile off by this time!" For, to my surprise, the two walkers were back again.

"I came back to remind you," Arthur said, "that the trains go every ten minutes—"

"Nonsense!" I said. "It isn't the Metropolitan Railway!"

"It is the Metropolitan Railway," the Earl insisted. "'This is a part of Kensington."

"Why do you talk with your eyes shut?" said Arthur. "Wake up!"

"I think it's the heat makes me so drowsy," I said, hoping, but not feeling quite sure, that I was talking sense. "Am I awake now?"

"I think not, "the Earl judicially pronounced. "What do you think,
Doctor? He's only got one eye open!"

"And he's snoring like anything!" cried Bruno. "Do wake up, you dear old thing!" And he and Sylvie set to work, rolling the heavy head from side to side, as if its connection with the shoulders was a matter of no sort of importance.

And at last the Professor opened his eyes, and sat up, blinking at us with eyes of utter bewilderment. "Would you have the kindness to mention," he said, addressing me with his usual old-fashioned courtesy, "whereabouts we are just now and who we are, beginning with me?"

I thought it best to begin with the children. "This is Sylvie. Sir; and this is Bruno."

"Ah, yes! I know them well enough!" the old man murmured. "Its myself I'm most anxious about. And perhaps you'll be good enough to mention, at the same time, how I got here?"

"A harder problem occurs to me," I ventured to say: "and that is, how you're to get back again."

"True, true!" the Professor replied. "That's the Problem, no doubt.
Viewed as a Problem, outside of oneself, it is a most interesting one.
Viewed as a portion of one's own biography, it is, I must admit, very
distressing!" He groaned, but instantly added, with a chuckle,
"As to myself, I think you mentioned that I am—"

"Oo're the Professor!" Bruno shouted in his ear. "Didn't oo know that?
Oo've come from Outland! And it's ever so far away from here!"

The Professor leapt to his feet with the agility of a boy.
"Then there's no time to lose!" he exclaimed anxiously.
"I'll just ask this guileless peasant, with his brace of buckets
that contain (apparently) water, if he'll be so kind as to direct us.
Guileless peasant!" he proceeded in a louder voice.
"Would you tell us the way to Outland?"

The guileless peasant turned with a sheepish grin. "Hey?" was all he said.

"The way—to—Outland!" the Professor repeated.

The guileless peasant set down his buckets and considered. "Ah dunnot—"

"I ought to mention," the Professor hastily put in, "that whatever you say will be used in evidence against you."

The guileless peasant instantly resumed his buckets. "Then ah says nowt!" he answered briskly, and walked away at a great pace.

The children gazed sadly at the rapidly vanishing figure. "He goes very quick!" the Professor said with a sigh. "But I know that was the right thing to say. I've studied your English Laws. However, let's ask this next man that's coming. He is not guileless, and he is not a peasant—but I don't know that either point is of vital importance."

It was, in fact, the Honourable Eric Lindon, who had apparently fulfilled his task of escorting Lady Muriel home, and was now strolling leisurely up and down the road outside the house, enjoying; a solitary cigar.

"Might I trouble you, Sir, to tell us the nearest way to Outland!" Oddity as he was, in outward appearance, the Professor was, in that essential nature which no outward disguise could conceal, a thorough gentleman.

And, as such, Eric Lindon accepted him instantly. He took the cigar from his mouth, and delicately shook off the ash, while he considered. "The name sounds strange to me," he said. "I doubt if I can help you?'

"It is not very far from Fairyland," the Professor suggested.

Eric Lindon's eye-brows were slightly raised at these words, and an amused smile, which he courteously tried to repress, flitted across his handsome face: "A trifle cracked!" he muttered to himself. "But what a jolly old patriarch it is!" Then he turned to the children. "And ca'n't you help him, little folk?" he said, with a gentleness of tone that seemed to win their hearts at once. "Surely you know all about it?

    'How many miles to Babylon?
    Three-score miles and ten.
    Can I get there by candlelight?
    Yes, and back again!'"

To my surprise, Bruno ran forwards to him, as if he were some old friend of theirs, seized the disengaged hand and hung on to it with both of his own: and there stood this tall dignified officer in the middle of the road, gravely swinging a little boy to and fro, while Sylvie stood ready to push him, exactly as if a real swing had suddenly been provided for their pastime.

"We don't want to get to Babylon, oo know!" Bruno explained as he swung.

"And it isn't candlelight: it's daylight!" Sylvie added, giving the swing a push of extra vigour, which nearly took the whole machine off its balance.

By this time it was clear to me that Eric Lindon was quite unconscious of my presence. Even the Professor and the children seemed to have lost sight of me: and I stood in the midst of the group, as unconcernedly as a ghost, seeing but unseen.

"How perfectly isochronous!" the Professor exclaimed with enthusiasm.
He had his watch in his hand, and was carefully counting Bruno's
oscillations. "He measures time quite as accurately as a pendulum!"

"Yet even pendulums," the good-natured young soldier observed, as he carefully released his hand from Bruno's grasp, "are not a joy for ever! Come, that's enough for one bout, little man!' Next time we meet, you shall have another. Meanwhile you'd better take this old gentleman to Queer Street, Number—"

"We'll find it!" cried Bruno eagerly, as they dragged the Professor away.

"We are much indebted to you!" the Professor said, looking over his shoulder.

"Don't mention it!" replied the officer, raising his hat as a parting salute.

"What number did you say!" the Professor called from the distance.

The officer made a trumpet of his two hands. "Forty!" he shouted in stentorian tones. "And not piano, by any means!" he added to himself. "It's a mad world, my masters, a mad world!" He lit another cigar, and strolled on towards his hotel.

"What a lovely evening!" I said, joining him as he passed me.

"Lovely indeed," he said. "Where did you come from?
Dropped from the clouds?"

"I'm strolling your way," I said; and no further explanation seemed necessary.

"Have a cigar?"

"Thanks: I'm not a smoker."

"Is there a Lunatic Asylum near here?"

"Not that I know of."

"Thought there might be. Met a lunatic just now. Queer old fish as ever I saw!"

And so, in friendly chat, we took our homeward ways, and wished each other 'good-night' at the door of his hotel.

Left to myself, I felt the 'eerie' feeling rush over me again, and saw, standing at the door of Number Forty, the three figures I knew so well.

"Then it's the wrong house?" Bruno was saying.

"No, no! It's the right house," the Professor cheerfully replied: "but it's the wrong street. That's where we've made our mistake! Our best plan, now, will be to—"

It was over. The street was empty, Commonplace life was around me, and the 'eerie' feeling had fled.

CHAPTER 19.

HOW TO MAKE A PHLIZZ.

The week passed without any further communication with the 'Hall,' as Arthur was evidently fearful that we might 'wear out our welcome'; but when, on Sunday morning, we were setting out for church, I gladly agreed to his proposal to go round and enquire after the Earl, who was said to be unwell.

Eric, who was strolling in the garden, gave us a good report of the invalid, who was still in bed, with Lady Muriel in attendance.

"Are you coming with us to church?" I enquired.

"Thanks, no," he courteously replied. "It's not—exactly in my line, you know. It's an excellent institution—for the poor. When I'm with my own folk, I go, just to set them an example. But I'm not known here: so I think I'll excuse myself sitting out a sermon. Country-preachers are always so dull!"

Arthur was silent till we were out of hearing. Then he said to himself, almost inaudibly, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

"Yes," I assented: "no doubt that is the principle on which church-going rests."

"And when he does go," he continued (our thoughts ran so much together, that our conversation was often slightly elliptical), "I suppose he repeats the words 'I believe in the Communion of Saints'?"

But by this time we had reached the little church, into which a goodly stream of worshipers, consisting mainly of fishermen and their families, was flowing.

The service would have been pronounced by any modern aesthetic religionist—or religious aesthete, which is it?—to be crude and cold: to me, coming fresh from the ever-advancing developments of a London church under a soi-disant 'Catholic' Rector, it was unspeakably refreshing.

There was no theatrical procession of demure little choristers, trying their best not to simper under the admiring gaze of the congregation: the people's share in the service was taken by the people themselves, unaided, except that a few good voices, judiciously posted here and there among them, kept the singing from going too far astray.

There was no murdering of the noble music, contained in the Bible and the Liturgy, by its recital in a dead monotone, with no more expression than a mechanical talking-doll.

No, the prayers were prayed, the lessons were read, and best of all the sermon was talked; and I found myself repeating, as we left the church, the words of Jacob, when he 'awaked out of his sleep.' "'Surely the Lord is in this place! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.'"

"Yes," said Arthur, apparently in answer to my thoughts, "those 'high' services are fast becoming pure Formalism. More and more the people are beginning to regard them as 'performances,' in which they only 'assist' in the French sense. And it is specially bad for the little boys. They'd be much less self-conscious as pantomime-fairies. With all that dressing-up, and stagy-entrances and exits, and being always en evidence, no wonder if they're eaten up with vanity, the blatant little coxcombs!"

When we passed the Hall on our return, we found the Earl and Lady
Muriel sitting out in the garden. Eric had gone for a stroll.

We joined them, and the conversation soon turned on the sermon we had just heard, the subject of which was 'selfishness.'

"What a change has come over our pulpits," Arthur remarked, "since the time when Paley gave that utterly selfish definition of virtue, 'the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness'!"

Lady Muriel looked at him enquiringly, but she seemed to have learned by intuition, what years of experience had taught me, that the way to elicit Arthur's deepest thoughts was neither to assent nor dissent, but simply to listen.

"At that time," he went on, "a great tidal wave of selfishness was sweeping over human thought. Right and Wrong had somehow been transformed into Gain and Loss, and Religion had become a sort of commercial transaction. We may be thankful that our preachers are beginning to take a nobler view of life."

"But is it not taught again and again in the Bible?" I ventured to ask.

"Not in the Bible as a whole," said Arthur. "In the Old Testament, no doubt, rewards and punishments are constantly appealed to as motives for action. That teaching is best for children, and the Israelites seem to have been, mentally, utter children. We guide our children thus, at first: but we appeal, as soon as possible, to their innate sense of Right and Wrong: and, when that stage is safely past, we appeal to the highest motive of all, the desire for likeness to, and union with, the Supreme Good. I think you will find that to be the teaching of the Bible, as a whole, beginning with 'that thy days may be long in the land,' and ending with 'be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.'"

We were silent for awhile, and then Arthur went off on another tack. "Look at the literature of Hymns, now. How cankered it is, through and through, with selfishness! There are few human compositions more utterly degraded than some modern Hymns!"

I quoted the stanza

    "Whatever, Lord, we tend to Thee,
    Repaid a thousandfold shall be,
    Then gladly will we give to Thee,
    Giver of all!'

"Yes," he said grimly: "that is the typical stanza. And the very last charity-sermon I heard was infected with it. After giving many good reasons for charity, the preacher wound up with 'and, for all you give, you will be repaid a thousandfold!' Oh the utter meanness of such a motive, to be put before men who do know what self-sacrifice is, who can appreciate generosity and heroism! Talk of Original Sin!" he went on with increasing bitterness. "Can you have a stronger proof of the Original Goodness there must be in this nation, than the fact that Religion has been preached to us, as a commercial speculation, for a century, and that we still believe in a God?"

"It couldn't have gone on so long," Lady Muriel musingly remarked, "if the Opposition hadn't been practically silenced—put under what the French call la cloture. Surely in any lecture-hall, or in private society, such teaching would soon have been hooted down?"

"I trust so," said Arthur: "and, though I don't want to see 'brawling in church' legalised, I must say that our preachers enjoy an enormous privilege—which they ill deserve, and which they misuse terribly. We put our man into a pulpit, and we virtually tell him 'Now, you may stand there and talk to us for half-an-hour. We won't interrupt you by so much as a word! You shall have it all your own way!' And what does he give us in return? Shallow twaddle, that, if it were addressed to you over a dinner-table, you would think 'Does the man take me for a fool?'"

The return of Eric from his walk checked the tide of Arthur's eloquence, and, after a few minutes' talk on more conventional topics, we took our leave. Lady Muriel walked with us to the gate. "You have given me much to think about," she said earnestly, as she gave Arthur her hand. "I'm so glad you came in!" And her words brought a real glow of pleasure into that pale worn face of his.

On the Tuesday, as Arthur did not seem equal to more walking, I took a long stroll by myself, having stipulated that he was not to give the whole day to his books, but was to meet me at the Hall at about tea-time. On my way back, I passed the Station just as the afternoon-train came in sight, and sauntered down the stairs to see it come in. But there was little to gratify my idle curiosity: and, when the train was empty, and the platform clear, I found it was about time to be moving on, if I meant to reach the Hall by five.

As I approached the end of the platform, from which a steep irregular wooden staircase conducted to the upper world, I noticed two passengers, who had evidently arrived by the train, but who, oddly enough, had entirely escaped my notice, though the arrivals had been so few. They were a young woman and a little girl: the former, so far as one could judge by appearances, was a nursemaid, or possibly a nursery-governess, in attendance on the child, whose refined face, even more than her dress, distinguished her as of a higher class than her companion.

The child's face was refined, but it was also a worn and sad one, and told a tale (or so I seemed to read it) of much illness and suffering, sweetly and patiently borne. She had a little crutch to help herself along with: and she was now standing, looking wistfully up the long staircase, and apparently waiting till she could muster courage to begin the toilsome ascent.

There are some things one says in life—as well as things one does—which come automatically, by reflex action, as the physiologists say (meaning, no doubt, action without reflection, just as lucus is said to be derived 'a non lucendo'). Closing one's eyelids, when something seems to be flying into the eye, is one of those actions, and saying "May I carry the little girl up the stairs?" was another. It wasn't that any thought of offering help occurred to me, and that then I spoke: the first intimation I had, of being likely to make that offer, was the sound of my own voice, and the discovery that the offer had been made. The servant paused, doubtfully glancing from her charge to me, and then back again to the child. "Would you like it, dear?" she asked her. But no such doubt appeared to cross the child's mind: she lifted her arms eagerly to be taken up. "Please!" was all she said, while a faint smile flickered on the weary little face. I took her up with scrupulous care, and her little arm was at once clasped trustfully round my neck.

She was a very light weight—so light, in fact, that the ridiculous idea crossed my mind that it was rather easier going up, with her in my arms, than it would have been without her: and, when we reached the road above, with its cart-ruts and loose stones—all formidable obstacles for a lame child—I found that I had said "I'd better carry her over this rough place," before I had formed any mental connection between its roughness and my gentle little burden. "Indeed it's troubling you too much, Sir!" the maid exclaimed. "She can walk very well on the flat." But the arm, that was twined about my neck, clung just an atom more closely at the suggestion, and decided me to say "She's no weight, really. I'll carry her a little further. I'm going your way."

The nurse raised no further objection: and the next speaker was a ragged little boy, with bare feet, and a broom over his shoulder, who ran across the road, and pretended to sweep the perfectly dry road in front of us. "Give us a 'ap'ny!" the little urchin pleaded, with a broad grin on his dirty face.

"Don't give him a 'ap'ny!" said the little lady in my arms. The words sounded harsh: but the tone was gentleness itself. "He's an idle little boy!" And she laughed a laugh of such silvery sweetness as I had never yet heard from any lips but Sylvie's. To my astonishment, the boy actually joined in the laugh, as if there were some subtle sympathy between them, as he ran away down the road and vanished through a gap in the hedge.

But he was back in a few moments, having discarded his broom and provided himself, from some mysterious source, with an exquisite bouquet of flowers. "Buy a posy, buy a posy! Only a 'ap'ny!" he chanted, with the melancholy drawl of a professional beggar.

"Don't buy it!" was Her Majesty's edict as she looked down, with a lofty scorn that seemed curiously mixed with tender interest, on the ragged creature at her feet.

But this time I turned rebel, and ignored the royal commands. Such lovely flowers, and of forms so entirely new to me, were not to be abandoned at the bidding of any little maid, however imperious. I bought the bouquet: and the little boy, after popping the halfpenny into his mouth, turned head-over-heels, as if to ascertain whether the human mouth is really adapted to serve as a money-box.

With wonder, that increased every moment, I turned over the flowers, and examined them one by one: there was not a single one among them that I could remember having ever seen before. At last I turned to the nursemaid. "Do these flowers grow wild about here? I never saw—" but the speech died away on my lips. The nursemaid had vanished!

"You can put me down, now, if you like," Sylvie quietly remarked.

I obeyed in silence, and could only ask myself "Is this a dream?", on finding Sylvie and Bruno walking one on either side of me, and clinging to my hands with the ready confidence of childhood.

"You're larger than when I saw you last!" I began. "Really I think we ought to be introduced again! There's so much of you that I never met before, you know."

"Very well!" Sylvie merrily replied. "This is Bruno. It doesn't take long. He's only got one name!"

"There's another name to me!" Bruno protested, with a reproachful look at the Mistress of the Ceremonies. "And it's—' Esquire'!"

"Oh, of course. I forgot," said Sylvie. "Bruno—Esquire!"

"And did you come here to meet me, my children?" I enquired.

"You know I said we'd come on Tuesday, Sylvie explained. "Are we the proper size for common children?"

"Quite the right size for children," I replied, (adding mentally "though not common children, by any means!") "But what became of the nursemaid?"

"It are gone!" Bruno solemnly replied.

"Then it wasn't solid, like Sylvie and you?"

"No. Oo couldn't touch it, oo know. If oo walked at it, oo'd go right froo!"

"I quite expected you'd find it out, once," said Sylvie. "Bruno ran it against a telegraph post, by accident. And it went in two halves. But you were looking the other way."

I felt that I had indeed missed an opportunity: to witness such an event as a nursemaid going 'in two halves' does not occur twice in a life-time!

"When did oo guess it were Sylvie?" Bruno enquired.

"I didn't guess it, till it was Sylvie," I said. "But how did
You manage the nursemaid? "

"Bruno managed it," said Sylvie. "It's called a Phlizz."

"And how do you make a Phlizz, Bruno?"

"The Professor teached me how," said Bruno.
"First oo takes a lot of air—"

"Oh, Bruno!" Sylvie interposed. "The Professor said you weren't to tell!"
But who did her voice?" I asked.

"Indeed it's troubling you too much, Sir! She can walk very well on the flat."

Bruno laughed merrily as I turned hastily from side to side, looking in all directions for the speaker. "That were me!" he gleefully proclaimed, in his own voice.

"She can indeed walk very well on the flat," I said. "And I think I was the Flat."

By this time we were near the Hall. "This is where my friends live,"
I said. "Will you come in and have some tea with them?"

Bruno gave a little jump of joy: and Sylvie said "Yes, please. You'd like some tea, Bruno, wouldn't you? He hasn't tasted tea," she explained to me, "since we left Outland."

"And that weren't good tea!" said Bruno. "It were so welly weak!"

CHAPTER 20.

LIGHT COME, LIGHT GO.

Lady Muriel's smile of welcome could not quite conceal the look of surprise with which she regarded my new companions.

I presented them in due form. "This is Sylvie, Lady Muriel. And this is Bruno."

"Any surname?" she enquired, her eyes twinkling with fun.

"No," I said gravely. "No surname."

She laughed, evidently thinking I said it in fun; and stooped to kiss the children a salute to which Bruno submitted with reluctance: Sylvie returned it with interest.

While she and Arthur (who had arrived before me) supplied the children with tea and cake, I tried to engage the Earl in conversation: but he was restless and distrait, and we made little progress. At last, by a sudden question, he betrayed the cause of his disquiet.

"Would you let me look at those flowers you have in your hand?"

"Willingly!" I said, handing him the bouquet. Botany was, I knew, a favourite study of his: and these flowers were to me so entirely new and mysterious, that I was really curious to see what a botanist would say of them.

They did not diminish his disquiet. On the contrary, he became every moment more excited as he turned them over. "These are all from Central India!" he said, laying aside part of the bouquet. "They are rare, even there: and I have never seen them in any other part of the world. These two are Mexican—This one—" (He rose hastily, and carried it to the window, to examine it in a better light, the flush of excitement mounting to his very forehead) "—-is. I am nearly sure —but I have a book of Indian Botany here—" He took a volume from the book-shelves, and turned the leaves with trembling fingers. "Yes! Compare it with this picture! It is the exact duplicate! This is the flower of the Upas-tree, which usually grows only in the depths of forests; and the flower fades so quickly after being plucked, that it is scarcely possible to keep its form or colour even so far as the outskirts of the forest! Yet this is in full bloom! Where did you get these flowers?" he added with breathless eagerness.

I glanced at Sylvie, who, gravely and silently, laid her finger on her lips, then beckoned to Bruno to follow her, and ran out into the garden; and I found myself in the position of a defendant whose two most important witnesses have been suddenly taken away. "Let me give you the flowers!" I stammered out at last, quite 'at my wit's end' as to how to get out of the difficulty. "You know much more about them than I do!"

"I accept them most gratefully! But you have not yet told me—" the Earl was beginning, when we were interrupted, to my great relief, by the arrival of Eric Lindon.

To Arthur, however, the new-comer was, I saw clearly, anything but welcome. His face clouded over: he drew a little back from the circle, and took no further part in the conversation, which was wholly maintained, for some minutes, by Lady Muriel and her lively cousin, who were discussing some new music that had just arrived from London.

"Do just try this one!" he pleaded. "The music looks easy to sing at sight, and the song's quite appropriate to the occasion."

"Then I suppose it's

    'Five o'clock tea!
    Ever to thee
    Faithful I'll be,
    Five o'clock tea!"'

laughed Lady Muriel, as she sat down to the piano, and lightly struck a few random chords.

"Not quite: and yet it is a kind of 'ever to thee faithful I'll be!' It's a pair of hapless lovers: he crosses the briny deep: and she is left lamenting."

"That is indeed appropriate!" she replied mockingly, as he placed the song before her.

"And am I to do the lamenting? And who for, if you please?"

She played the air once or twice through, first in quick, and finally in slow, time; and then gave us the whole song with as much graceful ease as if she had been familiar with it all her life:—

    "He stept so lightly to the land,
    All in his manly pride:
    He kissed her cheek, he pressed her hand,
    Yet still she glanced aside.
    'Too gay he seems,' she darkly dreams,
    'Too gallant and too gay
    To think of me—poor simple me—-
    When he is far away!'

    'I bring my Love this goodly pearl
    Across the seas,' he said:
    'A gem to deck the dearest girl
    That ever sailor wed!'
    She clasps it tight' her eyes are bright:
    Her throbbing heart would say
    'He thought of me—he thought of me—-
    When he was far away!'

    The ship has sailed into the West:

    Her ocean-bird is flown:
    A dull dead pain is in her breast,
    And she is weak and lone:
    Yet there's a smile upon her face,
    A smile that seems to say
    'He'll think of me he'll think of me—-
    When he is far away!

    'Though waters wide between us glide,
    Our lives are warm and near:
    No distance parts two faithful hearts
    Two hearts that love so dear:
    And I will trust my sailor-lad,
    For ever and a day,
    To think of me—to think of me—-
    When he is far away!'"

The look of displeasure, which had begun to come over Arthur's face when the young Captain spoke of Love so lightly, faded away as the song proceeded, and he listened with evident delight. But his face darkened again when Eric demurely remarked "Don't you think 'my soldier-lad' would have fitted the tune just as well!"

"Why, so it would!" Lady Muriel gaily retorted.
"Soldiers, sailors, tinkers, tailors, what a lot of words would fit in!
I think 'my tinker-lad sounds best. Don't you?"

To spare my friend further pain, I rose to go, just as the Earl was beginning to repeat his particularly embarrassing question about the flowers.

"You have not yet—'

"Yes, I've had some tea, thank you!" I hastily interrupted him.
"And now we really must be going. Good evening, Lady Muriel!"
And we made our adieux, and escaped, while the Earl was still absorbed
in examining the mysterious bouquet.

Lady Muriel accompanied us to the door. "You couldn't have given my father a more acceptable present!" she said, warmly. "He is so passionately fond of Botany. I'm afraid I know nothing of the theory of it, but I keep his Hortus Siccus in order. I must get some sheets of blotting-paper, and dry these new treasures for him before they fade.

"That won't be no good at all!" said Bruno, who was waiting for us in the garden.

"Why won't it?" said I. "You know I had to give the flowers, to stop questions?

"Yes, it ca'n't be helped," said Sylvie: "but they will be sorry when they find them gone!"

"But how will they go?"

"Well, I don't know how. But they will go. The nosegay was only a Phlizz, you know. Bruno made it up."

These last words were in a whisper, as she evidently did not wish Arthur to hear. But of this there seemed to be little risk: he hardly seemed to notice the children, but paced on, silent and abstracted; and when, at the entrance to the wood, they bid us a hasty farewell and ran off, he seemed to wake out of a day-dream.

The bouquet vanished, as Sylvie had predicted; and when, a day or two afterwards, Arthur and I once more visited the Hall, we found the Earl and his daughter, with the old housekeeper, out in the garden, examining the fastenings of the drawing-room window.

"We are holding an Inquest," Lady Muriel said, advancing to meet us: "and we admit you, as Accessories before the Fact, to tell us all you know about those flowers."

"The Accessories before the Fact decline to answer any questions,"
I gravely replied. "And they reserve their defence."

"Well then, turn Queen's Evidence, please! The flowers have disappeared in the night," she went on, turning to Arthur, "and we are quite sure no one in the house has meddled with them. Somebody must have entered by the window—"

"But the fastenings have not been tampered with," said the Earl.

"It must have been while you were dining, my Lady," said the housekeeper.

"That was it, said the Earl. "The thief must have seen you bring the flowers," turning to me, "and have noticed that you did not take them away. And he must have known their great value—they are simply priceless!" he exclaimed, in sudden excitement.

"And you never told us how you got them!" said Lady Muriel.

"Some day," I stammered, "I may be free to tell you. Just now, would you excuse me?"

The Earl looked disappointed, but kindly said "Very well, we will ask no questions."

"But we consider you a very bad Queen's Evidence," Lady Muriel added playfully, as we entered the arbour. "We pronounce you to be an accomplice: and we sentence you to solitary confinement, and to be fed on bread and butter. Do you take sugar?"

"It is disquieting, certainly," she resumed, when all 'creature-comforts' had been duly supplied, "to find that the house has been entered by a thief in this out-of-the-way place. If only the flowers had been eatables, one might have suspected a thief of quite another shape—"

"You mean that universal explanation for all mysterious disappearances, 'the cat did it'?" said Arthur.

"Yes," she replied. "What a convenient thing it would be if all thieves had the same shape! It's so confusing to have some of them quadrupeds and others bipeds!"

"It has occurred to me," said Arthur, "as a curious problem in Teleology— the Science of Final Causes," he added, in answer to an enquiring look from Lady Muriel.

"And a Final Cause is—?"

"Well, suppose we say—the last of a series of connected events—each of the series being the cause of the next—for whose sake the first event takes place."

"But the last event is practically an effect of the first, isn't it?
And yet you call it a cause of it!"

Arthur pondered a moment. "The words are rather confusing, I grant you," he said. "Will this do? The last event is an effect of the first: but the necessity for that event is a cause of the necessity for the first."

"That seems clear enough," said Lady Muriel. "Now let us have the problem."

"It's merely this. What object can we imagine in the arrangement by which each different size (roughly speaking) of living creatures has its special shape? For instance, the human race has one kind of shape—bipeds. Another set, ranging from the lion to the mouse, are quadrupeds. Go down a step or two further, and you come to insects with six legs—hexapods—a beautiful name, is it not? But beauty, in our sense of the word, seems to diminish as we go down: the creature becomes more—I won't say 'ugly' of any of God's creatures—more uncouth. And, when we take the microscope, and go a few steps lower still, we come upon animalculae, terribly uncouth, and with a terrible number of legs!"

"The other alternative," said the Earl, "would be a diminuendo series of repetitions of the same type. Never mind the monotony of it: let's see how it would work in other ways. Begin with the race of men, and the creatures they require: let us say horses, cattle, sheep, and dogs we don't exactly require frogs and spiders, do we, Muriel?"

Lady Muriel shuddered perceptibly: it was evidently a painful subject.
"We can dispense with them," she said gravely.

"Well, then we'll have a second race of men, half-a-yard high—"

"—who would have one source of exquisite enjoyment, not possessed by ordinary men!" Arthur interrupted.

"What source?" said the Earl.

"Why, the grandeur of scenery! Surely the grandeur of a mountain, to me, depends on its size, relative to me? Double the height of the mountain, and of course it's twice as grand. Halve my height, and you produce the same effect."

"Happy, happy, happy Small!" Lady Muriel murmured rapturously.
"None but the Short, none but the Short, none but the Short enjoy the Tall!"

"But let me go on," said the Earl. "We'll have a third race of men, five inches high; a fourth race, an inch high—"

"They couldn't eat common beef and mutton, I'm sure!" Lady Muriel interrupted.

"True, my child, I was forgetting. Each set must have its own cattle and sheep."

"And its own vegetation," I added. "What could a cow, an inch high, do with grass that waved far above its head?"

"That is true. We must have a pasture within a pasture, so to speak. The common grass would serve our inch-high cows as a green forest of palms, while round the root of each tall stem would stretch a tiny carpet of microscopic grass. Yes, I think our scheme will work fairly well. And it would be very interesting, coming into contact with the races below us. What sweet little things the inch-high bull-dogs would be! I doubt if even Muriel would run away from one of them!"

"Don't you think we ought to have a crescendo series, as well?" said
Lady Muriel. "Only fancy being a hundred yards high!

One could use an elephant as a paper-weight, and a crocodile as a pair of scissors!"

"And would you have races of different sizes communicate with one another?" I enquired. "Would they make war on one another, for instance, or enter into treaties?"

"War we must exclude, I think. When you could crush a whole nation with one blow of your fist, you couldn't conduct war on equal terms. But anything, involving a collision of minds only, would be possible in our ideal world—for of course we must allow mental powers to all, irrespective of size. "Perhaps the fairest rule would be that, the smaller the race, the greater should be its intellectual development!"

"Do you mean to say," said Lady Muriel, "that these manikins of an inch high are to argue with me?"

"Surely, surely!" said the Earl. "An argument doesn't depend for its logical force on the size of the creature that utters it!"

She tossed her head indignantly. "I would not argue with any man less than six inches high!" she cried. "I'd make him work!"

"What at?" said Arthur, listening to all this nonsense with an amused smile.

"Embroidery!" she readily replied. "What lovely embroidery they would do!"

"Yet, if they did it wrong," I said, "you couldn't argue the question.
I don't know why: but I agree that it couldn't be done."

"The reason is," said Lady Muriel, "one couldn't sacrifice one's dignity so far."

"Of course one couldn't!" echoed Arthur. "Any more than one could argue with a potato. It would be altogether—excuse the ancient pun—infra dig.!"

"I doubt it," said I. "Even a pun doesn't quite convince me."

"Well, if that is not the reason," said Lady Muriel, "what reason would you give?"

I tried hard to understand the meaning of this question: but the persistent humming of the bees confused me, and there was a drowsiness in the air that made every thought stop and go to sleep before it had got well thought out: so all I could say was "That must depend on the weight of the potato."

I felt the remark was not so sensible as I should have liked it to be. But Lady Muriel seemed to take it quite as a matter of course. "In that case—" she began, but suddenly started, and turned away to listen. "Don't you hear him?" she said. "He's crying. We must go to him, somehow."

And I said to myself "That's very strange.

I quite thought it was Lady Muriel talking to me. Why, it's Sylvie all the while!" And I made another great effort to say something that should have some meaning in it. "Is it about the potato?"

CHAPTER 21.

THROUGH THE IVORY DOOR.

"I don't know," said Sylvie. "Hush! I must think. I could go to him, by myself, well enough. But I want you to come too."

"Let me go with you," I pleaded. "I can walk as fast as you can,
I'm sure."

Sylvie laughed merrily. "What nonsense!" she cried.
"Why, you ca'n't walk a bit! You're lying quite flat on your back!
You don't understand these things."

"I can walk as well as you can," I repeated. And I tried my best to walk a few steps: but the ground slipped away backwards, quite as fast as I could walk, so that I made no progress at all. Sylvie laughed again.

"There, I told you so! You've no idea how funny you look, moving your feet about in the air, as if you were walking! Wait a bit. I'll ask the Professor what we'd better do." And she knocked at his study-door.

The door opened, and the Professor looked out. "What's that crying I heard just now?" he asked. "Is it a human animal?"

"It's a boy," Sylvie said.

"I'm afraid you've been teasing him?"

"No, indeed I haven't!" Sylvie said, very earnestly. "I never tease him!" "Well, I must ask the Other Professor about it." He went back into the study, and we heard him whispering "small human animal—says she hasn't been teasing him—the kind that's called Boy—"

"Ask her which Boy," said a new voice. The Professor came out again.

"Which Boy is it that you haven't been teasing?"

Sylvie looked at me with twinkling eyes. "You dear old thing!" she exclaimed, standing on tiptoe to kiss him, while he gravely stooped to receive the salute. "How you do puzzle me! Why, there are several boys I haven't been teasing!"

The Professor returned to his friend: and this time the voice said
"Tell her to bring them here—all of them!"

"I ca'n't, and I won't! "Sylvie exclaimed, the moment he reappeared. "It's Bruno that's crying: and he's my brother: and, please, we both want to go: he ca'n't walk, you know: he's—he's dreaming, you know" (this in a whisper, for fear of hurting my feelings). "Do let's go through the Ivory Door!"

"I'll ask him," said the Professor, disappearing again. He returned directly. "He says you may. Follow me, and walk on tip-toe."

The difficulty with me would have been, just then, not to walk on tip-toe. It seemed very hard to reach down far enough to just touch the floor, as Sylvie led me through the study.

The Professor went before us to unlock the Ivory Door. I had just time to glance at the Other Professor, who was sitting reading, with his back to us, before the Professor showed us out through the door, and locked it behind us. Bruno was standing with his hands over his face, crying bitterly.

"What's the matter, darling?" said Sylvie, with her arms round his neck.

"Hurted mine self welly much!" sobbed the poor little fellow.

"I'm so sorry, darling! How ever did you manage to hurt yourself so?"

"Course I managed it!" said Bruno, laughing through his tears.
"Doos oo think nobody else but oo ca'n't manage things?"

Matters were looking distinctly brighter, now Bruno had begun to argue.
"Come, let's hear all about it!" I said.

"My foot took it into its head to slip—" Bruno began.

"A foot hasn't got a head!" Sylvie put in, but all in vain.

"I slipted down the bank. And I tripted over a stone. And the stone hurted my foot! And I trod on a Bee. And the Bee stinged my finger!" Poor Bruno sobbed again. The complete list of woes was too much for his feelings. "And it knewed I didn't mean to trod on it!" he added, as the climax.

"That Bee should be ashamed of itself!" I said severely, and Sylvie hugged and kissed the wounded hero till all tears were dried.

"My finger's quite unstung now!" said Bruno. "Why doos there be stones?
Mister Sir, doos oo know?"

"They're good for something," I said: "even if we don't know what.
What's the good of dandelions, now?"

"Dindledums?" said Bruno. "Oh, they're ever so pretty! And stones aren't pretty, one bit. Would oo like some dindledums, Mister Sir?"

"Bruno!" Sylvie murmured reproachfully. "You mustn't say 'Mister' and
'Sir,' both at once! Remember what I told you!"

"You telled me I were to say Mister' when I spoked about him, and I were to say 'Sir' when I spoked to him!"

"Well, you're not doing both, you know."

"Ah, but I is doing bofe, Miss Praticular!" Bruno exclaimed triumphantly. "I wishted to speak about the Gemplun—and I wishted to speak to the Gemplun. So a course I said 'Mister Sir'!"

"That's all right, Bruno," I said.

"Course it's all right!" said Bruno. "Sylvie just knows nuffin at all!"

"There never was an impertinenter boy!" said Sylvie, frowning till her bright eyes were nearly invisible.

"And there never was an ignoranter girl!" retorted Bruno. "Come along and pick some dindledums. That's all she's fit for!" he added in a very loud whisper to me.

"But why do you say 'Dindledums,' Bruno? Dandelions is the right word."

"It's because he jumps about so," Sylvie said, laughing.

"Yes, that's it," Bruno assented. "Sylvie tells me the words, and then, when I jump about, they get shooken up in my head— till they're all froth!"

I expressed myself as perfectly satisfied with this explanation.
"But aren't you going to pick me any dindledums, after all?"

"Course we will!" cried Bruno. "Come along, Sylvie!" And the happy children raced away, bounding over the turf with the fleetness and grace of young antelopes.

"Then you didn't find your way back to Outland?" I said to the Professor.

"Oh yes, I did!" he replied, "We never got to Queer Street; but I found another way. I've been backwards and forwards several times since then. I had to be present at the Election, you know, as the author of the new Money-act. The Emperor was so kind as to wish that I should have the credit of it. 'Let come what come may,' (I remember the very words of the Imperial Speech) 'if it should turn out that the Warden is alive, you will bear witness that the change in the coinage is the Professor's doing, not mine!' I never was so glorified in my life, before!" Tears trickled down his cheeks at the recollection, which apparently was not wholly a pleasant one.

"Is the Warden supposed to be dead?"

"Well, it's supposed so: but, mind you, I don't believe it! The evidence is very weak—mere hear-say. A wandering Jester, with a Dancing-Bear (they found their way into the Palace, one day) has been telling people he comes from Fairyland, and that the Warden died there. I wanted the Vice-Warden to question him, but, most unluckily, he and my Lady were always out walking when the Jester came round. Yes, the Warden's supposed to be dead!" And more tears trickled down the old man's cheeks.

"But what is the new Money-Act?"

The Professor brightened up again. "The Emperor started the thing," he said. "He wanted to make everybody in Outland twice as rich as he was before just to make the new Government popular. Only there wasn't nearly enough money in the Treasury to do it. So I suggested that he might do it by doubling the value of every coin and bank-note in Outland. It's the simplest thing possible. I wonder nobody ever thought of it before! And you never saw such universal joy. The shops are full from morning to night. Everybody's buying everything!"

"And how was the glorifying done?"

A sudden gloom overcast the Professor's jolly face. "They did it as I went home after the Election," he mournfully replied. "It was kindly meant but I didn't like it! They waved flags all round me till I was nearly blind: and they rang bells till I was nearly deaf: and they strewed the road so thick with flowers that I lost my way!" And the poor old man sighed deeply.

"How far is it to Outland?" I asked, to change the subject.

"About five days' march. But one must go back—occasionally. You see, as Court-Professor, I have to be always in attendance on Prince Uggug. The Empress would be very angry if I left him, even for an hour."

"But surely, every time you come here, you are absent ten days, at least?"

"Oh, more than that!" the Professor exclaimed. "A fortnight, sometimes.
But of course I keep a memorandum of the exact time when I started,
so that I can put the Court-time back to the very moment!"
"Excuse me," I said. "I don't understand."

Silently the Professor drew front his pocket a square gold watch, with six or eight hands, and held it out for my inspection. "This," he began, "is an Outlandish Watch—"

"So I should have thought."

"—which has the peculiar property that, instead of its going with the time, the time goes with it. I trust you understand me now?"

"Hardly," I said.

"Permit me to explain. So long as it is let alone, it takes its own course. Time has no effect upon it."

"I have known such watches," I remarked.

"It goes, of course, at the usual rate. Only the time has to go with it. Hence, if I move the hands, I change the time. To move them forwards, in advance of the true time, is impossible: but I can move them as much as a month backwards—-that is the limit. And then you have the events all over again—with any alterations experience may suggest."

"What a blessing such a watch would be," I thought, "in real life!
To be able to unsay some heedless word—to undo some reckless deed!
Might I see the thing done?"

"With pleasure!" said the good natured Professor. "When I move this hand back to here," pointing out the place, "History goes back fifteen minutes!"

Trembling with excitement, I watched him push the hand round as he described.

"Hurted mine self welly much!"

Shrilly and suddenly the words rang in my ears, and, more startled than
I cared to show, I turned to look for the speaker.

Yes! There was Bruno, standing with the tears running down his cheeks, just as I had seen him a quarter of an hour ago; and there was Sylvie with her arms round his neck!

I had not the heart to make the dear little fellow go through his troubles a second time, so hastily begged the Professor to push the hands round into their former position. In a moment Sylvie and Bruno were gone again, and I could just see them in the far distance, picking 'dindledums.'

"Wonderful, indeed!" I exclaimed.

"It has another property, yet more wonderful," said the Professor. "You see this little peg? That is called the 'Reversal Peg.' If you push it in, the events of the next hour happen in the reverse order. Do not try it now. I will lend you the Watch for a few days, and you can amuse yourself with experiments."

"Thank you very much!" I said as he gave me the Watch. "I'll take the greatest care of it—why, here are the children again!"

"We could only but find six dindledums," said Bruno, putting them into my hands, "'cause Sylvie said it were time to go back. And here's a big blackberry for ooself! We couldn't only find but two!"

"Thank you: it's very nice," I said. And I suppose you ate the other,
Bruno?"

"No, I didn't," Bruno said, carelessly. "Aren't they pretty dindledums,
Mister Sir?"

"Yes, very: but what makes you limp so, my child?"

"Mine foot's come hurted again!" Bruno mournfully replied. And he sat down on the ground, and began nursing it.

The Professor held his head between his hands—an attitude that I knew indicated distraction of mind. "Better rest a minute," he said. "It may be better then—or it may be worse. If only I had some of my medicines here! I'm Court-Physician, you know," he added, aside to me.

"Shall I go and get you some blackberries, darling?" Sylvie whispered, with her arms round his neck; and she kissed away a tear that was trickling down his cheek.

Bruno brightened up in a moment. "That are a good plan!" he exclaimed. "I thinks my foot would come quite unhurted, if I eated a blackberry— two or three blackberries—six or seven blackberries—"

Sylvie got up hastily. "I'd better go she said, aside to me, before he gets into the double figures!

Let me come and help you, I said. I can reach higher up than you can.

Yes, please, said Sylvie, putting her hand into mine: and we walked off together.

Bruno loves blackberries, she said, as we paced slowly along by a tall hedge, that looked a promising place for them, and it was so sweet of him to make me eat the only one!

Oh, it was you that ate it, then? Bruno didn't seem to like to tell me about it.

No; I saw that, said Sylvie. He's always afraid of being praised. But he made me eat it, really! I would much rather he —oh, what's that? And she clung to my hand, half-frightened, as we came in sight of a hare, lying on its side with legs stretched out just in the entrance to the wood.

It's a hare, my child. Perhaps it's asleep.

No, it isn't asleep, Sylvie said, timidly going nearer to look at it: it's eyes are open. Is it—is it—her voice dropped to an awestruck whisper, is it dead, do you think?"

"Yes, it's quite dead," I said, after stooping to examine it. "Poor thing! I think it's been hunted to death. I know the harriers were out yesterday. But they haven't touched it. Perhaps they caught sight of another, and left it to die of fright and exhaustion."

"Hunted to death?" Sylvie repeated to herself, very slowly and sadly. "I thought hunting was a thing they played at like a game. Bruno and I hunt snails: but we never hurt them when we catch them!"

"Sweet angel!" I thought. "How am I to get the idea of Sport into your innocent mind?" And as we stood, hand-in-hand, looking down at the dead hare, I tried to put the thing into such words as she could understand. "You know what fierce wild-beasts lions and tigers are?" Sylvie nodded. "Well, in some countries men have to kill them, to save their own lives, you know."

"Yes," said Sylvie: "if one tried to kill me, Bruno would kill it if he could."

"Well, and so the men—the hunters—get to enjoy it, you know: the running, and the fighting, and the shouting, and the danger."

"Yes," said Sylvie. "Bruno likes danger."

"Well, but, in this country, there aren't any lions and tigers, loose: so they hunt other creatures, you see." I hoped, but in vain, that this would satisfy her, and that she would ask no more questions.

"They hunt foxes," Sylvie said, thoughtfully. "And I think they kill them, too. Foxes are very fierce. I daresay men don't love them. Are hares fierce?"

"No," I said. "A hare is a sweet, gentle, timid animal—almost as gentle as a lamb."

"But, if men love hares, why—why—" her voice quivered, and her sweet eyes were brimming over with tears.

"I'm afraid they don't love them, dear child."

"All children love them," Sylvie said. "All ladies love them."

"I'm afraid even ladies go to hunt them, sometimes."

Sylvie shuddered. '"Oh, no, not ladies!' she earnestly pleaded.
"Not Lady Muriel!"

"No, she never does, I'm sure—but this is too sad a sight for you, dear.
Let's try and find some—"

But Sylvie was not satisfied yet. In a hushed, solemn tone, with bowed head and clasped hands, she put her final question. "Does GOD love hares?"

"Yes!" I said. "I'm sure He does! He loves every living thing.
Even sinful men. How much more the animals, that cannot sin!"

"I don't know what 'sin' means," said Sylvie. And I didn't try to explain it.

"Come, my child," I said, trying to lead her away. "Wish good-bye to the poor hare, and come and look for blackberries."

"Good-bye, poor hare!" Sylvie obediently repeated, looking over her shoulder at it as we turned away. And then, all in a moment, her self-command gave way. Pulling her hand out of mine, she ran back to where the dead hare was lying, and flung herself down at its side in such an agony of grief as I could hardly have believed possible in so young a child.

"Oh, my darling, my darling!" she moaned, over and over again.
"And God meant your life to be so beautiful!"

Sometimes, but always keeping her face hidden on the ground, she would reach out one little hand, to stroke the poor dead thing, and then once more bury her face in her hands, and sob as if her heart would break.

I was afraid she would really make herself ill: still I thought it best to let her weep away the first sharp agony of grief: and, after a few minutes, the sobbing gradually ceased, and Sylvie rose to her feet, and looked calmly at me, though tears were still streaming down her cheeks.

I did not dare to speak again, just yet; but simply held out my hand to her, that we might quit the melancholy spot.

Yes, I'll come now, she said. Very reverently she kneeled down, and kissed the dead hare; then rose and gave me her hand, and we moved on in silence.

A child's sorrow is violent but short; and it was almost in her usual voice that she said after a minute "Oh stop stop! Here are some lovely blackberries!"

We filled our hands with fruit and returned in all haste to where the
Professor and Bruno were seated on a bank awaiting our return.

Just before we came within hearing-distance Sylvie checked me.
"Please don't tell Bruno about the hare!" she said.

Very well, my child. But why not?

Tears again glittered in those sweet eyes and she turned her head away so that I could scarcely hear her reply. "He's—he's very fond of gentle creatures you know. And he'd—he'd be so sorry! I don't want him to be made sorry."

And your agony of sorrow is to count for nothing, then, sweet unselfish child! I thought to myself. But no more was said till we had reached our friends; and Bruno was far too much engrossed, in the feast we had brought him, to take any notice of Sylvie's unusually grave manner.

"I'm afraid it's getting rather late, Professor?" I said.

"Yes, indeed," said the Professor. "I must take you all through the
Ivory Door again. You've stayed your full time."

"Mightn't we stay a little longer!" pleaded Sylvie.

"Just one minute!" added Bruno.

But the Professor was unyielding. "It's a great privilege, coming through at all," he said. "We must go now." And we followed him obediently to the Ivory Door, which he threw open, and signed to me to go through first.

"You're coming too, aren't you?" I said to Sylvie.

"Yes," she said: "but you won't see us after you've gone through."

"But suppose I wait for you outside?" I asked, as I stepped through the doorway.

"In that case," said Sylvie, "I think the potato would be quite justified in asking your weight. I can quite imagine a really superior kidney-potato declining to argue with any one under fifteen stone!"

With a great effort I recovered the thread of my thoughts.
"We lapse very quickly into nonsense!" I said.

CHAPTER 22.

CROSSING THE LINE.

"Let us lapse back again," said Lady Muriel. "Take another cup of tea?
I hope that's sound common sense?"

"And all that strange adventure," I thought, "has occupied the space of a single comma in Lady Muriel's speech! A single comma, for which grammarians tell us to 'count one'!" (I felt no doubt that the Professor had kindly put back the time for me, to the exact point at which I had gone to sleep.)

When, a few minutes afterwards, we left the house, Arthur's first remark was certainly a strange one. "We've been there just twenty minutes," he said, "and I've done nothing but listen to you and Lady Muriel talking: and yet, somehow, I feel exactly as if I had been talking with her for an hour at least!"

And so he had been, I felt no doubt: only, as the time had been put back to the beginning of the tete-a-tete he referred to, the whole of it had passed into oblivion, if not into nothingness! But I valued my own reputation for sanity too highly to venture on explaining to him what had happened.

For some cause, which I could not at the moment divine, Arthur was unusually grave and silent during our walk home. It could not be connected with Eric Lindon, I thought, as he had for some days been away in London: so that, having Lady Muriel almost 'all to himself'— for I was only too glad to hear those two conversing, to have any wish to intrude any remarks of my own—he ought, theoretically, to have been specially radiant and contented with life. "Can he have heard any bad news?" I said to myself. And, almost as if he had read my thoughts, he spoke.

"He will be here by the last train," he said, in the tone of one who is continuing a conversation rather than beginning one.

"Captain Lindon, do you mean?"

"Yes—Captain Lindon," said Arthur: "I said 'he,' because I fancied we were talking about him. The Earl told me he comes tonight, though to-morrow is the day when he will know about the Commission that he's hoping for. I wonder he doesn't stay another day to hear the result, if he's really so anxious about it as the Earl believes he is."

"He can have a telegram sent after him," I said: "but it's not very soldier-like, running away from possible bad news!"

"He's a very good fellow," said Arthur: "but I confess it would be good news for me, if he got his Commission, and his Marching Orders, all at once! I wish him all happiness—with one exception. Good night!" (We had reached home by this time.) "I'm not good company to-night— better be alone."

It was much the same, next day. Arthur declared he wasn't fit for Society, and I had to set forth alone for an afternoon-stroll. I took the road to the Station, and, at the point where the road from the 'Hall' joined it, I paused, seeing my friends in the distance, seemingly bound for the same goal.

"Will you join us?" the Earl said, after I had exchanged greetings with him, and Lady Muriel, and Captain Lindon. "This restless young man is expecting a telegram, and we are going to the Station to meet it."

"There is also a restless young woman in the case," Lady Muriel added.

"That goes without saying, my child," said her father.
"Women are always restless!"

"For generous appreciation of all one's best qualities," his daughter impressively remarked, "there's nothing to compare with a father, is there, Eric?"

"Cousins are not 'in it,'" said Eric: and then somehow the conversation lapsed into two duologues, the younger folk taking the lead, and the two old men following with less eager steps.

"And when are we to see your little friends again?" said the Earl.
"They are singularly attractive children."

"I shall be delighted to bring them, when I can," I said!
"But I don't know, myself, when I am likely to see them again."

"I'm not going to question you," said the Earl: "but there's no harm in mentioning that Muriel is simply tormented with curiosity! We know most of the people about here, and she has been vainly trying to guess what house they can possibly be staying at."

"Some day I may be able to enlighten her: but just at present—"

"Thanks. She must bear it as best she can. I tell her it's a grand opportunity for practising patience. But she hardly sees it from that point of view. Why, there are the children!"

So indeed they were: waiting (for us, apparently) at a stile, which they could not have climbed over more than a few moments, as Lady Muriel and her cousin had passed it without seeing them. On catching sight of us, Bruno ran to meet us, and to exhibit to us, with much pride, the handle of a clasp-knife—the blade having been broken off—which he had picked up in the road.

"And what shall you use it for, Bruno?" I said.

"Don't know," Bruno carelessly replied: "must think."

"A child's first view of life," the Earl remarked, with that sweet sad smile of his, "is that it is a period to be spent in accumulating portable property. That view gets modified as the years glide away." And he held out his hand to Sylvie, who had placed herself by me, looking a little shy of him.

But the gentle old man was not one with whom any child, human or fairy, could be shy for long; and she had very soon deserted my hand for his—Bruno alone remaining faithful to his first friend. We overtook the other couple just as they reached the Station, and both Lady Muriel and Eric greeted the children as old friends—the latter with the words "So you got to Babylon by candlelight, after all?"

"Yes, and back again!" cried Bruno.

Lady Muriel looked from one to the other in blank astonishment.
"What, you know them, Eric?" she exclaimed.
"This mystery grows deeper every day!"

"Then we must be somewhere in the Third Act," said Eric. "You don't expect the mystery to be cleared up till the Fifth Act, do you?"

"But it's such a long drama!" was the plaintive reply. "We must have got to the Fifth Act by this time!"

"Third Act, I assure you," said the young soldier mercilessly. "Scene, a railway-platform. Lights down. Enter Prince (in disguise, of course) and faithful Attendant. This is the Prince—" (taking Bruno's hand) "and here stands his humble Servant!" What is your Royal Highness next command.?" And he made a most courtier-like low bow to his puzzled little friend.

"Oo're not a Servant!" Bruno scornfully exclaimed. "Oo're a Gemplun!"

"Servant, I assure your Royal Highness!" Eric respectfully insisted. "Allow me to mention to your Royal Highness my various situations—past, present, and future."

"What did oo begin wiz?" Bruno asked, beginning to enter into the jest.
"Was oo a shoe-black?"

"Lower than that, your Royal Highness! Years ago, I offered myself as a Slave—as a 'Confidential Slave,' I think it's called?" he asked, turning to Lady Muriel.

But Lady Muriel heard him not: something had gone wrong with her glove, which entirely engrossed her attention.

"Did oo get the place?" said Bruno.

"Sad to say, Your Royal Highness, I did not! So I had to take a situation as—as Waiter, which I have now held for some years haven't I?" He again glanced at Lady Muriel.

"Sylvie dear, do help me to button this glove!" Lady Muriel whispered, hastily stooping down, and failing to hear the question.

"And what will oo be next?" said Bruno.

"My next place will, I hope, be that of Groom. And after that—"

"Don't puzzle the child so!" Lady Muriel interrupted.
"What nonsense you talk!"

"—after that," Eric persisted, "I hope to obtain the situation of Housekeeper, which—Fourth Act!" he proclaimed, with a sudden change of tone. "Lights turned up. Red lights. Green lights. Distant rumble heard. Enter a passenger-train!"

And in another minute the train drew up alongside of the platform, and a stream of passengers began to flow out from the booking office and waiting-rooms.

"Did you ever make real life into a drama?" said the Earl. "Now just try. I've often amused myself that way. Consider this platform as our stage. Good entrances and exits on both sides, you see. Capital background scene: real engine moving up and down. All this bustle, and people passing to and fro, must have been most carefully rehearsed! How naturally they do it! With never a glance at the audience! And every grouping is quite fresh, you see. No repetition!"

It really was admirable, as soon as I began to enter into it from this point of view. Even a porter passing, with a barrow piled with luggage, seemed so realistic that one was tempted to applaud. He was followed by an angry mother, with hot red face, dragging along two screaming children, and calling, to some one behind, "John! Come on!" Enter John, very meek, very silent, and loaded with parcels. And he was followed, in his turn, by a frightened little nursemaid, carrying a fat baby, also screaming. All the children screamed.

"Capital byplay!" said the old man aside. "Did you notice the nursemaid's look of terror? It was simply perfect!"

"You have struck quite a new vein," I said. "To most of us Life and its pleasures seem like a mine that is nearly worked out."

"Worked out!" exclaimed the Earl. "For any one with true dramatic instincts, it is only the Overture that is ended! The real treat has yet to begin. You go to a theatre, and pay your ten shillings for a stall, and what do you get for your money? Perhaps it's a dialogue between a couple of farmers—unnatural in their overdone caricature of farmers' dress—-more unnatural in their constrained attitudes and gestures—most unnatural in their attempts at ease and geniality in their talk. Go instead and take a seat in a third-class railway-carriage, and you'll get the same dialogue done to the life! Front-seats—no orchestra to block the view—and nothing to pay!"

"Which reminds me," said Eric. "There is nothing to pay on receiving a telegram! Shall we enquire for one?" And he and Lady Muriel strolled off in the direction of the Telegraph-Office.

"I wonder if Shakespeare had that thought in his mind," I said, "when he wrote 'All the world's a stage'?"

The old man sighed. "And so it is, "he said, "look at it as you will. Life is indeed a drama; a drama with but few encores—and no bouquets!" he added dreamily. "We spend one half of it in regretting the things we did in the other half!"

"And the secret of enjoying it," he continued, resuming his cheerful tone, "is intensity!"

"But not in the modern aesthetic sense, I presume? Like the young lady, in Punch, who begins a conversation with 'Are you intense?'"

"By no means!" replied the Earl. "What I mean is intensity of thought—a concentrated attention. We lose half the pleasure we might have in Life, by not really attending. Take any instance you like: it doesn't matter how trivial the pleasure may be—the principle is the same. Suppose A and B are reading the same second-rate circulating-library novel. A never troubles himself to master the relationships of the characters, on which perhaps all the interest of the story depends: he 'skips' over all the descriptions of scenery, and every passage that looks rather dull: he doesn't half attend to the passages he does read: he goes on reading merely from want of resolution to find another occupation—for hours after he ought to have put the book aside: and reaches the 'FINIS' in a state of utter weariness and depression! B puts his whole soul into the thing—on the principle that 'whatever is worth doing is worth doing well': he masters the genealogies: he calls up pictures before his 'mind's eye' as he reads about the scenery: best of all, he resolutely shuts the book at the end of some chapter, while his interest is yet at its keenest, and turns to other subjects; so that, when next he allows himself an hour at it, it is like a hungry man sitting down to dinner: and, when the book is finished, he returns to the work of his daily life like 'a giant refreshed'!"

"But suppose the book were really rubbish—nothing to repay attention?"

"Well, suppose it," said the Earl. "My theory meets that case, I assure you! A never finds out that it is rubbish, but maunders on to the end, trying to believe he's enjoying himself. B quietly shuts the book, when he's read a dozen pages, walks off to the Library, and changes it for a better! I have yet another theory for adding to the enjoyment of Life—that is, if I have not exhausted your patience? I'm afraid you find me a very garrulous old man."

"No indeed!" I exclaimed earnestly. And indeed I felt as if one could not easily tire of the sweet sadness of that gentle voice.

"It is, that we should learn to take our pleasures quickly, and our pains slowly."

"But why? I should have put it the other way, myself."

"By taking artificial pain—which can be as trivial as you please—slowly, the result is that, when real pain comes, however severe, all you need do is to let it go at its ordinary pace, and it's over in a moment!"

"Very true," I said, "but how about the pleasure?"

"Why, by taking it quick, you can get so much more into life. It takes you three hours and a half to hear and enjoy an opera. Suppose I can take it in, and enjoy it, in half-an-hour. Why, I can enjoy seven operas, while you are listening; to one!"

"Always supposing you have an orchestra capable of playing them,"
I said. "And that orchestra has yet to be found!"

The old man smiled. "I have heard an 'air played," he said, "and by no means a short one—played right through, variations and all, in three seconds!"

"When? And how?" I asked eagerly, with a half-notion that I was dreaming again.

"It was done by a little musical-box," he quietly replied.
"After it had been wound up, the regulator, or something, broke,
and it ran down, as I said, in about three seconds.
But it must have played all the notes, you know!"

"Did you enjoy it? I asked, with all the severity of a cross-examining barrister.

"No, I didn't!" he candidly confessed. "But then, you know, I hadn't been trained to that kind of music!"

"I should much like to try your plan," I said, and, as Sylvie and Bruno happened to run up to us at the moment, I left them to keep the Earl company, and strolled along the platform, making each person and event play its part in an extempore drama for my especial benefit. "What, is the Earl tired of you already?" I said, as the children ran past me.

"No!" Sylvie replied with great emphasis. "He wants the evening-paper.
So Bruno's going to be a little news-boy!"

"Mind you charge a good price for it!" I called after them.

Returning up the platform, I came upon Sylvie alone.
"Well, child," I said, "where's your little news-boy?
Couldn't he get you an evening-paper?"

"He went to get one at the book-stall at the other side," said Sylvie; "and he's coming across the line with it—oh, Bruno, you ought to cross by the bridge!" for the distant thud, thud, of the Express was already audible.

Suddenly a look of horror came over her face. "Oh, he's fallen down on the rails!" she cried, and darted past me at a speed that quite defied the hasty effort I made to stop her.

But the wheezy old Station-Master happened to be close behind me: he wasn't good for much, poor old man, but he was good for this; and, before I could turn round, he had the child clasped in his arms, saved from the certain death she was rushing to. So intent was I in watching this scene, that I hardly saw a flying figure in a light grey suit, who shot across from the back of the platform, and was on the line in another second. So far as one could take note of time in such a moment of horror, he had about ten clear seconds, before the Express would be upon him, in which to cross the rails and to pick up Bruno. Whether he did so or not it was quite impossible to guess: the next thing one knew was that the Express had passed, and that, whether for life or death, all was over. When the cloud of dust had cleared away, and the line was once more visible, we saw with thankful hearts that the child and his deliverer were safe.

"All right!" Eric called to us cheerfully, as he recrossed the line.
"He's more frightened than hurt!"

He lifted the little fellow up into Lady Muriel's arms, and mounted the platform as gaily as if nothing had happened: but he was as pale as death, and leaned heavily on the arm I hastily offered him, fearing he was about to faint. "I'll just—sit down a moment—" he said dreamily: "—where's Sylvie?"

Sylvie ran to him, and flung her arms round his neck, sobbing as if her heart would break. "Don't do that, my darling!" Eric murmured, with a strange look in his eyes. "Nothing to cry about now, you know. But you very nearly got yourself killed for nothing!"

"For Bruno!" the little maiden sobbed.
"And he would have done it for me. Wouldn't you, Bruno?"

"Course I would!" Bruno said, looking round with a bewildered air.

Lady Muriel kissed him in silence as she put him down out of her arms. Then she beckoned Sylvie to come and take his hand, and signed to the children to go back to where the Earl was seated. "Tell him," she whispered with quivering lips, "tell him—all is well!" Then she turned to the hero of the day. "I thought it was death," she said. "Thank God, you are safe! Did you see how near it was?"

"I saw there was just time, Eric said lightly.

"A soldier must learn to carry his life in his hand, you know.
I'm all right now. Shall we go to the telegraph-office again?
I daresay it's come by this time."

I went to join the Earl and the children, and we waited—almost in silence, for no one seemed inclined to talk, and Bruno was half-asleep on Sylvie's lap—till the others joined us. No telegram had come.

"I'll take a stroll with the children," I said, feeling that we were a little de trop, "and I'll look in, in the course of the evening."

"We must go back into the wood, now," Sylvie said, as soon as we were out of hearing.

"We ca'n't stay this size any longer."

"Then you will be quite tiny Fairies again, next time we meet?"

"Yes," said Sylvie: "but we'll be children again some day—if you'll let us. Bruno's very anxious to see Lady Muriel again."

"She are welly nice," said Bruno.

"I shall be very glad to take you to see her again," I said.
"Hadn't I better give you back the Professor's Watch?
It'll be too large for you to carry when you're Fairies, you know."

Bruno laughed merrily. I was glad to see he had quite recovered from the terrible scene he had gone through. "Oh no, it won't!" he said. "When we go small, it'll go small!"

"And then it'll go straight to the Professor," Sylvie added, "and you won't be able to use it anymore: so you'd better use it all you can, now. We must go small when the sun sets. Good-bye!"

"Good-bye!" cried Bruno. But their voices sounded very far away, and, when I looked round, both children had disappeared.

"And it wants only two hours to sunset!" I said as I strolled on.
"I must make the best of my time!"

CHAPTER 23.

AN OUTLANDISH WATCH.

As I entered the little town, I came upon two of the fishermen's wives interchanging that last word "which never was the last": and it occurred to me, as an experiment with the Magic Watch, to wait till the little scene was over, and then to 'encore' it.

"Well, good night t'ye! And ye winna forget to send us word when your
Martha writes?"

"Nay, ah winna forget. An' if she isn't suited, she can but coom back.
Good night t'ye!"

A casual observer might have thought "and there ends the dialogue!"
That casual observer would have been mistaken.

"Ah, she'll like 'em, I war'n' ye! They'll not treat her bad, yer may depend. They're varry canny fowk. Good night!"

"Ay, they are that! Good night!"

"Good night! And ye'll send us word if she writes?"

"Aye, ah will, yer may depend! Good night t'ye!"

And at last they parted. I waited till they were some twenty yards apart, and then put the Watch a minute back. The instantaneous change was startling: the two figures seemed to flash back into their former places.

"—isn't suited, she can but coom back. Good night t'ye!" one of them was saying: and so the whole dialogue was repeated, and, when they had parted for the second time, I let them go their several ways, and strolled on through the town.

"But the real usefulness of this magic power," I thought, "would be to undo some harm, some painful event, some accident—"

I had not long to wait for an opportunity of testing this property also of the Magic Watch, for, even as the thought passed through my mind, the accident I was imagining occurred. A light cart was standing at the door of the 'Great Millinery Depot' of Elveston, laden with card-board packing-cases, which the driver was carrying into the shop, one by one. One of the cases had fallen into the street, but it scarcely seemed worth while to step forward and pick it up, as the man would be back again in a moment. Yet, in that moment, a young man riding a bicycle came sharp round the corner of the street and, in trying to avoid running over the box, upset his machine, and was thrown headlong against the wheel of the spring-cart. The driver ran out to his assistance, and he and I together raised the unfortunate cyclist and carried him into the shop. His head was cut and bleeding; and one knee seemed to be badly injured; and it was speedily settled that he had better be conveyed at once to the only Surgery in the place. I helped them in emptying the cart, and placing in it some pillows for the wounded man to rest on; and it was only when the driver had mounted to his place, and was starting for the Surgery, that I bethought me of the strange power I possessed of undoing all this harm.

"Now is my time!" I said to myself, as I moved back the hand of the Watch, and saw, almost without surprise this time, all things restored to the places they had occupied at the critical moment when I had first noticed the fallen packing-case.

Instantly I stepped out into the street, picked up the box, and replaced it in the cart: in the next moment the bicycle had spun round the corner, passed the cart without let or hindrance, and soon vanished in the distance, in a cloud of dust.

"Delightful power of magic!" I thought. "How much of human suffering I have—not only relieved, but actually annihilated!" And, in a glow of conscious virtue, I stood watching the unloading of the cart, still holding the Magic Watch open in my hand, as I was curious to see what would happen when we again reached the exact time at which I had put back the hand.

The result was one that, if only I had considered the thing carefully, I might have foreseen: as the hand of the Watch touched the mark, the spring-cart—which had driven off, and was by this time half-way down the street, was back again at the door, and in the act of starting, while—oh woe for the golden dream of world-wide benevolence that had dazzled my dreaming fancy!—the wounded youth was once more reclining on the heap of pillows, his pale face set rigidly in the hard lines that told of pain resolutely endured.

"Oh mocking Magic Watch!" I said to myself, as I passed out of the little town, and took the seaward road that led to my lodgings. "The good I fancied I could do is vanished like a dream: the evil of this troublesome world is the only abiding reality!"

And now I must record an experience so strange, that I think it only fair, before beginning to relate it, to release my much-enduring reader from any obligation he may feel to believe this part of my story. I would not have believed it, I freely confess, if I had not seen it with my own eyes: then why should I expect it of my reader, who, quite possibly, has never seen anything of the sort?

I was passing a pretty little villa, which stood rather back from the road, in its own grounds, with bright flower-beds in front—-creepers wandering over the walls and hanging in festoons about the bow-windows— an easy-chair forgotten on the lawn, with a newspaper lying near it— a small pug-dog "couchant" before it, resolved to guard the treasure even at the sacrifice of life—and a front-door standing invitingly half-open. "Here is my chance," I thought, "for testing the reverse action of the Magic Watch!" I pressed the 'reversal-peg' and walked in. In another house, the entrance of a stranger might cause surprise— perhaps anger, even going so far as to expel the said stranger with violence: but here, I knew, nothing of the sort could happen. The ordinary course of events first, to think nothing about me; then, hearing my footsteps to look up and see me; and then to wonder what business I had there—would be reversed by the action of my Watch. They would first wonder who I was, then see me, then look down, and think no more about me. And as to being expelled with violence, that event would necessarily come first in this case. "So, if I can once get in," I said to myself, "all risk of expulsion will be over!"

The pug-dog sat up, as a precautionary measure, as I passed; but, as I took no notice of the treasure he was guarding, he let me go by without even one remonstrant bark. "He that takes my life," he seemed to be saying, wheezily, to himself, "takes trash: But he that takes the Daily Telegraph—!" But this awful contingency I did not face.

The party in the drawing-room—I had walked straight in, you understand, without ringing the bell, or giving any notice of my approach— consisted of four laughing rosy children, of ages from about fourteen down to ten, who were, apparently, all coming towards the door (I found they were really walking backwards), while their mother, seated by the fire with some needlework on her lap, was saying, just as I entered the room, "Now, girls, you may get your things on for a walk."

To my utter astonishment—for I was not yet accustomed to the action of the Watch "all smiles ceased', (as Browning says) on the four pretty faces, and they all got out pieces of needle-work, and sat down. No one noticed me in the least, as I quietly took a chair and sat down to watch them.

When the needle-work had been unfolded, and they were all ready to begin, their mother said "Come, that's done, at last! You may fold up your work, girls." But the children took no notice whatever of the remark; on the contrary, they set to work at once sewing—if that is the proper word to describe an operation such as I had never before witnessed. Each of them threaded her needle with a short end of thread attached to the work, which was instantly pulled by an invisible force through the stuff, dragging the needle after it: the nimble fingers of the little sempstress caught it at the other side, but only to lose it again the next moment. And so the work went on, steadily undoing itself, and the neatly-stitched little dresses, or whatever they were, steadily falling to pieces. Now and then one of the children would pause, as the recovered thread became inconveniently long, wind it on a bobbin, and start again with another short end.

At last all the work was picked to pieces and put away, and the lady led the way into the next room, walking backwards, and making the insane remark "Not yet, dear: we must get the sewing done first." After which, I was not surprised to see the children skipping backwards after her, exclaiming "Oh, mother, it is such a lovely day for a walk!"

In the dining-room, the table had only dirty plates and empty dishes on it. However the party—with the addition of a gentleman, as good-natured, and as rosy, as the children—seated themselves at it very contentedly.

You have seen people eating cherry-tart, and every now and then cautiously conveying a cherry-stone from their lips to their plates? Well, something like that went on all through this ghastly—or shall we say 'ghostly'?—-banquet. An empty fork is raised to the lips: there it receives a neatly-cut piece of mutton, and swiftly conveys it to the plate, where it instantly attaches itself to the mutton already there. Soon one of the plates, furnished with a complete slice of mutton and two potatoes, was handed up to the presiding gentleman, who quietly replaced the slice on the joint, and the potatoes in the dish.

Their conversation was, if possible, more bewildering than their mode of dining. It began by the youngest girl suddenly, and without provocation, addressing her eldest sister. "Oh, you wicked story-teller!" she said.

I expected a sharp reply from the sister; but, instead of this, she turned laughingly to her father, and said, in a very loud stage-whisper, "To be a bride!"

The father, in order to do his part in a conversation that seemed only fit for lunatics, replied "Whisper it to me, dear."

But she didn't whisper (these children never did anything they were told): she said, quite loud, "Of course not! Everybody knows what Dotty wants!"

And little Dolly shrugged her shoulders, and said, with a pretty pettishness, "Now, Father, you're not to tease! You know I don't want to be bride's-maid to anybody!"

"And Dolly's to be the fourth," was her father's idiotic reply.

Here Number Three put in her oar. "Oh, it is settled, Mother dear, really and truly! Mary told us all about it. It's to be next Tuesday four weeks—and three of her cousins are coming; to be bride's-maids— and—"

"She doesn't forget it, Minnie!" the Mother laughingly replied.
"I do wish they'd get it settled! I don't like long engagements."

And Minnie wound up the conversation—if so chaotic a series of remarks deserves the name—with "Only think! We passed the Cedars this morning, just exactly as Mary Davenant was standing at the gate, wishing good-bye to Mister—-I forget his name. Of course we looked the other way."

By this time I was so hopelessly confused that I gave up listening, and followed the dinner down into the kitchen.

But to you, O hypercritical reader, resolute to believe no item of this weird adventure, what need to tell how the mutton was placed on the spit, and slowly unroasted—how the potatoes were wrapped in their skins, and handed over to the gardener to be buried—how, when the mutton had at length attained to rawness, the fire, which had gradually changed from red-heat to a mere blaze, died down so suddenly that the cook had only just time to catch its last flicker on the end of a match—or how the maid, having taken the mutton off the spit, carried it (backwards, of course) out of the house, to meet the butcher, who was coming (also backwards) down the road?

The longer I thought over this strange adventure, the more hopelessly tangled the mystery became: and it was a real relief to meet Arthur in the road, and get him to go with me up to the Hall, to learn what news the telegraph had brought. I told him, as we went, what had happened at the Station, but as to my further adventures I thought it best, for the present, to say nothing.

The Earl was sitting alone when we entered. "I am glad you are come in to keep me company," he said. "Muriel is gone to bed—the excitement of that terrible scene was too much for her—and Eric has gone to the hotel to pack his things, to start for London by the early train."

"Then the telegram has come?" I said.

"Did you not hear? Oh, I had forgotten: it came in after you left the Station. Yes, it's all right: Eric has got his commission; and, now that he has arranged matters with Muriel, he has business in town that must be seen to at once."

"What arrangement do you mean?" I asked with a sinking heart, as the thought of Arthur's crushed hopes came to my mind. "Do you mean that they are engaged?"

"They have been engaged—in a sense—for two years," the old man gently replied:

"that is, he has had my promise to consent to it, so soon as he could secure a permanent and settled line in life. I could never be happy with my child married to a man without an object to live for—without even an object to die for!"

"I hope they will be happy," a strange voice said. The speaker was evidently in the room, but I had not heard the door open, and I looked round in some astonishment. The Earl seemed to share my surprise. "Who spoke?" he exclaimed.

"It was I," said Arthur, looking at us with a worn, haggard face, and eyes from which the light of life seemed suddenly to have faded. "And let me wish you joy also, dear friend," he added, looking sadly at the Earl, and speaking in the same hollow tones that had startled us so much.

"Thank you," the old man said, simply and heartily.

A silence followed: then I rose, feeling sure that Arthur would wish to be alone, and bade our gentle host 'Good night': Arthur took his hand, but said nothing: nor did he speak again, as we went home till we were in the house and had lit our bed-room candles. Then he said more to himself than to me "The heart knoweth its own bitterness. I never understood those words till now."

The next few days passed wearily enough. I felt no inclination to call by myself at the Hall; still less to propose that Arthur should go with me: it seemed better to wait till Time—that gentle healer of our bitterest sorrows should have helped him to recover from the first shock of the disappointment that had blighted his life.

Business however soon demanded my presence in town; and I had to announce to Arthur that I must leave him for a while. "But I hope to run down again in a month I added. I would stay now, if I could. I don't think it's good for you to be alone.

No, I ca'n't face solitude, here, for long, said Arthur. But don't think about me. I have made up my mind to accept a post in India, that has been offered me. Out there, I suppose I shall find something to live for; I ca'n't see anything at present. 'This life of mine I guard, as God's high gift, from scathe and wrong, Not greatly care to lose!'"

"Yes," I said: "your name-sake bore as heavy a blow, and lived through it."

"A far heavier one than mine, said Arthur.

"The woman he loved proved false. There is no such cloud as that on my memory of—of—" He left the name unuttered, and went on hurriedly. "But you will return, will you not?"

"Yes, I shall come back for a short time."

"Do," said Arthur: "and you shall write and tell me of our friends.
I'll send you my address when I'm settled down."

CHAPTER 24.

THE FROGS' BIRTHDAY-TREAT.

And so it came to pass that, just a week after the day when my Fairy-friends first appeared as Children, I found myself taking a farewell-stroll through the wood, in the hope of meeting them once more. I had but to stretch myself on the smooth turf, and the 'eerie' feeling was on me in a moment.

"Put oor ear welly low down," said Bruno, "and I'll tell oo a secret!
It's the Frogs' Birthday-Treat—and we've lost the Baby!"

"What Baby?" I said, quite bewildered by this complicated piece of news.

"The Queen's Baby, a course!" said Bruno. "Titania's Baby. And we's welly sorry. Sylvie, she's—oh so sorry!"

"How sorry is she?" I asked, mischievously.

"Three-quarters of a yard," Bruno replied with perfect solemnity. "And I'm a little sorry too," he added, shutting his eyes so as not to see that he was smiling.

"And what are you doing about the Baby?"

"Well, the soldiers are all looking for it—up and down everywhere."

"The soldiers?" I exclaimed.

"Yes, a course!" said Bruno. "When there's no fighting to be done, the soldiers doos any little odd jobs, oo know."

I was amused at the idea of its being a 'little odd job' to find the
Royal Baby. "But how did you come to lose it?" I asked.

"We put it in a flower," Sylvie, who had just joined us, explained with her eyes full of tears. "Only we ca'n't remember which!"

"She says us put it in a flower," Bruno interrupted, "'cause she doosn't want I to get punished. But it were really me what put it there. Sylvie were picking Dindledums."

"You shouldn't say 'us put it in a flower'," Sylvie very gravely remarked.

"Well, hus, then," said Bruno. "I never can remember those horrid H's!"

"Let me help you to look for it," I said. So Sylvie and I made a 'voyage of discovery' among all the flowers; but there was no Baby to be seen.

"What's become of Bruno?" I said, when we had completed our tour.

"He's down in the ditch there," said Sylvie, "amusing a young Frog."

I went down on my hands and knees to look for him, for I felt very curious to know how young Frogs ought to be amused. After a minute's search, I found him sitting at the edge of the ditch, by the side of the little Frog, and looking rather disconsolate.

"How are you getting on, Bruno?" I said, nodding to him as he looked up.

"Ca'n't amuse it no more," Bruno answered, very dolefully, "'cause it won't say what it would like to do next! I've showed it all the duck-weeds—and a live caddis-worm—- but it won't say nuffin! What—would oo like?' he shouted into the ear of the Frog: but the little creature sat quite still, and took no notice of him. "It's deaf, I think!" Bruno said, turning away with a sigh. "And it's time to get the Theatre ready."

"Who are the audience to be?"

"Only but Frogs," said Bruno. "But they haven't comed yet.
They wants to be drove up, like sheep."

"Would it save time," I suggested, "if I were to walk round with
Sylvie, to drive up the Frogs, while you get the Theatre ready?"

"That are a good plan!" cried Bruno. "But where are Sylvie?"

"I'm here!" said Sylvie, peeping over the edge of the bank.
"I was just watching two Frogs that were having a race."

"Which won it? "Bruno eagerly inquired.

Sylvie was puzzled. "He does ask such hard questions!" she confided to me.

"And what's to happen in the Theatre?" I asked.

"First they have their Birthday-Feast," Sylvie said: "then Bruno does some Bits of Shakespeare; then he tells them a Story."

"I should think the Frogs like the Feast best. Don't they?"

"Well, there's generally very few of them that get any. They will keep their mouths shut so tight! And it's just as well they do," she added, "because Bruno likes to cook it himself: and he cooks very queerly." Now they're all in. Would you just help me to put them with their heads the right way?"

We soon managed this part of the business, though the Frogs kept up a most discontented croaking all the time.

"What are they saying?" I asked Sylvie.

"They're saying 'Fork! Fork!' It's very silly of them! You're not going to have forks!" she announced with some severity. "Those that want any Feast have just got to open their mouths, and Bruno 'll put some of it in!"

At this moment Bruno appeared, wearing a little white apron to show that he was a Cook, and carrying a tureen full of very queer-looking soup. I watched very carefully as he moved about among the Frogs; but I could not see that any of them opened their mouths to be fed— except one very young one, and I'm nearly sure it did it accidentally, in yawning. However Bruno instantly put a large spoonful of soup into its mouth, and the poor little thing coughed violently for some time.

So Sylvie and I had to share the soup between us, and to pretend to enjoy it, for it certainly was very queerly cooked.

I only ventured to take one spoonful of it ("Sylvie's Summer-Soup," Bruno said it was), and must candidly confess that it was not at all nice; and I could not feel surprised that so many of the guests had kept their mouths shut up tight.

"What's the soup made of, Bruno?" said Sylvie, who had put a spoonful of it to her lips, and was making a wry face over it.

And Bruno's answer was anything but encouraging. "Bits of things!"

The entertainment was to conclude with "Bits of Shakespeare," as Sylvie expressed it, which were all to be done by Bruno, Sylvie being fully engaged in making the Frogs keep their heads towards the stage: after which Bruno was to appear in his real character, and tell them a Story of his own invention.

"Will the Story have a Moral to it?" I asked Sylvie, while Bruno was away behind the hedge, dressing for the first 'Bit.'

"I think so," Sylvie replied doubtfully. "There generally is a Moral, only he puts it in too soon."

"And will he say all the Bits of Shakespeare?"

"No, he'll only act them," said Sylvie. "He knows hardly any of the words. When I see what he's dressed like, I've to tell the Frogs what character it is. They're always in such a hurry to guess! Don't you hear them all saying 'What? What?'" And so indeed they were: it had only sounded like croaking, till Sylvie explained it, but I could now make out the "Wawt? Wawt?" quite distinctly.

"But why do they try to guess it before they see it?"

"I don't know," Sylvie said: "but they always do. Sometimes they begin guessing weeks and weeks before the day!"

(So now, when you hear the Frogs croaking in a particularly melancholy way, you may be sure they're trying to guess Bruno's next Shakespeare 'Bit'. Isn't that interesting?)

However, the chorus of guessing was cut short by Bruno, who suddenly rushed on from behind the scenes, and took a flying leap down among the Frogs, to re-arrange them.

For the oldest and fattest Frog—who had never been properly arranged so that he could see the stage, and so had no idea what was going on—was getting restless, and had upset several of the Frogs, and turned others round with their heads the wrong way. And it was no good at all, Bruno said, to do a 'Bit' of Shakespeare when there was nobody to look at it (you see he didn't count me as anybody). So he set to work with a stick, stirring them up, very much as you would stir up tea in a cup, till most of them had at least one great stupid eye gazing at the stage.

"Oo must come and sit among them, Sylvie," he said in despair, "I've put these two side-by-side, with their noses the same way, ever so many times, but they do squarrel so!"

So Sylvie took her place as 'Mistress of the Ceremonies,' and Bruno vanished again behind the scenes, to dress for the first 'Bit.'

"Hamlet!" was suddenly proclaimed, in the clear sweet tones I knew so well. The croaking all ceased in a moment, and I turned to the stage, in some curiosity to see what Bruno's ideas were as to the behaviour of Shakespeare's greatest Character.

According to this eminent interpreter of the Drama, Hamlet wore a short black cloak (which he chiefly used for muffling up his face, as if he suffered a good deal from toothache), and turned out his toes very much as he walked. "To be or not to be!" Hamlet remarked in a cheerful tone, and then turned head-over-heels several times, his cloak dropping off in the performance.

I felt a little disappointed: Bruno's conception of the part seemed so wanting in dignity. "Won't he say any more of the speech?" I whispered to Sylvie.

"I think not," Sylvie whispered in reply. "He generally turns head-over-heels when he doesn't know any more words."

Bruno had meanwhile settled the question by disappearing from the stage; and the Frogs instantly began inquiring the name of the next Character.

"You'll know directly!" cried Sylvie, as she adjusted two or three young Frogs that had struggled round with their backs to the stage. "Macbeth!" she added, as Bruno re-appeared.

Macbeth had something twisted round him, that went over one shoulder and under the other arm, and was meant, I believe, for a Scotch plaid. He had a thorn in his hand, which he held out at arm's length, as if he were a little afraid of it. "Is this a dagger?" Macbeth inquired, in a puzzled sort of tone: and instantly a chorus of "Thorn! Thorn!" arose from the Frogs (I had quite learned to understand their croaking by this time).

"It's a dagger!" Sylvie proclaimed in a peremptory tone.
"Hold your tongues!" And the croaking ceased at once.

Shakespeare has not told us, so far as I know, that Macbeth had any such eccentric habit as turning head-over-heels in private life: but Bruno evidently considered it quite an essential part of the character, and left the stage in a series of somersaults. However, he was back again in a few moments, having tucked under his chin the end of a tuft of wool (probably left on the thorn by a wandering sheep), which made a magnificent beard, that reached nearly down to his feet.

"Shylock!" Sylvie proclaimed. "No, I beg your pardon!" she hastily corrected herself, "King Lear! I hadn't noticed the crown." (Bruno had very cleverly provided one, which fitted him exactly, by cutting out the centre of a dandelion to make room for his head.)

King Lear folded his arms (to the imminent peril of his beard) and said, in a mild explanatory tone, "Ay, every inch a king!" and then paused, as if to consider how this could best be proved. And here, with all possible deference to Bruno as a Shakespearian critic, I must express my opinion that the poet did not mean his three great tragic heroes to be so strangely alike in their personal habits; nor do I believe that he would have accepted the faculty of turning head-over-heels as any proof at all of royal descent. Yet it appeared that King Lear, after deep meditation, could think of no other argument by which to prove his kingship: and, as this was the last of the 'Bits' of Shakespeare ("We never do more than three," Sylvie explained in a whisper), Bruno gave the audience quite a long series of somersaults before he finally retired, leaving the enraptured Frogs all crying out "More! More!" which I suppose was their way of encoring a performance. But Bruno wouldn't appear again, till the proper time came for telling the Story.

When he appeared at last in his real character, I noticed a remarkable change in his behaviour.

He tried no more somersaults. It was clearly his opinion that, however suitable the habit of turning head-over-heels might be to such petty individuals as Hamlet and King Lear, it would never do for Bruno to sacrifice his dignity to such an extent. But it was equally clear that he did not feel entirely at his ease, standing all alone on the stage, with no costume to disguise him: and though he began, several times,

"There were a Mouse—," he kept glancing up and down, and on all sides, as if in search of more comfortable quarters from which to tell the Story. Standing on one side of the stage, and partly overshadowing it, was a tall foxglove, which seemed, as the evening breeze gently swayed it hither and thither, to offer exactly the sort of accommodation that the orator desired. Having once decided on his quarters, it needed only a second or two for him to run up the stem like a tiny squirrel, and to seat himself astride on the topmost bend, where the fairy-bells clustered most closely, and from whence he could look down on his audience from such a height that all shyness vanished, and he began his Story merrily.

"Once there were a Mouse and a Crocodile and a Man and a Goat and a Lion." I had never heard the 'dramatis personae' tumbled into a story with such profusion and in such reckless haste; and it fairly took my breath away. Even Sylvie gave a little gasp, and allowed three of the Frogs, who seemed to be getting tired of the entertainment, to hop away into the ditch, without attempting to stop them.

"And the Mouse found a Shoe, and it thought it were a Mouse-trap.
So it got right in, and it stayed in ever so long."

"Why did it stay in?" said Sylvie. Her function seemed to be much the same as that of the Chorus in a Greek Play: she had to encourage the orator, and draw him out, by a series of intelligent questions.

"'Cause it thought it couldn't get out again," Bruno explained.
"It were a clever mouse. It knew it couldn't get out of traps!"

But why did it go in at all?" said Sylvie.

"—and it jamp, and it jamp," Bruno proceeded, ignoring this question, "and at last it got right out again. And it looked at the mark in the Shoe. And the Man's name were in it. So it knew it wasn't its own Shoe."

"Had it thought it was?" said Sylvie.

"Why, didn't I tell oo it thought it were a Mouse-trap?" the indignant orator replied. "Please, Mister Sir, will oo make Sylvie attend?" Sylvie was silenced, and was all attention: in fact, she and I were most of the audience now, as the Frogs kept hopping away, and there were very few of them left.

"So the Mouse gave the Man his Shoe.

And the Man were welly glad, cause he hadn't got but one Shoe, and he were hopping to get the other."

Here I ventured on a question. "Do you mean 'hopping,' or 'hoping'?"

"Bofe," said Bruno. "And the Man took the Goat out of the Sack." ("We haven't heard of the sack before," I said. "Nor you won't hear of it again," said Bruno). "And he said to the Goat, 'Oo will walk about here till I comes back.' And he went and he tumbled into a deep hole. And the Goat walked round and round. And it walked under the Tree. And it wug its tail. And it looked up in the Tree. And it sang a sad little Song. Oo never heard such a sad little Song!"

"Can you sing it, Bruno?" I asked.

"Iss, I can," Bruno readily replied. "And I sa'n't. It would make
Sylvie cry—"

"It wouldn't!', Sylvie interrupted in great indignation.
"And I don't believe the Goat sang it at all!"

"It did, though!" said Bruno. "It singed it right froo.
I sawed it singing with its long beard—"

"It couldn't sing with its beard," I said, hoping to puzzle the little fellow: "a beard isn't a voice."

"Well then, oo couldn't walk with Sylvie!" Bruno cried triumphantly.
"Sylvie isn't a foot!"

I thought I had better follow Sylvie's example, and be silent for a while. Bruno was too sharp for us.

"And when it had singed all the Song, it ran away—for to get along to look for the Man, oo know. And the Crocodile got along after it—for to bite it, oo know. And the Mouse got along after the Crocodile."

"Wasn't the Crocodile running?" Sylvie enquired. She appealed to me.
"Crocodiles do run, don't they?"

I suggested "crawling" as the proper word.

"He wasn't running," said Bruno, "and he wasn't crawling. He went struggling along like a portmanteau. And he held his chin ever so high in the air—"

"What did he do that for?" said Sylvie.

"'cause he hadn't got a toofache!" said Bruno. "Ca'n't oo make out nuffin wizout I 'splain it? Why, if he'd had a toofache, a course he'd have held his head down—like this—and he'd have put a lot of warm blankets round it!"

"If he'd had any blankets," Sylvie argued.

"Course he had blankets!" retorted her brother. "Doos oo think Crocodiles goes walks wizout blankets? And he frowned with his eyebrows. And the Goat was welly flightened at his eyebrows!"

"I'd never be afraid of eyebrows?" exclaimed Sylvie.

"I should think oo would, though, if they'd got a Crocodile fastened to them, like these had! And so the Man jamp, and he jamp, and at last he got right out of the hole."

Sylvie gave another little gasp: this rapid dodging about among the characters of the Story had taken away her breath.

"And he runned away for to look for the Goat, oo know. And he heard the Lion grunting—-"

"Lions don't grunt," said Sylvie.

"This one did," said Bruno. "And its mouth were like a large cupboard.
And it had plenty of room in its mouth. And the Lion runned after the
Man for to eat him, oo know. And the Mouse runned after the Lion."

"But the Mouse was running after the Crocodile," I said: "he couldn't run after both!"

Bruno sighed over the density of his audience, but explained very patiently. "He did runned after bofe: 'cause they went the same way! And first he caught the Crocodile, and then he didn't catch the Lion. And when he'd caught the Crocodile, what doos oo think he did—'cause he'd got pincers in his pocket?"

"I ca'n't guess," said Sylvie.

"Nobody couldn't guess it!" Bruno cried in high glee.
"Why, he wrenched out that Crocodile's toof!"

"Which tooth?" I ventured to ask.

But Bruno was not to be puzzled. "The toof he were going to bite the
Goat with, a course!"

"He couldn't be sure about that," I argued,

"unless he wrenched out all its teeth."

Bruno laughed merrily, and half sang, as he swung himself backwards and forwards, "He did—wrenched—out—all its teef!"

"Why did the Crocodile wait to have them wrenched out?" said Sylvie.

"It had to wait," said Bruno.

I ventured on another question. "But what became of the Man who said
'You may wait here till I come back'?"

"He didn't say 'Oo may,'" Bruno explained. "He said, 'Oo will.'
Just like Sylvie says to me 'Oo will do oor lessons till twelve o'clock.'
Oh, I wiss," he added with a little sigh, "I wiss Sylvie would say 'Oo
may do oor lessons'!"

This was a dangerous subject for discussion, Sylvie seemed to think.
She returned to the Story. "But what became of the Man?"

"Well, the Lion springed at him. But it came so slow, it were three weeks in the air—"

"Did the Man wait for it all that time?" I said.

"Course he didn't!" Bruno replied, gliding head-first down the stem of the fox-glove, for the Story was evidently close to its end. "He sold his house, and he packed up his things, while the Lion were coming. And he went and he lived in another town. So the Lion ate the wrong man."

This was evidently the Moral: so Sylvie made her final proclamation to the Frogs. "The Story's finished! And whatever is to be learned from it," she added, aside to me, "I'm sure I don't know!"

I did not feel quite clear about it myself, so made no suggestion: but the Frogs seemed quite content, Moral or no Moral, and merely raised a husky chorus of "Off! Off!" as they hopped away.

CHAPTER 25.

LOOKING EASTWARD.

"It's just a week," I said, three days later, to Arthur, "since we heard of Lady Muriel's engagement. I think I ought to call, at any rate, and offer my congratulations. Won't you come with me?"

A pained expression passed over his face.

"When must you leave us?" he asked.

"By the first train on Monday."

"Well—yes, I will come with you. It would seem strange and unfriendly if I didn't. But this is only Friday. Give me till Sunday afternoon. I shall be stronger then."

Shading his eyes with one hand, as if half-ashamed of the tears that were coursing down his cheeks, he held the other out to me. It trembled as I clasped it.

I tried to frame some words of sympathy; but they seemed poor and cold, and I left them unspoken. "Good night!" was all I said.

"Good night, dear friend!" he replied. There was a manly vigour in his tone that convinced me he was wrestling with, and triumphing over, the great sorrow that had so nearly wrecked his life—and that, on the stepping-stone of his dead self, he would surely rise to higher things!

There was no chance, I was glad to think, as we set out on Sunday afternoon, of meeting Eric at the Hall, as he had returned to town the day after his engagement was announced. His presence might have disturbed the calm—the almost unnatural calm—with which Arthur met the woman who had won his heart, and murmured the few graceful words of sympathy that the occasion demanded.

Lady Muriel was perfectly radiant with happiness: sadness could not live in the light of such a smile: and even Arthur brightened under it, and, when she remarked "You see I'm watering my flowers, though it is the Sabbath-Day," his voice had almost its old ring of cheerfulness as he replied "Even on the Sabbath-Day works of mercy are allowed. But this isn't the Sabbath-Day. The Sabbath-day has ceased to exist."

"I know it's not Saturday," Lady Muriel replied; "but isn't Sunday often called 'the Christian Sabbath'?"

"It is so called, I think, in recognition of the spirit of the Jewish institution, that one day in seven should be a day of rest. But I hold that Christians are freed from the literal observance of the Fourth Commandment."

"Then where is our authority for Sunday observance?"

"We have, first, the fact that the seventh day was 'sanctified',
when God rested from the work of Creation. That is binding on us as
Theists. Secondly, we have the fact that 'the Lord's Day' is a
Christian institution. That is binding on us as Christians."

"And your practical rules would be—?"

"First, as Theists, to keep it holy in some special way, and to make it, so far as is reasonably possible, a day of rest. Secondly, as Christians, to attend public worship."

"And what of amusements?"

"I would say of them, as of all kinds of work, whatever is innocent on a week-day, is innocent on Sunday, provided it does not interfere with the duties of the day."

"Then you would allow children to play on Sunday?"

"Certainly I should. Why make the day irksome to their restless natures?"

"I have a letter somewhere," said Lady Muriel, "from an old friend, describing the way in which Sunday was kept in her younger days. I will fetch it for you."

"I had a similar description, viva voce, years ago," Arthur said when she had left us, "from a little girl. It was really touching to hear the melancholy tone in which she said 'On Sunday I mustn't play with my doll! On Sunday I mustn't run on the sands! On Sunday I mustn't dig in the garden!' Poor child! She had indeed abundant cause for hating Sunday!"

"Here is the letter," said Lady Muriel, returning.
"Let me read you a piece of it."

"When, as a child, I first opened my eyes on a Sunday-morning, a feeling of dismal anticipation, which began at least on the Friday, culminated. I knew what was before me, and my wish, if not my word, was 'Would God it were evening!' It was no day of rest, but a day of texts, of catechisms (Watts'), of tracts about converted swearers, godly charwomen, and edifying deaths of sinners saved.

"Up with the lark, hymns and portions of Scripture had to be learned by heart till 8 o'clock, when there were family-prayers, then breakfast, which I was never able to enjoy, partly from the fast already undergone, and partly from the outlook I dreaded.

"At 9 came Sunday-School; and it made me indignant to be put into the class with the village-children, as well as alarmed lest, by some mistake of mine, I should be put below them.

"The Church-Service was a veritable Wilderness of Zin. I wandered in it, pitching the tabernacle of my thoughts on the lining of the square family-pew, the fidgets of my small brothers, and the horror of knowing that, on the Monday, I should have to write out, from memory, jottings of the rambling disconnected extempore sermon, which might have had any text but its own, and to stand or fall by the result.

"This was followed by a, cold dinner at 1 (servants to have no work), Sunday-School again from 2 to 4, and Evening-Service at 6. The intervals were perhaps the greatest trial of all, from the efforts I had to make, to be less than usually sinful, by reading books and sermons as barren as the Dead Sea. There was but one rosy spot, in the distance, all that day: and that was 'bed-time,' which never could come too early!"

"Such teaching was well meant, no doubt," said Arthur; "but it must have driven many of its victims into deserting the Church-Services altogether."

"I'm afraid I was a deserter this morning," she gravely said. "I had to write to Eric. Would you—would you mind my telling you something he said about prayer? It had never struck me in that light before."

"In what light?" said Arthur.

"Why, that all Nature goes by fixed, regular laws—Science has proved that. So that asking God to do anything (except of course praying for spiritual blessings) is to expect a miracle: and we've no right to do that. I've not put it as well as he did: but that was the outcome of it, and it has confused me. Please tell me what you can say in answer to it."

"I don't propose to discuss Captain Lindon's difficulties," Arthur gravely replied; "specially as he is not present. But, if it is your difficulty," (his voice unconsciously took a tenderer tone) "then I will speak."

"It is my difficulty," she said anxiously.

"Then I will begin by asking 'Why did you except spiritual blessings?'
Is not your mind a part of Nature?"

"Yes, but Free-Will comes in there—I can choose this or that; and God can influence my choice."

"Then you are not a Fatalist?"

"Oh, no!" she earnestly exclaimed.

"Thank God!" Arthur said to himself, but in so low a whisper that only I heard it. "You grant then that I can, by an act of free choice, move this cup," suiting the action to the word, "this way or that way?"

"Yes, I grant it."

"Well, let us see how far the result is produced by fixed laws. The cup moves because certain mechanical forces are impressed on it by my hand. My hand moves because certain forces—electric, magnetic, or whatever 'nerve-force' may prove to be—are impressed on it by my brain. This nerve-force, stored in the brain, would probably be traceable, if Science were complete, to chemical forces supplied to the brain by the blood, and ultimately derived from the food I eat and the air I breathe."

"But would not that be Fatalism? Where would Free-Will come in?"

"In choice of nerves," replied Arthur. "The nerve-force in the brain may flow just as naturally down one nerve as down another. We need something more than a fixed Law of Nature to settle which nerve shall carry it. That 'something' is Free-Will."

Her eyes sparkled." "I see what you mean!" she exclaimed.
"Human Free-Will is an exception to the system of fixed Law.
Eric said something like that. And then I think he pointed out that
God can only influence Nature by influencing Human Wills.
So that we might reasonably pray 'give us this day our daily bread,'
because many of the causes that produce bread are under Man's control.
But to pray for rain, or fine weather, would be as unreasonable as—"
she checked herself, as if fearful of saying something irreverent.

In a hushed, low tone, that trembled with emotion, and with the solemnity of one in the presence of death, Arthur slowly replied "Shalt he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? Shall we 'the swarm that in the noontide beam were born,' feeling in ourselves the power to direct, this way or that, the forces of Nature—of Nature, of which we form so trivial a part—shall we, in our boundless arrogance, in our pitiful conceit, deny that power to the Ancient of Days? Saying, to our Creator, 'Thus far and no further. Thou madest, but thou canst not rule!'?"

Lady Muriel had covered her face in her hands, and did not look up.
She only murmured "Thanks, thanks!" again and again.

We rose to go. Arthur said, with evident effort, "One word more.
If you would know the power of Prayer—in anything and everything that
Man can need try it. Ask, and it shall be given you. I—have tried it.
I know that God answers prayer!"

Our walk home was a silent one, till we had nearly reached the lodgings: then Arthur murmured—and it was almost an echo of my own thoughts—"What knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?"

The subject was not touched on again. We sat on, talking, while hour after hour, of this our last night together, glided away unnoticed. He had much to tell me about India, and the new life he was going to, and the work he hoped to do. And his great generous soul seemed so filled with noble ambition as to have no space left for any vain regret or selfish repining.

"Come, it is nearly morning! Arthur said at last, rising and leading the way upstairs.

"The sun will be rising in a few minutes: and, though I have basely defrauded you of your last chance of a night's rest here, I'm sure you'll forgive me: for I really couldn't bring myself to say 'Good night' sooner. And God knows whether you'll ever see me again, or hear of me!"

"Hear of you I am certain I shall!" I warmly responded, and quoted the concluding lines of that strange poem 'Waring' :—

    "Oh, never star
    Was lost here, but it rose afar
    Look East, where whole new thousands are!
    In Vishnu-land what Avatar?"

"Aye, look Eastward!" Arthur eagerly replied, pausing at the stair-case window, which commanded a fine view of the sea and the eastward horizon. "The West is the fitting tomb for all the sorrow and the sighing, all the errors and the follies of the Past: for all its withered Hopes and all its buried Loves! From the East comes new strength, new ambition, new Hope, new Life, new Love! Look Eastward! Aye, look Eastward!"

His last words were still ringing in my ears as I entered my room, and undrew the window-curtains, just in time to see the sun burst in glory from his ocean-prison, and clothe the world in the light of a new day.

"So may it be for him, and me, and all of us!" I mused. "All that is evil, and dead, and hopeless, fading with the Night that is past! All that is good, and living, and hopeful, rising with the dawn of Day!

"Fading, with the Night, the chilly mists, and the noxious vapours, and the heavy shadows, and the wailing gusts, and the owl's melancholy hootings: rising, with the Day, the darting shafts of light, and the wholesome morning breeze, and the warmth of a dawning life, and the mad music of the lark! Look Eastward!

"Fading, with the Night, the clouds of ignorance, and the deadly blight of sin, and the silent tears of sorrow: and ever rising, higher, higher, with the Day, the radiant dawn of knowledge, and the sweet breath of purity, and the throb of a world's ecstasy! Look Eastward!

"Fading, with the Night, the memory of a dead love, and the withered leaves of a blighted hope, and the sickly repinings and moody regrets thatnumb the best energies of the soul: and rising, broadening, rolling upward like a living flood, the manly resolve, and the dauntless will, and the heavenward gaze of faith—the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen!

"Look Eastward! Aye, look Eastward!"

SYLVIE AND BRUNO CONCLUDED

Published in 1893, this second volume to Sylvie and Bruno was also illustrated by Harry Furniss.  It was Carroll’s last novel to be published in his lifetime.

The frontispiece of the novel

CONTENTS

PREFACE

CHAPTER ONE

BRUNO’S LESSONS

CHAPTER TWO

LOVE’S CURFEW

CHAPTER THREE

STREAKS OF DAWN

CHAPTER FOUR

THE DOG-KING

CHAPTER FIVE

MATILDA JANE

CHAPTER SIX

WILLIE’S WIFE

CHAPTER SEVEN

MEIN HERR

CHAPTER EIGHT

IN A SHADY PLACE

CHAPTER NINE

THE FAREWELL-PARTY

CHAPTER TEN

JABBERING AND JAM

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE MAN IN THE MOON

CHAPTER TWELVE

FAIRY-MUSIC

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

WHAT TOTTLES MEANT

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

BRUNO’S PICNIC

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE LITTLE FOXES

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

BEYOND THESE VOICES

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

TO THE RESCUE!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A NEWSPAPER-CUTTING

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A FAIRY-DUET

CHAPTER TWENTY

GAMMON AND SPINACH

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE PROFESSOR’S LECTURE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THE BANQUET

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE PIG-TALE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THE BEGGAR’S RETURN

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

LIFE OUT OF DEATH

PREFACE

I MUST begin with the same announcement as in the previous Volume (which I shall henceforward refer to as "Vol. I.," calling the present Volume "Vol. II."), viz. that the Locket, at p. 405, was drawn by ' Miss Alice Havers.' And my reason, for not stating this on the title-page that it seems only due, to the artist of these wonderful pictures, that his name should stand there alone has, I think, even greater weight in Vol. II. than it had in Vol. I. Let me call especial attention to the three “Little Birds" borders, at pp. 365, 371, 377. The way, in which he has managed to introduce the most minute details of the stanzas to be illustrated, seems to me a triumph of artistic ingenuity.

Let me here express my sincere gratitude to the many Reviewers who have noticed, whether favourably or unfavourably, the previous Volume. Their unfavourable remarks were, most probably, well-deserved; the favourable ones less probably so. Both kinds have no doubt served to make the book known, and have helped the reading Public to form their opinions of it. Let me also here assure them that it is not from any want of respect for their criticisms, that I have carefully forborne from reading any of them. I am strongly of opinion that an author had far better not read any reviews of his books : the unfavourable ones are almost certain to make him cross, and the favourable ones conceited ; and neither of these results is desirable.

Criticisms have, however, reached me from private sources, to some of which I propose to offer a reply.

One such critic complains that Arthur's strictures, on sermons and on choristers, are too severe. Let me say, in reply, that I do not hold myself responsible for any of the opinions expressed by the characters in my book. They are simply opinions which, it seemed to me, might probably be held by the persons into whose mouths I put them, and which were worth consideration.

Other critics have objected to certain innovations in spelling, such as " ca'n't," " wo'n't," " traveler." In reply, I can only plead my firm conviction that the popular usage is wrong. As to "ca'n't," it will not be disputed that, in all other words ending in " n't," these letters are an abbreviation of " not" ; and it is surely absurd to suppose that, in this solitary instance, "not" is represented by "'t"! In fact "can't" is the proper abbreviation for "can it," just as "is't" is for " is it." Again, in " wo'n't," the first apostrophe is needed, because the word " would " is here abridged into "wo": but I hold it proper to spell "don't" with only one apostrophe, because the word " do " is here complete. As to such words as " traveler," I hold the correct principle to be, to doiible the consonant when the accent falls on that syllable ; otherwise to leave it single. This rule is observed in most cases (e.g. we double the " r" in " preferred," but leave it single in "offered"), so that I am only extending, to other cases, an existing rule. I admit, however, that I do not spell " parallel," as the rule would have it; but here we are constrained, by the etymology, to insert the double " 1".

In the Preface to Vol. I. were two puzzles, on which my readers might exercise their ingenuity. One was, to detect the 3 lines of " padding," which I had found it necessary to supply in the passage extending from the top of p. 35 to the middle of p. 38. They are the 14th, 15 th, and 16th lines of p. 37. The other puzzle was, to determine which (if any) of the 8 stanzas of the Gardener's Song (see pp. 65, 78, 83, 90, 106, 116, 164, 168) were adapted to the context, and which (if any) had the context adapted to them. The last of them is the only one that was adapted to the context, the " Garden-Door that opened with a key" having been substituted for some creature (a Cormorant, I think) "that nestled in a tree." At pp. 78, 106, and 164, the context was adapted to the stanza. At p. 90, neither stanza nor context was altered : the connection between them was simply a piece of good luck.

In the Preface to Vol. I., at pp. ix., x., I gave an account of the making-up of the story of " Sylvie and Bruno." A few more details may perhaps be acceptable to my Readers.

It was in 1873, as I now believe, that the idea first occurred to me that a little fairy-tale (written, in 1867, for " Aunt Judy's Magazine," under the title " Bruno's Revenge ") might serve as the nucleus of a longer story. This I surmise, from having found the original draft of the last paragraph of Vol. II., dated 1873. So that this paragraph has been waiting 20

years for its chance of emerging into printmore than twice the period so cautiously recommended by Horace for ' repressing' one's literary efforts!

It was in February, 1885, that I entered into negotiations, with Mr. Harry Furniss, for illustrating the book. Most of the substance of both Volumes was then in existence in manuscript: and my original intention was to publish the whole story at once. In September, 1885, I received from Mr. Furniss the first set of drawingsthe four which illustrate "Peter and Paul" (see I. pp. 144, 147, 150, 154): in November, 1886, I received the second setthe three which illustrate the Professor's song about the "little man" who had "a little gun" (Vol. II. pp. 265, 266, 267): and in January, 1887, I received the third setthe four which illustrate the " Pig-Tale."

So we went on, illustrating first one bit of the story, and then another, without any idea of sequence. And it was not till March, 1889, that, having calculated the number of pages the story would occupy, I decided on dividing it into two portions, and publishing it half at a time. This necessitated the writing of a sort of conclusion for the first Volume : and most of my Readers, I fancy, regarded this as the actual conclusion, when that Volume appeared in December, 1889. At any rate, among all the letters I received about it, there was only one which expressed any suspicion that it was not a final conclusion. This letter was from a child. She wrote " we were so glad, when we came to the end of the book, to find that there was no ending-up, for that shows us that you are going to write a sequel."

It may interest some of my Readers to know the theory on which this story is constructed. It is an attempt to show what might possibly happen, supposing that Fairies really existed; and that they were sometimes visible to us, and we to them ; and that they were sometimes able to assume human form : and supposing, also, that human beings might sometimes become conscious of what goes on in the Fairy- world——by actual transference of their immaterial essence, such as we meet with in ' Esoteric Buddhism.'

I have supposed a Human being to be capable of various psychical states, with varying degrees of consciousness, as follows :—

(a) the ordinary state, with no consciousness of the presence of Fairies ; (b) the ' eerie' state, in which, while conscious of actual surroundings, he is also conscious of the presence of Fairies ; (c) a form of trance, in which, while unconscious of actual surroundings, and apparently asleep, he (i.e. his immaterial essence) migrates to other scenes, in the actual world, or in Fairyland, and is conscious of the presence of Fairies.

I have also supposed a Fairy to be capable of migrating from Fairyland into the actual world, and of assuming, at pleasure, a Human form ; and also to be capable of various psychical states, viz.

(a)the ordinary state, with no consciousness of the presence of Human beings ; (b)a sort of 'eerie' state, in which he is conscious, if in the actual world, of the presence of actual Human beings ; if in Fairyland, of the presence of the immaterial essences of Human beings.

I will here tabulate the passages, in both Volumes, where abnormal states occur.

In the Preface to Vol. I., at p. x., I gave an account of the origination of some of the ideas embodied in the book. A few more such details may perhaps interest my Readers :

I. p. 203. The very peculiar use, here made of a dead mouse, comes from real life. I once found two very small boys, in a garden, playing a microscopic game of ' Single-Wicket/ The bat was, I think, about the size of a table-spoon ; and the utmost distance attained by the ball, in its most daring flights, was some 4 or 5 yards. The exact length was of course a matter of supreme importance; and it was always carefully measured out (the batsman and the bowler amicably sharing the toil) with a dead mouse!

I.p. 259. The two quasi-mathematical Axioms, quoted by Arthur at p. 259 of Vol. I., (" Things that are greater than the same are greater than one another/' and " All angles are equal ") were actually enunciated, in all seriousness, by undergraduates at a University situated not 100 miles from Ely.

II.p. 10. Bruno's remark (" I can, if I like, &c.") was actually made by a little boy.

II. p. 12. So also was his remark ("I know what it doesnt spell.") And his remark (" I just twiddled my eyes, &c.") I heard from the lips of a little girl, who had just solved a puzzle I had set her.

II. p. 55. Bruno's soliloquy ("For its father, &c.") was actually spoken by a little girl, looking out of the window of a railway-carriage.

II. p. 138. The remark, made by a guest at the dinner-party, when asking for a dish of fruit (" I've been wishing for them, &c."') I heard made by the great Poet-Laureate, whose loss the whole reading- world has so lately had to deplore.

II. p. 163. Bruno's speech, on the subject of the age of ' Mein Herr,' embodies the reply of a little girl to the question " Is your grandmother an old lady?" " I don't know if she's an old lady," said this cautious young person ; " she's eighty-three."

II. p. 203. The speech about 'Obstruction' is no mere creature of my imagination! It is copied verbatim from the columns of the Standard, and was spoken by Sir William Harcourt, who was, at the time, a member of the ' Opposition,' at the ' National Liberal Club,' on July the 16th, 1890.

II. p. 329. The Professor's remark, about a dog's tail, that " it doesn't bite at that end," was actually made by a child, when warned of the danger he was incurring by pulling the dog's tail.

II. p. 374. The dialogue between Sylvie and Bruno, which occupies lines 6 to 15, is a verbatim report (merely substituting "cake" for "penny"; of a dialogue overheard between two children.

One story in this Volume' Bruno's Picnic '

I can vouch for as suitable for telling to children, having tested it again and again ; and, whether my audience has been a dozen little girls in a village- school, or some thirty or forty in a London drawing- room, or a hundred in a High School, I have always found them earnestly attentive, and keenly appreciative of such fun as the story supplied.

May I take this opportunity of calling attention to what I flatter myself was a successful piece of name- coining, at p. 42 of Vol. I. Does not the name 'Sibimet' fairly embody the character of the Sub- Warden? The gentle Reader has no doubt observed what a singularly useless article in a house a brazen trumpet is, if you simply leave it lying about, and never blow it!

Readers of the first Volume, who have amused themselves by trying to solve the two puzzles propounded at pp. xi., xii. of the Preface, may perhaps like to exercise their ingenuity in discovering which (if any) of the following parallelisms were intentional, and which (if any) accidental.

" Little Birds.'' Events, and Persons.

Stanza 1.Banquet.

2.Chancellor.

3.Empress and Spinach (II. 325).

4.Warden's Return.

5.Professor's Lecture (II. 339).

6.Other Professor's song (I. 138).

7.Petting of Uggug.

8.Baron Doppelgeist.

9.Jester and Bear (I. 119). Little Foxes.

10.Bruno's Dinner-Bell ; Little Foxes.

I will publish the answer to this puzzle in the Preface to a little book of "Original Games and Puzzles," now in course of preparation.

I have reserved, for the last, one or two rather more serious topics.

I had intended, in this Preface, to discuss more fully, than I had done in the previous Volume, the ' Morality of Sportwith special reference to letters I have received from lovers of Sport, in which they point out the many great advantages which men get from it, and try to prove that the suffering, which it inflicts on animals, is too trivial to be regarded.

But, when I came to think the subject out, and to arrange the whole of the arguments ' pro ' and ' con I found it much too large for treatment here. Some day, I hope to publish an essay on this subject. At present, I will content myself with stating the net result I have arrived at.

It is, that God has given to Man an absolute right to take the lives of other animals, for any reasonable cause, such as the supply of food : but that He has not given to Man the right to inflict pain, unless when necessary: that mere pleasure, or advantage, does not constitute such a necessity: and, consequently, that pain, inflicted for the purposes of Sport, is cruel, and therefore wrong. But I find it a far more complex question than I had supposed ; and that the 'case', on the side of the Sportsman, is a much stronger one than I had supposed. So, for the present, I say no more about it.

Objections have been raised to the severe language I have put into the mouth of ' Arthur \ at p. 277, on the subject of 'Sermons,' and at pp. 273, 274, on the subjects of Choral Services and ' Choristers.'

I have already protested against the assumption that I am ready to endorse the opinions of characters in my story. But, in these two instances, I admit that I am much in sympathy with ' Arthur.' In my opinion, far too many sermons are expected from our preachers; and, as a consequence, a great many are preached, which are not worth listening to ; and, as a consequence of that, we are very apt not to listen. The reader of this paragraph probably heard a sermon last Sunday morning? Well, let him, if he can, name the text, and state how the preacher treated it!

Then, as to ' Choristers,' and all the other accessories—of music, vestments, processions, &c.,—which have come, along with them, into fashion—while freely admitting that the ' Ritual' movement was sorely needed, and that it has effected a vast improvement in our Church-Services, which had become dead and dry to the last degree, I hold that, like many other desirable movements, it has gone too far in the opposite direction, and has introduced many new dangers.

For the Congregation this new movement involves the danger of learning to think that the Services are done for them ; and that their bodily presence is all they need contribute. And, for Clergy and Congregation alike, it involves the danger of regarding these elaborate Services as ends in themselves, and of forgetting that they are simply means, and the very hollowest of mockeries, unless they bear fruit in our lives.

For the Choristers it seems to involve the danger of self-conceit, as described at p. 274 (N.B. " stagy- entrances " is a misprint for "stage-entrances"), the danger of regarding those parts of the Service, where their help is not required, as not worth attending to, the danger of coming to regard the Service as a mere outward forma series of postures to be assumed, and of words to be said or sung, while the thoughts are elsewhereand the danger of ' familiarity'

breeding ' contempt' for sacred things.

Let me illustrate these last two forms of danger, from my own experience. Not long ago, I attended a Cathedral-Service, and was placed immediately behind a row of men, members of the Choir; and I could not help noticing that they treated the Lessons as a part of the Service to which they needed not to give any attention, and as affording them a convenient opportunity for arranging music-books, &c., &c. Also I have frequently seen a row of little choristers, after marching in procession to their places, kneel down, as if about to pray, and rise from their knees after a minute spent in looking about them, it being but too evident that the attitude was a mere mockery. Surely it is very dangerous, for these children, to thus accustom them to pretend to pray? As an instance of irreverent treatment of holy things, I will mention a custom, which no doubt many of my readers have noticed in Churches where the Clergy and Choir enter in procession, viz. that, at the end of the private devotions, which are carried on in the vestry, and which are of course inaudible to the Congregation, the final " Amen" is shouted, loud enough to be heard all through the Church. This serves as a signal, to the Congregation, to prepare to rise when the procession appears : and it admits of no dispute that it is for this purpose that it is thus shouted. When we remember to Whom that " Amen " is really addressed, and consider that it is here used for the same purpose as one of the Church-bells, we must surely admit that it is a piece of gross irreverence? To me it is much as if I were to see a Bible used as a footstool.

As an instance of the dangers, for the Clergy themselves, introduced by this new movement, let me mention the fact that, according to my experience, Clergymen of this school are specially apt to retail comic anecdotes, in which the most sacred names and wordssometimes actual texts from the Bibleare used as themes for jesting. Many such things are repeated as having been originally said by children, whose utter ignorance of evil must no doubt acquit them, in the sight of God, of all blame; but it must be otherwise for those who consciously use such innocent utterances as material for their unholy mirth.

Let me add, however, most earnestly, that I fully believe that this profanity is, in many cases, ^conscious : the ' environment' (as I have tried to explain at p. 123) makes all the difference between man and man ; and I rejoice to think that many of these profane storieswhich I find so painful to listen to, and should feel it a sin to repeatgive to their ears no pain, and to their consciences no shock ; and that they can utter, not less sincerely than myself, the two prayers, " Hallowed be Thy Name," and " from hardness of heart, and contempt of Thy Word and Commandment, Good Lord, deliver us!" To which I would desire to add, for their sake and for my own, Keble's beautiful petition, help us, this and every day, To live more nearly as we pray I" It is, in fact, for its consequences—for the grave dangers, both to speaker and to hearer, which it involves—rather than for what it is in itself \ that I mourn over this clerical habit of profanity in social talk. To the believing hearer it brings the danger of loss of reverence for holy things, by the mere act of listening to, and enjoying, such jests ; and also the temptation to retail them for the amusement of others. To the unbelieving hearer it brings a welcome confirmation of his theory that religion is a fable, in the spectacle of its accredited champions thus betraying their trust. And to the speaker himself it must surely bring the danger of loss of faith. For surely such jests, if uttered with no consciousness of harm, must necessarily be also uttered with no consciousness, at the moment, of the reality of God, as a living being, who hears all we say. And he, who allows himself the habit of thus uttering holy words, with no thought of their meaning, is but too likely to find that, for him, God has become a myth, and heaven a poetic fancy—that, for him, the light of life is gone, and that he is at heart an atheist, lost in " a darkness that may be felt?

There is, I fear, at the present time, an increasing tendency to irreverent treatment of the name of God and of subjects connected with religion. Some of our theatres are helping this downward movement by the gross caricatures of clergymen which they put upon the stage: some of our clergy are themselves helping it, by showing that they can lay aside the spirit of reverence, along with their surplices, and can treat as jests, when outside their churches, names and things to which they pay an almost superstitious veneration when inside: the u Salvation Army" has, I fear, with the best intentions, done much to help it, by the coarse familiarity with which they treat holy things : and surely every one, who desires to live in the spirit of the prayer " Hallowed be thy Name" ought to do what he can, however little that may be, to check it. So I have gladly taken this unique opportunity, however unfit the topic may seem for the Preface to a book of this kind, to express some thoughts which have weighed on my mind for a long time. I did not expect, when I wrote the Preface to Vol. I, that it would be read to any appreciable extent : but I rejoice to believe, from evidence that has reached me, that it has been read by many, and to hope that this Preface will also be so : and I think- that, among them, some will be found ready to sympathise with the views I have put forwards, and ready to help, with their prayers and their example, the revival, in Society, of the waning spirit of reverence.

Christmas, 1893.

CHAPTER ONE

BRUNO’S LESSONS

DURING the next month or two my solitary town-life seemed, by contrast, unusually dull and tedious. I missed the pleasant friends I had left behind at Elveston—the genial interchange of thought—the sympathy which gave to one’s ideas a new and vivid reality: but, perhaps more than all, I missed the companionship of the two Fairies—or Dream-Children, for I had not yet solved the problem as to who or what they were—whose sweet playfulness had shed a magic radiance over my life.

In office-hours—which I suppose reduce most men to the mental condition of a coffee-mill or a mangle—time sped along much as usual: it was in the pauses of life, the desolate hours when books and newspapers palled on the sated appetite, and when, thrown back upon one’s own dreary musings, one strove—all in vain—to people the vacant air with the dear faces of absent friends, that the real bitterness of solitude made itself felt.

One evening, feeling my life a little more wearisome than usual, I strolled down to my Club, not so much with the hope of meeting any friend there, for London was now ‘out of town’, as with the feeling that here, at least, I should hear ‘sweet words of human speech’, and come into contact with human thought.

However, almost the first face I saw there was that of a friend. Eric Lindon was lounging, with rather a ‘bored’ expression of face, over a newspaper; and we fell into conversation with a mutual satisfaction which neither of us tried to conceal.

After a while I ventured to introduce what was just then the main subject of my thoughts. ‘And so the Doctor’ (a name we had adopted by a tacit agreement, as a convenient compromise between the formality of ‘Doctor Forester’ and the intimacy—to which Eric Lindon hardly seemed entitled—of ‘Arthur’) ‘has gone abroad by this time, I suppose? Can you give me his present address?’

‘He is still at Elveston—I believe,’ was the reply. ‘But I have not been there since I last met you.’

I did not know which part of this intelligence to wonder at most. ‘And might I ask—if it isn’t taking too much of a liberty—when your wedding-bells are to—or perhaps they have rung, already?’

‘No,’ said Eric, in a steady voice, which betrayed scarcely a trace of emotion: ‘that engagement is at an end. I am still "Benedick the unmarried man".’

After this, the thick-coming fancies—all radiant with new possibilities of happiness for Arthur—were far too bewildering to admit of any further conversation, and I was only too glad to avail myself of the first decent excuse, that offered itself, for retiring into silence.

The next day I wrote to Arthur, with as much of a reprimand for his long silence as I could bring myself to put into words, begging him to tell me how the world went with him.

Needs must that three or four days—possibly more—should elapse before I could receive his reply; and never had I known days drag their slow length along with a more tedious indolence.

To while away the time, I strolled, one afternoon, into Kensington Gardens, and, wandering aimlessly along any path that presented itself, I soon became aware that I had somehow strayed into one that was wholly new to me. Still, my elfish experiences seemed to have so completely faded out of my life that nothing was further from my thoughts than the idea of again meeting my fairy-friends, when I chanced to notice a small creature moving among the grass that fringed the path, that did not seem to be an insect, or a frog, or any other living thing that I could think of. Cautiously kneeling down, and making an ex tempore cage of my two hands, I imprisoned the little wanderer, and felt a sudden thrill of surprise and delight on discovering that my prisoner was no other than Bruno himself!

Bruno took the matter very coolly, and, when I had replaced him on the ground, where he would be within easy conversational distance, he began talking, just as if it were only a few minutes since last we had met.

‘Doos oo know what the Rule is,’ he enquired, ‘when oo catches a Fairy, withouten its having tolded oo where it was?’

(Bruno’s notions of English Grammar had certainly not improved since our last meeting.)

‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know there was any Rule about it.’

‘I think oo’ve got a right to eat me,’ said the little fellow, looking up into my face with a winning smile. ‘But I’m not pruffickly sure. Oo’d better not do it wizout asking.’

It did indeed seem reasonable not to take so irrevocable a step as that, without due enquiry. ‘I’ll certainly ask about it, first,’ I said. ‘Besides, I don’t know yet whether you would be worth eating!’

‘I guess I’m deliciously good to eat,’ Bruno remarked in a satisfied tone, as if it were something to be rather proud of.

‘And what are you doing here, Bruno?’

‘That’s not my name!’ said my cunning little friend. ‘Don’t oo know my name’s "Oh Bruno!"? That’s what Sylvie always calls me, when I says mine lessons.’

‘Well then, what are you doing here, oh Bruno?’

‘Doing mine lessons, a-course!’ With that roguish twinkle in his eye, that always came when he knew he was talking nonsense.

‘Oh, that’s the way you do your lessons, is it? And do you remember them well?’

‘Always can ‘member mine lessons,’ said Bruno. ‘It’s Sylvie’s lessons that’s so dreffully hard to ‘member!’ He frowned, as if in agonies of thought, and tapped his forehead with his knuckles. ‘I ca’n’t think enough to understand them!’ he said despairingly.

‘It wants double thinking, I believe!’

‘But where’s Sylvie gone?’

‘That’s just what I want to know!’ said Bruno disconsolately. ‘What ever’s the good of setting me lessons, when she isn’t here to ‘splain the hard bits?’

‘I’ll find her for you!’ I volunteered; and, getting up, I wandered round the tree under whose shade I had been reclining, looking on all sides for Sylvie. In another minute I again noticed some strange thing moving among the grass, and, kneeling down, was immediately confronted with Sylvie’s innocent face, lighted up with a joyful surprise at seeing me, and was accosted, in the sweet voice I knew so well, with what seemed to be the end of a sentence whose beginning I had failed to catch.

‘—and I think he ought to have finished them by this time. So I’m going back to him. Will you come too? It’s only just round at the other side of this tree.’

It was but a few steps for me; but it was a great many for Sylvie; and I had to be very careful to walk slowly, in order not to leave the little creature so far behind as to lose sight of her.

To find Bruno’s lessons was easy enough: they appeared to be neatly written out on large smooth ivy-leaves, which were scattered in some confusion over a little patch of ground where the grass had been worn away; but the pale student, who ought by rights to have been bending over them, was nowhere to be seen: we looked in all directions, for some time in vain; but at last Sylvie’s sharp eyes detected him, swinging on a tendril of ivy, and Sylvie’s stern voice commanded his instant return to terra firma and to the business of Life.

‘Pleasure first and business afterwards’ seemed to be the motto of these tiny folk, so many hugs and kisses had to be interchanged before anything else could be done.

‘Now, Bruno,’ Sylvie said reproachfully, ‘didn’t I tell you you were to go on with your lessons, unless you heard to the contrary?’

‘But I did heard to the contrary!’ Bruno insisted, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

‘What did you hear, you wicked boy?’

‘It were a sort of noise in the air,’ said Bruno: ‘a sort of a scrambling noise. Didn’t oo hear it, Mister Sir?’

‘Well, anyhow, you needn’t go to sleep over them, you lazy-lazy!’ For Bruno had curled himself up, on the largest ‘lesson’, and was arranging another as a pillow.

‘I wasn’t asleep!’ said Bruno, in a deeply-injured tone. ‘When I shuts mine eyes, it’s to show that I’m awake!’

‘Well, how much have you learned, then?’

‘I’ve learned a little tiny bit,’ said Bruno, modestly, being evidently afraid of overstating his achievement. ‘Ca’n’t learn no more!’

‘Oh Bruno! You know you can, if you like.’

‘Course I can, if I like,’ the pale student replied; ‘but I ca’n’t if I don’t like!’

Sylvie had a way—which I could not too highly admire—of evading Bruno’s logical perplexities by suddenly striking into a new line of thought; and this masterly stratagem she now adopted.

‘Well, I must say one thing—’

‘Did oo know, Mister Sir,’ Bruno thoughtfully remarked, ‘that Sylvie ca’n’t count? Whenever she says "I must say one thing", I know quite well she’ll say two things! And she always doos.’

‘Two heads are better than one, Bruno,’ I said, but with no very distinct idea as to what I meant by it.

‘I shouldn’t mind having two heads,’ Bruno said softly to himself: ‘one head to eat mine dinner, and one head to argue wiz Sylvie—doos oo think oo’d look prettier if oo’d got two heads, Mister Sir?’

The case did not, I assured him, admit of a doubt.

‘The reason why Sylvie’s so cross—’ Bruno went on very seriously, almost sadly.

Sylvie’s eyes grew large and round with surprise at this new line of enquiry—her rosy face being perfectly radiant with good humour. But she said nothing.

‘Wouldn’t it be better to tell me after the lessons are over?’ I suggested.

‘Very well,’ Bruno said with a resigned air: ‘only she wo’n’t be cross then.’

‘There’s only three lessons to do,’ said Sylvie. ‘Spelling, and Geography, and Singing.’

‘Not Arithmetic?’ I said.

‘No, he hasn’t a head for Arithmetic—’

‘Course I haven’t!’ said Bruno. ‘Mine head’s for hair. I haven’t got a lot of heads!’

‘—and he ca’n’t learn his Multiplication-table—’

‘I like History ever so much better,’ Bruno remarked. ‘Oo has to repeat that Muddlecome table—’

‘Well, and you have to repeat—’

‘No, oo hasn’t!’ Bruno interrupted. ‘History repeats itself. The Professor said so!’

Sylvie was arranging some letters on a board—E—V—I—L. ‘Now, Bruno,’ she said, ‘what does that spell?’

Bruno looked at it, in solemn silence, for a minute. ‘I know what it doesn’t spell!’ he said at last.

‘That’s no good,’ said Sylvie. ‘What does it spell?’

Bruno took another look at the mysterious letters. ‘Why, it’s "LIVE", backwards!’ he exclaimed. (I thought it was, indeed.)

‘How did you manage to see that?’ said Sylvie.

‘I just twiddled my eyes,’ said Bruno, ‘and then I saw it directly. Now may I sing the King-fisher Song?’

‘Geography next,’ said Sylvie. ‘Don’t you know the Rules?’

‘I think there oughtn’t to be such a lot of Rules, Sylvie! I thinks—’

‘Yes, there ought to be such a lot of Rules, you wicked, wicked boy! And how dare you think at all about it? And shut up that mouth directly!’

So, as ‘that mouth’ didn’t seem inclined to shut up of itself, Sylvie shut it for him—with both hands—and sealed it with a kiss, just as you would fasten up a letter.

‘Now that Bruno is fastened up from talking,’ she went on, turning to me, ‘I’ll show you the Map he does his lessons on.’

And there it was, a large Map of the World, spread out on the ground. It was so large that Bruno had to crawl about on it, to point out the places named in the ‘King-fisher Lesson’.

‘When a King-fisher sees a Lady-bird flying away, he says "Ceylon, if you Candia!" And when he catches it, he says "Come to Media! And if you’re Hungary or thirsty, I’ll give you some Nubia!" When he takes it in his claws, he says "Europe!" When he puts it into his beak, he says "India!" When he’s swallowed it, he says "Eton!" That’s all.’

‘That’s quite perfect,’ said Sylvie. ‘Now, you may sing the King-fisher Song.’

‘Will oo sing the chorus?’ Bruno said to me.

I was just beginning to say ‘I’m afraid I don’t know the words’, when Sylvie silently turned the map over, and I found the words were all written on the back. In one respect it was a very peculiar song: the chorus to each verse came in the middle, instead of at the end of it. However, the tune was so easy that I soon picked it up, and managed the chorus as well, perhaps, as it is possible for one person to manage such a thing. It was in vain that I signed to Sylvie to help me: she only smiled sweetly and shook her head.

‘King Fisher courted Lady Bird—

Sing Beans, sing Bones, sing Butterflies!

"Find me my match," he said, "With such a noble head—

With such a beard, as white as curd—

With such expressive eyes!"

‘"Yet pins have heads," said Lady Bird—

Sing Prunes, sing Prawns, sing Primrose-Hill!

"And, where you stick them in,They stay, and thus a pin Is very much to be preferredTo one that’s never still!"

‘"Oysters have beards," said Lady Bird—

Sing Flies, sing Frogs, sing Fiddle-strings!

"I love them, for I knowThey never chatter so:

They would not say one single word—

Not if you crowned them Kings!"

‘"Needles have eyes," said Lady Bird—

Sing Cats, sing Corks, sing Cowslip-tea!

"And they are sharp—just whatYour Majesty is not:

So get you gone—’ tis too absurdTo come a-courting me!"

‘So he went away,’ Bruno added as a kind of postscript, when the last note of the song had died away, ‘Just like he always did.’

‘Oh, my dear Bruno!’ Sylvie exclaimed, with her hands over her ears. ‘You shouldn’t say "like": you should say "what".’

To which Bruno replied, doggedly, ‘I only says "what!" when oo doosn’t speak loud, so as I can hear oo.’

‘Where did he go to?’ I asked, hoping to prevent an argument.

‘He went more far than he’d never been before,’ said Bruno.

‘You should never say "more far",’ Sylvie corrected him: ‘you should say "farther".’

‘Then oo shouldn’t say "more broth", when we’re at dinner,’ Bruno retorted: ‘oo should say "brother"!’

This time Sylvie evaded an argument by turning away, and beginning to roll up the Map. ‘Lessons are over!’ she proclaimed in her sweetest tones.

‘And has there been no crying over them?’ I enquired. ‘Little boys always cry over their lessons, don’t they?’

‘I never cries after twelve o’clock,’ said Bruno: ‘‘cause then it’s getting so near to dinner-time.’

‘Sometimes, in the morning,’ Sylvie said in a low voice; ‘when it’s Geography-day, and when he’s been disobe—’

‘What a fellow you are to talk, Sylvie!’ Bruno hastily interposed. ‘Doos oo think the world was made for oo to talk in?’

‘Why, where would you have me talk, then?’ Sylvie said, evidently quite ready for an argument.

But Bruno answered resolutely. ‘I’m not going to argue about it, ‘cause it’s getting late, and there wo’n’t be time—but oo’s as ’ong as everoo can be!’ And he rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, in which tears were beginning to glitter.

Sylvie’s eyes filled with tears in a moment. ‘I didn’t mean it, Bruno, darling!’ she whispered; and the rest of the argument was lost ‘amid the tangles of Neæra’s hair’, while the two disputants hugged and kissed each other.

But this new form of argument was brought to a sudden end by a flash of lightning, which was closely followed by a peal of thunder, and by a torrent of raindrops, which came hissing and spitting, almost like live creatures, through the leaves of the tree that sheltered us. ‘Why, it’s raining cats and dogs!’ I said.

‘And all the dogs has come down first,’ said Bruno: ‘there’s nothing but cats coming down now!’

In another minute the pattering ceased, as suddenly as it had begun. I stepped out from under the tree, and found that the storm was over; but I looked in vain, on my return, for my tiny companions. They had vanished with the storm, and there was nothing for it but to make the best of my way home.

On the table lay, awaiting my return, an envelope of that peculiar yellow tint which always announces a telegram, and which must be, in the memories of so many of us, inseparably linked with some great and sudden sorrow—something that has cast a shadow, never in this world to be wholly lifted off, on the brightness of Life. No doubt it has also heralded—for many of us—some sudden news of joy; but this, I think, is less common: human life seems, on the whole, to contain more of sorrow than of joy. And yet the world goes on. Who knows why?

This time, however, there was no shock of sorrow to be faced: in fact, the few words it contained (‘Could not bring myself to write. Come soon. Always welcome. A letter follows this. Arthur.’) seemed so like Arthur himself speaking, that it gave me quite a thrill of pleasure, and I at once began the preparations needed for the journey.

CHAPTER TWO

LOVE’S CURFEW

‘FAYFIELD Junction! Change for Elveston!’

What subtle memory could there be, linked to these commonplace words, that caused such a flood of happy thoughts to fill my brain? I dismounted from the carriage in a state of joyful excitement for which I could not at first account. True, I had taken this very journey, and at the same hour of the day, six months ago; but many things had happened since then, and an old man’s memory has but a slender hold on recent events: I sought ‘the missing link’ in vain. Suddenly I caught sight of a bench—the only one provided on the cheerless platform—with a lady seated on it, and the whole forgotten scene flashed upon me as vividly as if it were happening over again.

‘Yes,’ I thought. ‘This bare platform is, for me, rich with the memory of a dear friend! She was sitting on that very bench, and invited me to share it, with some quotation from Shakespeare—I forget what. I’ll try the Earl’s plan for the Dramatization of Life, and fancy that figure to be Lady Muriel; and I wo’n’t undeceive myself too soon!’

So I strolled along the platform, resolutely ‘making-believe’ (as children say) that the casual passenger, seated on that bench, was the Lady Muriel I remembered so well. She was facing away from me, which aided the elaborate cheatery I was practising on myself: but, though I was careful, in passing the spot, to look the other way, in order to prolong the pleasant illusion, it was inevitable that, when I turned to walk back again, I should see who it was. It was Lady Muriel herself!

The whole scene now returned vividly to my memory; and, to make this repetition of it stranger still, there was the same old man, whom I remembered seeing so roughly ordered off, by the Station-Master, to make room for his titled passenger. The same, but ‘with a difference’: no longer tottering feebly along the platform, but actually seated at Lady Muriel’s side, and in conversation with her! ‘Yes, put it in your purse,’ she was saying, ‘and remember you’re to spend it all for Minnie. And mind you bring her something nice, that’ll do her real good! And give her my love!’ So intent was she on saying these words, that, although the sound of my foot-step had made her lift her head and look at me, she did not at first recognize me.

I raised my hat as I approached, and then there flashed across her face a genuine look of joy, which so exactly recalled the sweet face of Sylvie, when last we met in Kensington Gardens, that I felt quite bewildered.

Rather than disturb the poor old man at her side, she rose from her seat, and joined me in my walk up and down the platform, and for a minute or two our conversation was as utterly trivial and commonplace as if we were merely two casual guests in a London drawing-room. Each of us seemed to shrink, just at first, from touching on the deeper interests which linked our lives together.

The Elveston train had drawn up at the platform, while we talked; and, in obedience to the Station-Master’s obsequious hint of ’This way, my Lady! Time’s up!’, we were making the best of our way towards the end which contained the sole first-class carriage, and were just passing the now-empty bench, when Lady Muriel noticed, lying on it, the purse in which her gift had just been so carefully bestowed, the owner of which, all unconscious of his loss, was being helped into a carriage at the other end of the train. She pounced on it instantly. ‘Poor old man!’ she cried. ‘He mustn’t go off, and think he’s lost it!’

‘Let me run with it! I can go quicker than you!’ I said. But she was already half-way down the platform, flying (‘running’ is much too mundane a word for such fairy-like motion) at a pace that left all possible efforts of mine hopelessly in the rear.

She was back again before I had well completed my audacious boast of speed in running, and was saying, quite demurely, as we entered our carriage, ‘and you really think you could have done it quicker?’

‘No, indeed!’ I replied. ‘I plead "Guilty" of gross exaggeration, and throw myself on the mercy of the Court!’

‘The Court will overlook it—for this once!’ Then her manner suddenly changed from playfulness to an anxious gravity.

‘You are not looking your best!’ she said with an anxious glance. ‘In fact, I think you look more of an invalid than when you left us. I very much doubt if London agrees with you?’

‘It may be the London air,’ I said, ‘or it may be the hard work—or my rather lonely life: anyhow, I’ve not been feeling very well, lately. But Elveston will soon set me up again. Arthur’s prescription—he’s my doctor, you know, and I heard from him this morning—is "plenty of ozone, and new milk, and pleasant society"!’

‘Pleasant society?’ said Lady Muriel, with a pretty make-believe of considering the question. ‘Well, really I don’t know where we can find that for you! We have so few neighbours. But new milk we can manage. Do get it of my old friend Mrs. Hunter, up there, on the hill-side. You may rely upon the quality. And her little Bessie comes to school every day, and passes your lodgings. So it would be very easy to send it.’

‘I’ll follow your advice with pleasure,’ I said; ‘and I’ll go and arrange about it to-morrow. I know Arthur will want a walk.’

‘You’ll find it quite an easy walk—under three miles, I think.’

‘Well, now that we’ve settled that point, let me retort your own remark upon yourself. I don’t think you’re looking quite your best!’

‘I daresay not,’ she replied in a low voice; and a sudden shadow seemed to overspread her face. ‘I’ve had some troubles lately.

It’s a matter about which I’ve been long wishing to consult you, but I couldn’t easily write about it. I’m so glad to have this opportunity!’

‘Do you think,’ she began again, after a minute’s silence, and with a visible embarrassment of manner most unusual in her, ‘that a promise, deliberately and solemnly given, is always binding—except, of course, where its fulfilment would involve some actual sin?’

‘I ca’n’t think of any other exception at this moment,’ I said. ‘That branch of casuistry is usually, I believe, treated as a question of truth and untruth—’

‘Surely that is the principle?’ she eagerly interrupted. ‘I always thought the Bible-teaching about it consisted of such texts "lie not one to another"?’

‘I have thought about that point,’ I replied; ‘and it seems to me that the essence of lying is the intention of deceiving. If you give a promise, fully intending to fulfil it, you are certainly acting truthfully then; and, if you afterwards break it, that does not involve any deception. I cannot call it untruthful.’

Another pause of silence ensued. Lady Muriel’s face was hard to read: she looked pleased, I thought, but also puzzled; and I felt curious to know whether her question had, as I began to suspect, some bearing on the breaking off of her engagement with Captain (now Major) Lindon.

‘You have relieved me from a great fear,’ she said; ‘but the thing is of course wrong, somehow. What texts would you quote, to prove it wrong?’

‘Any that enforce the payment of debts. If A promises something to B, B has a claim upon A. And A’s sin, if he breaks his promise, seems to me more analogous to stealing than to lying.’

‘It’s a new way of looking at it—to me,’ she said; ‘but it seems a true way, also. However, I wo’n’t deal in generalities, with an old friend like you! For we are old friends, somehow. Do you know, I think we began as old friends?’ she said with a playfulness of tone that ill accorded with the tears that glistened in her eyes.

‘Thank you very much for saying so,’ I replied. ‘I like to think of you as an old friend,’ (‘—though you don’t look it!’ would have been the almost necessary sequence, with any another lady; but she and I seemed to have long passed out of the time when compliments, or any such trivialities, were possible).

Here the train paused at a station, where two or three passengers entered the carriage; so no more was said till we had reached our journey’s end.

On our arrival at Elveston, she readily adopted my suggestion that we should walk up together; so, as soon as our luggage had been duly taken charge of—hers by the servant who met her at the station, and mine by one of the porters—we set out together along the familiar lanes, now linked in my memory with so many delightful associations. Lady Muriel at once recommenced the conversation at the point where it had been interrupted.

‘You knew of my engagement to my cousin Eric. Did you also hear—’

‘Yes,’ I interrupted, anxious to spare her the pain of giving any details. ‘I heard it had all come to an end.’

‘I would like to tell you how it happened,’ she said; ‘as that is the very point I want your advice about. I had long realized that we were not in sympathy in religious belief. His ideas of Christianity are very shadowy; and even as to the existence of a God he lives in a sort of dreamland. But it has not affected his life! I feel sure, now, that the most absolute Atheist may be leading, though walking blindfold, a pure and noble life. And if you knew half the good deeds—’ she broke off suddenly, and turned away her head.

‘I entirely agree with you,’ I said. ‘And have we not our Saviour’s own promise that such a life shall surely lead to the light?’

‘Yes, I know it,’ she said in a broken voice, still keeping her head turned away. ‘And so I told him. He said he would believe, for my sake, if he could. And he wished for my sake, he could see things as I did. But that is all wrong!’ she went on passionately. ‘God cannot approve such low motives as that! Still it was not I that broke it off. I knew he loved me; and I had promised; and—’

‘Then it was he that broke it off?’

‘He released me unconditionally.’ She faced me again now, having quite recovered her usual calmness of manner.

‘Then what difficult remains?’

‘It is this, that I don’t believe he did it of his own free will. Now, supposing he did it against his will, merely to satisfy my scruples, would not his claim on me remain just as strong as ever? And would not my promise be as binding as ever? My father says "no"; but I ca’n’t help fearing he is biased by his love for me. And I’ve asked no one else. I have many friends—friends for the bright sunny weather; not friends for the clouds and storms of life; not old friends like you!’

‘Let me think a little,’ I said: and for some minutes we walked on in silence, while, pained to the heart at seeing the bitter trial that had come upon this pure and gentle soul, I strove in vain to see my way through the tangled skein of conflicting motives.

‘If she loves him truly,’ (I seemed at last to grasp the clue to the problem) ‘is not that, for her the voice of God? May she not hope that she is sent to him, even as Ananias was sent to Saul in his blindness, that he may receive his sight?’ Once more I seemed to hear Arthur whispering ‘What knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?’ and I broke the silence with the words ‘If you still love him truly—’

‘I do not!’ she hastily interrupted. ‘At least—not in that way. I believe I loved him when I promised; but I was very young: it is hard to know. But, whatever the feeling was, it is dead now. The motive on his side is Love: on mine it is—Duty!’

Again there was a long silence. The whole skein of thought was tangled worse than ever. This time she broke the silence.

‘Don’t misunderstand me!’ she said. ‘When I said my heart was not his, I did not mean it was any one else’s! At present I feel bound to him; and, till I know I am absolutely free, in the sight of God, to love any other than him, I’ll never even think of any one else—in that way, I mean. I would die sooner!’ I had never imagined my gentle friend capable of such passionate utterances.

I ventured on no further remark until we had nearly arrived at the Hallgate; but, the longer I reflected, the clearer it became to me that no call of Duty demanded the sacrifice—possibly of the happiness of a life—which she seemed ready to make. I tried to make this clear to her also, adding some warnings on the dangers that surely awaited a union in which mutual love was wanting.

‘The only argument for it, worth considering,’ I said in conclusion, ‘seems to be his supposed reluctance in releasing you from your promise. I have tried to give to that argument its full weight, and my conclusion is that it does not affect the rights of the case, or invalidate the release he has given you. My belief is that you are entirely free to act as now seems right.’

‘I am very grateful to you,’ she said earnestly. ‘Believe it, please! I ca’n’t put it into proper words!’ and the subject was dropped by mutual consent: and I only learned, long afterwards, that our discussion had really served to dispel the doubts that had harassed her so long.

We parted at the Hall-gate, and I found Arthur eagerly awaiting my arrival; and, before we parted for the night, I had heard the whole story—how he had put off his journey from day to day, feeling that he could not go away from the place till his fate had been irrevocably settled by the wedding taking place: how the preparations for the wedding, and the excitement in the neighbourhood, had suddenly come to an end, and he had learned (from Major Lindon, who called to wish him good-bye) that the engagement had been broken off by mutual consent: how he had instantly abandoned all his plans for going abroad, and had decided to stay on at Elveston, for a year or two at any rate, till his newly-awakened hopes should prove true or false; and how, since that memorable day, he had avoided all meetings with Lady Muriel, fearing to betray his feelings before he had had any sufficient evidence as to how she regarded him. ‘But it is nearly six weeks since all that happened,’ he said in conclusion, ’and we can meet in the ordinary way, now, with no need for any painful allusions. I would have written to tell you all this: only I kept hoping from day to day that—that there would be more to tell!’

‘And how should there be more, you foolish fellow,’ I fondly urged, ‘if you never even go near her? Do you expect the offer to come from her?’

Arthur was betrayed into a smile. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I hardly expect that. But I’m a desperate coward. There’s no doubt about it!’

‘And what reasons have you heard of for breaking off the engagement?’

‘A good many,’ Arthur replied, and proceeded to count them on his fingers. ‘First, it was found that she was dying of—something; so he broke it off. Then it was found that he was dying of—some other thing; so she broke it off. Then the Major turned out to be a confirmed gamester; so the Earl broke it off. Then the Earl insulted him; so the Major broke it off. It got a good deal broken off, all things considered!’

‘You have all this on the very best authority, of course?’

‘Oh, certainly! And communicated in the strictest confidence! Whatever defects Elveston society suffers from, want of information isn’t one of them!’

‘Nor reticence, either, it seems. But, seriously, do you know the real reason?’

‘No, I’m quite in the dark.’

I did not feel that I had any right to enlighten him; so I changed the subject, to the less engrossing one of ‘new milk’, and we agreed that I should walk over, next day, to Hunter’s farm, Arthur undertaking to set me part of the way, after which he had to return to keep a business engagement.

CHAPTER THREE

STREAKS OF DAWN

NEXT day proved warm and sunny, and we started early, to enjoy the luxury of a good long chat before he would be obliged to leave me.

‘This neighbourhood has more than its due proportion of the very poor,’ I remarked, as we passed a group of hovels, too dilapidated to deserve the name of ‘cottages’.

‘But the few rich,’ Arthur replied, ‘give more than their due proportion of help in charity. So the balance is kept.’

‘I suppose the Earl does a good deal?’

‘He gives liberally; but he has not the health or strength to do more. Lady Muriel does more in the way of school-teaching and cottage-visiting than she would like me to reveal.’

‘Then she, at least, is not one of the "idle mouths" one so often meets with among the upper classes. I have sometimes thought they would have a hard time of it, if suddenly called on to give their raison d’être, and to show cause why they should be allowed to live any longer!’

‘The whole subject,’ said Arthur, ‘of what we may call "idle mouths" (I mean persons who absorb some of the material wealth of a community—in the form of food, clothes, and so on—without contributing its equivalent in the form of productive labour)

is a complicated one, no doubt. I’ve tried to think it out. And it seemed to me that the simplest form of the problem, to start with, is a community without money, who buy and sell by barter only; and it makes it yet simpler to suppose the food and other things to be capable of keeping for many years without spoiling.’

‘Yours is an excellent plan,’ I said. ‘What is your solution of the problem?’

‘The commonest type of "idle mouths",’ said Arthur, ‘is no doubt due to money being left by parents to their own children. So I imagined a man—either exceptionally clever, or exceptionally strong and industrious—who had contributed so much valuable labour to the needs of the community that its equivalent, in clothes, etc., was (say) five times as much as he needed for himself.

We cannot deny his absolute right to give the superfluous wealth as he chooses. So, if he leaves four children behind him (say two sons and two daughters), with enough of all the necessaries of life to last them a life-time, I cannot see that the community is in any way wronged if they choose to do nothing in life but to "eat, drink, and be merry". Most certainly, the community could not fairly say, in reference to them, "if a man will not work, neither let him eat." Their reply would be crushing. "The labour has already been done, which is a fair equivalent for the food we are eating; and you have had the benefit of it. On what principle of justice can you demand two quotas of work for one quota of food?"‘

‘Yet surely,’ I said, ‘there is something wrong somewhere, if these four people are well able to do useful work, and if that work is actually needed by the community, and they elect to sit idle?’

‘I think there is,’ said Arthur: ‘but it seems to me to arise from a Law of God—that every one shall do as much as he can to help others—and not from any rights, on the part of the community, to exact labour as an equivalent for food that has already been fairly earned.’

‘I suppose the second form of the problem is where the "idle mouths" possess money instead of material wealth?’

‘Yes,’ replied Arthur: and I think the simplest case is that of paper-money. Gold is itself a form of material wealth; but a bank-note is merely a promise to hand over so much material wealth when called upon to do so. The father of these four "idle mouths", had done (let us say) five thousand pounds’ worth of useful work for the community. In return for this, the community had given him what amounted to a written promise to hand over, whenever called upon to do so, five thousand pounds’ worth of food, etc. Then, if he only uses one thousand pounds’ worth himself, and leaves the rest of the notes to his children, surely they have a full right to present these written promises, and to say "hand over the food, for which the equivalent labour has been already done". Now I think this case well worth stating, publicly and clearly. I should like to drive it into the heads of those Socialists who are priming our ignorant paupers with such sentiments as "Look at them bloated haristocrats! Doing not a stroke o’ work for theirselves, and living on the sweat of our brows!" I should like to force them to see that the money, which those "haristocrats" are spending, represents so much labour already done for the community, and whose equivalent, in material wealth, is due from the community.’

‘Might not the Socialists reply "Much of this money does not represent honest labour at all. If you could trace it back, from owner to owner, though you might begin with several legitimate steps, such as gifts, or bequeathing by will, or "value received", you would soon reach an owner who had no moral right to it but had got it by fraud or other crimes; and of course his successors in the line would have no better right to it than he had.’"

‘No doubt, no doubt,’ Arthur replied. ‘But surely that involves the logical fallacy of proving too much? It is quite as applicable to material wealth, as it is to money. If we once begin to go back beyond the fact that the present owner of certain property came by it honestly, and to ask whether any previous owner, in past ages, got it by fraud, would any property be secure?’

After a minute’s thought, I felt obliged to admit the truth of this.

‘My general conclusion,’ Arthur continued, ‘from the mere standpoint of human rights, man against man, was this—that if some wealthy "idle mouth", who has come by his money in a lawful way, even though not one atom of the labour it represents has been his own doing, chooses to spend it on his own needs, without contributing any labour to the community from whom he buys his food and clothes, that community has no right to interfere with him. But it’s quite another thing, when we come to consider the divine law. Measured by that standard, such a man is undoubtedly doing wrong, if he fails to use, for the good of those in need, the strength or the skill, that God has given him. That strength and skill do not belong to the community, to be paid to them as a debt: they do not belong to the man himself, to be used for his own enjoyment: they do belong to God, to be used according to His will; and we are not left in doubt as to what this will is. "Do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again."‘

‘Anyhow,’ I said, ‘an "idle mouth" very often gives away a great deal in charity.’

‘In so-called "charity",’ he corrected me. ‘Excuse me if I seem to speak uncharitably. I would not dream of applying the term to any individual. But I would say, generally, that a man who gratifies every fancy that occurs to him—denying himself in nothing—and merely gives to the poor some part, or even all, of his superfluous wealth, is only deceiving himself if he calls it charity.’

‘But, even in giving away superfluous wealth, he may be denying himself the miser’s pleasure in hoarding?’

‘I grant you that, gladly,’ said Arthur. ‘Given that he has that morbid craving, he is doing a good deed in restraining it.’

‘But, even in spending on himself,’ I persisted, ‘our typical rich man often does good, by employing people who would otherwise be out of work: and that is often better than pauperizing them by giving the money.’

‘I’m glad you’ve said that!’ said Arthur. ‘I would not like to quit the subject without exposing the two fallacies of that statement—which have gone so long uncontradicted that Society now accepts it as an axiom!’

‘What are they?’ I said. ‘I don’t even see one, myself.’

‘One is merely the fallacy of ambiguity—the assumption that "doing good" (that is, benefiting somebody) is necessarily a good thing to do (that is, a right thing). The other is the assumption that, if one of two specified acts is better than another, it is necessarily a good act in itself. I should like to call this the fallacy of comparison—meaning that it assumes that what is comparatively good is therefore positively good.’

‘Then what is your test of a good act?’

‘That it shall be our best,’ Arthur confidently replied. ‘And even then "we are unprofitable servants". But let me illustrate the two fallacies. Nothing illustrates a fallacy so well as an extreme case, which fairly comes under it. Suppose I find two children drowning in a pond. I rush in, and save one of the children, and then walk away, leaving the other to drown. Clearly I have "done good", in saving a child’s life? But—Again, supposing I meet an in offensive stranger, and knock him down and walk on.

Clearly that is "better" than if I had proceeded to jump upon him and break his ribs? But —’

‘Those "buts" are quite unanswerable,’ I said. ‘But I should like an instance from real life.’

‘Well, let us take one of those abominations of modern Society, a Charity-Bazaar. It’s an interesting question to think out —

how much of the money, that reaches the object in view, is genuine charity; and whether even that is spent in the best way.

But the subject needs regular classification, and analysis, to understand it properly.’

‘I should be glad to have it analysed,’ I said: ‘it has often puzzled me.’

‘Well, if I am really not boring you. Let us suppose our Charity-Bazaar to have been organized to aid the funds of some Hospital: and that A, B, C give their services in making articles to sell, and in acting as salesmen, while X, Y, Z buy the articles, and the money so paid goes to the Hospital.

‘There are two distinct species of such Bazaars: one, where the payment exacted is merely the market-value of the goods supplied, that is, exactly what you would have to pay at a shop: the other, where fancy-prices are asked. We must take these separately.

‘First, the "market-value" case. Here A, B, C are exactly in the same position as ordinary shopkeepers; the only difference being that they give the proceeds to the Hospital. Practically, they are giving their skilled labour for the benefit of the Hospital. This seems to me to be genuine charity. And I don’t see how they could use it better. But X, Y, Z are exactly in the same position as any ordinary purchasers of goods. To talk of "charity" in connection with their share of the business, is sheer nonsense. Yet they are very likely to do so.

‘Secondly, the case of "fancy-prices". Here I think the simplest plan is to divide the payment into two parts, the "market-value"

and the excess over that. The "market-value" part is on the same footing as in the first case: the excess is all we have to consider. Well, A, B, C do not earn it; so we may put them out of the question: it is a gift, from X, Y, Z, to the Hospital. And my opinion is that it is not given in the best way: far better buy what they choose to buy, and give what they choose to give, as two separate transactions: then there is some chance that their motive in giving may be real charity, instead of a mixed motive—half charity, half self-pleasing. "The trail of the serpent is over it all." And therefore it is that I hold all such spurious "Charities" in utter abomination!’ He ended with unusual energy, and savagely beheaded, with his stick, a tall thistle at the road-side, behind which I was startled to see Sylvie and Bruno standing. I caught at his arm, but too late to stop him. Whether the stick reached them, or not, I could not feel sure: at any rate they took not the smallest notice of it, but smiled gaily, and nodded to me: and I saw at once that they were only visible to me: the ‘eerie’ influence had not reached to Arthur.

‘Why did you try to save it?’ he said. ‘That’s not the wheedling Secretary of a Charity-Bazaar! I only wish it were!’ he added grimly.

‘Does oo know, that stick went right froo my head!’ said Bruno. (They had run round to me by this time, and each had secured a hand.) ‘Just under my chin! I are glad I aren’t a thistle!’

‘Well, we’ve threshed that subject out, anyhow!’ Arthur resumed. ‘I’m afraid I’ve been talking too much, for your patience and for my strength. I must be turning soon. This is about the end of my tether.’

‘Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee; Take, I give it willingly; For, invisible to thee, Spirits twain have crossed with me!’

I quoted, involuntarily.

‘For utterly inappropriate and irrelevant quotations,’ laughed Arthur, ‘you are "ekalled by few, and excelled by none"!’ And we strolled on.

As we passed the head of the lane that led down to the beach, I noticed a single figure moving slowly along it, seawards. She was a good way off, and had her back to us: but it was Lady Muriel, unmistakably. Knowing that Arthur had not seen her, as he had been looking, in the other direction, at a gathering rain-cloud, I made no remark, but tried to think of some plausible pretext for sending him back by the sea.

The opportunity instantly presented itself. ‘I’m getting tired,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it would be prudent to go further. I had better turn here.’

I turned with him, for a few steps, and as we again approached the head of the lane, I said, as carelessly as I could, ‘Don’t go back by the road. It’s too hot and dusty. Down this lane, and along the beach, is nearly as short; and you’ll get a breeze off the sea.’

‘Yes, I think I will,’ Arthur began; but at that moment we came into sight of Lady Muriel, and he checked himself. ‘No, it’s too far round. Yet it certainly would be cooler —’ He stood, hesitating, looking first one way and then the other—a melancholy picture of utter infirmity of purpose!

How long this humiliating scene would have continued, if I had been the only external influence, it is impossible to say; for at this moment Sylvie, with a swift decision worthy of Napoleon himself, took the matter into her own hands. ‘You go and drive her, up this way,’ she said to Bruno. ‘I’ll get him along!’ And she took hold of the stick that Arthur was carrying, and gently pulled him down the lane.

He was totally unconscious that any will but his own was acting on the stick, and appeared to think it had taken a horizontal position simply because he was pointing with it. ‘Are not those orchises under the hedge there?’ he said. ‘I think that decides me. I’ll gather some as I go along.’

Meanwhile Bruno had run on behind Lady Muriel, and, with much jumping about and shouting (shouts audible to no one but Sylvie and myself), much as if he were driving sheep, he managed to turn her round and make her walk, with eyes demurely cast upon the ground, in our direction.

The victory was ours! And, since it was evident that the lovers, thus urged together, must meet in another minute, I turned and walked on, hoping that Sylvie and Bruno would follow my example, as I felt sure that the fewer the spectators the better it would be for Arthur and his good angel.

‘And what sort of meeting was it?’ I wondered, as I paced dreamily on.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE DOG-KING

‘THEY shooked hands,’ said Bruno, who was trotting at my side, in answer to the unspoken question.

‘And they looked ever so pleased!’ Sylvie added from the other side.

‘Well, we must get on, now, as quick as we can,’ I said. ‘If only I knew the best way to Hunter’s farm!’

‘They’ll be sure to know in this cottage,’ said Sylvie.

‘Yes, I suppose they will. Bruno, would you run in and ask?’

Sylvie stopped him, laughingly, as he ran off. ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘I must make you visible first, you know.’

‘And audible too, I suppose?’ I said, as she took the jewel, that hung round her neck, and waved it over his head, and touched his eyes and lips with it.

‘Yes,’ said Sylvie: ‘and once, do you know, I made him audible, and forgot to make him visible! And he went to buy some sweeties in a shop. And the man was so frightened! A voice seemed to come out of the air, "Please, I want two ounces of barley-sugar drops!" And a shilling came bang down upon the counter! And the man said "I ca’n’t see you!" And Bruno said "It doosn’t sinnify seeing me, so long as oo can see the shilling!" But the man said he never sold barley-sugar drops to people he couldn’t see. So we had to—Now, Bruno, you’re ready!’ And away he trotted.

Sylvie spent the time, while we were waiting for him, in making herself visible also. ‘It’s rather awkward, you know,’ she explained to me, ‘when we meet people, and they can see one of us, and ca’n’t see the other!’

In a minute or two Bruno returned, looking rather disconsolate. ‘He’d got friends with him, and he were cross!’ he said. ‘He asked me who I were. And I said "I’m Bruno: who is these peoples?" And he said "One’s my half-brother, and t’other’s my half-sister: and I don’t want no more company! Go along with yer!" And I said "I ca’n’t go along wizout mine self!’ And I said "Oo shouldn’t have bits of peoples lying about like that! It’s welly untidy!" And he said "Oh, don’t talk to me!" And he pushted me outside! And he shutted the door!’

‘And you never asked where Hunter’s farm was?’ queried Sylvie.

‘Hadn’t room for any questions,’ said Bruno. ‘The room were so crowded.’

‘Three people couldn’t crowd a room,’ said Sylvie.

‘They did, though,’ Bruno persisted. ‘He crowded it most. He’s such a welly thick man—so as oo couldn’t knock him down.’

I failed to see the drift of Bruno’s argument. ‘Surely anybody could be knocked down,’ I said: ‘thick or thin wouldn’t matter.’

‘Oo couldn’t knock him down,’ said Bruno. ‘He’s more wide than he’s high: so, when he’s lying down he’s more higher than when he’s standing: so a-course oo couldn’t knock him down!’

‘Here’s another cottage,’ I said: ‘I’ll ask the way, this time.’

There was no need to go in, this time, as the woman was standing in the doorway, with a baby in her arms, talking to a respectably dressed man—a farmer, as I guessed—who seemed to be on his way to the town.

‘— and when there’s drink to be had,’ he was saying, ‘he’s just the worst o’ the lot, is your Willie. So they tell me. He gets fairly mad wi’ it!’

‘I’d have given ‘em the lie to their faces, a twelvemonth back!’ the woman said in a broken voice. ‘But a’ canna noo! A’ canna noo!’ She checked herself on catching sight of us, and hastily retreated into the house, shutting the door after her.

‘Perhaps you can tell me where Hunter’s farm is?’ I said to the man, as he turned away from the house.

‘I can that, Sir!’ he replied with a smile. ‘I’m John Hunter hissel, at your sarvice. It’s nobbut half a mile further—the only house in sight, when you get round bend o’ the road yonder. You’ll find my good woman within, if so be you’ve business wi’ her. Or mebbe I’ll do as well?’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I want to order some milk. Perhaps I had better arrange it with your wife?’

‘Aye,’ said the man. ‘She minds all that. Good day t’ye, Master—and to your bonnie childer, as well!’ And he trudged on.

‘He should have said "child", not "childer",’ said Bruno. ‘Sylvie’s not a childer!’

‘He meant both of us,’ said Sylvie.

‘No, he didn’t!’ Bruno persisted. ‘‘cause he said "bonnie", oo know!’

‘Well, at any rate he looked at us both,’ Sylvie maintained.

‘Well, then he must have seen we’re not both bonnie!’ Bruno retorted. ‘A-course I’m much uglier than oo! Didn’t he mean Sylvie, Mister Sir?’ he shouted over his shoulder, as he ran off.

But there was no use in replying, as he had already vanished round the bend of the road. When we overtook him he was climbing a gate, and was gazing earnestly into the field, where a horse, a cow, and a kid were browsing amicably together. ‘For its father, a Horse,’ he murmured to himself. ‘For its mother, a Cow. For their dear little child, a little Goat, is the most curiousest thing I ever seen in my world!’

‘Bruno’s World!’ I pondered. ‘Yes, I suppose every child has a world of his own—and every man, too, for the matter of that.

I wonder if that’s the cause for all the misunderstanding there is in Life?’

‘That must be Hunter’s farm!’ said Sylvie, pointing to a house on the brow of the hill, led up to by a cart-road. ‘There’s no other farm in sight, this way; and you said we must be nearly there by this time.’

I had thought it, while Bruno was climbing the gate, but I couldn’t remember having said it. However, Sylvie was evidently in the right. ‘Get down, Bruno,’ I said, ‘and open the gate for us.’

‘It’s a good thing we’s with oo, isn’t it, Mister Sir?’ said Bruno, as we entered the field. ‘That big dog might have bited oo, if oo’d been alone! Oo needn’t be flightened of it!’ he whispered, clinging tight to my hand to encourage me. ‘It aren’t fierce!’

‘Fierce!’ Sylvie scornfully echoed, as the dog—a magnificent Newfoundland—that had come galloping down the field to meet us, began curveting round us, in gambols full of graceful beauty, and welcoming us with short joyful barks. ‘Fierce! Why, it’s as gentle as a lamb! It’s—why, Bruno, don’t you know? It’s —’

‘So it are!’ cried Bruno, rushing forwards and throwing his arms round its neck. ‘Oh, you dear dog!’ And it seemed as if the two children would never have done hugging and stroking it.

‘And how ever did he get here?’ said Bruno. ‘Ask him, Sylvie. I doosn’t know how.’

And then began an eager talk in Doggee, which of course was lost upon me; and I could only guess, when the beautiful creature, with a sly glance at me, whispered something in Sylvie’s ear, that I was now the subject of conversation. Sylvie looked round laughingly.

‘He asked me who you are,’ she explained. ‘And I said "He’s our friend". And he said "What’s his name?" And I said "It’s Mister Sir". And he said "Bosh!"‘

‘What is "Bosh!" in Doggee,’ I enquired.

‘It’s the same as in English,’ said Sylvie. ‘Only, when a dog says it, it’s a sort of whisper, that’s half a cough and half a bark.

Nero, say "Bosh!"‘

And Nero, who had now begun gamboling round us again, said ‘Bosh!’ several times; and I found that Sylvie’s description of the sound was perfectly accurate.

‘I wonder what’s behind this long wall?’ I said, as we walked on.

‘It’s the Orchard,’ Sylvie replied, after a consultation with Nero. ‘See, there’s a boy getting down off the wall, at that far corner. And now he’s running away across the field. I do believe he’s been stealing the apples!’

Bruno set off after him, but returned to us in a few moments, as he had evidently no chance of overtaking the young rascal.

‘I couldn’t catch him!’ he said. ‘I wiss I’d started a little sooner. His pockets was full of apples!’

The Dog-King looked up at Sylvie, and said something in Doggee.

‘Why, of course you can!’ Sylvie exclaimed. ‘How stupid not to think of it! Nero’ll hold him for us, Bruno! But I’d better make him invisible, first.’ And she hastily got out the Magic Jewel, and began waving it over Nero’s head, and down along his back.

‘That’ll do!’ cried Bruno, impatiently. ‘After him, good Doggie!’

‘Oh, Bruno!’ Sylvie exclaimed reproachfully. ‘You shouldn’t have sent him off so quick! I hadn’t done the tail!’

Meanwhile Nero was coursing like a greyhound down the field: so at least I concluded from all I could see of him—the long feathery tail, which floated like a meteor through the air—and in a very few seconds he had come up with the little thief.

‘He’s got him safe, by one foot!’ cried Sylvie, who was eagerly watching the chase. ‘Now there’s no hurry, Bruno!’

So we walked, quite leisurely, down the field, to where the frightened lad stood. A more curious sight I had seldom seen, in all my ‘eerie’ experiences. Every bit of him was in violent action, except the left foot, which was apparently glued to the ground —

there being nothing visibly holding it: while, at some little distance, the long feathery tail was waving gracefully from side to side, showing that Nero, at least, regarded the whole affair as nothing but a magnificent game of play.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ I said, as gravely as I could.

‘Got the crahmp in me ahnkle!’ the thief groaned in reply. ‘An’ me fut’s gone to sleep!’ And he began to blubber aloud.

‘Now, look here!’ Bruno said in a commanding tone, getting in front of him. ‘Oo’ve got to give up those apples!’

The lad glanced at me, but didn’t seem to reckon my interference as worth anything. Then he glanced at Sylvie: she clearly didn’t count for very much, either. Then he took courage. ‘It’ll take a better man than any of yer to get ‘em!’ he retorted defiantly.

Sylvie stooped and patted the invisible Nero. ‘A little tighter!’ she whispered. And a sharp yell from the ragged boy showed how promptly the Dog-King had taken the hint.

‘What’s the matter now?’ I said. ‘Is your ankle worse?’

‘And it’ll get worse, and worse and worse,’ Bruno solemnly assured him, ‘till oo gives up those apples!’

Apparently the thief was convinced of this at last, and he sulkily began emptying his pockets of the apples. The children watched from a little distance, Bruno dancing with delight at every fresh yell extracted from Nero’s terrified prisoner.

‘That’s all,’ the boy said at last.

‘It isn’t all!’ cried Bruno. ‘There’s three more in that pocket!’

Another hint from Sylvie to the Dog-King—another sharp yell from the thief, now convicted of lying also—and the remaining three apples were surrendered.

‘Let him go, please,’ Sylvie said in Doggee, and the lad limped away at a great pace, stooping now and then to rub the ailing ankle in fear, seemingly, that the ‘crahmp’ might attack it again.

Bruno ran back, with his booty, to the orchard wall, and pitched the apples over it one by one. ‘I’s welly afraid some of them’s gone under the wrong trees!’ he panted, on overtaking us again.

‘The wrong trees!’ laughed Sylvie. ‘Trees ca’n’t do wrong! There’s no such things as wrong trees!’

‘Then there’s no such things as right trees neither!’ cried Bruno. And Sylvie gave up the point.

‘Wait a minute, please!’ she said to me. ‘I must make Nero visible, you know!’

‘No, please don’t!’ cried Bruno, who had by this time mounted on the Royal back, and was twisting the Royal hair into a bridle. ‘It’ll be such fun to have him like this!’

‘Well, it does look funny,’ Sylvie admitted, and led the way to the farmhouse, where the farmer’s wife stood, evidently much perplexed at the weird procession now approaching her. ‘It’s summat gone wrong wi’ my spectacles, I doubt!’ she murmured, as she took them off, and began diligently rubbing them with a corner of her apron.

Meanwhile Sylvie had hastily pulled Bruno down from his steed, and had just time to make His Majesty wholly visible before the spectacles were resumed.

All was natural, now; but the good woman still looked a little uneasy about it. ‘My eyesight’s getting bad,’ she said, ‘but I see you now, my darlings! You’ll give me a kiss, won’t you?’

Bruno got behind me in a moment: however Sylvie put up her face, to be kissed, as representative of both, and we all went in together.

CHAPTER FIVE

MATILDA JANE

‘COME to me, my little gentleman,’ said our hostess, lifting Bruno into her lap, ‘and tell me everything.’

‘I ca’n’t,’ said Bruno. ‘There wouldn’t be time. Besides, I don’t know everything.’

The good woman looked a little puzzled, and turned to Sylvie for help. ‘Does he like riding?’ she asked.

‘Yes, I think so,’ Sylvie gently replied. ‘He’s just had a ride on Nero.’

‘Ah, Nero’s a grand dog, isn’t he? Were you ever outside a horse, my little man?’

‘Always!’ Bruno said with great decision. ‘Never was inside one. Was oo?’

Here I thought it well to interpose, and to mention the business on which we had come, and so relieved her, for a few minutes, from Bruno’s perplexing questions.

‘And those dear children will like a bit of cake, I’ll warrant!’ said the farmer’s hospitable wife, when the business was concluded, as she opened her cupboard, and brought out a cake. ‘And don’t you waste the crust, little gentleman!’ she added, as she handed a good slice of it to Bruno. ‘You know what the poetry-book says about wilful waste?’

‘No, I don’t,’ said Bruno. ‘What doos he say about it?’

‘Tell him, Bessie!’ And the mother looked down, proudly and lovingly, on a rosy little maiden, who had just crept shyly into the room, and was leaning against her knee. ‘What’s that your poetry-book says about wilful waste?’

‘For wilful waste makes woeful want,’ Bessie recited, in an almost inaudible whisper: ‘and you may live to say "How much I wish I had the crust that then I threw away!"‘

‘Now try if you can say it, my dear! For wilful—’

‘For wifful—sumfinoruvver—’ Bruno began, readily enough; and then there came a dead pause. ‘Ca’n’t remember no more!’

‘Well, what do you learn from it, then? You can tell us that, at any rate?’

Bruno ate a little more cake, and considered: but the moral did not seem to him to be a very obvious one.

‘Always to—’ Sylvie prompted him in a whisper.

‘Always to—’ Bruno softly repeated: and then, with sudden inspiration, ‘always to look where it goes to!’

‘Where what goes to, darling?’

‘Why the crust, a course!’ said Bruno. ‘Then, if I lived to say ‘How much I wiss I had the crust—" (and all that), I’d know where I frew it to!’

This new interpretation quite puzzled the good woman. She returned to the subject of ‘Bessie’. ‘Wouldn’t you like to see Bessie’s doll, my dears! Bessie, take the little lady and gentleman to see Matilda Jane!’

Bessie’s shyness thawed away in a moment. ‘Matilda Jane has just woke up,’ she stated, confidentially, to Sylvie. ‘Won’t you help me on with her frock? Them strings is such a bother to tie!’

‘I can tie strings,’ we heard, in Sylvie’s gentle voice, as the two little girls left the room together. Bruno ignored the whole proceeding, and strolled to the window, quite with the air of a fashionable gentleman. Little girls, and dolls, were not at all his line.

And forthwith the fond mother proceeded to tell me (as what mother is not ready to do?) of all Bessie’s virtues (and vices too, for the matter of that) and of the many fearful maladies which, notwithstanding those ruddy cheeks and that plump little figure, had nearly, time and again, swept her from the face of the earth.

When the full stream of loving memories had nearly run itself out, I began to question her about the working men of that neighbourhood, and specially the ‘Willie’, whom we had heard of at his cottage. ‘He was a good fellow once,’ said my kind hostess: ‘but it’s the drink has ruined him! Not that I’d rob them of the drink—it’s good for the most of them—but there’s some as is too weak to stand agin’ temptations: it’s a thousand pities, for them, as they ever built the Golden Lion at the corner there!’

‘The Golden Lion?’ I repeated.

‘It’s the new Public,’ my hostess explained. ‘And it stands right in the way, and handy for the workmen, as they come back from the brickfields, as it might be to-day, with their week’s wages. A deal of money gets wasted that way. And some of’em gets drunk.’

‘If only they could have it in their own houses—’ I mused, hardly knowing I had said the words out loud.

‘That’s it!’ she eagerly exclaimed. It was evidently a solution, of the problem, that she had already thought out. ‘If only you could manage, so’s each man to have his own little barrel in his own house—there’d hardly be a drunken man in the length and breadth of the land!’

And then I told her the old story—about a certain cottager who bought himself a little barrel of beer, and installed his wife as bar-keeper: and how, every time he wanted his mug of beer, he regularly paid her over the counter for it: and how she never would let him go on ‘tick’, and was a perfectly inflexible bar-keeper in never letting him have more than his proper allowance:

and how, every time the barrel needed refilling, she had plenty to do it with, and something over for her money-box: and how, at the end of the year, he not only found himself in first-rate health and spirits, with that undefinable but quite unmistakable air which always distinguishes the sober man from the one who takes ‘a drop too much’, but had quite a box full of money, all saved out of his own pence!

‘If only they’d all do like that!’ said the good woman, wiping her eyes, which were overflowing with kindly sympathy. ‘Drink hadn’t need to be the curse it is to some—’

‘Only a curse,’ I said, ‘when it is used wrongly. Any of God’s gifts may be turned into a curse, unless we use it wisely. But we must be getting home. Would you call the little girls? Matilda Jane has seen enough of company, for one day, I’m sure!’

‘I’ll find ‘em in a minute,’ said my hostess, as she rose to leave the room. ‘Maybe that young gentleman saw which way they went?’

‘Where are they, Bruno?’ I said.

‘They ain’t in the field,’ was Bruno’s rather evasive reply, ‘‘cause there’s nothing but pigs there, and Sylvie isn’t a pig. Now don’t interrupt me any more, ‘cause I’m telling a story to this fly; and it wo’n’t attend!’

‘They’re among the apples, I’ll warrant ‘em!’ said the Farmer’s wife. So we left Bruno to finish his story, and went out into the orchard, where we soon came upon the children, walking sedately side by side, Sylvie carrying the doll, while little Bess carefully shaded its face, with a large cabbage-leaf for a parasol.

As soon as they caught sight of us, little Bess dropped her cabbage-leaf and came running to meet us, Sylvie following more slowly, as her precious charge evidently needed great care and attention.

‘I’m its Mamma, and Sylvie’s the Head-Nurse,’ Bessie explained: ‘and Sylvie’s taught me ever such a pretty song, for me to sing to Matilda Jane!’

‘Let’s hear it once more, Sylvie,’ I said, delighted at getting the chance I had long wished for, of hearing her sing. But Sylvie turned shy and frightened in a moment.

‘No, please not!’ she said, in an earnest ‘aside’ to me. ‘Bessie knows it quite perfect now. Bessie can sing it!’

‘Aye, aye! Let Bessie sing it!’ said the proud mother. ‘Bessie has a bonny voice of her own,’ (this again was an ‘aside’ to me)

‘though I say it as shouldn’t!’

Bessie was only too happy to accept the ‘encore’. So the plump little Mamma sat down at our feet, with her hideous daughter reclining stiffly across her lap (it was one of a kind that wo’n’t sit down, under any amount of persuasion), and, with a face simply beaming with delight, began the lullaby, in a shout that ought to have frightened the poor baby into fits. The Head-Nurse crouched down behind her, keeping herself respectfully in the background, with her hands on the shoulders of her little mistress, so as to be ready to act as Prompter, if required, and to supply ‘each gap in faithless memory void’.

The shout, with which she began, proved to be only a momentary effort. After a very few notes, Bessie toned down, and sang on in a small but very sweet voice. At first her great black eyes were fixed on her mother, but soon her gaze wandered upwards, among the apples, and she seemed to have quite forgotten that she had any other audience than her Baby, and her Head-Nurse, who once or twice supplied, almost inaudibly, the right note, when the singer was-getting a little ‘flat’.

‘Matilda fane, you never look At any toy or picture-book:

I show you pretty things in vain—

You must be blind, Matilda fane!

‘I ask you riddles, tell you tales, But all our conversation fails:

You never answer me again—

I fear you’re dumb, Matilda fane!

‘Matilda, darling, when I call, You never seem to hear at all:

I shout with all my might and main—

But you’re so deaf, Matilda fane!

‘Matilda fane, you needn’t mind:

For, though you’re deaf, and dumb, and blind, There’s some one loves you, it is plain—

And that is me, Matilda fane!’

She sang three of the verses in a rather perfunctory style, but the last stanza evidently excited the little maiden. Her voice rose, ever clearer and louder: she had a rapt look on her face, as if suddenly inspired, and, as she sang the last few words, she clasped to her heart the inattentive Matilda Jane.

‘Kiss it now!’ prompted the Head-Nurse. And in a moment the simpering meaningless face of the Baby was covered with a shower of passionate kisses.

‘What a bonny song!’ cried the Farmer’s wife. ‘Who made the words, dearie?’

‘I—I think I’ll look for Bruno,’ Sylvie said demurely, and left us hastily. The curious child seemed always afraid of being praised, or even noticed.

‘Sylvie planned the words,’ Bessie informed us, proud of her superior information: ‘and Bruno planned the music—and I sang it!’ (this last circumstance, by the way, we did not need to be told).

So we followed Sylvie, and all entered the parlour together. Bruno was still standing at the window, with his elbows on the sill.

He had, apparently, finished the story that he was telling to the fly, and had found a new occupation. ‘Don’t imperrupt!’ he said as we came in. ‘I’m counting the Pigs in the field!’

‘How many are there?’ I enquired.

‘About a thousand and four,’ said Bruno.

‘You mean "about a thousand",’ Sylvie corrected him. ‘There’s no good saying "and four": you ca’n’t be sure about the four!’

‘And you’re as wrong as ever!’ Bruno exclaimed triumphantly. ‘It’s just the four I can be sure about; ‘cause they’re here, grubbling under the window! It’s the thousand I isn’t pruffickly sure about!’

‘But some of them have gone into the sty,’ Sylvie said, leaning over him to look out of the window.

‘Yes,’ said Bruno; ‘but they went so slowly and so fewly, I didn’t care to count them.’

‘We must be going, children,’ I said. ‘Wish Bessie good-bye.’ Sylvie flung her arms round the little maiden’s neck, and kissed her: but Bruno stood aloof, looking unusually shy. (‘I never kiss nobody but Sylvie!’ he explained to me afterwards.) The Farmer’s wife showed us out: and we were soon on our way back to Elveston.

‘And that’s the new public-house that we were talking about, I suppose?’ I said, as we came in sight of a long low building, with the words ‘THE GOLDEN LION’ over the door.

‘Yes, that’s it,’ said Sylvie. ‘I wonder if her Willie’s inside? Run in, Bruno, and see if he’s there.’

I interposed, feeling that Bruno was, in a sort of way, in my care. ‘That’s not a place to send a child into.’ For already the revellers were getting noisy: and a wild discord of singing, shouting, and meaningless laughter came to us through the open windows.

‘They wo’n’t see him, you know,’ Sylvie explained. ‘Wait a minute, Bruno!’ She clasped the jewel, that always hung round her neck, between the palms of her hands, and muttered a few words to herself. What they were I could not at all make out, but some mysterious change seemed instantly to pass over us. My feet seemed to me no longer to press the ground, and the dream-like feeling came upon me, that I was suddenly endowed with the power of floating in the air. I could still just see the children: but their forms were shadowy and unsubstantial, and their voices sounded as if they came from some distant place and time, they were so unreal. However, I offered no further opposition to Bruno’s going into the house. He was back again in a few moments. ‘No, he isn’t come yet,’ he said. ‘They’re talking about him inside, and saying how drunk he was last week.’

While he was speaking, one of the men lounged out through the door, a pipe in one hand and a mug of beer in the other, and crossed to where we were standing, so as to get a better view along the road. Two or three others leaned out through the open window, each holding his mug of beer, with red faces and sleepy eyes. ‘Canst see him, lad?’ one of them asked.

‘I dunnot know,’ the man said, taking a step forwards, which brought us nearly face to face. Sylvie hastily pulled me out of his way. ‘Thanks, child,’ I said. ‘I had forgotten he couldn’t see us. What would have happened if I had stayed in his way?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sylvie said gravely. ‘It wouldn’t matter to us; but you may be different.’ She said this in her usual voice, but the man took no sort of notice, though she was standing close in front of him, and looking up into his face as she spoke.

‘He’s coming now!’ cried Bruno, pointing down the road.

‘He be a-coomin noo!’ echoed the man, stretching out his arm exactly over Bruno’s head, and pointing with his pipe.

‘Then chorus agin!’ was shouted out by one of the red-faced men in the window: and forthwith a dozen voices yelled, to a harsh discordant melody, the refrain:

‘There’s him, an’ yo’, an’ me,  Roarin’ laddies!

We loves a bit o’ spree, Roarin’ laddies we,  Roarin’ laddies  Roarin’ laddies!’

The man lounged back again to the house, joining lustily in the chorus as he went: so that only the children and I were in the road when ‘Willie’ came up.

CHAPTER SIX

WILLIE’S WIFE

HE made for the door of the public-house, but the children intercepted him. Sylvie clung to one arm; while Bruno, on the opposite side, was pushing him with all his strength, and many inarticulate cries of ‘Gee-up! Gee-back! Woah then!’ which he had picked up from the waggoners.

‘Willie’ took not the least notice of them: he was simply conscious that something had checked him: and, for want of any other way of accounting for it, he seemed to regard it as his own act.

‘I wunnut coom in,’ he said: ‘not to-day.’

‘A mug o’ beer wunnut hurt ‘ee!’ his friends shouted in chorus. ‘Two mugs wunnut hurt ‘ee! Nor a dozen mugs!’

‘Nay,’ said Willie. ‘I’m agoan whoam.’

‘What, withouten thy drink, Willie man?’ shouted the others. But ‘Willie man’ would have no more discussion, and turned doggedly away, the children keeping one on each side of him, to guard him against any change in his sudden resolution.

For a while he walked on stoutly enough, keeping his hands in his pockets, and softly whistling a tune, in time to his heavy tread:

his success, in appearing entirely at his ease, was almost complete; but a careful observer would have noted that he had forgotten the second part of the air, and that, when it broke down, he instantly began it again, being too nervous to think of another, and too restless to endure silence.

It was not the old fear that possessed him now—the old fear that had been his dreary companion every Saturday night he could remember as he had reeled along, steadying himself against gates and garden-palings, and when the shrill reproaches of his wife had seemed to his dazed brain only the echo of a yet more piercing voice within the intolerable wail of a hopeless remorse: it was a wholly new fear that had come to him now: life had taken on itself a new set of colours, and was lighted up with a new and dazzling radiance, and he did not see, as yet, how his home-life, and his wife and child, would fit into the new order of things: the very novelty of it all was, to his simple mind, a perplexity and an overwhelming terror.

And now the tune died into sudden silence on the trembling lips, as he turned a sharp corner, and came in sight of his own cottage, where his wife stood, leaning with folded arms on the wicket-gate, and looking up the road with a pale face, that had in it no glimmer of the light of hope—only the heavy shadow of a deep stony despair.

‘Fine an’ early, lad! Fine an’ early!’ the words might have been words of welcoming, but oh, the bitterness of the tone in which she said it! ‘What brings thee from thy merry mates, and all the fiddling and the jigging? Pockets empty, I doubt? Or thou’st come, mebbe, for to see thy little one die? The bairnie’s clemmed, and I’ve nor bite nor sup to gie her. But what does thou care?’ She flung the gate open, and met him with blazing eyes of fury.

The man said no word. Slowly, and with downcast eyes, he passed into the house, while she, half terrified at his strange silence, followed him in without another word; and it was not till he had sunk into a chair, with his arms crossed on the table and with drooping head, that she found her voice again.

It seemed entirely natural for us to go in with them: at another time one would have asked leave for this, but I felt, I knew not why, that we were in some mysterious way invisible, and as free to come and to go as disembodied spirits.

The child in the cradle woke up, and raised a piteous cry, which in a moment brought the children to its side: Bruno rocked the cradle, while Sylvie tenderly replaced the little head on the pillow from which it had slipped. But the mother took no heed of the cry, nor yet of the satisfied ‘coo’ that it set up when Sylvie had made it happy again: she only stood gazing at her husband, and vainly trying, with white quivering lips (I believe she thought he was mad), to speak in the old tones of shrill upbraiding that he knew so well.

‘And thou’st spent all thy wages—I’ll swear thou hast—on the devil’s own drink—and thou’st been and made thysen a beast again—as thou allus dost—’

‘Hasna!’ the man muttered, his voice hardly rising above a whisper, as he slowly emptied his pockets on the table. ‘There’s th’

wage, Missus, every penny on’t.’

The woman gasped and put one hand to her heart, as if under some great shock of surprise. ‘Then how’s thee gotten th’ drink?’

‘Hasna gotten it,’ he answered her, in a tone more sad than sullen. ‘I hanna touched a drop this blessed day. No!’ he cried aloud, bringing his clenched fist heavily down upon the table, and looking up at her with gleaming eyes, ‘nor I’ll never touch another drop o’ the cursed drink—till I die—so help me God my Maker!’ His voice, which had suddenly risen to a hoarse shout, dropped again as suddenly: and once more he bowed his head, and buried his face in his folded arms.

The woman had dropped upon her knees by the cradle, while he was speaking. She neither looked at him nor seemed to hear him. With hands clasped above her head, she rocked herself wildly to and fro. ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’ was all she said, over and over again.

Sylvie and Bruno gently unclasped her hands and drew them down—till she had an arm round each of them, though she took no notice of them, but knelt on with eyes gazing upwards, and lips that moved as if in silent thanks-giving. The man kept his face hidden, and uttered no sound: but one could see the sobs that shook him from head to foot.

After a while he raised his head—his face all wet with tears. ‘Polly!’ he said softly; and then, louder, ‘Old Poll!’

Then she rose from her knees and came to him, with a dazed look, as if she were walking in her sleep. ‘Who was it called me old Poll?’ she asked: her voice took on it a tender playfulness: her eyes sparkled; and the rosy light of Youth flushed her pale cheeks, till she looked more like a happy girl of seventeen than a worn woman of forty. ‘Was that my own lad, my Willie, a-waiting for me at the stile?’

His face too was transformed, in the same magic light, to the likeness of a bashful boy: and boy and girl they seemed, as he wound an arm about her, and drew her to his side, while with the other hand he thrust from him the heap of money, as though it were something hateful to the touch. ‘Tak it, lass,’ he said, ‘tak it all! An’ fetch us summat to eat: but get a sup o’ milk, first, for t’ bairn.’

‘My little bairn!’ she murmured as she gathered up the coins. ‘My own little lassie!’ Then she moved to the door, and was passing out, but a sudden thought seemed to arrest her: she hastily returned—first to kneel down and kiss the sleeping child, and then to throw herself into her husband’s arms and be strained to his heart. The next moment she was on her way, taking with her a jug that hung on a peg near the door: we followed close behind.

We had not gone far before we came in sight of a swinging sign-board bearing the word ‘DAIRY’ on it, and here she went in, welcomed by a little curly white dog, who, not being under the ‘eerie’ influence, saw the children, and received them with the most effusive affection. When I got inside, the dairyman was in the act of taking the money. ‘Is’t for thysen, Missus, or for t’

bairn?’ he asked, when he had filled the jug, pausing with it in his hand.

‘For t’ bairn!’ she said, almost reproachfully. ‘Think’st tha I’d touch a drop mysen, while as she hadna got her fill?’

‘All right, Missus,’ the man replied, turning away with the jug in his hand. ‘Let’s just mak sure it’s good measure.’ He went back among his shelves of milk-bowls, carefully keeping his back towards her while he emptied a little measure of cream into the jug, muttering to himself ‘mebbe it’ll hearten her up a bit, the little lassie!’

The woman never noticed the kind deed, but took back the jug with a simple ‘Good evening, Master’, and went her way: but the children had been more observant, and, as we followed her out, Bruno remarked ‘That were welly kind: and I loves that man: and if I was welly rich I’d give him a hundred pounds—and a bun. That little grummeling dog doosn’t know its business!’

He referred to the dairyman’s little dog, who had apparently quite forgotten the affectionate welcome he had given us on our arrival, and was now following at a respectful distance, doing his best to ‘speed the parting guest’ with a shower of little shrill barks, that seemed to tread on one an other’s heels.

‘What is a dog’s business?’ laughed Sylvie. ‘Dogs ca’n’t keep shops and give change!’

‘Sisters’ business isn’t to laugh at their brothers,’ Bruno replied with perfect gravity. ‘And dogs’ businesses is to bark—not like that: it should finish one bark before it begins another: and it should—Oh Sylvie, there’s some dindledums!’

And in another moment the happy children were flying across the common, racing for the patch of dandelions.

While I stood watching them, a strange dreamy feeling came upon me: a railway-platform seemed to take the place of the green sward, and, instead of the light figure of Sylvie bounding along, I seemed to see the flying form of Lady Muriel; but whether Bruno had also undergone a transformation, and had become the old man whom she was running to overtake, I was unable to judge, so instantaneously did the feeling come and go.

When I re-entered the little sitting-room which I shared with Arthur, he was standing with his back to me, looking out of the open window, and evidently had not heard me enter. A cup of tea, apparently just tasted and pushed aside, stood on the table, on the opposite side of which was a letter, just begun, with the pen lying across it: an open book lay on the sofa: the London paper occupied the easy chair; and on the little table which stood by it, I noticed an unlighted cigar and an open box of cigar-lights: all things betokened that the Doctor, usually so methodical and so self-contained, had been trying every form of occupation, and could settle to none!

‘This is very unlike you, Doctor!’ I was beginning, but checked myself, as he turned at the sound of my voice, in sheer amazement at the wonderful change that had taken place in his appearance. Never had I seen a face so radiant with happiness, or eyes that sparkled with such unearthly light! ‘Even thus,’ I thought, ‘must the herald-angel have looked, who brought to the shepherds, watching over their flocks by night, that sweet message of "peace on earth, good-will to men"!’

‘Yes, dear friend!’ he said, as if in answer to the question that I suppose he read in my face. ‘It is true! It is true!’

No need to ask what was true. ‘God bless you both!’ I said, as I felt the happy tears brimming to my eyes. ‘You were made for each other!’

‘Yes,’ he said, simply, ‘I believe we were. And what a change it makes in one’s Life! This isn’t the same world! That isn’t the sky I saw yesterday! Those clouds—I never saw such clouds in all my life before! They look like troops of hovering angels!’

To me they looked very ordinary clouds indeed: but then I had not fed ‘on honeydew, And drunk the milk of Paradise’!

‘She wants to see you—at once,’ he continued, descending suddenly to the things of earth. ‘She says that is the one drop yet wanting in her cup of happiness!’

‘I’ll go at once,’ I said, as I turned to leave the room. ‘Wo’n’t you come with me?’

‘No, Sir!’ said the Doctor, with a sudden effort—which proved an utter failure—to resume his professional manner. ‘Do I look like coming with you? Have you never heard that two is company, and—’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I have heard it: and I’m painfully aware that I am Number Three! But, when shall we three meet again?’

‘When the hurly-burly’s done!’ he answered with a happy laugh, such as I had not heard from him for many a year.

CHAPTER SEVEN

MEIN HERR

SO I went on my lonely way, and, on reaching the Hall, I found Lady Muriel standing at the garden-gate waiting for me.

‘No need to give you joy, or to wish you joy?’ I began.

‘None whatever!’ she replied, with the joyous laugh of a child. ‘We give people what they haven’t got: we wish for something that is yet to come. For me, it’s all here! It’s all mine! Dear friend,’ she suddenly broke off, ‘do you think Heaven ever begins on Earth, for any of us?’

‘For some,’ I said. ‘For some, perhaps, who are simple and childlike. You know he said "of such is the Kingdom of Heaven".’

Lady Muriel clasped her hands, and gazed up into the cloudless sky, with a look I had often seen in Sylvie’s eyes. ‘I feel as if it had begun for me,’ she almost whispered. ‘I feel as if I were one of the happy children, whom He bid them bring near to Him, though the people would have kept them back. Yes, He has seen me in the throng. He has read the wistful longing in my eyes.

He has beckoned me to Him. They have had to make way for me. He has taken me up in His arms. He has put His hands upon me and blessed me!’ She paused, breathless in her perfect happiness.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think He has!’

‘You must come and speak to my father,’ she went on, as we stood side by side at the gate, looking down the shady lane. But, even as she said the words, the ‘eerie’ sensation came over me like a flood: I saw the dear old Professor approaching us, and also saw, what was stranger still, that he was visible to Lady Muriel!

What was to be done? Had the fairy-life been merged in the real life? Or was Lady Muriel ‘eerie’ also, and thus able to enter into the fairy-world along with me? The words were on my lips (‘I see an old friend of mine in the lane: if you don’t know him, may I introduce him to you?’) when the strangest thing of all happened: Lady Muriel spoke.

‘I see an old friend of mine in the lane,’ she said: ‘if you don’t know him, may I introduce him to you?’

I seemed to wake out of a dream: for the ‘eerie’ feeling was still strong upon me, and the figure outside seemed to be changing at every moment, like one of the shapes in a kaleidoscope: now he was the Professor, and now he was somebody else! By the time he had reached the gate, he certainly was somebody else: and I felt that the proper course was for Lady Muriel, not for me, to introduce him. She greeted him kindly, and, opening the gate, admitted the venerable old man—a German, obviously—who looked about him with dazed eyes, as if he, too, had but just awaked from a dream!

No, it was certainly not the Professor! My old friend could not have grown that magnificent beard since last we met: moreover, he would have recognised me, for I was certain that I had not changed much in the time.

As it was, he simply looked at me vaguely, and took off his hat in response to Lady Muriel’s words ‘Let me introduce Mein Herr to you’; while in the words, spoken in a strong German accent, ‘proud to make your acquaintance, Sir!’ I could detect no trace of an idea that we had ever met before.

Lady Muriel led us to the well-known shady nook, where preparations for afternoon-tea had already been made, and, while she went in to look for the Earl, we seated ourselves in two easy-chairs, and ‘Mein Herr’ took up Lady Muriel’s work, and examined it through his large spectacles (one of the adjuncts that made him so provokingly like the Professor). ‘Hemming pocket-handkerchiefs?’ he said, musingly. ‘So that is what the English miladies occupy themselves with, is it?’

‘It is the one accomplishment,’ I said, ‘in which Man has never yet rivalled Woman!’

Here Lady Muriel returned with her father; and, after he had exchanged some friendly words with ‘Mein Herr’, and we had all been supplied with the needful ‘creature-comforts’, the newcomer returned to the suggestive subject of Pocket-handkerchiefs.

‘You have heard of Fortunatus’s Purse, Miladi? Ah, so! Would you be surprised to hear that, with three of these leetle handkerchiefs, you shall make the Purse of Fortunatus, quite soon, quite easily?’

‘Shall I indeed?’ Lady Muriel eagerly replied, as she took a heap of them into her lap, and threaded her needle. ‘Please tell me how, Mein Herr! I’ll make one before I touch another drop of tea!’

‘You shall first,’ said Mein Herr, possessing himself of two of the handkerchiefs, spreading one upon the other, and holding them up by two corners, ‘you shall first join together these upper corners, the right to the right, the left to the left; and the opening between them shall be the mouth of the Purse.’

A very few stitches sufficed to carry out this direction. ‘Now, if I sew the other three edges together,’ she suggested, ‘the bag is complete?’

‘Not so, Miladi: the lower edges shall first be joined—ah, not so!’ (as she was beginning to sew them together). ‘Turn one of them over, and join the right lower corner of the one to the left lower corner of the other, and sew the lower edges together in what you would call the wrong way.’

‘I see!’ said Lady Muriel, as she deftly executed the order. ‘And a very twisted, uncomfortable, uncanny-looking bag it makes!

But the moral is a lovely one. Unlimited wealth can only be attained by doing things in the wrong way! And how are we to join up these mysterious—no, I mean this mysterious opening?’ (twisting the thing round and round with a puzzled air). ‘Yes, it is one opening. I thought it was two, at first.’

‘You have seen the puzzle of the Paper Ring?’ Mein Herr said, addressing the Earl. ‘Where you take a slip of paper, and join its ends together, first twisting one, so as to join the upper corner of one end to the lower corner of the other?’

‘I saw one made, only yesterday,’ the Earl replied. ‘Muriel, my child, were you not making one, to amuse those children you had to tea?’

‘Yes, I know that Puzzle,’ said Lady Muriel. ‘The Ring has only one surface, and only one edge. It’s very mysterious!’

‘The bag is just like that, isn’t it?’ I suggested. ‘Is not the outer surface of one side of it continuous with the inner surface of the other side?’

‘So it is!’ she exclaimed. ‘Only it isn’t a bag, just yet. How shall we fill up this opening, Mein Herr?’

‘Thus!’ said the old man impressively, taking the bag from her, and rising to his feet in the excitement of the explanation. ‘The edge of the opening consists of four handkerchief edges, and you can trace it continuously, round and round the opening: down the right edge of one, handkerchief, up the left edge of the other, and then down the left edge of the one, and up the right edge of the other!’

‘So you can!’ Lady Muriel murmured thoughtfully, leaning her head on her hand, and earnestly watching the old man. ‘And that proves it to be only one opening!’

She looked so strangely like a child, puzzling over a difficult lesson, and Mein Herr had become, for the moment, so strangely like the old Professor, that I felt utterly bewildered: the ‘eerie’ feeling was on me in its full force, and I felt almost impelled to say ‘Do you understand it, Sylvie?’ However I checked myself by a great effort, and let the dream (if indeed it was a dream) go on to its end.

‘Now, this third handkerchief,’ Mein Herr proceeded, ‘has also four edges, which you can trace continuously round and round: all you need do is to join its four edges to the four edges of the opening. The Purse is then complete, and its outer surface—’

‘I see!’ Lady Muriel eagerly interrupted. ‘Its outer surface will be continuous with its inner surface! But it will take time. I’ll sew it up after tea.’ She laid aside the bag, and resumed her-cup of tea. ‘But why do you call it Fortunatus’s Purse, Mein Herr?’

The dear old man beamed upon her, with a jolly smile, looking more exactly like the Professor than ever. ‘Don’t you see, my child—I should say Miladi? Whatever is inside that Purse, is outside it; and whatever is outside it, is inside it. So you have all the wealth of the world in that leetle Purse!’

His pupil clapped her hands, in unrestrained delight. ‘I’ll certainly sew the third handkerchief in—some time,’ she said: ‘but I wo’n’t take up your time by trying it now: Tell us some more wonderful things, please!’ And her face and her voice so exactly recalled Sylvie, that I could not help glancing round, half-expecting to see Bruno also!

Mein Herr began thoughtfully balancing his spoon on the edge of his teacup, while he pondered over this request. ‘Something wonderful—like Fortunatus’s Purse? That will give you—when it is made—wealth beyond your wildest dreams: but it will not give you Time!’

A pause of silence ensued—utilized by Lady Muriel for the very practical purpose of refilling the teacups.

‘In your country’, Mein Herr began with a startling abruptness, ‘what becomes of all the wasted Time?’

Lady Muriel looked grave. ‘Who can tell?’ she half-whispered to herself. ‘All one knows is that it is gone—past recall!’

‘Well, in my—I mean in a country I have visited,’ said the old man, ‘they store it up: and it comes in very useful, years afterwards! For example, suppose you have a long tedious evening before you: nobody to talk to: nothing you care to do: and yet hours too soon to go to bed. How do you behave then?’

‘I get very cross,’ she frankly admitted: ‘and I want to throw things about the room!’

‘When that happens to—to the people I have visited, they never act so. By a short and simple process—which I cannot explain to you—they store up the useless hours: and, on some other occasion, when they happen to need extra time, they get them out again.’

The Earl was listening with a slightly incredulous smile. ‘Why cannot you explain the process?’ he enquired.

Mein Herr was ready with a quite unanswerable reason. ‘Because you have no words, in your language, to convey the ideas which are needed. I could explain it in—in—but you would not understand it!’

‘No indeed!’ said Lady Muriel, graciously dispensing with the name of the unknown language. ‘I never learnt it—at least, not to speak it fluently, you know. Please tell us some more wonderful things!’

‘They run their railway-trains without any engines—nothing is needed but machinery to stop them with. Is that wonderful enough, Miladi?’

‘But where does the force come from?’ I ventured to ask.

Mein Herr turned quickly round, to look at the new speaker. Then he took off his spectacles, and polished them, and looked at me again, in evident bewilderment. I could see he was thinking—as indeed I was also—that we must have met before.

‘They use the force of gravity,’ he said. ‘It is a force known also in your country, I believe?’

‘But that would need a railway going down-hill,’ the Earl remarked. ‘You can’t have all your railways going down-hill?’

‘They all do,’ said Mein Herr.

‘Not from both ends?’

‘From both ends.’

‘Then I give it up!’ said the Earl.

‘Can you explain the process?’ said Lady Muriel. ‘Without using that language, that I ca’n’t speak fluently?’

‘Easily,’ said Mein Herr. ‘Each railway is in a long tunnel, perfectly straight: so of course the middle of it is nearer the centre of the globe than the two ends: so every train runs half-way down-hill, and that gives it force enough to run the other half up-hill.’

‘Thank you. I understand that perfectly,’ said Lady Muriel. ‘But the velocity, in the middle of the tunnel, must be something fearful!’

Mein Herr was evidently much gratified at the intelligent interest Lady Muriel took in his remarks. At every moment the old man seemed to grow more chatty and more fluent. ‘You would like to know our methods of driving?’ he smilingly enquired. ‘To us, a run-away horse is of no import at all!’

Lady Muriel slightly shuddered. ‘To us it is a very real danger,’ she said.

‘That is because your carriage is wholly behind your horse. Your horse runs. Your carriage follows. Perhaps your horse has the bit in his teeth. Who shall stop him? You fly, ever faster and faster! Finally comes the inevitable upset!’

‘But suppose your horse manages to get the bit in his teeth?’

‘No matter! We would not concern ourselves. Our horse is harnessed in the very centre of our carriage. Two wheels are in front of him, and two behind. To the roof is attached one end of a broad belt. This goes under the horse’s body, and the other end is attached to a leetle—what you call a "windlass", I think. The horse takes the bit in his teeth. He runs away. We are flying at ten miles an hour! We turn our little windlass, five turns, six turns, seven turns, and—poof! Our horse is off the ground! Now let him gallop in the air as much as he pleases: our carriage stands still. We sit round him, and watch him till he is tired. Then we let him down. Our horse is glad, very much glad, when his feet once more touch the ground!’

‘Capital!’ said the Earl, who had been listening attentively. ‘Are there any other peculiarities in your carriages?’

‘In the wheels, sometimes, my Lord. For your health, you go to sea: to be pitched, to be rolled, occasionally to be drowned.

We do all that on land: we are pitched, as you; we are rolled, as you; but drowned, no! There is no water!’

‘What are the wheels like, then?’

‘They are oval, my Lord. Therefore the carriages rise and fall.’

‘Yes, and pitch the carriage backwards and forwards: but how do they make it roll?’

‘They do not match, my Lord. The end of one wheel answers to the side of the opposite wheel. So first one side of the carriage rises, then the other. And it pitches all the while. Ah, you must be a good sailor, to drive in our boat-carriages!’

‘I can easily believe it,’ said the Earl.

Mein Herr rose to his feet. ‘I must leave you now, Miladi,’ he said, consulting his watch. ‘I have another engagement.’

‘I only wish we had stored up some extra time!’ Lady Muriel said, as she shook hands with him. ‘Then we could have kept you a little longer!’

‘In that case I would gladly stay,’ replied Mein Herr. ‘As it is—I fear I must say goodbye!’

‘Where did you first meet him?’ I asked Lady Muriel, when Mein Herr had left us. ‘And where does he live? And what is his real name?’

‘We first—met—him—’ she musingly replied, ‘really, I ca’n’t remember where! And I’ve no idea where he lives! And I never heard any other name! It’s very curious. It never occurred to me before to consider what a mystery he is!’

‘I hope we shall meet again,’ I said: ‘he interests me very much.’

‘He will be at our farewell-party, this day fortnight,’ said the Earl. ‘Of course you will come? Muriel is anxious to gather all our friends around us once more, before we leave the place.’

And then he explained to me—as Lady Muriel had left us together—that he was so anxious to get his daughter away from a place full of so many painful memories connected with the now-cancelled engagement with Major Lindon, that they had arranged to have the wedding in a month’s time, after which Arthur and his wife were to go on a foreign tour.

‘Don’t forget Tuesday week!’ he said as we shook hands at parting. ‘I only wish you could bring with you those charming children, that you introduced to us in the summer. Talk of the mystery of Mein Herr! That’s nothing to the mystery that seems to attend them! I shall never forget those marvelous flowers!’

‘I will bring them if I possibly can,’ I said. But how to fulfil such a promise, I mused to myself on my way back to our lodgings, was a problem entirely beyond my skill!

CHAPTER EIGHT

IN A SHADY PLACE

THE ten days glided swiftly away: and, the day before the great party was to take place, Arthur proposed that we should stroll down to the Hall, in time for afternoon-tea.

‘Hadn’t you better go alone?’ I suggested. ‘Surely I shall be very much de trop?’

‘Well, it’ll be a kind of experiment,’ he said. ‘Fiat experimentum in corpore vili!’ he added, with a graceful bow of mock politeness towards the unfortunate victim. ‘You see I shall have to bear the sight, to-morrow night, of my lady-love making herself agreeable to everybody except the right person, and I shall bear the agony all the better if we have a dress-rehearsal beforehand!’

‘My part in the play being, apparently, that of the sample wrong person?’

‘Well, no,’ Arthur said musingly, as we set forth: ‘there’s no such part in a regular company. "Heavy Father"? That wo’n’t do:

that’s filled already. "Singing Chambermaid"? Well, the "First Lady" doubles that part. "Comic Old Man"? You’re not comic enough. After all, I’m afraid there’s no part for you but the "Well-dressed Villain": only,’ with a critical sideglance, ‘I’m a leetle uncertain about the dress!’

We found Lady Muriel alone, the Earl having gone out to make a call, and at once resumed old terms of intimacy, in the shady arbour where the tea-things seemed to be always waiting. The only novelty in the arrangements (one which Lady Muriel seemed to regard as entirely a matter of course), was that two of the chairs were placed quite close together, side by side.

Strange to say, I was not invited to occupy either of them!

‘We have been arranging, as we came along, about letter-writing,’ Arthur began. ‘He will want to know how we’re enjoying our Swiss tour: and of course we must pretend we are?’

‘Of course,’ she meekly assented.

‘And the skeleton-in-the-cupboard—’ I suggested.

‘—is always a difficulty,’ she quickly put in, ‘when you’re travelling about, and when there are no cupboards in the hotels.

However, ours is a very portable one; and will be neatly packed, in a nice leather case—’

‘But please don’t think about writing,’ I said, ‘when you’ve anything more attractive on hand. I delight in reading letters, but I know well how tiring it is to write them.’

‘It is, sometimes,’ Arthur assented. ‘For instance, when you’re very shy of the person you have to write to.’

‘Does that show itself in the letter?’ Lady Muriel enquired. ‘Of course, when I hear any one talking—you, for instance—I can see how desperately shy he is! But can you see that in a letter?’

‘Well, of course, when you hear any one talk fluently—you, for instance—you can see how desperately un-shy she is—not to say saucy! But the shyest and most intermittent talker must seem fluent in letter-writing. He may have taken half-an-hour to compose his second sentence; but there it is, close after the first!’

‘Then letters don’t express all that they might express?’

‘That’s merely because our system of letter-writing is incomplete. A shy writer ought to be able to show that he is so. Why shouldn’t he make pauses in writing, just as he would do in speaking? He might leave blank spaces—say half a page at a time.

And a very shy girl—if there is such a thing—might write a sentence on the first sheet of her letter—then put in a couple of blank sheets—then a sentence on the fourth sheet: and so on.’

‘I quite foresee that we—I mean this clever little boy and myself—’ Lady Muriel said to me, evidently with the kind wish to bring me into the conversation, ‘—are going to become famous—of course all our inventions are common property now—for a new Code of Rules for Letter-writing! Please invent some more, little boy!’

‘Well, another thing greatly needed, little girl, is some way of expressing that we don’t mean anything.’

‘Explain yourself, little boy! Surely you can find no difficulty in expressing a total absence of meaning?’

‘I mean that you should be able, when you don’t mean a thing to be taken seriously, to express that wish. For human nature is so constituted that whatever you write seriously is taken as a joke, and whatever you mean as a joke is taken seriously! At any rate, it is so in writing to a lady!’

‘Ah! you’re not used to writing to ladies!’ Lady Muriel remarked, leaning back in her chair, and gazing thoughtfully into the sky.

‘You should try.’

‘Very good,’ said Arthur ‘How many ladies may I begin writing to? As many as I can count on the fingers of both hands?’

‘As many as you can count on the thumbs of one hand!’ his lady-love replied with much severity. ‘What a very naughty little boy he is! Isn’t he?’ (with an appealing glance at me).

‘He’s a little fractious,’ I said. ‘Perhaps he’s cutting a tooth.’ While to myself I said ‘How exactly like Sylvie talking to Bruno!’

‘He wants his tea.’ (The naughty little boy volunteered the information.) ‘He’s getting very tired, at the mere prospect of the great party to-morrow!’

‘Then he shall have a good rest before-hand!’ she soothingly replied. ‘The tea isn’t made yet. Come, little boy, lean well back in your chair, and think about nothing—or about me, whichever you prefer!’

‘All the same, all the same!’ Arthur sleepily murmured, watching her with loving eyes, as she moved her chair away to the tea table, and began to make the tea. ‘Then he’ll wait for his tea, like a good, patient little boy!’

‘Shall I bring you the London Papers?’ said Lady Muriel. ‘I saw them lying on the table as I came out, but my father said there was nothing in them, except that horrid murder-trial.’ (Society was just then enjoying its daily thrill of excitement in studying the details of a specially sensational murder in a thieves’ den in the East of London.)

‘I have no appetite for horrors,’ Arthur replied. ‘But I hope we have learned the lesson they should teach us—though we are very apt to read it backwards!’

‘You speak in riddles,’ said Lady Muriel. ‘Please explain yourself. See now,’ suiting the action to the word, ‘I am sitting at your feet, just as if you were a second Gamaliel! Thanks, no.’ (This was to me, who had risen to bring her chair back to its former place.) ‘Pray don’t disturb yourself. This tree and the grass make a very nice easy-chair. What is the lesson that one always reads wrong?’

Arthur was silent for a minute. ‘I would like to be clear what it is I mean,’ he said, slowly and thoughtfully, ‘before I say anything to you—because you think about it.’

Anything approaching to a compliment was so unusual an utterance for Arthur, that it brought a flush of pleasure to her cheek, as she replied ‘It is you, that give me the ideas to think about.’

‘One’s first thought,’ Arthur proceeded, ‘in reading anything specially vile or barbarous, as done by a fellow-creature, is apt to be that we see a new depth of Sin revealed beneath us: and we seem to gaze down into that abyss from some higher ground, far apart from it.’

‘I think I understand you now. You mean that one ought to think—not "God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are"—but "God, be merciful to me also, who might be, but for Thy grace, a sinner as vile as he!"‘

‘No,’ said Arthur. ‘I meant a great deal more than that.’

She looked up quickly, but checked herself, and waited in silence.

‘One must begin further back, I think. Think of some other man, the same age as this poor wretch. Look back to the time when they both began life—before they had sense enough to know Right from Wrong. Then, at any rate, they were equal in God’s sight?’

She nodded assent.

‘We have, then, two distinct epochs at which we may contemplate the two men whose lives we are comparing. At the first epoch they are, so far as moral responsibility is concerned, on precisely the same footing: they are alike incapable of doing right or wrong. At the second epoch the one man—I am taking an extreme case, for contrast—has won the esteem and love of all around him: his character is stainless, and his name will be held in honour hereafter: the other man’s history is one unvaried record of crime, and his life is at last forfeited to the outraged laws of his country. Now what have been the causes, in each case, of each man’s condition being what it is at the second epoch? They are of two kinds—one acting from within, the other from without. These two kinds need to be discussed separately—that is, if I have not already tired you with my prosing?’

‘On the contrary,’ said Lady Muriel, ‘it is a special delight to me to have a question discussed in this way—analysed and arranged so that one can understand it. Some books, that profess to argue out a question, are to me intolerably wearisome, simply because the ideas are all arranged haphazard—a sort of "first come, first served".’

‘You are very encouraging,’ Arthur replied, with a pleased look. ‘The causes, acting from within, which make a man’s character what it is at any given moment, are his successive acts of volition—that is, his acts of choosing whether he will do this or that.’

‘We are to assume the existence of Free-Will?’ I said, in order to have that point made quite clear.

‘If not,’ was the quiet reply, ‘cadit quaestio: and I have no more to say.’

‘We will assume it!’ the rest of the audience—the majority, I may say, looking at it from Arthur’s point of view—imperiously proclaimed. The orator proceeded.

‘The causes, acting from without, are his surroundings—what Mr. Herbert Spencer calls his "environment". Now the point I want to make clear is this, that a man is responsible for his act of choosing, but not responsible for his environment. Hence, if these two men make, on some given occasion, when they are exposed to equal temptation, equal efforts to resist and to choose the right, their condition, in the sight of God, must be the same. If He is pleased in the one case, so will He be in the other; if displeased in the one case, so also in the other.’

‘That is so, no doubt: I see it quite clearly,’ Lady Muriel put in.

‘And yet, owing to their different environments, the one may win a great victory over the temptation, while the other falls into some black abyss of crime.’

‘But surely you would not say those men were equally guilty in the sight of God?’

‘Either that,’ said Arthur, ‘or else I must give up my belief in God’s perfect justice. But let me put one more case, which will show my meaning even more forcibly. Let the one man be in a high social position—the other, say, a common thief. Let the one be tempted to some trivial act of unfair dealing—something which he can do with the absolute certainty that it will never be discovered—something which he can with perfect ease forbear from doing—and which he distinctly knows to be a sin. Let the other be tempted to some terrible crime—as men would consider it—but under an almost overwhelming pressure of motives—of course not quite overwhelming, as that would destroy all responsibility. Now, in this case, let the second man make a greater effort at resistance than the first. Also suppose both to fall under the temptation—I say that the second man is, in God’s sight, less guilty than the other.’

Lady Muriel drew a long breath. ‘It upsets all one’s ideas of Right and Wrong—just at first! Why, in that dreadful murder-trial, you would say, I suppose, that it was possible that the least guilty man in the Court was the murderer, and that possibly the judge who tried him, by yielding to the temptation of making one unfair remark, had committed a crime outweighing the criminal’s whole career!’

‘Certainly I should,’ Arthur firmly replied. ‘It sounds like a paradox, I admit. But just think what a grievous sin it must be, in God’s sight, to yield to some very slight temptation, which we could have resisted with perfect ease, and to do it deliberately, and in the full light of God’s Law. What penance can atone for a sin like that?’

‘I ca’n’t reject your theory,’ I said. ‘But how it seems to widen the possible area of Sin in the world!’

‘Is that so?’ Lady Muriel anxiously enquired.

‘Oh, not so, not so!’ was the eager reply. ‘To me it seems to clear away much of the cloud that hangs over the world’s history.

When this view first made itself clear to me, I remember walking out into the fields, repeating to myself that line of Tennyson "There seemed no room for sense of wrong!" The thought, that perhaps the real guilt of the human race was infinitely less than I fancied it—that the millions, whom I had thought of as sunk in hopeless depth of sin, were perhaps, in God’s sight, scarcely sinning at all—was more sweet than words can tell! Life seemed more bright and beautiful, when once that thought had come!

"A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass, A purer sapphire melts into the sea!" ‘ His voice trembled as he concluded, and the tears stood in his eyes.

Lady Muriel shaded her face with her hand, and was silent for a minute. ‘It is a beautiful thought,’ she said, looking up at last.

‘Thank you—Arthur, for putting it into my head!’

The Earl returned in time to join us at tea, and to give us the very unwelcome tidings that a fever had broken out in the little harbour-town that lay below us—a fever of so malignant a type that, though it had only appeared a day or two ago, there were already more than a dozen down in it, two or three of whom were reported to be in imminent danger.

In answer to the eager questions of Arthur—who of course took a deep scientific interest in the matter—he could give very few technical details, though he had met the local doctor. It appeared, however, that it was an almost new disease—at least in this century, though it might prove to be identical with the ‘Plague’ recorded in History—very infectious, and frightfully rapid in its action. ‘It will not, however, prevent our party tomorrow,’ he said in conclusion. ‘None of the guests belong to the infected district, which is, as you know, exclusively peopled by fishermen: so you may come without any fear.’

Arthur was very silent, all the way back, and, on reaching our lodgings, immediately plunged into medical studies, connected with the alarming malady of whose arrival he had just heard.

CHAPTER NINE

THE FAREWELL-PARTY

ON the following day, Arthur and I reached the Hall in good time, as only a few of the guests—it was to be a party of eighteen—had as yet arrived; and these were talking with the Earl, leaving us the opportunity of a few words apart with our hostess.

‘Who is that very learned-looking man with the large spectacles?’ Arthur enquired. ‘I haven’t met him here before, have I?’

‘No, he’s a new friend of ours,’ said Lady Muriel: ‘a German, I believe. He is such a dear old thing! And quite the most learned man I ever met—with one exception, of course!’ she added humbly, as Arthur drew himself up with an air of offended dignity.

‘And the young lady in blue, just beyond him, talking to that foreign-looking man. Is she learned, too?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Lady Muriel. ‘But I’m told she’s a wonderful pianoforte-player. I hope you’ll hear her tonight. I asked that foreigner to take her in, because he’s very musical, too. He’s a French Count, I believe; and he sings splendidly!’

‘Science—music—singing—you have indeed got a complete party!’ said Arthur. ‘I feel quite a privileged person, meeting all these stars. I do love music!’

‘But the party isn’t quite complete!’ said Lady Muriel. ‘You haven’t brought us those two beautiful children,’ she went on, turning to me. ‘He brought them here to tea, you know, one day last summer,’ again addressing Arthur: ‘and they are such darlings!’

‘They are, indeed,’ I assented.

‘But why haven’t you brought them with you? You promised my father you would.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ I said; ‘but really it was impossible to bring them with me.’ Here I most certainly meant to conclude the sentence: and it was with a feeling of utter amazement, which I cannot adequately describe, that I heard myself going on speaking. ‘—but they are to join me here in the course of the evening’ were the words, uttered in my voice, and seeming to come from my lips.

‘I’m so glad!’ Lady Muriel joyfully replied. ‘I shall enjoy introducing them to some of my friends here! When do you expect them?’

I took refuge in silence. The only honest reply would have been ‘That was not my remark. I didn’t say it, and it isn’t true!’ But I had not the moral courage to make such a confession. The character of a ‘lunatic’ is not, I believe, very difficult to acquire; but it is amazingly difficult to get rid of: and it seemed quite certain that any such speech as that would quite justify the issue of a writ ‘de lunatico inquirendo’.

Lady Muriel evidently thought I had failed to hear her question, and turned to Arthur with a remark on some other subject; and I had time to recover from my shock of surprise—or to awake out of my momentary ‘eerie’ condition, whichever it was.

When things around me seemed once more to be real, Arthur was saying ‘I’m afraid there’s no help for it: they must be finite in number.’

‘I should be sorry to have to believe it,’ said Lady Muriel. ‘Yet, when one comes to think of it, there are no new melodies, now-a-days. What people talk of as "the last new song" always recalls to me some tune I’ve known as a child!’

‘The day must come—if the world lasts long enough—’ said Arthur, ‘when every possible tune will have been composed—every possible pun perpetrated—’ (Lady Muriel wrung her hands, like a tragedy-queen) ‘and, worse than that, every possible book written! For the number of words is finite.’

‘It’ll make very little difference to the authors,’ I suggested. ‘Instead of saying "what book shall I write?" an author will ask himself "which book shall I write?" A mere verbal distinction!’

Lady Muriel gave me an approving smile. ‘But lunatics would always write new books, surely?’ she went on. ‘They couldn’t write the sane books over again!’

‘True,’ said Arthur. ‘But their books would come to an end, also. The number of lunatic books is as finite as the number of lunatics.’

‘And that number is becoming greater every year,’ said a pompous man, whom I recognized as the self-appointed showman on the day of the picnic.

‘So they say,’ replied Arthur. ‘And, when ninety per cent. of us are lunatics,’ (he seemed to be in a wildly nonsensical mood)

‘the asylums will be put to their proper use.’

‘And that is—?’ the pompous man gravely enquired.

‘To shelter the sane!’ said Arthur. ‘We shall bar ourselves in. The lunatics will have it all their own way, outside. They’ll do it a little queerly, no doubt. Railway-collisions will be always happening: steamers always blowing up: most of the towns will be burnt down: most of the ships sunk—’

‘And most of the men killed!’ murmured the pompous man, who was evidently hopelessly bewildered.

‘Certainly,’ Arthur assented. ‘Till at last there will be fewer lunatics than sane men. Then we come out: they go in: and things return to their normal condition!’

The pompous man frowned darkly, and bit his lip, and folded his arms vainly trying to think it out. ‘He is jesting!’ he muttered to himself at last, in a tone of withering contempt, as he stalked away.

By this time the other guests had arrived; and dinner was announced. Arthur of course took down Lady Muriel: and I was pleased to find myself seated at her other side, with a severe-looking old lady (whom I had not met before, and whose name I had, as is usual in introductions, entirely failed to catch, merely gathering that it sounded like a compound-name) as my partner for the banquet.

She appeared, however, to be acquainted with Arthur, and confided to me in a low voice her opinion that he was ‘a very argumentative young man’. Arthur, for his part, seemed well inclined to show himself worthy of the character she had given him, and, hearing her say ‘I never take wine with my soup!’ (this was not a confidence to me, but was launched upon Society, as a matter of general interest), he at once challenged a combat by asking her ‘when would you say that property commence in a plate of soup?’

‘This is my soup,’ she sternly replied: ‘and what is before you is yours.’

‘No doubt,’ said Arthur: ‘but when did I begin to own it? Up to the moment of its being put into the plate, it was the property of our host: while being offered round the table, it was, let us say, held in trust by the waiter: did it become mine when I accepted it? Or when it was placed before me? Or when I took the first spoonful?’

‘He is a very argumentative young man!’ was all the old lady would say: but she said it audibly, this time, feeling that Society had a right to know it.

Arthur smiled mischievously. ‘I shouldn’t mind betting you a shilling,’ he said, ‘that the Eminent Barrister next you’ (It certainly is possible to say words so as to make them begin with capitals!) ‘ca’n’t answer me!’

‘I never bet,’ she sternly replied.

‘Not even sixpenny points at whist?’

‘Never!’ she repeated. ‘Whist is innocent enough: but whist played for money!’ She shuddered.

Arthur became serious again. ‘I’m afraid I ca’n’t take that view,’ he said. ‘I consider that the introduction of small stakes for card-playing was one of the most moral acts Society ever did, as Society.’

‘How was it so?’ said Lady Muriel.

‘Because it took Cards, once for all, out of the category of games at which cheating is possible. Look at the way Croquet is demoralizing Society. Ladies are beginning to cheat at it, terribly: and, if they’re found out, they only laugh, and call it fun. But when there’s money at stake, that is out of the question. The swindler is not accepted as a wit. When a man sits down to cards, and cheats his friends out of their money, he doesn’t get much fun out of it—unless he thinks it fun to be kicked down stairs!’

‘If all gentlemen thought as badly of ladies as you do,’ my neighbour remarked with some bitterness, ‘there would be very few—very few—’. She seemed doubtful how to end her sentence, but at last took ‘honeymoons’ as a safe word.

‘On the contrary,’ said Arthur, the mischievous smile returning to his face, ‘if only people would adopt my theory, the number of honeymoons—quite of a new kind—would be greatly increased!’

‘May we hear about this new kind of honeymoon?’ said Lady Muriel.

‘Let X be the gentleman,’ Arthur began, in a slightly raised voice, as he now found himself with an audience of six, including ’Mein Herr’, who was seated at the other side of my polynomial partner. ‘Let X be the gentleman, and Y the lady to whom he thinks of proposing. He applies for an Experimental Honeymoon. It is granted. Forthwith the young couple—accompanied by the great-aunt of Y, to act as chaperone—start for a month’s tour, during which they have many a moonlight-walk, and many a tête-à-tête conversation, and each can form a more correct estimate of the other’s character, in four weeks, than would have been possible in as many year, when meeting under the ordinary restrictions of Society. And it is only after their return that X

finally decides whether he will, or will not, put the momentous question to Y!’

‘In nine cases out of ten,’ the pompous man proclaimed, ‘he would decide to break it off!’

‘Then, in nine cases out of ten,’ Arthur rejoined, ‘an unsuitable match would be prevented, and both parties saved from misery!’

‘The only really unsuitable matches,’ the old lady remarked, ‘are those made without sufficient Money. Love may come afterwards. Money is needed to begin with!’

This remark was cast loose upon Society, as a sort of general challenge; and, as such, it was at once accepted by several of those within hearing: Money became the keynote of the conversation for some time: and a fitful echo of it was again heard, when the dessert had been placed upon the table, the servants had left the room, and the Earl had started the wine in its welcome progress round the table.

‘I’m very glad to see you keep up the old customs,’ I said to Lady Muriel as I filled her glass. ‘It’s really delightful to experience, once more, the peaceful feeling that comes over one when the waiters have left the room— when one can converse without the feeling of being overheard, and without having dishes constantly thrust over one’s shoulder. How much more sociable it is to be able to pour out the wine for the ladies, and to hand the dishes to those who wish for them!’

‘In that case, kindly send those peaches down here,’ said a fat red-faced man, who was seated beyond our pompous friend.

‘I’ve been wishing for them—diagonally—for some time!’

‘Yes, it is a ghastly innovation’, Lady Muriel replied, ‘letting the waiters carry round the wine at dessert. For one thing, they always take it the wrong way round—which of course brings bad luck to everybody present!’

‘Better go the wrong way than not go at all!’ said our host. ‘Would you kindly help yourself?’ (This was to the fat red-faced man.) ‘You are not a teetotaler, I think?’

‘Indeed but I am!’ he replied, as he pushed on the bottles. ‘Nearly twice as much money is spent in England on Drink, as on any other article of food. Read this card.’ (What faddist ever goes about without a pocketful of the appropriate literature?) ‘The stripes of different colours represent the amounts spent of various articles of food. Look at the highest three. Money spent on butter and on cheese, thirty-five millions: on bread, seventy millions: on intoxicating liquors, one hundred and thirty-six millions! If I had my way, I would close every public-house in the land! Look at that card, and read the motto. That’s where all the money goes to!’

‘Have you seen the Anti-Teetotal Card?’ Arthur innocently enquired.

‘No, Sir, I have not!’ the orator savagely replied. ‘What is it like?’

‘Almost exactly like this one. The coloured stripes are the same. Only, instead of the words "Money spent on", it has "Incomes derived from sale of"; and, instead of "That’s where all the money goes to", its motto is "That’s where all the money comes from!" ‘

The red-faced man scowled, but evidently considered Arthur beneath his notice. So Lady Muriel took up the cudgels. ‘Do you hold the theory,’ she enquired, ‘that people can preach teetotalism more effectually by being teetotalers themselves?’

‘Certainly I do!’ replied the red-faced man. ‘Now, here is a case in point,’ unfolding a newspaper-cutting: ‘let me read you this letter from a teetotaler. To the Editor. Sir, I was once a moderate drinker, and knew a man who drank to excess. I went to him. "Give up this drink," I said. "It will ruin your health!" "You drink," he said: "why shouldn’t I?" "Yes," I said, "but I know when to leave off." He turned away from me. "You drink in your way," he said: "let me drink in mine. Be off!" Then I saw that, to do any good with him, I must forswear drink. From that hour I haven’t touched a drop!’

‘There! What do you say to that?’ He looked round triumphantly, while the cutting was handed round for inspection.

‘How very curious!’ exclaimed Arthur when it had reached him. ‘Did you happen to see a letter, last week, about early rising?

It was strangely like this one.’

The red-faced man’s curiosity was roused. ‘Where did it appear?’ he asked.

‘Let me read it to you,’ said Arthur. He took some papers from his pocket, opened one of them, and read as follows. To the Editor. Sir, I was once a moderate sleeper, and knew a man who slept to excess. I pleaded with him. "Give up this lying in bed," I said. "It will ruin your health!" "You go to bed," he said: "why shouldn’t I?" "Yes," I said, "but I know when to get up in the morning." He turned away from me. "You sleep in your way," he said: "let me sleep in mine. Be off!" Then I saw that to do any good with him, I must forswear sleep. From that hour I haven’t been to bed!’

Arthur folded and pocketed his paper, and passed on the newspaper-cutting. None of us dared to laugh, the red-faced man was evidently so angry. ‘Your parallel doesn’t run on all fours!’ he snarled.

‘Moderate drinkers never do so!’ Arthur quietly replied. Even the stern old lady laughed at this.

‘But it needs many other things to make a perfect dinner!’ said Lady Muriel, evidently anxious to change the subject. ‘Mein Herr! What is your idea of a perfect dinner party?’

The old man looked around smilingly, and his gigantic spectacles seemed more gigantic than ever. ‘A perfect dinner-party?’ he repeated. ‘First, it must be presided over by our present hostess!’

‘That of course!’ she gaily interposed. ‘But what else, Mein Herr?’

‘I can but tell you what I have seen,’ said Mein Herr, ‘in mine own—in the country I have traveled in.’

He paused for a full minute, and gazed steadily at the ceiling—with so dreamy an expression on his face, that I feared he was going off into a reverie, which seemed to be his normal state. However, after a minute, he suddenly began again.

‘That which chiefly causes the failure of a dinner-party, is the running-short—not of meat, nor yet of drink, but of conversation.’

‘In an English dinner-party,’ I remarked, ‘I have never known small-talk run short!’

‘Pardon me,’ Mein Herr respectfully replied, ‘I did not say "small-talk". I said "conversation". All such topics as the weather, or politics, or local gossip, are unknown among us. They are either vapid or controversial. What we need for conversation is a topic of interest and of novelty. To secure these things we have tried various plans—Moving-Pictures, Wild-Creatures, Moving-Guests, and a Revolving-Humorist. But this last is only adapted to small parties.’

‘Let us have it in four separate Chapters, please!’ said Lady Muriel, who was evidently deeply interested—as, indeed, most of the party were, by this time: and, all down the table, talk had ceased, and heads were leaning forwards, eager to catch fragments of Mein Herr’s oration.

‘Chapter One! Moving-Pictures!’ was proclaimed in the silvery voice of our hostess.

‘The dining-table is shaped like a circular ring,’ Mein Herr began, in low dreamy tones, which, however, were perfectly audible in the silence. ‘The guests are seated at the inner side as well as the outer, having ascended to their places by a winding-staircase, from the room below. Along the middle of the table runs a little railway; and there is an endless train of trucks, worked round by machinery; and on each truck there are two pictures, leaning back to back. The train makes two circuits during dinner; and, when it has been once round, the waiters turn the pictures round in each truck, making them face the other way. Thus every guest sees every picture!’

He paused, and the silence seemed deader than ever. Lady Muriel looked aghast. ‘Really, if this goes on,’ she exclaimed, ‘I shall have to drop a pin! Oh, it’s my fault, is it?’ (In answer to an appealing look from Mein Herr.) ‘I was forgetting my duty.

Chapter Two! Wild-Creatures!’

‘We found the Moving-Pictures a little monotonous,’ said Mein Herr. ‘People didn’t care to talk Art through a whole dinner; so we tried Wild-Creatures. Among the flowers, which we laid (just as you do) about the table, were to be seen, here a mouse, there a beetle; here a spider’ (Lady Muriel shuddered), ‘there a wasp; here a toad, there a snake’; (Father!’ said Lady Muriel, plaintively. ‘Did you hear that?’); ‘so we had plenty to talk about!’

‘And when you got stung—’ the old lady began.

‘They were all chained-up, dear Madam!’

And the old lady gave a satisfied nod.

There was no silence to follow, this time. ‘Third Chapter!’ Lady Muriel proclaimed at once. ‘moving-Guests!’

‘Even the Wild-Creatures proved monotonous,’ the orator proceeded. ‘So we left the guests to choose their own subjects; and, to avoid monotony, we changed them. We made the table of two rings; and the inner ring moved slowly round, all the time, along with the floor in the middle and the inner row of guests. Thus every inner guest was brought face-to-face with every outer guest. It was a little confusing, sometimes, to have to begin a story to one friend and finish it to another; but every plan has its faults, you know.’

‘Fourth Chapter!’ Lady Muriel hastened to announce. ‘The Revolving-Humorist!’

‘For a small party we found it an excellent plan to have a round table, with a hole cut in the middle large enough to hold one guest. Here we placed our best talker. He revolved slowly, facing every other guest in turn: and he told lively anecdotes the whole time!’

‘I shouldn’t like it!’ murmured the pompous man. ‘It would make me giddy, revolving like that! I should decline to—’ here it appeared to dawn upon him that perhaps the assumption he was making was not warranted by the circumstances: he took a hasty gulp of wine, and choked himself.

But Mein Herr had relapsed into reverie, and made no further remark. Lady Muriel gave the signal, and the ladies left the room.

CHAPTER TEN

JABBERING AND JAM

WHEN the last lady had disappeared, and the Earl, taking his place at the head of the table, had issued the military order ’Gentlemen! Close up the ranks, if you please!’ and when, in obedience to his command, we had gathered ourselves compactly round him, the pompous man gave a deep sigh of relief, filled his glass to the brim, pushed on the wine, and began one of his favourite orations. ‘They are charming, no doubt! Charming, but very frivolous. They drag us down, so to speak, to a lower level. They—’

‘Do not all pronouns require antecedent nouns?’ the Earl gently enquired.

‘Pardon me,’ said the pompous man, with lofty condescension. ‘I had overlooked the noun. The ladies. We regret their absence. yet we console ourselves. Thought is free. With them, we are limited to trivial topics—Art, Literature, Politics, and so forth. One can bear to discuss such paltry matters with a lady. But no man, in his senses—’ (he looked sternly round the table, as if defying contradiction) ‘—ever yet discussed WINE with a lady!’ He sipped his glass of port, leaned back in his chair, and slowly raised it up to his eye, so as to look through it at the lamp. ‘The vintage, my Lord?’ he enquired, glancing at his host.

The Earl named the date.

‘So I had supposed. But one likes to be certain. The tint is, perhaps, slightly pale. But the body is unquestionable. And as for the bouquet—’

Ah, that magic Bouquet! How vividly that magic word recalled the scene! The little beggar boy turning his somersault in the road—the sweet little crippled maiden in my arms—the mysterious evanescent nursemaid—all rushed tumultuously into my mind, like the creatures of a dream: and through this mental haze there still boomed on, like the tolling of a bell, the solemn voice of the great connoisseur of WINE!

Even his utterances had taken on themselves a strange and dream-like form. ‘No,’ he resumed—and why is it, I pause to ask, that, in taking up the broken thread of a dialogue, one always begins with this cheerless monosyllable? After much anxious thought, I have come to the conclusion that the object in view is the same as that of the schoolboy, when the sum he is working has got into a hopeless muddle, and when in despair he takes the sponge, washes it all out, and begins again. Just in the same way the bewildered orator, by the simple process of denying everything that has been hitherto asserted, makes a clean sweep of the whole discussion, and can ‘start fair’ with a fresh theory. ‘No,’ he resumed: ‘there’s nothing like cherry-jam, after all.

That’s what I say!’

‘Not for all qualities!’ an eager little man shrilly interposed. ‘For richness of general tone I don’t say that it has a rival. But for delicacy of modulation— for what one may call the "harmonics" of flavour—give me good old raspberry-jam!’

‘Allow me one word!’ The fat red-faced man, quite hoarse with excitement, broke into the dialogue. ‘It’s too important a question to be settled by Amateurs! I can give you the views of a Professional—perhaps the most experienced jam-taster now living. Why, I’ve known him fix the age of strawberry-jam, to a day—and we all know what a difficult jam it is to give a date to—on a single tasting! Well, I put to him the very question you are discussing. His words were "cherry-jam is best, for mere chiaroscuro of flavour: raspberry-jam lends itself best to those resolved discords that linger so lovingly on the tongue: but, for rapturous utterness of saccharine perfection, it’s apricot-jam first and the rest nowhere!" That was well put, wasn’t it?’

‘Consummately put!’ shrieked the eager little man.

‘I know your friend well,’ said the pompous man. ‘As a jam-taster, he has no rival! Yet I scarcely think—’

But here the discussion became general: and his words were lost in a confused medley of names, every guest sounding the praises of his own favourite jam. At length, through the din, our host’s voice made itself heard. ‘Let us join the ladies!’ These words seemed to recall me to waking life, and I felt sure that, for the last few minutes, I had relapsed into the ‘eerie’ state.

‘A strange dream!’ I said to myself as we trooped upstairs. ‘Grown men discussing, as seriously as if they were matters of life and death, the hopelessly trivial details of mere delicacies, that appeal to no higher human function than the nerves of the tongue and palate! What a humiliating spectacle such a discussion would be in waking life!’

When, on our way to the drawing-room, I received from the housekeeper my little friends, clad in the daintiest of evening costumes, and looking, in the flush of expectant delight, more radiantly beautiful than I had ever seen them before, I felt no shock of surprise, but accepted the fact with the same unreasoning apathy with which one meets the events of a dream, and was merely conscious of a vague anxiety as to how they would acquit themselves in so novel a scene—forgetting that Court-life in Outland was as good training as they could need for Society in the more substantial world.

It would be best, I thought, to introduce them as soon as possible to some good-natured lady-guest, and I selected the young lady whose piano-forte-playing had been so much talked of. ‘I am sure you like children,’ I said. ‘May I introduce two little friends of mine? This is Sylvie; and this is Bruno.’

The young lady kissed Sylvie very graciously. She would have done the same for Bruno, but he hastily drew back out of reach.

‘Their faces are new to me,’ she said. ‘Where do you come from, my dear?’

I had not anticipated so inconvenient a question; and fearing that it might embarrass Sylvie, I answered for her. ‘They come from some distance. They are only here just for this one evening.’

‘How far have you come, dear?’ the young lady persisted.

Sylvie looked puzzled. ‘A mile or two, I think,’ she said doubtfully.

‘A mile or three,’ said Bruno.

‘You shouldn’t say "a mile or three",’ Sylvie corrected him.

The young lady nodded approval. ‘Sylvie’s quite right. It isn’t usual to say "a mile or three".’

‘It would be usual—if we said it often enough,’ said Bruno.

It was the young lady’s turn to look puzzled now. ‘He’s very quick, for his age!’ she murmured. ‘You’re not more than seven, are you, dear?’ she added aloud.

‘I’m not so many as that,’ said Bruno. ‘I’m one. Sylvie’s one. Sylvie and me is two. Sylvie taught me to count.’

‘Oh, I wasn’t counting you, you know!’ the young lady laughingly replied.

‘Hasn’t oo learnt to count?’ said Bruno.

The young lady bit her lip. ‘Dear! What embarrassing questions he does ask!’ she said in a half-audible ‘aside’.

‘Bruno, you shouldn’t!’ Sylvie said reprovingly.

‘Shouldn’t what?’ said Bruno.

‘You shouldn’t ask—that sort of questions.’

‘What sort of questions?’ Bruno mischievously persisted.

‘What she told you not,’ Sylvie replied, with a shy glance at the young lady, and losing all sense of grammar in her confusion.

‘Oo ca’n’t pronounce it!’ Bruno triumphantly cried. And he turned to the young lady, for sympathy in his victory. ‘I knewed she couldn’t pronounce "umbrellasting"!’

The young lady thought it best to return to the arithmetical problem. ‘When I asked if you were seven, you know, I didn’t mean "how many children?" I meant "how many years—" ‘

‘Only got two ears,’ said Bruno. ‘Nobody’s got seven ears.’

‘And you belong to this little girl?’ the young lady continued, skilfully evading the anatomical problem.

‘No I doosn’t belong to her!’ said Bruno. ‘Sylvie belongs to me!’ And he clasped his arms round her as he added ‘She are my very mine!’

‘And, do you know,’ said the young lady, ‘I’ve a little sister at home, exactly like your sister? I’m sure they’d love each other.’

‘They’d be very extremely useful to each other,’ Bruno said, thoughtfully. ‘And they wouldn’t want no looking-glasses to brush their hair wiz.’

‘Why not, my child?’

‘Why, each one would do for the other one’s looking-glass a-course!’ cried Bruno.

But here Lady Muriel, who had been standing by, listening to this bewildering dialogue, interrupted it to ask if the young lady would favour us with some music; and the children followed their new friend to the piano.

Arthur came and sat down by me. ‘If rumour speaks truly,’ he whispered, ‘we are to have a real treat!’ And then, amid a breathless silence, the performance began.

She was one of those players whom Society talks of as ‘brilliant’, and she dashed into the loveliest of Haydn’s Symphonies in a style that was clearly the outcome of years of patient study under the best masters. At first it seemed to be the perfection of piano-forte-playing; but in a few minutes I began to ask myself, wearily, ‘What is it that is wanting? Why does one get no pleasure from it?’

Then I set myself to listen intently to every note; and the mystery explained itself. There was an almost perfect mechanical correctness— and there was nothing else! False notes, of course, did not occur: she knew the piece too well for that; but there was just enough irregularity of time to betray that the player had no real ‘ear’ for music—just enough inarticulateness in the more elaborate passages to show that she did not think her audience worth taking real pains for—just enough mechanical monotony of accent to take all soul out of the heavenly modulations she was profaning—in short, it was simply irritating; and, when she had rattled off the finale and had struck the final chord as if, the instrument, being now done with, it didn’t matter how many wires she broke, I could not even affect to join in the stereotyped ‘Oh, thank you!’ which was chorused around me.

Lady Muriel joined us for a moment. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ she whispered to Arthur, with a mischievous smile.

‘No, it isn’t!’ said Arthur. But the gentle sweetness of his face quite neutralized the apparent rudeness of the reply.

‘Such execution, you know!’ she persisted.

‘That’s what she deserves,’ Arthur doggedly replied: ‘but people are so prejudiced against capital—’

‘Now you’re beginning to talk nonsense!’ Lady Muriel cried. ‘But you do like Music, don’t you? You said so just now.’

‘Do I like Music?’ the Doctor repeated softy to himself. ‘My dear Lady Muriel, there is Music and Music. Your question is painfully vague. You might as well ask "Do you like People?"‘

Lady Muriel bit her lip, frowned, and stamped with one tiny foot. As a dramatic representation of ill-temper, it was distinctly not a success. However, it took in one of her audience, and Bruno hastened to interpose, as peace-maker in a rising quarrel, with the remark ‘I likes Peoples!’

Arthur laid a loving hand on the little curly head. ‘What? All Peoples?’ he enquired.

‘Not all Peoples,’ Bruno explained. ‘Only but Sylvie—and Lady Muriel—and him—’ (pointing to the Earl) ‘and oo—and oo!’

‘You shouldn’t point at people,’ said Sylvie. ‘It’s very rude.’

‘In Bruno’s World,’ I said, ‘there are only four People—worth mentioning!’

‘In Bruno’s World!’ Lady Muriel repeated thoughtfully. ‘A bright and flowery world. Where the grass is always green, where the breezes always blow softly, and the rain-clouds never gather; where there are no wild beasts, and no deserts—’

‘There must be deserts,’ Arthur decisively remarked. ‘At least if it was my ideal world.’

‘But what possible use is there in a desert?’ said Lady Muriel. ‘Surely you would have no wilderness in your ideal world?’

Arthur smiled. ‘But indeed I would!’ he said. ‘A wilderness would be more necessary than a railway; and far more conducive to general happiness than church-bells!’

‘But what would you use it for?’

‘To practise music in,’ he replied. ‘All the young ladies, that have no ear for music, but insist on learning it, should be conveyed, every morning, two or three miles into the wilderness. There each would find a comfortable room provided for her, and also a cheap second-hand piano-forte, on which she might play for hours, without adding one needless pang to the sum of human misery!’

Lady Muriel glanced round in alarm, lest these barbarous sentiments should be overheard. But the fair musician was at a safe distance. ‘At any rate you must allow that she’s a sweet girl?’ she resumed.

‘Oh, certainly. As sweet as eau sucrée, if you choose—and nearly as interesting!’

‘You are incorrigible!’ said Lady Muriel, and turned to me. ‘I hope you found Mrs. Mills an interesting companion?’

‘Oh, that’s her name, is it?’ I said. ‘I fancied there was more of it.’

‘So there is: and it will be "at your proper peril" (whatever that may mean) if you ever presume to address her as "Mrs. Mills".

She is "Mrs. Ernest—Atkinson—Mills"!’

‘She is one of those would-be grandees,’ said Arthur, ‘who think that, by tacking on to their surname all their spare Christian-names, with hyphens between, they can give it an aristocratic flavour. As if it wasn’t trouble enough to remember one surname!’

By this time the room was getting crowded, as the guests, invited for the evening-party, were beginning to arrive, and Lady Muriel had to devote herself to the task of welcoming them, which she did with the sweetest grace imaginable. Sylvie and Bruno stood by her, deeply interested in the process.

‘I hope you like my friends?’ she said to them. ‘Specially my dear old friend, Mein Herr (What’s become of him, I wonder?

Oh, there he is!), that old gentleman in spectacles, with a long beard!’

‘He’s a grand old gentleman!’ Sylvie said, gazing admiringly at ‘Mein Herr’, who had settled down in a corner, from which his mild eyes beamed on us through a gigantic pair of spectacles. ‘And what a lovely beard!’

‘What does he call his-self?’ Bruno whispered.

‘He calls himself "Mein Herr",’ Sylvie whispered in reply.

Bruno shook his head impatiently. ‘That’s what he calls his hair, not his self, oo silly!’ He appealed to me. ‘What doos he call his self, Mister Sir?’

‘That’s the only name I know of,’ I said. ‘But he looks very lonely. Don’t you pity his grey hairs?’

‘I pities his self,’ said Bruno, still harping on the misnomer; ‘but I doosn’t pity his hair, one bit. His hair ca’n’t feel!’

‘We met him this afternoon,’ said Sylvie. ‘We’d been to see Nero, and we’d had such fun with him, making him invisible again!

And we saw that nice old gentleman as we came back.’

‘Well, let’s go and talk to him, and cheer him up a little,’ I said: ‘and perhaps we shall find out what he calls himself.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE MAN IN THE MOON

THE children came willingly. With one of them on each side of me, I approached the corner occupied by ‘Mein Herr’. ‘You don’t object to children, I hope?’ I began.

‘Crabbed age and youth cannot live together!’ the old man cheerfully replied, with a most genial smile. ‘Now take a good look at me, my children! You would guess me to be an old man, wouldn’t you?’

At first sight, though his face had reminded me so mysteriously of ‘the Professor’, he had seemed to be decidedly a younger man: but, when I came to look into the wonderful depth of those large dreamy eyes, I felt, with a strange sense of awe, that he was incalculably older: he seemed to gaze at us out of some by-gone age, centuries away.

‘I don’t know if oo’re an old man,’ Bruno answered, as the children, won over by the gentle voice, crept a little closer to him. ‘I thinks oo’re eighty-three.’

‘He is very exact!’ said Mein Herr.

‘Is he anything like right?’ I said.

‘There are reasons,’ Mein Herr gently replied, ‘reasons which I am not at liberty to explain, for not mentioning definitely any Persons, Places, or Dates. One remark only I will permit myself to make—that the period of life, between the ages of a hundred-and-sixty-five and a hundred-and-seventy-five, is a specially safe one.’

‘How do you make that out?’ I said.

‘Thus. You would consider swimming to be a very safe amusement, if you scarcely ever heard of any one dying of it. Am I not right in thinking that you never heard of any one dying between those two ages?’

‘I see what you mean,’ I said: ‘but I’m afraid you ca’n’t prove swimming to be safe, on the same principle. It is no uncommon thing to hear of some one being drowned.’

‘In my country,’ said Mein Herr, ‘no one is ever drowned.’

‘Is there no water deep enough?’

‘Plenty! But we ca’n’t sink. We are all lighter than water. Let me explain,’ he added, seeing my look of surprise. ‘Suppose you desire a race of pigeons of a particular shape or colour, do you not select, from year to year, those that are nearest to the shape or colour you want, and keep those, and part with the others?’

‘We do,’ I replied. ‘We call it "Artificial Selection."‘

‘Exactly so,’ said Mein Herr. ‘Well, we have practised that for some centuries—constantly selecting the lightest people: so that, now, everybody is lighter than water.’

‘Then you never can be drowned at sea?’

‘Never! It is only on the land—for instance, when attending a play in a theatre—that we are in such a danger.’

‘How can that happen at a theatre?’

‘Our theatres are all underground. Large tanks of water are placed above. If a fire breaks out, the taps are turned, and in one minute the theatre is flooded, up to the very roof! Thus the fire is extinguished.’

‘And the audience, I presume?’

‘That is a minor matter,’ Mein Herr carelessly replied. ‘But they have the comfort of knowing that, whether drowned or not, they are all lighter than water. We have not yet reached the standard of making people lighter than air: but we are aiming at it; and, in another thousand years or so—’

‘What doos oo do wiz the peoples that’s too heavy?’ Bruno solemnly enquired.

‘We have applied the same process,’ Mein Herr continued, not noticing Bruno’s question, ‘to many other purposes. We have gone on selecting walking-sticks—always keeping those that walked best—till we have obtained some, that can walk by themselves! We have gone on selecting cotton-wool, till we have got some lighter than air! You’ve no idea what a useful material it is! We call it "Imponderal".’

‘What do you use it for?’

‘Well, chiefly for packing articles, to go by Parcel-Post. It makes them weigh less than nothing, you know.’

‘And how do the Post Office people know what you have to pay?’

‘That’s the beauty of the new system!’ Mein Herr cried exultingly. ‘They pay us: we don’t pay them! I’ve often got as much as five shillings for sending a parcel.’

‘But doesn’t your Government object?’

‘Well, they do object a little. They say it comes so expensive, in the long run. But the thing’s as clear as daylight, by their own rules. If I send a parcel, that weighs a pound more than nothing, I pay three-pence: so, of course, if it weighs a pound less than nothing, I ought to receive three-pence.’

‘It is indeed a useful article!’ I said.

‘Yet even "Imponderal" has its disadvantages,’ he resumed. ‘I bought some, a few days ago, and put it into my hat, to carry it home, and the hat simply floated away!’

‘Had oo some of that funny stuff in oor hat to-day?’ Bruno enquired. ‘Sylvie and me saw oo in the road, and oor hat were ever so high up! Weren’t it, Sylvie?’

‘No, that was quite another thing,’ said Mein Herr. ‘There was a drop or two of rain falling: so I put my hat on the top of my stick—as an umbrella, you know. As I came along the road,’ he continued, turning to me, ‘I was overtaken by—’

‘—a shower of rain?’ said Bruno.

‘Well, it looked more like the tail of a dog,’ Mein Herr replied. ‘It was the most curious thing! Something rubbed affectionately against my knee. And I looked down. And I could see nothing! Only, about a yard off, there was a dog’s tail, wagging, all by itself!’

‘Oh, Sylvie!’ Bruno murmured reproachfully. ‘Oo didn’t finish making him visible!’

‘I’m so sorry!’ Sylvie said, looking very penitent. ‘I meant to rub it along his back, but we were in such a hurry. We’ll go and finish him to-morrow. Poor thing! Perhaps he’ll get no supper to-night!’

‘Course he won’t!’ said Bruno. ‘Nobody never gives bones to a dog’s tail!’

Mein Herr looked from one to the other in blank astonishment. ‘I do not understand you,’ he said. ‘I had lost my way, and I was consulting a pocketmap, and somehow I had dropped one of my gloves, and this invisible Something, that had rubbed against my knee, actually brought it back to me!’

‘Course he did!’ said Bruno. ‘He’s welly fond of fetching things.’

Mein Herr looked so thoroughly bewildered that I thought it best to change the subject. ‘What a useful thing a pocket-map is!’

I remarked.

‘That’s another thing we’ve learned from your Nation,’ said Mein Herr, ‘map-making. But we’ve carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest map that would be really useful?’

‘About six inches to the mile.’

‘Only six inches!’ exclaimed Mein Herr. ‘We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!’

‘Have you used it much?’ I enquired.

‘It has never been spread out, yet,’ said Mein Herr: ‘the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well. Now let me ask you another question. What is the smallest world you would care to inhabit?’

‘I know!’ cried Bruno, who was listening intently. ‘I’d like a little teenytiny world, just big enough for Sylvie and me!’

‘Then you would have to stand on opposite sides of it,’ said Mein Herr. ‘And so you would never see your sister at all!’

‘And I’d have no lessons,’ said Bruno.

‘You don’t mean to say you’ve been trying experiments in that direction!’ I said.

‘Well, not experiments exactly. We do not profess to construct planets. But a scientific friend of mine, who has made several balloon-voyages, assures me he has visited a planet so small that he could walk right round it in twenty minutes! There had been a great battle, just before his visit, which had ended rather oddly: the vanquished army ran away at full speed, and in a very few minutes found themselves face-to-face with the victorious army, who were marching home again, and who were so frightened at finding themselves between two armies, that they surrendered at once! Of course that lost them the battle, though, as a matter of fact, they had killed all the soldiers on the other side.’

‘Killed soldiers ca’n’t run away,’ Bruno thoughtfully remarked.

‘"Killed" is a technical word,’ replied Mein Herr. ‘In the little planet I speak of, the bullets were made of soft black stuff, which marked everything it touched. So, after a battle, all you had to do was to count how many soldiers on each side were "killed" —

that means "marked on the back", for marks in front didn’t count.’

‘Then you couldn’t "kill" any, unless they ran away?’ I said.

‘My scientific friend found out a better plan than that. He pointed out that, if only the bullets were sent the other way round the world, they would hit the enemy in the back. After that, the worst marksmen were considered the best soldiers; and the very worst of all always got First Prize.’

‘And how did you decide which was the very worst of all?’

‘Easily. The best possible shooting is, you know, to hit what is exactly in front of you: so of course the worst possible is to hit what is exactly behind you.’

‘They were strange people in that little planet!’ I said.

‘They were indeed! Perhaps their method of government was the strangest of all. In this planet, I am told, a Nation consists of a number of Subjects, and one King: but, in the little planet I speak of, it consisted of a number of Kings, and one Subject!’

‘You say you are "told" what happens in this planet,’ I said. ‘May I venture to guess that you yourself are a visitor from some other planet?’

Bruno clapped his hands in his excitement. ‘Is oo the Man-in-the-Moon?’ he cried.

Mein Herr looked uneasy. ‘I am not in the Moon, my child,’ he said evasively. ‘To return to what I was saying. I think that method of government ought to answer well. You see, the Kings would be sure to make Laws contradicting each other: so the Subject could never be punished, because, whatever he did he’d be obeying some Law.’

‘And, whatever he did, he’d be disobeying some Law!’ cried Bruno. ‘So he’d always be punished!’

Lady Muriel was passing at the moment, and caught the last word. ‘Nobody’s going to be punished here!’ she said, taking Bruno in her arms. ‘This is Liberty-Hall! Would you lend me the children for a minute?’

‘The children desert us, you see,’ I said to Mein Herr, as she carried them off: ‘so we old folk must keep each other company!’

The old man sighed. ‘Ah, well! We’re old folk now; and yet I was a child myself, once—at least I fancy so.’

It did seem a rather unlikely fancy, I could not help owning to myself—looking at the shaggy white hair, and the long beard—that he could ever have been a child. ‘You are fond of young people?’ I said.

‘Young men,’ he replied. ‘Not of children exactly. I used to teach young men—many a year ago—in my dear old University!’

‘I didn’t quite catch its name?’ I hinted.

‘I did not name it,’ the old man replied mildly. ‘Nor would you know the name if I did. Strange tales I could tell you of all the changes I have witnessed there! But it would weary you, I fear.’

‘No, indeed!’ I said. ‘Pray go on. What kind of changes?’

But the old man seemed to be more in a humour for questions than for answers. ‘Tell me,’ he said, laying his hand impressively on my arm, ‘tell me something. For I am a stranger in your land, and I know little of your modes of education: yet something tells me we are further on than you in the eternal cycle of change—and that many a theory we have tried and found to fail, you also will try, with a wilder enthusiasm: you also will find to fail, with a bitterer despair!’

It was strange to see how, as he talked, and his words flowed more and more freely, with a certain rhythmic eloquence, his features seemed to glow with an inner light, and the whole man seemed to be transformed, as if he had grown fifty years younger in a moment of time.

CHAPTER TWELVE

FAIRY-MUSIC

THE silence that ensued was broken by the voice of the musical young lady, who had seated herself near us, and was conversing with one of the newly-arrived guests. ‘Well!’ she said in a tone of scornful surprise. ‘We are to have something new in the way of music, it appears!’

I looked round for an explanation, and was nearly as much astonished as the speaker herself: it was Sylvie whom Lady Muriel was leading to the piano!

‘Do try it, my darling!’ she was saying. ‘I’m sure you can play very nicely!’

Sylvie looked round at me, with tears in her eyes. I tried to give her an encouraging smile, but it was evidently a great strain on the nerves of a child so wholly unused to be made an exhibition of, and she was frightened and unhappy. Yet here came out the perfect sweetness of her disposition: I could see that she was resolved to forget herself, and do her best to give pleasure to Lady Muriel and her friends. She seated herself at the instrument, and began instantly. Time and expression, so far as one could judge, were perfect: but her touch was one of such extraordinary lightness that it was at first scarcely possible, through the hum of conversation which still continued, to catch a note of what she was playing.

But in a minute the hum had died away into absolute silence, and we all sat, entranced and breathless, to listen to such heavenly music as none then present could ever forget.

Hardly touching the notes at first, she played a sort of introduction in a minor key—like an embodied twilight; one felt as though the lights were growing dim, and a mist were creeping through the room. Then there flashed through the gathering gloom the first few notes of a melody so lovely, so delicate, that one held one’s breath, fearful to lose a single note of it. Ever and again the music dropped into the pathetic minor key with which it had begun, and, each time that the melody forced its way, so to speak, through the enshrouding gloom into the light of day, it was more entrancing, more magically sweet. Under the airy touch of the child, the instrument actually seemed to warble, like a bird. ‘Rise up, my love, my fair one,’ it seemed to sing, ‘and come away! For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers, appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come!’ One could fancy one heard the tinkle of the last few drops, shaken from the trees by a passing gust—that one saw the first glittering rays of the sun, breaking through the clouds.

The Count hurried across the room in great excitement. ‘I cannot remember myself,’ he exclaimed, ‘of the name of this so charming an air! It is of an opera, most surely. Yet not even will the opera remind his name to me! What you call him, dear child?’

Sylvie looked round at him with a rapt expression of face. She had ceased playing, but her fingers still wandered fitfully over the keys. All fear and shyness had quite passed away now, and nothing remained but the pure joy of the music that had thrilled our hearts.

‘The title of it!’ the Count repeated impatiently. ‘How call you the opera?’

‘I don’t know what an opera is,’ Sylvie half-whispered.

‘How, then, call you the air?’

‘I don’t know any name for it,’ Sylvie replied, as she rose from the instrument.

‘But this is marvellous!’ exclaimed the Count, following the child, and addressing himself to me, as if I were the proprietor of this musical prodigy, and so must know the origin of her music. ‘You have heard her play this, sooner—I would say "before this occasion"? How call you the air?’

I shook my head; but was saved from more questions by Lady Muriel, who came up to petition the Count for a song.

The Count spread out his hands apologetically, and ducked his head. ‘But, Milady, I have already respected—I would say prospected—all your songs; and there shall be none fitted to my voice! They are not for basso voices!’

‘Wo’n’t you look at them again?’ Lady Muriel implored.

‘Let’s help him!’ Bruno whispered to Sylvie. ‘Let’s get him—you know!’

Sylvie nodded. ‘Shall we look for a song for you?’ she said sweetly to the Count.

‘Mais oui!’ the little man exclaimed.

‘Of course we may!’ said Bruno, while, each taking a hand of the delighted Count, they led him to the music-stand.

‘There is still hope!’ said Lady Muriel over her shoulder, as she followed them.

I turned to ‘Mein Herr’, hoping to resume our interrupted conversation. ‘You were remarking—’ I began: but at this moment Sylvie came to call Bruno, who had returned to my side, looking unusually serious. ‘Do come, Bruno!’ she entreated. ‘You know we’ve nearly found it!’ Then, in a whisper, ‘The locket’s in my hand, now. I couldn’t get it out while they were looking!’

But Bruno drew back. ‘The man called me names,’ he said with dignity.

‘What names?’ I enquired with some curiosity.

‘I asked him,’ said Bruno, ‘which sort of song he liked. And he said "A song of a man, not of a lady". And I said "Shall Sylvie and me find you the song of Mister Tottles?" And he said "Wait, eel!" And I’m not an eel, oo know!’

‘I’m sure he didn’t mean it!’ Sylvie said earnestly. ‘It’s something French—you know he ca’n’t talk English so well as—’

Bruno relented visibly. ‘Course he knows no better, if he’s Flench! Flenchmen never can speak English so goodly as us!’ And Sylvie led him away, a willing captive.

‘Nice children!’ said the old man, taking off his spectacles and rubbing them carefully. Then he put them on again, and watched with an approving smile, while the children tossed over the heap of music, and we just caught Sylvie’s reproving words, ‘We’re not making hay, Bruno!’

‘This has been a long interruption to our conversation,’ I said. ‘Pray let us go on!’

‘Willingly!’ replied the gentle old man. ‘I was much interested in what you—’ He paused a moment, and passed his hand uneasily across his brow. ‘One forgets,’ he murmured. ‘What was I saying? Oh! Something you were to tell me. Yes. Which of your teachers do you value the most highly, those whose words are easily understood, or those who puzzle you at every turn?’

I felt obliged to admit that we generally admired most the teachers we couldn’t quite understand.

‘Just so,’ said Mein Herr. ‘That’s the way it begins. Well, we were at that stage some eighty years ago—or was it ninety? Our favourite teacher got more obscure every year; and every year we admired him more—just as your Art-fanciers call mist the fairest feature in a landscape, and admire a view with frantic delight when they can see nothing! Now I’ll tell you how it ended.

It was Moral Philosophy that our idol lectured on. Well, his pupils couldn’t make head or tail of it, but they got it all by heart; and, when Examination-time came, they wrote it down; and the Examiners said "Beautiful! What depth!"‘

‘But what good was it to the young men afterwards?’

‘Why, don’t you see?’ replied Mein Herr. ‘They became teachers in their turn, and they said all these things over again; and their pupils wrote it all down; and the Examiners accepted it; and nobody had the ghost of an idea what it all meant!’

‘And how did it end?’

‘It ended this way. We woke up one fine day, and found there was no one in the place that knew anything about Moral Philosophy. So we abolished it, teachers, classes, examiners, and all. And if any one wanted to learn anything about it, he had to make it out for himself; and after another twenty years or so there were several men that really knew something about it!

Now tell me another thing. How long do you teach a youth before you examine him, in your Universities?’

I told him, three or four years.

‘Just so, just what we did!’ he exclaimed. ‘We taught ‘em a bit, and, just as they were beginning to take it in, we took it all out again! We pumped our wells dry before they were a quarter full—we stripped our orchards while the apples were still in blossom—we applied the severe logic of arithmetic to our chickens, while peacefully slumbering in their shells! Doubtless it’s the early bird that picks up the worm—but if the bird gets up so outrageously early that the worm is still deep underground, what then is its chance of a breakfast?’

Not much, I admitted.

‘Now see how that works!’ he went on eagerly. ‘If you want to pump your wells so soon—and I suppose you tell me that is what you must do?’

‘We must,’ I said. ‘In an over-crowded country like this, nothing but Competitive Examinations—’

Mein Herr threw up his hands wildly. ‘What, again?’ he cried. ‘I thought it was dead, fifty years ago! Oh this Upas tree of Competitive Examinations! Beneath whose deadly shade all the original genius, all the exhaustive research, all the untiring life-long diligence by which our fore-fathers have so advanced human knowledge, must slowly but surely wither away, and give place to a system of Cookery, in which the human mind is a sausage, and all we ask is, how much indigestible stuff can be crammed into it!’

Always, after these bursts of eloquence, he seemed to forget himself for a moment, and only to hold on to the thread of thought by some single word. ‘Yes, crammed,’ he repeated. ‘We went through all that stage of the disease—had it bad, I warrant you!

Of course, as the Examination was all in all, we tried to put in just what was wanted—and the great thing to aim at was, that the Candidate should know absolutely nothing beyond the needs of the Examination! I don’t say it was ever quite achieved: but one of my own pupils (pardon an old man’s egotism) came very near it. After the Examination, he mentioned to me the few facts which he knew but had not been able to bring in, and I can assure you they were trivial, Sir, absolutely trivial!’

I feebly expressed my surprise and delight.

The old man bowed, with a gratified smile, and proceeded. ‘At that time, no one had hit on the much more rational plan of watching for the individual scintillations of genius, and rewarding them as they occurred. As it was, we made our unfortunate pupil into a Leyden-jar, charged him up to the eyelids—then applied the knob of a Competitive Examination, and drew off one magnificent spark, which very often cracked the jar! What mattered that? We labeled it "First Class Spark", and put it away on the shelf.’

‘But the more rational system—?’ I suggested.

‘Ah, yes! that came next. Instead of giving the whole reward of learning in one lump, we used to pay for every good answer as it occurred. How well I remember lecturing in those days, with a heap of small coins at my elbow! It was "A very good answer, Mr. Jones!" (that meant a shilling, mostly). "Bravo, Mr. Robinson!" (that meant half-a-crown). Now I’ll tell you how that worked. Not one single fact would any of them take in, without a fee! And when a clever boy came up from school, he got paid more for learning than we got paid for teaching him! Then came the wildest craze of all.’

‘What, another craze?’ I said.

‘It’s the last one,’ said the old man. ‘I must have tired you out with my long story. Each College wanted to get the clever boys:

so we adopted a system which we had heard was very popular in England: the Colleges competed against each other, and the boys let themselves out to the highest bidder! What geese we were! Why, they were bound to come to the University somehow. We needn’t have paid ‘em! And all our money went in getting clever boys to come to one College rather than another! The competition was so keen, that at last mere money-payments were not enough. Any College, that wished to secure some specially clever young man, had to waylay him at the station, and hunt him through the streets. The first who touched him was allowed to have him.’

‘That hunting-down of the scholars, as they arrived, must have been a curious business,’ I said. ‘Could you give me some idea of what it was like?’

‘Willingly!’ said the old man. ‘I will describe to you the very last Hunt that took place, before that form of Sport (for it was actually reckoned among the Sports of the day: we called it "Cub-Hunting") was finally abandoned. I witnessed it myself, as I happened to be passing by at the moment, and was what we called "in at the death". I can see it now!’ he went on in an excited tone, gazing into vacancy with those large dreamy eyes of his ‘It seems like yesterday; and yet it happened—’ He checked himself hastily, and the remaining words died away into a whisper.

‘How many years ago did you say?’ I asked, much interested in the prospect of at last learning some definite fact in his history.

‘Many years ago,’ he replied. ‘The scene at the Railway-Station had been (so they told me) one of wild excitement. Eight or nine Heads of Colleges had assembled at the gates (no one was allowed inside), and the Station-Master had drawn a line on the pavement, and insisted on their all standing behind it. The gates were flung open! The young man darted through them, and fled like lightning down the street, while the Heads of Colleges actually yelled with excitement on catching sight of him! The Proctor gave the word, in the old statutory form, "Semel! Bis! Ter! Currite!", and the Hunt began! Oh, it was a fine sight, believe me! At the first corner he dropped his Greek Lexicon: further on, his railway-rug: then various small articles: then his umbrella: lastly, what I suppose he prized most, his hand-bag; but the game was up: the spherical Principal of—of—’

‘Of which College?’ I said.

‘—of one of the Colleges,’ he resumed, ‘had put into operation the Theory—his own discovery—of Accelerated Velocity, and captured him just opposite to where I stood. I shall never forget that wild breathless struggle! But it was soon over. Once in those great bony hands, escape was impossible!’

‘May I ask why you speak of him as the "spherical" Principal?" I said.

‘The epithet referred to his shape, which was a perfect sphere. You are aware that a bullet, another instance of a perfect sphere, when falling in a perfectly straight line, moves with Accelerated Velocity?’

I bowed assent.

‘Well, my spherical friend (as I am proud to call him) set himself to investigate the causes of this. He found them to be three.

One; that it is a perfect sphere. Two; that it moves in a straight line. Three; that its direction is not upwards. When these three conditions are fulfilled, you get Accelerated Velocity.’

‘Hardly,’ I said: ‘if you will excuse my differing from you. Suppose we apply the theory to horizontal motion. If a bullet is fired horizontally, it—’

‘—it does not move in a straight line,’ he quietly finished my sentence for me.

‘I yield the point,’ I said. ‘What did your friend do next?’

‘The next thing was to apply the theory, as you rightly suggest, to horizontal motion. But the moving body, ever tending to fall, needs constant support, if it is to move in a true horizontal line. "What, then," he asked himself, "will give constant support to a moving body?" And his answer was "Human legs!" That was the discovery that immortalized his name!’

‘His name being—?’ I suggested.

‘I had not mentioned it,’ was the gentle reply of my most unsatisfactory informant. ‘His next step was an obvious one. He took to a diet of suet-dumplings, until his body had become a perfect sphere. Then he went out for his first experimental run—which nearly cost him his life!’

‘How was that?’

‘Well, you see, he had no idea of the tremendous new Force in Nature that he was calling into play. He began too fast. In a very few minutes he found himself moving at a hundred miles an hour! And, if he had not had the presence of mind to charge into the middle of a haystack (which he scattered to the four winds) there can be no doubt that he would have left the Planet he belonged to, and gone right away into Space!’

‘And how came that to be the last of the Cub-Hunts?’ I enquired.

‘Well, you see, it led to a rather scandalous dispute between two of the Colleges. Another Principal had laid his hand on the young one, so nearly at the same moment as the spherical one, that there was no knowing which had touched him first. The dispute got into print, and did us no credit, and, in short, Cub-Hunts came to an end. Now I’ll tell you what cured us of that wild craze of ours, the bidding against each other, for the clever scholars, just as if they were articles to be sold by auction! Just when the craze had reached its highest point, and when one of the Colleges had actually advertised a Scholarship of one thousand pounds per annum, one of our tourists brought us the manuscript of an old African legend—I happen to have a copy of it in my pocket. Shall I translate it for you?’

‘Pray go on,’ I said, though I felt I was getting very sleepy.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

WHAT TOTTLES MEANT

MEIN HERR unrolled the manuscript, but, to my great surprise, instead of reading it, he began to sing it, in a rich mellow voice that seemed to ring through the room.

‘One thousand pounds per annum Is not so bad a figure, come!’

Cried Tottles. ‘And I tell you, flat, A man may marry well on that!

To say "the Husband needs the Wife"

Is not the way to represent it.

The crowning joy of Woman’s life Is Man!’ said Tottles (and he meant it).

The blissful Honey-moon is past:

The Pair have settled down at last:

Mamma-in-law their home will share, And make their happiness her care.

‘Your income is an ample one:

Go it, my children!’ (And they went it).

‘I rayther think this kind of fun Wo’n’t last!’ said Tottles (and he meant it).

They took a little country-box—

A box at Covent Garden also:

They lived a life of double-knocks, Acquaintances began to call so:

Their London house was much the same (It took three hundred, clear, to rent it):

‘Life is a very jolly game!’

Cried happy Tottles (and he meant it).

‘Contented with a frugal lot’

(He always used that phrase at Gunter’s), He bought a handy little yacht—

A dozen serviceable hunters—

The fishing of a Highland Loch—

A sailing-boat to circumvent it—

‘The sounding of that Gaelic "och"

Beats me!’ said Tottles (and he meant it).

Here, with one of those convulsive starts that wake one up in the very act of dropping off to sleep, I became conscious that the deep musical tones that thrilled me did not belong to Mein Herr, but to the French Count. The old man was still conning the manuscript.

‘I beg your pardon for keeping you waiting!’ he said. ‘I was just making sure that I knew the English for all the words. I am quite ready now.’ And he read me the following Legend:

‘In a city that stands in the very centre of Africa, and is rarely visited by the casual tourist, the people had always bought eggs—a daily necessary in a climate where egg-flip was the usual diet—from a Merchant who came to their gates once a week.

And the people always bid wildly against each other: so there was quite a lively auction every time the Merchant came, and the last egg in his basket used to fetch the value of two or three camels, or thereabouts. And eggs got dearer every week. And still they drank their egg-flip, and wondered where all their money went to.

‘And there came a day when they put their heads together. And they understood what donkeys they had been.

‘And next day, when the Merchant came, only one Man went forth. And he said "Oh, thou of the hook-nose and the goggle-eyes, thou of the measureless beard, how much for that lot of eggs?"

‘And the Merchant answered him "I could let thee have that lot at ten thousand piastres the dozen."

‘And the Man chuckled inwardly, and said "Ten piastres the dozen I offer thee, and no more, oh descendant of a distinguished grandfather!"

‘And the Merchant stroked his beard, and said "Hum! I will await the coming of thy friends." So he waited. And the Man waited with him. And they waited both together.’

‘The manuscript breaks off here,’ said Mein Herr, as he rolled it up again; ‘but it was enough to open our eyes. We saw what simpletons we had been—buying our Scholars much as those ignorant savages bought their eggs—and the ruinous system was abandoned. If only we could have abandoned, along with it, all the other fashions we had borrowed from you, instead of carrying them to their logical results! But it was not to be. What ruined my country, and drove me from my home, was the introduction—into the Army, of all places—of your theory of Political Dichotomy!’

‘Shall I trouble you too much,’ I said, ‘if I ask you to explain what you mean by "the Theory of Political Dichotomy"?’

‘No trouble at all!’ was Mein Herr’s most courteous reply. ‘I quite enjoy talking, when I get so good a listener. What started the thing, with us, was the report brought to us, by one of our most eminent statesmen, who had stayed some time in England, of the way affairs were managed there. It was a political necessity (so he assured us, and we believed him, though we had never discovered it till that moment) that there should be two Parties, in every affair and on every subject. In Politics, the two Parties, which you had found it necessary to institute, were called, he told us, "Whigs" and "Tories".’

‘That must have been some time ago?’ I remarked.

‘It was some time ago,’ he admitted. ‘And this was the way the affairs of the British Nation were managed. (You will correct me if I misrepresent it. I do but repeat what our traveler told us.) These two Parties—which were in chronic hostility to each other—took turns in conducting the Government; and the Party, that happened not to be in power, was called the "Opposition", I believe?’

‘That is the right name,’ I said. ‘There have always been, so long as we have had a Parliament at all, two Parties, one "in", and one "out".’

‘Well, the function of the "Ins" (if I may so call them) was to do the best they could for the national welfare—in such things as making war or peace, commercial treaties, and so forth?’

‘Undoubtedly,’ I said.

‘And the function of the "Outs" was (so our traveler assured us, though we were very incredulous at first) to prevent the "Ins"

from succeeding in any of these things?’

‘To criticize and to amend their proceedings,’ I corrected him. ‘It would be unpatriotic to hinder the Government in doing what was for the good of the Nation! We have always held a Patriot to be the greatest of heroes, and an unpatriotic spirit to be one of the worst of human ills!’

‘Excuse me for a moment,’ the old gentleman courteously replied, taking out his pocket-book. ‘I have a few memoranda here, of a correspondence I had with our tourist, and, if you will allow me, I’ll just refresh my memory—although I quite agree with you—it is, as you say, one of the worst of human ills—’ And, here Mein Herr began singing again.

But oh, the worst of human ills (Poor Tottles found) are ‘little bills’!

And, with no balance in the Bank What wonder that his spirits sank?

Still, as the money flowed away, He wondered how on earth she spent it.

‘You cost me twenty pounds a day, At least!’ cried Tottles (and he meant it).

She sighed. ‘Those Drawing Rooms, you know!

I really never thought about it:

Mamma declared we ought to go—

We should be Nobodies without it.

That diamond-circlet for my brow—

I quite believed that she had sent it, Until the Bill came in just now—’

‘Viper!’ cried Tottles (and he meant it).

Poor Mrs. T. could bear no more, But fainted flat upon the floor.

Mamma-in-law, with anguish wild, Seeks, all in vain, to rouse her child.

‘Quick! Take this box of smelling-salts!

Don’t scold her, James, or you’ll repent it, She’s a dear girl, with all her faults—’

She is!’ groaned Tottles (and he meant it).

‘I was a donkey,’ Tottles cried, ‘To choose your daughter for my bride!

‘Twas you that bid us cut a dash!

‘Tis you have brought us to this smash!

You don’t suggest one single thing That can in any way prevent it—’

‘Then what’s the use of arguing?’

‘Shut up!’ cried Tottles (and he meant it).

Once more I started into wakefulness, and realized that Mein Herr was not the singer. He was still consulting his memoranda.

‘It is exactly what my friend told me,’ he resumed, after conning over various papers. ‘"Unpatriotic" is the very word I had used, in writing to him, and "hinder" is the very word he used in his reply! Allow me to read you a portion of his letter:

‘"I can assure you," he writes, "that, unpatriotic as you may think it, the recognized function of the "Opposition" is to hinder in every manner not forbidden by the Law, the action of the Government. This process is called "Legitimate Obstruction": and the greatest triumph the "Opposition" can ever enjoy, is when they are able to point out that, owing to their "Obstruction", the Government have failed in everything they have tried to do for the good of the Nation!"‘

‘Your friend has not put it quite correctly,’ I said. ‘The Opposition would no doubt be glad to point out that the Government had failed through their own fault but not that they had failed on account of Obstruction!’

‘You think so?’ he gently replied. ‘Allow me now to read to you this newspaper-cutting, which my friend enclosed in his letter.

It is part of the report of a public speech, made by a Statesman who was at the time a member of the "Opposition":

‘"At the close of the Session, he thought they had no reason to be discontented with the fortunes of the campaign. They had routed the enemy at every point. But the pursuit must be continued. They had only to follow up a disordered and dispirited foe."‘

‘Now to what portion of your national history would you guess that the speaker was referring?’

‘Really, the number of successful wars we have waged during the last century,’ I replied, with a glow of British pride, ‘is far too great for me to guess, with any chance of success, which it was we were then engaged in. However. I will name "India" as the most probable. The Mutiny was no doubt, all but crushed, at the time that speech was made. What a fine, manly, patriotic speech it must have been!’ I exclaimed in an outburst of enthusiasm.

‘You think so?’ he replied, in a tone of gentle pity. ‘Yet, my friend tells me that the "disordered and dispirited foe" simply meant the Statesmen who happened to be in power at the moment; that the "pursuit" simply meant "Obstruction"; and that the words "they had routed the enemy" simply meant that the "Opposition" had succeeded in hindering the Government from doing any of the work which the Nation had empowered them to do!’

I thought it best to say nothing.

‘It seemed queer to us, just at first,’ he resumed, after courteously waiting a minute for me to speak: ‘but, when once we had mastered the idea, our respect for your Nation was so great that we carried it into every department of life! It was "the beginning of the end" with us. My country never held up its head again!’ And the poor old gentleman sighed deeply.

‘Let us change the subject,’ I said. ‘Do not distress yourself, I beg!’

‘No, no!’ he said, with an effort to recover himself. ‘I had rather finish my story! The next step (after reducing our Government to impotence, and putting a stop to all useful legislation, which did not take us long to do) was to introduce what we called "the glorious British Principle of Dichotomy" into Agriculture. We persuaded many of the well-to-do farmers to divide their staff of labourers into two Parties, and to set them one against the other. They were called, like our political Parties, the "Ins" and the "Outs": the business of the "Ins" was to do as much of ploughing, sowing or whatever might be needed, as they could manage in a day, and at night they were paid according to the amount they had done: the business of the "Outs" was to hinder them, and they were paid for the amount they had hindered. The farmers found they had to pay only half as much wages as they did before, and they didn’t observe that the amount of work done was only a quarter as much as was done before: so they took it up quite enthusiastically, at first.’

‘And afterwards—’? I enquired.

‘Well, afterwards they didn’t like it quite so well. In a very short time, things settled down into a regular routine. No work at all was done. So the "Ins" got no wages, and the "Outs" got full pay. And the farmers never discovered, till most of them were ruined, that the rascals had agreed to manage it so, and had shared the pay between them! While the thing lasted, there were funny sights to be seen! Why, I’ve often watched a ploughman, with two horses harnessed to the plough, doing his best to get it forwards; while the opposition-ploughman, with three donkeys harnessed at the other end, was doing his best to get it backwards! And the plough never moving an inch, either way!’

‘But we never did anything like that!’ I exclaimed.

‘Simply because you were less logical than we were,’ replied Mein Herr. ‘There is sometimes an advantage in being a donk—Excuse me! No personal allusion intended. All this happened long ago, you know!’

‘Did the Dichotomy-Principle succeed in any direction?’ I enquired.

‘In none,’ Mein Herr candidly confessed. ‘It had a very short trial in Commerce. The shop-keepers wouldn’t take it up, after once trying the plan of having half the attendants busy in folding up and carrying away the goods which the other half were trying to spread out upon the counters. They said the Public didn’t like it!’

‘I don’t wonder at it,’ I remarked.

‘Well, we tried "the British Principle" for some years. And the end of it all was—’ His voice suddenly dropped, almost to a whisper; and large tears began to roll down his cheeks. ‘—the end was that we got involved in a war; and there was a great battle, in which we far out-numbered the enemy. But what could one expect, when only half of our soldiers were fighting, and the other half pulling them back? It ended in a crushing defeat—an utter rout. This caused a Revolution; and most of the Government were banished. I myself was accused of Treason, for having so strongly advocated "the British Principle". My property was all forfeited, and—and—I was driven into exile! "Now the mischief’s done," they said, "perhaps you’ll kindly leave the country?" It nearly broke my heart, but I had to go!’

The melancholy tone became a wail: the wail became a chant: the chant became a song—though whether it was Mein Herr that was singing, this time, or somebody else, I could not feel certain.

‘And, now the mischief’s done, perhaps You’ll kindly go and pack your traps?

Since two (your daughter and your son)

Are Company, but three are none.

A course of saving we’ll begin:

When change is needed, I’ll invent it.

Don’t think to put your finger in This pie!’ cried Tottles (and he meant it).

The music seemed to die away. Mein Herr was again speaking in his ordinary voice. ‘Now tell me one thing more,’ he said.

‘Am I right in thinking that in your Universities, though a man may reside some thirty or forty years, you examine him, once for all, at the end of the first three or four?’

‘That is so, undoubtedly,’ I admitted.

‘Practically, then, you examine a man at the beginning of his career!’ the old man said to himself rather than to me. ‘And what guarantee have you that he retains the knowledge for which you have rewarded him—before-hand, as we should say!’

‘None,’ I admitted, feeling a little puzzled at the drift of his remarks. ‘How do you secure that object?’

‘By examining him at the end of his thirty or forty years—not at the beginning,’ he gently replied. ‘On an average, the knowledge then found is about one-fifth of what it was at first—the process of forgetting going on at a very steady uniform rate—and he, who forgets least, gets most honour, and most rewards.’

‘Then you give him the money when he needs it no longer? And you make him live most of his life on nothing!’

‘Hardly that. He gives his orders to the tradesmen: they supply him, for forty, sometimes fifty years, at their own risk: then he gets his Fellowship—which pays him in one year as much as your Fellowships pay in fifty—and then he can easily pay all his bills, with interest.’

‘But suppose he fails to get his Fellowship? That must occasionally happen.’

‘That occasionally happens.’ It was Mein Herr’s turn, now, to make admissions.

‘And what becomes of the tradesmen?’

‘They calculate accordingly. When a man appears to be getting alarmingly ignorant, or stupid, they will sometimes refuse to supply him any longer. You have no idea with what enthusiasm a man will begin to rub up his forgotten sciences or languages, when his butcher has cut off the supply of beef and mutton!’

‘And who are the Examiners?’

‘The young men who have just come, brimming over with knowledge. You would think it a curious sight,’ he went on, ‘to see mere boys examining such old men. I have known a man set to examine his own grandfather. It was a little painful for both of them, no doubt. The old gentleman was as bald as a coot—’

‘How bald would that be?’ I’ve no idea why I asked this question. I felt I was getting foolish.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

BRUNO’S PICNIC

‘AS bald as bald’ was the bewildering reply. ‘Now, Bruno, I’ll tell you a story.’

‘And I’ll tell oo a story,’ said Bruno, beginning in a great hurry for fear of Sylvie getting the start of him: ‘once there were a Mouse—a little tiny Mouse—such a tiny little Mouse! Oo never saw such a tiny Mouse—’

‘Did nothing ever happen to it, Bruno?’ I asked. ‘Haven’t you anything more to tell us, besides its being so tiny?’

‘Nothing never happened to it,’ Bruno solemnly replied.

‘Why did nothing never happen to it?’ said Sylvie, who was sitting, with her head on Bruno’s shoulder, patiently waiting for a chance of beginning her story.

‘It were too tiny,’ Bruno explained.

‘That’s no reason!’ I said. ‘However tiny it was, things might happen to it.’

Bruno looked pityingly at me, as if he thought me very stupid. ‘It were too tiny,’ he repeated. ‘If anything happened to it, it would die—it were so very tiny!’

‘Really that’s enough about its being tiny!’ Sylvie put in. ‘Haven’t you invented any more about it?’

‘Haven’t invented no more yet.’

‘Well, then, you shouldn’t begin a story till you’ve invented more! Now be quiet, there’s a good boy, and listen to my story.’

And Bruno, having quite exhausted all his inventive faculty, by beginning in too great a hurry, quietly resigned himself to listening.

‘Tell about the other Bruno, please,’ he said coaxingly.

Sylvie put her arms round his neck, and began:—

‘The wind was whispering among the trees,’ (‘That wasn’t good manners!’ Bruno interrupted. ‘Never mind about manners,’ said Sylvie) ‘and it was evening—a nice moony evening, and the Owls were hooting—’

‘Pretend they weren’t Owls!’ Bruno pleaded, stroking her cheek with his fat little hand. ‘I don’t like Owls. Owls have such great big eyes. Pretend they were Chickens!’

‘Are you afraid of their great big eyes, Bruno?’ I said.

‘Aren’t ‘fraid of nothing,’ Bruno answered in as careless a tone as he could manage: ‘they’re ugly with their great big eyes. I think if they cried, the tears would be as big—oh, as big as the moon!’ And he laughed merrily. ‘Doos Owls cry ever, Mister Sir?’

‘Owls cry never,’ I said gravely, trying to copy Bruno’s way of speaking: ‘they’ve got nothing to be sorry for, you know.’

‘Oh, but they have!’ Bruno exclaimed. ‘They’re ever so sorry, ‘cause they killed the poor little Mouses!’

‘But they’re not sorry when they’re hungry, I suppose?’

‘Oo don’t know nothing about Owls!’ Bruno scornfully remarked. ‘When they’re hungry, they’re very, very sorry they killed the little Mouses, ‘cause if they hadn’t killed them there’d be sumfin for supper, oo know!’

Bruno was evidently getting into a dangerously inventive state of mind, so Sylvie broke in with ‘Now I’m going on with the story. So the Owls—the Chickens, I mean—were looking to see if they could find a nice fat Mouse for their supper—’

‘Pretend it was a nice ‘abbit!’ said Bruno.

‘But it wasn’t a nice habit, to kill Mouses,’ Sylvie argued. ‘I ca’n’t pretend that!’

‘I didn’t say "habit", oo silly fellow!’ Bruno replied with a merry twinkle in his eye. ‘‘abbits—that runs about in the fields!’

‘Rabbit? Well it can be a Rabbit, if you like. But you mustn’t alter my story so much, Bruno. A Chicken couldn’t eat a Rabbit!’

‘But it might have wished to see if it could try to eat it.’

‘Well, it wished to see if it could try—oh, really, Bruno, that’s nonsense! I shall go back to the Owls.’

‘Well, then, pretend they hadn’t great eyes!’

‘And they saw a little Boy,’ Sylvie went on, disdaining to make any further corrections. ‘And he asked them to tell him a story.

And the Owls hooted and flew away—’ (‘Oo shouldn’t say "flewed"; oo should say "flied",’ Bruno whispered. But Sylvie wouldn’t hear.) ‘And he met a Lion. And he asked the Lion to tell him a story. And the Lion said "yes", it would. And, while the Lion was telling him the story, it nibbled some of his head off—’

‘Don’t say "nibbled"!’ Bruno entreated. ‘Only little things nibble—little thin sharp things, with edges—’

‘Well, then, it "nubbled",’ said Sylvie. ‘And when it had nubbled all his head off, he went away, and he never said "thank you"!’

‘That were very rude,’ said Bruno. ‘If he couldn’t speak, he might have nodded—no, he couldn’t nod. Well, he might have shaked hands with the Lion!’

‘Oh, I’d forgotten that part!’ said Sylvie. ‘He did shake hands with it. He came back again, you know, and he thanked the Lion very much, for telling him the story.’

‘Then his head had growed up again?’ said Bruno.

‘Oh yes, it grew up in a minute. And the Lion begged pardon, and said it wouldn’t nubble off little boys’ heads—not never no more!’

Bruno looked much pleased at this change of events. ‘Now that are a really nice story!’ he said. ‘Aren’t it a nice story, Mister Sir?’

‘Very,’ I said. ‘I would like to hear another story about that Boy.’

‘So would I,’ said Bruno, stroking Sylvie’s cheek again. ‘Please tell about Bruno’s Picnic; and don’t talk about nubbly Lions!’

‘I wo’n’t, if it frightens you,’ said Sylvie.

‘Flightens me!’ Bruno exclaimed indignantly. ‘It isn’t that! It’s ‘cause "nubbly"‘s such a grumbly word to say—when one person’s got her head on another person’s shoulder. When she talks like that,’ he exclaimed to me, ‘the talking goes down bofe sides of my face—all the way to my chin—and it doos tickle so! It’s enough to make a beard grow, that it is!’

He said this with great severity, but it was evidently meant for a joke: so Sylvie laughed—a delicious musical little laugh, and laid her soft cheek on the top of her brother’s curly head, as if it were a pillow, while she went on with the story. ‘So this Boy—’

‘But it wasn’t me, oo know!’ Bruno interrupted. ‘And oo needn’t try to look as if it was, Mister Sir!’

I represented, respectfully, that I was trying to look as if it wasn’t.

‘—he was a middling good Boy—’

‘He were a welly good Boy!’ Bruno corrected her. ‘And he never did nothing he wasn’t told to do—’

‘That doesn’t make a good Boy!’ Sylvie said contemptuously.

‘That do make a good Boy!’ Bruno insisted.

Sylvie gave up the point. ‘Well, he was a very good Boy, and he always kept his promises, and he had a big cupboard—’

‘—for to keep all his promises in!’ cried Bruno.

‘If he kept all his promises,’ Sylvie said, with a mischievous look in her eyes, ‘he wasn’t like some Boys I know of!’

‘He had to put salt with them, a-course,’ Bruno said gravely: ‘oo ca’n’t keep promises when there isn’t any salt. And he kept his birthday on the second shelf.’

‘How long did he keep his birthday?’ I asked. ‘I never can keep mine more than twenty-four hours.’

‘Why, a birthday stays that long by itself!’ cried Bruno. ‘Oo doosn’t know how to keep birthdays! This Boy kept his a whole year!’

‘And then the next birthday would begin,’ said Sylvie. ‘So it would be his birthday always.’

‘So it were,’ said Bruno. ‘Doos oo have treats on oor birthday, Mister Sir?’

‘Sometimes,’ I said.

‘When oo’re good, I suppose?’

‘Why, it is a sort of treat, being good, isn’t it?’ I said.

‘A sort of treat!’ Bruno repeated. ‘It’s a sort of punishment, I think!’

‘Oh, Bruno!’ Sylvie interrupted, almost sadly. ‘How can you?’

‘Well, but it is,’ Bruno persisted. ‘Why, look here, Mister Sir! This is being good!’ And he sat bolt upright, and put on an absurdly solemn face. ‘First oo must sit up as straight as pokers—’

‘—as a poker,’ Sylvie corrected him.

‘—as straight as pokers,’ Bruno firmly repeated. ‘Then oo must clasp oor hands—so. Then—"Why hasn’t oo brushed oor hair?

Go and brush it toreckly!" Then—"Oh, Bruno, oo mustn’t dog’s-ear the daisies!" Did oo learn oor spelling wiz daisies, Mister Sir?’

‘I want to hear about that Boy’s Birthday,’ I said.

Bruno returned to the story instantly. ‘Well, so this Boy said "Now it’s my Birthday!" And so—I’m tired!’ he suddenly broke off, laying his head in Sylvie’s lap. ‘Sylvie knows it best. Sylvie’s grown-upper than me. Go on Sylvie!’

Sylvie patiently took up the thread of the story again. ‘So he said "Now it’s my Birthday. Whatever shall I do to keep my Birthday?" All good little Boys—’ (Sylvie turned away from Bruno, and made a great pretence of whispering to me) ‘—all good little Boys—Boys that learn their lessons quite perfect—they always keep their birthdays, you know. So of course this little Boy kept his Birthday.’

‘Oo may call him Bruno, if oo like,’ the little fellow carelessly remarked. ‘It weren’t me, but it makes it more interesting.’

‘So Bruno said to himself "The properest thing to do is to have a Picnic, all by myself, on the top of the hill. And I’ll take some Milk and some Bread, and some Apples: and first, and foremost, I want some Milk!" So, first, and foremost, Bruno took a milk-pail—’

‘And he went and milkted the Cow!’ Bruno put in.

‘Yes,’ said Sylvie, meekly accepting the new verb. ‘And the Cow said "Moo! What are you going to do with all that Milk?"

And Bruno said "Please’m, I want it for my Picnic." And the Cow said "Moo! I hope you wo’n’t boil any of it?" And Bruno said "No, indeed I wo’n’t! New Milk’s so nice and so warm, it wants no boiling!"‘

‘It doesn’t want no boiling,’ Bruno offered as an amended version.

‘So Bruno put the Milk in a bottle. And then Bruno said "Now I want some Bread!" So he went to the Oven, and he took out a delicious new Loaf. And the Oven—’.

‘—ever so light and so puffy!’ Bruno impatiently corrected her. ‘Oo shouldn’t leave out so many words!’

Sylvie humbly apologized. ‘—a delicious new Loaf, ever so light and so puffy. And the Oven said—’ Here Sylvie made a long pause. ‘Really I don’t know what an Oven begins with, when it wants to speak!’

Both children looked appealingly at me; but I could only say, helplessly, ‘I haven’t the least idea! I never heard an Oven speak!’

For a minute or two we all sat silent; and then Bruno said, very softly, ‘Oven begins wiz "O".’

‘Good little boy!’ Sylvie exclaimed. ‘He does his spelling very nicely. He’s cleverer than he knows!’ she added, aside, to me.

‘So the Oven said "O! What are you going to do with all that Bread?" And Bruno said "Please—" Is an Oven "Sir" or "‘m", would you say?’ She looked to me for a reply.

‘Both, I think,’ seemed to me the safest thing to say.

Sylvie adopted the suggestion instantly. ‘So Bruno said "Please, Sirm, I want it for my Picnic." And the Oven said "O! But I hope you wo’n’t toast any of it?" And Bruno said, "No, indeed I wo’n’t! New Bread’s so light and so puffy, it wants no toasting!"‘

‘It never doesn’t want no toasting,’ said Bruno. ‘I wiss oo wouldn’t say it so short!’

‘So Bruno put the Bread in the hamper. Then Bruno said "Now I want some Apples!" So he took the hamper, and he went to the Apple-Tree, and he picked some lovely ripe Apples. And the Apple-Tree said—’ Here followed another long pause.

Bruno adopted his favourite expedient of tapping his forehead; while Sylvie gazed earnestly upwards, as if she hoped for some suggestion from the birds, who were singing merrily among the branches overhead. But no result followed.

‘What does an Apple-Tree begin with, when it wants to speak?’ Sylvie murmured despairingly, to the irresponsive birds.

At last, taking a leaf out of Bruno’s book, I ventured on a remark. ‘Doesn’t "Apple-Tree" always begin with Eh!"?’

‘Why, of course it does! How clever of you!’ Sylvie cried delightedly.

Bruno jumped up, and patted me on the head. I tried not to feel conceited.

‘So the Apple-Tree said "Eh! What are you going to do with all those Apples?" And Bruno said "Please, Sir, I want them for my Picnic." And the Apple-Tree said "Eh! But I hope you wo’n’t bake any of them?" And Bruno said "No, indeed I wo’n’t!

Ripe Apples are so nice and so sweet, they want no baking!"‘

‘They never doesn’t—’ Bruno was beginning, but Sylvie corrected herself before he could get the words out.

‘"They never doesn’t nohow want no baking." So Bruno put the Apples in the hamper, along with the Bread, and the bottle of Milk. And he set off to have a Picnic, on the top of the hill, all by himself—’

‘He wasn’t greedy, oo know, to have it all by himself,’ Bruno said, patting me on the cheek to call my attention; ‘‘cause he hadn’t got no brothers and sisters.’

‘It was very sad to have no sisters, wasn’t it?’ I said.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ Bruno said thoughtfully; ‘‘cause he hadn’t no lessons to do. So he didn’t mind.’

Sylvie went on. ‘So, as he was walking along the road, he heard behind him such a curious sort of noise—a sort of a Thump!

Thump! Thump! "Whatever is that?" said Bruno. "Oh, I know!" said Bruno. "Why, it’s only my Watch a-ticking!"‘

‘Were it his Watch a-ticking?’ Bruno asked me, with eyes that fairly sparkled with mischievous delight.

‘No doubt of it!’ I replied. And Bruno laughed exultingly.

‘Then Bruno thought a little harder. And he said "No! it ca’n’t be my Watch a-ticking; because I haven’t got a Watch!"‘

Bruno peered up anxiously into my face, to see how I took it. I hung my head, and put a thumb into my mouth, to the evident delight of the little fellow.

‘So Bruno went a little further along the road. And then he heard it again, that queer noise—Thump! Thump! Thump!

"Whatever is that?" said Bruno. "Oh, I know!" said Bruno. "Why, it’s only the Carpenter a-mending my Wheelbarrow!"‘

‘Were it the Carpenter a-mending his Wheelbarrow?’ Bruno asked me.

I brightened up, and said ‘It must have been!’ in a tone of absolute conviction.

Bruno threw his arms round Sylvie’s neck. ‘Sylvie!’ he said, in a perfectly audible whisper. ‘He says it must have been!’

‘Then Bruno thought a little harder. And he said "No! It ca’n’t be the Carpenter a-mending my Wheelbarrow, because I haven’t got a Wheelbarrow!"

This time I hid my face in my hands, quite unable to meet Bruno’s look of triumph.

‘So Bruno went a little further along the road. And then he heard that queer noise again—Thump! Thump! Thump! So he thought he’d look round, this time, just to see what it was. And what should it be but a great Lion!’

‘A great big Lion,’ Bruno corrected her.

‘A great big Lion. And Bruno was ever so frightened, and he ran—’

‘No, he wasn’t flightened a bit!’ Bruno interrupted. (He was evidently anxious for the reputation of his name-sake.) ‘He runned away to get a good look at the Lion; ‘cause he wanted to see if it were the same Lion what used to nubble little Boys’ heads off; and he wanted to know how big it was!’

‘Well, he ran away, to get a good look at the Lion. And the Lion trotted slowly after him. And the Lion called after him, in a very gentle voice, "Little Boy, little Boy! You needn’t be afraid of me! I’m a very gentle old Lion now. I never nubble little Boys’ heads off, as I used to do." And so Bruno said "Don’t you really, Sir? Then what do you live on?" And the Lion—’

‘Oo see he weren’t a bit flightened!’ Bruno said to me, patting my cheek again. ‘‘cause he remembered to call it "Sir", oo know.’

I said that no doubt that was the real test whether a person was frightened or not.

‘And the Lion said "Oh, I live on bread-and-butter, and cherries, and marmalade, and plum-cake—"‘

‘—and apples!’ Bruno put in.

‘Yes, "and apples". And Bruno said "Wo’n’t you come with me to my Picnic?" And the Lion said "Oh, I should like it very much indeed!" And Bruno and the Lion went away together.’ Sylvie stopped suddenly.

‘Is that all?’ I asked, despondingly.

‘Not quite all,’ Sylvie slily replied ‘There’s a sentence or two more. Isn’t there, Bruno?’

‘Yes,’ with a carelessness that was evidently put on: ‘just a sentence or two more.’

‘And, as they were walking along, they looked over a hedge, and who should they see but a little black Lamb! And the Lamb was ever so frightened. And it ran—’

‘It were really flightened!’ Bruno put in.

‘It ran away. And Bruno ran after it. And he called "Little Lamb! You needn’t be afraid of this Lion! It never kills things! It lives on cherries, and marmalade—"‘

‘—and apples!’ said Bruno. ‘Oo always forgets the apples!’

‘And Bruno said "Wo’n’t you come with us to my Picnic?" And the Lamb said "Oh, I should like it very much indeed, if my Ma will let me!" And Bruno said "Let’s go and ask your Ma!" And they went to the old Sheep. And Bruno said "Please, may your little Lamb come to my Picnic?" And the Sheep said "Yes, if it’s learnt all its lessons." And the Lamb said "Oh yes, Ma!

I’ve learnt all my lessons!"‘

‘Pretend it hadn’t any lessons!’ Bruno earnestly pleaded.

‘Oh, that would never do!’ said Sylvie. ‘I ca’n’t leave out all about the lessons! And the old Sheep said "Do you know your A B C yet? Have you learnt A?" And the Lamb said "Oh yes, Ma! I went to the A-field, and I helped them to make A!" "Very good, my child! And have you learnt B?" "Oh yes, Ma! I went to the B-hive, and the B gave me some honey!" "Very good, my child! And have you learnt C?" "Oh yes, Ma! I went to the C-side, and I saw the ships sailing on the C!" "Very good, my child!

You may go to Bruno’s Picnic."‘

‘So they set off. And Bruno walked in the middle, so that the Lamb mightn’t see the Lion—’

‘It were flightened,’ Bruno explained.

‘Yes, and it trembled so; and it got paler and paler; and, before they’d got to the top of the hill, it was a white little Lamb—as white as snow!’

‘But Bruno weren’t flightened!’ said the owner of that name. ‘So he staid black!’

‘No, he didn’t stay black! He staid pink!’ laughed Sylvie. ‘I shouldn’t kiss you like this, you know, if you were black!’

‘Oo’d have to!’ Bruno said with great decision. ‘Besides, Bruno wasn’t Bruno, oo know—I mean, Bruno wasn’t me—I mean—don’t talk nonsense, Sylvie!’

‘I wo’n’t do it again!’ Sylvie said very humbly. ‘And so, as they went along, the Lion said "Oh, I’ll tell you what I used to do when I was a young Lion. I used to hide behind trees, to watch for little Boys."‘ (Bruno cuddled a little closer to her.) ‘"And, if a little thin scraggy Boy came by, why, I used to let him go. But, if a little fat juicy—"‘

Bruno could bear no more. ‘Pretend he wasn’t juicy!’ he pleaded, half-sobbing.

‘Nonsense, Bruno!’ Sylvie briskly replied. ‘It’ll be done in a moment! "—if a little fat juicy Boy came by, why, I used to spring out and gobble him up! Oh, you’ve no idea what a delicious thing it is—a little juicy Boy!" And Bruno said "Oh, if you please, Sir, don’t talk about eating little boys! It makes me so shivery!"‘

The real Bruno shivered, in sympathy with the hero.

‘And the Lion said "Oh, well, we wo’n’t talk about it, then! I’ll tell you what happened on my wedding-day—"‘

‘I like this part better,’ said Bruno, patting my cheek to keep me awake.

‘"There was, oh, such a lovely wedding-breakfast! At one end of the table there was a large plum-pudding. And at the other end there was a nice roasted Lamb! Oh, you’ve no idea what a delicious thing it is—a nice roasted Lamb!" And the Lamb said "Oh, if you please, Sir, don’t talk about eating Lambs! It makes me so shivery!" And the Lion said "Oh, well, we wo’n’t talk about it, then!"‘

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE LITTLE FOXES

‘SO, when they got to the top of the hill, Bruno opened the hamper: and he took out the Bread, and the Apples, and the Milk:

and they ate, and they drank. And when they’d finished the Milk, and eaten half the Bread and half the Apples, the Lamb said "Oh, my paws is so sticky! I want to wash my paws!" And the Lion said "Well, go down the hill, and wash them in the brook, yonder. We’ll wait for you!"‘

‘It never comed back!’ Bruno solemnly whispered to me.

But Sylvie overheard him. ‘You’re not to whisper, Bruno! It spoils the story! And when the Lamb had been gone a long time, the Lion said to Bruno "Do go and see after that silly little Lamb! It must have lost its way." And Bruno went down the hill. And when he got to the brook, he saw the Lamb sitting on the bank: and who should be sitting by it but an old Fox!’

‘Don’t know who should be sitting by it,’ Bruno said thoughtfully to himself. ‘A old Fox were sitting by it.’

‘And the old Fox were saying,’ Sylvie went on, for once conceding the grammatical point. ‘"Yes, my dear, you’ll be ever so happy with us, if you’ll only come and see us! I’ve got three little Foxes there, and we do love little Lambs so dearly!" And the Lamb said "But you never eat them, do you, Sir?" And the Fox said "Oh, no! What, eat a Lamb? We never dream of doing such a thing!" So the Lamb said "Then I’ll come with you." And off they went, hand in hand.’

‘That Fox were welly extremely wicked, weren’t it?’ said Bruno.

‘No, no!’ said Sylvie, rather shocked at such violent language. ‘It wasn’t quite so bad as that!’

‘Well, I mean, it wasn’t nice,’ the little fellow corrected himself.

‘And so Bruno went back to the Lion. "Oh, come quick!" he said. "The Fox has taken the Lamb to his house with him! I’m sure he means to eat it!" And the Lion said "I’ll come as quick as ever I can!" And they trotted down the hill.’

‘Do oo think he caught the Fox, Mister Sir?’ said Bruno. I shook my head, not liking to speak: and Sylvie went on.

‘And when they got to the house, Bruno looked in at the window. And there he saw the three little Foxes sitting round the table, with their clean pinafores on, and spoons in their hands—’

‘Spoons in their hands!’ Bruno repeated in an ecstasy of delight.

‘And the Fox had got a great big knife—all ready to kill the poor little Lamb—’ (‘Oo needn’t be flightened, Mister Sir!’ Bruno put in, in a hasty whisper.)

‘And just as he was going to do it, Bruno heard a great ROAR—’ (The real Bruno put his hand into mine, and held tight), ‘and the Lion came bang through the door, and the next moment it had bitten off the old Fox’s head! And Bruno jumped in at the window, and went leaping round the room, and crying out "Hooray! Hooray! The old Fox is dead! The old Fox is dead!"‘

Bruno got up in some excitement. ‘May I do it now?’ he enquired.

Sylvie was quite decided on this point. ‘Wait till afterwards,’ she said. ‘The speeches come next, don’t you know? You always love the speeches, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I doos,’ said Bruno: and sat down again.

‘The Lion’s speech. "Now, you silly little Lamb, go home to your mother, and never listen to old Foxes again. And be very good and obedient."‘

‘The Lamb’s speech. "Oh, indeed, Sir, I will, Sir!" and the Lamb went away.’ (‘But oo needn’t go away!’ Bruno explained. ‘It’s quite the nicest part—what’s coming now!’ Sylvie smiled. She liked having an appreciative audience.)

‘The Lion’s speech to Bruno. "Now, Bruno, take those little Foxes home with you, and teach them to be good obedient little Foxes! Not like that wicked old thing there, that’s got no head!"‘ (‘That hasn’t got no head,’ Bruno repeated.)

‘Bruno’s speech to the Lion. "Oh, indeed, Sir, I will, Sir!" And the Lion went away.’ (‘It gets betterer and betterer, now,’ Bruno whispered to me, ‘right away to the end!’)

‘Bruno’s speech to the little Foxes. "Now, little Foxes, you’re going to have your first lesson in being good. I’m going to put you into the hamper, along with the Apples and the Bread: and you’re not to eat the Apples: and you’re not to eat the Bread: and you’re not to eat anything—till we get to my house: and then you’ll have your supper."‘

‘The little Foxes’ speech to Bruno. The little Foxes said nothing.

‘So Bruno put the Apples into the hamper—and the little Foxes—and the Bread—’ (‘They had picnicked all the Milk,’ Bruno explained in a whisper) ‘—and he set off to go to his house.’ (‘We’re getting near the end now,’ said Bruno.)

‘And, when he had got a little way, he thought he would look into the hamper, and see how the little Foxes were getting on.’

‘So he opened the door—’ said Bruno.

‘Oh, Bruno!’ Sylvie exclaimed, ‘you’re not telling the story! So he opened the door, and behold, there were no Apples! So Bruno said "Eldest little Fox, have you been eating the Apples?" And the eldest little Fox said "No no no!"‘ (It is impossible to give the tone in which Sylvie repeated this rapid little "No no no!" The nearest I can come to it is to say that it was much as if a young and excited duck had tried to quack the words. It was too quick for a quack, and yet too harsh to be anything else.)

‘Then he said "Second little Fox, have you been eating the Apples?" And the second little Fox said "No no no!" Then he said "Youngest little Fox, have you been eating the Apples?" And the youngest little Fox tried to say "No no no!" but its mouth was so full, it couldn’t, and it only said "Wauch! Wauch! Wauch!" And Bruno looked into its mouth. And its mouth was full of Apples! And Bruno shook his head, and he said "Oh dear, oh dear! What bad creatures these Foxes are!"‘

Bruno was listening intently: and, when Sylvie paused to take breath, he could only just gasp out the words ‘About the Bread?’

‘Yes,’ said Sylvie, ‘the Bread comes next. So he shut the door again; and he went a little further; and then he thought he’d just peep in once more. And behold, there was no Bread!’ (‘What do "behold" mean?’ said Bruno. ‘Hush!’ said Sylvie.) ‘And he said "Eldest little Fox, have you been eating the Bread?" And the eldest little Fox said "No no no!" "Second little Fox, have you been eating the Bread?" And the second little Fox only said "Wauch! Wauch! Wauch!" And Bruno looked into its mouth, and its mouth was full of Bread!’ (‘It might have chokeded it,’ said Bruno.) ‘So he said "Oh dear, oh dear! What shall I do with these Foxes?" And he went a little further.’ (‘Now comes the most interesting part,’ Bruno whispered.)

‘And when Bruno opened the hamper again, what do you think he saw?’ (‘Only two Foxes!’ Bruno cried in a great hurry.)

‘You shouldn’t tell it so quick. However, he did see only two Foxes. And he said "Eldest little Fox, have you been eating the youngest little Fox?" And the eldest little Fox said "No no no!" "Second little Fox, have you been eating the youngest little Fox?" And the second little Fox did its very best to say "No no no!" but it could only say "Weuchk! Weuchk! Weuchk!" And when Bruno looked into its mouth, it was half full of Bread, and half full of Fox!’ (Bruno said nothing in the pause this time. He was beginning to pant a little, as he knew the crisis was coming.)

‘And when he’d got nearly home, he looked once more into the hamper, and he saw—’

‘Only—’ Bruno began, but a generous thought struck him, and he looked at me. ‘Oo may say it, this time, Mister Sir!’ he whispered. It was a noble offer, but I wouldn’t rob him of the treat. ‘Go on, Bruno,’ I said, ‘you say it much the best.’

‘Only—but—one—Fox!’ Bruno said with great solemnity.

‘"Eldest little Fox,"‘ Sylvie said, dropping the narrative-form in her eagerness, ‘"you’ve been so good that I can hardly believe you’ve been disobedient: but I’m afraid you’ve been eating your little sister?" And the eldest little Fox said "Whihuauch!

Whihuauch!" and then it choked. And Bruno looked into its mouth, and it was full!’ (Sylvie paused to take breath, and Bruno lay back among the daisies, and looked at me triumphantly. ‘Isn’t it grand, Mister Sir?’ said he. I tried hard to assume a critical tone. ‘It’s grand,’ I said: ‘but it frightens one so!’ ‘Oo may sit a little closer to me, if oo like,’ said Bruno.)

‘And so Bruno went home: and took the hamper into the kitchen, and opened it. And he saw—’ Sylvie looked at me, this time, as if she thought I had been rather neglected and ought to be allowed one guess, at any rate.

‘He ca’n’t guess!’ Bruno cried eagerly. ‘I ‘fraid I must tell him! There weren’t—nuffin in the hamper!’ I shivered in terror, and Bruno clapped his hands with delight. ‘He is flightened, Sylvie! Tell the rest!’

‘So Bruno said "Eldest little Fox, have you been eating yourself, you wicked little Fox?" And the eldest little Fox said "Whihuauch!" And then Bruno saw there was only its mouth in the hamper! So he took the mouth, and he opened it, and shook, and shook! And at last he shook the little Fox out of its own mouth! And then he said "Open your mouth again, you wicked little thing!" And he shook, and shook! And he shook out the second little Fox! And he said "Now open your mouth!"

And he shook, and shook! And he shook out the youngest little Fox, and all the Apples, and all the Bread!

‘And then Bruno stood the little Foxes up against the wall: and he made them a little speech. "Now, little Foxes, you’ve begun very wickedly—and you’ll have to be punished. First you’ll go up to the nursery, and wash your faces, and put on clean pinafores. Then you’ll hear the bell ring for supper. Then you’ll come down: and you wo’n’t have any supper: but you’ll have a good whipping! Then you’ll go to bed. Then in the morning you’ll hear the bell ring for breakfast. But you wo’n’t have any breakfast! You’ll have a good whipping! Then you’ll have your lessons. And, perhaps, if you’re very good, when dinner-time comes, you’ll have a little dinner, and no more whipping!"‘ (‘How very kind he was!’ I whispered to Bruno. ‘Middling kind,’

Bruno corrected me gravely.)

‘So the little Foxes ran up to the nursery. And soon Bruno went into the hall, and rang the big bell. "Tingle, tingle, tingle!

Supper, supper, supper!" Down came the little Foxes, in such a hurry for their supper! Clean pinafores! Spoons in their hands!

And, when they got into the dining-room, there was ever such a white table-cloth on the table! But there was nothing on it but a big whip. And they had such a whipping!’ (I put my handkerchief to my eyes, and Bruno hastily climbed upon my knee and stroked my face. ‘Only one more whipping, Mister Sir!’ he whispered. ‘Don’t cry more than oo ca’n’t help!’)

‘And the next morning early, Bruno rang the big bell again. "Tingle, tingle, tingle! Breakfast, breakfast, breakfast!" Down came the little Foxes! Clean pinafores! Spoons in their hands! No breakfast! Only the big whip! Then came lessons,’ Sylvie hurried on, for I still had my handkerchief to my eyes. ‘And the little Foxes were ever so good! And they learned their lessons backwards, and forwards, and upside-down. And at last Bruno rang the big bell again. "Tingle, tingle, tingle! Dinner, dinner, dinner!" And when the little Foxes came down—’ (‘Had they clean pinafores on?’ Bruno enquired. ‘Of course!’ said Sylvie.

‘And spoons?’ ‘Why, you know they had!’ ‘Couldn’t be certain,’ said Bruno.) ‘—they came as slow as slow! And they said "Oh! There’ll be no dinner! There’ll only be the big whip!" But, when they got into the room, they saw the most lovely dinner!’

(‘Buns?’ cried Bruno, clapping his hands.) ‘Buns, and cake, and—’ (‘—and jam?’ said Bruno.) ‘Yes, jam—and soup—and—’

(‘—and sugar plums!’ Bruno put in once more; and Sylvie seemed satisfied.)

‘And ever after that, they were such good little Foxes! They did their lessons as good as gold—and they never did what Bruno told them not to—and they never ate each other any more—and they never ate themselves!’

The story came to an end so suddenly, it almost took my breath away; however I did my best to make a pretty speech of thanks. ‘I’m sure it’s very—very—very much so, I’m sure!’ I seemed to hear myself say.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

BEYOND THESE VOICES

‘I DIDN’T quite catch what you said!’ were the next words that reached my ear, but certainly not in the voice either of Sylvie or of Bruno, whom I could just see, through the crowd of guests, standing by the piano, and listening to the Count’s song. Mein Herr was the speaker. ‘I didn’t quite catch what you said!’ he repeated. ‘But I’ve no doubt you take my view of it. Thank you very much for your kind attention. There is only but one verse left to be sung!’ These last words were not in the gentle voice of Mein Herr, but in the deep bass of the French Count. And, in the silence that followed, the final stanza of ‘Tottles’ rang through the room.

See now this couple settled down In quiet lodgings, out of town:

Submissively the tearful wife Accepts a plain and humble life:

Yet begs one boon on bended knee:

‘My ducky-darling, don’t resent it!

Mamma might come for two or three—’

‘NEVER!’ yelled Tottles. And he meant it.

The conclusion of the song was followed by quite a chorus of thanks and compliments from all parts of the room, which the gratified signer responded to by bowing low in all directions. ‘It is to me a great privilege,’ he said to Lady Muriel, ‘to have met with this so marvellous a song. The accompaniment to him is so strange, so mysterious: it is as if a new music were to be invented! I will play him once again so as that to show you what I mean.’ He returned to the piano, but the song had vanished.

The bewildered singer searched through the heap of music lying on an adjoining table, but it was not there, either. Lady Muriel helped in the search: others soon joined: the excitement grew. ‘What can have become of it?’ exclaimed Lady Muriel. Nobody knew: one thing only was certain, that no one had been near the piano since the Count had sung the last verse of the song.

‘Nevare mind him!’ he said, most good-naturedly. ‘I shall give it you with memory alone!’ He sat down, and began vaguely fingering the notes; but nothing resembling the tune came out. Then he, too, grew excited. ‘But what oddness! How much of singularity! That I might lose, not the words alone, but the tune also—that is quite curious, I suppose?’

We all supposed it, heartily.

‘It was that sweet little boy, who found it for me,’ the Count suggested. ‘Quite perhaps he is the thief?’

‘Of course he is!’ cried Lady Muriel. ‘Bruno! Where are you, my darling?’

But no Bruno replied: it seemed that the two children had vanished as suddenly, and as mysteriously, as the song.

‘They are playing us a trick!’ Lady Muriel gaily exclaimed. ‘This is only an ex tempore game of Hide-and-Seek! That little Bruno is an embodied Mischief!’

The suggestion was a welcome one to most of us, for some of the guests were beginning to look decidedly uneasy. A general search was set on foot with much enthusiasm: curtains were thrown back and shaken, cupboards opened, and ottomans turned over; but the number of possible hiding-places proved to be strictly limited; and the search came to an end almost as soon as it had begun.

‘They must have run out, while we were wrapped up in the song,’ Lady Muriel said, addressing herself to the Count, who seemed more agitated than the others; ‘and no doubt they’ve found their way back to the housekeeper’s room.’

‘Not by this door!’ was the earnest protest of a knot of two or three gentlemen, who had been grouped round the door (one of them actually leaning against it) for the last half-hour, as they declared. ‘This door has not been opened since the song began!’

An uncomfortable silence followed this announcement. Lady Muriel ventured no further conjectures, but quietly examined the fastenings of the windows, which opened as doors. They all proved to be well fastened, inside.

Not yet at the end of her resources, Lady Muriel rang the bell. ‘Ask the housekeeper to step here,’ she said, ‘and to bring the children’s walking-things with her.’

‘I’ve brought them, my Lady,’ said the obsequious housekeeper, entering after another minute of silence. ‘I thought the young lady would have come to my room to put on her boots. Here’s your boots, my love!’ she added cheerfully, looking in all directions for the children. There was no answer, and she turned to Lady Muriel with a puzzled smile. ‘Have the little darlings hid themselves?’

‘I don’t see them, just now,’ Lady Muriel replied, rather evasively. ‘You can leave their things here, Wilson. I’ll dress them, when they’re ready to go.’

The two little hats, and Sylvie’s walking-jacket, were handed round among the ladies, with many exclamations of delight. There certainly was a sort of witchery of beauty about them. Even the little boots did not miss their share of favourable criticism.

‘Such natty little things!’ the musical young lady exclaimed, almost fondling them as she spoke. ‘And what tiny tiny feet they must have!’

Finally, the things were piled together on the centre-ottoman, and the guests, despairing of seeing the children again, began to wish good-night and leave the house.

There were only some eight or nine left—to whom the Count was explaining, for the twentieth time, how he had had his eye on the children during the last verse of the song; how he had then glanced round the room, to see what effect ‘de great chest-note’

had had upon his audience; and how, when he looked back again, they had both disappeared—when exclamations of dismay began to be heard on all sides, the Count hastily bringing his story to an end to join in the outcry.

The walking-things had all disappeared!

After the utter failure of the search for the children, there was a very halfhearted search made for their apparel. The remaining guests seemed only too glad to get away, leaving only the Count and our four selves.

The Count sank into an easy-chair, and panted a little.

‘Who then are these dear children, I pray you?’ he said. ‘Why come they, why go they, in this so little ordinary a fashion? That the music should make itself vanish—that the hats, the boots, should make themselves to vanish—how is it, I pray you?’

‘I’ve no idea where they are!’ was all I could say, on finding myself appealed to, by general consent, for an explanation.

The Count seemed about to ask further questions, but checked himself.

‘The hour makes himself to become late," he said. ‘I wish to you a very good night, my Lady. I betake myself to my bed—to dream—if that indeed I be not dreaming now!’ And he hastily left the room.

‘Stay awhile, stay awhile!’ said the Earl, as I was about to follow the Count. ‘You are not a guest, you know! Arthur’s friend is at home here!’

‘Thanks!’ I said, as with true English instincts, we drew our chairs together round the fire-place, though no fire was burning—Lady Muriel having taken the heap of music on her knee, to have one more search for the strangely-vanished song.

‘Don’t you sometimes feel a wild longing,’ she said, addressing herself to me, ‘to have something more to do with your hands, while you talk, than just holding a cigar, and now and then knocking off the ash? Oh, I know all that you’re going to say!’ (This was to Arthur, who appeared about to interrupt her.) ‘The Majesty of Thought supersedes the work of the fingers. A Man’s severe thinking, plus the shaking-off a cigar-ash, comes to the same total as a Woman’s trivial fancies, plus the most elaborate embroidery. That’s your sentiment, isn’t it, only better expressed?’

Arthur looked into the radiant, mischievous face, with a grave and very tender smile. ‘Yes,’ he said resignedly: ‘that is my sentiment, exactly.’

‘Rest of body, and activity of mind,’ I put in. ‘Some writer tells us that is the acme of human happiness.’

‘Plenty of bodily rest, at any rate!’ Lady Muriel replied, glancing at the three recumbent figures around her. ‘But what you call activity of mind—’

‘—is the privilege of young Physicians only,’ said the Earl. ‘We old men have no claim to be active. What can an old man do but die?’

‘A good many other things, I should hope,’ Arthur said earnestly.

‘Well, maybe. Still you have the advantage of me in many ways, dear boy! Not only that your day is dawning while mine is setting, but your interest in Life—somehow I ca’n’t help envying you that. It will be many a year before you lose your hold of that.’

‘Yet surely many human interests survive human Life?’ I said.

‘Many do, no doubt. And some forms of Science; but only some, I think. Mathematics, for instance: that seems to possess an endless interest: one ca’n’t imagine any form of Life, or any race of intelligent beings, where Mathematical truth would lose its meaning. But I fear Medicine stands on a different footing. Suppose you discover a remedy for some disease hitherto supposed to be incurable. Well, it is delightful for the moment, no doubt—full of interest—perhaps it brings you fame and fortune. But what then? Look on, a few years, into a life where disease has no existence. What is your discovery worth, then? Milton makes Jove promise too much. "Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed." Poor comfort when one’s "fame" concerns matters that will have ceased to have a meaning!’

‘At any rate one wouldn’t care to make any fresh medical discoveries,’ said Arthur. ‘I see no help for that—though I shall be sorry to give up my favourite studies. Still, medicine, disease, pain, sorrow, sin—I fear they’re all linked together. Banish sin, and you banish them all!’

‘Military science is a yet stronger instance,’ said the Earl. ‘Without sin, war would surely be impossible. Still any mind, that has had in this life any keen interest, not in itself sinful, will surely find itself some congenial line of work hereafter. Wellington may have no more battles to fight—and yet—

"We doubt not that, for one so true, There must be other, nobler work to do, Than when he fought at Waterloo,  And Victor he must ever be!"‘

He lingered over the beautiful words, as if he loved them: and his voice, like distant music, died away into silence.

After a minute or two he began again. ‘If I’m not wearying you, I would like to tell you an idea of the future Life which has haunted me for years, like a sort of waking nightmare—I ca’n’t reason myself out of it.’

‘Pray do,’ Arthur and I replied, almost in a breath. Lady Muriel put aside the heap of music, and folded her hands together.

‘The one idea,’ the Earl resumed, ‘that has seemed to me to overshadow all the rest, is that of Eternity—involving, as it seems to do, the necessary exhaustion of all subjects of human interest. Take Pure Mathematics, for instance—a Science independent of our present surroundings. I have studied it, myself, a little. Take the subject of circles and ellipses—what we call "curves of the second degree". In a future Life, it would only be a question of so many years (or hundreds of years, if you like), for a man to work out all their properties. Then he might go to curves of the third degree. Say that took ten times as long (you see we have unlimited time to deal with). I can hardly imagine his interest in the subject holding out even for those; and, though there is no limit to the degree of the curves he might study, yet surely the time, needed to exhaust all the novelty and interest of the subject, would be absolutely finite? And so of all other branches of Science. And, when I transport myself, in thought, through some thousands or millions of years, and fancy myself possessed of as much Science as one created reason can carry, I ask myself "What then? With nothing more to learn, can one rest content on knowledge, for the eternity yet to be lived through?" It has been a very wearying thought to me. I have sometimes fancied one might, in that event, say "It is better not to be", and pray for personal annihilation—the Nirvana of the Buddhists.’

‘But that is only half the picture,’ I said. ‘Besides working for oneself, may there not be the helping of others?’

‘Surely, surely!’ Lady Muriel exclaimed in a tone of relief, looking at her father with sparkling eyes.

‘Yes,’ said the Earl, ‘so long as there were any others needing help. But, given ages and ages more, surely all created reasons would at length reach the same dead level of satiety. And then what is there to look forward to?’

‘I know that weary feeling,’ said the young Doctor. ‘I have gone through it all, more than once. Now let me tell you how I have put it to myself. I have imagined a little child, playing with toys on his nursery-floor, and yet able to reason, and to look on, thirty years ahead. Might he not say to himself "By that time I shall have had enough of bricks and ninepins. How weary Life will be!" Yet, if we look forward through those thirty years, we find him a great statesman, full of interests and joys far more intense than his baby-life could give—joys wholly inconceivable to his baby-mind—joys such as no baby-language could in the faintest degree describe. Now, may not our life, a million years hence, have the same relation, to our life now, that the man’s life has to the child’s? And, just as one might try, all in vain, to express to that child, in the language of bricks and ninepins, the meaning of "politics", so perhaps all those descriptions of Heaven, with its music, and its feasts, and its streets of gold, may be only attempts to describe, in our words, things for which we really have no words at all. Don’t you think that, in your picture of another life, you are in fact transplanting that child into political life, without making any allowance for his growing up?’

‘I think I understand you,’ said the Earl. ‘The music of Heaven may be something beyond our powers of thought. Yet the music of Earth is sweet! Muriel, my child, sing us something before we go to bed!’

‘Do,’ said Arthur, as he rose and lit the candles on the cottage-piano, lately banished from the drawing-room to make room for a ‘semi-grand’. ‘There is a song here, that I have never heard you sing.

"Hail to thee, blithe spirit!

Bird thou never wert, That from Heaven, or near it,Pourest thy full heart!"‘

he read from the page he had spread open before her.

‘And our little life here,’ the Earl went on, ‘is, to that grand time, like a child’s summer-day! One gets tired as night draws on,’

he added, with a touch of sadness in his voice, ‘and one gets to long for bed! For those welcome words "Come, child, ‘tis bed-time!"‘

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

TO THE RESCUE!

‘IT isn’t bed-time!’ said a sleepy little voice. ‘The owls hasn’t gone to bed, and I s’a’n’t go to seep wizout oo sings to me!’

‘Oh, Bruno!’ cried Sylvie. ‘Don’t you know the owls have only just got up? But the frogs have gone to bed, ages ago."

‘Well, I aren’t a frog,’ said Bruno.

‘What shall I sing?’ said Sylvie, skilfully avoiding the argument.

‘Ask Mister Sir,’ Bruno lazily replied, clasping his hands behind his curly head, and lying back on his fern-leaf, till it almost bent over with his weight. ‘This aren’t a comfable leaf, Sylvie. Find me a comfabler—please!’ he added, as an after-thought, in obedience to a warning finger held up by Sylvie. ‘I doosn’t like being feet-upwards!’

It was a pretty sight to see—the motherly way in which the fairy-child gathered up her little brother in her arms, and laid him on a stronger leaf. She gave it just a touch to set it rocking, and it went on vigorously by itself, as if it contained some hidden machinery. It certainly wasn’t the wind, for the evening-breeze had quite died away again, and not a leaf was stirring over our heads.

‘Why does that one leaf rock so, without the others?’ I asked Sylvie. She only smiled sweetly and shook her head. ‘I don’t know why,’ she said. ‘It always does, if it’s got a fairy-child on it. It has to, you know.’

‘And can people see the leaf rock, who ca’n’t see the Fairy on it?’

‘Why, of course!’ cried Sylvie. ‘A leaf’s a leaf, and everybody can see it; but Bruno’s Bruno, and they ca’n’t see him, unless they’re eerie, like you.’

Then I understood how it was that one sometimes sees—going through the woods in a still evening—one fern-leaf rocking steadily on, all by itself. Haven’t you ever seen that? Try if you can see the fairy-sleeper on it, next time; but don’t pick the leaf, whatever you do; let the little one sleep on!

But all this time Bruno was getting sleepier and sleepier. ‘Sing, sing!’ he murmured fretfully. Sylvie looked to me for instructions.

‘What shall it be?’ she said.

‘Could you sing him the nursery-song you once told me of?’ I suggested. ‘The one that had been put through the mind-mangle, you know. "The little man that had a little gun", I think it was.’

‘Why, that are one of the Professor’s songs!’ cried Bruno. ‘I likes the little man; and I likes the way they spinned him—like a teetle-totle-tum.’ And he turned a loving look on the gentle old man who was sitting at the other side of his leaf-bed, and who instantly began to sing, accompanying himself on his Outlandish guitar, while the snail, on which he sat, waved its horns in time to the music.

In stature the Manlet was dwarfish—

No burly big Blunderbore he:

And he wearily gazed on the crawfish

His Wifelet had dressed for his tea.

‘Now reach me, sweet Atom, my gunlet,

And hurl the old shoelet for luck:

Let me hie to the bank of the runlet,

And shoot thee a Duck!’

She has reached him his minikin gunlet:

She has hurled the old shoelet for luck:

She is busily baking a bunlet,

To welcome him home with his Duck.

On he speeds, never wasting a wordlet,

Though thoughtlets cling, closely as wax,

To the spot where the beautiful birdlet

So quietly quacks.

Where the Lobsterlet lurks, and the Crablet

So slowly and sleepily crawls:

Where the Dolphin’s at home, and the Dablet

Pays long ceremonious calls:

Where the Grublet is sought by the Froglet:

Where the Frog is pursued by the Duck:

Where the Ducklet is chased by the Doglet—

So runs the world’s luck!

He has loaded with bullet and powder:

His footfall is noiseless as air:

But the Voices grow louder and louder,

And bellow, and bluster, and blare.

They bristle before him and after,

They flutter above and below,

Shrill shriekings of lubberly laughter,

Weird wailings of woe!

They echo without him, within him:

They thrill through his whiskers and beard:

Like a teetotum seeming to spin him,

With sneers never hitherto sneered.

‘Avengement,’ they cry, ‘on our Foelet!

Let the Manikin weep for our wrongs!

Let us drench him, from toplet to toelet,

With Nursery-Songs!

‘He shall muse upon "Hey! Diddle! Diddle!"

On the Cow that surmounted the Moon:

He shall rave of the Cat and the Fiddle,

And the Dish that eloped with the Spoon:

And his soul shall be sad for the Spider,

When Miss Muffet was sipping her whey,

That so tenderly sat down beside her,

And scared her away!

‘The music of Midsummer-madness

Shall sting him with many a bite,

Till, in rapture of rollicking sadness,

He shall groan with a gloomy delight:

He shall swathe him, like mists of the morning,

In platitudes luscious and limp,

Such as deck, with a deathless adorning,

The Song of the Shrimp!

‘When the Ducklet’s dark doom is decided,

We will trundle him home in a trice:

And the banquet, so plainly provided,

Shall round into rose-buds and rice:

In a blaze of pragmatic invention

He shall wrestle with Fate, and shall reign:

But he has not a friend fit to mention,

So hit him again!’

He has shot it, the delicate darling!

And the Voices have ceased from their strife:

Not a whisper of sneering or snarling,

As he carries it home to his wife:

Then, cheerily champing the bunlet

His spouse was so skilful to bake, He hies him once more to the runlet,

To fetch her the Drake!

‘He’s sound asleep now,’ said Sylvie, carefully tucking in the edge of a violet-leaf, which she had been spreading over him as a sort of blanket: ‘good night!’

‘Good night!’ I echoed.

‘You may well say "good night"!’ laughed Lady Muriel, rising and shutting up the piano as she spoke. ‘When you’ve been nid—nid—nodding all the time I’ve been singing for your benefit! What was it all about, now?’ she demanded imperiously.

‘Something about a duck?’ I hazarded. ‘Well, a bird of some kind?’ I corrected myself, perceiving at once that that guess was wrong, at any rate.

‘Something about a bird of some kind!’ Lady Muriel repeated, with as much withering scorn as her sweet face was capable of conveying. ‘And that’s the way he speaks of Shelley’s Sky-Lark, is it? When the Poet particularly says "Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert!"‘

She led the way to the smoking-room, where, ignoring all the usages of Society and all the instincts of Chivalry, the three Lords of the Creation reposed at their ease in low rocking-chairs, and permitted the one lady who was present to glide gracefully about among us, supplying our wants in the form of cooling drinks, cigarettes, and lights. Nay, it was only one of the three who had the chivalry to go beyond the common-place ‘thank you’, and to quote the Poet’s exquisite description of how Geraint, when waited on by Enid, was moved

‘To stoop and kiss the tender little thumb

That crossed the platter as she laid it down’, and to suit the action to the word—an audacious liberty for which, I feel bound to report, he was not duly reprimanded.

As no topic of conversation seemed to occur to any one, and as we were, all four, on those delightful terms with one another (the only terms, I think, on which any friendship, that deserves the name of intimacy, can be maintained) which involve no sort of necessity for speaking for mere speaking’s sake, we sat in silence for some minutes.

At length I broke the silence by asking ‘Is there any fresh news from the harbour about the Fever?’

‘None since this morning,’ the Earl said, looking very grave. ‘But that was alarming enough. The Fever is spreading fast: the London doctor has taken fright and left the place, and the only one now available isn’t a regular doctor at all: he is apothecary, and doctor, and dentist, and I don’t know what other trades, all in one. It’s a bad outlook for those poor fishermen—and a worse one for all the women and children.’

‘How many are there of them altogether?’ Arthur asked.

‘There were nearly one hundred, a week ago,’ said the Earl: ‘but there have been twenty or thirty deaths since then.’

‘And what religious ministrations are there to be had?’

‘There are three brave men down there,’ the Earl replied, his voice trembling with emotion, ‘gallant heroes as ever won the Victoria Cross! I am certain that no one of the three will ever leave the place merely to save his own life. There’s the Curate: his wife is with him: they have no children. Then there’s the Roman Catholic Priest. And there’s the Wesleyan Minister. They go amongst their own flocks mostly; but I’m told that those who are dying like to have any of the three with them. How slight the barriers seem to be that part Christian from Christian, when one has to deal with the great facts of Life and the reality of Death!’

‘So it must be, and so it should be—’ Arthur was beginning, when the front-door bell rang, suddenly and violently.

We heard the front-door hastily opened, and voices outside: then a knock at the door of the smoking-room, and the old house-keeper appeared, looking a little scared.

‘Two persons, my Lord, to speak with Dr. Forester.’

Arthur stepped outside at once, and we heard his cheery ‘Well, my men?’ but the answer was less audible, the only words I could distinctly catch being ‘ten since morning, and two more just—’

‘But there is a doctor there?’ we heard Arthur say: and a deep voice, that we had not heard before, replied ‘Dead, Sir. Died three hours ago.’

Lady Muriel shuddered, and hid her face in her hands: but at this moment the front-door was quietly closed, and we heard no more.

For a few minutes we sat quite silent: then the Earl left the room, and soon returned to tell us that Arthur had gone away with the two fishermen, leaving word that he would be back in about an hour. And, true enough, at the end of that interval—during which very little was said, none of us seeming to have the heart to talk—the front-door once more creaked on its rusty hinges, and a step was heard in the passage, hardly to be recognized as Arthur’s, so slow and uncertain was it, like a blind man feeling his way.

He came in, and stood before Lady Muriel, resting one hand heavily on the table, and with a strange look in his eyes, as if he were walking in his sleep.

‘Muriel—my love—’ he paused, and his lips quivered: but after a minute he went on more steadily. ‘Muriel—my darling—they—want me—down in the harbour.’

‘Must you go?’ she pleaded, rising and laying her hands on his shoulders, and looking up into his face with her great eyes brimming over with tears. ‘Must you go, Arthur? It may mean—death!’

He met her gaze without flinching. ‘It does mean death,’ he said, in a husky whisper: ‘but—darling—I am called. And even my life itself—’ His voice failed him, and he said no more.

For a minute she stood quite silent, looking upwards with a helpless gaze, as if even prayer were now useless, while her features worked and quivered with the great agony she was enduring. Then a sudden inspiration seemed to come upon her and light up her face with a strange sweet smile. ‘Your life?’ she repeated. ‘It is not yours to give!’

Arthur had recovered himself by this time, and could reply quite firmly, ‘That is true,’ he said. ‘It is not mine to give. It is yours, now, my—wife that is to be! And you—do you forbid me to go? Will you not spare me, my own beloved one?’

Still clinging to him, she laid her head softly on his breast. She had never done such a thing in my presence before, and I knew how deeply she must be moved. ‘I will spare you’, she said, calmly and quietly, ‘to God.’

‘And to God’s poor,’ he whispered.

‘And to God’s poor,’ she added. ‘When must it be, sweet love?’

‘To-morrow morning,’ he replied. ‘And I have much to do before then.’

And then he told us how he had spent his hour of absence. He had been to the Vicarage, and had arranged for the wedding to take place at eight the next morning (there was no legal obstacle, as he had, some time before this, obtained a Special Licence)

in the little church we knew so well. ‘My old friend here,’ indicating me, ‘will act as "Best Man", I know: your father will be there to give you away: and—and—you will dispense with bride’s-maids, my darling?’

She nodded: no words came.

‘And then I can go with a willing heart—to do God’s work—knowing that we are one—and that we are together in spirit, though not in bodily presence—and are most of all together when we pray! Our prayers will go up together—’

‘Yes, yes!’ sobbed Lady Muriel. ‘But you must not stay longer now, my darling! Go home and take some rest. You will need all your strength to-morrow—’

‘Well, I will go,’ said Arthur. ‘We will be here in good time to-morrow. Good night, my own own darling!’

I followed his example, and we two left the house together. As we walked back to our lodgings, Arthur sighed deeply once or twice, and seemed about to speak—but no words came, till we had entered the house, and had lit our candles, and were at our bedroom-doors. Then Arthur said ‘Good night, old fellow! God bless you!’

‘God bless you!’ I echoed from the very depths of my heart.

We were back again at the Hall by eight in the morning, and found Lady Muriel and the Earl, and the old Vicar, waiting for us.

It was a strangely sad and silent party that walked up to the little church and back; and I could not help feeling that it was much more like a funeral than a wedding: to Lady Muriel it was in fact, a funeral rather than a wedding, so heavily did the presentiment weigh upon her (as she told us afterwards) that her newly-won husband was going forth to his death.

Then we had breakfast; and, all too soon, the vehicle was at the door, which was to convey Arthur, first to his lodgings, to pick up the things he was taking with him, and then as far towards the death-stricken hamlet as it was considered safe to go. One or two of the fishermen were to meet him on the road, to carry his things the rest of the way.

‘And are you quite sure you are taking all that you will need?’ Lady Muriel asked.

‘All that I shall need as a doctor, certainly. And my own personal needs are few: I shall not even take any of my own wardrobe—there is a fisherman’s suit, ready-made, that is waiting for me at my lodgings. I shall only take my watch, and a few books, and—stay—there is one book I should like to add, a pocket-Testament—to use at the bedsides of the sick and dying—’

‘Take mine!’ said Lady Muriel: and she ran upstairs to fetch it. ‘It has nothing written in it but "Muriel",’ she said as she returned with it: ‘shall I inscribe—’

‘No, my own one,’ said Arthur, taking it from her. ‘What could you inscribe better than that? Could any human name mark it more clearly as my own individual property? Are you not mine? Are you not,’ (with all the old playfulness of manner) ‘as Bruno would say, "my very mine"?’

He bade a long and loving adieu to the Earl and to me, and left the room, accompanied only by his wife, who was bearing up bravely, and was—outwardly, at least—less overcome than her old father. We waited in the room a minute or two, till the sounds of wheels had told us that Arthur had driven away; and even then we waited still, for the step of Lady Muriel, going upstairs to her room, to die away in the distance. Her step, usually so light and joyous, now sounded slow and weary, like one who plods on under a load of hopeless misery; and I felt almost as hopeless, and almost as wretched as she. ‘Are we four destined ever to meet again, on this side the grave?’ I asked myself, as I walked to my home. And the tolling of a distant bell seemed to answer me, ‘No! No, No!’

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A NEWSPAPER-CUTTING

EXTRACT FROM THE ‘FAYFIELD CHRONICLE’

Our readers will have followed with painful interest, the accounts we have from time to time published of the terrible epidemic which has, during the last two months, carried off most of the inhabitants of the little fishing-harbour adjoining the village of Elveston. The last survivors, numbering twenty-three only, out of a population which, three short months ago, exceeded one hundred and twenty, were removed on Wednesday last, under the authority of the Local Board, and safely lodged in the County Hospital: and the place is now veritably ‘a city of the dead’, without a single human voice to break its silence.

The rescuing party consisted of six sturdy fellows—fishermen from the neighbourhood—directed by the resident Physician of the Hospital, who came over for that purpose, heading a train of hospital-ambulances. The six men had been selected—from a much larger number who had volunteered for this peaceful ‘forlorn hope’—for their strength and robust health, as the expedition was considered to be, even now, when the malady has expended its chief force, not unattended with danger.

Every precaution that science could suggest, against the risk of infection, was adopted: and the sufferers were tenderly carried on litters, one by one, up the steep hill, and placed in the ambulances which, each provided with a hospital nurse, were waiting on the level road. The fifteen miles, to the Hospital, were done at a walking-pace, as some patients were in too prostrate a condition to bear jolting, and the journey occupied the whole afternoon.

The twenty-three patients consist of nine men, six women, and eight children. It has not been found possible to identify them all, as some of the children—left with no surviving relatives—are infants: and two men and one woman are not yet able to make rational replies, the brain-powers being entirely in abeyance. Among a more well-to-do race, there would no doubt have been names marked on the clothes; but here no such evidence is forthcoming.

Besides the poor fishermen and their families, there were but five persons to be accounted for: and it was ascertained, beyond a doubt, that all five are numbered with the dead. It is a melancholy pleasure to place on record the names of these genuine martyrs—than whom none, surely, are more worthy to be entered on the glory-roll of England’s heroes!

They are as follows:

The Rev. James Burgess, M. A., and Emma his wife. He was the Curate at the Harbour, not thirty years old, and had been married only two years. A written record was found in their house, of the dates of their deaths.

Next to theirs we will place the honoured name of Dr. Arthur Forester, who, on the death of the local physician, nobly faced the imminent peril of death, rather than leave these poor folk uncared for in their last extremity. No record of his name, or of the date of his death, was found: but the corpse was easily identified, although dressed in the ordinary fisherman’s suit (which he was known to have adopted when he went down there), by a copy of the New Testament, the gift of his wife, which was found, placed next his heart, with his hands crossed over it. It was not thought prudent to remove the body, for burial elsewhere: and accordingly it was at once committed to the ground, along with four others found in different houses, with all due reverence. His wife, whose maiden name was Lady Muriel Orme, had been married to him on the very morning on which he undertook his self-sacrificing mission.

Next we record the Rev. Walter Saunders, Wesleyan Minister. His death is believed to have taken place two or three weeks ago, as the words ‘Died October 5’ were found written on the wall of the room which he is known to have occupied—the house being shut up, and apparently not having been entered for some time.

Last—though not a whit behind the other four in glorious self-denial and devotion to duty—let us record the name of Father Francis, a young Jesuit Priest who had been only a few months in the place. He had not been dead many hours when the exploring party came upon the body, which was identified, beyond the possibility of doubt, by the dress, and by the crucifix which was, like the young Doctor’s Testament, clasped closely to his heart.

Since reaching the hospital, two of the men and one of the children have died. Hope is entertained for all the others:

though there are two or three cases where the vital powers seem to be so entirely exhausted that it is but ‘hoping against hope’ to regard ultimate recovery as even possible.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A FAIRY-DUET

THE year—what an eventful year it had been for me!—was drawing to a close, and the brief wintry day hardly gave light enough to recognize the old familiar objects, bound up with so many happy memories, as the train glided round the last bend into the station, and the hoarse cry of ‘Elveston! Elveston!’ resounded along the platform.

It was sad to return to the place, and to feel that I should never again see the glad smile of welcome, that had awaited me here so few months ago. ‘And yet, if I were to find him here,’ I muttered, as in solitary state I followed the porter, who was wheeling my luggage on a barrow, ‘and if he were to "strike a sudden hand in mine, And ask a thousand things of home", I should not—no, "I should not feel it to be strange"!’

Having given directions to have my luggage taken to my old lodgings, I strolled off alone, to pay a visit, before settling down in my own quarters, to my dear old friends—for such I indeed felt them to be, though it was barely half a year since first we met—the Earl and his widowed daughter.

The shortest way, as I well remembered, was to cross through the churchyard. I pushed open the little wicket-gate and slowly took my way among the solemn memorials of the quiet dead, thinking of the many who had, during the past year, disappeared from the place, and had gone to ‘join the majority’. A very few steps brought me in sight of the object of my search. Lady Muriel, dressed in the deepest mourning, her face hidden by a long crape veil, was kneeling before a little marble cross, round which she was fastening a wreath of flowers.

The cross stood on a piece of level turf, unbroken by any mound, and I knew that it was simply a memorial-cross, for one whose dust reposed elsewhere, even before reading the simple inscription:

In loving Memory of ARTHUR FORESTER, M.D.

whose mortal remains lie buried by the sea:

whose spirit has returned to God who gave it.

‘GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS, THAT

A MAN LAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS.’

She threw back her veil on seeing me approach, and came forwards to meet me, with a quiet smile, and far more self-possessed than I could have expected.

‘It is quite like old times, seeing you here again!’ she said, in tones of genuine pleasure. ‘Have you been to see my father?’

‘No,’ I said: ‘I was on my way there, and came through here as the shortest way. I hope he is well, and you also?’

‘Thanks, we are both quite well. And you? Are you any better yet?’

‘Not much better, I fear: but no worse, I am thankful to say.’

‘Let us sit here awhile, and have a quiet chat,’ she said. The calmness—almost indifference—of her manner quite took me by surprise. I little guessed what a fierce restraint she was putting upon herself.

‘One can be so quiet here,’ she resumed. ‘I come here every—every day.’

‘It is very peaceful,’ I said.

‘You got my letter?’

‘Yes, but I delayed writing. It is so hard to say—on paper —’

‘I know. It was kind of you. You were with us when we saw the last of —’ She paused a moment, and went on more hurriedly.

‘I went down to the harbour several times, but no one knows which of those vast graves it is. However, they showed me the house he died in: that was some comfort. I stood in the very room where—where —’ She struggled in vain to go on. The flood-gates had given way at last, and the outburst of grief was the most terrible I had ever witnessed. Totally regardless of my presence, she flung herself down on the turf, burying her face in the grass, and with her hands clasped round the little marble cross. ‘Oh, my darling, my darling!’ she sobbed. ‘And God meant your life to be so beautiful!’

I was startled to hear, thus repeated by Lady Muriel, the very words of the darling child whom I had seen weeping so bitterly over the dead hare. Had some mysterious influence passed, from that sweet fairy-spirit, ere she went back to Fairyland, into the human spirit that loved her so dearly? The idea seemed too wild for belief. And yet, are there not ‘more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy’?

‘God meant it to be beautiful,’ I whispered, ‘and surely it was beautiful? God’s purpose never fails!’ I dared say no more, but rose and left her. At the entrance-gate to the Earl’s house I waited, leaning on the gate and watching the sun set, revolving many memories—some happy, some sorrowful—until Lady Muriel joined me.

She was quite calm again now. ‘Do come in,’ she said. ‘My father will be so pleased to see you!’

The old man rose from his chair, with a smile, to welcome me; but his self-command was far less than his daughter’s, and the tears coursed down his face as he grasped both my hands in his, and pressed them warmly.

My heart was too full to speak; and we all sat silent for a minute or two. Then Lady Muriel rang the bell for tea. ‘You do take five o’clock tea, I know!’ she said to me, with the sweet playfulness of manner I remembered so well, ‘even though you ca’n’t work your wicked will on the Law of Gravity, and make the teacups descend into Infinite Space, a little faster than the tea!’

This remark gave the tone to our conversation. By a tacit mutual consent, we avoided, during this our first meeting after her great sorrow, the painful topics that filled our thoughts, and talked like light-hearted children who had never known a care.

‘Did you ever ask yourself the question,’ Lady Muriel began, à propos of nothing, ‘what is the chief advantage of being a Man instead of a Dog?’

‘No, indeed,’ I said: ‘but I think there are advantages on the Dog’s side of the question as well.’

‘No doubt,’ she replied, with that pretty mock-gravity that became her so well: ‘but, on Man’s side, the chief advantage seems to me to consist in having pockets! It was borne in upon me—upon us, I should say; for my father and I were returning from a walk—only yesterday. We met a dog carrying home a bone. What it wanted it for, I’ve no idea: certainly there was no meat on it —’

A strange sensation came over me, that I had heard all this, or something exactly like it, before: and I almost expected her next words to be ‘perhaps he meant to make a cloak for the winter?’ However what she really said was ‘and my father tried to account for it by some wretched joke about pro bono publico. Well, the dog laid down the bone—not in disgust with the pun, which would have shown it to be a dog of taste—but simply to rest its jaws, poor thing! I did pity it so! Won’t you join my Charitable Association for supplying dogs with pockets? How would you like to have to carry your walking-stick in your mouth?’

Ignoring the difficult question as to the raison d’être of a walking-stick, supposing one had no hands, I mentioned a curious instance, I had once witnessed, of reasoning by a dog. A gentleman, with a lady, and child, and a large dog, were down at the end of a pier on which I was walking. To amuse his child, I suppose, the gentleman put down on the ground his umbrella and the lady’s parasol, and then led the way to the other end of the pier, from which he sent the dog back for the deserted articles. I was watching with some curiosity. The dog came racing back to where I stood, but found an unexpected difficulty in picking up the things it had come for. With the umbrella in its mouth, its jaws were so far apart that it could get no firm grip on the parasol.

After two or three failures, it paused and considered the matter.

Then it put down the umbrella and began with the parasol. Of course that didn’t open its jaws nearly so wide, and it was able to get a good hold of the umbrella, and galloped off in triumph. One couldn’t doubt that it had gone through a real train of logical thought.

‘I entirely agree with you,’ said Lady Muriel: ‘but don’t orthodox writers condemn that view, as putting Man on the level of the lower animals? Don’t they draw a sharp boundary-line between Reason and Instinct?’

‘That certainly was the orthodox view, a generation ago,’ said the Earl. ‘The truth of Religion seemed ready to stand or fall with the assertion that Man was the only reasoning animal. But that is at an end now. Man can still claim certain monopolies—for instance, such a use of language as enables us to utilize the work of many, by "division of labour". But the belief, that we have a monopoly of Reason, has long been swept away. Yet no catastrophe has followed. As some old poet says, "God is where he was".’

‘Most religious believers would now agree with Bishop Butler,’ said I, ‘and not reject a line of argument, even if it led straight to the conclusion that animals have some kind of soul, which survives their bodily death.’

‘I would like to know that to be true!’ Lady Muriel exclaimed. ‘If only for the sake of the poor horses. Sometimes I’ve thought that, if anything could make me cease to believe in a God of perfect justice, it would be the sufferings of horses—without guilt to deserve it, and without any compensation!’

‘It is only part of the great Riddle,’ said the Earl, ‘why innocent beings ever suffer. It is a great strain on Faith—but not a breaking strain, I think.’

‘The sufferings of horses,’ I said, ‘are chiefly caused by Man’s cruelty. So that is merely one of the many instances of Sin causing suffering to others than the Sinner himself. But don’t you find a greater difficulty in sufferings inflicted by animals upon each other? For instance, a cat playing with a mouse. Assuming it to have no moral responsibility, isn’t that a greater mystery than a man over-driving a horse?’

‘I think it is,’ said Lady Muriel, looking a mute appeal to her father.

‘What right have we to make that assumption?’ said the Earl. ‘Many of our religious difficulties are merely deductions from unwarranted assumptions. The wisest answer to most of them, is, I think, "behold, we know not anything".’

‘You mentioned "division of labour", just now,’ I said. ‘Surely it is carried to a wonderful perfection in a hive of bees?’

‘So wonderful—so entirely super-human —’ said the Earl, ‘and so entirely inconsistent with the intelligence they show in other ways—that I feel no doubt at all that it is pure Instinct, and not, as some hold, a very high order of Reason. Look at the utter stupidity of a bee, trying to find its way out of an open window! It doesn’t try, in any reasonable sense of the word: it simply bangs itself about! We should call a puppy imbecile, that behaved so. And yet we are asked to believe that its intellectual level is above Sir Isaac Newton!’

‘Then you hold that pure Instinct contains no Reason at all?’

‘On the contrary,’ said the Earl, ‘I hold that the work of a bee-hive involves Reason of the highest order. But none of it is done by the Bee. God has reasoned it all out, and has put into the mind of the Bee the conclusions, only, of the reasoning process.’

‘But how do their minds come to work together?’ I asked.

‘What right have we to assume that they have minds?’

‘Special pleading, special pleading!’ Lady Muriel cried, in a most unfilial tone of triumph. ‘Why, you yourself said, just now, "the mind of the Bee"!’

‘But I did not say "minds", my child,’ the Earl gently replied. ‘It has occurred to me, as the most probable solution of the "Bee"-mystery, that a swarm of Bees have only one mind among them. We often see one mind animating a most complex collection of limbs and organs, when joined together. How do we know that any material connection is necessary? May not mere neighbourhood be enough? If so, a swarm of bees is simply a single animal whose many limbs are not quite close together!’

‘It is a bewildering thought,’ I said, ‘and needs a night’s rest to grasp it properly. Reason and Instinct both tell me I ought to go home. So, good-night!’

‘I’ll "set" you part of the way, said Lady Muriel. ‘I’ve had no walk to-day. It will do me good, and I have more to say to you.

Shall we go through the wood? It will be pleasanter than over the common, even though it is getting a little dark.’

We turned aside into the shade of interlacing boughs, which formed an architecture of almost perfect symmetry, grouped into lovely groined arches, or running out, far as the eye could follow, into endless aisles, and chancels, and naves, like some ghostly cathedral, fashioned out of the dream of a moon-struck poet.

‘Always, in this wood,’ she began after a pause (silence seemed natural in this dim solitude), ‘I begin thinking of Fairies! May I ask you a question?’ she added hesitatingly. ‘Do you believe in Fairies?’

The momentary impulse was so strong to tell her of my experiences in this very wood, that I had to make a real effort to keep back the words that rushed to my lips. If you mean, by "believe", "believe in their possible existence", I say "Yes". For their actual existence, of course, one would need evidence.’

‘You were saying, the other day,’ she went on, ‘that you would accept anything, on good evidence, that was not a priori impossible. And I think you named Ghosts as an instance of a provable phenomenon. Would Fairies be another instance?’

‘Yes, I think so.’ And again it was hard to check the wish to say more: but I was not yet sure of a sympathetic listener.

‘And have you any theory as to what sort of place they would occupy in Creation? Do tell me what you think about them!

Would they, for instance (supposing such beings to exist), would they have any moral responsibility? I mean’ (and the light bantering tone suddenly changed to one of deep seriousness) ‘would they be capable of sin?’

‘They can reason—on a lower level, perhaps, than men and women—never rising, I think, above the faculties of a child; and they have a moral sense, most surely. Such a being, without free will, would be an absurdity. So I am driven to the conclusion that they are capable of sin.’

‘You believe in them?’ she cried delightedly, with a sudden motion as if about to clap her hands. ‘Now tell me, have you any reason for it?’

And still I strove to keep back the revelation I felt sure was coming. ‘I believe that there is life everywhere—not material only, not merely what is palpable to our senses—but immaterial and invisible as well. We believe in our own immaterial essence—call it "soul", or "spirit", or what you will. Why should not other similar essences exist around us, not linked on to a visible and material body? Did not God make this swarm of happy insects, to dance in this sunbeam for one hour of bliss, for no other object, that we can imagine, than to swell the sum of conscious happiness? And where shall we dare to draw the line, and say "He has made all these and no more"?’

‘Yes, yes!’ she assented, watching me with sparkling eyes. ‘But these are only reasons for not denying. You have more reasons than this, have you not?’

‘Well, yes,’ I said, feeling I might safely tell all now. ‘And I could not find a fitter time or place to say it. I have seen them—and in this very wood!’

Lady Muriel asked no more questions. Silently she paced at my side, with head bowed down and hands clasped tightly together. Only, as my tale went on, she drew a little short quick breath now and then, like a child panting with delight. And I told her what I had never yet breathed to any other listener, of my double life, and, more than that (for mine might have been but a noonday-dream), of the double life of those two dear children.

And when I told her of Bruno’s wild gambols, she laughed merrily; and when I spoke of Sylvie’s sweetness and her utter unselfishness and trustful love, she drew a deep breath, like one who hears at last some precious tidings for which the heart has ached for a long while; and the happy tears chased one another down her cheeks.

‘I have often longed to meet an angel,’ she whispered, so low that I could hardly catch the words. ‘I’m so glad I’ve seen Sylvie!

My heart went out to the child the first moment that I saw her—Listen!’ she broke off suddenly. ‘That’s Sylvie singing! I’m sure of it! Don’t you know her voice?’

‘I have heard Bruno sing, more than once,’ I said: ‘but I never heard Sylvie.’

‘I have only heard her once,’ said Lady Muriel. ‘It was that day when you brought us those mysterious flowers. The children had run out into the garden; and I saw Eric coming in that way, and went to the window to meet him: and Sylvie was singing, under the trees, a song I had never heard before. The words were something like "I think it is Love, I feel it is Love". Her voice sounded far away, like a dream, but it was beautiful beyond all words—as sweet as an infant’s first smile, or the first gleam of the white cliffs when one is coming home after weary years—a voice that seemed to fill one’s whole being with peace and heavenly thoughts—Listen!’ she cried, breaking off again in her excitement. ‘That is her voice, and that’s the very song!’

I could distinguish no words, but there was a dreamy sense of music in the air that seemed to grow ever louder and louder, as if coming nearer to us. We stood quite silent, and in another minute the two children appeared, coming straight towards us through an arched opening among the trees. Each had an arm round the other, and the setting sun shed a golden halo round their heads, like what one sees in pictures of saints. They were looking in our direction, but evidently did not see us, and I soon made out that Lady Muriel had for once passed into a condition familiar to me, that we were both of us ‘eerie’, and that, though we could see the children so plainly, we were quite invisible to them.

The song ceased just as they came into sight: but, to my delight, Bruno instantly said ‘Let’s sing it all again, Sylvie! It did sound so pretty!’ And Sylvie replied ‘Very well. It’s you to begin, you know.’

So Bruno began, in the sweet childish treble I knew so well:

‘Say, what is the spell, when her fledgelings are cheeping,That lures the bird home to her nest?

Or wakes the tired mother, whose infant is weeping,To cuddle and croon it to rest?

What’s the magic that charms the glad babe in her arms,Till it cooes with the voice of the dove?’

And now ensued quite the strangest of all the strange experiences that marked the wonderful year whose history I am writing —

the experience of first hearing Sylvie’s voice in song. Her part was a very short one—only a few words—and she sang it timidly, and very low indeed, scarcely audibly, but the sweetness of her voice was simply indescribable; I have never heard any earthly music like it.

‘‘Tis a secret, and so let us whisper it low—

And the name of the secret is Love!’

On me the first effect of her voice was a sudden sharp pang that seemed to pierce through one’s very heart. (I had felt such a pang only once before in my life, and it had been from seeing what, at the moment, realized one’s idea of perfect beauty—it was in a London exhibition, where, in making my way through a crowd, I suddenly met, face to face, a child of quite unearthly beauty.) Then came a rush of burning tears to the eyes, as though one could weep one’s soul away for pure delight. And lastly there fell on me a sense of awe that was almost terror—some such feeling as Moses must have had when he heard the words ’Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground’. The figures of the children became vague and shadowy, like glimmering meteors: while their voices rang together in exquisite harmony as they sang:

‘For I think it is Love,  For I feel it is Love, For I’m sure it is nothing but Love!’

By this time I could see them clearly once more. Bruno again sang by himself:

‘Say, whence is the voice that, when anger is burning,Bids the whirl of the tempest to cease?

That stirs the vexed soul with an aching—a yearningFor the brotherly hand-grip of peace?

Whence the music that fills all our being—that thrillsAround us, beneath, and above?’

Sylvie sang more courageously, this time: the words seemed to carry her away, out of herself:

‘‘Tis a secret: none knows how it comes, how it goes:

But the name of the secret is Love!’

And clear and strong the chorus rang out:

‘For I think it is Love,  For I feel it is Love, For I’m sure it is nothing but Love!’

Once more we heard Bruno’s delicate little voice alone:

‘Say whose is the skill that paints valley and hill,Like a picture so fair to the sight?

That flecks the green meadow with sunshine and shadow,Till the little lambs leap with delight?’

And again uprose that silvery voice, whose angelic sweetness I could hardly bear:

‘‘Tis a secret untold to hearts cruel and cold,Though ‘tis sung, by the angels above, In notes that ring clear for the ears that can hear—

And the name of the secret is Love!’

And then Bruno joined in again with

‘For I think it is Love,  For I feel it is Love, For I’m sure it is nothing but Love!’

‘That are pretty!’ the little fellow exclaimed, as the children passed us—so closely that we drew back a little to make room for them, and it seemed we had only to reach out a hand to touch them: but this we did not attempt.

‘No use to try and stop them!’ I said, as they passed away into the shadows. ‘Why, they could not even see us!’

‘No use at all,’ Lady Muriel echoed with a sigh. ‘One would like to meet them again, in living form! But I feel, somehow, that can never be. They have passed out of our lives!’ She sighed again; and no more was said, till we came out into the main road, at a point near my lodgings.

‘Well, I will leave you here,’ she said. ‘I want to get back before dark: and I have a cottage-friend to visit, first. Good night, dear friend! Let us see you soon—and often!’ she added, with an affectionate warmth that went to my very heart. ‘For those are few we hold as dear!’

‘Good night!’ I answered. ‘Tennyson said that of a worthier friend than me.’

‘Tennyson didn’t know what he was talking about!’ she saucily rejoined, with a touch of her old childish gaiety, and we parted.

CHAPTER TWENTY

GAMMON AND SPINACH

MY landlady’s welcome had an extra heartiness about it: and though, with a rare delicacy of feeling, she made no direct allusion to the friend whose companionship had done so much to brighten life for me, I felt sure that it was a kindly sympathy with my solitary state that made her so specially anxious to do all she could think of to ensure my comfort, and make me feel at home.

The lonely evening seemed long and tedious: yet I lingered on, watching the dying fire, and letting Fancy mould the red embers into the forms and faces belonging to bygone scenes. Now it seemed to be Bruno’s roguish smile that sparkled for a moment, and died away: now it was Sylvie’s rosy cheek: and now the Professor’s jolly round face, beaming with delight. ‘You’re welcome, my little ones!’ he seemed to say. And then the red coal, which for the moment embodied the dear old Professor, began to wax dim, and with its dying lustre the words seemed to die away into silence. I seized the poker, and with an artful touch or two revived the waning glow, while Fancy—no coy minstrel she—sang me once again the magic strain I loved to hear.

‘You’re welcome, little ones!’ the cheery voice repeated. ‘I told them you were coming. Your rooms are all ready for you. And the Emperor and the Empress—well, I think they’re rather pleased than otherwise! In fact, Her Highness said "I hope they’ll be in time for the Banquet!" Those were her very words, I assure you!’

‘Will Uggug be at the Banquet?’ Bruno asked. And both children looked uneasy at the dismal suggestion.

‘Why, of course he will!’ chuckled the Professor. ‘Why, it’s his birthday, don’t you know? And his health will be drunk, and all that sort of thing. What would the Banquet be without him?’

‘Ever so much nicer,’ said Bruno. But he said it in a very low voice, and nobody but Sylvie heard him.

The Professor chuckled again. ‘It’ll be a jolly Banquet, now you’ve come, my little man! I am so glad to see you again!’

‘I ‘fraid we’ve been very long in coming,’ Bruno politely remarked.

‘Well, yes,’ the Professor assented. ‘However, you’re very short, now you’re come: that’s some comfort.’ And he went on to enumerate the plans for the day. ‘The Lecture comes first,’ he said. ‘That the Empress insists on. She says people will eat so much at the Banquet, they’ll be too sleepy to attend to the Lecture afterwards—and perhaps she’s right. There’ll just be a little refreshment, when the people first arrive—as a kind of surprise for the Empress, you know. Ever since she’s been—well, not quite so clever as she once was—we’ve found it desirable to concoct little surprises for her. Then comes the Lecture—

‘What? The Lecture you were getting ready—ever so long ago?’ Sylvie enquired.

‘Yes—that’s the one,’ the Professor rather reluctantly admitted. ‘It has taken a goodish time to prepare. I’ve got so many other things to attend to. For instance, I’m Court-Physician. I have to keep all the Royal Servants in good health—and that reminds me!’ he cried, ringing the bell in a great hurry. ‘This is Medicine-Day! We only give Medicine once a week. If we were to begin giving it every day, the bottles would soon be empty!’

‘But if they were ill on the other days?’ Sylvie suggested.

‘What, ill on the wrong day!’ exclaimed the Professor. ‘Oh, that would never do! A Servant would be dismissed at once, who was ill on the wrong day! This is the Medicine for to-day,’ he went on, taking down a large jug from a shelf. ‘I mixed it, myself, first thing this morning. Taste it!’ he said, holding out the jug to Bruno. ‘Dip in your finger, and taste it!’

Bruno did so, and made such an excruciatingly wry face that Sylvie exclaimed in alarm, ‘Oh, Bruno, you mustn’t!’

‘It’s welly extremely nasty!’ Bruno said, as his face resumed its natural shape.

‘Nasty?’ said the Professor. ‘Why, of course it is! What would Medicine be, if it wasn’t nasty?’

‘Nice,’ said Bruno.

‘I was going to say—’ the Professor faltered, rather taken aback by the promptness of Bruno’s reply, ‘—that that would never do! Medicine has to be nasty, you know. Be good enough to take this jug, down into the Servants’ Hall,’ he said to the footman who answered the bell: ‘and tell them it’s their Medicine for to-day.’

‘Which of them is to drink it?’ the footman asked, as he carried off the jug.

‘Oh, I’ve not settled that yet!’ the Professor briskly replied. ‘I’ll come and settle that, soon. Tell them not to begin, on any account, till I come! It’s really wonderful,’ he said, turning to the children, ‘the success I’ve had in curing Diseases! Here are some of my memoranda.’ He took down from the shelf a heap of little bits of paper, pinned together in twos and threes. ‘Just look at this set, now. "Under-Cook Number Thirteen recovered from Common Fever—Febris Communis." And now see what’s pinned to it. "Gave Under-Cook Number Thirteen a Double Dose of Medicine." That’s something to be proud of, isn’t it?’

‘But which happened first?’ said Sylvie, looking very much puzzled.

The Professor examined the papers carefully. ‘They are not dated, I find,’ he said with a slightly dejected air: ‘so I fear I ca’n’t tell you. But they both happened: there’s no doubt of that. The Medicine’s the great thing, you know. The Diseases are much less important. You can keep a Medicine, for years and years: but nobody ever wants to keep a Disease! By the way, come and look at the platform. The Gardener asked me to come and see if it would do. We may as well go before it gets dark.’

‘We’d like to, very much!’ Sylvie replied. ‘Come, Bruno, put on your hat. Don’t keep the dear Professor waiting!’

‘Ca’n’t find my hat!’ the little fellow sadly replied. ‘I were rolling it about. And it’s rolled itself away!’

‘Maybe it’s rolled in there,’ Sylvie suggested, pointing to a dark recess, the door of which stood half open: and Bruno ran in to look. After a minute he came slowly out again, looking very grave, and carefully shut the cupboard door after him.

‘It aren’t in there,’ he said, with such unusual solemnity, that Sylvie’s curiosity was aroused.

‘What is in there, Bruno?’

‘There’s cobwebs—and two spiders—’ Bruno thoughtfully replied, checking off the catalogue on his fingers, ‘—and the cover of a picture-book—and a tortoise—and a dish of nuts—and an old man.’

‘An old man!’ cried the Professor, trotting across the room in great excitement. ‘Why, it must be the Other Professor, that’s been lost for ever so long!’

He opened the door of the cupboard wide: and there he was, the Other Professor, sitting in a chair, with a book on his knee, and in the act of helping himself to a nut from a dish, which he had taken down off a shelf just within his reach. He looked round at us, but said nothing till he had cracked and eaten the nut. Then he asked the old question. ‘Is the Lecture all ready?’

‘It’ll begin in an hour,’ the Professor said, evading the question. ‘First, we must have something to surprise the Empress. And then comes the Banquet—’

‘The Banquet!’ cried the Other Professor, springing up, and filling the room with a cloud of dust. Then I’d better go and—and brush myself a little. What a state I’m in!’

‘He does want brushing!’ the Professor said, with a critical air. ‘Here’s your hat, little man! I had put it on by mistake. I’d quite forgotten I had one on, already. Let’s go and look at the platform.’

‘And there’s that nice old Gardener singing still!’ Bruno exclaimed in delight, as we went out into the garden. ‘I do believe he’s been singing that very song ever since we went away!’

‘Why, of course he has!’ replied the Professor. ‘It wouldn’t be the thing to leave off, you know.’

‘Wouldn’t be what thing?’ said Bruno: but the Professor thought it best not to hear the question. ‘What are you doing with that hedgehog?’ he shouted at the Gardener, whom they found standing upon one foot, singing softly to himself, and rolling a hedgehog up and down with the other foot.

‘Well, I wanted fur to know what hedgehogs lives on: so I be a-keeping this here hedgehog—fur to see if it eats potatoes—’

‘Much better keep a potato,’ said the Professor; ‘and see if hedgehogs eat it!’

‘That be the roight way, sure-ly!’ the delighted Gardener exclaimed. ‘Be you come to see the platform?’

‘Aye, aye!’ the Professor cheerily replied. ‘And the children have come back, you see!’

The Gardener looked round at them with a grin. Then he led the way to the Pavilion; and as he went he sang:

‘He looked again, and found it wasA Double Rule of Three:

"And all its Mystery," he said,"Is clear as day to me!"‘

‘You’ve been months over that song,’ said the Professor. ‘Isn’t it finished yet?’

‘There be only one verse more,’ the Gardener sadly replied. And, with tears streaming down his cheeks, he sang the last verse:

‘He thought he saw an ArgumentThat proved he was the Pope:

He looked again, and found it wasA Bar of Mottled Soap.

"A fact so dread," he faintly said,"Extinguishes all hope!"‘

Choking with sobs, the Gardener hastily stepped on a few yards ahead of the party, to conceal his emotion.

‘Did he see the Bar of Mottled Soap?’ Sylvie enquired, as we followed.

‘Oh, certainly!’ said the Professor. ‘That song is his own history, you know.’

Tears of an ever-ready sympathy glittered in Bruno’s eyes. ‘I’s welly sorry he isn’t the Pope!’ he said. ‘Aren’t you sorry, Sylvie?’

‘Well—I hardly know,’ Sylvie replied in the vaguest manner. ‘Would it make him any happier?’ she asked the Professor.

‘It wouldn’t make the Pope any happier,’ said the Professor. ‘Isn’t the platform lovely?’ he asked, as we entered the Pavilion.

‘I’ve put an extra beam under it!’ said the Gardener, patting it affectionately as he spoke. ‘And now it’s that strong, as—as a mad elephant might dance upon it!’

‘Thank you very much!’ the Professor heartily rejoined. ‘I don’t know that we shall exactly require—but it’s convenient to know.’ And he led the children upon the platform, to explain the arrangements to them. ‘Here are three seats, you see, for the Emperor and the Empress and Prince Uggug. But there must be two more chairs here!’ he said, looking down at the Gardener.

‘One for Lady Sylvie, and one for the smaller animal!’

‘And may I help in the Lecture?’ said Bruno. ‘I can do some conjuring tricks.’

‘Well, it’s not exactly a conjuring lecture,’ the Professor said, as he arranged some curious-looking machines on the table.

‘However, what can you do? Did you ever go through a table, for instance?’

‘Often!’ said Bruno. ‘Haven’t I, Sylvie?’

The Professor was evidently surprised, though he tried not to show it. ‘This must be looked into,’ he muttered to himself, taking out a note-book. ‘And first—what kind of table?’

‘Tell him!’ Bruno whispered to Sylvie, putting his arms round her neck.

‘Tell him yourself,’ said Sylvie.

‘Ca’n’t,’ said Bruno. ‘It’s a bony word.’

‘Nonsense!’ laughed Sylvie. ‘You can say it well enough, if you only try. Come!’

‘Muddle—’ said Bruno. ‘That’s a bit of it.’

‘What does he say?’ cried the bewildered Professor.

‘He means the multiplication-table,’ Sylvie explained.

The Professor looked annoyed, and shut up his note-book again. ‘Oh, that’s quite another thing,’ he said.

‘It are ever so many other things,’ said Bruno. ‘Aren’t it, Sylvie?’

A loud blast of trumpets interrupted this conversation. ‘Why, the entertainment has begun!’ the Professor exclaimed, as he hurried the children into the Reception-Saloon. ‘I had no idea it was so late!’

A small table, containing cake and wine, stood in a corner of the Saloon; and here we found the Emperor and Empress waiting for us. The rest of the Saloon had been cleared of furniture, to make room for the guests. I was much struck by the great change a few months had made in the faces of the Imperial Pair. A vacant stare was now the Emperor’s usual expression; while over the face of the Empress there flitted, ever and anon, a meaningless smile.

‘So you’re come at last!’ the Emperor sulkily remarked, as the Professor and the children took their places. It was evident that he was very much out of temper: and we were not long in learning the cause of this. He did not consider the preparations, made for the Imperial party, to be such as suited their rank. ‘A common mahogany table!’ he growled, pointing to it contemptuously with his thumb. ‘Why wasn’t it made of gold, I should like to know?’

‘It would have taken a very long—’ the Professor began, but the Emperor cut the sentence short.

‘Then the cake! Ordinary plum! Why wasn’t it made of—of—’ He broke off again. ‘Then the wine! Merely old Madeira! Why wasn’t it—? Then this chair! That’s worst of all. Why wasn’t it a throne? One might excuse the other omissions, but I ca’n’t get over the chair!’

‘What I ca’n’t get over,’ said the Empress, in eager sympathy with her angry husband, ‘is the table!’

‘Pooh!’ said the Emperor.

‘It is much to be regretted!’ the Professor mildly replied, as soon as he had a chance of speaking. After a moment’s thought he strengthened the remark. ‘Everything,’ he said, addressing Society in general, ‘is very much to be regretted!’

A murmur of ‘Hear, hear!’ rose from the crowded Saloon.

There was a rather awkward pause: the Professor evidently didn’t know how to begin. The Empress leant forwards, and whispered to him. ‘A few jokes, you know, Professor—just to put people at their ease!’

‘True, true, Madam!’ the Professor meekly replied. ‘This little boy—’

‘Please don’t make any jokes about me!’ Bruno exclaimed, his eyes filling with tears.

‘I wo’n’t if you’d rather I didn’t,’ said the kind-hearted Professor. ‘It was only something about a Ship’s Buoy: a harmless pun—but it doesn’t matter.’ Here he turned to the crowd and addressed them in a loud voice. ‘Learn your A’s!’ he shouted.

‘Your B’s! Your C’s! and your D’s! Then you’ll be at your ease!’

There was a roar of laughter from all the assembly, and then a great deal of confused whispering. ‘What was it he said?

Something about bees, I fancy—’

The Empress smiled in her meaningless way, and fanned herself. The poor Professor looked at her timidly: he was clearly at his wits’ end again, and hoping for another hint. The Empress whispered again.

‘Some spinach, you know, Professor, as a surprise.’

The Professor beckoned to the Head-Cook, and said something to him in a low voice. Then the Head-Cook left the room, followed by all the other cooks.

‘It’s difficult to get things started,’ the Professor remarked to Bruno. ‘When once we get started, it’ll go on all right, you’ll see.’

‘If oo want to startle people,’ said Bruno, ‘oo should put live frogs on their backs.’

Here the cooks all came in again, in a procession, the Head-Cook coming last and carrying something, which the others tried to hide by waving flags all round it. ‘Nothing but flags, Your Imperial Highness! Nothing but flags!’ he kept repeating, as he set it before her. Then all the flags were dropped in a moment, as the Head-Cook raised the cover from an enormous dish.

‘What is it?’ the Empress said faintly, as she put her spy-glass to her eye. ‘Why, it’s Spinach, I declare!’

‘Her Imperial Highness is surprised,’ the Professor explained to the attendants: and some of them clapped their hands. The Head-Cook made a low bow, and in doing so dropped a spoon on the table, as if by accident, just within reach of the Empress, who looked the other way and pretended not to see it.

‘I am surprised!’ the Empress said to Bruno. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘Not a bit,’ said Bruno. ‘I heard—’ but Sylvie put her hand over his mouth, and spoke for him. ‘He’s rather tired, I think. He wants the Lecture to begin.’

‘I want the supper to begin,’ Bruno corrected her.

The Empress took up the spoon in an absent manner, and tried to balance it across the back of her hand, and in doing this she dropped it into the dish: and, when she took it out again, it was full of spinach. ‘How curious!’ she said, and put it into her mouth. ‘It tastes just like real spinach! I thought it was an imitation—but I do believe it’s real!’ And she took another spoonful.

‘It wo’n’t be real much longer,’ said Bruno.

But the Empress had had enough spinach by this time, and somehow—I failed to notice the exact process—we all found ourselves in the Pavilion, and the Professor in the act of beginning the long-expected Lecture.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE PROFESSOR’S LECTURE

‘IN Science—in fact, in most things—it is usually best to begin at the beginning. In some things, of course, it’s better to begin at the other end. For instance, if you wanted to paint a dog green, it might be best to begin with the tail, as it doesn’t bite at that end. And so—’

‘May I help oo?’ Bruno interrupted.

‘Help me to do what?’ said the puzzled Professor, looking up for a moment, but keeping his finger on the book he was reading from, so as not to lose his place.

‘To paint a dog green!’ cried Bruno. ‘Oo can begin wiz its mouf, and I’ll—’

‘No, no!’ said the Professor. ‘We haven’t got to the Experiments yet. And so,’ returning to his note-book, ‘I’ll give you the Axioms of Science. After that I shall exhibit some Specimens. Then I shall explain a Process or two. And I shall conclude with a few Experiments. An Axiom, you know, is a thing that you accept without contradiction. For instance, if I were to say "Here we are!", that would be accepted without any contradiction, and it’s a nice sort of remark to begin a conversation with. So it would be an Axiom. Or again, supposing I were to say, "Here we are not!", that would be—’

‘—a fib!’ cried Bruno.

‘Oh, Bruno!’ said Sylvie in a warning whisper. ‘Of course it would be an Axiom, if the Professor said it!’

‘—that would be accepted, if people were civil,’ continued the Professor; ‘so it would be another Axiom.’

‘It might be an Axledum,’ Bruno said: ‘but it wouldn’t be true!’

‘Ignorance of Axioms,’ the Lecturer continued, ‘is a great drawback in life. It wastes so much time to have to say them over and over again. For instance, take the Axiom, "Nothing is greater than itself"; that is, "Nothing can contain itself". How often you hear people say "He was so excited, he was quite unable to contain himself." Why, of course he was unable! The excitement had nothing to do with it!’

‘I say, look here, you know!’ said the Emperor, who was getting a little restless. ‘How many Axioms are you going to give us?

At this rate, we sha’n’t get to the Experiments till to-morrow-week!’

‘Oh, sooner than that, I assure you!’ the Professor replied, looking up in alarm. ‘There are only,’ (he referred to his notes again) ‘only two more, that are really necessary.’

‘Read ‘em out, and get on to the Specimens,’ grumbled the Emperor.

‘The First Axiom,’ the Professor read out in a great hurry, ‘consists of these words, "Whatever is, is." And the Second consists of these words, "Whatever isn’t, isn’t." We will now go on to the Specimens. The first tray contains Crystals and other Things.’ He drew it towards him, and again referred to his notebook. ‘Some of the labels—owing to insufficient adhesion —’ Here he stopped again, and carefully examined the page with his eye-glass. ‘I ca’n’t read the rest of the sentence,’ he said at last, ‘but it means that the labels have come loose, and the Things have got mixed—’

‘Let me stick ‘em on again!’ cried Bruno eagerly, and began licking them, like postage-stamps, and dabbing them down upon the Crystals and the other Things. But the Professor hastily moved the tray out of his reach. ‘They might get fixed to the wrong Specimens, you know!’ he said.

‘Oo shouldn’t have any wrong peppermints in the tray!’ Bruno boldly replied. ‘Should he, Sylvie?’

But Sylvie only shook her head.

The Professor heard him not. He had taken up one of the bottles, and was carefully reading the label through his eye-glass.

‘Our first Specimen—’ he announced, as he placed the bottle in front of the other Things, ‘is—that is, it is called—’ here he took it up, and examined the label again, as if he thought it might have changed since he last saw it, ‘is called Aqua Pura—common water—the fluid that cheers—’

‘Hip! Hip! Hip!’ the Head-Cook began enthusiastically.

‘—but not inebriates!’ the Professor went on quickly, but only just in time to check the "Hooroar!’ which was beginning.

‘Our second Specimen,’ he went on, carefully opening a small jar, ‘is—’ here he removed the lid, and a large beetle instantly darted out, and with an angry buzz went straight out of the Pavilion, ‘—is—or rather, I should say,’ looking sadly into the empty jar, ‘it was—a curious kind of Blue Beetle. Did anyone happen to remark—as it went past—three blue spots under each wing?’

Nobody had remarked them.

‘Ah, well!’ the Professor said with a sigh. ‘It’s a pity. Unless you remark that kind of thing at the moment, it’s very apt to get overlooked! The next Specimen, at any rate, will not fly away! It is—in short, or perhaps, more correctly, at length—an Elephant. You will observe—’ Here he beckoned to the Gardener to come up on the platform, and with his help began putting together what looked like an enormous dog-kennel, with short tubes projecting out of it on both sides.

‘But we’ve seen Elephants before,’ the Emperor grumbled.

‘Yes, but not through a Megaloscope!’ the Professor eagerly replied, ‘You know you ca’n’t see a Flea, properly, without a magnifying-glass—what we call a Microscope. Well, just in the same way, you ca’n’t see an Elephant, properly, without a minimifying-glass. There’s one in each of these little tubes. And this is a Megaloscope! The Gardener will now bring in the next Specimen. Please open both curtains, down at the end there, and make way for the Elephant!’

There was a general rush to the sides of the Pavilion, and all eyes were turned to the open end, watching for the return of the Gardener, who had gone away singing ‘He thought he saw an Elephant That practised on a Fife!’ There was silence for a minute: and then his harsh voice was heard again in the distance. ‘He looked again—come up then! He looked again, and found it was—woa back! and found it was A letter from his—make way there! He’s a-coming!’

And in marched or waddled—it is hard to say which is the right word—an Elephant, on its hind-legs, and playing on an enormous fife which it held with its fore-feet.

The Professor hastily threw open a large door at the end of the Megaloscope, and the huge animal, at a signal from the Gardener, dropped the fife, and obediently trotted into the machine, the door of which was at once shut by the Professor. ‘The Specimen is now ready for observation!’ he proclaimed. ‘It is exactly the size of the common Mouse—Mus Communis!’

There was a general rush to the tubes, and the spectators watched with delight the minikin creature, as it playfully coiled its trunk round the Professor’s extended finger, finally taking its stand upon the palm of his hand, while he carefully lifted it out, and carried it off to exhibit to the Imperial party.

‘Isn’t it a darling?’ cried Bruno. ‘May I stroke it, please? I’ll touch it welly gently!’

The Empress inspected it solemnly with her eye-glass. ‘It is very small,’ she said in a deep voice. ‘Smaller than elephants usually are, I believe?’

The Professor gave a start of delighted surprise. ‘Why, that’s true!’ he murmured to himself. Then louder, turning to the audience, ‘Her Imperial Highness has made a remark which is perfectly sensible!’ And a wild cheer arose from that vast multitude.

‘The next Specimen,’ the Professor proclaimed, after carefully placing the little elephant in the tray, among the Crystals and other things, ‘is a Flea, which we will enlarge for the purposes of observation.’ Taking a small pill-box from the tray, he advanced to the Megaloscope, and reversed all the tubes. ‘The Specimen is ready!’ he cried, with his eye at one of the tubes, while he carefully emptied the pill-box through a little hole at the side. ‘It is now the size of the Common Horse—Equus Communis!’

There was another general rush, to look through the tubes, and the Pavilion rang with shouts of delight, through which the Professor’s anxious tones could scarcely be heard. ‘Keep the door of the Microscope shut!’ he cried. ‘If the creature were to escape, this size, it would—’ But the mischief was done. The door had swung open, and in another moment the Monster had got out, and was trampling down the terrified, shrieking spectators.

But the Professor’s presence of mind did not desert him. ‘Undraw those curtains!’ he shouted. It was done. The Monster gathered its legs together, and in one tremendous bound vanished into the sky.

‘Where is it?’ said the Emperor, rubbing his eyes.

‘In the next Province, I fancy,’ the Professor replied. ‘That jump would take it at least five miles! The next thing is to explain a Process or two. But I find there is hardly room enough to operate—the smaller animal is rather in my way—’

‘Who does he mean?’ Bruno whispered to Sylvie.

‘He means you!’ Sylvie whispered back. ‘Hush!’

‘Be kind enough to move—angularly—to this corner,’ the Professor said, addressing himself to Bruno.

Bruno hastily moved his chair in the direction indicated. ‘Did I move angrily enough?’ he inquired. But the Professor was once more absorbed in his Lecture, which he was reading from his note-book.

‘I will now explain the process of—the name is blotted, I’m sorry to say. It will be illustrated by a number of—of—’ here he examined the pages for some time, and at last said ‘It seems to be either "Experiments" or "Specimens"—’

‘Let it be Experiments,’ said the Emperor. ‘We’ve seen plenty of Specimens.’

‘Certainly, certainly!’ the Professor assented. ‘We will have some Experiments.’

‘May I do them?’ Bruno eagerly asked.

‘Oh dear no!’ The Professor looked dismayed. ‘I really don’t know what would happen if you did them!’

‘Nor nobody doosn’t know what’ll happen if oo doos them!’ Bruno retorted.

‘Our First Experiment requires a Machine. It has two knobs—only two -vou can count them, if vou like.’

The Head-Cook stepped forwards, counted them, and retired satisfied.

‘Now you might press those two knobs together—but that’s not the way to do it. Or you might turn the Machine upside-down—but that’s not the way to do it!’

‘What are the way to do it?’ said Bruno, who was listening very attentively.

The Professor smiled benignantly. ‘Ah, yes!’ he said, in a voice like the heading of a chapter. ‘The Way To Do It! Permit me!’

and in a moment he had whisked Bruno upon the table. ‘I divide my subject,’ he began, ‘into three parts—’

‘I think I’ll get down!’ Bruno whispered to Sylvie. ‘It aren’t nice to be divided!’

‘He hasn’t got a knife, silly boy!’ Sylvie whispered in reply. ‘Stand still! You’ll break all the bottles!’

‘The first part is to take hold of the knobs,’ putting them into Bruno’s hands. ‘The second part is—’ Here he turned the handle, and, with a loud ‘Oh!’, Bruno dropped both the knobs, and began rubbing his elbows.

The Professor chuckled in delight. ‘It had a sensible effect. Hadn’t it?’ he enquired.

‘No, it hadn’t a sensible effect!’ Bruno said indignantly. ‘It were very silly indeed. It jingled my elbows, and it banged my back, and it crinkled my hair, and it buzzed among my bones!"

‘I’m sure it didn’t!’ said Sylvie. ‘You’re only inventing!’

‘Oo doesn’t know nuffin about it!’ Bruno replied. ‘Oo wasn’t there to see. Nobody ca’n’t go among my bones. There isn’t room.’

‘Our Second Experiment,’ the Professor announced, as Bruno returned to his place, still thoughtfully rubbing his elbows, ‘is the production of that seldom-seen-but-greatly-to-be-admired phenomenon, Black Light! You have seen White Light, Red Light, Green Light, and so on: but never, till this wonderful day, have any eyes but mine seen Black Light! This box,’ carefully lifting it upon the table, and covering it with a heap of blankets, ‘is quite full of it. The way I made it was this—I took a lighted candle into a dark cupboard and shut the door. Of course the cupboard was then full of Yellow Light. Then I took a bottle of Black ink, and poured it over the candle: and, to my delight, every atom of the Yellow Light turned Black! That was indeed the proudest moment of my life! Then I filled a box with it. And now—would anyone like to get under the blankets and see it?’

Dead silence followed this appeal: but at last Bruno said ‘I’ll get under, if it won’t jingle my elbows.’

Satisfied on this point, Bruno crawled under the blankets, and, after a minute or two, crawled out again, very hot and dusty, and with his hair in the wildest confusion.

‘What did you see in the box?’ Sylvie eagerly enquired.

‘I saw nuffin!’ Bruno sadly replied. ‘It were too dark!’

‘He has described the appearance of the thing exactly!’ the Professor exclaimed with enthusiasm. ‘Black Light, and Nothing, look so extremely alike, at first sight, that I don’t wonder he failed to distinguish them! We will now proceed to the Third Experiment.’

The Professor came down, and led the way to where a post had been driven firmly into the ground. To one side of the post was fastened a chain, with an iron weight hooked on to the end of it, and from the other side projected a piece of whalebone, with a ring at the end of it. ‘This is a most interesting Experiment!’ the Professor announced. ‘It will need time, I’m afraid: but that is a trifling disadvantage. Now observe. If I were to unhook this weight, and let go, it would fall to the ground. You do not deny that?’

Nobody denied it.

‘And in the same way, if I were to bend this piece of whalebone round the post—thus—and put the ring over this hook—thus—it stays bent: but, if I unhook it, it straightens itself again. You do not deny that?’

Again, nobody denied it.

‘Well, now, suppose we left things just as they are, for a long time. The force of the whalebone would get exhausted, you know, and it would stay bent, even when you unhooked it. Now, why shouldn’t the same thing happen with the weight? The whalebone gets so used to being bent, that it ca’n’t straighten itself any more. Why shouldn’t the weight get so used to being held up, that it ca’n’t fall any more? That’s what I want to know!’

‘That’s what we want to know!’ echoed the crowd.

‘How long must we wait?’ grumbled the Emperor.

The Professor looked at his watch. ‘Well, I think a thousand years will do to begin with,’ he said. ‘Then we will cautiously unhook the weight: and, if it still shows (as perhaps it will) a slight tendency to fall, we will hook it for another thousand years.’

Here the Empress experienced one of those flashes of Common Sense which were the surprise of all around her. ‘Meanwhile there’ll be time for another Experiment,’ she said.

‘There will indeed!’ cried the delighted Professor. ‘Let us return to the platform, and proceed to the Fourth Experiment!’

‘For this concluding Experiment, I will take a certain Alkali, or Acid—I forget which. Now you’ll see what will happen when I mix it with Some—’ here he took up a bottle, and looked at it doubtfully, ‘—when I mix it with—with Something—’

Here the Emperor interrupted. ‘What’s the name of the stuff?’ he asked.

‘I don’t remember the name,’ said the Professor: ‘and the label has come off.’ He emptied it quickly into the other bottle, and, with a tremendous bang, both bottles flew to pieces, upsetting all the machines, and filling the Pavilion with thick black smoke. I sprang to my feet in terror, and—and found myself standing before my solitary hearth, where the poker, dropping at last from the hand of the sleeper, had knocked over the tongs and the shovel, and had upset the kettle, filling the air with clouds of steam.

With a weary sigh, I betook myself to bed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THE BANQUET

‘Heaviness may endure for a night: but joy cometh in the morning.’ The next day found me quite another being. Even the memories of my lost friend and companion were sunny as the genial weather that smiled around me. I did not venture to trouble Lady Muriel, or her father, with another call so soon: but took a walk into the country, and only turned homewards when the low sunbeams warned me that day would soon be over.

On my way home, I passed the cottage where the old man lived, whose face always recalled to me the day when I first met Lady Muriel; and I glanced in as I passed, half-curious to see if he were still living there.

Yes: the old man was still alive. He was sitting out in the porch, looking just as he did when I first saw him at Fayfield Junction—it seemed only a few days ago!

‘Good evening!’ I said, pausing.

‘Good evening, Maister!’ he cheerfully responded. ‘Wo’n’t ee step in?’

I stepped in, and took a seat on the bench in the porch. ‘I’m glad to see you looking so hearty,’ I began. ‘Last time, I remember, I chanced to pass just as Lady Muriel was coming away from the house. Does she still come to see you?’

‘Ees,’ he answered slowly. ‘She has na forgotten me. I don’t lose her bonny face for many days together. Well I mind the very first time she come, after we’d met at Railway Station. She told me as she come to mak’ amends. Dear child! Only think o’ that!

To mak’ amends!’

‘To make amends for what?’ I enquired. ‘What could she have done to need it?’

‘Well, it were loike this, you see? We were both on us a-waiting fur t’ train at t’ Junction. And I had setten mysen down upat t’

bench. And Station-Maister, he comes and he orders me off—fur t’ mak’ room for her Ladyship, you understand?’

‘I remember it all,’ I said. ‘I was there myself, that day.’

‘Was you, now? Well, an’ she axes my pardon fur ‘t. Think o’ that, now! My pardon! An owd ne’er-do-weel like me! Ah!

She’s been here many a time, sin’ then. Why, she were in here only yestere’en, as it were, a-sittin’, as it might be, where you’re a-sitting now, an’ lookin’ sweeter and kinder nor an angel! An’ she says "You’ve not got your Minnie, now," she says, "to fettle for ye." Minnie was my grand-daughter, Sir, as lived wi’ me. She died, a matter of two months ago—or it may be three. She was a bonny lass—and a good lass, too. Eh, but life has been rare an’ lonely without her!’

He covered his face in his hands: and I waited a minute or two, in silence, for him to recover himself.

‘So she says, "Just tak’ me fur your Minnie!" she says. "Didna Minnie mak’ your tea fur you?" says she. "Ay," says I. An’ she mak’s the tea. "An’ didna Minnie light your pipe?" says she. "Ay," says I. An’ she lights the pipe for me. "An’ didna Minnie set out your tea in t’ porch?" An’ I says "My dear," I says, "I’m thinking you’re Minnie hersen!" An’ she cries a bit. We both on us cries a bit—’

Again I kept silence for a while.

‘An’ while I smokes my pipe, she sits an’ talks to me—as loving an’ as pleasant! I’ll be bound I thowt it were Minnie come again! An’ when she gets up to go, I says "Winnot ye shak’ hands wi’ me?" says I. An’ she says "Na," she says: "a cannot shak’

hands wi’ thee!" she says.’

‘I’m sorry she said that,’ I put in, thinking it was the only instance I had ever known of pride of rank showing itself in Lady Muriel.

‘Bless you, it werena pride!’ said the old man, reading my thoughts. ‘She says "Your Minnie never shook hands wi’ you!" she says. "An’ I’m your Minnie now," she says. An’ she just puts her dear arms about my neck—and she kisses me on t’ cheek—an’ may God in Heaven bless her!’ And here the poor old man broke down entirely, and could say no more.

‘God bless her!’ I echoed. ‘And good night to you!’ I pressed his hand, and left him. ‘Lady Muriel,’ I said softly to myself as I went homewards, ‘truly you know how to "mak’ amends"!’

Seated once more by my lonely fireside, I tried to recall the strange vision of the night before, and to conjure up the face of the dear old Professor among the blazing coals. ‘That black one—with just a touch of red—would suit him well,’ I thought. ‘After such a catastrophe, it would be sure to be covered with black stains—and he would say:

‘The result of that combination—you may have noticed?—was an Explosion! Shall I repeat the Experiment?’

‘No, no! Don’t trouble yourself!’ was the general cry. And we all trooped off, in hot haste, to the Banqueting-Hall, where the feast had already begun.

No time was lost in helping the dishes, and very speedily every guest found his plate filled with good things.

‘I have always maintained the principle,’ the Professor began, ‘that it is a good rule to take some food—occasionally. The great advantage of dinner-parties—’ he broke off suddenly. ‘Why, actually here’s the Other Professor!’ he cried. ‘And there’s no place left for him!’

The Other Professor came in reading a large book, which he held close to his eyes. One result of his not looking where he was going was that he tripped up, as he crossed the Saloon, flew up into the air, and fell heavily on his face in the middle of the table.

‘What a pity!’ cried the kind-hearted Professor, as he helped him up.

‘It wouldn’t be me, if I didn’t trip,’ said the Other Professor.

The Professor looked much shocked. ‘Almost anything would be better than that!’ he exclaimed. ‘It never does,’ he added, aside to Bruno, ‘to be anybody else, does it?’

To which Bruno gravely replied ‘I’s got nuffin on my plate.’

The Professor hastily put on his spectacles, to make sure that the facts were all right, to begin with: then he turned his jolly round face upon the unfortunate owner of the empty plate. ‘And what would you like next, my little man?’

‘Well,’ Bruno said, a little doubtfully, ‘I think I’ll take some plum-pudding, please—while I think of it.’

‘Oh, Bruno!’ (This was a whisper from Sylvie.) ‘It isn’t good manners to ask for a dish before it comes!’

And Bruno whispered back ‘But I might forget to ask for some, when it comes, oo know—I do forget things, sometimes,’ he added, seeing Sylvie about to whisper more.

And this assertion Sylvie did not venture to contradict.

Meanwhile a chair had been placed for the Other Professor, between the Empress and Sylvie. Sylvie found him a rather uninteresting neighbour: in fact, she couldn’t afterwards remember that he had made more than one remark to her during the whole banquet, and that was ‘What a comfort a Dictionary is!’ (She told Bruno, afterwards, that she had been too much afraid of him to say more than ‘Yes, Sir’ in reply: and that had been the end of their conversation. On which Bruno expressed a very decided opinion that that wasn’t worth calling a ‘conversation’ at all. ‘Oo should have asked him a riddle!’ he added triumphantly. ‘Why, I asked the Professor three riddles! One was that one you asked me in the morning, "How many pennies is there in two shillings?" And another was—’ ‘Oh, Bruno!’ Sylvie interrupted. ‘That wasn’t a riddle!’ ‘It were!’ Bruno fiercely replied.)

By this time a waiter had supplied Bruno with a plateful of something, which drove the plum-pudding out of his head.

‘Another advantage of dinner-parties,’ the Professor cheerfully explained, for the benefit of anyone that would listen, ‘is that it helps you to see your friends. If you want to see a man, offer him something to eat. It’s the same rule with a mouse.’

‘This Cat’s very kind to the Mouses,’ Bruno said, stooping to stroke a remarkably fat specimen of the race, that had just waddled into the room, and was rubbing itself affectionately against the leg of his chair. ‘Please, Sylvie, pour some milk in your saucer. Pussie’s ever so thirsty!’

‘Why do you want my saucer?’ said Sylvie. ‘You’ve got one yourself!’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Bruno: ‘but I wanted mine for to give it some more milk in.’

Sylvie looked unconvinced: however it seemed quite impossible for her ever to refuse what her brother asked: so she quietly filled her saucer with milk, and handed it to Bruno, who got down off his chair to administer it to the cat.

‘The room’s very hot, with all this crowd,’ the Professor said to Sylvie. ‘I wonder why they don’t put some lumps of ice in the grate? You fill it with lumps of coal in the winter, you know, and you sit around it and enjoy the warmth. How jolly it would be to fill it now with lumps of ice, and sit round it and enjoy the coolth!’

Hot as it was, Sylvie shivered a little at the idea. ‘It’s very cold outside,’ she said. ‘My feet got almost frozen to-day.’

‘That’s the shoemaker’s fault!’ the Professor cheerfully replied. ‘How often I’ve explained to him that he ought to make boots with little iron frames under the soles, to hold lamps! But he never thinks. No one would suffer from cold, if only they would think of those little things. I always use hot ink, myself, in the winter. Very few people ever think of that! Yet how simple it is!’

‘Yes, it’s very simple,’ Sylvie said politely. ‘Has the cat had enough?’ This was to Bruno, who had brought back the saucer only half-emptied.

But Bruno did not hear the question. ‘There’s somebody scratching at the door and wanting to come in,’ he said. And he scrambled down off his chair, and went and cautiously peeped out through the door-way.

‘Who was it wanted to come in?’ Sylvie asked, as he returned to his place.

‘It were a Mouse,’ said Bruno. ‘And it peepted in. And it saw the Cat. And it said "I’ll come in another day." And I said "Oo needn’t be flightened. The Cat’s welly kind to Mouses." And it said "But I’s got some important business, what I must attend to." And it said "I’ll call again to-morrow." And it said "Give my love to the Cat."‘

‘What a fat cat it is!’ said the Lord Chancellor, leaning across the Professor to address his small neighbour. ‘It’s quite a wonder!’

‘It was awfully fat when it camed in,’ said Bruno: ‘so it would be more wonderfuller if it got thin all in a minute.’

‘And that was the reason, I suppose,’ the Lord Chancellor suggested, ‘why you didn’t give it the rest of the milk?’

‘No,’ said Bruno. ‘It was a betterer reason. I tooked the saucer up ‘cause it were so discontented!’

‘It doesn’t look so to me,’ said the Lord Chancellor. ‘What made you think it was discontented?’

‘‘Cause it grumbled in its throat.’

‘Oh, Bruno!’ cried Sylvie. ‘Why, that’s the way cats show they’re pleased!’

Bruno looked doubtful. ‘It’s not a good way,’ he objected. ‘Oo wouldn’t say I were pleased, if I made that noise in my throat!’

‘What a singular boy!’ the Lord Chancellor whispered to himself: but Bruno had caught the words.

‘What do it mean to say "a singular boy"?’ he whispered to Sylvie.

‘It means one boy,’ Sylvie whispered in return. ‘And plural means two or three.’

‘Then I’s welly glad I is a singular boy!’ Bruno said with great emphasis. ‘It would be horrid to be two or three boys! P’raps they wouldn’t play with me!’

‘Why should they?’ said the Other Professor, suddenly waking up out of a deep reverie. ‘They might be asleep, you know.’

‘Couldn’t, if I was awake,’ Bruno said cunningly.

‘Oh, but they might indeed!’ the Other Professor protested. ‘Boys don’t all go to sleep at once, you know. So these boys—but who are you talking about?’

‘He never remembers to ask that first!’ the Professor whispered to the children.

‘Why, the rest of me, a-course!’ Bruno exclaimed triumphantly. ‘Supposing I was two or three boys!’

The Other Professor sighed, and seemed to be sinking back into his reverie; but suddenly brightened up again, and addressed the Professor. ‘There’s nothing more to be done now, is there?’

‘Well, there’s the dinner to finish,’ the Professor said with a bewildered smile: ‘and the heat to bear. I hope you’ll enjoy the dinner—such as it is; and that you wo’n’t mind the heat—such as it isn’t.’

The sentence sounded well, but somehow I couldn’t quite understand it; and the Other Professor seemed to be no better off.

‘Such as it isn’t what?’ he peevishly enquired.

‘It isn’t as hot as it might be,’ the Professor replied, catching at the first idea that came to hand.

‘Ah, I see what you mean now!’ the Other Professor graciously remarked. ‘It’s very badly expressed, but I quite see it now!

Thirteen minutes and a half ago,’ he went on, looking first at Bruno and then at his watch as he spoke, ‘you said "this Cat’s very kind to the Mouses." It must be a singular animal!’

‘So it are,’ said Bruno, after carefully examining the Cat, to make sure how many there were of it.

‘But how do you know it’s kind to the Mouses—or, more correctly speaking, the Mice?’

‘‘Cause it plays with the Mouses,’ said Bruno; ‘for to amuse them, oo know.’

‘But that is just what I don’t know,’ the Other Professor rejoined. ‘My belief is, it plays with them to kill them!’

‘Oh, that’s quite a accident!’ Bruno began, so eagerly, that it was evident he had already propounded this very difficulty to the Cat. ‘It ‘splained all that to me, while it were drinking the milk. It said "I teaches the Mouses new games: the Mouses likes it ever so much." It said "Sometimes little accidents happens: sometimes the Mouses kills theirselves." It said "I’s always welly sorry, when the Mouses kills theirselves." It said—’

‘If it was so very sorry,’ Sylvie said, rather disdainfully, ‘it wouldn’t eat the Mouses after they’d killed themselves!’

But this difficulty, also, had evidently not been lost sight of in the exhaustive ethical discussion just concluded. ‘It said—’ (the orator constantly omitted, as superfluous, his own share in the dialogue, and merely gave us the replies of the Cat) ‘It said "Dead Mouses never objecks to be eaten." It said "There’s no use wasting good Mouses." It said "Wifful—" sumfinoruvver. It said "And oo may live to say ‘How much I wiss I had the Mouse that then I frew away!’" It said—’

‘It hadn’t time to say such a lot of things!’ Sylvie interrupted indignantly.

‘Oo doesn’t know how Cats speaks!’ Bruno rejoined contemptuously. ‘Cats speaks welly quick!’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE PIG-TALE

BY this time the appetites of the guests seemed to be nearly satisfied, and even Bruno had the resolution to say, when the Professor offered him a fourth slice of plum-pudding, ‘I thinks three helpings is enough!’

Suddenly the Professor started as if he had been electrified. ‘Why, I had nearly forgotten the most important part of the entertainment! The Other Professor is to recite a Tale of a Pig—I mean a Pig-Tale,’ he corrected himself. ‘It has Introductory Verses at the beginning, and at the end.’

‘It ca’n’t have Introductory Verses at the end, can it?’ said Sylvie.

‘Wait till you hear it,’ said the Professor: ‘then you’ll see. I’m not sure it hasn’t some in the middle, as well.’ Here he rose to his feet, and there was an instant silence through the Banqueting-Hall: they evidently expected a speech.

‘Ladies, and gentlemen,’ the Professor began, ‘the Other Professor is so kind as to recite a Poem. The title of it is "The Pig-Tale". He never recited it before!’ (General cheering among the guests.) ‘He will never recite it again!’ (Frantic excitement, and wild cheering all down the hall, the Professor himself mounting the table in hot haste, to lead the cheering, and waving his spectacles in one hand and a spoon in the other.)

Then the Other Professor got up, and began:

Little Birds are dining

Warily and well,

Hid in mossy cell:

Hid, I say, by waiters

Gorgeous in their gaiters —

I’ve a Tale to tell.

Little Birds are feeding

Justices with jam,

Rich in frizzled ham:

Rich, I say, in oysters

Haunting shady cloisters —

That is what I am.

Little Birds are teaching

Tigresses to smile,

Innocent of guile:

Smile, I say, not smirkle—

Mouth a semicircle,

That’s the proper style.

Little Birds are sleeping

All among the pins,

Where the loser wins:

Where, I say, he sneezes

When and how he pleases—

So the Tale begins.

There was a Pig that sat alone

Beside a ruined Pump:

By day and night he made his moan—

It would have stirred a heart of stone

To see him wring his hoofs and groan,

Because he could not jump.

A certain Camel heard him shout—

A Camel with a hump.

‘Oh, is it Grief, or is it Gout?

What is this bellowing about?’

That Pig replied, with quivering snout,

‘Because I cannot jump!’

That Camel scanned him, dreamy-eyed.

‘Methinks you are too plump.

I never knew a Pig so wide—

That wobbled so from side to side—

Who could, however much he tried,

Do such a thing as jump!

‘Yet mark those trees, two miles away,

All clustered in a clump:

If you could trot there twice a day,

Nor ever pause for rest or play,

In the far future—Who can say?—

You may be fit to jump.’

That Camel passed, and left him there,

Beside the ruined Pump.

Oh, horrid was that Pig’s despair!

His shrieks of anguish filled the air.

He wrung his hoofs, he rent his hair,

Because he could not jump.

There was a Frog that wandered by—

A sleek and shining lump:

Inspected him with fishy eye,

And said ‘O Pig, what makes you cry?

And bitter was that Pig’s reply,

‘Because I cannot jump!’

That Frog he grinned a grin of glee,

And hit his chest a thump.

‘O Pig,’ he said, ‘be ruled by me,

And you shall see what you shall see.

This minute, for a trifling fee,

I’ll teach you how to jump!

‘You may be faint from many a fall,

And bruised by many a bump:

But, if you persevere through all,

And practise first on something small,

Concluding with a ten-foot wall,

You’ll find that you can jump!’

That Pig looked up with joyful start:

‘Oh Frog, you are a trump!

Your words have healed my inward smart—

Come, name your fee and do your part:

Bring comfort to a broken heart,

By teaching me to jump!’

‘My fee shall be a mutton-chop,

My goal this ruined Pump.

Observe with what an airy flop

I plant myself upon the top!

Now bend your knees and take a hop,

For that’s the way to jump!’

Uprose that Pig, and rushed, full whack,

Against the ruined Pump:

Rolled over like an empty sack,

And settled down upon his back,

While all his bones at once went ‘Crack!’

It was a fatal jump.

When the Other Professor had recited this Verse, he went across to the fire-place, and put his head up the chimney. In doing this, he lost his balance, and fell head-first into the empty grate, and got so firmly fixed there that it was some time before he could be dragged out again.

Bruno had had time to say ‘I thought he wanted to see how many peoples was up the chimbley.’

And Sylvie had said ‘Chimney—not chimbley.’

And Bruno had said ‘Don’t talk ‘ubbish!’

All this, while the Other Professor was being extracted.

‘You must have blacked your face!’ the Empress said anxiously. ‘Let me send for some soap?’

‘Thanks, no,’ said the Other Professor, keeping his face turned away. ‘Black’s quite a respectable colour. Besides, soap would be no use without water—’

Keeping his back well turned away from the audience, he went on with the Introductory Verses:

Little Birds are writing

Interesting books,

To be read by cooks:

Read, I say, not roasted—

Letterpress, when toasted,

Loses its good looks.

Little Birds are playing

Bagpipes on the shore,

Where the tourists snore:

‘Thanks!’ they cry. ‘‘Tis thrilling!

Take, oh take this shilling!

Let us have no more!’

Little Birds are bathing

Crocodiles in cream,

Like a happy dream:

Like, but not so lasting—

Crocodiles, when fasting,

Are not all they seem!

That Camel passed, as Day grew dim

Around the ruined Pump.

‘O broken heart! O broken limb!

It needs,’ that Camel said to him,

‘Something more fairy-like and slim,

To execute a jump!’

That Pig lay still as any stone,

And could not stir a stump:

Nor ever, if the truth were known,

Was he again observed to moan,

Nor ever wring his hoofs and groan,

Because he could not jump.

That Frog made no remark, for he

Was dismal as a dump:

He knew the consequence must be

That he would never get his fee—

And still he sits, in miserie,

Upon that ruined Pump!

‘It’s a miserable story!’ said Bruno. ‘It begins miserably, and it ends miserablier. I think I shall cry. Sylvie, please lend me your handkerchief.’

‘I haven’t got it with me,’ Sylvie whispered.

‘Then I wo’n’t cry,’ said Bruno manfully.

‘There are more Introductory Verses to come,’ said the Other Professor, ‘but I’m hungry.’ He sat down, cut a large slice of cake, put it on Bruno’s plate, and gazed at his own empty plate in astonishment.

‘Where did you get that cake?’ Sylvie whispered to Bruno.

‘He gived it me,’ said Bruno.

‘But you shouldn’t ask for things! You know you shouldn’t!’

‘I didn’t ask,’ said Bruno, taking a fresh mouthful: ‘he gived it me.’

Sylvie considered this for a moment: then she saw her way out of it. ‘Well, then, ask him to give me some!’

‘You seem to enjoy that cake?’ the Professor remarked.

‘Doos that mean "munch"?’ Bruno whispered to Sylvie.

Sylvie nodded. ‘It means "to munch" and "to like to munch".’

Bruno smiled at the Professor. ‘I doos enjoy it,’ he said.

The Other Professor caught the word. ‘And I hope you’re enjoying yourself, little Man?’ he enquired.

Bruno’s look of horror quite startled him. ‘No, indeed I aren’t!’ he said.

The Other Professor looked thoroughly puzzled. ‘Well, well!’ he said. ‘Try some cowslip wine!’ And he filled a glass and handed it to Bruno. ‘Drink this, my dear, and you’ll be quite another man!’

‘Who shall I be?’ said Bruno, pausing in the act of putting it to his lips.

‘Don’t ask so many questions!’ Sylvie interposed, anxious to save the poor old man from further bewilderment. ‘Suppose we get the Professor to tell us a story.’

Bruno adopted the idea with enthusiasm. ‘Please do!’ he cried eagerly. ‘Sumfin about tigers—and bumble-bees—and robin-redbreasts, oo knows!’

‘Why should you always have live things in stories?’ said the Professor. ‘Why don’t you have events, or circumstances?’

‘Oh, please invent a story like that!’ cried Bruno.

The Professor began fluently enough. ‘Once a coincidence was taking a walk with a little accident, and they met an explanation—a very old explanation—so old that it was quite doubled up, and looked more like a conundrum—’ he broke off suddenly.

‘Please go on!’ both children exclaimed.

The Professor made a candid confession. ‘It’s a very difficult sort to invent, I find. Suppose Bruno tells one, first.’

Bruno was only too happy to adopt the suggestion.

‘Once there were a Pig, and a Accordion, and two jars of Orange-marmalade—’

‘The dramatis personæ,’ murmured the Professor. ‘Well, what then?’

‘So, when the Pig played on the Accordion,’ Bruno went on, ‘one of the Jars of Orange-marmalade didn’t like the tune, and the other Jar of Orange-marmalade did like the tune—I know I shall get confused among those Jars of Orange-marmalade, Sylvie!’ he whispered anxiously.

‘I will now recite the other Introductory Verses,’ said the Other Professor.

Little Birds are choking

Baronets with bun,

Taught to fire a gun:

Taught, I say, to splinter

Salmon in the winter—

Merely for the fun.

Little Birds are hiding

Crimes in carpet-bags,

Blessed by happy stags:

Blessed, I say, though beaten—

Since our friends are eaten

When the memory flags.

Little Birds are tasting

Gratitude and gold,

Pale with sudden cold:

Pale, I say, and wrinkled—

When the bells have tinkled,

And the Tale is told.

‘The next thing to be done,’ the Professor cheerfully remarked to the Lord Chancellor, as soon as the applause, caused by the recital of the Pig-Tale, had come to an end, ‘is to drink the Emperor’s health, is it not?’

‘Undoubtedly!’ the Lord Chancellor replied with much solemnity, as he rose to his feet to give the necessary directions for the ceremony. ‘Fill your glasses!’ he thundered. All did so, instantly. ‘Drink the Emperor’s health!’ A general gurgling resounded all through the Hall. ‘Three cheers for the Emperor!’ The faintest possible sound followed this announcement: and the Chancellor, with admirable presence of mind, instantly proclaimed ‘A speech from the Emperor!’

The Emperor had begun his speech almost before the words were uttered. ‘However unwilling to be Emperor—since you all wish me to be Emperor—you know how badly the late Warden managed things—with such enthusiasm as you have shown—he persecuted you—he taxed you too heavily—you know who is fittest man to be Emperor—my brother had no sense—’

How long this curious speech might have lasted it is impossible to say, for just at this moment a hurricane shook the palace to its foundations, bursting open the windows, extinguishing some of the lamps, and filling the air with clouds of dust, which took strange shapes in the air, and seemed to form words.

But the storm subsided as suddenly as it had risen—the casements swung into their places again: the dust vanished: all was as it had been a minute ago—with the exception of the Emperor and Empress, over whom had come a wondrous change. The vacant stare, the meaningless smile, had passed away: all could see that these two strange beings had returned to their senses.

The Emperor continued his speech as if there had been no interruption. ‘And we have behaved—my wife and I—like two arrant Knaves. We deserve no better name. When my brother went away, you lost the best Warden you ever had. And I’ve been doing my best, wretched hypocrite that I am, to cheat you into making me an Emperor. Me! One that has hardly got the wits to be a shoe-black!’

The Lord Chancellor wrung his hands in despair. ‘He is mad, good people!’ he was beginning. But both speeches stopped suddenly—and, in the dead silence that followed, a knocking was heard at the outer door.

‘What is it?’ was the general cry. People began running in and out. The excitement increased every moment. The Lord Chancellor, forgetting all the rules of Court-ceremony, ran full speed down the hall, and in a minute returned, pale and gasping for breath.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THE BEGGAR’S RETURN

‘YOUR Imperial Highnesses!’ he began. ‘It’s the old Beggar again! Shall we set the dogs at him?’

‘Bring him here!’ said the Emperor.

The Chancellor could scarcely believe his ears. ‘Here, your Imperial Highness? Did I rightly understand—’

‘Bring him here!’ the Emperor thundered once more. The Chancellor tottered down the hall—and in another minute the crowd divided, and the poor old Beggar was seen entering the Banqueting-Hall.

He was indeed a pitiable object: the rags, that hung about him, were all splashed with mud: his white hair and his long beard were tossed about in wild disorder. Yet he walked upright, with a stately tread, as if used to command: and—strangest sight of all—Sylvie and Bruno came with him, clinging to his hands, and gazing at him with looks of silent love.

Men looked eagerly to see how the Emperor would recieve the bold intruder. Would he hurl him from the steps of the daïs?

But no. To their utter astonishment, the Emperor knelt as the beggar approached, and with bowed head murmured ‘Forgive us!’

‘Forgive us!’ the Empress, kneeling at her husband’s side, meekly repeated.

The Outcast smiled. ‘Rise up!’ he said. ‘I forgive you!’ And men saw with wonder that a change had passed over the old beggar, even as he spoke. What had seemed, but now, to be vile rags and splashes of mud, were seen to be in truth kingly trappings, broidered with gold, and sparkling with gems. All knew him now, and bent low before the Elder Brother, the true Warden.

‘Brother mine, and Sister mine!’ the Warden began, in a clear voice that was heard all through that vast hall. ‘I come not to disturb you. Rule on, as Emperor, and rule wisely. For I am chosen King of Elfland. To-morrow I return there, taking nought from thence, save only—save only—’ his voice trembled, and with a look of ineffable tenderness, he laid his hands in silence on the heads of the two little ones who clung around him.

But he recovered himself in a moment, and beckoned to the Emperor to resume his place at the table. The company seated themselves again—room being found for the Elfin-King between his two children—and the Lord Chancellor rose once more, to propose the next toast.

‘The next toast—the hero of the day—why, he isn’t here!’ he broke off in wild confusion.

Good gracious! Everybody had forgotten Prince Uggug!

‘He was told of the Banquet, of course?’ said the Emperor.

‘Undoubtedly!’ replied the Chancellor. ‘That would be the duty of the Gold Stick in Waiting.’

‘Let the Gold Stick come forwards!’ the Emperor gravely said.

The Gold Stick came forwards. ‘I attended on His Imperial Fatness,’ was the statement made by the trembling official. ‘I told him of the Lecture and the Banquet—.’

‘What followed?’ said the Emperor: for the unhappy man seemed almost too frightened to go on.

‘His Imperial Fatness was graciously pleased to be sulky. His Imperial Fatness was graciously pleased to box my ears. His Imperial Fatness was graciously pleased to say "I don’t care!" ‘

‘ "Don’t-care" came to a bad end,’ Sylvie whispered to Bruno. ‘I’m not sure, but I believe he was hanged.’

The Professor overheard her. ‘That result,’ he blandly remarked, ‘was merely a case of mistaken identity.’

Both children looked puzzled.

‘Permit me to explain. "Don’t-care" and "Care" were twin-brothers. "Care", you know, killed the Cat. And they caught "Don’t-care" by mistake, and hanged him instead. And so "Care" is alive still. But he’s very unhappy without his brother. That’s why they say "Begone, dull Care!" ‘

‘Thank you!’ Sylvie said, heartily. ‘It’s very extremely interesting. Why, it seems to explain everything!’

‘Well, not quite everything,’ the Professor modestly rejoined. ‘There are two or three scientific difficulties—’

‘What was your general impression as to His Imperial Fatness?’ the Emperor asked the Gold Stick.

‘My impression was that His Imperial Fatness was getting more—’

‘More what?’

All listened breathlessly for the next word.

‘More PRICKLY!’

‘He must be sent for at once!’ the Emperor exclaimed. And the Gold Stick went off like a shot. The Elfin-King sadly shook his head. ‘No use, no use!’ he murmured to himself. ‘Loveless, loveless!’

Pale, trembling, speechless, the Gold Stick came slowly back again.

‘Well?’ said the Emperor. ‘Why does not the Prince appear?’

‘One can easily guess,’ said the Professor. ‘His Imperial Fatness is, without doubt, a little preoccupied.’

Bruno turned a look of solemn enquiry on his old friend. ‘What do that word mean?’

But the Professor took no notice of the question. He was eagerly listening to the Gold Stick’s reply.

‘Please your Highness! His Imperial Fatness is—’ Not a word more could he utter.

The Empress rose in an agony of alarm. ‘Let us go to him!’ she cried. And there was a general rush for the door.

Bruno slipped off his chair in a moment. ‘May we go too?’ he eagerly asked. But the King did not hear the question, as the Professor was speaking to him. ‘Preoccupied, your Majesty!’ he was saying. ‘That is what he is, no doubt!’

‘May we go and see him?’ Bruno repeated. The King nodded assent, and the children ran off. In a minute or two they returned, slowly and gravely. ‘Well?’ said the King. ‘What’s the matter with the Prince?’

‘He’s—what you said,’ Bruno replied looking at the Professor. ‘That hard word.’ And he looked to Sylvie for assistance.

‘Porcupine,’ said Sylvie.

‘No, no!’ the Professor corrected her. ‘ "Pre-occupied", you mean.’

‘No, it’s porcupine,’ persisted Sylvie. ‘Not that other word at all. And please will you come? The house is all in an uproar.’

(‘And oo’d better bring an uproar-glass wiz oo!’ added Bruno.)

We got up in great haste, and followed the children upstairs. No one took the least notice of me, but I wasn’t at all surprised at this, as I had long realized that I was quite invisible to them all—even to Sylvie and Bruno.

All along the gallery, that led to the Prince’s apartment, an excited crowd was surging to and fro, and the Babel of voices was deafening: against the door of the room three strong men were leaning, vainly trying to shut it—for some great animal inside was constantly bursting it half open, and we had a glimpse, before the men could push it back again, of the head of a furious wild beast, with great fiery eyes and gnashing teeth. Its voice was a sort of mixture—there was the roaring of a lion, and the bellowing of a bull, and now and then a scream like a gigantic parrot. ‘There is no judging by the voice!’ the Professor cried in great excitement. ‘What is it?’ he shouted to the men at the door. And a general chorus of voices answered him ‘Porcupine!

Prince Uggug has turned into a Porcupine!’

‘A new Specimen!’ exclaimed the delighted Professor. ‘Pray let me go in. It should be labeled at once!’

But the strong men only pushed him back. ‘Label it, indeed! Do you want to be eaten up?’ they cried.

‘Never mind about Specimens, Professor!’ said the Emperor, pushing his way through the crowd. ‘Tell us how to keep him safe!’

‘A large cage!’ the Professor promptly replied. ‘Bring a large cage,’ he said to the people generally, ‘with strong bars of steel, and a portcullis made to go up and down like a mouse-trap! Does anyone happen to have such a thing about him?’

It didn’t sound a likely sort of thing for anyone to have about him; however, they brought him one directly: curiously enough, there happened to be one standing in the gallery.

‘Put it facing the opening of the door, and draw up the portcullis!’ This was done in a moment.

‘Blankets now!’ cried the Professor. ‘This is a most interesting Experiment!’

There happened to be a pile of blankets close by: and the Professor had hardly said the word, when they were all unfolded and held up like curtains all around. The Professor rapidly arranged them in two rows, so as to make a dark passage, leading straight from the door to the mouth of the cage.

‘Now fling the door open!’ This did not need to be done: the three men had only to leap out of the way, and the fearful monster flung the door open for itself, and, with a yell like the whistle of a steam-engine, rushed into the cage.

‘Down with the portcullis!’ No sooner said than done: and all breathed freely once more, on seeing the Porcupine safely caged.

The Professor rubbed his hands in childish delight. ‘The Experiment has succeeded!’ he proclaimed. ‘All that is needed now is to feed it three times a day, on chopped carrots and—’

‘Never mind about its food, just now!’ the Emperor interrupted. ‘Let us return to the Banquet. Brother, will you lead the way?’

And the old man, attended by his children, headed the procession down stairs. ‘See the fate of a loveless life!’ he said to Bruno, as they returned to their places. To which Bruno made reply, ‘I always loved Sylvie. so I’ll never get prickly like that!’

‘He is prickly, certainly,’ said the Professor, who had caught the last words, ‘but we must remember that, however porcupiny, he is royal still! After this feast is over, I’m going to take a little present to Prince Uggug—just to soothe him, you know: it isn’t pleasant living in a cage.’

‘What’ll you give him for a birthday-present?’ Bruno enquired.

‘A small saucer of chopped carrots,’ replied the Professor. ‘In giving birthday-presents, my motto is—cheapness! I should think I save forty pounds a year by giving—oh, what a twinge of pain!’

‘What is it?’ said Sylvie anxiously.

‘My old enemy!’ groaned the Professor. ‘Lumbago—rheumatism—that sort of thing. I think I’ll go and lie down a bit.’ And he hobbled out of the Saloon, watched by the pitying eyes of the two children.

‘He’ll be better soon!’ the Elfin-King said cheerily. ‘Brother!’ turning to the Emperor, ‘I have some business to arrange with you to-night. The Empress will take care of the children.’ And the two Brothers went away together, arm-in-arm.

The Empress found the children rather sad company. They could talk of nothing but ‘the dear Professor’, and ‘what a pity he’s so ill’, till at last she made the welcome proposal ‘Let’s go and see him!’

The children eagerly grasped the hands she offered them: and we went off to the Professor’s study, and found him lying on the sofa, covered up with blankets, and reading a little manuscript-book. ‘Notes on Vol. Three!’ he murmured, looking up at us.

And there, on a table near him, lay the book he was seeking when first I saw him.

‘And how are you now, Professor?’ the Empress asked, bending over the invalid.

The Professor looked up, and smiled feebly. ‘As devoted to your Imperial Highness as ever!’ he said in a weak voice. ‘All of me, that is not Lumbago, is Loyalty!’

‘A sweet sentiment!’ the Empress exclaimed with tears in her eyes. ‘You seldom hear anything so beautiful as that—even in a Valentine!’

‘We must take you to stay at the seaside,’ Sylvie said, tenderly. ‘It’ll do you ever so much good! And the Sea’s so grand!’

‘But a Mountain’s grander!’ said Bruno.

‘What is there grand about the Sea?’ said the Professor. ‘Why, you could put it all into a teacup!’

‘Some of it,’ Sylvie corrected him.

‘Well, you’d only want a certain number of teacups to hold it all. And then where’s the grandeur? Then as to a Mountain—why, you could carry it all away in a wheel-barrow, in a certain number of years!’

‘It wouldn’t look grand—the bits of it in the wheel-barrow,’ Sylvie candidly admitted.

‘But when oo put it together again—’ Bruno began.

‘When you’re older,’ said the Professor, ‘you’ll know that you ca’n’t put Mountains together again so easily! One lives and one learns, you know!’

‘But it needn’t be the same one, need it?’ said Bruno. ‘Wo’n’t it do, if I live, and if Sylvie learns?’

‘I ca’n’t learn without living!’ said Sylvie.

‘But I can live without learning!’ Bruno retorted. ‘Oo just try me!’

‘What I meant, was—’ the Professor began, looking much puzzled, ‘—was—that you don’t know everything, you know.’

‘But I do know everything I know!’ persisted the little fellow. ‘I know ever so many things! Everything, ‘cept the things I don’t know. And Sylvie knows all the rest.’

The Professor sighed, and gave it up. ‘Do you know what a Boojum is?’

‘I know!’ cried Bruno. ‘It’s the thing what wrenches people out of their boots!’

‘He means "bootjack",’ Sylvie explained in a whisper.

‘You ca’n’t wrench people out of boots,’ the Professor mildly observed.

Bruno laughed saucily. ‘Oo can, though! Unless they’re welly tight in.’

‘Once upon a time there was a Boojum—’ the Professor began, but stopped suddenly. ‘I forget the rest of the Fable,’ he said.

‘And there was a lesson to be learned from it. I’m afraid I forget that too.’

‘I’ll tell oo a Fable!’ Bruno began in a great hurry. ‘Once there were a Locust, and a Magpie, and a Engine-driver. And the Lesson is, to learn to get up early—’

‘it isn’t a bit interesting!’ Sylvie said contemptuously. ‘You shouldn’t put the Lesson so soon.’

‘When did you invent that Fable?’ said the Professor. ‘Last week?’

‘No!’ said Bruno. ‘A deal shorter ago than that. Guess again!’

‘I ca’n’t guess,’ said the Professor. ‘How long ago?’

‘Why, it isn’t invented yet!’ Bruno exclaimed triumphantly. ‘But I have invented a lovely one! Shall I say it?’

‘If you’ve finished inventing it,’ said Sylvie. ‘And let the Lesson be "to try again"!’

‘No,’ said Bruno with great decision. ‘The Lesson are "not to try again"! Once there were a lovely china man, what stood on the chimbley-piece. And he stood, and he stood. And one day he tumbleded off, and he didn’t hurt his self one bit. Only he would try again. And the next time he tumbleded off, he hurted his self welly much, and breaked off ever so much varnish.’

‘But how did he come back on the chimney-piece after his first tumble?’ said the Empress. (It was the first sensible question she had asked in all her life.)

‘I put him there!’ cried Bruno.

‘Then I’m afraid you know something about his tumbling,’ said the Professor. ‘Perhaps you pushed him?’

To which Bruno replied, very seriously, ‘Didn’t pushed him much—he were a lovely china man,’ he added hastily, evidently very anxious to change the subject.

‘Come, my children!’ said the Elfin-King, who had just entered the room. ‘We must have a little chat together, before you go to bed.’ And he was leading them away, but at the door they let go his hands, and ran back again to wish the Professor good night.

‘Good night, Professor, good night!’ And Bruno solemnly shook hands with the old man, who gazed at him with a loving smile, while Sylvie bent down to press her sweet lips upon his forehead.

‘Good night, little ones!’ said the Professor. ‘You may leave me now—to ruminate. I’m as jolly as the day is long, except when it’s necessary to ruminate on some very difficult subject. All of me,’ he murmured sleepily as we left the room, ‘all of me, that isn’t Bonhommie, is Rumination!’

‘What did he say, Bruno?’ Sylvie enquired, as soon as we were safely out of hearing.

‘I think he said "All of me that isn’t Bone-disease is Rheumatism." Whatever are that knocking, Sylvie?’

Sylvie stopped, and listened anxiously. It sounded like some one kicking at a door. ‘I hope it isn’t that Porcupine breaking loose!’ she exclaimed.

‘Let’s go on!’ Bruno said hastily. ‘There’s nuffin to wait for, oo know!’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

LIFE OUT OF DEATH

THE sound of kicking, or knocking, grew louder every moment: and at last a door opened somewhere near us. ‘Did you say "come in!" Sir?’ my landlady asked timidly.

‘Oh yes, come in!’ I replied. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘A note has just been left for you, Sir, by the baker’s boy. He said he was passing the Hall, and they asked him to come round and leave it here.’

The note contained five words only. ‘Please come at once. Muriel.’

A sudden terror seemed to chill my very heart. ‘The Earl is ill!’ I said to myself. ‘Dying, perhaps!’ And I hastily prepared to leave the house.

‘No bad news, Sir, I hope?’ my landlady said, as she saw me out. ‘The boy said as some one had arrived unexpectedly—’

‘I hope that is it!’ I said. But my feelings were those of fear rather than of hope: though, on entering the house, I was somewhat reassured by finding luggage lying in the entrance, bearing the initials ‘E.L.’

‘It’s only Eric Lindon after all!’ I thought, half relieved and half annoyed. ‘Surely she need not have sent for me for that!’

Lady Muriel met me in the passage. Her eyes were gleaming—but it was the excitement of joy, rather than of grief. ‘I have a surprise for you!’ she whispered.

‘You mean that Eric Lindon is here?’ I said, vainly trying to disguise the involuntary bitterness of my tone. ‘"The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage-tables,"‘ I could not help repeating to myself. How cruelly I was misjudging her!

‘No, no!’ she eagerly replied. ‘At least—Eric is here. But—’ her voice quivered, ‘but there is another!’

No need for further question. I eagerly followed her in. There on the bed, he lay—pale and worn—the mere shadow of his old self—my old friend come back again from the dead!

‘Arthur!’ I exclaimed. I could not say another word.

‘Yes, back again, old boy!’ he murmured, smiling as I grasped his hand. ‘He,’ indicating Eric, who stood near, ‘saved my life—He brought me back. Next to God, we must thank him, Muriel, my wife!’

Silently I shook hands with Eric, and with the Earl: and with one consent we moved into the shaded side of the room, where we could talk without disturbing the invalid, who lay, silent and happy, holding his wife’s hand in his, and watching her with eyes that shone with the deep steady light of Love.

‘He has been delirious till to-day,’ Eric explained in a low voice: ‘and even to-day he has been wandering more than once. But the sight of her has been new life to him.’ And then he went on to tell us, in would-be careless tones—I knew how he hated any display of feeling—how he had insisted on going back to the plague-stricken town, to bring away a man whom the doctor had abandoned as dying, but who might, he fancied, recover if brought to the hospital: how he had seen nothing in the wasted features to remind him of Arthur, and only recognized him when he visited the hospital a month after: how the doctor had forbidden him to announce the discovery, saying that any shock to the over-taxed brain might kill him at once: how he had stayed on at the hospital, and nursed the sick man by night and day—all this with the studied indifference of one who is relating the commonplace acts of some chance acquaintance!

‘And this was his rival!’ I thought. ‘The man who had won from him the heart of the woman he loved!’

‘The sun is setting,’ said Lady Muriel, rising and leading the way to the open window. ‘Just look at the western sky! What lovely crimson tints! We shall have a glorious day to-morrow—’ We had followed her across the room, and were standing in a little group, talking in low tones in the gathering gloom, when we were startled by the voice of the sick man, murmuring words too indistinct for the ear to catch.

‘He is wandering again,’ Lady Muriel whispered, and returned to the bedside. We drew a little nearer also: but no, this had none of the incoherence of delirium. ‘What reward shall I give unto the Lord,’ the tremulous lips were saying, ‘for all the benefits that He hath done unto me? I will receive the cup of salvation, and call—and call—’ but here the poor weakened memory failed, and the feeble voice died into silence.

His wife knelt down at the bedside, raised one of his arms, and drew it across her own, fondly kissing the thin white hand that lay so listlessly in her loving grasp. It seemed to me a good opportunity for stealing away without making her go through any form of parting: so, nodding to the Earl and Eric, I silently left the room. Eric followed me down the stairs, and out into the night.

‘Is it Life or Death?’ I asked him, as soon as we were far enough from the house for me to speak in ordinary tones.

‘It is Life!’ he replied with eager emphasis. ‘The doctors are quite agreed as to that. All he needs now, they say, is rest, and perfect quiet, and good nursing. He’s quite sure to get rest and quiet, here: and, as for the nursing, why, I think it’s just possible—’ (he tried hard to make his trembling voice assume a playful tone) ‘he may even get fairly well nursed, in his present quarters!’

‘I’m sure of it!’ I said. ‘Thank you so much for coming out to tell me!’ And, thinking he had now said all he had come to say, I held out my hand to bid him good night. He grasped it warmly, and added, turning his face away as he spoke, ‘By the way, there is one other thing I wanted to say, I thought you’d like to know that—that I’m not—not in the mind I was in when last we met. It isn’t—that I can accept Christian belief—at least, not yet. But all this came about so strangely. And she had prayed, you know. And I had prayed. And—and’ his voice broke, and I could only just catch the concluding words, ‘there is a God that answers prayer! I know it for certain now.’ He wrung my hand once more, and left me suddenly. Never before had I seen him so deeply moved.

So, in the gathering twilight, I paced slowly homewards, in a tumultuous whirl of happy thoughts: my heart seemed full, and running over, with joy and thankfulness: all that I had so fervently longed for, and prayed for, seemed now to have come to pass. And, though I reproached myself, bitterly, for the unworthy suspicion I had for one moment harboured against the true-hearted Lady Muriel, I took comfort in knowing it had been but a passing thought.

Not Bruno himself could have mounted the stairs with so buoyant a step, as I felt my way up in the dark, not pausing to strike a light in the entry, as I knew I had left the lamp burning in my sitting-room.

But it was no common lamplight into which I now stepped, with a strange, new, dreamy sensation of some subtle witchery that had come over the place. Light, richer and more golden than any lamp could give, flooded the room, streaming in from a window I had somehow never noticed before, and lighting up a group of three shadowy figures, that grew momently more distinct—a grave old man in royal robes, leaning back in an easy chair, and two children, a girl and a boy, standing at his side.

‘Have you the Jewel still, my child?’ the old man was saying.

‘Oh, yes!’ Sylvie exclaimed with unusual eagerness.

‘Do you think I’d ever lose it or forget it?’ She undid the ribbon round her neck, as she spoke, and laid the Jewel in her father’s hand.

Bruno looked at it admiringly. ‘What a lovely brightness!’ he said. ‘It’s just like a little red star! May I take it in my hand?’

Sylvie nodded: and Bruno carried it off to the window, and held it aloft against the sky, whose deepening blue was already spangled with stars. Soon he came running back in some excitement. ‘Sylvie! Look here!’ he cried. ‘I can see right through it when I hold it up to the sky. And it isn’t red a bit: it’s, oh such a lovely blue! And the words are all different! Do look at it!’

Sylvie was quite excited, too, by this time; and the two children eagerly held up the Jewel to the light, and spelled out the legend between them, ‘ALL WILL LOVE SYLVIE.’

‘Why, this is the other Jewel!’ cried Bruno. ‘Don’t you remember, Sylvie? The one you didn’t choose!’

Sylvie took it from him, with a puzzled look, and held it, now up to the light, now down. ‘It’s blue, one way,’ she said softly to herself, ‘and it’s red the other way! Why, I thought there were two of them—Father!’ she suddenly exclaimed, laying the Jewel once more in his hand, ‘I do believe it was the same Jewel all the time!’

‘Then you choosed it from itself,’ Bruno thoughtfully remarked. ‘Father, could Sylvie choose a thing from itself?’

‘Yes, my own one,’ the old man replied to Sylvie, not noticing Bruno’s embarrassing question, ‘it was the same Jewel—but you chose quite right.’ And he fastened the ribbon round her neck again.

‘SYLVIE WILL LOVE ALL—ALL WILL LOVE SYLVIE,’ Bruno murmured, raising himself on tiptoe to kiss the ‘little red star’. ‘And, when you look at it, it’s red and fierce like the sun—and, when you look through it, it’s gentle and blue like the sky!’

‘God’s own sky,’ Sylvie said, dreamily.

‘God’s own sky,’ the little fellow repeated, as they stood, lovingly clinging together, and looking out into the night. ‘But oh, Sylvie, what makes the sky such a darling blue?’

Sylvie’s sweet lips shaped themselves to reply, but her voice sounded faint and very far away. The vision was fast slipping from my eager gaze: but it seemed to me, in that last bewildering moment, that not Sylvie but an angel was looking out through those trustful brown eyes, and that not Sylvie’s but an angel’s voice was whispering

‘IT IS LOVE.’

The Short Stories

Carroll, 1854

A TANGLED TALE

This collection of ten humorous stories was published serially between April 1880 and March 1885 in The Monthly Packet magazine. Arthur B. Frost later added illustrations when the series was printed in book form. ‘The tangled’ stories—knots as Carroll calls them—present mathematical problems to the reader. In a later issue, Carroll would provide the solution to a knot and discuss readers' answers. The stories combine an unusual blend of mathematics and humour, producing a genre altogether original.

The original frontispiece.

A TANGLED TALE

To My Pupil.

Beloved pupil! Tamed by thee, Addish-, Subtrac-, Multiplica-tion, Division, Fractions, Rule of Three, Attest thy deft manipulation!

Then onward! Let the voice of Fame From Age to Age repeat thy story, Till thou hast won thyself a name Exceeding even Euclid's glory!

CONTENTS

PREFACE.

KNOT I.

EXCELSIOR.

KNOT II.

ELIGIBLE APARTMENTS.

KNOT III.

MAD MATHESIS.

KNOT IV.

THE DEAD RECKONING.

KNOT V.

OUGHTS AND CROSSES.

KNOT VI.

HER RADIANCY.

KNOT VII.

PETTY CASH.

KNOT VIII.

DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

KNOT IX.

A SERPENT WITH CORNERS.

KNOT X.

CHELSEA BUNS.

APPENDIX.

ANSWERS TO KNOT I.

ANSWERS TO KNOT II.

ANSWERS TO KNOT III.

ANSWERS TO KNOT IV.

ANSWERS TO KNOT V.

ANSWERS TO KNOT VI.

ANSWERS TO KNOT VII.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

ANSWERS TO KNOT VIII.

ANSWERS TO KNOT IX.

ANSWERS TO KNOT X.

PREFACE.

This Tale originally appeared as a serial in The Monthly Packet, beginning in April, 1880. The writer's intention was to embody in each Knot (like the medicine so dexterously, but ineffectually, concealed in the jam of our early childhood) one or more mathematical questions—in Arithmetic, Algebra, or Geometry, as the case might be—for the amusement, and possible edification, of the fair readers of that Magazine.

L. C.

October, 1885.

KNOT I.

EXCELSIOR.

"Goblin, lead them up and down."

The ruddy glow of sunset was already fading into the sombre shadows of night, when two travellers might have been observed swiftly—at a pace of six miles in the hour—descending the rugged side of a mountain; the younger bounding from crag to crag with the agility of a fawn, while his companion, whose aged limbs seemed ill at ease in the heavy chain armour habitually worn by tourists in that district, toiled on painfully at his side.

As is always the case under such circumstances, the younger knight was the first to break the silence.

"A goodly pace, I trow!" he exclaimed. "We sped not thus in the ascent!"

"Goodly, indeed!" the other echoed with a groan. "We clomb it but at three miles in the hour."

"And on the dead level our pace is——?" the younger suggested; for he was weak in statistics, and left all such details to his aged companion.

"Four miles in the hour," the other wearily replied. "Not an ounce more," he added, with that love of metaphor so common in old age, "and not a farthing less!"

"'Twas three hours past high noon when we left our hostelry," the young man said, musingly. "We shall scarce be back by supper-time. Perchance mine host will roundly deny us all food!"

"He will chide our tardy return," was the grave reply, "and such a rebuke will be meet."

"A brave conceit!" cried the other, with a merry laugh. "And should we bid him bring us yet another course, I trow his answer will be tart!"

"We shall but get our deserts," sighed the elder knight, who had never seen a joke in his life, and was somewhat displeased at his companion's untimely levity. "'Twill be nine of the clock," he added in an undertone, "by the time we regain our hostelry. Full many a mile shall we have plodded this day!"

"How many? How many?" cried the eager youth, ever athirst for knowledge.

The old man was silent.

"Tell me," he answered, after a moment's thought, "what time it was when we stood together on yonder peak. Not exact to the minute!" he added hastily, reading a protest in the young man's face. "An' thy guess be within one poor half-hour of the mark, 'tis all I ask of thy mother's son! Then will I tell thee, true to the last inch, how far we shall have trudged betwixt three and nine of the clock."

A groan was the young man's only reply; while his convulsed features and the deep wrinkles that chased each other across his manly brow, revealed the abyss of arithmetical agony into which one chance question had plunged him.

KNOT II.

ELIGIBLE APARTMENTS.

"Straight down the crooked lane, And all round the square."

"Let's ask Balbus about it," said Hugh.

"All right," said Lambert.

"He can guess it," said Hugh.

"Rather," said Lambert.

No more words were needed: the two brothers understood each other perfectly.

"BALBUS WAS ASSISTING HIS MOTHER-IN-LAW TO CONVINCE THE DRAGON."

Balbus was waiting for them at the hotel: the journey down had tired him, he said: so his two pupils had been the round of the place, in search of lodgings, without the old tutor who had been their inseparable companion from their childhood. They had named him after the hero of their Latin exercise-book, which overflowed with anecdotes of that versatile genius—anecdotes whose vagueness in detail was more than compensated by their sensational brilliance. "Balbus has overcome all his enemies" had been marked by their tutor, in the margin of the book, "Successful Bravery." In this way he had tried to extract a moral from every anecdote about Balbus—sometimes one of warning, as in "Balbus had borrowed a healthy dragon," against which he had written "Rashness in Speculation"—sometimes of encouragement, as in the words "Influence of Sympathy in United Action," which stood opposite to the anecdote "Balbus was assisting his mother-in-law to convince the dragon"—and sometimes it dwindled down to a single word, such as "Prudence," which was all he could extract from the touching record that "Balbus, having scorched the tail of the dragon, went away." His pupils liked the short morals best, as it left them more room for marginal illustrations, and in this instance they required all the space they could get to exhibit the rapidity of the hero's departure.

Their report of the state of things was discouraging. That most fashionable of watering-places, Little Mendip, was "chockfull" (as the boys expressed it) from end to end. But in one Square they had seen no less than four cards, in different houses, all announcing in flaming capitals "ELIGIBLE APARTMENTS." "So there's plenty of choice, after all, you see," said spokesman Hugh in conclusion.

"That doesn't follow from the data," said Balbus, as he rose from the easy chair, where he had been dozing over The Little Mendip Gazette. "They may be all single rooms. However, we may as well see them. I shall be glad to stretch my legs a bit."

An unprejudiced bystander might have objected that the operation was needless, and that this long, lank creature would have been all the better with even shorter legs: but no such thought occurred to his loving pupils. One on each side, they did their best to keep up with his gigantic strides, while Hugh repeated the sentence in their father's letter, just received from abroad, over which he and Lambert had been puzzling. "He says a friend of his, the Governor of——what was that name again, Lambert?" ("Kgovjni," said Lambert.) "Well, yes. The Governor of——what-you-may-call-it——wants to give a very small dinner-party, and he means to ask his father's brother-in-law, his brother's father-in-law, his father-in-law's brother, and his brother-in-law's father: and we're to guess how many guests there will be."

There was an anxious pause. "How large did he say the pudding was to be?" Balbus said at last. "Take its cubical contents, divide by the cubical contents of what each man can eat, and the quotient——"

"He didn't say anything about pudding," said Hugh, "—and here's the Square," as they turned a corner and came into sight of the "eligible apartments."

"It is a Square!" was Balbus' first cry of delight, as he gazed around him. "Beautiful! Beau-ti-ful! Equilateral! And rectangular!"

The boys looked round with less enthusiasm. "Number nine is the first with a card," said prosaic Lambert; but Balbus would not so soon awake from his dream of beauty.

"See, boys!" he cried. "Twenty doors on a side! What symmetry! Each side divided into twenty-one equal parts! It's delicious!"

"Shall I knock, or ring?" said Hugh, looking in some perplexity at a square brass plate which bore the simple inscription "RING ALSO."

"Both," said Balbus. "That's an Ellipsis, my boy. Did you never see an Ellipsis before?"

"I couldn't hardly read it," said Hugh, evasively. "It's no good having an Ellipsis, if they don't keep it clean."

"Which there is one room, gentlemen," said the smiling landlady. "And a sweet room too! As snug a little back-room——"

"We will see it," said Balbus gloomily, as they followed her in. "I knew how it would be! One room in each house! No view, I suppose?"

"Which indeed there is, gentlemen!" the landlady indignantly protested, as she drew up the blind, and indicated the back garden.

"Cabbages, I perceive," said Balbus. "Well, they're green, at any rate."

"Which the greens at the shops," their hostess explained, "are by no means dependable upon. Here you has them on the premises, and of the best."

"Does the window open?" was always Balbus' first question in testing a lodging: and "Does the chimney smoke?" his second. Satisfied on all points, he secured the refusal of the room, and they moved on to Number Twenty-five.

This landlady was grave and stern. "I've nobbut one room left," she told them: "and it gives on the back-gyardin."

"But there are cabbages?" Balbus suggested.

The landlady visibly relented. "There is, sir," she said: "and good ones, though I say it as shouldn't. We can't rely on the shops for greens. So we grows them ourselves."

"A singular advantage," said Balbus: and, after the usual questions, they went on to Fifty-two.

"And I'd gladly accommodate you all, if I could," was the greeting that met them. "We are but mortal," ("Irrelevant!" muttered Balbus) "and I've let all my rooms but one."

"Which one is a back-room, I perceive," said Balbus: "and looking out on—on cabbages, I presume?"

"Yes, indeed, sir!" said their hostess. "Whatever other folks may do, we grows our own. For the shops——"

"An excellent arrangement!" Balbus interrupted. "Then one can really depend on their being good. Does the window open?"

The usual questions were answered satisfactorily: but this time Hugh added one of his own invention—"Does the cat scratch?"

The landlady looked round suspiciously, as if to make sure the cat was not listening, "I will not deceive you, gentlemen," she said. "It do scratch, but not without you pulls its whiskers! It'll never do it," she repeated slowly, with a visible effort to recall the exact words of some written agreement between herself and the cat, "without you pulls its whiskers!"

"Much may be excused in a cat so treated," said Balbus, as they left the house and crossed to Number Seventy-three, leaving the landlady curtseying on the doorstep, and still murmuring to herself her parting words, as if they were a form of blessing, "—— not without you pulls its whiskers!"

At Number Seventy-three they found only a small shy girl to show the house, who said "yes'm" in answer to all questions.

"The usual room," said Balbus, as they marched in: "the usual back-garden, the usual cabbages. I suppose you can't get them good at the shops?"

"Yes'm," said the girl.

"Well, you may tell your mistress we will take the room, and that her plan of growing her own cabbages is simply admirable!"

"Yes'm," said the girl, as she showed them out.

"One day-room and three bed-rooms," said Balbus, as they returned to the hotel. "We will take as our day-room the one that gives us the least walking to do to get to it."

"Must we walk from door to door, and count the steps?" said Lambert.

"No, no! Figure it out, my boys, figure it out!" Balbus gaily exclaimed, as he put pens, ink, and paper before his hapless pupils, and left the room.

"I say! It'll be a job!" said Hugh.

"Rather!" said Lambert.

KNOT III.

MAD MATHESIS.

"I waited for the train."

"Well, they call me so because I am a little mad, I suppose," she said, good-humouredly, in answer to Clara's cautiously-worded question as to how she came by so strange a nick-name. "You see, I never do what sane people are expected to do now-a-days. I never wear long trains, (talking of trains, that's the Charing Cross Metropolitan Station—I've something to tell you about that), and I never play lawn-tennis. I can't cook an omelette. I can't even set a broken limb! There's an ignoramus for you!"

Clara was her niece, and full twenty years her junior; in fact, she was still attending a High School—an institution of which Mad Mathesis spoke with undisguised aversion. "Let a woman be meek and lowly!" she would say. "None of your High Schools for me!" But it was vacation-time just now, and Clara was her guest, and Mad Mathesis was showing her the sights of that Eighth Wonder of the world—London.

"The Charing Cross Metropolitan Station!" she resumed, waving her hand towards the entrance as if she were introducing her niece to a friend. "The Bayswater and Birmingham Extension is just completed, and the trains now run round and round continuously—skirting the border of Wales, just touching at York, and so round by the east coast back to London. The way the trains run is most peculiar. The westerly ones go round in two hours; the easterly ones take three; but they always manage to start two trains from here, opposite ways, punctually every quarter-of-an-hour."

"They part to meet again," said Clara, her eyes filling with tears at the romantic thought.

"No need to cry about it!" her aunt grimly remarked. "They don't meet on the same line of rails, you know. Talking of meeting, an idea strikes me!" she added, changing the subject with her usual abruptness. "Let's go opposite ways round, and see which can meet most trains. No need for a chaperon—ladies' saloon, you know. You shall go whichever way you like, and we'll have a bet about it!"

"I never make bets," Clara said very gravely. "Our excellent preceptress has often warned us——"

"You'd be none the worse if you did!" Mad Mathesis interrupted. "In fact, you'd be the better, I'm certain!"

"Neither does our excellent preceptress approve of puns," said Clara. "But we'll have a match, if you like. Let me choose my train," she added after a brief mental calculation, "and I'll engage to meet exactly half as many again as you do."

"Not if you count fair," Mad Mathesis bluntly interrupted. "Remember, we only count the trains we meet on the way. You mustn't count the one that starts as you start, nor the one that arrives as you arrive."

"That will only make the difference of one train," said Clara, as they turned and entered the station. "But I never travelled alone before. There'll be no one to help me to alight. However, I don't mind. Let's have a match."

A ragged little boy overheard her remark, and came running after her. "Buy a box of cigar-lights, Miss!" he pleaded, pulling her shawl to attract her attention. Clara stopped to explain.

"I never smoke cigars," she said in a meekly apologetic tone. "Our excellent preceptress——," but Mad Mathesis impatiently hurried her on, and the little boy was left gazing after her with round eyes of amazement.

The two ladies bought their tickets and moved slowly down the central platform, Mad Mathesis prattling on as usual—Clara silent, anxiously reconsidering the calculation on which she rested her hopes of winning the match.

"Mind where you go, dear!" cried her aunt, checking her just in time. "One step more, and you'd have been in that pail of cold water!"

"I know, I know," Clara said, dreamily. "The pale, the cold, and the moony——"

"Take your places on the spring-boards!" shouted a porter.

"What are they for!" Clara asked in a terrified whisper.

"Merely to help us into the trains." The elder lady spoke with the nonchalance of one quite used to the process. "Very few people can get into a carriage without help in less than three seconds, and the trains only stop for one second." At this moment the whistle was heard, and two trains rushed into the station. A moment's pause, and they were gone again; but in that brief interval several hundred passengers had been shot into them, each flying straight to his place with the accuracy of a Minie bullet—while an equal number were showered out upon the side-platforms.

Three hours had passed away, and the two friends met again on the Charing Cross platform, and eagerly compared notes. Then Clara turned away with a sigh. To young impulsive hearts, like hers, disappointment is always a bitter pill. Mad Mathesis followed her, full of kindly sympathy.

"Try again, my love!" she said, cheerily. "Let us vary the experiment. We will start as we did before, but not to begin counting till our trains meet. When we see each other, we will say 'One!' and so count on till we come here again."

Clara brightened up. "I shall win that," she exclaimed eagerly, "if I may choose my train!"

Another shriek of engine whistles, another upheaving of spring-boards, another living avalanche plunging into two trains as they flashed by: and the travellers were off again.

Each gazed eagerly from her carriage window, holding up her handkerchief as a signal to her friend. A rush and a roar. Two trains shot past each other in a tunnel, and two travellers leaned back in their corners with a sigh—or rather with two sighs—of relief. "One!" Clara murmured to herself. "Won! It's a word of good omen. This time, at any rate, the victory will be mine!"

But was it?

KNOT IV.

THE DEAD RECKONING.

"I did dream of money-bags to-night."

Noonday on the open sea within a few degrees of the Equator is apt to be oppressively warm; and our two travellers were now airily clad in suits of dazzling white linen, having laid aside the chain-armour which they had found not only endurable in the cold mountain air they had lately been breathing, but a necessary precaution against the daggers of the banditti who infested the heights. Their holiday-trip was over, and they were now on their way home, in the monthly packet which plied between the two great ports of the island they had been exploring.

Along with their armour, the tourists had laid aside the antiquated speech it had pleased them to affect while in knightly disguise, and had returned to the ordinary style of two country gentlemen of the Twentieth Century.

Stretched on a pile of cushions, under the shade of a huge umbrella, they were lazily watching some native fishermen, who had come on board at the last landing-place, each carrying over his shoulder a small but heavy sack. A large weighing-machine, that had been used for cargo at the last port, stood on the deck; and round this the fishermen had gathered, and, with much unintelligible jabber, seemed to be weighing their sacks.

"More like sparrows in a tree than human talk, isn't it?" the elder tourist remarked to his son, who smiled feebly, but would not exert himself so far as to speak. The old man tried another listener.

"What have they got in those sacks, Captain?" he inquired, as that great being passed them in his never ending parade to and fro on the deck.

The Captain paused in his march, and towered over the travellers—tall, grave, and serenely self-satisfied.

"Fishermen," he explained, "are often passengers in My ship. These five are from Mhruxi—the place we last touched at—and that's the way they carry their money. The money of this island is heavy, gentlemen, but it costs little, as you may guess. We buy it from them by weight—about five shillings a pound. I fancy a ten pound-note would buy all those sacks."

By this time the old man had closed his eyes—in order, no doubt, to concentrate his thoughts on these interesting facts; but the Captain failed to realise his motive, and with a grunt resumed his monotonous march.

Meanwhile the fishermen were getting so noisy over the weighing-machine that one of the sailors took the precaution of carrying off all the weights, leaving them to amuse themselves with such substitutes in the form of winch-handles, belaying-pins, &c., as they could find. This brought their excitement to a speedy end: they carefully hid their sacks in the folds of the jib that lay on the deck near the tourists, and strolled away.

When next the Captain's heavy footfall passed, the younger man roused himself to speak.

"What did you call the place those fellows came from, Captain?" he asked.

"Mhruxi, sir."

"And the one we are bound for?"

The Captain took a long breath, plunged into the word, and came out of it nobly. "They call it Kgovjni, sir."

"K—I give it up!" the young man faintly said.

He stretched out his hand for a glass of iced water which the compassionate steward had brought him a minute ago, and had set down, unluckily, just outside the shadow of the umbrella. It was scalding hot, and he decided not to drink it. The effort of making this resolution, coming close on the fatiguing conversation he had just gone through, was too much for him: he sank back among the cushions in silence.

His father courteously tried to make amends for his nonchalance.

"Whereabouts are we now, Captain?" said he, "Have you any idea?"

The Captain cast a pitying look on the ignorant landsman. "I could tell you that, sir," he said, in a tone of lofty condescension, "to an inch!"

"You don't say so!" the old man remarked, in a tone of languid surprise.

"And mean so," persisted the Captain. "Why, what do you suppose would become of My ship, if I were to lose My Longitude and My Latitude? Could you make anything of My Dead Reckoning?"

"Nobody could, I'm sure!" the other heartily rejoined.

But he had overdone it.

"It's perfectly intelligible," the Captain said, in an offended tone, "to any one that understands such things." With these words he moved away, and began giving orders to the men, who were preparing to hoist the jib.

Our tourists watched the operation with such interest that neither of them remembered the five money-bags, which in another moment, as the wind filled out the jib, were whirled overboard and fell heavily into the sea.

But the poor fishermen had not so easily forgotten their property. In a moment they had rushed to the spot, and stood uttering cries of fury, and pointing, now to the sea, and now to the sailors who had caused the disaster.

The old man explained it to the Captain.

"Let us make it up among us," he added in conclusion. "Ten pounds will do it, I think you said?"

But the Captain put aside the suggestion with a wave of the hand.

"No, sir!" he said, in his grandest manner. "You will excuse Me, I am sure; but these are My passengers. The accident has happened on board My ship, and under My orders. It is for Me to make compensation." He turned to the angry fishermen. "Come here, my men!" he said, in the Mhruxian dialect. "Tell me the weight of each sack. I saw you weighing them just now."

Then ensued a perfect Babel of noise, as the five natives explained, all screaming together, how the sailors had carried off the weights, and they had done what they could with whatever came handy.

Two iron belaying-pins, three blocks, six holystones, four winch-handles, and a large hammer, were now carefully weighed, the Captain superintending and noting the results. But the matter did not seem to be settled, even then: an angry discussion followed, in which the sailors and the five natives all joined: and at last the Captain approached our tourists with a disconcerted look, which he tried to conceal under a laugh.

"It's an absurd difficulty," he said. "Perhaps one of you gentlemen can suggest something. It seems they weighed the sacks two at a time!"

"If they didn't have five separate weighings, of course you can't value them separately," the youth hastily decided.

"Let's hear all about it," was the old man's more cautious remark.

"They did have five separate weighings," the Captain said, "but—Well, it beats me entirely!" he added, in a sudden burst of candour. "Here's the result. First and second sack weighed twelve pounds; second and third, thirteen and a half; third and fourth, eleven and a half; fourth and fifth, eight: and then they say they had only the large hammer left, and it took three sacks to weigh it down—that's the first, third and fifth—and they weighed sixteen pounds. There, gentlemen! Did you ever hear anything like that?"

The old man muttered under his breath "If only my sister were here!" and looked helplessly at his son. His son looked at the five natives. The five natives looked at the Captain. The Captain looked at nobody: his eyes were cast down, and he seemed to be saying softly to himself "Contemplate one another, gentlemen, if such be your good pleasure. I contemplate Myself!"

KNOT V.

OUGHTS AND CROSSES.

"Look here, upon this picture, and on this."

"And what made you choose the first train, Goosey?" said Mad Mathesis, as they got into the cab. "Couldn't you count better than that?"

"I took an extreme case," was the tearful reply. "Our excellent preceptress always says 'When in doubt, my dears, take an extreme case.' And I was in doubt."

"Does it always succeed?" her aunt enquired.

Clara sighed. "Not always," she reluctantly admitted. "And I can't make out why. One day she was telling the little girls—they make such a noise at tea, you know—'The more noise you make, the less jam you will have, and vice versâ.' And I thought they wouldn't know what 'vice versâ' meant: so I explained it to them. I said 'If you make an infinite noise, you'll get no jam: and if you make no noise, you'll get an infinite lot of jam.' But our excellent preceptress said that wasn't a good instance. Why wasn't it?" she added plaintively.

Her aunt evaded the question. "One sees certain objections to it," she said. "But how did you work it with the Metropolitan trains? None of them go infinitely fast, I believe."

"I called them hares and tortoises," Clara said—a little timidly, for she dreaded being laughed at. "And I thought there couldn't be so many hares as tortoises on the Line: so I took an extreme case—one hare and an infinite number of tortoises."

"An extreme case, indeed," her aunt remarked with admirable gravity: "and a most dangerous state of things!"

"And I thought, if I went with a tortoise, there would be only one hare to meet: but if I went with the hare—you know there were crowds of tortoises!"

"It wasn't a bad idea," said the elder lady, as they left the cab, at the entrance of Burlington House. "You shall have another chance to-day. We'll have a match in marking pictures."

Clara brightened up. "I should like to try again, very much," she said. "I'll take more care this time. How are we to play?"

To this question Mad Mathesis made no reply: she was busy drawing lines down the margins of the catalogue. "See," she said after a minute, "I've drawn three columns against the names of the pictures in the long room, and I want you to fill them with oughts and crosses—crosses for good marks and oughts for bad. The first column is for choice of subject, the second for arrangement, the third for colouring. And these are the conditions of the match. You must give three crosses to two or three pictures. You must give two crosses to four or five——"

"Do you mean only two crosses?" said Clara. "Or may I count the three-cross pictures among the two-cross pictures?"

"Of course you may," said her aunt. "Any one, that has three eyes, may be said to have two eyes, I suppose?"

Clara followed her aunt's dreamy gaze across the crowded gallery, half-dreading to find that there was a three-eyed person in sight.

"And you must give one cross to nine or ten."

"And which wins the match?" Clara asked, as she carefully entered these conditions on a blank leaf in her catalogue.

"Whichever marks fewest pictures."

"But suppose we marked the same number?"

"Then whichever uses most marks."

Clara considered. "I don't think it's much of a match," she said. "I shall mark nine pictures, and give three crosses to three of them, two crosses to two more, and one cross each to all the rest."

"Will you, indeed?" said her aunt. "Wait till you've heard all the conditions, my impetuous child. You must give three oughts to one or two pictures, two oughts to three or four, and one ought to eight or nine. I don't want you to be too hard on the R.A.'s."

Clara quite gasped as she wrote down all these fresh conditions. "It's a great deal worse than Circulating Decimals!" she said. "But I'm determined to win, all the same!"

Her aunt smiled grimly. "We can begin here," she said, as they paused before a gigantic picture, which the catalogue informed them was the "Portrait of Lieutenant Brown, mounted on his favorite elephant."

"He looks awfully conceited!" said Clara. "I don't think he was the elephant's favorite Lieutenant. What a hideous picture it is! And it takes up room enough for twenty!"

"Mind what you say, my dear!" her aunt interposed. "It's by an R.A.!"

But Clara was quite reckless. "I don't care who it's by!" she cried. "And I shall give it three bad marks!"

Aunt and niece soon drifted away from each other in the crowd, and for the next half-hour Clara was hard at work, putting in marks and rubbing them out again, and hunting up and down for suitable pictures. This she found the hardest part of all. "I can't find the one I want!" she exclaimed at last, almost crying with vexation.

"What is it you want to find, my dear?" The voice was strange to Clara, but so sweet and gentle that she felt attracted to the owner of it, even before she had seen her; and when she turned, and met the smiling looks of two little old ladies, whose round dimpled faces, exactly alike, seemed never to have known a care, it was as much as she could do—as she confessed to Aunt Mattie afterwards—to keep herself from hugging them both.

"I was looking for a picture," she said, "that has a good subject—and that's well arranged—but badly coloured."

The little old ladies glanced at each other in some alarm. "Calm yourself, my dear," said the one who had spoken first, "and try to remember which it was. What was the subject?"

"Was it an elephant, for instance?" the other sister suggested. They were still in sight of Lieutenant Brown.

"I don't know, indeed!" Clara impetuously replied. "You know it doesn't matter a bit what the subject is, so long as it's a good one!"

Once more the sisters exchanged looks of alarm, and one of them whispered something to the other, of which Clara caught only the one word "mad."

"They mean Aunt Mattie, of course," she said to herself—fancying, in her innocence, that London was like her native town, where everybody knew everybody else. "If you mean my aunt," she added aloud, "she's there—just three pictures beyond Lieutenant Brown."

"Ah, well! Then you'd better go to her, my dear!" her new friend said, soothingly. "She'll find you the picture you want. Good-bye, dear!"

"Good-bye, dear!" echoed the other sister, "Mind you don't lose sight of your aunt!" And the pair trotted off into another room, leaving Clara rather perplexed at their manner.

"They're real darlings!" she soliloquised. "I wonder why they pity me so!" And she wandered on, murmuring to herself "It must have two good marks, and——"

KNOT VI.

HER RADIANCY.

"One piecee thing that my have got, Maskee[A] that thing my no can do. You talkee you no sabey what? Bamboo."

They landed, and were at once conducted to the Palace. About half way they were met by the Governor, who welcomed them in English—a great relief to our travellers, whose guide could speak nothing but Kgovjnian.

"I don't half like the way they grin at us as we go by!" the old man whispered to his son. "And why do they say 'Bamboo!' so often?"

"It alludes to a local custom," replied the Governor, who had overheard the question. "Such persons as happen in any way to displease Her Radiancy are usually beaten with rods."

"WHY DO THEY SAY 'BAMBOO!' SO OFTEN?"

The old man shuddered. "A most objectional local custom!" he remarked with strong emphasis. "I wish we had never landed! Did you notice that black fellow, Norman, opening his great mouth at us? I verily believe he would like to eat us!"

Norman appealed to the Governor, who was walking at his other side. "Do they often eat distinguished strangers here?" he said, in as indifferent a tone as he could assume.

"Not often—not ever!" was the welcome reply. "They are not good for it. Pigs we eat, for they are fat. This old man is thin."

"And thankful to be so!" muttered the elder traveller. "Beaten we shall be without a doubt. It's a comfort to know it won't be Beaten without the B! My dear boy, just look at the peacocks!"

They were now walking between two unbroken lines of those gorgeous birds, each held in check, by means of a golden collar and chain, by a black slave, who stood well behind, so as not to interrupt the view of the glittering tail, with its network of rustling feathers and its hundred eyes.

The Governor smiled proudly. "In your honour," he said, "Her Radiancy has ordered up ten thousand additional peacocks. She will, no doubt, decorate you, before you go, with the usual Star and Feathers."

"It'll be Star without the S!" faltered one of his hearers.

"Come, come! Don't lose heart!" said the other. "All this is full of charm for me."

"You are young, Norman," sighed his father; "young and light-hearted. For me, it is Charm without the C."

"The old one is sad," the Governor remarked with some anxiety. "He has, without doubt, effected some fearful crime?"

"But I haven't!" the poor old gentleman hastily exclaimed. "Tell him I haven't, Norman!"

"He has not, as yet," Norman gently explained. And the Governor repeated, in a satisfied tone, "Not as yet."

"Yours is a wondrous country!" the Governor resumed, after a pause. "Now here is a letter from a friend of mine, a merchant, in London. He and his brother went there a year ago, with a thousand pounds apiece; and on New-Year's-day they had sixty thousand pounds between them!"

"How did they do it?" Norman eagerly exclaimed. Even the elder traveller looked excited.

The Governor handed him the open letter. "Anybody can do it, when once they know how," so ran this oracular document. "We borrowed nought: we stole nought. We began the year with only a thousand pounds apiece: and last New-Year's-day we had sixty thousand pounds between us—sixty thousand golden sovereigns!"

Norman looked grave and thoughtful as he handed back the letter. His father hazarded one guess. "Was it by gambling?"

"A Kgovjnian never gambles," said the Governor gravely, as he ushered them through the palace gates. They followed him in silence down a long passage, and soon found themselves in a lofty hall, lined entirely with peacocks' feathers. In the centre was a pile of crimson cushions, which almost concealed the figure of Her Radiancy—a plump little damsel, in a robe of green satin dotted with silver stars, whose pale round face lit up for a moment with a half-smile as the travellers bowed before her, and then relapsed into the exact expression of a wax doll, while she languidly murmured a word or two in the Kgovjnian dialect.

The Governor interpreted. "Her Radiancy welcomes you. She notes the Impenetrable Placidity of the old one, and the Imperceptible Acuteness of the youth."

Here the little potentate clapped her hands, and a troop of slaves instantly appeared, carrying trays of coffee and sweetmeats, which they offered to the guests, who had, at a signal from the Governor, seated themselves on the carpet.

"Sugar-plums!" muttered the old man. "One might as well be at a confectioner's! Ask for a penny bun, Norman!"

"Not so loud!" his son whispered. "Say something complimentary!" For the Governor was evidently expecting a speech.

"We thank Her Exalted Potency," the old man timidly began. "We bask in the light of her smile, which——"

"The words of old men are weak!" the Governor interrupted angrily. "Let the youth speak!"

"Tell her," cried Norman, in a wild burst of eloquence, "that, like two grasshoppers in a volcano, we are shrivelled up in the presence of Her Spangled Vehemence!"

"It is well," said the Governor, and translated this into Kgovjnian. "I am now to tell you," he proceeded, "what Her Radiancy requires of you before you go. The yearly competition for the post of Imperial Scarf-maker is just ended; you are the judges. You will take account of the rate of work, the lightness of the scarves, and their warmth. Usually the competitors differ in one point only. Thus, last year, Fifi and Gogo made the same number of scarves in the trial-week, and they were equally light; but Fifi's were twice as warm as Gogo's and she was pronounced twice as good. But this year, woe is me, who can judge it? Three competitors are here, and they differ in all points! While you settle their claims, you shall be lodged, Her Radiancy bids me say, free of expense—in the best dungeon, and abundantly fed on the best bread and water."

The old man groaned. "All is lost!" he wildly exclaimed. But Norman heeded him not: he had taken out his note-book, and was calmly jotting down the particulars.

"Three they be," the Governor proceeded, "Lolo, Mimi, and Zuzu. Lolo makes 5 scarves while Mimi makes 2; but Zuzu makes 4 while Lolo makes 3! Again, so fairylike is Zuzu's handiwork, 5 of her scarves weigh no more than one of Lolo's; yet Mimi's is lighter still—5 of hers will but balance 3 of Zuzu's! And for warmth one of Mimi's is equal to 4 of Zuzu's; yet one of Lolo's is as warm as 3 of Mimi's!"

Here the little lady once more clapped her hands.

"It is our signal of dismissal!" the Governor hastily said. "Pay Her Radiancy your farewell compliments—and walk out backwards."

The walking part was all the elder tourist could manage. Norman simply said "Tell Her Radiancy we are transfixed by the spectacle of Her Serene Brilliance, and bid an agonized farewell to her Condensed Milkiness!"

"Her Radiancy is pleased," the Governor reported, after duly translating this. "She casts on you a glance from Her Imperial Eyes, and is confident that you will catch it!"

"That I warrant we shall!" the elder traveller moaned to himself distractedly.

Once more they bowed low, and then followed the Governor down a winding staircase to the Imperial Dungeon, which they found to be lined with coloured marble, lighted from the roof, and splendidly though not luxuriously furnished with a bench of polished malachite. "I trust you will not delay the calculation," the Governor said, ushering them in with much ceremony. "I have known great inconvenience—great and serious inconvenience—result to those unhappy ones who have delayed to execute the commands of Her Radiancy! And on this occasion she is resolute: she says the thing must and shall be done: and she has ordered up ten thousand additional bamboos!" With these words he left them, and they heard him lock and bar the door on the outside.

"I told you how it would end!" moaned the elder traveller, wringing his hands, and quite forgetting in his anguish that he had himself proposed the expedition, and had never predicted anything of the sort. "Oh that we were well out of this miserable business!"

"Courage!" cried the younger cheerily. "Hæc olim meminisse juvabit! The end of all this will be glory!"

"Glory without the L!" was all the poor old man could say, as he rocked himself to and fro on the malachite bench. "Glory without the L!"

FOOTNOTE:

[A] "Maskee," in Pigeon-English, means "without."

KNOT VII.

PETTY CASH.

"Base is the slave that pays."

"Aunt Mattie!"

"My child?"

"Would you mind writing it down at once? I shall be quite certain to forget it if you don't!"

"My dear, we really must wait till the cab stops. How can I possibly write anything in the midst of all this jolting?"

"But really I shall be forgetting it!"

Clara's voice took the plaintive tone that her aunt never knew how to resist, and with a sigh the old lady drew forth her ivory tablets and prepared to record the amount that Clara had just spent at the confectioner's shop. Her expenditure was always made out of her aunt's purse, but the poor girl knew, by bitter experience, that sooner or later "Mad Mathesis" would expect an exact account of every penny that had gone, and she waited, with ill-concealed impatience, while the old lady turned the tablets over and over, till she had found the one headed "PETTY CASH."

"Here's the place," she said at last, "and here we have yesterday's luncheon duly entered. One glass lemonade (Why can't you drink water, like me?) three sandwiches (They never put in half mustard enough. I told the young woman so, to her face; and she tossed her head—like her impudence!) and seven biscuits. Total one-and-two-pence. Well, now for to-day's?"

"One glass of lemonade——" Clara was beginning to say, when suddenly the cab drew up, and a courteous railway-porter was handing out the bewildered girl before she had had time to finish her sentence.

Her aunt pocketed the tablets instantly. "Business first," she said: "petty cash—which is a form of pleasure, whatever you may think—afterwards." And she proceeded to pay the driver, and to give voluminous orders about the luggage, quite deaf to the entreaties of her unhappy niece that she would enter the rest of the luncheon account.  "My dear, you really must cultivate a more capacious mind!" was all the consolation she vouchsafed to the poor girl. "Are not the tablets of your memory wide enough to contain the record of one single luncheon?"

"Not wide enough! Not half wide enough!" was the passionate reply.

The words came in aptly enough, but the voice was not that of Clara, and both ladies turned in some surprise to see who it was that had so suddenly struck into their conversation. A fat little old lady was standing at the door of a cab, helping the driver to extricate what seemed an exact duplicate of herself: it would have been no easy task to decide which was the fatter, or which looked the more good-humoured of the two sisters.

"I tell you the cab-door isn't half wide enough!" she repeated, as her sister finally emerged, somewhat after the fashion of a pellet from a pop-gun, and she turned to appeal to Clara. "Is it, dear?" she said, trying hard to bring a frown into a face that dimpled all over with smiles.

"Some folks is too wide for 'em," growled the cab-driver.

"I TELL YOU THE CAB-DOOR ISN'T HALF WIDE ENOUGH!"

"Don't provoke me, man!" cried the little old lady, in what she meant for a tempest of fury. "Say another word and I'll put you into the County Court, and sue you for a Habeas Corpus!" The cabman touched his hat, and marched off, grinning.

"Nothing like a little Law to cow the ruffians, my dear!" she remarked confidentially to Clara. "You saw how he quailed when I mentioned the Habeas Corpus? Not that I've any idea what it means, but it sounds very grand, doesn't it?"

"It's very provoking," Clara replied, a little vaguely.

"Very!" the little old lady eagerly repeated. "And we're very much provoked indeed. Aren't we, sister?"

"I never was so provoked in all my life!" the fatter sister assented, radiantly.

By this time Clara had recognised her picture-gallery acquaintances, and, drawing her aunt aside, she hastily whispered her reminiscences. "I met them first in the Royal Academy—and they were very kind to me—and they were lunching at the next table to us, just now, you know—and they tried to help me to find the picture I wanted—and I'm sure they're dear old things!"

"Friends of yours, are they?" said Mad Mathesis. "Well, I like their looks. You can be civil to them, while I get the tickets. But do try and arrange your ideas a little more chronologically!"

And so it came to pass that the four ladies found themselves seated side by side on the same bench waiting for the train, and chatting as if they had known one another for years.

"Now this I call quite a remarkable coincidence!" exclaimed the smaller and more talkative of the two sisters—the one whose legal knowledge had annihilated the cab-driver. "Not only that we should be waiting for the same train, and at the same station—that would be curious enough—but actually on the same day, and the same hour of the day! That's what strikes me so forcibly!" She glanced at the fatter and more silent sister, whose chief function in life seemed to be to support the family opinion, and who meekly responded—

"And me too, sister!"

"Those are not independent coincidences——" Mad Mathesis was just beginning, when Clara ventured to interpose.

"There's no jolting here," she pleaded meekly. "Would you mind writing it down now?"

Out came the ivory tablets once more. "What was it, then?" said her aunt.

"One glass of lemonade, one sandwich, one biscuit—Oh dear me!" cried poor Clara, the historical tone suddenly changing to a wail of agony.

"Toothache?" said her aunt calmly, as she wrote down the items. The two sisters instantly opened their reticules and produced two different remedies for neuralgia, each marked "unequalled."

"It isn't that!" said poor Clara. "Thank you very much. It's only that I can't remember how much I paid!"

"Well, try and make it out, then," said her aunt. "You've got yesterday's luncheon to help you, you know. And here's the luncheon we had the day before—the first day we went to that shop—one glass lemonade, four sandwiches, ten biscuits. Total, one-and-fivepence." She handed the tablets to Clara, who gazed at them with eyes so dim with tears that she did not at first notice that she was holding them upside down.

The two sisters had been listening to all this with the deepest interest, and at this juncture the smaller one softly laid her hand on Clara's arm.

"Do you know, my dear," she said coaxingly, "my sister and I are in the very same predicament! Quite identically the very same predicament! Aren't we, sister?"

"Quite identically and absolutely the very——" began the fatter sister, but she was constructing her sentence on too large a scale, and the little one would not wait for her to finish it.

"Yes, my dear," she resumed; "we were lunching at the very same shop as you were—and we had two glasses of lemonade and three sandwiches and five biscuits—and neither of us has the least idea what we paid. Have we, sister?"

"Quite identically and absolutely——" murmured the other, who evidently considered that she was now a whole sentence in arrears, and that she ought to discharge one obligation before contracting any fresh liabilities; but the little lady broke in again, and she retired from the conversation a bankrupt.

"Would you make it out for us, my dear?" pleaded the little old lady.

"You can do Arithmetic, I trust?" her aunt said, a little anxiously, as Clara turned from one tablet to another, vainly trying to collect her thoughts. Her mind was a blank, and all human expression was rapidly fading out of her face.

A gloomy silence ensued.

KNOT VIII.

DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

"This little pig went to market: This little pig staid at home."

"By Her Radiancy's express command," said the Governor, as he conducted the travellers, for the last time, from the Imperial presence, "I shall now have the ecstasy of escorting you as far as the outer gate of the Military Quarter, where the agony of parting—if indeed Nature can survive the shock—must be endured! From that gate grurmstipths start every quarter of an hour, both ways——"

"Would you mind repeating that word?" said Norman. "Grurm——?"

"Grurmstipths," the Governor repeated. "You call them omnibuses in England. They run both ways, and you can travel by one of them all the way down to the harbour."

The old man breathed a sigh of relief; four hours of courtly ceremony had wearied him, and he had been in constant terror lest something should call into use the ten thousand additional bamboos.

In another minute they were crossing a large quadrangle, paved with marble, and tastefully decorated with a pigsty in each corner. Soldiers, carrying pigs, were marching in all directions: and in the middle stood a gigantic officer giving orders in a voice of thunder, which made itself heard above all the uproar of the pigs.

"It is the Commander-in-Chief!" the Governor hurriedly whispered to his companions, who at once followed his example in prostrating themselves before the great man. The Commander gravely bowed in return. He was covered with gold lace from head to foot: his face wore an expression of deep misery: and he had a little black pig under each arm. Still the gallant fellow did his best, in the midst of the orders he was every moment issuing to his men, to bid a courteous farewell to the departing guests.

"Farewell, oh old one—carry these three to the South corner—and farewell to thee, thou young one—put this fat one on the top of the others in the Western sty—may your shadows never be less—woe is me, it is wrongly done! Empty out all the sties, and begin again!" And the soldier leant upon his sword, and wiped away a tear.

"He is in distress," the Governor explained as they left the court. "Her Radiancy has commanded him to place twenty-four pigs in those four sties, so that, as she goes round the court, she may always find the number in each sty nearer to ten than the number in the last."

"Does she call ten nearer to ten than nine is?" said Norman.

"Surely," said the Governor. "Her Radiancy would admit that ten is nearer to ten than nine is—and also nearer than eleven is."

"Then I think it can be done," said Norman.

The Governor shook his head. "The Commander has been transferring them in vain for four months," he said. "What hope remains? And Her Radiancy has ordered up ten thousand additional——"

"The pigs don't seem to enjoy being transferred," the old man hastily interrupted. He did not like the subject of bamboos.

"They are only provisionally transferred, you know," said the Governor. "In most cases they are immediately carried back again: so they need not mind it. And all is done with the greatest care, under the personal superintendence of the Commander-in-Chief."

"Of course she would only go once round?" said Norman.

"Alas, no!" sighed their conductor. "Round and round. Round and round. These are Her Radiancy's own words. But oh, agony! Here is the outer gate, and we must part!" He sobbed as he shook hands with them, and the next moment was briskly walking away.

"He might have waited to see us off!" said the old man, piteously.

"And he needn't have begun whistling the very moment he left us!" said the young one, severely. "But look sharp—here are two what's-his-names in the act of starting!"

Unluckily, the sea-bound omnibus was full. "Never mind!" said Norman, cheerily. "We'll walk on till the next one overtakes us."

They trudged on in silence, both thinking over the military problem, till they met an omnibus coming from the sea. The elder traveller took out his watch. "Just twelve minutes and a half since we started," he remarked in an absent manner. Suddenly the vacant face brightened; the old man had an idea. "My boy!" he shouted, bringing his hand down upon Norman's shoulder so suddenly as for a moment to transfer his centre of gravity beyond the base of support.

Thus taken off his guard, the young man wildly staggered forwards, and seemed about to plunge into space: but in another moment he had gracefully recovered himself. "Problem in Precession and Nutation," he remarked—in tones where filial respect only just managed to conceal a shade of annoyance. "What is it?" he hastily added, fearing his father might have been taken ill. "Will you have some brandy?"

"When will the next omnibus overtake us? When? When?" the old man cried, growing more excited every moment.

Norman looked gloomy. "Give me time," he said. "I must think it over." And once more the travellers passed on in silence—a silence only broken by the distant squeals of the unfortunate little pigs, who were still being provisionally transferred from sty to sty, under the personal superintendence of the Commander-in-Chief.

KNOT IX.

A SERPENT WITH CORNERS.

"Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink."

"It'll just take one more pebble."

"What ever are you doing with those buckets?"

The speakers were Hugh and Lambert. Place, the beach of Little Mendip. Time, 1.30, P.M. Hugh was floating a bucket in another a size larger, and trying how many pebbles it would carry without sinking. Lambert was lying on his back, doing nothing.

For the next minute or two Hugh was silent, evidently deep in thought. Suddenly he started. "I say, look here, Lambert!" he cried.

"If it's alive, and slimy, and with legs, I don't care to," said Lambert.

"Didn't Balbus say this morning that, if a body is immersed in liquid, it displaces as much liquid as is equal to its own bulk?" said Hugh.

"He said things of that sort," Lambert vaguely replied.

"Well, just look here a minute. Here's the little bucket almost quite immersed: so the water displaced ought to be just about the same bulk. And now just look at it!" He took out the little bucket as he spoke, and handed the big one to Lambert. "Why, there's hardly a teacupful! Do you mean to say that water is the same bulk as the little bucket?"

"Course it is," said Lambert.

"Well, look here again!" cried Hugh, triumphantly, as he poured the water from the big bucket into the little one. "Why, it doesn't half fill it!"

"That's its business," said Lambert. "If Balbus says it's the same bulk, why, it is the same bulk, you know."

"Well, I don't believe it," said Hugh.

"You needn't," said Lambert. "Besides, it's dinner-time. Come along."

They found Balbus waiting dinner for them, and to him Hugh at once propounded his difficulty.

"Let's get you helped first," said Balbus, briskly cutting away at the joint. "You know the old proverb 'Mutton first, mechanics afterwards'?"

The boys did not know the proverb, but they accepted it in perfect good faith, as they did every piece of information, however startling, that came from so infallible an authority as their tutor. They ate on steadily in silence, and, when dinner was over, Hugh set out the usual array of pens, ink, and paper, while Balbus repeated to them the problem he had prepared for their afternoon's task.

"A friend of mine has a flower-garden—a very pretty one, though no great size—"

"How big is it?" said Hugh.

"That's what you have to find out!" Balbus gaily replied. "All I tell you is that it is oblong in shape—just half a yard longer than its width—and that a gravel-walk, one yard wide, begins at one corner and runs all round it."

"Joining into itself?" said Hugh.

"Not joining into itself, young man. Just before doing that, it turns a corner, and runs round the garden again, alongside of the first portion, and then inside that again, winding in and in, and each lap touching the last one, till it has used up the whole of the area."

"Like a serpent with corners?" said Lambert.

"Exactly so. And if you walk the whole length of it, to the last inch, keeping in the centre of the path, it's exactly two miles and half a furlong. Now, while you find out the length and breadth of the garden, I'll see if I can think out that sea-water puzzle."

"You said it was a flower-garden?" Hugh inquired, as Balbus was leaving the room.

"I did," said Balbus.

"Where do the flowers grow?" said Hugh. But Balbus thought it best not to hear the question. He left the boys to their problem, and, in the silence of his own room, set himself to unravel Hugh's mechanical paradox.

"To fix our thoughts," he murmured to himself, as, with hands deep-buried in his pockets, he paced up and down the room, "we will take a cylindrical glass jar, with a scale of inches marked up the side, and fill it with water up to the 10-inch mark: and we will assume that every inch depth of jar contains a pint of water. We will now take a solid cylinder, such that every inch of it is equal in bulk to half a pint of water, and plunge 4 inches of it into the water, so that the end of the cylinder comes down to the 6-inch mark. Well, that displaces 2 pints of water. What becomes of them? Why, if there were no more cylinder, they would lie comfortably on the top, and fill the jar up to the 12-inch mark. But unfortunately there is more cylinder, occupying half the space between the 10-inch and the 12-inch marks, so that only one pint of water can be accommodated there. What becomes of the other pint? Why, if there were no more cylinder, it would lie on the top, and fill the jar up to the 13-inch mark. But unfortunately——Shade of Newton!" he exclaimed, in sudden accents of terror. "When does the water stop rising?"

A bright idea struck him. "I'll write a little essay on it," he said.

Balbus's Essay.

"When a solid is immersed in a liquid, it is well known that it displaces a portion of the liquid equal to itself in bulk, and that the level of the liquid rises just so much as it would rise if a quantity of liquid had been added to it, equal in bulk to the solid. Lardner says, precisely the same process occurs when a solid is partially immersed: the quantity of liquid displaced, in this case, equalling the portion of the solid which is immersed, and the rise of the level being in proportion.

"Suppose a solid held above the surface of a liquid and partially immersed: a portion of the liquid is displaced, and the level of the liquid rises. But, by this rise of level, a little bit more of the solid is of course immersed, and so there is a new displacement of a second portion of the liquid, and a consequent rise of level. Again, this second rise of level causes a yet further immersion, and by consequence another displacement of liquid and another rise. It is self-evident that this process must continue till the entire solid is immersed, and that the liquid will then begin to immerse whatever holds the solid, which, being connected with it, must for the time be considered a part of it. If you hold a stick, six feet long, with its end in a tumbler of water, and wait long enough, you must eventually be immersed. The question as to the source from which the water is supplied—which belongs to a high branch of mathematics, and is therefore beyond our present scope—does not apply to the sea. Let us therefore take the familiar instance of a man standing at the edge of the sea, at ebb-tide, with a solid in his hand, which he partially immerses: he remains steadfast and unmoved, and we all know that he must be drowned. The multitudes who daily perish in this manner to attest a philosophical truth, and whose bodies the unreasoning wave casts sullenly upon our thankless shores, have a truer claim to be called the martyrs of science than a Galileo or a Kepler. To use Kossuth's eloquent phrase, they are the unnamed demigods of the nineteenth century."[B]

"There's a fallacy somewhere," he murmured drowsily, as he stretched his long legs upon the sofa. "I must think it over again." He closed his eyes, in order to concentrate his attention more perfectly, and for the next hour or so his slow and regular breathing bore witness to the careful deliberation with which he was investigating this new and perplexing view of the subject.

"HE REMAINS STEADFAST AND UNMOVED."

FOOTNOTE:

[B] Note by the writer.—For the above Essay I am indebted to a dear friend, now deceased.

KNOT X.

CHELSEA BUNS.

"Yea, buns, and buns, and buns!"

Old Song.

"How very, very sad!" exclaimed Clara; and the eyes of the gentle girl filled with tears as she spoke.

"Sad—but very curious when you come to look at it arithmetically," was her aunt's less romantic reply. "Some of them have lost an arm in their country's service, some a leg, some an ear, some an eye——"

"And some, perhaps, all!" Clara murmured dreamily, as they passed the long rows of weather-beaten heroes basking in the sun. "Did you notice that very old one, with a red face, who was drawing a map in the dust with his wooden leg, and all the others watching? I think it was a plan of a battle——"

"The battle of Trafalgar, no doubt," her aunt interrupted, briskly.

"Hardly that, I think," Clara ventured to say. "You see, in that case, he couldn't well be alive——"

"Couldn't well be alive!" the old lady contemptuously repeated. "He's as lively as you and me put together! Why, if drawing a map in the dust—with one's wooden leg—doesn't prove one to be alive, perhaps you'll kindly mention what does prove it!"

Clara did not see her way out of it. Logic had never been her forte.

"To return to the arithmetic," Mad Mathesis resumed—the eccentric old lady never let slip an opportunity of driving her niece into a calculation—"what percentage do you suppose must have lost all four—a leg, an arm, an eye, and an ear?"

"How can I tell?" gasped the terrified girl. She knew well what was coming.

"You can't, of course, without data," her aunt replied: "but I'm just going to give you——"

"Give her a Chelsea bun, Miss! That's what most young ladies likes best!" The voice was rich and musical, and the speaker dexterously whipped back the snowy cloth that covered his basket, and disclosed a tempting array of the familiar square buns, joined together in rows, richly egged and browned, and glistening in the sun.

"No, sir! I shall give her nothing so indigestible! Be off!" The old lady waved her parasol threateningly: but nothing seemed to disturb the good-humour of the jolly old man, who marched on, chanting his melodious refrain:—

Listen

"Far too indigestible, my love!" said the old lady. "Percentages will agree with you ever so much better!"

Clara sighed, and there was a hungry look in her eyes as she watched the basket lessening in the distance: but she meekly listened to the relentless old lady, who at once proceeded to count off the data on her fingers.

"Say that 70 per cent. have lost an eye—75 per cent. an ear—80 per cent. an arm—85 per cent. a leg—that'll do it beautifully. Now, my dear, what percentage, at least, must have lost all four?"

No more conversation occurred—unless a smothered exclamation of "Piping hot!" which escaped from Clara's lips as the basket vanished round a corner could be counted as such—until they reached the old Chelsea mansion, where Clara's father was then staying, with his three sons and their old tutor.

Balbus, Lambert, and Hugh had entered the house only a few minutes before them. They had been out walking, and Hugh had been propounding a difficulty which had reduced Lambert to the depths of gloom, and had even puzzled Balbus.

"It changes from Wednesday to Thursday at midnight, doesn't it?" Hugh had begun.

"Sometimes," said Balbus, cautiously.

"Always," said Lambert, decisively.

"Sometimes," Balbus gently insisted. "Six midnights out of seven, it changes to some other name."

"I meant, of course," Hugh corrected himself, "when it does change from Wednesday to Thursday, it does it at midnight—and only at midnight."

"Surely," said Balbus. Lambert was silent.

"Well, now, suppose it's midnight here in Chelsea. Then it's Wednesday west of Chelsea (say in Ireland or America) where midnight hasn't arrived yet: and it's Thursday east of Chelsea (say in Germany or Russia) where midnight has just passed by?"

"Surely," Balbus said again. Even Lambert nodded this time.

"But it isn't midnight, anywhere else; so it can't be changing from one day to another anywhere else. And yet, if Ireland and America and so on call it Wednesday, and Germany and Russia and so on call it Thursday, there must be some place—not Chelsea—that has different days on the two sides of it. And the worst of it is, the people there get their days in the wrong order: they've got Wednesday east of them, and Thursday west—just as if their day had changed from Thursday to Wednesday!"

"I've heard that puzzle before!" cried Lambert. "And I'll tell you the explanation. When a ship goes round the world from east to west, we know that it loses a day in its reckoning: so that when it gets home, and calls its day Wednesday, it finds people here calling it Thursday, because we've had one more midnight than the ship has had. And when you go the other way round you gain a day."

"I know all that," said Hugh, in reply to this not very lucid explanation: "but it doesn't help me, because the ship hasn't proper days. One way round, you get more than twenty-four hours to the day, and the other way you get less: so of course the names get wrong: but people that live on in one place always get twenty-four hours to the day."

"I suppose there is such a place," Balbus said, meditatively, "though I never heard of it. And the people must find it very queer, as Hugh says, to have the old day east of them, and the new one west: because, when midnight comes round to them, with the new day in front of it and the old one behind it, one doesn't see exactly what happens. I must think it over."

So they had entered the house in the state I have described—Balbus puzzled, and Lambert buried in gloomy thought.

"Yes, m'm, Master is at home, m'm," said the stately old butler. (N.B.—It is only a butler of experience who can manage a series of three M's together, without any interjacent vowels.) "And the ole party is a-waiting for you in the libery."

"I don't like his calling your father an old party," Mad Mathesis whispered to her niece, as they crossed the hall. And Clara had only just time to whisper in reply "he meant the whole party," before they were ushered into the library, and the sight of the five solemn faces there assembled chilled her into silence.

Her father sat at the head of the table, and mutely signed to the ladies to take the two vacant chairs, one on each side of him. His three sons and Balbus completed the party. Writing materials had been arranged round the table, after the fashion of a ghostly banquet: the butler had evidently bestowed much thought on the grim device. Sheets of quarto paper, each flanked by a pen on one side and a pencil on the other, represented the plates—penwipers did duty for rolls of bread—while ink-bottles stood in the places usually occupied by wine-glasses. The pièce de resistance was a large green baize bag, which gave forth, as the old man restlessly lifted it from side to side, a charming jingle, as of innumerable golden guineas.

"Sister, daughter, sons—and Balbus—," the old man began, so nervously, that Balbus put in a gentle "Hear, hear!" while Hugh drummed on the table with his fists. This disconcerted the unpractised orator. "Sister—" he began again, then paused a moment, moved the bag to the other side, and went on with a rush, "I mean—this being—a critical occasion—more or less—being the year when one of my sons comes of age—" he paused again in some confusion, having evidently got into the middle of his speech sooner than he intended: but it was too late to go back. "Hear, hear!" cried Balbus. "Quite so," said the old gentleman, recovering his self-possession a little: "when first I began this annual custom—my friend Balbus will correct me if I am wrong—" (Hugh whispered "with a strap!" but nobody heard him except Lambert, who only frowned and shook his head at him) "—this annual custom of giving each of my sons as many guineas as would represent his age—it was a critical time—so Balbus informed me—as the ages of two of you were together equal to that of the third—so on that occasion I made a speech——" He paused so long that Balbus thought it well to come to the rescue with the words "It was a most——" but the old man checked him with a warning look: "yes, made a speech," he repeated. "A few years after that, Balbus pointed out—I say pointed out—" ("Hear, hear"! cried Balbus. "Quite so," said the grateful old man.) "—that it was another critical occasion. The ages of two of you were together double that of the third. So I made another speech—another speech. And now again it's a critical occasion—so Balbus says—and I am making——" (Here Mad Mathesis pointedly referred to her watch) "all the haste I can!" the old man cried, with wonderful presence of mind. "Indeed, sister, I'm coming to the point now! The number of years that have passed since that first occasion is just two-thirds of the number of guineas I then gave you. Now, my boys, calculate your ages from the data, and you shall have the money!"

"But we know our ages!" cried Hugh.

"Silence, sir!" thundered the old man, rising to his full height (he was exactly five-foot five) in his indignation. "I say you must use the data only! You mustn't even assume which it is that comes of age!" He clutched the bag as he spoke, and with tottering steps (it was about as much as he could do to carry it) he left the room.

"And you shall have a similar cadeau," the old lady whispered to her niece, "when you've calculated that percentage!" And she followed her brother.

Nothing could exceed the solemnity with which the old couple had risen from the table, and yet was it—was it a grin with which the father turned away from his unhappy sons? Could it be—could it be a wink with which the aunt abandoned her despairing niece? And were those—were those sounds of suppressed chuckling which floated into the room, just before Balbus (who had followed them out) closed the door? Surely not: and yet the butler told the cook—but no, that was merely idle gossip, and I will not repeat it.

The shades of evening granted their unuttered petition, and "closed not o'er" them (for the butler brought in the lamp): the same obliging shades left them a "lonely bark" (the wail of a dog, in the back-yard, baying the moon) for "awhile": but neither "morn, alas," (nor any other epoch) seemed likely to "restore" them—to that peace of mind which had once been theirs ere ever these problems had swooped upon them, and crushed them with a load of unfathomable mystery!

"It's hardly fair," muttered Hugh, "to give us such a jumble as this to work out!"

"Fair?" Clara echoed, bitterly. "Well!"

And to all my readers I can but repeat the last words of gentle Clara—

Fare-well!

APPENDIX.

"A knot!" said Alice. "Oh, do let me help to undo it!"

ANSWERS TO KNOT I.

Problem.—"Two travellers spend from 3 o'clock till 9 in walking along a level road, up a hill, and home again: their pace on the level being 4 miles an hour, up hill 3, and down hill 6. Find distance walked: also (within half an hour) time of reaching top of hill."

Answer.—"24 miles: half-past 6."

Solution.—A level mile takes ¼ of an hour, up hill 1⁄3, down hill 1⁄6. Hence to go and return over the same mile, whether on the level or on the hill-side, takes ½ an hour. Hence in 6 hours they went 12 miles out and 12 back. If the 12 miles out had been nearly all level, they would have taken a little over 3 hours; if nearly all up hill, a little under 4. Hence 3½ hours must be within ½ an hour of the time taken in reaching the peak; thus, as they started at 3, they got there within ½ an hour of ½ past 6.

Twenty-seven answers have come in. Of these, 9 are right, 16 partially right, and 2 wrong. The 16 give the distance correctly, but they have failed to grasp the fact that the top of the hill might have been reached at any moment between 6 o'clock and 7.

The two wrong answers are from Gerty Vernon and A Nihilist. The former makes the distance "23 miles," while her revolutionary companion puts it at "27." Gerty Vernon says "they had to go 4 miles along the plain, and got to the foot of the hill at 4 o'clock." They might have done so, I grant; but you have no ground for saying they did so. "It was 7½ miles to the top of the hill, and they reached that at ¼ before 7 o'clock." Here you go wrong in your arithmetic, and I must, however reluctantly, bid you farewell. 7½ miles, at 3 miles an hour, would not require 2¾ hours. A Nihilist says "Let x denote the whole number of miles; y the number of hours to hill-top; ∴ 3y = number of miles to hill-top, and x-3y = number of miles on the other side." You bewilder me. The other side of what? "Of the hill," you say. But then, how did they get home again? However, to accommodate your views we will build a new hostelry at the foot of the hill on the opposite side, and also assume (what I grant you is possible, though it is not necessarily true) that there was no level road at all. Even then you go wrong.

You say

"y = 6 - (x - 3y)⁄6,            ..... (i);

x⁄4½ = 6                        ..... (ii)."

I grant you (i), but I deny (ii): it rests on the assumption that to go part of the time at 3 miles an hour, and the rest at 6 miles an hour, comes to the same result as going the whole time at 4½ miles an hour. But this would only be true if the "part" were an exact half, i.e., if they went up hill for 3 hours, and down hill for the other 3: which they certainly did not do.

The sixteen, who are partially right, are Agnes Bailey, F. K., Fifee, G. E. B., H. P., Kit, M. E. T., Mysie, A Mother's Son, Nairam, A Redruthian, A Socialist, Spear Maiden, T. B. C, Vis Inertiæ, and Yak. Of these, F. K., Fifee, T. B. C, and Vis Inertiæ do not attempt the second part at all. F. K. and H. P. give no working. The rest make particular assumptions, such as that there was no level road—that there were 6 miles of level road—and so on, all leading to particular times being fixed for reaching the hill-top. The most curious assumption is that of Agnes Bailey, who says "Let x = number of hours occupied in ascent; then x⁄2 = hours occupied in descent; and 4x⁄3 = hours occupied on the level." I suppose you were thinking of the relative rates, up hill and on the level; which we might express by saying that, if they went x miles up hill in a certain time, they would go 4x⁄3 miles on the level in the same time. You have, in fact, assumed that they took the same time on the level that they took in ascending the hill. Fifee assumes that, when the aged knight said they had gone "four miles in the hour" on the level, he meant that four miles was the distance gone, not merely the rate. This would have been—if Fifee will excuse the slang expression—a "sell," ill-suited to the dignity of the hero.

And now "descend, ye classic Nine!" who have solved the whole problem, and let me sing your praises. Your names are Blithe, E. W., L. B., A Marlborough Boy, O. V. L., Putney Walker, Rose, Sea Breeze, Simple Susan, and Money Spinner. (These last two I count as one, as they send a joint answer.) Rose and Simple Susan and Co. do not actually state that the hill-top was reached some time between 6 and 7, but, as they have clearly grasped the fact that a mile, ascended and descended, took the same time as two level miles, I mark them as "right." A Marlborough Boy and Putney Walker deserve honourable mention for their algebraical solutions being the only two who have perceived that the question leads to an indeterminate equation. E. W. brings a charge of untruthfulness against the aged knight—a serious charge, for he was the very pink of chivalry! She says "According to the data given, the time at the summit affords no clue to the total distance. It does not enable us to state precisely to an inch how much level and how much hill there was on the road." "Fair damsel," the aged knight replies, "—if, as I surmise, thy initials denote Early Womanhood—bethink thee that the word 'enable' is thine, not mine. I did but ask the time of reaching the hill-top as my condition for further parley. If now thou wilt not grant that I am a truth-loving man, then will I affirm that those same initials denote Envenomed Wickedness!"

CLASS LIST.

I.

A Marlborough Boy.

Putney Walker.

II.

Blithe.

E. W.

L. B.

O. V. L.

Rose.

Sea Breeze.

{Simple Susan.

{Money-Spinner.

Blithe has made so ingenious an addition to the problem, and Simple Susan and Co. have solved it in such tuneful verse, that I record both their answers in full. I have altered a word or two in Blithe's—which I trust she will excuse; it did not seem quite clear as it stood.

"Yet stay," said the youth, as a gleam of inspiration lighted up the relaxing muscles of his quiescent features. "Stay. Methinks it matters little when we reached that summit, the crown of our toil. For in the space of time wherein we clambered up one mile and bounded down the same on our return, we could have trudged the twain on the level. We have plodded, then, four-and-twenty miles in these six mortal hours; for never a moment did we stop for catching of fleeting breath or for gazing on the scene around!"

"Very good," said the old man. "Twelve miles out and twelve miles in. And we reached the top some time between six and seven of the clock. Now mark me! For every five minutes that had fled since six of the clock when we stood on yonder peak, so many miles had we toiled upwards on the dreary mountainside!"

The youth moaned and rushed into the hostel.

Blithe.

The elder and the younger knight, They sallied forth at three; How far they went on level ground It matters not to me; What time they reached the foot of hill, When they began to mount, Are problems which I hold to be Of very small account.

The moment that each waved his hat Upon the topmost peak— To trivial query such as this No answer will I seek. Yet can I tell the distance well They must have travelled o'er: On hill and plain, 'twixt three and nine, The miles were twenty-four.

Four miles an hour their steady pace Along the level track, Three when they climbed—but six when they Came swiftly striding back Adown the hill; and little skill It needs, methinks, to show, Up hill and down together told, Four miles an hour they go.

For whether long or short the time Upon the hill they spent, Two thirds were passed in going up, One third in the descent. Two thirds at three, one third at six, If rightly reckoned o'er, Will make one whole at four—the tale Is tangled now no more.

Simple Susan.

Money Spinner.

ANSWERS TO KNOT II.

§ 1. The Dinner Party.

Problem.—"The Governor of Kgovjni wants to give a very small dinner party, and invites his father's brother-in-law, his brother's father-in-law, his father-in-law's brother, and his brother-in-law's father. Find the number of guests."

Answer.—"One."

In this genealogy, males are denoted by capitals, and females by small letters.

The Governor is E and his guest is C.

Ten answers have been received. Of these, one is wrong, Galanthus Nivalis Major, who insists on inviting two guests, one being the Governor's wife's brother's father. If she had taken his sister's husband's father instead, she would have found it possible to reduce the guests to one.

Of the nine who send right answers, Sea-Breeze is the very faintest breath that ever bore the name! She simply states that the Governor's uncle might fulfill all the conditions "by intermarriages"! "Wind of the western sea," you have had a very narrow escape! Be thankful to appear in the Class-list at all! Bog-Oak and Bradshaw of the Future use genealogies which require 16 people instead of 14, by inviting the Governor's father's sister's husband instead of his father's wife's brother. I cannot think this so good a solution as one that requires only 14. Caius and Valentine deserve special mention as the only two who have supplied genealogies.

CLASS LIST.

I.

Bee.

Caius.

M. M.

Matthew Matticks.

Old Cat.

Valentine.

II.

Bog-Oak.

Bradshaw of the Future.

III.

Sea-Breeze.

§ 2. The Lodgings.

Problem.—"A Square has 20 doors on each side, which contains 21 equal parts. They are numbered all round, beginning at one corner. From which of the four, Nos. 9, 25, 52, 73, is the sum of the distances, to the other three, least?"

Answer.—"From No. 9."

Let A be No. 9, B No. 25, C No. 52, and D No. 73.

Then AB = √(122 + 52) = √169 = 13;

AC = 21;

AD = √(92 + 82) = √145 = 12 +

(N.B. i.e. "between 12 and 13.")

BC = √(162 + 122) = √400 = 20;

BD = √(32 + 212) = √450 = 21+;

CD = √(92 + 132) = √250 = 15+;

Hence sum of distances from A is between 46 and 47; from B, between 54 and 55; from C, between 56 and 57; from D, between 48 and 51. (Why not "between 48 and 49"? Make this out for yourselves.) Hence the sum is least for A.

Twenty-five solutions have been received. Of these, 15 must be marked "0," 5 are partly right, and 5 right. Of the 15, I may dismiss Alphabetical Phantom, Bog-Oak, Dinah Mite, Fifee, Galanthus Nivalis Major (I fear the cold spring has blighted our Snowdrop), Guy, H.M.S. Pinafore, Janet, and Valentine with the simple remark that they insist on the unfortunate lodgers keeping to the pavement. (I used the words "crossed to Number Seventy-three" for the special purpose of showing that short cuts were possible.) Sea-Breeze does the same, and adds that "the result would be the same" even if they crossed the Square, but gives no proof of this. M. M. draws a diagram, and says that No. 9 is the house, "as the diagram shows." I cannot see how it does so. Old Cat assumes that the house must be No. 9 or No. 73. She does not explain how she estimates the distances. Bee's Arithmetic is faulty: she makes √169 + √442 + √130 = 741. (I suppose you mean √741, which would be a little nearer the truth. But roots cannot be added in this manner. Do you think √9 + √16 is 25, or even √25?) But Ayr's state is more perilous still: she draws illogical conclusions with a frightful calmness. After pointing out (rightly) that AC is less than BD she says, "therefore the nearest house to the other three must be A or C." And again, after pointing out (rightly) that B and D are both within the half-square containing A, she says "therefore" AB + AD must be less than BC + CD. (There is no logical force in either "therefore." For the first, try Nos. 1, 21, 60, 70: this will make your premiss true, and your conclusion false. Similarly, for the second, try Nos. 1, 30, 51, 71.)

Of the five partly-right solutions, Rags and Tatters and Mad Hatter (who send one answer between them) make No. 25 6 units from the corner instead of 5. Cheam, E. R. D. L., and Meggy Potts leave openings at the corners of the Square, which are not in the data: moreover Cheam gives values for the distances without any hint that they are only approximations. Crophi and Mophi make the bold and unfounded assumption that there were really 21 houses on each side, instead of 20 as stated by Balbus. "We may assume," they add, "that the doors of Nos. 21, 42, 63, 84, are invisible from the centre of the Square"! What is there, I wonder, that Crophi and Mophi would not assume?

Of the five who are wholly right, I think Bradshaw Of the Future, Caius, Clifton C., and Martreb deserve special praise for their full analytical solutions. Matthew Matticks picks out No. 9, and proves it to be the right house in two ways, very neatly and ingeniously, but why he picks it out does not appear. It is an excellent synthetical proof, but lacks the analysis which the other four supply.

CLASS LIST.

I.

Bradshaw of the Future

Caius.

Clifton C.

Martreb.

II.

Matthew Matticks.

III.

Cheam.

Crophi and Mophi.

E. R. D. L.

Meggy Potts.

{Rags and Tatters.

{Mad Hatter.

A remonstrance has reached me from Scrutator on the subject of Knot I., which he declares was "no problem at all." "Two questions," he says, "are put. To solve one there is no data: the other answers itself." As to the first point, Scrutator is mistaken; there are (not "is") data sufficient to answer the question. As to the other, it is interesting to know that the question "answers itself," and I am sure it does the question great credit: still I fear I cannot enter it on the list of winners, as this competition is only open to human beings.

ANSWERS TO KNOT III.

Problem.—(1) "Two travellers, starting at the same time, went opposite ways round a circular railway. Trains start each way every 15 minutes, the easterly ones going round in 3 hours, the westerly in 2. How many trains did each meet on the way, not counting trains met at the terminus itself?" (2) "They went round, as before, each traveller counting as 'one' the train containing the other traveller. How many did each meet?"

Answers.—(1) 19. (2) The easterly traveller met 12; the other 8.

The trains one way took 180 minutes, the other way 120. Let us take the L. C. M., 360, and divide the railway into 360 units. Then one set of trains went at the rate of 2 units a minute and at intervals of 30 units; the other at the rate of 3 units a minute and at intervals of 45 units. An easterly train starting has 45 units between it and the first train it will meet: it does 2-5ths of this while the other does 3-5ths, and thus meets it at the end of 18 units, and so all the way round. A westerly train starting has 30 units between it and the first train it will meet: it does 3-5ths of this while the other does 2-5ths, and thus meets it at the end of 18 units, and so all the way round. Hence if the railway be divided, by 19 posts, into 20 parts, each containing 18 units, trains meet at every post, and, in (1), each traveller passes 19 posts in going round, and so meets 19 trains. But, in (2), the easterly traveller only begins to count after traversing 2-5ths of the journey, i.e., on reaching the 8th post, and so counts 12 posts: similarly the other counts 8. They meet at the end of 2-5ths of 3 hours, or 3-5ths of 2 hours, i.e., 72 minutes.

Forty-five answers have been received. Of these 12 are beyond the reach of discussion, as they give no working. I can but enumerate their names. Ardmore, E. A., F. A. D., L. D., Matthew Matticks, M. E. T., Poo-Poo, and The Red Queen are all wrong. Beta and Rowena have got (1) right and (2) wrong. Cheeky Bob and Nairam give the right answers, but it may perhaps make the one less cheeky, and induce the other to take a less inverted view of things, to be informed that, if this had been a competition for a prize, they would have got no marks. [N.B.—I have not ventured to put E. A.'s name in full, as she only gave it provisionally, in case her answer should prove right.]

Of the 33 answers for which the working is given, 10 are wrong; 11 half-wrong and half-right; 3 right, except that they cherish the delusion that it was Clara who travelled in the easterly train—a point which the data do not enable us to settle; and 9 wholly right.

The 10 wrong answers are from Bo-Peep, Financier, I. W. T., Kate B., M. A. H., Q. Y. Z., Sea-Gull, Thistledown, Tom-Quad, and an unsigned one. Bo-Peep rightly says that the easterly traveller met all trains which started during the 3 hours of her trip, as well as all which started during the previous 2 hours, i.e., all which started at the commencements of 20 periods of 15 minutes each; and she is right in striking out the one she met at the moment of starting; but wrong in striking out the last train, for she did not meet this at the terminus, but 15 minutes before she got there. She makes the same mistake in (2). Financier thinks that any train, met for the second time, is not to be counted. I. W. T. finds, by a process which is not stated, that the travellers met at the end of 71 minutes and 26½ seconds. Kate B. thinks the trains which are met on starting and on arriving are never to be counted, even when met elsewhere. Q. Y. Z. tries a rather complex algebraical solution, and succeeds in finding the time of meeting correctly: all else is wrong. Sea-Gull seems to think that, in (1), the easterly train stood still for 3 hours; and says that, in (2), the travellers met at the end of 71 minutes 40 seconds. Thistledown nobly confesses to having tried no calculation, but merely having drawn a picture of the railway and counted the trains; in (1), she counts wrong; in (2) she makes them meet in 75 minutes. Tom-Quad omits (1): in (2) he makes Clara count the train she met on her arrival. The unsigned one is also unintelligible; it states that the travellers go "1-24th more than the total distance to be traversed"! The "Clara" theory, already referred to, is adopted by 5 of these, viz., Bo-Peep, Financier, Kate B., Tom-Quad, and the nameless writer.

The 11 half-right answers are from Bog-Oak, Bridget, Castor, Cheshire Cat, G. E. B., Guy, Mary, M. A. H., Old Maid, R. W., and Vendredi. All these adopt the "Clara" theory. Castor omits (1). Vendredi gets (1) right, but in (2) makes the same mistake as Bo-Peep. I notice in your solution a marvellous proportion-sum:—"300 miles: 2 hours :: one mile: 24 seconds." May I venture to advise your acquiring, as soon as possible, an utter disbelief in the possibility of a ratio existing between miles and hours? Do not be disheartened by your two friends' sarcastic remarks on your "roundabout ways." Their short method, of adding 12 and 8, has the slight disadvantage of bringing the answer wrong: even a "roundabout" method is better than that! M. A. H., in (2), makes the travellers count "one" after they met, not when they met. Cheshire Cat and Old Maid get "20" as answer for (1), by forgetting to strike out the train met on arrival. The others all get "18" in various ways. Bog-Oak, Guy, and R. W. divide the trains which the westerly traveller has to meet into 2 sets, viz., those already on the line, which they (rightly) make "11," and those which started during her 2 hours' journey (exclusive of train met on arrival), which they (wrongly) make "7"; and they make a similar mistake with the easterly train. Bridget (rightly) says that the westerly traveller met a train every 6 minutes for 2 hours, but (wrongly) makes the number "20"; it should be "21." G. E. B. adopts Bo-Peep's method, but (wrongly) strikes out (for the easterly traveller) the train which started at the commencement of the previous 2 hours. Mary thinks a train, met on arrival, must not be counted, even when met on a previous occasion.

The 3, who are wholly right but for the unfortunate "Clara" theory, are F. Lee, G. S. C., and X. A. B.

And now "descend, ye classic Ten!" who have solved the whole problem. Your names are Aix-les-Bains, Algernon Bray (thanks for a friendly remark, which comes with a heart-warmth that not even the Atlantic could chill), Arvon, Bradshaw of the Future, Fifee, H. L. R., J. L. O., Omega, S. S. G., and Waiting for the Train. Several of these have put Clara, provisionally, into the easterly train: but they seem to have understood that the data do not decide that point.

CLASS LIST.

I.

Aix-les-Bains.

Algernon Bray.

Bradshaw of the Future.

Fifee.

H. L. R.

Omega.

S. S. G.

Waiting for the train.

II.

Arvon.

J. L. O.

III.

F. Lee.

G. S. C.

X. A. B.

ANSWERS TO KNOT IV.

Problem.—"There are 5 sacks, of which Nos. 1, 2, weigh 12 lbs.; Nos. 2, 3, 13½ lbs.; Nos. 3, 4, 11½ lbs.; Nos. 4, 5, 8 lbs.; Nos. 1, 3, 5, 16 lbs. Required the weight of each sack."

Answer.—"5½, 6½, 7, 4½, 3½."

The sum of all the weighings, 61 lbs., includes sack No. 3 thrice and each other twice. Deducting twice the sum of the 1st and 4th weighings, we get 21 lbs. for thrice No. 3, i.e., 7 lbs. for No. 3. Hence, the 2nd and 3rd weighings give 6½ lbs., 4½ lbs. for Nos. 2, 4; and hence again, the 1st and 4th weighings give 5½ lbs., 3½ lbs., for Nos. 1, 5.

Ninety-seven answers have been received. Of these, 15 are beyond the reach of discussion, as they give no working. I can but enumerate their names, and I take this opportunity of saying that this is the last time I shall put on record the names of competitors who give no sort of clue to the process by which their answers were obtained. In guessing a conundrum, or in catching a flea, we do not expect the breathless victor to give us afterwards, in cold blood, a history of the mental or muscular efforts by which he achieved success; but a mathematical calculation is another thing. The names of this "mute inglorious" band are Common Sense, D. E. R., Douglas, E. L., Ellen, I. M. T., J. M. C., Joseph, Knot I, Lucy, Meek, M. F. C., Pyramus, Shah, Veritas.

Of the eighty-two answers with which the working, or some approach to it, is supplied, one is wrong: seventeen have given solutions which are (from one cause or another) practically valueless: the remaining sixty-four I shall try to arrange in a Class-list, according to the varying degrees of shortness and neatness to which they seem to have attained.

The solitary wrong answer is from Nell. To be thus "alone in the crowd" is a distinction—a painful one, no doubt, but still a distinction. I am sorry for you, my dear young lady, and I seem to hear your tearful exclamation, when you read these lines, "Ah! This is the knell of all my hopes!" Why, oh why, did you assume that the 4th and 5th bags weighed 4 lbs. each? And why did you not test your answers? However, please try again: and please don't change your nom-de-plume: let us have Nell in the First Class next time!

The seventeen whose solutions are practically valueless are Ardmore, A ready Reckoner, Arthur, Bog-Lark, Bog-Oak, Bridget, First Attempt, J. L. C., M. E. T., Rose, Rowena, Sea-Breeze, Sylvia, Thistledown, Three-Fifths Asleep, Vendredi, and Winifred. Bog-Lark tries it by a sort of "rule of false," assuming experimentally that Nos. 1, 2, weigh 6 lbs. each, and having thus produced 17½, instead of 16, as the weight of 1, 3, and 5, she removes "the superfluous pound and a half," but does not explain how she knows from which to take it. Three-fifths Asleep says that (when in that peculiar state) "it seemed perfectly clear" to her that, "3 out of the 5 sacks being weighed twice over, 2⁄5 of 45 = 27, must be the total weight of the 5 sacks." As to which I can only say, with the Captain, "it beats me entirely!" Winifred, on the plea that "one must have a starting-point," assumes (what I fear is a mere guess) that No. 1 weighed 5½ lbs. The rest all do it, wholly or partly, by guess-work.

The problem is of course (as any Algebraist sees at once) a case of "simultaneous simple equations." It is, however, easily soluble by Arithmetic only; and, when this is the case, I hold that it is bad workmanship to use the more complex method. I have not, this time, given more credit to arithmetical solutions; but in future problems I shall (other things being equal) give the highest marks to those who use the simplest machinery. I have put into Class I. those whose answers seemed specially short and neat, and into Class III. those that seemed specially long or clumsy. Of this last set, A. C. M., Furze-Bush, James, Partridge, R. W., and Waiting for the Train, have sent long wandering solutions, the substitutions having no definite method, but seeming to have been made to see what would come of it. Chilpome and Dublin Boy omit some of the working. Arvon Marlborough Boy only finds the weight of one sack.

CLASS LIST

I.

B. E. D.

C. H.

Constance Johnson.

Greystead.

Guy.

Hoopoe.

J. F. A.

M. A. H.

Number Five.

Pedro.

R. E. X.

Seven Old Men.

Vis Inertiæ.

Willy B.

Yahoo.

II.

American Subscriber.

An appreciative schoolma'am.

Ayr.

Bradshaw of the Future.

Cheam.

C. M. G.

Dinah Mite.

Duckwing.

E. C. M.

E. N. Lowry.

Era.

Euroclydon.

F. H. W.

Fifee.

G. E. B.

Harlequin.

Hawthorn.

Hough Green.

J. A. B.

Jack Tar.

J. B. B.

Kgovjni.

Land Lubber.

L. D.

Magpie.

Mary.

Mhruxi.

Minnie.

Money-Spinner.

Nairam.

Old Cat.

Polichinelle.

Simple Susan.

S. S. G.

Thisbe.

Verena.

Wamba.

Wolfe.

Wykehamicus.

Y. M. A. H.

III.

A. C. M.

Arvon Marlborough Boy.

Chilpome.

Dublin Boy.

Furze-Bush.

James.

Partridge.

R. W.

Waiting for the Train.

ANSWERS TO KNOT V.

Problem.—To mark pictures, giving 3 x's to 2 or 3, 2 to 4 or 5, and 1 to 9 or 10; also giving 3 o's to 1 or 2, 2 to 3 or 4 and 1 to 8 or 9; so as to mark the smallest possible number of pictures, and to give them the largest possible number of marks.

Answer.—10 pictures; 29 marks; arranged thus:—

 x

 x

 x

 x

 x

 x

 x

 x

 x

 o

 x

 x

 x

 x

 x

 o

 o

 o

 o

x

x

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

Solution.—By giving all the x's possible, putting into brackets the optional ones, we get 10 pictures marked thus:—

 x

 x

 x

 x

 x

 x

 x

 x

 x

(x)

 x

 x

 x

 x

(x)

 x

 x

(x)

By then assigning o's in the same way, beginning at the other end, we get 9 pictures marked thus:—

(o)

 o

(o)

 o

 o

 o

(o)

 o

 o

 o

 o

 o

 o

 o

 o

All we have now to do is to run these two wedges as close together as they will go, so as to get the minimum number of pictures——erasing optional marks where by so doing we can run them closer, but otherwise letting them stand. There are 10 necessary marks in the 1st row, and in the 3rd; but only 7 in the 2nd. Hence we erase all optional marks in the 1st and 3rd rows, but let them stand in the 2nd.

Twenty-two answers have been received. Of these 11 give no working; so, in accordance with what I announced in my last review of answers, I leave them unnamed, merely mentioning that 5 are right and 6 wrong.

Of the eleven answers with which some working is supplied, 3 are wrong. C. H. begins with the rash assertion that under the given conditions "the sum is impossible. For," he or she adds (these initialed correspondents are dismally vague beings to deal with: perhaps "it" would be a better pronoun), "10 is the least possible number of pictures" (granted): "therefore we must either give 2 x's to 6, or 2 o's to 5." Why "must," oh alphabetical phantom? It is nowhere ordained that every picture "must" have 3 marks! Fifee sends a folio page of solution, which deserved a better fate: she offers 3 answers, in each of which 10 pictures are marked, with 30 marks; in one she gives 2 x's to 6 pictures; in another to 7; in the 3rd she gives 2 o's to 5; thus in every case ignoring the conditions. (I pause to remark that the condition "2 x's to 4 or 5 pictures" can only mean "either to 4 or else to 5": if, as one competitor holds, it might mean any number not less than 4, the words "or 5" would be superfluous.) I. E. A. (I am happy to say that none of these bloodless phantoms appear this time in the class-list. Is it IDEA with the "D" left out?) gives 2 x's to 6 pictures. She then takes me to task for using the word "ought" instead of "nought." No doubt, to one who thus rebels against the rules laid down for her guidance, the word must be distasteful. But does not I. E. A. remember the parallel case of "adder"? That creature was originally "a nadder": then the two words took to bandying the poor "n" backwards and forwards like a shuttlecock, the final state of the game being "an adder." May not "a nought" have similarly become "an ought"? Anyhow, "oughts and crosses" is a very old game. I don't think I ever heard it called "noughts and crosses."

In the following Class-list, I hope the solitary occupant of III. will sheathe her claws when she hears how narrow an escape she has had of not being named at all. Her account of the process by which she got the answer is so meagre that, like the nursery tale of "Jack-a-Minory" (I trust I. E. A. will be merciful to the spelling), it is scarcely to be distinguished from "zero."

CLASS LIST.

I.

Guy.

Old Cat.

Sea-Breeze.

II.

Ayr.

Bradshaw of the Future.

F. Lee.

H. Vernon.

III.

Cat.

ANSWERS TO KNOT VI.

Problem 1.—A and B began the year with only 1,000l. a-piece. They borrowed nought; they stole nought. On the next New-Year's Day they had 60,000l. between them. How did they do it?

Solution.—They went that day to the Bank of England. A stood in front of it, while B went round and stood behind it.

Two answers have been received, both worthy of much honour. Addlepate makes them borrow "0" and steal "0," and uses both cyphers by putting them at the right-hand end of the 1,000l., thus producing 100,000l., which is well over the mark. But (or to express it in Latin) At Spes infracta has solved it even more ingeniously: with the first cypher she turns the "1" of the 1,000l. into a "9," and adds the result to the original sum, thus getting 10,000l.: and in this, by means of the other "0," she turns the "1" into a "6," thus hitting the exact 60,000l.

CLASS LIST

I.

At Spes Infracta.

II.

Addlepate.

Problem 2.—L makes 5 scarves, while M makes 2: Z makes 4 while L makes 3. Five scarves of Z's weigh one of L's; 5 of M's weigh 3 of Z's. One of M's is as warm as 4 of Z's: and one of L's as warm as 3 of M's. Which is best, giving equal weight in the result to rapidity of work, lightness, and warmth?

Answer.—The order is M, L, Z.

Solution.—As to rapidity (other things being constant) L's merit is to M's in the ratio of 5 to 2: Z's to L's in the ratio of 4 to 3. In order to get one set of 3 numbers fulfilling these conditions, it is perhaps simplest to take the one that occurs twice as unity, and reduce the others to fractions: this gives, for L, M, and Z, the marks 1, 2⁄5, 2⁄3. In estimating for lightness, we observe that the greater the weight, the less the merit, so that Z's merit is to L's as 5 to 1. Thus the marks for lightness are 1⁄5, 2⁄3, 1. And similarly, the marks for warmth are 3, 1, ¼. To get the total result, we must multiply L's 3 marks together, and do the same for M and for Z. The final numbers are 1 × 1⁄5 × 3, 2⁄5 × 2⁄3 × 1, 2⁄3 × 1 × ¼; i.e. 3⁄5, 2⁄3, 1⁄3; i.e. multiplying throughout by 15 (which will not alter the proportion), 9, 10, 5; showing the order of merit to be M, L, Z.

Twenty-nine answers have been received, of which five are right, and twenty-four wrong. These hapless ones have all (with three exceptions) fallen into the error of adding the proportional numbers together, for each candidate, instead of multiplying. Why the latter is right, rather than the former, is fully proved in text-books, so I will not occupy space by stating it here: but it can be illustrated very easily by the case of length, breadth, and depth. Suppose A and B are rival diggers of rectangular tanks: the amount of work done is evidently measured by the number of cubical feet dug out. Let A dig a tank 10 feet long, 10 wide, 2 deep: let B dig one 6 feet long, 5 wide, 10 deep. The cubical contents are 200, 300; i.e. B is best digger in the ratio of 3 to 2. Now try marking for length, width, and depth, separately; giving a maximum mark of 10 to the best in each contest, and then adding the results!

Of the twenty-four malefactors, one gives no working, and so has no real claim to be named; but I break the rule for once, in deference to its success in Problem 1: he, she, or it, is Addlepate. The other twenty-three may be divided into five groups.

First and worst are, I take it, those who put the rightful winner last; arranging them as "Lolo, Zuzu, Mimi." The names of these desperate wrong-doers are Ayr, Bradshaw of the Future, Furze-bush and Pollux (who send a joint answer), Greystead, Guy, Old Hen, and Simple Susan. The latter was once best of all; the Old Hen has taken advantage of her simplicity, and beguiled her with the chaff which was the bane of her own chickenhood.

Secondly, I point the finger of scorn at those who have put the worst candidate at the top; arranging them as "Zuzu, Mimi, Lolo." They are Graecia, M. M., Old Cat, and R. E. X. "'Tis Greece, but——."

The third set have avoided both these enormities, and have even succeeded in putting the worst last, their answer being "Lolo, Mimi, Zuzu." Their names are Ayr (who also appears among the "quite too too"), Clifton C., F. B., Fifee, Grig, Janet, and Mrs. Sairey Gamp. F. B. has not fallen into the common error; she multiplies together the proportionate numbers she gets, but in getting them she goes wrong, by reckoning warmth as a de-merit. Possibly she is "Freshly Burnt," or comes "From Bombay." Janet and Mrs. Sairey Gamp have also avoided this error: the method they have adopted is shrouded in mystery—I scarcely feel competent to criticize it. Mrs. Gamp says "if Zuzu makes 4 while Lolo makes 3, Zuzu makes 6 while Lolo makes 5 (bad reasoning), while Mimi makes 2." From this she concludes "therefore Zuzu excels in speed by 1" (i.e. when compared with Lolo; but what about Mimi?). She then compares the 3 kinds of excellence, measured on this mystic scale. Janet takes the statement, that "Lolo makes 5 while Mimi makes 2," to prove that "Lolo makes 3 while Mimi makes 1 and Zuzu 4" (worse reasoning than Mrs. Gamp's), and thence concludes that "Zuzu excels in speed by 1⁄8"! Janet should have been Adeline, "mystery of mysteries!"

The fourth set actually put Mimi at the top, arranging them as "Mimi, Zuzu, Lolo." They are Marquis and Co., Martreb, S. B. B. (first initial scarcely legible: may be meant for "J"), and Stanza.

The fifth set consist of An ancient Fish and Camel. These ill-assorted comrades, by dint of foot and fin, have scrambled into the right answer, but, as their method is wrong, of course it counts for nothing. Also An ancient Fish has very ancient and fishlike ideas as to how numbers represent merit: she says "Lolo gains 2½ on Mimi." Two and a half what? Fish, fish, art thou in thy duty?

Of the five winners I put Balbus and The elder Traveller slightly below the other three—Balbus for defective reasoning, the other for scanty working. Balbus gives two reasons for saying that addition of marks is not the right method, and then adds "it follows that the decision must be made by multiplying the marks together." This is hardly more logical than to say "This is not Spring: therefore it must be Autumn."

CLASS LIST.

I.

Dinah Mite.

E. B. D. L.

Joram.

II.

Balbus.

The Elder Traveller.

With regard to Knot V., I beg to express to Vis Inertiæ and to any others who, like her, understood the condition to be that every marked picture must have three marks, my sincere regret that the unfortunate phrase "fill the columns with oughts and crosses" should have caused them to waste so much time and trouble. I can only repeat that a literal interpretation of "fill" would seem to me to require that every picture in the gallery should be marked. Vis Inertiæ would have been in the First Class if she had sent in the solution she now offers.

ANSWERS TO KNOT VII.

Problem.—Given that one glass of lemonade, 3 sandwiches, and 7 biscuits, cost 1s. 2d.; and that one glass of lemonade, 4 sandwiches, and 10 biscuits, cost 1s. 5d.: find the cost of (1) a glass of lemonade, a sandwich, and a biscuit; and (2) 2 glasses of lemonade, 3 sandwiches, and 5 biscuits.

Answer.—(1) 8d.; (2) 1s. 7d.

Solution.—This is best treated algebraically. Let x = the cost (in pence) of a glass of lemonade, y of a sandwich, and z of a biscuit. Then we have x + 3y + 7z = 14, and x + 4y + 10z = 17. And we require the values of x + y + z, and of 2x + 3y + 5z. Now, from two equations only, we cannot find, separately, the values of three unknowns: certain combinations of them may, however, be found. Also we know that we can, by the help of the given equations, eliminate 2 of the 3 unknowns from the quantity whose value is required, which will then contain one only. If, then, the required value is ascertainable at all, it can only be by the 3rd unknown vanishing of itself: otherwise the problem is impossible.

Let us then eliminate lemonade and sandwiches, and reduce everything to biscuits—a state of things even more depressing than "if all the world were apple-pie"—by subtracting the 1st equation from the 2nd, which eliminates lemonade, and gives y + 3z = 3, or y = 3-3z; and then substituting this value of y in the 1st, which gives x-2z = 5, i.e. x = 5 + 2z. Now if we substitute these values of x, y, in the quantities whose values are required, the first becomes (5 + 2z) + (3-3z) + z, i.e. 8: and the second becomes 2(5 + 2z) + 3(3-3z) + 5z, i.e. 19. Hence the answers are (1) 8d., (2) 1s. 7d.

The above is a universal method: that is, it is absolutely certain either to produce the answer, or to prove that no answer is possible. The question may also be solved by combining the quantities whose values are given, so as to form those whose values are required. This is merely a matter of ingenuity and good luck: and as it may fail, even when the thing is possible, and is of no use in proving it impossible, I cannot rank this method as equal in value with the other. Even when it succeeds, it may prove a very tedious process. Suppose the 26 competitors, who have sent in what I may call accidental solutions, had had a question to deal with where every number contained 8 or 10 digits! I suspect it would have been a case of "silvered is the raven hair" (see "Patience") before any solution would have been hit on by the most ingenious of them.

Forty-five answers have come in, of which 44 give, I am happy to say, some sort of working, and therefore deserve to be mentioned by name, and to have their virtues, or vices as the case may be, discussed. Thirteen have made assumptions to which they have no right, and so cannot figure in the Class-list, even though, in 10 of the 13 cases, the answer is right. Of the remaining 28, no less than 26 have sent in accidental solutions, and therefore fall short of the highest honours.

I will now discuss individual cases, taking the worst first, as my custom is.

Froggy gives no working—at least this is all he gives: after stating the given equations, he says "therefore the difference, 1 sandwich + 3 biscuits, = 3d.": then follow the amounts of the unknown bills, with no further hint as to how he got them. Froggy has had a very narrow escape of not being named at all!

Of those who are wrong, Vis Inertiæ has sent in a piece of incorrect working. Peruse the horrid details, and shudder! She takes x (call it "y") as the cost of a sandwich, and concludes (rightly enough) that a biscuit will cost (3-y)/3. She then subtracts the second equation from the first, and deduces 3y + 7 × (3-y)/3-4y + 10 × (3-y)/3 = 3. By making two mistakes in this line, she brings out y = 2⁄2. Try it again, oh Vis Inertiæ! Away with Inertiæ: infuse a little more Vis: and you will bring out the correct (though uninteresting) result, 0 = 0! This will show you that it is hopeless to try to coax any one of these 3 unknowns to reveal its separate value. The other competitor, who is wrong throughout, is either J. M. C. or T. M. C.: but, whether he be a Juvenile Mis-Calculator or a True Mathematician Confused, he makes the answers 7d. and 1s. 5d. He assumes, with Too Much Confidence, that biscuits were ½d. each, and that Clara paid for 8, though she only ate 7!

We will now consider the 13 whose working is wrong, though the answer is right: and, not to measure their demerits too exactly, I will take them in alphabetical order. Anita finds (rightly) that "1 sandwich and 3 biscuits cost 3d.," and proceeds "therefore 1 sandwich = 1½d., 3 biscuits = 1½d., 1 lemonade = 6d." Dinah Mite begins like Anita: and thence proves (rightly) that a biscuit costs less than a 1d.: whence she concludes (wrongly) that it must cost ½d. F. C. W. is so beautifully resigned to the certainty of a verdict of "guilty," that I have hardly the heart to utter the word, without adding a "recommended to mercy owing to extenuating circumstances." But really, you know, where are the extenuating circumstances? She begins by assuming that lemonade is 4d. a glass, and sandwiches 3d. each, (making with the 2 given equations, four conditions to be fulfilled by three miserable unknowns!). And, having (naturally) developed this into a contradiction, she then tries 5d. and 2d. with a similar result. (N.B. This process might have been carried on through the whole of the Tertiary Period, without gratifying one single Megatherium.) She then, by a "happy thought," tries half-penny biscuits, and so obtains a consistent result. This may be a good solution, viewing the problem as a conundrum: but it is not scientific. Janet identifies sandwiches with biscuits! "One sandwich + 3 biscuits" she makes equal to "4." Four what? Mayfair makes the astounding assertion that the equation, s + 3b = 3, "is evidently only satisfied by s = 2⁄2, b = ½"! Old Cat believes that the assumption that a sandwich costs 1½d. is "the only way to avoid unmanageable fractions." But why avoid them? Is there not a certain glow of triumph in taming such a fraction? "Ladies and gentlemen, the fraction now before you is one that for years defied all efforts of a refining nature: it was, in a word, hopelessly vulgar. Treating it as a circulating decimal (the treadmill of fractions) only made matters worse. As a last resource, I reduced it to its lowest terms, and extracted its square root!" Joking apart, let me thank Old Cat for some very kind words of sympathy, in reference to a correspondent (whose name I am happy to say I have now forgotten) who had found fault with me as a discourteous critic. O. V. L. is beyond my comprehension. He takes the given equations as (1) and (2): thence, by the process [(2)-(1)] deduces (rightly) equation (3) viz. s + 3b = 3: and thence again, by the process [x3] (a hopeless mystery), deduces 3s + 4b = 4. I have nothing to say about it: I give it up. Sea-Breeze says "it is immaterial to the answer" (why?) "in what proportion 3d. is divided between the sandwich and the 3 biscuits": so she assumes s = l½d., b = ½d. Stanza is one of a very irregular metre. At first she (like Janet) identifies sandwiches with biscuits. She then tries two assumptions (s = 1, b = 2⁄3, and s = ½ b = 2⁄6), and (naturally) ends in contradictions. Then she returns to the first assumption, and finds the 3 unknowns separately: quod est absurdum. Stiletto identifies sandwiches and biscuits, as "articles." Is the word ever used by confectioners? I fancied "What is the next article, Ma'am?" was limited to linendrapers. Two Sisters first assume that biscuits are 4 a penny, and then that they are 2 a penny, adding that "the answer will of course be the same in both cases." It is a dreamy remark, making one feel something like Macbeth grasping at the spectral dagger. "Is this a statement that I see before me?" If you were to say "we both walked the same way this morning," and I were to say "one of you walked the same way, but the other didn't," which of the three would be the most hopelessly confused? Turtle Pyate (what is a Turtle Pyate, please?) and Old Crow, who send a joint answer, and Y. Y., adopt the same method. Y. Y. gets the equation s + 3b = 3: and then says "this sum must be apportioned in one of the three following ways." It may be, I grant you: but Y. Y. do you say "must"? I fear it is possible for Y. Y. to be two Y's. The other two conspirators are less positive: they say it "can" be so divided: but they add "either of the three prices being right"! This is bad grammar and bad arithmetic at once, oh mysterious birds!

Of those who win honours, The Shetland Snark must have the 3rd class all to himself. He has only answered half the question, viz. the amount of Clara's luncheon: the two little old ladies he pitilessly leaves in the midst of their "difficulty." I beg to assure him (with thanks for his friendly remarks) that entrance-fees and subscriptions are things unknown in that most economical of clubs, "The Knot-Untiers."

The authors of the 26 "accidental" solutions differ only in the number of steps they have taken between the data and the answers. In order to do them full justice I have arranged the 2nd class in sections, according to the number of steps. The two Kings are fearfully deliberate! I suppose walking quick, or taking short cuts, is inconsistent with kingly dignity: but really, in reading Theseus' solution, one almost fancied he was "marking time," and making no advance at all! The other King will, I hope, pardon me for having altered "Coal" into "Cole." King Coilus, or Coil, seems to have reigned soon after Arthur's time. Henry of Huntingdon identifies him with the King Coël who first built walls round Colchester, which was named after him. In the Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester we read:—

"Aftur Kyng Aruirag, of wam we habbeth y told, Marius ys sone was kyng, quoynte mon & bold. And ys sone was aftur hym, Coil was ys name, Bothe it were quoynte men, & of noble fame."

Balbus lays it down as a general principle that "in order to ascertain the cost of any one luncheon, it must come to the same amount upon two different assumptions." (Query. Should not "it" be "we"? Otherwise the luncheon is represented as wishing to ascertain its own cost!) He then makes two assumptions—one, that sandwiches cost nothing; the other, that biscuits cost nothing, (either arrangement would lead to the shop being inconveniently crowded!)—and brings out the unknown luncheons as 8d. and 19d., on each assumption. He then concludes that this agreement of results "shows that the answers are correct." Now I propose to disprove his general law by simply giving one instance of its failing. One instance is quite enough. In logical language, in order to disprove a "universal affirmative," it is enough to prove its contradictory, which is a "particular negative." (I must pause for a digression on Logic, and especially on Ladies' Logic. The universal affirmative "everybody says he's a duck" is crushed instantly by proving the particular negative "Peter says he's a goose," which is equivalent to "Peter does not say he's a duck." And the universal negative "nobody calls on her" is well met by the particular affirmative "I called yesterday." In short, either of two contradictories disproves the other: and the moral is that, since a particular proposition is much more easily proved than a universal one, it is the wisest course, in arguing with a Lady, to limit one's own assertions to "particulars," and leave her to prove the "universal" contradictory, if she can. You will thus generally secure a logical victory: a practical victory is not to be hoped for, since she can always fall back upon the crushing remark "that has nothing to do with it!"—a move for which Man has not yet discovered any satisfactory answer. Now let us return to Balbus.) Here is my "particular negative," on which to test his rule. Suppose the two recorded luncheons to have been "2 buns, one queen-cake, 2 sausage-rolls, and a bottle of Zoëdone: total, one-and-ninepence," and "one bun, 2 queen-cakes, a sausage-roll, and a bottle of Zoëdone: total, one-and-fourpence." And suppose Clara's unknown luncheon to have been "3 buns, one queen-cake, one sausage-roll, and 2 bottles of Zoëdone:" while the two little sisters had been indulging in "8 buns, 4 queen-cakes, 2 sausage-rolls, and 6 bottles of Zoëdone." (Poor souls, how thirsty they must have been!) If Balbus will kindly try this by his principle of "two assumptions," first assuming that a bun is 1d. and a queen-cake 2d., and then that a bun is 3d. and a queen-cake 3d., he will bring out the other two luncheons, on each assumption, as "one-and-nine-pence" and "four-and-ten-pence" respectively, which harmony of results, he will say, "shows that the answers are correct." And yet, as a matter of fact, the buns were 2d. each, the queen-cakes 3d., the sausage-rolls 6d., and the Zoëdone 2d. a bottle: so that Clara's third luncheon had cost one-and-sevenpence, and her thirsty friends had spent four-and-fourpence!

Another remark of Balbus I will quote and discuss: for I think that it also may yield a moral for some of my readers. He says "it is the same thing in substance whether in solving this problem we use words and call it Arithmetic, or use letters and signs and call it Algebra." Now this does not appear to me a correct description of the two methods: the Arithmetical method is that of "synthesis" only; it goes from one known fact to another, till it reaches its goal: whereas the Algebraical method is that of "analysis": it begins with the goal, symbolically represented, and so goes backwards, dragging its veiled victim with it, till it has reached the full daylight of known facts, in which it can tear off the veil and say "I know you!"

Take an illustration. Your house has been broken into and robbed, and you appeal to the policeman who was on duty that night. "Well, Mum, I did see a chap getting out over your garden-wall: but I was a good bit off, so I didn't chase him, like. I just cut down the short way to the Chequers, and who should I meet but Bill Sykes, coming full split round the corner. So I just ups and says 'My lad, you're wanted.' That's all I says. And he says 'I'll go along quiet, Bobby,' he says, 'without the darbies,' he says." There's your Arithmetical policeman. Now try the other method. "I seed somebody a running, but he was well gone or ever I got nigh the place. So I just took a look round in the garden. And I noticed the foot-marks, where the chap had come right across your flower-beds. They was good big foot-marks sure-ly. And I noticed as the left foot went down at the heel, ever so much deeper than the other. And I says to myself 'The chap's been a big hulking chap: and he goes lame on his left foot.' And I rubs my hand on the wall where he got over, and there was soot on it, and no mistake. So I says to myself 'Now where can I light on a big man, in the chimbley-sweep line, what's lame of one foot?' And I flashes up permiscuous: and I says 'It's Bill Sykes!' says I." There is your Algebraical policeman—a higher intellectual type, to my thinking, than the other.

Little Jack's solution calls for a word of praise, as he has written out what really is an algebraical proof in words, without representing any of his facts as equations. If it is all his own, he will make a good algebraist in the time to come. I beg to thank Simple Susan for some kind words of sympathy, to the same effect as those received from Old Cat.

Hecla and Martreb are the only two who have used a method certain either to produce the answer, or else to prove it impossible: so they must share between them the highest honours.

CLASS LIST.

I.

Hecla.

Martreb.

II.

§ 1 (2 steps).

Adelaide.

Clifton C....

E. K. C.

Guy.

L'Inconnu.

Little Jack.

Nil desperandum.

Simple Susan.

Yellow-Hammer.

Woolly One.

§ 2 (3 steps).

A. A.

A Christmas Carol.

Afternoon Tea.

An appreciative Schoolma'am.

Baby.

Balbus.

Bog-Oak.

The Red Queen.

Wall-flower.

§ 3 (4 steps).

Hawthorn.

Joram.

S. S. G.

§ 4 (5 steps).

A Stepney Coach.

§ 5 (6 steps).

Bay Laurel.

Bradshaw of the Future.

§ 6 (9 steps).

Old King Cole.

§ 7 (14 steps).

Theseus.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

I have received several letters on the subjects of Knots II. and VI., which lead me to think some further explanation desirable.

In Knot II., I had intended the numbering of the houses to begin at one corner of the Square, and this was assumed by most, if not all, of the competitors. Trojanus however says "assuming, in default of any information, that the street enters the square in the middle of each side, it may be supposed that the numbering begins at a street." But surely the other is the more natural assumption?

In Knot VI., the first Problem was of course a mere jeu de mots, whose presence I thought excusable in a series of Problems whose aim is to entertain rather than to instruct: but it has not escaped the contemptuous criticisms of two of my correspondents, who seem to think that Apollo is in duty bound to keep his bow always on the stretch. Neither of them has guessed it: and this is true human nature. Only the other day—the 31st of September, to be quite exact—I met my old friend Brown, and gave him a riddle I had just heard. With one great effort of his colossal mind, Brown guessed it. "Right!" said I. "Ah," said he, "it's very neat—very neat. And it isn't an answer that would occur to everybody. Very neat indeed." A few yards further on, I fell in with Smith and to him I propounded the same riddle. He frowned over it for a minute, and then gave it up. Meekly I faltered out the answer. "A poor thing, sir!" Smith growled, as he turned away. "A very poor thing! I wonder you care to repeat such rubbish!" Yet Smith's mind is, if possible, even more colossal than Brown's.

The second Problem of Knot VI. is an example in ordinary Double Rule of Three, whose essential feature is that the result depends on the variation of several elements, which are so related to it that, if all but one be constant, it varies as that one: hence, if none be constant, it varies as their product. Thus, for example, the cubical contents of a rectangular tank vary as its length, if breadth and depth be constant, and so on; hence, if none be constant, it varies as the product of the length, breadth, and depth.

When the result is not thus connected with the varying elements, the Problem ceases to be Double Rule of Three and often becomes one of great complexity.

To illustrate this, let us take two candidates for a prize, A and B, who are to compete in French, German, and Italian:

(a) Let it be laid down that the result is to depend on their relative knowledge of each subject, so that, whether their marks, for French, be "1, 2" or "100, 200," the result will be the same: and let it also be laid down that, if they get equal marks on 2 papers, the final marks are to have the same ratio as those of the 3rd paper. This is a case of ordinary Double Rule of Three. We multiply A's 3 marks together, and do the same for B. Note that, if A gets a single "0," his final mark is "0," even if he gets full marks for 2 papers while B gets only one mark for each paper. This of course would be very unfair on A, though a correct solution under the given conditions.

(b) The result is to depend, as before, on relative knowledge; but French is to have twice as much weight as German or Italian. This is an unusual form of question. I should be inclined to say "the resulting ratio is to be nearer to the French ratio than if we multiplied as in (a), and so much nearer that it would be necessary to use the other multipliers twice to produce the same result as in (a):" e.g. if the French Ratio were 2⁄10, and the others 2⁄9, 1⁄9 so that the ultimate ratio, by method (a), would be 2⁄45, I should multiply instead by 2⁄3, 1⁄3, giving the result, 1⁄3 which is nearer to 2⁄10 than if he had used method (a).

(c) The result is to depend on actual amount of knowledge of the 3 subjects collectively. Here we have to ask two questions. (1) What is to be the "unit" (i.e. "standard to measure by") in each subject? (2) Are these units to be of equal, or unequal value? The usual "unit" is the knowledge shown by answering the whole paper correctly; calling this "100," all lower amounts are represented by numbers between "0" and "100." Then, if these units are to be of equal value, we simply add A's 3 marks together, and do the same for B.

(d) The conditions are the same as (c), but French is to have double weight. Here we simply double the French marks, and add as before.

(e) French is to have such weight, that, if other marks be equal, the ultimate ratio is to be that of the French paper, so that a "0" in this would swamp the candidate: but the other two subjects are only to affect the result collectively, by the amount of knowledge shown, the two being reckoned of equal value. Here I should add A's German and Italian marks together, and multiply by his French mark.

But I need not go on: the problem may evidently be set with many varying conditions, each requiring its own method of solution. The Problem in Knot VI. was meant to belong to variety (a), and to make this clear, I inserted the following passage:

"Usually the competitors differ in one point only. Thus, last year, Fifi and Gogo made the same number of scarves in the trial week, and they were equally light; but Fifi's were twice as warm as Gogo's, and she was pronounced twice as good."

What I have said will suffice, I hope, as an answer to Balbus, who holds that (a) and (c) are the only possible varieties of the problem, and that to say "We cannot use addition, therefore we must be intended to use multiplication," is "no more illogical than, from knowledge that one was not born in the night, to infer that he was born in the daytime"; and also to Fifee, who says "I think a little more consideration will show you that our 'error of adding the proportional numbers together for each candidate instead of multiplying' is no error at all." Why, even if addition had been the right method to use, not one of the writers (I speak from memory) showed any consciousness of the necessity of fixing a "unit" for each subject. "No error at all!" They were positively steeped in error!

One correspondent (I do not name him, as the communication is not quite friendly in tone) writes thus:—"I wish to add, very respectfully, that I think it would be in better taste if you were to abstain from the very trenchant expressions which you are accustomed to indulge in when criticising the answer. That such a tone must not be" ("be not"?) "agreeable to the persons concerned who have made mistakes may possibly have no great weight with you, but I hope you will feel that it would be as well not to employ it, unless you are quite certain of being correct yourself." The only instances the writer gives of the "trenchant expressions" are "hapless" and "malefactors." I beg to assure him (and any others who may need the assurance: I trust there are none) that all such words have been used in jest, and with no idea that they could possibly annoy any one, and that I sincerely regret any annoyance I may have thus inadvertently given. May I hope that in future they will recognise the distinction between severe language used in sober earnest, and the "words of unmeant bitterness," which Coleridge has alluded to in that lovely passage beginning "A little child, a limber elf"? If the writer will refer to that passage, or to the preface to "Fire, Famine, and Slaughter," he will find the distinction, for which I plead, far better drawn out than I could hope to do in any words of mine.

The writer's insinuation that I care not how much annoyance I give to my readers I think it best to pass over in silence; but to his concluding remark I must entirely demur. I hold that to use language likely to annoy any of my correspondents would not be in the least justified by the plea that I was "quite certain of being correct." I trust that the knot-untiers and I are not on such terms as those!

I beg to thank G. B. for the offer of a puzzle—which, however, is too like the old one "Make four 9's into 100."

ANSWERS TO KNOT VIII.

§ 1. The Pigs.

Problem.—Place twenty-four pigs in four sties so that, as you go round and round, you may always find the number in each sty nearer to ten than the number in the last.

Answer.—Place 8 pigs in the first sty, 10 in the second, nothing in the third, and 6 in the fourth: 10 is nearer ten than 8; nothing is nearer ten than 10; 6 is nearer ten than nothing; and 8 is nearer ten than 6.

This problem is noticed by only two correspondents. Balbus says "it certainly cannot be solved mathematically, nor do I see how to solve it by any verbal quibble." Nolens Volens makes Her Radiancy change the direction of going round; and even then is obliged to add "the pigs must be carried in front of her"!

§ 2. The Grurmstipths.

Problem.—Omnibuses start from a certain point, both ways, every 15 minutes. A traveller, starting on foot along with one of them, meets one in 12½ minutes: when will he be overtaken by one?

Answer.—In 6¼ minutes.

Solution.—Let "a" be the distance an omnibus goes in 15 minutes, and "x" the distance from the starting-point to where the traveller is overtaken. Since the omnibus met is due at the starting-point in 2½ minutes, it goes in that time as far as the traveller walks in 12½; i.e. it goes 5 times as fast. Now the overtaking omnibus is "a" behind the traveller when he starts, and therefore goes "a + x" while he goes "x." Hence a + x = 5x; i.e. 4x = a, and x = a/4. This distance would be traversed by an omnibus in 15⁄4 minutes, and therefore by the traveller in 5 × 15⁄4. Hence he is overtaken in 18¾ minutes after starting, i.e. in 6¼ minutes after meeting the omnibus.

Four answers have been received, of which two are wrong. Dinah Mite rightly states that the overtaking omnibus reached the point where they met the other omnibus 5 minutes after they left, but wrongly concludes that, going 5 times as fast, it would overtake them in another minute. The travellers are 5-minutes-walk ahead of the omnibus, and must walk 1-4th of this distance farther before the omnibus overtakes them, which will be 1-5th of the distance traversed by the omnibus in the same time: this will require 1¼ minutes more. Nolens Volens tries it by a process like "Achilles and the Tortoise." He rightly states that, when the overtaking omnibus leaves the gate, the travellers are 1-5th of "a" ahead, and that it will take the omnibus 3 minutes to traverse this distance; "during which time" the travellers, he tells us, go 1-15th of "a" (this should be 1-25th). The travellers being now 1-15th of "a" ahead, he concludes that the work remaining to be done is for the travellers to go 1-60th of "a," while the omnibus goes l-12th. The principle is correct, and might have been applied earlier.

CLASS LIST.

I.

Balbus.

Delta.

ANSWERS TO KNOT IX.

§ 1. The Buckets.

Problem.—Lardner states that a solid, immersed in a fluid, displaces an amount equal to itself in bulk. How can this be true of a small bucket floating in a larger one?

Solution.—Lardner means, by "displaces," "occupies a space which might be filled with water without any change in the surroundings." If the portion of the floating bucket, which is above the water, could be annihilated, and the rest of it transformed into water, the surrounding water would not change its position: which agrees with Lardner's statement.

Five answers have been received, none of which explains the difficulty arising from the well-known fact that a floating body is the same weight as the displaced fluid. Hecla says that "only that portion of the smaller bucket which descends below the original level of the water can be properly said to be immersed, and only an equal bulk of water is displaced." Hence, according to Hecla, a solid, whose weight was equal to that of an equal bulk of water, would not float till the whole of it was below "the original level" of the water: but, as a matter of fact, it would float as soon as it was all under water. Magpie says the fallacy is "the assumption that one body can displace another from a place where it isn't," and that Lardner's assertion is incorrect, except when the containing vessel "was originally full to the brim." But the question of floating depends on the present state of things, not on past history. Old King Cole takes the same view as Hecla. Tympanum and Vindex assume that "displaced" means "raised above its original level," and merely explain how it comes to pass that the water, so raised, is less in bulk than the immersed portion of bucket, and thus land themselves—or rather set themselves floating—in the same boat as Hecla.

I regret that there is no Class-list to publish for this Problem.

§ 2. Balbus' Essay.

Problem.—Balbus states that if a certain solid be immersed in a certain vessel of water, the water will rise through a series of distances, two inches, one inch, half an inch, &c., which series has no end. He concludes that the water will rise without limit. Is this true?

Solution.—No. This series can never reach 4 inches, since, however many terms we take, we are always short of 4 inches by an amount equal to the last term taken.

Three answers have been received—but only two seem to me worthy of honours.

Tympanum says that the statement about the stick "is merely a blind, to which the old answer may well be applied, solvitur ambulando, or rather mergendo." I trust Tympanum will not test this in his own person, by taking the place of the man in Balbus' Essay! He would infallibly be drowned.

Old King Cole rightly points out that the series, 2, 1, &c., is a decreasing Geometrical Progression: while Vindex rightly identifies the fallacy as that of "Achilles and the Tortoise."

CLASS LIST.

I.

Old King Cole.

Vindex.

§ 3. The Garden.

Problem.—An oblong garden, half a yard longer than wide, consists entirely of a gravel-walk, spirally arranged, a yard wide and 3,630 yards long. Find the dimensions of the garden.

Answer.—60, 60½.

Solution.—The number of yards and fractions of a yard traversed in walking along a straight piece of walk, is evidently the same as the number of square-yards and fractions of a square-yard, contained in that piece of walk: and the distance, traversed in passing through a square-yard at a corner, is evidently a yard. Hence the area of the garden is 3,630 square-yards: i.e., if x be the width, x (x + ½) = 3,630. Solving this Quadratic, we find x = 60. Hence the dimensions are 60, 60½.

Twelve answers have been received—seven right and five wrong.

C. G. L., Nabob, Old Crow, and Tympanum assume that the number of yards in the length of the path is equal to the number of square-yards in the garden. This is true, but should have been proved. But each is guilty of darker deeds. C. G. L.'s "working" consists of dividing 3,630 by 60. Whence came this divisor, oh Segiel? Divination? Or was it a dream? I fear this solution is worth nothing. Old Crow's is shorter, and so (if possible) worth rather less. He says the answer "is at once seen to be 60 × 60½"! Nabob's calculation is short, but "as rich as a Nabob" in error. He says that the square root of 3,630, multiplied by 2, equals the length plus the breadth. That is 60.25 × 2 = 120½. His first assertion is only true of a square garden. His second is irrelevant, since 60.25 is not the square-root of 3,630! Nay, Bob, this will not do! Tympanum says that, by extracting the square-root of 3,630, we get 60 yards with a remainder of 30/60, or half-a-yard, which we add so as to make the oblong 60 × 60½. This is very terrible: but worse remains behind. Tympanum proceeds thus:—"But why should there be the half-yard at all? Because without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, Tympanum! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! I can say no more.

Hecla indulges, again and again, in that most fatal of all habits in computation—the making two mistakes which cancel each other. She takes x as the width of the garden, in yards, and x + ½ as its length, and makes her first "coil" the sum of x½, x½, x-1, x-1, i.e. 4x-3: but the fourth term should be x-1½, so that her first coil is ½ a yard too long. Her second coil is the sum of x-2½, x-2½, x-3, x-3: here the first term should be x-2 and the last x-3½: these two mistakes cancel, and this coil is therefore right. And the same thing is true of every other coil but the last, which needs an extra half-yard to reach the end of the path: and this exactly balances the mistake in the first coil. Thus the sum total of the coils comes right though the working is all wrong.

Of the seven who are right, Dinah Mite, Janet, Magpie, and Taffy make the same assumption as C. G. L. and Co. They then solve by a Quadratic. Magpie also tries it by Arithmetical Progression, but fails to notice that the first and last "coils" have special values.

Alumnus Etonæ attempts to prove what C. G. L. assumes by a particular instance, taking a garden 6 by 5½. He ought to have proved it generally: what is true of one number is not always true of others. Old King Cole solves it by an Arithmetical Progression. It is right, but too lengthy to be worth as much as a Quadratic.

Vindex proves it very neatly, by pointing out that a yard of walk measured along the middle represents a square yard of garden, "whether we consider the straight stretches of walk or the square yards at the angles, in which the middle line goes half a yard in one direction and then turns a right angle and goes half a yard in another direction."

CLASS LIST.

I.

Vindex.

II.

Alumnus Etonæ.

Old King Cole.

III.

Dinah Mite.

Janet.

Magpie.

Taffy.

ANSWERS TO KNOT X.

§ 1. The Chelsea Pensioners.

Problem.—If 70 per cent. have lost an eye, 75 per cent. an ear, 80 per cent. an arm, 85 per cent. a leg: what percentage, at least, must have lost all four?

Answer.—Ten.

Solution.—(I adopt that of Polar Star, as being better than my own). Adding the wounds together, we get 70 + 75 + 80 + 85 = 310, among 100 men; which gives 3 to each, and 4 to 10 men. Therefore the least percentage is 10.

Nineteen answers have been received. One is "5," but, as no working is given with it, it must, in accordance with the rule, remain "a deed without a name." Janet makes it "35 and 2⁄10ths." I am sorry she has misunderstood the question, and has supposed that those who had lost an ear were 75 per cent. of those who had lost an eye; and so on. Of course, on this supposition, the percentages must all be multiplied together. This she has done correctly, but I can give her no honours, as I do not think the question will fairly bear her interpretation, Three Score and Ten makes it "19 and 2⁄8ths." Her solution has given me—I will not say "many anxious days and sleepless nights," for I wish to be strictly truthful, but—some trouble in making any sense at all of it. She makes the number of "pensioners wounded once" to be 310 ("per cent.," I suppose!): dividing by 4, she gets 77 and a half as "average percentage:" again dividing by 4, she gets 19 and 2⁄8ths as "percentage wounded four times." Does she suppose wounds of different kinds to "absorb" each other, so to speak? Then, no doubt, the data are equivalent to 77 pensioners with one wound each, and a half-pensioner with a half-wound. And does she then suppose these concentrated wounds to be transferable, so that 2⁄4ths of these unfortunates can obtain perfect health by handing over their wounds to the remaining 1⁄4th? Granting these suppositions, her answer is right; or rather, if the question had been "A road is covered with one inch of gravel, along 77 and a half per cent. of it. How much of it could be covered 4 inches deep with the same material?" her answer would have been right. But alas, that wasn't the question! Delta makes some most amazing assumptions: "let every one who has not lost an eye have lost an ear," "let every one who has not lost both eyes and ears have lost an arm." Her ideas of a battle-field are grim indeed. Fancy a warrior who would continue fighting after losing both eyes, both ears, and both arms! This is a case which she (or "it?") evidently considers possible.

Next come eight writers who have made the unwarrantable assumption that, because 70 per cent. have lost an eye, therefore 30 per cent. have not lost one, so that they have both eyes. This is illogical. If you give me a bag containing 100 sovereigns, and if in an hour I come to you (my face not beaming with gratitude nearly so much as when I received the bag) to say "I am sorry to tell you that 70 of these sovereigns are bad," do I thereby guarantee the other 30 to be good? Perhaps I have not tested them yet. The sides of this illogical octagon are as follows, in alphabetical order:—Algernon Bray, Dinah Mite, G. S. C., Jane E., J. D. W., Magpie (who makes the delightful remark "therefore 90 per cent. have two of something," recalling to one's memory that fortunate monarch, with whom Xerxes was so much pleased that "he gave him ten of everything!"), S. S. G., and Tokio.

Bradshaw of the Future and T. R. do the question in a piecemeal fashion—on the principle that the 70 per cent. and the 75 per cent., though commenced at opposite ends of the 100, must overlap by at least 45 per cent.; and so on. This is quite correct working, but not, I think, quite the best way of doing it.

The other five competitors will, I hope, feel themselves sufficiently glorified by being placed in the first class, without my composing a Triumphal Ode for each!

CLASS LIST.

I.

Old Cat.

Old Hen.

Polar Star.

Simple Susan.

White Sugar.

II.

Bradshaw of the Future.

T. R.

III.

Algernon Bray.

Dinah Mite.

G. S. C.

Jane E.

J. D. W.

Magpie.

S. S. G.

Tokio.

§ 2. Change of Day.

I must postpone, sine die, the geographical problem—partly because I have not yet received the statistics I am hoping for, and partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it; and when an examiner is himself dimly hovering between a second class and a third how is he to decide the position of others?

§ 3. The Sons' Ages.

Problem.—"At first, two of the ages are together equal to the third. A few years afterwards, two of them are together double of the third. When the number of years since the first occasion is two-thirds of the sum of the ages on that occasion, one age is 21. What are the other two?

Answer.—"15 and 18."

Solution.—Let the ages at first be x, y, (x + y). Now, if a + b = 2c, then (a-n) + (b-n) = 2(c-n), whatever be the value of n. Hence the second relationship, if ever true, was always true. Hence it was true at first. But it cannot be true that x and y are together double of (x + y). Hence it must be true of (x + y), together with x or y; and it does not matter which we take. We assume, then, (x + y) + x = 2y; i.e. y = 2x. Hence the three ages were, at first, x, 2x, 3x; and the number of years, since that time is two-thirds of 6x, i.e. is 4x. Hence the present ages are 5x, 6x, 7x. The ages are clearly integers, since this is only "the year when one of my sons comes of age." Hence 7x = 21, x = 3, and the other ages are 15, 18.

Eighteen answers have been received. One of the writers merely asserts that the first occasion was 12 years ago, that the ages were then 9, 6, and 3; and that on the second occasion they were 14, 11, and 8! As a Roman father, I ought to withhold the name of the rash writer; but respect for age makes me break the rule: it is Three Score and Ten. Jane E. also asserts that the ages at first were 9, 6, 3: then she calculates the present ages, leaving the second occasion unnoticed. Old Hen is nearly as bad; she "tried various numbers till I found one that fitted all the conditions"; but merely scratching up the earth, and pecking about, is not the way to solve a problem, oh venerable bird! And close after Old Hen prowls, with hungry eyes, Old Cat, who calmly assumes, to begin with, that the son who comes of age is the eldest. Eat your bird, Puss, for you will get nothing from me!

There are yet two zeroes to dispose of. Minerva assumes that, on every occasion, a son comes of age; and that it is only such a son who is "tipped with gold." Is it wise thus to interpret "now, my boys, calculate your ages, and you shall have the money"? Bradshaw of the Future says "let" the ages at first be 9, 6, 3, then assumes that the second occasion was 6 years afterwards, and on these baseless assumptions brings out the right answers. Guide future travellers, an thou wilt: thou art no Bradshaw for this Age!

Of those who win honours, the merely "honourable" are two. Dinah Mite ascertains (rightly) the relationship between the three ages at first, but then assumes one of them to be "6," thus making the rest of her solution tentative. M. F. C. does the algebra all right up to the conclusion that the present ages are 5z, 6z, and 7z; it then assumes, without giving any reason, that 7z = 21.

Of the more honourable, Delta attempts a novelty—to discover which son comes of age by elimination: it assumes, successively, that it is the middle one, and that it is the youngest; and in each case it apparently brings out an absurdity. Still, as the proof contains the following bit of algebra, "63 = 7x + 4y; ∴ 21 = x + 4 sevenths of y," I trust it will admit that its proof is not quite conclusive. The rest of its work is good. Magpie betrays the deplorable tendency of her tribe—to appropriate any stray conclusion she comes across, without having any strict logical right to it. Assuming A, B, C, as the ages at first, and D as the number of the years that have elapsed since then, she finds (rightly) the 3 equations, 2A = B, C = B + A, D = 2B. She then says "supposing that A = 1, then B = 2, C = 3, and D = 4. Therefore for A, B, C, D, four numbers are wanted which shall be to each other as 1:2:3:4." It is in the "therefore" that I detect the unconscientiousness of this bird. The conclusion is true, but this is only because the equations are "homogeneous" (i.e. having one "unknown" in each term), a fact which I strongly suspect had not been grasped—I beg pardon, clawed—by her. Were I to lay this little pitfall, "A + 1 = B, B + 1 = C; supposing A = 1, then B = 2 and C = 3. Therefore for A, B, C, three numbers are wanted which shall be to one another as 1:2:3," would you not flutter down into it, oh Magpie, as amiably as a Dove? Simple Susan is anything but simple to me. After ascertaining that the 3 ages at first are as 3:2:1, she says "then, as two-thirds of their sum, added to one of them, = 21, the sum cannot exceed 30, and consequently the highest cannot exceed 15." I suppose her (mental) argument is something like this:—"two-thirds of sum, + one age, = 21; ∴ sum, + 3 halves of one age, = 31 and a half. But 3 halves of one age cannot be less than 1 and-a-half (here I perceive that Simple Susan would on no account present a guinea to a new-born baby!) hence the sum cannot exceed 30." This is ingenious, but her proof, after that, is (as she candidly admits) "clumsy and roundabout." She finds that there are 5 possible sets of ages, and eliminates four of them. Suppose that, instead of 5, there had been 5 million possible sets? Would Simple Susan have courageously ordered in the necessary gallon of ink and ream of paper?

The solution sent in by C. R. is, like that of Simple Susan, partly tentative, and so does not rise higher than being Clumsily Right.

Among those who have earned the highest honours, Algernon Bray solves the problem quite correctly, but adds that there is nothing to exclude the supposition that all the ages were fractional. This would make the number of answers infinite. Let me meekly protest that I never intended my readers to devote the rest of their lives to writing out answers! E. M. Rix points out that, if fractional ages be admissible, any one of the three sons might be the one "come of age"; but she rightly rejects this supposition on the ground that it would make the problem indeterminate. White Sugar is the only one who has detected an oversight of mine: I had forgotten the possibility (which of course ought to be allowed for) that the son, who came of age that year, need not have done so by that day, so that he might be only 20. This gives a second solution, viz., 20, 24, 28. Well said, pure Crystal! Verily, thy "fair discourse hath been as sugar"!

CLASS LIST.

I.

Algernon Bray.

An Old Fogey.

E. M. Rix.

G. S. C.

S. S. G.

Tokio.

T. R.

White Sugar.

II.

C. R.

Delta.

Magpie.

Simple Susan.

III.

Dinah Mite.

M. F. C.

I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners' problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the datum "70 p. c. have lost an eye," that 30 p. c. have not. Algernon Bray states, as a parallel case, "suppose Tommy's father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?" and says "I think we are justified in answering, 3." I think so too. There is no "must" here, and the data are evidently meant to fix the answer exactly: but, if the question were set me "how many must he have left?", I should understand the data to be that his father gave him 4 at least, but may have given him more.

I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. "The stretched metre of an antique song" is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly in my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly out of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say "good night!" till it be morrow.

THE END

BRUNO'S REVENGE AND OTHER STORIES

This collection of short stories was first published in 1867.  The title story influenced Carroll over twenty years later to write the Sylvie and Bruno novels.

CONTENTS

BRUNO'S REVENGE

CRUNDLE CASTLE

THE LEGEND OF SCOTLAND

NOVELTY AND ROMANCEMENT

A PHOTOGRAPHER'S DAY OUT

PHOTOGRAPHY EXTRAORDINARY

THE WALKING STICK OF DESTINY

WILHELM VON SCHMITZ

BRUNO'S REVENGE

IT was a very hot afternoon—too hot to go for a walk or do anything—or else it wouldn't have happened, I believe.

In the first place, I want to know why fairies should always be teaching us to do our duty, and lecturing us when we go wrong, and we should never teach them anything? You can't mean to say that fairies are never greedy, or selfish, or cross, or deceitful, because that would be nonsense, you know. Well then, don't you agree with me that they might be all the better for a little scolding and punishing now and then?

I really don't see why it shouldn't be tried, and I'm almost sure (only please don't repeat this loud in the woods) that if you could only catch a fairy, and put it in the corner, and give it nothing but bread and water for a day or two, you'd find it quite an improved character—it would take down its conceit a little, at all events.

The next question is, what is the best time for seeing fairies? I believe I can tell you all about that.

The first rule is, that it must be a very hot day—that we may consider as settled: and you must be just a little sleepy—but not too sleepy to keep your eyes open, mind. Well, and you ought to feel a little—what one may call `fairyish'—the Scotch call it `eerie', and perhaps that's a prettier word; if you don't know what it means, I'm afraid I can hardly explain it; you must wait till you meet a fairy, and then you'll know.

And the last rule is, that the crickets shouldn't be chirping. I can't stop to explain that rule just now—you must take it on trust for the present.

So, if all these things happen together, you've a good chance of seeing a fairy—or at least a much better chance than if they didn't.

The one I'm going to tell you about was a real, naughty little fairy. Properly speaking, there were two of them, and one was naughty and one was good; but perhaps you would have found that out for yourself.

Now we really are going to begin the story.

It was Tuesday afternoon, about half past three—it's always best to be particular as to dates—and I had wandered down into the wood by the lake, partly because I had nothing to do, and that seemed to be a good place to do it in, and partly (as I said at first) because it was too hot to be comfortable anywhere, except under trees.

The first thing I noticed, as I went lazily along through an open place in the woods, was a large beetle lying struggling on its back, and I went down directly on one knee to help the poor thing on its feet again. In some things, you know, you can't be quite sure what an insect would like: for instance, I never could quite settle, supposing I were a moth, whether I would rather be kept out of the candle, or be allowed to fly straight in and get burnt—or again, supposing I were a spider, I'm not sure if I should be quite pleased to have my web torn down, and the fly let loose—but I felt quite certain that, if I were a beetle and had rolled over on my back, I should always be glad to be helped up again.

So, as I was saying, I had gone down on one knee, and was just reaching out a little stick to turn the beetle over, when I saw a sight that made me draw back hastily and hold my breath, for fear of making any noise and frightening the little creature away.

Not that she looked as if she would be easily frightened: she seemed so good and gentle that I'm sure she would never expect that anyone could wish to hurt her. She was only a few inches high, and was dressed in green, so that you really would hardly have noticed her among the long grass; and she was so delicate and graceful that she quite seemed to belong to the place, almost as if she were one of the flowers. I may tell you, besides, that she had no wings (I don't believe in fairies with wings), and that she had quantities of long brown hair and large, earnest brown eyes, and then I shall have done all I can to give you an idea of what she was like.

Sylvie (I found out her name afterwards) had knelt down just as I was doing, to help the beetle; but it needed more than a little stick for her to get it on its legs again; it was as much as she could do, with both arms, to roll the heavy thing over; and all the while she was talking to it, half scolding and half comforting, as a nurse might do with a child that had fallen down.

`There, there! You needn't cry so much about it; you're not killed yet—though if you were, you couldn't cry, you know, and so it's a general rule against crying, my dear! And how did you come to tumble over? But I can see well enough how it was—I needn't ask you that—walking over sand-pits with your chin in the air, as usual. Of course if you go among sand-pits like that, you must expect to tumble; you should look.'

The beetle murmured something that sounded like `I did look,' and Sylvie went on again:

`But I know you didn't! You never do! You always walk with your chin up—you're so dreadfully conceited. Well, let's see how many legs are broken this time. Why, none of them, I declare! though that's certainly more than you deserve. And what's the good of having six legs, my dear, if you can only kick them all about in the air when you tumble? Legs are meant to walk with, you know. Now don't be cross about it, and don't begin putting out your wings yet; I've some more to say. Go down to the frog that lives behind that buttercup—give him my compliments—Sylvie's compliments—can you say "compliments"?'

The beetle tried and, I suppose, succeeded.

`Yes, that's right. And tell him he's to give you some of that salve I left with him yesterday. And you'd better get him to rub it in for you; he's got rather cold hands, but you mustn't mind that.'

I think the beetle must have shuddered at this idea, for Sylvie went on in a graver tone: `Now you needn't pretend to be so particular as all that, as if you were too grand to be rubbed by a frog. The fact is, you ought to be very much obliged to him. Suppose you could get nobody but a toad to do it, how would you like that?'

There was a little pause, and then Sylvie added: `now you may go. Be a good beetle, and don't keep your chin in the air.' And then began one of those performances of humming and whizzing and restless banging about, such as a beetle indulges in when it has decided on flying, but hasn't quite made up its mind which way to go. At last, in one of its awkward zigzags, it managed to fly right into my face, and by the time I had recovered from the shock, the little fairy had gone.

I looked about in all directions for the little creature, but there was no trace of her—and my `eerie' feeling was quite gone off, and the crickets were chirping again merrily—so I knew she was really gone.

And now I've got time to tell you the rule about the crickets. They always leave off chirping when a fairy goes by—because a fairy's a kind of queen over them, I suppose—at all events it's a much grander thing than a cricket—so whenever you're walking out, and the crickets suddenly leave off chirping, you may be sure that either they see a fairy, or else they're frightened at your coming so near.

I walked on sadly enough, you may be sure. However, I comforted myself with thinking: `It's been a very wonderful afternoon, so far—I'll just go quietly on and look about me, and I shouldn't wonder if I come across another fairy somewhere.'

Peering about in this way, I happened to notice a plant with rounded leaves, and with queer little holes cut out in the middle of several of them. `Ah! The leaf-cutter bee,' I carelessly remarked—you know I am very learned in natural history (for instance, I can always tell kittens from chickens at one glance)—and I was passing on, when a sudden thought made me stoop down and examine the leaves more carefully.

Then a little thrill of delight ran through me—for I noticed that the holes were all arranged so as to form letters; there were three leaves side by side, with B, R, and U marked on them, and after some search I found two more, which contained an N and an O.

By this time the `eerie' feeling had all come back again, and I suddenly observed that no crickets were chirping; so I felt quite sure that `Bruno' was a fairy, and that he was somewhere very near.

And so indeed he was—so near that I had very nearly walked over him without seeing him; which would have been dreadful, always supposing that fairies can be walked over—my own belief is that they are something of the nature of will-o'-the-wisps, and there's no walking over them.

Think of any pretty little boy you know, rather fat, with rosy cheeks, large dark eyes, and tangled brown hair, and then fancy him made small enough to go comfortably into a coffee-cup, and you'll have a very fair idea of what the little creature was like.

`What's your name, little fellow?' I began, in as soft a voice as I could manage. And, by the way, that's another of the curious things in life that I never could quite understand—why we always begin by asking little children their names; is it because we fancy there isn't quite enough of them, and a name will help to make them a little bigger? You never thought of asking a real large man his name, now, did you? But, however that may be, I felt it quite necessary to know his name; so, as he didn't answer my question, I asked it again a little louder. `What's your name, my little man?'

`What's yours?' he said, without looking up.

`My name's Lewis Carroll,' I said, quite gently, for he was much too small to be angry with for answering so uncivilly.

`Duke of Anything?' he asked, just looking at me for a moment and then going on with his work.

`Not Duke at all,' I said, a little ashamed of having to confess it.

`You're big enough to be two Dukes,' said the little creature; `I suppose you're Sir Something, then?'

`No,' I said, feeling more and more ashamed. `I haven't got any title.'

The fairy seemed to think that in that case I really wasn't worth the trouble of talking to, for he quietly went on digging, and tearing the flowers to pieces as fast as he got them out of the ground.

After a few minutes I tried again. `Please tell me what your name is.'

`B'uno,' the little fellow answered, very readily; `why didn't you say "please" before?'

`That's something like what we used to be taught in the nursery,' I thought to myself, looking back through the long years (about a hundred and fifty of them) to the time when I used to be a little child myself. And here an idea came into my head, and I asked him: `Aren't you one of the fairies that teach children to be good?'

`Well, we have to do that sometimes,' said Bruno. `and a d'eadful bother it is.' As he said this he savagely tore a heartsease in two, and trampled on the pieces.

`What are you doing there, Bruno?' I said.

`Spoiling Sylvie's garden,' was all the answer Bruno would give at first. But, as he went on tearing up the flowers, he muttered to himself: `The nasty c'oss thing—wouldn't let me go and play this morning, though I wanted to ever so much—said I must finish my lessons first—lessons, indeed!—I'll vex her finely, though!'

`Oh, Bruno, you shouldn't do that,' I cried. `Don't you know that's revenge? And revenge is a wicked, cruel, dangerous thing!'

`River-edge?' said Bruno. `What a funny word! I suppose you call it c'ooel and dangerous because if you went too far and tumbled in, you'd get d'owned.'

`No, not river-edge,' I explained; `rev-enge' (saying the word very slowly and distinctly). But I couldn't help thinking that Bruno's explanation did very well for either word.

`Oh!' said Bruno, opening his eyes very wide, but without attempting to repeat the word.

`Come! Try and pronounce it, Bruno!' I said cheerfully. `Rev-enge, rev-enge.'

But Bruno only tossed his little head, and said he couldn't; that his mouth wasn't the right shape for words of that kind. And the more I laughed the more sulky the little fellow got about it.

`Well, never mind, little man!' I said. `Shall I help you with the job you've got there?'

`Yes, please,' Bruno said, quite pacified. `Only I wish I could think of something to vex her more than this. You don't know how hard it is to make her ang'y!'

`Now listen to me, Bruno, and I'll teach you quite a splendid kind of revenge!'

`Something that'll vex her finely?' Bruno asked with gleaming eyes.

`Something that'll vex her finely. First, we'll get up all the weeds in her garden. See, there are a good many at this end—quite hiding the flowers.'

`But that won't vex her,' said Bruno, looking rather puzzled.

`After that,' I said, without noticing the remark, `we'll water this highest bed—up here. You see, it's getting quite dry and dusty.'

Bruno looked at me inquisitively, but he said nothing this time.

`Then after that,' I went on, `the walks want sweeping a bit; and I think you might cut down that tall nettle—it's so close to the garden that it's quite in the way —'

`What are you talking about?' Bruno impatiently interrupted me. `All that won't vex her a bit!'

`Won't it?' I said innocently. `Then, after that, suppose we put in some of these coloured pebbles—just to mark the divisions between the different kinds of flowers, you know. That'll have a very pretty effect.'

Bruno turned round and had another good stare at me. At last there came an odd little twinkle in his eye, and he said, with quite a new meaning in his voice, `Very well—let's put 'em in rows—all the 'ed together, and all the blue together.'

`That'll do capitally,' I said; `and then—what kind of flowers does Sylvie like best in her garden?'

Bruno had to put his thumb in his mouth and consider a little before he could answer. `Violets,' he said, at last.

`There's a beautiful bed of violets down by the lake —'

`Oh, let's fetch `em!' cried Bruno, giving a little skip into the air. `Here! Catch hold of my hand and I'll help you along. The g'ass is rather thick down that way.'

I couldn't help laughing at his having so entierly forgotten what a big creature he was talking to. `No, not yet, Bruno,' I said; `we must consider what's the right thing to do first. You see, we've got quite a business before us.'

`Yes, let's consider,' said Bruno, putting his thumb into his mouth again, and sitting down upon a dead mouse.

`What do you keep that mouse for?' I said. `You should bury it, or throw it into the lake.'

`Why, it's to measure with!' cried Bruno. `How ever would you do a garden without one? We make each bed th'ee mouses and a half long, and two mouses wide.'

I stopped him, as he was dragging it off by the tail to show me how it was used, for I was half afraid the `eerie' feeling might go off before we had finished the garden, and in that case I should see no more of him or Sylvie. `I think the best way will be for you to weed the beds, while I sort out these pebbles, ready to mark the walks with.'

`That's it!' cried Bruno. `And I'll tell you about the caterpillars while we work.'

`Ah, let's hear about the caterpillars,' I said, as I drew the pebbles together into a heap, and began dividing them into colours.

And Bruno went on in a low, rapid tone, more as if he were talking to himself. `Yesterday I saw two little caterpillars, when I was sitting by the b'ook, just where you go into the wood. They were quite g'een, and they had yellow eyes, and they didn't see me. And one of them had got a moth's wing to carry—a g'eat b'own moth's wing, you know, all d'y, with feathers. So he couldn't want it to eat, I should think—perhaps he meant to make a cloak for the winter?'

`Perhaps,' I said, for Bruno had twisted up the last word into a sort of question, and was looking at me for an answer.

One word was quite enough for the little fellow, and he went on merrily: `Well, and so he didn't want the other caterpillar to see the moth's wing, you know—so what must he do but t'y to carry it with all his left legs, and he t'ied to walk on the other set. Of course he toppled over after that.'

`After what?' I said, catching the last word, for, to tell the truth, I hadn't been attending much.

`He toppled over,' Bruno repeated, very gravely, `and if you ever saw a caterpillar topple over, you'd know it's a serious thing, and not sit g'inning like that—and I shan't tell you any more.'

`Indeed and indeed, Bruno, I didn't mean to grin. See, I'm quite grave again now.'

But Bruno only folded his arms, and said: `Don't tell me. I see a little twinkle in one of your eyes—just like the moon.'

`Am I like the moon, Bruno?' I asked.

`Your face is large and round like the moon,' Bruno answered, looking at me thoughtfully. `It doesn't shine quite so b'ight—but it's cleaner.'

I couldn't help smiling at this. `You know I wash my face, Bruno. The moon never does that.'

`Oh, doesn't she though!' cried Bruno; and he leant forwards and added in a solemn whisper: `The moon's face gets dirtier and dirtier every night, till it's black all ac'oss. And then, when it's dirty all over—so'—he passed his hand across his own rosy cheeks as he spoke—`then she washes it.'

`And then it's all clean again, isn't it?'

`Not all in a moment,' said Bruno. `What a deal of teaching you want! She washes it little by little—only she begins at the other edge.'

By this time he was sitting quietly on the dead mouse with his arms folded, and the weeding wasn't getting on a bit; so I was obliged to say: `Work first and pleasure afterwards—no more talking till that bed's finished.'

After that we had a few minutes of silence, while I sorted out the pebbles, and amused myself with watching Bruno's plan of gardening. It was quite a new plan to me: he always measured each bed before he weeded it, as if he was afraid the weeding would make it shrink; and once, when it came out longer than he wished, he set to work to thump the mouse with his tiny fist, crying out: `There now! It's all 'ong again! Why don't you keep your tail st'aight when I tell you!'

`I'll tell you what I'll do,' said Bruno in a half whisper, as we worked: `I'll get you an invitation to the king's dinner-party. I know one of the head-waiters.'

I couldn't help laughing at this idea. `Do the waiters invite the guests?' I asked.

`Oh, not to sit down!' Bruno hastily replied. `But to help, you know. You'd like that, wouldn't you? To hand about plates, and so on.'

`Well, but that's not so nice as sitting at the table, is it?'

`Of course it isn't,' Bruno said, in a tone as if he rather pitied my ignorance; `but if you're not even Sir Anything, you can't expect to be allowed to sit at the table, you know.'

I said, as meekly as I could that I didn't expect it, but it was the only way of going to a dinner-party that I really enjoyed. And Bruno tossed his head, and said, in a rather offended tone, that I might do as I pleased—there were many he knew that would give their ears to go.

`Have you ever been yourself, Bruno?'

`They invited me once last year,' Bruno said, very gravely. `It was to wash up the soup-plates—no, the cheese-plates, I mean—that was g'and enough. But the g'andest thing of all was, I fetched the Duke of Dandelion a glass of cider!'

`That was grand!' I said, biting my lip to keep myself from laughing.

`Wasn't it?' said Bruno, very earnestly. `You know it isn't everyone that's had such an honour as that!'

This set me thinking of the various queer things we call `an honour' in this world, which, after all, haven't a bit more honour in them than what the dear little Bruno enjoyed (by the way, I hope you're beginning to like him a little, naughty as he was?) when he took the Duke of Dandelion a glass of cider.

I don't know how long I might have dreamed on in this way, if Bruno hadn't suddenly roused me. `Oh, come here quick!' he cried, in a state of the wildest excitement. `Catch hold of his other horn! I can't hold him more than a minute!'

He was struggling desperately with a great snail, clinging to one of its horns, and nearly breaking his poor little back in his efforts to drag it over a blade of grass.

I saw we should have no more gardening if I let this sort of thing go on, so I quietly took the snail away, and put it on a bank where he couldn't reach it. `We'll hunt it afterwards, Bruno,' I said, `if you really want to catch it. But what's the use of it when you've got it?'

`What's the use of a fox when you've got it?' said Bruno. `I know you big things hunt foxes.'

I tried to think of some good reason why `big things' should hunt foxes, and he shouldn't hunt snails, but none came into my head; so I said at last: `Well, I suppose one's as good as the other. I'll go snail-hunting myself some day.'

`I should think you wouldn't be so silly,' said Bruno, `as to go snail-hunting all by yourself. Why, you'd never get the snail along, if you hadn't somebody to hold on to his other horn!'

`Of course I shan't go alone,' I said, quite gravely. `By the way, is that the best kind to hunt, or do you recommend the ones without shells?'

`Oh no, we never hunt the ones without shells,' Bruno said, with a little shudder at the thought of it. `They're always so c'oss about it; and then, if you tumble over them, they're ever so sticky!'

By this time we had nearly finished the garden. I had fetched some violets, and Bruno was just helping me to put in the last, when he suddenly stopped and said, `I'm tired.'

`Rest, then,' I said. `I can go on without you.'

Bruno needed no second invitation: he at once began arranging the dead mouse as a kind of sofa. `And I'll sing you a little song,' he said, as he rolled it about.

`Do,' I said. `There's nothing I should like better.'

`Which song will you choose?' Bruno said, as he dragged the mouse into a place where he could get a good view of me. `"Ting, ting, ting" is the nicest.'

There was no resisting such a strong hint as this: however, I pretended to think about it for a moment, and then said: `Well, I like "Ting, ting, ting" best of all.'

`That shows you're a good judge of music,' Bruno said, with a pleased look. `How many bluebells would you like?' And he put his thumb into his mouth to help me to consider.

As there was only one bluebell within easy reach, I said very gravely that I thought one would do this time, and I picked it and gave it to him. Bruno ran his hand once or twice up and down the flowers, like a musician trying an instrument, producing a most delicious, delicate tinkling as he did so. I had never heard flower-music before—I don't think one can, unless one's in the `eerie' state—and I don't know quite how to give you an idea of what it was like, except by saying that it sounded like a peal of bells a thousand miles off. When he had satisfied himself that the flowers were in tune, he seated himself on the dead mouse (he never seemed really comfortable anywhere else), and, looking up at me with a merry twinkle in his eyes, he began. By the way, the tune was rather a curious one, and you might like to try it for yourself, so here are the notes:

`Rise, oh, rise! The daylight dies:

   The owls are hooting, ting, ting, ting!

Wake, oh, wake! Beside the lake

   The elves are fluting, ting, ting, ting!

Welcoming our fairy king,

   We sing, sing, sing.'

He sang the first four lines briskly and merrily, making the bluebells chime in time with the music; but the last two he sang quite slowly and gently, and merely waved the flowers backwards and forwards above his head. And when he had finished the first verse, he left off to explain. `The name of our fairy king is Obberwon'—he meant `Oberon', I believe—`and he lives over the lake—there—and now and then he comes in a little boat—and then we go and meet him—and then we sing this song, you know.'

`And then you go and dine with him?' I said mischievously.

`You shouldn't talk,' Bruno hastily said; `it interrupts the song so.'

I said I wouldn't do it again.

`I never talk myself when I'm singing,' he went on, very gravely; `so you shouldn't either.' Then he turned the bluebells once more and sang:

`Hear, oh, hear! From far and near

   A music stealing, ting, ting, ting!

Fairy bells adown the dells

   Are merrily pealing, ting, ting, ting!

Welcoming our fairy king

   We ring, ring, ring.

`See, oh, see! On every t'ee

   What lamps are shining, ting, ting, ting!

They are eyes of fiery flies

   To light our dining, ting, ting, ting!

Welcoming our fairy king

   They swing, swing, swing.

`Haste, oh, haste! to take and haste

   The dainties waiting, ting, ting, ting!

Honey-dew is stored—'

`Hush, Bruno!' I interrupted, in a warning whisper. `She's coming!'

Bruno checked his song only just in time for Sylvie not to hear him, and then, catching sight of her as she slowly made her way through the long grass, he suddenly rushed out headlong at her like a little bull, shouting: `Look the other way! Look the other way!'

`Which way?' Sylvie asked, in rather a frightened tone, as she looked round in all directions to see where the danger could be.

`That way!' said Bruno, carefully turning her round with her face to the wood. `Now, walk backwards—walk gently—don't be f'ightened: you shan't t'ip!'

But Sylvie did `t'ip' notwithstanding: in fact he led her, in his hurry, across so many little sticks and stones, that it was really a wonder the poor child could keep on her feet at all. But he was far too much excited to think of what he was doing.

I silently pointed out to Bruno the best place to lead her to, so as to get a view of the whole garden at once: it was a little rising ground, about the height of a potato; and, when they had mounted it, I drew back into the shade, that Sylvie mightn't see me.

I heard Bruno cry out triumphantly `Now you may look!' and then followed a great clapping of hands, but it was all done by Bruno himself. Sylvie was quite silent—she only stood and gazed with her hands clasped tightly together, and I was afraid she didn't like it after all.

Bruno too was watching her anxiously, and when she jumped down off the mound, and began wandering up and down the little walks, he cautiously followed her about, evidently anxious that she should form her own opinion of it all, without any hint from him. And when at last she drew a long breath, and gave her verdict—in a hurried whisper, and without the slightest regard to grammar—`It's the loveliest thing as I never saw in all my life before!' the little fellow looked as well pleased as if it had been given by all the judges and juries in England put together.

`And did you really do it all by yourself, Bruno?' said Sylvie. `And all for me?'

`I was helped a bit,' Bruno began, with a merry little laugh at her surprise. `We've been at it all the afternoon—I thought you'd like—' and here the poor little fellow's lip began to quiver, and all in a moment he burst out crying, and running up to Sylvie he flung his arms passionately round her neck, and hid his face on her shoulder.

There was a little quiver in Sylvie's voice too as she whispered: `Why, what's the matter, darling?' and tried to lift up his head and kiss him.

But Bruno only clung to her, sobbing, and wouldn't be comforted till he had confessed all. `I t'ied—to spoil your garden—first—but—I'll never— never—' and then came another burst of tears, which drowned the rest of the sentence. At last he got out the words, `I liked—putting in the flowers—for you, Sylvie—and I never was so happy before—' and the rosy little face came up at last to be kissed, all wet with tears as it was.

Sylvie was crying too by this time, and she said nothing but `Bruno, dear!' and `I never was so happy before—' though why two children who had never been so happy before should both be crying, was a great mystery to me.

I felt very happy too, but of course I didn't cry: `big things' never do, you know—we leave all that to the fairies. Only I think it must have been raining a little just then, for I found a drop or two on my cheeks.

After that they went through the whole garden again, flower by flower, as if it were a long sentence they were spelling out, with kisses for commas, and a great hug by way of a full-stop when they got to the end.

`Do you know, that was my river-edge, Sylvie?' Bruno began, looking solemnly at her.

Sylvie laughed merrily. `What do you mean?' she said; and she pushed back her heavy brown hair with both hands, and looked at him with dancing eyes in which the big teardrops were still glittering.

Bruno drew in a long breath, and made up his mouth for a great effort. `I mean rev-enge,' he said `now you under'tand.' And he looked so happy and proud at having said the word right at last, that I quite envied him. I rather think Sylvie didn't `under'tand' at all; but she gave him a little kiss on each cheek, which seemed to do just as well.

So they wandered off lovingly together, in among the buttercups, each with an arm twined round the other, whispering and laughing as they went, and never so much as once looked back at poor me. Yes, once, just before I quite lost sight of them, Bruno half turned his head, and nodded me a saucy little good-bye over one shoulder. And that was all the thanks I got for my trouble.

I know you're sorry the story's come to an end—aren't you?—so I'll just tell you one thing more. They very last thing I saw of them was this—Sylvie was stooping down with her arms round Bruno's neck, and saying coaxingly in his ear: `Do you know, Bruno, I've quite forgotten that hard word—do say it once more. Come! Only this once, dear!'

But Bruno wouldn't try it again.

CRUNDLE CASTLE

(Early story from The Rectory Magazine: circa 1850)

CHAPTER ONE

`LOVE ME LOVE MY DOG'

`MY dear Miss Primmins' said the kind and comfortable lady, Mrs Cogsby, a burly good-natured body, engaged in that most delightful occupation of gardening on a summer evening, which consisted of amputating a few dead rosebuds with an enormous and sanguinary looking knife, apparently constructed originally for the rather unusual purpose of murdering crocodiles, but which she employed on the present occasion with no more apparent emotion than if it were the most delicate lady's penknife. `My dear Miss Primmins, you mustn't think of going a step further, before you've come in, and had a glass of elder wine. Besides you haven't seen my darling Guggy this age, and he's so improved!' The said darling Guggy was a rather over-grown boy of about 6 years old, the delight of his mother, and the utter detestation of all the neighbourhood, who were miserably victimised by Mrs Cogsby for whole evenings together, admiring him and hearing of his performances. He was always carried into the room by his mother's express desire, though it was noticed by the more observant of her visitors that the nurse only took him up outside the door, indeed it was impossible for any human nurse to have carried him 10 yards without dropping.

`Rely, Mem,' began the present victim, a sickly decayed looking young lady, of considerably over 70, who screwed all her words with some difficulty out of one of the smallest mouths, `rely, Mem, I kiddnt think of intrewding on your seclusion.' But Mrs Cogsby would hear of no excuse, and she was soon seated in the parlour, where in the course of 1/2 an hour, 8 or 10 other victims were assembled, and the darling Guggy was introduced.

`Oh! what a charming boy!' was the general exclamation on his first appearance, the charming boy meanwhile standing at his mother's knee with his thumb in his mouth, vouchsafing not a word to any of the company; `I really must show you,' began Mrs Cogsby, `a remarkable production of Guggy's. It's a portrait of his father, wonderfully like him, (a universal elevation of eye-brows) only the poor dear man wouldn't look at it, when I shewed it him today, but went off in a fluff.' (Probably a combination of flurry and huff, a confusion of words being one of Mrs Cogsby's peculiarities.) At this moment a gentle knock was heard at the door.

CHAPTER TWO

ON the door being opened, Mr Cogsby senior timidly entered the room: he cast an anxious glance around him, detected Miss Primmins in the act of examining his portrait, and with a faint shriek of horror, sunk into a chair. Mrs Cogsby flew to him, and by dint of a well directed battery of the most energetic slaps on the back, succeeded in restoring the vital spark. `My dear Alfred,' she murmured reproachfully in his ear, as soon as she saw signs of returning consciousness, `to think that you should yield to this weakness! you, to whom I'm sure I've been more than a mother.' `I beg your pardon, ma'am' interposed a pale tall young man, leaning over a chair, with a large head of a small stick constantly in his mouth, `but do you happen to be his—grandmother?' `Sir!' said Mrs Cogsby with a withering glance, which silenced him in a moment. Even in that awful moment she had the presence of mind to ring the bell. `Show that person out!' said she faintly, and the young man, rather astounded at the effect of his speech, followed the indignant maid-servant, who saw that the mistress had received some insult, though what it was she was by no means clear. The danger over Mrs Cogsby began to think it was her turn to have a scene, and accordingly began, `The brute! the beast!!! to call—a young lady—n-not 30—t-to call her—a granan-an-mother—oh!' and here, having reached the climax, she fell, executing her favourite manoeuvre of sinking upon a sofa in a picturesque attitude.

The next moment a yell of agony was heard from Guggy, the feet of that beauteous infant being just discernible protruding from under his mother's dress.

CHAPTER THREE

A series of vigorous little kicks were being applied to Mrs Cogsby by her pet son, while her anxious female friends were employing all sorts of unheard of restoratives on the other. Miss Primmins, with a handful of burnt feathers in one hand, and a bottle of hartshorn in the other was the most conspicuous among them. Mr. Cogsby had disappeared at the first moment of alarm: he now reappeared with a smile of satisfaction on his face, and before anyone could interpose to prevent him, soused his wife with the whole contents of a very large bucket of water. All symptoms of fainting vanished in an instant, and Mrs Cogsby with wrath and revenge in her flashing eye, rose up from her recumbent position, seized her terrified husband by the ear, and led him from the room; the miserable Guggy whom no-one compassionated, was left in a crushed and wafer-like condition on the sofa, where he was found by the maid-servant, hours afterwards, howling frantically.

Shrieks and blows resounded from the next room, and the female visitors, stopping their ears, rushed out of the house, leaving the unhappy Mr Cogsby to his fate. The gentlemen were only too glad to follow them, and no-one was left, save and except one deaf old gentleman, who hadn't the smallest notion of what had been going on, and now remained sitting in the corner, with his legs crossed, and a calm and placid smile settled on his face.

What followed in Mr Cogsby's house, it is not for us to say: Miss Primmins, on arriving at home was seized by violent hysterics.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE deepest antipathy and most violent disgust may be got over in the slow course of time, and though for the next 6 months she was injured innocence personified, though she expressed the most utter abhorrence of the Cogsby conduct, and made solemn vows not to enter the Cogsby residence, yet when Mrs Cogsby issued her invitations to her annual ball, on New-years-day there was no-one who obeyed the summons with greater alacrity, or arrived more punctually to the time than Miss Primmins. Clad in a low satin dress of the deepest Prussian blue, with a tiara of jewels on her head, her auburn ringlets gracefully falling over her shoulders, (honestly her's, for she had payed for them) and her fair complexion (likewise honestly her's) blooming in all the fresh ruddiness of youth, no-one who saw her then would have imagined her to be the ordinary every-day Miss Primmins, with her sallow face, known to be the most malicious and spiteful gossip in the town, any more than he would have imagined her to be the Emperor of Russia. And Mr Augustus Bymm was there too, contrite for all past offences, and forgiven by Mrs Cogsby, and of course the charming Guggy was introduced in the drawing room, who after treading on three gentlemen's toes, pushing a plate of cake into a lady's lap, and deluging the table with coffee, was finally sent to bed roaring for upsetting the lamp over Miss Primmins. All hands were immediately at work to `put out' Miss Primmins, who, enwrapped in flames, was at last enveloped by Mr Augustus Bymm in a hearthrug, and finally extinguished. This was hardly done when a more horrifying event took place. Mr Cogsby's feet were seen for a moment balancing on the sill of the open window, the next he had vanished.

CHAPTER FIVE

ALL rushed to the window; the ill-fated Mr Cogsby was seen stuck in one of the flower-beds in an inverted position, quivering like an aspen tree: it appeared that the unhappy gentleman had been gradually backing from the scene of conflagration, overcome with horror at the accident which had befallen Miss Primmins, until he had at length backed out of the room in the manner described in the former chapter. Mr Augustus Bymm was on the spot in a moment, uprooted the half suffocated Mr Cogsby, and bore him in his arms into the house, where he consigned him to the maternal solicitude of his wife, (he did not venture to call it grand-maternal on this occasion) and returned in a high state of self-gratulation to the smouldering Miss Primmins, who, overcome by her feelings, took off her (false) diamond necklace on the spot, and begged to present it to him with her compliments as a token of her heartfelt gratitude.

Order being at length restored among the agitated guests, and Mrs Cogsby having returned with the pleasing intelligence that the only result of Mr Cogsby's fall had been a stiff neck and a slight attack of alloverishness, conversation proceeded in its usual train, and Miss Primmins, taking her seat by Mrs Cogsby's side, begged to ask her advice in an important matter: `she was thinking' she said, `of giving a little juvenile party in a few days, but did not quite know how to manage it.' `No? were you really?' exclaimed Mrs Cogsby rapturously, `how delightful! well, I'm sure I'll give you every assistance I can. I shall have no objection to let you have my darling Guggy for the occasion, who I'm sure will be the life and soul of the whole thing.' `Why, no, not exactly,' said Miss Primmins, coughing nervously to hide her confusion as she had not foreseen this offer and her whole object had been to avoid the presence of that much-detested child, `I did not exactly ask you for him, you know, Mrs Cogsby.' `I know you did not, my dear Miss Primmins,' said Mrs Cogsby, affectionately laying her hand upon her arm, `your natural delicacy was too great for you to try to separate a mother from her darling infant, however much you might wish to do so, but I need hardly say that I have full confidence in your prudence and experience, and do not hesitate to trust my precious child to your care, no, and should not if he were a hundred Guggy's!'

Miss Primmins shuddered at the idea, and proceeded rather less hopefully. than before. `But you see, Mrs Cogsby, that—I'm so nervous! and really—a number—of children,—that is—I didn't mean to say—but—you understand what I mean—in fact—for these reasons—I fear I must—decline—the—the—company—of—your—precious Guggy.'

CHAPTER SIX

`GO, CALL A COACH'

`MY dear Miss Primmins,' said Mrs Cogsby, `I understand your wishes, and be assured I will act accordingly.' `Thank you, thank you,' returned that agitated lady. `I am sure you understand—what I wish—that I, you know—I didn't mean to say it—but better than I could express it myself.' `Yes, yes, I perfectly understand you,' replied Mrs Cogsby and here the two ladies parted, the one to seek out Mr Augustus Bymm, and again assure him that she wasn't in the least hurt, only frightened, and that her sense of gratitude to him would survive to the latest moment of her life, the other to spend the rest of the evening in boasting among her lady-guests of the attainments of her Guggy.

The auspicious day at length arrived, and Miss Primmins, with trembling hands, was herself ornamenting the dishes which she intended to form the repast of her juvenile guests, her loud and imperious maid assisting, or rather hindering, continuously grumbling at her mistress for her ignorance and in the same breath complaining of the trouble these things always gave, and regularly winding up her paragraphs with, `there, I told you so, you'd better let me do it!' snatching the dish or other article out of her hands. One by one her little guests dropped in, shy, timid, and shrinking. `How d'you do, my dears,' began Miss Primmins, `won't you take off your bonnets?' `There, you'd better let me do it!' remarked her maid in a surly undertone. When all had arrived, Miss Primmins was joyfully counting heads when the door opened and in marched Master George Cogsby.

CHAPTER SEVEN

`A SIGHT OF HORROR'

MASTER George Cogsby, who, as the reader already knows, rejoiced in the mellifluous sobriquet of Guggy, entered the room, and Miss Primmins, in whose face the most intense disgust was vividly depicted, rose to meet him. `My darling child,' she began, `I am delighted to see you, how is your dear mother?' `Don't know,' was the darling's intelligent reply, and Miss Primmins turned to her other guests saying `Well, I hope you'll all enjoy yourselves,' with a look which plainly added, `but I don't think you've much chance, now!' She then occupied herself in setting her little visitors to games etc. but Master Guggy would do nothing, join in nothing, but kept going round the room, pinching the guests, and enjoying their screams: at last he took his station by Miss Primmins herself, who was playing a brisk polka for the enlivenment of the company in general.

After listening with the profoundest attention for some time, during which he was unscrewing three wires in the inside of the piano, he suddenly asked `Is that part of the tune, Miss Prim?' `Is what part of the tune, precious?' `Putting your tongue in your cheek.' `No, love,' she hastily replied and rising from her seat, sought another part of the room. The delightful infant then proceeded to examine the internal arrangement of the instrument, and ended in breaking off the pedal.

At last, when he had produced universal dissatisfaction among the children, and set three little girls crying, Miss Primmins thought it time to summon them to tea in another room. A magnificent cake stood at the top of the table: Miss Primmins dispensed half of it among her guests in large slices, and then left the room for some wine: on her return she missed the remainder. `Jane,' she asked in a confidential whisper, `what have you done with the rest of the cake?' `If you please'm' was the reply in an equally low whisper, `if you please'm, Master Cogsby's eaten it!'

CHAPTER EIGHT

`THE HOUR IS ALMOST COME'

MISS Primmins turned to Master Cogsby in horror; that infant's hand grasped a huge hunch of the cake, his cheeks were distended to their fullest extent, his jaws making a feeble attempt to move. Uttering a scream of passion she struck the cake out of his hands, and seizing his hair with one hand, administered such a shower of heavy blows on his back, that the cake was instantly swallowed, to the imminent danger of the darling's life, and from the beauteous lips of Guggy there issued forth such a horrid discordant yell, as sent the whole of the party out of the room, stopping their ears, to shut out the dreadful noise.

Miss Primmins bore it for full 20 seconds, retaining her hold of his hair, and then, finding that the noise, instead of abating was getting worse, and without check or inspiration, was gradually rising to a climax, which would beat 3 steam-engines screaming together into fits, she deserted her post, and fled upstairs into the drawing room, where her other guests were assembled.

Even there the voice of Guggy was plainly heard, echoing through the house, making the walls ring again. As a last resource she rang for a maid, and giving her a pitcher of water, screamed in her ear, so as to make herself heard above the din, `Be so good as to take this jug down to the dining room, and pour it all over Master Cogsby!' The maid departed, and Miss Primmins seated herself, mentally counting the moments which must elapse before she could get downstairs. `Now,' she thought, `she's on the second landing, and now she's passing the stair window. Now she's in the hall, she must have got to the dining room door by this time, and now—' The noise had been gradually dying away during these thoughts, and the party were beginning to hope that it would soon stop, but just as Miss Primmins had reached this exact point in her calculations, the house was shaken from top to bottom, and such a sudden and intensely terrible roar thundered in her ears, as can only be compared to the explosion of a large powder mill, blowing up with it a menagerie of wild beasts. Five of the party fainted away on the spot: the rest, crouching on the floor, clung to one another in mute and agonizing terror, and when the last echo of the frightful sound had died away, the only sound that was to be heard in the house was the gasping of the terrified Miss Primmins. The silence that succeeded was almost as terrible as the noise, and Miss Primmins, as soon as she recovered herself, hastened trembling downstairs and found Guggy, considerably discomposed, but quite quiet, standing by the table, with his mouth open, dripping like a drowned rat. The pitcher was empty on the floor, and by it was extended the unfortunate maid, in a fainting fit.

CHAPTER NINE

THE next day Miss Primmins left the place, and a few months afterwards, Mrs Cogsby received a couple of wedding cards, with a slice of bride-cake from, `MR AND MRS BYMM'.

FINIS

THE LEGEND OF SCOTLAND

BEING a true and terrible report touching the rooms of Auckland Castell, called Scotland, and of the things there endured by Matthew Dixon, Chaffer, and of a certain Ladye, called Gaunless of some, there apparent, and how that none durst in these days sleep therein (belike through fear), all which things fell out in ye days of Bishop Bec, of chearfull memorie, and were writ down by mee in the Yeere One Thousand Three Hundred and Twenty Five, in the Month February, on a certayn Tuesday and other days.

EDGAR   CUTHWELLIS.

Now the said Matthew Dixon, having fetched wares unto that place, my Loords commended the same, and bade that hee should be entertained for that night, (which in sooth hee was, supping with a grete Appetite), and sleep in a certayn roome of that apartment now called Scotland—From whence at Midnight hee rushed forth with so grete a Screem, as awaked all men, and hastily running into those Passages, and meeting him so screeming, hee presentlie faynted away.

Whereon they hadde hym into my Loorde's parlour, and with much ado set hym on a Chaire, wherefrom hee three several times split even to the grounde, to the grete admiration of all men.

But being stayed with divers Strong Liquors, (and, chifest, wyth Gin), he after a whyle gave foorth in a lamentable tone these following particulars, all which were presentlie sworn to by nine painful and stout farmers, who lived hard by, which witness I will here orderlie set downe.

Witness of Matthew Dixon, Chaffer, being in my right minde, and more than Fortie Yeeres of Age, though sore affrighted by reason of Sightes and Sounds in This Castell endured by mee, as touching the Vision of Scotland, and the Ghosts, all two of them, therein contayned, and of A certayn straunge Ladye, and of the lamentable thyngs by her uttered, with other sad tunes and songs, by her and by other Ghosts devised, and of the coldness and shakyng of my Bones (through sore grete feer), and of other things very pleasant to knowe, cheefly of a Picture hereafter suddenlie to bee taken, and of what shall befall thereon, (as trulie foreshowne by Ghosts), and of Darkness, with other things more terrible than Woordes and of that which Men call Chimera.

Matthew Dixon, Chaffer, deposeth: `that hee, having supped well over Night on a Green Goose, a Pasty, and other Condiments of the Bishop's grete bountie provided, (looking, as he spake, at my Loorde, and essaying toe pull offe hys hatte untoe hym, but missed soe doing, for that hee hadde yt not on hys hedde), soe went untoe hys bedde, where of a lang tyme hee was exercysed with sharp and horrible Dreems. That hee saw yn hys Dreem a young Ladye, habited, not (as yt seemed) yn a Gaun, but yn a certayn sorte of Wrapper, perchance a Wrap-Rascal.' (Hereon a Mayde of the House affirmed that noe Ladye woold weare such a thing, and hee answered, `I stand corrected,' and indeed rose from hys chaire, yet fayled to stand.)

Witness continued: `that ye sayde Ladye waved toe and froe a Grete Torche, whereat a thin Voyce shreeked "Gaunless! Gaunless!" and Shee standyng yn the midst of the flor, a grete Chaunge befell her, her Countenance waxing ever more and more Aged, and her Hayr grayer, shee all that tyme saying yn a most sad Voyce, "Gaunless, now, as Ladyes bee: yet yn yeeres toe come they shall not lacke for Gauns." At whych her Wrapper seemed slowlie toe melte, chaunging into a gaun of sylk, which puckered up and down, yes, and flounced itself out not a lyttle': (at thys mye Loorde, waxing impatient, smote hym roundlie onne the hedde, bydding hym finish hys tale anon.)

Witness continued; `that the sayd Gaun thenne chaunged ytself into divers fashyons whych shall hereafter bee, loopyng ytself uppe yn thys place and yn that, soe gyving toe View ane pettycote of a most fiery hue, even Crimson toe looke upon, at whych dismal and blodethirstie sight he both groned and wepte. That at the laste the skyrt swelled unto a Vastness beyond Man's power toe tell ayded (as hee judged), bye Hoops, Cartwheels, Balloons, and the lyke, bearing yt uppe within. That yt fylled alle that Chamber, crushing hym flat untoe hys bedde, tylle such as she appeared toe depart, fryzzling hys Hayre with her Torche as she went.

`That hee, awakyng from such Dreems, herd thereon a Rush, and saw a Light.' (Hereon a Mayde interrupted hym, crying out that there was yndeed a Rush-Light burning yn that same room, and woulde have sayde more, but that my Loorde checkt her, and sharplie bade her stow that, meening thereby, that she shoulde holde her peece.)

Witness continued: `that being muche affrited thereat, whereby hys Bones were (as hee sayde), all of a dramble, hee essayed to leep from hys bedde, and soe quit. Yet tarried hee some whyle, not, as might bee thought from being stout of Harte, but rather of Bodye; whych tyme she chaunted snatches of old lays, as Maister Wil Shakespeare hath yt.'

Hereon my Loorde questioned what lays, bydding hym syng the same, and saying hee knew but of two lays: `'Twas yn Trafalgar's bay wee saw the Frenchmen lay', and `There wee lay all that day yn the Bay of Biscay-O', whych hee forthwyth hummed aloud, yet out of tune, at whych somme smyled.

Witness continued: `that hee perchaunce coulde chaunt the sayde lays wyth Music, but unaccompanied hee durst not.' On thys they hadde hym to the Schoolroom, where was a Musical Instrument, called a Paean-o-Forty (meaning that yt hadde forty Notes, and was a Paean or Triumph of Art), whereon two young ladyes, Nieces of my Loorde, that abode there (lerning, as they deemed, Lessons; but, I wot, idlynge not a lyttle), did wyth much thumpyng playe certyn Music wyth hys synging, as best they mighte, seeing that the Tunes were such as noe Man had herde before.

Lorenzo dwelt at Heighington,

   (Hys cote was made of Dimity,)

Least-ways yf not exactly there,

   Yet yn yts close proximity.

Hee called on mee—hee stayed to tee —

   Yet not a word he ut-tered,

Untyl I sayd, `D'ye lyke your bread

   Dry?' and hee answered `But-tered'.

(Chorus whereyn all present joyned with fervour.)

   Noodle dumb

   Has a noodle-head,

I hate such noodles, I do.

Witness continued: `that shee then appeared unto hym habited yn the same loose Wrapper, whereyn hee first saw her yn hys Dreem, and yn a stayd and piercing tone gave forth her History as followeth.'

THE LADYE'S HISTORY

`On a dewie autumn evening, mighte have been seen, pacing yn the grounds harde by Aucklande Castell, a yong Ladye of a stiff and perky manner, yet not ill to look on, nay, one mighte saye, faire to a degree, save that haply that hadde been untrue.

`That yong Ladye, O miserable Man, was I' (whereon I demanded on what score shee held mee miserable, and shee replied, yt mattered not). `I plumed myself yn those tymes on my exceeding not soe much beauty as loftiness of Figure, and gretely desired that some Painter might paint my picture; but they ever were too hight, not yn skyll I trow, but yn charges.' (At thys I most humbly enquired at what charge the then Painters wrought, but shee loftily affirmed that money-matters were vulgar and that shee knew not, no, nor cared.)

`Now yt chaunced that a certyn Artist, hight Lorenzo, came toe that Quarter, having wyth hym a merveillous machine called by men a Chimera (that ys, a fabulous and wholly incredible thing); where wyth hee took manie pictures, each yn a single stroke of Tyme, whiles that a Man might name "John, the son of Robin" (I asked her, what might a stroke of Tyme bee, but shee, frowning, answered not).

`He yt was that undertook my Picture: yn which I mainly required one thyng, that yt shoulde bee at full-length, for yn none other way mighte my Loftiness bee trulie set forth. Nevertheless, though hee took manie Pictures, yet all fayled yn thys: for some, beginning at the Hedde reeched not toe the Feet; others, takyng yn the Feet, yet left out the Hedde; whereof the former were a grief unto myself, and the latter a Laughing-Stocke unto others.

`At these thyngs I justly fumed, having at the first been frendly unto hym (though yn sooth hee was dull), and oft smote hym gretely on the Eares, rending from hys Hedde certyn Locks, whereat crying out hee was wont toe saye that I made hys lyfe a burden untoe hym, whych thyng I not so much doubted as highlie rejoyced yn.

`At the last hee counselled thys, that a Picture shoulde bee made, showing so much skyrt as mighte reasonably bee gotte yn, and a Notice set below toe thys effect: "Item, two yards and a Half Ditto, and then the Feet." But thys no Whit contented mee, and thereon I shut hym ynto the Cellar, where hee remaned three Weeks, growing dayly thinner and thinner, till at the last hee floted up and downe like a Feather.

`Now yt fell at thys tyme, as I questioned hym on a certyn Day, yf hee woulde nowe take mee at full-length, and hee replying untoe mee, yn a little moning Voyce, lyke a Gnat, one chaunced to open the Door: whereat the Draft before hym uppe ynto a Cracke of the Ceiling, and I remaned awaytyng hym, holding uppe my Torche, until such time as I also faded ynto a Ghost, yet stickyng untoe the Wall.'

Then did my Loorde and the Companie haste down ynto the Cellar, for to see thys straunge sight, to whych place when they came, my Loorde bravely drew hys sword, loudly crying `Death!' (though to whom or what he explained not); then some went yn, but the more part hung back, urging on those yn front, not soe largely bye example, as Words of cheer; yet at last all entered, my Loorde last.

Then they removed from the wall the Casks and other stuff, and founde the sayd Ghost, dredful toe relate, yet extant on the Wall, at which horrid sight such screems were raysed as yn these days are seldom or never herde; some faynted, others bye large drafts of Beer saved themselves from that Extremity, yet were they scarcely alive for Feer.

Then dyd the Ladye speak unto them yn suchwise:

`Here I bee, and here I byde,

Till such tyme as yt betyde

That a Ladye of thys place,

Lyke to mee yn name and face,

(Though my name bee never known,

My initials shall bee shown),

Shall be fotograffed aright —

Hedde and Feet bee both yn sight —

Then my face shall disappear,

Nor agayn affrite you heer.'

Then sayd Matthew Dixon unto her, `Wherefore holdest thou uppe that Torche?' to whych shee answered, `Candles Gyve Light': but none understood her.

After thys a thyn Voyce sayd from overhedde:

`Yn the Auckland Castell cellar,

   Long, long ago,

I was shut—a brisk young feller —

   Woe, woe, ah woe!

   To take her at full-lengthe

   I never hadde the strengthe

Tempore (and soe I tell her)

   Practerito!'

(Yn thys Chorus they durst none joyn, seeing that Latyn was untoe them a Tongue unknown.)

`She was hard—oh, she was cruel —

   Long, long ago,

Starved mee here—not even gruel —

   No, believe mee, no! —

Frae Scotland could I flee,

   I'd gie my last bawbee, —

Arrah, bhoys, fair play's a jhewel,

   Lave me, darlints, goe!'

Then my Loorde, putting bye hys Sworde (whych was layd up thereafter, yn memory of soe grete Bravery), bade hys Butler fetch hym presentlie a Vessel of Beer, whych when yt was brought at hys nod (nor, as hee merrily sayd, hys `nod, and Bec, and wreathed smyle'), hee drank hugelie thereof: `for why?' quoth hee, `surely a Bec ys no longer a Bec, when yt ys Dry.'

NOVELTY AND ROMANCEMENT

I HAD grave doubts at first whether to call this passage of my life `A Wail', or `A Paean', so much does it contain that is great and glorious, so much that is sombre and stern. Seeking for something which should be a sort of medium between the two, I decided, at last, on the above heading—wrongly, of course; I am always wrong: but let me be calm. It is a characteristic of the true orator never to yield to a burst of passion at the outset; the mildest of commonplaces are all he dare indulge in at first, and thence he mounts gradually;—`vires acquirit eundo.' Suffice it, then, to say, in the first place, that I am Leopold Edgar Stubbs. I state this fact distinctly in commencing, to prevent all chance of the reader's confounding me either with the eminent shoemaker of that name, of Pottle-street, Camberwell, or with my less reputable, but more widely known, namesake, Stubbs, the light comedian, of the Provinces; both which connections I repel with horror and disdain: no offence, however, being intended to either of the individuals named—men whom I have never seen, whom I hope I never shall.

So much for commonplaces.

Tell me now, oh! man, wise in interpretation of dreams and omens, how it chanced that, on a Friday afternoon, turning suddenly out of Great Wattles-street, I should come into sudden and disagreeable collision with an humble individual of unprepossessing exterior, but with an eye that glowed with all the fire of genius? I had dreamed at night that the great idea of my life was to be fulfilled. What was the great idea of my life? I will tell you. With shame or sorrow I will tell you.

My thirst and passion from boyhood (predominating over the love of taws and running neck and neck with my appetite for toffee) has been for poetry—for poetry in its widest and wildest sense—for poetry untrammeled by the laws of sense, rhyme, or rhythm, soaring through the universe, and echoing the music of the spheres! From my youth, nay, from my very cradle, I have yearned for poetry, for beauty, for novelty, for romancement. When I say `yearned', I employ a word mildly expressive of what may be considered as an outline of my feelings in my calmer moments: it is about as capable of picturing the headlong impetuosity of my life-long enthusiasm as those unanatomical paintings which adorn the outside of the Adelphi, representing Flexmore in one of the many conceivable attitudes into which the human frame has never yet been reduced, are of conveying to the speculative pit-goer a true idea of the feats performed by that extraordinary compound of humanity and Indian-rubber.

I have wandered from the point: that is a peculiarity, if I may be permitted to say so, incidental to life; and, as I remarked on an occasion which time will not suffer me more fully to specify, `What, after all, is life?' nor did I find any one of the individuals present (we were a party of nine, including the waiter, and it was while the soup was being removed that the above-recorded observation was made) capable of furnishing me with a rational answer to the question.

The verses which I wrote at an early period of life were eminently distinguished by a perfect freedom from conventionalism, and were thus unsuited to the present exactions of literature: in a future age they will be read and admired, `when Milton,' as my venerable uncle has frequently exclaimed, `when Milton and such like are forgot!' Had it not been for this sympathetic relative, I firmly believe that the poetry of my nature would never have come out; I can still recall the feelings which thrilled me when he offered me sixpence for a rhyme to `despotism'. I never succeeded, it is true, in finding the rhyme, but it was on the very next Wednesday that I penned my well known `Sonnet on a Dead Kitten', and in the course of a fortnight had commenced three epics, the titles of which I have unfortunately now forgotten.

Seven volumes of poetry have I given to an ungrateful world during my life; they have all shared the fate of true genius—obscurity and contempt. Not that any fault could be found with their contents; whatever their deficiencies may have been, no reviewer has yet dared to criticize them. This is a great fact.

The only composition of mine which has yet made any noise in the world, was a sonnet I addressed to one of the Corporation of Muggleton-cum-Swillside, on the occasion of his being selected Mayor of that town. It was largely circulated through private hands, and much talked of at the time; and though the subject of it, with characteristic vulgarity of mind, failed to appreciate the delicate compliments it involved, and indeed spoke of it rather disrespectfully than otherwise, I am inclined to think that it possesses all the elements of greatness. The concluding couplet was added at the suggestion of a friend, who assured me it was necessary to complete the sense, and in this point I deferred to his maturer judgment:

    `When Desolation snatched her tearful prey

    From the lorn empire of despairing day;

    When all the light, by gemless fancy thrown,

    Served but to animate the putrid stone;

    When monarchs, lessening on the wildered sight,

    Crumblingly vanished into utter night;

    When murder stalked with thirstier strides abroad,

    And redly flashed the never-sated sword;

    In such an hour thy greatness had been seen—

    That is, if such an hour had ever been—

    In such an hour thy praises shall be sung,

    If not by mine, by many a worthier tongue;

    And thou be gazed upon by wondering men,

    When such an hour arrives, but not till then!'

Alfred Tennyson is Poet Laureate, and it is not for me to dispute his claim to that eminent position; still I cannot help thinking, that if the Government had only come forward candidly at the time, and thrown the thing open to general competition, proposing some subject to test the powers of the candidate (say `Frampton's Pill of Health, an Acrostic'), a very different result might have been arrived at.

But let us return to our muttons (as our noble allies do most unromantically express themselves), and to the mechanic of Great Wattles-street. He was coming out of a small shop—rudely built it was, dilapidated exceedingly, and in its general appearance seedy—what did I see in all this to inspire a belief that a great epoch in my existence arrived? Reader, I saw the signboard!

Yes. Upon that rusty signboard, creaking awkwardly on its one hinge against the mouldering wall, was an inscription which thrilled me from head to foot with unwonted excitement. `Simon Lubkin. Dealer in Romancement.' Those were the very words.

It was Friday, the fourth of June, half-past four p.m.

Three times I read that inscription through, and then took out my pocket book, and copied it on the spot; the mechanic regarding me during the whole proceeding with a stare of serious and (as I thought at the time) respectful astonishment.

I stopped that mechanic, and entered into conversation with him; years of agony since then have gradually branded that scene upon my writhing heart, and I can repeat all that passed, word for word.

Did the mechanic (this was my first question) possess a kindred soul, or did he not?

Mechanic didn't know as he did.

Was he aware (this with thrilling emphasis) of the meaning of that glorious inscription upon his signboard?

Bless you, mechanic knew all about that `ere.

Would mechanic (overlooking the suddenness of the invitation) object to adjourn to the neighbouring public-house, and there discuss the point more at leisure?

Mechanic would not object to a drain. On the contrary.

(Adjournment accordingly: brandy-and-water for two: conversation resumed.)

Did the article sell well, especially with the `mobile vulgus'?

Mechanic cast a look of good-natured pity on the questioner; the article sold well, he said, and the vulgars bought it most.

Why not add `Novelty' to the inscription? (This was a critical moment: I trembled as I asked the question.)

Not so bad an idea, mechanic thought: time was, it might have answered; but time flies, you see.

Was mechanic alone in his glory, or was there any one else who dealt as largely in the article?

Mechanic would pound it, there was none.

What was the article employed for? (I brought this question out with a gasp, excitement almost choking my utterance.)

It would piece almost anything together, mechanic believed, and make it solider nor stone.

This was a sentence difficult of interpretation. I thought it over a little, and then said, doubtfully, `you mean, I presume, that it serves to connect the broken threads of human destiny? to invest with a—with a sort of vital reality the chimerical products of a fertile imagination?'

Mechanic's answer was short, and anything but encouraging: `mought be—, I's no scollard, bless you.'

At this point conversation certainly began to flag; I was seriously debating in my own mind whether this could really be the fulfilment of my life-cherished dream; so ill did the scene harmonize with my ideas of romance, and so painfully did I feel my companion's lack of sympathy in the enthusiasm of my nature—an enthusiasm which has found vent, ere now, in actions which the thoughtless crowd have too often attributed to mere eccentricity.

I have risen with the lark—`day's sweet harbinger'—(once, certainly, if not oftener), with the aid of a patent alarm, and have gone forth at that unseemly hour, much to the astonishment of the housemaid cleaning the door steps, to `brush with hasty steps the dewy lawn', and have witnessed the golden dawn with eyes yet half-closed in sleep. (I have always stated to my friends, in any allusion to the subject, that my raptures at that moment were such that I have never since ventured to expose myself to the influence of excitement so dangerous. In confidence, however, I admit that the reality did not come up to the idea I had formed of it over night, and by no means repaid the struggle of getting out of bed so early.)

I have wandered in the solemn woods at night, and bent me o'er the moss-grown fountain, to lave in its crystal stream my tangled locks and fevered brow. (What though I was laid up with a severe cold in consequence, and that my hair was out of curl for a week? Do paltry considerations such as these, I ask, affect the poetry of the incident?)

I have thrown open my small, but neatly furnished, cottage tenement, in the neighbourhood of St. John's Wood, and invited an aged beggar in to `sit by my fire, and talk the night away'. (It was immediately after reading Goldsmith's `Deserted Village'. True it is that he told me nothing interesting, and that he took the hall-clock with him when he departed in the morning; still my uncle has always said that he wishes he had been there, and that it displayed in me a freshness and greenness of fancy (or `disposition', I forget which) such as he had never expected to see.)

I feel that it is incumbent on me to enter more fully into this latter topic—the personal history of my uncle: the world will one day learn to revere the talents of that wonderful man, though a want of funds prevents, at present, the publication of the great system of philosophy of which he is the inventor. Meanwhile, out of the mass of priceless manuscripts which he has bequeathed to an ungrateful nation, I will venture to select one striking specimen. And when the day arrives that my poetry is appreciated by the world at large (distant though it now appear!) then, I feel assured, shall his genius also receive its meed of fame!

Among the papers of that respected relative, I find what appears to have been a leaf torn from some philosophical work of the day: the following passage is scored. `Is this your rose? It is mine. It is yours. Are these your houses? They are mine. Give to me (of) the bread. She gave him a box on the ear.' Against this occurs a marginal note in my uncle's handwriting: `some call this unconnected writing: I have my own opinion.' This last was a favourite expression of his, veiling a profundity of ethical acumen on which it would be vain to speculate; indeed, so uniformly simple was the language of this great man, that no one besides myself ever suspected his possessing more than the ordinary share of human intellect.

May I, however, venture to express what I believe would have been my uncle's interpretation of this remarkable passage? It appears that the writer intended to distinguish the provinces of Poetry, Real Property, and Personal Property. The inquirer touches first on flowers, and with what a gush of generous feeling does the answer break upon him! `It is mine. It is yours.' That is the beautiful, the true, the good; these are not hampered by petty consideration of `meum' and `tuum'; these are the common property of men. (It was with some such idea as this that I drew up the once celebrated bill, entitled `An Act for exempting Pheasants from the operation of the Game Laws, on the ground of Beauty'—a bill which would, doubtless, have passed both Houses in triumph, but that the member who had undertaken the care of it was unfortunately incarcerated in a Lunatic Asylum before it had reached the second reading.) Encouraged by the success of his first question, our inquirer passes on to `houses' (`Real Property', you will observe); he is here met by the stern, chilling answer, `They are mine'—none of the liberal sentiment which dictated the former reply, but in its place a dignified assertion of the rights of property.

Had this been a genuine Socratic dialogue, and not merely a modern imitation, the inquirer would have probably here interrupted with `To me indeed,' or, `I, for my part,' or, `But how otherwise?' or some other of those singular expressions, with which Plato makes his characters display at once their blind acquiescence in their instructor's opinions, and their utter inability to express themselves grammatically. But the writer takes another line of thought; the bold inquirer, undeterred by the coldness of the last reply, proceeds from questions to demands, `give me (of) the bread'; and here the conversation abruptly ceases, but the moral of the whole is pointed in the narrative: `she gave him a box on the ear'. This is not the philosophy of one individual or nation, the sentiment is, if I may so say, European; and I am borne out in this theory by the fact that the book has evidently been printed in three parallel columns, English, French, and German.

Such a man was my uncle; and with such a man did I resolve to confront the suspected mechanic. I appointed the following morning for an interview, when I would personally inspect `the article' (I could not bring myself to utter the beloved word itself). I passed a restless and feverish night, crushed by a sense of the approaching crisis.

The hour came at last—the hour of misery and despair; it always does so, it cannot be put off forever; even on a visit to a dentist, as my childhood can attest with bitter experience, we are not forever getting there; the fatal door too surely dawns upon us, and our heart, which for the last half-hour has been gradually sinking lower and lower, until we almost doubt its existence, vanishes suddenly downwards into depths hitherto undreamed of. And so, I repeat it, the hour came at last.

Standing before that base mechanic's door, with a throbbing and expectant heart, my eye chanced to fall once more upon that signboard, once more I perused its strange inscription. Oh! fatal change! Oh! horror! What do I see? Have I been deluded by a heated imagination? A hideous gap yawns between the N and the C, making it not one word but two!

And the dream was over.

At the corner of the street I turned to take a sad fond look at the spectre of a phantom hope, I once had held so dear. `Adieu!' I whispered; this was all the last farewell I took, and I leant upon my walking stick and wiped away a tear. On the following day I entered into commercial relations with the firm of Dumpy and Spagg, wholesale dealers in the wine and spirit department.

The signboard yet creaks upon the mouldering wall, but its sound shall make music in these ears nevermore—ah! nevermore.

A PHOTOGRAPHER'S DAY OUT

I AM shaken, and sore, and stiff, and bruised. As I have told you many times already, I haven't the least idea how it happened and there is no use in plaguing me with any more questions about it. Of course, if you wish it I can read you an extract from my diary, giving a full account of the events of yesterday, but if you expect to find any clue to the mystery in that, I fear you are doomed to be disappointed.

August 23, Tuesday. They say that we Photographers are a blind race at best; that we learn to look at even the prettiest faces as so much light and shade; that we seldom admire, and never love. This is a delusion I long to break through—if I could only find a young lady to photograph, realising my ideal of beauty—above all, if her name should be—(why is it, I wonder, that I dote on the name Amelia more than any other word in the English language?)—I feel sure that I could shake off this cold, philosophic lethargy.

The time has come at last. Only this evening I fell in with young Harry Glover in the Haymarket—`Tubbs!' he shouted, slapping me familiarly on the back, `my Uncle wants you down to-morrow at his Villa, camera and all!'

`But I don't know your uncle,' I replied, with my characteristic caution. (N. B. If I have a virtue, it is quiet, gentlemanly caution.)

`Never mind, old boy, he knows all about you. You be off by the early train, and take your whole kit of bottles, for you'll find lots of faces to uglify, and—'

`Ca'n't go,' I said rather gruffly, for the extent of the job alarmed me, and I wished to cut him short, having a decided objection to talking slang in the public streets.

`Well, they'll be precious cut up about it, that's all,' said Harry, with rather a blank face, `and my cousin Amelia—'

`Don't say another word!' I cried enthusiastically, `I'll go!' And as my omnibus came by at the moment, I jumped in and rattled off before he had recovered his astonishment at my change of manner. So it is settled, and to-morrow I am to see an Amelia, and—Oh Destiny, what hast thou in store for me?

August 24, Wednesday. A glorious morning. Packed in a great hurry, luckily breaking only two bottles and three glasses in doing so. Arrived at Rosemary Villa as the party were sitting down to breakfast. Father, mother, two sons from school, a host of children from the nursery and the inevitable BABY.

But how shall I describe the daughter? Words are powerless; nothing but a Tablotype could do it. Her nose was in beautiful perspective—her mouth wanting perhaps the last possible foreshortening—but the exquisite half-tints on the cheek could have blinded one to any defects, and as to the high light on her chin, it was (photographically speaking) perfection. Oh! what a picture she would have made if fate had not—but I am anticipating.

There was a Captain Flanaghan present—

I am aware that the preceding paragraph is slightly abrupt, but when I reached that point, I remembered that the idiot actually believed himself engaged to Amelia (my Amelia!). I choked, and could get no further. His figure, I am willing to admit, was good: some might have admired his face; but what is face or figure without brains?

My own figure is perhaps a little inclined to the robust; in stature I am none of your military giraffes—but why should I describe myself? My photograph (done by myself) will be sufficient evidence to the world.

The breakfast, no doubt, was good, but I knew not what I ate or drank; I lived for Amelia only, and as I gazed on that peerless brow, those chiselled features, I clenched my fist in an involuntary transport (upsetting my coffee-cup in doing so), and mentally exclaimed, `I will photograph that woman, or perish in the attempt!'

After breakfast the work of the day commenced, which I will here briefly record.

PICTURE 1.—Paterfamilias. This I wanted to try again, but they all declared it would do very well, and had `just his usual expression'; though unless his usual expression was that of a man with a bone in his throat, endeavouring to alleviate the agony of choking by watching the end of his nose with both eyes, I must admit that this was too favourable a statement of the case.

PICTURE 2.—Materfamilias. She told us with a simper, as she sat down, that she `had been very fond of theatricals in her youth', and that she `wished to be taken in a favourite Shakespearean character'. What the character was, after long and anxious thought on the subject, I have given up as a hopeless mystery, not knowing any one of his heroines in whom an attitude of such spasmodic energy could have been combined with a face of such blank indifference, or who could have been thought appropriately costumed in a blue silk gown, with a Highland scarf over one shoulder, a ruffle of Queen Elizabeth's time round the throat, and a hunting-whip.

PICTURE 3.—17th sitting. Placed the baby in profile. After waiting till the usual kicking had subsided, uncovered the lens. The little wretch instantly threw its head back, luckily only an inch, as it was stopped by the nurse's nose, establishing the infant's claim to `first blood' (to use a sporting phrase). This, of course, gave two eyes to the result, something that might be called a nose, and an unnaturally wide mouth. Called it a full-face accordingly and went on to

PICTURE 4.—The three younger girls, as they would have appeared, if by any possibility a black dose could have been administered to each of them at the same moment, and the three tied together by the hair before the expression produced by the medicine has subsided from any of their faces. Of course, I kept this view of the subject to myself, and merely said that `it reminded me of a picture of the three Graces', but the sentence ended in an involuntary groan, which I had the greatest difficulty in converting into a cough.

PICTURE 5.—This was to have been the great artistic triumph of the day; a family group, designed by the two parents, and combining the domestic with the allegorical. It was intended to represent the baby being crowned with flowers, by the united efforts of the children, regulated by the advice of the father, under the personal superintendence of the mother; and to combine with this the secondary meaning of `Victory transferring her laurel crown to Innocence, with Resolution, Independence, Faith, Hope and Charity, assisting in the graceful task, while Wisdom looks benignly on, and smiles approval!' Such, I say, was the intention; the result, to any unprejudiced observer, was capable of but one interpretation—that the baby was in a fit—that the mother (doubtless under some erroneous notions of the principles of Human Anatomy), was endeavouring to recover it by bringing the crown of its head in contact with its chest—that the two boys, seeing no prospect for the infant but immediate destruction, were tearing out some locks of its hair as mementos of the fatal event—that two of the girls were waiting for a chance at the baby's hair, and employing the time in strangling the third—and that the father, in despair at the extraordinary conduct of his family, had stabbed himself, and was feeling for his pencil-case, to make a memorandum of having done so.

All this time I had no opportunity of asking my Amelia for a sitting, but during luncheon I succeeded in finding one, and, after introducing the subject of photographs in general, I turned to her and said, `before the day is out, Miss Amelia, I hope to do myself the honour of coming to you for a negative.'

With a sweet smile she replied `certainly, Mr. Tubbs. There is a cottage near here, that I wish you would try after luncheon, and when you've done that, I shall be at your service.'

`Faix! an' I hope she'll give you a decoisive one!' broke in that awkward Captain Flanaghan, `wo'n't you, Mely Darlint?' `I trust so, Captain Flanaghan,' I interposed with great dignity; but all politeness is wasted on that animal; he broke into a great `haw! haw!' and Amelia and I could hardly refrain from laughing at his folly. She, however, with ready tact turned it off, saying to the bear, `come, come, Captain, we mustn't be too hard on him!' (Hard on me! on me! bless thee, Amelia!)

The sudden happiness of that moment nearly overcame me; tears rose to my eyes as I thought, `the wish of a Life is accomplished! I shall photograph an Amelia!' Indeed, I almost think I should have gone down on my knees to thank her, had not the table-cloth interfered with my so doing, and had I not known what a difficult position it is to recover from.

However, I seized an opportunity toward the close of the meal to give utterance to my overwrought feelings: turning toward Amelia, who was sitting next to me, I had just murmured the words, `there beats in this bosom a heart,' when a general silence warned me to leave the sentence unfinished. With the most admirable presence of mind she said, `some tart, did you say, Mr. Tubbs? Captain Flanaghan, may I trouble you to cut Mr. Tubbs some of that tart?'

`It's nigh done,' said the captain, poking his great head almost into it, `will I send him the dish, Mely?'

`No, sir!' I interrupted, with a look that ought to have crushed him, but he only grinned and said, `don't be modest now, Tubbs, me bhoy, sure there's plenty more in the larder.'

Amelia was looking anxiously at me, so I swallowed my rage—and the tart.

Luncheon over, after receiving directions by which to find the cottage, I attached to my camera the hood used for developing pictures in the open air, placed it over my shoulder, and set out for the hill which had been pointed out to me.

My Amelia was sitting in the window working, as I passed with the machine; the Irish idiot was with her. In reply to my look of undying affection, she said anxiously `I'm sure that's too heavy for you, Mr. Tubbs. Wo'n't you have a boy to carry it?'

`Or a donkey?' giggled the captain.

I pulled up short, and faced round, feeling that now, if ever, the dignity of Man, and the liberty of the subject, must be asserted. To her I merely said, `thanks, thanks!' kissing my hand as I spoke; then, fixing my eyes on the idiot at her side, I hissed through my clenched teeth, `we shall meet again, Captain!'

`Sure, I hope so, Tubbs,' said the unconscious blockhead, `sharp six is the dinner hour, mind!' A cold shiver passed over me; I had made my great effort, and had failed; I shouldered my camera again, and strode moodily on.

Two steps, and I was myself again; her eyes, I knew, were upon me, and once more I trod the gravel with an elastic tread. What mattered to me, in that moment, the whole tribe of captains? should they disturb my equanimity?

The hill was nearly a mile from the house, and I reached it tired and breathless. Thoughts of Amelia, however, bore me up. I selected the best point of view for the cottage, so as to include a farmer and cow in the picture, cast one fond look toward the distant villa, and, muttering, `Amelia, `tis for thee!' removed the lid of the lens; in 1 minute and 40 seconds I replaced it: `it is over!' I cried in uncontrollable excitement, `Amelia, thou art mine!'

Eagerly, tremblingly, I covered my head with the hood, and commenced the development. Trees rather misty—well! The wind had blown them about a little; that wouldn't show much—the farmer? well, he had walked on a yard or two, and I should be sorry to state how many arms and legs he appeared with—never mind! call him a spider, a centipede, anything—the cow? I must, however reluctantly, confess that the cow had three heads, and though such an animal may be curious, it is not picturesque. However, there could be no mistake about the cottage; its chimneys were all that could be desired, and, `all things considered,' I thought, `Amelia will—'

At this point my soliloquy was interrupted by a tap on the shoulder, more peremptory than suggestive. I withdrew myself from the hood, need I say with what quiet dignity? and turned upon the stranger. He was a thick-built man, vulgar in dress, repulsive in expression, and carried a straw in his mouth: his companion outdid him in these peculiarities. `Young man,' began the first, `ye're trespassing here, and ya mun take yourself off, and no bones about it.' I need hardly say that I took no notice of this remark, but took up the bottle of hypo-sulphite of soda, and proceeded to fix the picture; he tried to stop me; I resisted: the negative fell, and was broken. I remember nothing further, except that I have an indistinct notion that I hit somebody.

If you can find anything in what I have just read to you to account for my present condition, you are welcome to do so; but, as I before remarked, all I can tell you is that I am shaken, and sore, and stiff, and bruised, and that how I came so I haven't the faintest idea.

PHOTOGRAPHY EXTRAORDINARY

THE recent extraordinary discovery in Photography, as applied to the operations of the mind, has reduced the art of novel-writing to the merest mechanical labour. We have been kindly permitted by the artist to be present during one of his experiments; but as the invention has not yet been given to the world, we are only at liberty to relate the results, suppressing all details of chemicals and manipulation.

The operator began by stating that the ideas of the feeblest intellect, when once received on properly prepared paper, could be `developed' up to any required degree of intensity. On hearing our wish that he would begin with an extreme case, he obligingly summoned a young man from an adjoining room, who appeared to be of the very weakest possible physical and mental powers. On being asked what we thought of him we candidly confessed that he seemed incapable of anything but slèep; our friend cordially assented to this opinion.

The machine being in position, and a mesmeric rapport established between the mind of the patient and the object glass, the young man was asked whether he wished to say anything; he feebly replied `Nothing'. He was then asked what he was thinking of, and the answer, as before, was `Nothing'. The artist on this pronounced him to be in a most satisfactory state, and at once commenced the operation.

After the paper had been exposed for the requisite time, it was removed and submitted to our inspection; we found it to be covered with faint and almost illegible characters. A closer scrutiny revealed the following:

`The eve was soft and dewy mild; a zephyr whispered in the lofty glade, and a few light drops of rain cooled the thirsty soil. At a slow amble, along the primrose-bordered path rode a gentle-looking and amiable youth, holding a light cane in his delicate hand; the pony moved gracefully beneath him, inhaling as it went the fragrance of the roadside flowers; the calm smile, and languid eyes, so admirably harmonizing with the fair features of the rider, showed the even tenor of his thoughts. With a sweet though feeble voice, he plaintively murmured out the gentle regrets that clouded his breast:

"Alas! she would not hear my prayer!

Yet it were rash to tear my hair;

Disfigured, I should be less fair.

"She was unwise, I may say blind;

Once she was lovingly inclined;

Some circumstance has changed her mind."

There was a moment's silence; the pony stumbled over a stone in the path, and unseated his rider. A crash was heard among the dried leaves; the youth arose; a slight bruise on his left shoulder, and a disarrangement of his cravat, were the only traces that remained of this trifling accident.'

`This,' we remarked, as we returned the paper, `belongs apparently to the Milk-and-Water School of Novels.'

`You are quite right,' our friend replied, `and, in its present state, it is, of course, utterly unsaleable in the present day: we shall find, however, that the next stage of development will remove it into the strong-minded or Matter-of-Fact School.' After dipping it into various acids, he again submitted it to us; it had now become the following:

`The evening was of the ordinary character, barometer at "change"; a wind was getting up in the wood, and some rain was beginning to fall; a bad look-out for the farmers. A gentleman approached along the bridle-road, carrying a stout knobbed stick in his hand, and mounted on a serviceable nag, possibly worth some £40 or so; there was a settled business-like expression on the rider's face, and he whistled as he rode; he seemed to be hunting for rhymes in his head, and at length repeated, in a satisfied tone, the following composition:

"Well! so my offer was no go!

She might do worse, I told her so;

She was a fool to answer `No'.

"However, things are as they stood;

Nor would I have her if I could,

For there are plenty more as good."

At this moment the horse set his foot in a hole, and rolled over; his rider rose with difficulty; he had sustained several severe bruises and fractured two ribs; it was some time before he forgot that unlucky day.'

We returned this with the strongest expression of admiration, and requested that it might now be developed to the highest possible degree

Our friend readily consented, and shortly presented us with the result, which he informed us belonged to the Spasmodic or German School. We perused it with indescribable sensations of surprise and delight:

`The night was wildly tempestuous—a hurricane raved through the murky forest—furious torrents of rain lashed the groaning earth. With a headlong rush—down a precipitous mountain gorge—dashed a mounted horseman armed to the teeth—his horse bounded beneath him at a mad gallop, snorting fire from its distended nostrils as it flew. The rider's knotted brows—rolling eyeballs—and clenched teeth—expressed the intense agony of his mind—weird visions loomed upon his burning brain—while with a mad yell he poured forth the torrent of his boiling passion:

"Firebrands and daggers! hope hath fled!

To atoms dash the doubly dead!

My brain is fire—my heart is lead!

"Her soul is flint, and what am I?

Scorch'd by her fierce, relentless eye.

Nothingness is my destiny!"

There was a moment's pause. Horror! his path ended in a fathomless abyss. . . . A rush—a flash—a crash—all was over. Three drops of blood, two teeth, and a stirrup were all that remained to tell where the wild horseman met his doom.'

The young man was now recalled to consciousness, and shown the result of the workings of his mind; he instantly fainted away.

In the present infancy of the art we forbear from further comment on this wonderful discovery; but the mind reels as it contemplates the stupendous addition thus made to the powers of science.

Our friend concluded with various minor experiments, such as working up a passage of Wordsworth into strong, sterling poetry: the same experiment was tried on a passage of Byron, at our request, but the paper came out scorched and blistered all over by the fiery epithets thus produced.

As a concluding remark: could this art be applied (we put the question in the strictest confidence)—could it, we ask, be applied to the speeches in Parliament? It may be but a delusion of our heated imagination, but we will still cling fondly to the idea, and hope against hope.

THE WALKING STICK OF DESTINY

CHAPTER ONE

THE Baron was pacing his tapestried chamber two mortal hours ere sunrise. Ever and anon he would pause at the open casement, and gaze from its giddy height on the ground beneath. Then a stern smile would light up his gloomy brow, and muttering to himself in smothered accents, `'twill do' he would again resume his lonely march.

Uprose the glorious sun, and illumined the darkened world with the light of day: still was the haughty Baron pacing his chamber, albeit his step was hastier and more impatient than before, and more than once he stood motionless, listening anxiously and eagerly, then turned with a disappointed air upon his heel, while a darker shade passed over his brow. Suddenly the trumpet which hung at the castle gate gave forth a shrill blast: the Baron heard it, and savagely beating his breast with both his clenched fists, he murmured in bitter tone `the time draws nigh, I must nerve myself for action.' Then, throwing himself into an easy chair, he hastily drank off the contents of a large goblet of wine which stood on the table, and in vain attempted to assume an air of indifference. The door was suddenly thrown open and in a loud voice an attendant announced `Signor Blowski!'

`Be seated! Signor! you are early this morn, and Alonzo! ho! fetch a cup of wine for the Signor! spice it well, boy! ha! ha! ha!' and the Baron laughed loud and boisterously, but the laugh was forced and hollow, and died quickly away. Meanwhile the stranger, who had not uttered a syllable, carefully divested himself of his hat and gloves, and seated himself opposite to the Baron, then having quietly waited till the Baron's laughter had subsided, he commenced in a harsh grating tone, `The Baron Muggzwig greets you, and sends you this'; why did a sudden paleness overspread the Baron Slogdod's features? why did his fingers tremble, so that he could scarcely open the letter? for one moment he glanced at it, and then raising his head, `Taste the wine, Signor,' he said in strangely altered tone, `regale yourself, I pray,' handing him one of the goblets which had just been brought in.

The Signor received it with a smile, put his lips to it, and then quietly changing goblets with the Baron without his perceiving it, swallowed half the contents at a draught. At that moment Baron Slogdod looked up, watched him for a moment as he drank, and smiled the smile of a wolf.

For full ten minutes there was a dead silence through the apartment, and then the Baron closed the letter, and raised his face: their eyes met: the Signor had many a time faced a savage tiger at bay without flinching, but now he involuntarily turned away his eyes. Then did the Baron speak in calm and measured tone: `You know, I presume, the contents of this letter?' the Signor bowed, `and you await an answer?' `I do.' `This, then, is my answer,' shouted the Baron, rushing upon him, and in another moment he had precipitated him from the open window. He gazed after him for a few seconds as he fell, and then tearing up the letter which lay on the table into innumerable pieces, he scattered them to the wind.

CHAPTER TWO

`ONE! two! three!' The magician set down the bottle, and sank exhausted into a seat: `Nine weary hours,' he sighed, as he wiped his smoking brow, `nine weary hours have I been toiling, and only got to the eight-hundred and thirty-second ingredient! a-well! I verily believe Martin Wagner hath ordered three drops of everything on the face of this earth in his prescription. However there are only a hundred and sixty-eight ingredients more to put in—'twill soon be done—then comes the seething—and then—' He was checked in his soliloquy by a low timid rap outside: `'Tis Blowski's knock,' muttered the old man, as he slowly undid the bars and fastenings of the door, `I marvel what brings him here at this late hour. He is a bird of evil omen: I do mistrust his vulture face.—Why! how now, Signor?' he cried, starting back in surprise as his visitor entered, `where got you that black eye? and verily your face is bruised like any rainbow! who has insulted you? or rather,' he muttered in an undertone, `whom have you been insulting, for that were the more likely of the two.'

`Never mind my face, good father,' hastily answered Blowski, `I only tripped up, coming home last night in the dark, that's all, I do assure you. But I am now come on other business—I want advice—or rather I should say I want your opinion—on a difficult question—suppose a man was to—suppose two men—suppose there were two men, A and B—' `suppose! suppose!' contemptuously muttered the magician, `and suppose these men, good father, that is A, was to bring B a letter, then we'll suppose A read the letter, that is B, and then B tried—I mean A tried—to poison B—I mean A—and then suppose'—`My son,' here interposed the old man, `is this a general case you are putting? Methinks you state it in a marvellously confused manner.' `Of course it's a general case,' savagely answered Blowski, `and if you'd just listen instead of interrupting, methinks you'd understand it better!' `Proceed, my son,' mildly replied the other.

`And then suppose A—that is B—threw A out of the window—or rather,' he added in conclusion, being himself by this time a little confused, `or rather I should have said the other way.' The old man rubbed his beard, and mused for some time: `Aye, aye,' he said at length, `I see, A—B—so so—B poisons A—' `No! no!' cried the signor, `B tries to poison A, he didn't really do it, I changed the—I mean,' he hastily added, turning crimson as he spoke, `you're to suppose that he doesn't really do it.' `Aye!' continued the magician, `it's all clear now—B—A—to be sure—but what has all this to do with your cut face?' he suddenly asked. `Nothing whatever,' stammered Blowski, `I've told you once that I cut my face by a fall from my horse—' `Ah! well! let's see,' repeated the other in a low voice, `tripped up in the dark—fell from his horse—hm! hm!—yes, my lad, you're in for it—I should say,' he continued in a louder voice, `it were better—but troth I know not yet what the question is.' `Why, what had B better do,' said the signor. `But who is B?' inquired the magician, `standeth B for Blowski?' `No,' was the reply, `I meant A.' `Oh!' returned he, `now I perceive—but verily I must have time to consider it, so adieu, fair sir,' and, opening the door he abruptly showed his visitor out: `And now,' said he to himself, `for the mixture—let me see—three drops of—yes, yes, my lad, you're in for it.'

CHAPTER THREE

IT had struck twelve o'clock two minutes and a quarter. The Baron's footman hastily seized a large goblet, and gasped with terror as he filled it with hot, spiced wine. `'Tis past the hour, 'tis past,' he groaned in anguish, `and surely I shall now get the red hot poker the Baron hath so often promised me, oh! woe is me! would that I had prepared the Baron's lunch before!' and, without pausing a second he grasped in one hand the steaming goblet and flew along the lofty passages with the speed of a race horse. In less time than we take to relate it he reached the Baron's apartment, opened the door, and—remained standing on tiptoe, not daring to move one way or the other, petrified with utter astonishment. `Now then! donkey!' roared the Baron, `why stand you there staring your eyes out like a great toad in a fit of apoplexy?' (the Baron was remarkably choice in his similes:) `what's the matter with you? speak out! can't you?'

The unfortunate domestic made a desperate effort to speak, and managed at length to get out the words `Noble Sir!' `Very good! that's a very good beginning!' said the Baron in a rather pacified tone for he liked being called "noble", `go ahead! don't be all day about it!' `Noble Sir!' stammered the alarmed man, `where—where—ever—is—the stranger?' `Gone!' said the Baron sternly and emphatically, pointing unconsciously his thumb over his right shoulder, `gone! he had other visits to pay, so he condescended to go and pay them—but where's my wine? he abruptly asked, and his attendant was only too glad to place the goblet in his hands, and get out of the room.

The Baron drained the goblet at a draught, and then walked to the window: his late victim was no longer to be seen, but the Baron, gazing on the spot where he had fallen muttered to himself with a stern smile, `Methinks I see a dint in the ground.' At that moment a mysterious looking figure passed by, and the Baron, as he looked after him, could not help thinking `I wonder who that is!' Long time he gazed after his retreating footsteps, and still the only thought which rose to his mind was `I do wonder who that is!'

CHAPTER FOUR

DOWN went the western sun, and darkness was already stealing over the earth when for the second time that day the trumpet which hung at the Baron's gate was blown. Once more did the weary domestic ascend to his master's apartment, but this time it was a stranger whom he ushered in, `Mr Milton Smith!' The Baron hastily rose from his seat at the unwonted name, and advanced to meet his visitor.

`Greetings fair, noble sir,' commenced the illustrious visitor, in a pompous tone and with a toss of the head, `it betided me to hear of your name and abode, and I made high resolve to visit and behold you ere night!' `Well, fair sir, I hope you are satisfied with the sight,' interrupted the Baron, wishing to cut short a conversation he neither understood nor liked. `It rejoiceth me,' was the reply, `nay, so much so that I could wish to prolong the pleasure, for there is a Life and Truth in those tones which recall to me scenes of earlier days—' `Does it indeed?' said the Baron, considerably puzzled. `Ay soothly,' returned the other; `and now I bethink me,' walking to the window, `it was the country likewise I did desire to look upon; 'tis fine, is't not?' `It's a very fine country,' replied the Baron, adding internally, `and I wish you were well out of it!'

The stranger stood some minutes gazing out of the window, and then said, suddenly turning to the Baron, `You must know, fair sir, that I am a poet!' `Really?' replied he, `and pray what's that?' Mr Milton Smith made no reply, but continued his observations, `Perceive you, mine host, the enthusiastic halo which encircles you tranquil mead?' `The quickset hedge, you mean,' remarked the Baron rather contemptuously, as he walked up to the window. `My mind,' continued his guest, `feels alway a bounding—and a longing—for—what is True and Fair in Nature, and—and—see you not the gorgeous rusticity—I mean sublimity, which is wafted over, and as it were intermingled with the verdure—that is, you know, the grass?' `Intermingled with the grass? oh! you mean the butter-cups?' said the other, `yes, they've a very pretty effect.' `Pardon me,' replied Mr Milton Smith, `I meant not that, but—but I could almost poetise thereon!

`Lovely meadow, thou whose fragrance

Beams beneath the azure sky,

`Where repose the lowly—' `Vagrants,' suggested the Baron: `Vagrants!' repeated the poet, staring with astonishment, `Yes, vagrants, gipsies you know,' coolly replied his host, `there are very often some sleeping down in the meadow.' The inspired one shrugged his shoulders, and went on

`Where repose the lowly violets', `Violets doesn't rhyme half as well as vagrants,' argued the Baron. `Can't help that,' was the reply:

`Murmuring gently'—`oh my eye!' said the Baron, finishing the line for him, `so there's one stanza done, and now I must wish you good night; you're welcome to a bed, so, when you've done poetising, ring the bell, and the servant will show you where to sleep.' `Thanks,' replied the poet, as the Baron left the room.

`Murmuring gently with a sigh—Ah! that's all right,' he continued when the door was shut, and leaning out of the window he gave a low whistle. The mysterious figure in a cloak immediately emerged from the bushes, and said in a whisper, `All right?' `All right,' returned the poet, `I've sent the old covey to sleep with some poetry, by the bye I nearly forgot that stanza you taught me, I got into such a fix! However the coast is clear now, so look sharp.' The figure then produced a rope ladder from under his cloak, which the poet proceeded to draw up.

CHAPTER FIVE

READER! dare you enter once more the cave of the great Magician? If your heart be not bold, abstain: close these pages: read no more. High in air suspended hung the withered forms of two black cats; between was an owl, resting on a self-supported hideous viper.

The spiders were crawling on the long grey hair of the great Astrologer, as he wrote with letters of gold an awful spell on the magic scroll which hung from the deadly viper's mouth. A strange figure like an animated potatoe with arms and legs hovered over the mystic scroll, and appeared to be reading the words upside down. Hark!

A shrill scream rolled round the cave, echoing from side to side till it died in the massive roof. Horror! yet did not the Magician's heart quail, albeit his little finger shook slightly thrice, and one of his grey hairs stood out straight from his head, erect with terror: there was one other that would have followed its example, but a spider was hanging on it, and it could not.

A flash of mystic light, black as the darkest ebony, now pervades the place, and in its momentary gleam the owl is seen to wink once. Dread omen! Did its supporting viper hiss? Ah no! that would be too terrible! In the deep dead silence which followed this thrilling event, a solitary sneeze was distinctly heard from the left-hand cat. Distinct, and now the Magician did tremble. `Gloomy spirits of the vasty deep!' he murmured in faltering tone, as his aged limbs seemed about to sink beneath him, `I did not call for ye: why come ye?' He spoke, and the potatoe answered, in hollow tone: `Thou didst!' then all was silence.

The magician recoiled in terror. What! bearded by a potatoe! never! He smote his aged breast in anguish, and then collecting strength to speak, he shouted, `Speak but the word again, and on the spot I'll boil thee!' There was an ominous pause, long, vague, and mysterious. What is about to happen? The potatoe sobbed audibly, and its thick showering tears were heard falling heavily down on the rocky floor. Then slow, clear, and terrible came the awful words: `Gobno strodgol slok slabolgo!' and then in a low hissing whisper `'tis time!'

`Mystery! mystery!' groaned the horrified Astrologer, `The Russian war cry! oh Slogdod! Slogdod! what hast thou done?' He stood expectant, tremulous; but no sound met his anxious ear; nothing but the ceaseless dribble of the far-off waterfall. At length a voice said `now!' and at the word the right-hand cat fell with a heavy thump to the earth. Then an Awful Form was seen, dimly looming through the darkness: it prepared to speak, but a universal cry of `corkscrews!' resounded through the cave, three voices cried `yes!' at the same moment, and it was light. Dazzling light, so that the Magician shuddering closed his eyes, and said, `It is a dream, oh that I could wake!' He looked up, and cave, Form, cats, everything were gone: nothing remained before him but the magic scroll and pen, a stick of red sealing wax, and a lighted wax taper.

`August potatoe!' he muttered, `I obey your potent voice.' Then sealing up the mystic roll, he summoned a courier, and dispatched it: `Haste for the life, post! haste! haste! for they life post! haste!' were the last words the frightened man heard dinned in his ears as he galloped off.

Then with a heavy sigh the great magician turned back into the gloomy cave, murmuring in a hollow tone, `Now for the toad!'

CHAPTER SIX

`HUSH!' The Baron slumbers! two men with stealthy steps are removing his strong-box. It is very heavy, and their knees tremble, partly with the weight, partly with fear. He snores and they both start: the box rattles, not a moment is to be lost, they hasten from the room. It was very, very hard to get the box out of the window but they did it at last, though not without making noise enough to waken ten ordinary sleepers: the Baron, luckily for them, was an extraordinary sleeper.

At a safe distance from the castle they set down the box, and proceeded to force off the lid. Four mortal hours did Mr Milton Smith and his mysterious companion labour thereat: at sunrise it flew off with a noise louder than the explosion of fifty powder-magazines, which was heard for miles and miles around. The Baron sprang from his couch at the sound, and full furiously did he ring his bell: up rushed the terrified domestic, and tremblingly related when he got down stairs again, how `his Honour was wisibly flustrated, and pitched the poker at him more than ordinary savage-like!' But to return to our two adventurers: as soon as they recovered from the swoon into which the explosion had thrown them, they proceeded to examine the contents of the box. Mr M. Smith drew a long breath, and ejaculated, `Well! I never!' `Well! you never!' angrily repeated the other, `what's the good of going on like that? just tell us what's in the box, and don't make such an ass of yourself!' `My dear fellow!' interposed the poet, `I give you my honour—' `I wouldn't give twopence for your honour,' retorted his friend, savagely tearing up the grass by handfuls, `give me what's in the box, that's a deal more valuable.' `Well but you won't hear me out, I was just going to tell you; there's nothing whatever in the box but a walking-stick! and that's a fact; if you won't believe me, come and look yourself!' `You don't say so!' shouted his companion, springing to his feet, his laziness gone in a moment, `surely there's more than that!' `I tell you there isn't!' replied the poet rather sulkily, as he stretched himself on the grass.

The other one however turned the box over, and examined it on all sides before he would be convinced, and then carelessly twirling the stick on his forefinger he began: `I suppose it's no use taking this to Baron Muggzwig? it'll be no sort of use.' `Well, I don't know!' was the somewhat hesitating reply, `it might be as well—you see he didn't say what he expected—' `I know that, you donkey!' interrupted the other impatiently, `but I don't suppose he expected a walking-stick! if that had been all, do you think he'd have given us ten dollars a piece to do the job?' `I'm sure I can't say,' muttered the poet: `Well! do as you please then!' said his companion angrily, and flinging the walking-stick at him as he spoke he walked hastily away.

Never had he of the hat and cloak thrown away such a good opportunity of making his fortune! At twelve o'clock that day a visitor was announced to Baron Muggzwig, and our poet entering placed the walking-stick in his hands. The Baron's eyes flashed with joy, and hastily placing a large purse of gold in his hand he said, `Adieu for the present, my dear friend! you shall hear from me again!' and then he carefully locked up the stick muttering, `nothing is now wanting but the toad!'

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE Baron Muggzwig was fat. Far be it from the humble author of these pages to insinuate that his fatness exceeded the bounds of proportion, or the manly beauty of the human figure, but he certainly was fat, and of that fact there is not the shadow of a doubt. It may perhaps have been owing to this fatness of body that a certain thickness and obtuseness of intellect was at times perceptible in the noble Baron. In his ordinary conversation he was, to say the least of it, misty and obscure, but after dinner or when at all excited his language certainly verged on the incomprehensible. This was perhaps owing to his liberal use of the parenthesis without any definite pause to mark the different clauses of the sentence. He used to consider his arguments unanswerable, and they certainly were so perplexing, and generally reduced his hearers to such a state of bewilderment and stupefaction, that few ever ventured to attempt an answer to them.

He usually however compensated in length for what his speeches wanted in clearness, and it was owing to this cause that his visitors, on the morning we are speaking of had to blow the trumpet at the gate three times before they were admitted, as the footman was at that moment undergoing a lecture from his master, supposed to have reference to the yesterday's dinner, but which, owing to a slight admixture of extraneous matter in the discourse, left on the footman's mind a confused impression that his master had been partly scolding him for not keeping a stricter watch on the fishing trade, partly setting forth his own private views on the management of railway shares, and partly finding fault with the bad arrangement of financial affairs in the moon.

In this state of mind it is not surprising that his first answer to their question, `Is the Baron at home?' should be, `The fish, sir, was the cook's affair, I had nothing whatsumdever to do with it,' which on reflection he immediately afterwards corrected to, `the trains was late, so it was unpossible as the wine could come sooner.' `The man is surely mad or drunk!' angrily exclaimed one of the strangers, no other than the mysterious man in a cloak: `Not so,' was the reply in gentle voice, as the great magician stepped forward, `but let me interrogate him—ho! fellow!' he continued in a louder tone, `is thy master at home?' The man gazed at him for a moment like one in a dream, and then suddenly recollecting himself he replied, `I begs pardon, gentlemen, the Baron is at home: would you please to walk in?' and with these words he ushered them up stairs.

On entering the room they made a low obeisance, and the Baron starting from his seat exclaimed with singular rapidity, `And even if you have called on behalf of Slogdod that infatuated wretch and I'm sure I've often told him —' `We have called,' gravely interrupted the Magician, `to ascertain whether —' `Yes,' continued the excited Baron, `scores of times aye scores of times I have and you may believe me or not as you like for though —' `To ascertain,' persisted the Magician, `whether you have in your possession, and if so —' `But yet' broke in Muggzwig, `he always would and as he used to say if —' `And if so,' shouted the man in a cloak despairing of the Magician ever getting through the sentence, `to know what you would like to be done with regard to Signor Blowski.' So saying, they retired a few steps, and waited for the Baron's reply, and their host, without further delay delivered the following remarkable speech: `And though I have no wish to provoke the enmity which considering the provocations I have received and really if you reckon them up they are more than any mortal man let alone a Baron for the family temper has been known for years to be beyond nay the royal family themselves will hardly boast of considering too that he has so long a time kept which I shouldn't have found out only that rascal Blowski said and how he could bring himself to tell all those lies I can't think for I always considered him quite honest and of course wishing if possible to prove him innocent and the walking-stick since it is absolutely necessary in such matters and begging your pardon I consider the toad and all that humbug but that's between you and me and even when I had sent for it by two of my bandits and one of them bringing it to me yesterday for which I gave him a purse of gold and I hope he was grateful for it and though the employment of bandits is at all times and particularly in this case if you consider the but even on account of some civilities he showed me though I daresay there was something and by-the-bye perhaps that was the reason he pitched himself I mean him out of the window for —' here he paused, seeing that his visitors in despair had left the room. Now, Reader, prepare yourself for the last chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT AND LAST

ALL was silence. The Baron Slogdod was seated in the hall of his ancestors, in his chair of state, but his countenance wore not its usual expression of calm content: there was an uncomfortable restlessness about him which betokened a mind ill at ease, for why? closely packed in the hall around, so densely wedged together as to resemble one vast living ocean without a gap or hollow, were seated seven thousand human beings: all eyes were bent upon him, each breadth was held in eager expectation, and he felt, he felt in his inmost heart, though he vainly endeavoured to conceal his uneasiness under a forced and unnatural smile, that something awful was about to happen. Reader! if your nerves are not adamant, turn not this page!

Before the Baron's seat there stood a table: what sat thereon? well knew the trembling crowds, as with blanched cheek and tottering knees they gazed upon it, and shrank from it even while they gazed: ugly, deformed, ghastly and hideous it sat, with large dull eyes, and bloated cheeks, the magic toad!

All feared and loathed it, save the Baron only, who rousing himself at intervals from his gloomy meditations, would raise his toe, and give it a sportive kick, of which it took not the smallest notice. He feared it not, no, deeper terrors possessed his mind, and clouded his brow with anxious thought.

Beneath the table was crouched a quivering mass, so abject and grovelling as scarce to bear the form of humanity: none regarded, and none pitied it.

Then outspake the Magician: `The man I accuse, if man indeed he be, is—Blowski!' At the word, the shrunken form arose, and displayed to the horrified assembly the well-known vulture face: he opened his mouth to speak, but no sound issued from his pale and trembling lips . . . a solemn stillness settled on all around . . . the Magician raised the walking-stick of destiny, and in thrilling accents pronounced the fatal words: `Recreant vagabond! misguided reprobate! receive thy due deserts!' . . . Silently he sank to the earth . . . all was dark for a moment, . . . returning light revealed to their gaze . . . a heap of mashed potatoe . . . a globular form faintly loomed through the darkness, and howled once audibly, then all was still. Reader, our tale is told.

WILHELM VON SCHMITZ

CHAPTER ONE

`'TWAS EVER THUS'

(Old Play)

THE sultry glare of noon was already giving place to the cool of a cloudless evening, and the lulled ocean was washing against the Pier with a low murmur, suggestive to poetical minds of the kindred ideas of motion and lotion, when two travelers might have been seen, by such as chose to look that way, approaching the secluded town of Whitby by one of those headlong paths, dignified by the name of road, which serve as entrances into the place, and which were originally constructed, it is supposed, on the somewhat fantastic model of pipes running into a water-butt. The elder of the two was a sallow and careworn man; his features were adorned with what had been often at a distance mistaken for a moustache, and were shaded by a beaver hat, of doubtful age, and of appearance which, if not respectable, was at least venerable. The younger, in whom the sagacious reader already recognizes the hero of my tale, possessed a form which, once seen, could scarcely be forgotten: a slight tendency to obesity proved but a trifling drawback to the manly grace of its contour, and though the strict laws of beauty might perhaps have required a somewhat longer pair of legs to make up the proportion of his figure, and that his eyes should match rather more exactly than they chanced to do, yet to those critics who are untrammeled with any laws of taste, and there are many such, to those who could close their eyes to the faults in his shape, and single out its beauties, though few were ever found capable of the task, to those above all who knew and esteemed his personal character, and believed that the powers of his mind transcended those of the age he lived in, though alas! none such has as yet turned up—to those he was a very Apollo.

What thought it had not been wholly false to assert that too much grease had been applied to his hair, and too little soap to his hands? that his nose turned too much up, and his shirt collars too much down? that his whiskers had borrowed all the colour from his cheeks, excepting a little that had run down into his waistcoat? Such trivial criticisms were unworthy the notice of any who laid claim to the envied title of the connoisseur.

He had been christened William, and his father's name was Smith, but though he had introduced himself to many of the higher circles in London under the imposing name of `Mr. Smith, of Yorkshire', he had unfortunately not attracted so large a share of public notice as he was confident he merited: some had asked him how far back he traced his ancestry; others had been mean enough to hint that his position in society was not entirely unique; while the sarcastic enquiries of others touching the dormant peerage in his family, to which, it was suggested, he was about to lay claim, had awakened in the breast of the noble-spirited youth an ardent longing for that high birth and connection which an adverse Fortune had denied him.

Hence he had conceived the notion of that fiction, which perhaps in his case must be considered merely as a poetical licence, whereby he passed himself off upon the world under the sounding appellation which heads this tale. This step had already occasioned a large increase in his popularity, a circumstance which his friends spoke of under the unpoetical simile of a bad sovereign fresh gilt, but which he himself more pleasantly described as, `. . . a violet pale, At length discovered in its mossy dale, And borne to sit with kings': a destiny for which, as it is generally believed, violets are not naturally fitted.

The travelers, each buried in his own thoughts, paced in silence down the steep, save when an unusually sharp stone, or an unexpected dip in the road, produced one of those involuntary exclamations of pain, which so triumphantly demonstrate the connection between Mind and Matter. At length the young traveler, rousing himself with an effort from his painful reverie, broke upon the meditations of his companion with an unexpected question, `Think you she will be much altered in feature? I trust me not.' `Think who?' testily rejoined the other: then hastily correcting himself, with an exquisite sense of grammar, he substituted the expressive phrase, `Who's the she you're after?' `Forget you then,' asked the young man, who was so intensely poetical in soul that he never spoke in ordinary prose, `forget you the subject we conversed on but now? Trust me, she hath dwelt in my thoughts ever since.' `But now!' his friend repeated, in sarcastic tone, `it is an hour good since you spoke last.' The young man nodded assent; `An hour? true, true. We were passing Lyth, as I bethink me, and lowly in thine ear was I murmuring that touching sonnet to the sea I writ of late, beginning, "Thou roaring, snoring, heaving, grieving main which —"' `For pity's sake!' interrupted the other, and there was real earnestness in that pleading tone, `don't let us have it all again! I have heard it with patience once already.'

`Thou hast, thou hast,' the baffled poet replied: `well then, she shall again be the topic of my thoughts,' and he frowned and bit his lip, muttering to himself such words as cooky, hooky, and crooky, as if he were trying to find a rhyme to something. And now the pair were passing near a bridge, and shops were on their left and water on their right; and from beneath uprose a confused hubbub of sailors' voices, and, wafted on the landward breeze, came an aroma, dimly suggestive of salt herring, and all things from the heaving waters in the harbour to the light smoke that floated gracefully above the housetops, suggested nought but poetry to the mind of the gifted youth.

CHAPTER TWO

`AND I, FOR ONE'

(Old Play)

BUT about she,' resumed the man of prose, `what's her name? You never told me that yet.' A faint flush crossed the interesting features of the youth; could it be that her name was unpoetical, and did not consort with his ideas of the harmony of nature? He spoke reluctantly and indistinctly; `Her name,' he faintly gasped, `is Sukie.'

A long, low whistle was the only reply; thrusting his hands deep in his pockets, the elder speaker turned away, while the unhappy youth, whose delicate nerves were cruelly shaken by his friend's ridicule, grasped the railing near to him to steady his tottering feet. Distant sounds of melody from the cliff at this moment reached their ears, and while his unfeeling comrade wandered in the direction of the music, the distressed poet hastily sought the Bridge, to give his pent-up feelings vent, unnoticed by the passers-by.

The Sun was setting as he reached the spot, and the still surface of the waters below, as he crossed on to the Bridge, calmed his perturbed spirit, and sadly leaning his elbows on the rail, he pondered. What visions filled that noble soul, as, with features that would have beamed with intelligence, had they only possessed an expression at all, and a frown that only needed dignity to be appalling, he fixed upon the sluggish tide those fine though bloodshot eyes?

Visions of his early days; scenes from the happy time of pinafores, treacle, and innocence; through the long vista of the past came floating spectres of long-forgotten spelling-books, slates scrawled thick with dreary sums, that seldom came out at all, and never came out right; tingling and somewhat painful sensations returned to his knuckles and the roots of his hair; he was a boy once more.

`Now, young man there!' so broke a voice upon the air, `tak whether o' the two roads thou likes, but thou ca'n't stop in't middle!' The words fell idly on his ears, or served but to suggest new trains of reverie; `Roads, aye, roads,' he whispered low, and then louder, as the glorious idea burst upon him, `Aye, and am I not the Colossus of Rhodes?' he raised his manly form erect at the thought, and planted his feet with a firmer stride.

. . . Was it but a delusion of his heated brain? or stern reality? slowly, slowly yawned the bridge beneath him, and now his footing is already grown unsteady, and now the dignity of his attitude is gone: he recks not, come what may; is he not a Colossus?

. . . The stride of a Colossus is possibly equal to any emergency; the elasticity of fustian is limited; it was at this critical juncture that `the force of nature could no further go', and therefore deserted him, while the force of gravity began to operate in its stead.

In other words, he fell.

And the `Hilda' went slowly on its way, and knew not that it passed a poet under the Bridge, and guessed not whose were those two feet, that disappeared through the eddying waters, kicking with spasmodic energy; and men pulled into a boat a dripping, panting form, that resembled a drowned rat rather than a Poet; and spoke to it without awe, and even said, `young feller', and something about `greenhorn', and laughed; what knew they of Poetry?

Turn we to other scenes: a long, low room, with high-backed settees, and a sanded floor: a knot of men drinking and gossiping: a general prevalence of tobacco; a powerful conviction that spirits existed somewhere: and she, the fair Sukie herself, gliding airily through the scene, and bearing in those lily hands—what? Some garland doubtless, wreathed of the most fragrant flowers that grow? Some cherished volume, morocco-bound and golden-clasped, the works immortal of the bard of eld, whereon she loveth oft to ponder? Possibly, `The Poems of William Smith', that idol of her affections, in two volumes quarto, published some years agone, whereof one copy only has as yet been sold, and that he bought himself—to give to Sukie. Which of these is it that the beauteous maiden carries with such tender care? Alas none: it is those two `goes of arf-an-arf, warm without', which have just been ordered by the guests in the tap-room.

In a small parlour hard by, unknown, untended, though his Sukie was so near, wet, moody, and dishevelled, sat the youth: the fire had been kindled at his desire, and before it he was now drying himself, but as `the cherry blaze, Blithe harbinger of wintry days', to use his own powerful description, consisted at present of a feeble, spluttering faggot, whose only effect was to half-choke him with its smoke, he may be pardoned for not feeling, more keenly than he does, that `. . . fire of Soul, When gazing on the kindling coal, A Briton feels that, spite of fone, He wots his native hearth his own!' we again employ his own thrilling words on the subject.

The waiter, unconscious that a Poet sat before him, was talking confidingly; he dwelt on various themes, and still the youth sat heedless, but when at last he spoke of Sukie, those dull eyes flashed with fire, and cast upon the speaker a wild glance of scornful defiance, that was unfortunately wasted, as its object was stirring the fire at the moment and failed to notice it. `Say, oh say those words again!' he gasped. `I surely heard thee not aright!' The waiter looked astonished, but obligingly repeated his remark, `I were merely a saying, sir, that she's an uncommon clever girl, and as how I were' oping some day to hacquire her Hart, if so be that —' He said no more, for the Poet with a groan of anguish, had rushed distractedly from the room.

CHAPTER THREE

`NAY, 'TIS TOO MUCH!'

                                             (Old Play)

NIGHT, solemn night.

On the present occasion the solemnity of night's approach was rendered far more striking than it is to dwellers in ordinary towns, by that time-honoured custom observed by the people of Whitby, of leaving their streets wholly unlighted: in thus making a stand against the deplorably swift advance of the tide of progress and civilization, they displayed no small share of moral courage and independent judgment. Was it for a people of sense to adopt every new-fangled invention of the age, merely because their neighbours did? It might have been urged, in disparagement of their conduct, that they only injured themselves by it, and the remark would have been undeniably true; but it would only have served to exalt, in the eyes of an admiring nation, their well-earned character of heroic self-denial and uncompromising fixity of purpose.

Headlong and desperate, the lovelorn Poet plunged through the night; now tumbling up against a doorstep, and now half down in a gutter, but ever onward, onward, reckless where he went.

In the darkest spot of one of those dark streets (the nearest lighted shop window being about fifty yards off), chance threw into his way the very man he fled from, the man whom he hated as a successful rival, and who had driven him to this pitch of frenzy. The waiter, not knowing what was the matter, had followed him to see that he came to no harm, and to bring him back, little dreaming of the shock that awaited him.

The instant the Poet perceived who it was, all his pent-up fury broke forth: to rush upon him, to grasp him by the throat with both hands, to dash him to the ground, and there to reduce him to the extreme verge of suffocation—all this was the work of a moment.

`Traitor! villain! malcontent! regicide!' he hissed through his closed teeth, taking any abusive epithet that came into his head, without stopping to consider its suitability. `Is it thou? Now shalt thou feel my wrath!' And doubtless the waiter did experience that singular sensation, whatever it may have been, for he struggled violently with his assailant, and bellowed `murder' the instant he recovered his breath.

`Say not so,' the Poet sternly answered, as he released him; `it is thou that murderest me.' The waiter gathered himself up, and began in great surprise, `Why, I never —' `'Tis a lie!' the Poet screamed; `she loves thee not! Me, me alone.' `Who ever said she did?' the other asked, beginning to perceive how matters stood. `Thou! thou saidst it,' was the wild reply, `what, villain? acquire her heart? thou never shalt.'

The waiter calmly explained himself: `My' ope were, Sir, to hacquire her Hart of waiting at table, which she do perdigious well, sure-ly: seeing that I were thinking of happlying for to be 'eadwaiter at the 'otel.' The Poet's wrath instantly abated, indeed, he looked rather crestfallen than otherwise; `Excuse my violence,' he gently said, `and let us take a friendly glass together.' `I agree,' was the waiter's generous answer, `but man halive, you've ruinated my coat!'

`Courage,' cried our hero gaily, `thou shalt have a new one anon: aye, and of the best cashmere.' `H'm,' said the other, hesitatingly, `wouldn't hany other stuff —' `I will not buy thee one of any other stuff,' returned the Poet, gently but decidedly, and the waiter gave up the point.

Arrived once more at the friendly tavern, the Poet briskly ordered a jorum of Punch, and, on its being furnished, called on his friend for a toast. `I'll give you,' said the waiter, who was of a sentimental turn, however little he looked like it, `I'll give you—Woman! She doubles our sorrows and 'alves our joy.' The Poet drained his glass, not caring to correct his companion's mistake, and at intervals during the evening the same inspiring sentiment was repeated. And so the night wore away, and another jorum of Punch was ordered, and another.

*             *             *             *             *

`And now hallow me,' said the waiter, attempting for about the tenth time to rise on his feet and make a speech, and failing even more signally than he had yet done, `to give a toast for this 'appy hoccasion. Woman! she doubles —' but at this moment, probably in illustration of his favourite theory, he `doubled' himself up, and so effectually, that he instantly vanished under the table.

Occupying that limited sphere of observation, it is conjectured that he fell to moralizing on human ills in general, and their remedies, for a solemn voice was presently heard to issue from his retreat, proclaiming feelingly though rather indistinctly, that `when the 'art of man is hopressed with care —' here came a pause, as if he wished to leave the question open to discussion, but as no one present seemed competent to suggest the proper course to be taken in that melancholy contingency, he attempted to supply the deficiency himself with the remarkable statement `she's hall my fancy painted 'er.'

Meanwhile the Poet was sitting, smiling quietly to himself, as he sipped his punch: the only notice he took of his companion's abrupt disappearance was to help himself to a fresh glass, and say, `your health!' in a cordial tone, nodding to where the waiter ought to have been. He then cried, `hear, hear!' encouragingly, and made an attempt to thump the table with his fist, but missed it. He seemed interested in the question regarding the heart oppressed with care, and winked sagaciously with one eye two or three times, as if there were a good deal he could say on that subject, if he close; but the second quotation roused him to speech, and he at once broke into the waiter's subterranean soliloquy with an ecstatic fragment from the poem he had been just composing:

`What though the world be cross and crooky?

Of Life's fair flowers the fairest bouquet

I plucked, when I chose thee, my Sukie!

`Say, could'st thou grasp at nothing greater

Than to be wedded to a waiter?

And did'st thou deem thy Schmitz a traitor?

`Nay! the fond waiter, was rejected,

And thou, alone, with flower-bedecked head,

Sitting, did'st sing of one expected.

`And while the waiter, crazed and silly,

Dreamed he had won that precious lily,

At length he came, thy wished-for Willie.

`And then thy music took a new key,

For whether Schmitz be boor or duke, he

Is all in all to faithful Sukie!'

He paused for a reply, but a heavy snoring from beneath the table was the only one he got.

CHAPTER FOUR

`IS THIS THE HEND?'

                                     (Nicholas Nickleby)

BATHED in the radiance of the newly-risen Sun, the billows are surging and bristling below the Cliff, along which the Poet is thoughtfully wending his way. It may possibly surprise the reader that he should not ere this have obtained an interview with his beloved Sukie: he may ask the reason: he will ask in vain: to record with rigid accuracy the progress of events is the sole duty of the historian: were he to go beyond that, and attempt to dive into the hidden causes of things, the why and the wherefore, he would be trespassing on the province of the metaphysician.

Presently the Poet reached a small rising ground at the end of the gravel walk, where he found a seat commanding a view of the sea, and here he sunk down wearily.

For a while he gazed dreamily upon the expanse of ocean, then, struck by a sudden thought, he opened a small pocket book, and proceeded to correct and complete his last poem. Slowly to himself he muttered the words `death—saith—breath', impatiently tapping the ground with his foot. `Ah, that'll do,' he said at last, with an air of relief, `breath':

`His barque had perished in the storm,

   Whirled by its fiery breath

On sunken rocks, his stalwart form

   Was doomed to watery death.'

`That last line's good,' he continued exaltingly, `and on Coleridge's principle of alliteration, too—W. D., W. D.—was doomed to watery death.'

`Take care,' growled a deep voice in his ear, `what you say will be used in evidence against you—now it's no use trying that, we've got you tight,' this last remark being caused by the struggles of the Poet, naturally indignant at being unexpectedly collared by two men from behind.

`He's confessed to it, constable? you heard him?' said the first speaker (who rejoiced in the euphonious title of Muggle, and whom it is almost superfluous to introduce to the reader as the elder traveler of Chapter One!) `it's as much as his life is worth.'

`I say, stow that —' warmly responded the other; `seems to me the gen'leman was a spouting potry.'

`What—what's the matter?' here gasped our unfortunate hero, who had recovered his breath; `you—Muggle—what do you mean by it?'

`Mean by it!' blustered his quondam friend, `what do you mean by it, if it comes to that? You're an assassin, that's what you are! Where's the waiter you had with you last night? answer me that!'

`The—the waiter?' slowly repeated the Poet, still stunned by the suddenness of his capture, `why, he's dr —'

`I knew it!' cried his friend, who was at him in a moment, and choked up the unfinished word in his throat, `drowned, Constable! I told you so—and who did it?' he continued, loosing his grip a moment to obtain an answer.

The Poet's answer, so far as it could be gathered (for it came out in a very fragmentary state, and as it were by crumbs, in intervals of choking), was the following: `It was my—my—you'll kill me—fault—I say, fault—I—I—gave him—you—you're suffoca—I say—I gave him —' `a push I suppose,' concluded the other, who here `shut off' the slender supply of breath he had hitherto allowed his victim `and he fell in: no doubt. I heard some one had fallen off the Bridge last night,' turning to the Constable;`no doubt this unfortunate waiter. Now mark my words! from this moment I renounce this man as my friend: don't pity him, constable! don't think of letting him go to spare my feelings!'

Some convulsive sounds were heard at this moment from the Poet, which, on attentive consideration, were found to be `the punch—was—was too much—for him—quite —' `Miserable man!' sternly interposed Muggle; `can you jest about it? You gave him a punch, did you? and what then?'

`It quite—quite—upset him,' continued the unhappy Schmitz, in a sort of rambling soliloquy, which was here cut short by the impatience of the Constable, and the party set forth on their return to the town.

But an unexpected character burst upon the scene and broke into a speech far more remarkable for energetic delivery than for grammatical accuracy: `I've only just 'erd of it—I were hasleep under table —'avin' taken more punch than I could stand—he's as hinnocent as I am—dead indeed! I'm more alive than you, a precious sight.'

This speech produced various effects on its hearers: the Constable calmly released his man, the bewildered Muggle muttered `Impossible! conspiracy—perjury—have it tried at assizes': while the happy Poet rushed into the arms of his deliverer crying in a broken voice: `No, never from this hour to part. We'll live and love so true!' a sentiment which the waiter did not echo with the cordiality that might have been expected.

Later in the day, Wilhelm and Sukie were sitting conversing with the waiter and a few friends, when the penitent Muggle suddenly entered the room placed a folded paper on the knees of Schmitz, pronounced in a hollow tone the affecting words `be happy!' vanished, and was seen no more.

After perusing the paper, Wilhelm rose to his feet; in the excitement of the moment he was roused into unconscious and extempore verse:

`My Sukie! He hath bought, yea, Muggle's self,

Convinced at last of deeds unjust and foul,

The licence of a vacant public-house.

We are licensed here to sell to all,

Spirits, porter, snuff, and ale!'

So we leave him: his after happiness who dare to doubt? has he not Sukie? and having her, he is content.

WHAT THE TORTOISE SAID TO ACHILLES

Written in 1895 for the philosophical journal Mind, this brief dialogue playfully considers the foundations of logic. The title alludes to the philosopher Zeno's paradox of motion, in which Achilles could never overtake a tortoise in a race. In Carroll's dialogue, the tortoise challenges Achilles to use the force of logic to make him accept the conclusion of a simple deductive argument. Eventually, Achilles fails, because the clever tortoise leads him into an infinite regression.

WHAT THE TORTOISE SAID TO ACHILLES

Achilles had overtaken the Tortoise, and had seated himself comfortably on its back.

So you've got to the end of our race-course? said the Tortoise. Even though it does consist of an infinite series of distances? I thought some wiseacre or another had proved that the thing couldn't be done?

It can be done, said Achilles; It has been done! Solvitur ambulando. You see, the distances were constantly diminishing; and so—

But if they had been constantly increasing? the Tortoise interrupted. How then?

Then I shouldn't be here, Achilles modestly replied; and you would have got several times round the world, by this time!

You flatter me—flatten, I mean, said the Tortoise; for you are a heavy weight, and no mistake! Well now, would you like to hear of a race-course, that most people fancy they can get to the end of in two or three steps, while it really consists of an infinite number of distances, each one longer than the previous one?

Very much indeed! said the Grecian warrior, as he drew from his helmet (few Grecian warriors prossessed pockets in those days) an enormous note-book and a pencil. Proceed! And speak slowly, please. Short-hand isn't invented yet!

That beautiful First Proposition of Euclid! the Tortoise murmured dreamily. You admire Euclid?

Passionately! So far, at least, as one can admire a treatise that wo'n't be published for some centuries to come!

Well, now, let's take a little bit of the argument in that First Proposition—just two steps, and the conclusion drawn from them. Kindly enter them in your note-book. And in order to refer to them conveniently, let's call them A, B, and Z:—

(A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other.

(B) The two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the same.

(Z) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to each other.

Readers of Euclid will grant, I suppose, that Z follows logically from A and B, so that any one who accepts A and B as true, must accept Z as true?

Undoubtedly! The youngest child in High School—as soon as High Schools are invented, which wlil not be till some two thousand years later—will grant that.

And if some reader had not yet accepted A and B as true, he might still accept the sequence as a valid one, I suppose?

No doubt such a reader might exist. He might say, I accept as true the Hypothetical Proposition that, if A and B be true, Z must be true; but, I don't accept A and B as true. Such a reader would do wisely in abandoning Euclid, and taking to football.

And might there not also be some reader who would say, I accept A and B as true, but I don't accept the Hypothetical?

Certainly there might. He, also, had better take to football.

And neither of these readers, the Tortoise continued, is as yet under any logical necessity to accept Z as true?

Quite so, Achilles assented.

Well, now, I want you to consider me as a reader of the second kind, and to force me, logically, to accept Z as true.

A tortoise playing football would be— Achilles was beginning

—an anomaly, of course, the Tortoise hastily interrupted. Don't wander from the point. Let's have Z first, and football afterwards!

I'm to force you to accept Z, am I? Achilles said musingly. And your present position is that you accept A and B, but you don't accept the Hypothetical—

Let's call it C, said the Tortoise.

—but you don't accept

(C) If A and B are true, Z must be true.

That is my present position, said the Tortoise.

Then I must ask you to accept C.

I'll do so, said the Tortoise, as soon as you've entered it in that note-book of yours. What else have you got in it?

Only a few memoranda, said Achilles, nervously fluttering the leaves: a few memoranda of—of the battles in which I have distinguished myself!

Plenty of blank leaves, I see! the Tortoise cheerily remarked. We shall need them all! (Achilles shuddered.) Now write as I dictate:—

(A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other.

(B) The two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the same.

(C) If A and B are true, Z must be true.

(Z) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to each other.

You should call it D, not Z, said Achilles. It comes next to the other three. If you accept A and B and C, you must accept Z.

And why must I?

Because it follows logically from them. If A and B and C are true, Z must be true. You don't dispute that, I imagine?

If A and B and C are true, Z must be true, the Tortoise thoughtfully repeated. That's another Hypothetical, isn't it? And, if I failed to see its truth, I might accept A and B and C, and still not accept Z, mightn't I?

You might, the candid hero admitted; though such obtuseness would certainly be phenomenal. Still, the event is possible. So I must ask you to grant one more Hypothetical.

Very good. I'm quite willing to grant it, as soon as you've written it down. We will call it

(D) If A and B and C are true, Z must be true.

Have you entered that in your notebook?

I have! Achilles joyfully exclaimed, as he ran the pencil into its sheath. And at last we've got to the end of this ideal race-course! Now that you accept A and B and C and D, of course you accept Z.

Do I? said the Tortoise innocently. Let's make that quite clear. I accept A and B and C and D. Suppose I still refused to accept Z?

Then Logic would take you by the throat, and force you to do it! Achilles triumphantly replied. Logic would tell you, You ca'n't help yourself. Now that you've accepted A and B and C and D, you must accept Z! So you've no choice, you see.

Whatever Logic is good enough to tell me is worth writing down, said the Tortoise. So enter it in your note-book, please. We will call it

(E) If A and B and C and D are true, Z must be true. Until I've granted that, of course I needn't grant Z. So it's quite a necessary step, you see?

I see, said Achilles; and there was a touch of sadness in his tone.

Here the narrator, having pressing business at the Bank, was obliged to leave the happy pair, and did not again pass the spot until some months afterwards. When he did so, Achilles was still seated on the back of the much-enduring Tortoise, and was writing in his note-book, which appeared to be nearly full. The Tortoise was saying, Have you got that last step written down? Unless I've lost count, that makes a thousand and one. There are several millions more to come. And would you mind, as a personal favour, considering what a lot of instruction this colloquy of ours will provide for the Logicians of the Nineteenth Century—would you mind adopting a pun that my cousin the Mock-Turtle will then make, and allowing yourself to be re-named Taught-Us?

As you please! replied the weary warrior, in the hollow tones of despair, as he buried his face in his hands. Provided that you, for your part, will adopt a pun the Mock-Turtle never made, and allow yourself to be re-named A Kill-Ease!

The Poetry Collections

Richmond School, North Yorkshire, where Carroll studied in his youth

EARLY VERSE

CONTENTS

MY FAIRY

PUNCTUALITY

MELODIES

BROTHER AND SISTER

FACTS

RULES AND REGULATIONS

HORRORS

MISUNDERSTANDINGS

AS IT FELL UPON A DAY

YE FATTALE CHEYSE

LAYS OF SORROW No. 1

LAYS OF SORROW No. 2

THE TWO BROTHERS

THE LADY OF THE LADLE

CORONACH

SHE'S ALL MY FANCY PAINTED HIM

PHOTOGRAPHY EXTRAORDINARY

LAYS OF MYSTERY, IMAGINATION, AND HUMOUR No.1

THE PALACE OF HUMBUG

THE MOCK TURTLE'S SONG

UPON THE LONELY MOOR

MISS JONES

MY FAIRY

(1845)

I have a fairy by my side

Which says I must not sleep,

When once in pain I loudly cried

It said “You must not weep.”

If, full of mirth, I smile and grin,

It says “You must not laugh;”

When once I wished to drink some gin

It said “You must not quaff.”

When once a meal I wished to taste

It said “You must not bite;”

When to the wars I went in haste

It said “You must not fight.”

“What may I do?” at length I cried,

Tired of the painful task.

The fairy quietly replied,

And said “You must not ask.”

Moral: “You mustn't.”

PUNCTUALITY

Man naturally loves delay,

And to procrastinate;

Business put off from day to day

Is always done too late.

Let every hour be in its place

Firm fixed, nor loosely shift,

And well enjoy the vacant space,

As though a birthday gift.

And when the hour arrives, be there,

Where'er that “there” may be;

Uncleanly hands or ruffled hair

Let no one ever see.

If dinner at “half-past” be placed,

At “half-past” then be dressed.

If at a “quarter-past” make haste

To be down with the rest.

Better to be before your time,

Than e'er to be behind;

To ope the door while strikes the chime,

That shows a punctual mind.

Moral

Let punctuality and care

Seize every flitting hour,

So shalt thou cull a floweret fair,

E'en from a fading flower.

MELODIES

I

There was an old farmer of Readall,

Who made holes in his face with a needle,

Then went far deeper in

Than to pierce through the skin,

And yet strange to say he was made beadle.

II

There was an eccentric old draper,

Who wore a hat made of brown paper,

It went up to a point,

Yet it looked out of joint,

The cause of which he said was “vapour.”

III

There was once a young man of Oporta,

Who daily got shorter and shorter,

The reason he said

Was the hod on his head,

Which was filled with the heaviest mortar.

His sister, named Lucy O'Finner,

Grew constantly thinner and thinner;

The reason was plain,

She slept out in the rain,

And was never allowed any dinner.

BROTHER AND SISTER

“Sister, sister, go to bed!

Go and rest your weary head.”

Thus the prudent brother said.

“Do you want a battered hide,

Or scratches to your face applied?”

Thus his sister calm replied.

“Sister, do not raise my wrath.

I'd make you into mutton broth

As easily as kill a moth!”

The sister raised her beaming eye

And looked on him indignantly

And sternly answered, “Only try!”

Off to the cook he quickly ran.

“Dear Cook, please lend a frying-pan

To me as quickly as you can.”

“And wherefore should I lend it you?”

“The reason, Cook, is plain to view.

I wish to make an Irish stew.”

“What meat is in that stew to go?”

“My sister'll be the contents!”

“Oh!”

“You'll lend the pan to me, Cook?”

“No!”

Moral: Never stew your sister.

FACTS

Were I to take an iron gun,

And fire it off towards the sun;

I grant 'twould reach its mark at last,

But not till many years had passed.

But should that bullet change its force,

And to the planets take its course,

'Twould never reach the nearest star,

Because it is so very far.

RULES AND REGULATIONS

A short direction

To avoid dejection,

By variations

In occupations,

And prolongation

Of relaxation,

And combinations

Of recreations,

And disputation

On the state of the nation

In adaptation

To your station,

By invitations

To friends and relations,

By evitation

Of amputation,

By permutation

In conversation,

And deep reflection

You'll avoid dejection.

Learn well your grammar,

And never stammer,

Write well and neatly,

And sing most sweetly,

Be enterprising,

Love early rising,

Go walk of six miles,

Have ready quick smiles,

With lightsome laughter,

Soft flowing after.

Drink tea, not coffee;

Never eat toffy.

Eat bread with butter.

Once more, don't stutter.

Don't waste your money,

Abstain from honey.

Shut doors behind you,

(Don't slam them, mind you.)

Drink beer, not porter.

Don't enter the water

Till to swim you are able.

Sit close to the table.

Take care of a candle.

Shut a door by the handle,

Don't push with your shoulder

Until you are older.

Lose not a button.

Refuse cold mutton.

Starve your canaries.

Believe in fairies.

If you are able,

Don't have a stable

With any mangers.

Be rude to strangers.

Moral: Behave.

HORRORS

Methought I walked a dismal place

Dim horrors all around;

The air was thick with many a face,

And black as night the ground.

I saw a monster come with speed,

Its face of grimmliest green,

On human beings used to feed,

Most dreadful to be seen.

I could not speak, I could not fly,

I fell down in that place,

I saw the monster's horrid eye

Come leering in my face!

Amidst my scarcely-stifled groans,

Amidst my moanings deep,

I heard a voice, “Wake! Mr. Jones,

You're screaming in your sleep!”

MISUNDERSTANDINGS

If such a thing had been my thought,

I should have told you so before,

But as I didn't, then you ought

To ask for such a thing no more,

For to teach one who has been taught

Is always thought an awful bore.

Now to commence my argument,

I shall premise an observation,

On which the greatest kings have leant

When striving to subdue a nation,

And e'en the wretch who pays no rent

By it can solve a hard equation.

Its truth is such, the force of reason

Can not avail to shake its power,

Yet e'en the sun in summer season

Doth not dispel so mild a shower

As this, and he who sees it, sees on

Beyond it to a sunny bower—

No more, when ignorance is treason,

Let wisdom's brows be cold and sour.

AS IT FELL UPON A DAY

As I was sitting on the hearth

(And O, but a hog is fat!)

A man came hurrying up the path,

(And what care I for that?)

When he came the house unto,

His breath both quick and short he drew.

When he came before the door,

His face grew paler than before.

When he turned the handle round,

The man fell fainting to the ground.

When he crossed the lofty hall,

Once and again I heard him fall.

When he came up to the turret stair,

He shrieked and tore his raven hair.

When he came my chamber in,

(And O, but a hog is fat!)

I ran him through with a golden pin,

(And what care I for that?)

YE FATTALE CHEYSE

Ytte wes a mirke an dreiry cave,

Weet scroggis owr ytte creepe.

Gurgles withyn ye flowan wave

Throw channel braid an deep

Never withyn that dreir recesse

Wes sene ye lyghte of daye,

Quhat bode azont yts mirkinesse

Nane kend an nane mote saye.

Ye monarche rade owr brake an brae

An drave ye yellynge packe,

Hiz meany au' richte cadgily

Are wendynge yn hiz tracke.

Wi' eager iye, wi' yalpe an crye

Ye hondes yode down ye rocks,

Ahead of au' their companye

Renneth ye panky foxe.

Ye foxe hes soughte that cave of awe

Forewearied wi' hiz rin.

Quha nou ys he sae bauld an braw

To dare to enter yn?

Wi' eager bounde hes ilka honde

Gane till that caverne dreir,

Fou many a yowl ys hearde arounde,

Fou many a screech of feir.

Like ane wi' thirstie appetite

Quha swalloweth orange pulp,

Wes hearde a huggle an a bite,

A swallow an a gulp.

Ye kynge hes lap frae aff hiz steid,

Outbrayde hiz trenchant brande;

“Quha on my packe of hondes doth feed,

Maun deye benead thilke hande.”

Sae sed, sae dune: ye stonderes hearde

Fou many a mickle stroke,

Sowns lyke ye flappynge of a birde,

A struggle an a choke.

Owte of ye cave scarce fette they ytte,

Wi pow an push and hau' —

Whereof Y've drawne a littel bytte,

Bot durst not draw ytte au.

bushes.

beyond.

darkness.

company.

merrily.

going journeying.

went.

cunning.

much wearied.

brave.

full.

howl.

is.

full.

drawn.

bystanders.

heavy.

sounds.

fetched.

pull.

haul.

all.

LAYS OF SORROW No. 1

The day was wet, the rain fell souse

Like jars of strawberry jam, a

Sound was heard in the old henhouse,

A beating of a hammer.

Of stalwart form, and visage warm,

Two youths were seen within it,

Splitting up an old tree into perches for their poultry

At a hundred strokes a minute.

The work is done, the hen has taken

Possession of her nest and eggs,

Without a thought of eggs and bacon,

(Or I am very much mistaken:)

She turns over each shell,

To be sure that all's well,

Looks into the straw

To see there's no flaw,

Goes once round the house,

Half afraid of a mouse,

Then sinks calmly to rest

On the top of her nest,

First doubling up each of her legs.

Time rolled away, and so did every shell,

“Small by degrees and beautifully less,”

As the sage mother with a powerful spell

Forced each in turn its contents to express,

But ah! “imperfect is expression,”

Some poet said, I don't care who,

If you want to know you must go elsewhere,

One fact I can tell, if you're willing to hear,

He never attended a Parliament Session,

For I'm certain that if he had ever been there,

Full quickly would he have changed his ideas,

With the hissings, the hootings, the groans and the cheers.

And as to his name it is pretty clear

That it wasn't me and it wasn't you!

And so it fell upon a day,

(That is, it never rose again)

A chick was found upon the hay,

Its little life had ebbed away.

No longer frolicsome and gay,

No longer could it run or play.

“And must we, chicken, must we part?”

Its master cried with bursting heart,

And voice of agony and pain.

So one, whose ticket's marked “Return,”

When to the lonely roadside station

He flies in fear and perturbation,

Thinks of his home—the hissing urn—

Then runs with flying hat and hair,

And, entering, finds to his despair

He's missed the very latest train.

Too long it were to tell of each conjecture

Of chicken suicide, and poultry victim,

The deadly frown, the stern and dreary lecture,

The timid guess, “perhaps some needle pricked him!”

The din of voice, the words both loud and many,

The sob, the tear, the sigh that none could smother,

Till all agreed “a shilling to a penny

It killed itself, and we acquit the mother!”

Scarce was the verdict spoken,

When that still calm was broken,

A childish form hath burst into the throng;

With tears and looks of sadness,

That bring no news of gladness,

But tell too surely something hath gone wrong!

“The sight that I have come upon

The stoutest heart would sicken,

That nasty hen has been and gone

And killed another chicken!”

I.e. the jam without the jars. Observe the beauty of this rhyme.

At the rate of a stroke and two-thirds in a second.

Unless the hen was a poacher, which is unlikely.

The henhouse.

Beak and claw.

Press out.

Probably one of the two stalwart youths.

The system of return tickets is an excellent one. People are conveyed, on particular days, there and back again for one fare.

An additional vexation would be that his “Return” ticket would be no use the next day.

Perhaps even the “bursting” heart of its master.

LAYS OF SORROW No. 2

Fair stands the ancient Rectory,

The Rectory of Croft,

The sun shines bright upon it,

The breezes whisper soft.

From all the house and garden,

Its inhabitants come forth,

And muster in the road without,

And pace in twos and threes about,

The children of the North.

Some are waiting in the garden,

Some are waiting at the door,

And some are following behind,

And some have gone before.

But wherefore all this mustering?

Wherefore this vast array?

A gallant feat of horsemanship

Will be performed to-day.

To eastward and to westward,

The crowd divides amain,

Two youths are leading on the steed,

Both tugging at the rein;

And sorely do they labour,

For the steed is very strong,

And backward moves its stubborn feet,

And backward ever doth retreat,

And drags its guides along.

And now the knight hath mounted,

Before the admiring band,

Hath got the stirrups on his feet,

The bridle in his hand.

Yet, oh! beware, sir horseman!

And tempt thy fate no more,

For such a steed as thou hast got

Was never rid before!

The rabbits bow before thee,

And cower in the straw;

The chickens are submissive,

And own thy will for law;

Bullfinches and canary

Thy bidding do obey;

And e'en the tortoise in its shell

Doth never say thee nay.

But thy steed will hear no master,

Thy steed will bear no stick,

And woe to those that beat her,

And woe to those that kick!

For though her rider smite her,

As hard as he can hit,

And strive to turn her from the yard,

She stands in silence, pulling hard

Against the pulling bit.

And now the road to Dalton

Hath felt their coming tread,

The crowd are speeding on before,

And all have gone ahead.

Yet often look they backward,

And cheer him on, and bawl,

For slower still, and still more slow,

That horseman and that charger go,

And scarce advance at all.

And now two roads to choose from

Are in that rider's sight:

In front the road to Dalton,

And New Croft upon the right.

“I can't get by!” he bellows,

“I really am not able!

Though I pull my shoulder out of joint,

I cannot get him past this point,

For it leads unto his stable!”

Then out spake Ulfrid Longbow,

A valiant youth was he,

“Lo! I will stand on thy right hand

And guard the pass for thee!”

And out spake fair Flureeza,

His sister eke was she,

“I will abide on thy other side,

And turn thy steed for thee!”

And now commenced a struggle

Between that steed and rider,

For all the strength that he hath left

Doth not suffice to guide her.

Though Ulfrid and his sister

Have kindly stopped the way,

And all the crowd have cried aloud,

“We can't wait here all day!”

Round turned he as not deigning

Their words to understand,

But he slipped the stirrups from his feet

The bridle from his hand,

And grasped the mane full lightly,

And vaulted from his seat,

And gained the road in triumph,

And stood upon his feet.

All firmly till that moment

Had Ulfrid Longbow stood,

And faced the foe right valiantly,

As every warrior should.

But when safe on terra firma

His brother he did spy,

“What did you do that for?” he cried,

Then unconcerned he stepped aside

And let it canter by.

They gave him bread and butter,

That was of public right,

As much as four strong rabbits

Could munch from morn to night,

For he'd done a deed of daring,

And faced that savage steed,

And therefore cups of coffee sweet,

And everything that was a treat,

Were but his right and meed.

And often in the evenings,

When the fire is blazing bright,

When books bestrew the table

And moths obscure the light,

When crying children go to bed,

A struggling, kicking load;

We'll talk of Ulfrid Longbow's deed,

How, in his brother's utmost need,

Back to his aid he flew with speed,

And how he faced the fiery steed,

And kept the New Croft Road.

This Rectory has been supposed to have been built in the time of Edward VI, but recent discoveries clearly assign its origin to a much earlier period. A stone has been found in an island formed by the river Tees on which is inscribed the letter “A,” which is justly conjectured to stand for the name of the great King Alfred, in whose reign this house was probably built.

The poet entreats pardon for having represented a donkey under this dignified name.

A full account of the history and misfortunes of these interesting creatures may be found in the first “Lay of Sorrow.”

It is a singular fact that a donkey makes a point of returning any kicks offered to it.

This valiant knight, besides having a heart of steel and nerves of iron, has been lately in the habit of carrying a brick in his eye.

She was sister to both.

The reader will probably be at a loss to discover the nature of this triumph, as no object was gained, and the donkey was obviously the victor; on this point, however, we are sorry to say we can offer no good explanation.

Much more acceptable to a true knight than “corn-land” which the Roman people were so foolish as to give to their daring champion, Horatius.

THE TWO BROTHERS

There were two brothers at Twyford school,

And when they had left the place,

It was, “Will ye learn Greek and Latin?

Or will ye run me a race?

Or will ye go up to yonder bridge,

And there we will angle for dace?”

“I'm too stupid for Greek and for Latin,

I'm too lazy by half for a race,

So I'll even go up to yonder bridge,

And there we will angle for dace.”

He has fitted together two joints of his rod,

And to them he has added another,

And then a great hook he took from his book,

And ran it right into his brother.

Oh much is the noise that is made among boys

When playfully pelting a pig,

But a far greater pother was made by his brother

When flung from the top of the brigg.

The fish hurried up by the dozens,

All ready and eager to bite,

For the lad that he flung was so tender and young,

It quite gave them an appetite.

Said he, “Thus shall he wallop about

And the fish take him quite at their ease,

For me to annoy it was ever his joy,

Now I'll teach him the meaning of ‘Tees’!”

The wind to his ear brought a voice,

“My brother, you didn't had ought ter!

And what have I done that you think it such fun

To indulge in the pleasure of slaughter?

“A good nibble or bite is my chiefest delight,

When I'm merely expected to see,

But a bite from a fish is not quite what I wish,

When I get it performed upon me;

And just now here's a swarm of dace at my arm,

And a perch has got hold of my knee.

“For water my thirst was not great at the first,

And of fish I have quite sufficien—”

“Oh fear not!” he cried, “for whatever betide,

We are both in the selfsame condition!

“I am sure that our state's very nearly alike

(Not considering the question of slaughter),

For I have my perch on the top of the bridge,

And you have your perch in the water.

“I stick to my perch and your perch sticks to you,

We are really extremely alike;

I've a turn-pike up here, and I very much fear

You may soon have a turn with a pike.”

“Oh grant but one wish! If I'm took by a fish

(For your bait is your brother, good man!)

Pull him up if you like, but I hope you will strike

As gently as ever you can.”

“If the fish be a trout, I'm afraid there's no doubt

I must strike him like lightning that's greased;

If the fish be a pike, I'll engage not to strike,

Till I've waited ten minutes at least.”

“But in those ten minutes to desolate Fate

Your brother a victim may fall!”

“I'll reduce it to five, so perhaps you'll survive,

But the chance is exceedingly small.”

“Oh hard is your heart for to act such a part;

Is it iron, or granite, or steel?”

“Why, I really can't say—it is many a day

Since my heart was accustomed to feel.

“'Twas my heart-cherished wish for to slay many fish

Each day did my malice grow worse,

For my heart didn't soften with doing it so often,

But rather, I should say, the reverse.”

“Oh would I were back at Twyford school,

Learning lessons in fear of the birch!”

“Nay, brother!” he cried, “for whatever betide,

You are better off here with your perch!

“I am sure you'll allow you are happier now,

With nothing to do but to play;

And this single line here, it is perfectly clear,

Is much better than thirty a day!

“And as to the rod hanging over your head,

And apparently ready to fall,

That, you know, was the case, when you lived in that place,

So it need not be reckoned at all.

“Do you see that old trout with a turn-up-nose snout?

(Just to speak on a pleasanter theme,)

Observe, my dear brother, our love for each other—

He's the one I like best in the stream.

“To-morrow I mean to invite him to dine

(We shall all of us think it a treat);

If the day should be fine, I'll just drop him a line,

And we'll settle what time we're to meet.

“He hasn't been into society yet,

And his manners are not of the best,

So I think it quite fair that it should be my care,

To see that he's properly dressed.”

Many words brought the wind of “cruel” and “kind,”

And that “man suffers more than the brute”:

Each several word with patience he heard,

And answered with wisdom to boot.

“What? prettier swimming in the stream,

Than lying all snugly and flat?

Do but look at that dish filled with glittering fish,

Has Nature a picture like that?

“What? a higher delight to be drawn from the sight

Of fish full of life and of glee?

What a noodle you are! 'tis delightfuller far

To kill them than let them go free!

“I know there are people who prate by the hour

Of the beauty of earth, sky, and ocean;

Of the birds as they fly, of the fish darting by,

Rejoicing in Life and in Motion.

“As to any delight to be got from the sight,

It is all very well for a flat,

But I think it all gammon, for hooking a salmon

Is better than twenty of that!

“They say that a man of a right-thinking mind

Will love the dumb creatures he sees—

What's the use of his mind, if he's never inclined

To pull a fish out of the Tees?

“Take my friends and my home—as an outcast I'll roam:

Take the money I have in the Bank;

It is just what I wish, but deprive me of fish,

And my life would indeed be a blank!”

Forth from the house his sister came,

Her brothers for to see,

But when she saw that sight of awe,

The tear stood in her e'e.

“Oh what bait's that upon your hook,

My brother, tell to me?”

“It is but the fantailed pigeon,

He would not sing for me.”

“Whoe'er would expect a pigeon to sing,

A simpleton he must be!

But a pigeon-cote is a different thing

To the coat that there I see!”

“Oh what bait's that upon your hook,

Dear brother, tell to me?”

“It is my younger brother,” he cried,

“Oh woe and dole is me!

“I's mighty wicked, that I is!

Or how could such things be?

Farewell, farewell, sweet sister,

I'm going o'er the sea.”

“And when will you come back again,

My brother, tell to me?”

“When chub is good for human food,

And that will never be!”

She turned herself right round about,

And her heart brake into three,

Said, “One of the two will be wet through and through,

And t'other'll be late for his tea!”

THE LADY OF THE LADLE

The Youth at Eve had drunk his fill,

Where stands the “Royal” on the Hill,

And long his mid-day stroll had made,

On the so-called “Marine Parade”—

(Meant, I presume, for Seamen brave,

Whose “march is on the Mountain wave”;

'Twere just the bathing-place for him

Who stays on land till he can swim—)

And he had strayed into the Town,

And paced each alley up and down,

Where still, so narrow grew the way,

The very houses seemed to say,

Nodding to friends across the Street,

“One struggle more and we shall meet.”

And he had scaled that wondrous stair

That soars from earth to upper air,

Where rich and poor alike must climb,

And walk the treadmill for a time.

That morning he had dressed with care,

And put Pomatum on his hair;

He was, the loungers all agreed,

A very heavy swell indeed:

Men thought him, as he swaggered by,

Some scion of nobility,

And never dreamed, so cold his look,

That he had loved—and loved a Cook.

Upon the beach he stood and sighed

Unheedful of the treacherous tide;

Thus sang he to the listening main,

And soothed his sorrow with the strain!

CORONACH

“She is gone by the Hilda,

She is lost unto Whitby,

And her name is Matilda,

Which my heart it was smit by;

Tho' I take the Goliah,

I learn to my sorrow

That ‘it won't,’ said the crier,

‘Be off till to-morrow.’

“She called me her ‘Neddy,’

(Tho' there mayn't be much in it,)

And I should have been ready,

If she'd waited a minute;

I was following behind her

When, if you recollect, I

Merely ran back to find a

Gold pin for my neck-tie.

“Rich dresser of suet!

Prime hand at a sausage!

I have lost thee, I rue it,

And my fare for the passage!

Perhaps she thinks it funny,

Aboard of the Hilda,

But I've lost purse and money,

And thee, oh, my 'Tilda!”

His pin of gold the youth undid

And in his waistcoat-pocket hid,

Then gently folded hand in hand,

And dropped asleep upon the sand.

SHE'S ALL MY FANCY PAINTED HIM

[This affecting fragment was found in MS. among the papers of the well-known author of “Was it You or I?” a tragedy, and the two popular novels, “Sister and Son,” and “The Niece's Legacy, or the Grateful Grandfather.”]

She's all my fancy painted him

(I make no idle boast);

If he or you had lost a limb,

Which would have suffered most?

He said that you had been to her,

And seen me here before;

But, in another character,

She was the same of yore.

There was not one that spoke to us,

Of all that thronged the street:

So he sadly got into a 'bus,

And pattered with his feet.

They sent him word I had not gone

(We know it to be true);

If she should push the matter on,

What would become of you?

They gave her one, they gave me two,

They gave us three or more;

They all returned from him to you,

Though they were mine before.

If I or she should chance to be

Involved in this affair,

He trusts to you to set them free,

Exactly as we were.

It seemed to me that you had been

(Before she had this fit)

An obstacle, that came between

Him, and ourselves, and it.

Don't let him know she liked them best,

For this must ever be

A secret, kept from all the rest,

Between yourself and me.

PHOTOGRAPHY EXTRAORDINARY

The Milk-and-Water School

Alas! she would not hear my prayer!

Yet it were rash to tear my hair;

Disfigured, I should be less fair.

She was unwise, I may say blind;

Once she was lovingly inclined;

Some circumstance has changed her mind.

The Strong-Minded or Matter-of-Fact School

Well! so my offer was no go!

She might do worse, I told her so;

She was a fool to answer “No.”

However, things are as they stood;

Nor would I have her if I could,

For there are plenty more as good.

The Spasmodic or German School

Firebrands and daggers! hope hath fled!

To atoms dash the doubly dead!

My brain is fire—my heart is lead!

Her soul is flint, and what am I?

Scorch'd by her fierce, relentless eye,

Nothingness is my destiny!

LAYS OF MYSTERY, IMAGINATION, AND HUMOUR No.1

THE PALACE OF HUMBUG

I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,

And each damp thing that creeps and crawls

Went wobble-wobble on the walls.

Faint odours of departed cheese,

Blown on the dank, unwholesome breeze,

Awoke the never-ending sneeze.

Strange pictures decked the arras drear,

Strange characters of woe and fear,

The humbugs of the social sphere.

One showed a vain and noisy prig,

That shouted empty words and big

At him that nodded in a wig.

And one, a dotard grim and gray,

Who wasteth childhood's happy day

In work more profitless than play.

Whose icy breast no pity warms,

Whose little victims sit in swarms,

And slowly sob on lower forms.

And one, a green thyme-honoured Bank,

Where flowers are growing wild and rank,

Like weeds that fringe a poisoned tank.

All birds of evil omen there

Flood with rich Notes the tainted air,

The witless wanderer to snare.

The fatal Notes neglected fall,

No creature heeds the treacherous call,

For all those goodly Strawn Baits Pall.

The wandering phantom broke and fled,

Straightway I saw within my head

A vision of a ghostly bed,

Where lay two worn decrepit men,

The fictions of a lawyer's pen,

Who never more might breathe again.

The serving-man of Richard Roe

Wept, inarticulate with woe:

She wept, that waited on John Doe.

“Oh rouse,” I urged, “the waning sense

With tales of tangled evidence,

Of suit, demurrer, and defence.”

“Vain,” she replied, “such mockeries:

For morbid fancies, such as these,

No suits can suit, no plea can please.”

And bending o'er that man of straw,

She cried in grief and sudden awe,

Not inappropriately, “Law!”

The well-remembered voice he knew,

He smiled, he faintly muttered “Sue!”

(Her very name was legal too.)

The night was fled, the dawn was nigh:

A hurricane went raving by,

And swept the Vision from mine eye.

Vanished that dim and ghostly bed,

(The hangings, tape; the tape was red:)

'Tis o'er, and Doe and Roe are dead!

Oh, yet my spirit inly crawls,

What time it shudderingly recalls

That horrid dream of marble halls!

Oxford, 5.

THE MOCK TURTLE'S SONG

Beneath the waters of the sea

Are lobsters thick as thick can be—

They love to dance with you and me,

My own, my gentle Salmon!

Chorus

Salmon, come up! Salmon, go down!

Salmon, come twist your tail around!

Of all the fishes of the sea

There's none so good as Salmon!

UPON THE LONELY MOOR

 [It is always interesting to ascertain the sources from which our great poets obtained their ideas: this motive has dictated the publication of the following: painful as its appearance must be to the admirers of Wordsworth and his poem of “Resolution and Independence.”]

I met an aged, aged man

Upon the lonely moor:

I knew I was a gentleman,

And he was but a boor.

So I stopped and roughly questioned him,

“Come, tell me how you live!”

But his words impressed my ear no more

Than if it were a sieve.

He said, “I look for soap-bubbles,

That lie among the wheat,

And bake them into mutton-pies,

And sell them in the street.

I sell them unto men,” he said,

“Who sail on stormy seas;

And that's the way I get my bread—

A trifle, if you please.”

But I was thinking of a way

To multiply by ten,

And always, in the answer, get

The question back again.

I did not hear a word he said,

But kicked that old man calm,

And said, “Come, tell me how you live!”

And pinched him in the arm.

His accents mild took up the tale:

He said, “I go my ways,

And when I find a mountain-rill,

I set it in a blaze.

And thence they make a stuff they call

Rowland's Macassar Oil;

But fourpence-halfpenny is all

They give me for my toil.”

But I was thinking of a plan

To paint one's gaiters green,

So much the colour of the grass

That they could ne'er be seen.

I gave his ear a sudden box,

And questioned him again,

And tweaked his grey and reverend locks,

And put him into pain.

He said, “I hunt for haddocks' eyes

Among the heather bright,

And work them into waistcoat-buttons

In the silent night.

And these I do not sell for gold,

Or coin of silver-mine,

But for a copper-halfpenny,

And that will purchase nine.

“I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,

Or set limed twigs for crabs;

I sometimes search the flowery knolls

For wheels of hansom cabs.

And that's the way” (he gave a wink)

“I get my living here,

And very gladly will I drink

Your Honour's health in beer.”

I heard him then, for I had just

Completed my design

To keep the Menai bridge from rust

By boiling it in wine.

I duly thanked him, ere I went,

For all his stories queer,

But chiefly for his kind intent

To drink my health in beer.

And now if e'er by chance I put

My fingers into glue,

Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot

Into a left-hand shoe;

Or if a statement I aver

Of which I am not sure,

I think of that strange wanderer

Upon the lonely moor.

MISS JONES

(This frolicsome verse was written for a medley of twenty-two tunes that ranged from “The Captain and His Whiskers” to “Rule Britannia.”)

'Tis a melancholy song, and it will not keep you long,

Tho I specs it will work upon your feelings very strong,

For the agonising moans of Miss Arabella Jones

Were warranted to melt the hearts of any paving stones.

Simon Smith was tall and slim, and she doted upon him,

But he always called her Miss Jones—he never got so far,

As to use her Christian name—it was too familiar.

When she called him “Simon dear” he pretended not to hear,

And she told her sister Susan he behaved extremely queer,

Who said, “Very right! very right! Shews his true affection.

If you'd prove your Simon's love follow my direction.

I'd certainly advise you just to write a simple letter,

And to tell him that the cold he kindly asked about is better.

And say that by the tanyard you will wait in loving hope,

At nine o'clock this evening if he's willing to elope

With his faithful Arabella.”

So she wrote it, & signed it, & sealed it, & sent it, & dressed herself out in her holiday things.

With bracelets & brooches, & earrings, & necklace, a watch, & an eyeglass, & diamond rings,

For man is a creature weak and impressible, thinks such a deal of appearance, my dear.

So she waited for her Simon beside the tanyard gate, regardless of the pieman, who hinted it was late.

Waiting for Simon, she coughed in the chilly night, until the tanner found her,

And kindly brought a light old coat to wrap around her.

She felt her cold was getting worse,

Yet still she fondly whispered, “Oh, take your time, my Simon, although I've waited long.

I do not fear my Simon dear will fail to come at last,

Although I know that long ago the time I named is past.

My Simon! My Simon! Oh, charming man! Oh, charming man!

Dear Simon Smith, sweet Simon Smith.”

Oh, there goes the church-clock, the town-clock, the station-clock and there go the other clocks, they are all striking twelve!

Oh, Simon, it is getting late, it's very dull to sit and wait.

And really I'm in such a state, I hope you'll come at any rate, quite early in the morning, quite early in the morning.

Then with prancing bays & yellow chaise, we'll away to Gretna Green.

For when I am with my Simon Smith—oh, that common name! Oh that vulgar name!

I shall never rest happy till he's changed that name, but when he has married me, maybe he'll love me to that degree, that he'll grant me my prayer

And will call himself “Clare”—

So she talked all alone, as she sat upon a stone,

Still hoping he would come and find her, and she started most unkimmon, when instead of darling “Simmon” 'twas a strange man that stood behind her,

Who civilly observed “Good evening, M'am,

I really am surprised to see that you're out here alone, for you must own from thieves you're not secure.

A watch, I see. Pray lend it me (I hope the gold is pure).

And all those rings, & other things—Don't scream, you know, for long ago

The policeman off from his beat has gone.

In the kitchen—” “Oh, you desperate villain! Oh, you treacherous thief!”

And these were the words of her anger and grief.

“When first to Simon Smith I gave my hand I never could have thought he would have acted half so mean as this,

And where's the new police? Oh, Simon, Simon! how could you treat your love so ill?”

They sit & chatter, they chatter with the cook, the guardians, so they're called, of public peace.

Through the tanyard was heard the dismal sound, “How on earth is it policemen never, never, never, can be found?”

PROLOGUES TO PLAYS

In his youth, Carroll wrote several plays and operaric works, one of which—La Guida Di Bragia—was performed in London.  The prologues to three of the plays survive and are provided below.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE TO “LA GUIDA DI BRAGIA”

PROLOGUE 2

PROLOGUE 3

PROLOGUE TO “LA GUIDA DI BRAGIA”

(From an opera written for Carroll's Marionette Theatre)

Shall soldiers tread the murderous path of war,

Without a notion what they do it for?

Shall pallid mercers drive a roaring trade,

And sell the stuffs their hands have never made?

And shall not we, in this our mimic scene,

Be all that better actors e'er have been?

Awake again a Kemble's tragic tone,

And make a Liston's humour all our own?

Or vie with Mrs. Siddons in the art

To rouse the feelings and to charm the heart?

While Shakespeare's self, with all his ancient fires,

Lights up the forms that tremble on our wires?

Why can't we have, in theatres ideal,

The good, without the evil of the real?

Why may not Marionettes be just as good

As larger actors made of flesh and blood?

Presumptuous thought! to you and your applause

In humbler confidence we trust our cause.

PROLOGUE 2

[“Ladies and Gentlemen” seems stiff and cold.]

(Misses Beatrice and Ethel Hatch, daughters of Dr. Edwin Hatch, Vice-principal of St. Mary Hall, were friends of the author. He wrote two plays for performance at their house.)

Curtain rises and discovers the Speaker, who comes forward, thinking aloud,

824

[Speaker]

“Ladies and Gentlemen” seems stiff and cold.

There's something personal in “Young and Old”;

I'll try “Dear Friends” (addresses audience)

Oh! let me call you so.

Dear friends, look kindly on our little show.

Contrast us not with giants in the Art,

Nor say “You should see Sothern in that part”;

Nor yet, unkindest cut of all, in fact,

Condemn the actors, while you praise the Act.

Having by coming proved you find a charm in it,

Don't go away, and hint there may be harm in it.

Miss Crabb.

My dear Miss Verjuice, can it really be?

You're just in time, love, for a cup of tea;

And so, you went to see those people play.

Miss Verjuice.

Well! yes, Miss Crabb, and I may truly say

You showed your wisdom when you stayed away.

Miss C.

Doubtless! Theatricals in our quiet town!

I've always said, “The law should put them down,”

They mean no harm, tho' I begin to doubt it—

But now sit down and tell me all about it.

Miss V.

Well then, Miss Crabb, I won't deceive you, dear;

I heard some things I—didn't like to hear:

Miss C.

But don't omit them now.

Miss V.

Well! No! I'll try

To tell you all the painful history.

(They whisper alternately behind a small fan.)

Miss V.

And then, my dear, Miss Asterisk and he

Pretended they were lovers!!

Miss C.

Gracious me!!

(More whispering behind fan.)

Speaker.

What! Acting love!! And has that ne'er been seen

Save with a row of footlights placed between?

My gentle censors, let me roundly ask,

Do none but actors ever wear a mask?

Or have we reached at last that golden age

That finds deception only on the Stage?

Come, let's confess all round before we budge,

When all are guilty, none should play the Judge.

We're actors all, a motley company,

Some on the Stage, and others—on the sly—

And guiltiest he who paints so well his phiz

His brother actors scarce know what he is.

A truce to moralizing; we invite

The goodly company we see to-night

To have the little banquet we have got,

Well dressed, we hope, and served up hot & hot.

“Loan of a Lover” is the leading dish,

Concluding with a dainty course of fish;

“Whitebait at Greenwich” in the best condition

(By Mr. Gladstone's very kind permission).

Before the courses will be handed round

An Entrée made of Children, nicely browned. Bell rings.

But hark! The bell to summon me away;

They're anxious to begin their little Play.

One word before I go—We'll do our best,

And crave your kind indulgence for the rest;

Own that at least we've striven to succeed,

And take the good intention for the deed.

Nov. 1871.

PROLOGUE 3

[“Wiffie! I'm sure that something is the matter]

Enter Beatrice, leading Wilfred. She leaves him at centre (front), and after going round on tip-toe, to make sure they are not overheard, returns and takes his arm.

B.

“Wiffie! I'm sure that something is the matter,

All day there's been—oh, such a fuss and clatter!

Mamma's been trying on a funny dress—

I never saw the house in such a mess! (puts her arm round his neck)

Is there a secret, Wiffie?”

W.

(shaking her off)

“Yes, of course!”

B.

“And you won't tell it? (whimpers)

Then you're very cross! (turns away from him and clasps her hands, looking up ecstatically)

I'm sure of this! It's something quite uncommon!”

W.

(stretching up his arms, with a mock-heroic air)

“Oh, Curiosity! Thy name is Woman! (puts his arm round her coaxingly)

Well, Birdie, then I'll tell! (mysteriously)

What should you say

If they were going to act—a little play?”

B.

(jumping and clapping her hands)

“I'd say ‘HOW NICE!’”

W.

(pointing to audience)

“But will it please the rest?”

B.

“Oh yes! Because, you know, they'll do their best! (turns to audience)

You'll praise them, won't you, when you've seen the play?

Just say ‘HOW NICE!’ before you go away!”

(They run away hand in hand.)

Feb. 14, 1873.

COLLEGE RHYMES AND NOTES BY AN OXFORD CHIEL

Christ Church Meadow, Oxford university, where Carroll taught Maths and wrote ‘Alice in Wonderland’ for the dean's daughter.

CONTENTS

ODE TO DAMON

THOSE HORRID HURDY-GURDIES!

MY FANCY

THE MAJESTY OF JUSTICE

THE ELECTIONS TO THE HEBDOMADAL COUNCIL

THE DESERTED PARKS

EXAMINATION STATUTE

ODE TO DAMON

(From Chloë, who Understands His Meaning.)

“Oh, do not forget the day when we met

At the fruiterer's shop in the city:

When you said I was plain and excessively vain,

But I knew that you meant I was pretty.

“Recollect, too, the hour when I purchased the flour

(For the dumplings, you know) and the suet;

Whilst the apples I told my dear Damon to hold,

(Just to see if you knew how to do it).

“Then recall to your mind how you left me behind,

And went off in a 'bus with the pippins;

When you said you'd forgot, but I knew you had not;

(It was merely to save the odd threepence!).

“Don't forget your delight in the dumplings that night,

Though you said they were tasteless and doughy:

But you winked as you spoke, and I saw that the joke

(If it was one) was meant for your Chloë!

“Then remember the day when Joe offered to pay

For us all at the Great Exhibition;

You proposed a short cut, and we found the thing shut,

(We were two hours too late for admission).

“Your ‘short cut’, dear, we found took us seven miles round

(And Joe said exactly what we did):

Well, I helped you out then—it was just like you men—

Not an atom of sense when it's needed!

“You said ‘What's to be done?’ and I thought you in fun,

(Never dreaming you were such a ninny).

‘Home directly!’ said I, and you paid for the fly,

(And I think that you gave him a guinea).

“Well, that notion, you said, had not entered your head:

You proposed ‘The best thing, as we're come, is

(Since it opens again in the morning at ten)

To wait‘—Oh, you prince of all dummies!

“And when Joe asked you ‘Why, if a man were to die,

Just as you ran a sword through his middle,

You'd be hung for the crime?’ and you said ‘Give me time!’

And brought to your Chloë the riddle—

“Why, remember, you dunce, how I solved it at once—

(The question which Joe had referred to you),

Why, I told you the cause, was ‘the force of the laws,’

And you said ‘It had never occurred to you.’

“This instance will show that your brain is too slow,

And (though your exterior is showy),

Yet so arrant a goose can be no sort of use

To society—come to your Chloë!

“You'll find no one like me, who can manage to see

Your meaning, you talk so obscurely:

Why, if once I were gone, how would you get on?

Come, you know what I mean, Damon, surely.”

THOSE HORRID HURDY-GURDIES!

A MONODY, BY A VICTIM

“My mother bids me bind my hair,”

And not go about such a figure;

It's a bother, of course, but what do I care?

I shall do as I please when I'm bigger.

“My lodging is on the cold, cold ground,”

As the first-floor and attic were taken.

I tried the garret but once, and found

That my wish for a change was mistaken.

“Ever of thee!” yes, “Ever of thee!”

They chatter more and more,

Till I groan aloud, “Oh! let me be!

I have heard it all before!”

“Please remember the organ, sir,”

What? hasn't he left me yet?

I promise, good man; for its tedious burr

I never can forget.

MY FANCY

I painted her a gushing thing,

With years perhaps a score;

I little thought to find they were

At least a dozen more;

My fancy gave her eyes of blue,

A curly auburn head:

I came to find the blue a green,

The auburn turned to red.

She boxed my ears this morning,

They tingled very much;

I own that I could wish her

A somewhat lighter touch;

And if you were to ask me how

Her charms might be improved,

I would not have them added to,

But just a few removed!

She has the bear's ethereal grace,

The bland hyena's laugh,

The footstep of the elephant,

The neck of the giraffe;

I love her still, believe me,

Though my heart its passion hides;

“She's all my fancy painted her,”

But oh! how much besides!

Mar. 15, 2.

THE MAJESTY OF JUSTICE

AN OXFORD IDYLL

They passed beneath the College gate;

And down the High went slowly on;

Then spake the Undergraduate

To that benign and portly Don:

“They say that Justice is a Queen—

A Queen of awful Majesty—

Yet in the papers I have seen

Some things that puzzle me.

“A Court obscure, so rumour states,

There is, called ‘Vice-Cancellarii,’

Which keeps on Undergraduates,

Who do not pay their bills, a wary eye.

A case I'm told was lately brought

Into that tiniest of places,

And justice in that case was sought—

As in most other cases.

“Well! Justice as I hold, dear friend,

Is Justice, neither more than less:

I never dreamed it could depend

On ceremonial or dress.

I thought that her imperial sway

In Oxford surely would appear,

But all the papers seem to say

She's not majestic here.”

The portly Don he made reply,

With the most roguish of his glances,

“Perhaps she drops her Majesty

Under peculiar circumstances.”

“But that's the point!” the young man cried,

“The puzzle that I wish to pen you in—

How are the public to decide

Which article is genuine?

“Is't only when the Court is large

That we for ‘Majesty’ need hunt?

Would what is Justice in a barge

Be something different in a punt?

“Nay, nay!” the Don replied, amused,

“You're talking nonsense, sir! You know it!

Such arguments were never used

By any friend of Jowett.”

“Then is it in the men who trudge

(Beef-eaters I believe they call them)

Before each wigged and ermined judge,

For fear some mischief should befall them?

If I should recognise in one

(Through all disguise) my own domestic,

I fear 'twould shed a gleam of fun

Even on the ‘Majestic’!”

The portly Don replied, “Ahem!

They can't exactly be its essence:

I scarcely think the want of them

The ‘Majesty of Justice’ lessens.

Besides, they always march awry;

Their gorgeous garments never fit:

Processions don't make Majesty—

I'm quite convinced of it.”

“Then is it in the wig it lies,

Whose countless rows of rigid curls

Are gazed at with admiring eyes

By country lads and servant-girls?”

Out laughed that bland and courteous Don:

“Dear sir, I do not mean to flatter—

But surely you have hit upon

The essence of the matter.

“They will not own the Majesty

Of Justice, making Monarchs bow,

Unless as evidence they see

The horsehair wig upon her brow.

Yes, yes! That makes the silliest men

Seem wise; the meanest men look big:

The Majesty of Justice, then,

Is seated in the WIG.”

March 3.

THE ELECTIONS TO THE HEBDOMADAL COUNCIL

“Now is the winter of our discontent.”

[In the year 6, a Letter with the above title was published in Oxford, addressed by Mr. Goldwin Smith to the Senior Censor of Christ Church, with the two-fold object of revealing to the University a vast political misfortune which it had unwittingly encountered, and of suggesting a remedy which should at once alleviate the bitterness of the calamity and secure the sufferers from its recurrence. The misfortune thus revealed was no less than the fact that, at a recent election of Members to the Hebdomadal Council, two Conservatives had been chosen, thus giving a Conservative majority in the Council; and the remedy suggested was a sufficiently sweeping one, embracing, as it did, the following details:—

1. “The exclusion” (from Congregation) “of the non-academical elements which form a main part of the strength of this party domination.” These “elements” are afterwards enumerated as “the parish clergy and the professional men of the city, and chaplains who are without any academical occupation.”

2. The abolition of the Hebdomadal Council.

3. The abolition of the legislative functions of Convocation.

These are all the main features of this remarkable scheme of Reform, unless it be necessary to add—

4.“To preside over a Congregation with full legislative powers, the Vice-Chancellor ought no doubt to be a man of real capacity.”

But it would be invidious to suppose that there was any intention of suggesting this as a novelty.

The following rhythmical version of the Letter develops its principles to an extent which possibly the writer had never contemplated.]

“Heard ye the arrow hurtle in the sky?

Heard ye the dragon-monster's dreadful cry?”—

Excuse this sudden burst of the Heroic;

The present state of things would vex a Stoic!

And just as Sairey Gamp, for pains within,

Administered a modicum of gin,

So does my mind, when vexed and ill at ease,

Console itself with soothing similes,

The “dragon-monster” (pestilential schism!)

I need not tell you is Conservatism.

The “hurtling arrow” (till we find a better)

Is represented by the present Letter.

'Twas, I remember, but the other day,

Dear Senior Censor, that you chanced to say

You thought these party-combinations would

Be found, “though needful, no unmingled good.”

Unmingled good? They are unmingled ill!

I never took to them, and never will—

What am I saying? Heed it not, my friend:

On the next page I mean to recommend

The very dodges that I now condemn

In the Conservatives! Don't hint to them

A word of this! (In confidence. Ahem!)

Need I rehearse the history of Jowett?

I need not, Senior Censor, for you know it.

That was the Board Hebdomadal, and oh!

Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow!

Let each that wears a beard, and each that shaves,

Join in the cry “We never will be slaves!”

“But can the University afford

To be a slave to any kind of board?

A slave?” you shuddering ask. “Think you it can, Sir?”

“Not at the present moment,” is my answer.

I've thought the matter o'er and o'er again

And given to it all my powers of brain;

I've thought it out, and this is what I make it,

(And I don't care a Tory how you take it:)

It may be right to go ahead, I guess:

It may be right to stop, I do confess;

Also, it may be right to retrogress.

“In a letter on a point connected with the late elections to the Hebdomadal Council you incidentally remarked to me that our combinations for these elections, ‘though necessary were not an unmixed good.’ They are an unmixed evil.”

“I never go to a caucus without reluctance: I never write a canvassing letter without a feeling of repugnance to my task.”

“I need not rehearse the history of the Regius Professor of Greek.”

“The University cannot afford at the present moment to be delivered over as a slave to any non-academical interest whatever.”

“It may be right to go on, it may be right to stand still, or it may be right to go back.”

So says the oracle, and, for myself, I

Must say it beats to fits the one at Delphi!

To save beloved Oxford from the yoke,

(For this majority's beyond a joke),

We must combine, aye! hold a caucus-meeting,

Unless we want to get another beating.

That they should “bottle” us is nothing new—

But shall they bottle us and caucus too?

See the “fell unity of purpose” now

With which Obstructives plunge into the row!

“Factious Minorities,” we used to sigh—

“Factious Majorities” is now the cry.

“Votes—ninety-two”—no combination here:

“Votes—ninety-three”—conspiracy, 'tis clear!

You urge “'Tis but a unit.” I reply

That in that unit lurks their “unity.”

Our voters often bolt, and often baulk us,

But then, they never, never go to caucus!

Our voters can't forget the maxim famous

“Semel electum semper eligamus”:

They never can be worked into a ferment

By visionary promise of preferment,

Nor taught, by hints of “Paradise” beguiled,

To whisper “C for Chairman” like a child!

And thus the friends that we have tempted down

Oft take the two-o'clock Express for town.

This is our danger: this the secret foe

That aims at Oxford such a deadly blow.

What champion can we find to save the State,

To crush the plot? We darkly whisper “Wait!”

My scheme is this: remove the votes of all

The residents that are not Liberal—

Leave the young Tutors uncontrolled and free,

And Oxford then shall see—what it shall see.

What next? Why then, I say, let Convocation

Be shorn of all her powers of legislation.

But why stop there? Let us go boldly on—

Sweep everything beginning with a “Con”

Into oblivion! Convocation first,

Conservatism next, and, last and worst,

“Concilium Hebdomadale” must,

Consumed and conquered, be consigned to dust!

“To save the University from going completely under the yoke . . . we shall still be obliged to combine.”

“Caucus-holding and wire-pulling would still be almost inevitably carried on to some extent.”

“But what are we to do? Here is a great political and theological party . . . labouring under perfect discipline and with fell unity of purpose, to hold the University in subjection, and fill her government with its nominees.”

At a recent election to Council, the Liberals mustered ninety-two votes and the Conservatives ninety-three; whereupon the latter were charged with having obtained their victory by a conspiracy.

Not to mention that, as we cannot promise Paradise to our supporters, they are very apt to take the train for London just before the election.

It is not known to what the word “Paradise” was intended to allude, and therefore the hint, here thrown out, that the writer meant to recall the case of the late Chairman of Mr. Gladstone's committee, who had been recently collated to the See of Chester, is wholly wanton and gratuitous.

A case of this kind had actually occurred on the occasion of the division just alluded to.

Mr. Wayte, now President of Trinity, then put forward as the Liberal candidate for election to Council.

“You and others suggest, as the only effective remedy, that the Constituency should be reformed, by the exclusion of the non-academical elements which form a main part of the strength of this party domination.”

“I confess that, having included all the really academical elements in Congregation, I would go boldly on, and put an end to the Legislative functions of Convocation.”

“This conviction, that while we have Elections to Council we shall not entirely get rid of party organization and its evils, leads me to venture a step further, and to raise the question whether it is really necessary that we should have an Elective Council for legislative purposes at all.”

And here I must relate a little fable

I heard last Saturday at our high table:—

The cats, it seems, were masters of the house,

And held their own against the rat and mouse:

Of course the others couldn't stand it long,

So held a caucus (not, in their case, wrong);

And, when they were assembled to a man,

Uprose an aged rat, and thus began:—

“Brothers in bondage! Shall we bear to be

For ever left in a minority?

With what ‘fell unity of purpose’ cats

Oppose the trusting innocence of rats!

So unsuspicious are we of disguise,

Their machinations take us by surprise—

Insulting and tyrannical absurdities!

It is too bad by half—upon my word it is!

For, now that these Con—, cats, I should say (frizzle 'em!),

Are masters, they exterminate like Islam!

How shall we deal with them? I'll tell you how:—

Let none but kittens be allowed to miaow!

The Liberal kittens seize us but in play,

And, while they frolic, we can run away;

But older cats are not so generous,

Their claws are too Conservative for us!

Then let them keep the stable and the oats,

While kittens, rats, and mice have all the votes.

“Yes; banish cats! The kittens would not use

Their powers for blind obstruction, nor refuse

To let us sip the cream and gnaw the cheese—

How glorious then would be our destinies!

Kittens and rats would occupy the throne,

And rule the larder for itself alone!”

“Sometimes, indeed, not being informed that the wires are at work, we are completely taken by surprise.”

“We are without protection against this most insulting and tyrannical absurdity.”

“It is as exterminating as Islam.”

“Their powers would scarcely be exercised for the purposes of fanaticism, or in a spirit of blind obstruction.”

“These narrow local bounds, within which our thoughts and schemes have hitherto been pent, will begin to disappear, and a far wider sphere of action will open on the view.”

“Those councils must be freely opened to all who can serve her well and who will serve her for herself.”

So rhymed my friend, and asked me what I thought of it.

I told him that so much as I had caught of it

Appeared to me (as I need hardly mention)

Entirely undeserving of attention.

But now, to guide the Congregation, when

It numbers none but really “able” men,

A “Vice-Cancellarius” will be needed

Of every kind of human weakness weeded!

Is such the president that we have got?

He ought no doubt to be; why should he not?

I do not hint that Liberals should dare

To oust the present holder of the chair—

But surely he would not object to be

Gently examined by a Board of three?

Their duty being just to ascertain

That he's “all there” (I mean, of course, in brain),

And that his mind, from “petty details” clear,

Is fitted for the duties of his sphere.

“To preside over a Congregation with full legislative powers, the Vice-Chancellor ought no doubt to be a man of real capacity; but why should he not? His mind ought also, for this as well as for his other high functions, to be clear of petty details, and devoted to the great matters of University business; but why should not this condition also be fulfilled?”

All this is merely moonshine, till we get

The seal of Parliament upon it set.

A word then, Senior Censor, in your ear:

The Government is in a state of fear—

Like some old gentleman, abroad at night,

Seized with a sudden shiver of affright,

Who offers money, on his bended knees,

To the first skulking vagabond he sees—

Now is the lucky moment for our task;

They daren't refuse us anything we ask!

“If you apply now to Parliament for this or any other University reform, you will find the House of Commons in a propitious mood. . . . Even the Conservative Government, as it looks for the support of moderate Liberals on the one great subject, is very unwilling to present itself in such an aspect that these men may not be able decently to give it their support.”

And then our Fellowships shall open be

To Intellect, no meaner quality!

No moral excellence, no social fitness

Shall ever be admissible as witness.

“Avaunt, dull Virtue!” is Oxonia's cry:

“Come to my arms, ingenious Villainy!”

For Classic Fellowships, an honour high,

Simonides and Co. will then apply—

Our Mathematics will to Oxford bring

The 'cutest members of the betting-ring—

Law Fellowships will start upon their journeys

A myriad of unscrupulous attorneys—

While prisoners, doomed till now to toil unknown,

Shall mount the Physical Professor's throne!

And thus would Oxford educate, indeed,

Men far beyond a merely local need—

With no career before them, I may say,

Unless they're wise enough to go away,

And seek far West, or in the distant East,

Another flock of pigeons to be fleeced.

“With open Fellowships, Oxford will soon produce a supply of men fit for the work of high education far beyond her own local demands, and in fact with no career before them unless a career can be opened elsewhere.”

I might go on, and trace the destiny

Of Oxford in an age which, though it be

Thus breaking with tradition, owns a new

Allegiance to the intellectual few—

(I mean, of course, the—pshaw! no matter who!)

But, were I to pursue the boundless theme,

I fear that I should seem to you to dream.

“I should seem to you to dream if I were to say what I think the destiny of the University may be in an age which, though it is breaking with tradition, is, from the same causes, owning a new allegiance to intellectual authority.”

This to fulfil, or even—humbler far—

To shun Conservatism's noxious star

And all the evils that it brings behind,

These pestilential coils must be untwined—

The party-coils, that clog the march of Mind—

Choked in whose meshes Oxford, slowly wise,

Has lain for three disastrous centuries.

Away with them! (It is for this I yearn!)

Each twist untwist, each Turner overturn!

Disfranchise each Conservative, and cancel

The votes of Michell, Liddon, Wall, and Mansel!

Then, then shall Oxford be herself again,

Neglect the heart, and cultivate the brain—

Then this shall be the burden of our song,

“All change is good—whatever is, is wrong—”

Then Intellect's proud flag shall be unfurled,

And Brain, and Brain alone, shall rule the world!

“But to fulfil this, or even a far humbler destiny—to escape the opposite lot—the pestilential coils of party, in which the University has lain for three disastrous centuries choked, must be untwined.”

Dr. Wynter, President of St. John's, one of the recently elected Conservative members of Council.

THE DESERTED PARKS

“Solitudinem faciunt: Parcum appellant.”

Museum! loveliest building of the plain

Where Cherwell winds towards the distant main;

How often have I loitered o'er thy green,

Where humble happiness endeared the scene!

How often have I paused on every charm,

The rustic couple walking arm in arm—

The groups of trees, with seats beneath the shade

For prattling babes and whisp'ring lovers made—

The never-failing brawl, the busy mill

Where tiny urchins vied in fistic skill—

(Two phrases only have that dusky race

Caught from the learned influence of the place;

Phrases in their simplicity sublime,

“Scramble a copper!” “Please, Sir, what's the time?”

These round thy walks their cheerful influence shed;

There were thy charms—but all these charms are fled.

Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,

And rude pavilions sadden all thy green;

One selfish pastime grasps the whole domain,

And half a faction swallows up the plain;

Adown thy glades, all sacrificed to cricket,

The hollow-sounding bat now guards the wicket;

Sunk are thy mounds in shapeless level all,

Lest aught impede the swiftly rolling ball;

And trembling, shrinking from the fatal blow,

Far, far away thy hapless children go.

Ill fares the place, to luxury a prey,

Where wealth accumulates, and minds decay;

Athletic sports may flourish or may fade,

Fashion may make them, even as it has made;

But the broad parks, the city's joy and pride,

When once destroyed can never be supplied!

Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey

The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay,

'Tis yours to judge, how wide the limits stand

Between a splendid and a happy land.

Proud swells go by with laugh of hollow joy,

And shouting Folly hails them with “Ahoy!”

Funds even beyond the miser's wish abound,

And rich men flock from all the world around.

Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name,

That leaves our useful products still the same.

Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride

Takes up a space that many poor supplied;

Space for the game, and all its instruments,

Space for pavilions and for scorers' tents;

The ball, that raps his shins in padding cased,

Has wore the verdure to an arid waste;

His Park, where these exclusive sports are seen,

Indignant spurns the rustic from the green;

While through the plain, consigned to silence all,

In barren splendour flits the russet ball.

In peaceful converse with his brother Don,

Here oft the calm Professor wandered on;

Strange words he used—men drank with wondering ears

The languages called “dead,” the tongues of other years.

(Enough of Heber! Let me once again

Attune my verse to Goldsmith's liquid strain.)

A man he was to undergraduates dear,

And passing rich with forty pounds a year.

And so, I ween, he would have been till now,

Had not his friends ('twere long to tell you how)

Prevailed on him, Jack-Horner-like, to try

Some method to evaluate his pie,

And win from those dark depths, with skilful thumb,

Five times a hundredweight of luscious plum—

Yet for no thirst of wealth, no love of praise,

In learned labour he consumed his days!

O Luxury! thou cursed by Heaven's decree,

How ill exchanged are things like these for thee!

How do thy potions, with insidious joy,

Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy;

Iced cobbler, Badminton, and shandy-gaff,

Rouse the loud jest and idiotic laugh;

Inspired by them, to tipsy greatness grown,

Men boast a florid vigour not their own;

At every draught more wild and wild they grow;

While pitying friends observe “I told you so!”

Till, summoned to their post, at the first ball,

A feeble under-hand, their wickets fall.

Even now the devastation is begun,

And half the business of destruction done;

Even now, methinks while pondering here in pity,

I see the rural Virtues leave the city.

Contented Toil, and calm scholastic Care,

And frugal Moderation, all are there;

Resolute Industry that scorns the lure

Of careless mirth—that dwells apart secure—

To science gives her days, her midnight oil,

Cheered by the sympathy of others' toil—

Courtly Refinement, and that Taste in dress

That brooks no meanness, yet avoids excess—

All these I see, with slow reluctant pace

Desert the long-beloved and honoured place!

While yet 'tis time, Oxonia, rise and fling

The spoiler from thee: grant no parleying!

Teach him that eloquence, against the wrong,

Though very poor, may still be very strong;

That party-interests we must forgo,

When hostile to “pro bono publico”;

That faction's empire hastens to its end,

When once mankind to common sense attend;

While independent votes may win the day

Even against the potent spell of “Play!”

May 7.

EXAMINATION STATUTE

[“The Statute proposed to allow candidates for a degree to forsake Classics after Moderations, except so far as was needed for a Fourth Class in the Final School of Literæ Humaniores, if they wished to graduate in science. This Dodgson considered degrading both to Classics and to Mathematics.” —Dodgson Handbook.]

A list of those who might, could, would, or should have voted thereon in Congregation, February 2, 1, arranged alphabetically.

A is for [Acland], who'd physic the Masses,

B is for [Brodie], who swears by the gases.

C is for [Conington], constant to Horace.

D is for [Donkin], who integrates for us.

E is for [Evans], with rifle well steadied.

F is for [Freeman], Examiner dreaded!

G's [Goldwin Smith], by the “Saturday” quoted.

H is for [Heurtley], to “Margaret” devoted.

I am the Author, a rhymer erratic—

J is for [Jowett], who lectures in Attic:

K is for [Kitchen], than attic much warmer.

L is for [Liddell], relentless reformer!

M is for [Mansel], our Logic-provider,

And [Norris] is N, once a famous rough-rider.

[Ogilvie]'s O, Orthodoxy's Mendoza!

And [Parker] is P, the amendment-proposer.

Q is the Quad, where the Dons are collecting.

R is for [Rolleston], who lives for dissecting:

S is for [Stanley], sworn foe to formality.

T's [Travers Twiss], full of civil legality.

U's University, factiously splitting—

V's the Vice-Chancellor, ceaselessly sitting.

W's [Wall], by Museum made frantic,

X the Xpenditure, grown quite gigantic.

Y are the Young men, whom nobody thought about—

Z is the Zeal that this victory brought about.

PHANTASMAGORIA AND OTHER POEMS

OR

RHYME? AND REASON?

This collection of poems was first published by Macmillan, the same publishers of the Alice books, in London in 1869. The feature poem Phantasmagoria is Carroll's longest poetic work, forming a discussion written in seven cantos between a ghost and a man called Tibbets.

CONTENTS

PHANTASMAGORIA

CANTO I - The Trystyng

CANTO II - Hys Fyve Rules

CANTO III - Scarmoges

CANTO IV - Hys Nouryture

CANTO V - Byckerment

CANTO VI - Dyscomfyture

CANTO VII - Sad Souvenaunce

ECHOES

A SEA DIRGE

HIAWATHA’S PHOTOGRAPHING

MELANCHOLETTA

A VALENTINE

THE THREE VOICES

TÈMA CON VARIAZIÒNI

A GAME OF FIVES

POETA FIT, NON NASCITUR

SIZE AND TEARS

ATALANTA IN CAMDEN-TOWN

THE LANG COORTIN’

FOUR RIDDLES

FAME’S PENNY-TRUMPET

PHANTASMAGORIA

CANTO I - The Trystyng

One winter night, at half-past nine,

Cold, tired, and cross, and muddy,

I had come home, too late to dine,

And supper, with cigars and wine,

Was waiting in the study.

There was a strangeness in the room,

And Something white and wavy

Was standing near me in the gloom -

I took it for the carpet-broom

Left by that careless slavey.

But presently the Thing began

To shiver and to sneeze:

On which I said “Come, come, my man!

That’s a most inconsiderate plan.

Less noise there, if you please!”

“I’ve caught a cold,” the Thing replies,

“Out there upon the landing.”

I turned to look in some surprise,

And there, before my very eyes,

A little Ghost was standing!

He trembled when he caught my eye,

And got behind a chair.

“How came you here,” I said, “and why?

I never saw a thing so shy.

Come out!  Don’t shiver there!”

He said “I’d gladly tell you how,

And also tell you why;

But” (here he gave a little bow)

“You’re in so bad a temper now,

You’d think it all a lie.

“And as to being in a fright,

Allow me to remark

That Ghosts have just as good a right

In every way, to fear the light,

As Men to fear the dark.”

“No plea,” said I, “can well excuse

Such cowardice in you:

For Ghosts can visit when they choose,

Whereas we Humans ca’n’t refuse

To grant the interview.”

He said “A flutter of alarm

Is not unnatural, is it?

I really feared you meant some harm:

But, now I see that you are calm,

Let me explain my visit.

“Houses are classed, I beg to state,

According to the number

Of Ghosts that they accommodate:

(The Tenant merely counts as weight,

With Coals and other lumber).

“This is a ‘one-ghost’ house, and you

When you arrived last summer,

May have remarked a Spectre who

Was doing all that Ghosts can do

To welcome the new-comer.

“In Villas this is always done -

However cheaply rented:

For, though of course there’s less of fun

When there is only room for one,

Ghosts have to be contented.

“That Spectre left you on the Third -

Since then you’ve not been haunted:

For, as he never sent us word,

’Twas quite by accident we heard

That any one was wanted.

“A Spectre has first choice, by right,

In filling up a vacancy;

Then Phantom, Goblin, Elf, and Sprite -

If all these fail them, they invite

The nicest Ghoul that they can see.

“The Spectres said the place was low,

And that you kept bad wine:

So, as a Phantom had to go,

And I was first, of course, you know,

I couldn’t well decline.”

“No doubt,” said I, “they settled who

Was fittest to be sent

Yet still to choose a brat like you,

To haunt a man of forty-two,

Was no great compliment!”

“I’m not so young, Sir,” he replied,

“As you might think.  The fact is,

In caverns by the water-side,

And other places that I’ve tried,

I’ve had a lot of practice:

“But I have never taken yet

A strict domestic part,

And in my flurry I forget

The Five Good Rules of Etiquette

We have to know by heart.”

My sympathies were warming fast

Towards the little fellow:

He was so utterly aghast

At having found a Man at last,

And looked so scared and yellow.

“At least,” I said, “I’m glad to find

A Ghost is not a dumb thing!

But pray sit down: you’ll feel inclined

(If, like myself, you have not dined)

To take a snack of something:

“Though, certainly, you don’t appear

A thing to offer food to!

And then I shall be glad to hear -

If you will say them loud and clear -

The Rules that you allude to.”

“Thanks!  You shall hear them by and by.

This is a piece of luck!”

“What may I offer you?” said I.

“Well, since you are so kind, I’ll try

A little bit of duck.

“One slice!  And may I ask you for

Another drop of gravy?”

I sat and looked at him in awe,

For certainly I never saw

A thing so white and wavy.

And still he seemed to grow more white,

More vapoury, and wavier -

Seen in the dim and flickering light,

As he proceeded to recite

His “Maxims of Behaviour.”

CANTO II - Hys Fyve Rules

“My First - but don’t suppose,” he said,

“I’m setting you a riddle -

Is - if your Victim be in bed,

Don’t touch the curtains at his head,

But take them in the middle,

“And wave them slowly in and out,

While drawing them asunder;

And in a minute’s time, no doubt,

He’ll raise his head and look about

With eyes of wrath and wonder.

“And here you must on no pretence

Make the first observation.

Wait for the Victim to commence:

No Ghost of any common sense

Begins a conversation.

“If he should say ‘How came you here?’

(The way that you began, Sir,)

In such a case your course is clear -

‘On the bat’s back, my little dear!’

Is the appropriate answer.

“If after this he says no more,

You’d best perhaps curtail your

Exertions - go and shake the door,

And then, if he begins to snore,

You’ll know the thing’s a failure.

“By day, if he should be alone -

At home or on a walk -

You merely give a hollow groan,

To indicate the kind of tone

In which you mean to talk.

“But if you find him with his friends,

The thing is rather harder.

In such a case success depends

On picking up some candle-ends,

Or butter, in the larder.

“With this you make a kind of slide

(It answers best with suet),

On which you must contrive to glide,

And swing yourself from side to side -

One soon learns how to do it.

“The Second tells us what is right

In ceremonious calls:-

‘First burn a blue or crimson light’

(A thing I quite forgot to-night),

‘Then scratch the door or walls.’”

I said “You’ll visit here no more,

If you attempt the Guy.

I’ll have no bonfires on my floor -

And, as for scratching at the door,

I’d like to see you try!”

“The Third was written to protect

The interests of the Victim,

And tells us, as I recollect,

To treat him with a grave respect,

And not to contradict him.”

“That’s plain,” said I, “as Tare and Tret,

To any comprehension:

I only wish some Ghosts I’ve met

Would not so constantly forget

The maxim that you mention!”

“Perhaps,” he said, “you first transgressed

The laws of hospitality:

All Ghosts instinctively detest

The Man that fails to treat his guest

With proper cordiality.

“If you address a Ghost as ‘Thing!’

Or strike him with a hatchet,

He is permitted by the King

To drop all formal parleying -

And then you’re sure to catch it!

“The Fourth prohibits trespassing

Where other Ghosts are quartered:

And those convicted of the thing

(Unless when pardoned by the King)

Must instantly be slaughtered.

“That simply means ‘be cut up small’:

Ghosts soon unite anew.

The process scarcely hurts at all -

Not more than when you’re what you call

‘Cut up’ by a Review.

“The Fifth is one you may prefer

That I should quote entire:-

The King must be addressed as ‘Sir.’

This, from a simple courtier,

Is all the Laws require:

“But, should you wish to do the thing

With out-and-out politeness,

Accost him as ‘My Goblin King!

And always use, in answering,

The phrase ‘Your Royal Whiteness!’

“I’m getting rather hoarse, I fear,

After so much reciting :

So, if you don’t object, my dear,

We’ll try a glass of bitter beer -

I think it looks inviting.”

CANTO III - Scarmoges

“And did you really walk,” said I,

“On such a wretched night?

I always fancied Ghosts could fly -

If not exactly in the sky,

Yet at a fairish height.”

“It’s very well,” said he, “for Kings

To soar above the earth:

But Phantoms often find that wings -

Like many other pleasant things -

Cost more than they are worth.

“Spectres of course are rich, and so

Can buy them from the Elves:

But we prefer to keep below -

They’re stupid company, you know,

For any but themselves:

“For, though they claim to be exempt

From pride, they treat a Phantom

As something quite beneath contempt -

Just as no Turkey ever dreamt

Of noticing a Bantam.”

“They seem too proud,” said I, “to go

To houses such as mine.

Pray, how did they contrive to know

So quickly that ‘the place was low,’

And that I ‘kept bad wine’?”

“Inspector Kobold came to you - ”

The little Ghost began.

Here I broke in - “Inspector who?

Inspecting Ghosts is something new!

Explain yourself, my man!”

“His name is Kobold,” said my guest:

“One of the Spectre order:

You’ll very often see him dressed

In a yellow gown, a crimson vest,

And a night-cap with a border.

“He tried the Brocken business first,

But caught a sort of chill ;

So came to England to be nursed,

And here it took the form of thirst,

Which he complains of still.

“Port-wine, he says, when rich and sound,

Warms his old bones like nectar:

And as the inns, where it is found,

Are his especial hunting-ground,

We call him the Inn-Spectre.”

I bore it - bore it like a man -

This agonizing witticism!

And nothing could be sweeter than

My temper, till the Ghost began

Some most provoking criticism.

“Cooks need not be indulged in waste;

Yet still you’d better teach them

Dishes should have some sort of taste.

Pray, why are all the cruets placed

Where nobody can reach them?

“That man of yours will never earn

His living as a waiter!

Is that queer thing supposed to burn?

(It’s far too dismal a concern

To call a Moderator).

“The duck was tender, but the peas

Were very much too old:

And just remember, if you please,

The next time you have toasted cheese,

Don’t let them send it cold.

“You’d find the bread improved, I think,

By getting better flour:

And have you anything to drink

That looks a little less like ink,

And isn’t quite so sour?”

Then, peering round with curious eyes,

He muttered “Goodness gracious!”

And so went on to criticise -

“Your room’s an inconvenient size:

It’s neither snug nor spacious.

“That narrow window, I expect,

Serves but to let the dusk in - ”

“But please,” said I, “to recollect

’Twas fashioned by an architect

Who pinned his faith on Ruskin!”

“I don’t care who he was, Sir, or

On whom he pinned his faith!

Constructed by whatever law,

So poor a job I never saw,

As I’m a living Wraith!

“What a re-markable cigar!

How much are they a dozen?”

I growled “No matter what they are!

You’re getting as familiar

As if you were my cousin!

“Now that’s a thing I will not stand,

And so I tell you flat.”

“Aha,” said he, “we’re getting grand!”

(Taking a bottle in his hand)

“I’ll soon arrange for that!”

And here he took a careful aim,

And gaily cried “Here goes!”

I tried to dodge it as it came,

But somehow caught it, all the same,

Exactly on my nose.

And I remember nothing more

That I can clearly fix,

Till I was sitting on the floor,

Repeating “Two and five are four,

But five and two are six.”

What really passed I never learned,

Nor guessed: I only know

That, when at last my sense returned,

The lamp, neglected, dimly burned -

The fire was getting low -

Through driving mists I seemed to see

A Thing that smirked and smiled:

And found that he was giving me

A lesson in Biography,

As if I were a child.

CANTO IV - Hys Nouryture

“Oh, when I was a little Ghost,

A merry time had we!

Each seated on his favourite post,

We chumped and chawed the buttered toast

They gave us for our tea.”

“That story is in print!” I cried.

“Don’t say it’s not, because

It’s known as well as Bradshaw’s Guide!”

(The Ghost uneasily replied

He hardly thought it was).

“It’s not in Nursery Rhymes?  And yet

I almost think it is -

‘Three little Ghosteses’ were set

‘On posteses,’ you know, and ate

Their ‘buttered toasteses.’

“I have the book; so if you doubt it - ”

I turned to search the shelf.

“Don’t stir!” he cried.  “We’ll do without it:

I now remember all about it;

I wrote the thing myself.

“It came out in a ‘Monthly,’ or

At least my agent said it did:

Some literary swell, who saw

It, thought it seemed adapted for

The Magazine he edited.

“My father was a Brownie, Sir;

My mother was a Fairy.

The notion had occurred to her,

The children would be happier,

If they were taught to vary.

“The notion soon became a craze;

And, when it once began, she

Brought us all out in different ways -

One was a Pixy, two were Fays,

Another was a Banshee;

“The Fetch and Kelpie went to school

And gave a lot of trouble;

Next came a Poltergeist and Ghoul,

And then two Trolls (which broke the rule),

A Goblin, and a Double -

“(If that’s a snuff-box on the shelf,”

He added with a yawn,

“I’ll take a pinch) - next came an Elf,

And then a Phantom (that’s myself),

And last, a Leprechaun.

“One day, some Spectres chanced to call,

Dressed in the usual white:

I stood and watched them in the hall,

And couldn’t make them out at all,

They seemed so strange a sight.

“I wondered what on earth they were,

That looked all head and sack;

But Mother told me not to stare,

And then she twitched me by the hair,

And punched me in the back.

“Since then I’ve often wished that I

Had been a Spectre born.

But what’s the use?”  (He heaved a sigh.)

“They are the ghost-nobility,

And look on us with scorn.

“My phantom-life was soon begun:

When I was barely six,

I went out with an older one -

And just at first I thought it fun,

And learned a lot of tricks.

“I’ve haunted dungeons, castles, towers -

Wherever I was sent:

I’ve often sat and howled for hours,

Drenched to the skin with driving showers,

Upon a battlement.

“It’s quite old-fashioned now to groan

When you begin to speak:

This is the newest thing in tone - ”

And here (it chilled me to the bone)

He gave an awful squeak.

“Perhaps,” he added, “to your ear

That sounds an easy thing?

Try it yourself, my little dear!

It took me something like a year,

With constant practising.

“And when you’ve learned to squeak, my man,

And caught the double sob,

You’re pretty much where you began:

Just try and gibber if you can!

That’s something like a job!

“I’ve tried it, and can only say

I’m sure you couldn’t do it, e-

ven if you practised night and day,

Unless you have a turn that way,

And natural ingenuity.

“Shakspeare I think it is who treats

Of Ghosts, in days of old,

Who ‘gibbered in the Roman streets,’

Dressed, if you recollect, in sheets -

They must have found it cold.

“I’ve often spent ten pounds on stuff,

In dressing as a Double;

But, though it answers as a puff,

It never has effect enough

To make it worth the trouble.

“Long bills soon quenched the little thirst

I had for being funny.

The setting-up is always worst:

Such heaps of things you want at first,

One must be made of money!

“For instance, take a Haunted Tower,

With skull, cross-bones, and sheet;

Blue lights to burn (say) two an hour,

Condensing lens of extra power,

And set of chains complete:

“What with the things you have to hire -

The fitting on the robe -

And testing all the coloured fire -

The outfit of itself would tire

The patience of a Job!

“And then they’re so fastidious,

The Haunted-House Committee:

I’ve often known them make a fuss

Because a Ghost was French, or Russ,

Or even from the City!

“Some dialects are objected to -

For one, the Irish brogue is:

And then, for all you have to do,

One pound a week they offer you,

And find yourself in Bogies!

CANTO V - Byckerment

“Don’t they consult the ‘Victims,’ though?”

I said.  “They should, by rights,

Give them a chance - because, you know,

The tastes of people differ so,

Especially in Sprites.”

The Phantom shook his head and smiled.

“Consult them?  Not a bit!

‘Twould be a job to drive one wild,

To satisfy one single child -

There’d be no end to it!”

“Of course you can’t leave children free,”

Said I, “to pick and choose:

But, in the case of men like me,

I think ‘Mine Host’ might fairly be

Allowed to state his views.”

He said “It really wouldn’t pay -

Folk are so full of fancies.

We visit for a single day,

And whether then we go, or stay,

Depends on circumstances.

“And, though we don’t consult ‘Mine Host’

Before the thing’s arranged,

Still, if he often quits his post,

Or is not a well-mannered Ghost,

Then you can have him changed.

“But if the host’s a man like you -

I mean a man of sense;

And if the house is not too new - ”

“Why, what has that,” said I, “to do

With Ghost’s convenience?”

“A new house does not suit, you know -

It’s such a job to trim it:

But, after twenty years or so,

The wainscotings begin to go,

So twenty is the limit.”

“To trim” was not a phrase I could

Remember having heard:

“Perhaps,” I said, “you’ll be so good

As tell me what is understood

Exactly by that word?”

“It means the loosening all the doors,”

The Ghost replied, and laughed:

“It means the drilling holes by scores

In all the skirting-boards and floors,

To make a thorough draught.

“You’ll sometimes find that one or two

Are all you really need

To let the wind come whistling through -

But here there’ll be a lot to do!”

I faintly gasped “Indeed!

“If I’d been rather later, I’ll

Be bound,” I added, trying

(Most unsuccessfully) to smile,

“You’d have been busy all this while,

Trimming and beautifying?”

“Why, no,” said he; “perhaps I should

Have stayed another minute -

But still no Ghost, that’s any good,

Without an introduction would

Have ventured to begin it.

“The proper thing, as you were late,

Was certainly to go:

But, with the roads in such a state,

I got the Knight-Mayor’s leave to wait

For half an hour or so.”

“Who’s the Knight-Mayor?” I cried.  Instead

Of answering my question,

“Well, if you don’t know that,” he said,

“Either you never go to bed,

Or you’ve a grand digestion!

“He goes about and sits on folk

That eat too much at night:

His duties are to pinch, and poke,

And squeeze them till they nearly choke.”

(I said “It serves them right!”)

“And folk who sup on things like these - ”

He muttered, “eggs and bacon -

Lobster - and duck - and toasted cheese -

If they don’t get an awful squeeze,

I’m very much mistaken!

“He is immensely fat, and so

Well suits the occupation:

In point of fact, if you must know,

We used to call him years ago,

The Mayor and Corporation!

“The day he was elected Mayor

I know that every Sprite meant

To vote for me, but did not dare -

He was so frantic with despair

And furious with excitement.

“When it was over, for a whim,

He ran to tell the King;

And being the reverse of slim,

A two-mile trot was not for him

A very easy thing.

“So, to reward him for his run

(As it was baking hot,

And he was over twenty stone),

The King proceeded, half in fun,

To knight him on the spot.”

“’Twas a great liberty to take!”

(I fired up like a rocket).

“He did it just for punning’s sake:

‘The man,’ says Johnson, ‘that would make

A pun, would pick a pocket!’”

“A man,” said he, “is not a King.”

I argued for a while,

And did my best to prove the thing -

The Phantom merely listening

With a contemptuous smile.

At last, when, breath and patience spent,

I had recourse to smoking -

“Your aim,” he said, “is excellent:

But - when you call it argument -

Of course you’re only joking?”

Stung by his cold and snaky eye,

I roused myself at length

To say “At least I do defy

The veriest sceptic to deny

That union is strength!”

“That’s true enough,” said he, “yet stay - ”

I listened in all meekness -

“Union is strength, I’m bound to say;

In fact, the thing’s as clear as day;

But onions are a weakness.”

CANTO VI - Dyscomfyture

As one who strives a hill to climb,

Who never climbed before:

Who finds it, in a little time,

Grow every moment less sublime,

And votes the thing a bore:

Yet, having once begun to try,

Dares not desert his quest,

But, climbing, ever keeps his eye

On one small hut against the sky

Wherein he hopes to rest:

Who climbs till nerve and force are spent,

With many a puff and pant:

Who still, as rises the ascent,

In language grows more violent,

Although in breath more scant:

Who, climbing, gains at length the place

That crowns the upward track.

And, entering with unsteady pace,

Receives a buffet in the face

That lands him on his back:

And feels himself, like one in sleep,

Glide swiftly down again,

A helpless weight, from steep to steep,

Till, with a headlong giddy sweep,

He drops upon the plain -

So I, that had resolved to bring

Conviction to a ghost,

And found it quite a different thing

From any human arguing,

Yet dared not quit my post

But, keeping still the end in view

To which I hoped to come,

I strove to prove the matter true

By putting everything I knew

Into an axiom:

Commencing every single phrase

With ‘therefore’ or ‘because,’

I blindly reeled, a hundred ways,

About the syllogistic maze,

Unconscious where I was.

Quoth he “That’s regular clap-trap:

Don’t bluster any more.

Now do be cool and take a nap!

Such a ridiculous old chap

Was never seen before!

“You’re like a man I used to meet,

Who got one day so furious

In arguing, the simple heat

Scorched both his slippers off his feet!”

I said “That’s very curious!”

“Well, it is curious, I agree,

And sounds perhaps like fibs:

But still it’s true as true can be -

As sure as your name’s Tibbs,” said he.

I said “My name’s not Tibbs.”

“Not Tibbs!” he cried - his tone became

A shade or two less hearty -

“Why, no,” said I.  “My proper name

Is Tibbets - ”  “Tibbets?”  “Aye, the same.”

“Why, then YOU’RE NOT THE PARTY!”

With that he struck the board a blow

That shivered half the glasses.

“Why couldn’t you have told me so

Three quarters of an hour ago,

You prince of all the asses?

“To walk four miles through mud and rain,

To spend the night in smoking,

And then to find that it’s in vain -

And I’ve to do it all again -

It’s really too provoking!

“Don’t talk!” he cried, as I began

To mutter some excuse.

“Who can have patience with a man

That’s got no more discretion than

An idiotic goose?

“To keep me waiting here, instead

Of telling me at once

That this was not the house!” he said.

“There, that’ll do - be off to bed!

Don’t gape like that, you dunce!”

“It’s very fine to throw the blame

On me in such a fashion!

Why didn’t you enquire my name

The very minute that you came?”

I answered in a passion.

“Of course it worries you a bit

To come so far on foot -

But how was I to blame for it?”

“Well, well!” said he.  “I must admit

That isn’t badly put.

“And certainly you’ve given me

The best of wine and victual -

Excuse my violence,” said he,

“But accidents like this, you see,

They put one out a little.

“’Twas my fault after all, I find -

Shake hands, old Turnip-top!”

The name was hardly to my mind,

But, as no doubt he meant it kind,

I let the matter drop.

“Good-night, old Turnip-top, good-night!

When I am gone, perhaps

They’ll send you some inferior Sprite,

Who’ll keep you in a constant fright

And spoil your soundest naps.

“Tell him you’ll stand no sort of trick;

Then, if he leers and chuckles,

You just be handy with a stick

(Mind that it’s pretty hard and thick)

And rap him on the knuckles!

“Then carelessly remark ‘Old coon!

Perhaps you’re not aware

That, if you don’t behave, you’ll soon

Be chuckling to another tune -

And so you’d best take care!’

“That’s the right way to cure a Sprite

Of such like goings-on -

But gracious me!  It’s getting light!

Good-night, old Turnip-top, good-night!”

A nod, and he was gone.

CANTO VII - Sad Souvenaunce

“What’s this?” I pondered.  “Have I slept?

Or can I have been drinking?”

But soon a gentler feeling crept

Upon me, and I sat and wept

An hour or so, like winking.

“No need for Bones to hurry so!”

I sobbed.  “In fact, I doubt

If it was worth his while to go -

And who is Tibbs, I’d like to know,

To make such work about?

“If Tibbs is anything like me,

It’s possible,” I said,

“He won’t be over-pleased to be

Dropped in upon at half-past three,

After he’s snug in bed.

“And if Bones plagues him anyhow -

Squeaking and all the rest of it,

As he was doing here just now -

I prophesy there’ll be a row,

And Tibbs will have the best of it!”

Then, as my tears could never bring

The friendly Phantom back,

It seemed to me the proper thing

To mix another glass, and sing

The following Coronach.

‘And art thou gone, beloved Ghost?

Best of Familiars!

Nay then, farewell, my duckling roast,

Farewell, farewell, my tea and toast,

My meerschaum and cigars!

The hues of life are dull and gray,

The sweets of life insipid,

When thou, my charmer, art away -

Old Brick, or rather, let me say,

Old Parallelepiped!’

Instead of singing Verse the Third,

I ceased - abruptly, rather:

But, after such a splendid word

I felt that it would be absurd

To try it any farther.

So with a yawn I went my way

To seek the welcome downy,

And slept, and dreamed till break of day

Of Poltergeist and Fetch and Fay

And Leprechaun and Brownie!

For year I’ve not been visited

By any kind of Sprite;

Yet still they echo in my head,

Those parting words, so kindly said,

“Old Turnip-top, good-night!”

ECHOES

Lady Clara Vere de Vere

Was eight years old, she said:

Every ringlet, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden thread.

She took her little porringer:

Of me she shall not win renown:

For the baseness of its nature shall have strength to drag her down.

“Sisters and brothers, little Maid?

There stands the Inspector at thy door:

Like a dog, he hunts for boys who know not two and two are four.”

“Kind words are more than coronets,”

She said, and wondering looked at me:

“It is the dead unhappy night, and I must hurry home to tea.”

A SEA DIRGE

There are certain things - as, a spider, a ghost,

The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three -

That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most

Is a thing they call the Sea.

Pour some salt water over the floor -

Ugly I’m sure you’ll allow it to be:

Suppose it extended a mile or more,

That’s very like the Sea.

Beat a dog till it howls outright -

Cruel, but all very well for a spree:

Suppose that he did so day and night,

That would be like the Sea.

I had a vision of nursery-maids;

Tens of thousands passed by me -

All leading children with wooden spades,

And this was by the Sea.

Who invented those spades of wood?

Who was it cut them out of the tree?

None, I think, but an idiot could -

Or one that loved the Sea.

It is pleasant and dreamy, no doubt, to float

With ‘thoughts as boundless, and souls as free’:

But, suppose you are very unwell in the boat,

How do you like the Sea?

There is an insect that people avoid

(Whence is derived the verb ‘to flee’).

Where have you been by it most annoyed?

In lodgings by the Sea.

If you like your coffee with sand for dregs,

A decided hint of salt in your tea,

And a fishy taste in the very eggs -

By all means choose the Sea.

And if, with these dainties to drink and eat,

You prefer not a vestige of grass or tree,

And a chronic state of wet in your feet,

Then - I recommend the Sea.

For I have friends who dwell by the coast -

Pleasant friends they are to me!

It is when I am with them I wonder most

That anyone likes the Sea.

They take me a walk: though tired and stiff,

To climb the heights I madly agree;

And, after a tumble or so from the cliff,

They kindly suggest the Sea.

I try the rocks, and I think it cool

That they laugh with such an excess of glee,

As I heavily slip into every pool

That skirts the cold cold Sea.

Ye Carpette Knyghte

I have a horse - a ryghte good horse -

Ne doe Y envye those

Who scoure ye playne yn headye course

Tyll soddayne on theyre nose

They lyghte wyth unexpected force

Yt ys - a horse of clothes.

I have a saddel - “Say’st thou soe?

Wyth styrruppes, Knyghte, to boote?”

I sayde not that - I answere “Noe” -

Yt lacketh such, I woote:

Yt ys a mutton-saddel, loe!

Parte of ye fleecye brute.

I have a bytte - a ryghte good bytte -

As shall bee seene yn tyme.

Ye jawe of horse yt wyll not fytte;

Yts use ys more sublyme.

Fayre Syr, how deemest thou of yt?

Yt ys - thys bytte of rhyme.

HIAWATHA’S PHOTOGRAPHING

[In an age of imitation, I can claim no special merit for this slight attempt at doing what is known to be so easy.  Any fairly practised writer, with the slightest ear for rhythm, could compose, for hours together, in the easy running metre of ‘The Song of Hiawatha.’  Having, then, distinctly stated that I challenge no attention in the following little poem to its merely verbal jingle, I must beg the candid reader to confine his criticism to its treatment of the subject.]

From his shoulder Hiawatha

Took the camera of rosewood,

Made of sliding, folding rosewood;

Neatly put it all together.

In its case it lay compactly,

Folded into nearly nothing;

But he opened out the hinges,

Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges,

Till it looked all squares and oblongs,

Like a complicated figure

In the Second Book of Euclid.

This he perched upon a tripod -

Crouched beneath its dusky cover -

Stretched his hand, enforcing silence -

Said, “Be motionless, I beg you!”

Mystic, awful was the process.

All the family in order

Sat before him for their pictures:

Each in turn, as he was taken,

Volunteered his own suggestions,

His ingenious suggestions.

First the Governor, the Father:

He suggested velvet curtains

Looped about a massy pillar;

And the corner of a table,

Of a rosewood dining-table.

He would hold a scroll of something,

Hold it firmly in his left-hand;

He would keep his right-hand buried

(Like Napoleon) in his waistcoat;

He would contemplate the distance

With a look of pensive meaning,

As of ducks that die ill tempests.

Grand, heroic was the notion:

Yet the picture failed entirely:

Failed, because he moved a little,

Moved, because he couldn’t help it.

Next, his better half took courage;

She would have her picture taken.

She came dressed beyond description,

Dressed in jewels and in satin

Far too gorgeous for an empress.

Gracefully she sat down sideways,

With a simper scarcely human,

Holding in her hand a bouquet

Rather larger than a cabbage.

All the while that she was sitting,

Still the lady chattered, chattered,

Like a monkey in the forest.

“Am I sitting still?” she asked him.

“Is my face enough in profile?

Shall I hold the bouquet higher?

Will it came into the picture?”

And the picture failed completely.

Next the Son, the Stunning-Cantab:

He suggested curves of beauty,

Curves pervading all his figure,

Which the eye might follow onward,

Till they centered in the breast-pin,

Centered in the golden breast-pin.

He had learnt it all from Ruskin

(Author of ‘The Stones of Venice,’

‘Seven Lamps of Architecture,’

‘Modern Painters,’ and some others);

And perhaps he had not fully

Understood his author’s meaning;

But, whatever was the reason,

All was fruitless, as the picture

Ended in an utter failure.

Next to him the eldest daughter:

She suggested very little,

Only asked if he would take her

With her look of ‘passive beauty.’

Her idea of passive beauty

Was a squinting of the left-eye,

Was a drooping of the right-eye,

Was a smile that went up sideways

To the corner of the nostrils.

Hiawatha, when she asked him,

Took no notice of the question,

Looked as if he hadn’t heard it;

But, when pointedly appealed to,

Smiled in his peculiar manner,

Coughed and said it ‘didn’t matter,’

Bit his lip and changed the subject.

Nor in this was he mistaken,

As the picture failed completely.

So in turn the other sisters.

Last, the youngest son was taken:

Very rough and thick his hair was,

Very round and red his face was,

Very dusty was his jacket,

Very fidgety his manner.

And his overbearing sisters

Called him names he disapproved of:

Called him Johnny, ‘Daddy’s Darling,’

Called him Jacky, ‘Scrubby School-boy.’

And, so awful was the picture,

In comparison the others

Seemed, to one’s bewildered fancy,

To have partially succeeded.

Finally my Hiawatha

Tumbled all the tribe together,

(‘Grouped’ is not the right expression),

And, as happy chance would have it

Did at last obtain a picture

Where the faces all succeeded:

Each came out a perfect likeness.

Then they joined and all abused it,

Unrestrainedly abused it,

As the worst and ugliest picture

They could possibly have dreamed of.

‘Giving one such strange expressions -

Sullen, stupid, pert expressions.

Really any one would take us

(Any one that did not know us)

For the most unpleasant people!’

(Hiawatha seemed to think so,

Seemed to think it not unlikely).

All together rang their voices,

Angry, loud, discordant voices,

As of dogs that howl in concert,

As of cats that wail in chorus.

But my Hiawatha’s patience,

His politeness and his patience,

Unaccountably had vanished,

And he left that happy party.

Neither did he leave them slowly,

With the calm deliberation,

The intense deliberation

Of a photographic artist:

But he left them in a hurry,

Left them in a mighty hurry,

Stating that he would not stand it,

Stating in emphatic language

What he’d be before he’d stand it.

Hurriedly he packed his boxes:

Hurriedly the porter trundled

On a barrow all his boxes:

Hurriedly he took his ticket:

Hurriedly the train received him:

Thus departed Hiawatha.

MELANCHOLETTA

With saddest music all day long

She soothed her secret sorrow:

At night she sighed “I fear ’twas wrong

Such cheerful words to borrow.

Dearest, a sweeter, sadder song

I’ll sing to thee to-morrow.”

I thanked her, but I could not say

That I was glad to hear it:

I left the house at break of day,

And did not venture near it

Till time, I hoped, had worn away

Her grief, for nought could cheer it!

My dismal sister!  Couldst thou know

The wretched home thou keepest!

Thy brother, drowned in daily woe,

Is thankful when thou sleepest;

For if I laugh, however low,

When thou’rt awake, thou weepest!

I took my sister t’other day

(Excuse the slang expression)

To Sadler’s Wells to see the play

In hopes the new impression

Might in her thoughts, from grave to gay

Effect some slight digression.

I asked three gay young dogs from town

To join us in our folly,

Whose mirth, I thought, might serve to drown

My sister’s melancholy:

The lively Jones, the sportive Brown,

And Robinson the jolly.

The maid announced the meal in tones

That I myself had taught her,

Meant to allay my sister’s moans

Like oil on troubled water:

I rushed to Jones, the lively Jones,

And begged him to escort her.

Vainly he strove, with ready wit,

To joke about the weather -

To ventilate the last ‘on dit’ -

To quote the price of leather -

She groaned “Here I and Sorrow sit:

Let us lament together!”

I urged “You’re wasting time, you know:

Delay will spoil the venison.”

“My heart is wasted with my woe!

There is no rest - in Venice, on

The Bridge of Sighs!” she quoted low

From Byron and from Tennyson.

I need not tell of soup and fish

In solemn silence swallowed,

The sobs that ushered in each dish,

And its departure followed,

Nor yet my suicidal wish

To be the cheese I hollowed.

Some desperate attempts were made

To start a conversation;

“Madam,” the sportive Brown essayed,

“Which kind of recreation,

Hunting or fishing, have you made

Your special occupation?”

Her lips curved downwards instantly,

As if of india-rubber.

“Hounds in full cry I like,” said she:

(Oh how I longed to snub her!)

“Of fish, a whale’s the one for me,

It is so full of blubber!”

The night’s performance was “King John.”

“It’s dull,” she wept, “and so-so!”

Awhile I let her tears flow on,

She said they soothed her woe so!

At length the curtain rose upon

‘Bombastes Furioso.’

In vain we roared; in vain we tried

To rouse her into laughter:

Her pensive glances wandered wide

From orchestra to rafter -

“Tier upon tier!” she said, and sighed;

And silence followed after.

A VALENTINE

[Sent to a friend who had complained that I was glad enough to see him when he came, but didn’t seem to miss him if he stayed away.]

And cannot pleasures, while they last,

Be actual unless, when past,

They leave us shuddering and aghast,

With anguish smarting?

And cannot friends be firm and fast,

And yet bear parting?

And must I then, at Friendship’s call,

Calmly resign the little all

(Trifling, I grant, it is and small)

I have of gladness,

And lend my being to the thrall

Of gloom and sadness?

And think you that I should be dumb,

And full dolorum omnium,

Excepting when you choose to come

And share my dinner?

At other times be sour and glum

And daily thinner?

Must he then only live to weep,

Who’d prove his friendship true and deep

By day a lonely shadow creep,

At night-time languish,

Oft raising in his broken sleep

The moan of anguish?

The lover, if for certain days

His fair one be denied his gaze,

Sinks not in grief and wild amaze,

But, wiser wooer,

He spends the time in writing lays,

And posts them to her.

And if the verse flow free and fast,

Till even the poet is aghast,

A touching Valentine at last

The post shall carry,

When thirteen days are gone and past

Of February.

Farewell, dear friend, and when we meet,

In desert waste or crowded street,

Perhaps before this week shall fleet,

Perhaps to-morrow.

I trust to find your heart the seat

Of wasting sorrow.

THE THREE VOICES

The First Voice

He trilled a carol fresh and free,

He laughed aloud for very glee:

There came a breeze from off the sea:

It passed athwart the glooming flat -

It fanned his forehead as he sat -

It lightly bore away his hat,

All to the feet of one who stood

Like maid enchanted in a wood,

Frowning as darkly as she could.

With huge umbrella, lank and brown,

Unerringly she pinned it down,

Right through the centre of the crown.

Then, with an aspect cold and grim,

Regardless of its battered rim,

She took it up and gave it him.

A while like one in dreams he stood,

Then faltered forth his gratitude

In words just short of being rude:

For it had lost its shape and shine,

And it had cost him four-and-nine,

And he was going out to dine.

“To dine!” she sneered in acid tone.

“To bend thy being to a bone

Clothed in a radiance not its own!”

The tear-drop trickled to his chin:

There was a meaning in her grin

That made him feel on fire within.

“Term it not ‘radiance,’” said he:

“’Tis solid nutriment to me.

Dinner is Dinner: Tea is Tea.”

And she “Yea so?  Yet wherefore cease?

Let thy scant knowledge find increase.

Say ‘Men are Men, and Geese are Geese.’”

He moaned: he knew not what to say.

The thought “That I could get away!”

Strove with the thought “But I must stay.

“To dine!” she shrieked in dragon-wrath.

“To swallow wines all foam and froth!

To simper at a table-cloth!

“Say, can thy noble spirit stoop

To join the gormandising troup

Who find a solace in the soup?

“Canst thou desire or pie or puff?

Thy well-bred manners were enough,

Without such gross material stuff.”

“Yet well-bred men,” he faintly said,

“Are not willing to be fed:

Nor are they well without the bread.”

Her visage scorched him ere she spoke:

“There are,” she said, “a kind of folk

Who have no horror of a joke.

“Such wretches live: they take their share

Of common earth and common air:

We come across them here and there:

“We grant them - there is no escape -

A sort of semi-human shape

Suggestive of the man-like Ape.”

“In all such theories,” said he,

“One fixed exception there must be.

That is, the Present Company.”

Baffled, she gave a wolfish bark:

He, aiming blindly in the dark,

With random shaft had pierced the mark.

She felt that her defeat was plain,

Yet madly strove with might and main

To get the upper hand again.

Fixing her eyes upon the beach,

As though unconscious of his speech,

She said “Each gives to more than each.”

He could not answer yea or nay:

He faltered “Gifts may pass away.”

Yet knew not what he meant to say.

“If that be so,” she straight replied,

“Each heart with each doth coincide.

What boots it?  For the world is wide.”

“The world is but a Thought,” said he:

“The vast unfathomable sea

Is but a Notion - unto me.”

And darkly fell her answer dread

Upon his unresisting head,

Like half a hundredweight of lead.

“The Good and Great must ever shun

That reckless and abandoned one

Who stoops to perpetrate a pun.

“The man that smokes - that reads the Times -

That goes to Christmas Pantomimes -

Is capable of any crimes!”

He felt it was his turn to speak,

And, with a shamed and crimson cheek,

Moaned “This is harder than Bezique!”

But when she asked him “Wherefore so?”

He felt his very whiskers glow,

And frankly owned “I do not know.”

While, like broad waves of golden grain,

Or sunlit hues on cloistered pane,

His colour came and went again.

Pitying his obvious distress,

Yet with a tinge of bitterness,

She said “The More exceeds the Less.”

“A truth of such undoubted weight,”

He urged, “and so extreme in date,

It were superfluous to state.”

Roused into sudden passion, she

In tone of cold malignity:

“To others, yea: but not to thee.”

But when she saw him quail and quake,

And when he urged “For pity’s sake!”

Once more in gentle tones she spake.

“Thought in the mind doth still abide

That is by Intellect supplied,

And within that Idea doth hide:

“And he, that yearns the truth to know,

Still further inwardly may go,

And find Idea from Notion flow:

“And thus the chain, that sages sought,

Is to a glorious circle wrought,

For Notion hath its source in Thought.”

So passed they on with even pace:

Yet gradually one might trace

A shadow growing on his face.

The Second Voice

They walked beside the wave-worn beach;

Her tongue was very apt to teach,

And now and then he did beseech

She would abate her dulcet tone,

Because the talk was all her own,

And he was dull as any drone.

She urged “No cheese is made of chalk”:

And ceaseless flowed her dreary talk,

Tuned to the footfall of a walk.

Her voice was very full and rich,

And, when at length she asked him “Which?”

It mounted to its highest pitch.

He a bewildered answer gave,

Drowned in the sullen moaning wave,

Lost in the echoes of the cave.

He answered her he knew not what:

Like shaft from bow at random shot,

He spoke, but she regarded not.

She waited not for his reply,

But with a downward leaden eye

Went on as if he were not by

Sound argument and grave defence,

Strange questions raised on “Why?” and “Whence?”

And wildly tangled evidence.

When he, with racked and whirling brain,

Feebly implored her to explain,

She simply said it all again.

Wrenched with an agony intense,

He spake, neglecting Sound and Sense,

And careless of all consequence:

“Mind - I believe - is Essence - Ent -

Abstract - that is - an Accident -

Which we - that is to say - I meant - ”

When, with quick breath and cheeks all flushed,

At length his speech was somewhat hushed,

She looked at him, and he was crushed.

It needed not her calm reply:

She fixed him with a stony eye,

And he could neither fight nor fly.

While she dissected, word by word,

His speech, half guessed at and half heard,

As might a cat a little bird.

Then, having wholly overthrown

His views, and stripped them to the bone,

Proceeded to unfold her own.

“Shall Man be Man?  And shall he miss

Of other thoughts no thought but this,

Harmonious dews of sober bliss?

“What boots it?  Shall his fevered eye

Through towering nothingness descry

The grisly phantom hurry by?

“And hear dumb shrieks that fill the air;

See mouths that gape, and eyes that stare

And redden in the dusky glare?

“The meadows breathing amber light,

The darkness toppling from the height,

The feathery train of granite Night?

“Shall he, grown gray among his peers,

Through the thick curtain of his tears

Catch glimpses of his earlier years,

“And hear the sounds he knew of yore,

Old shufflings on the sanded floor,

Old knuckles tapping at the door?

“Yet still before him as he flies

One pallid form shall ever rise,

And, bodying forth in glassy eyes

“The vision of a vanished good,

Low peering through the tangled wood,

Shall freeze the current of his blood.”

Still from each fact, with skill uncouth

And savage rapture, like a tooth

She wrenched some slow reluctant truth.

Till, like a silent water-mill,

When summer suns have dried the rill,

She reached a full stop, and was still.

Dead calm succeeded to the fuss,

As when the loaded omnibus

Has reached the railway terminus:

When, for the tumult of the street,

Is heard the engine’s stifled beat,

The velvet tread of porters’ feet.

With glance that ever sought the ground,

She moved her lips without a sound,

And every now and then she frowned.

He gazed upon the sleeping sea,

And joyed in its tranquillity,

And in that silence dead, but she

To muse a little space did seem,

Then, like the echo of a dream,

Harked back upon her threadbare theme.

Still an attentive ear he lent

But could not fathom what she meant:

She was not deep, nor eloquent.

He marked the ripple on the sand:

The even swaying of her hand

Was all that he could understand.

He saw in dreams a drawing-room,

Where thirteen wretches sat in gloom,

Waiting - he thought he knew for whom:

He saw them drooping here and there,

Each feebly huddled on a chair,

In attitudes of blank despair:

Oysters were not more mute than they,

For all their brains were pumped away,

And they had nothing more to say -

Save one, who groaned “Three hours are gone!”

Who shrieked “We’ll wait no longer, John!

Tell them to set the dinner on!”

The vision passed: the ghosts were fled:

He saw once more that woman dread:

He heard once more the words she said.

He left her, and he turned aside:

He sat and watched the coming tide

Across the shores so newly dried.

He wondered at the waters clear,

The breeze that whispered in his ear,

The billows heaving far and near,

And why he had so long preferred

To hang upon her every word:

“In truth,” he said, “it was absurd.”

The Third Voice

Not long this transport held its place:

Within a little moment’s space

Quick tears were raining down his face

His heart stood still, aghast with fear;

A wordless voice, nor far nor near,

He seemed to hear and not to hear.

“Tears kindle not the doubtful spark.

If so, why not?  Of this remark

The bearings are profoundly dark.”

“Her speech,” he said, “hath caused this pain.

Easier I count it to explain

The jargon of the howling main,

“Or, stretched beside some babbling brook,

To con, with inexpressive look,

An unintelligible book.”

Low spake the voice within his head,

In words imagined more than said,

Soundless as ghost’s intended tread:

“If thou art duller than before,

Why quittedst thou the voice of lore?

Why not endure, expecting more?”

“Rather than that,” he groaned aghast,

“I’d writhe in depths of cavern vast,

Some loathly vampire’s rich repast.”

“‘Twere hard,” it answered, “themes immense

To coop within the narrow fence

That rings thy scant intelligence.”

“Not so,” he urged, “nor once alone:

But there was something in her tone

That chilled me to the very bone.

“Her style was anything but clear,

And most unpleasantly severe;

Her epithets were very queer.

“And yet, so grand were her replies,

I could not choose but deem her wise;

I did not dare to criticise;

“Nor did I leave her, till she went

So deep in tangled argument

That all my powers of thought were spent.”

A little whisper inly slid,

“Yet truth is truth: you know you did.”

A little wink beneath the lid.

And, sickened with excess of dread,

Prone to the dust he bent his head,

And lay like one three-quarters dead

The whisper left him - like a breeze

Lost in the depths of leafy trees -

Left him by no means at his ease.

Once more he weltered in despair,

With hands, through denser-matted hair,

More tightly clenched than then they were.

When, bathed in Dawn of living red,

Majestic frowned the mountain head,

“Tell me my fault,” was all he said.

When, at high Noon, the blazing sky

Scorched in his head each haggard eye,

Then keenest rose his weary cry.

And when at Eve the unpitying sun

Smiled grimly on the solemn fun,

“Alack,” he sighed, “what have I done?”

But saddest, darkest was the sight,

When the cold grasp of leaden Night

Dashed him to earth, and held him tight.

Tortured, unaided, and alone,

Thunders were silence to his groan,

Bagpipes sweet music to its tone:

“What?  Ever thus, in dismal round,

Shall Pain and Mystery profound

Pursue me like a sleepless hound,

“With crimson-dashed and eager jaws,

Me, still in ignorance of the cause,

Unknowing what I broke of laws?”

The whisper to his ear did seem

Like echoed flow of silent stream,

Or shadow of forgotten dream,

The whisper trembling in the wind:

“Her fate with thine was intertwined,”

So spake it in his inner mind:

“Each orbed on each a baleful star:

Each proved the other’s blight and bar:

Each unto each were best, most far:

“Yea, each to each was worse than foe:

Thou, a scared dullard, gibbering low,

AND SHE, AN AVALANCHE OF WOE!”

TÈMA CON VARIAZIÒNI

[Why is it that Poetry has never yet been subjected to that process of Dilution which has proved so advantageous to her sister-art Music?  The Diluter gives us first a few notes of some well-known Air, then a dozen bars of his own, then a few more notes of the Air, and so on alternately: thus saving the listener, if not from all risk of recognising the melody at all, at least from the too-exciting transports which it might produce in a more concentrated form.  The process is termed “setting” by Composers, and any one, that has ever experienced the emotion of being unexpectedly set down in a heap of mortar, will recognise the truthfulness of this happy phrase.

For truly, just as the genuine Epicure lingers lovingly over a morsel of supreme Venison - whose every fibre seems to murmur “Excelsior!” - yet swallows, ere returning to the toothsome dainty, great mouthfuls of oatmeal-porridge and winkles: and just as the perfect Connoisseur in Claret permits himself but one delicate sip, and then tosses off a pint or more of boarding-school beer: so also -

I never loved a dear Gazelle -

Nor anything that cost me much:

High prices profit those who sell,

But why should I be fond of such?

To glad me with his soft black eye

My son comes trotting home from school;

He’s had a fight but can’t tell why -

He always was a little fool!

But, when he came to know me well,

He kicked me out, her testy Sire:

And when I stained my hair, that Belle

Might note the change, and thus admire

And love me, it was sure to dye

A muddy green or staring blue:

Whilst one might trace, with half an eye,

The still triumphant carrot through.

A GAME OF FIVES

Five little girls, of Five, Four, Three, Two, One:

Rolling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun.

Five rosy girls, in years from Ten to Six:

Sitting down to lessons - no more time for tricks.

Five growing girls, from Fifteen to Eleven:

Music, Drawing, Languages, and food enough for seven!

Five winsome girls, from Twenty to Sixteen:

Each young man that calls, I say “Now tell me which you mean!”

Five dashing girls, the youngest Twenty-one:

But, if nobody proposes, what is there to be done?

Five showy girls - but Thirty is an age

When girls may be engaging, but they somehow don’t engage.

Five dressy girls, of Thirty-one or more:

So gracious to the shy young men they snubbed so much before!

* * * *

Five passé girls - Their age?  Well, never mind!

We jog along together, like the rest of human kind:

But the quondam “careless bachelor” begins to think he knows

The answer to that ancient problem “how the money goes”!

POETA FIT, NON NASCITUR

“How shall I be a poet?

How shall I write in rhyme?

You told me once ‘the very wish

Partook of the sublime.’

Then tell me how!  Don’t put me off

With your ‘another time’!”

The old man smiled to see him,

To hear his sudden sally;

He liked the lad to speak his mind

Enthusiastically;

And thought “There’s no hum-drum in him,

Nor any shilly-shally.”

“And would you be a poet

Before you’ve been to school?

Ah, well!  I hardly thought you

So absolute a fool.

First learn to be spasmodic -

A very simple rule.

“For first you write a sentence,

And then you chop it small;

Then mix the bits, and sort them out

Just as they chance to fall:

The order of the phrases makes

No difference at all.

‘Then, if you’d be impressive,

Remember what I say,

That abstract qualities begin

With capitals alway:

The True, the Good, the Beautiful -

Those are the things that pay!

“Next, when you are describing

A shape, or sound, or tint;

Don’t state the matter plainly,

But put it in a hint;

And learn to look at all things

With a sort of mental squint.”

“For instance, if I wished, Sir,

Of mutton-pies to tell,

Should I say ‘dreams of fleecy flocks

Pent in a wheaten cell’?”

“Why, yes,” the old man said: “that phrase

Would answer very well.

“Then fourthly, there are epithets

That suit with any word -

As well as Harvey’s Reading Sauce

With fish, or flesh, or bird -

Of these, ‘wild,’ ‘lonely,’ ‘weary,’ ‘strange,’

Are much to be preferred.”

“And will it do, O will it do

To take them in a lump -

As ‘the wild man went his weary way

To a strange and lonely pump’?”

“Nay, nay!  You must not hastily

To such conclusions jump.

“Such epithets, like pepper,

Give zest to what you write;

And, if you strew them sparely,

They whet the appetite:

But if you lay them on too thick,

You spoil the matter quite!

“Last, as to the arrangement:

Your reader, you should show him,

Must take what information he

Can get, and look for no im-

mature disclosure of the drift

And purpose of your poem.

“Therefore, to test his patience -

How much he can endure -

Mention no places, names, or dates,

And evermore be sure

Throughout the poem to be found

Consistently obscure.

“First fix upon the limit

To which it shall extend:

Then fill it up with ‘Padding’

(Beg some of any friend):

Your great SENSATION-STANZA

You place towards the end.”

“And what is a Sensation,

Grandfather, tell me, pray?

I think I never heard the word

So used before to-day:

Be kind enough to mention one

‘Exempli gratiâ.’”

And the old man, looking sadly

Across the garden-lawn,

Where here and there a dew-drop

Yet glittered in the dawn,

Said “Go to the Adelphi,

And see the ‘Colleen Bawn.’

‘The word is due to Boucicault -

The theory is his,

Where Life becomes a Spasm,

And History a Whiz:

If that is not Sensation,

I don’t know what it is.

“Now try your hand, ere Fancy

Have lost its present glow - ”

“And then,” his grandson added,

“We’ll publish it, you know:

Green cloth - gold-lettered at the back -

In duodecimo!”

Then proudly smiled that old man

To see the eager lad

Rush madly for his pen and ink

And for his blotting-pad -

But, when he thought of publishing,

His face grew stern and sad.

SIZE AND TEARS

When on the sandy shore I sit,

Beside the salt sea-wave,

And fall into a weeping fit

Because I dare not shave -

A little whisper at my ear

Enquires the reason of my fear.

I answer “If that ruffian Jones

Should recognise me here,

He’d bellow out my name in tones

Offensive to the ear:

He chaffs me so on being stout

(A thing that always puts me out).”

Ah me!  I see him on the cliff!

Farewell, farewell to hope,

If he should look this way, and if

He’s got his telescope!

To whatsoever place I flee,

My odious rival follows me!

For every night, and everywhere,

I meet him out at dinner;

And when I’ve found some charming fair,

And vowed to die or win her,

The wretch (he’s thin and I am stout)

Is sure to come and cut me out!

The girls (just like them!) all agree

To praise J. Jones, Esquire:

I ask them what on earth they see

About him to admire?

They cry “He is so sleek and slim,

It’s quite a treat to look at him!”

They vanish in tobacco smoke,

Those visionary maids -

I feel a sharp and sudden poke

Between the shoulder-blades -

“Why, Brown, my boy!  Your growing stout!”

(I told you he would find me out!)

“My growth is not your business, Sir!”

“No more it is, my boy!

But if it’s yours, as I infer,

Why, Brown, I give you joy!

A man, whose business prospers so,

Is just the sort of man to know!

“It’s hardly safe, though, talking here -

I’d best get out of reach:

For such a weight as yours, I fear,

Must shortly sink the beach!” -

Insult me thus because I’m stout!

I vow I’ll go and call him out!

ATALANTA IN CAMDEN-TOWN

Ay, ’twas here, on this spot,

In that summer of yore,

Atalanta did not

Vote my presence a bore,

Nor reply to my tenderest talk “She had

heard all that nonsense before.”

She’d the brooch I had bought

And the necklace and sash on,

And her heart, as I thought,

Was alive to my passion;

And she’d done up her hair in the style that

the Empress had brought into fashion.

I had been to the play

With my pearl of a Peri -

But, for all I could say,

She declared she was weary,

That “the place was so crowded and hot, and

she couldn’t abide that Dundreary.”

Then I thought “Lucky boy!

’Tis for you that she whimpers!”

And I noted with joy

Those sensational simpers:

And I said “This is scrumptious!” - a

phrase I had learned from the Devonshire shrimpers.

And I vowed “’Twill be said

I’m a fortunate fellow,

When the breakfast is spread,

When the topers are mellow,

When the foam of the bride-cake is white,

and the fierce orange-blossoms are yellow!”

O that languishing yawn!

O those eloquent eyes!

I was drunk with the dawn

Of a splendid surmise -

I was stung by a look, I was slain by a tear,

by a tempest of sighs.

Then I whispered “I see

The sweet secret thou keepest.

And the yearning for ME

That thou wistfully weepest!

And the question is ‘License or Banns?’,

though undoubtedly Banns are the cheapest.”

“Be my Hero,” said I,

“And let me be Leander!”

But I lost her reply -

Something ending with “gander” -

For the omnibus rattled so loud that no

mortal could quite understand her.

THE LANG COORTIN’

The ladye she stood at her lattice high,

Wi’ her doggie at her feet;

Thorough the lattice she can spy

The passers in the street,

“There’s one that standeth at the door,

And tirleth at the pin:

Now speak and say, my popinjay,

If I sall let him in.”

Then up and spake the popinjay

That flew abune her head:

“Gae let him in that tirls the pin:

He cometh thee to wed.”

O when he cam’ the parlour in,

A woeful man was he!

“And dinna ye ken your lover agen,

Sae well that loveth thee?”

“And how wad I ken ye loved me, Sir,

That have been sae lang away?

And how wad I ken ye loved me, Sir?

Ye never telled me sae.”

Said - “Ladye dear,” and the salt, salt tear

Cam’ rinnin’ doon his cheek,

“I have sent the tokens of my love

This many and many a week.

“O didna ye get the rings, Ladye,

The rings o’ the gowd sae fine?

I wot that I have sent to thee

Four score, four score and nine.”

“They cam’ to me,” said that fair ladye.

“Wow, they were flimsie things!”

Said - “that chain o’ gowd, my doggie to howd,

It is made o’ thae self-same rings.”

“And didna ye get the locks, the locks,

The locks o’ my ain black hair,

Whilk I sent by post, whilk I sent by box,

Whilk I sent by the carrier?”

“They cam’ to me,” said that fair ladye;

“And I prithee send nae mair!”

Said - “that cushion sae red, for my doggie’s head,

It is stuffed wi’ thae locks o’ hair.”

“And didna ye get the letter, Ladye,

Tied wi’ a silken string,

Whilk I sent to thee frae the far countrie,

A message of love to bring?”

“It cam’ to me frae the far countrie

Wi’ its silken string and a’;

But it wasna prepaid,” said that high-born maid,

“Sae I gar’d them tak’ it awa’.”

“O ever alack that ye sent it back,

It was written sae clerkly and well!

Now the message it brought, and the boon that it sought,

I must even say it mysel’.”

Then up and spake the popinjay,

Sae wisely counselled he.

“Now say it in the proper way:

Gae doon upon thy knee!”

The lover he turned baith red and pale,

Went doon upon his knee:

“O Ladye, hear the waesome tale

That must be told to thee!

“For five lang years, and five lang years,

I coorted thee by looks;

By nods and winks, by smiles and tears,

As I had read in books.

“For ten lang years, O weary hours!

I coorted thee by signs;

By sending game, by sending flowers,

By sending Valentines.

“For five lang years, and five lang years,

I have dwelt in the far countrie,

Till that thy mind should be inclined

Mair tenderly to me.

“Now thirty years are gane and past,

I am come frae a foreign land:

I am come to tell thee my love at last -

O Ladye, gie me thy hand!”

The ladye she turned not pale nor red,

But she smiled a pitiful smile:

“Sic’ a coortin’ as yours, my man,” she said

“Takes a lang and a weary while!”

And out and laughed the popinjay,

A laugh of bitter scorn:

“A coortin’ done in sic’ a way,

It ought not to be borne!”

Wi’ that the doggie barked aloud,

And up and doon he ran,

And tugged and strained his chain o’ gowd,

All for to bite the man.

“O hush thee, gentle popinjay!

O hush thee, doggie dear!

There is a word I fain wad say,

It needeth he should hear!”

Aye louder screamed that ladye fair

To drown her doggie’s bark:

Ever the lover shouted mair

To make that ladye hark:

Shrill and more shrill the popinjay

Upraised his angry squall:

I trow the doggie’s voice that day

Was louder than them all!

The serving-men and serving-maids

Sat by the kitchen fire:

They heard sic’ a din the parlour within

As made them much admire.

Out spake the boy in buttons

(I ween he wasna thin),

“Now wha will tae the parlour gae,

And stay this deadlie din?”

And they have taen a kerchief,

Casted their kevils in,

For wha will tae the parlour gae,

And stay that deadlie din.

When on that boy the kevil fell

To stay the fearsome noise,

“Gae in,” they cried, “whate’er betide,

Thou prince of button-boys!”

Syne, he has taen a supple cane

To swinge that dog sae fat:

The doggie yowled, the doggie howled

The louder aye for that.

Syne, he has taen a mutton-bane -

The doggie ceased his noise,

And followed doon the kitchen stair

That prince of button-boys!

Then sadly spake that ladye fair,

Wi’ a frown upon her brow:

“O dearer to me is my sma’ doggie

Than a dozen sic’ as thou!

“Nae use, nae use for sighs and tears:

Nae use at all to fret:

Sin’ ye’ve bided sae well for thirty years,

Ye may bide a wee langer yet!”

Sadly, sadly he crossed the floor

And tirlëd at the pin:

Sadly went he through the door

Where sadly he cam’ in.

“O gin I had a popinjay

To fly abune my head,

To tell me what I ought to say,

I had by this been wed.

“O gin I find anither ladye,”

He said wi’ sighs and tears,

“I wot my coortin’ sall not be

Anither thirty years

“For gin I find a ladye gay,

Exactly to my taste,

I’ll pop the question, aye or nay,

In twenty years at maist.”

FOUR RIDDLES

[These consist of two Double Acrostics and two Charades.

No. I. was written at the request of some young friends, who had gone to a ball at an Oxford Commemoration - and also as a specimen of what might be done by making the Double Acrostic a connected poem instead of what it has hitherto been, a string of disjointed stanzas, on every conceivable subject, and about as interesting to read straight through as a page of a Cyclopaedia.  The first two stanzas describe the two main words, and each subsequent stanza one of the cross “lights.”

No. II. was written after seeing Miss Ellen Terry perform in the play of “Hamlet.”  In this case the first stanza describes the two main words.

No. III. was written after seeing Miss Marion Terry perform in Mr. Gilbert’s play of “Pygmalion and Galatea.”  The three stanzas respectively describe “My First,” “My Second,” and “My Whole.”]

I

There was an ancient City, stricken down

With a strange frenzy, and for many a day

They paced from morn to eve the crowded town,

And danced the night away.

I asked the cause: the aged man grew sad:

They pointed to a building gray and tall,

And hoarsely answered “Step inside, my lad,

And then you’ll see it all.”

* * * *

Yet what are all such gaieties to me

Whose thoughts are full of indices and surds?

x*x + 7x + 53 = 11/3

But something whispered “It will soon be done:

Bands cannot always play, nor ladies smile:

Endure with patience the distasteful fun

For just a little while!”

A change came o’er my Vision - it was night:

We clove a pathway through a frantic throng:

The steeds, wild-plunging, filled us with affright:

The chariots whirled along.

Within a marble hall a river ran -

A living tide, half muslin and half cloth:

And here one mourned a broken wreath or fan,

Yet swallowed down her wrath;

And here one offered to a thirsty fair

(His words half-drowned amid those thunders tuneful)

Some frozen viand (there were many there),

A tooth-ache in each spoonful.

There comes a happy pause, for human strength

Will not endure to dance without cessation;

And every one must reach the point at length

Of absolute prostration.

At such a moment ladies learn to give,

To partners who would urge them over-much,

A flat and yet decided negative -

Photographers love such.

There comes a welcome summons - hope revives,

And fading eyes grow bright, and pulses quicken:

Incessant pop the corks, and busy knives

Dispense the tongue and chicken.

Flushed with new life, the crowd flows back again:

And all is tangled talk and mazy motion -

Much like a waving field of golden grain,

Or a tempestuous ocean.

And thus they give the time, that Nature meant

For peaceful sleep and meditative snores,

To ceaseless din and mindless merriment

And waste of shoes and floors.

And One (we name him not) that flies the flowers,

That dreads the dances, and that shuns the salads,

They doom to pass in solitude the hours,

Writing acrostic-ballads.

How late it grows!  The hour is surely past

That should have warned us with its double knock?

The twilight wanes, and morning comes at last -

“Oh, Uncle, what’s o’clock?”

The Uncle gravely nods, and wisely winks.

It may mean much, but how is one to know?

He opens his mouth - yet out of it, methinks,

No words of wisdom flow.

II

Empress of Art, for thee I twine

This wreath with all too slender skill.

Forgive my Muse each halting line,

And for the deed accept the will!

* * * *

O day of tears!  Whence comes this spectre grim,

Parting, like Death’s cold river, souls that love?

Is not he bound to thee, as thou to him,

By vows, unwhispered here, yet heard above?

And still it lives, that keen and heavenward flame,

Lives in his eye, and trembles in his tone:

And these wild words of fury but proclaim

A heart that beats for thee, for thee alone!

But all is lost: that mighty mind o’erthrown,

Like sweet bells jangled, piteous sight to see!

“Doubt that the stars are fire,” so runs his moan,

“Doubt Truth herself, but not my love for thee!”

A sadder vision yet: thine aged sire

Shaming his hoary locks with treacherous wile!

And dost thou now doubt Truth to be a liar?

And wilt thou die, that hast forgot to smile?

Nay, get thee hence!  Leave all thy winsome ways

And the faint fragrance of thy scattered flowers:

In holy silence wait the appointed days,

And weep away the leaden-footed hours.

III.

The air is bright with hues of light

And rich with laughter and with singing:

Young hearts beat high in ecstasy,

And banners wave, and bells are ringing:

But silence falls with fading day,

And there’s an end to mirth and play.

Ah, well-a-day

Rest your old bones, ye wrinkled crones!

The kettle sings, the firelight dances.

Deep be it quaffed, the magic draught

That fills the soul with golden fancies!

For Youth and Pleasance will not stay,

And ye are withered, worn, and gray.

Ah, well-a-day!

O fair cold face!  O form of grace,

For human passion madly yearning!

O weary air of dumb despair,

From marble won, to marble turning!

“Leave us not thus!” we fondly pray.

“We cannot let thee pass away!”

Ah, well-a-day!

IV.

My First is singular at best:

More plural is my Second:

My Third is far the pluralest -

So plural-plural, I protest

It scarcely can be reckoned!

My First is followed by a bird:

My Second by believers

In magic art: my simple Third

Follows, too often, hopes absurd

And plausible deceivers.

My First to get at wisdom tries -

A failure melancholy!

My Second men revered as wise:

My Third from heights of wisdom flies

To depths of frantic folly.

My First is ageing day by day:

My Second’s age is ended:

My Third enjoys an age, they say,

That never seems to fade away,

Through centuries extended.

My Whole?  I need a poet’s pen

To paint her myriad phases:

The monarch, and the slave, of men -

A mountain-summit, and a den

Of dark and deadly mazes -

A flashing light - a fleeting shade -

Beginning, end, and middle

Of all that human art hath made

Or wit devised!  Go, seek her aid,

If you would read my riddle!

FAME’S PENNY-TRUMPET

[Affectionately dedicated to all “original researchers” who pant for “endowment.”]

Blow, blow your trumpets till they crack,

Ye little men of little souls!

And bid them huddle at your back -

Gold-sucking leeches, shoals on shoals!

Fill all the air with hungry wails -

“Reward us, ere we think or write!

Without your Gold mere Knowledge fails

To sate the swinish appetite!”

And, where great Plato paced serene,

Or Newton paused with wistful eye,

Rush to the chace with hoofs unclean

And Babel-clamour of the sty

Be yours the pay: be theirs the praise:

We will not rob them of their due,

Nor vex the ghosts of other days

By naming them along with you.

They sought and found undying fame:

They toiled not for reward nor thanks:

Their cheeks are hot with honest shame

For you, the modern mountebanks!

Who preach of Justice - plead with tears

That Love and Mercy should abound -

While marking with complacent ears

The moaning of some tortured hound:

Who prate of Wisdom - nay, forbear,

Lest Wisdom turn on you in wrath,

Trampling, with heel that will not spare,

The vermin that beset her path!

Go, throng each other’s drawing-rooms,

Ye idols of a petty clique:

Strut your brief hour in borrowed plumes,

And make your penny-trumpets squeak.

Deck your dull talk with pilfered shreds

Of learning from a nobler time,

And oil each other’s little heads

With mutual Flattery’s golden slime:

And when the topmost height ye gain,

And stand in Glory’s ether clear,

And grasp the prize of all your pain -

So many hundred pounds a year -

Then let Fame’s banner be unfurled!

Sing Paeans for a victory won!

Ye tapers, that would light the world,

And cast a shadow on the Sun -

Who still shall pour His rays sublime,

One crystal flood, from East to West,

When ye have burned your little time

And feebly flickered into rest!

THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK

This nonsense poem in eight parts was first published in 1874.  The poem borrows occasionally from Carroll's short poem Jabberwocky in Through the Looking-Glass, also featuring strange creatures and portmanteau words, with illustrations by Henry Holiday.

The first edition

CONTENTS

PREFACE

Fit the First

Fit the Second

Fit the Third

Fit the fourth

Fit the Fifth

Fit the Sixth

Fit the Seventh

Fit the Eighth

PREFACE

If—and the thing is wildly possible—the charge of writing nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line (in p.4)

"Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes."

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural History—I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened.

The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances, used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished, and it more than once happened, when the time came for replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to appeal to the Bellman about it—he would only refer to his Naval Code, and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which none of them had ever been able to understand—so it generally ended in its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman used to stand by with tears in his eyes; he knew it was all wrong, but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, "No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm," had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words "and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one." So remonstrance was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next varnishing day. During these bewildering intervals the ship usually sailed backwards.

As this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the Jabberwock, let me take this opportunity of answering a question that has often been asked me, how to pronounce "slithy toves." The "i" in "slithy" is long, as in "writhe"; and "toves" is pronounced so as to rhyme with "groves." Again, the first "o" in "borogoves" is pronounced like the "o" in "borrow." I have heard people try to give it the sound of the "o" in "worry". Such is Human Perversity.

This also seems a fitting occasion to notice the other hard works in that poem. Humpty-Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all.

For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "furious." Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little towards "fuming," you will say "fuming-furious;" if they turn, by even a hair's breadth, towards "furious," you will say "furious-fuming;" but if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say "frumious."

Supposing that, when Pistol uttered the well-known words—

"Under which king, Bezonian?  Speak or die!"

Justice Shallow had felt certain that it was either William or Richard, but had not been able to settle which, so that he could not possibly say either name before the other, can it be doubted that, rather than die, he would have gasped out "Rilchiam!"

Fit the First

THE LANDING

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,

As he landed his crew with care;

Supporting each man on the top of the tide

By a finger entwined in his hair.

"Just the place for a Snark!  I have said it twice:

That alone should encourage the crew.

Just the place for a Snark!  I have said it thrice:

What I tell you three times is true."

The crew was complete: it included a Boots—

A maker of Bonnets and Hoods—

A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes—

And a Broker, to value their goods.

A Billiard-marker, whose skill was immense,

Might perhaps have won more than his share—

But a Banker, engaged at enormous expense,

Had the whole of their cash in his care.

There was also a Beaver, that paced on the deck,

Or would sit making lace in the bow:

And had often (the Bellman said) saved them from wreck,

Though none of the sailors knew how.

There was one who was famed for the number of things

He forgot when he entered the ship:

His umbrella, his watch, all his jewels and rings,

And the clothes he had bought for the trip.

He had forty-two boxes, all carefully packed,

With his name painted clearly on each:

But, since he omitted to mention the fact,

They were all left behind on the beach.

The loss of his clothes hardly mattered, because

He had seven coats on when he came,

With three pairs of boots—but the worst of it was,

He had wholly forgotten his name.

He would answer to "Hi!" or to any loud cry,

Such as "Fry me!" or "Fritter my wig!"

To "What-you-may-call-um!" or "What-was-his-name!"

But especially "Thing-um-a-jig!"

While, for those who preferred a more forcible word,

He had different names from these:

His intimate friends called him "Candle-ends,"

And his enemies "Toasted-cheese."

"His form is ungainly—his intellect small—"

(So the Bellman would often remark)

"But his courage is perfect!  And that, after all,

Is the thing that one needs with a Snark."

He would joke with hyenas, returning their stare

With an impudent wag of the head:

And he once went a walk, paw-in-paw, with a bear,

"Just to keep up its spirits," he said.

He came as a Baker: but owned, when too late—

And it drove the poor Bellman half-mad—

He could only bake Bridecake—for which, I may state,

No materials were to be had.

The last of the crew needs especial remark,

Though he looked an incredible dunce:

He had just one idea—but, that one being "Snark,"

The good Bellman engaged him at once.

He came as a Butcher: but gravely declared,

When the ship had been sailing a week,

He could only kill Beavers.  The Bellman looked scared,

And was almost too frightened to speak:

But at length he explained, in a tremulous tone,

There was only one Beaver on board;

And that was a tame one he had of his own,

Whose death would be deeply deplored.

The Beaver, who happened to hear the remark,

Protested, with tears in its eyes,

That not even the rapture of hunting the Snark

Could atone for that dismal surprise!

It strongly advised that the Butcher should be

Conveyed in a separate ship:

But the Bellman declared that would never agree

With the plans he had made for the trip:

Navigation was always a difficult art,

Though with only one ship and one bell:

And he feared he must really decline, for his part,

Undertaking another as well.

The Beaver's best course was, no doubt, to procure

A second-hand dagger-proof coat—

So the Baker advised it—and next, to insure

Its life in some Office of note:

This the Banker suggested, and offered for hire

(On moderate terms), or for sale,

Two excellent Policies, one Against Fire,

And one Against Damage From Hail.

Yet still, ever after that sorrowful day,

Whenever the Butcher was by,

The Beaver kept looking the opposite way,

And appeared unaccountably shy.

Fit the Second

 THE BELLMAN'S SPEECH

The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies—

Such a carriage, such ease and such grace!

Such solemnity, too!  One could see he was wise,

The moment one looked in his face!

He had bought a large map representing the sea,

Without the least vestige of land:

And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be

A map they could all understand.

"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,

Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"

So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply

"They are merely conventional signs!

"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!

But we've got our brave Captain to thank:"

(So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best—

A perfect and absolute blank!"

This was charming, no doubt; but they shortly found out

That the Captain they trusted so well

Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,

And that was to tingle his bell.

He was thoughtful and grave—but the orders he gave

Were enough to bewilder a crew.

When he cried "Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!"

What on earth was the helmsman to do?

Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes:

A thing, as the Bellman remarked,

That frequently happens in tropical climes,

When a vessel is, so to speak, "snarked."

But the principal failing occurred in the sailing,

And the Bellman, perplexed and distressed,

Said he had hoped, at least, when the wind blew due East,

That the ship would not travel due West!

But the danger was past—they had landed at last,

With their boxes, portmanteaus, and bags:

Yet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view,

Which consisted of chasms and crags.

The Bellman perceived that their spirits were low,

And repeated in musical tone

Some jokes he had kept for a season of woe—

But the crew would do nothing but groan.

He served out some grog with a liberal hand,

And bade them sit down on the beach:

And they could not but own that their Captain looked grand,

As he stood and delivered his speech.

"Friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears!"

(They were all of them fond of quotations:

So they drank to his health, and they gave him three cheers,

While he served out additional rations).

"We have sailed many months, we have sailed many weeks,

(Four weeks to the month you may mark),

But never as yet ('tis your Captain who speaks)

Have we caught the least glimpse of a Snark!

"We have sailed many weeks, we have sailed many days,

(Seven days to the week I allow),

But a Snark, on the which we might lovingly gaze,

We have never beheld till now!

"Come, listen, my men, while I tell you again

The five unmistakable marks

By which you may know, wheresoever you go,

The warranted genuine Snarks.

"Let us take them in order.  The first is the taste,

Which is meagre and hollow, but crisp:

Like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist,

With a flavour of Will-o'-the-wisp.

"Its habit of getting up late you'll agree

That it carries too far, when I say

That it frequently breakfasts at five-o'clock tea,

And dines on the following day.

"The third is its slowness in taking a jest.

Should you happen to venture on one,

It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed:

And it always looks grave at a pun.

"The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,

Which is constantly carries about,

And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes—

A sentiment open to doubt.

"The fifth is ambition.  It next will be right

To describe each particular batch:

Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite,

And those that have whiskers, and scratch.

"For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm,

Yet, I feel it my duty to say,

Some are Boojums—" The Bellman broke off in alarm,

For the Baker had fainted away.

Fit the Third

   THE BAKER'S TALE

They roused him with muffins—they roused him with ice—

They roused him with mustard and cress—

They roused him with jam and judicious advice—

They set him conundrums to guess.

When at length he sat up and was able to speak,

His sad story he offered to tell;

And the Bellman cried "Silence!  Not even a shriek!"

And excitedly tingled his bell.

There was silence supreme!  Not a shriek, not a scream,

Scarcely even a howl or a groan,

As the man they called "Ho!" told his story of woe

In an antediluvian tone.

"My father and mother were honest, though poor—"

"Skip all that!" cried the Bellman in haste.

"If it once becomes dark, there's no chance of a Snark—

We have hardly a minute to waste!"

"I skip forty years," said the Baker, in tears,

"And proceed without further remark

To the day when you took me aboard of your ship

To help you in hunting the Snark.

"A dear uncle of mine (after whom I was named)

Remarked, when I bade him farewell—"

"Oh, skip your dear uncle!" the Bellman exclaimed,

As he angrily tingled his bell.

"He remarked to me then," said that mildest of men,

"'If your Snark be a Snark, that is right:

Fetch it home by all means—you may serve it with greens,

And it's handy for striking a light.

"'You may seek it with thimbles—and seek it with care;

You may hunt it with forks and hope;

You may threaten its life with a railway-share;

You may charm it with smiles and soap—'"

("That's exactly the method," the Bellman bold

In a hasty parenthesis cried,

"That's exactly the way I have always been told

That the capture of Snarks should be tried!")

"'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,

If your Snark be a Boojum!  For then

You will softly and suddenly vanish away,

And never be met with again!'

"It is this, it is this that oppresses my soul,

When I think of my uncle's last words:

And my heart is like nothing so much as a bowl

Brimming over with quivering curds!

"It is this, it is this—" "We have had that before!"

The Bellman indignantly said.

And the Baker replied "Let me say it once more.

It is this, it is this that I dread!

"I engage with the Snark—every night after dark—

In a dreamy delirious fight:

I serve it with greens in those shadowy scenes,

And I use it for striking a light:

"But if ever I meet with a Boojum, that day,

In a moment (of this I am sure),

I shall softly and suddenly vanish away—

And the notion I cannot endure!"

Fit the fourth

THE HUNTING

The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow.

"If only you'd spoken before!

It's excessively awkward to mention it now,

With the Snark, so to speak, at the door!

"We should all of us grieve, as you well may believe,

If you never were met with again—

But surely, my man, when the voyage began,

You might have suggested it then?

"It's excessively awkward to mention it now—

As I think I've already remarked."

And the man they called "Hi!" replied, with a sigh,

"I informed you the day we embarked.

"You may charge me with murder—or want of sense—

(We are all of us weak at times):

But the slightest approach to a false pretence

Was never among my crimes!

"I said it in Hebrew—I said it in Dutch—

I said it in German and Greek:

But I wholly forgot (and it vexes me much)

That English is what you speak!"

"'Tis a pitiful tale," said the Bellman, whose face

Had grown longer at every word:

"But, now that you've stated the whole of your case,

More debate would be simply absurd.

"The rest of my speech" (he explained to his men)

"You shall hear when I've leisure to speak it.

But the Snark is at hand, let me tell you again!

'Tis your glorious duty to seek it!

"To seek it with thimbles, to seek it with care;

To pursue it with forks and hope;

To threaten its life with a railway-share;

To charm it with smiles and soap!

"For the Snark's a peculiar creature, that won't

Be caught in a commonplace way.

Do all that you know, and try all that you don't:

Not a chance must be wasted to-day!

"For England expects—I forbear to proceed:

'Tis a maxim tremendous, but trite:

And you'd best be unpacking the things that you need

To rig yourselves out for the fight."

Then the Banker endorsed a blank cheque (which he crossed),

And changed his loose silver for notes.

The Baker with care combed his whiskers and hair,

And shook the dust out of his coats.

The Boots and the Broker were sharpening a spade—

Each working the grindstone in turn:

But the Beaver went on making lace, and displayed

No interest in the concern:

Though the Barrister tried to appeal to its pride,

And vainly proceeded to cite

A number of cases, in which making laces

Had been proved an infringement of right.

The maker of Bonnets ferociously planned

A novel arrangement of bows:

While the Billiard-marker with quivering hand

Was chalking the tip of his nose.

But the Butcher turned nervous, and dressed himself fine,

With yellow kid gloves and a ruff—

Said he felt it exactly like going to dine,

Which the Bellman declared was all "stuff."

"Introduce me, now there's a good fellow," he said,

"If we happen to meet it together!"

And the Bellman, sagaciously nodding his head,

Said "That must depend on the weather."

The Beaver went simply galumphing about,

At seeing the Butcher so shy:

And even the Baker, though stupid and stout,

Made an effort to wink with one eye.

"Be a man!" said the Bellman in wrath, as he heard

The Butcher beginning to sob.

"Should we meet with a Jubjub, that desperate bird,

We shall need all our strength for the job!"

Fit the Fifth

 THE BEAVER'S LESSON

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;

They pursued it with forks and hope;

They threatened its life with a railway-share;

They charmed it with smiles and soap.

Then the Butcher contrived an ingenious plan

For making a separate sally;

And had fixed on a spot unfrequented by man,

A dismal and desolate valley.

But the very same plan to the Beaver occurred:

It had chosen the very same place:

Yet neither betrayed, by a sign or a word,

The disgust that appeared in his face.

Each thought he was thinking of nothing but "Snark"

And the glorious work of the day;

And each tried to pretend that he did not remark

That the other was going that way.

But the valley grew narrow and narrower still,

And the evening got darker and colder,

Till (merely from nervousness, not from goodwill)

They marched along shoulder to shoulder.

Then a scream, shrill and high, rent the shuddering sky,

And they knew that some danger was near:

The Beaver turned pale to the tip of its tail,

And even the Butcher felt queer.

He thought of his childhood, left far far behind—

That blissful and innocent state—

The sound so exactly recalled to his mind

A pencil that squeaks on a slate!

"'Tis the voice of the Jubjub!" he suddenly cried.

(This man, that they used to call "Dunce.")

"As the Bellman would tell you," he added with pride,

"I have uttered that sentiment once.

"'Tis the note of the Jubjub! Keep count, I entreat;

You will find I have told it you twice.

'Tis the song of the Jubjub! The proof is complete,

If only I've stated it thrice."

The Beaver had counted with scrupulous care,

Attending to every word:

But it fairly lost heart, and outgrabe in despair,

When the third repetition occurred.

It felt that, in spite of all possible pains,

It had somehow contrived to lose count,

And the only thing now was to rack its poor brains

By reckoning up the amount.

"Two added to one—if that could but be done,"

It said, "with one's fingers and thumbs!"

Recollecting with tears how, in earlier years,

It had taken no pains with its sums.

"The thing can be done," said the Butcher, "I think.

The thing must be done, I am sure.

The thing shall be done!  Bring me paper and ink,

The best there is time to procure."

The Beaver brought paper, portfolio, pens,

And ink in unfailing supplies:

While strange creepy creatures came out of their dens,

And watched them with wondering eyes.

So engrossed was the Butcher, he heeded them not,

As he wrote with a pen in each hand,

And explained all the while in a popular style

Which the Beaver could well understand.

"Taking Three as the subject to reason about—

A convenient number to state—

We add Seven, and Ten, and then multiply out

By One Thousand diminished by Eight.

"The result we proceed to divide, as you see,

By Nine Hundred and Ninety Two:

Then subtract Seventeen, and the answer must be

Exactly and perfectly true.

"The method employed I would gladly explain,

While I have it so clear in my head,

If I had but the time and you had but the brain—

But much yet remains to be said.

"In one moment I've seen what has hitherto been

Enveloped in absolute mystery,

And without extra charge I will give you at large

A Lesson in Natural History."

In his genial way he proceeded to say

(Forgetting all laws of propriety,

And that giving instruction, without introduction,

Would have caused quite a thrill in Society),

"As to temper the Jubjub's a desperate bird,

Since it lives in perpetual passion:

Its taste in costume is entirely absurd—

It is ages ahead of the fashion:

"But it knows any friend it has met once before:

It never will look at a bribe:

And in charity-meetings it stands at the door,

And collects—though it does not subscribe.

"Its' flavour when cooked is more exquisite far

Than mutton, or oysters, or eggs:

(Some think it keeps best in an ivory jar,

And some, in mahogany kegs:)

"You boil it in sawdust: you salt it in glue:

You condense it with locusts and tape:

Still keeping one principal object in view—

To preserve its symmetrical shape."

The Butcher would gladly have talked till next day,

But he felt that the lesson must end,

And he wept with delight in attempting to say

He considered the Beaver his friend.

While the Beaver confessed, with affectionate looks

More eloquent even than tears,

It had learned in ten minutes far more than all books

Would have taught it in seventy years.

They returned hand-in-hand, and the Bellman, unmanned

(For a moment) with noble emotion,

Said "This amply repays all the wearisome days

We have spent on the billowy ocean!"

Such friends, as the Beaver and Butcher became,

Have seldom if ever been known;

In winter or summer, 'twas always the same—

You could never meet either alone.

And when quarrels arose—as one frequently finds

Quarrels will, spite of every endeavour—

The song of the Jubjub recurred to their minds,

And cemented their friendship for ever!

Fit the Sixth

THE BARRISTER'S DREAM

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;

They pursued it with forks and hope;

They threatened its life with a railway-share;

They charmed it with smiles and soap.

But the Barrister, weary of proving in vain

That the Beaver's lace-making was wrong,

Fell asleep, and in dreams saw the creature quite plain

That his fancy had dwelt on so long.

He dreamed that he stood in a shadowy Court,

Where the Snark, with a glass in its eye,

Dressed in gown, bands, and wig, was defending a pig

On the charge of deserting its sty.

The Witnesses proved, without error or flaw,

That the sty was deserted when found:

And the Judge kept explaining the state of the law

In a soft under-current of sound.

The indictment had never been clearly expressed,

And it seemed that the Snark had begun,

And had spoken three hours, before any one guessed

What the pig was supposed to have done.

The Jury had each formed a different view

(Long before the indictment was read),

And they all spoke at once, so that none of them knew

One word that the others had said.

"You must know—" said the Judge: but the Snark exclaimed "Fudge!"

That statute is obsolete quite!

Let me tell you, my friends, the whole question depends

On an ancient manorial right.

"In the matter of Treason the pig would appear

To have aided, but scarcely abetted:

While the charge of Insolvency fails, it is clear,

If you grant the plea 'never indebted.'

"The fact of Desertion I will not dispute;

But its guilt, as I trust, is removed

(So far as related to the costs of this suit)

By the Alibi which has been proved.

"My poor client's fate now depends on your votes."

Here the speaker sat down in his place,

And directed the Judge to refer to his notes

And briefly to sum up the case.

But the Judge said he never had summed up before;

So the Snark undertook it instead,

And summed it so well that it came to far more

Than the Witnesses ever had said!

When the verdict was called for, the Jury declined,

As the word was so puzzling to spell;

But they ventured to hope that the Snark wouldn't mind

Undertaking that duty as well.

So the Snark found the verdict, although, as it owned,

It was spent with the toils of the day:

When it said the word "GUILTY!" the Jury all groaned,

And some of them fainted away.

Then the Snark pronounced sentence, the Judge being quite

Too nervous to utter a word:

When it rose to its feet, there was silence like night,

And the fall of a pin might be heard.

"Transportation for life" was the sentence it gave,

"And then to be fined forty pound."

The Jury all cheered, though the Judge said he feared

That the phrase was not legally sound.

But their wild exultation was suddenly checked

When the jailer informed them, with tears,

Such a sentence would have not the slightest effect,

As the pig had been dead for some years.

The Judge left the Court, looking deeply disgusted:

But the Snark, though a little aghast,

As the lawyer to whom the defense was entrusted,

Went bellowing on to the last.

Thus the Barrister dreamed, while the bellowing seemed

To grow every moment more clear:

Till he woke to the knell of a furious bell,

Which the Bellman rang close at his ear.

Fit the Seventh

  THE BANKER'S FATE

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;

They pursued it with forks and hope;

They threatened its life with a railway-share;

They charmed it with smiles and soap.

And the Banker, inspired with a courage so new

It was matter for general remark,

Rushed madly ahead and was lost to their view

In his zeal to discover the Snark

But while he was seeking with thimbles and care,

A Bandersnatch swiftly drew nigh

And grabbed at the Banker, who shrieked in despair,

For he knew it was useless to fly.

He offered large discount—he offered a cheque

(Drawn "to bearer") for seven-pounds-ten:

But the Bandersnatch merely extended its neck

And grabbed at the Banker again.

Without rest or pause—while those frumious jaws

Went savagely snapping around—

He skipped and he hopped, and he floundered and flopped,

Till fainting he fell to the ground.

The Bandersnatch fled as the others appeared

Led on by that fear-stricken yell:

And the Bellman remarked "It is just as I feared!"

And solemnly tolled on his bell.

He was black in the face, and they scarcely could trace

The least likeness to what he had been:

While so great was his fright that his waistcoat turned white—

A wonderful thing to be seen!

To the horror of all who were present that day.

He uprose in full evening dress,

And with senseless grimaces endeavoured to say

What his tongue could no longer express.

Down he sank in a chair—ran his hands through his hair—

And chanted in mimsiest tones

Words whose utter inanity proved his insanity,

While he rattled a couple of bones.

"Leave him here to his fate—it is getting so late!"

The Bellman exclaimed in a fright.

"We have lost half the day.  Any further delay,

And we sha'nt catch a Snark before night!"

Fit the Eighth

    THE VANISHING

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;

They pursued it with forks and hope;

They threatened its life with a railway-share;

They charmed it with smiles and soap.

They shuddered to think that the chase might fail,

And the Beaver, excited at last,

Went bounding along on the tip of its tail,

For the daylight was nearly past.

"There is Thingumbob shouting!" the Bellman said,

"He is shouting like mad, only hark!

He is waving his hands, he is wagging his head,

He has certainly found a Snark!"

They gazed in delight, while the Butcher exclaimed

"He was always a desperate wag!"

They beheld him—their Baker—their hero unnamed—

On the top of a neighboring crag.

Erect and sublime, for one moment of time.

In the next, that wild figure they saw

(As if stung by a spasm) plunge into a chasm,

While they waited and listened in awe.

"It's a Snark!" was the sound that first came to their ears,

And seemed almost too good to be true.

Then followed a torrent of laughter and cheers:

Then the ominous words "It's a Boo-"

Then, silence.  Some fancied they heard in the air

A weary and wandering sigh

Then sounded like "-jum!" but the others declare

It was only a breeze that went by.

They hunted till darkness came on, but they found

Not a button, or feather, or mark,

By which they could tell that they stood on the ground

Where the Baker had met with the Snark.

In the midst of the word he was trying to say,

In the midst of his laughter and glee,

He had softly and suddenly vanished away—-

For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.

THE END

THREE SUNSETS AND OTHER POEMS

CONTENTS

THREE SUNSETS.

THE PATH OF ROSES.

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.

SOLITUDE.

FAR AWAY.

BEATRICE.

STOLEN WATERS.

THE WILLOW-TREE.

ONLY A WOMAN’S HAIR.

THE SAILOR’S WIFE.

AFTER THREE DAYS.

FACES IN THE FIRE.

A LESSON IN LATIN.

PUCK LOST AND FOUND.

A SONG OF LOVE.

PREFACE.

Nearly the whole of this volume is a reprint of the serious portion of Phantasmagoria and other Poems, which was first published in 1869 and has long been out of print. “The Path of Roses” was written soon after the Crimean War, when the name of Florence Nightingale had already become a household-word. “Only a Woman’s Hair” was suggested by a circumstance mentioned in The Life of Dean Swift, viz., that, after his death, a small packet was found among his papers, containing a single lock of hair and inscribed with those words. “After Three Days” was written after seeing Holman Hunt’s picture, The Finding of Christ in the Temple.

The two poems, “Far Away” and “A Song of Love”, are reprinted from Sylvie and Bruno and Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, books whose high price (made necessary by the great cost of production) has, I fear, put them out of the reach of most of my readers. “A Lesson in Latin” is reprinted from The Jabberwock, a Magazine got up among the Members of “The Girls’ Latin School, Boston, U.S.A.” The only poems, here printed for the first time, are put together under the title of “Puck Lost and Found,” having been inscribed in two books—Fairies, a poem by Allingham, illustrated by Miss E. Gertrude Thomson, and Merry Elves, a story-book, by whom written I do not know, illustrated by C. O. Murray—which were presented to a little girl and boy, as a sort of memento of a visit paid by them to the author one day, on which occasion he taught them the pastime—dear to the hearts of children—of folding paper-“pistols,” which can be made to imitate, fairly well, the noise of a real one.

Jan., 1898.

THREE SUNSETS.

He saw her once, and in the glance,

A moment’s glance of meeting eyes,

His heart stood still in sudden trance:

He trembled with a sweet surprise—

All in the waning light she stood,

The star of perfect womanhood.

That summer-eve his heart was light:

With lighter step he trod the ground:

And life was fairer in his sight,

And music was in every sound:

He blessed the world where there could be

So beautiful a thing as she.

There once again, as evening fell

And stars were peering overhead,

Two lovers met to bid farewell:

The western sun gleamed faint and red,

Lost in a drift of purple cloud

That wrapped him like a funeral-shroud.

Long time the memory of that night—

The hand that clasped, the lips that kissed,

The form that faded from his sight

Slow sinking through the tearful mist—

In dreamy music seemed to roll

Through the dark chambers of his soul.

So after many years he came

A wanderer from a distant shore:

The street, the house, were still the same,

But those he sought were there no more:

His burning words, his hopes and fears,

Unheeded fell on alien ears.

Only the children from their play

Would pause the mournful tale to hear,

Shrinking in half-alarm away,

Or, step by step, would venture near

To touch with timid curious hands

That strange wild man from other lands.

He sat beside the busy street,

There, where he last had seen her face:

And thronging memories, bitter-sweet,

Seemed yet to haunt the ancient place:

Her footfall ever floated near:

Her voice was ever in his ear.

He sometimes, as the daylight waned

And evening mists began to roll,

In half-soliloquy complained

Of that black shadow on his soul,

And blindly fanned, with cruel care,

The ashes of a vain despair.

The summer fled: the lonely man

Still lingered out the lessening days;

Still, as the night drew on, would scan

Each passing face with closer gaze—

Till, sick at heart, he turned away,

And sighed “she will not come to-day.”

So by degrees his spirit bent

To mock its own despairing cry,

In stern self-torture to invent

New luxuries of agony,

And people all the vacant space

With visions of her perfect face.

Then for a moment she was nigh,

He heard no step, but she was there;

As if an angel suddenly

Were bodied from the viewless air,

And all her fine ethereal frame

Should fade as swiftly as it came.

So, half in fancy’s sunny trance,

And half in misery’s aching void

With set and stony countenance

His bitter being he enjoyed,

And thrust for ever from his mind

The happiness he could not find.

As when the wretch, in lonely room,

To selfish death is madly hurled,

The glamour of that fatal fume

Shuts out the wholesome living world—

So all his manhood’s strength and pride

One sickly dream had swept aside.

Yea, brother, and we passed him there,

But yesterday, in merry mood,

And marveled at the lordly air

That shamed his beggar’s attitude,

Nor heeded that ourselves might be

Wretches as desperate as he;

Who let the thought of bliss denied

Make havoc of our life and powers,

And pine, in solitary pride,

For peace that never shall be ours,

Because we will not work and wait

In trustful patience for our fate.

And so it chanced once more that she

Came by the old familiar spot:

The face he would have died to see

Bent o’er him, and he knew it not;

Too rapt in selfish grief to hear,

Even when happiness was near.

And pity filled her gentle breast

For him that would not stir nor speak

The dying crimson of the west,

That faintly tinged his haggard cheek,

Fell on her as she stood, and shed

A glory round the patient head.

Ah, let him wake! The moments fly:

This awful tryst may be the last.

And see, the tear, that dimmed her eye,

Had fallen on him ere she passed—

She passed: the crimson paled to gray:

And hope departed with the day.

The heavy hours of night went by,

And silence quickened into sound,

And light slid up the eastern sky,

And life began its daily round—

But light and life for him were fled:

His name was numbered with the dead.

Nov., 1861. 

THE PATH OF ROSES.

 In the dark silence of an ancient room,

Whose one tall window fronted to the West,

Where, through laced tendrils of a hanging vine,

The sunset-glow was fading into night,

Sat a pale Lady, resting weary hands

Upon a great clasped volume, and her face

Within her hands. Not as in rest she bowed,

But large hot tears were coursing down her cheek,

And her low-panted sobs broke awefully

Upon the sleeping echoes of the night.

Soon she unclasp’d the volume once again,

And read the words in tone of agony,

As in self-torture, weeping as she read:—

“He crowns the glory of his race:

He prayeth but in some fit place

To meet his foeman face to face:

“And, battling for the True, the Right,

From ruddy dawn to purple night,

To perish in the midmost fight:

“Where hearts are fierce and hands are strong,

Where peals the bugle loud and long,

Where blood is dropping in the throng:

“Still, with a dim and glazing eye,

To watch the tide of victory,

To hear in death the battle-cry:

“Then, gathered grandly to his grave,

To rest among the true and brave,

In holy ground, where yew-trees wave:

“Where, from church-windows sculptured fair,

Float out upon the evening air

The note of praise, the voice of prayer:

“Where no vain marble mockery

Insults with loud and boastful lie

The simple soldier’s memory:

“Where sometimes little children go,

And read, in whisper’d accent slow,

The name of him who sleeps below.”

Her voice died out: like one in dreams she sat.

“Alas!” she sighed. “For what can Woman do?

Her life is aimless, and her death unknown:

Hemmed in by social forms she pines in vain.

Man has his work, but what can Woman do?”

And answer came there from the creeping gloom,

The creeping gloom that settled into night:

“Peace! For thy lot is other than a man’s:

His is a path of thorns: he beats them down:

He faces death: he wrestles with despair.

Thine is of roses, to adorn and cheer

His lonely life, and hide the thorns in flowers.”

She spake again: in bitter tone she spake:

“Aye, as a toy, the puppet of an hour,

Or a fair posy, newly plucked at morn,

But flung aside and withered ere the night.”

And answer came there from the creeping gloom,

The creeping gloom that blackened into night:

“So shalt thou be the lamp to light his path,

What time the shades of sorrow close around.”

And, so it seemed to her, an awful light

Pierced slowly through the darkness, orbed, and grew,

Until all passed away—the ancient room—

The sunlight dying through the trellised vine—

The one tall window—all had passed away,

And she was standing on the mighty hills.

Beneath, around, and far as eye could see,

Squadron on squadron, stretched opposing hosts,

Ranked as for battle, mute and motionless.

Anon a distant thunder shook the ground,

The tramp of horses, and a troop shot by—

Plunged headlong in that living sea of men—

Plunged to their death: back from that fatal field

A scattered handful, fighting hard for life,

Broke through the serried lines; but, as she gazed,

They shrank and melted, and their forms grew thin—

Grew pale as ghosts when the first morning ray

Dawns from the East—the trumpet’s brazen blare

Died into silence—and the vision passed—

Passed to a room where sick and dying lay

In long, sad line—there brooded Fear and Pain—

Darkness was there, the shade of Azrael’s wing.

But there was one that ever, to and fro,

Moved with light footfall: purely calm her face,

And those deep steadfast eyes that starred the gloom:

Still, as she went, she ministered to each

Comfort and counsel; cooled the fevered brow

With softest touch, and in the listening ear

Of the pale sufferer whispered words of peace.

The dying warrior, gazing as she passed,

Clasped his thin hands and blessed her. Bless her too,

Thou, who didst bless the merciful of old!

So prayed the Lady, watching tearfully

Her gentle moving onward, till the night

Had veiled her wholly, and the vision passed.

Then once again the solemn whisper came:

“So in the darkest path of man’s despair,

Where War and Terror shake the troubled earth,

Lies woman’s mission; with unblenching brow

To pass through scenes of horror and affright

Where men grow sick and tremble: unto her

All things are sanctified, for all are good.

Nothing so mean, but shall deserve her care:

Nothing so great, but she may bear her part.

No life is vain: each hath his place assigned:

Do thou thy task, and leave the rest to God.”

And there was silence, but the Lady made

No answer, save one deeply-breathed “Amen.”

And she arose, and in that darkening room

Stood lonely as a spirit of the night—

Stood calm and fearless in the gathered night—

And raised her eyes to heaven. There were tears

Upon her face, but in her heart was peace,

Peace that the world nor gives nor takes away!

April 10, 1856.

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.

Hark, said the dying man, and sighed,

To that complaining tone—

Like sprite condemned, each eventide,

To walk the world alone.

At sunset, when the air is still,

I hear it creep from yonder hill:

It breathes upon me, dead and chill,

A moment, and is gone.

My son, it minds me of a day

Left half a life behind,

That I have prayed to put away

For ever from my mind.

But bitter memory will not die:

It haunts my soul when none is nigh:

I hear its whisper in the sigh

Of that complaining wind.

And now in death my soul is fain

To tell the tale of fear

That hidden in my breast hath lain

Through many a weary year:

Yet time would fail to utter all—

The evil spells that held me thrall,

And thrust my life from fall to fall,

Thou needest not to hear.

The spells that bound me with a chain,

Sin’s stern behests to do,

Till Pleasure’s self, invoked in vain,

A heavy burden grew—

Till from my spirit’s fevered eye,

A hunted thing, I seemed to fly

Through the dark woods that underlie

Yon mountain-range of blue.

Deep in those woods I found a vale

No sunlight visiteth,

Nor star, nor wandering moonbeam pale;

Where never comes the breath

Of summer-breeze—there in mine ear,

Even as I lingered half in fear,

I heard a whisper, cold and clear,

“This is the gate of Death.

“O bitter is it to abide

In weariness alway:

At dawn to sigh for eventide,

At eventide for day.

Thy noon hath fled: thy sun hath shone.

The brightness of thy day is gone:

What need to lag and linger on

Till life be cold and gray?

“O well,” it said, “beneath yon pool,

In some still cavern deep,

The fevered brain might slumber cool,

The eyes forget to weep:

Within that goblet’s mystic rim

Are draughts of healing, stored for him

Whose heart is sick, whose sight is dim,

Who prayeth but to sleep!”

The evening-breeze went moaning by,

Like mourner for the dead,

And stirred, with shrill complaining sigh,

The tree-tops overhead:

My guardian-angel seemed to stand

And mutely wave a warning hand—

With sudden terror all unmanned,

I turned myself and fled!

A cottage-gate stood open wide:

Soft fell the dying ray

On two fair children, side by side,

That rested from their play—

Together bent the earnest head,

As ever and anon they read

From one dear Book: the words they said

Come back to me to-day.

Like twin cascades on mountain-stair

Together wandered down

The ripples of the golden hair,

The ripples of the brown:

While, through the tangled silken haze,

Blue eyes looked forth in eager gaze,

More starlike than the gems that blaze

About a monarch’s crown.

My son, there comes to each an hour

When sinks the spirit’s pride—

When weary hands forget their power

The strokes of death to guide:

In such a moment, warriors say,

A word the panic-rout may stay,

A sudden charge redeem the day

And turn the living tide.

I could not see, for blinding tears,

The glories of the west:

A heavenly music filled mine ears,

A heavenly peace my breast.

“Come unto Me, come unto Me—

All ye that labour, unto Me—

Ye heavy-laden, come to Me—

And I will give you rest.”

The night drew onward: thin and blue

The evening mists arise

To bathe the thirsty land in dew,

As erst in Paradise—

While, over silent field and town,

The deep blue vault of heaven looked down;

Not, as of old, in angry frown,

But bright with angels’ eyes.

Blest day! Then first I heard the voice

That since hath oft beguiled

These eyes from tears, and bid rejoice

This heart with anguish wild—

Thy mother, boy, thou hast not known;

So soon she left me here to moan—

Left me to weep and watch, alone,

Our one beloved child.

Though, parted from my aching sight,

Like homeward-speeding dove,

She passed into the perfect light

That floods the world above;

Yet our twin spirits, well I know—

Though one abide in pain below—

Love, as in summers long ago,

And evermore shall love.

So with a glad and patient heart

I move toward mine end:

The streams, that flow awhile apart,

Shall both in ocean blend.

I dare not weep: I can but bless

The Love that pitied my distress,

And lent me, in Life’s wilderness,

So sweet and true a friend.

But if there be—O if there be

A truth in what they say,

That angel-forms we cannot see

Go with us on our way;

Then surely she is with me here,

I dimly feel her spirit near—

The morning-mists grow thin and clear,

And Death brings in the Day.

April, 1868. 

SOLITUDE.

I love the stillness of the wood:

I love the music of the rill:

I love to couch in pensive mood

Upon some silent hill.

Scarce heard, beneath yon arching trees,

The silver-crested ripples pass;

And, like a mimic brook, the breeze

Whispers among the grass.

Here from the world I win release,

Nor scorn of men, nor footstep rude,

Break in to mar the holy peace

Of this great solitude.

Here may the silent tears I weep

Lull the vexed spirit into rest,

As infants sob themselves to sleep

Upon a mother’s breast.

But when the bitter hour is gone,

And the keen throbbing pangs are still,

Oh sweetest then to couch alone

Upon some silent hill!

To live in joys that once have been,

To put the cold world out of sight,

And deck life’s drear and barren scene

With hues of rainbow-light.

For what to man the gift of breath,

If sorrow be his lot below;

If all the day that ends in death

Be dark with clouds of woe?

Shall the poor transport of an hour

Repay long years of sore distress—

The fragrance of a lonely flower

Make glad the wilderness?

Ye golden hours of Life’s young spring,

Of innocence, of love and truth!

Bright, beyond all imagining,

Thou fairy-dream of youth!

I’d give all wealth that years have piled,

The slow result of Life’s decay,

To be once more a little child

For one bright summer-day.

March 16, 1853.

FAR AWAY.

He stept so lightly to the land,

All in his manly pride:

He kissed her cheek, he clasped her hand;

Yet still she glanced aside.

“Too gay he seems,” she darkly dreams,

“Too gallant and too gay,

To think of me—poor simple me—

When he is far away!”

“I bring my Love this goodly pearl

Across the seas,” he said:

“A gem to deck the dearest girl

That ever sailor wed!”

She holds it tight: her eyes are bright:

Her throbbing heart would say

“He thought of me—he thought of me—

When he was far away!”

The ship has sailed into the West:

Her ocean-bird is flown:

A dull dead pain is in her breast,

And she is weak and lone:

But there’s a smile upon her face,

A smile that seems to say

“He’ll think of me—he’ll think of me—

When he is far away!

“Though waters wide between us glide,

Our lives are warm and near:

No distance parts two faithful hearts—

Two hearts that love so dear:

And I will trust my sailor-lad,

For ever and a day,

To think of me—to think of me—

When he is far away!” 

BEATRICE.

In her eyes is the living light

Of a wanderer to earth

From a far celestial height:

Summers five are all the span—

Summers five since Time began

To veil in mists of human night

A shining angel-birth.

Does an angel look from her eyes?

Will she suddenly spring away,

And soar to her home in the skies?

Beatrice! Blessing and blessed to be!

Beatrice! Still, as I gaze on thee,

Visions of two sweet maids arise,

Whose life was of yesterday:

Of a Beatrice pale and stern,

With the lips of a dumb despair,

With the innocent eyes that yearn—

Yearn for the young sweet hours of life,

Far from sorrow and far from strife,

For the happy summers, that never return,

When the world seemed good and fair:

Of a Beatrice glorious, bright—

Of a sainted, ethereal maid,

Whose blue eyes are deep fountains of light,

Cheering the poet that broodeth apart,

Filling with gladness his desolate heart,

Like the moon when she shines thro’ a cloudless night

On a world of silence and shade.

And the visions waver and faint,

And the visions vanish away

That my fancy delighted to paint—

She is here at my side, a living child,

With the glowing cheek and the tresses wild,

Nor death-pale martyr, nor radiant saint,

Yet stainless and bright as they.

For I think, if a grim wild beast

Were to come from his charnel-cave,

From his jungle-home in the East—

Stealthily creeping with bated breath,

Stealthily creeping with eyes of death—

He would all forget his dream of the feast,

And crouch at her feet a slave.

She would twine her hand in his mane:

She would prattle in silvery tone,

Like the tinkle of summer-rain—

Questioning him with her laughing eyes,

Questioning him with a glad surprise,

Till she caught from those fierce eyes again

The love that lit her own.

And be sure, if a savage heart,

In a mask of human guise,

Were to come on her here apart—

Bound for a dark and a deadly deed,

Hurrying past with pitiless speed—

He would suddenly falter and guiltily start

At the glance of her pure blue eyes.

Nay, be sure, if an angel fair,

A bright seraph undefiled,

Were to stoop from the trackless air,

Fain would she linger in glad amaze—

Lovingly linger to ponder and gaze,

With a sister’s love and a sister’s care,

On the happy, innocent child.

Dec. 4, 1862. 

STOLEN WATERS.

The light was faint, and soft the air

That breathed around the place;

And she was lithe, and tall, and fair,

And with a wayward grace

Her queenly head she bare.

With glowing cheek, with gleaming eye,

She met me on the way:

My spirit owned the witchery

Within her smile that lay:

I followed her, I knew not why.

The trees were thick with many a fruit,

The grass with many a flower:

My soul was dead, my tongue was mute,

In that accursëd hour.

And, in my dream, with silvery voice,

She said, or seemed to say,

“Youth is the season to rejoice—”

I could not choose but stay:

I could not say her nay.

She plucked a branch above her head,

With rarest fruitage laden:

“Drink of the juice, Sir Knight,” she said:

“’Tis good for knight and maiden.”

Oh, blind mine eye that would not trace—

Oh, deaf mine ear that would not heed—

The mocking smile upon her face,

The mocking voice of greed!

I drank the juice; and straightway felt

A fire within my brain:

My soul within me seemed to melt

In sweet delirious pain.

“Sweet is the stolen draught,” she said:

“Hath sweetness stint or measure?

Pleasant the secret hoard of bread:

What bars us from our pleasure?”

“Yea, take we pleasure while we may,”

I heard myself replying.

In the red sunset, far away,

My happier life was dying:

My heart was sad, my voice was gay.

And unawares, I knew not how,

I kissed her dainty finger-tips,

I kissed her on the lily brow,

I kissed her on the false, false lips—

That burning kiss, I feel it now!

“True love gives true love of the best:

Then take,” I cried, “my heart to thee!”

The very heart from out my breast

I plucked, I gave it willingly:

Her very heart she gave to me—

Then died the glory from the west.

In the gray light I saw her face,

And it was withered, old, and gray;

The flowers were fading in their place,

Were fading with the fading day.

Forth from her, like a hunted deer,

Through all that ghastly night I fled,

And still behind me seemed to hear

Her fierce unflagging tread;

And scarce drew breath for fear.

Yet marked I well how strangely seemed

The heart within my breast to sleep:

Silent it lay, or so I dreamed,

With never a throb or leap.

For hers was now my heart, she said,

The heart that once had been mine own:

And in my breast I bore instead

A cold, cold heart of stone.

So grew the morning overhead.

The sun shot downward through the trees

His old familiar flame:

All ancient sounds upon the breeze

From copse and meadow came—

But I was not the same.

They call me mad: I smile, I weep,

Uncaring how or why:

Yea, when one’s heart is laid asleep,

What better than to die?

So that the grave be dark and deep.

To die! To die? And yet, methinks,

I drink of life, to-day,

Deep as the thirsty traveler drinks

Of fountain by the way:

My voice is sad, my heart is gay.

When yestereve was on the wane,

I heard a clear voice singing

So sweetly that, like summer-rain,

My happy tears came springing:

My human heart returned again.

“A rosy child,

Sitting and singing, in a garden fair,

The joy of hearing, seeing,

The simple joy of being—

Or twining rosebuds in the golden hair

That ripples free and wild.

“A sweet pale child—

Wearily looking to the purple West—

Waiting the great For-ever

That suddenly shall sever

The cruel chains that hold her from her rest—

By earth-joys unbeguiled.

“An angel-child—

Gazing with living eyes on a dead face:

The mortal form forsaken,

That none may now awaken,

That lieth painless, moveless in her place,

As though in death she smiled!

“Be as a child—

So shalt thou sing for very joy of breath—

So shalt thou wait thy dying,

In holy transport lying—

So pass rejoicing through the gate of death,

In garment undefiled.”

Then call me what they will, I know

That now my soul is glad:

If this be madness, better so,

Far better to be mad,

Weeping or smiling as I go.

For if I weep, it is that now

I see how deep a loss is mine,

And feel how brightly round my brow

The coronal might shine,

Had I but kept mine early vow:

And if I smile, it is that now

I see the promise of the years—

The garland waiting for my brow,

That must be won with tears,

With pain—with death—I care not how.

May 9, 1862. 

THE WILLOW-TREE.

The morn was bright, the steeds were light,

The wedding guests were gay:

Young Ellen stood within the wood

And watched them pass away.

She scarcely saw the gallant train:

The tear-drop dimmed her ee:

Unheard the maiden did complain

Beneath the Willow-Tree.

“Oh Robin, thou didst love me well,

Till, on a bitter day,

She came, the Lady Isabel,

And stole thy heart away.

My tears are vain: I live again

In days that used to be,

When I could meet thy welcome feet

Beneath the Willow-Tree.

“Oh Willow gray, I may not stay

Till Spring renew thy leaf;

But I will hide myself away,

And nurse a lonely grief.

It shall not dim Life’s joy for him:

My tears he shall not see:

While he is by, I’ll come not nigh

My weeping Willow-Tree.

“But when I die, oh let me lie

Beneath thy loving shade,

That he may loiter careless by,

Where I am lowly laid.

And let the white white marble tell,

If he should stoop to see,

‘Here lies a maid that loved thee well,

Beneath the Willow-Tree.’”

1859. 

ONLY A WOMAN’S HAIR.

‘Only a woman’s hair’! Fling it aside!

A bubble on Life’s mighty stream:

Heed it not, man, but watch the broadening tide

Bright with the western beam.

Nay! In those words there rings from other years

The echo of a long low cry,

Where a proud spirit wrestles with its tears

In loneliest agony.

And, as I touch that lock, strange visions throng

Upon my soul with dreamy grace—

Of woman’s hair, the theme of poet’s song

In every time and place.

A child’s bright tresses, by the breezes kissed

To sweet disorder as she flies,

Veiling, beneath a cloud of golden mist,

Flushed cheek and laughing eyes—

Or fringing, like a shadow, raven-black,

The glory of a queen-like face—

Or from a gipsy’s sunny brow tossed back

In wild and wanton grace—

Or crown-like on the hoary head of Age,

Whose tale of life is well-nigh told—

Or, last, in dreams I make my pilgrimage

To Bethany of old.

I see the feast—the purple and the gold—

The gathering crowd of Pharisees,

Whose scornful eyes are centred to behold

Yon woman on her knees.

The stifled sob rings strangely on mine ears,

Wrung from the depth of sin’s despair:

And still she bathes the sacred feet with tears,

And wipes them with her hair.

He scorned not then the simple loving deed

Of her, the lowest and the last;

Then scorn not thou, but use with earnest heed

This relic of the past.

The eyes that loved it once no longer wake:

So lay it by with reverent care—

Touching it tenderly for sorrow’s sake—

It is a woman’s hair.

Feb. 17, 1862. 

THE SAILOR’S WIFE.

See! There are tears upon her face—

Tears newly shed, and scarcely dried:

Close, in an agonised embrace,

She clasps the infant at her side.

Peace dwells in those soft-lidded eyes,

Those parted lips that faintly smile—

Peace, the foretaste of Paradise,

In heart too young for care or guile.

No peace that mother’s features wear;

But quivering lip, and knotted brow,

And broken mutterings, all declare

The fearful dream that haunts her now.

The storm-wind, rushing through the sky,

Wails from the depths of cloudy space;

Shrill, piercing as the seaman’s cry

When death and he are face to face.

Familiar tones are in the gale:

They ring upon her startled ear:

And quick and low she pants the tale

That tells of agony and fear:

“Still that phantom-ship is nigh—

With a vexed and life-like motion,

All beneath an angry sky,

Rocking on an angry ocean.

“Round the straining mast and shrouds

Throng the spirits of the storm:

Darkly seen through driving clouds,

Bends each gaunt and ghastly form.

“See! The good ship yields at last!

Dumbly yields, and fights no more;

Driving, in the frantic blast,

Headlong on the fatal shore.

“Hark! I hear her battered side,

With a low and sullen shock,

Dashed, amid the foaming tide,

Full upon a sunken rock.

“His face shines out against the sky,

Like a ghost, so cold and white;

With a dead despairing eye

Gazing through the gathered night.

“Is he watching, through the dark

Where a mocking ghostly hand

Points a faint and feeble spark

Glimmering from the distant land?

“Sees he, in this hour of dread,

Hearth and home and wife and child?

Loved ones who, in summers fled,

Clung to him and wept and smiled?

“Reeling sinks the fated bark

To her tomb beneath the wave:

Must he perish in the dark—

Not a hand stretched out to save?

“See the spirits, how they crowd!

Watching death with eyes that burn!

Waves rush in——” she shrieks aloud,

Ere her waking sense return.

The storm is gone: the skies are clear:

Hush’d is that bitter cry of pain:

The only sound, that meets her ear,

The heaving of the sullen main.

Though heaviness endure the night,

Yet joy shall come with break of day:

She shudders with a strange delight—

The fearful dream is pass’d away.

She wakes: the grey dawn streaks the dark:

With early song the copses ring:

Far off she hears the watch-dog bark

A joyful bark of welcoming!

Feb. 23, 1857. 

AFTER THREE DAYS.

I stood within the gate

Of a great temple, ’mid the living stream

Of worshipers that thronged its regal state

Fair-pictured in my dream.

Jewels and gold were there;

And floors of marble lent a crystal sheen

To body forth, as in a lower air,

The wonders of the scene.

Such wild and lavish grace

Had whispers in it of a coming doom;

As richest flowers lie strown about the face

Of her that waits the tomb.

The wisest of the land

Had gathered there, three solemn trysting-days,

For high debate: men stood on either hand

To listen and to gaze.

The aged brows were bent,

Bent to a frown, half thought, and half annoy,

That all their stores of subtlest argument

Were baffled by a boy.

In each averted face

I marked but scorn and loathing, till mine eyes

Fell upon one that stirred not in his place,

Tranced in a dumb surprise.

Surely within his mind

Strange thoughts are born, until he doubts the lore

Of those old men, blind leaders of the blind,

Whose kingdom is no more.

Surely he sees afar

A day of death the stormy future brings;

The crimson setting of the herald-star

That led the Eastern kings.

Thus, as a sunless deep

Mirrors the shining heights that crown the bay,

So did my soul create anew in sleep

The picture seen by day.

Gazers came and went—

A restless hum of voices marked the spot—

In varying shades of critic discontent

Prating they knew not what.

“Where is the comely limb,

The form attuned in every perfect part,

The beauty that we should desire in him?”

Ah! Fools and slow of heart!

Look into those deep eyes,

Deep as the grave, and strong with love divine;

Those tender, pure, and fathomless mysteries,

That seem to pierce through thine.

Look into those deep eyes,

Stirred to unrest by breath of coming strife,

Until a longing in thy soul arise

That this indeed were life:

That thou couldst find Him there,

Bend at His sacred feet thy willing knee,

And from thy heart pour out the passionate prayer

“Lord, let me follow Thee!”

But see the crowd divide:

Mother and sire have found their lost one now:

The gentle voice, that fain would seem to chide

Whispers “Son, why hast thou”—

In tone of sad amaze—

“Thus dealt with us, that art our dearest thing?

Behold, thy sire and I, three weary days,

Have sought thee sorrowing.”

And I had stayed to hear

The loving words “How is it that ye sought?”—

But that the sudden lark, with matins clear,

Severed the links of thought.

Then over all there fell

Shadow and silence; and my dream was fled,

As fade the phantoms of a wizard’s cell

When the dark charm is said.

Yet, in the gathering light,

I lay with half-shut eyes that would not wake,

Lovingly clinging to the skirts of night

For that sweet vision’s sake.

Feb. 16, 1861. 

FACES IN THE FIRE.

The night creeps onward, sad and slow:

In these red embers’ dying glow

The forms of Fancy come and go.

An island-farm—broad seas of corn

Stirred by the wandering breath of morn—

The happy spot where I was born.

The picture fadeth in its place:

Amid the glow I seem to trace

The shifting semblance of a face.

’Tis now a little childish form—

Red lips for kisses pouted warm—

And elf-locks tangled in the storm.

’Tis now a grave and gentle maid,

At her own beauty half afraid,

Shrinking, and willing to be stayed.

Oh, Time was young, and Life was warm,

When first I saw that fairy-form,

Her dark hair tossing in the storm.

And fast and free these pulses played,

When last I met that gentle maid—

When last her hand in mine was laid.

Those locks of jet are turned to gray,

And she is strange and far away

That might have been mine own to-day—

That might have been mine own, my dear,

Through many and many a happy year—

That might have sat beside me here.

Ay, changeless through the changing scene,

The ghostly whisper rings between,

The dark refrain of ‘might have been.’

The race is o’er I might have run:

The deeds are past I might have done;

And sere the wreath I might have won.

Sunk is the last faint flickering blaze:

The vision of departed days

Is vanished even as I gaze.

The pictures, with their ruddy light,

Are changed to dust and ashes white,

And I am left alone with night.

Jan., 1860. 

A LESSON IN LATIN.

Our Latin books, in motley row,

Invite us to our task—

Gay Horace, stately Cicero:

Yet there’s one verb, when once we know,

No higher skill we ask:

This ranks all other lore above—

We’ve learned “‘Amare’ means ‘to love’!”

So, hour by hour, from flower to flower,

We sip the sweets of Life:

Till, all too soon, the clouds arise,

And flaming cheeks and flashing eyes

Proclaim the dawn of strife:

With half a smile and half a sigh,

“Amare! Bitter One!” we cry.

Last night we owned, with looks forlorn,

“Too well the scholar knows

There is no rose without a thorn”—

But peace is made! We sing, this morn,

“No thorn without a rose!”

Our Latin lesson is complete:

We’ve learned that Love is Bitter-Sweet!

May, 1888. 

PUCK LOST AND FOUND.

Puck has fled the haunts of men:

Ridicule has made him wary:

In the woods, and down the glen,

No one meets a Fairy!

“Cream!” the greedy Goblin cries—

Empties the deserted dairy—

Steals the spoons, and off he flies.

Still we seek our Fairy!

Ah! What form is entering?

Lovelit eyes and laughter airy!

Is not this a better thing,

Child, whose visit thus I sing,

Even than a Fairy?

Nov. 22, 1891.

Puck has ventured back agen:

Ridicule no more affrights him:

In the very haunts of men

Newer sport delights him.

Capering lightly to and fro,

Ever frolicking and funning—

“Crack!” the mimic pistols go!

Hark! The noise is stunning!

All too soon will Childhood gay

Realise Life’s sober sadness.

Let’s be merry while we may,

Innocent and happy Fay!

Elves were made for gladness!

Nov. 25, 1891. 

A SONG OF LOVE.

Say, what is the spell, when her fledgelings are cheeping,

That lures the bird home to her nest?

Or wakes the tired mother, whose infant is weeping,

To cuddle and croon it to rest?

What the magic that charms the glad babe in her arms,

Till it cooes with the voice of the dove?

’Tis a secret, and so let us whisper it low—

And the name of the secret is Love!

For I think it is Love,

For I feel it is Love,

For I’m sure it is nothing but Love!

Say, whence is the voice that, when anger is burning,

Bids the whirl of the tempest to cease?

That stirs the vexed soul with an aching—a yearning

For the brotherly hand-grip of peace?

Whence the music that fills all our being—that thrills

Around us, beneath, and above?

’Tis a secret: none knows how it comes, how it goes—

But the name of the secret is Love!

For I think it is Love,

For I feel it is Love,

For I’m sure it is nothing but Love!

Say, whose is the skill that paints valley and hill,

Like a picture so fair to the sight?

That flecks the green meadow with sunshine and shadow,

Till the little lambs leap with delight?

’Tis a secret untold to hearts cruel and cold,

Though ’tis sung, by the angels above,

In notes that ring clear for the ears that can hear—

And the name of the secret is Love!

For I think it is Love,

For I feel it is Love,

For I’m sure it is nothing but Love!

Oct., 1886.

PUZZLES FROM WONDERLAND

I

[Dreaming of apples on a wall]

Dreaming of apples on a wall,

And dreaming often, dear,

I dreamed that, if I counted all,

—How many would appear?

II

[A stick I found that weighed two pound]

A stick I found that weighed two pound:

I sawed it up one day

In pieces eight of equal weight!

How much did each piece weigh?

(Everybody says “a quarter of a pound,” which is wrong.)

III

[John gave his brother James a box]

John gave his brother James a box:

About it there were many locks.

James woke and said it gave him pain;

So gave it back to John again.

The box was not with lid supplied,

Yet caused two lids to open wide:

And all these locks had never a key—

What kind of a box, then, could it be?

IV

[What is most like a bee in May?]

What is most like a bee in May?

“Well, let me think: perhaps—” you say.

Bravo! You're guessing well to-day!

V

[Three sisters at breakfast were feeding the cat]

Three sisters at breakfast were feeding the cat,

The first gave it sole—Puss was grateful for that:

The next gave it salmon—which Puss thought a treat:

The third gave it herring—which Puss wouldn't eat.

(Explain the conduct of the cat.)

VI

[Said the Moon to the Sun]

Said the Moon to the Sun,

“Is the daylight begun?”

Said the Sun to the Moon,

“Not a minute too soon.”

“You're a Full Moon,” said he.

She replied with a frown,

“Well! I never did see

So uncivil a clown!”

(Query. Why was the moon so angry?)

VII

[“Seven blind of both eyes]

When the King found that his money was nearly all gone, and that he really must live more economically, he decided on sending away most of his Wise Men. There were some hundreds of them—very fine old men, and magnificently dressed in green velvet gowns with gold buttons: if they had a fault, it was that they always contradicted one another when he asked for their advice—and they certainly ate and drank enormously. So, on the whole, he was rather glad to get rid of them. But there was an old law, which he did not dare to disobey, which said that there must always be

“Seven blind of both eyes:

Two blind of one eye:

Four that see with both eyes:

Nine that see with one eye.”

(Query. How many did he keep?)

SOLUTIONS TO PUZZLES FROM WONDERLAND

I

Ten.

II

In Shylock's bargain for the flesh was found

No mention of the blood that flowed around:

So when the stick was sawed in eight,

The sawdust lost diminished from the weight.

III

As curly-headed Jemmy was sleeping in bed,

His brother John gave him a blow on the head;

James opened his eyelids, and spying his brother,

Doubled his fist, and gave him another.

This kind of box then is not so rare;

The lids are the eyelids, the locks are the hair,

And so every schoolboy can tell to his cost,

The key to the tangles is constantly lost.

IV

'Twixt “Perhaps” and “May be”

Little difference we see:

Let the question go round,

The answer is found.

V

That salmon and sole Puss should think very grand

Is no such remarkable thing.

For more of these dainties Puss took up her stand;

But when the third sister stretched out her fair hand

Pray why should Puss swallow her ring?

VI

 “In these degenerate days,” we oft hear said,

“Manners are lost and chivalry is dead!”

No wonder, since in high exalted spheres

The same degeneracy, in fact, appears.

The Moon, in social matters interfering,

Scolded the Sun, when early in appearing;

And the rude Sun, her gentle sex ignoring,

Called her a fool, thus her pretensions flooring.

VII

Five seeing, and seven blind

Give us twelve, in all, we find;

But all of these, 'tis very plain,

Come into account again.

For take notice, it may be true,

That those blind of one eye are blind for two;

And consider contrariwise,

That to see with your eye you may have your eyes;

So setting one against the other—

For a mathematician no great bother—

And working the sum, you will understand

That sixteen wise men still trouble the land.

ACROSTICS, INSCRIPTIONS AND OTHER VERSES

CONTENTS

ACROSTIC

TO THREE PUZZLED LITTLE GIRLS, FROM THE AUTHOR

DOUBLE ACROSTIC

THREE LITTLE MAIDS

PUZZLE

THREE CHILDREN

TWO THIEVES

TWO ACROSTICS

DOUBLE ACROSTIC

ACROSTIC

ACROSTIC

ACROSTIC

TO M. A. B.

ACROSTIC

MADRIGAL

LOVE AMONG THE ROSES - ACROSTIC

TWO POEMS TO RACHEL DANIEL

FOR “THE GARLAND OF RACHEL” (1881)

THE LYCEUM

ACROSTIC

DREAMLAND

TO MY CHILD-FRIEND

A RIDDLE

A LIMERICK

RHYME? AND REASON?

A NURSERY DARLING

MAGGIE'S VISIT TO OXFORD (June 9th to 13th, 1889)

MAGGIE B—-

INSCRIBED TO A DEAR CHILD

FIVE FATHOM SQUARE THE BELFRY FROWNS

THE WANDERING BURGESS

A BACCHANALIAN ODE

ALAS! SHE WOULD NOT HEAR MY PRAYER!

WELL! SO MY OFFER WAS NO GO!

FIREBRANDS AND DAGGERS! HOPE HATH FLED!

ACROSTIC

Little maidens, when you look

On this little story-book,

Reading with attentive eye

Its enticing history,

Never think that hours of play

Are your only HOLIDAY,

And that in a HOUSE of joy

Lessons serve but to annoy:

If in any HOUSE you find

Children of a gentle mind,

Each the others pleasing ever—

Each the others vexing never—

Daily work and pastime daily

In their order taking gaily—

Then be very sure that they

Have a life of HOLIDAY.

Christmas 1861.

TO THREE PUZZLED LITTLE GIRLS, FROM THE AUTHOR

(To the three Misses Drury.)

Three little maidens weary of the rail,

Three pairs of little ears listening to a tale,

Three little hands held out in readiness,

For three little puzzles very hard to guess.

Three pairs of little eyes, open wonder-wide,

At three little scissors lying side by side.

Three little mouths that thanked an unknown Friend,

For one little book, he undertook to send.

Though whether they'll remember a friend, or book, or day—

In three little weeks is very hard to say.

August 1869.

DOUBLE ACROSTIC

(To Miss E. M. Argles.)

The first and last letters of captions form the double acrostic.

I sing a place wherein agree

All things on land that fairest be,

All that is sweetest of the sea.

Nor can I break the silken knot

That binds my memory to the spot

And friends too dear to be forgot.

BlufF

On rocky brow we loved to stand

And watch in silence, hand in hand,

The shadows veiling sea and land.

AnchoR

Then dropped the breeze; no vessel passed:

So silent stood each taper mast,

You would have deemed it chained and fast.

BroccolI

Above the blue and fleecy sky:

Below, the waves that quivering lie,

Like crispèd curls of greenery.

BarquE

“A sail!” resounds from every lip.

Mizen, no, square-sail—ah, you trip!

Edith, it cannot be a ship!

AppreciatioN

So home again from sea and beach,

One nameless feeling thrilling each.

A sense of beauty, passing speech.

ChilD

Let lens and tripod be unslung!

“Dolly!” 's the word on every tongue;

Dolly must sit, for she is young!

OdiouS

Photography shall change her face,

Distort it with uncouth grimace—

Make her bloodthirsty, fierce, and base.

MontH

I end my song while scarce begun;

For I should want, ere all was done,

Four weeks to tell the tale of one:

BelzonI

And I should need as large a hand,

To paint a scene so wild and grand,

As he who traversed Egypt's land.

EditorshiP

What say you, Edith? Will it suit ye?

Reject it, if it fails in beauty:

You know your literary duty!

On the rail between Torquay and Guildford, Sep. 28, 1869.

THREE LITTLE MAIDS

(To the three Misses Drury.)

Three little maids, one winter day,

While others went to feed,

To sing, to laugh, to dance, to play,

More wisely went to—Reed.

Others, when lesson-time's begun,

Go, half inclined to cry,

Some in a walk, some in a run;

But these went in a—Fly.

I give to other little maids

A smile, a kiss, a look,

Presents whose memory quickly fades;

I give to these—a Book.

Happy Arcadia may blind,

While all abroad, their eyes;

At home, this book (I trust) they'll find

A very catching prize.

PUZZLE

(To Mary, Ina, and Harriet or “Hartie” Watson.)

When . a . y and I . a told . a .. ie they'd seen a

Small .. ea . u . e with . i ..., dressed in crimson and blue,

. a .. ie cried “'Twas a . ai . y! Why, I . a and . a .y,

I should have been happy if I had been you!”

Said . a . y “You wouldn't.” Said I . a “You shouldn't—

Since you can't be us, and we couldn't be you.

You are one, my dear . a .. ie, but we are a . a .. y,

And a . i ... e . i . tells us that one isn't two.”

THREE CHILDREN

(To Miss Mary Watson.)

Three children (their names were so fearful

You'll excuse me for leaving them out)

Sat silent, with faces all tearful—

What was it about?

They were sewing, but needles are prickly,

And fingers were cold as could be—

So they didn't get on very quickly,

And they wept, silly Three!

“O Mother!” said they, “Guildford's not a

Nice place for the winter, that's flat.

If you know any country that's hotter,

Please take us to that!”

“Cease crying,” said she, “little daughter!

And when summer comes back with the flowers,

You shall roam by the edge of the water,

In sunshiny hours.”

“And in summer,” said sorrowful Mary,

“We shall hear the shrill scream of the train

That will bring that dear writer of fairy-

tales hither again.”

(Now the person she meant to allude to

Was—well! it is best to forget.

It was some one she always was rude to,

Whenever they met.)

“It's my duty,” their Mother continued,

“To fill with things useful and right

Your small minds: if I put nothing in, you'd

Be ignorant quite.

“But enough now of lessons and thinking:

Your meal is quite ready, I see—

So attend to your eating and drinking,

You thirsty young Three!”

Apr. 10, 1871.

TWO THIEVES

(To the Misses Drury.)

Two thieves went out to steal one day

Thinking that no one knew it:

Three little maids, I grieve to say,

Encouraged them to do it.

'Tis sad that little children should

Encourage men in stealing!

But these, I've always understood,

Have got no proper feeling.

An aged friend, who chanced to pass

Exactly at the minute,

Said “Children! Take this Looking-glass,

And see your badness in it.”

Jan. 11, 1872.

TWO ACROSTICS

(To Miss Ruth Dymes.)

Round the wondrous globe I wander wild,

Up and down-hill—Age succeeds to youth—

Toiling all in vain to find a child

Half so loving, half so dear as Ruth.

(To Miss Margaret Dymes.)

Maidens, if a maid you meet

Always free from pout and pet,

Ready smile and temper sweet,

Greet my little Margaret.

And if loved by all she be

Rightly, not a pampered pet,

Easily you then may see

'Tis my little Margaret.

DOUBLE ACROSTIC

The first and last letters of captions form the double acrostic.

Two little girls near London dwell,

More naughty than I like to tell.

TurF

Upon the lawn the hoops are seen:

The balls are rolling on the green.

RiveR

The Thames is running deep and wide:

And boats are rowing on the tide.

IcE

In winter-time, all in a row,

The happy skaters come and go.

NoD

“Papa!” they cry, “Do let us stay!”

He does not speak, but says they may.

AfricA

“There is a land,” he says, “my dear,

Which is too hot to skate, I fear.”

ACROSTIC

 “Are you deaf, Father William?” the young man said,

“Did you hear what I told you just now?

“Excuse me for shouting! Don't waggle your head

“Like a blundering, sleepy old cow!

“A little maid dwelling in Wallington Town,

“Is my friend, so I beg to remark:

“Do you think she'd be pleased if a book were sent down

“Entitled ‘The Hunt of the Snark?’”

“Pack it up in brown paper!” the old man cried,

“And seal it with olive-and-dove.

“I command you to do it!” he added with pride,

“Nor forget, my good fellow, to send her beside

“Easter Greetings, and give her my love.”

1876.

ACROSTIC

 “Maidens! if you love the tale,

If you love the Snark,

Need I urge you, spread the sail,

Now, while freshly blows the gale,

In your ocean-barque!

“English Maidens love renown,

Enterprise, and fuss!”

Laughingly those Maidens frown;

Laughingly, with eyes cast down;

And they answer thus:

“English Maidens fear to roam.

Much we dread the dark;

Much we dread what ills might come,

If we left our English home,

Even for a Snark!”

Apr. 6, 1876.

ACROSTIC

Love-lighted eyes, that will not start

At frown of rage or malice!

Uplifted brow, undaunted heart

Ready to dine on raspberry-tart

Along with fairy Alice!

In scenes as wonderful as if

She'd flitted in a magic skiff

Across the sea to Calais:

Be sure this night, in Fancy's feast,

Even till Morning gilds the east,

Laura will dream of Alice!

Perchance, as long years onward haste,

Laura will weary of the taste

Of Life's embittered chalice:

May she, in such a woeful hour,

Endued with Memory's mystic power,

Recall the dreams of Alice!

June 17, 1876.

TO M. A. B.

(To Miss Marion Terry, “Mary Ann Bessie Terry.”)

The royal MAB, dethroned, discrowned

By fairy rebels wild,

Has found a home on English ground,

And lives an English child.

I know it, Maiden, when I see

A fairy-tale upon your knee—

And note the page that idly lingers

Beneath those still and listless fingers—

And mark those dreamy looks that stray

To some bright vision far away,

Still seeking, in the pictured story,

The memory of a vanished glory.

ACROSTIC

(To Miss Marion Terry.)

Maiden, though thy heart may quail

And thy quivering lip grow pale,

Read the Bellman's tragic tale!

Is it life of which it tells?

Of a pulse that sinks and swells

Never lacking chime of bells?

Bells of sorrow, bells of cheer,

Easter, Christmas, glad New Year,

Still they sound, afar, anear.

So may Life's sweet bells for thee,

In the summers yet to be,

Evermore make melody!

Aug. 15, 1876.

MADRIGAL

(To Miss May Forshall.)

He shouts amain, he shouts again,

(Her brother, fierce, as bluff King Hal),

“I tell you flat, I shall do that!”

She softly whispers “‘May’ for ‘shall’!”

He wistful sighed one eventide

(Her friend, that made this Madrigal),

“And shall I kiss you, pretty Miss!”

Smiling she answered “‘May’ for ‘shall’!”

With eager eyes my reader cries,

“Your friend must be indeed a val-

-uable child, so sweet, so mild!

What do you call her?” “May For shall.”

Dec. 24, 1877.

LOVE AMONG THE ROSES - ACROSTIC

“Seek ye Love, ye fairy-sprites?

Ask where reddest roses grow.

Rosy fancies he invites,

And in roses he delights,

Have ye found him?” “No!”

“Seek again, and find the boy

In Childhood's heart, so pure and clear.”

Now the fairies leap for joy,

Crying, “Love is here!”

“Love has found his proper nest;

And we guard him while he dozes

In a dream of peace and rest

Rosier than roses.”

Jan. 3, 1878.

TWO POEMS TO RACHEL DANIEL

I

[“Oh pudgy podgy pup!]

“Oh pudgy podgy pup!

Why did they wake you up?

Those crude nocturnal yells

Are not like silver bells:

Nor ever would recall

Sweet Music's ‘dying fall.’

They rather bring to mind

The bitter winter wind

Through keyholes shrieking shrilly

When nights are dark and chilly:

Or like some dire duett,

Or quarrelsome quartette,

Of cats who chant their joys

With execrable noise,

And murder Time and Tune

To vex the patient Moon!”

Nov. 1880.

II

FOR “THE GARLAND OF RACHEL” (1881)

What hand may wreathe thy natal crown,

O tiny tender Spirit-blossom,

That out of Heaven hast fluttered down

Into this Earth's cold bosom?

And how shall mortal bard aspire—

All sin-begrimed and sorrow-laden—

To welcome, with the Seraph-choir,

A pure and perfect Maiden?

Are not God's minstrels ever near,

Flooding with joy the woodland mazes?

Which shall we summon, Baby dear,

To carol forth thy praises?

With sweet sad song the Nightingale

May soothe the broken hearts that languish

Where graves are green—the orphans' wail,

The widow's lonely anguish:

The Turtle-dove with amorous coo

May chide the blushing maid that lingers

To twine her bridal wreath anew

With weak and trembling fingers:

But human loves and human woes

Would dim the radiance of thy glory—

Only the Lark such music knows

As fits thy stainless story.

The world may listen as it will—

She recks not, to the skies up-springing:

Beyond our ken she singeth still

For very joy of singing.

THE LYCEUM

“It is the lawyer's daughter,

And she is grown so dear, so dear,

She costs me, in one evening,

The income of a year!

‘You can't have children's love,’ she cried,

‘Unless you choose to fee 'em!’

‘And what's your fee, child?’ I replied.

She simply said ———

“We saw ‘The Cup.’” I hoped she'd say,

“I'm grateful to you, very.”

She murmured, as she turned away,

“That lovely [Ellen Terry.]

“Compared with her, the rest,” she cried,

“Are just like two or three um-

“berellas standing side by side!

“Oh, gem of ———

“We saw Two Brothers. I confess

To me they seemed one man.

“Now which is which, child? Can you guess?”

She cried, “A-course I can!”

Bad puns like this I always dread,

And am resolved to flee 'em.

And so I left her there, and fled;

She lives at ———

1881.

ACROSTIC

[Around my lonely hearth to-night]

Around my lonely hearth to-night,

Ghostlike the shadows wander:

Now here, now there, a childish sprite,

Earthborn and yet as angel bright,

Seems near me as I ponder.

Gaily she shouts: the laughing air

Echoes her note of gladness—

Or bends herself with earnest care

Round fairy-fortress to prepare

Grim battlement or turret-stair—

In childhood's merry madness!

New raptures still hath youth in store.

Age may but fondly cherish

Half-faded memories of yore—

Up, craven heart! repine no more!

Love stretches hands from shore to shore:

Love is, and shall not perish!

DREAMLAND

(Verses written to the dream-music written down by C. E. Hutchinson, of Brasenose College.)

When midnight mists are creeping,

And all the land is sleeping,

Around me tread the mighty dead,

And slowly pass away.

Lo, warriors, saints, and sages,

From out the vanished ages,

With solemn pace and reverend face

Appear and pass away.

The blaze of noonday splendour,

The twilight soft and tender,

May charm the eye: yet they shall die,

Shall die and pass away.

But here, in Dreamland's centre,

No spoiler's hand may enter,

These visions fair, this radiance rare,

Shall never pass away.

I see the shadows falling,

The forms of old recalling;

Around me tread the mighty dead,

And slowly pass away.

1882.

TO MY CHILD-FRIEND

DEDICATION TO “THE GAME OF LOGIC”

I charm in vain: for never again,

All keenly as my glance I bend,

Will Memory, goddess coy,

Embody for my joy

Departed days, nor let me gaze

On thee, my Fairy Friend!

Yet could thy face, in mystic grace,

A moment smile on me, 'twould send

Far-darting rays of light

From Heaven athwart the night,

By which to read in very deed

Thy spirit, sweetest Friend!

So may the stream of Life's long dream

Flow gently onward to its end,

With many a floweret gay,

A-down its willowy way:

May no sigh vex, no care perplex,

My loving little Friend!

1886.

A RIDDLE

(To Miss Gaynor Simpson.)

My first lends his aid when I plunge into trade:

My second in jollifications:

My whole, laid on thinnish, imparts a neat finish

To pictorial representations.

Answer. Copal.

A LIMERICK

(To Miss Vera Beringer.)

There was a young lady of station,

“I love man” was her sole exclamation;

But when men cried, “You flatter,”

She replied, “Oh! no matter,

Isle of Man is the true explanation.”

RHYME? AND REASON?

(To Miss Emmie Drury.)

“I'm EMInent in RHYME!” she said.

“I make WRY Mouths of RYE-Meal gruel!”

The Poet smiled, and shook his head:

“Is REASON, then, the missing jewel?”

A NURSERY DARLING

DEDICATION TO THE NURSERY “ALICE,” 1889

A Mother's breast:

Safe refuge from her childish fears,

From childish troubles, childish tears,

Mists that enshroud her dawning years!

See how in sleep she seems to sing

A voiceless psalm—an offering

Raised, to the glory of her King,

In Love: for Love is Rest.

A Darling's kiss:

Dearest of all the signs that fleet

From lips that lovingly repeat

Again, again, their message sweet!

Full to the brim with girlish glee,

A child, a very child is she,

Whose dream of Heaven is still to be

At Home: for Home is Bliss.

MAGGIE'S VISIT TO OXFORD (June 9th to 13th, 1889)

(Written for Maggie Bowman.)

When Maggie once to Oxford came,

On tour as “Bootles Baby,”

She said, “I'll see this place of fame,

However dull the day be.”

So with her friend she visited

The sights that it was rich in:

And first of all she popped her head

Inside the Christ Church kitchen.

The Cooks around that little child

Stood waiting in a ring:

And every time that Maggie smiled

Those Cooks began to sing—

Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom!

“Roast, boil and bake,

For Maggie's sake:

Bring cutlets fine

For her to dine,

Meringues so sweet

For her to eat—

For Maggie may be

Bootles' Baby!”

Then hand in hand in pleasant talk

They wandered and admired

The Hall, Cathedral and Broad Walk,

Till Maggie's feet were tired:

To Worcester Garden next they strolled,

Admired its quiet lake:

Then to St. John, a college old,

Their devious way they take.

In idle mood they sauntered round

Its lawn so green and flat,

And in that garden Maggie found

A lovely Pussy-Cat!

A quarter of an hour they spent

In wandering to and fro:

And everywhere that Maggie went,

The Cat was sure to go—

Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom!

“Maiow! Maiow!

Come, make your bow,

Take off your hats,

Ye Pussy-Cats!

And purr and purr,

To welcome her,

For Maggie may be

Bootles' Baby!”

So back to Christ Church, not too late

For them to go and see

A Christ Church undergraduate,

Who gave them cakes and tea.

Next day she entered with her guide

The garden called “Botanic,”

And there a fierce Wild Boar she spied,

Enough to cause a panic:

But Maggie didn't mind, not she,

She would have faced, alone,

That fierce wild boar, because, you see,

The thing was made of stone.

On Magdalen walls they saw a face

That filled her with delight,

A giant face, that made grimace

And grinned with all its might.

A little friend, industrious,

Pulled upwards all the while

The corner of its mouth, and thus

He helped that face to smile!

“How nice,” thought Maggie, “it would be

If I could have a friend

To do that very thing for me

And make my mouth turn up with glee,

By pulling at one end.”

In Magdalen Park the deer are wild

With joy, that Maggie brings

Some bread a friend had given the child,

To feed the pretty things.

They flock round Maggie without fear:

They breakfast and they lunch,

They dine, they sup, those happy deer—

Still, as they munch and munch,

Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom!

“Yes, Deer are we,

And dear is she!

We love this child

So sweet and mild:

We all rejoice

At Maggie's voice:

We all are fed

With Maggie's bread ...

For Maggie may be

Bootles' Baby!”

They met a Bishop on their way ...

A Bishop large as life,

With loving smile that seemed to say

“Will Maggie be my wife?”

Maggie thought not, because, you see,

She was so very young,

And he was old as old could be ...

So Maggie held her tongue.

“My Lord, she's Bootles' Baby, we

Are going up and down,”

Her friend explained, “that she may see

The sights of Oxford Town.”

“Now say what kind of place it is,”

The Bishop gaily cried.

“The best place in the Provinces!”

That little maid replied.

Away, next morning, Maggie went

From Oxford town: but yet

The happy hours she there had spent

She could not soon forget.

The train is gone, it rumbles on:

The engine-whistle screams;

But Maggie deep in rosy sleep ...

And softly in her dreams,

Whispers the Battle-cry of Freedom.

“Oxford, good-bye!”

She seems to sigh.

“You dear old City,

With gardens pretty,

And lanes and flowers,

And college-towers,

And Tom's great Bell ...

Farewell—farewell:

For Maggie may be

Bootles' Baby!”

MAGGIE B—-

(To Maggie Bowman)

Written by Maggie B—-

Bought by me:

A present to Maggie B—-

Sent by me:

But who can Maggie be?

Answered by me:

“She is she.”

Aug. 13, 1891.

INSCRIBED TO A DEAR CHILD

IN MEMORY OF GOLDEN SUMMER HOURS AND WHISPERS OF A SUMMER SEA

Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task,

Eager she wields her spade: yet loves as well

Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask

The tale he loves to tell.

Rude spirits of the seething outer strife,

Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright,

Deem, if you list, such hours a waste of life,

Empty of all delight!

Chat on, sweet Maid, and rescue from annoy

Hearts that by wiser talk are unbeguiled.

Ah, happy he who owns that tenderest joy,

The heart-love of a child!

Away, fond thoughts, and vex my soul no more!

Work claims my wakeful nights, my busy days—

Albeit bright memories of that sunlit shore

Yet haunt my dreaming gaze!

FIVE FATHOM SQUARE THE BELFRY FROWNS

Five fathom square the Belfry frowns;

All its sides of timber made;

Painted all in grays and browns;

Nothing of it that will fade.

Christ Church may admire the change—

Oxford thinks it sad and strange.

Beauty's dead! Let's ring her knell.

Hark! now I hear them—ding-dong, bell.

THE WANDERING BURGESS

Our Willie had been sae lang awa'

Frae bonnie Oxford toon,

The townsfolk they were greeting a'

As they went up and doon.

He hadna been gane a year, a year,

A year but barely ten,

When word came unto Oxford toon,

Our Willie wad come agen.

Willie he stude at Thomas his Gate,

And made a lustie din;

And who so blithe as the gate-porter

To rise and let him in?

“Now enter Willie, now enter Willie,

And look around the place,

And see the pain that we have ta'en

Thomas his Quad to grace.”

The first look that our Willie cast,

He leuch loud laughters three,

The neist look that our Willie cast

The tear blindit his e'e.

Sae square and stark the Tea-chest frowned

Athwart the upper air,

But when the Trench our Willie saw,

He thocht the Tea-chest fair.

Sae murderous-deep the Trench did gape

The parapet aboon,

But when the Tunnel Willie saw

He loved the Trench eftsoon.

'Twas mirk beneath the tane archway,

'Twas mirk beneath the tither;

Ye wadna ken a man therein,

Though it were your ain dear brither.

He turned him round and round about,

And looked upon the Three;

And dismal grew his countenance,

And drumlie grew his e'e.

“What cheer, what cheer, my gallant knight?”

The gate-porter 'gan say.

“Saw ever ye sae fair a sight

As ye have seen this day?”

“Now hand your tongue of your prating, man:

Of your prating now let me be.

For, as I'm a true knight, a fouler sight

I'll never live to see.

“Before I'd be the ruffian dark

Who planned this ghastly show,

I'd serve as secretary's clerk

To Ayrton or to Lowe.

“Before I'd own the loathly thing

That Christ Church Quad reveals,

I'd serve as shoeblack's underling

To Odger and to Beales!”

A BACCHANALIAN ODE

Here's to the Freshman of bashful eighteen!

Here's to the Senior of twenty!

Here's to the youth whose moustache can't be seen!

And here's to the man who has plenty!

Let the men Pass!

Out of the mass

I'll warrant we'll find you some fit for a Class!

Here's to the Censors, who symbolize Sense,

Just as Mitres incorporate Might, Sir!

To the Bursar, who never expands the expense!

And the Readers, who always do right, Sir!

Tutor and Don,

Let them jog on!

I warrant they'll rival the centuries gone!

Here's to the Chapter, melodious crew!

Whose harmony surely intends well:

For, though it commences with “harm,” it is true,

Yet its motto is “All's well that ends well!”

'Tis love, I'll be bound,

That makes it go round!

For “In for a penny is in for a pound!”

Here's to the Governing Body, whose Art

(For they're Masters of Arts to a man, Sir!)

Seeks to beautify Christ Church in every part,

Though the method seems hardly to answer!

With three T's it is graced—

Which letters are placed

To stand for the names of Tact, Talent, and Taste!

ALAS! SHE WOULD NOT HEAR MY PRAYER!

‘Alas! she would not hear my prayer!

Yet it were rash to tear my hair;

Disfigured, I should be less fair.

‘She was unwise, I may say blind;

Once she was lovingly inclined;

Some circumstance has changed her mind.’

WELL! SO MY OFFER WAS NO GO!

‘Well! so my offer was no go!

She might do worse, I told her so;

She was a fool to answer “No.”

‘However, things are as they stood;

Nor would I have her if I could,

For there are plenty more as good.’

FIREBRANDS AND DAGGERS! HOPE HATH FLED!

‘Firebrands and daggers! hope hath fled!

To atoms dash the doubly dead!

My brain is fire—my heart is lead!

‘Her soul is flint, and what am I?

Scorch'd by her fierce, relentless eye,

Nothingness is my destiny!’

RED RIDING-HOOD

Into the wood - the dark, dark wood -

Forth went the happy child;

And, in its stillest solitude,

Talked to herself, and smiled;

And closer drew the scarlet Hood

About her ringlets wild.

And now at last she threads the maze,

And now she need not fear;

Frowning, she meets the sudden blaze

Of moonlight falling clear;

Nor trembles she, nor turns, nor stays,

Although the Wolf be near.

A SQUARE POEM

Reading this poem vertically (the first word of each line, then the second word of each line and so on) yields the same poem as reading it in the normal way.

I often wondered when I cursed,

Often feared where I would be—

Wondered where she'd yield her love,

When I yield, so will she.

I would her will be pitied!

Cursed be love! She pitied me ...

The Poems

LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

A BACCHANALIAN ODE

A GAME OF FIVES

A LESSON IN LATIN.

A LIMERICK

A NURSERY DARLING

A RIDDLE

A SEA DIRGE

A SONG OF LOVE.

A VALENTINE

ACROSTIC

ACROSTIC

ACROSTIC

ACROSTIC

ACROSTIC

ACROSTIC

AFTER THREE DAYS.

ALAS! SHE WOULD NOT HEAR MY PRAYER!

AS IT FELL UPON A DAY

ATALANTA IN CAMDEN-TOWN

BEATRICE.

BROTHER AND SISTER

CANTO I - THE TRYSTYNG

CANTO II - HYS FYVE RULES

CANTO III - SCARMOGES

CANTO IV - HYS NOURYTURE

CANTO V - BYCKERMENT

CANTO VI - DYSCOMFYTURE

CANTO VII - SAD SOUVENAUNCE

CORONACH

DOUBLE ACROSTIC

DOUBLE ACROSTIC

DREAMLAND

ECHOES

EXAMINATION STATUTE

FACES IN THE FIRE.

FACTS

FAME’S PENNY-TRUMPET

FAR AWAY.

FIREBRANDS AND DAGGERS! HOPE HATH FLED!

FIT THE EIGHTH

FIT THE FIFTH

FIT THE FIRST

FIT THE FOURTH

FIT THE SECOND

FIT THE SEVENTH

FIT THE SIXTH

FIT THE THIRD

FIVE FATHOM SQUARE THE BELFRY FROWNS

FOR “THE GARLAND OF RACHEL” (1881)

FOUR RIDDLES

HIAWATHA’S PHOTOGRAPHING

HORRORS

INSCRIBED TO A DEAR CHILD

LAYS OF MYSTERY, IMAGINATION, AND HUMOUR NO.1

LAYS OF SORROW NO. 1

LAYS OF SORROW NO. 2

LOVE AMONG THE ROSES - ACROSTIC

MADRIGAL

MAGGIE B—-

MAGGIE'S VISIT TO OXFORD (JUNE 9TH TO 13TH, 1889)

MELANCHOLETTA

MELODIES

MISS JONES

MISUNDERSTANDINGS

MY FAIRY

MY FANCY

ODE TO DAMON

ONLY A WOMAN’S HAIR.

PHANTASMAGORIA

PHOTOGRAPHY EXTRAORDINARY

POETA FIT, NON NASCITUR

PREFACE

PROLOGUE 2

PROLOGUE 3

PROLOGUE TO “LA GUIDA DI BRAGIA”

PUCK LOST AND FOUND.

PUNCTUALITY

PUZZLE

RHYME? AND REASON?

RULES AND REGULATIONS

SHE'S ALL MY FANCY PAINTED HIM

SIZE AND TEARS

SOLITUDE.

STOLEN WATERS.

TÈMA CON VARIAZIÒNI

THE DESERTED PARKS

THE ELECTIONS TO THE HEBDOMADAL COUNCIL

THE LADY OF THE LADLE

THE LANG COORTIN’

THE LYCEUM

THE MAJESTY OF JUSTICE

THE MOCK TURTLE'S SONG

THE PALACE OF HUMBUG

THE PATH OF ROSES.

THE SAILOR’S WIFE.

THE THREE VOICES

THE TWO BROTHERS

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.

THE WANDERING BURGESS

THE WILLOW-TREE.

THOSE HORRID HURDY-GURDIES!

THREE CHILDREN

THREE LITTLE MAIDS

THREE SUNSETS.

TO M. A. B.

TO MY CHILD-FRIEND

TO THREE PUZZLED LITTLE GIRLS, FROM THE AUTHOR

TWO ACROSTICS

TWO POEMS TO RACHEL DANIEL

TWO THIEVES

UPON THE LONELY MOOR

WELL! SO MY OFFER WAS NO GO!

YE FATTALE CHEYSE

Selected Mathematical Works

A posthumous portrait of Carroll by Hubert von Herkomer

CARROLL THE MATHEMATICIAN

Although famous for his literary works, Carroll was first and foremost a mathematician, lecturing at Oxford for many years.  Within the discipline of mathematics, Carroll worked primarily in the fields of geometry, matrix algebra, mathematical logic and recreational mathematics, producing nearly a dozen books which he signed with his real name, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Carroll also developed new ideas in the study of elections (known as Dodgson's method) and committees; some of this work was not published until well after his death. He worked as a mathematics tutor at Oxford, an occupation that gave him some financial security.

A selection of Carroll’s mathematical works is provided in this section to give the reader a sample of his professional attitude and ability as a mathematician.

SYMBOLIC LOGIC

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

BOOK I.

THINGS AND THEIR ATTRIBUTES.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

CHAPTER II.

CLASSIFICATION.

CHAPTER III.

DIVISION.

CHAPTER IV.

NAMES.

CHAPTER V.

DEFINITIONS.

BOOK II.

PROPOSITIONS.

CHAPTER I.

PROPOSITIONS GENERALLY.

CHAPTER II.

PROPOSITIONS OF EXISTENCE.

CHAPTER III.

PROPOSITIONS OF RELATION.

BOOK III.

THE BILITERAL DIAGRAM.

CHAPTER I.

SYMBOLS AND CELLS.

CHAPTER II.

COUNTERS.

CHAPTER III.

REPRESENTATION OF PROPOSITIONS.

CHAPTER IV.

INTERPRETATION OF BILITERAL DIAGRAM WHEN MARKED WITH COUNTERS.

BOOK IV.

THE TRILITERAL DIAGRAM.

CHAPTER I.

SYMBOLS AND CELLS.

CHAPTER II.

REPRESENTATION OF PROPOSITIONS IN TERMS OF x AND m, OR OF y AND m.

CHAPTER III.

REPRESENTATION OF TWO PROPOSITIONS OF RELATION, ONE IN TERMS OF x AND m, AND THE OTHER IN TERMS OF y AND m, ON THE SAME DIAGRAM.

CHAPTER IV.

INTERPRETATION, IN TERMS OF x AND y, OF TRILITERAL DIAGRAM, WHEN MARKED WITH COUNTERS OR DIGITS.

BOOK V.

SYLLOGISMS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY

CHAPTER II.

PROBLEMS IN SYLLOGISMS.

BOOK VI.

THE METHOD OF SUBSCRIPTS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

CHAPTER II.

REPRESENTATION OF PROPOSITIONS OF RELATION.

CHAPTER III.

SYLLOGISMS.

BOOK VII.

SORITESES.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

CHAPTER II.

PROBLEMS IN SORITESES.

BOOK VIII.

EXAMPLES, ANSWERS, AND SOLUTIONS.

CHAPTER I.

EXAMPLES.

CHAPTER II.

ANSWERS.

CHAPTER III.

SOLUTIONS.

APPENDIX,

NOTES TO APPENDIX.

INTRODUCTION

TO LEARNERS.

[N.B. Some remarks, addressed to Teachers, will be found in the Appendix, at p. 165.]

The Learner, who wishes to try the question fairly, whether this little book does, or does not, supply the materials for a most interesting mental recreation, is earnestly advised to adopt the following Rules:—

(1) Begin at the beginning, and do not allow yourself to gratify a mere idle curiosity by dipping into the book, here and there. This would very likely lead to your throwing it aside, with the remark “This is much too hard for me!”, and thus losing the chance of adding a very large item to your stock of mental delights. This Rule (of not dipping) is very desirable with other kinds of books——such as novels, for instance, where you may easily spoil much of the enjoyment you would otherwise get from the story, by dipping into it further on, so that what the author meant to be a pleasant surprise comes to you as a matter of course. Some people, I know, make a practice of looking into Vol. III first, just to see how the story ends: and perhaps it is as well just to know that all ends happily——that the much-persecuted lovers do marry after all, that he is proved to be quite innocent of the murder, that the wicked cousin is completely foiled in his plot and gets the punishment he deserves, and that the rich uncle in India (Qu. Why in India? Ans. Because, somehow, uncles never can get rich anywhere else) dies at exactly the right moment——before taking the trouble to read Vol. I. pg_xiiThis, I say, is just permissible with a novel, where Vol. III has a meaning, even for those who have not read the earlier part of the story; but, with a scientific book, it is sheer insanity: you will find the latter part hopelessly unintelligible, if you read it before reaching it in regular course.

(2) Don’t begin any fresh Chapter, or Section, until you are certain that you thoroughly understand the whole book up to that point, and that you have worked, correctly, most if not all of the examples which have been set. So long as you are conscious that all the land you have passed through is absolutely conquered, and that you are leaving no unsolved difficulties behind you, which will be sure to turn up again later on, your triumphal progress will be easy and delightful. Otherwise, you will find your state of puzzlement get worse and worse as you proceed, till you give up the whole thing in utter disgust.

(3) When you come to any passage you don’t understand, read it again: if you still don’t understand it, read it again: if you fail, even after three readings, very likely your brain is getting a little tired. In that case, put the book away, and take to other occupations, and next day, when you come to it fresh, you will very likely find that it is quite easy.

(4) If possible, find some genial friend, who will read the book along with you, and will talk over the difficulties with you. Talking is a wonderful smoother-over of difficulties. When I come upon anything——in Logic or in any other hard subject——that entirely puzzles me, I find it a capital plan to talk it over, aloud, even when I am all alone. One can explain things so clearly to one’s self! And then, you know, one is so patient with one’s self: one never gets irritated at one’s own stupidity!

If, dear Reader, you will faithfully observe these Rules, and so give my little book a really fair trial, I promise you, most confidently, that you will find Symbolic Logic to be one of the most, if not the most, fascinating of mental recreations! In this First Part, I have carefully avoided all difficulties which seemed to me to be beyond the grasp of an intelligent child of (say) twelve or fourteen years of age. I have myself taught most of its contents, vivâ voce, to many children, and have pg_xiiifound them take a real intelligent interest in the subject. For those, who succeed in mastering Part I, and who begin, like Oliver, “asking for more,” I hope to provide, in Part II, some tolerably hard nuts to crack——nuts that will require all the nut-crackers they happen to possess!

Mental recreation is a thing that we all of us need for our mental health; and you may get much healthy enjoyment, no doubt, from Games, such as Back-gammon, Chess, and the new Game “Halma”. But, after all, when you have made yourself a first-rate player at any one of these Games, you have nothing real to show for it, as a result! You enjoyed the Game, and the victory, no doubt, at the time: but you have no result that you can treasure up and get real good out of. And, all the while, you have been leaving unexplored a perfect mine of wealth. Once master the machinery of Symbolic Logic, and you have a mental occupation always at hand, of absorbing interest, and one that will be of real use to you in any subject you may take up. It will give you clearness of thought——the ability to see your way through a puzzle——the habit of arranging your ideas in an orderly and get-at-able form——and, more valuable than all, the power to detect fallacies, and to tear to pieces the flimsy illogical arguments, which you will so continually encounter in books, in newspapers, in speeches, and even in sermons, and which so easily delude those who have never taken the trouble to master this fascinating Art. Try it. That is all I ask of you!

L. C.

29, Bedford Street, Strand.

February 21, 1896.

BOOK I.

THINGS AND THEIR ATTRIBUTES.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

The Universe contains ‘Things.’

[For example, “I,” “London,” “roses,” “redness,” “old English books,” “the letter which I received yesterday.”]

Things have ‘Attributes.’

[For example, “large,” “red,” “old,” “which I received yesterday.”]

One Thing may have many Attributes; and one Attribute may belong to many Things.

[Thus, the Thing “a rose” may have the Attributes “red,” “scented,” “full-blown,” &c.; and the Attribute “red” may belong to the Things “a rose,” “a brick,” “a ribbon,” &c.]

Any Attribute, or any Set of Attributes, may be called an ‘Adjunct.’

[This word is introduced in order to avoid the constant repetition of the phrase “Attribute or Set of Attributes.”

Thus, we may say that a rose has the Attribute “red” (or the Adjunct “red,” whichever we prefer); or we may say that it has the Adjunct “red, scented and full-blown.”]

CHAPTER II.

CLASSIFICATION.

‘Classification,’ or the formation of Classes, is a Mental Process, in which we imagine that we have put together, in a group, certain Things. Such a group is called a ‘Class.’

This Process may be performed in three different ways, as follows:—

(1) We may imagine that we have put together all Things. The Class so formed (i.e. the Class “Things”) contains the whole Universe.

(2) We may think of the Class “Things,” and may imagine that we have picked out from it all the Things which possess a certain Adjunct not possessed by the whole Class. This Adjunct is said to be ‘peculiar’ to the Class so formed. In this case, the Class “Things” is called a ‘Genus’ with regard to the Class so formed: the Class, so formed, is called a ‘Species’ of the Class “Things”: and its peculiar Adjunct is called its ‘Differentia’.

As this Process is entirely Mental, we can perform it whether there is, or is not, an existing Thing which possesses that Adjunct. If there is, the Class is said to be ‘Real’; if not, it is said to be ‘Unreal’, or ‘Imaginary.’

[For example, we may imagine that we have picked out, from the Class “Things,” all the Things which possess the Adjunct “material, artificial, consisting of houses and streets”; and we may thus form the Real Class “towns.” Here we may regard “Things” as a Genus, “Towns” as a Species of Things, and “material, artificial, consisting of houses and streets” as its Differentia.

Again, we may imagine that we have picked out all the Things which possess the Adjunct “weighing a ton, easily lifted by a baby”; and we may thus form the Imaginary Class “Things that weigh a ton and are easily lifted by a baby.”]

(3) We may think of a certain Class, not the Class “Things,” and may imagine that we have picked out from it all the Members of it which possess a certain Adjunct not possessed by the whole Class. This Adjunct is said to be ‘peculiar’ to the smaller Class so formed. In this case, the Class thought of is called a ‘Genus’ with regard to the smaller Class picked out from it: the smaller Class is called a ‘Species’ of the larger: and its peculiar Adjunct is called its ‘Differentia’.

[For example, we may think of the Class “towns,” and imagine that we have picked out from it all the towns which possess the Attribute “lit with gas”; and we may thus form the Real Class “towns lit with gas.” Here we may regard “Towns” as a Genus, “Towns lit with gas” as a Species of Towns, and “lit with gas” as its Differentia.

If, in the above example, we were to alter “lit with gas” into “paved with gold,” we should get the Imaginary Class “towns paved with gold.”]

A Class, containing only one Member is called an ‘Individual.’

[For example, the Class “towns having four million inhabitants,” which Class contains only one Member, viz. “London.”]

½Hence, any single Thing, which we can name so as to distinguish it from all other Things, may be regarded as a one-Member Class.

[Thus “London” may be regarded as the one-Member Class, picked out from the Class “towns,” which has, as its Differentia, “having four million inhabitants.”]

A Class, containing two or more Members, is sometimes regarded as one single Thing. When so regarded, it may possess an Adjunct which is not possessed by any Member of it taken separately.

[Thus, the Class “The soldiers of the Tenth Regiment,” when regarded as one single Thing, may possess the Attribute “formed in square,” which is not possessed by any Member of it taken separately.]

CHAPTER III.

DIVISION.

§ 1.

Introductory.

‘Division’ is a Mental Process, in which we think of a certain Class of Things, and imagine that we have divided it into two or more smaller Classes.

[Thus, we might think of the Class “books,” and imagine that we had divided it into the two smaller Classes “bound books” and “unbound books,” or into the three Classes, “books priced at less than a shilling,” “shilling-books,” “books priced at more than a shilling,” or into the twenty-six Classes, “books whose names begin with A,” “books whose names begin with B,” &c.]

A Class, that has been obtained by a certain Division, is said to be ‘codivisional’ with every Class obtained by that Division.

[Thus, the Class “bound books” is codivisional with each of the two Classes, “bound books” and “unbound books.”

Similarly, the Battle of Waterloo may be said to have been “contemporary” with every event that happened in 1815.]

Hence a Class, obtained by Division, is codivisional with itself.

[Thus, the Class “bound books” is codivisional with itself.

Similarly, the Battle of Waterloo may be said to have been “contemporary” with itself.]

§ 2.

Dichotomy.

If we think of a certain Class, and imagine that we have picked out from it a certain smaller Class, it is evident that the Remainder of the large Class does not possess the Differentia of that smaller Class. Hence it may be regarded as another smaller Class, whose Differentia may be formed, from that of the Class first picked out, by prefixing the word “not”; and we may imagine that we have divided the Class first thought of into two smaller Classes, whose Differentiæ are contradictory. This kind of Division is called ‘Dichotomy’.

[For example, we may divide “books” into the two Classes whose Differentiæ are “old” and “not-old.”]

In performing this Process, we may sometimes find that the Attributes we have chosen are used so loosely, in ordinary conversation, that it is not easy to decide which of the Things belong to the one Class and which to the other. In such a case, it would be necessary to lay down some arbitrary rule, as to where the one Class should end and the other begin.

[Thus, in dividing “books” into “old” and “not-old,” we may say “Let all books printed before a.d. 1801, be regarded as ‘old,’ and all others as ‘not-old’.”]

Henceforwards let it be understood that, if a Class of Things be divided into two Classes, whose Differentiæ have contrary meanings, each Differentia is to be regarded as equivalent to the other with the word “not” prefixed.

[Thus, if “books” be divided into “old” and “new” the Attribute “old” is to be regarded as equivalent to “not-new,” and the Attribute “new” as equivalent to “not-old.”]

After dividing a Class, by the Process of Dichotomy, into two smaller Classes, we may sub-divide each of these into two still smaller Classes; and this Process may be repeated over and over again, the number of Classes being doubled at each repetition.

[For example, we may divide “books” into “old” and “new” (i.e. “not-old”): we may then sub-divide each of these into “English” and “foreign” (i.e. “not-English”), thus getting four Classes, viz.

(1) old English;

(2) old foreign;

(3) new English;

(4) new foreign.

If we had begun by dividing into “English” and “foreign,” and had then sub-divided into “old” and “new,” the four Classes would have been

(1) English old;

(2) English new;

(3) foreign old;

(4) foreign new.

The Reader will easily see that these are the very same four Classes which we had before.]

CHAPTER IV.

NAMES.

The word “Thing”, which conveys the idea of a Thing, without any idea of an Adjunct, represents any single Thing. Any other word (or phrase), which conveys the idea of a Thing, with the idea of an Adjunct represents any Thing which possesses that Adjunct; i.e., it represents any Member of the Class to which that Adjunct is peculiar.

Such a word (or phrase) is called a ‘Name’; and, if there be an existing Thing which it represents, it is said to be a Name of that Thing.

[For example, the words “Thing,” “Treasure,” “Town,” and the phrases “valuable Thing,” “material artificial Thing consisting of houses and streets,” “Town lit with gas,” “Town paved with gold,” “old English Book.”]

Just as a Class is said to be Real, or Unreal, according as there is, or is not, an existing Thing in it, so also a Name is said to be Real, or Unreal, according as there is, or is not, an existing Thing represented by it.

[Thus, “Town lit with gas” is a Real Name: “Town paved with gold” is an Unreal Name.]

Every Name is either a Substantive only, or else a phrase consisting of a Substantive and one or more Adjectives (or phrases used as Adjectives).

Every Name, except “Thing”, may usually be expressed in three different forms:—

(a) The Substantive “Thing”, and one or more Adjectives (or phrases used as Adjectives) conveying the ideas of the Attributes;

(b) A Substantive, conveying the idea of a Thing with the ideas of some of the Attributes, and one or more Adjectives (or phrases used as Adjectives) conveying the ideas of the other Attributes;

(c) A Substantive conveying the idea of a Thing with the ideas of all the Attributes.

[Thus, the phrase “material living Thing, belonging to the Animal Kingdom, having two hands and two feet” is a Name expressed in Form (a).

If we choose to roll up together the Substantive “Thing” and the Adjectives “material, living, belonging to the Animal Kingdom,” so as to make the new Substantive “Animal,” we get the phrase “Animal having two hands and two feet,” which is a Name (representing the same Thing as before) expressed in Form (b).

And, if we choose to roll up the whole phrase into one word, so as to make the new Substantive “Man,” we get a Name (still representing the very same Thing) expressed in Form (c).]

A Name, whose Substantive is in the plural number, may be used to represent either

(1) Members of a Class, regarded as separate Things;

or (2) a whole Class, regarded as one single Thing.

[Thus, when I say “Some soldiers of the Tenth Regiment are tall,” or “The soldiers of the Tenth Regiment are brave,” I am using the Name “soldiers of the Tenth Regiment” in the first sense; and it is just the same as if I were to point to each of them separately, and to say “This soldier of the Tenth Regiment is tall,” “That soldier of the Tenth Regiment is tall,” and so on.

But, when I say “The soldiers of the Tenth Regiment are formed in square,” I am using the phrase in the second sense; and it is just the same as if I were to say “The Tenth Regiment is formed in square.”]

CHAPTER V.

DEFINITIONS.

It is evident that every Member of a Species is also a Member of the Genus out of which that Species has been picked, and that it possesses the Differentia of that Species. Hence it may be represented by a Name consisting of two parts, one being a Name representing any Member of the Genus, and the other being the Differentia of that Species. Such a Name is called a ‘Definition’ of any Member of that Species, and to give it such a Name is to ‘define’ it.

[Thus, we may define a “Treasure” as a “valuable Thing.” In this case we regard “Things” as the Genus, and “valuable” as the Differentia.]

The following Examples, of this Process, may be taken as models for working others.

[Note that, in each Definition, the Substantive, representing a Member (or Members) of the Genus, is printed in Capitals.]

1. Define “a Treasure.”

Ans. “a valuable Thing.”

2. Define “Treasures.”

Ans. “valuable Things.”

3. Define “a Town.”

Ans. “a material artificial Thing, consisting of houses and streets.”

4. Define “Men.”

Ans. “material, living Things, belonging to the Animal Kingdom, having two hands and two feet”;

or else

“Animals having two hands and two feet.”

5. Define “London.”

Ans. “the material artificial Thing, which consists of houses and streets, and has four million inhabitants”;

or else

“the Town which has four million inhabitants.”

[Note that we here use the article “the” instead of “a”, because we happen to know that there is only one such Thing.

The Reader can set himself any number of Examples of this Process, by simply choosing the Name of any common Thing (such as “house,” “tree,” “knife”), making a Definition for it, and then testing his answer by referring to any English Dictionary.]

BOOK II.

PROPOSITIONS.

CHAPTER I.

PROPOSITIONS GENERALLY.

§ 1.

Introductory.

Note that the word “some” is to be regarded, henceforward, as meaning “one or more.”

The word ‘Proposition,’ as used in ordinary conversation, may be applied to any word, or phrase, which conveys any information whatever.

[Thus the words “yes” and “no” are Propositions in the ordinary sense of the word; and so are the phrases “you owe me five farthings” and “I don’t!”

Such words as “oh!” or “never!”, and such phrases as “fetch me that book!” “which book do you mean?” do not seem, at first sight, to convey any information; but they can easily be turned into equivalent forms which do so, viz. “I am surprised,” “I will never consent to it,” “I order you to fetch me that book,” “I want to know which book you mean.”]

But a ‘Proposition,’ as used in this First Part of “Symbolic Logic,” has a peculiar form, which may be called its ‘Normal form’; and if any Proposition, which we wish to use in an argument, is not in normal form, we must reduce it to such a form, before we can use it.

A ‘Proposition,’ when in normal form, asserts, as to certain two Classes, which are called its ‘Subject’ and ‘Predicate,’ either

    (1) that some Members of its Subject are Members of its Predicate;

or (2) that no Members of its Subject are Members of its Predicate;

or (3) that all Members of its Subject are Members of its Predicate.

The Subject and the Predicate of a Proposition are called its ‘Terms.’

Two Propositions, which convey the same information, are said to be ‘equivalent’.

[Thus, the two Propositions, “I see John” and “John is seen by me,” are equivalent.]

§ 2.

Normal form of a Proposition.

A Proposition, in normal form, consists of four parts, viz.—

(1) The word “some,” or “no,” or “all.” (This word, which tells us how many Members of the Subject are also Members of the Predicate, is called the ‘Sign of Quantity.’)

(2) Name of Subject.

(3) The verb “are” (or “is”). (This is called the ‘Copula.’)

(4) Name of Predicate.

§ 3.

Various kinds of Propositions.

A Proposition, that begins with “Some”, is said to be ‘Particular.’ It is also called ‘a Proposition in I.’

[Note, that it is called ‘Particular,’ because it refers to a part only of the Subject.]

A Proposition, that begins with “No”, is said to be ‘Universal Negative.’ It is also called ‘a Proposition in E.’

A Proposition, that begins with “All”, is said to be ‘Universal Affirmative.’ It is also called ‘a Proposition in A.’

[Note, that they are called ‘Universal’, because they refer to the whole of the Subject.]

A Proposition, whose Subject is an Individual, is to be regarded as Universal.

[Let us take, as an example, the Proposition “John is not well”. This of course implies that there is an Individual, to whom the speaker refers when he mentions “John”, and whom the listener knows to be referred to. Hence the Class “men referred to by the speaker when he mentions ‘John’” is a one-Member Class, and the Proposition is equivalent to “All the men, who are referred to by the speaker when he mentions ‘John’, are not well.”]

Propositions are of two kinds, ‘Propositions of Existence’ and ‘Propositions of Relation.’

These shall be discussed separately.

CHAPTER II.

PROPOSITIONS OF EXISTENCE.

A ‘Proposition of Existence’, when in normal form, has, for its Subject, the Class “existing Things”.

Its Sign of Quantity is “Some” or “No”.

[Note that, though its Sign of Quantity tells us how many existing Things are Members of its Predicate, it does not tell us the exact number: in fact, it only deals with two numbers, which are, in ascending order, “0” and “1 or more.”]

It is called “a Proposition of Existence” because its effect is to assert the Reality (i.e. the real existence), or else the Imaginariness, of its Predicate.

[Thus, the Proposition “Some existing Things are honest men” asserts that the Class “honest men” is Real.

This is the normal form; but it may also be expressed in any one of the following forms:—

(1) “Honest men exist”;

(2) “Some honest men exist”;

(3) “The Class ‘honest men’ exists”;

(4) “There are honest men”;

(5) “There are some honest men”.

Similarly, the Proposition “No existing Things are men fifty feet high” asserts that the Class “men 50 feet high” is Imaginary.

This is the normal form; but it may also be expressed in any one of the following forms:—

(1) “Men 50 feet high do not exist”;

(2) “No men 50 feet high exist”;

(3) “The Class ‘men 50 feet high’ does not exist”;

(4) “There are not any men 50 feet high”;

(5) “There are no men 50 feet high.”]

CHAPTER III.

PROPOSITIONS OF RELATION.

§ 1.

Introductory.

A Proposition of Relation, of the kind to be here discussed, has, for its Terms, two Specieses of the same Genus, such that each of the two Names conveys the idea of some Attribute not conveyed by the other.

[Thus, the Proposition “Some merchants are misers” is of the right kind, since “merchants” and “misers” are Specieses of the same Genus “men”; and since the Name “merchants” conveys the idea of the Attribute “mercantile”, and the name “misers” the idea of the Attribute “miserly”, each of which ideas is not conveyed by the other Name.

But the Proposition “Some dogs are setters” is not of the right kind, since, although it is true that “dogs” and “setters” are Specieses of the same Genus “animals”, it is not true that the Name “dogs” conveys the idea of any Attribute not conveyed by the Name “setters”. Such Propositions will be discussed in Part II.]

The Genus, of which the two Terms are Specieses, is called the ‘Universe of Discourse,’ or (more briefly) the ‘Univ.’

The Sign of Quantity is “Some” or “No” or “All”.

[Note that, though its Sign of Quantity tells us how many Members of its Subject are also Members of its Predicate, it does not tell us the exact number: in fact, it only deals with three numbers, which are, in ascending order, “0”, “1 or more”, “the total number of Members of the Subject”.]

It is called “a Proposition of Relation” because its effect is to assert that a certain relationship exists between its Terms.

§ 2.

Reduction of a Proposition of Relation to Normal form.

The Rules, for doing this, are as follows:—

(1) Ascertain what is the Subject (i.e., ascertain what Class we are talking about);

(2) If the verb, governed by the Subject, is not the verb “are” (or “is”), substitute for it a phrase beginning with “are” (or “is”);

(3) Ascertain what is the Predicate (i.e., ascertain what Class it is, which is asserted to contain some, or none, or all, of the Members of the Subject);

(4) If the Name of each Term is completely expressed (i.e. if it contains a Substantive), there is no need to determine the ‘Univ.’; but, if either Name is incompletely expressed, and contains Attributes only, it is then necessary to determine a ‘Univ.’, in order to insert its Name as the Substantive.

(5) Ascertain the Sign of Quantity;

(6) Arrange in the following order:—

Sign of Quantity,

Subject,

Copula,

Predicate.

[Let us work a few Examples, to illustrate these Rules.

(1)

“Some apples are not ripe.”

(1) The Subject is “apples.”

(2) The Verb is “are.”

(3) The Predicate is “not-ripe * * *.” (As no Substantive is expressed, and we have not yet settled what the Univ. is to be, we are forced to leave a blank.)

(4) Let Univ. be “fruit.”

(5) The Sign of Quantity is “some.”

(6) The Proposition now becomes

“Some | apples | are | not-ripe fruit.”

(2)

“None of my speculations have brought me as much as 5 per cent.”

(1) The Subject is “my speculations.”

(2) The Verb is “have brought,” for which we substitute the phrase “are * * * that have brought”.

(3) The Predicate is “* * * that have brought &c.”

(4) Let Univ. be “transactions.”

(5) The Sign of Quantity is “none of.”

(6) The Proposition now becomes

“None of | my speculations | are | transactions that have brought me as much as 5 per cent.”

(3)

“None but the brave deserve the fair.”

To begin with, we note that the phrase “none but the brave” is equivalent to “no not-brave.”

(1) The Subject has for its Attribute “not-brave.” But no Substantive is supplied. So we express the Subject as “not-brave * * *.”

(2) The Verb is “deserve,” for which we substitute the phrase “are deserving of”.

(3) The Predicate is “* * * deserving of the fair.”

(4) Let Univ. be “persons.”

(5) The Sign of Quantity is “no.”

(6) The Proposition now becomes

“No | not-brave persons | are | persons deserving of the fair.”

(4)

“A lame puppy would not say “thank you” if you offered to lend it a skipping-rope.”

(1) The Subject is evidently “lame puppies,” and all the rest of the sentence must somehow be packed into the Predicate.

(2) The Verb is “would not say,” &c., for which we may substitute the phrase “are not grateful for.”

(3) The Predicate may be expressed as “* * * not grateful for the loan of a skipping-rope.”

(4) Let Univ. be “puppies.”

(5) The Sign of Quantity is “all.”

(6) The Proposition now becomes

“All | lame puppies | are | puppies not grateful for the loan of a skipping-rope.”

(5)

“No one takes in the Times, unless he is well-educated.”

(1) The Subject is evidently persons who are not well-educated (“no one” evidently means “no person”).

(2) The Verb is “takes in,” for which we may substitute the phrase “are persons taking in.”

(3) The Predicate is “persons taking in the Times.”

(4) Let Univ. be “persons.”

(5) The Sign of Quantity is “no.”

(6) The Proposition now becomes

“No | persons who are not well-educated | are | persons taking in the Times.”

(6)

“My carriage will meet you at the station.”

(1) The Subject is “my carriage.” This, being an ‘Individual,’ is equivalent to the Class “my carriages.” (Note that this Class contains only one Member.)

(2) The Verb is “will meet”, for which we may substitute the phrase “are * * * that will meet.”

(3) The Predicate is “* * * that will meet you at the station.”

(4) Let Univ. be “things.”

(5) The Sign of Quantity is “all.”

(6) The Proposition now becomes

“All | my carriages | are | things that will meet you at the station.”

(7)

“Happy is the man who does not know what ‘toothache’ means!”

(1) The Subject is evidently “the man &c.” (Note that in this sentence, the Predicate comes first.) At first sight, the Subject seems to be an ‘Individual’; but on further consideration, we see that the article “the” does not imply that there is only one such man. Hence the phrase “the man who” is equivalent to “all men who”.

(2) The Verb is “are.”

(3) The Predicate is “happy * * *.”

(4) Let Univ. be “men.”

(5) The Sign of Quantity is “all.”

(6) The Proposition now becomes

“All | men who do not know what ‘toothache’ means | are | happy men.”

(8)

“Some farmers always grumble at the weather, whatever it may be.”

(1) The Subject is “farmers.”

(2) The Verb is “grumble,” for which we substitute the phrase “are * * * who grumble.”

(3) The Predicate is “* * * who always grumble &c.”

(4) Let Univ. be “persons.”

(5) The Sign of Quantity is “some.”

(6) The Proposition now becomes

“Some | farmers | are | persons who always grumble at the weather, whatever it may be.”

(9)

“No lambs are accustomed to smoke cigars.”

(1) The Subject is “lambs.”

(2) The Verb is “are.”

(3) The Predicate is “* * * accustomed &c.”

(4) Let Univ. be “animals.”

(5) The Sign of Quantity is “no.”

(6) The Proposition now becomes

“No | lambs | are | animals accustomed to smoke cigars.”

(10)

“I ca’n’t understand examples that are not arranged in regular order, like those I am used to.”

(1) The Subject is “examples that,” &c.

(2) The Verb is “I ca’n’t understand,” which we must alter, so as to have “examples,” instead of “I,” as the nominative case. It may be expressed as “are not understood by me.”

(3) The Predicate is “* * * not understood by me.”

(4) Let Univ. be “examples.”

(5) The Sign of Quantity is “all.”

(6) The Proposition now becomes

“All | examples that are not arranged in regular order like those I am used to | are | examples not understood by me.”]

§ 3.

A Proposition of Relation, beginning with “All”, is a Double Proposition.

A Proposition of Relation, beginning with “All”, asserts (as we already know) that “All Members of the Subject are Members of the Predicate”. This evidently contains, as a part of what it tells us, the smaller Proposition “Some Members of the Subject are Members of the Predicate”.

[Thus, the Proposition “All bankers are rich men” evidently contains the smaller Proposition “Some bankers are rich men”.]

The question now arises “What is the rest of the information which this Proposition gives us?”

In order to answer this question, let us begin with the smaller Proposition, “Some Members of the Subject are Members of the Predicate,” and suppose that this is all we have been told; and let us proceed to inquire what else we need to be told, in order to know that “All Members of the Subject are Members of the Predicate”.

[Thus, we may suppose that the Proposition “Some bankers are rich men” is all the information we possess; and we may proceed to inquire what other Proposition needs to be added to it, in order to make up the entire Proposition “All bankers are rich men”.]

Let us also suppose that the ‘Univ.’ (i.e. the Genus, of which both the Subject and the Predicate are Specieses) has been divided (by the Process of Dichotomy) into two smaller Classes, viz.

(1) the Predicate;

(2) the Class whose Differentia is contradictory to that of the Predicate.

[Thus, we may suppose that the Genus “men,” (of which both “bankers” and “rich men” are Specieses) has been divided into the two smaller Classes, “rich men”, “poor men”.]

Now we know that every Member of the Subject is (as shown at p. 6) a Member of the Univ. Hence every Member of the Subject is either in Class (1) or else in Class (2).

[Thus, we know that every banker is a Member of the Genus “men”. Hence, every banker is either in the Class “rich men”, or else in the Class “poor men”.]

Also we have been told that, in the case we are discussing, some Members of the Subject are in Class (1). What else do we need to be told, in order to know that all of them are there? Evidently we need to be told that none of them are in Class (2); i.e. that none of them are Members of the Class whose Differentia is contradictory to that of the Predicate.

[Thus, we may suppose we have been told that some bankers are in the Class “rich men”. What else do we need to be told, in order to know that all of them are there? Evidently we need to be told that none of them are in the Class “poor men”.]

Hence a Proposition of Relation, beginning with “All”, is a Double Proposition, and is ‘equivalent’ to (i.e. gives the same information as) the two Propositions

(1) “Some Members of the Subject are Members of the Predicate”;

(2) “No Members of the Subject are Members of the Class whose Differentia is contradictory to that of the Predicate”.

[Thus, the Proposition “All bankers are rich men” is a Double Proposition, and is equivalent to the two Propositions

(1) “Some bankers are rich men”;

(2) “No bankers are poor men”.]

§ 4.

What is implied, in a Proposition of Relation, as to the Reality of its Terms?

Note that the rules, here laid down, are arbitrary, and only apply to Part I of my “Symbolic Logic.”

A Proposition of Relation, beginning with “Some”, is henceforward to be understood as asserting that there are some existing Things, which, being Members of the Subject, are also Members of the Predicate; i.e. that some existing Things are Members of both Terms at once. Hence it is to be understood as implying that each Term, taken by itself, is Real.

[Thus, the Proposition “Some rich men are invalids” is to be understood as asserting that some existing Things are “rich invalids”. Hence it implies that each of the two Classes, “rich men” and “invalids”, taken by itself, is Real.]

A Proposition of Relation, beginning with “No”, is henceforward to be understood as asserting that there are no existing Things which, being Members of the Subject, are also Members of the Predicate; i.e. that no existing Things are Members of both Terms at once. But this implies nothing as to the Reality of either Term taken by itself.

[Thus, the Proposition “No mermaids are milliners” is to be understood as asserting that no existing Things are “mermaid-milliners”. But this implies nothing as to the Reality, or the Unreality, of either of the two Classes, “mermaids” and “milliners”, taken by itself. In this case as it happens, the Subject is Imaginary, and the Predicate Real.]

A Proposition of Relation, beginning with “All”, contains (see § 3) a similar Proposition beginning with “Some”. Hence it is to be understood as implying that each Term, taken by itself, is Real.

[Thus, the Proposition “All hyænas are savage animals” contains the Proposition “Some hyænas are savage animals”. Hence it implies that each of the two Classes, “hyænas” and “savage animals”, taken by itself, is Real.]

§ 5.

Translation of a Proposition of Relation into one or more Propositions of Existence.

We have seen that a Proposition of Relation, beginning with “Some,” asserts that some existing Things, being Members of its Subject, are also Members of its Predicate. Hence, it asserts that some existing Things are Members of both; i.e. it asserts that some existing Things are Members of the Class of Things which have all the Attributes of the Subject and the Predicate.

Hence, to translate it into a Proposition of Existence, we take “existing Things” as the new Subject, and Things, which have all the Attributes of the Subject and the Predicate, as the new Predicate.

Similarly for a Proposition of Relation beginning with “No”.

A Proposition of Relation, beginning with “All”, is (as shown in § 3) equivalent to two Propositions, one beginning with “Some” and the other with “No”, each of which we now know how to translate.

[Let us work a few Examples, to illustrate these Rules.

(1)

“Some apples are not ripe.”

Here we arrange thus:—

“Some”

Sign of Quantity.

“existing Things”

Subject.

“are”

Copula.

“not-ripe apples”

Predicate.

or thus:—

“Some | existing Things | are | not-ripe apples.”

(2)

“Some farmers always grumble at the weather, whatever it may be.”

Here we arrange thus:—

“Some | existing Things | are | farmers who always grumble at the weather, whatever it may be.”

(3)

“No lambs are accustomed to smoke cigars.”

Here we arrange thus:—

“No | existing Things |are | lambs accustomed to smoke cigars.”

(4)

“None of my speculations have brought me as much as 5 per cent.”

Here we arrange thus:—

“No | existing Things | are | speculations of mine, which have brought me as much as 5 per cent.”

(5)

“None but the brave deserve the fair.”

Here we note, to begin with, that the phrase “none but the brave” is equivalent to “no not-brave men.” We then arrange thus:—

“No | existing Things | are | not-brave men deserving of the fair.”

(6)

“All bankers are rich men.”

This is equivalent to the two Propositions “Some bankers are rich men” and “No bankers are poor men.”

Here we arrange thus:—

“Some | existing Things | are | rich bankers”; and “No | existing Things | are | poor bankers.”]

[Work Examples § 1, 1–4 (p. 97).]

BOOK III.

THE BILITERAL DIAGRAM.

CHAPTER I.

SYMBOLS AND CELLS.

First, let us suppose that the above Diagram is an enclosure assigned to a certain Class of Things, which we have selected as our ‘Universe of Discourse.’ or, more briefly, as our ‘Univ’.

[For example, we might say “Let Univ. be ‘books’”; and we might imagine the Diagram to be a large table, assigned to all “books.”]

[The Reader is strongly advised, in reading this Chapter, not to refer to the above Diagram, but to draw a large one for himself, without any letters, and to have it by him while he reads, and keep his finger on that particular part of it, about which he is reading.]

Secondly, let us suppose that we have selected a certain Adjunct, which we may call “x,” and have divided the large Class, to which we have assigned the whole Diagram, into the two smaller Classes whose Differentiæ are “x” and “not-x” (which we may call “x′”), and that we have assigned the North Half of the Diagram to the one (which we may call “the Class of x-Things,” or “the x-Class”), and the South Half to the other (which we may call “the Class of x′-Things,” or “the x′-Class”).

[For example, we might say “Let x mean ‘old,’ so that x′ will mean ‘new’,” and we might suppose that we had divided books into the two Classes whose Differentiæ are “old” and “new,” and had assigned the North Half of the table to “old books” and the South Half to “new books.”]

Thirdly, let us suppose that we have selected another Adjunct, which we may call “y”, and have subdivided the x-Class into the two Classes whose Differentiæ are “y” and “y′”, and that we have assigned the North-West Cell to the one (which we may call “the xy-Class”), and the North-East Cell to the other (which we may call “the xy′-Class”).

[For example, we might say “Let y mean ‘English,’ so that y′ will mean ‘foreign’”, and we might suppose that we had subdivided “old books” into the two Classes whose Differentiæ are “English” and “foreign”, and had assigned the North-West Cell to “old English books”, and the North-East Cell to “old foreign books.”]

Fourthly, let us suppose that we have subdivided the x′-Class in the same manner, and have assigned the South-West Cell to the x′y-Class, and the South-East Cell to the x′y′-Class.

[For example, we might suppose that we had subdivided “new books” into the two Classes “new English books” and “new foreign books”, and had assigned the South-West Cell to the one, and the South-East Cell to the other.]

It is evident that, if we had begun by dividing for y and y′, and had then subdivided for x and x′, we should have got the same four Classes. Hence we see that we have assigned the West Half to the y-Class, and the East Half to the y′-Class.

[Thus, in the above Example, we should find that we had assigned the West Half of the table to “English books” and the East Half to “foreign books.”

We have, in fact, assigned the four Quarters of the table to four different Classes of books, as here shown.]

The Reader should carefully remember that, in such a phrase as “the x-Things,” the word “Things” means that particular kind of Things, to which the whole Diagram has been assigned.

[Thus, if we say “Let Univ. be ‘books’,” we mean that we have assigned the whole Diagram to “books.” In that case, if we took “x” to mean “old”, the phrase “the x-Things” would mean “the old books.”]

The Reader should not go on to the next Chapter until he is quite familiar with the blank Diagram I have advised him to draw.

He ought to be able to name, instantly, the Adjunct assigned to any Compartment named in the right-hand column of the following Table.

Also he ought to be able to name, instantly, the Compartment assigned to any Adjunct named in the left-hand column.

To make sure of this, he had better put the book into the hands of some genial friend, while he himself has nothing but the blank Diagram, and get that genial friend to question him on this Table, dodging about as much as possible. The Questions and Answers should be something like this:—

TABLE I.

 Adjuncts 

 of 

 Classes. 

 Compartments, 

 or Cells, 

 assigned to them. 

 x

 North 

Half.

 x′

 South 

〃

 y

 West 

〃

 y′

 East 

〃

 xy

 North -

West

Cell.

 xy′

 〃  

East

〃

 x′y

 South -

West

〃

 x′y′

 〃  

East

〃

Q.

“Adjunct for West Half?”

A.

“y.”

Q.

“Compartment for xy′?”

A.

“North-East Cell.”

Q.

“Adjunct for South-West Cell?”

A.

“x′y.”

&c., &c.

After a little practice, he will find himself able to do without the blank Diagram, and will be able to see it mentally (“in my mind’s eye, Horatio!”) while answering the questions of his genial friend. When this result has been reached, he may safely go on to the next Chapter.

CHAPTER II.

COUNTERS.

Let us agree that a Red Counter, placed within a Cell, shall mean “This Cell is occupied” (i.e. “There is at least one Thing in it”).

Let us also agree that a Red Counter, placed on the partition between two Cells, shall mean “The Compartment, made up of these two Cells, is occupied; but it is not known whereabouts, in it, its occupants are.” Hence it may be understood to mean “At least one of these two Cells is occupied: possibly both are.”

Our ingenious American cousins have invented a phrase to describe the condition of a man who has not yet made up his mind which of two political parties he will join: such a man is said to be “sitting on the fence.” This phrase exactly describes the condition of the Red Counter.

Let us also agree that a Grey Counter, placed within a Cell, shall mean “This Cell is empty” (i.e. “There is nothing in it”).

[The Reader had better provide himself with 4 Red Counters and 5 Grey ones.]

CHAPTER III.

REPRESENTATION OF PROPOSITIONS.

§ 1.

Introductory.

Henceforwards, in stating such Propositions as “Some x-Things exist” or “No x-Things are y-Things”, I shall omit the word “Things”, which the Reader can supply for himself, and shall write them as “Some x exist” or “No x are y”.

[Note that the word “Things” is here used with a special meaning, as explained at p. 23.]

A Proposition, containing only one of the Letters used as Symbols for Attributes, is said to be ‘Uniliteral’.

[For example, “Some x exist”, “No y′ exist”, &c.]

A Proposition, containing two Letters, is said to be ‘Biliteral’.

[For example, “Some xy′ exist”, “No x′ are y”, &c.]

A Proposition is said to be ‘in terms of’ the Letters it contains, whether with or without accents.

[Thus, “Some xy′ exist”, “No x′ are y”, &c., are said to be in terms of x and y.]

§ 2.

Representation of Propositions of Existence.

Let us take, first, the Proposition “Some x exist”.

[Note that this Proposition is (as explained at p. 12) equivalent to “Some existing Things are x-Things.”]

This tells us that there is at least one Thing in the North Half; that is, that the North Half is occupied. And this we can evidently represent by placing a Red Counter (here represented by a dotted circle) on the partition which divides the North Half.

[In the “books” example, this Proposition would be “Some old books exist”.]

Similarly we may represent the three similar Propositions “Some x′ exist”, “Some y exist”, and “Some y′ exist”.

[The Reader should make out all these for himself. In the “books” example, these Propositions would be “Some new books exist”, &c.]

Let us take, next, the Proposition “No x exist”.

This tells us that there is nothing in the North Half; that is, that the North Half is empty; that is, that the North-West Cell and the North-East Cell are both of them empty. And this we can represent by placing two Grey Counters in the North Half, one in each Cell.

[The Reader may perhaps think that it would be enough to place a Grey Counter on the partition in the North Half, and that, just as a Red Counter, so placed, would mean “This Half is occupied”, so a Grey one would mean “This Half is empty”.

This, however, would be a mistake. We have seen that a Red Counter, so placed, would mean “At least one of these two Cells is occupied: possibly both are.” Hence a Grey one would merely mean “At least one of these two Cells is empty: possibly both are”. But what we have to represent is, that both Cells are certainly empty: and this can only be done by placing a Grey Counter in each of them.

In the “books” example, this Proposition would be “No old books exist”.]

Similarly we may represent the three similar Propositions “No x′ exist”, “No y exist”, and “No y′ exist”.

[The Reader should make out all these for himself. In the “books” example, these three Propositions would be “No new books exist”, &c.]

Let us take, next, the Proposition “Some xy exist”.

This tells us that there is at least one Thing in the North-West Cell; that is, that the North-West Cell is occupied. And this we can represent by placing a Red Counter in it.

[In the “books” example, this Proposition would be “Some old English books exist”.]

Similarly we may represent the three similar Propositions “Some xy′ exist”, “Some x′y exist”, and “Some x′y′ exist”.

[The Reader should make out all these for himself. In the “books” example, these three Propositions would be “Some old foreign books exist”, &c.]

Let us take, next, the Proposition “No xy exist”.

This tells us that there is nothing in the North-West Cell; that is, that the North-West Cell is empty. And this we can represent by placing a Grey Counter in it.

[In the “books” example, this Proposition would be “No old English books exist”.]

Similarly we may represent the three similar Propositions “No xy′ exist”, “No x′y exist”, and “No x′y′ exist”.

[The Reader should make out all these for himself. In the “books” example, these three Propositions would be “No old foreign books exist”, &c.]

We have seen that the Proposition “No x exist” may be represented by placing two Grey Counters in the North Half, one in each Cell.

We have also seen that these two Grey Counters, taken separately, represent the two Propositions “No xy exist” and “No xy′ exist”.

Hence we see that the Proposition “No x exist” is a Double Proposition, and is equivalent to the two Propositions “No xy exist” and “No xy′ exist”.

[In the “books” example, this Proposition would be “No old books exist”.

Hence this is a Double Proposition, and is equivalent to the two Propositions “No old English books exist” and “No old foreign books exist”.]

§ 3.

Representation of Propositions of Relation.

Let us take, first, the Proposition “Some x are y”.

This tells us that at least one Thing, in the North Half, is also in the West Half. Hence it must be in the space common to them, that is, in the North-West Cell. Hence the North-West Cell is occupied. And this we can represent by placing a Red Counter in it.

[Note that the Subject of the Proposition settles which Half we are to use; and that the Predicate settles in which portion of it we are to place the Red Counter.

In the “books” example, this Proposition would be “Some old books are English”.]

Similarly we may represent the three similar Propositions “Some x are y′”, “Some x′ are y”, and “Some x′ are y′”.

[The Reader should make out all these for himself. In the “books” example, these three Propositions would be “Some old books are foreign”, &c.]

Let us take, next, the Proposition “Some y are x”.

This tells us that at least one Thing, in the West Half, is also in the North Half. Hence it must be in the space common to them, that is, in the North-West Cell. Hence the North-West Cell is occupied. And this we can represent by placing a Red Counter in it.

[In the “books” example, this Proposition would be “Some English books are old”.]

Similarly we may represent the three similar Propositions “Some y are x′”, “Some y′ are x”, and “Some y′ are x′”.

[The Reader should make out all these for himself. In the “books” example, these three Propositions would be “Some English books are new”, &c.]

We see that this one Diagram has now served to represent no less than three Propositions, viz.

(1) “Some xy exist;

(2)   Some x are y;

(3)   Some y are x”.

Hence these three Propositions are equivalent.

[In the “books” example, these Propositions would be

(1) “Some old English books exist;

(2)   Some old books are English;

(3)   Some English books are old”.]

The two equivalent Propositions, “Some x are y” and “Some y are x”, are said to be ‘Converse’ to each other; and the Process, of changing one into the other, is called ‘Converting’, or ‘Conversion’.

[For example, if we were told to convert the Proposition

“Some apples are not ripe,”

we should first choose our Univ. (say “fruit”), and then complete the Proposition, by supplying the Substantive “fruit” in the Predicate, so that it would be

“Some apples are not-ripe fruit”;

and we should then convert it by interchanging its Terms, so that it would be

“Some not-ripe fruit are apples”.]

Similarly we may represent the three similar Trios of equivalent Propositions; the whole Set of four Trios being as follows:—

(1) “Some xy exist” = “Some x are y” = “Some y are x”.

(2) “Some xy′ exist” = “Some x are y′” = “Some y′ are x”.

(3) “Some x′y exist” = “Some x′ are y” = “Some y are x′”.

(4) “Some x′y′ exist” = “Some x′ are y′” = “Some y′ are x′”.

Let us take, next, the Proposition “No x are y”.

This tell us that no Thing, in the North Half, is also in the West Half. Hence there is nothing in the space common to them, that is, in the North-West Cell. Hence the North-West Cell is empty. And this we can represent by placing a Grey Counter in it.

[In the “books” example, this Proposition would be “No old books are English”.]

Similarly we may represent the three similar Propositions “No x are y′”, and “No x′ are y”, and “No x′ are y′”.

[The Reader should make out all these for himself. In the “books” example, these three Propositions would be “No old books are foreign”, &c.]

Let us take, next, the Proposition “No y are x”.

This tells us that no Thing, in the West Half, is also in the North Half. Hence there is nothing in the space common to them, that is, in the North-West Cell. That is, the North-West Cell is empty. And this we can represent by placing a Grey Counter in it.

[In the “books” example, this Proposition would be “No English books are old”.]

Similarly we may represent the three similar Propositions “No y are x′”, “No y′ are x”, and “No y′ are x′”.

[The Reader should make out all these for himself. In the “books” example, these three Propositions would be “No English books are new”, &c.]

We see that this one Diagram has now served to present no less than three Propositions, viz.

(1) “No xy exist;

(2)   No x are y;

(3)   No y are x.”

Hence these three Propositions are equivalent.

[In the “books” example, these Propositions would be

(1) “No old English books exist;

(2)   No old books are English;

(3)   No English books are old”.]

The two equivalent Propositions, “No x are y” and “No y are x”, are said to be ‘Converse’ to each other.

[For example, if we were told to convert the Proposition

“No porcupines are talkative”,

we should first choose our Univ. (say “animals”), and then complete the Proposition, by supplying the Substantive “animals” in the Predicate, so that it would be

“No porcupines are talkative animals”, and we should then convert it, by interchanging its Terms, so that it would be

“No talkative animals are porcupines”.]

Similarly we may represent the three similar Trios of equivalent Propositions; the whole Set of four Trios being as follows:—

(1) “No xy exist” = “No x are y” = “No y are x”.

(2) “No xy′ exist” = “No x are y′” = “No y′ are x”.

(3) “No x′y exist” = “No x′ are y” = “No y are x′”.

(4) “No x′y′ exist” = “No x′ are y′” = “No y′ are x′”.

Let us take, next, the Proposition “All x are y”.

We know (see p. 17) that this is a Double Proposition, and equivalent to the two Propositions “Some x are y” and “No x are y′”, each of which we already know how to represent.

[Note that the Subject of the given Proposition settles which Half we are to use; and that its Predicate settles in which portion of that Half we are to place the Red Counter.]

TABLE II.

  Some x exist  

  No x exist  

  Some x′ exist  

  No x′ exist  

  Some y exist  

  No y exist  

  Some y′ exist  

  No y′ exist  

Similarly we may represent the seven similar Propositions “All x are y′”, “All x′ are y”, “All x′ are y′”, “All y are x”, “All y are x′”, “All y′ are x”, and “All y′ are x′”.

Let us take, lastly, the Double Proposition “Some x are y and some are y′”, each part of which we already know how to represent.

Similarly we may represent the three similar Propositions, “Some x′ are y and some are y′”, “Some y are x and some are x′”, “Some y′ are x and some are x′”.

The Reader should now get his genial friend to question him, severely, on these two Tables. The Inquisitor should have the Tables before him: but the Victim should have nothing but a blank Diagram, and the Counters with which he is to represent the various Propositions named by his friend, e.g. “Some y exist”, “No y′ are x”, “All x are y”, &c. &c.

TABLE III.

  Some xy exist

   = Some x are y

   = Some y are x  

  All x are y  

  Some xy′ exist

   = Some x are y′

   = Some y′ are x  

  All x are y′  

  Some x′y exist

   = Some x′ are y

   = Some y are x′  

  All x′ are y  

  Some x′y′ exist

   = Some x′ are y′

   = Some y′ are x′  

  All x′ are y′  

  No xy exist

   = No x are y

   = No y are x

  All y are x  

  No xy′ exist

   = No x are y′

   = No y′ are x  

  All y are x′  

  No x′y exist

   = No x′ are y

   = No y are x′  

  All y′ are x  

  No x′y′ exist

   = No x′ are y′

   = No y′ are x′  

  All y′ are x′  

  Some x are y,

  and some are y′  

  Some y are x

  and some are x′  

  Some x′ are y,

  and some are y′  

  Some y′ are x

  and some are x′  

CHAPTER IV.

INTERPRETATION OF BILITERAL DIAGRAM WHEN MARKED WITH COUNTERS.

The Diagram is supposed to be set before us, with certain Counters placed upon it; and the problem is to find out what Proposition, or Propositions, the Counters represent.

As the process is simply the reverse of that discussed in the previous Chapter, we can avail ourselves of the results there obtained, as far as they go.

First, let us suppose that we find a Red Counter placed in the North-West Cell.

We know that this represents each of the Trio of equivalent Propositions

“Some xy exist” = “Some x are y” = “Some y are x”.

Similarly we may interpret a Red Counter, when placed in the North-East, or South-West, or South-East Cell.

Next, let us suppose that we find a Grey Counter placed in the North-West Cell.

We know that this represents each of the Trio of equivalent Propositions

“No xy exist” = “No x are y” = “No y are x”.

Similarly we may interpret a Grey Counter, when placed in the North-East, or South-West, or South-East Cell.

Next, let us suppose that we find a Red Counter placed on the partition which divides the North Half.

We know that this represents the Proposition “Some x exist.”

Similarly we may interpret a Red Counter, when placed on the partition which divides the South, or West, or East Half.

Next, let us suppose that we find two Red Counters placed in the North Half, one in each Cell.

We know that this represents the Double Proposition “Some x are y and some are y′”.

Similarly we may interpret two Red Counters, when placed in the South, or West, or East Half.

Next, let us suppose that we find two Grey Counters placed in the North Half, one in each Cell.

We know that this represents the Proposition “No x exist”.

Similarly we may interpret two Grey Counters, when placed in the South, or West, or East Half.

Lastly, let us suppose that we find a Red and a Grey Counter placed in the North Half, the Red in the North-West Cell, and the Grey in the North-East Cell.

We know that this represents the Proposition, “All x are y”.

[Note that the Half, occupied by the two Counters, settles what is to be the Subject of the Proposition, and that the Cell, occupied by the Red Counter, settles what is to be its Predicate.]

Similarly we may interpret a Red and a Grey counter, when placed in any one of the seven similar positions

Red in North-East, Grey in North-West;

Red in South-West, Grey in South-East;

Red in South-East, Grey in South-West;

Red in North-West, Grey in South-West;

Red in South-West, Grey in North-West;

Red in North-East, Grey in South-East;

Red in South-East, Grey in North-East.

Once more the genial friend must be appealed to, and requested to examine the Reader on Tables II and III, and to make him not only represent Propositions, but also interpret Diagrams when marked with Counters.

The Questions and Answers should be like this:—

Q. Represent “No x′ are y′.”

A. Grey Counter in S.E. Cell.

Q. Interpret Red Counter on E. partition.

A. “Some y′ exist.”

Q. Represent “All y′ are x.”

A. Red in N.E. Cell; Grey in S.E.

Q. Interpret Grey Counter in S.W. Cell.

A. “No x′y exist” = “No x′ are y” = “No y are x′”.

&c., &c.

At first the Examinee will need to have the Board and Counters before him; but he will soon learn to dispense with these, and to answer with his eyes shut or gazing into vacancy.

[Work Examples § 1, 5–8 (p. 97).]

BOOK IV.

THE TRILITERAL DIAGRAM.

CHAPTER I.

SYMBOLS AND CELLS.

First, let us suppose that the above left-hand Diagram is the Biliteral Diagram that we have been using in Book III., and that we change it into a Triliteral Diagram by drawing an Inner Square, so as to divide each of its 4 Cells into 2 portions, thus making 8 Cells altogether. The right-hand Diagram shows the result.

[The Reader is strongly advised, in reading this Chapter, not to refer to the above Diagrams, but to make a large copy of the right-hand one for himself, without any letters, and to have it by him while he reads, and keep his finger on that particular part of it, about which he is reading.]

Secondly, let us suppose that we have selected a certain Adjunct, which we may call “m”, and have subdivided the xy-Class into the two Classes whose Differentiæ are m and m′, and that we have assigned the N.W. Inner Cell to the one (which we may call “the Class of xym-Things”, or “the xym-Class”), and the N.W. Outer Cell to the other (which we may call “the Class of xym′-Things”, or “the xym′-Class”).

[Thus, in the “books” example, we might say “Let m mean ‘bound’, so that m′ will mean ‘unbound’”, and we might suppose that we had subdivided the Class “old English books” into the two Classes, “old English bound books” and “old English unbound books”, and had assigned the N.W. Inner Cell to the one, and the N.W. Outer Cell to the other.]

Thirdly, let us suppose that we have subdivided the xy′-Class, the x′y-Class, and the x′y′-Class in the same manner, and have, in each case, assigned the Inner Cell to the Class possessing the Attribute m, and the Outer Cell to the Class possessing the Attribute m′.

[Thus, in the “books” example, we might suppose that we had subdivided the “new English books” into the two Classes, “new English bound books” and “new English unbound books”, and had assigned the S.W. Inner Cell to the one, and the S.W. Outer Cell to the other.]

It is evident that we have now assigned the Inner Square to the m-Class, and the Outer Border to the m′-Class.

[Thus, in the “books” example, we have assigned the Inner Square to “bound books” and the Outer Border to “unbound books”.]

When the Reader has made himself familiar with this Diagram, he ought to be able to find, in a moment, the Compartment assigned to a particular pair of Attributes, or the Cell assigned to a particular trio of Attributes. The following Rules will help him in doing this:—

(1) Arrange the Attributes in the order x, y, m.

 (2) Take the first of them and find the Compartment assigned to it.

(3) Then take the second, and find what portion of that compartment is assigned to it.

(4) Treat the third, if there is one, in the same way.

[For example, suppose we have to find the Compartment assigned to ym. We say to ourselves “y has the West Half; and m has the Inner portion of that West Half.”

Again, suppose we have to find the Cell assigned to x′ym′. We say to ourselves “x′ has the South Half; y has the West portion of that South Half, i.e. has the South-West Quarter; and m′ has the Outer portion of that South-West Quarter.”]

The Reader should now get his genial friend to question him on the Table given on the next page, in the style of the following specimen-Dialogue.

Q.

Adjunct for South Half, Inner Portion?

A.

x′m.

Q.

Compartment for m′?

A.

The Outer Border.

Q.

Adjunct for North-East Quarter, Outer Portion?

A.

xy′m′.

Q.

Compartment for ym?

A.

West Half, Inner Portion.

Q.

Adjunct for South Half?

A.

x′.

Q.

Compartment for x′y′m?

A.

South-East Quarter, Inner Portion.

&c. &c.

TABLE IV.

 Adjunct 

 of 

 Classes. 

 Compartments, 

 or Cells, 

 assigned to them. 

 x

 North

Half. 

 x′

 South

〃 

 y

 West

〃 

 y′

 East

〃 

 m

 Inner

Square. 

 m′

 Outer

Border. 

 xy

 North-

West

Quarter. 

 xy′

〃

East

〃 

 x′y

 South-

West

〃 

 x′y′

〃

East

〃 

 xm

 North

Half,

Inner

Portion. 

 xm′

〃

〃 

Outer

〃 

 x′m

 South

〃 

Inner

〃 

 x′m′

〃

〃 

Outer

〃 

 ym

 West

〃 

Inner

〃 

 ym′

〃

〃 

Outer

〃 

 y′m

 East

〃 

Inner

〃 

 y′m′

〃 

〃 

Outer

〃 

 xym

 North-

West

Quarter, 

Inner

Portion. 

 xym′

〃

〃 

〃 

Outer

〃 

 xy′m

〃

East

〃 

Inner

〃 

 xy′m′

〃

〃 

〃 

Outer

〃 

 x′ym

 South-

West

〃 

Inner

〃 

 x′ym′

〃

〃 

〃 

Outer

〃 

 x′y′m

〃

East

〃 

Inner

〃 

 x′y′m′

〃

〃 

〃 

Outer

〃 

CHAPTER II.

REPRESENTATION OF PROPOSITIONS IN TERMS OF x AND m, OR OF y AND m.

§ 1.

Representation of Propositions of Existence in terms of x and m, or of y and m.

Let us take, first, the Proposition “Some xm exist”.

[Note that the full meaning of this Proposition is (as explained at p. 12) “Some existing Things are xm-Things”.]

This tells us that there is at least one Thing in the Inner portion of the North Half; that is, that this Compartment is occupied. And this we can evidently represent by placing a Red Counter on the partition which divides it.

[In the “books” example, this Proposition would mean “Some old bound books exist” (or “There are some old bound books”).]

Similarly we may represent the seven similar Propositions, “Some xm′ exist”, “Some x′m exist”, “Some x′m′ exist”, “Some ym exist”, “Some ym′ exist”, “Some y′m exist”, and “Some y′m′ exist”.

Let us take, next, the Proposition “No xm exist”.

This tells us that there is nothing in the Inner portion of the North Half; that is, that this Compartment is empty. And this we can represent by placing two Grey Counters in it, one in each Cell.

Similarly we may represent the seven similar Propositions, in terms of x and m, or of y and m, viz. “No xm′ exist”, “No x′m exist”, &c.

These sixteen Propositions of Existence are the only ones that we shall have to represent on this Diagram.

§ 2.

Representation of Propositions of Relation in terms of x and m, or of y and m.

Let us take, first, the Pair of Converse Propositions

“Some x are m” = “Some m are x.”

We know that each of these is equivalent to the Proposition of Existence “Some xm exist”, which we already know how to represent.

Similarly for the seven similar Pairs, in terms of x and m, or of y and m.

Let us take, next, the Pair of Converse Propositions

“No x are m” = “No m are x.”

We know that each of these is equivalent to the Proposition of Existence “No xm exist”, which we already know how to represent.

Similarly for the seven similar Pairs, in terms of x and m, or of y and m.

Let us take, next, the Proposition “All x are m.”

We know (see p. 18) that this is a Double Proposition, and equivalent to the two Propositions “Some x are m” and “No x are m′ ”, each of which we already know how to represent.

Similarly for the fifteen similar Propositions, in terms of x and m, or of y and m.

These thirty-two Propositions of Relation are the only ones that we shall have to represent on this Diagram.

The Reader should now get his genial friend to question him on the following four Tables.

The Victim should have nothing before him but a blank Triliteral Diagram, a Red Counter, and 2 Grey ones, with which he is to represent the various Propositions named by the Inquisitor, e.g. “No y′ are m”, “Some xm′ exist”, &c., &c.

TABLE V.

   Some xm exist

    = Some x are m

    = Some m are x   

   No xm exist

    = No x are m

    = No m are x   

   Some xm′ exist

    = Some x are m′

    = Some m′ are x   

   No xm′ exist

    = No x are m′

    = No m′ are x   

   Some x′m exist

    = Some x′ are m

    = Some m are x′   

   No x′m exist

    = No x′ are m

    = No m are x′   

   Some x′m′ exist

    = Some x′ are m′

    = Some m′ are x′   

   No x′m′ exist

    = No x′ are m′

    = No m′ are x′   

TABLE VI.

   Some ym exist

    = Some y are m

    = Some m are y   

   No ym exist

    = No y are m

    = No m are y   

   Some ym′ exist

    = Some y are m′

    = Some m′ are y   

   No ym′ exist

    = No y are m′

    = No m′ are y   

   Some y′m exist

    = Some y′ are m

    = Some m are y′   

   No y′m exist

    = No y′ are m

    = No m are y′   

   Some y′m′ exist

    = Some y′ are m′

    = Some m′ are y′   

   No y′m′ exist

    = No y′ are m′

    = No m′ are y′   

TABLE VII.

   All x are m   

   All x are m′   

   All x′ are m   

   All x′ are m′   

   All m are x   

   All m are x′   

   All m′ are x   

   All m′ are x′   

TABLE VIII.

   All y are m   

   All y are m′   

   All y′ are m   

   All y′ are m′   

   All m are y   

   All m are y′   

   All m′ are y   

   All m′ are y′   

CHAPTER III.

REPRESENTATION OF TWO PROPOSITIONS OF RELATION, ONE IN TERMS OF x AND m, AND THE OTHER IN TERMS OF y AND m, ON THE SAME DIAGRAM.

The Reader had better now begin to draw little Diagrams for himself, and to mark them with the Digits “I” and “O”, instead of using the Board and Counters: he may put a “I” to represent a Red Counter (this may be interpreted to mean “There is at least one Thing here”), and a “O” to represent a Grey Counter (this may be interpreted to mean “There is nothing here”).

The Pair of Propositions, that we shall have to represent, will always be, one in terms of x and m, and the other in terms of y and m.

When we have to represent a Proposition beginning with “All”, we break it up into the two Propositions to which it is equivalent.

When we have to represent, on the same Diagram, Propositions, of which some begin with “Some” and others with “No”, we represent the negative ones first. This will sometimes save us from having to put a “I” “on a fence” and afterwards having to shift it into a Cell.

[Let us work a few examples.

(1)

“No x are m′;

  No y′ are m”.

Let us first represent “No x are m′”. This gives us Diagram a.

Then, representing “No y′ are m” on the same Diagram, we get Diagram b.

a

b

(2)

“Some m are x;

  No m are y”.

If, neglecting the Rule, we were begin with “Some m are x”, we should get Diagram a.

And if we were then to take “No m are y”, which tells us that the Inner N.W. Cell is empty, we should be obliged to take the “I” off the fence (as it no longer has the choice of two Cells), and to put it into the Inner N.E. Cell, as in Diagram c.

This trouble may be saved by beginning with “No m are y”, as in Diagram b.

And now, when we take “Some m are x”, there is no fence to sit on! The “I” has to go, at once, into the N.E. Cell, as in Diagram c.

a

b

c

(3)

“No x′ are m′;

  All m are y”.

Here we begin by breaking up the Second into the two Propositions to which it is equivalent. Thus we have three Propositions to represent, viz.—

(1) “No x′ are m′;

(2)   Some m are y;

(3)   No m are y′”.

These we will take in the order 1, 3, 2.

First we take No. (1), viz. “No x′ are m′”. This gives us Diagram a.

Adding to this, No. (3), viz. “No m are y′”, we get Diagram b.

This time the “I”, representing No. (2), viz. “Some m are y,” has to sit on the fence, as there is no “O” to order it off! This gives us Diagram c.

a

b

c

(4)

“All m are x;

  All y are m”.

Here we break up both Propositions, and thus get four to represent, viz.—

(1) “Some m are x;

(2)   No m are x′;

(3)   Some y are m;

(4)   No y are m′”.

These we will take in the order 2, 4, 1, 3.

First we take No. (2), viz. “No m are x′”. This gives us Diagram a.

To this we add No. (4), viz. “No y are m′”, and thus get Diagram b.

If we were to add to this No. (1), viz. “Some m are x”, we should have to put the “I” on a fence: so let us try No. (3) instead, viz. “Some y are m”. This gives us Diagram c.

And now there is no need to trouble about No. (1), as it would not add anything to our information to put a “I” on the fence. The Diagram already tells us that “Some m are x”.]

a

b

c

[Work Examples § 1, 9–12 (p. 97); § 2, 1–20 (p. 98).]

CHAPTER IV.

INTERPRETATION, IN TERMS OF x AND y, OF TRILITERAL DIAGRAM, WHEN MARKED WITH COUNTERS OR DIGITS.

The problem before us is, given a marked Triliteral Diagram, to ascertain what Propositions of Relation, in terms of x and y, are represented on it.

The best plan, for a beginner, is to draw a Biliteral Diagram alongside of it, and to transfer, from the one to the other, all the information he can. He can then read off, from the Biliteral Diagram, the required Propositions. After a little practice, he will be able to dispense with the Biliteral Diagram, and to read off the result from the Triliteral Diagram itself.

To transfer the information, observe the following Rules:—

(1) Examine the N.W. Quarter of the Triliteral Diagram.

(2) If it contains a “I”, in either Cell, it is certainly occupied, and you may mark the N.W. Quarter of the Biliteral Diagram with a “I”.

(3) If it contains two “O”s, one in each Cell, it is certainly empty, and you may mark the N.W. Quarter of the Biliteral Diagram with a “O”.

(4) Deal in the same way with the N.E., the S.W., and the S.E. Quarter.

[Let us take, as examples, the results of the four Examples worked in the previous Chapters.

(1)

In the N.W. Quarter, only one of the two Cells is marked as empty: so we do not know whether the N.W. Quarter of the Biliteral Diagram is occupied or empty: so we cannot mark it.

In the N.E. Quarter, we find two “O”s: so this Quarter is certainly empty; and we mark it so on the Biliteral Diagram.

In the S.W. Quarter, we have no information at all.

In the S.E. Quarter, we have not enough to use.

We may read off the result as “No x are y′”, or “No y′ are x,” whichever we prefer.

(2)

In the N.W. Quarter, we have not enough information to use.

In the N.E. Quarter, we find a “I”. This shows us that it is occupied: so we may mark the N.E. Quarter on the Biliteral Diagram with a “I”.

In the S.W. Quarter, we have not enough information to use.

In the S.E. Quarter, we have none at all.

We may read off the result as “Some x are y′”, or “Some y′ are x”, whichever we prefer.

(3)

In the N.W. Quarter, we have no information. (The “I”, sitting on the fence, is of no use to us until we know on which side he means to jump down!)

In the N.E. Quarter, we have not enough information to use.

Neither have we in the S.W. Quarter.

The S.E. Quarter is the only one that yields enough information to use. It is certainly empty: so we mark it as such on the Biliteral Diagram.

We may read off the results as “No x′ are y′”, or “No y′ are x′”, whichever we prefer.

(4)

The N.W. Quarter is occupied, in spite of the “O” in the Outer Cell. So we mark it with a “I” on the Biliteral Diagram.

The N.E. Quarter yields no information.

The S.W. Quarter is certainly empty. So we mark it as such on the Biliteral Diagram.

The S.E. Quarter does not yield enough information to use.

We read off the result as “All y are x.”]

[Review Tables V, VI (pp. 46, 47). Work Examples § 1, 13–16 (p. 97); § 2, 21–32 (p. 98); § 3, 1–20 (p. 99).]

BOOK V.

SYLLOGISMS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY

When a Trio of Biliteral Propositions of Relation is such that

(1) all their six Terms are Species of the same Genus,

(2) every two of them contain between them a Pair of codivisional Classes,

(3) the three Propositions are so related that, if the first two were true, the third would be true,

the Trio is called a ‘Syllogism’; the Genus, of which each of the six Terms is a Species, is called its ‘Universe of Discourse’, or, more briefly, its ‘Univ.’; the first two Propositions are called its ‘Premisses’, and the third its ‘Conclusion’; also the Pair of codivisional Terms in the Premisses are called its ‘Eliminands’, and the other two its ‘Retinends’.

The Conclusion of a Syllogism is said to be ‘consequent’ from its Premisses: hence it is usual to prefix to it the word “Therefore” (or the Symbol “∴”).

[Note that the ‘Eliminands’ are so called because they are eliminated, and do not appear in the Conclusion; and that the ‘Retinends’ are so called because they are retained, and do appear in the Conclusion.

Note also that the question, whether the Conclusion is or is not consequent from the Premisses, is not affected by the actual truth or falsity of any of the Trio, but depends entirely on their relationship to each other.

As a specimen-Syllogism, let us take the Trio

“No x-Things are m-Things;

  No y-Things are m′-Things.

          No x-Things are y-Things.”

which we may write, as explained at p. 26, thus:—

“No x are m;

  No y are m′.

          No x are y”.

Here the first and second contain the Pair of codivisional Classes m and m′; the first and third contain the Pair x and x; and the second and third contain the Pair y and y.

Also the three Propositions are (as we shall see hereafter) so related that, if the first two were true, the third would also be true.

Hence the Trio is a Syllogism; the two Propositions, “No x are m” and “No y are m′”, are its Premisses; the Proposition “No x are y” is its Conclusion; the Terms m and m′ are its Eliminands; and the Terms x and y are its Retinends.

Hence we may write it thus:—

“No x are m;

  No y are m′.

  ∴ No x are y”.

As a second specimen, let us take the Trio

“All cats understand French;

  Some chickens are cats.

          Some chickens understand French”.

These, put into normal form, are

“All cats are creatures understanding French;

  Some chickens are cats.

          Some chickens are creatures understanding French”.

Here all the six Terms are Species of the Genus “creatures.”

Also the first and second Propositions contain the Pair of codivisional Classes “cats” and “cats”; the first and third contain the Pair “creatures understanding French” and “creatures understanding French”; and the second and third contain the Pair “chickens” and “chickens”.

Also the three Propositions are (as we shall see at p. 64) so related that, if the first two were true, the third would be true. (The first two are, as it happens, not strictly true in our planet. But there is nothing to hinder them from being true in some other planet, say Mars or Jupiter—in which case the third would also be true in that planet, and its inhabitants would probably engage chickens as nursery-governesses. They would thus secure a singular contingent privilege, unknown in England, namely, that they would be able, at any time when provisions ran short, to utilise the nursery-governess for the nursery-dinner!)

Hence the Trio is a Syllogism; the Genus “creatures” is its ‘Univ.’; the two Propositions, “All cats understand French“ and ”Some chickens are cats”, are its Premisses, the Proposition “Some chickens understand French” is its Conclusion; the Terms “cats” and “cats” are its Eliminands; and the Terms, “creatures understanding French” and “chickens”, are its Retinends.

Hence we may write it thus:—

“All cats understand French;

  Some chickens are cats;

  ∴ Some chickens understand French”.]

CHAPTER II.

PROBLEMS IN SYLLOGISMS.

§ 1.

Introductory.

When the Terms of a Proposition are represented by words, it is said to be ‘concrete’; when by letters, ‘abstract.’

To translate a Proposition from concrete into abstract form, we fix on a Univ., and regard each Term as a Species of it, and we choose a letter to represent its Differentia.

[For example, suppose we wish to translate “Some soldiers are brave” into abstract form. We may take “men” as Univ., and regard “soldiers” and “brave men” as Species of the Genus “men”; and we may choose x to represent the peculiar Attribute (say “military”) of “soldiers,” and y to represent “brave.” Then the Proposition may be written “Some military men are brave men”; i.e. “Some x-men are y-men”; i.e. (omitting “men,” as explained at p. 26) “Some x are y.”

In practice, we should merely say “Let Univ. be “men”, x = soldiers, y = brave”, and at once translate “Some soldiers are brave” into “Some x are y.”]

The Problems we shall have to solve are of two kinds, viz.

(1) “Given a Pair of Propositions of Relation, which contain between them a pair of codivisional Classes, and which are proposed as Premisses: to ascertain what Conclusion, if any, is consequent from them.”

(2) “Given a Trio of Propositions of Relation, of which every two contain a pair of codivisional Classes, and which are proposed as a Syllogism: to ascertain whether the proposed Conclusion is consequent from the proposed Premisses, and, if so, whether it is complete.”

These Problems we will discuss separately.

§ 2.

Given a Pair of Propositions of Relation, which contain between them a pair of codivisional Classes, and which are proposed as Premisses: to ascertain what Conclusion, if any, is consequent from them.

The Rules, for doing this, are as follows:—

(1) Determine the ‘Universe of Discourse’.

(2) Construct a Dictionary, making m and m (or m and m′) represent the pair of codivisional Classes, and x (or x′) and y (or y′) the other two.

(3) Translate the proposed Premisses into abstract form.

(4) Represent them, together, on a Triliteral Diagram.

(5) Ascertain what Proposition, if any, in terms of x and y, is also represented on it.

(6) Translate this into concrete form.

It is evident that, if the proposed Premisses were true, this other Proposition would also be true. Hence it is a Conclusion consequent from the proposed Premisses.

[Let us work some examples.

(1)

“No son of mine is dishonest;

  People always treat an honest man with respect”.

Taking “men” as Univ., we may write these as follows:—

“No sons of mine are dishonest men;

  All honest men are men treated with respect”.

We can now construct our Dictionary, viz. m = honest; x = sons of mine; y = treated with respect.

(Note that the expression “x = sons of mine” is an abbreviated form of “x = the Differentia of ‘sons of mine’, when regarded as a Species of ‘men’”.)

The next thing is to translate the proposed Premisses into abstract form, as follows:—

“No x are m′;

  All m are y”.

Next, by the process described at p. 50, we represent these on a Triliteral Diagram, thus:—

Next, by the process described at p. 53, we transfer to a Biliteral Diagram all the information we can.

The result we read as “No x are y′” or as “No y′ are x,” whichever we prefer. So we refer to our Dictionary, to see which will look best; and we choose

“No x are y′”,

which, translated into concrete form, is

“No son of mine fails to be treated with respect”.

(2)

“All cats understand French;

  Some chickens are cats”.

Taking “creatures” as Univ., we write these as follows:—

“All cats are creatures understanding French;

  Some chickens are cats”.

We can now construct our Dictionary, viz. m = cats; x = understanding French; y = chickens.

The proposed Premisses, translated into abstract form, are

“All m are x;

  Some y are m”.

In order to represent these on a Triliteral Diagram, we break up the first into the two Propositions to which it is equivalent, and thus get the three Propositions

(1) “Some m are x;

(2)   No m are x′;

(3)   Some y are m”.

The Rule, given at p. 50, would make us take these in the order 2, 1, 3.

This, however, would produce the result

So it would be better to take them in the order 2, 3, 1. Nos. (2) and (3) give us the result here shown; and now we need not trouble about No. (1), as the Proposition “Some m are x” is already represented on the Diagram.

Transferring our information to a Biliteral Diagram, we get

This result we can read either as “Some x are y” or “Some y are x”.

After consulting our Dictionary, we choose

“Some y are x”,

which, translated into concrete form, is

“Some chickens understand French.”

(3)

“All diligent students are successful;

  All ignorant students are unsuccessful”.

Let Univ. be “students”; m = successful; x = diligent; y = ignorant.

These Premisses, in abstract form, are

“All x are m;

  All y are m′”.

These, broken up, give us the four Propositions

(1) “Some x are m;

(2)   No x are m′;

(3)   Some y are m′;

(4)   No y are m”.

which we will take in the order 2, 4, 1, 3.

Representing these on a Triliteral Diagram, we get

And this information, transferred to a Biliteral Diagram, is

Here we get two Conclusions, viz.

“All x are y′;

  All y are x′.”

And these, translated into concrete form, are

“All diligent students are (not-ignorant, i.e.) learned;

  All ignorant students are (not-diligent, i.e.) idle”. 

(4)

“Of the prisoners who were put on their trial at the last

      Assizes, all, against whom the verdict ‘guilty’ was

      returned, were sentenced to imprisonment;

  Some, who were sentenced to imprisonment, were also

      sentenced to hard labour”.

Let Univ. be “the prisoners who were put on their trial at the last Assizes”; m = who were sentenced to imprisonment; x = against whom the verdict ‘guilty’ was returned; y = who were sentenced to hard labour.

The Premisses, translated into abstract form, are

“All x are m;

  Some m are y”.

Breaking up the first, we get the three

(1) “Some x are m;

(2)   No x are m′;

(3)   Some m are y”.

Representing these, in the order 2, 1, 3, on a Triliteral Diagram, we get

Here we get no Conclusion at all.

You would very likely have guessed, if you had seen only the Premisses, that the Conclusion would be

“Some, against whom the verdict ‘guilty’ was returned,

  were sentenced to hard labour”.

But this Conclusion is not even true, with regard to the Assizes I have here invented.

“Not true!” you exclaim. “Then who were they, who were sentenced to imprisonment and were also sentenced to hard labour? They must have had the verdict ‘guilty’ returned against them, or how could they be sentenced?”

Well, it happened like this, you see. They were three ruffians, who had committed highway-robbery. When they were put on their trial, they pleaded ‘guilty’. So no verdict was returned at all; and they were sentenced at once.]

I will now work out, in their briefest form, as models for the Reader to imitate in working examples, the above four concrete Problems.

(1)

“No son of mine is dishonest;

  People always treat an honest man with respect.”

Univ. “men”; m = honest; x = my sons; y = treated with respect.

“No x are m′;

 All m are y.”

∴ “No x are y′.”

i.e. “No son of mine ever fails to be treated with respect.”

(2)

“All cats understand French;

  Some chickens are cats”.

Univ. “creatures”; m = cats; x = understanding French; y = chickens.

“All m are x;

 Some y are m.”

∴ “Some y are x.”

i.e. “Some chickens understand French.”

(3)

“All diligent students are successful;

  All ignorant students are unsuccessful”.

Univ. “students”; m = successful; x = diligent; y = ignorant.

“All x are m;

 All y are m′.”

∴ “All x are y′;

    All y are x′.”

i.e. “All diligent students are learned; and all ignorant students are idle”.

(4)

“Of the prisoners who were put on their trial at the last Assizes, all, against whom the verdict ‘guilty’ was returned, were sentenced to imprisonment;

Some, who were sentenced to imprisonment, were also sentenced to hard labour”.

Univ. “prisoners who were put on their trial at the last Assizes”, m = sentenced to imprisonment; x = against whom the verdict ‘guilty’ was returned; y = sentenced to hard labour.

“All x are m;

 Some m are y.”

There is no Conclusion.

[Review Tables VII, VIII (pp. 48, 49). Work Examples § 1, 17–21 (p. 97); § 4, 1–6 (p. 100); § 5, 1–6 (p. 101).]

§ 3.

Given a Trio of Propositions of Relation, of which every two contain a Pair of codivisional Classes, and which are proposed as a Syllogism; to ascertain whether the proposed Conclusion is consequent from the proposed Premisses, and, if so, whether it is complete.

The Rules, for doing this, are as follows:—

(1) Take the proposed Premisses, and ascertain, by the process described at p. 60, what Conclusion, if any, is consequent from them.

(2) If there be no Conclusion, say so.

(3) If there be a Conclusion, compare it with the proposed Conclusion, and pronounce accordingly.

I will now work out, in their briefest form, as models for the Reader to imitate in working examples, six Problems.

(1)

“All soldiers are strong;

  All soldiers are brave.

          Some strong men are brave.”

Univ. “men”; m = soldiers; x = strong; y = brave.

“All m are x;

 All m are y.

   Some x are y.”

∴ “Some x are y.”

Hence proposed Conclusion is right.

(2)

“I admire these pictures;

  When I admire anything I wish to examine it thoroughly.

      I wish to examine some of these pictures thoroughly.”

Univ. “things”; m = admired by me; x = these pictures; y = things which I wish to examine thoroughly.

“All x are m;

 All m are y.

   Some x are y.”

∴ “All x are y.”

Hence proposed Conclusion is incomplete, the complete one being “I wish to examine all these pictures thoroughly”.

(3)

“None but the brave deserve the fair;

  Some braggarts are cowards.

      Some braggarts do not deserve the fair.”

Univ. “persons”; m = brave; x = deserving of the fair; y = braggarts.

“No m′ are x;

 Some y are m′.

   Some y are x′.”

∴ “Some y are x′.”

Hence proposed Conclusion is right.

(4)

“All soldiers can march;

  Some babies are not soldiers.

      Some babies cannot march”.

Univ. “persons”; m = soldiers; x = able to march; y = babies.

“All m are x;

 Some y are m′.

   Some y are x′.”

There is no Conclusion.

(5)

“All selfish men are unpopular;

  All obliging men are popular.

      All obliging men are unselfish”.

Univ. “men”; m = popular; x = selfish; y = obliging.

“All x are m′;

 All y are m.

   All y are x′.”

∴ “All x are y′;

   All y are x′.”

Hence proposed Conclusion is incomplete, the complete one containing, in addition, “All selfish men are disobliging”.

(6)

”No one, who means to go by the train and cannot get a conveyance, and has not enough time to walk to the station, can do without running;

  This party of tourists mean to go by the train and cannot get a conveyance, but they have plenty of time to walk to the station.

  This party of tourists need not run.”

Univ. “persons meaning to go by the train, and unable to get a conveyance”; m = having enough time to walk to the station; x = needing to run; y = these tourists.

“No m′ are x′;

 All y are m.

   All y are x′.”

There is no Conclusion.

[Here is another opportunity, gentle Reader, for playing a trick on your innocent friend. Put the proposed Syllogism before him, and ask him what he thinks of the Conclusion.

He will reply “Why, it’s perfectly correct, of course! And if your precious Logic-book tells you it isn’t, don’t believe it! You don’t mean to tell me those tourists need to run? If I were one of them, and knew the Premisses to be true, I should be quite clear that I needn’t run—and I should walk!”

And you will reply “But suppose there was a mad bull behind you?”

And then your innocent friend will say “Hum! Ha! I must think that over a bit!”

You may then explain to him, as a convenient test of the soundness of a Syllogism, that, if circumstances can be invented which, without interfering with the truth of the Premisses, would make the Conclusion false, the Syllogism must be unsound.]

[Review Tables V–VIII (pp. 46–49). Work Examples § 4, 7–12 (p. 100); § 5, 7–12 (p. 101); § 6, 1–10 (p. 106); § 7, 1–6 (pp. 107, 108).]

BOOK VI.

THE METHOD OF SUBSCRIPTS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

Let us agree that “x1” shall mean “Some existing Things have the Attribute x”, i.e. (more briefly) “Some x exist”; also that “xy1” shall mean “Some xy exist”, and so on. Such a Proposition may be called an ‘Entity.’

[Note that, when there are two letters in the expression, it does not in the least matter which stands first: “xy1” and “yx1” mean exactly the same.]

Also that “x0” shall mean “No existing Things have the Attribute x”, i.e. (more briefly) “No x exist”; also that “xy0” shall mean “No xy exist”, and so on. Such a Proposition may be called a ‘Nullity’.

Also that “†” shall mean “and”.

[Thus “ab1 † cd0” means “Some ab exist and no cd exist”.]

Also that “¶” shall mean “would, if true, prove”.

[Thus, “x0 ¶ xy0” means “The Proposition ‘No x exist’ would, if true, prove the Proposition ‘No xy exist’”.]

When two Letters are both of them accented, or both not accented, they are said to have ‘Like Signs’, or to be ‘Like’: when one is accented, and the other not, they are said to have ‘Unlike Signs’, or to be ‘Unlike’.

CHAPTER II.

REPRESENTATION OF PROPOSITIONS OF RELATION.

Let us take, first, the Proposition “Some x are y”.

This, we know, is equivalent to the Proposition of Existence “Some xy exist”.  Hence it may be represented by the expression “xy1”.

The Converse Proposition “Some y are x” may of course be represented by the same expression, viz. “xy1”.

Similarly we may represent the three similar Pairs of Converse Propositions, viz.—

“Some x are y′”  = “Some y′ are x”,

“Some x′ are y”  = “Some y are x′”,

“Some x′ are y′” = “Some y′ are x′”.

Let us take, next, the Proposition “No x are y”.

This, we know, is equivalent to the Proposition of Existence “No xy exist”.  Hence it may be represented by the expression “xy0”.

The Converse Proposition “No y are x” may of course be represented by the same expression, viz. “xy0”.

Similarly we may represent the three similar Pairs of Converse Propositions, viz.—

“No x are y′”  = “No y′ are x”,

“No x′ are y”  = “No y are x′”,

“No x′ are y′” = “No y′ are x′”.

Let us take, next, the Proposition “All x are y”.

Now it is evident that the Double Proposition of Existence “Some x exist and no xy′ exist” tells us that some x-Things exist, but that none of them have the Attribute y′: that is, it tells us that all of them have the Attribute y: that is, it tells us that “All x are y”.

Also it is evident that the expression “x1 † xy′0” represents this Double Proposition.

Hence it also represents the Proposition “All x are y”.

[The Reader will perhaps be puzzled by the statement that the Proposition “All x are y” is equivalent to the Double Proposition “Some x exist and no xy′ exist,” remembering that it was stated, at p. 33, to be equivalent to the Double Proposition “Some x are y and no x are y′” (i.e. “Some xy exist and no xy′ exist”). The explanation is that the Proposition “Some xy exist” contains superfluous information. “Some x exist” is enough for our purpose.]

This expression may be written in a shorter form, viz. “x1y′0”, since each Subscript takes effect back to the beginning of the expression.

Similarly we may represent the seven similar Propositions “All x are y′”, “All x′ are y”, “All x′ are y′”, “All y are x”, “All y are x′”, “All y′ are x”, and “All y′ are x′”.

[The Reader should make out all these for himself.]

It will be convenient to remember that, in translating a Proposition, beginning with “All”, from abstract form into subscript form, or vice versâ, the Predicate changes sign (that is, changes from positive to negative, or else from negative to positive).

[Thus, the Proposition “All y are x′” becomes “y1x0”, where the Predicate changes from x′ to x.

Again, the expression “x′1y′0” becomes “All x′ are y”, where the Predicate changes for y′ to y.]

CHAPTER III.

SYLLOGISMS.

§ 1.

Representation of Syllogisms.

We already know how to represent each of the three Propositions of a Syllogism in subscript form. When that is done, all we need, besides, is to write the three expressions in a row, with “†” between the Premisses, and “¶” before the Conclusion.

[Thus the Syllogism

“No x are m′;

  All m are y.

        ∴ No x are y′.”

may be represented thus:—

xm′0 † m1y′0 ¶ xy′0

When a Proposition has to be translated from concrete form into subscript form, the Reader will find it convenient, just at first, to translate it into abstract form, and thence into subscript form. But, after a little practice, he will find it quite easy to go straight from concrete form to subscript form.]

§ 2.

Formulæ for solving Problems in Syllogisms.

When once we have found, by Diagrams, the Conclusion to a given Pair of Premisses, and have represented the Syllogism in subscript form, we have a Formula, by which we can at once find, without having to use Diagrams again, the Conclusion to any other Pair of Premisses having the same subscript forms.

[Thus, the expression

xm0 † ym′0 ¶ xy0

is a Formula, by which we can find the Conclusion to any Pair of Premisses whose subscript forms are

xm0 † ym′0

For example, suppose we had the Pair of Propositions

“No gluttons are healthy;

  No unhealthy men are strong”.

proposed as Premisses. Taking “men” as our ‘Universe’, and making m = healthy; x = gluttons; y = strong; we might translate the Pair into abstract form, thus:—

“No x are m;

  No m′ are y”.

These, in subscript form, would be

xm0 † m′y0

which are identical with those in our Formula. Hence we at once know the Conclusion to be

xy0

that is, in abstract form,

“No x are y”;

that is, in concrete form,

“No gluttons are strong”.]

I shall now take three different forms of Pairs of Premisses, and work out their Conclusions, once for all, by Diagrams; and thus obtain some useful Formulæ. I shall call them “Fig. I”, “Fig. II”, and “Fig. III”.

Fig. I.

This includes any Pair of Premisses which are both of them Nullities, and which contain Unlike Eliminands.

The simplest case is

xm0 † ym′0

∴ xy0

In this case we see that the Conclusion is a Nullity, and that the Retinends have kept their Signs.

And we should find this Rule to hold good with any Pair of Premisses which fulfil the given conditions.

[The Reader had better satisfy himself of this, by working out, on Diagrams, several varieties, such as

m1x0 † ym′0 (which ¶ xy0)

xm′0 † m1y0 (which ¶ xy0)

x′m0 † ym′0 (which ¶ x′y0)

m′1x′0 † m1y′0 (which ¶ x′y′0).]

If either Retinend is asserted in the Premisses to exist, of course it may be so asserted in the Conclusion.

Hence we get two Variants of Fig. I, viz.

(α) where one Retinend is so asserted;

(β) where both are so asserted.

[The Reader had better work out, on Diagrams, examples of these two Variants, such as

m1x0 † y1m′0 (which proves y1x0)

x1m′0 † m1y0 (which proves x1y0)

x′1m0 † y1m′0 (which proves x′1y0 † y1x′0).]

The Formula, to be remembered, is

xm0 † ym′0 ¶ xy0

with the following two Rules:—

(1) Two Nullities, with Unlike Eliminands, yield a Nullity, in which both Retinends keep their Signs.

(2) A Retinend, asserted in the Premisses to exist, may be so asserted in the Conclusion.

[Note that Rule (1) is merely the Formula expressed in words.]

Fig. II.

This includes any Pair of Premisses, of which one is a Nullity and the other an Entity, and which contain Like Eliminands.

The simplest case is

xm0 † ym1

∴ x′y1

In this case we see that the Conclusion is an Entity, and that the Nullity-Retinend has changed its Sign.

And we should find this Rule to hold good with any Pair of Premisses which fulfil the given conditions.

[The Reader had better satisfy himself of this, by working out, on Diagrams, several varieties, such as

x′m0 † ym1 (which ¶ xy1)

x1m′0 † y′m′1 (which ¶ x′y′1)

m1x0 † y′m1 (which ¶ x′y′1).]

The Formula, to be remembered, is,

xm0 † ym1 ¶ x′y1

with the following Rule:—

A Nullity and an Entity, with Like Eliminands, yield an Entity, in which the Nullity-Retinend changes its Sign.

[Note that this Rule is merely the Formula expressed in words.]

Fig. III.

This includes any Pair of Premisses which are both of them Nullities, and which contain Like Eliminands asserted to exist.

The simplest case is

xm0 † ym0 † m1

[Note that “m1” is here stated separately, because it does not matter in which of the two Premisses it occurs: so that this includes the three forms “m1x0 † ym0”, “xm0 † m1y0”, and “m1x0 † m1y0”.]

∴ x′y′1

In this case we see that the Conclusion is an Entity, and that both Retinends have changed their Signs.

And we should find this Rule to hold good with any Pair of Premisses which fulfil the given conditions.

[The Reader had better satisfy himself of this, by working out, on Diagrams, several varieties, such as

x′m0 † m1y0 (which ¶ xy′1)

m′1x0 † m′y′0 (which ¶ x′y1)

m1x′0 † m1y′0 (which ¶ xy1).]

The Formula, to be remembered, is

xm0 † ym0 † m1 ¶ x′y′1

with the following Rule (which is merely the Formula expressed in words):—

Two Nullities, with Like Eliminands asserted to exist, yield an Entity, in which both Retinends change their Signs.

In order to help the Reader to remember the peculiarities and Formulæ of these three Figures, I will put them all together in one Table.

TABLE IX.

Fig. I.

xm0 † ym′0 ¶ xy0

Two Nullities, with Unlike Eliminands, yield a Nullity, in which both Retinends keep their Signs.

A Retinend, asserted in the Premisses to exist, may be so asserted in the Conclusion.

Fig. II.

xm0 † ym1 ¶ x′y1

A Nullity and an Entity, with Like Eliminands, yield an Entity, in which the Nullity-Retinend changes its Sign.

Fig. III.

xm0 † ym0 † m1 ¶ x′y′1

Two Nullities, with Like Eliminands asserted to exist, yield an Entity, in which both Retinends change their Signs.

I will now work out, by these Formulæ, as models for the Reader to imitate, some Problems in Syllogisms which have been already worked, by Diagrams, in Book V., Chap. II.

(1)

“No son of mine is dishonest;

  People always treat an honest man with respect.”

Univ. “men”; m = honest; x = my sons; y = treated with respect.

xm′0 † m1y′0 ¶ xy′0         [Fig. I.

i.e. “No son of mine ever fails to be treated with respect.”

(2)

“All cats understand French;

  Some chickens are cats.”

Univ. “creatures”; m = cats; x = understanding French; y = chickens.

m1x′0 † ym1 ¶ xy1         [Fig. II.

i.e. “Some chickens understand French.”

(3)

“All diligent students are successful;

  All ignorant students are unsuccessful.”

Univ. “students”; m = successful; x = diligent; y = ignorant.

x1m′0 † y1m0 ¶ x1y0 † y1x0         [Fig. I (β).

i.e. “All diligent students are learned; and all ignorant students are idle.”

(4)

“All soldiers are strong;

  All soldiers are brave.

          Some strong men are brave.”

Univ. “men”; m = soldiers; x = strong; y = brave.

m1x′0 † m1y′0 ¶ xy1         [Fig. III.

Hence proposed Conclusion is right.

(5)

“I admire these pictures;

  When I admire anything, I wish to examine it thoroughly.

          I wish to examine some of these pictures thoroughly.”

Univ. “things”; m = admired by me; x = these; y = things which I wish to examine thoroughly.

x1m′0 † m1y′0 ¶ x1y′0         [Fig. I (α).

Hence proposed Conclusion, xy1, is incomplete, the complete one being “I wish to examine all these pictures thoroughly.”

(6)

“None but the brave deserve the fair;

  Some braggarts are cowards.

          Some braggarts do not deserve the fair.”

Univ. “persons”; m = brave; x = deserving of the fair; y = braggarts.

m′x0 † ym′1 ¶ x′y1         [Fig. II.

Hence proposed Conclusion is right.

(7)

”No one, who means to go by the train and cannot get a conveyance, and has not enough time to walk to the station, can do without running;

  This party of tourists mean to go by the train and cannot get a conveyance, but they have plenty of time to walk to the station.

        This party of tourists need not run.”

Univ. “persons meaning to go by the train, and unable to get a conveyance”; m = having enough time to walk to the station; x = needing to run; y = these tourists.

m′x′0 † y1m′0 do not come under any of the three Figures. Hence it is necessary to return to the Method of Diagrams, as shown at p. 69.

Hence there is no Conclusion.

[Work Examples § 4, 12–20 (p. 100); § 5, 13–24 (pp. 101, 102); § 6, 1–6 (p. 106); § 7, 1–3 (pp. 107, 108). Also read Note (A), at p. 164.]

§ 3.

Fallacies.

Any argument which deceives us, by seeming to prove what it does not really prove, may be called a ‘Fallacy’ (derived from the Latin verb fallo “I deceive”): but the particular kind, to be now discussed, consists of a Pair of Propositions, which are proposed as the Premisses of a Syllogism, but yield no Conclusion.

When each of the proposed Premisses is a Proposition in I, or E, or A, (the only kinds with which we are now concerned,) the Fallacy may be detected by the ‘Method of Diagrams,’ by simply setting them out on a Triliteral Diagram, and observing that they yield no information which can be transferred to the Biliteral Diagram.

But suppose we were working by the ‘Method of Subscripts,’ and had to deal with a Pair of proposed Premisses, which happened to be a ‘Fallacy,’ how could we be certain that they would not yield any Conclusion?

Our best plan is, I think, to deal with Fallacies in the same was as we have already dealt with Syllogisms: that is, to take certain forms of Pairs of Propositions, and to work  them out, once for all, on the Triliteral Diagram, and ascertain that they yield no Conclusion; and then to record them, for future use, as Formulæ for Fallacies, just as we have already recorded our three Formulæ for Syllogisms.

Now, if we were to record the two Sets of Formulæ in the same shape, viz. by the Method of Subscripts, there would be considerable risk of confusing the two kinds. Hence, in order to keep them distinct, I propose to record the Formulæ for Fallacies in words, and to call them “Forms” instead of “Formulæ.”

Let us now proceed to find, by the Method of Diagrams, three “Forms of Fallacies,” which we will then put on record for future use. They are as follows:—

(1) Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.

(2) Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.

(3) Fallacy of two Entity-Premisses.

These shall be discussed separately, and it will be seen that each fails to yield a Conclusion.

(1) Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.

It is evident that neither of the given Propositions can be an Entity, since that kind asserts the existence of both of its Terms (see p. 20). Hence they must both be Nullities.

Hence the given Pair may be represented by (xm0 † ym0), with or without x1, y1.

These, set out on Triliteral Diagrams, are

xm0 † ym0

x1m0 † ym0

xm0 † y1m0

x1m0 † y1m0

(2) Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.

Here the given Pair may be represented by (xm0 † ym′1) with or without x1 or m1.

These, set out on Triliteral Diagrams, are

xm0 † ym′1

x1m0 † ym′1

m1x0 † ym′1

(3) Fallacy of two Entity-Premisses.

Here the given Pair may be represented by either (xm1 † ym1) or (xm1 † ym′1).

These, set out on Triliteral Diagrams, are

xm1 † ym1

xm1 † ym′1

§ 4.

Method of proceeding with a given Pair of Propositions.

Let us suppose that we have before us a Pair of Propositions of Relation, which contain between them a Pair of codivisional Classes, and that we wish to ascertain what Conclusion, if any, is consequent from them. We translate them, if necessary, into subscript-form, and then proceed as follows:—

(1) We examine their Subscripts, in order to see whether they are

(a) a Pair of Nullities;

or (b) a Nullity and an Entity;

or (c) a Pair of Entities.

(2) If they are a Pair of Nullities, we examine their Eliminands, in order to see whether they are Unlike or Like.

If their Eliminands are Unlike, it is a case of Fig. I. We then examine their Retinends, to see whether one or both of them are asserted to exist. If one Retinend is so asserted, it is a case of Fig. I (α); if both, it is a case of Fig. I (β).

If their Eliminands are Like, we examine them, in order to see whether either of them is asserted to exist. If so, it is a case of Fig. III.; if not, it is a case of “Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.”

(3) If they are a Nullity and an Entity, we examine their Eliminands, in order to see whether they are Like or Unlike.

If their Eliminands are Like, it is a case of Fig. II.; if Unlike, it is a case of “Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.”

(4) If they are a Pair of Entities, it is a case of “Fallacy of two Entity-Premisses.”

[Work Examples § 4, 1–11 (p. 100); § 5, 1–12 (p. 101); § 6, 7–12 (p. 106); § 7, 7–12 (p. 108).]

BOOK VII.

SORITESES.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

When a Set of three or more Biliteral Propositions are such that all their Terms are Species of the same Genus, and are also so related that two of them, taken together, yield a Conclusion, which, taken with another of them, yields another Conclusion, and so on, until all have been taken, it is evident that, if the original Set were true, the last Conclusion would also be true.

Such a Set, with the last Conclusion tacked on, is called a ‘Sorites’; the original Set of Propositions is called its ‘Premisses’; each of the intermediate Conclusions is called a ‘Partial Conclusion’ of the Sorites; the last Conclusion is called its ‘Complete Conclusion,’ or, more briefly, its ‘Conclusion’; the Genus, of which all the Terms are Species, is called its ‘Universe of Discourse’, or, more briefly, its ‘Univ.’; the Terms, used as Eliminands in the Syllogisms, are called its ‘Eliminands’; and the two Terms, which are retained, and therefore appear in the Conclusion, are called its ‘Retinends’.

[Note that each Partial Conclusion contains one or two Eliminands; but that the Complete Conclusion contains Retinends only.]

The Conclusion is said to be ‘consequent’ from the Premisses; for which reason it is usual to prefix to it the word “Therefore” (or the symbol “∴”).

[Note that the question, whether the Conclusion is or is not consequent from the Premisses, is not affected by the actual truth or falsity of any one of the Propositions which make up the Sorites, by depends entirely on their relationship to one another.

As a specimen-Sorites, let us take the following Set of 5 Propositions:—

(1) ”No a are b′;

(2)   All b are c;

(3)   All c are d;

(4)   No e′ are a′;

(5)   All h are e′”.

Here the first and second, taken together, yield “No a are c′”.

This, taken along with the third, yields “No a are d′”.

This, taken along with the fourth, yields “No d′ are e′”.

And this, taken along with the fifth, yields “All h are d”.

Hence, if the original Set were true, this would also be true.

Hence the original Set, with this tacked on, is a Sorites; the original Set is its Premisses; the Proposition “All h are d” is its Conclusion; the Terms a, b, c, e are its Eliminands; and the Terms d and h are its Retinends.

Hence we may write the whole Sorites thus:—

”No a are b′;

  All b are c;

  All c are d;

  No e′ are a′;

  All h are e′.

          ∴ All h are d”.

In the above Sorites, the 3 Partial Conclusions are the Positions “No a are e′”, “No a are d′”, “No d′ are e′”; but, if the Premisses were arranged in other ways, other Partial Conclusions might be obtained. Thus, the order 41523 yields the Partial Conclusions “No c′ are b′”, “All h are b”, “All h are c”. There are altogether nine Partial Conclusions to this Sorites, which the Reader will find it an interesting task to make out for himself.]

CHAPTER II.

PROBLEMS IN SORITESES.

§ 1.

Introductory.

The Problems we shall have to solve are of the following form:—

“Given three or more Propositions of Relation, which are proposed as Premisses: to ascertain what Conclusion, if any, is consequent from them.”

We will limit ourselves, at present, to Problems which can be worked by the Formulæ of Fig. I.  Those, that require other Formulæ, are rather too hard for beginners.

Such Problems may be solved by either of two Methods, viz.

(1) The Method of Separate Syllogisms;

(2) The Method of Underscoring.

These shall be discussed separately.

§ 2.

Solution by Method of Separate Syllogisms.

The Rules, for doing this, are as follows:—

(1) Name the ‘Universe of Discourse’.

(2) Construct a Dictionary, making a, b, c, &c. represent the Terms.

(3) Put the Proposed Premisses into subscript form.

(4) Select two which, containing between them a pair of codivisional Classes, can be used as the Premisses of a Syllogism.

(5) Find their Conclusion by Formula.

(6) Find a third Premiss which, along with this Conclusion, can be used as the Premisses of a second Syllogism.

(7) Find a second Conclusion by Formula.

(8) Proceed thus, until all the proposed Premisses have been used.

(9) Put the last Conclusion, which is the Complete Conclusion of the Sorites, into concrete form.

[As an example of this process, let us take, as the proposed Set of Premisses,

(1) “All the policemen on this beat sup with our cook;

(2)   No man with long hair can fail to be a poet;

(3)   Amos Judd has never been in prison;

(4)   Our cook’s ‘cousins’ all love cold mutton;

(5)   None but policemen on this beat are poets;

(6)   None but her ‘cousins’ ever sup with our cook;

(7)   Men with short hair have all been in prison.”

Univ. “men”; a = Amos Judd; b = cousins of our cook; c = having been in prison; d = long-haired; e = loving cold mutton; h = poets; k = policemen on this beat; l = supping with our cook

We now have to put the proposed Premisses into subscript form. Let us begin by putting them into abstract form. The result is

  (1) ”All k are l;

  (2)   No d are h′;

  (3)   All a are c′;

  (4)   All b are e;

  (5)   No k′ are h;

  (6)   No b′ are l;

  (7)   All d′ are c.”

And it is now easy to put them into subscript form, as follows:—

  (1) k1l′0

  (2) dh′0

  (3) a1c0

  (4) b1e′0

  (5) k′h0

  (6) b′l0

  (7) d′1c′0

We now have to find a pair of Premisses which will yield a Conclusion. Let us begin with No. (1), and look down the list, till we come to one which we can take along with it, so as to form Premisses belonging to Fig. I. We find that No. (5) will do, since we can take k as our Eliminand. So our first syllogism is

  (1) k1l′0

  (5) k′h0

∴ l′h0 … (8)

We must now begin again with l′h0 and find a Premiss to go along with it. We find that No. (2) will do, h being our Eliminand. So our next Syllogism is

  (8) l′h0

  (2) dh′0

∴ l′d0 … (9)

We have now used up Nos. (1), (5), and (2), and must search among the others for a partner for l′d0. We find that No. (6) will do. So we write

  (9) l′d0

  (6) b′l0

∴ db′0 … (10)

Now what can we take along with db′0? No. (4) will do.

(10) db′0

  (4) b1e′0

∴ de′0 … (11)

Along with this we may take No. (7).

(11) de′0

  (7) d′1c′0

∴ c′e′0 … (12)

And along with this we may take No. (3).

(12) c′e′0

  (3) a1c0

∴ a1e′0

This Complete Conclusion, translated into abstract form, is

“All a are e”;

and this, translated into concrete form, is

“Amos Judd loves cold mutton.”

In actually working this Problem, the above explanations would, of course, be omitted, and all, that would appear on paper, would be as follows:—

  (1) k1l′0

  (2) dh′0

  (3) a1c0

  (4) b1e′0

  (5) k′h0

  (6) b′l0

  (7) d′1c′0

  (1) k1l′0

  (5) k′h0

∴ l′h0 … (8)

  (8) l′h0

  (2) dh′0

∴ l′d0 … (9)

  (9) l′d0

  (6) b′l0

∴ db′0 … (10)

(10) db′0

  (4) b1e′0

∴ de′0 … (11)

(11) de′0

  (7) d′1c′0

∴ c′e′0 … (12)

(12) c′e′0

  (3) a1c0

∴ a1e′0

Note that, in working a Sorites by this Process, we may begin with any Premiss we choose.]

§ 3.

Solution by Method of Underscoring.

Consider the Pair of Premisses

xm0 † ym′0

which yield the Conclusion xy0

We see that, in order to get this Conclusion, we must eliminate m and m′, and write x and y together in one expression.

Now, if we agree to mark m and m′ as eliminated, and to read the two expressions together, as if they were written in one, the two Premisses will then exactly represent the Conclusion, and we need not write it out separately.

Let us agree to mark the eliminated letters by underscoring them, putting a single score under the first, and a double one under the second.

The two Premisses now become

xm0 † ym′0

which we read as “xy0”.

In copying out the Premisses for underscoring, it will be convenient to omit all subscripts. As to the “0’s” we may always suppose them written, and, as to the “1’s”, we are not concerned to know which Terms are asserted to exist, except those which appear in the Complete Conclusion; and for them it will be easy enough to refer to the original list.

[I will now go through the process of solving, by this method, the example worked in § 2.

The Data are

1k1l′0 † 2dh′0 † 3a1c0 † 4b1e′0 † 5k′h0 † 6b′l0 † 7d′1c′0

The Reader should take a piece of paper, and write out this solution for himself. The first line will consist of the above Data; the second must be composed, bit by bit, according to the following directions.

We begin by writing down the first Premiss, with its numeral over it, but omitting the subscripts.

We have now to find a Premiss which can be combined with this, i.e., a Premiss containing either k′ or l. The first we find is No. 5; and this we tack on, with a †.

To get the Conclusion from these, k and k′ must be eliminated, and what remains must be taken as one expression. So we underscore them, putting a single score under k, and a double one under k′. The result we read as l′h.

We must now find a Premiss containing either l or h′. Looking along the row, we fix on No. 2, and tack it on.

Now these 3 Nullities are really equivalent to (l′h † dh′), in which h and h′ must be eliminated, and what remains taken as one expression. So we underscore them. The result reads as l′d.

We now want a Premiss containing l or d′. No. 6 will do.

These 4 Nullities are really equivalent to (l′d † b′l). So we underscore l′ and l. The result reads as db′.

We now want a Premiss containing d′ or b. No. 4 will do.

Here we underscore b′ and b. The result reads as de′.

We now want a Premiss containing d′ or e. No. 7 will do.

Here we underscore d and d′. The result reads as c′e′.

We now want a Premiss containing c or e. No. 3 will do—in fact must do, as it is the only one left.

Here we underscore c′ and c; and, as the whole thing now reads as e′a, we tack on e′a0 as the Conclusion, with a ¶.

We now look along the row of Data, to see whether e′ or a has been given as existent. We find that a has been so given in No. 3. So we add this fact to the Conclusion, which now stands as ¶ e′a0 † a1, i.e. ¶ a1e′0; i.e. “All a are e.”

If the Reader has faithfully obeyed the above directions, his written solution will now stand as follows:—

1k1l′0 † 2dh′0 † 3a1c0 † 4b1e′0 † 5k′h0 † 6b′l0 † 7d′1c′0

1kl′ † 5k′h † 2dh′ † 6b′l † 4be′ † 7d′c′ † 3ac     ¶ e′a0 † a1     i.e. ¶ a1e′0;

i.e. “All a are e.”

The Reader should now take a second piece of paper, and copy the Data only, and try to work out the solution for himself, beginning with some other Premiss.

If he fails to bring out the Conclusion a1e′0, I would advise him to take a third piece of paper, and begin again!]

I will now work out, in its briefest form, a Sorites of 5 Premisses, to serve as a model for the Reader to imitate in working examples.

(1) ”I greatly value everything that John gives me;

(2)   Nothing but this bone will satisfy my dog;

(3)   I take particular care of everything that I greatly value;

(4)   This bone was a present from John;

(5)   The things, of which I take particular care, are things I do not give to my dog”.

Univ. “things”; a = given by John to me; b = given by me to my dog; c = greatly valued by me; d = satisfactory to my dog; e = taken particular care of by me; h = this bone.

1a1c′0 † 2h′d0 † 3c1e′0 † 4h1a′0 † 5e1b0

1ac′ † 3ce′ † 4ha′ † 2h′d † 5eb     ¶ db0

i.e. “Nothing, that I give my dog, satisfies him,” or, “My dog is not satisfied with anything that I give him!”

[Note that, in working a Sorites by this process, we may begin with any Premiss we choose. For instance, we might begin with No. 5, and the result would then be

5eb † 3ce′ † 1ac′ † 4ha′ † 2h′d     ¶ bd0]

[Work Examples § 4, 25–30 (p. 100); § 5, 25–30 (p. 102); § 6, 13–15 (p. 106); § 7, 13–15 (p. 108); § 8, 1–4, 13, 14, 19, 24 (pp. 110, 111); § 9, 1–4, 26, 27, 40, 48 (pp. 112, 116, 119, 121).]

The Reader, who has successfully grappled with all the Examples hitherto set, and who thirsts, like Alexander the Great, for “more worlds to conquer,” may employ his spare energies on the following 17 Examination-Papers. He is recommended not to attempt more than one Paper on any one day. The answers to the questions about words and phrases may be found by referring to the Index at p. 197.

     I. § 4, 31 (p. 100); § 5, 31–34 (p. 102); § 6, 16, 17 (p. 106); § 7, 16 (p. 108); § 8, 5, 6 (p. 110); § 9, 5, 22, 42 (pp. 112, 115, 119). What is ‘Classification’? And what is a ‘Class’?

    II. § 4, 32 (p. 100); § 5, 35–38 (pp. 102, 103); § 6, 18 (p. 107); § 7, 17, 18 (p. 108); § 8, 7, 8 (p. 110); § 9, 6, 23, 43 (pp. 112, 115, 119). What are ‘Genus’, ‘Species’, and ‘Differentia’?

   III. § 4, 33 (p. 100); § 5, 39–42 (p. 103); § 6, 19, 20 (p. 107); § 7, 19 (p. 109); § 8, 9, 10 (p. 111); § 9, 7, 24, 44 (pp. 113, 116, 120). What are ‘Real’ and ‘Imaginary’ Classes?

   IV. § 4, 34 (p. 100); § 5, 43–46 (p. 103); § 6, 21 (p. 107); § 7, 20, 21 (p. 109); § 8, 11, 12 (p. 111); § 9, 8, 25, 45 (pp. 113, 116, 120). What is ‘Division’? When are Classes said to be ‘Codivisional’?

    V. § 4, 35 (p. 100); § 5, 47–50 (p. 103); § 6, 22, 23 (p. 107); § 7, 22 (p. 109); § 8, 15, 16 (p. 111); § 9, 9, 28, 46 (pp. 113, 116, 120). What is ‘Dichotomy’? What arbitrary rule does it sometimes require?

   VI. § 4, 36 (p. 100); § 5, 51–54 (p. 103); § 6, 24 (p. 107); § 7, 23, 24 (p. 109); § 8, 17 (p. 111); § 9, 10, 29, 47 (pp. 113, 117, 120). What is a ‘Definition’?

  VII. § 4, 37 (p. 100); § 5, 55–58 (pp. 103, 104); § 6, 25, 26 (p. 107); § 7, 25 (p. 109); § 8, 18 (p. 111); § 9, 11, 30, 49 (pp. 113, 117, 121). What are the ‘Subject’ and the ‘Predicate’ of a Proposition? What is its ‘Normal’ form?

 VIII. § 4, 38 (p. 100); § 5, 59–62 (p. 104); § 6, 27 (p. 107); § 7, 26, 27 (p. 109); § 8, 20 (p. 111); § 9, 12, 31, 50 (pp. 113, 117, 121). What is a Proposition ‘in I’? ‘In E’? And ‘in A’?

   IX. § 4, 39 (p. 100); § 5, 63–66 (p. 104); § 6, 28, 29 (p. 107); § 7, 28 (p. 109); § 8, 21 (p. 111); § 9, 13, 32, 51 (pp. 114, 117, 121). What is the ‘Normal’ form of a Proposition of Existence?

    X. § 4, 40 (p. 100); § 5, 67–70 (p. 104); § 6, 30 (p. 107); § 7, 29, 30 (p. 109); § 8, 22 (p. 111); § 9, 14, 33, 52 (pp. 114, 117, 122). What is the ‘Universe of Discourse’?

   XI. § 4, 41 (p. 100); § 5, 71–74 (p. 104); § 6, 31, 32 (p. 107); § 7, 31 (p. 109); § 8, 23 (p. 111); § 9, 15, 34, 53 (pp. 114, 118, 122). What is implied, in a Proposition of Relation, as to the Reality of its Terms?

  XII. § 4, 42 (p. 100); § 5, 75–78 (p. 105); § 6, 33 (p. 107); § 7, 32, 33 (pp. 109, 110); § 8, 25 (p. 111); § 9, 16, 35, 54 (pp. 114, 118, 122). Explain the phrase “sitting on the fence”.

 XIII. § 5, 79–83 (p. 105); § 6, 34, 35 (p. 107); § 7, 34 (p. 110); § 8, 26 (p. 111); § 9, 17, 36, 55 (pp. 114, 118, 122). What are ‘Converse’ Propositions?

 XIV. § 5, 84–88 (p. 105); § 6, 36 (p. 107); § 7, 35, 36 (p. 110); § 8, 27 (p. 111); § 9, 18, 37, 56 (pp. 114, 118, 123). What are ‘Concrete’ and ‘Abstract’ Propositions?

  XV. § 5, 89–93 (p. 105); § 6, 37, 38 (p. 107); § 7, 37 (p. 110); § 8, 28 (p. 111); § 9, 19, 38, 57 (pp. 115, 118, 123). What is a ‘Syllogism’? And what are its ‘Premisses’ and its ‘Conclusion’?

 XVI. § 5, 94–97 (p. 106); § 6, 39 (p. 107); § 7, 38, 39 (p. 110); § 8, 29 (p. 111); § 9, 20, 39, 58 (pp. 115, 119, 123). What is a ‘Sorites’? And what are its ‘Premisses’, its ‘Partial Conclusions’, and its ‘Complete Conclusion’?

XVII. § 5, 98–101 (p. 106); § 6, 40 (p. 107); § 7, 40 (p. 110); § 8, 30 (p. 111); § 9, 21, 41, 59, 60 (pp. 115, 119, 124). What are the ‘Universe of Discourse’, the ‘Eliminands’, and the ‘Retinends’, of a Syllogism? And of a Sorites?

BOOK VIII.

EXAMPLES, ANSWERS, AND SOLUTIONS.

[N.B. Reference tags for Examples, Answers & Solutions will be found in the right margin.]

CHAPTER I.

EXAMPLES.

EX1§ 1.

Propositions of Relation, to be reduced to normal form.

  1. I have been out for a walk.

  2. I am feeling better.

  3. No one has read the letter but John.

  4. Neither you nor I are old.

  5. No fat creatures run well.

  6. None but the brave deserve the fair.

  7. No one looks poetical unless he is pale.

  8. Some judges lose their tempers.

  9. I never neglect important business.

10. What is difficult needs attention.

11. What is unwholesome should be avoided.

12. All the laws passed last week relate to excise.

13. Logic puzzles me.

14. There are no Jews in the house.

15. Some dishes are unwholesome if not well-cooked.

16. Unexciting books make one drowsy.

17. When a man knows what he’s about, he can detect a sharper.

18. You and I know what we’re about.

19. Some bald people wear wigs.

20. Those who are fully occupied never talk about their grievances.

21. No riddles interest me if they can be solved.

EX2§ 2.

Pairs of Abstract Propositions, one in terms of x and m, and the other in terms of y and m, to be represented on the same Triliteral Diagram.

  1. No x are m;

No m′ are y.

  2. No x′ are m′;

All m′ are y.

  3. Some x′ are m;

No m are y.

  4. All m are x;

All m′ are y′.

  5. All m′ are x;

All m′ are y′.

  6. All x′ are m′;

No y′ are m.

  7. All x are m;

All y′ are m′.

  8. Some m′ are x′;

No m are y.

  9. All m are x′;

No m are y.

10. No m are x′;

No y are m′.

11. No x′ are m′;

No m are y.

12. Some x are m;

All y′ are m.

13. All x′ are m;

No m are y.

14. Some x are m′;

All m are y.

15. No m′ are x′;

All y are m.

16. All x are m′;

No y are m.

17. Some m′ are x;

No m′ are y′.

18. All x are m′;

Some m′ are y′.

19. All m are x;

Some m are y′.

20. No x′ are m;

Some y are m.

21. Some x′ are m′;

All y′ are m.

22. No m are x;

Some m are y.

23. No m′ are x;

All y are m′.

24. All m are x;

No y′ are m′.

25. Some m are x;

No y′ are m.

26. All m′ are x′;

Some y are m′.

27. Some m are x′;

No y′ are m′.

28. No x are m′;

All m are y′.

29. No x′ are m;

No m are y′.

30. No x are m;

Some y′ are m′.

31. Some m′ are x;

All y′ are m;

32. All x are m′;

All y are m.

EX3§ 3.

Marked Triliteral Diagrams, to be interpreted in terms of x and y.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

EX4§ 4.

Pairs of Abstract Propositions, proposed as Premisses: Conclusions to be found.

  1. No m are x′;

All m′ are y.

  2. No m′ are x;

Some m′ are y′.

  3. All m′ are x;

All m′ are y′.

  4. No x′ are m′;

All y′ are m.

  5. Some m are x′;

No y are m.

  6. No x′ are m;

No m are y.

  7. No m are x′;

Some y′ are m.

  8. All m′ are x′;

No m′ are y.

  9. Some x′ are m′;

No m are y′.

10. All x are m;

All y′ are m′.

11. No m are x;

All y′ are m′.

12. No x are m;

All y are m.

13. All m′ are x;

No y are m.

14. All m are x;

All m′ are y.

15. No x are m;

No m′ are y.

16. All x are m′;

All y are m.

17. No x are m;

All m′ are y.

18. No x are m′;

No m are y.

19. All m are x;

All m are y′.

20. No m are x;

All m′ are y.

21. All x are m;

Some m′ are y.

22. Some x are m;

All y are m.

23. All m are x;

Some y are m.

24. No x are m;

All y are m.

25. Some m are x′;

All y′ are m′.

26. No m are x′;

All y are m.

27. All x are m′;

All y′ are m.

28. All m are x′;

Some m are y.

29. No m are x;

All y are m′.

30. All x are m′;

Some y are m.

31. All x are m;

All y are m.

32. No x are m′;

All m are y.

33. No m are x;

No m are y.

34. No m are x′;

Some y are m.

35. No m are x;

All y are m.

36. All m are x′;

Some y are m.

37. All m are x;

No y are m.

38. No m are x;

No m′ are y.

39. Some m are x′;

No m are y.

40. No x′ are m;

All y′ are m.

41. All x are m′;

No y are m′.

42. No m′ are x;

No y are m.

EX5§ 5.

Pairs of Concrete Propositions, proposed as Premisses: Conclusions to be found.

    1. I have been out for a walk;

I am feeling better.

    2. No one has read the letter but John;

No one, who has not read it, knows what it is about.

    3. Those who are not old like walking;

You and I are young.

    4. Your course is always honest;

Your course is always the best policy.

    5. No fat creatures run well;

Some greyhounds run well.

    6. Some, who deserve the fair, get their deserts;

None but the brave deserve the fair.

    7. Some Jews are rich;

All Esquimaux are Gentiles.

    8. Sugar-plums are sweet;

Some sweet things are liked by children.

    9. John is in the house;

Everybody in the house is ill.

  10. Umbrellas are useful on a journey;

What is useless on a journey should be left behind.

  11. Audible music causes vibration in the air;

Inaudible music is not worth paying for.

  12. Some holidays are rainy;

Rainy days are tiresome.

  13. No Frenchmen like plumpudding;

All Englishmen like plumpudding.

  14. No portrait of a lady, that makes her simper or scowl, is satisfactory;

No photograph of a lady ever fails to make her simper or scowl.

  15. All pale people are phlegmatic;

No one looks poetical unless he is pale.

  16. No old misers are cheerful;

Some old misers are thin.

  17. No one, who exercises self-control, fails to keep his temper;

Some judges lose their tempers.

  18. All pigs are fat;

Nothing that is fed on barley-water is fat.

  19. All rabbits, that are not greedy, are black;

No old rabbits are free from greediness.

  20. Some pictures are not first attempts;

No first attempts are really good.

  21. I never neglect important business;

Your business is unimportant.

  22. Some lessons are difficult;

What is difficult needs attention.

  23. All clever people are popular;

All obliging people are popular.

  24. Thoughtless people do mischief;

No thoughtful person forgets a promise.

  25. Pigs cannot fly;

Pigs are greedy.

  26. All soldiers march well;

Some babies are not soldiers.

  27. No bride-cakes are wholesome;

What is unwholesome should be avoided.

  28. John is industrious;

No industrious people are unhappy.

  29. No philosophers are conceited;

Some conceited persons are not gamblers.

  30. Some excise laws are unjust;

All the laws passed last week relate to excise.

  31. No military men write poetry;

None of my lodgers are civilians.

  32. No medicine is nice;

Senna is a medicine.

  33. Some circulars are not read with pleasure;

No begging-letters are read with pleasure.

  34. All Britons are brave;

No sailors are cowards.

  35. Nothing intelligible ever puzzles me;

Logic puzzles me.

  36. Some pigs are wild;

All pigs are fat.

  37. All wasps are unfriendly;

All unfriendly creatures are unwelcome.

  38. No old rabbits are greedy;

All black rabbits are greedy.

  39. Some eggs are hard-boiled;

No eggs are uncrackable.

  40. No antelope is ungraceful;

Graceful creatures delight the eye.

  41. All well-fed canaries sing loud;

No canary is melancholy if it sings loud.

  42. Some poetry is original;

No original work is producible at will.

  43. No country, that has been explored, is infested by dragons;

Unexplored countries are fascinating.

  44. No coals are white;

No niggers are white.

  45. No bridges are made of sugar;

Some bridges are picturesque.

  46. No children are patient;

No impatient person can sit still.

  47. No quadrupeds can whistle;

Some cats are quadrupeds.

  48. Bores are terrible;

You are a bore.

  49. Some oysters are silent;

No silent creatures are amusing.

  50. There are no Jews in the house;

No Gentiles have beards a yard long.

  51. Canaries, that do not sing loud, are unhappy;

No well-fed canaries fail to sing loud.

  52. All my sisters have colds;

No one can sing who has a cold.

  53. All that is made of gold is precious;

Some caskets are precious.

  54. Some buns are rich;

All buns are nice.

  55. All my cousins are unjust;

All judges are just.

  56. Pain is wearisome;

No pain is eagerly wished for.

  57. All medicine is nasty;

Senna is a medicine.

  58. Some unkind remarks are annoying;

No critical remarks are kind.

  59. No tall men have woolly hair;

Niggers have woolly hair.

  60. All philosophers are logical;

An illogical man is always obstinate.

  61. John is industrious;

All industrious people are happy.

  62. These dishes are all well-cooked;

Some dishes are unwholesome if not well-cooked.

  63. No exciting books suit feverish patients;

Unexciting books make one drowsy.

  64. No pigs can fly;

All pigs are greedy.

  65. When a man knows what he’s about, he can detect a sharper;

You and I know what we’re about.

  66. Some dreams are terrible;

No lambs are terrible.

  67. No bald creature needs a hairbrush;

No lizards have hair.

  68. All battles are noisy;

What makes no noise may escape notice.

  69. All my cousins are unjust;

No judges are unjust.

  70. All eggs can be cracked;

Some eggs are hard-boiled.

  71. Prejudiced persons are untrustworthy;

Some unprejudiced persons are disliked.

  72. No dictatorial person is popular;

She is dictatorial.

  73. Some bald people wear wigs;

All your children have hair.

  74. No lobsters are unreasonable;

No reasonable creatures expect impossibilities.

  75. No nightmare is pleasant;

Unpleasant experiences are not eagerly desired.

  76. No plumcakes are wholesome;

Some wholesome things are nice.

  77. Nothing that is nice need be shunned;

Some kinds of jam are nice.

  78. All ducks waddle;

Nothing that waddles is graceful.

  79. Sandwiches are satisfying;

Nothing in this dish is unsatisfying.

  80. No rich man begs in the street;

Those who are not rich should keep accounts.

  81. Spiders spin webs;

Some creatures, that do not spin webs, are savage.

  82. Some of these shops are not crowded;

No crowded shops are comfortable.

  83. Prudent travelers carry plenty of small change;

Imprudent travelers lose their luggage.

  84. Some geraniums are red;

All these flowers are red.

  85. None of my cousins are just;

All judges are just.

  86. No Jews are mad;

All my lodgers are Jews.

  87. Busy folk are not always talking about their grievances;

Discontented folk are always talking about their grievances.

  88. None of my cousins are just;

No judges are unjust.

  89. All teetotalers like sugar;

No nightingale drinks wine.

  90. No riddles interest me if they can be solved;

All these riddles are insoluble.

  91. All clear explanations are satisfactory;

Some excuses are unsatisfactory.

  92. All elderly ladies are talkative;

All good-tempered ladies are talkative.

  93. No kind deed is unlawful;

What is lawful may be done without scruple.

  94. No babies are studious;

No babies are good violinists.

  95. All shillings are round;

All these coins are round.

  96. No honest men cheat;

No dishonest men are trustworthy.

  97. None of my boys are clever;

None of my girls are greedy.

  98. All jokes are meant to amuse;

No Act of Parliament is a joke.

  99. No eventful tour is ever forgotten;

Uneventful tours are not worth writing a book about.

100. All my boys are disobedient;

All my girls are discontented.

101. No unexpected pleasure annoys me;

Your visit is an unexpected pleasure.

EX6§ 6.

Trios of Abstract Propositions, proposed as Syllogisms: to be examined.

1.

Some x are m;

No m are y′.

Some x are y.

2.

All x are m;

No y are m′.

No y are x′.

3.

Some x are m′;

All y′ are m.

Some x are y.

4.

All x are m;

No y are m.

All x are y′.

5.

Some m′ are x′;

No m′ are y.

Some x′ are y′.

6.

No x′ are m;

All y are m′.

All y are x′.

7.

Some m′ are x′;

All y′ are m′.

Some x′ are y′.

8.

No m′ are x′;

All y′ are m′.

All y′ are x.

9.

Some m are x′;

No m are y.

Some x′ are y′.

10.

All m′ are x′;

All m′ are y.

Some y are x′.

11.

All x are m′;

Some y are m.

Some y are x′.

12.

No x are m;

No m′ are y′.

No x are y′.

13.

No x are m;

All y′ are m.

All y′ are x′.

14.

All m′ are x′;

All m′ are y.

Some y are x′.

15.

Some m are x′;

All y are m′.

Some x′ are y′.

16.

No x′ are m;

All y′ are m′.

Some y′ are x.

17.

No m′ are x;

All m′ are y′.

Some x′ are y′.

18.

No x′ are m;

Some m are y.

Some x are y.

19.

Some m are x;

All m are y.

Some y are x′.

20.

No x′ are m′;

Some m′ are y′.

Some x are y′.

21.

No m are x;

All m are y′.

Some x′ are y′.

22.

All x′ are m;

Some y are m′.

All x′ are y′.

23.

All m are x;

No m′ are y′.

No x′ are y′.

24.

All x are m′;

All m′ are y.

All x are y.

25.

No x are m′;

All m are y.

No x are y′.

26.

All m are x′;

All y are m.

All y are x′.

27.

All x are m;

No m are y′.

All x are y.

28.

All x are m;

No y′ are m′.

All x are y.

29.

No x′ are m;

No m′ are y′.

No x′ are y′.

30.

All x are m;

All m are y′.

All x are y′.

31.

All x′ are m′;

No y′ are m′.

All x′ are y.

32.

No x are m;

No y′ are m′.

No x are y′.

33.

All m are x′;

All y′ are m.

All y′ are x′.

34.

All x are m′;

Some y are m′.

Some y are x.

35.

Some x are m;

All m are y.

Some x are y.

36.

All m are x′;

All y are m.

All y are x′.

37.

No m are x′;

All m are y′.

Some x are y′.

38.

No x are m;

No m are y′.

No x are y′.

39.

No m are x;

Some m are y′.

Some x′ are y′.

40.

No m are x′;

Some y are m.

Some x are y.

EX7§ 7.

Trios of Concrete Propositions, proposed as Syllogisms: to be examined.

  1. No doctors are enthusiastic;

You are enthusiastic.

    You are not a doctor.

  2. Dictionaries are useful;

Useful books are valuable.

    Dictionaries are valuable.

  3. No misers are unselfish;

None but misers save egg-shells.

    No unselfish people save egg-shells.

  4. Some epicures are ungenerous;

All my uncles are generous.

    My uncles are not epicures.

  5. Gold is heavy;

Nothing but gold will silence him.

    Nothing light will silence him.

  6. Some healthy people are fat;

No unhealthy people are strong.

    Some fat people are not strong.

  7. “I saw it in a newspaper.”

“All newspapers tell lies.”

    It was a lie.

  8. Some cravats are not artistic;

I admire anything artistic.

    There are some cravats that I do not admire.

  9. His songs never last an hour;

A song, that lasts an hour, is tedious.

    His songs are never tedious.

10. Some candles give very little light;

Candles are meant to give light.

    Some things, that are meant to give light, give very little.

11. All, who are anxious to learn, work hard;

Some of these boys work hard.

    Some of these boys are anxious to learn.

12. All lions are fierce;

Some lions do not drink coffee.

    Some creatures that drink coffee are not fierce.

13. No misers are generous;

Some old men are ungenerous.

    Some old men are misers.

14. No fossil can be crossed in love;

An oyster may be crossed in love.

    Oysters are not fossils.

15. All uneducated people are shallow;

Students are all educated.

    No students are shallow.

16. All young lambs jump;

No young animals are healthy, unless they jump.

    All young lambs are healthy.

17. Ill-managed business is unprofitable;

Railways are never ill-managed.

    All railways are profitable.

18. No Professors are ignorant;

All ignorant people are vain.

    No professors are vain.

19. A prudent man shuns hyænas;

No banker is imprudent.

    No banker fails to shun hyænas.

20. All wasps are unfriendly;

No puppies are unfriendly.

    Puppies are not wasps.

21. No Jews are honest;

Some Gentiles are rich.

    Some rich people are dishonest.

22. No idlers win fame;

Some painters are not idle.

    Some painters win fame.

23. No monkeys are soldiers;

All monkeys are mischievous.

    Some mischievous creatures are not soldiers.

24. All these bonbons are chocolate-creams;

All these bonbons are delicious.

    Chocolate-creams are delicious.

25. No muffins are wholesome;

All buns are unwholesome.

    Buns are not muffins.

26. Some unauthorised reports are false;

All authorised reports are trustworthy.

    Some false reports are not trustworthy.

27. Some pillows are soft;

No pokers are soft.

    Some pokers are not pillows.

28. Improbable stories are not easily believed;

None of his stories are probable.

    None of his stories are easily believed.

29. No thieves are honest;

Some dishonest people are found out.

    Some thieves are found out.

30. No muffins are wholesome;

All puffy food is unwholesome.

    All muffins are puffy.

31. No birds, except peacocks, are proud of their tails;

Some birds, that are proud of their tails, cannot sing.

    Some peacocks cannot sing.

32. Warmth relieves pain;

Nothing, that does not relieve pain, is useful in toothache.

    Warmth is useful in toothache.

33. No bankrupts are rich;

Some merchants are not bankrupts.

    Some merchants are rich.

34. Bores are dreaded;

No bore is ever begged to prolong his visit.

    No one, who is dreaded, is ever begged to prolong his visit.

35. All wise men walk on their feet;

All unwise men walk on their hands.

    No man walks on both.

36. No wheelbarrows are comfortable;

No uncomfortable vehicles are popular.

    No wheelbarrows are popular.

37. No frogs are poetical;

Some ducks are unpoetical.

    Some ducks are not frogs.

38. No emperors are dentists;

All dentists are dreaded by children.

    No emperors are dreaded by children.

39. Sugar is sweet;

Salt is not sweet.

    Salt is not sugar.

40. Every eagle can fly;

Some pigs cannot fly.

    Some pigs are not eagles.

EX8§ 8.

Sets of Abstract Propositions, proposed as Premisses for Soriteses: Conclusions to be found.

[N.B. At the end of this Section instructions are given for varying these Examples.]

1.

  1. No c are d;

  2. All a are d;

  3. All b are c.

2.

  1. All d are b;

  2. No a are c′;

  3. No b are c.

3.

  1. No b are a;

  2. No c are d′;

  3. All d are b.

4.

  1. No b are c;

  2. All a are b;

  3. No c′ are d.

5.

  1. All b′ are a′;

  2. No b are c;

  3. No a′ are d.

6.

  1. All a are b′;

  2. No b′ are c;

  3. All d are a.

7.

  1. No d are b′;

  2. All b are a;

  3. No c are d′.

8.

  1. No b′ are d;

  2. No a′ are b;

  3. All c are d.

9.

  1. All b′ are a;

  2. No a are d;

  3. All b are c.

          10.

  1. No c are d;

  2. All b are c;

  3. No a are d′.

          11.

  1. No b are c;

  2. All d are a;

  3. All c′ are a′.

          12.

  1. No c are b′;

  2. All c′ are d′;

  3. All b are a.

          13.

  1. All d are e;

  2. All c are a;

  3. No b are d′;

  4. All e are a′.

          14.

  1. All e are b;

  2. All a are e;

  3. All d are b′;

  4. All a′ are c;

          15.

  1. No b′ are d;

  2. All e are c;

  3. All b are a;

  4. All d′ are c′.

          16.

  1. No a′ are e;

  2. All d are c′;

  3. All a are b;

  4. All e′ are d.

          17.

  1. All d are c;

  2. All a are e;

  3. No b are d′;

  4. All c are e′.

          18.

  1. All a are b;

  2. All d are e;

  3. All a′ are c′;

  4. No b are e.

          19.

  1. No b are c;

  2. All e are h;

  3. All a are b;

  4. No d are h;

  5. All e′ are c.

          20.

  1. No d are h′;

  2. No c are e;

  3. All h are b;

  4. No a are d′;

  5. No b are e′.

          21.

  1. All b are a;

  2. No d are h;

  3. No c are e;

  4. No a are h′;

  5. All c′ are b.

          22.

  1. All e are d′;

  2. No b′ are h′;

  3. All c′ are d;

  4. All a are e;

  5. No c are h.

          23.

  1. All b′ are a′;

  2. No d are e′;

  3. All h are b′;

  4. No c are e;

  5. All d′ are a.

          24.

  1. All h′ are k′;

  2. No b′ are a;

  3. All c are d;

  4. All e are h′;

  5. No d are k′;

  6. No b are c′.

          25.

  1. All a are d;

  2. All k are b;

  3. All e are h;

  4. No a′ are b;

  5. All d are c;

  6. All h are k.

          26.

  1. All a′ are h;

  2. No d′ are k′;

  3. All e are b′;

  4. No h are k;

  5. All a are e;

  6. No b′ are d.

          27.

  1. All c are d′;

  2. No h are b;

  3. All a′ are k;

  4. No c are e′;

  5. All b′ are d;

  6. No a are c′.

          28.

  1. No a′ are k;

  2. All e are b;

  3. No h are k′;

  4. No d′ are c;

  5. No a are b;

  6. All c′ are h.

          29.

  1. No e are k;

  2. No b′ are m;

  3. No a are c′;

  4. All h′ are e;

  5. All d are k;

  6. No c are b;

  7. All d′ are l;

  8. No h are m′.

          30.

  1. All n are m;

  2. All a′ are e;

  3. No c′ are l;

  4. All k are r′;

  5. No a are h′;

  6. No d are l′;

  7. No c are n′;

  8. All e are b;

  9. All m are r;

10. All h are d.

[N.B. In each Example, in Sections 8 and 9, it is possible to begin with any Premiss, at pleasure, and thus to get as many different Solutions (all of course yielding the same Complete Conclusion) as there are Premisses in the Example. Hence § 8 really contains 129 different Examples, and § 9 contains 273.]

EX9§ 9.

Sets of Concrete Propositions, proposed as Premisses for Soriteses: Conclusions to be found.

  1.

  (1) Babies are illogical;

  (2) Nobody is despised who can manage a crocodile;

  (3) Illogical persons are despised.

Univ. “persons”; a = able to manage a crocodile; b = babies; c = despised; d = logical.

  2.

  (1) My saucepans are the only things I have that are made of tin;

  (2) I find all your presents very useful;

  (3) None of my saucepans are of the slightest use.

Univ. “things of mine”; a = made of tin; b = my saucepans; c = useful; d = your presents.

  3.

  (1) No potatoes of mine, that are new, have been boiled;

  (2) All my potatoes in this dish are fit to eat;

  (3) No unboiled potatoes of mine are fit to eat.

Univ. “my potatoes”; a = boiled; b = eatable; c = in this dish; d = new.

  4.

  (1) There are no Jews in the kitchen;

  (2) No Gentiles say “shpoonj”;

  (3) My servants are all in the kitchen.

Univ. “persons”; a = in the kitchen; b = Jews; c = my servants; d = saying “shpoonj.”

  5.

  (1) No ducks waltz;

  (2) No officers ever decline to waltz;

  (3) All my poultry are ducks.

Univ. “creatures”; a = ducks; b = my poultry; c = officers; d = willing to waltz.

  6.

  (1) Every one who is sane can do Logic;

  (2) No lunatics are fit to serve on a jury;

  (3) None of your sons can do Logic.

Univ. “persons”; a = able to do Logic; b = fit to serve on a jury; c = sane; d = your sons.

  7.

  (1) There are no pencils of mine in this box;

  (2) No sugar-plums of mine are cigars;

  (3) The whole of my property, that is not in this box, consists of cigars.

Univ. “things of mine”; a = cigars; b = in this box; c = pencils; d = sugar-plums.

  8.

  (1) No experienced person is incompetent;

  (2) Jenkins is always blundering;

  (3) No competent person is always blundering.

Univ. “persons”; a = always blundering; b = competent; c = experienced; d = Jenkins.

  9.

  (1) No terriers wander among the signs of the zodiac;

  (2) Nothing, that does not wander among the signs of the zodiac, is a comet;

  (3) Nothing but a terrier has a curly tail.

Univ. “things”; a = comets; b = curly-tailed; c = terriers; d = wandering among the signs of the zodiac.

10.

  (1) No one takes in the Times, unless he is well-educated;

  (2) No hedge-hogs can read;

  (3) Those who cannot read are not well-educated.

Univ. “creatures”; a = able to read; b = hedge-hogs; c = taking in the Times; d = well-educated.

11.

  (1) All puddings are nice;

  (2) This dish is a pudding;

  (3) No nice things are wholesome.

Univ. “things”; a = nice; b = puddings; c = this dish; d = wholesome.

12.

  (1) My gardener is well worth listening to on military subjects;

  (2) No one can remember the battle of Waterloo, unless he is very old;

  (3) Nobody is really worth listening to on military subjects, unless he can remember the battle of Waterloo.

Univ. “persons”; a = able to remember the battle of Waterloo; b = my gardener; c = well worth listening to on military subjects; d = very old.

13.

  (1) All humming-birds are richly coloured;

  (2) No large birds live on honey;

  (3) Birds that do not live on honey are dull in colour.

Univ. “birds”; a = humming-birds; b = large; c = living on honey; d = richly coloured.

14.

  (1) No Gentiles have hooked noses;

  (2) A man who is a good hand at a bargain always makes money;

  (3) No Jew is ever a bad hand at a bargain.

Univ. “persons”; a = good hands at a bargain; b = hook-nosed; c = Jews; d = making money.

15.

  (1) All ducks in this village, that are branded ‘B,’ belong to Mrs. Bond;

  (2) Ducks in this village never wear lace collars, unless they are branded ‘B’;

  (3) Mrs. Bond has no gray ducks in this village.

Univ. “ducks in this village”; a = belonging to Mrs. Bond; b = branded ‘B’; c = gray; d = wearing lace-collars.

16.

  (1) All the old articles in this cupboard are cracked;

  (2) No jug in this cupboard is new;

  (3) Nothing in this cupboard, that is cracked, will hold water.

Univ. “things in this cupboard”; a = able to hold water; b = cracked; c = jugs; d = old.

17.

  (1) All unripe fruit is unwholesome;

  (2) All these apples are wholesome;

  (3) No fruit, grown in the shade, is ripe.

Univ. “fruit”; a = grown in the shade; b = ripe; c = these apples; d = wholesome.

18.

  (1) Puppies, that will not lie still, are always grateful for the loan of a skipping-rope;

  (2) A lame puppy would not say “thank you” if you offered to lend it a skipping-rope.

  (3) None but lame puppies ever care to do worsted-work.

Univ. “puppies”; a = caring to do worsted-work; b = grateful for the loan of a skipping-rope; c = lame; d = willing to lie still.

19.

  (1) No name in this list is unsuitable for the hero of a romance;

  (2) Names beginning with a vowel are always melodious;

  (3) No name is suitable for the hero of a romance, if it begins with a consonant.

Univ. “names”; a = beginning with a vowel; b = in this list; c = melodious; d = suitable for the hero of a romance.

20.

  (1) All members of the House of Commons have perfect self-command;

  (2) No M.P., who wears a coronet, should ride in a donkey-race;

  (3) All members of the House of Lords wear coronets.

Univ. “M.P.’s”; a = belonging to the House of Commons; b = having perfect self-command; c = one who may ride in a donkey-race; d = wearing a coronet.

21.

  (1) No goods in this shop, that have been bought and paid for, are still on sale;

  (2) None of the goods may be carried away, unless labeled “sold”;

  (3) None of the goods are labeled “sold,” unless they have been bought and paid for.

Univ. “goods in this shop”; a = allowed to be carried away; b = bought and paid for; c = labeled “sold”; d = on sale.

22.

  (1) No acrobatic feats, that are not announced in the bills of a circus, are ever attempted there;

  (2) No acrobatic feat is possible, if it involves turning a quadruple somersault;

  (3) No impossible acrobatic feat is ever announced in a circus bill.

Univ. “acrobatic feats”; a = announced in the bills of a circus; b = attempted in a circus; c = involving the turning of a quadruple somersault; d = possible.

23.

  (1) Nobody, who really appreciates Beethoven, fails to keep silence while the Moonlight-Sonata is being played;

  (2) Guinea-pigs are hopelessly ignorant of music;

  (3) No one, who is hopelessly ignorant of music, ever keeps silence while the Moonlight-Sonata is being played.

Univ. “creatures”; a = guinea-pigs; b = hopelessly ignorant of music; c = keeping silence while the Moonlight-Sonata is being played; d = really appreciating Beethoven.

24.

  (1) Coloured flowers are always scented;

  (2) I dislike flowers that are not grown in the open air;

  (3) No flowers grown in the open air are colourless.

Univ. “flowers”; a = coloured; b = grown in the open air; c = liked by me; d = scented.

25.

  (1) Showy talkers think too much of themselves;

  (2) No really well-informed people are bad company;

  (3) People who think too much of themselves are not good company.

Univ. “persons”; a = good company; b = really well-informed; c = showy talkers; d = thinking too much of one’s self.

26.

  (1) No boys under 12 are admitted to this school as boarders;

  (2) All the industrious boys have red hair;

  (3) None of the day-boys learn Greek;

  (4) None but those under 12 are idle.

Univ. “boys in this school”; a = boarders; b = industrious; c = learning Greek; d = red-haired; e = under 12.

27.

  (1) The only articles of food, that my doctor allows me, are such as are not very rich;

  (2) Nothing that agrees with me is unsuitable for supper;

  (3) Wedding-cake is always very rich;

  (4) My doctor allows me all articles of food that are suitable for supper.

Univ. “articles of food”; a = agreeing with me; b = allowed by my doctor; c = suitable for supper; d = very rich; e = wedding-cake.

28.

  (1) No discussions in our Debating-Club are likely to rouse the British Lion, so long as they are checked when they become too noisy;

  (2) Discussions, unwisely conducted, endanger the peacefulness of our Debating-Club;

  (3) Discussions, that go on while Tomkins is in the Chair, are likely to rouse the British Lion;

  (4) Discussions in our Debating-Club, when wisely conducted, are always checked when they become too noisy.

Univ. “discussions in our Debating-Club”; a = checked when too noisy; b = dangerous to the peacefulness of our Debating-Club; c = going on while Tomkins is in the chair; d = likely to rouse the British Lion; e = wisely conducted.

29.

  (1) All my sons are slim;

  (2) No child of mine is healthy who takes no exercise;

  (3) All gluttons, who are children of mine, are fat;

  (4) No daughter of mine takes any exercise.

Univ. “my children”; a = fat; b = gluttons; c = healthy; d = sons; e = taking exercise.

30.

  (1) Things sold in the street are of no great value;

  (2) Nothing but rubbish can be had for a song;

  (3) Eggs of the Great Auk are very valuable;

  (4) It is only what is sold in the street that is really rubbish.

Univ. “things”; a = able to be had for a song; b = eggs of the Great Auk; c = rubbish; d = sold in the street; e = very valuable.

31.

  (1) No books sold here have gilt edges, except what are in the front shop;

  (2) All the authorised editions have red labels;

  (3) All the books with red labels are priced at 5s. and upwards;

  (4) None but authorised editions are ever placed in the front shop.

Univ. “books sold here”; a = authorised editions; b = gilt-edged; c = having red labels; d = in the front shop; e = priced at 5s. and upwards.

32.

  (1) Remedies for bleeding, which fail to check it, are a mockery;

  (2) Tincture of Calendula is not to be despised;

  (3) Remedies, which will check the bleeding when you cut your finger, are useful;

  (4) All mock remedies for bleeding are despicable.

Univ. “remedies for bleeding”; a = able to check bleeding; b = despicable; c = mockeries; d = Tincture of Calendula; e = useful when you cut your finger.

33.

  (1) None of the unnoticed things, met with at sea, are mermaids;

  (2) Things entered in the log, as met with at sea, are sure to be worth remembering;

  (3) I have never met with anything worth remembering, when on a voyage;

  (4) Things met with at sea, that are noticed, are sure to be recorded in the log;

Univ. “things met with at sea”; a = entered in log; b = mermaids; c = met with by me; d = noticed; e = worth remembering.

34.

  (1) The only books in this library, that I do not recommend for reading, are unhealthy in tone;

  (2) The bound books are all well-written;

  (3) All the romances are healthy in tone;

  (4) I do not recommend you to read any of the unbound books.

Univ. “books in this library”; a = bound; b = healthy in tone; c = recommended by me; d = romances; e = well-written.

35.

  (1) No birds, except ostriches, are 9 feet high;

  (2) There are no birds in this aviary that belong to any one but me;

  (3) No ostrich lives on mince-pies;

  (4) I have no birds less than 9 feet high.

Univ. “birds”; a = in this aviary; b = living on mince-pies; c = my; d = 9 feet high; e = ostriches.

36.

  (1) A plum-pudding, that is not really solid, is mere porridge;

  (2) Every plum-pudding, served at my table, has been boiled in a cloth;

  (3) A plum-pudding that is mere porridge is indistinguishable from soup;

  (4) No plum-puddings are really solid, except what are served at my table.

Univ. “plum-puddings”; a = boiled in a cloth; b = distinguishable from soup; c = mere porridge; d = really solid; e = served at my table.

37.

  (1) No interesting poems are unpopular among people of real taste;

  (2) No modern poetry is free from affectation;

  (3) All your poems are on the subject of soap-bubbles;

  (4) No affected poetry is popular among people of real taste;

  (5) No ancient poem is on the subject of soap-bubbles.

Univ. “poems”; a = affected; b = ancient; c = interesting; d = on the subject of soap-bubbles; e = popular among people of real taste; h = written by you.

38.

  (1) All the fruit at this Show, that fails to get a prize, is the property of the Committee;

  (2) None of my peaches have got prizes;

  (3) None of the fruit, sold off in the evening, is unripe;

  (4) None of the ripe fruit has been grown in a hot-house;

  (5) All fruit, that belongs to the Committee, is sold off in the evening.

Univ. “fruit at this Show”; a = belonging to the Committee; b = getting prizes; c = grown in a hot-house; d = my peaches; e = ripe; h = sold off in the evening.

39.

  (1) Promise-breakers are untrustworthy;

  (2) Wine-drinkers are very communicative;

  (3) A man who keeps his promises is honest;

  (4) No teetotalers are pawnbrokers;

  (5) One can always trust a very communicative person.

Univ. “persons”; a = honest; b = pawnbrokers; c = promise-breakers; d = trustworthy; e = very communicative; h = wine-drinkers.

40.

  (1) No kitten, that loves fish, is unteachable;

  (2) No kitten without a tail will play with a gorilla;

  (3) Kittens with whiskers always love fish;

  (4) No teachable kitten has green eyes;

  (5) No kittens have tails unless they have whiskers.

Univ. “kittens”; a = green-eyed; b = loving fish; c = tailed; d = teachable; e = whiskered; h = willing to play with a gorilla.

41.

  (1) All the Eton men in this College play cricket;

  (2) None but the Scholars dine at the higher table;

  (3) None of the cricketers row;

  (4) My friends in this College all come from Eton;

  (5) All the Scholars are rowing-men.

Univ. “men in this College”; a = cricketers; b = dining at the higher table; c = Etonians; d = my friends; e = rowing-men; h = Scholars.

42.

  (1) There is no box of mine here that I dare open;

  (2) My writing-desk is made of rose-wood;

  (3) All my boxes are painted, except what are here;

  (4) There is no box of mine that I dare not open, unless it is full of live scorpions;

  (5) All my rose-wood boxes are unpainted.

Univ. “my boxes”; a = boxes that I dare open; b = full of live scorpions; c = here; d = made of rose-wood; e = painted; h = writing-desks.

43.

  (1) Gentiles have no objection to pork;

  (2) Nobody who admires pigsties ever reads Hogg’s poems;

  (3) No Mandarin knows Hebrew;

  (4) Every one, who does not object to pork, admires pigsties;

  (5) No Jew is ignorant of Hebrew.

Univ. “persons”; a = admiring pigsties; b = Jews; c = knowing Hebrew; d = Mandarins; e = objecting to pork; h = reading Hogg’s poems.

44.

  (1) All writers, who understand human nature, are clever;

  (2) No one is a true poet unless he can stir the hearts of men;

  (3) Shakespeare wrote “Hamlet”;

  (4) No writer, who does not understand human nature, can stir the hearts of men;

  (5) None but a true poet could have written “Hamlet.”;

Univ. “writers”; a = able to stir the hearts of men; b = clever; c = Shakespeare; d = true poets; e = understanding human nature; h = writer of ‘Hamlet.’

45.

  (1) I despise anything that cannot be used as a bridge;

  (2) Everything, that is worth writing an ode to, would be a welcome gift to me;

  (3) A rainbow will not bear the weight of a wheel-barrow;

  (4) Whatever can be used as a bridge will bear the weight of a wheel-barrow;

  (5) I would not take, as a gift, a thing that I despise.

Univ. “things”; a = able to bear the weight of a wheel-barrow; b = acceptable to me; c = despised by me; d = rainbows; e = useful as a bridge; h = worth writing an ode to.

46.

  (1) When I work a Logic-example without grumbling, you may be sure it is one that I can understand;

  (2) These Soriteses are not arranged in regular order, like the examples I am used to;

  (3) No easy example ever make my head ache;

  (4) I ca’n’t understand examples that are not arranged in regular order, like those I am used to;

  (5) I never grumble at an example, unless it gives me a headache.

Univ. “Logic-examples worked by me”; a = arranged in regular order, like the examples I am used to; b = easy; c = grumbled at by me; d = making my head ache; e = these Soriteses; h = understood by me.

47.

  (1) Every idea of mine, that cannot be expressed as a Syllogism, is really ridiculous;

  (2) None of my ideas about Bath-buns are worth writing down;

  (3) No idea of mine, that fails to come true, can be expressed as a Syllogism;

  (4) I never have any really ridiculous idea, that I do not at once refer to my solicitor;

  (5) My dreams are all about Bath-buns;

  (6) I never refer any idea of mine to my solicitor, unless it is worth writing down.

Univ. “my ideas”; a = able to be expressed as a Syllogism; b = about Bath-buns; c = coming true; d = dreams; e = really ridiculous h = referred to my solicitor; k = worth writing down.

48.

  (1) None of the pictures here, except the battle-pieces, are valuable;

  (2) None of the unframed ones are varnished;

  (3) All the battle-pieces are painted in oils;

  (4) All those that have been sold are valuable;

  (5) All the English ones are varnished;

  (6) All those in frames have been sold.

Univ. “the pictures here”; a = battle-pieces; b = English; c = framed; d = oil-paintings; e = sold; h = valuable; k = varnished.

49.

  (1) Animals, that do not kick, are always unexcitable;

  (2) Donkeys have no horns;

  (3) A buffalo can always toss one over a gate;

  (4) No animals that kick are easy to swallow;

  (5) No hornless animal can toss one over a gate;

  (6) All animals are excitable, except buffaloes.

Univ. “animals”; a = able to toss one over a gate; b = buffaloes; c = donkeys; d = easy to swallow; e = excitable; h = horned; k = kicking.

50.

  (1) No one, who is going to a party, ever fails to brush his hair;

  (2) No one looks fascinating, if he is untidy;

  (3) Opium-eaters have no self-command;

  (4) Every one, who has brushed his hair, looks fascinating;

  (5) No one wears white kid gloves, unless he is going to a party;

  (6) A man is always untidy, if he has no self-command.

Univ. “persons”; a = going to a party; b = having brushed one’s hair; c = having self-command; d = looking fascinating; e = opium-eaters; h = tidy; k = wearing white kid gloves.

51.

  (1) No husband, who is always giving his wife new dresses, can be a cross-grained man;

  (2) A methodical husband always comes home for his tea;

  (3) No one, who hangs up his hat on the gas-jet, can be a man that is kept in proper order by his wife;

  (4) A good husband is always giving his wife new dresses;

  (5) No husband can fail to be cross-grained, if his wife does not keep him in proper order;

  (6) An unmethodical husband always hangs up his hat on the gas-jet.

Univ. “husbands”; a = always coming home for his tea; b = always giving his wife new dresses; c = cross-grained; d = good; e = hanging up his hat on the gas-jet; h = kept in proper order; k = methodical.

52.

  (1) Everything, not absolutely ugly, may be kept in a drawing-room;

  (2) Nothing, that is encrusted with salt, is ever quite dry;

  (3) Nothing should be kept in a drawing-room, unless it is free from damp;

  (4) Bathing-machines are always kept near the sea;

  (5) Nothing, that is made of mother-of-pearl, can be absolutely ugly;

  (6) Whatever is kept near the sea gets encrusted with salt.

Univ. “things”; a = absolutely ugly; b = bathing-machines; c = encrusted with salt; d = kept near the sea; e = made of mother-of-pearl; h = quite dry; k = things that may be kept in a drawing-room.

53.

  (1) I call no day “unlucky,” when Robinson is civil to me;

  (2) Wednesdays are always cloudy;

  (3) When people take umbrellas, the day never turns out fine;

  (4) The only days when Robinson is uncivil to me are Wednesdays;

  (5) Everybody takes his umbrella with him when it is raining;

  (6) My “lucky” days always turn out fine.

Univ. “days”; a = called by me ‘lucky’; b = cloudy; c = days when people take umbrellas; d = days when Robinson is civil to me; e = rainy; h = turning out fine; k = Wednesdays.

54.

  (1) No shark ever doubts that it is well fitted out;

  (2) A fish, that cannot dance a minuet, is contemptible;

  (3) No fish is quite certain that it is well fitted out, unless it has three rows of teeth;

  (4) All fishes, except sharks, are kind to children;

  (5) No heavy fish can dance a minuet;

  (6) A fish with three rows of teeth is not to be despised.

Univ. “fishes”; a = able to dance a minuet; b = certain that he is well fitted out; c = contemptible; d = having 3 rows of teeth; e = heavy; h = kind to children; k = sharks.

55.

  (1) All the human race, except my footmen, have a certain amount of common-sense;

  (2) No one, who lives on barley-sugar, can be anything but a mere baby;

  (3) None but a hop-scotch player knows what real happiness is;

  (4) No mere baby has a grain of common sense;

  (5) No engine-driver ever plays hop-scotch;

  (6) No footman of mine is ignorant of what true happiness is.

Univ. “human beings”; a = engine-drivers; b = having common sense; c = hop-scotch players; d = knowing what real happiness is; e = living on barley-sugar; h = mere babies; k = my footmen.

56.

  (1) I trust every animal that belongs to me;

  (2) Dogs gnaw bones;

  (3) I admit no animals into my study, unless they will beg when told to do so;

  (4) All the animals in the yard are mine;

  (5) I admit every animal, that I trust, into my study;

  (6) The only animals, that are really willing to beg when told to do so, are dogs.

Univ. “animals”; a = admitted to my study; b = animals that I trust; c = dogs; d = gnawing bones; e = in the yard; h = my; k = willing to beg when told.

57.

  (1) Animals are always mortally offended if I fail to notice them;

  (2) The only animals that belong to me are in that field;

  (3) No animal can guess a conundrum, unless it has been properly trained in a Board-School;

  (4) None of the animals in that field are badgers;

  (5) When an animal is mortally offended, it always rushes about wildly and howls;

  (6) I never notice any animal, unless it belongs to me;

  (7) No animal, that has been properly trained in a Board-School, ever rushes about wildly and howls.

Univ. “animals”; a = able to guess a conundrum; b = badgers; c = in that field; d = mortally offended; e = my; h = noticed by me; k = properly trained in a Board-School; l = rushing about wildly and howling.

58.

  (1) I never put a cheque, received by me, on that file, unless I am anxious about it;

  (2) All the cheques received by me, that are not marked with a cross, are payable to bearer;

  (3) None of them are ever brought back to me, unless they have been dishonoured at the Bank;

  (4) All of them, that are marked with a cross, are for amounts of over £100;

  (5) All of them, that are not on that file, are marked “not negotiable”;

  (6) No cheque of yours, received by me, has ever been dishonoured;

  (7) I am never anxious about a cheque, received by me, unless it should happen to be brought back to me;

  (8) None of the cheques received by me, that are marked “not negotiable,” are for amounts of over £100.

Univ. “cheques received by me”; a = brought back to me; b = cheques that I am anxious about; c = honoured; d = marked with a cross; e = marked ‘not negotiable’; h = on that file; k = over £100; l = payable to bearer; m = your.

59.

  (1) All the dated letters in this room are written on blue paper;

  (2) None of them are in black ink, except those that are written in the third person;

  (3) I have not filed any of them that I can read;

  (4) None of them, that are written on one sheet, are undated;

  (5) All of them, that are not crossed, are in black ink;

  (6) All of them, written by Brown, begin with “Dear Sir”;

  (7) All of them, written on blue paper, are filed;

  (8) None of them, written on more than one sheet, are crossed;

  (9) None of them, that begin with “Dear Sir,” are written in the third person.

Univ. “letters in this room”; a = beginning with “Dear Sir”; b = crossed; c = dated; d = filed; e = in black ink; h = in third person; k = letters that I can read; l = on blue paper; m = on one sheet; n = written by Brown.

60.

  (1) The only animals in this house are cats;

  (2) Every animal is suitable for a pet, that loves to gaze at the moon;

  (3) When I detest an animal, I avoid it;

  (4) No animals are carnivorous, unless they prowl at night;

  (5) No cats fails to kill mice;

  (6) No animals ever take to me, except what are in this house;

  (7) Kangaroos are not suitable for pets;

  (8) None but carnivora kill mice;

  (9) I detest animals that do not take to me;

(10) Animals, that prowl at night, always love to gaze at the moon.

Univ. “animals”; a = avoided by me; b = carnivora; c = cats; d = detested by me; e = in this house; h = kangaroos; k = killing mice; l = loving to gaze at the moon; m = prowling at night; n = suitable for pets; r = taking to me.

CHAPTER II.

ANSWERS.

AN1Answers to § 1.

  1.“All”

Sign of Quantity.

“persons represented by the Name ‘I’” (or “I’s”)

Subject.

“are”

Copula.

“persons who have been out for a walk”

Predicate.

or, more briefly,

“All | ‘I’s | are | persons who have been out for a walk”.

  2. “All | ‘I’s | are | persons who feel better”.

  3. “No | persons who are not ‘John’ | are | persons who have read the letter”.

  4. “No | Members of the Class ‘you and I’ | are | old persons”.

  5. “No | fat creatures | are | creatures that run well”.

  6. “No | not-brave persons | are | persons deserving of the fair”.

  7. “No | not-pale persons | are | persons who look poetical”.

  8. “Some | judges | are | persons who lose their tempers”.

  9. “All | ‘I’s | are | persons who do not neglect important business”.

10. “All | difficult things | are | things that need attention”.

11. “All | unwholesome things | are | things that should be avoided”.

12. “All | laws passed last week | are | laws relating to excise”.

13. “All | logical studies | are | things that puzzle me”.

14. “No | persons in the house | are | Jews”.

15. “Some | not well-cooked dishes | are | unwholesome dishes”.

16. “All | unexciting books | are | books that make one drowsy”.

17. “All | men who know what they’re about | are | men who can detect a sharper”.

18. “All | Members of the Class ‘you and I’ | are | persons who know what they’re about”.

19. “Some | bald persons | are | persons accustomed to wear wigs”.

20. “All | fully occupied persons | are | persons who do not talk about their grievances”.

21. “No | riddles that can be solved | are | riddles that interest me”.

AN2Answers to § 2.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

AN3Answers to § 3.

  1. Some xy exist, or some x are y, or some y are x.

  2. No information.

  3. All y′ are x′.

  4. No xy exist, &c.

  5. All y′ are x.

  6. All x′ are y.

  7. All x are y.

  8. All x′ are y′, and all y are x.

  9. All x′ are y′.

10. All x are y′.

11. No information.

12. Some x′y′ exist, &c.

13. Some xy′ exist, &c.

14. No xy′ exist, &c.

15. Some xy exist, &c.

16. All y are x.

17. All x′ are y, and all y′ are x.

18. All x are y′, and all y are x′.

19. All x are y, and all y′ are x′.

20. All y are x′.

AN4Answers to § 4.

  1. No x′ are y′.

  2. Some x′ are y′.

  3. Some x are y′.

  4. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

  5. Some x′ are y′.

  6. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

  7. Some x are y′.

  8. Some x′ are y′.

  9. [No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

10. All x are y, and all y′ are x′.

11. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

12. All y are x′.

13. No x′ are y.

14. No x′ are y′.

15. No x are y.

16. All x are y′, and all y are x′.

17. No x are y′.

18. No x are y.

19. Some x are y′.

20. No x are y′.

21. Some y are x′.

22. [No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

23. Some x are y.

24. All y are x′.

25. Some y are x′.

26. All y are x.

27. All x are y, and all y′ are x′.

28. Some y are x′.

29. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

30. Some y are x′.

31. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

32. No x are y′.

33. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

34. Some x are y.

35. All y are x′.

36. Some y are x′.

37. Some x are y′.

38. No x are y.

39. Some x′ are y′.

40. All y′ are x.

41. All x are y′.

42. No x are y.

AN5Answers to § 5.

    1. Somebody who has been out for a walk is feeling better.

    2. No one but John knows what the letter is about.

    3. You and I like walking.

    4. Honesty is sometimes the best policy.

    5. Some greyhounds are not fat.

    6. Some brave persons get their deserts.

    7. Some rich persons are not Esquimaux.

    8. [No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

    9. John is ill.

  10. Some things, that are not umbrellas, should be left behind on a journey.

  11. No music is worth paying for, unless it causes vibration in the air.

  12. Some holidays are tiresome.

  13. Englishmen are not Frenchmen.

  14. No photograph of a lady is satisfactory.

  15. No one looks poetical unless he is phlegmatic.

  16. Some thin persons are not cheerful.

  17. Some judges do not exercise self-control.

  18. Pigs are not fed on barley-water.

  19. Some black rabbits are not old.

  20. [No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

  21. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

  22. Some lessons need attention.

  23. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

  24. No one, who forgets a promise, fails to do mischief.

  25. Some greedy creatures cannot fly.

  26. [No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

  27. No bride-cakes are things that need not be avoided.

  28. John is happy.

  29. Some people, who are not gamblers, are not philosophers.

  30. [No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

  31. None of my lodgers write poetry.

  32. Senna is not nice.

  33. [No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

  34. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

  35. Logic is unintelligible.

  36. Some wild creatures are fat.

  37. All wasps are unwelcome.

  38. All black rabbits are young.

  39. Some hard-boiled things can be cracked.

  40. No antelopes fail to delight the eye.

  41. All well-fed canaries are cheerful.

  42. Some poetry is not producible at will.

  43. No country infested by dragons fails to be fascinating.

  44. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

  45. Some picturesque things are not made of sugar.

  46. No children can sit still.

  47. Some cats cannot whistle.

  48. You are terrible.

  49. Some oysters are not amusing.

  50. Nobody in the house has a beard a yard long.

  51. Some ill-fed canaries are unhappy.

  52. My sisters cannot sing.

  53. [No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

  54. Some rich things are nice.

  55. My cousins are none of them judges, and judges are none of them cousins of mine.

  56. Something wearisome is not eagerly wished for.

  57. Senna is nasty.

  58. [No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

  59. Niggers are not any of them tall.

  60. Some obstinate persons are not philosophers.

  61. John is happy.

  62. Some unwholesome dishes are not present here (i.e. cannot be spoken of as “these”).

  63. No books suit feverish patients unless they make one drowsy.

  64. Some greedy creatures cannot fly.

  65. You and I can detect a sharper.

  66. Some dreams are not lambs.

  67. No lizard needs a hairbrush.

  68. Some things, that may escape notice, are not battles.

  69. My cousins are not any of them judges.

  70. Some hard-boiled things can be cracked.

  71. [No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

  72. She is unpopular.

  73. Some people, who wear wigs, are not children of yours.

  74. No lobsters expect impossibilities.

  75. No nightmare is eagerly desired.

  76. Some nice things are not plumcakes.

  77. Some kinds of jam need not be shunned.

  78. All ducks are ungraceful.

  79. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

  80. No man, who begs in the street, should fail to keep accounts.

  81. Some savage creatures are not spiders.

  82. [No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

  83. No travelers, who do not carry plenty of small change, fail to lose their luggage.

  84. [No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

  85. Judges are none of them cousins of mine.

  86. All my lodgers are sane.

  87. Those who are busy are contented, and discontented people are not busy.

  88. None of my cousins are judges.

  89. No nightingale dislikes sugar.

  90. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

  91. Some excuses are not clear explanations.

  92. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

  93. No kind deed need cause scruple.

  94. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

  95. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

  96. No cheats are trustworthy.

  97. No clever child of mine is greedy.

  98. Some things, that are meant to amuse, are not Acts of Parliament.

  99. No tour, that is ever forgotten, is worth writing a book about.

100. No obedient child of mine is contented.

101. Your visit does not annoy me.

AN6Answers to § 6.

  1. Conclusion right.

  2. No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.

  3. Concl. right.

  4. Concl. right.

  5. Concl. right.

  6. No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.

  7. No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.

  8. Concl. right.

  9. Concl. right.

10. Concl. right.

11. Concl. right.

12. Concl. right.

13. Concl. right.

14. Concl. right.

15. Concl. right.

16. No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.

17. Concl. right.

18. Concl. right.

19. Concl. right.

20. Concl. right.

21. Concl. right.

22. Concl. wrong: the right one is “Some x are y.”

23. Concl. right.

24. Concl. right.

25. Concl. right.

26. Concl. right.

27. Concl. right.

28. No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.

29. Concl. right.

30. Concl. right.

31. Concl. right.

32. Concl. right.

33. Concl. right.

34. No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.

35. Concl. right.

36. Concl. right.

37. Concl. right.

38. No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.

39. Concl. right.

40. Concl. right.

AN7Answers to § 7.

  1. Concl. right.

  2. Concl. right.

  3. Concl. right.

  4. Concl. wrong: right one is “Some epicures are not uncles of mine.”

  5. Concl. right.

  6. No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.

  7. Concl. wrong: right one is “The publication, in which I saw it, tells lies.”

  8. No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.

  9. Concl. wrong: right one is “Some tedious songs are not his.”

10. Concl. right.

11. No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.

12. Concl. wrong: right one is “Some fierce creatures do not drink coffee.”

13. No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.

14. Concl. right.

15. Concl. wrong: right one is “Some shallow persons are not students.”

16. No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.

17. Concl. wrong: right one is “Some business, other than railways, is unprofitable.”

18. Concl. wrong: right one is “Some vain persons are not Professors.”

19. Concl. right.

20. Concl. wrong: right one is “Wasps are not puppies.”

21. No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.

22. No Concl. Same Fallacy.

23. Concl. right.

24. Concl. wrong: right one is “Some chocolate-creams are delicious.”

25. No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.

26. No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.

27. Concl. wrong: right one is “Some pillows are not pokers.”

28. Concl. right.

29. No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.

30. No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.

31. Concl. right.

32. No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.

33. No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.

34. Concl. wrong: right one is “Some dreaded persons are not begged to prolong their visits.”

35. Concl. wrong: right one is “No man walks on neither.”

36. Concl. right.

37. No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.

38. Concl. wrong: right one is “Some persons, dreaded by children, are not emperors.”

39. Concl. incomplete: the omitted portion is “Sugar is not salt.”

40. Concl. right.

AN8Answers to § 8.

  1. a1b0 † b1a0.

  2. d1a0.

  3. ac0.

  4. a1d0.

  5. cd0.

  6. d1c0.

  7. a′c0.

  8. c1a′0.

  9. c′d0.

10. b1a0.

11. d1b0.

12. a′d0.

13. e1b0.

14. d1e′0.

15. e1a′0.

16. b′c0.

17. a1b0.

18. d1c0.

19. a1d0.

20. ac0.

21. de0.

22. a1b′0.

23. h1c0.

24. e1a0.

25. e1c′0.

26. e1c′0.

27. hk′0.

28. e1d′0.

29. l′a0.

30. k1b′0.

AN9Answers to § 9.

  1. Babies cannot manage crocodiles.

  2. Your presents to me are not made of tin.

  3. All my potatoes in this dish are old ones.

  4. My servants never say “shpoonj.”

  5. My poultry are not officers.

  6. None of your sons are fit to serve on a jury.

  7. No pencils of mine are sugar-plums.

  8. Jenkins is inexperienced.

  9. No comet has a curly tail.

10. No hedge-hog takes in the Times.

11. This dish is unwholesome.

12. My gardener is very old.

13. All humming-birds are small.

14. No one with a hooked nose ever fails to make money.

15. No gray ducks in this village wear lace collars.

16. No jug in this cupboard will hold water.

17. These apples were grown in the sun.

18. Puppies, that will not lie still, never care to do worsted work.

19. No name in this list is unmelodious.

20. No M.P. should ride in a donkey-race, unless he has perfect self-command.

21. No goods in this shop, that are still on sale, may be carried away.

22. No acrobatic feat, which involves turning a quadruple somersault, is ever attempted in a circus.

23. Guinea-pigs never really appreciate Beethoven.

24. No scentless flowers please me.

25. Showy talkers are not really well-informed.

26. None but red-haired boys learn Greek in this school.

27. Wedding-cake always disagrees with me.

28. Discussions, that go on while Tomkins is in the chair, endanger the peacefulness of our Debating-Club.

29. All gluttons, who are children of mine, are unhealthy.

30. An egg of the Great Auk is not to be had for a song.

31. No books sold here have gilt edges, unless they are priced at 5s. and upwards.

32. When you cut your finger, you will find Tincture of Calendula useful.

33. I have never come across a mermaid at sea.

34. All the romances in this library are well-written.

35. No bird in this aviary lives on mince-pies.

36. No plum-pudding, that has not been boiled in a cloth, can be distinguished from soup.

37. All your poems are uninteresting.

38. None of my peaches have been grown in a hot-house.

39. No pawnbroker is dishonest.

40. No kitten with green eyes will play with a gorilla.

41. All my friends dine at the lower table.

42. My writing-desk is full of live scorpions.

43. No Mandarin ever reads Hogg’s poems.

44. Shakespeare was clever.

45. Rainbows are not worth writing odes to.

46. These Sorites-examples are difficult.

47. All my dreams come true.

48. All the English pictures here are painted in oils.

49. Donkeys are not easy to swallow.

50. Opium-eaters never wear white kid gloves.

51. A good husband always comes home for his tea.

52. Bathing-machines are never made of mother-of-pearl.

53. Rainy days are always cloudy.

54. No heavy fish is unkind to children.

55. No engine-driver lives on barley-sugar.

56. All the animals in the yard gnaw bones.

57. No badger can guess a conundrum.

58. No cheque of yours, received by me, is payable to order.

59. I cannot read any of Brown’s letters.

60. I always avoid a kangaroo.

CHAPTER III.

SOLUTIONS.

§ 1.

Propositions of Relation reduced to normal form.

SL1Solutions for § 1.

1. The Univ. is “persons.” The Individual “I” may be regarded as a Class, of persons, whose peculiar Attribute is “represented by the Name ‘I’”, and may be called the Class of “I’s”. It is evident that this Class cannot possibly contain more than one Member: hence the Sign of Quantity is “all”. The verb “have been” may be replaced by the phrase “are persons who have been”. The Proposition may be written thus:—

“All”

Sign of Quantity.

“I’s”

Subject.

“are”

Copula.

“persons who have been out for a walk”

Predicate.

or, more briefly,

“All | I’s | are | persons who have been out for a walk”.

2. The Univ. and the Subject are the same as in Ex. 1. The Proposition may be written

“All | I’s | are | persons who feel better”.

3. Univ. is “persons”. The Subject is evidently the Class of persons from which John is excluded; i.e. it is the Class containing all persons who are not “John”.

The Sign of Quantity is “no”.

The verb “has read” may be replaced by the phrase “are persons who have read”.

The Proposition may be written

“No | persons who are not ‘John’ | are | persons who have read the letter”.

4. Univ. is “persons”. The Subject is evidently the Class of persons whose only two Members are “you and I”.

Hence the Sign of Quantity is “no”.

The Proposition may be written

“No | Members of the Class ‘you and I’ | are | old persons”.

5. Univ. is “creatures”. The verb “run well” may be replaced by the phrase “are creatures that run well”.

The Proposition may be written

“No | fat creatures | are | creatures that run well”.

6. Univ. is “persons”. The Subject is evidently the Class of persons who are not brave.

The verb “deserve” may be replaced by the phrase “are deserving of”.

The Proposition may be written

“No | not-brave persons | are | persons deserving of the fair”.

7. Univ. is “persons”. The phrase “looks poetical” evidently belongs to the Predicate; and the Subject is the Class, of persons, whose peculiar Attribute is “not-pale”.

The Proposition may be written

“No | not-pale persons | are | persons who look poetical”.

8. Univ. is “persons”.

The Proposition may be written

“Some | judges | are | persons who lose their tempers”.

9. Univ. is “persons”. The phrase “never neglect” is merely a stronger form of the phrase “am a person who does not neglect”.

The Proposition may be written

“All | ‘I’s’ | are | persons who do not neglect important business”.

10. Univ. is “things”. The phrase “what is difficult” (i.e. “that which is difficult”) is equivalent to the phrase “all difficult things”.

The Proposition may be written

“All | difficult things | are | things that need attention”.

11. Univ. is “things”. The phrase “what is unwholesome” may be interpreted as in Ex. 10.

The Proposition may be written

“All | unwholesome things | are | things that should be avoided”.

12. Univ. is “laws”. The Predicate is evidently a Class whose peculiar Attribute is “relating to excise”.

The Proposition may be written

“All | laws passed last week | are | laws relating to excise”.

13. Univ. is “things”. The Subject is evidently the Class, of studies, whose peculiar Attribute is “logical”; hence the Sign of Quantity is “all”.

The Proposition may be written

“All | logical studies | are | things that puzzle me”.

14. Univ. is “persons”. The Subject is evidently “persons in the house”.

The Proposition may be written

“No | persons in the house | are | Jews”.

15. Univ. is “dishes”. The phrase “if not well-cooked” is equivalent to the Attribute “not well-cooked”.

The Proposition may be written

“Some | not well-cooked dishes | are | unwholesome dishes”.

16. Univ. is “books”. The phrase “make one drowsy” may be replaced by the phrase “are books that make one drowsy”.

The Sign of Quantity is evidently “all”.

The Proposition may be written

“All | unexciting books | are | books that make one drowsy”.

17. Univ. is “men”. The Subject is evidently “a man who knows what he’s about”; and the word “when” shows that the Proposition is asserted of every such man, i.e. of all such men. The verb “can” may be replaced by “are men who can”.

The Proposition may be written

“All | men who know what they’re about | are | men who can detect a sharper”.

18. The Univ. and the Subject are the same as in Ex. 4.

The Proposition may be written

“All | Members of the Class ‘you and I’ | are | persons who know what they’re about”.

19. Univ. is “persons”. The verb “wear” may be replaced by the phrase “are accustomed to wear”.

The Proposition may be written

“Some | bald persons | are | persons accustomed to wear wigs”.

20. Univ. is “persons”. The phrase “never talk” is merely a stronger form of “are persons who do not talk”.

The Proposition may be written

“All | fully occupied persons | are | persons who do not talk about their grievances”.

21. Univ. is “riddles”. The phrase “if they can be solved” is equivalent to the Attribute “that can be solved”.

The Proposition may be written

“No | riddles that can be solved | are | riddles that interest me”.

§ 2.

Method of Diagrams.

SL4-ASolutions for § 4, Nos. 1–12.

1. 

No m are x′;

All m′ are y.

∴ No x′ are y′.

2. 

No m′ are x;

Some m′ are y′.

∴ Some x are y′.

3. 

All m′ are x;

All m′ are y′.

∴ Some x are y′.

4. 

No x′ are m′;

All y′ are m.

There is no Conclusion.

5. 

Some m are x′;

No y are m.

∴ Some x′ are y′.

6. 

No x′ are m;

No m are y.

There is no Conclusion.

7. 

No m are x′;

Some y′ are m.

∴ Some x are y′.

8. 

All m′ are x′;

No m′ are y.

∴ Some x′ are y′.

9. 

Some x′ are m′;

No m are y′.

There is no Conclusion.

10. 

All x are m;

All y′ are m′.

∴ All x are y;

     All y′ are x′.

11. 

No m are x;

All y′ are m′.

There is no Conclusion.

12. 

No x are m;

All y are m.

∴ All y are x′.

SL5-ASolutions for § 5, Nos. 1–12.

  1. I have been out for a walk;

I am feeling better.

Univ. is “persons”; m = the Class of I’s; x = persons who have been out for a walk; y = persons who are feeling better.

All m are x;

All m are y.

∴ Some x are y.

i.e. Somebody, who has been out for a walk, is feeling better.

  2. No one has read the letter but John;

No one, who has not read it, knows what it is about.

Univ. is “persons”; m = persons who have read the letter; x = the Class of Johns; y = persons who know what the letter is about.

No x′ are m;

No m′ are y.

∴ No x′ are y.

i.e. No one, but John, knows what the letter is about.

  3. Those who are not old like walking;

You and I are young.

Univ. is “persons”; m = old; x = persons who like walking; y = you and I.

All m′ are x;

All y are m′.

∴ All y are x.

i.e. You and I like walking.

  4. Your course is always honest;

Your course is always the best policy.

Univ. is “courses”; m = your; x = honest; y = courses which are the best policy.

All m are x;

All m are y.

∴ Some x are y.

i.e. Honesty is sometimes the best policy.

  5. No fat creatures run well;

Some greyhounds run well.

Univ. is “creatures”; m = creatures that run well; x = fat; y = greyhounds.

No x are m;

Some y are m.

∴ Some y are x′.

i.e. Some greyhounds are not fat.

  6. Some, who deserve the fair, get their deserts;

None but the brave deserve the fair.

Univ. is “persons”; m = persons who deserve the fair; x = persons who get their deserts; y = brave.

Some m are x;

No y′ are m.

∴ Some y are x.

i.e. Some brave persons get their deserts.

  7. Some Jews are rich;

All Esquimaux are Gentiles.

Univ. is “persons”; m = Jews; x = rich; y = Esquimaux.

Some m are x;

All y are m′.

∴ Some x are y′.

i.e. Some rich persons are not Esquimaux.

  8. Sugar-plums are sweet;

Some sweet things are liked by children.

Univ. is “things”; m = sweet; x = sugar-plums; y = things that are liked by children.

All x are m;

Some m are y.

There is no Conclusion.

  9. John is in the house;

Everybody in the house is ill.

Univ. is “persons”; m = persons in the house; x = the Class of Johns; y = ill.

All x are m;

All m are y.

∴ All x are y.

i.e. John is ill.

10. Umbrellas are useful on a journey;

What is useless on a journey should be left behind.

Univ. is “things”; m = useful on a journey; x = umbrellas; y = things that should be left behind.

All x are m;

All m′ are y.

∴ Some x′ are y.

i.e. Some things, that are not umbrellas, should be left behind on a journey.

11. Audible music causes vibration in the air;

Inaudible music is not worth paying for.

Univ. is “music”; m = audible; x = music that causes vibration in the air; y = worth paying for.

All m are x;

All m′ are y′.

∴ No x′ are y.

i.e. No music is worth paying for, unless it causes vibration in the air.

12. Some holidays are rainy;

Rainy days are tiresome.

Univ. is “days”; m = rainy; x = holidays; y = tiresome.

Some x are m;

All m are y.

∴ Some x are y.

i.e. Some holidays are tiresome.

SL6-ASolutions for § 6, Nos. 1–10.

  1.

Some x are m; No m are y′. Some x are y.

Hence proposed Conclusion is right.

  2.

All x are m; No y are m′. No y are x′.

There is no Conclusion.

  3.

Some x are m′; All y′ are m. Some x are y.

Hence proposed Conclusion is right.

  4.

All x are m; No y are m. All x are y′.

Hence proposed Conclusion is right.

  5.

Some m′ are x′; No m′ are y. Some x′ are y′.

Hence proposed Conclusion is right.

  6.

No x′ are m; All y are m′. All y are x.

There is no Conclusion.

  7.

Some m′ are x′; All y′ are m′. Some x′ are y′.

There is no Conclusion.

  8.

No m′ are x′; All y′ are m′. All y′ are x.

Hence proposed Conclusion is right.

  9.

Some m are x′; No m are y. Some x′ are y′.

Hence proposed Conclusion is right.

10.

All m′ are x′; All m are y. Some y are x′.

Hence proposed Conclusion is right.

SL7-ASolutions for § 7, Nos. 1–6.

1.

No doctors are enthusiastic;

You are enthusiastic.

    You are not a doctor.

Univ. “persons”; m = enthusiastic; x = doctors; y = you.

No x are m;

All y are m.

  All y are x′.

∴ All y are x′.

Hence proposed Conclusion is right.

2.

All dictionaries are useful;

Useful books are valuable.

    Dictionaries are valuable.

Univ. “books”; m = useful; x = dictionaries; y = valuable.

All x are m;

All m are y.

  All x are y.

∴ All x are y.

Hence proposed Conclusion is right.

3.

No misers are unselfish;

None but misers save egg-shells.

    No unselfish people save egg-shells.

Univ. “people”; m = misers; x = selfish; y = people who save egg-shells.

No m are x′;

No m′ are y.

  No x′ are y.

∴ No x′ are y.

Hence proposed Conclusion is right.

4.

Some epicures are ungenerous;

All my uncles are generous.

    My uncles are not epicures.

Univ. “persons”; m = generous; x = epicures; y = my uncles.

Some x are m′.

All y are m.

  All y are x′.

∴ Some x are y′.

Hence proposed Conclusion is wrong, the right one being “Some epicures are not uncles of mine.”

5.

Gold is heavy;

Nothing but gold will silence him.

    Nothing light will silence him.

Univ. “things”; m = gold; x = heavy; y = able to silence him.

All m are x;

No m′ are y.

  No x′ are y.

∴ No x′ are y.

Hence proposed Conclusion is right.

6.

Some healthy people are fat;

No unhealthy people are strong.

    Some fat people are not strong.

Univ. “persons”; m = healthy; x = fat; y = strong.

Some m are x;

No m′ are y.

  Some x are y′.

There is no Conclusion.

§ 3.

Method of Subscripts.

SL4-BSolutions for § 4.

  1. mx′0 † m′1y′0     ¶ x′y′0     [Fig. I.

    i.e. “No x′ are y′.”

  2. m′x0 † m′y′1     ¶ x′y′1     [Fig. II.

    i.e. “Some x′ are y′.”

  3. m′1x′0 † m′1y0     ¶ xy′1     [Fig. III.

    i.e. “Some x are y′.”

  4. x′m′0 † y′1m′0     ¶ nothing.

    [Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

  5. mx′1 † ym0     ¶ x′y′1     [Fig. II.

    i.e. “Some x′ are y′.”

  6. x′m0 † my0     ¶ nothing.

    [Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

  7. mx′0 † y′m1     ¶ xy′1     [Fig. II.

    i.e. “Some x are y′.”

  8. m′1x0 † m′y0     ¶ x′y′1     [Fig. III.

    i.e. “Some x′ are y′.”

  9. x′m′1 † my0     ¶ nothing.

    [Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

10. x1m′0 † y′1m0     ¶ x1y′0 † y′1x0     [Fig. I (β).

    i.e. “All x are y, and all y′ are x′.”

11. mx0 † y′1m0     ¶ nothing.

    [Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

12. xm0 † y1m′0     ¶ y1x0     [Fig. I (α).

    i.e. “All y are x′.”

13. m′1x′0 † ym0     ¶ x′y0     [Fig. I.

    i.e. “No x′ are y.”

14. m1x′0 † m′1y′0     ¶ x′y′0     [Fig. I.

    i.e. “No x′ are y′.”

15. xm0 † m′y0     ¶ xy0     [Fig. I.

    i.e. “No x are y.”

16. x1m0 † y1m′0     ¶ (x1y0 † y1x0)     [Fig. I (β).

    i.e. “All x are y′ and all y are x′.”

17. xm0 † m′1y′0     ¶ xy′0     [Fig. I.

    i.e. “No x are y′.”

18. xm′0 † my0     ¶ xy0     [Fig. I.

    i.e. “No x are y.”

19. m1x′0 † m1y0     ¶ xy′1     [Fig. III.

    i.e. “Some x are y′.”

20. mx0 † m′1y′0     ¶ xy′0     [Fig. I.

    i.e. “No x are y′.”

21. x1m′0 † m′y1     ¶ x′y1     [Fig. II.

    i.e. “Some x′ are y.”

22. xm1 † y1m′0     ¶ nothing.

    [Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

23. m1x′0 † ym1     ¶ xy1     [Fig. II.

    i.e. “Some x are y.”

24. xm0 † y1m′0     ¶ y1x0     [Fig. I (α).

    i.e. “All y are x′.”

25. mx′1 † my′0     ¶ x′y1     [Fig. II.

    i.e. “Some x′ are y.”

26. mx′0 † y1m′0     ¶ y1x′0     [Fig. I (α).

    i.e. “All y are x.”

27. x1m0 † y′1m′0     ¶ (x1y′0 † y′1x0)     [Fig. I (β).

    i.e. “All x are y, and all y′ are x′.”

28. m1x0 † my1     ¶ x′y1     [Fig. II.

    i.e. “Some x′ are y.”

29. mx0 † y1m0     ¶ nothing.

    [Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

30. x1m0 † ym1     ¶ x′y1     [Fig. II.

    i.e. “Some y are x′.”

31. x1m′0 † y1m′0     ¶ nothing.

    [Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

32. xm′0 † m1y′0     ¶ xy′0     [Fig. I.

    i.e. “No x are y′.”

33. mx0 † my0     ¶ nothing.

    [Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

34. mx′0 † ym1     ¶ xy1     [Fig. II.

    i.e. “Some x are y.”

35. mx0 † y1m′0     ¶ y1x0     [Fig. I (α).

    i.e. “All y are x′.”

36. m1x0 † ym1     ¶ x′y1     [Fig. II.

    i.e. “Some x′ are y.”

37. m1x′0 † ym0     ¶ xy′1     [Fig. III.

    i.e. “Some x are y′.”

38. mx0 † m′y0     ¶ xy0     [Fig. I.

    i.e. “No x are y.”

39. mx′1 † my0     ¶ x′y′1     [Fig. II.

    i.e. “Some x′ are y′.”

40. x′m0 † y′1m′0     ¶ y′1x′0     [Fig. I (α).

    i.e. “All y′ are x.”

41. x1m0 † ym′0     ¶ x1y0     [Fig. I (α).

    i.e. “All x are y′.”

42. m′x0 † ym0     ¶ xy0     [Fig. I.

    i.e. “No x are y.”

SL5-BSolutions for § 5, Nos. 13–24.

13. No Frenchmen like plumpudding;

All Englishmen like plumpudding.

Univ. “men”; m = liking plumpudding; x = French; y = English.

xm0 † y1m′0     ¶ y1x0         [Fig. I (α).

i.e. Englishmen are not Frenchmen.

14. No portrait of a lady, that makes her simper or scowl, is satisfactory;

No photograph of a lady ever fails to make her simper or scowl.

Univ. “portraits of ladies”; m = making the subject simper or scowl; x = satisfactory; y = photographic.

mx0 † ym′0     ¶ xy0         [Fig. I.

i.e. No photograph of a lady is satisfactory.

15. All pale people are phlegmatic;

No one looks poetical unless he is pale.

Univ. “people”; m = pale; x = phlegmatic; y = looking poetical.

m1x′0 † m′y0     ¶ x′y0         [Fig. I.

i.e. No one looks poetical unless he is phlegmatic.

16. No old misers are cheerful;

Some old misers are thin.

Univ. “persons”; m = old misers; x = cheerful; y = thin.

mx0 † my1     ¶ x′y1         [Fig. II.

i.e. Some thin persons are not cheerful.

17. No one, who exercises self-control, fails to keep his temper;

Some judges lose their tempers.

Univ. “persons”; m = keeping their tempers; x = exercising self-control; y = judges.

xm′0 † ym′1     ¶ x′y1         [Fig. II.

i.e. Some judges do not exercise self-control.

18. All pigs are fat;

Nothing that is fed on barley-water is fat.

Univ. is “things”; m = fat; x = pigs; y = fed on barley-water.

x1m′0 † ym0     ¶ x1y0         [Fig. I (α).

i.e. Pigs are not fed on barley-water.

19. All rabbits, that are not greedy, are black;

No old rabbits are free from greediness.

Univ. is “rabbits”; m = greedy; x = black; y = old.

m′1x′0 † ym′0     ¶ xy′1         [Fig. III.

i.e. Some black rabbits are not old.

20. Some pictures are not first attempts;

No first attempts are really good.

Univ. is “things”; m = first attempts; x = pictures; y = really good.

xm′1 † my0     ¶ nothing.

[Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

21. I never neglect important business;

Your business is unimportant.

Univ. is “business”; m = important; x = neglected by me; y = your.

mx0 † y1m0     ¶ nothing.

[Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

22. Some lessons are difficult;

What is difficult needs attention.

Univ. is “things”; m = difficult; x = lessons; y = needing attention.

xm1 † m1y′0     ¶ xy1         [Fig. II.

i.e. Some lessons need attention.

23. All clever people are popular;

All obliging people are popular.

Univ. is “people”; m = popular; x = clever; y = obliging.

x1m′0 † y1m′0     ¶ nothing.

[Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

24. Thoughtless people do mischief;

No thoughtful person forgets a promise.

Univ. is “persons”; m = thoughtful; x = mischievous; y = forgetful of promises.

m′1x′0 † my0     ¶ x′y0

i.e. No one, who forgets a promise, fails to do mischief.

SL6-BSolutions for § 6.

  1. xm1 † my′0     ¶ xy1         [Fig. II.]         Concl. right.

  2. x1m′0 † ym′0         Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.

  3. xm′1 † y′1m′0     ¶ xy1         [Fig. II.]         Concl. right.

  4. x1m′0 † ym0     ¶ x1y0         [Fig. I (α).]         Concl. right.

  5. m′x′1 † m′y0     ¶ x′y′1         [Fig. II.]         Concl. right.

  6. x′m0 † y1m0         Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.

  7. m′x′1 † y′1m0         Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.

  8. m′x′0 † y′1m0     ¶ y′1x′0         [Fig. I (α).]         Concl. right.

  9. mx′1 † my0     ¶ x′y′1         [Fig. II.]         Concl. right.

10. m′1x0 † m′1y′0     ¶ x′y1         [Fig. III.]         Concl. right.

11. x1m0 † ym1     ¶ x′y1         [Fig. II.]         Concl. right.

12. xm0 † m′y′0     ¶ xy′0         [Fig. I.]         Concl. right.

13. xm0 † y′1m′0     ¶ y′1x0         [Fig. I (α).]         Concl. right.

14. m′1x0 † m′1y′0     ¶ x′y1         [Fig. III.]         Concl. right.

15. mx′1 † y1m0     ¶ x′y′1         [Fig. II.]         Concl. right.

16. x′m0 † y′1m0         Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.

17. m′x0 † m′1y0     ¶ x′y′1         [Fig. III.]         Concl. right.

18. x′m0 † my1     ¶ xy1         [Fig. II.]         Concl. right.

19. mx′1 † m1y′0     ¶ x′y1         [Fig. II.]         Concl. right.

20. x′m′0 † m′y′1     ¶ xy′1         [Fig. II.]         Concl. right.

21. mx0 † m1y0     ¶ x′y′1         [Fig. III.]         Concl. right.

22. x′1m′0 † ym′1     ¶ xy1         [Fig. II.]         Concl. wrong: the right one is “Some x are y.”

23. m1x′0 † m′y′0     ¶ x′y′0         [Fig. I.]         Concl. right.

24. x1m0 † m′1y′0     ¶ x1y′0         [Fig. I (α).]         Concl. right.

25. xm′0 † m1y′0     ¶ xy′0         [Fig. I.]         Concl. right.

26. m1x0 † y1m′0     ¶ y1x0         [Fig. I (α).]         Concl. right.

27. x1m′0 † my′0     ¶ x1y′0         [Fig. I (α).]         Concl. right.

28. x1m′0 † y′m′0         Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.

29. x′m0 † m′y′0     ¶ x′y′0         [Fig. I.]         Concl. right.

30. x1m′0 † m1y0     ¶ x1y0         [Fig. I (α).]         Concl. right.

31. x′1m0 † y′m′0     ¶ x′1y′0         [Fig. I (α).]         Concl. right.

32. xm0 † y′m′0     ¶ xy′0         [Fig. I.]         Concl. right.

33. m1x0 † y′1m′0     ¶ y′1x0         [Fig. I (α).]         Concl. right.

34. x1m0 † ym′1         Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.

35. xm1 † m1y′0     ¶ xy1         [Fig. II.]         Concl. right.

36. m1x0 † y1m′0     ¶ y1x0         [Fig. I (α).]         Concl. right.

37. mx′0 † m1y0     ¶ xy′1         [Fig. III.]         Concl. right.

38. xm0 † my′0         Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.

39. mx0 † my′1     ¶ x′y′1         [Fig. II.]         Concl. right.

40. mx′0 † ym1     ¶ xy1         [Fig. II.]         Concl. right.

SL7-BSolutions for § 7.

  1. No doctors are enthusiastic;

You are enthusiastic.

You are not a doctor.

Univ. “persons”; m = enthusiastic; x = doctors; y = you.

xm0 † y1m′0     ¶ y1x0         [Fig. I (α).

Conclusion right.

  2. Dictionaries are useful;

Useful books are valuable.

Dictionaries are valuable.

Univ. “books”; m = useful; x = dictionaries; y = valuable.

x1m′0 † m1y′0     ¶ x1y′0         [Fig. I (α).

Conclusion right.

  3. No misers are unselfish;

None but misers save egg-shells.

No unselfish people save egg-shells.

Univ. “people”; m = misers; x = selfish; y = people who save egg-shells.

mx′0 † m′y0     ¶ x′y0         [Fig. I.

Conclusion right.

  4. Some epicures are ungenerous;

All my uncles are generous.

My uncles are not epicures.

Univ. “persons”; m = generous; x = epicures; y = my uncles.

xm′1 † y1m′0     ¶ xy′1         [Fig. II.

Conclusion wrong: right one is “Some epicures are not uncles of mine.”

  5. Gold is heavy;

Nothing but gold will silence him.

Nothing light will silence him.

Univ. “things”; m = gold; x = heavy; y = able to silence him.

m1x′0 † m′y0     ¶ x′y0         [Fig. I.

Conclusion right.

  6. Some healthy people are fat;

No unhealthy people are strong.

Some fat people are not strong.

Univ. “people”; m = healthy; x = fat; y = strong.

mx1 † m′y0

No Conclusion. [Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

  7. I saw it in a newspaper;

All newspapers tell lies.

It was a lie.

Univ. “publications”; m = newspapers; x = publications in which I saw it; y = telling lies.

x1m′0 † m1y′0     ¶ x1y′0         [Fig. I (α).

Conclusion wrong: right one is “The publication, in which I saw it, tells lies.”

  8. Some cravats are not artistic;

I admire anything artistic.

There are some cravats that I do not admire.

Univ. “things”; m = artistic; x = cravats; y = things that I admire.

xm1 † m1y0

No Conclusion. [Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

  9. His songs never last an hour.

A song, that lasts an hour, is tedious.

His songs are never tedious.

Univ. “songs”; m = lasting an hour; x = his; y = tedious.

x1m0 † m1y′0     ¶ x′y1         [Fig. III.

Conclusion wrong: right one is “Some tedious songs are not his.”

10. Some candles give very little light;

Candles are meant to give light.

Some things, that are meant to give light, give very little.

Univ. “things”; m = candles; x = giving &c.; y = meant &c.

mx1 † m1y′0     ¶ xy1         [Fig. II.

Conclusion right.

11. All, who are anxious to learn, work hard.

Some of these boys work hard.

Some of these boys are anxious to learn.

Univ. “persons”; m = hard-working; x = anxious to learn; y = these boys.

x1m′0 † ym1

No Conclusion. [Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

12. All lions are fierce;

Some lions do not drink coffee.

Some creatures that drink coffee are not fierce.

Univ. “creatures”; m = lions; x = fierce; y = creatures that drink coffee.

m1x′0 † my′1     ¶ xy′1         [Fig. II.

Conclusion wrong: right one is “Some fierce creatures do not drink coffee.”

13. No misers are generous;

Some old men are ungenerous.

Some old men are misers.

Univ. “persons”; m = generous; x = misers; y = old men.

xm0 † ym′1

No Conclusion. [Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

14. No fossil can be crossed in love;

An oyster may be crossed in love.

Oysters are not fossils.

Univ. “things”; m = things that can be crossed in love; x = fossils; y = oysters.

xm0 † y1m′0     ¶ y1x0         [Fig. I (α).

Conclusion right.

15. All uneducated people are shallow;

Students are all educated.

No students are shallow.

Univ. “people”; m = educated; x = shallow; y = students.

m′1x′0 † y1m′0     ¶ xy′1         [Fig. III.

Conclusion wrong: right one is “Some shallow people are not students.”

16. All young lambs jump;

No young animals are healthy, unless they jump.

All young lambs are healthy.

Univ. “young animals”; m = young animals that jump; x = lambs; y = healthy.

x1m′0 † m′y0

No Conclusion. [Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

17. Ill-managed business is unprofitable;

Railways are never ill-managed.

All railways are profitable.

Univ. “business”; m = ill-managed; x = profitable; y = railways.

m1x0 † y1m0     ¶ x′y′1         [Fig. III.

Conclusion wrong: right one is “Some business, other than railways, is profitable.”

18. No Professors are ignorant;

All ignorant people are vain.

No Professors are vain.

Univ. “people”; m = ignorant; x = Professors; y = vain.

xm0 † m1y′0     ¶ x′y1         [Fig. III.

Conclusion wrong: right one is “Some vain persons are not Professors.”

19. A prudent man shuns hyænas.

No banker is imprudent.

No banker fails to shun hyænas.

Univ. “men”; m = prudent; x = shunning hyænas; y = bankers.

m1x′0 † ym′0     ¶ x′y0         [Fig. I.

Conclusion right.

20. All wasps are unfriendly;

No puppies are unfriendly.

No puppies are wasps.

Univ. “creatures”; m = friendly; x = wasps; y = puppies.

x1m0 † ym′0     ¶ x1y0         [Fig. I (α).

Conclusion incomplete: complete one is “Wasps are not puppies”.

21. No Jews are honest;

Some Gentiles are rich.

Some rich people are dishonest.

Univ. “persons”; m = Jews; x = honest; y = rich.

mx0 † m′y1

No Conclusion. [Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

22. No idlers win fame;

Some painters are not idle.

Some painters win fame.

Univ. “persons”; m = idlers; x = persons who win fame; y = painters.

mx0 † ym′1

No Conclusion. [Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

23. No monkeys are soldiers;

All monkeys are mischievous.

Some mischievous creatures are not soldiers.

Univ. “creatures”; m = monkeys; x = soldiers; y = mischievous.

mx0 † m1y′0     ¶ x′y1         [Fig. III.

Conclusion right.

24. All these bonbons are chocolate-creams;

All these bonbons are delicious.

Chocolate-creams are delicious.

Univ. “food”; m = these bonbons; x = chocolate-creams; y = delicious.

m1x′0 † m1y′0     ¶ xy1         [Fig. III.

Conclusion wrong, being in excess of the right one, which is “Some chocolate-creams are delicious.”

25. No muffins are wholesome;

All buns are unwholesome.

Buns are not muffins.

Univ. “food”; m = wholesome; x = muffins; y = buns.

xm0 † y1m0

No Conclusion. [Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

26. Some unauthorised reports are false;

All authorised reports are trustworthy.

Some false reports are not trustworthy.

Univ. “reports”; m = authorised; x = true; y = trustworthy.

m′x′1 † m1y′0

No Conclusion. [Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

27. Some pillows are soft;

No pokers are soft.

Some pokers are not pillows.

Univ. “things”; m = soft; x = pillows; y = pokers.

xm1 † ym0     ¶ xy′1         [Fig. II.

Conclusion wrong: right one is “Some pillows are not pokers.”

28. Improbable stories are not easily believed;

None of his stories are probable.

None of his stories are easily believed.

Univ. “stories”; m = probable; x = easily believed; y = his.

m′1x0 † ym0     ¶ xy0         [Fig. I.

Conclusion right.

29. No thieves are honest;

Some dishonest people are found out.

Some thieves are found out.

Univ. “people”; m = honest; x = thieves; y = found out.

xm0 † m′y1

No Conclusion. [Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

30. No muffins are wholesome;

All puffy food is unwholesome.

All muffins are puffy.

Univ. is “food”; m = wholesome; x = muffins; y = puffy.

xm0 † y1m0

No Conclusion. [Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

31. No birds, except peacocks, are proud of their tails;

Some birds, that are proud of their tails, cannot sing.

Some peacocks cannot sing.

Univ. “birds”; m = proud of their tails; x = peacocks; y = birds that cannot sing.

x′m0 † my′1     ¶ xy′1         [Fig. II.

Conclusion right.

32. Warmth relieves pain;

Nothing, that does not relieve pain, is useful in toothache.

Warmth is useful in toothache.

Univ. “applications”; m = relieving pain; x = warmth; y = useful in toothache.

x1m′0 † m′y0

No Conclusion. [Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.]

33. No bankrupts are rich;

Some merchants are not bankrupts.

Some merchants are rich.

Univ. “persons”; m = bankrupts; x = rich; y = merchants.

mx0 † ym′1

No Conclusion. [Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

34. Bores are dreaded;

No bore is ever begged to prolong his visit.

No one, who is dreaded, is ever begged to prolong his visit.

Univ. “persons”; m = bores; x = dreaded; y = begged to prolong their visits.

m1x′0 † my0     ¶ xy′1         [Fig. III.

Conclusion wrong: the right one is “Some dreaded persons are not begged to prolong their visits.”

35. All wise men walk on their feet;

All unwise men walk on their hands.

No man walks on both.

Univ. “men”; m = wise; x = walking on their feet; y = walking on their hands.

m1x′0 † m′1y′0     ¶ x′y′0         [Fig. I.

Conclusion wrong: right one is “No man walks on neither.”

36. No wheelbarrows are comfortable;

No uncomfortable vehicles are popular.

No wheelbarrows are popular.

Univ. “vehicles”; m = comfortable; x = wheelbarrows; y = popular.

xm0 † m′x0     ¶ xy0         [Fig. I.

Conclusion right.

37. No frogs are poetical;

Some ducks are unpoetical.

Some ducks are not frogs.

Univ. “creatures”; m = poetical; x = frogs; y = ducks.

xm0 † ym′1

No Conclusion. [Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.]

38. No emperors are dentists;

All dentists are dreaded by children.

No emperors are dreaded by children.

Univ. “persons”; m = dentists; x = emperors; y = dreaded by children.

xm0 † m1y′0     ¶ x′y1         [Fig. III.

Conclusion wrong: right one is “Some persons, dreaded by children, are not emperors.”

39. Sugar is sweet;

Salt is not sweet.

Salt is not sugar.

Univ. “things”; m = sweet; x = sugar; y = salt.

x1m′0 † y1m0     ¶ (x1y0 † y1x0)         [Fig. I (β).

Conclusion incomplete: omitted portion is “Sugar is not salt.”

40. Every eagle can fly;

Some pigs cannot fly.

Some pigs are not eagles.

Univ. “creatures”; m = creatures that can fly; x = eagles; y = pigs.

x1m′0 † ym′1     ¶ x′y1         [Fig. II.

Conclusion right.

SL8Solutions for § 8.

  1. 1cd0 † 2a1d′0 † 3b1c′0;         1cd † 2ad′ † 3bc′     ¶ ab0 † a1 † b1

i.e. ¶ a1b0 † b1a0

  2. 1d1b′0 † 2ac′0 † 3bc0;         1db′ † 3bc † 2ac′     ¶ da0 † d1     i.e. ¶ d1a0

  3. 1ba0 † 2cd′0 † 3d1b′0;         1ba † 3db′ † 2cd′     ¶ ac0

  4. 1bc0 † 2a1b′0 † 3c′d0;         1bc † 2ab′ † 3c′d     ¶ ad0 † a1     i.e. ¶ a1d0

   5. 1b′1a0 † 2bc0 † 3a′d0;         1b′a † 2bc † 3a′d     ¶ cd0

  6. 1a1b0 † 2b′c0 † 3d1a′0;         1ab † 2b′c † 3da′     ¶ cd0 † d1     i.e. ¶ d1c0

  7. 1db′0 † 2b1a′0 † 3cd′0;         1db′ † 2ba′ † 3cd′     ¶ a′c0

  8. 1b′d0 † 2a′b0 † 3c1d′0;         1b′d † 2a′b † 3cd′     ¶ a′c0 † c1     i.e. ¶ c1a′0

  9. 1b′1a′0 † 2ad0 † 3b1c′0;         1b′a′ † 2ad † 3bc′     ¶ dc′0

10. 1cd0 † 2b1c′0 † 3ad′0;         1cd † 2bc′ † 3ad′     ¶ ba0 † b1     i.e. ¶ b1a0

11. 1bc0 † 2d1a′0 † 3c′1a0;         1bc † 3c′a † 2da′     ¶ bd0 † d1     i.e. ¶ d1b0

12. 1cb′0 † 2c′1d0 † 3b1a′0;         1cb′ † 2c′d † 3ba′     ¶ da′0

13. 1d1e′0 † 2c1a′0 † 3bd′0 † 4e1a0;         1de′ † 3bd′ † 4ea † 2ca′     ¶ bc0 † c1

i.e. ¶ c1b0

14. 1c1b′0 † 2a1e′0 † 3d1b0 † 4a′1c′0;         1cb′ † 3db † 4a′c′ † 2ae′     ¶ de′0 † d1

i.e. ¶ d1e′0

15. 1b′d0 † 2e1c′0 † 3b1a′0 † 4d′1c0;         1b′d † 3ba′ † 4d′c † 2ec′     ¶ a′e0 † e1

i.e. ¶ e1a′0

16. 1a′e0 † 2d1c0 † 3a1b′0 † 4e′1d′0;         1a′e † 3ab′ † 4e′d′ † 2dc     ¶ b′c0

17. 1d1c′0 † 2a1e′0 † 3bd′0 † 4c1e0;         1dc′ † 3bd′ † 4ce † 2ae′     ¶ ba0 † a1

i.e. ¶ a1b0

18. 1a1b′0 † 2d1e′0 † 3a′1c0 † 4be0;         1ab′ † 3a′c † 4be † 2de′     ¶ cd0 † d1

i.e. ¶ d1c0

19. 1bc0 † 2e1h′0 † 3a1b′0 † 4dh0 † 5e′1c′0;         1bc † 3ab′ † 5e′c′ † 2eh′ † 4dh

¶ ad0 † a1     i.e. ¶ a1d0

20. 1dh′0 † 2ce0 † 3h1b′0 † 4ad′0 † 5be′0;

1dh′ † 3hb′ † 4ad′ † 5be′ † 2ce     ¶ ac0

21. 1b1a′0 † 2dh0 † 3ce0 † 4ah′0 † 5c′1b′0;

1ba′ † 4ah′ † 2dh † 5c′b′ † 3ce     ¶ de0

22. 1e1d0 † 2b′h′0 † 3c′1d′0 † 4a1e′0 † 5ch0;

1ed † 3c′d′ † 4ae′ † 5ch † 2b′h′     ¶ ab′0 † a1     i.e. ¶ a1b0

 23. 1b′1a0 † 2de′0 † 3h1b0 † 4ce0 † 5d′1a′0;

1b′a † 3hb † 5d′a′ † 2de′ † 4ce     ¶ hc0 † h1     i.e. ¶ h1c0

24. 1h′1k0 † 2b′a0 † 3c1d′0 † 4e1h0 † 5dk′0 † 6bc′0;

1h′k † 4eh † 5dk′ † 3cd′ † 6bc′ † 2b′a     ¶ ea0 † e1     i.e. ¶ e1a0

25. 1a1d′0 † 1k1b′0 † 1e1h′0 † 1a′b0 † 5d1c′0 † 6h1k′0;

1ad′ † 4a′b † 2kb′ † 5dc′ † 6hk′ † 3eh′     ¶ c′e0 † e1     i.e. ¶ e1c′0

26. 1a′1h′0 † 2d′k′0 † 3e1b0 † 4hk0 † 5a1c′0 † 6b′d0;

1a′h′ † 4hk † 2d′k′ † 5ac′ † 6b′d † 3eb     ¶ c′e0 † e1     i.e. ¶ e1c′0

27. 1e1d0 † 2hb0 † 3a′1k′0 † 4ce′0 † 5b′1d′0 † 6ac′0;

1ed † 4ce′ † 5b′d′ † 2hb † 6ac′ † 3a′k′     ¶ hk′0

28. 1a′k0 † 2e1b′0 † 3hk′0 † 4d′c0 † 5ab0 † 6c′1h′0;

1a′k † 3hk′ † 5ab † 2eb′ † 6c′h′ † 4d′c     ¶ ed′0 † e1     i.e. ¶ e1d′0

29. 1ek0 † 2b′m0 † 3ac′0 † 4h′1e′0 † 5d1k′0 † 6cb0 † 7d′1l′0 † 8hm′0;

1ek † 4h′e′ † 5dk′ † 7d′l′ † 8hm′ † 2b′m † 6cb † 3ac′     ¶ l′a0

30. 1n1m′0 † 2a′1e′0 † 3c′l0 † 5k1r0 † 5ah′0 † 6dl′0 † 7cn′0 † 8e1b′0 † 9m1r′0 † 10h1d′0;

1nm′ † 7cn′ † 3c′l † 6dl′ † 9mr′ † 4kr † 10hd′ † 5ah′ † 2a′e′ † 8eb′

¶ kb′0 † k1     i.e. ¶ k1b′0

SL9Solutions for § 9.

  1.

1b1d0 † 2ac0 † 3d′1c′0;         1bd † 3d′c′ † 2ac     ¶ ba0 † b1,     i.e. ¶ b1a0

i.e. Babies cannot manage crocodiles.

  2.

1a1b′0 † 2d1c′0 † 3bc0;         1ab′ † 3bc † 2dc′     ¶ ad0 † d1,     i.e. ¶ d1a0

i.e. Your presents to me are not made of tin.

  3.

1da0 † 2c1b′0 † 3a′b0;         1da † 3a′b † 2cb′     ¶ dc0 † c1,     i.e. ¶ c1d0

i.e. All my potatoes in this dish are old ones.

  4.

1ba0 † 2b′d0 † 3c1a′0;         1ba † 2b′d † 3ca′     ¶ dc0 † c1,     i.e. ¶ c1d0

i.e. My servants never say “shpoonj.”

  5.

1ad0 † 2cd′0 † 3b1a′0;         1ad † 2cd′ † 3ba′     ¶ cb0 † b1,     i.e. ¶ b1c0

i.e. My poultry are not officers.

  6.

1c1a′0 † 2c′b0 † 3da0;         1ca′ † 2c′b † 3da     ¶ bd0

i.e. None of your sons are fit to serve on a jury.

  7.

1cb0 † 2da0 † 3b′1a′0;         1cb † 3b′a′ † 2da     ¶ cd0

i.e. No pencils of mine are sugarplums.

  8.

1cb′0 † 2d1a′0 † 3ba0;         1cb′ † 3ba † 2da′     ¶ cd0 † d1,     i.e. ¶ d1c0

i.e. Jenkins is inexperienced.

  9.

1cd0 † 2d′a0 † 3c′b0;         1cd † 2d′a † 3c′b     ¶ ab0

i.e. No comet has a curly tail.

10.

1d′c0 † 2ba0 † 3a′1d0;         1d′c † 3a′d † 2ba     ¶ cb0

i.e. No hedgehog takes in the Times.

11.

1b1a′0 † 2c1b′0 † 3ad0;         1ba′ † 2cb′ † 3ad     ¶ cd0 † c1,     i.e. ¶ c1d0

i.e. This dish is unwholesome.

12.

1b1c′0 † 2d′a0 † 3a′c0;         1bc′ † 3a′c † 2d′a     ¶ bd′0 † b1,     i.e. ¶ b1d′0

i.e. My gardener is very old.

13.

1a1d′0 † 2bc0 † 3c′1d0;         1ad′ † 3c′d † 2bc     ¶ ab0 † a1,     i.e. ¶ a1b0

i.e. All humming-birds are small.

14.

1c′b0 † 2a1d′0 † 3ca′0;         1c′b † 3ca′ † 2ad′     ¶ bd′0

i.e. No one with a hooked nose ever fails to make money.

15.

1b1a′0 † 2b′1d0 † 3ca0;         1ba′ † 2b′d † 3ca     ¶ dc0

i.e. No gray ducks in this village wear lace collars.

16.

1d1b′0 † 2cd′0 † 3ba0;         1db′ † 2cd′ † 3ba     ¶ ca0

i.e. No jug in this cupboard will hold water.

17.

1b′1d0 † 2c1d′0 † 3ab0;         1b′d † 2cd′ † 3ab     ¶ ca0 † c1,     i.e. ¶ c1a0

i.e. These apples were grown in the sun.

18.

1d′1b′0 † 2c1b0 † 3c′a0;         1d′b′ † 2cb † 3c′a     ¶ d′a0 † d′1,     i.e. ¶ d′1a0

i.e. Puppies, that will not lie still, never care to do worsted-work.

19.

1bd′0 † 2a1c′0 † 3a′d0;         1bd′ † 3a′d † 2ac′     ¶ bc′0

i.e. No name in this list is unmelodious.

20.

1a1b′0 † 2dc0 † 3a′1d′0;         1ab′ † 3a′d′ † 2dc     ¶ b′c0

i.e. No M.P. should ride in a donkey-race, unless he has perfect self-command.

21.

1bd0 † 2c′a0 † 3b′c0;         1bd † 3b′c † 2c′a     ¶ da0

i.e. No goods in this shop, that are still on sale, may be carried away.

22.

1a′b0 † 2cd0 † 3d′a0;         1a′b † 3d′a † 2cd     ¶ bc0

i.e. No acrobatic feat, which involves turning a quadruple somersault, is ever attempted in a circus.

23.

1dc′0 † 2a1b′0 † 3bc0;         1dc′ † 3bc † 2ab′     ¶ da0 † a1,     i.e. ¶ a1d0

i.e. Guinea-pigs never really appreciate Beethoven.

24.

1a1d′0 † 2b′1c0 † 3ba′0;         1ad′ † 3ba′ † 2b′c     ¶ d′c0

i.e. No scentless flowers please me.

25.

1c1d′0 † 2ba′0 † 3d1a0;         1cd′ † 3da † 2ba′     ¶ cb0 † c1,     i.e. ¶ c1b0

i.e. Showy talkers are not really well-informed.

26.

1ea0 † 2b1d′0 † 3a′1c0 † 4e′b′0;         1ea † 3a′c † 4e′b′ † 2bd′     ¶ cd′0

i.e. None but red-haired boys learn Greek in this school.

27.

1b1d0 † 2ac′0 † 3e1d′0 † 4c1b′0;

1bd † 3ed′ † 4cb′ † 2ac′     ¶ ea0 † e1,     i.e. ¶ e1a0

i.e. Wedding-cake always disagrees with me.

28.

1ad0 † 2e′1b′0 † 3c1d′0 † 4e1a′0;

1ad † 3cd′ † 4ea′ † 2e′b′     ¶ cb′0 † c1,     i.e. ¶ c1b′0

i.e. Discussions, that go on while Tomkins is in the chair, endanger the peacefulness of our Debating-Club.

29.

1d1a0 † 2e′c0 † 3b1a′0 † 4d′e0;

1da † 3ba′ † 4d′e † 2e′c     ¶ bc0 † b1,     i.e. ¶ b1c0

i.e. All gluttons in my family are unhealthy.

30.

1d1e0 † 2c′a0 † 3b1e′0 † 4c1d′0;

1de † 3be′ † 4cd′ † 2c′a     ¶ ba0 † b1,     i.e. ¶ b1a0

i.e. An egg of the Great Auk is not to be had for a song.

31.

1d′b0 † 2a1c′0 † 3c1e′0 † 4a′d0;         1d′b † 4a′d † 2ac′ † 3ce′     ¶ be′0

i.e. No books sold here have gilt edges unless they are priced at 5s. and upwards.

32.

1a′1c′0 † 2d1b0 † 3a1e′0 † 4c1b′0;

1a′c′ † 3ae′ † 4cb′ † 2db     ¶ e′d0 † d1,     i.e. ¶ d1e′0

i.e. When you cut your finger, you will find Tincture of Calendula useful.

33.

1d′b0 † 2a1e′0 † 3ec0 † 4d1a′0;         1d′b † 4da′ † 2ae′ † 3ec     ¶ bc0

i.e. I have never come across a mermaid at sea.

34.

1c′1b0 † 2a1e′0 † 3d1b′0 † 4a′1c0;

1c′b † 3db′ † 4a′c † 2ae′     ¶ de′0 † d1,     i.e. ¶ d1e′0

i.e. All the romances in this library are well-written.

35.

1e′d0 † 2c′a0 † 3eb0 † 4d′c0;         1e′d † 3eb † 4d′c † 2c′a     ¶ ba0

i.e. No bird in this aviary lives on mince-pies.

36.

1d′1c′0 † 2e1a′0 † 3c1b0 † 4e′d0;         1d′c′ † 3cb † 4e′d † 2ea′     ¶ ba′0

i.e. No plum-pudding, that has not been boiled in a cloth, can be distinguished from soup.

37.

1ce′0 † 2b′a′0 † 3h1d′0 † 4ae0 † 5bd0;

1ce′ † 4ae † 2b′a′ † 5bd † 3hd′     ¶ ch0 † h1,     i.e. ¶ h1c0

i.e. All your poems are uninteresting.

38.

1b′1a′0 † 2db0 † 3he′0 † 4ec0 † 5a1h′0;

1b′a′ † 2db † 5ah′ † 3he′ † 4ec     ¶ dc0

i.e. None of my peaches have been grown in a hothouse.

39.

1c1d0 † 2h1e′0 † 3c′1a′0 † 4h′b0 † 5e1d′0;

1cd † 3c′a′ † 5ed′ † 2he′ † 4h′b     ¶ a′b0

i.e. No pawnbroker is dishonest.

40.

1bd′0 † 2c′h0 † 3e1b′0 † 4da0 † 5e′c0;

1bd′ † 3eb′ † 4da † 5e′c † 2c′h     ¶ ah0

i.e. No kitten with green eyes will play with a gorilla.

41.

1c1a′0 † 2h′b0 † 3ae0 † 4d1c′0 † 5h1e′0;

1ca′ † 3ae † 4dc′ † 5he′ † 2h′b     ¶ db0 † d1,     i.e. ¶ d1b0

i.e. All my friends in this College dine at the lower table.

42.

1ca0 † 2h1d′0 † 3c′1e′0 † 4b′a′0 † 5d1e0;

1ca † 3c′e′ † 4b′a′ † 5de † 2hd′     ¶ b′h0 † h1, i.e. ¶ h1b′0

i.e. My writing-desk is full of live scorpions.

43.

1b′1e0 † 2ah0 † 3dc0 † 4e′1a′0 † 5bc′0

1b′e † 4e′a′ † 2ah † 5bc′ † 3dc     ¶ hd0

i.e. No Mandarin ever reads Hogg’s poems.

44.

1e1b′0 † 2a′d0 † 3c1h′0 † 4e′a0 † 5d′h0;

1eb′ † 4e′a † 2a′d † 5d′h † 3ch′     ¶ b′c0 † c1, i.e. ¶ c1b′0

i.e. Shakespeare was clever.

45.

1e′1c′0 † 2hb′0 † 3d1a0 † 4e1a′0 † 5c1b0;

1e′c′ † 4ea′ † 3da † 5cb † 2hb′     ¶ dh0 † d1,     i.e. ¶ d1h0

i.e. Rainbows are not worth writing odes to.

46.

1c′1h′0 † 2e1a0 † 3bd0 † 4a′1h0 † 5d′c0;

1c′h′ † 4a′h † 2ea † 5d′c † 3bd     ¶ eb0 † e1,     i.e. ¶ e1b0

i.e. These Sorites-examples are difficult.

47.

1a′1e′0 † 2bk0 † 3c′a0 † 4eh′0 † 5d1b′0 † 6k′h0;

1a′e′ † 3c′a † 4eh′ † 6k′h † 2bk † 5db′     ¶ c′d0 † d1,

i.e. ¶ d1c′0

i.e. All my dreams come true.

48.

1a′h0 † 2c′k0 † 3a1d′0 † 4e1h′0 † 5b1k′0 † 6c1e′0;

1a′h † 3ad′ † 4eh′ † 6ce′ † 2c′k † 5bk′     ¶ d′b0 † b1,

i.e. ¶ b1d′0

i.e. All the English pictures here are painted in oils.

49.

1k′1e0 † 2c1h0 † 3b1a′0 † 4kd0 † 5h′a0 † 6b′1e′0;

1k′e † 4kd † 6b′e′ † 3ba′ † 5h′a † 2ch     ¶ dc0 † c1,

i.e. ¶ c1d0

i.e. Donkeys are not easy to swallow.

50.

1ab′0 † 2h′d0 † 3e1c0 † 4b1d′0 † 5a′k0 † 6c′1h0;

1ab′ † 4bd′ † 2h′d † 6a′k † 5c′h † 3ec     ¶ ke0 † e1,

i.e. ¶ e1k0

i.e. Opium-eaters never wear white kid gloves.

51.

1bc0 † 2k1a′0 † 3eh0 † 4d1b′0 † 5h′c′0 † 6k′1e′0;

1bc † 4db′ † 5h′c′ † 3eh † 6k′e′ † 2ka′     ¶ da′0 † d1,

i.e. ¶ d1a′0

i.e. A good husband always comes home for his tea.

52.

1a′1k′0 † 2ch0 † 3h′k0 † 4b1d′0 † 5ea0 † 6d1c′0

1a′k′ † 3h′k † 2ch † 6dc′ † 4bd′ † 5ea     ¶ be0 † b1,

i.e. ¶ b1e0

i.e. Bathing-machines are never made of mother-of-pearl.

53.

1da′0 † 2k1b′0 † 3c1h0 † 4d′1k′0 † 5e1c′0 † 6a1h′0;

1da′ † 4d′k′ † 2kb′ † 6ah′ † 5ch † 3ec′

¶ b′e0 † e1,     i.e. ¶ e1b′0

i.e. Rainy days are always cloudy.

54.

1kb′0 † 1a′1c′0 † 3d′b0 † 4k′1h′0 † 5ea0 † 6d1c0;

1kb′ † 3d′b † 4k′h′ † 6dc † 2a′c′ † 5ea

¶ h′e0

i.e. No heavy fish is unkind to children.

55.

1k′1b′0 † 2eh′0 † 3c′d0 † 4hb0 † 5ac0 † 6kd′0;

1k′b′ † 4hb † 2eh′ † 6kd′ † 3c′d † 5ac     ¶ ea0

i.e. No engine-driver lives on barley-sugar.

56.

1h1b′0 † 2c1d′0 † 3k′a0 † 4e1h′0 † 5b1a′0 † 6k1c′0;

1hb′ † 4eh′ † 5ba′ † 3k′a † 6kc′ † 2cd′

¶ ed′0 † e1,     i.e. ¶ e1d′0

i.e. All the animals in the yard gnaw bones.

57.

1h′1d′0 † 2e1c′0 † 3k′a0 † 4cb0 † 5d1l′0 † 6e′h0 † 7kl0;

1h′d′ † 5dl′ † 7kl † 3k′a † 6e′h † 2ec′ † 4cb     ¶ ab0

i.e. No badger can guess a conundrum.

58.

1b′h0 † 2d′1l′0 † 3ca0 † 4d1k′0 † 5h′1e′0 † 6mc′0 † 7a′b0 † 8ek0;

1b′h † 5h′e′ † 7a′b † 3ca † 6mc′ † 8ek † 4dk′ † 2d′l′     ¶ ml′0

i.e. No cheque of yours, received by me, is payable to order.

59.

1c1l′0 † 2h′e0 † 3kd0 † 4mc′0 † 5b′1e′0 † 6n1a′0 † 7l1d′0 † 8m′b0 † 9ah0;

1cl′ † 4mc′ † 7ld′ † 3kd † 8m′b † 5b′e′ † 2h′e † 9ah † 6na′

¶ kn0

i.e. I cannot read any of Brown’s letters.

60.

1e1c′0 † 2l1n′0 † 3d1a′0 † 4m′b0 † 5ck′0 † 6e′r0 † 7h1n0 † 8b′k0 † 9r′1d′0 † 10m1l′0;

1ec′ † 5ck′ † 6e′r † 8b′k † 4m′b † 9r′d′ † 3da′ † 10ml′ † 2ln′ † 7hn

¶ a′h0 † h1,     i.e. ¶ h1a′0

i.e. I always avoid a kangaroo.

NOTES.

(A) .

One of the favourite objections, brought against the Science of Logic by its detractors, is that a Syllogism has no real validity as an argument, since it involves the Fallacy of Petitio Principii (i.e. “Begging the Question”, the essence of which is that the whole Conclusion is involved in one of the Premisses).

This formidable objection is refuted, with beautiful clearness and simplicity, by these three Diagrams, which show us that, in each of the three Figures, the Conclusion is really involved in the two Premisses taken together, each contributing its share.

Thus, in Fig. I., the Premiss xm0 empties the Inner Cell of the N.W. Quarter, while the Premiss ym0 empties its Outer Cell. Hence it needs the two Premisses to empty the whole of the N.W. Quarter, and thus to prove the Conclusion xy0.

Again, in Fig. II., the Premiss xm0 empties the Inner Cell of the N.W. Quarter. The Premiss ym1 merely tells us that the Inner Portion of the W. Half is occupied, so that we may place a ‘I’ in it, somewhere; but, if this were the whole of our information, we should not know in which Cell to place it, so that it would have to ‘sit on the fence’: it is only when we learn, from the other Premiss, that the upper of these two Cells is empty, that we feel authorised to place the ‘I’ in the lower Cell, and thus to prove the Conclusion x′y1.

Lastly, in Fig. III., the information, that m exists, merely authorises us to place a ‘I’ somewhere in the Inner Square——but it has large choice of fences to sit upon! It needs the Premiss xm0 to drive it out of the N. Half of that Square; and it needs the Premiss ym0 to drive it out of the W. Half. Hence it needs the two Premisses to drive it into the Inner Portion of the S.E. Quarter, and thus to prove the Conclusion x′y′1.

APPENDIX,

ADDRESSED TO TEACHERS.

§ 1.

Introductory.

There are several matters, too hard to discuss with Learners, which nevertheless need to be explained to any Teachers, into whose hands this book may fall, in order that they may thoroughly understand what my Symbolic Method is, and in what respects it differs from the many other Methods already published.

These matters are as follows:—

The “Existential Import” of Propositions.

The use of “is-not” (or “are-not”) as a Copula.

The theory “two Negative Premisses prove nothing.”

Euler’s Method of Diagrams.

Venn’s Method of Diagrams.

My Method of Diagrams.

The Solution of a Syllogism by various Methods.

My Method of treating Syllogisms and Sorites.

Some account of Parts II, III.

§ 2.

The “Existential Import” of Propositions.

The writers, and editors, of the Logical text-books which run in the ordinary grooves——to whom I shall hereafter refer by the (I hope inoffensive) title “The Logicians”——take, on this subject, what seems to me to be a more humble position than is at all necessary. They speak of the Copula of a Proposition “with bated breath”, almost as if it were a living, conscious Entity, capable of declaring for itself what it chose to mean, and that we, poor human creatures, had nothing to do but to ascertain what was its sovereign will and pleasure, and submit to it.

In opposition to this view, I maintain that any writer of a book is fully authorised in attaching any meaning he likes to any word or phrase he intends to use. If I find an author saying, at the beginning of his book, “Let it be understood that by the word ‘black’ I shall always mean ‘white’, and that by the word ‘white’ I shall always mean ‘black’,” I meekly accept his ruling, however injudicious I may think it.

And so, with regard to the question whether a Proposition is or is not to be understood as asserting the existence of its Subject, I maintain that every writer may adopt his own rule, provided of course that it is consistent with itself and with the accepted facts of Logic.

Let us consider certain views that may logically be held, and thus settle which of them may conveniently be held; after which I shall hold myself free to declare which of them I intend to hold.

The kinds of Propositions, to be considered, are those that begin with “some”, with “no”, and with “all”. These are usually called Propositions “in I”, “in E”, and “in A”.

First, then, a Proposition in I may be understood as asserting, or else as not asserting, the existence of its Subject. (By “existence” I mean of course whatever kind of existence suits its nature. The two Propositions, “dreams exist” and “drums exist”, denote two totally different kinds of “existence”. A dream is an aggregate of ideas, and exists only in the mind of a dreamer: whereas a drum is an aggregate of wood and parchment, and exists in the hands of a drummer.)

First, let us suppose that I “asserts” (i.e. “asserts the existence of its Subject”).

Here, of course, we must regard a Proposition in A as making the same assertion, since it necessarily contains a Proposition in I.

We now have I and A “asserting”. Does this leave us free to make what supposition we choose as to E? My answer is “No. We are tied down to the supposition that E does not assert.” This can be proved as follows:—

If possible, let E “assert”. Then (taking x, y, and z to represent Attributes) we see that, if the Proposition “No xy are z” be true, some things exist with the Attributes x and y: i.e. “Some x are y.”

Also we know that, if the Proposition “Some xy are z” be true, the same result follows.

But these two Propositions are Contradictories, so that one or other of them must be true. Hence this result is always true: i.e. the Proposition “Some x are y” is always true!

Quod est absurdum. ).

We see, then, that the supposition “I asserts” necessarily leads to “A asserts, but E does not”. And this is the first of the various views that may conceivably be held.

Next, let us suppose that I does not “assert.” And, along with this, let us take the supposition that E does “assert.”

Hence the Proposition “No x are y” means “Some x exist, and none of them are y”: i.e. “all of them are not-y,” which is a Proposition in A. We also know, of course, that the Proposition “All x are not-y” proves “No x are y.” Now two Propositions, each of which proves the other, are equivalent. Hence every Proposition in A is equivalent to one in E, and therefore “asserts”.

Hence our second conceivable view is “E and A assert, but I does not.”

This view does not seen to involve any necessary contradiction with itself or with the accepted facts of Logic. But, when we come to test it, as applied to the actual facts of life, we shall find I think, that it fits in with them so badly that its adoption would be, to say the least of it, singularly inconvenient for ordinary folk.

Let me record a little dialogue I have just held with my friend Jones, who is trying to form a new Club, to be regulated on strictly Logical principles.

Author. “Well, Jones! Have you got your new Club started yet?”

Jones (rubbing his hands). “You’ll be glad to hear that some of the Members (mind, I only say ‘some’) are millionaires! Rolling in gold, my boy!”

Author. “That sounds well. And how many Members have entered?”

Jones (staring). “None at all. We haven’t got it started yet. What makes you think we have?”

Author. “Why, I thought you said that some of the Members——”

Jones (contemptuously). “You don’t seem to be aware that we’re working on strictly Logical principles. A Particular Proposition does not assert the existence of its Subject. I merely meant to say that we’ve made a Rule not to admit any Members till we have at least three Candidates whose incomes are over ten thousand a year!”

Author. “Oh, that’s what you meant, is it? Let’s hear some more of your Rules.”

Jones. “Another is, that no one, who has been convicted seven times of forgery, is admissible.”

Author. “And here, again, I suppose you don’t mean to assert there are any such convicts in existence?”

Jones. “Why, that’s exactly what I do mean to assert! Don’t you know that a Universal Negative asserts the existence of its Subject? Of course we didn’t make that Rule till we had satisfied ourselves that there are several such convicts now living.”

The Reader can now decide for himself how far this second conceivable view would fit in with the facts of life. He will, I think, agree with me that Jones’ view, of the ‘Existential Import’ of Propositions, would lead to some inconvenience.

Thirdly, let us suppose that neither I nor E “asserts”.

Now the supposition that the two Propositions, “Some x are y” and “No x are not-y”, do not “assert”, necessarily involves the supposition that “All x are y” does not “assert”, since it would be absurd to suppose that they assert, when combined, more than they do when taken separately.

Hence the third (and last) of the conceivable views is that neither I, nor E, nor A, “asserts”.

The advocates of this third view would interpret the Proposition “Some x are y” to mean “If there were any x in existence, some of them would be y”; and so with E and A.

It admits of proof that this view, as regards A, conflicts with the accepted facts of Logic.

Let us take the Syllogism Darapti, which is universally accepted as valid. Its form is

“All m are x;

  All m are y.

          ∴ Some y are x”.

This they would interpret as follows:—

”If there were any m in existence, all of them would be x;

  If there were any m in existence, all of them would be y.

          ∴ If there were any y in existence, some of them would be x”.

That this Conclusion does not follow has been so briefly and clearly explained by Mr. Keynes (in his “Formal Logic”, dated 1894, pp. 356, 357), that I prefer to quote his words:—

“Let no proposition imply the existence either of its subject or of its predicate.

“Take, as an example, a syllogism in Darapti:—

‘All M is P,

  All M is S,

          ∴ Some S is P.’

“Taking S, M, P, as the minor, middle, and major terms respectively, the conclusion will imply that, if there is an S, there is some P. Will the premisses also imply this? If so, then the syllogism is valid; but not otherwise.

“The conclusion implies that if S exists P exists; but, consistently with the premisses, S may be existent while M and P are both non-existent. An implication is, therefore, contained in the conclusion, which is not justified by the premisses.”

This seems to me entirely clear and convincing. Still, “to make sicker”, I may as well throw the above (soi-disant) Syllogism into a concrete form, which will be within the grasp of even a non-logical Reader.

Let us suppose that a Boys’ School has been set up, with the following system of Rules:—

“All boys in the First (the highest) Class are to do French, Greek, and Latin. All in the Second Class are to do Greek only. All in the Third Class are to do Latin only.”

Suppose also that there are boys in the Third Class, and in the Second; but that no boy has yet risen into the First.

It is evident that there are no boys in the School doing French: still we know, by the Rules, what would happen if there were any.

We are authorised, then, by the Data, to assert the following two Propositions:—

“If there were any boys doing French, all of them would be doing Greek;

  If there were any boys doing French, all of them would be doing Latin.”

And the Conclusion, according to “The Logicians” would be

“If there were any boys doing Latin, some of them would be doing Greek.”

Here, then, we have two true Premisses and a false Conclusion (since we know that there are boys doing Latin, and that none of them are doing Greek). Hence the argument is invalid.

Similarly it may be shown that this “non-existential” interpretation destroys the validity of Disamis, Datisi, Felapton, and Fresison.

Some of “The Logicians” will, no doubt, be ready to reply “But we are not Aldrichians! Why should we be responsible for the validity of the Syllogisms of so antiquated an author as Aldrich?”

Very good. Then, for the special benefit of these “friends” of mine (with what ominous emphasis that name is sometimes used! “I must have a private interview with you, my young friend,” says the bland Dr. Birch, “in my library, at 9 a.m. tomorrow. And you will please to be punctual!”), for their special benefit, I say, I will produce another charge against this “non-existential” interpretation.

It actually invalidates the ordinary Process of “Conversion”, as applied to Proposition in ‘I’.

Every logician, Aldrichian or otherwise, accepts it as an established fact that “Some x are y” may be legitimately converted into “Some y are x.”

But is it equally clear that the Proposition “If there were any x, some of them would be y” may be legitimately converted into “If there were any y, some of them would be x”? I trow not.

The example I have already used——of a Boys’ School with a non-existent First Class——will serve admirably to illustrate this new flaw in the theory of “The Logicians.”

Let us suppose that there is yet another Rule in this School, viz. “In each Class, at the end of the Term, the head boy and the second boy shall receive prizes.”

This Rule entirely authorises us to assert (in the sense in which “The Logicians” would use the words) “Some boys in the First Class will receive prizes”, for this simply means (according to them) “If there were any boys in the First Class, some of them would receive prizes.”

Now the Converse of this Proposition is, of course, “Some boys, who will receive prizes, are in the First Class”, which means (according to “The Logicians”) “If there were any boys about to receive prizes, some of them would be in the First Class” (which Class we know to be empty).

Of this Pair of Converse Propositions, the first is undoubtedly true: the second, as undoubtedly, false.

It is always sad to see a batsman knock down his own wicket: one pities him, as a man and a brother, but, as a cricketer, one can but pronounce him “Out!”

We see, then, that, among all the conceivable views we have here considered, there are only two which can logically be held, viz.

I and A “assert”, but E does not.

E and A “assert”, but I does not.

The second of these I have shown to involve great practical inconvenience.

The first is the one adopted in this book.

Some further remarks on this subject will be found in Note (B), at p. 196.

§ 3.

The use of “is-not” (or “are-not”) as a Copula.

Is it better to say “John is-not in-the-house” or “John is not-in-the-house”? “Some of my acquaintances are-not men-I-should-like-to-be-seen-with” or “Some of my acquaintances are men-I-should-not-like-to-be-seen-with”? That is the sort of question we have now to discuss.

This is no question of Logical Right and Wrong: it is merely a matter of taste, since the two forms mean exactly the same thing. And here, again, “The Logicians” seem to me to take much too humble a position. When they are putting the final touches to the grouping of their Proposition, just before the curtain goes up, and when the Copula——always a rather fussy ‘heavy father’, asks them “Am I to have the ‘not’, or will you tack it on to the Predicate?” they are much too ready to answer, like the subtle cab-driver, “Leave it to you, Sir!” The result seems to be, that the grasping Copula constantly gets a “not” that had better have been merged in the Predicate, and that Propositions are differentiated which had better have been recognised as precisely similar. Surely it is simpler to treat “Some men are Jews” and “Some men are Gentiles” as being both of them, affirmative Propositions, instead of translating the latter into “Some men are-not Jews”, and regarding it as a negative Propositions?

The fact is, “The Logicians” have somehow acquired a perfectly morbid dread of negative Attributes, which makes them shut their eyes, like frightened children, when they come across such terrible Propositions as “All not-x are y”; and thus they exclude from their system many very useful forms of Syllogisms.

Under the influence of this unreasoning terror, they plead that, in Dichotomy by Contradiction, the negative part is too large to deal with, so that it is better to regard each Thing as either included in, or excluded from, the positive part. I see no force in this plea: and the facts often go the other way. As a personal question, dear Reader, if you were to group your acquaintances into the two Classes, men that you would like to be seen with, and men that you would not like to be seen with, do you think the latter group would be so very much the larger of the two?

For the purposes of Symbolic Logic, it is so much the most convenient plan to regard the two sub-divisions, produced by Dichotomy, on the same footing, and to say, of any Thing, either that it “is” in the one, or that it “is” in the other, that I do not think any Reader of this book is likely to demur to my adopting that course.

§ 4.

The theory that “two Negative Premisses prove nothing”.

This I consider to be another craze of “The Logicians”, fully as morbid as their dread of a negative Attribute.

It is, perhaps, best refuted by the method of Instantia Contraria.

Take the following Pairs of Premisses:—

“None of my boys are conceited;

  None of my girls are greedy”.

“None of my boys are clever;

  None but a clever boy could solve this problem”.

“None of my boys are learned;

  Some of my boys are not choristers”.

(This last Proposition is, in my system, an affirmative one, since I should read it “are not-choristers”; but, in dealing with “The Logicians,” I may fairly treat it as a negative one, since they would read it “are-not choristers”.)

If you, dear Reader, declare, after full consideration of these Pairs of Premisses, that you cannot deduce a Conclusion from any of them——why, all I can say is that, like the Duke in Patience, you “will have to be contented with our heart-felt sympathy”!

§ 5.

Euler’s Method of Diagrams.

Diagrams seem to have been used, at first, to represent Propositions only. In Euler’s well-known Circles, each was supposed to contain a class, and the Diagram consisted of two circles, which exhibited the relations, as to inclusion and exclusion, existing between the two Classes.

Thus, the Diagram, here given, exhibits the two Classes, whose respective Attributes are x and y, as so related to each other that the following Propositions are all simultaneously true:—“All x are y”, “No x are not-y”, “Some x are y”, “Some y are not-x”, “Some not-y are not-x”, and, of course, the Converses of the last four.

Similarly, with this Diagram, the following Propositions are true:—“All y are x”, “No y are not-x”, “Some y are x”, “Some x are not-y”, “Some not-x are not-y”, and, of course, the Converses of the last four.

Similarly, with this Diagram, the following are true:—“All x are not-y”, “All y are not-x”, “No x are y”, “Some x are not-y”, “Some y are not-x”, “Some not-x are not-y”, and the Converses of the last four.

Similarly, with this Diagram, the following are true:—“Some x are y”, “Some x are not-y”, “Some not-x are y”, “Some not-x are not-y”, and of course, their four Converses.

Note that all Euler’s Diagrams assert “Some not-x are not-y.” Apparently it never occured to him that it might sometimes fail to be true!

Now, to represent “All x are y”, the first of these Diagrams would suffice. Similarly, to represent “No x are y”, the third would suffice. But to represent any Particular Proposition, at least three Diagrams would be needed (in order to include all the possible cases), and, for “Some not-x are not-y”, all the four.

§ 6.

Venn’s Method of Diagrams.

Let us represent “not-x” by “x′”.

Mr. Venn’s Method of Diagrams is a great advance on the above Method.

He uses the last of the above Diagrams to represent any desired relation between x and y, by simply shading a Compartment known to be empty, and placing a + in one known to be occupied.

Thus, he would represent the three Propositions “Some x are y”, “No x are y”, and “All x are y”, as follows:—

It will be seen that, of the four Classes, whose peculiar Sets of Attributes are xy, xy′, x′y, and x′y′, only three are here provided with closed Compartments, while the fourth is allowed the rest of the Infinite Plane to range about in!

This arrangement would involve us in very serious trouble, if we ever attempted to represent “No x′ are y′.” Mr. Venn once (at p. 281) encounters this awful task; but evades it, in a quite masterly fashion, by the simple foot-note “We have not troubled to shade the outside of this diagram”!

To represent two Propositions (containing a common Term) together, a three-letter Diagram is needed. This is the one used by Mr. Venn.

Here, again, we have only seven closed Compartments, to accommodate the eight Classes whose peculiar Sets of Attributes are xym, xym′, &c.

“With four terms in request,” Mr. Venn says, “the most simple and symmetrical diagram seems to me that produced by making four ellipses intersect one another in the desired manner”. This, however, provides only fifteen closed compartments.

For five letters, “the simplest diagram I can suggest,” Mr. Venn says, “is one like this (the small ellipse in the centre is to be regarded as a portion of the outside of c; i.e. its four component portions are inside b and d but are no part of c). It must be admitted that such a diagram is not quite so simple to draw as one might wish it to be; but then consider what the alternative is of one undertakes to deal with five terms and all their combinations—nothing short of the disagreeable task of writing out, or in some way putting before us, all the 32 combinations involved.”

This Diagram gives us 31 closed compartments.

For six letters, Mr. Venn suggests that we might use two Diagrams, like the above, one for the f-part, and the other for the not-f-part, of all the other combinations. “This”, he says, “would give the desired 64 subdivisions.” This, however, would only give 62 closed Compartments, and one infinite area, which the two Classes, a′b′c′d′e′f and a′b′c′d′e′f′, would have to share between them.

Beyond six letters Mr. Venn does not go.

§ 7.

My Method of Diagrams.

My Method of Diagrams resembles Mr. Venn’s, in having separate Compartments assigned to the various Classes, and in marking these Compartments as occupied or as empty; but it differs from his Method, in assigning a closed area to the Universe of Discourse, so that the Class which, under Mr. Venn’s liberal sway, has been ranging at will through Infinite Space, is suddenly dismayed to find itself “cabin’d, cribb’d, confined”, in a limited Cell like any other Class! Also I use rectilinear, instead of curvilinear, Figures; and I mark an occupied Cell with a ‘I’ (meaning that there is at least one Thing in it), and an empty Cell with a ‘O’ (meaning that there is no Thing in it).

For two letters, I use this Diagram, in which the North Half is assigned to ‘x’, the South to ‘not-x’ (or ‘x′’), the West to y, and the East to y′. Thus the N.W. Cell contains the xy-Class, the N.E. Cell the xy′-Class, and so on.

For three letters, I subdivide these four Cells, by drawing an Inner Square, which I assign to m, the Outer Border being assigned to m′. I thus get eight Cells that are needed to accommodate the eight Classes, whose peculiar Sets of Attributes are xym, xym′, &c.

This last Diagram is the most complex that I use in the Elementary Part of my ‘Symbolic Logic.’ But I may as well take this opportunity of describing the more complex ones which will appear in Part II.

For four letters (which I call a, b, c, d) I use this Diagram; assigning the North Half to a (and of course the rest of the Diagram to a′), the West Half to b, the Horizontal Oblong to c, and the Upright Oblong to d. We have now got 16 Cells.

For five letters (adding e) I subdivide the 16 Cells of the previous Diagram by oblique partitions, assigning all the upper portions to e, and all the lower portions to e′. Here, I admit, we lose the advantage of having the e-Class all together, “in a ring-fence”, like the other 4 Classes. Still, it is very easy to find; and the operation, of erasing it, is nearly as easy as that of erasing any other Class. We have now got 32 Cells.

For six letters (adding h, as I avoid tailed letters) I substitute upright crosses for the oblique partitions, assigning the 4 portions, into which each of the 16 Cells is thus divided, to the four Classes eh, eh′, e′h, e′h′. We have now got 64 Cells.

For seven letters (adding k) I add, to each upright cross, a little inner square. All these 16 little squares are assigned to the k-Class, and all outside them to the k′-Class; so that 8 little Cells (into which each of the 16 Cells is divided) are respectively assigned to the 8 Classes ehk, ehk′, &c. We have now got 128 Cells.

For eight letters (adding l) I place, in each of the 16 Cells, a lattice, which is a reduced copy of the whole Diagram; and, just as the 16 large Cells of the whole Diagram are assigned to the 16 Classes abcd, abcd′, &c., so the 16 little Cells of each lattice are assigned to the 16 Classes ehkl, ehkl′, &c. Thus, the lattice in the N.W. corner serves to accommodate the 16 Classes abc′d′ehkl, abc′d′eh′kl′, &c. This Octoliteral Diagram (see next page) contains 256 Cells.

For nine letters, I place 2 Octoliteral Diagrams side by side, assigning one of them to m, and the other to m′. We have now got 512 Cells.

Finally, for ten letters, I arrange 4 Octoliteral Diagrams, like the above, in a square, assigning them to the 4 Classes mn, mn′, m′n, m′n′. We have now got 1024 Cells.

§ 8.

Solution of a Syllogism by various Methods.

The best way, I think, to exhibit the differences between these various Methods of solving Syllogisms, will be to take a concrete example, and solve it by each Method in turn. Let us take, as our example, No. 29 (see p. 102).

“No philosophers are conceited;

  Some conceited persons are not gamblers.

  ∴ Some persons, who are not gamblers, are not philosophers.”

(1) Solution by ordinary Method.

These Premisses, as they stand, will give no Conclusion, as they are both negative.

If by ‘Permutation’ or ‘Obversion’, we write the Minor Premiss thus,

‘Some conceited persons are not-gamblers,’

we can get a Conclusion in Fresison, viz.

“No philosophers are conceited;

  Some conceited persons are not-gamblers.

  ∴ Some not-gamblers are not philosophers”

This can be proved by reduction to Ferio, thus:—

“No conceited persons are philosophers;

  Some not-gamblers are conceited.

  ∴ Some not-gamblers are not philosophers”.

The validity of Ferio follows directly from the Axiom ‘De Omni et Nullo’.

(2) Symbolic Representation.

Before proceeding to discuss other Methods of Solution, it is necessary to translate our Syllogism into an abstract form.

Let us take “persons” as our ‘Universe of Discourse’; and let x = “philosophers”, m = “conceited”, and y = “gamblers.”

Then the Syllogism may be written thus:—

“No x are m;

  Some m are y′.

  ∴ Some y′ are x′.”

(3) Solution by Euler’s Method of Diagrams.

The Major Premiss requires only one Diagram, viz.

1

The Minor requires three, viz.

2

3

4

The combination of Major and Minor, in every possible way requires nine, viz.

Figs. 1 and 2 give

5

6

7

8

9

Figs. 1 and 3 give

10

11

12

Figs. 1 and 4 give

13

From this group (Figs. 5 to 13) we have, by disregarding m, to find the relation of x and y. On examination we find that Figs. 5, 10, 13 express the relation of entire mutual exclusion; that Figs. 6, 11 express partial inclusion and partial exclusion; that Fig. 7 expresses coincidence; that Figs. 8, 12 express entire inclusion of x in y; and that Fig. 9 expresses entire inclusion of y in x.

We thus get five Biliteral Diagrams for x and y, viz.

14

15

16

17

18

where the only Proposition, represented by them all, is “Some not-y are not-x,” i.e. “Some persons, who are not gamblers, are not philosophers”——a result which Euler would hardly have regarded as a valuable one, since he seems to have assumed that a Proposition of this form is always true!

(4) Solution by Venn’s Method of Diagrams.

The following Solution has been kindly supplied to me Mr. Venn himself.

”The Minor Premiss declares that some of the constituents in my′ must be saved: mark these constituents with a cross.

The Major declares that all xm must be destroyed; erase it.

Then, as some my′ is to be saved, it must clearly be my′x′. That is, there must exist my′x′; or eliminating m, y′x′. In common phraseology,

‘Some y′ are x′,’ or, ‘Some not-gamblers are not-philosophers.’”

(5) Solution by my Method of Diagrams.

The first Premiss asserts that no xm exist: so we mark the xm-Compartment as empty, by placing a ‘O’ in each of its Cells.

The second asserts that some my′ exist: so we mark the my′-Compartment as occupied, by placing a ‘I’ in its only available Cell.

The only information, that this gives us as to x and y, is that the x′y′-Compartment is occupied, i.e. that some x′y′ exist.

Hence “Some x′ are y′”: i.e. “Some persons, who are not philosophers, are not gamblers”.

(6) Solution by my Method of Subscripts.

xm0 † my′1 ¶ x′y′1

i.e. “Some persons, who are not philosophers, are not gamblers.”

§ 9.

My Method of treating Syllogisms and Sorites.

Of all the strange things, that are to be met with in the ordinary text-books of Formal Logic, perhaps the strangest is the violent contrast one finds to exist between their ways of dealing with these two subjects. While they have elaborately discussed no less than nineteen different forms of Syllogisms——each with its own special and exasperating Rules, while the whole constitute an almost useless machine, for practical purposes, many of the Conclusions being incomplete, and many quite legitimate forms being ignored——they have limited Sorites to two forms only, of childish simplicity; and these they have dignified with special names, apparently under the impression that no other possible forms existed!

As to Syllogisms, I find that their nineteen forms, with about a score of others which they have ignored, can all be arranged under three forms, each with a very simple Rule of its own; and the only question the Reader has to settle, in working any one of the 101 Examples given at p. 101 of this book, is “Does it belong to Fig. I., II., or III.?”

As to Sorites, the only two forms, recognised by the text-books, are the Aristotelian, whose Premisses are a series of Propositions in A, so arranged that the Predicate of each is the Subject of the next, and the Goclenian, whose Premisses are the very same series, written backwards. Goclenius, it seems, was the first who noticed the startling fact that it does not affect the force of a Syllogism to invert the order of its Premisses, and who applied this discovery to a Sorites. If we assume (as surely we may?) that he is the same man as that transcendent genius who first noticed that 4 times 5 is the same thing as 5 times 4, we may apply to him what somebody (Edmund Yates, I think it was) has said of Tupper, viz., “here is a man who, beyond all others of his generation, has been favoured with Glimpses of the Obvious!”

These puerile——not to say infantine——forms of a Sorites I have, in this book, ignored from the very first, and have not only admitted freely Propositions in E, but have purposely stated the Premisses in random order, leaving to the Reader the useful task of arranging them, for himself, in an order which can be worked as a series of regular Syllogisms. In doing this, he can begin with any one of them he likes.

I have tabulated, for curiosity, the various orders in which the Premisses of the Aristotelian Sorites

1. All a are b;

2. All b are c;

3. All c are d;

4. All d are e;

5. All e are h.

  ∴ All a are h.

may be syllogistically arranged, and I find there are no less than sixteen such orders, viz., 12345, 21345, 23145, 23415, 23451, 32145, 32415, 32451, 34215, 34251, 34521, 43215, 43251, 43521, 45321, 54321. Of these the first and the last have been dignified with names; but the other fourteen——first enumerated by an obscure Writer on Logic, towards the end of the Nineteenth Century——remain without a name!

§ 10.

Some account of Parts II, III.

In Part II. will be found some of the matters mentioned in this Appendix, viz., the “Existential Import” of Propositions, the use of a negative Copula, and the theory that “two negative Premisses prove nothing.” I shall also extend the range of Syllogisms, by introducing Propositions containing alternatives (such as “Not-all x are y”), Propositions containing 3 or more Terms (such as “All ab are c”, which, taken along with “Some bc′ are d”, would prove “Some d are a′”), &c. I shall also discuss Sorites containing Entities, and the very puzzling subjects of Hypotheticals and Dilemmas. I hope, in the course of Part II., to go over all the ground usually traversed in the text-books used in our Schools and Universities, and to enable my Readers to solve Problems of the same kind as, and far harder than, those that are at present set in their Examinations.

In Part III. I hope to deal with many curious and out-of-the-way subjects, some of which are not even alluded to in any of the treatises I have met with. In this Part will be found such matters as the Analysis of Propositions into their Elements (let the Reader, who has never gone into this branch of the subject, try to make out for himself what additional Proposition would be needed to convert “Some a are b” into “Some a are bc”), the treatment of Numerical and Geometrical Problems, the construction of Problems, and the solution of Syllogisms and Sorites containing Propositions more complex than any that I have used in Part II.

I will conclude with eight Problems, as a taste of what is coming in Part II. I shall be very glad to receive, from any Reader, who thinks he has solved any one of them (more especially if he has done so without using any Method of Symbols), what he conceives to be its complete Conclusion.

It may be well to explain what I mean by the complete Conclusion of a Syllogism or a Sorites. I distinguish their Terms as being of two kinds——those which can be eliminated (e.g. the Middle Term of a Syllogism), which I call the “Eliminands,” and those which cannot, which I call the “Retinends”; and I do not call the Conclusion complete, unless it states all the relations among the Retinends only, which can be deduced from the Premisses.

1.

All the boys, in a certain School, sit together in one large room every evening. They are of no less than five nationalities——English, Scotch, Welsh, Irish, and German. One of the Monitors (who is a great reader of Wilkie Collins’ novels) is very observant, and takes MS. notes of almost everything that happens, with the view of being a good sensational witness, in case any conspiracy to commit a murder should be on foot. The following are some of his notes:—

(1) Whenever some of the English boys are singing “Rule Britannia”, and some not, some of the Monitors are wide-awake;

(2) Whenever some of the Scotch are dancing reels, and some of the Irish fighting, some of the Welsh are eating toasted cheese;

(3) Whenever all the Germans are playing chess, some of the Eleven are not oiling their bats;

(4) Whenever some of the Monitors are asleep, and some not, some of the Irish are fighting;

(5) Whenever some of the Germans are playing chess, and none of the Scotch are dancing reels, some of the Welsh are not eating toasted cheese;

(6) Whenever some of the Scotch are not dancing reels, and some of the Irish not fighting, some of the Germans are playing chess;

(7) Whenever some of the Monitors are awake, and some of the Welsh are eating toasted cheese, none of the Scotch are dancing reels;

(8) Whenever some of the Germans are not playing chess, and some of the Welsh are not eating toasted cheese, none of the Irish are fighting;

(9) Whenever all the English are singing “Rule Britannia,” and some of the Scotch are not dancing reels, none of the Germans are playing chess;

(10) Whenever some of the English are singing “Rule Britannia”, and some of the Monitors are asleep, some of the Irish are not fighting;

(11) Whenever some of the Monitors are awake, and some of the Eleven are not oiling their bats, some of the Scotch are dancing reels;

(12) Whenever some of the English are singing “Rule Britannia”, and some of the Scotch are not dancing reels, * * * *

Here the MS. breaks off suddenly. The Problem is to complete the sentence, if possible.

[N.B. In solving this Problem, it is necessary to remember that the Proposition “All x are y” is a Double Proposition, and is equivalent to “Some x are y, and none are y′.” See p. 17.]

2.

(1) A logician, who eats pork-chops for supper, will probably lose money;

(2) A gambler, whose appetite is not ravenous, will probably lose money;

(3) A man who is depressed, having lost money and being likely to lose more, always rises at 5 a.m.;

(4) A man, who neither gambles nor eats pork-chops for supper, is sure to have a ravenous appetite;

(5) A lively man, who goes to bed before 4 a.m., had better take to cab-driving;

(6) A man with a ravenous appetite, who has not lost money and does not rise at 5 a.m., always eats pork-chops for supper;

(7) A logician, who is in danger of losing money, had better take to cab-driving;

(8) An earnest gambler, who is depressed though he has not lost money, is in no danger of losing any;

(9) A man, who does not gamble, and whose appetite is not ravenous, is always lively;

(10) A lively logician, who is really in earnest, is in no danger of losing money;

(11) A man with a ravenous appetite has no need to take to cab-driving, if he is really in earnest;

(12) A gambler, who is depressed though in no danger of losing money, sits up till 4 a.m.

(13) A man, who has lost money and does not eat pork-chops for supper, had better take to cab-driving, unless he gets up at 5 a.m.

(14) A gambler, who goes to bed before 4 a.m., need not take to cab-driving, unless he has a ravenous appetite;

(15) A man with a ravenous appetite, who is depressed though in no danger of losing, is a gambler.

Univ. “men”; a = earnest; b = eating pork-chops for supper; c = gamblers; d = getting up at 5; e = having lost money; h = having a ravenous appetite; k = likely to lose money; l = lively; m = logicians; n = men who had better take to cab-driving; r = sitting up till 4.

[N.B. In this Problem, clauses, beginning with “though”, are intended to be treated as essential parts of the Propositions in which they occur, just as if they had begun with “and”.]

3.

(1) When the day is fine, I tell Froggy “You’re quite the dandy, old chap!”;

(2) Whenever I let Froggy forget that £10 he owes me, and he begins to strut about like a peacock, his mother declares “He shall not go out a-wooing!”;

(3) Now that Froggy’s hair is out of curl, he has put away his gorgeous waistcoat;

(4) Whenever I go out on the roof to enjoy a quiet cigar, I’m sure to discover that my purse is empty;

(5) When my tailor calls with his little bill, and I remind Froggy of that £10 he owes me, he does not grin like a hyæna;

(6) When it is very hot, the thermometer is high;

(7) When the day is fine, and I’m not in the humour for a cigar, and Froggy is grinning like a hyæna, I never venture to hint that he’s quite the dandy;

(8) When my tailor calls with his little bill and finds me with an empty purse, I remind Froggy of that £10 he owes me;

(9) My railway-shares are going up like anything!

(10) When my purse is empty, and when, noticing that Froggy has got his gorgeous waistcoat on, I venture to remind him of that £10 he owes me, things are apt to get rather warm;

(11) Now that it looks like rain, and Froggy is grinning like a hyæna, I can do without my cigar;

(12) When the thermometer is high, you need not trouble yourself to take an umbrella;

(13) When Froggy has his gorgeous waistcoat on, but is not strutting about like a peacock, I betake myself to a quiet cigar;

(14) When I tell Froggy that he’s quite the dandy, he grins like a hyæna;

(15) When my purse is tolerably full, and Froggy’s hair is one mass of curls, and when he is not strutting about like a peacock, I go out on the roof;

(16) When my railway-shares are going up, and when it is chilly and looks like rain, I have a quiet cigar;

(17) When Froggy’s mother lets him go a-wooing, he seems nearly mad with joy, and puts on a waistcoat that is gorgeous beyond words;

(18) When it is going to rain, and I am having a quiet cigar, and Froggy is not intending to go a-wooing, you had better take an umbrella;

(19) When my railway-shares are going up, and Froggy seems nearly mad with joy, that is the time my tailor always chooses for calling with his little bill;

(20) When the day is cool and the thermometer low, and I say nothing to Froggy about his being quite the dandy, and there’s not the ghost of a grin on his face, I haven’t the heart for my cigar!

4.

(1) Any one, fit to be an M.P., who is not always speaking, is a public benefactor;

(2) Clear-headed people, who express themselves well, have had a good education;

(3) A woman, who deserves praise, is one who can keep a secret;

(4) People, who benefit the public, but do not use their influence for good purpose, are not fit to go into Parliament;

(5) People, who are worth their weight in gold and who deserve praise, are always unassuming;

(6) Public benefactors, who use their influence for good objects, deserve praise;

(7) People, who are unpopular and not worth their weight in gold, never can keep a secret;

(8) People, who can talk for ever and are fit to be Members of Parliament, deserve praise;

(9) Any one, who can keep a secret and who is unassuming, is a never-to-be-forgotten public benefactor;

(10) A woman, who benefits the public, is always popular;

(11) People, who are worth their weight in gold, who never leave off talking, and whom it is impossible to forget, are just the people whose photographs are in all the shop-windows;

(12) An ill-educated woman, who is not clear-headed, is not fit to go into Parliament;

(13) Any one, who can keep a secret and is not for ever talking, is sure to be unpopular;

(14) A clear-headed person, who has influence and uses it for good objects, is a public benefactor;

(15) A public benefactor, who is unassuming, is not the sort of person whose photograph is in every shop-window;

(16) People, who can keep a secret and who use their influence for good purposes, are worth their weight in gold;

(17) A person, who has no power of expression and who cannot influence others, is certainly not a woman;

(18) People, who are popular and worthy of praise, either are public benefactors or else are unassuming.

Univ. “persons”; a = able to keep a secret; b = clear-headed; c = constantly talking; d = deserving praise; e = exhibited in shop-windows; h = expressing oneself well; k = fit to be an M.P.; l = influential; m = never-to-be-forgotten; n = popular; r = public benefactors; s = unassuming; t = using one’s influence for good objects; v = well-educated; w = women; z = worth one’s weight in gold.

5.

Six friends, and their six wives, are staying in the same hotel; and they all walk out daily, in parties of various size and composition. To ensure variety in these daily walks, they have agree to observe the following Rules:—

(1) If Acres is with (i.e. is in the same party with) his wife, and Barry with his, and Eden with Mrs. Hall, Cole must be with Mrs. Dix;

(2) If Acres is with his wife, and Hall with his, and Barry with Mrs. Cole, Dix must not be with Mrs. Eden;

(3) If Cole and Dix and their wives are all in the same party, and Acres not with Mrs. Barry, Eden must not be with Mrs. Hall;

(4) If Acres is with his wife, and Dix with his, and Barry not with Mrs. Cole, Eden must be with Mrs. Hall;

(5) If Eden is with his wife, and Hall with his, and Cole with Mrs. Dix, Acres must not be with Mrs. Barry;

(6) If Barry and Cole and their wives are all in the same party, and Eden not with Mrs. Hall, Dix must be with Mrs. Eden.

The Problem is to prove that there must be, every day, at least one married couple who are not in the same party.

6.

After the six friends, named in Problem 5, had returned from their tour, three of them, Barry, Cole, and Dix, agreed, with two other friends of theirs, Lang and Mill, that the five should meet, every day, at a certain table d’hôte. Remembering how much amusement they had derived from their code of rules for walking-parties, they devised the following rules to be observed whenever beef appeared on the table:—

(1) If Barry takes salt, then either Cole or Lang takes one only of the two condiments, salt and mustard: if he takes mustard, then either Dix takes neither condiment, or Mill takes both.

(2) If Cole takes salt, then either Barry takes only one condiment, or Mill takes neither: if he takes mustard, then either Dix or Lang takes both.

(3) If Dix takes salt, then either Barry takes neither condiment or Cole take both: if he takes mustard, then either Lang or Mill takes neither.

(4) If Lang takes salt, then Barry or Dix takes only one condiment: if he takes mustard, then either Cole or Mill takes neither.

(5) If Mill takes salt, then either Barry or Lang takes both condiments: if he takes mustard, then either Cole or Dix takes only one.

The Problem is to discover whether these rules are compatible; and, if so, what arrangements are possible.

[N.B. In this Problem, it is assumed that the phrase “if Barry takes salt” allows of two possible cases, viz. (1) “he takes salt only”; (2) “he takes both condiments”. And so with all similar phrases.

It is also assumed that the phrase “either Cole or Lang takes one only of the two condiments” allows three possible cases, viz. (1) “Cole takes one only, Lang takes both or neither”; (2) “Cole takes both or neither, Lang takes one only”; (3) “Cole takes one only, Lang takes one only”. And so with all similar phrases.

It is also assumed that every rule is to be understood as implying the words “and vice versâ.” Thus the first rule would imply the addition “and, if either Cole or Lang takes only one condiment, then Barry takes salt.”]

7.

(1) Brothers, who are much admired, are apt to be self-conscious;

(2) When two men of the same height are on opposite sides in Politics, if one of them has his admirers, so also has the other;

(3) Brothers, who avoid general Society, look well when walking together;

(4) Whenever you find two men, who differ in Politics and in their views of Society, and who are not both of them ugly, you may be sure that they look well when walking together;

(5) Ugly men, who look well when walking together, are not both of them free from self-consciousness;

(6) Brothers, who differs in Politics, and are not both of them handsome, never give themselves airs;

(7) John declines to go into Society, but never gives himself airs;

(8) Brothers, who are apt to be self-conscious, though not both of them handsome, usually dislike Society;

(9) Men of the same height, who do not give themselves airs, are free from self-consciousness;

(10) Men, who agree on questions of Art, though they differ in Politics, and who are not both of them ugly, are always admired;

(11) Men, who hold opposite views about Art and are not admired, always give themselves airs;

(12) Brothers of the same height always differ in Politics;

(13) Two handsome men, who are neither both of them admired nor both of them self-conscious, are no doubt of different heights;

(14) Brothers, who are self-conscious, and do not both of them like Society, never look well when walking together.

[N.B. See Note at end of Problem 2.]

8.

(1) A man can always master his father;

(2) An inferior of a man’s uncle owes that man money;

(3) The father of an enemy of a friend of a man owes that man nothing;

(4) A man is always persecuted by his son’s creditors;

(5) An inferior of the master of a man’s son is senior to that man;

(6) A grandson of a man’s junior is not his nephew;

(7) A servant of an inferior of a friend of a man’s enemy is never persecuted by that man;

(8) A friend of a superior of the master of a man’s victim is that man’s enemy;

(9) An enemy of a persecutor of a servant of a man’s father is that man’s friend.

The Problem is to deduce some fact about great-grandsons.

[N.B. In this Problem, it is assumed that all the men, here referred to, live in the same town, and that every pair of them are either “friends” or “enemies,” that every pair are related as “senior and junior”, “superior and inferior”, and that certain pairs are related as “creditor and debtor”, “father and son”, “master and servant”, “persecutor and victim”, “uncle and nephew”.]

9.

“Jack Sprat could eat no fat:

      His wife could eat no lean:

  And so, between them both,

      They licked the platter clean.”

Solve this as a Sorites-Problem, taking lines 3 and 4 as the Conclusion to be proved. It is permitted to use, as Premisses, not only all that is here asserted, but also all that we may reasonably understand to be implied.

NOTES TO APPENDIX.

(A)

It may, perhaps, occur to the Reader, who has studied Formal Logic that the argument, here applied to the Propositions I and E, will apply equally well to the Propositions I and A (since, in the ordinary text-books, the Propositions “All xy are z” and “Some xy are not z” are regarded as Contradictories). Hence it may appear to him that the argument might have been put as follows:—

“We now have I and A ‘asserting.’ Hence, if the Proposition ‘All xy are z’ be true, some things exist with the Attributes x and y: i.e. ‘Some x are y.’

“Also we know that, if the Proposition ‘Some xy are not-z’ be true the same result follows.

“But these two Propositions are Contradictories, so that one or other of them must be true. Hence this result is always true: i.e. the Proposition ‘Some x are y’ is always true!

“Quod est absurdum. Hence I cannot assert.”

This matter will be discussed in Part II; but I may as well give here what seems to me to be an irresistable proof that this view (that A and I are Contradictories), though adopted in the ordinary text-books, is untenable. The proof is as follows:—

With regard to the relationship existing between the Class ‘xy’ and the two Classes ‘z’ and ‘not-z’, there are four conceivable states of things, viz.

(1)

Some xy

are z,

and

some

are not-z;

(2)

〃

〃

none

〃

(3)

No xy

〃

some

〃

(4)

〃

〃

none

〃

Of these four, No. (2) is equivalent to “All xy are z”, No. (3) is equivalent to “All xy are not-z”, and No. (4) is equivalent to “No xy exist.”

Now it is quite undeniable that, of these four states of things, each is, a priori, possible, some one must be true, and the other three must be false.

Hence the Contradictory to (2) is “Either (1) or (3) or (4) is true.” Now the assertion “Either (1) or (3) is true” is equivalent to “Some xy are not-z”; and the assertion “(4) is true” is equivalent to “No xy exist.” Hence the Contradictory to “All xy are z” may be expressed as the Alternative Proposition “Either some xy are not-z, or no xy exist,” but not as the Categorical Proposition “Some y are not-z.”

(B)

There are yet other views current among “The Logicians”, as to the “Existential Import” of Propositions, which have not been mentioned in this Section.

One is, that the Proposition “some x are y” is to be interpreted, neither as “Some x exist and are y”, nor yet as “If there were any x in existence, some of them would be y”, but merely as “Some x can be y; i.e. the Attributes x and y are compatible”. On this theory, there would be nothing offensive in my telling my friend Jones “Some of your brothers are swindlers”; since, if he indignantly retorted “What do you mean by such insulting language, you scoundrel?”, I should calmly reply “I merely mean that the thing is conceivable——that some of your brothers might possibly be swindlers”. But it may well be doubted whether such an explanation would entirely appease the wrath of Jones!

Another view is, that the Proposition “All x are y” sometimes implies the actual existence of x, and sometimes does not imply it; and that we cannot tell, without having it in concrete form, which interpretation we are to give to it. This view is, I think, strongly supported by common usage; and it will be fully discussed in Part II: but the difficulties, which it introduces, seem to me too formidable to be even alluded to in Part I, which I am trying to make, as far as possible, easily intelligible to mere beginners.

(C)

The three Conclusions are

“No conceited child of mine is greedy”;

“None of my boys could solve this problem”;

“Some unlearned boys are not choristers.”

THE GAME OF LOGIC

To my Child-friend.

I charm in vain; for never again,

All keenly as my glance I bend,

   Will Memory, goddess coy,

   Embody for my joy

Departed days, nor let me gaze

   On thee, my fairy friend!

Yet could thy face, in mystic grace,

A moment smile on me, 'twould send

   Far-darting rays of light

   From Heaven athwart the night,

By which to read in very deed

   Thy spirit, sweetest friend!

So may the stream of Life's long dream

Flow gently onward to its end,

   With many a floweret gay,

   Adown its willowy way:

May no sigh vex, no care perplex,

   My loving little friend!

NOTA BENE.

With each copy of this Book is given an Envelope, containing a Diagram (similar to the frontispiece) on card, and nine Counters, four red and five grey.

The Envelope, &c. can be had separately, at 3d. each.

The Author will be very grateful for suggestions, especially from beginners in Logic, of any alterations, or further explanations, that may seem desirable. Letters should be addressed to him at "29, Bedford Street, Covent Garden, London."

CONTENTS

THE GAME OF LOGIC

PREFACE

CHAPTER I.

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD.

CHAPTER II.

CROSS QUESTIONS.

CHAPTER III.

CROOKED ANSWERS.

CHAPTER IV.

HIT OR MISS.

PREFACE

"There foam'd rebellious Logic, gagg'd and bound."

This Game requires nine Counters—four of one colour and five of another: say four red and five grey.

Besides the nine Counters, it also requires one Player, AT LEAST. I am not aware of any Game that can be played with LESS than this number: while there are several that require MORE: take Cricket, for instance, which requires twenty-two. How much easier it is, when you want to play a Game, to find ONE Player than twenty-two. At the same time, though one Player is enough, a good deal more amusement may be got by two working at it together, and correcting each other's mistakes.

A second advantage, possessed by this Game, is that, besides being an endless source of amusement (the number of arguments, that may be worked by it, being infinite), it will give the Players a little instruction as well. But is there any great harm in THAT, so long as you get plenty of amusement?

CHAPTER I.

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD.

"Light come, light go." _________

1. Propositions.

"Some new Cakes are nice."

"No new Cakes are nice."

"All new cakes are nice."

There are three 'PROPOSITIONS' for you—the only three kinds we are going to use in this Game: and the first thing to be done is to learn how to express them on the Board.

Let us begin with

"Some new Cakes are nice."

But before doing so, a remark has to be made—one that is rather important, and by no means easy to understand all in a moment: so please to read this VERY carefully.

The world contains many THINGS (such as "Buns", "Babies", "Beetles". "Battledores". &c.); and these Things possess many ATTRIBUTES (such as "baked", "beautiful", "black", "broken", &c.: in fact, whatever can be "attributed to", that is "said to belong to", any Thing, is an Attribute). Whenever we wish to mention a Thing, we use a SUBSTANTIVE: when we wish to mention an Attribute, we use an ADJECTIVE. People have asked the question "Can a Thing exist without any Attributes belonging to it?" It is a very puzzling question, and I'm not going to try to answer it: let us turn up our noses, and treat it with contemptuous silence, as if it really wasn't worth noticing. But, if they put it the other way, and ask "Can an Attribute exist without any Thing for it to belong to?", we may say at once "No: no more than a Baby could go a railway-journey with no one to take care of it!" You never saw "beautiful" floating about in the air, or littered about on the floor, without any Thing to BE beautiful, now did you?

And now what am I driving at, in all this long rigmarole? It is this. You may put "is" or "are" between names of two THINGS (for example, "some Pigs are fat Animals"), or between the names of two ATTRIBUTES (for example, "pink is light-red"), and in each case it will make good sense. But, if you put "is" or "are" between the name of a THING and the name of an ATTRIBUTE (for example, "some Pigs are pink"), you do NOT make good sense (for how can a Thing BE an Attribute?) unless you have an understanding with the person to whom you are speaking. And the simplest understanding would, I think, be this—that the Substantive shall be supposed to be repeated at the end of the sentence, so that the sentence, if written out in full, would be "some Pigs are pink (Pigs)". And now the word "are" makes quite good sense.

Thus, in order to make good sense of the Proposition "some new Cakes are nice", we must suppose it to be written out in full, in the form "some new Cakes are nice (Cakes)". Now this contains two 'TERMS'—"new Cakes" being one of them, and "nice (Cakes)" the other. "New Cakes," being the one we are talking about, is called the 'SUBJECT' of the Proposition, and "nice (Cakes)" the 'PREDICATE'. Also this Proposition is said to be a 'PARTICULAR' one, since it does not speak of the WHOLE of its Subject, but only of a PART of it. The other two kinds are said to be 'UNIVERSAL', because they speak of the WHOLE of their Subjects—the one denying niceness, and the other asserting it, of the WHOLE class of "new Cakes". Lastly, if you would like to have a definition of the word 'PROPOSITION' itself, you may take this:—"a sentence stating that some, or none, or all, of the Things belonging to a certain class, called its 'Subject', are also Things belonging to a certain other class, called its 'Predicate'".

You will find these seven words—PROPOSITION, ATTRIBUTE, TERM, SUBJECT, PREDICATE, PARTICULAR, UNIVERSAL—charmingly useful, if any friend should happen to ask if you have ever studied Logic. Mind you bring all seven words into your answer, and you friend will go away deeply impressed—'a sadder and a wiser man'.

Now please to look at the smaller Diagram on the Board, and suppose it to be a cupboard, intended for all the Cakes in the world (it would have to be a good large one, of course). And let us suppose all the new ones to be put into the upper half (marked 'x'), and all the rest (that is, the NOT-new ones) into the lower half (marked 'x''). Thus the lower half would contain ELDERLY Cakes, AGED Cakes, ANTE-DILUVIAN Cakes—if there are any: I haven't seen many, myself—and so on. Let us also suppose all the nice Cakes to be put into the left-hand half (marked 'y'), and all the rest (that is, the not-nice ones) into the right-hand half (marked 'y''). At present, then, we must understand x to mean "new", x' "not-new", y "nice", and y' "not-nice."

And now what kind of Cakes would you expect to find in compartment

No. 5?

It is part of the upper half, you see; so that, if it has any Cakes in it, they must be NEW: and it is part of the left-hand half; so that they must be NICE. Hence if there are any Cakes in this compartment, they must have the double 'ATTRIBUTE' "new and nice": or, if we use letters, the must be "x y."

Observe that the letters x, y are written on two of the edges of this compartment. This you will find a very convenient rule for knowing what Attributes belong to the Things in any compartment. Take No. 7, for instance. If there are any Cakes there, they must be "x' y", that is, they must be "not-new and nice."

Now let us make another agreement—that a red counter in a compartment shall mean that it is 'OCCUPIED', that is, that there are SOME Cakes in it. (The word 'some,' in Logic, means 'one or more' so that a single Cake in a compartment would be quite enough reason for saying "there are SOME Cakes here"). Also let us agree that a grey counter in a compartment shall mean that it is 'EMPTY', that is that there are NO Cakes in it. In the following Diagrams, I shall put '1' (meaning 'one or more') where you are to put a RED counter, and '0' (meaning 'none') where you are to put a GREY one.

As the Subject of our Proposition is to be "new Cakes", we are only concerned, at present, with the UPPER half of the cupboard, where all the Cakes have the attribute x, that is, "new."

Now, fixing our attention on this upper half, suppose we found it marked like this,

          —————-

         | | |

         | 1 | |

         | | |

          —————-

that is, with a red counter in No. 5. What would this tell us, with regard to the class of "new Cakes"?

Would it not tell us that there are SOME of them in the x y-compartment? That is, that some of them (besides having the Attribute x, which belongs to both compartments) have the Attribute y (that is, "nice"). This we might express by saying "some x-Cakes are y-(Cakes)", or, putting words instead of letters,

"Some new Cakes are nice (Cakes)",

or, in a shorter form,

"Some new Cakes are nice".

At last we have found out how to represent the first Proposition of this Section. If you have not CLEARLY understood all I have said, go no further, but read it over and over again, till you DO understand it. After that is once mastered, you will find all the rest quite easy.

It will save a little trouble, in doing the other Propositions, if we agree to leave out the word "Cakes" altogether. I find it convenient to call the whole class of Things, for which the cupboard is intended, the 'UNIVERSE.' Thus we might have begun this business by saying "Let us take a Universe of Cakes." (Sounds nice, doesn't it?)

Of course any other Things would have done just as well as Cakes. We might make Propositions about "a Universe of Lizards", or even "a Universe of Hornets". (Wouldn't THAT be a charming Universe to live in?)

So far, then, we have learned that

          —————-

         | | |

         | 1 | |

         | | |

          —————-

means "some x and y," i.e. "some new are nice."

I think you will see without further explanation, that

          —————-

         | | |

         | | 1 |

         | | |

          —————-

means "some x are y'," i.e. "some new are not-nice."

Now let us put a GREY counter into No. 5, and ask ourselves the meaning of

          —————-

         | | |

         | 0 | |

         | | |

          —————-

This tells us that the x y-compartment is EMPTY, which we may express by "no x are y", or, "no new Cakes are nice". This is the second of the three Propositions at the head of this Section.

In the same way,

          —————-

         | | |

         | | 0 |

         | | |

          —————-

would mean "no x are y'," or, "no new Cakes are not-nice."

What would you make of this, I wonder?

          —————-

         | | |

         | 1 | 1 |

         | | |

          —————-

I hope you will not have much trouble in making out that this represents a DOUBLE Proposition: namely, "some x are y, AND some are y'," i.e. "some new are nice, and some are not-nice."

The following is a little harder, perhaps:

          —————-

         | | |

         | 0 | 0 |

         | | |

          —————-

This means "no x are y, AND none are y'," i.e. "no new are nice, AND none are not-nice": which leads to the rather curious result that "no new exist," i.e. "no Cakes are new." This is because "nice" and "not-nice" make what we call an 'EXHAUSTIVE' division of the class "new Cakes": i.e. between them, they EXHAUST the whole class, so that all the new Cakes, that exist, must be found in one or the other of them.

And now suppose you had to represent, with counters the contradictory to "no Cakes are new", which would be "some Cakes are new", or, putting letters for words, "some Cakes are x", how would you do it?

This will puzzle you a little, I expect. Evidently you must put a red counter SOMEWHERE in the x-half of the cupboard, since you know there are SOME new Cakes. But you must not put it into the LEFT-HAND compartment, since you do not know them to be NICE: nor may you put it into the RIGHT-HAND one, since you do not know them to be NOT-NICE.

What, then, are you to do? I think the best way out of the difficulty is to place the red counter ON THE DIVISION-LINE between the xy-compartment and the xy'-compartment. This I shall represent (as I always put '1' where you are to put a red counter) by the diagram

          —————-

         | | |

         | -1- |

         | | |

          —————-

Our ingenious American cousins have invented a phrase to express the position of a man who wants to join one or the other of two parties—such as their two parties 'Democrats' and 'Republicans'—but can't make up his mind WHICH. Such a man is said to be "sitting on the fence." Now that is exactly the position of the red counter you have just placed on the division-line. He likes the look of No. 5, and he likes the look of No. 6, and he doesn't know WHICH to jump down into. So there he sits astride, silly fellow, dangling his legs, one on each side of the fence!

Now I am going to give you a much harder one to make out. What does this mean?

          —————-

         | | |

         | 1 | 0 |

         | | |

          —————-

This is clearly a DOUBLE Proposition. It tells us not only that "some x are y," but also the "no x are NOT y." Hence the result is "ALL x are y," i.e. "all new Cakes are nice", which is the last of the three Propositions at the head of this Section.

We see, then, that the Universal Proposition

"All new Cakes are nice"

consists of TWO Propositions taken together, namely,

 "Some new Cakes are nice,"

        and "No new Cakes are not-nice."

In the same way

          —————-

         | | |

         | 0 | 1 |

         | | |

          —————-

would mean "all x are y' ", that is,

"All new Cakes are not-nice."

Now what would you make of such a Proposition as "The Cake you have given me is nice"? Is it Particular or Universal?

"Particular, of course," you readily reply. "One single Cake is hardly worth calling 'some,' even."

No, my dear impulsive Reader, it is 'Universal'. Remember that, few as they are (and I grant you they couldn't well be fewer), they are (or rather 'it is') ALL that you have given me! Thus, if (leaving 'red' out of the question) I divide my Universe of Cakes into two classes—the Cakes you have given me (to which I assign the upper half of the cupboard), and those you HAVEN'T given me (which are to go below)—I find the lower half fairly full, and the upper one as nearly as possible empty. And then, when I am told to put an upright division into each half, keeping the NICE Cakes to the left, and the NOT-NICE ones to the right, I begin by carefully collecting ALL the Cakes you have given me (saying to myself, from time to time, "Generous creature! How shall I ever repay such kindness?"), and piling them up in the left-hand compartment. AND IT DOESN'T TAKE LONG TO DO IT!

Here is another Universal Proposition for you. "Barzillai Beckalegg is an honest man." That means "ALL the Barzillai Beckaleggs, that I am now considering, are honest men." (You think I invented that name, now don't you? But I didn't. It's on a carrier's cart, somewhere down in Cornwall.)

This kind of Universal Proposition (where the Subject is a single

Thing) is called an 'INDIVIDUAL' Proposition.

Now let us take "NICE Cakes" as the Subject of Proposition: that is, let us fix our thoughts on the LEFT-HAND half of the cupboard, where all the Cakes have attribute y, that is, "nice."

        ——-

  Suppose we find it marked like this:— | |

       | 1 |

  What would that tell us? | |

        ——-

       | |

       | |

       | |

        ——-

I hope that it is not necessary, after explaining the HORIZONTAL oblong so fully, to spend much time over the UPRIGHT one. I hope you will see, for yourself, that this means "some y are x", that is,

"Some nice Cakes are new."

"But," you will say, "we have had this case before. You put a red counter into No. 5, and you told us it meant 'some new Cakes are nice'; and NOW you tell us that it means 'some NICE Cakes are NEW'! Can it mean BOTH?"

The question is a very thoughtful one, and does you GREAT credit, dear Reader! It DOES mean both. If you choose to take x (that is, "new Cakes") as your Subject, and to regard No. 5 as part of a HORIZONTAL oblong, you may read it "some x are y", that is, "some new Cakes are nice": but, if you choose to take y (that is, "nice Cake") as your Subject, and to regard No. 5 as part of an UPRIGHT oblong, THEN you may read it "some y are x", that is, "some nice Cakes are new". They are merely two different ways of expressing the very same truth.

Without more words, I will simply set down the other ways in which this upright oblong might be marked, adding the meaning in each case. By comparing them with the various cases of the horizontal oblong, you will, I hope, be able to understand them clearly.

You will find it a good plan to examine yourself on this table, by covering up first one column and then the other, and 'dodging about', as the children say.

Also you will do well to write out for yourself two other tables—one for the LOWER half of the cupboard, and the other for its RIGHT-HAND half.

And now I think we have said all we need to say about the smaller

Diagram, and may go on to the larger one.

_________________________________________________ | Symbols. | Meanings. _______________|_________________________________ ——- | | | | | | | Some y are x'; | | | i.e. Some nice are not-new. ——- | | | | | 1 | | | | | ——- | | ——- | | | | No y are x; | 0 | | i.e. No nice are new. | | | ——- | [Observe that this is merely another way of | | | expressing "No new are nice."] | | | | | | ——- | | ——- | | | | | | | No y are x'; | | | i.e. No nice are not-new. ——- | | | | | 0 | | | | | ——- | | ——- | | | | | 1 | | Some y are x, and some are x'; | | | i.e. Some nice are new, and some are ——- | not-new. | | | | 1 | | | | | ——- | | ——- | | | | | 0 | | No y are x, and none are x'; i.e. No y | | | exist; ——- | i.e. No Cakes are nice. | | | | 0 | | | | | ——- | | ——- | | | | | 1 | | All y are x; | | | i.e. All nice are new. ——- | | | | | 0 | | | | | ——- | | ——- | | | | | 0 | | All y are x'; | | | i.e. All nice are not-new. ——- | | | | | 1 | | | | | ——- | _______________|_________________________________

This may be taken to be a cupboard divided in the same way as the last, but ALSO divided into two portions, for the Attribute m. Let us give to m the meaning "wholesome": and let us suppose that all WHOLESOME Cakes are placed INSIDE the central Square, and all the UNWHOLESOME ones OUTSIDE it, that is, in one or other of the four queer-shaped OUTER compartments.

We see that, just as, in the smaller Diagram, the Cakes in each compartment had TWO Attributes, so, here, the Cakes in each compartment have THREE Attributes: and, just as the letters, representing the TWO Attributes, were written on the EDGES of the compartment, so, here, they are written at the CORNERS. (Observe that m' is supposed to be written at each of the four outer corners.) So that we can tell in a moment, by looking at a compartment, what three Attributes belong to the Things in it. For instance, take No. 12. Here we find x, y', m, at the corners: so we know that the Cakes in it, if there are any, have the triple Attribute, 'xy'm', that is, "new, not-nice, and wholesome." Again, take No. 16. Here we find, at the corners, x', y', m': so the Cakes in it are "not-new, not-nice, and unwholesome." (Remarkably untempting Cakes!)

It would take far too long to go through all the Propositions, containing x and y, x and m, and y and m which can be represented on this diagram (there are ninety-six altogether, so I am sure you will excuse me!) and I must content myself with doing two or three, as specimens. You will do well to work out a lot more for yourself.

Taking the upper half by itself, so that our Subject is "new Cakes", how are we to represent "no new Cakes are wholesome"?

This is, writing letters for words, "no x are m." Now this tells us that none of the Cakes, belonging to the upper half of the cupboard, are to be found INSIDE the central Square: that is, the two compartments, No. 11 and No. 12, are EMPTY. And this, of course, is represented by

—————————- | | | | _____|_____ | | | | | | | | 0 | 0 | | | | | | | —————————-

And now how are we to represent the contradictory Proposition "SOME x are m"? This is a difficulty I have already considered. I think the best way is to place a red counter ON THE DIVISION-LINE between No. 11 and No. 12, and to understand this to mean that ONE of the two compartments is 'occupied,' but that we do not at present know WHICH. This I shall represent thus:—

—————————- | | | | _____|_____ | | | | | | | | -1- | | | | | | | —————————-

Now let us express "all x are m."

This consists, we know, of TWO Propositions,

     "Some x are m,"

 and "No x are m'."

Let us express the negative part first. This tells us that none of the Cakes, belonging to the upper half of the cupboard, are to be found OUTSIDE the central Square: that is, the two compartments, No. 9 and No. 10, are EMPTY. This, of course, is represented by

—————————- | 0 | 0 | | _____|_____ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | —————————-

But we have yet to represent "Some x are m." This tells us that there are SOME Cakes in the oblong consisting of No. 11 and No. 12: so we place our red counter, as in the previous example, on the division-line between No. 11 and No. 12, and the result is

—————————- | 0 | 0 | | _____|_____ | | | | | | | | -1- | | | | | | | —————————-

Now let us try one or two interpretations.

What are we to make of this, with regard to x and y?

—————————- | | 0 | | _____|_____ | | | | | | | | 1 | 0 | | | | | | | —————————-

This tells us, with regard to the xy'-Square, that it is wholly 'empty', since BOTH compartments are so marked. With regard to the xy-Square, it tells us that it is 'occupied'. True, it is only ONE compartment of it that is so marked; but that is quite enough, whether the other be 'occupied' or 'empty', to settle the fact that there is SOMETHING in the Square.

If, then, we transfer our marks to the smaller Diagram, so as to get rid of the m-subdivisions, we have a right to mark it

          —————-

         | | |

         | 1 | 0 |

         | | |

          —————-

which means, you know, "all x are y."

The result would have been exactly the same, if the given oblong had been marked thus:—

—————————- | 1 | 0 | | _____|_____ | | | | | | | | | 0 | | | | | | | —————————-

Once more: how shall we interpret this, with regard to x and y?

—————————- | 0 | 1 | | _____|_____ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | —————————-

This tells us, as to the xy-Square, that ONE of its compartments is 'empty'. But this information is quite useless, as there is no mark in the OTHER compartment. If the other compartment happened to be 'empty' too, the Square would be 'empty': and, if it happened to be 'occupied', the Square would be 'occupied'. So, as we do not know WHICH is the case, we can say nothing about THIS Square.

The other Square, the xy'-Square, we know (as in the previous example) to be 'occupied'.

If, then, we transfer our marks to the smaller Diagram, we get merely this:—

          —————-

         | | |

         | | 1 |

         | | |

          —————-

which means, you know, "some x are y'."

These principles may be applied to all the other

oblongs. For instance, to represent

"all y' are m'" we should mark the ———-

RIGHT-HAND UPRIGHT OBLONG (the one | |

that has the attribute y') thus:— |—- |

  | 0 | |

  |—-|-1-|

  | 0 | |

  |—- |

  | |

   ———-

and, if we were told to interpret the lower half of the cupboard, marked as follows, with regard to x and y,

—————————- | | | | | | | | 0 | | | | | | | | ——-|——- | | 1 | 0 | —————————-

we should transfer it to the smaller Diagram thus,

          —————-

         | | |

         | 1 | 0 |

         | | |

          —————-

and read it "all x' are y."

Two more remarks about Propositions need to be made.

One is that, in every Proposition beginning with "some" or "all", the ACTUAL EXISTENCE of the 'Subject' is asserted. If, for instance, I say "all misers are selfish," I mean that misers ACTUALLY EXIST. If I wished to avoid making this assertion, and merely to state the LAW that miserliness necessarily involves selfishness, I should say "no misers are unselfish" which does not assert that any misers exist at all, but merely that, if any DID exist, they WOULD be selfish.

The other is that, when a Proposition begins with "some" or "no", and contains more that two Attributes, these Attributes may be re-arranged, and shifted from one Term to the other, "ad libitum." For example, "some abc are def" may be re-arranged as "some bf are acde," each being equivalent to "some Things are abcdef". Again "No wise old men are rash and reckless gamblers" may be re-arranged as "No rash old gamblers are wise and reckless," each being equivalent to "No men are wise old rash reckless gamblers."

2. Syllogisms

Now suppose we divide our Universe of Things in three ways, with regard to three different Attributes. Out of these three Attributes, we may make up three different couples (for instance, if they were a, b, c, we might make up the three couples ab, ac, bc). Also suppose we have two Propositions given us, containing two of these three couples, and that from them we can prove a third Proposition containing the third couple. (For example, if we divide our Universe for m, x, and y; and if we have the two Propositions given us, "no m are x'" and "all m' are y", containing the two couples mx and my, it might be possible to prove from them a third Proposition, containing x and y.)

In such a case we call the given Propositions 'THE PREMISSES', the third one 'THE CONCLUSION' and the whole set 'A SYLLOGISM'.

Evidently, ONE of the Attributes must occur in both Premisses; or else one must occur in ONE Premiss, and its CONTRADICTORY in the other.

In the first case (when, for example, the Premisses are "some m are x" and "no m are y'") the Term, which occurs twice, is called 'THE MIDDLE TERM', because it serves as a sort of link between the other two Terms.

In the second case (when, for example, the Premisses are "no m are x'" and "all m' are y") the two Terms, which contain these contradictory Attributes, may be called 'THE MIDDLE TERMS'.

Thus, in the first case, the class of "m-Things" is the Middle Term; and, in the second case, the two classes of "m-Things" and "m'-Things" are the Middle Terms.

The Attribute, which occurs in the Middle Term or Terms, disappears in the Conclusion, and is said to be "eliminated", which literally means "turned out of doors".

Now let us try to draw a Conclusion from the two Premisses—

          "Some new Cakes are unwholesome;

           No nice Cakes are unwholesome."

In order to express them with counters, we need to divide Cakes in THREE different ways, with regard to newness, to niceness, and to wholesomeness. For this we must use the larger Diagram, making x mean "new", y "nice", and m "wholesome". (Everything INSIDE the central Square is supposed to have the attribute m, and everything OUTSIDE it the attribute m', i.e. "not-m".)

You had better adopt the rule to make m mean the Attribute which occurs in the MIDDLE Term or Terms. (I have chosen m as the symbol, because 'middle' begins with 'm'.)

Now, in representing the two Premisses, I prefer to begin with the NEGATIVE one (the one beginning with "no"), because GREY counters can always be placed with CERTAINTY, and will then help to fix the position of the red counters, which are sometimes a little uncertain where they will be most welcome.

Let us express, the "no nice Cakes are unwholesome (Cakes)", i.e. "no y-Cakes are m'-(Cakes)". This tells us that none of the Cakes belonging to the y-half of the cupboard are in its m'-compartments (i.e. the ones outside the central Square). Hence the two compartments, No. 9 and No. 15, are both 'EMPTY'; and we must place a grey counter in EACH of them, thus:—

—————- |0 | | | —|— | | | | | | |—|——-|—| | | | | | | —|— | |0 | | —————-

We have now to express the other Premiss, namely, "some new Cakes are unwholesome (Cakes)", i.e. "some x-Cakes are m'-(Cakes)". This tells us that some of the Cakes in the x-half of the cupboard are in its m'-compartments. Hence ONE of the two compartments, No. 9 and No. 10, is 'occupied': and, as we are not told in WHICH of these two compartments to place the red counter, the usual rule would be to lay it on the division-line between them: but, in this case, the other Premiss has settled the matter for us, by declaring No. 9 to be EMPTY. Hence the red counter has no choice, and MUST go into No. 10, thus:—

—————- |0 | 1| | —|— | | | | | | |—|——-|—| | | | | | | —|— | |0 | | —————-

And now what counters will this information enable us to place in the SMALLER Diagram, so as to get some Proposition involving x and y only, leaving out m? Let us take its four compartments, one by one.

First, No. 5. All we know about THIS is that its OUTER portion

is empty: but we know nothing about its inner portion. Thus the

Square MAY be empty, or it MAY have something in it. Who can tell?

So we dare not place ANY counter in this Square.

Secondly, what of No. 6? Here we are a little better off. We know that there is SOMETHING in it, for there is a red counter in its outer portion. It is true we do not know whether its inner portion is empty or occupied: but what does THAT matter? One solitary Cake, in one corner of the Square, is quite sufficient excuse for saying "THIS SQUARE IS OCCUPIED", and for marking it with a red counter.

As to No. 7, we are in the same condition as with No. 5—we find it PARTLY 'empty', but we do not know whether the other part is empty or occupied: so we dare not mark this Square.

And as to No. 8, we have simply no information at all.

The result is

         ———-

        | | 1 |

        |—-|—-|

        | | |

         ———-

Our 'Conclusion', then, must be got out of the rather meager piece of information that there is a red counter in the xy'-Square. Hence our Conclusion is "some x are y' ", i.e. "some new Cakes are not-nice (Cakes)": or, if you prefer to take y' as your Subject, "some not-nice Cakes are new (Cakes)"; but the other looks neatest.

We will now write out the whole Syllogism, putting the symbol &there4[*] for "therefore", and omitting "Cakes", for the sake of brevity, at the end of each Proposition.

[*][NOTE from Brett: The use of "&there4" is a rather arbitrary selection. There is no font available in general practice which renders the "therefore" symbol correction (three dots in a triangular formation). This can be done, however, in HTML, so if this document is read in a browser, then the symbol will be properly recognized. This is a poor man's excuse.]

          "Some new Cakes are unwholesome;

           No nice Cakes are unwholesome

           &there4 Some new Cakes are not-nice."

And you have now worked out, successfully, your first 'SYLLOGISM'. Permit me to congratulate you, and to express the hope that it is but the beginning of a long and glorious series of similar victories!

We will work out one other Syllogism—a rather harder one than the last—and then, I think, you may be safely left to play the Game by yourself, or (better) with any friend whom you can find, that is able and willing to take a share in the sport.

Let us see what we can make of the two Premisses—

  "All Dragons are uncanny;

   All Scotchmen are canny."

Remember, I don't guarantee the Premisses to be FACTS. In the first place, I never even saw a Dragon: and, in the second place, it isn't of the slightest consequence to us, as LOGICIANS, whether our Premisses are true or false: all WE have to do is to make out whether they LEAD LOGICALLY TO THE CONCLUSION, so that, if THEY were true, IT would be true also.

You see, we must give up the "Cakes" now, or our cupboard will be of no use to us. We must take, as our 'Universe', some class of things which will include Dragons and Scotchmen: shall we say 'Animals'? And, as "canny" is evidently the Attribute belonging to the 'Middle Terms', we will let m stand for "canny", x for "Dragons", and y for "Scotchmen". So that our two Premisses are, in full,

   "All Dragon-Animals are uncanny (Animals);

   All Scotchman-Animals are canny (Animals)."

And these may be expressed, using letters for words, thus:—

    "All x are m';

     All y are m."

The first Premiss consists, as you already know, of two parts:—

     "Some x are m',"

 and "No x are m."

And the second also consists of two parts:—

     "Some y are m,"

 and "No y are m'."

Let us take the negative portions first.

We have, then, to mark, on the larger Diagram, first, "no x are m", and secondly, "no y are m'". I think you will see, without further explanation, that the two results, separately, are

—————- —————- | | | |0 | | | —|— | | —|— | | |0 | 0| | | | | | | |—|—|—|—| |—|—|—|—| | | | | | | | | | | | —|— | | —|— | | | | |0 | | —————- —————-

and that these two, when combined, give us

—————- |0 | | | —|— | | |0 | 0| | |—|—|—|—| | | | | | | —|— | |0 | | —————-

We have now to mark the two positive portions, "some x are m'" and "some y are m".

The only two compartments, available for Things which are xm', are No. 9 and No. 10. Of these, No. 9 is already marked as 'empty'; so our red counter must go into No. 10.

Similarly, the only two, available for ym, are No. 11 and No. 13.

Of these, No. 11 is already marked as 'empty'; so our red counter

MUST go into No. 13.

The final result is

—————- |0 | 1| | —|— | | |0 | 0| | |—|—|—|—| | |1 | | | | —|— | |0 | | —————-

And now how much of this information can usefully be transferred to the smaller Diagram?

Let us take its four compartments, one by one.

As to No. 5? This, we see, is wholly 'empty'. (So mark it with a grey counter.)

As to No. 6? This, we see, is 'occupied'. (So mark it with a red counter.)

As to No. 7? Ditto, ditto.

As to No. 8? No information.

The smaller Diagram is now pretty liberally marked:—

         ———-

        | 0 | 1 |

        |—-|—-|

        | 1 | |

         ———-

And now what Conclusion can we read off from this? Well, it is impossible to pack such abundant information into ONE Proposition: we shall have to indulge in TWO, this time.

First, by taking x as Subject, we get "all x are y'", that is,

"All Dragons are not-Scotchmen":

secondly, by taking y as Subject, we get "all y are x'", that is,

"All Scotchmen are not-Dragons".

Let us now write out, all together, our two Premisses and our brace of Conclusions.

        "All Dragons are uncanny;

         All Scotchmen are canny.

         &there4 All Dragons are not-Scotchmen;

      All Scotchmen are not-Dragons."

Let me mention, in conclusion, that you may perhaps meet with logical treatises in which it is not assumed that any Thing EXISTS at all, by "some x are y" is understood to mean "the Attributes x, y are COMPATIBLE, so that a Thing can have both at once", and "no x are y" to mean "the Attributes x, y are INCOMPATIBLE, so that nothing can have both at once".

In such treatises, Propositions have quite different meanings from what they have in our 'Game of Logic', and it will be well to understand exactly what the difference is.

First take "some x are y". Here WE understand "are" to mean "are, as an actual FACT"—which of course implies that some x-Things EXIST. But THEY (the writers of these other treatises) only understand "are" to mean "CAN be", which does not at all imply that any EXIST. So they mean LESS than we do: our meaning includes theirs (for of course "some x ARE y" includes "some x CAN BE y"), but theirs does NOT include ours. For example, "some Welsh hippopotami are heavy" would be TRUE, according to these writers (since the Attributes "Welsh" and "heavy" are quite COMPATIBLE in a hippopotamus), but it would be FALSE in our Game (since there are no Welsh hippopotami to BE heavy).

Secondly, take "no x are y". Here WE only understand "are" to mean "are, as an actual FACT"—which does not at all imply that no x CAN be y. But THEY understand the Proposition to mean, not only that none ARE y, but that none CAN POSSIBLY be y. So they mean more than we do: their meaning includes ours (for of course "no x CAN be y" includes "no x ARE y"), but ours does NOT include theirs. For example, "no Policemen are eight feet high" would be TRUE in our Game (since, as an actual fact, no such splendid specimens are ever found), but it would be FALSE, according to these writers (since the Attributes "belonging to the Police Force" and "eight feet high" are quite COMPATIBLE: there is nothing to PREVENT a Policeman from growing to that height, if sufficiently rubbed with Rowland's Macassar Oil—which said to make HAIR grow, when rubbed on hair, and so of course will make a POLICEMAN grow, when rubbed on a Policeman).

Thirdly, take "all x are y", which consists of the two partial Propositions "some x are y" and "no x are y'". Here, of course, the treatises mean LESS than we do in the FIRST part, and more than we do in the SECOND. But the two operations don't balance each other—any more than you can console a man, for having knocked down one of his chimneys, by giving him an extra door-step.

If you meet with Syllogisms of this kind, you may work them, quite easily, by the system I have given you: you have only to make 'are' mean 'are CAPABLE of being', and all will go smoothly. For "some x are y" will become "some x are capable of being y", that is, "the Attributes x, y are COMPATIBLE". And "no x are y" will become "no x are capable of being y", that is, "the Attributes x, y are INCOMPATIBLE". And, of course, "all x are y" will become "some x are capable of being y, and none are capable of being y'", that is, "the Attributes x, y are COMPATIBLE, and the Attributes x, y' are INCOMPATIBLE." In using the Diagrams for this system, you must understand a red counter to mean "there may POSSIBLY be something in this compartment," and a grey one to mean "there cannot POSSIBLY be anything in this compartment."

3. Fallacies.

And so you think, do you, that the chief use of Logic, in real life, is to deduce Conclusions from workable Premisses, and to satisfy yourself that the Conclusions, deduced by other people, are correct? I only wish it were! Society would be much less liable to panics and other delusions, and POLITICAL life, especially, would be a totally different thing, if even a majority of the arguments, that scattered broadcast over the world, were correct! But it is all the other way, I fear. For ONE workable Pair of Premisses (I mean a Pair that lead to a logical Conclusion) that you meet with in reading your newspaper or magazine, you will probably find FIVE that lead to no Conclusion at all: and, even when the Premisses ARE workable, for ONE instance, where the writer draws a correct Conclusion, there are probably TEN where he draws an incorrect one.

In the first case, you may say "the PREMISSES are fallacious": in the second, "the CONCLUSION is fallacious."

The chief use you will find, in such Logical skill as this Game may teach you, will be in detecting 'FALLACIES' of these two kinds.

The first kind of Fallacy—'Fallacious Premisses'—you will detect when, after marking them on the larger Diagram, you try to transfer the marks to the smaller. You will take its four compartments, one by one, and ask, for each in turn, "What mark can I place HERE?"; and in EVERY one the answer will be "No information!", showing that there is NO CONCLUSION AT ALL. For instance,

          "All soldiers are brave;

           Some Englishmen are brave.

&there4 Some Englishmen are soldiers."

looks uncommonly LIKE a Syllogism, and might easily take in a less experienced Logician. But YOU are not to be caught by such a trick! You would simply set out the Premisses, and would then calmly remark "Fallacious PREMISSES!": you wouldn't condescend to ask what CONCLUSION the writer professed to draw—knowing that, WHATEVER it is, it MUST be wrong. You would be just as safe as that wise mother was, who said "Mary, just go up to the nursery, and see what Baby's doing, AND TELL HIM NOT TO DO IT!"

The other kind of Fallacy—'Fallacious Conclusion'—you will not detect till you have marked BOTH Diagrams, and have read off the correct Conclusion, and have compared it with the Conclusion which the writer has drawn.

But mind, you mustn't say "FALLACIOUS Conclusion," simply because it is not IDENTICAL with the correct one: it may be a PART of the correct Conclusion, and so be quite correct, AS FAR AS IT GOES. In this case you would merely remark, with a pitying smile, "DEFECTIVE Conclusion!" Suppose, of example, you were to meet with this Syllogism:—

           "All unselfish people are generous;

No misers are generous.

     &there4 No misers are unselfish."

the Premisses of which might be thus expressed in letters:—

   "All x' are m;

    No y are m."

Here the correct Conclusion would be "All x' are y'" (that is, "All unselfish people are not misers"), while the Conclusion, drawn by the writer, is "No y are x'," (which is the same as "No x' are y," and so is PART of "All x' are y'.") Here you would simply say "DEFECTIVE Conclusion!" The same thing would happen, if you were in a confectioner's shop, and if a little boy were to come in, put down twopence, and march off triumphantly with a single penny-bun. You would shake your head mournfully, and would remark "Defective Conclusion! Poor little chap!" And perhaps you would ask the young lady behind the counter whether she would let YOU eat the bun, which the little boy had paid for and left behind him: and perhaps SHE would reply "Sha'n't!"

But if, in the above example, the writer had drawn the Conclusion "All misers are selfish" (that is, "All y are x"), this would be going BEYOND his legitimate rights (since it would assert the EXISTENCE of y, which is not contained in the Premisses), and you would very properly say "Fallacious Conclusion!"

Now, when you read other treatises on Logic, you will meet with

various kinds of (so-called) 'Fallacies' which are by no means

ALWAYS so. For example, if you were to put before one of these

Logicians the Pair of Premisses

          "No honest men cheat;

           No dishonest men are trustworthy."

and were to ask him what Conclusion followed, he would probably say "None at all! Your Premisses offend against TWO distinct Rules, and are as fallacious as they can well be!" Then suppose you were bold enough to say "The Conclusion is 'No men who cheat are trustworthy'," I fear your Logical friend would turn away hastily—perhaps angry, perhaps only scornful: in any case, the result would be unpleasant. I ADVISE YOU NOT TO TRY THE EXPERIMENT!

"But why is this?" you will say. "Do you mean to tell us that all these Logicians are wrong?" Far from it, dear Reader! From THEIR point of view, they are perfectly right. But they do not include, in their system, anything like ALL the possible forms of Syllogisms.

They have a sort of nervous dread of Attributes beginning with a negative particle. For example, such Propositions as "All not-x are y," "No x are not-y," are quite outside their system. And thus, having (from sheer nervousness) excluded a quantity of very useful forms, they have made rules which, though quite applicable to the few forms which they allow of, are no use at all when you consider all possible forms.

Let us not quarrel with them, dear Reader! There is room enough in the world for both of us. Let us quietly take our broader system: and, if they choose to shut their eyes to all these useful forms, and to say "They are not Syllogisms at all!" we can but stand aside, and let them Rush upon their Fate! There is scarcely anything of yours, upon which it is so dangerous to Rush, as your Fate. You may Rush upon your Potato-beds, or your Strawberry-beds, without doing much harm: you may even Rush upon your Balcony (unless it is a new house, built by contract, and with no clerk of the works) and may survive the foolhardy enterprise: but if you once Rush upon your FATE—why, you must take the consequences!

CHAPTER II.

CROSS QUESTIONS.

        "The Man in the Wilderness asked of me

         'How many strawberries grow in the sea?'"

          __________

1. Elementary.

1. What is an 'Attribute'? Give examples.

2. When is it good sense to put "is" or "are" between two names? Give examples.

3. When is it NOT good sense? Give examples.

4. When it is NOT good sense, what is the simplest agreement to make, in order to make good sense?

5. Explain 'Proposition', 'Term', 'Subject', and 'Predicate'. Give examples.

6. What are 'Particular' and 'Universal' Propositions? Give examples.

7. Give a rule for knowing, when we look at the smaller Diagram, what Attributes belong to the things in each compartment.

8. What does "some" mean in Logic? [See pp. 55, 6]

9. In what sense do we use the word 'Universe' in this Game?

10. What is a 'Double' Proposition? Give examples.

11. When is a class of Things said to be 'exhaustively' divided? Give examples.

12. Explain the phrase "sitting on the fence."

13. What two partial Propositions make up, when taken together, "all x are y"?

14. What are 'Individual' Propositions? Give examples.

15. What kinds of Propositions imply, in this Game, the EXISTENCE of their Subjects?

16. When a Proposition contains more than two Attributes, these Attributes may in some cases be re-arranged, and shifted from one Term to the other. In what cases may this be done? Give examples.

__________

Break up each of the following into two partial

Propositions:

17. All tigers are fierce.

18. All hard-boiled eggs are unwholesome.

19. I am happy.

20. John is not at home.

__________

[See pp. 56, 7]

21. Give a rule for knowing, when we look at the larger Diagram, what Attributes belong to the Things contained in each compartment.

22. Explain 'Premisses', 'Conclusion', and 'Syllogism'. Give examples.

23. Explain the phrases 'Middle Term' and 'Middle Terms'.

24. In marking a pair of Premisses on the larger Diagram, why is it best to mark NEGATIVE Propositions before AFFIRMATIVE ones?

25. Why is it of no consequence to us, as Logicians, whether the Premisses are true or false?

26. How can we work Syllogisms in which we are told that "some x are y" is to be understood to mean "the Attribute x, y are COMPATIBLE", and "no x are y" to mean "the Attributes x, y are INCOMPATIBLE"?

27. What are the two kinds of 'Fallacies'?

28. How may we detect 'Fallacious Premisses'?

29. How may we detect a 'Fallacious Conclusion'?

30. Sometimes the Conclusion, offered to us, is not identical with the correct Conclusion, and yet cannot be fairly called 'Fallacious'. When does this happen? And what name may we give to such a Conclusion?

[See pp. 57-59]

2. Half of Smaller Diagram.

Propositions to be represented.

—————-

           | | |

           | x |

           | | |

—y——-y'-

__________

1. Some x are not-y.

2. All x are not-y.

3. Some x are y, and some are not-y.

4. No x exist.

5. Some x exist.

6. No x are not-y.

7. Some x are not-y, and some x exist.

__________

Taking x="judges"; y="just";

8. No judges are just.

9. Some judges are unjust.

10. All judges are just.

__________

Taking x="plums"; y="wholesome";

11. Some plums are wholesome.

12. There are no wholesome plums.

13. Plums are some of them wholesome, and some not.

14. All plums are unwholesome.

[See pp. 59, 60]

——- | | | x | | |—y—| | | | x' | | ——-

__________

Taking y="diligent students"; x="successful";

15. No diligent students are unsuccessful.

16. All diligent students are successful.

17. No students are diligent.

18. There are some diligent, but unsuccessful, students.

19. Some students are diligent.

[See pp. 60, 1]

3. Half of Smaller Diagram.

Symbols to be interpreted.

__________

           —————-

          | | |

          | x |

          | | |

           —y——-y'-

__________

      ———- ———-

     | | | | | |

 1. | | 0 | 2. | 0 | 0 |

     | | | | | |

      ———- ———-

      ———- ———-

     | | | | | |

 3. | - | 4. | 0 | 1 |

     | | | | | |

      ———- ———-

__________

Taking x="good riddles"; y="hard";

      ———- ———-

     | | | | | |

 5. | 1 | | 6. | 1 | 0 |

     | | | | | |

      ———- ———-

      ———- ———-

     | | | | | |

 7. | 0 | 0 | 8. | 0 | |

     | | | | | |

      ———- ———-

__________

[See pp. 61, 2]

Taking x="lobster"; y="selfish";

      ———- ———-

     | | | | | |

 9. | | 1 | 10. | 0 | |

     | | | | | |

      ———- ———-

      ———- ———-

     | | | | | |

11. | 0 | 1 | 12. | 1 | 1 |

     | | | | | |

      ———- ———-

__________

——- | | x | | | |—y'-| | | x' | | | ——-

Taking y="healthy people"; x="happy";

—- —- —- —-

           | 0 | | | | 1 | | 0 |

      13. |—-| 14. |-1-| 15. |—-| 16. |—-|

           | 1 | | | | 1 | | |

—- —- —- —-

[See p. 62]

4. Smaller Diagram.

Propositions to be represented.

—————- | | | | x | |—y—|—y'-| | x' | | | | —————-

__________

1. All y are x.

2. Some y are not-x.

3. No not-x are not-y.

4. Some x are not-y.

5. Some not-y are x.

6. No not-x are y.

7. Some not-x are not-y.

8. All not-x are not-y.

9. Some not-y exist.

10. No not-x exist.

11. Some y are x, and some are not-x.

12. All x are y, and all not-y are not-x.

[See pp. 62, 3]

Taking "nations" as Universe; x="civilised"; y="warlike";

13. No uncivilised nation is warlike.

14. All unwarlike nations are uncivilised.

15. Some nations are unwarlike.

16. All warlike nations are civilised, and all civilised nations are warlike.

17. No nation is uncivilised.

__________

Taking "crocodiles" as Universe; x="hungry"; and y="amiable";

18. All hungry crocodiles are unamiable.

19. No crocodiles are amiable when hungry.

20. Some crocodiles, when not hungry, are amiable; but some are not.

21. No crocodiles are amiable, and some are hungry.

22. All crocodiles, when not hungry, are amiable; and all unamiable crocodiles are hungry.

23. Some hungry crocodiles are amiable, and some that are not hungry are unamiable.

[See pp. 63, 4]

5. Smaller Diagram.

Symbols to be interpreted.

__________

—————- | | | | x | |—y—|—y'-| | x' | | | | —————-

__________

      ———- ———-

     | | | | | |

 1. |—-|—-| 2. |—-|—-|

     | 1 | | | | 0 |

      ———- ———-

      ———- ———-

     | | 1 | | | |

 3. |—-|—-| 4. |—-|—-|

     | | 0 | | 0 | 0 |

      ———- ———-

__________

Taking "houses" as Universe; x="built of brick"; and y="two-storied"; interpret

      ———- ———-

     | 0 | | | | |

 5. |—-|—-| 6. |—-|—-|

     | 0 | | | - |

      ———- —-|—-

      ———- ———-

     | | 0 | | | |

 7. |—-|—-| 8. |—-|—-|

     | | | | 0 | 1 |

      ———- ———-

[See p. 65]

Taking "boys" as Universe; x="fat"; and y="active"; interpret

      ———- ———-

     | 1 | 1 | | | 0 |

 9. |—-|—-| 10. |—-|—-|

     | | | | | 1 |

      ———- ———-

      ———- ———-

     | 0 | 1 | | 1 | |

11. |—-|—-| 12. |—-|—-|

     | | 0 | | 0 | 1 |

      ———- ———-

__________

Taking "cats" as Universe; x="green-eyed"; and y="good-tempered"; interpret

      ———- ———-

     | 0 | 0 | | | 1 |

13. |—-|—-| 14. |—-|—-|

     | | 0 | | 1 | |

      ———- ———-

      ———- ———-

     | 1 | | | 0 | 1 |

15. |—-|—-| 16. |—-|—-|

     | | 0 | | 1 | 0 |

      ———- ———-

[See pp. 65, 6]

6. Larger Diagram.

Propositions to be represented.

__________

—————- | | | | —x— | | | | | | |—y—m—y'-| | | | | | | —x'- | | | | —————-

__________

1. No x are m.

2. Some y are m'.

3. All m are x'.

4. No m' are y'.

5. No m are x; All y are m.

6. Some x are m; No y are m.

7. All m are x'; No m are y.

8. No x' are m; No y' are m'.

[See pp. 67,8]

Taking "rabbits" as Universe; m="greedy"; x="old"; and y="black"; represent

9. No old rabbits are greedy.

10. Some not-greedy rabbits are black.

11. All white rabbits are free from greediness.

12. All greedy rabbits are young.

13. No old rabbits are greedy; All black rabbits are greedy.

14. All rabbits, that are not greedy, are black; No old rabbits are free from greediness.

__________

Taking "birds" as Universe; m="that sing loud"; x="well-fed"; and y="happy"; represent

15. All well-fed birds sing loud; No birds, that sing loud, are unhappy.

16. All birds, that do not sing loud, are unhappy; No well-fed birds fail to sing loud.

__________

Taking "persons" as Universe; m="in the house"; x="John"; and y="having a tooth-ache"; represent

17. John is in the house; Everybody in the house is suffering from tooth-ache.

18. There is no one in the house but John; Nobody, out of the house, has a tooth-ache.

__________

[See pp. 68-70]

Taking "persons" as Universe; m="I"; x="that has taken a walk"; y="that feels better"; represent

19. I have been out for a walk; I feel much better.

__________

Choosing your own 'Universe' &c., represent

20. I sent him to bring me a kitten; He brought me a kettle by mistake.

[See pp. 70, 1]

7. Both Diagrams to be employed.

__________

—————- | | | —————- | —x— | | | | | | | | | | x | |—y—m—y'-| |—y—|—y'-| | | | | | | x' | | —x'- | | | | | | | —————- —————-

__________

N.B. In each Question, a small Diagram should be drawn, for x and y only, and marked in accordance with the given large Diagram: and then as many Propositions as possible, for x and y, should be read off from this small Diagram.

   —————- —————-

  |0 | | | | |

  | —|— | | —|— |

  | |0 | 0| | | |0 | 1| |

          1. |—|—|—|—| 2. |—|—|—|—|

  | |1 | | | | |0 | | |

  | —|— | | —|— |

  |0 | | | | |

   —————- —————-

[See p. 72]

   —————- —————-

  | | | | | 0|

  | —|— | | —|— |

  | |0 | 0| | | | | | |

          3. |—|—|—|—| 4. |—|—|—|—|

  | |1 | 0| | | |0 | | |

  | —|— | | —|— |

  | | | | | 0|

   —————- —————-

__________

Mark, in a large Diagram, the following pairs of Propositions from the preceding Section: then mark a small Diagram in accordance with it, &c.

5. No. 13. [see p. 49] 9. No. 17. 6. No. 14. 10. No. 18. 7. No. 15. 11. No. 19. [see p. 50] 8. No. 16. 12. No. 20.

__________

Mark, on a large Diagram, the following Pairs of Propositions: then mark a small Diagram, &c. These are, in fact, Pairs of PREMISSES for Syllogisms: and the results, read off from the small Diagram, are the CONCLUSIONS.

13. No exciting books suit feverish patients; Unexciting books make one drowsy.

14. Some, who deserve the fair, get their deserts; None but the brave deserve the fair.

15. No children are patient; No impatient person can sit still.

[See pp. 72-5]

16. All pigs are fat; No skeletons are fat.

17. No monkeys are soldiers; All monkeys are mischievous.

18. None of my cousins are just; No judges are unjust.

19. Some days are rainy; Rainy days are tiresome.

20. All medicine is nasty; Senna is a medicine.

21. Some Jews are rich; All Patagonians are Gentiles.

22. All teetotalers like sugar; No nightingale drinks wine.

23. No muffins are wholesome; All buns are unwholesome.

24. No fat creatures run well; Some greyhounds run well.

25. All soldiers march; Some youths are not soldiers.

26. Sugar is sweet; Salt is not sweet.

27. Some eggs are hard-boiled; No eggs are uncrackable.

28. There are no Jews in the house; There are no Gentiles in the garden.

[See pp. 75-82]

29. All battles are noisy; What makes no noise may escape notice.

30. No Jews are mad; All Rabbis are Jews.

31. There are no fish that cannot swim; Some skates are fish.

32. All passionate people are unreasonable; Some orators are passionate.

[See pp. 82-84]

CHAPTER III.

CROOKED ANSWERS.

"I answered him, as I thought good,

 'As many as red-herrings grow in the wood'."

__________

1. Elementary.

1. Whatever can be "attributed to", that is "said to belong to", a Thing, is called an 'Attribute'. For example, "baked", which can (frequently) be attributed to "Buns", and "beautiful", which can (seldom) be attributed to "Babies".

2. When they are the Names of two Things (for example, "these Pigs are fat Animals"), or of two Attributes (for example, "pink is light red").

3. When one is the Name of a Thing, and the other the Name of an Attribute (for example, "these Pigs are pink"), since a Thing cannot actually BE an Attribute.

4. That the Substantive shall be supposed to be repeated at the end of the sentence (for example, "these Pigs are pink (Pigs)").

5. A 'Proposition' is a sentence stating that some, or none, or all, of the Things belonging to a certain class, called the 'Subject', are also Things belonging to a certain other class, called the 'Predicate'. For example, "some new Cakes are not nice", that is (written in full) "some new Cakes are not nice Cakes"; where the class "new Cakes" is the Subject, and the class "not-nice Cakes" is the Predicate.

6. A Proposition, stating that SOME of the Things belonging to its Subject are so-and-so, is called 'Particular'. For example, "some new Cakes are nice", "some new Cakes are not nice."

A Proposition, stating that NONE of the Things belonging to its

Subject, or that ALL of them, are so-and-so, is called 'Universal'.

For example, "no new Cakes are nice", "all new Cakes are not nice".

7. The Things in each compartment possess TWO Attributes, whose symbols will be found written on two of the EDGES of that compartment.

8. "One or more."

9. As a name of the class of Things to which the whole Diagram is assigned.

10. A Proposition containing two statements. For example, "some new Cakes are nice and some are not-nice."

11. When the whole class, thus divided, is "exhausted" among the sets into which it is divided, there being no member of it which does not belong to some one of them. For example, the class "new Cakes" is "exhaustively" divided into "nice" and "not-nice" since EVERY new Cake must be one or the other.

12. When a man cannot make up his mind which of two parties he will join, he is said to be "sitting on the fence"—not being able to decide on which side he will jump down.

13. "Some x are y" and "no x are y'".

14. A Proposition, whose Subject is a single Thing, is called 'Individual'. For example, "I am happy", "John is not at home". These are Universal Propositions, being the same as "all the I's that exist are happy", "ALL the Johns, that I am now considering, are not at home".

15. Propositions beginning with "some" or "all".

16. When they begin with "some" or "no". For example, "some abc are def" may be re-arranged as "some bf are acde", each being equivalent to "some abcdef exist".

17. Some tigers are fierce, No tigers are not-fierce.

18. Some hard-boiled eggs are unwholesome, No hard-boiled eggs are wholesome.

19. Some I's are happy, No I's are unhappy.

20. Some Johns are not at home, No Johns are at home.

21. The Things, in each compartment of the larger Diagram, possess THREE Attributes, whose symbols will be found written at three of the CORNERS of the compartment (except in the case of m', which is not actually inserted in the Diagram, but is SUPPOSED to stand at each of its four outer corners).

22. If the Universe of Things be divided with regard to three different Attributes; and if two Propositions be given, containing two different couples of these Attributes; and if from these we can prove a third Proposition, containing the two Attributes that have not yet occurred together; the given Propositions are called 'the Premisses', the third one 'the Conclusion', and the whole set 'a Syllogism'. For example, the Premisses might be "no m are x'" and "all m' are y"; and it might be possible to prove from them a Conclusion containing x and y.

23. If an Attribute occurs in both Premisses, the Term containing it is called 'the Middle Term'. For example, if the Premisses are "some m are x" and "no m are y'", the class of "m-Things" is 'the Middle Term.'

If an Attribute occurs in one Premiss, and its contradictory in the other, the Terms containing them may be called 'the Middle Terms'. For example, if the Premisses are "no m are x'" and "all m' are y", the two classes of "m-Things" and "m'-Things" may be called 'the Middle Terms'.

24. Because they can be marked with CERTAINTY: whereas AFFIRMATIVE Propositions (that is, those that begin with "some" or "all") sometimes require us to place a red counter 'sitting on a fence'.

25. Because the only question we are concerned with is whether the Conclusion FOLLOWS LOGICALLY from the Premisses, so that, if THEY were true, IT also would be true.

26. By understanding a red counter to mean "this compartment CAN be occupied", and a grey one to mean "this compartment CANNOT be occupied" or "this compartment MUST be empty".

27. 'Fallacious Premisses' and 'Fallacious Conclusion'.

28. By finding, when we try to transfer marks from the larger Diagram to the smaller, that there is 'no information' for any of its four compartments.

29. By finding the correct Conclusion, and then observing that the Conclusion, offered to us, is neither identical with it nor a part of it.

30. When the offered Conclusion is PART of the correct Conclusion. In this case, we may call it a 'Defective Conclusion'.

2. Half of Smaller Diagram.

Propositions represented.

__________

      ———- ———-

     | | | | | |

 1. | | 1 | 2. | 0 | 1 |

     | | | | | |

      ———- ———-

      ———- ———-

     | | | | | |

 3. | 1 | 1 | 4. | 0 | 0 |

     | | | | | |

      ———- ———-

      ———- ———-

     | | | | | |

 5. | 1 | 6. | | 0 |

     | | | | | |

      ———- ———-

       ———-

      | | |

  7. | 1 | 1 | It might be thought that the proper

      | | |

       ———- ———-

      | | |

Diagram would be | 1 1 |, in order to express "some

      | | |

       ———-

x exist": but this is really contained in "some x are y'."

To put a red counter on the division-line would only tell

us "ONE OF THE compartments is occupied", which we

know already, in knowing that ONE is occupied.

  ———-

 | | |

  8. No x are y. i.e. | 0 | |

 | | |

  ———-

     ———-

    | | |

  9. Some x are y'. i.e. | | 1 |

    | | |

     ———-

   ———-

  | | |

 10. All x are y. i.e. | 1 | 0 |

  | | |

   ———-

    ———-

   | | |

 11. Some x are y. i.e. | 1 | |

   | | |

    ———-

  ———-

 | | |

 12. No x are y. i.e. | 0 | |

 | | |

  ———-

         ———-

        | | |

 13. Some x are y, and some are y'. i.e. | 1 | 1 |

        | | |

         ———-

    ———-

   | | |

 14. All x are y'. i.e. | 0 | 1 |

   | | |

    ———-

  —-

 | |

 15. No y are x'. i.e. |—-|

 | 0 |

  —-

  —-

 | 1 |

 16. All y are x. i.e. |—-|

 | 0 |

  —-

 —-

| 0 |

 17. No y exist. i.e. |—-|

| 0 |

 —-

    —-

   | |

 18. Some y are x'. i.e. |—-|

   | 1 |

    —-

   —-

  | |

 15. Some y exist. i.e. |-1-|

  | |

   —-

3. Half of Smaller Diagram.

Symbols interpreted.

__________

1. No x are y'.

2. No x exist.

3. Some x exist.

4. All x are y'.

5. Some x are y. i.e. Some good riddles are hard.

6. All x are y. i.e. All good riddles are hard.

7. No x exist. i.e. No riddles are good.

8. No x are y. i.e. No good riddles are hard.

9. Some x are y'. i.e. Some lobsters are unselfish.

10. No x are y. i.e. No lobsters are selfish.

11. All x are y'. i.e. All lobsters are unselfish.

12. Some x are y, and some are y'. i.e. Some lobsters are selfish, and some are unselfish.

13. All y' are x'. i.e. All invalids are unhappy.

14. Some y' exist. i.e. Some people are unhealthy.

15. Some y' are x, and some are x'. i.e. Some invalids are happy, and some are unhappy.

16. No y' exist. i.e. Nobody is unhealthy.

4. Smaller Diagram.

Propositions represented.

__________

       ———- ———-

      | 1 | | | | |

  1. |—-|—-| 2. |—-|—-|

      | 0 | | | 1 | |

       ———- ———-

       ———- ———-

      | | | | | 1 |

  3. |—-|—-| 4. |—-|—-|

      | | 0 | | | |

       ———- ———-

       ———- ———-

      | | 1 | | | |

  5. |—-|—-| 6. |—-|—-|

      | | | | 0 | |

       ———- ———-

       ———- ———-

      | | | | | |

  7. |—-|—-| 8. |—-|—-|

      | | 1 | | 0 | 1 |

       ———- ———-

       ———- ———-

      | | | | | |

  9. |—-|-1-| 10. |—-|—-|

      | | | | 0 | 0 |

       ———- ———-

       ———- ———-

      | 1 | | | 1 | 0 |

 11. |—-|—-| 12. |—-|—-|

      | 1 | | | | 1 |

       ———- ———-

   ———-

  | | |

 13. No x' are y. i.e. |—-|—-|

  | 0 | |

   ———-

     ———-

    | | 0 |

 14. All y' are x'. i.e. |—-|—-|

    | | 1 |

     ———-

     ———-

    | | |

 15. Some y' exist. i.e. |—-|-1-|

    | | |

     ———-

        ———-

       | 1 | 0 |

 16. All y are x, and all x are y. i.e. |—-|—-|

       | 0 | |

        ———-

   ———-

  | | |

 17. No x' exist. i.e. |—-|—-|

  | 0 | 0 |

   ———-

    ———-

   | 0 | 1 |

 18. All x are y'. i.e. |—-|—-|

   | | |

    ———-

  ———-

 | 0 | |

 19. No x are y. i.e. |—-|—-|

 | | |

  ———-

          ———-

         | | |

 20. Some x' are y, and some are y'. i.e. |—-|—-|

         | 1 | 1 |

          ———-

        ———-

       | 0 | 1 |

 21. No y exist, and some x exist. i.e. |—-|—-|

       | 0 | |

        ———-

          ———-

         | | 1 |

 22. All x' are y, and all y' are x. i.e. |—-|—-|

         | 1 | 0 |

          ———-

———-

           | 1 | |

 17. Some x are y, and some x' are y'. i.e. |—-|—-|

           | | 1 |

———-

5. Smaller Diagram.

Symbols interpreted.

__________

1. Some y are not-x, or, Some not-x are y.

2. No not-x are not-y, or, No not-y are not-x.

3. No not-y are x.

4. No not-x exist. i.e. No Things are not-x.

5. No y exist. i.e. No houses are two-storied.

6. Some x' exist. i.e. Some houses are not built of brick.

7. No x are y'. Or, no y' are x. i.e. No houses, built of brick, are other than two-storied. Or, no houses, that are not two-storied, are built of brick.

8. All x' are y'. i.e. All houses, that are not built of brick, are not two-storied.

9. Some x are y, and some are y'. i.e. Some fat boys are active, and some are not.

10. All y' are x'. i.e. All lazy boys are thin.

11. All x are y', and all y' are x. i.e. All fat boys are lazy, and all lazy ones are fat.

12. All y are x, and all x' are y. i.e. All active boys are fat, and all thin ones are lazy.

13. No x exist, and no y' exist. i.e. No cats have green eyes, and none have bad tempers.

14. Some x are y', and some x' are y. Or some y are x', and some y' are x. i.e. Some green-eyed cats are bad-tempered, and some, that have not green eyes, are good-tempered. Or, some good-tempered cats have not green eyes, and some bad-tempered ones have green eyes.

15. Some x are y, and no x' are y'. Or, some y are x, and no y' are x'. i.e. Some green-eyed cats are good-tempered, and none, that are not green-eyed, are bad-tempered. Or, some good-tempered cats have green eyes, and none, that are bad-tempered, have not green eyes.

16. All x are y', and all x' are y. Or, all y are x', and all y' are x. i.e. All green-eyed cats are bad-tempered and all, that have not green eyes, are good-tempered. Or, all good-tempered ones have eyes that are not green, and all bad-tempered ones have green eyes.

6. Larger Diagram.

Propositions represented.

__________

 ———————- ———————-

| | | | | |

| —-|—- | | —-|—- |

| | 0 | 0 | | | | | | |

        1. |—-|—-|—-|—-| 2. |-1-|—-|—-|—-|

| | | | | | | | | |

| —-|—- | | —-|—- |

| | | | | |

 ———————- ———————-

 ———————- ———————-

| | | | | 0 |

| —-|—- | | —-|—- |

| | 0 | 0 | | | | | | |

        3. |—-|—-|—-|—-| 4. |—-|—-|—-|—-|

| | - | | | | | | |

| —-|—- | | —-|—- |

| | | | | 0 |

 ———————- ———————-

 ———————- ———————-

| 0 | | | | |

| —-|—- | | —-|—- |

| | 0 | 0 | | | | 0 | 1 | |

        5. |—-|—-|—-|—-| 6. |—-|—-|—-|—-|

| | 1 | | | | | 0 | | |

| —-|—- | | —-|—- |

| 0 | | | | |

 ———————- ———————-

 ———————- ———————-

| | | | | 0 |

| —-|—- | | —-|—- |

| | 0 | 0 | | | | | | |

        7. |—-|—-|—-|—-| 8. |—-|—-|—-|—-|

| | 0 | 1 | | | | 0 | 0 | |

| —-|—- | | —-|—- |

| | | | | 0 |

 ———————- ———————-

  ———————-

 | | |

 | —-|—- |

 | | 0 | 0 | |

  9. No x are m. i.e. |—-|—-|—-|—-|

 | | 0 | | |

 | —-|—- |

 | | |

  ———————-

     ———————-

    | | |

    | —-|—- |

    | | | | |

 10. Some m' are y. i.e. |-1-|—-|—-|—-|

    | | | | |

    | —-|—- |

    | | |

     ———————-

     ———————-

    | | |

    | —-|—- |

    | | | 0 | |

 11. All y' are m'. i.e. |—-|—-|—-|-1-|

    | | | 0 | |

    | —-|—- |

    | | |

     ———————-

    ———————-

   | | |

   | —-|—- |

   | | 0 | 0 | |

 12. All m are x'. i.e. |—-|—-|—-|—-|

   | | 1 | |

   | —-|—- |

   | | |

    ———————-

       ———————-

      | 0 | |

      | —-|—- |

      | | 0 | 0 | |

 13. No x are m; i.e. |—-|—-|—-|—-|

      All y are m. | | 1 | | |

      | —-|—- |

      | 0 | |

       ———————-

        ———————-

       | 0 | 0 |

       | —-|—- |

       | | | | |

 14. All m' are y; i.e. |—-|—-|—-|—-|

      No x are m'. | | | | |

       | —-|—- |

       | 1 | 0 |

        ———————-

       ———————-

      | 0 | 0 |

      | —-|—- |

      | | 1 | 0 | |

 15. All x are m; i.e. |—-|—-|—-|—-|

      No m are y'. | | | 0 | |

      | —-|—- |

      | | |

       ———————-

         ———————-

        | 0 | 0 |

        | —-|—- |

        | | | | |

 16. All m' are y'; i.e. |—-|—-|—-|—-|

      No x are m'. | | | | |

        | —-|—- |

        | 0 | 1 |

         ———————-

        ———————-

       | 0 | 0 |

       | —-|—- |

       | | 1 | 0 | |

 17. All x are m; i.e. |—-|—-|—-|—-|

      All m are y. | | | 0 | |

       | —-|—- |

[See remarks on No. 7, p. 60.] | | |

        ———————-

       ———————-

      | 0 | |

      | —-|—- |

      | | | | |

 18. No x' are m; i.e. |—-|—-|—-|—-|

      No m' are y. | | 0 | 0 | |

      | —-|—- |

      | 0 | |

       ———————-

       ———————-

      | | |

      | —-|—- |

      | | 1 | 0 | |

 19. All m are x; i.e. |—-|—-|—-|—-|

      All m are y. | | 0 | 0 | |

      | —-|—- |

      | | |

       ———————-

20. We had better take "persons" as Universe. We may choose "myself" as 'Middle Term', in which case the Premisses will take the form

  I am a-person-who-sent-him-to-bring-a-kitten;

  I am a-person-to-whom-he-brought-a-kettle-by-mistake.

Or we may choose "he" as 'Middle Term', in which case the Premisses will take the form

  He is a-person-whom-I-sent-to-bring-me-a-kitten;

  He is a-person-who-brought-me-a-kettle-by-mistake.

The latter form seems best, as the interest of the anecdote clearly depends on HIS stupidity—not on what happened to ME. Let us then make m = "he"; x = "persons whom I sent, &c."; and y = "persons who brought, &c."

  Hence, All m are x;

         All m are y. and the required Diagram is

———————- | | | | —-|—- | | | 1 | 0 | | |—-|—-|—-|—-| | | 0 | 0 | | | —-|—- | | | | ———————-

7. Both Diagrams employed.

       ———-

      | 0 | |

  1. |—-|—-| i.e. All y are x'.

      | 1 | |

       ———-

       ———-

      | | 1 |

  2. |—-|—-| i.e. Some x are y'; or, Some y' are x.

      | | |

       ———-

       ———-

      | | |

  3. |—-|—-| i.e. Some y are x'; or, Some x' are y.

      | 1 | |

       ———-

       ———-

      | | |

  4. |—-|—-| i.e. No x' are y'; or, No y' are x'.

      | | 0 |

       ———-

       ———-

      | 0 | |

  5. |—-|—-| i.e. All y are x'. i.e. All black rabbits

      | 1 | | are young.

       ———-

       ———-

      | | |

  6. |—-|—-| i.e. Some y are x'. i.e. Some black

      | 1 | | rabbits are young.

       ———-

       ———-

      | 1 | 0 |

  7. |—-|—-| i.e. All x are y. i.e. All well-fed birds

      | | | are happy.

       ———-

       ———-

      | | | i.e. Some x' are y'. i.e. Some birds,

  8. |—-|—-| that are not well-fed, are unhappy;

      | | 1 | or, Some unhappy birds are not

       ———- well-fed.

       ———-

      | 1 | 0 |

  9. |—-|—-| i.e. All x are y. i.e. John has got a

      | | | tooth-ache.

       ———-

       ———-

      | | |

 10. |—-|—-| i.e. No x' are y. i.e. No one, but John,

      | 0 | | has got a tooth-ache.

       ———-

       ———-

      | 1 | |

 11. |—-|—-| i.e. Some x are y. i.e. Some one, who

      | | | has taken a walk, feels better.

       ———-

       ———-

      | 1 | | i.e. Some x are y. i.e. Some one,

 12. |—-|—-| whom I sent to bring me a kitten,

      | | | brought me a kettle by mistake.

       ———-

      ———————-

     | | 0 |

     | —-|—- |

     | | 0 | 0 | |

13. |-1-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | | | | | | 0 |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | | 0 | | | |

      ———————- ———-

        Let "books" be Universe; m="exciting",

    x="that suit feverish patients"; y="that make

         one drowsy".

        No m are x; &there4 No y' are x.

        All m' are y.

  i.e. No books suit feverish patients, except such as make

        one drowsy.

      ———————-

     | | |

     | —-|—- |

     | | 1 | 0 | |

14. |—-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | | 0 | | | 1 | |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | | | | | |

      ———————- ———-

Let "persons" be Universe; m="that deserve the fair";

      x="that get their deserts"; y="brave".

        Some m are x; &there4 Some y are x.

        No y' are m.

i.e. Some brave persons get their deserts.

      ———————-

     | 0 | |

     | —-|—- |

     | | 0 | 0 | |

15. |—-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | | | | | 0 | |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | 0 | | | | |

      ———————- ———-

        Let "persons" be Universe; m="patient";

         x="children"; y="that can sit still".

          No x are m; &there4 No x are y.

          No m' are y.

i.e. No children can sit still.

      ———————-

     | 0 | 0 |

     | —-|—- |

     | | 0 | 1 | |

16. |—-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | 0 | | | | 0 | 1 |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | | | | | |

      ———————- ———-

     Let "things" be Universe; m="fat"; x="pigs";

         y="skeletons".

          All x are m; &there4 All x are y'.

          No y are m.

i.e. All pigs are not-skeletons.

      ———————-

     | | |

     | —-|—- |

     | | 0 | 0 | |

17. |—-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | 1 | 0 | | | | |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | | | | 1 | |

      ———————- ———-

      Let "creatures" be Universe; m="monkeys";

          x="soldiers"; y="mischievous".

           No m are x; &there4 Some y are x'.

           All m are y.

i.e. Some mischievous creatures are not soldiers.

      ———————-

     | 0 | |

     | —-|—- |

     | | 0 | 0 | |

18. |—-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | | | | | 0 | |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | 0 | | | | |

      ———————- ———-

       Let "persons" be Universe; m="just";

         x="my cousins"; y="judges".

          No x are m; &there4 No x are y.

          No y are m'.

i.e. None of my cousins are judges.

      ———————-

     | | |

     | —-|—- |

     | | 1 | 0 | |

19. |—-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | | | | | 1 | |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | | | | | |

      ———————- ———-

       Let "periods" be Universe; m="days";

x="rainy"; y="tiresome".

         Some m are x; &there4 Some x are y.

         All xm are y.

i.e. Some rainy periods are tiresome.

N.B. These are not legitimate Premisses, since the Conclusion is really part of the second Premiss, so that the first Premiss is superfluous. This may be shown, in letters, thus:—

"All xm are y" contains "Some xm are y", which contains "Some x are y". Or, in words, "All rainy days are tiresome" contains "Some rainy days are tiresome", which contains "Some rainy periods are tiresome".

Moreover, the first Premiss, besides being superfluous, is actually contained in the second; since it is equivalent to "Some rainy days exist", which, as we know, is implied in the Proposition "All rainy days are tiresome".

Altogether, a most unsatisfactory Pair of Premisses!

      ———————-

     | 0 | |

     | —-|—- |

     | | 1 | | |

20. |—-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | 0 | 0 | | | 1 | |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | 0 | | | 0 | |

      ———————- ———-

       Let "things" be Universe; m="medicine";

    x="nasty"; y="senna".

 All m are x; &there4 All y are x.

 All y are m.

i.e. Senna is nasty.

[See remarks on No. 7, p 60.]

      ———————-

     | | |

     | —-|—- |

     | | 0 | 1 | |

21. |-1-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | 0 | | | | | 1 |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | | | | | |

      ———————- ———-

        Let "persons" be Universe; m="Jews";

 x="rich"; y="Patagonians".

  Some m are x; &there4 Some x are y'.

  All y are m'.

i.e. Some rich persons are not Patagonians.

      ———————-

     | 0 | |

     | —-|—- |

     | | - | |

22. |—-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | 0 | 0 | | | | |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | 0 | | | 0 | |

      ———————- ———-

   Let "creatures" be Universe; m="teetotalers";

       x="that like sugar"; y="nightingales".

All m are x; &there4 No y are x'.

No y are m'.

i.e. No nightingales dislike sugar.

      ———————-

     | | |

     | —-|—- |

     | | 0 | 0 | |

23. |-1-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | 0 | | | | | |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | | | | | |

      ———————- ———-

        Let "food" be Universe; m="wholesome";

     x="muffins"; y="buns".

          No x are m;

          All y are m.

  There is 'no information' for the smaller Diagram; so

no Conclusion can be drawn.

      ———————-

     | | |

     | —-|—- |

     | | 0 | 0 | |

24. |—-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | 1 | | | | | |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | | | | 1 | |

      ———————- ———-

  Let "creatures" be Universe; m="that run well";

  x="fat"; y="greyhounds".

           No x are m; &there4 Some y are x'.

           Some y are m.

i.e. Some greyhounds are not fat.

      ———————-

     | | |

     | —-|—- |

     | | - | |

25. |-1-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | 0 | 0 | | | | |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | | | | | |

      ———————- ———-

       Let "persons" be Universe; m="soldiers";

 x="that march"; y="youths".

      All m are x;

      Some y are m'.

  There is 'no information' for the smaller Diagram; so

no Conclusion can be drawn.

      ———————-

     | 0 | 0 |

     | —-|—- |

     | | 0 | 1 | |

26. |—-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | 0 | | | | 0 | 1 |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | 1 | | | 1 | |

      ———————- ———-

          Let "food" be Universe; m="sweet";

   x="sugar"; y="salt".

          All x are m; &there4 All x are y'.

          All y are m'. All y are x'.

      i.e. Sugar is not salt.

 Salt is not sugar.

      ———————-

     | | |

     | —-|—- |

     | | 1 | 0 | |

27. |—-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | | 0 | | | 1 | |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | | | | | |

      ———————- ———-

       Let "Things" be Universe; m="eggs";

         x="hard-boiled"; y="crackable".

          Some m are x; &there4 Some x are y.

          No m are y'.

i.e. Some hard-boiled things can be cracked.

      ———————-

     | 0 | |

     | —-|—- |

     | | 0 | 0 | |

28. |—-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | | | | | 0 | |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | 0 | | | | |

      ———————- ———-

Let "persons" be Universe; m="Jews"; x="that

  are in the house"; y="that are in the garden".

 No m are x; &there4 No x are y.

 No m' are y.

  i.e. No persons, that are in the house, are also in

          the garden.

      ———————-

     | 0 | 0 |

     | —-|—- |

     | | - | |

29. |—-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | | | | | | |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | 1 | 0 | | 1 | |

      ———————- ———-

         Let "Things" be Universe; m="noisy";

        x="battles"; y="that may escape notice".

  All x are m; &there4 Some x' are y.

  All m' are y.

i.e. Some things, that are not battles, may escape notice.

      ———————-

     | 0 | |

     | —-|—- |

     | | 0 | 0 | |

30. |—-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | 1 | | | | 0 | |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | 0 | | | 1 | |

      ———————- ———-

         Let "persons" be Universe; m="Jews";

   x="mad"; y="Rabbis".

No m are x; &there4 All y are x'.

All y are m.

i.e. All Rabbis are sane.

      ———————-

     | | |

     | —-|—- |

     | | 1 | | |

31. |—-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | 0 | 0 | | | 1 | |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | | | | | |

      ———————- ———-

       Let "Things" be Universe; m="fish";

         x="that can swim"; y="skates".

          No m are x'; &there4 Some y are x.

          Some y are m.

i.e. Some skates can swim.

      ———————-

     | | |

     | —-|—- |

     | | 0 | 0 | |

32. |—-|—-|—-|—-| ———-

     | | 1 | | | | | |

     | —-|—- | |—-|—-|

     | | | | 1 | |

      ———————- ———-

  Let "people" be Universe; m="passionate";

        x="reasonable"; y="orators".

         All m are x'; &there4 Some y are x'.

         Some y are m.

i.e. Some orators are unreasonable.

[See remarks on No. 7, p. 60.]

CHAPTER IV.

HIT OR MISS.

         "Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,

          Thou canst not hit it, my good man."

__________

1. Pain is wearisome; No pain is eagerly wished for.

2. No bald person needs a hair-brush; No lizards have hair.

3. All thoughtless people do mischief; No thoughtful person forgets a promise.

4. I do not like John; Some of my friends like John.

5. No potatoes are pine-apples; All pine-apples are nice.

6. No pins are ambitious; No needles are pins.

7. All my friends have colds; No one can sing who has a cold.

8. All these dishes are well-cooked; Some dishes are unwholesome if not well-cooked.

9. No medicine is nice; Senna is a medicine.

10. Some oysters are silent; No silent creatures are amusing.

11. All wise men walk on their feet; All unwise men walk on their hands.

12. "Mind your own business; This quarrel is no business of yours."

13. No bridges are made of sugar; Some bridges are picturesque.

14. No riddles interest me that can be solved; All these riddles are insoluble.

15. John is industrious; All industrious people are happy.

16. No frogs write books; Some people use ink in writing books.

17. No pokers are soft; All pillows are soft.

18. No antelope is ungraceful; Graceful animals delight the eye.

19. Some uncles are ungenerous; All merchants are generous.

20. No unhappy people chuckle; No happy people groan.

21. Audible music causes vibration in the air; Inaudible music is not worth paying for.

22. He gave me five pounds; I was delighted.

23. No old Jews are fat millers; All my friends are old millers.

24. Flour is good for food; Oatmeal is a kind of flour.

25. Some dreams are terrible; No lambs are terrible.

26. No rich man begs in the street; All who are not rich should keep accounts.

27. No thieves are honest; Some dishonest people are found out.

28. All wasps are unfriendly; All puppies are friendly.

29. All improbable stories are doubted; None of these stories are probable.

30. "He told me you had gone away." "He never says one word of truth."

31. His songs never last an hour; A song, that lasts an hour, is tedious.

32. No bride-cakes are wholesome; Unwholesome food should be avoided.

33. No old misers are cheerful; Some old misers are thin.

34. All ducks waddle; Nothing that waddles is graceful.

35. No Professors are ignorant; Some ignorant people are conceited.

36. Toothache is never pleasant; Warmth is never unpleasant.

37. Bores are terrible; You are a bore.

38. Some mountains are insurmountable; All stiles can be surmounted.

39. No Frenchmen like plumpudding; All Englishmen like plumpudding.

40. No idlers win fame; Some painters are not idle.

41. No lobsters are unreasonable; No reasonable creatures expect impossibilities.

42. No kind deed is unlawful; What is lawful may be done without fear.

43. No fossils can be crossed in love; Any oyster may be crossed in love.

44. "This is beyond endurance!" "Well, nothing beyond endurance has ever happened to me."

45. All uneducated men are shallow; All these students are educated.

46. All my cousins are unjust; No judges are unjust.

47. No country, that has been explored, is infested by dragons; Unexplored countries are fascinating.

48. No misers are generous; Some old men are not generous.

49. A prudent man shuns hyaenas; No banker is imprudent.

50. Some poetry is original; No original work is producible at will.

51. No misers are unselfish; None but misers save egg-shells.

52. All pale people are phlegmatic; No one, who is not pale, looks poetical.

53. All spiders spin webs; Some creatures, that do not spin webs, are savage.

54. None of my cousins are just; All judges are just.

55. John is industrious; No industrious people are unhappy.

56. Umbrellas are useful on a journey; What is useless on a journey should be left behind.

57. Some pillows are soft; No pokers are soft.

58. I am old and lame; No old merchant is a lame gambler.

59. No eventful journey is ever forgotten; Uneventful journeys are not worth writing a book about.

60. Sugar is sweet; Some sweet things are liked by children.

61. Richard is out of temper; No one but Richard can ride that horse.

62. All jokes are meant to amuse; No Act of Parliament is a joke.

63. "I saw it in a newspaper." "All newspapers tell lies."

64. No nightmare is pleasant; Unpleasant experiences are not anxiously desired.

65. Prudent travellers carry plenty of small change; Imprudent travellers lose their luggage.

66. All wasps are unfriendly; No puppies are unfriendly.

67. He called here yesterday; He is no friend of mine.

68. No quadrupeds can whistle; Some cats are quadrupeds.

69. No cooked meat is sold by butchers; No uncooked meat is served at dinner.

70. Gold is heavy; Nothing but gold will silence him.

71. Some pigs are wild; There are no pigs that are not fat.

72. No emperors are dentists; All dentists are dreaded by children.

73. All, who are not old, like walking; Neither you nor I are old.

74. All blades are sharp; Some grasses are blades.

75. No dictatorial person is popular; She is dictatorial.

76. Some sweet things are unwholesome; No muffins are sweet.

77. No military men write poetry; No generals are civilians.

78. Bores are dreaded; A bore is never begged to prolong his visit.

79. All owls are satisfactory; Some excuses are unsatisfactory.

80. All my cousins are unjust; All judges are just.

81. Some buns are rich; All buns are nice.

82. No medicine is nice; No pills are unmedicinal.

83. Some lessons are difficult; What is difficult needs attention.

84. No unexpected pleasure annoys me; Your visit is an unexpected pleasure.

85. Caterpillars are not eloquent; Jones is eloquent.

86. Some bald people wear wigs; All your children have hair.

87. All wasps are unfriendly; Unfriendly creatures are always unwelcome.

88. No bankrupts are rich; Some merchants are not bankrupts.

89. Weasels sometimes sleep; All animals sometimes sleep.

90. Ill-managed concerns are unprofitable; Railways are never ill-managed.

91. Everybody has seen a pig; Nobody admires a pig.

______________

Extract a Pair of Premisses out of each of the following: and deduce the Conclusion, if there is one:—

92. "The Lion, as any one can tell you who has been chased by them as often as I have, is a very savage animal: and there are certain individuals among them, though I will not guarantee it as a general law, who do not drink coffee."

93. "It was most absurd of you to offer it! You might have known, if you had had any sense, that no old sailors ever like gruel!"

"But I thought, as he was an uncle of yours—"

"An uncle of mine, indeed! Stuff!"

"You may call it stuff, if you like. All I know is, MY uncles are all old men: and they like gruel like anything!"

"Well, then YOUR uncles are—"

94. "Do come away! I can't stand this squeezing any more. No crowded shops are comfortable, you know very well."

"Well, who expects to be comfortable, out shopping?"

"Why, I do, of course! And I'm sure there are some shops, further down the street, that are not crowded. So—"

95. "They say no doctors are metaphysical organists: and that lets me into a little fact about YOU, you know."

"Why, how do you make THAT out? You never heard me play the organ."

"No, doctor, but I've heard you talk about Browning's poetry: and that showed me that you're METAPHYSICAL, at any rate. So—"

___________________

Extract a Syllogism out of each of the following: and test its correctness:—

96. "Don't talk to me! I've known more rich merchants than you have: and I can tell you not ONE of them was ever an old miser since the world began!"

"And what has that got to do with old Mr. Brown?"

"Why, isn't he very rich?"

"Yes, of course he is. And what then?"

"Why, don't you see that it's absurd to call him a miserly merchant?

Either he's not a merchant, or he's not a miser!"

97. "It IS so kind of you to enquire! I'm really feeling a great deal better to-day."

"And is it Nature, or Art, that is to have the credit of this happy change?"

"Art, I think. The Doctor has given me some of that patent medicine of his."

"Well, I'll never call him a humbug again. There's SOMEBODY, at any rate, that feels better after taking his medicine!"

98. "No, I don't like you one bit. And I'll go and play with my doll. DOLLS are never unkind."

"So you like a doll better than a cousin? Oh you little silly!"

"Of course I do! COUSINS are never kind—at least no cousins I've ever seen."

"Well, and what does THAT prove, I'd like to know! If you mean that cousins aren't dolls, who ever said they were?"

99. "What are you talking about geraniums for? You can't tell one flower from another, at this distance! I grant you they're all RED flowers: it doesn't need a telescope to know THAT."

"Well, some geraniums are red, aren't they?"

"I don't deny it. And what then? I suppose you'll be telling me some of those flowers are geraniums!"

"Of course that's what I should tell you, if you'd the sense to follow an argument! But what's the good of proving anything to YOU, I should like to know?"

100. "Boys, you've passed a fairly good examination, all things considered. Now let me give you a word of advice before I go. Remember that all, who are really anxious to learn, work HARD."

"I thank you, Sir, in the name of my scholars! And proud am I to think there are SOME of them, at least, that are really ANXIOUS to learn."

"Very glad to hear it: and how do you make it out to be so?"

"Why, Sir, I know how hard they work—some of them, that is. Who should know better?"

Extract from the following speech a series of Syllogisms, or arguments having the form of Syllogisms: and test their correctness.

It is supposed to be spoken by a fond mother, in answer to a friend's cautious suggestion that she is perhaps a LITTLE overdoing it, in the way of lessons, with her children.

101. "Well, they've got their own way to make in the world. WE can't leave them a fortune apiece. And money's not to be had, as YOU know, without money's worth: they must WORK if they want to live. And how are they to work, if they don't know anything? Take my word for it, there's no place for ignorance in THESE times! And all authorities agree that the time to learn is when you're young. One's got no memory afterwards, worth speaking of. A child will learn more in an hour than a grown man in five. So those, that have to learn, must learn when they're young, if ever they're to learn at all. Of course that doesn't do unless children are HEALTHY: I quite allow THAT. Well, the doctor tells me no children are healthy unless they've got a good colour in their cheeks. And only just look at my darlings! Why, their cheeks bloom like peonies! Well, now, they tell me that, to keep children in health, you should never give them more than six hours altogether at lessons in the day, and at least two half-holidays in the week. And that's EXACTLY our plan I can assure you! We never go beyond six hours, and every Wednesday and Saturday, as ever is, not one syllable of lessons do they do after their one o'clock dinner! So how you can imagine I'm running any risk in the education of my precious pets is more than I can understand, I promise you!"

THE END.

THE ALPHABET CIPHER

Lewis Carroll published this cipher in 1868 in a children's magazine. It describes what is known as a Vigenère cipher, which is a well-known scheme in cryptography. Carroll claimed that if used correctly the cipher was ‘unbreakable’.

When viewing the cipher, each column of the table forms a dictionary of symbols representing the alphabet: tehrefore, in the A column, the symbol is the same as the letter represented; in the B column, A is represented by B, B by C, and so on.  To use the table, some word or sentence should be agreed on by two correspondents. This may be called the 'key-word' and should be held in memory only.

In sending a message, the key-word should be written over it, letter for letter, repeating it as often as may be necessary: the letters of the key-word will indicate which column is to be used in translating each letter of the message; the symbols for which should be written underneath, before copying out the symbols only and destroying the first paper. It purports to then be impossible for any one, ignorant of the key-word, to decipher the message, even with the help of the table.

THE ALPHABET CIPHER

   ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

 A abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz A

 B bcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyza B

 C cdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzab C

 D defghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabc D

 E efghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcd E

 F fghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcde F

 G ghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdef G

 H hijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefg H

 I ijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefgh I

 J jklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghi J

 K klmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghij K

 L lmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk L

 M mnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijkl M

 N nopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklm N

 O opqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmn O

 P pqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmno P

 Q qrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnop Q

 R rstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopq R

 S stuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqr S

 T tuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrs T

 U uvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrst U

 V vwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstu V

 W wxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuv W

 X xyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvw X

 Y yzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwx Y

 Z zabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy Z

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

FEEDING THE MIND

Breakfast, dinner, tea; in extreme cases, breakfast, luncheon, dinner, tea, supper, and a glass of something hot at bedtime. What care we take about feeding the lucky body! Which of us does as much for his mind? And what causes the difference? Is the body so much the more important of the two?

By no means: but life depends on the body being fed, whereas we can continue to exist as animals (scarcely as men) though the mind be utterly starved and neglected. Therefore Nature provides that, in case of serious neglect of the body, such terrible consequences of discomfort and pain shall ensue, as will soon bring us back to a sense of our duty: and some of the functions necessary to life she does for us altogether, leaving us no choice in the matter. It would fare but ill with many of us if we were left to superintend our own digestion and circulation. ‘Bless me!’ one would cry, ‘I forgot to wind up my heart this morning! To think that it has been standing still for the last three hours!’ ‘I can’t walk with you this afternoon,’ a friend would say, ‘as I have no less than eleven dinners to digest. I had to let them stand over from last week, being so busy, and my doctor says he will not answer for the consequences if I wait any longer!’

Well, it is, I say, for us that the consequences of neglecting the body can be clearly seen and felt; and it might be well for some if the mind were equally visible and tangible—if we could take it, say, to the doctor, and have its pulse felt.

‘Why, what have you been doing with this mind lately? How have you fed it? It looks pale, and the pulse is very slow.’

‘Well, doctor, it has not had much regular food lately. I gave it a lot of sugar-plums yesterday.’

‘Sugar-plums! What kind?’

‘Well, they were a parcel of conundrums, sir.’

‘Ah, I thought so. Now just mind this: if you go on playing tricks like that, you’ll spoil all its teeth, and get laid up with mental indigestion. You must have nothing but the plainest reading for the next few days. Take care now! No novels on any account!’

Considering the amount of painful experience many of us have had in feeding and dosing the body, it would, I think, be quite worth our while to try and translate some of the rules into corresponding ones for the mind.

First, then, we should set ourselves to provide for our mind its proper kind of food. We very soon learn what will, and what will not, agree with the body, and find little difficulty in refusing a piece of the tempting pudding or pie which is associated in our memory with that terrible attack of indigestion, and whose very name irresistibly recalls rhubarb and magnesia; but it takes a great many lessons to convince us how indigestible some of our favourite lines of reading are, and again and again we make a meal of the unwholesome novel, sure to be followed by its usual train of low spirits, unwillingness to work, weariness of existence—in fact, by mental nightmare.

Then we should be careful to provide this wholesome food in proper amount. Mental gluttony, or over-reading, is a dangerous propensity, tending to weakness of digestive power, and in some cases to loss of appetite: we know that bread is a good and wholesome food, but who would like to try the experiment of eating two or three loaves at a sitting?

I have heard a physician telling his patient—whose complaint was merely gluttony and want of exercise—that ‘the earliest symptom of hyper-nutrition is a deposition of adipose tissue,’ and no doubt the fine long words greatly consoled the poor man under his increasing load of fat.

I wonder if there is such a thing in nature as a FAT MIND? I really think I have met with one or two: minds which could not keep up with the slowest trot in conversation; could not jump over a logical fence, to save their lives; always got stuck fast in a narrow argument; and, in short, were fit for nothing but to waddle helplessly through the world.

Then, again, though the food be wholesome and in proper amount, we know that we must not consume too many kinds at once. Take the thirsty a quart of beer, or a quart of cider, or even a quart of cold tea, and he will probably thank you (though not so heartily in the last case!). But what think you his feelings would be if you offered him a tray containing a little mug of beer, a little mug of cider, another of cold tea, one of hot tea, one of coffee, one of cocoa, and corresponding vessels of milk, water, brandy-and-water, and butter-milk? The sum total might be a quart, but would it be the same thing to the haymaker?

Having settled the proper kind, amount, and variety of our mental food, it remains that we should be careful to allow proper intervals between meal and meal, and not swallow the food hastily without mastication, so that it may be thoroughly digested; both which rules, for the body, are also applicable at once to the mind.

First, as to the intervals: these are as really necessary as they are for the body, with this difference only, that while the body requires three or four hours’ rest before it is ready for another meal, the mind will in many cases do with three or four minutes. I believe that the interval required is much shorter than is generally supposed, and from personal experience, I would recommend anyone, who has to devote several hours together to one subject of thought, to try the effect of such a break, say once an hour, leaving off for five minutes only each time, but taking care to throw the mind absolutely ‘out of gear’ for those five minutes, and to turn it entirely to other subjects. It is astonishing what an amount of impetus and elasticity the mind recovers during those short periods of rest.

And then, as to the mastication of the food, the mental process answering to this is simply thinking over what we read. This is a very much greater exertion of mind than the mere passive taking in the contents of our Author. So much greater an exertion is it, that, as Coleridge says, the mind often ‘angrily refuses’ to put itself to such trouble—so much greater, that we are far too apt to neglect it altogether, and go on pouring in fresh food on the top of the undigested masses already lying there, till the unfortunate mind is fairly swamped under the flood. But the greater the exertion the more valuable, we may be sure, is the effect. One hour of steady thinking over a subject (a solitary walk is as good an opportunity for the process as any other) is worth two or three of reading only. And just consider another effect of this thorough digestion of the books we read; I mean the arranging and ‘ticketing,’ so to speak, of the subjects in our minds, so that we can readily refer to them when we want them. Sam Slick tells us that he has learnt several languages in his life, but somehow ‘couldn’t keep the parcels sorted’ in his mind. And many a mind that hurries through book after book, without waiting to digest or arrange anything, gets into that sort of condition, and the unfortunate owner finds himself far from fit really to support the character all his friends give him.

‘A thoroughly well-read man. Just you try him in any subject, now. You can’t puzzle him.’

You turn to the thoroughly well-read man. You ask him a question, say, in English history (he is understood to have just finished reading Macaulay). He smiles good-naturedly, tries to look as if he knew all about it, and proceeds to dive into his mind for the answer. Up comes a handful of very promising facts, but on examination they turn out to belong to the wrong century, and are pitched in again. A second haul brings up a fact much more like the real thing, but, unfortunately, along with it comes a tangle of other things—a fact in political economy, a rule in arithmetic, the ages of his brother’s children, and a stanza of Gray’s ‘Elegy,’ and among all these, the fact he wants has got hopelessly twisted up and entangled. Meanwhile, every one is waiting for his reply, and, as the silence is getting more and more awkward, our well-read friend has to stammer out some half-answer at last, not nearly so clear or so satisfactory as an ordinary schoolboy would have given. And all this for want of making up his knowledge into proper bundles and ticketing them.

Do you know the unfortunate victim of ill-judged mental feeding when you see him? Can you doubt him? Look at him drearily wandering round a reading-room, tasting dish after dish—we beg his pardon, book after book—keeping to none. First a mouthful of novel; but no, faugh! he has had nothing but that to eat for the last week, and is quite tired of the taste. Then a slice of science; but you know at once what the result of that will be—ah, of course, much too tough for his teeth. And so on through the whole weary round, which he tried (and failed in) yesterday, and will probably try and fail in to-morrow.

Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his very amusing book, ‘The Professor at the Breakfast Table,’ gives the following rule for knowing whether a human being is young or old: ‘The crucial experiment is this—offer a bulky bun to the suspected individual just ten minutes before dinner. If this is easily accepted and devoured, the fact of youth is established.’ He tells us that a human being, ‘if young, will eat anything at any hour of the day or night.’

To ascertain the healthiness of the mental appetite of a human animal, place in its hands a short, well-written, but not exciting treatise on some popular subject—a mental bun, in fact. If it is read with eager interest and perfect attention, and if the reader can answer questions on the subject afterwards, the mind is in first-rate working order. If it be politely laid down again, or perhaps lounged over for a few minutes, and then, ‘I can’t read this stupid book! Would you hand me the second volume of “The Mysterious Murder”?’ you may be equally sure that there is something wrong in the mental digestion.

If this paper has given you any useful hints on the important subject of reading, and made you see that it is one’s duty no less than one’s interest to ‘read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest’ the good books that fall in your way, its purpose will be fulfilled.

The Biographies

Carroll with Louisa MacDonald and four of the MacDonald children

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF LEWIS CARROLL by Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

Stuart Dodgson Collingwood was Carroll’s nephew, who published this memoir the year Carroll died in 1898.  As well as presenting insightful family details, the biography also contains many letters written by Carroll at different periods throughout his lifetime.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

CHAPTER I

(1832—1850)

CHAPTER II

(1850—1860)

CHAPTER III

(1861—1867)

CHAPTER IV

(1868—1876)

CHAPTER V

(1877—1883)

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

(1888—1891)

CHAPTER VIII

(1892—1896)

CHAPTER IX

(1897—1898)

CHAPTER X

CHILD FRIENDS

CHAPTER XI

(THE SAME—continued.)

PREFACE

It is with no undue confidence that I have accepted the invitation of the brothers and sisters of Lewis Carroll to write this Memoir. I am well aware that the path of the biographer is beset with pitfalls, and that, for him, suppressio veri is almost necessarily suggestio falsi—the least omission may distort the whole picture.

To write the life of Lewis Carroll as it should be written would tax the powers of a man of far greater experience and insight than I have any pretension to possess, and even he would probably fail to represent adequately such a complex personality. At least I have done my best to justify their choice, and if in any way I have wronged my uncle's memory, unintentionally, I trust that my readers will pardon me.

My task has been a delightful one. Intimately as I thought I knew Mr. Dodgson during his life, I seem since his death to have become still better acquainted with him. If this Memoir helps others of his admirers to a fuller knowledge of a man whom to know was to love, I shall not have written in vain.

I take this opportunity of thanking those who have so kindly assisted me in my work, and first I must mention my old schoolmaster, the Rev. Watson Hagger, M.A., to whom my readers are indebted for the portions of this book dealing with Mr. Dodgson's mathematical works. I am greatly indebted to Mr. Dodgson's relatives, and to all those kind friends of his and others who have aided me, in so many ways, in my difficult task. In particular, I may mention the names of H.R.H. the Duchess of Albany; Miss Dora Abdy; Mrs. Egerton Allen; Rev. F. H. Atkinson; Sir G. Baden-Powell, M.P.; Mr. A. Ball; Rev. T. Vere Bayne; Mrs. Bennie; Miss Blakemore; the Misses Bowman; Mrs. Boyes; Mrs. Bremer; Mrs. Brine; Miss Mary Brown; Mrs. Calverley; Miss Gertrude Chataway; Mrs. Chester; Mr. J. C. Cropper; Mr. Robert Davies; Miss Decima Dodgson; the Misses Dymes; Mrs. Eschwege; Mrs. Fuller; Mr. Harry Furniss; Rev. C. A. Goodhart; Mrs. Hargreaves; Miss Rose Harrison; Mr. Henry Holiday; Rev. H. Hopley; Miss Florence Jackson; Rev. A. Kingston; Mrs. Kitchin; Mrs. Freiligrath Kroeker; Mr. F. Madan; Mrs. Maitland; Miss M. E. Manners; Miss Adelaide Paine; Mrs. Porter; Miss Edith Rix; Rev. C. J. Robinson, D.D.; Mr. S. Rogers; Mrs. Round; Miss Isabel Standen; Mr. L. Sergeant; Miss Gaynor Simpson; Mrs. Southwall; Sir John Tenniel; Miss E. Gertrude Thomson; Mrs. Woodhouse; and Mrs. Wyper.

For their help in the work of compiling the Bibliographical chapter and some other parts of the book, my thanks are due to Mr. E. Baxter, Oxford; the Controller of the University Press, Oxford; Mr. A. J. Lawrence, Rugby; Messrs. Macmillan and Co., London; Mr. James Parker, Oxford; and Messrs. Ward, Lock and Co., London.

In the extracts which I have given from Mr. Dodgson's Journal and Correspondence it will be noticed that Italics have been somewhat freely employed to represent the words which he underlined. The use of Italics was so marked a feature of his literary style, as any one who has read his books must have observed, that without their aid the rhetorical effect, which he always strove to produce, would have been seriously marred.

S. DODGSON COLLINGWOOD

GUILDFORD, September, 1898.

CHAPTER I

(1832—1850)

Lewis Carroll's forebears—The Bishop of Elphin—Murder of Captain Dodgson—Daresbury—Living in "Wonderland"—Croft—Boyish amusements—His first school-Latin verses—A good report—He goes to Rugby—The Rectory Umbrella—"A Lay of Sorrow."

ARCHDEACON DODGSON

AS A YOUNG MAN

The Dodgsons appear to have been for a long time connected with the north of England, and until quite recently a branch of the family resided at Stubb Hall, near Barnard Castle.

In the early part of the last century a certain Rev. Christopher Dodgson held a living in Yorkshire. His son, Charles, also took Holy Orders, and was for some time tutor to a son of the then Duke of Northumberland. In 1762 his patron presented him to the living of Elsdon, in Northumberland, by no means a desirable cure, as Mr. Dodgson discovered. The following extracts from his letters to various members of the Percy family are interesting as giving some idea of the life of a rural clergyman a hundred years ago:

I am obliged to you for promising to write to me, but don't give yourself the trouble of writing to this place, for 'tis almost impossible to receive 'em, without sending a messenger 16 miles to fetch 'em.

'Tis impossible to describe the oddity of my situation at present, which, however, is not void of some pleasant circumstances.

A clogmaker combs out my wig upon my curate's head, by way of a block, and his wife powders it with a dredging-box.

The vestibule of the castle (used as a temporary parsonage) is a low stable; above it the kitchen, in which are two little beds joining to each other. The curate and his wife lay in one, and Margery the maid in the other. I lay in the parlour between two beds to keep me from being frozen to death, for as we keep open house the winds enter from every quarter, and are apt to sweep into bed to me.

Elsdon was once a market town as some say, and a city according to others; but as the annals of the parish were lost several centuries ago, it is impossible to determine what age it was either the one or the other.

There are not the least traces of the former grandeur to be found, whence some antiquaries are apt to believe that it lost both its trade and charter at the Deluge.

... There is a very good understanding between the parties [he is speaking of the Churchmen and Presbyterians who lived in the parish], for they not only intermarry with one another, but frequently do penance together in a white sheet, with a white wand, barefoot, and in the coldest season of the year. I have not finished the description for fear of bringing on a fit of the ague. Indeed, the ideas of sensation are sufficient to starve a man to death, without having recourse to those of reflection.

If I was not assured by the best authority on earth that the world is to be destroyed by fire, I should conclude that the day of destruction is at hand, but brought on by means of an agent very opposite to that of heat.

I have lost the use of everything but my reason, though my head is entrenched in three night-caps, and my throat, which is very bad, is fortified by a pair of stockings twisted in the form of a cravat.

As washing is very cheap, I wear two shirts at a time, and, for want of a wardrobe, I hang my great coat upon my own back, and generally keep on my boots in imitation of my namesake of Sweden. Indeed, since the snow became two feet deep (as I wanted a 'chaappin of Yale' from the public-house), I made an offer of them to Margery the maid, but her legs are too thick to make use of them, and I am told that the greater part of my parishioners are not less substantial, and notwithstanding this they are remarkable for agility.

In course of time this Mr. Dodgson became Bishop of Ossory and Ferns, and he was subsequently translated to the see of Elphin. He was warmly congratulated on this change in his fortunes by George III., who said that he ought indeed to be thankful to have got away from a palace where the stabling was so bad.

The Bishop had four children, the eldest of whom, Elizabeth Anne, married Charles Lutwidge, of Holmrook, in Cumberland. Two of the others died almost before they had attained manhood. Charles, the eldest son, entered the army, and rose to the rank of captain in the 4th Dragoon Guards. He met with a sad fate while serving his king and country in Ireland. One of the Irish rebels who were supposed to have been concerned in the murder of Lord Kilwarden offered to give himself up to justice if Captain Dodgson would come alone and at night to take him. Though he fully realised the risk, the brave captain decided to trust himself to the honour of this outlaw, as he felt that no chance should be missed of effecting so important a capture. Having first written a letter of farewell to his wife, he set out on the night of December 16, 1803, accompanied by a few troopers, for the meeting-place—an old hut that stood a mile or so from Phillipstown, in King's County. In accordance with the terms of the agreement, he left his men a few hundred yards from the hut to await his return, and advanced alone through the night. A cowardly shot from one of the windows of the cottage ended his noble life, and alarmed the troopers, who, coming up in haste, were confronted with the dead body of their leader. The story is told that on the same night his wife heard two shots fired, and made inquiry about it, but could find out nothing. Shortly afterwards the news came that her husband had been killed just at that time.

Captain Dodgson left two sons behind him—Hassard, who, after a brilliant career as a special pleader, became a Master of the Court of Common Pleas, and Charles, the father of the subject of this Memoir.

Charles, who was the elder of the two, was born in the year 1800, at Hamilton, in Lanarkshire. He adopted the clerical profession, in which he rose to high honours. He was a distinguished scholar, and took a double first at Christ Church, Oxford. Although in after life mathematics were his favourite pursuit, yet the fact that he translated Tertullian for the "Library of the Fathers" is sufficient evidence that he made good use of his classical education. In the controversy about Baptismal Regeneration he took a prominent part, siding on the question with the Tractarians, though his views on some other points of Church doctrine were less advanced than those of the leaders of the Oxford movement. He was a man of deep piety and of a somewhat reserved and grave disposition, which, however, was tempered by the most generous charity, so that he was universally loved by the poor. In moments of relaxation his wit and humour were the delight of his clerical friends, for he had the rare power of telling anecdotes effectively. His reverence for sacred things was so great that he was never known to relate a story which included a jest upon words from the Bible.

In 1830 he married his cousin, Frances Jane Lutwidge, by whom he had eleven children, all of whom, except Lewis Carroll, survive. His wife, in the words of one who had the best possible opportunities for observing her character, was "one of the sweetest and gentlest women that ever lived, whom to know was to love. The earnestness of her simple faith and love shone forth in all she did and said; she seemed to live always in the conscious presence of God. It has been said by her children that they never in all their lives remember to have heard an impatient or harsh word from her lips." It is easy to trace in Lewis Carroll's character the influence of that most gentle of mothers; though dead she still speaks to us in some of the most beautiful and touching passages of his works. Not so long ago I had a conversation with an old friend of his; one of the first things she said to me was, "Tell me about his mother." I complied with her request as well as I was able, and, when I had finished my account of Mrs. Dodgson's beautiful character, she said, "Ah, I knew it must have been so; I felt sure he must have had a good mother."

On January 27, 1832, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born at Daresbury, of which parish his father was then incumbent. The village of Daresbury is about seven miles from Warrington; its name is supposed to be derived from a word meaning oak, and certainly oaks are very plentiful in the neighbourhood. A canal passes through an outlying part of the parish. The bargemen who frequented this canal were a special object of Mr. Dodgson's pastoral care. Once, when walking with Lord Francis Egerton, who was a large landowner in the district, he spoke of his desire to provide some sort of religious privileges for them. "If I only had £100," he said, "I would turn one of those barges into a chapel," and, at his companion's request, he described exactly how he would have the chapel constructed and furnished. A few weeks later he received a letter from Lord Francis to tell him that his wish was fulfilled, and that the chapel was ready. In this strange church, which is believed to have been the first of its kind, Mr. Dodgson conducted service and preached every Sunday evening!

DARESBURY PARSONAGE

The parsonage is situated a mile and a half from the village, on the glebe-farm, having been erected by a former incumbent, who, it was said, cared more for the glebe than the parish. Here it was that Charles spent the first eleven years of his life—years of complete seclusion from the world, for even the passing of a cart was a matter of great interest to the children.

Lewis Carroll, aged 8

In this quiet home the boy invented the strangest diversions for himself; he made pets of the most odd and unlikely animals, and numbered certain snails and toads among his intimate friends. He tried also to encourage civilised warfare among earthworms, by supplying them with small pieces of pipe, with which they might fight if so disposed. His notions of charity at this early age were somewhat rudimentary; he used to peel rushes with the idea that the pith would afterwards "be given to the poor," though what possible use they could put it to he never attempted to explain. Indeed he seems at this time to have actually lived in that charming "Wonderland" which he afterwards described so vividly; but for all that he was a thorough boy, and loved to climb the trees and to scramble about in the old marl-pits.

One of the few breaks in this very uneventful life was a holiday spent with the other members of his family in Beaumaris. The journey took three days each way, for railroads were then almost unknown; and whatever advantages coaching may have had over travelling in trains, speed was certainly not one of them.

Mr. Dodgson from the first used to take an active part in his son's education, and the following anecdote will show that he had at least a pupil who was anxious to learn. One day, when Charles was a very small boy, he came up to his father and showed him a book of logarithms, with the request, "Please explain." Mr. Dodgson told him that he was much too young to understand anything about such a difficult subject. The child listened to what his father said, and appeared to think it irrelevant, for he still insisted, "But, please, explain!"

Mrs Dodgson.

On one occasion Mr. and Mrs. Dodgson went to Hull, to pay a visit to the latter's father, who had been seriously ill. From Hull Mrs. Dodgson wrote to Charles, and he set much store by this letter, which was probably one of the first he had received. He was afraid that some of his little sisters would mess it, or tear it up, so he wrote upon the back, "No one is to touch this note, for it belongs to C. L. D."; but, this warning appearing insufficient, he added, "Covered with slimy pitch, so that they will wet their fingers." The precious letter ran as follows:—

My dearest Charlie, I have used you rather ill in not having written to you sooner, but I know you will forgive me, as your Grandpapa has liked to have me with him so much, and I could not write and talk to him comfortably. All your notes have delighted me, my precious children, and show me that you have not quite forgotten me. I am always thinking of you, and longing to have you all round me again more than words can tell. God grant that we may find you all well and happy on Friday evening. I am happy to say your dearest Papa is quite well—his cough is rather tickling, but is of no consequence. It delights me, my darling Charlie, to hear that you are getting on so well with your Latin, and that you make so few mistakes in your Exercises. You will be happy to hear that your dearest Grandpapa is going on nicely—indeed I hope he will soon be quite well again. He talks a great deal and most kindly about you all. I hope my sweetest Will says "Mama" sometimes, and that precious Tish has not forgotten. Give them and all my other treasures, including yourself, 1,000,000,000 kisses from me, with my most affectionate love. I am sending you a shabby note, but I cannot help it. Give my kindest love to Aunt Dar, and believe me, my own dearest Charlie, to be your sincerely affectionate

MAMA.

Among the few visitors who disturbed the repose of Daresbury Parsonage was Mr. Durnford, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, with whom Mr. Dodgson had formed a close friendship. Another was Mr. Bayne, at that time head-master of Warrington Grammar School, who used occasionally to assist in the services at Daresbury. His son, Vere, was Charles's playfellow; he is now a student of Christ Church, and the friendship between him and Lewis Carroll lasted without interruption till the death of the latter.

The memory of his birthplace did not soon fade from Charles's mind; long afterwards he retained pleasant recollections of its rustic beauty. For instance, his poem of "The Three Sunsets," which first appeared in 1860 in All the Year Round, begins with the following stanzas, which have been slightly altered in later editions:—

I watch the drowsy night expire,

And Fancy paints at my desire

Her magic pictures in the fire.

An island farm, 'mid seas of corn,

Swayed by the wandering breath of morn,

The happy spot where I was born.

Though nearly all Mr. Dodgson's parishioners at Daresbury have passed away, yet there are still some few left who speak with loving reverence of him whose lips, now long silenced, used to speak so kindly to them; whose hands, long folded in sleep, were once so ready to alleviate their wants and sorrows.

In 1843 Sir Robert Peel presented him to the Crown living of Croft, a Yorkshire village about three miles south of Darlington. This preferment made a great change in the life of the family; it opened for them many more social opportunities, and put an end to that life of seclusion which, however beneficial it may be for a short time, is apt, if continued too long, to have a cramping and narrowing influence.

The river Tees is at Croft the dividing line between Yorkshire and Durham, and on the middle of the bridge which there crosses it is a stone which shows where the one county ends and the other begins. "Certain lands are held in this place," says Lewis in his "Topographical Dictionary," "by the owner presenting on the bridge, at the coming of every new Bishop of Durham, an old sword, pronouncing a legendary address, and delivering the sword to the Bishop, who returns it immediately." The Tees is subject to extraordinary floods, and though Croft Church stands many feet above the ordinary level of the river, and is separated from it by the churchyard and a field, yet on one occasion the church itself was flooded, as was attested by water-marks on the old woodwork several feet from the floor, still to be seen when Mr. Dodgson was incumbent.

This church, which is dedicated to St. Peter, is a quaint old building with a Norman porch, the rest of it being of more modern construction. It contains a raised pew, which is approached by a winding flight of stairs, and is covered in, so that it resembles nothing so much as a four-post bedstead. This pew used to belong to the Milbanke family, with which Lord Byron was connected. Mr. Dodgson found the chancel-roof in so bad a state of repair that he was obliged to take it down, and replace it by an entirely new one. The only village school that existed when he came to the place was a sort of barn, which stood in a corner of the churchyard. During his incumbency a fine school-house was erected. Several members of his family used regularly to help in teaching the children, and excellent reports were obtained.

The Rectory is close to the church, and stands in the middle of a beautiful garden. The former incumbent had been an enthusiastic horticulturist, and the walls of the kitchen garden were covered with luxuriant fruit-trees, while the greenhouses were well stocked with rare and beautiful exotics. Among these was a specimen of that fantastic cactus, the night-blowing Cereus, whose flowers, after an existence of but a few hours, fade with the waning sun. On the day when this occurred large numbers of people used to obtain Mr. Dodgson's leave to see the curiosity.

CROFT RECTORY

Near the Rectory is a fine hotel, built when Croft was an important posting-station for the coaches between London and Edinburgh, but in Mr. Dodgson's time chiefly used by gentlemen who stayed there during the hunting season. The village is renowned for its baths and medicinal waters. The parish of Croft includes the outlying hamlets of Halnaby, Dalton, and Stapleton, so that the Rector's position is by no means a sinecure. Within the village is Croft Hall, the old seat of the Chaytors; but during Mr. Dodgson's incumbency the then Sir William Chaytor built and lived at Clervaux Castle, calling it by an old family name.

Shortly after accepting the living of Croft, Mr. Dodgson was appointed examining chaplain to the Bishop of Ripon; subsequently he was made Archdeacon of Richmond and one of the Canons of Ripon Cathedral.

Charles was at this time very fond of inventing games for the amusement of his brothers and sisters; he constructed a rude train out of a wheelbarrow, a barrel and a small truck, which used to convey passengers from one "station" in the Rectory garden to another. At each of these stations there was a refreshment-room, and the passengers had to purchase tickets from him before they could enjoy their ride. The boy was also a clever conjuror, and, arrayed in a brown wig and a long white robe, used to cause no little wonder to his audience by his sleight-of-hand. With the assistance of various members of the family and the village carpenter, he made a troupe of marionettes and a small theatre for them to act in. He wrote all the plays himself the most popular being "The Tragedy of King John"—and he was very clever at manipulating the innumerable strings by which the movements of his puppets were regulated. One winter, when the snow lay thick upon the lawn, he traced upon it a maze of such hopeless intricacy as almost to put its famous rival at Hampton Court in the shade.

TOY STATION IN GARDEN AT CROFT.

When he was twelve years old his father sent him to school at Richmond, under Mr. Tate, a worthy son of that well-known Dr. Tate who had made Richmond School so famous.

I am able to give his earliest impressions of school-life in his own words, for one of his first letters home has been fortunately preserved. It is dated August 5th, and is addressed to his two eldest sisters. A boy who has ten brothers and sisters can scarcely be expected to write separate letters to each of them.

My dear Fanny and Memy,—I hope you are all getting on well, as also the sweet twins, the boys I think that I like the best, are Harry Austin, and all the Tates of which there are 7 besides a little girl who came down to dinner the first day, but not since, and I also like Edmund Tremlet, and William and Edward Swire, Tremlet is a sharp little fellow about 7 years old, the youngest in the school, I also like Kemp and Mawley. The rest of the boys that I know are Bertram, Harry and Dick Wilson, and two Robinsons, I will tell you all about them when I return. The boys have played two tricks upon me which were these—they first proposed to play at "King of the Cobblers" and asked if I would be king, to which I agreed. Then they made me sit down and sat (on the ground) in a circle round me, and told me to say "Go to work" which I said, and they immediately began kicking me and knocking me on all sides. The next game they proposed was "Peter, the red lion," and they made a mark on a tombstone (for we were playing in the churchyard) and one of the boys walked with his eyes shut, holding out his finger, trying to touch the mark; then a little boy came forward to lead the rest and led a good many very near the mark; at last it was my turn; they told me to shut my eyes well, and the next minute I had my finger in the mouth of one of the boys, who had stood (I believe) before the tombstone with his mouth open. For 2 nights I slept alone, and for the rest of the time with Ned Swire. The boys play me no tricks now. The only fault (tell Mama) that there has been was coming in one day to dinner just after grace. On Sunday we went to church in the morning, and sat in a large pew with Mr. Fielding, the church we went to is close by Mr. Tate's house, we did not go in the afternoon but Mr. Tate read a discourse to the boys on the 5th commandment. We went to church again in the evening. Papa wished me to tell him all the texts I had heard preached upon, please to tell him that I could not hear it in the morning nor hardly one sentence of the sermon, but the one in the evening was I Cor. i. 23. I believe it was a farewell sermon, but I am not sure. Mrs. Tate has looked through my clothes and left in the trunk a great many that will not be wanted. I have had 3 misfortunes in my clothes etc. 1st, I cannot find my tooth-brush, so that I have not brushed my teeth for 3 or 4 days, 2nd, I cannot find my blotting paper, and 3rd, I have no shoe-horn. The chief games are, football, wrestling, leap frog, and fighting. Excuse bad writing.

Yr affec' brother Charles.

To SKEFF [a younger brother, aged six].

My dear Skeff,—Roar not lest thou be abolished. Yours, etc.,——.

The discomforts which he, as a "new boy," had to put up with from his school-mates affected him as they do not, unfortunately, affect most boys, for in later school days he was famous as a champion of the weak and small, while every bully had good reason to fear him. Though it is hard for those who have only known him as the gentle and retiring don to believe it, it is nevertheless true that long after he left school his name was remembered as that of a boy who knew well how to use his fists in defence of a righteous cause.

As was the custom at that time, Charles began to compose Latin verses at a very early age, his first copy being dated November 25, 1844. The subject was evening, and this is how he treated it:—

Phoebus aqua splendet descendens, æquora tingens

Splendore aurato. Pervenit umbra solo.

Mortales lectos quærunt, et membra relaxant

Fessa labore dies; cuncta per orbe silet.

Imperium placidum nunc sumit Phoebe corusca.

Antris procedunt sanguine ore feræ.

These lines the boy solemnly copied into his Diary, apparently in the most blissful ignorance of the numerous mistakes they contained.

The next year he wrote a story which appeared in the school magazine. It was called "The Unknown One," so it was probably of the sensational type in which small boys usually revel.

Though Richmond School, as it was in 1844, may not compare favourably in every respect with a modern preparatory school, where supervision has been so far "reduced to the absurd" that the unfortunate masters hardly get a minute to themselves from sunrise till long after sunset, yet no better or wiser men than those of the school of Mr. Tate are now to be found. Nor, I venture to think, are the results of the modern system more successful than those of the old one. Charles loved his "kind old schoolmaster," as he affectionately calls him, and surely to gain the love of the boys is the main battle in school-management.

The impression he made upon his instructors may be gathered from the following extracts from Mr. Tate's first report upon him:

Sufficient opportunities having been allowed me to draw from actual observation an estimate of your son's character and abilities, I do not hesitate to express my opinion that he possesses, along with other and excellent natural endowments, a very uncommon share of genius. Gentle and cheerful in his intercourse with others, playful and ready in conversation, he is capable of acquirements and knowledge far beyond his years, while his reason is so clear and so jealous of error, that he will not rest satisfied without a most exact solution of whatever appears to him obscure. He has passed an excellent examination just now in mathematics, exhibiting at times an illustration of that love of precise argument, which seems to him natural.

I must not omit to set off against these great advantages one or two faults, of which the removal as soon as possible is desirable, tho' I am prepared to find it a work of time. As you are well aware, our young friend, while jealous of error, as I said above, where important faith or principles are concerned, is exceedingly lenient towards lesser frailties—and, whether in reading aloud or metrical composition, frequently sets at nought the notions of Virgil or Ovid as to syllabic quantity. He is moreover marvellously ingenious in replacing the ordinary inflexions of nouns and verbs, as detailed in our grammars, by more exact analogies, or convenient forms of his own devising. This source of fault will in due time exhaust itself, though flowing freely at present.... You may fairly anticipate for him a bright career. Allow me, before I close, one suggestion which assumes for itself the wisdom of experience and the sincerity of the best intention. You must not entrust your son with a full knowledge of his superiority over other boys. Let him discover this as he proceeds. The love of excellence is far beyond the love of excelling; and if he should once be bewitched into a mere ambition to surpass others I need not urge that the very quality of his knowledge would be materially injured, and that his character would receive a stain of a more serious description still....

And again, when Charles was leaving Richmond, he wrote:

"Be assured that I shall always feel a peculiar interest in the gentle, intelligent, and well-conducted boy who is now leaving us."

ARCHBISHOP TAIT.

Although his father had been a Westminster boy, Charles was, for some reason or other, sent to Rugby. The great Arnold, who had, one might almost say, created Rugby School, and who certainly had done more for it than all his predecessors put together, had gone to his rest, and for four years the reins of government had been in the firm hands of Dr. Tait, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. He was Headmaster during the whole of the time Charles was at Rugby, except the last year, during which Dr. Goulburn held that office. Charles went up in February, 1846, and he must have found his new life a great change from his quiet experiences at Richmond. Football was in full swing, and one can imagine that to a new boy "Big-side" was not an unalloyed delight. Whether he distinguished himself as a "dropper," or ever beat the record time in the "Crick" run, I do not know. Probably not; his abilities did not lie much in the field of athletics. But he got on capitally with his work, and seldom returned home without one or more prizes. Moreover, he conducted himself so well that he never had to enter that dreaded chamber, well known to some Rugbeians, which is approached by a staircase that winds up a little turret, and wherein are enacted scenes better imagined than described.

A schoolboy's letter home is not, usually, remarkable for the intelligence displayed in it; as a rule it merely leads up with more or less ingenuity to the inevitable request for money contained in the postscript. Some of Charles's letters were of a different sort, as the following example shows:

Yesterday evening I was walking out with a friend of mine who attends as mathematical pupil Mr. Smythies the second mathematical master; we went up to Mr. Smythies' house, as he wanted to speak to him, and he asked us to stop and have a glass of wine and some figs. He seems as devoted to his duty as Mr. Mayor, and asked me with a smile of delight, "Well Dodgson I suppose you're getting well on with your mathematics?" He is very clever at them, though not equal to Mr. Mayor, as indeed few men are, Papa excepted.... I have read the first number of Dickens' new tale, "Davy Copperfield." It purports to be his life, and begins with his birth and childhood; it seems a poor plot, but some of the characters and scenes are good. One of the persons that amused me was a Mrs. Gummidge, a wretched melancholy person, who is always crying, happen what will, and whenever the fire smokes, or other trifling accident occurs, makes the remark with great bitterness, and many tears, that she is a "lone lorn creetur, and everything goes contrairy with her." I have not yet been able to get the second volume Macaulay's "England" to read. I have seen it however and one passage struck me when seven bishops had signed the invitation to the pretender, and King James sent for Bishop Compton (who was one of the seven) and asked him "whether he or any of his ecclesiastical brethren had anything to do with it?" He replied, after a moment's thought "I am fully persuaded your majesty, that there is not one of my brethren who is not as innocent in the matter as myself." This was certainly no actual lie, but certainly, as Macaulay says, it was very little different from one.

The Mr. Mayor who is mentioned in this letter formed a very high opinion of his pupil's ability, for in 1848 he wrote to Archdeacon Dodgson: "I have not had a more promising boy at his age since I came to Rugby."

Dr. Tait speaks no less warmly:—

My dear Sir,—I must not allow your son to leave school without expressing to you the very high opinion I entertain of him. I fully coincide in Mr. Cotton's estimate both of his abilities and upright conduct. His mathematical knowledge is great for his age, and I doubt not he will do himself credit in classics. As I believe I mentioned to you before, his examination for the Divinity prize was one of the most creditable exhibitions I have ever seen.

During the whole time of his being in my house, his conduct has been excellent.

Believe me to be, My dear Sir,

Yours very faithfully,

A.C. TAIT.

Public school life then was not what it is now; the atrocious system then in vogue of setting hundreds of lines for the most trifling offences made every day a weariness and a hopeless waste of time, while the bad discipline which was maintained in the dormitories made even the nights intolerable—especially for the small boys, whose beds in winter were denuded of blankets that the bigger ones might not feel cold.

Charles kept no diary during his time at Rugby; but, looking back upon it, he writes in 1855:—

During my stay I made I suppose some progress in learning of various kinds, but none of it was done con amore, and I spent an incalculable time in writing out impositions—this last I consider one of the chief faults of Rugby School. I made some friends there, the most intimate being Henry Leigh Bennett (as college acquaintances we find fewer common sympathies, and are consequently less intimate)—but I cannot say that I look back upon my life at a Public School with any sensations of pleasure, or that any earthly considerations would induce me to go through my three years again.

When, some years afterwards, he visited Radley School, he was much struck by the cubicle system which prevails in the dormitories there, and wrote in his Diary, "I can say that if I had been thus secure from annoyance at night, the hardships of the daily life would have been comparative trifles to bear."

The picture on page 32 was, I believe, drawn by Charles while he was at Rugby in illustration of a letter received from one of his sisters. Halnaby, as I have said before, was an outlying district of Croft parish.

During his holidays he used to amuse himself by editing local magazines. Indeed, they might be called very local magazines, as their circulation was confined to the inmates of Croft Rectory. The first of these, Useful and Instructive Poetry, was written about 1845. It came to an untimely end after a six months' run, and was followed at varying intervals by several other periodicals, equally short-lived.

In 1849 or 1850, The Rectory Umbrella began to appear. As the editor was by this time seventeen or eighteen years old, it was naturally of a more ambitious character than any of its precursors. It contained a serial story of the most thrilling interest, entitled, "The Walking-Stick of Destiny," some meritorious poetry, a few humorous essays, and several caricatures of pictures in the Vernon Gallery. Three reproductions of these pictures follow, with extracts from the Umbrella descriptive of them.

[Illustration: The only sister who would write to her brother, though the table had just "folded down"! The other sisters are depicted "sternly resolved to set off to Halnaby & the Castle," tho' it is yet "early, early morning"—Rembrondt.]

THE VERNON GALLERY.

"The Age of Innocence."

As our readers will have seen by the preceding page, we have commenced engraving the above series of pictures. "The Age of Innocence," by Sir J. Reynolds, representing a young Hippopotamus seated under a shady tree, presents to the contemplative mind a charming union of youth and innocence.

EDITOR.

"The Scanty Meal."

We have been unusually[001] successful in our second engraving from the Vernon Gallery. The picture is intended, as our readers will perceive, to illustrate the evils of homoeopathy.[002] This idea is well carried out through the whole picture. The thin old lady at the head of the table is in the painter's best style; we almost fancy we can trace in the eye of the other lady a lurking suspicion that her glasses are not really in fault, and that the old gentleman has helped her to nothing instead of a nonillionth.[003] Her companion has evidently got an empty glass in his hand; the two children in front are admirably managed, and there is a sly smile on the footman's face, as if he thoroughly enjoyed either the bad news he is bringing or the wrath of his mistress. The carpet is executed with that elaborate care for which Mr. Herring is so famed, and the picture on the whole is one of his best.

[Illustration: SIR D. WILKIE PAINTER THE FIRST EARRING. W. GREATBACH ENGRAVER. from the picture in the Vernon Gallery]

"The First Ear-ring"

The scene from which this excellent picture is painted is taken from a passage in the autobiography[004] of the celebrated Sir William Smith[005] of his life when a schoolboy: we transcribe the passage: "One day Bill Tomkins[006] and I were left alone in the house, the old doctor being out; after playing a number of pranks Bill laid me a bet of sixpence that I wouldn't pour a bottle of ink over the doctor's cat. I did it, but at that moment old Muggles came home, and caught me by the ear as I attempted to run away. My sensations at the moment I shall never forget; on that occasion I received my first ear-ring.[007] The only remark Bill made to me, as he paid me the money afterwards was, 'I say, didn't you just howl jolly!'" The engraving is an excellent copy of the picture.

The best thing in the Rectory Umbrella was a parody on Lord Macaulay's style in the "Lays of Ancient Rome"; Charles had a special aptitude for parody, as is evidenced by several of the best-known verses in his later books.

LAYS OF SORROW.

No. 2.

Fair stands the ancient[008] Rectory,

The Rectory of Croft,

The sun shines bright upon it,

The breezes whisper soft.

From all the house and garden

Its inhabitants come forth,

And muster in the road without,

And pace in twos and threes about,

The children of the North.

Some are waiting in the garden,

Some are waiting at the door,

And some are following behind,

And some have gone before.

But wherefore all this mustering?

Wherefore this vast array?

A gallant feat of horsemanship

Will be performed to-day.

To eastward and to westward,

The crowd divides amain,

Two youths are leading on the steed,

Both tugging at the rein;

And sorely do they labour,

For the steed[009] is very strong,

And backward moves its stubborn feet,

And backward ever doth retreat,

And drags its guides along.

And now the knight hath mounted,

Before the admiring band,

Hath got the stirrups on his feet.

The bridle in his hand.

Yet, oh! beware, sir horseman!

And tempt thy fate no more,

For such a steed as thou hast got,

Was never rid before!

The rabbits[010] bow before thee.

And cower in the straw;

The chickens[011] are submissive,

And own thy will for law;

Bullfinches and canary

Thy bidding do obey;

And e'en the tortoise in its shell

Doth never say thee nay.

But thy steed will hear no master,

Thy steed will bear no stick,

And woe to those that beat her,

And woe to those that kick![012]

For though her rider smite her,

As hard as he can hit,

And strive to turn her from the yard,

She stands in silence, pulling hard

Against the pulling bit.

And now the road to Dalton

Hath felt their coming tread,

The crowd are speeding on before,

And all have gone ahead.

Yet often look they backward,

And cheer him on, and bawl,

For slower still, and still more slow,

That horseman and that charger go,

And scarce advance at all.

And now two roads to choose from

Are in that rider's sight:

In front the road to Dalton,

And New Croft upon the right.

"I can't get by!" he bellows,

"I really am not able!

Though I pull my shoulder out of joint,

I cannot get him past this point,

For it leads unto his stable!"

Then out spake Ulfrid Longbow,[013]

A valiant youth was he,

"Lo! I will stand on thy right hand

And guard the pass for thee!"

And out spake fair Flureeza,[014]

His sister eke was she,

"I will abide on thy other side,

And turn thy steed for thee!"

And now commenced a struggle

Between that steed and rider,

For all the strength that he hath left

Doth not suffice to guide her.

Though Ulfrid and his sister

Have kindly stopped the way,

And all the crowd have cried aloud,

"We can't wait here all day!"

Round turned he as not deigning

Their words to understand,

But he slipped the stirrups from his feet

The bridle from his hand,

And grasped the mane full lightly,

And vaulted from his seat,

And gained the road in triumph,[015]

And stood upon his feet.

All firmly till that moment

Had Ulfrid Longbow stood,

And faced the foe right valiantly,

As every warrior should.

But when safe on terra firma

His brother he did spy,

"What did you do that for?" he cried,

Then unconcerned he stepped aside

And let it canter by.

They gave him bread and butter,[016]

That was of public right,

As much as four strong rabbits,

Could munch from morn to night,

For he'd done a deed of daring,

And faced that savage steed,

And therefore cups of coffee sweet,

And everything that was a treat,

Were but his right and meed.

And often in the evenings,

When the fire is blazing bright,

When books bestrew the table

And moths obscure the light,

When crying children go to bed,

A struggling, kicking load;

We'll talk of Ulfrid Longbow's deed,

How, in his brother's utmost need,

Back to his aid he flew with speed,

And how he faced the fiery steed,

And kept the New Croft Road.

CHAPTER II

(1850—1860)

Matriculation at Christ Church—Death of Mrs. Dodgson—The Great Exhibition—University and College Honours—A wonderful year—A theatrical treat—Misch-Masch—The Train—College Rhymes—His nom de plume—"Dotheboys Hall"—Alfred Tennyson—Ordination—Sermons—A visit to Farringford—"Where does the day begin?"—The Queen visits Oxford.

We have traced in the boyhood of Lewis Carroll the beginnings of those characteristic traits which afterwards, more fully developed, gave him so distinguished a position among his contemporaries. We now come to a period of his life which is in some respects necessarily less interesting. We all have to pass through that painful era of self-consciousness which prefaces manhood, that time when we feel so deeply, and are so utterly unable to express to others, or even to define clearly to ourselves, what it is we do feel. The natural freedom of childhood is dead within us; the conventional freedom of riper years is struggling to birth, and its efforts are sometimes ludicrous to an unsympathetic observer. In Lewis Carroll's mental attitude during this critical period there was always a calm dignity which saved him from these absurdities, an undercurrent of consciousness that what seemed so great to him was really very little.

On May 23, 1850, he matriculated at Christ Church, the venerable college which had numbered his father's among other illustrious names. A letter from Dr. Jelf, one of the canons of Christ Church, to Archdeacon Dodgson, written when the former heard that his old friend's son was coming up to "the House," contains the following words: "I am sure I express the common feeling of all who remember you at Christ Church when I say that we shall rejoice to see a son of yours worthy to tread in your footsteps."

EXTERIOR OF CHRIST CHURCH

Lewis Carroll came into residence on January 24, 1851. From that day to the hour of his death—a period of forty-seven years—he belonged to "the House," never leaving it for any length of time, becoming almost a part of it. I, for one, can hardly imagine it without him.

Though technically "in residence," he had not rooms of his own in College during his first term. The "House" was very full; and had it not been for one of the tutors, the Rev. J. Lew, kindly lending him one of his own rooms, he would have had to take lodgings in the town. The first set of rooms he occupied was in Peckwater Quadrangle, which is annually the scene of a great bonfire on Guy Fawkes' Day, and, generally speaking, is not the best place for a reading man to live in.

In those days the undergraduates dining in hall were divided into "messes." Each mess consisted of about half a dozen men, who had a table to themselves. Dinner was served at five, and very indifferently served, too; the dishes and plates were of pewter, and the joint was passed round, each man cutting off what he wanted for himself. In Mr. Dodgson's mess were Philip Pusey, the late Rev. G. C. Woodhouse, and, among others, one who still lives in "Alice in Wonderland" as the "Hatter."

Only a few days after term began, Mrs. Dodgson died suddenly at Croft. The shock was a terrible one to the whole family, and especially to her devoted husband. I have come across a delightful and most characteristic letter from Dr. Pusey—a letter full of the kindest and truest sympathy with the Archdeacon in his bereavement. The part of it which bears upon Mrs. Dodgson's death I give in full:—

My dear Friend, I hear and see so little and so few persons, that I had not heard of your sorrow until your to-day's letter; and now I but guess what it was: only your language is that of the very deepest. I have often thought, since I had to think of this, how, in all adversity, what God takes away He may give us back with increase. One cannot think that any holy earthly love will cease, when we shall "be like the Angels of God in Heaven." Love here must shadow our love there, deeper because spiritual, without any alloy from our sinful nature, and in the fulness of the love of God. But as we grow here by God's grace will be our capacity for endless love. So, then, if by our very sufferings we are purified, and our hearts enlarged, we shall, in that endless bliss, love more those whom we loved here, than if we had never had that sorrow, never been parted....

GRAVE OF ARCHDEACON AND MRS. DODGSON

IN CROFT CHURCHYARD.

Lewis Carroll was summoned home to attend the funeral—a sad interlude amidst the novel experiences of a first term at College. The Oxford of 1851 was in many ways quite unlike the Oxford of 1898. The position of the undergraduates was much more similar to that of schoolboys than is now the case; they were subject to the same penalties—corporal punishment, even, had only just gone out of vogue!—and were expected to work, and to work hard.

Early rising then was strictly enforced, as the following extract from one of his letters will show:—

I am not so anxious as usual to begin my personal history, as the first thing I have to record is a very sad incident, namely, my missing morning chapel; before, however, you condemn me, you must hear how accidental it was. For some days now I have been in the habit of, I will not say getting up, but of being called at a quarter past six, and generally managing to be down soon after seven. In the present instance I had been up the night before till about half-past twelve, and consequently when I was called I fell asleep again, and was thunderstruck to find on waking that it was ten minutes past eight. I have had no imposition, nor heard anything about it. It is rather vexatious to have happened so soon, as I had intended never to be late.

LEWIS CARROLL, AGED 23.

It was therefore obviously his custom to have his breakfast before going to chapel. I wonder how many undergraduates of the present generation follow the same hardy rule! But then no "impositions" threaten the modern sluggard, even if he neglects chapel altogether.

During the Long Vacation he visited the Great Exhibition, and wrote his sister Elizabeth a long account of what he had seen:—

I think the first impression produced on you when you get inside is one of bewilderment. It looks like a sort of fairyland. As far as you can look in any direction, you see nothing but pillars hung about with shawls, carpets, &c., with long avenues of statues, fountains, canopies, etc., etc., etc. The first thing to be seen on entering is the Crystal Fountain, a most elegant one about thirty feet high at a rough guess, composed entirely of glass and pouring down jets of water from basin to basin; this is in the middle of the centre nave, and from it you can look down to either end, and up both transepts. The centre of the nave mostly consists of a long line of colossal statues, some most magnificent. The one considered the finest, I believe, is the Amazon and Tiger. She is sitting on horseback, and a tiger has fastened on the neck of the horse in front. You have to go to one side to see her face, and the other to see the horse's. The horse's face is really wonderful, expressing terror and pain so exactly, that you almost expect to hear it scream.... There are some very ingenious pieces of mechanism. A tree (in the French Compartment) with birds chirping and hopping from branch to branch exactly like life. The bird jumps across, turns round on the other branch, so as to face back again, settles its head and neck, and then in a few moments jumps back again. A bird standing at the foot of the tree trying to eat a beetle is rather a failure; it never succeeds in getting its head more than a quarter of an inch down, and that in uncomfortable little jerks, as if it was choking. I have to go to the Royal Academy, so must stop: as the subject is quite inexhaustible, there is no hope of ever coming to a regular finish.

On November 1st he won a Boulter scholarship, and at the end of the following year obtained First Class Honours in Mathematics and a Second in Classical Moderations. On Christmas Eve he was made a Student on Dr. Pusey's nomination, for at that time the Dean and Canons nominated to Studentships by turn. The only conditions on which these old Studentships were held were that the Student should remain unmarried, and should proceed to Holy Orders. No statute precisely defined what work was expected of them, that question being largely left to their own discretion.

The eight Students at the bottom of the list that is to say, the eight who had been nominated last—had to mark, by pricking on weekly papers called "the Bills," the attendance at morning and evening chapel. They were allowed to arrange this duty among themselves, and, if it was neglected, they were all punished. This long—defunct custom explains an entry in Lewis Carroll's Diary for October 15, 1853, "Found I had got the prickbills two hundred lines apiece, by not pricking in in the morning," which, I must confess, mystified me exceedingly at first. Another reference to College impositions occurs further on in his Diary, at a time when he was a Lecturer: "Spoke to the Dean about F—, who has brought an imposition which his tutor declares is not his own writing, after being expressly told to write it himself."

The following is an extract from his father's letter of congratulation, on his being nominated for the Studentship:—

My dearest Charles,—The feelings of thankfulness and delight with which I have read your letter just received, I must leave to your conception; for they are, I assure you, beyond my expression; and your affectionate heart will derive no small addition of joy from thinking of the joy which you have occasioned to me, and to all the circle of your home. I say "you have occasioned," because, grateful as I am to my old friend Dr. Pusey for what he has done, I cannot desire stronger evidence than his own words of the fact that you have won, and well won, this honour for yourself, and that it is bestowed as a matter of justice to you, and not of kindness to me. You will be interested in reading extracts from his two letters to me—the first written three years ago in answer to one from me, in which I distinctly told him that I neither asked nor expected that he should serve me in this matter, unless my son should fairly reach the standard of merit by which these appointments were regulated. In reply he says— "I thank you for the way in which you put the application to me. I have now, for nearly twenty years, not given a Studentship to any friend of my own, unless there was no very eligible person in the College. I have passed by or declined the sons of those to whom I was personally indebted for kindness. I can only say that I shall have very great pleasure, if circumstances permit me to nominate your son." In his letter received this morning he says—

"I have great pleasure in telling you that I have been enabled to recommend your son for a Studentship this Christmas. It must be so much more satisfactory to you that he should be nominated thus, in consequence of the recommendation of the College. One of the Censors brought me to-day five names; but in their minds it was plain that they thought your son on the whole the most eligible for the College. It has been very satisfactory to hear of your son's uniform steady and good conduct."

The last clause is a parallel to your own report, and I am glad that you should have had so soon an evidence so substantial of the truth of what I have so often inculcated, that it is the "steady, painstaking, likely-to-do-good" man, who in the long run wins the race against those who now and then give a brilliant flash and, as Shakespeare says, "straight are cold again."

ARCHDEACON DODGSON.

In 1853 Archdeacon Dodgson was collated and installed as one of the Canons of Ripon Cathedral. This appointment necessitated a residence of three months in every year at Ripon, where Dr. Erskine was then Dean. A certain Miss Anderson, who used to stay at the Deanery, had very remarkable "clairvoyant" powers; she was able—it was averred—by merely holding in her hand a folded paper containing some words written by a person unknown to her, to describe his or her character. In this way, at what precise date is uncertain, she dictated the following description of Lewis Carroll: "Very clever head; a great deal of number; a great deal of imitation; he would make a good actor; diffident; rather shy in general society; comes out in the home circle; rather obstinate; very clever; a great deal of concentration; very affectionate; a great deal of wit and humour; not much eventuality (or memory of events); fond of deep reading; imaginative, fond, of reading poetry; may compose." Those who knew him well will agree that this was, at any rate, a remarkable coincidence.

ARCHBISHOP LONGLEY.

Longley, afterwards Primate, was then Bishop of Ripon. His charming character endeared him to the Archdeacon and his family, as to every one else who saw much of him. He was one of the few men whose faces can truly be called beautiful; it was a veil through which a soul, all gentleness and truth, shone brightly.

In the early part of 1854 Mr. Dodgson was reading hard for "Greats." For the last three weeks before the examination he worked thirteen hours a day, spending the whole night before the viva voce over his books. But philosophy and history were not very congenial subjects to him, and when the list was published his name was only in the third class.

He spent the Long Vacation at Whitby, reading Mathematics with Professor Price. His work bore good fruit, for in October he obtained First Class Honours in the Final Mathematical School. "I am getting quite tired of being congratulated on various subjects," he writes; "there seems to be no end of it. If I had shot the Dean I could hardly have had more said about it."

In another letter dated December 13th, he says:

Enclosed you will find a list which I expect you to rejoice over considerably; it will take me more than a day to believe it, I expect—I feel at present very like a child with a new toy, but I daresay I shall be tired of it soon, and wish to be Pope of Rome next.... I have just been to Mr. Price to see how I did in the papers, and the result will I hope be gratifying to you. The following were the sums total for each in the First Class, as nearly as I can remember:—

Dodgson   ...   ...   ... 279

Bosanquet ...   ...   ... 261

Cookson  ...   ...   ...  254

Fowler   ...   ...   ...  225

Ranken   ...   ...   ...  213    

He also said he never remembered so good a set of men in. All this is very satisfactory. I must also add (this is a very boastful letter) that I ought to get the senior scholarship next term.... One thing more I will add, to crown all, and that is, I find I am the next First Class Mathematical Student to Faussett (with the exception of Kitchin who has given up Mathematics), so that I stand next (as Bosanquet is going to leave) for the Lectureship.

On December 18th he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and on October 15, 1855, he was made a "Master of the House," in honour of the appointment of the new Dean (Dr. Liddell) who succeeded Dean Gaisford. To be made Master of the House means that a man has all the privileges of a Master of Arts within the walls of Christ Church. But he must be of a certain number of terms' standing, and be admitted in due form by the Vice-Chancellor, before he is a Master of Arts of the University. In this wider sense Mr. Dodgson did not take his Master's degree until 1857.

This is anticipating events, and there is much to tell of the year 1855, which was a very eventful one for him. On February 15th he was made Sub-Librarian. "This will add £35 to my income," he writes, "not much towards independence." For he was most anxious to have a sufficient income to make him his own master, that he might enter on the literary and artistic career of which he was already dreaming. On May 14th he wrote in his Diary: "The Dean and Canons have been pleased to give me one of the Bostock scholarships, said to be worth £20 a year—this very nearly raises my income this year to independence. Courage!"

His college work, during 1855, was chiefly taking private pupils, but he had, in addition, about three and a half hours a day of lecturing during the last term of the year. He did not, however, work as one of the regular staff of lecturers until the next year. From that date his work rapidly increased, and he soon had to devote regularly as much as seven hours a day to delivering lectures, to say nothing of the time required for preparing them.

The following extract from his Journal, June 22, 1855, will serve to show his early love for the drama. The scene is laid at the Princess' Theatre, then at the height of its glory:—

The evening began with a capital farce, "Away with Melancholy," and then came the great play, "Henry VIII.," the greatest theatrical treat I ever had or ever expect to have. I had no idea that anything so superb as the scenery and dresses was ever to be seen on the stage. Kean was magnificent as Cardinal Wolsey, Mrs. Kean a worthy successor to Mrs. Siddons as Queen Catherine, and all the accessories without exception were good—but oh, that exquisite vision of Queen Catherine's! I almost held my breath to watch: the illusion is perfect, and I felt as if in a dream all the time it lasted. It was like a delicious reverie, or the most beautiful poetry. This is the true end and object of acting—to raise the mind above itself, and out of its petty cares. Never shall I forget that wonderful evening, that exquisite vision—sunbeams broke in through the roof, and gradually revealed two angel forms, floating in front of the carved work on the ceiling: the column of sunbeams shone down upon the sleeping queen, and gradually down it floated, a troop of angelic forms, transparent, and carrying palm branches in their hands: they waved these over the sleeping queen, with oh! such a sad and solemn grace. So could I fancy (if the thought be not profane) would real angels seem to our mortal vision, though doubtless our conception is poor and mean to the reality. She in an ecstasy raises her arms towards them, and to sweet slow music, they vanish as marvellously as they came. Then the profound silence of the audience burst at once into a rapture of applause; but even that scarcely marred the effect of the beautiful sad waking words of the Queen, "Spirits of peace, where are ye?" I never enjoyed anything so much in my life before; and never felt so inclined to shed tears at anything fictitious, save perhaps at that poetical gem of Dickens, the death of little Paul.

On August 21st he received a long letter from his father, full of excellent advice on the importance to a young man of saving money:—

I will just sketch for you [writes the Archdeacon] a supposed case, applicable to your own circumstances, of a young man of twenty-three, making up his mind to work for ten years, and living to do it, on an Income enabling him to save £150 a year—supposing him to appropriate it thus:—

£    s.    d.

Invested at 4 per cent. ...  ... 100    0     0

Life Insurance of £1,500     ...  29   15     0

Books, besides those bought in

ordinary course ...     ...  ...  20    5     0

_____________

£150    0     0

Suppose him at the end of the ten years to get a Living enabling him to settle, what will be the result of his savings:— 1. A nest egg of £1,220 ready money, for furnishing and other expenses. 2. A sum of £1,500 secured at his death on payment of a very much smaller annual Premium than if he had then begun to insure it. 3. A useful Library, worth more than £200, besides the books bought out of his current Income during the period....

The picture on the opposite page is one of Mr. Dodgson's illustrations in Misch-Masch, a periodical of the nature of The Rectory Umbrella, except that it contained printed stories and poems by the editor, cut out of the various newspapers to which he had contributed them. Of the comic papers of that day Punch, of course, held the foremost place, but it was not without rivals; there was a certain paper called Diogenes, then very near its end, which imitated Punch's style, and in 1853 the proprietor of The Illustrated News, at that time one of the most opulent publishers in London, started The Comic Times. A capable editor was found in Edmund Yates; "Phiz" and other well-known artists and writers joined the staff, and 100,000 copies of the first number were printed.

STUDIES FROM ENGLISH POETS II

"Alas! What Boots"

Milton's Lucidas.

Among the contributors was Frank Smedley, author of "Frank Fairleigh." Though a confirmed invalid, and condemned to spend most of his days on a sofa, Mr. Smedley managed to write several fine novels, full of the joy of life, and free from the least taint of discontent or morbid feeling. He was one of those men—one meets them here and there—whose minds rise high above their bodily infirmities; at moments of depression, which come to them as frequently, if not more frequently, than to other men, they no doubt feel their weakness, and think themselves despised, little knowing that we, the stronger ones in body, feel nothing but admiration as we watch the splendid victory of the soul over its earthly companion which their lives display.

It was through Frank Smedley that Mr. Dodgson became one of the contributors to The Comic Times. Several of his poems appeared in it, and Mr. Yates wrote to him in the kindest manner, expressing warm approval of them. When The Comic Times changed hands in 1856, and was reduced to half its size, the whole staff left it and started a new venture, The Train. They were joined by Sala, whose stories in Household Words were at that time usually ascribed by the uninitiated to Charles Dickens. Mr. Dodgson's contributions to The Train included the following: "Solitude" (March, 1856); "Novelty and Romancement" (October, 1856); "The Three Voices" (November, 1856); "The Sailor's Wife" (May, 1857); and last, but by no means least, "Hiawatha's Photographing" (December, 1857). All of these, except "Novelty and Romancement," have since been republished in "Rhyme? and Reason?" and "Three Sunsets."

The last entry in Mr. Dodgson's Diary for this year reads as follows:—

I am sitting alone in my bedroom this last night of the old year, waiting for midnight. It has been the most eventful year of my life: I began it a poor bachelor student, with no definite plans or expectations; I end it a master and tutor in Ch. Ch., with an income of more than £300 a year, and the course of mathematical tuition marked out by God's providence for at least some years to come. Great mercies, great failings, time lost, talents misapplied—such has been the past year.

His Diary is full of such modest depreciations of himself and his work, interspersed with earnest prayers (too sacred and private to be reproduced here) that God would forgive him the past, and help him to perform His holy will in the future. And all the time that he was thus speaking of himself as a sinner, and a man who was utterly falling short of his aim, he was living a life full of good deeds and innumerable charities, a life of incessant labour and unremitting fulfilment of duty. So, I suppose, it is always with those who have a really high ideal; the harder they try to approach it the more it seems to recede from them, or rather, perhaps, it is impossible to be both "the subject and spectator" of goodness. As Coventry Patmore wrote:—

Become whatever good you see;

Nor sigh if, forthwith, fades from view

The grace of which you may not be

The Subject and spectator too.

The reading of "Alton Locke" turned his mind towards social subjects. "If the book were but a little more definite," he writes, "it might stir up many fellow-workers in the same good field of social improvement. Oh that God, in His good providence, may make me hereafter such a worker! But alas, what are the means? Each one has his own nostrum to propound, and in the Babel of voices nothing is done. I would thankfully spend and be spent so long as I were sure of really effecting something by the sacrifice, and not merely lying down under the wheels of some irresistible Juggernaut."

He was for some time the editor of College Rhymes, a Christ Church paper, in which his poem, "A Sea Dirge" (afterwards republished in "Phantasmagoria," and again in "Rhyme? and Reason?"), first appeared. The following verses were among his contributions to the same magazine:—

I painted her a gushing thing,

With years perhaps a score

I little thought to find they were

At least a dozen more;

My fancy gave her eyes of blue,

A curly auburn head:

I came to find the blue a green,

The auburn turned to red.

She boxed my ears this morning,

They tingled very much;

I own that I could wish her

A somewhat lighter touch;

And if you were to ask me how

Her charms might be improved,

I would not have them added to,

But just a few removed!

She has the bear's ethereal grace,

The bland hyena's laugh,

The footstep of the elephant,

The neck of the giraffe;

I love her still, believe me,

Though my heart its passion hides;

"She is all my fancy painted her,"

But oh! how much besides!

It was when writing for The Train that he first felt the need of a pseudonym. He suggested "Dares" (the first syllable of his birthplace) to Edmund Yates, but, as this did not meet with his editor's approval, he wrote again, giving a choice of four names, (1) Edgar Cuthwellis, (2) Edgar U. C. Westhall, (3) Louis Carroll, and (4) Lewis Carroll. The first two were formed from the letters of his two Christian names, Charles Lutwidge; the others are merely variant forms of those names—Lewis = Ludovicus = Lutwidge; Carroll = Carolus = Charles. Mr. Yates chose the last, and thenceforward it became Mr. Dodgson's ordinary nom de plume . The first occasion on which he used it was, I believe, when he wrote "The Path of Roses," a poem which appeared in The Train in May, 1856.

On June 16th he again visited the Princess's Theatre. This time the play was "A Winter's Tale," and he "especially admired the acting of the little Mamillius, Ellen Terry, a beautiful little creature, who played with remarkable ease and spirit."

During the Long Vacation he spent a few weeks in the English Lake District. In spite of the rain, of which he had his full share, he managed to see a good deal of the best scenery, and made the ascent of Gable in the face of an icy gale, which laid him up with neuralgia for some days. He and his companions returned to Croft by way of Barnard Castle, as he narrates in his Diary:—

We set out by coach for Barnard Castle at about seven, and passed over about forty miles of the dreariest hill-country I ever saw; the climax of wretchedness was reached in Bowes, where yet stands the original of "Dotheboys Hall"; it has long ceased to be used as a school, and is falling into ruin, in which the whole place seems to be following its example—the roofs are falling in, and the windows broken or barricaded—the whole town looks plague-stricken. The courtyard of the inn we stopped at was grown over with weeds, and a mouthing idiot lolled against the corner of the house, like the evil genius of the spot. Next to a prison or a lunatic asylum, preserve me from living at Bowes!

Although he was anything but a sportsman, he was interested in the subject of betting, from a mathematical standpoint solely, and in 1857 he sent a letter to Bell's Life, explaining a method by which a betting man might ensure winning over any race. The system was either to back every horse, or to lay against every horse, according to the way the odds added up. He showed his scheme to a sporting friend, who remarked, "An excellent system, and you're bound to win—if only you can get people to take your bets."

In the same year he made the acquaintance of Tennyson, whose writings he had long intensely admired. He thus describes the poet's appearance:—

ALFRED TENNYSON.

(From a photograph by Lewis Carroll).

A strange shaggy-looking man; his hair, moustache, and beard looked wild and neglected; these very much hid the character of the face. He was dressed in a loosely fitting morning coat, common grey flannel waistcoat and trousers, and a carelessly tied black silk neckerchief. His hair is black; I think the eyes too; they are keen and restless—nose aquiline—forehead high and broad—both face and head are fine and manly. His manner was kind and friendly from the first; there is a dry lurking humour in his style of talking. I took the opportunity [he goes on to say] of asking the meaning of two passages in his poems, which have always puzzled me: one in "Maud"—

Strange that I hear two men

Somewhere talking of me;

Well, if it prove a girl, my boy

Will have plenty; so let it be.

He said it referred to Maud, and to the two fathers arranging a match between himself and her.

The other was of the poet—

Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,

The love of love.

He said that he was quite willing it should bear any meaning the words would fairly bear; to the best of his recollection his meaning when he wrote it was "the hate of the quality hate, &c.," but he thought the meaning of "the quintessence of hatred" finer. He said there had never been a poem so misunderstood by the "ninnies of critics" as "Maud."

During an evening spent at Tent Lodge Tennyson remarked, on the similarity of the monkey's skull to the human, that a young monkey's skull is quite human in shape, and gradually alters—the analogy being borne out by the human skull being at first more like the statues of the gods, and gradually degenerating into human; and then, turning to Mrs. Tennyson, "There, that's the second original remark I've made this evening!" Mr. Dodgson saw a great deal of the Tennysons after this, and photographed the poet himself and various members of his family.

In October he made the acquaintance of John Ruskin, who in after years was always willing to assist him with his valuable advice on any point of artistic criticism. Mr. Dodgson was singularly fortunate in his friends; whenever he was in difficulties on any technical matters, whether of religion, law, medicine, art, or whatever it might be, he always had some one especially distinguished in that branch of study whose aid he could seek as a friend. In particular, the names of Canon King (now Bishop of Lincoln), and Sir James Paget occur to me; to the latter Mr. Dodgson addressed many letters on questions of medicine and surgery—some of them intricate enough, but never too intricate to weary the unfailing patience of the great surgeon.

A note in Mr. Dodgson's Journal, May 9, 1857, describes his introduction to Thackeray:—

THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN.

(From a photograph by Lewis Carroll).

I breakfasted this morning with Fowler of Lincoln to meet Thackeray (the author), who delivered his lecture on George III. in Oxford last night. I was much pleased with what I saw of him; his manner is simple and unaffected; he shows no anxiety to shine in conversation, though full of fun and anecdote when drawn out. He seemed delighted with the reception he had met with last night: the undergraduates seem to have behaved with most unusual moderation.

The next few years of his life passed quietly, and without any unusual events to break the monotony of college routine. He spent his mornings in the lecture-rooms, his afternoons in the country or on the river—he was very fond of boating—and his evenings in his room, reading and preparing for the next day's work. But in spite of all this outward calm of life, his mind was very much exercised on the subject of taking Holy Orders. Not only was this step necessary if he wished to retain his Studentship, but also he felt that it would give him much more influence among the undergraduates, and thus increase his power of doing good. On the other hand, he was not prepared to live the life of almost puritanical strictness which was then considered essential for a clergyman, and he saw that the impediment of speech from which he suffered would greatly interfere with the proper performance of his clerical duties.

BISHOP WILBERFORCE.

(From a photograph by Lewis Carroll).

The Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Wilberforce, had expressed the opinion that the "resolution to attend theatres or operas was an absolute disqualification for Holy Orders," which discouraged him very much, until it transpired that this statement was only meant to refer to the parochial clergy. He discussed the matter with Dr. Pusey, and with Dr. Liddon. The latter said that "he thought a deacon might lawfully, if he found himself unfit for the work, abstain from direct ministerial duty." And so, with many qualms about his own unworthiness, he at last decided to prepare definitely for ordination.

On December 22, 1861, he was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Oxford. He never proceeded to priest's orders, partly, I think, because he felt that if he were to do so it would be his duty to undertake regular parochial work, and partly on account of his stammering. He used, however, to preach not unfrequently, and his sermons were always delightful to listen to, his extreme earnestness being evident in every word.

"He knew exactly what he wished to say" (I am quoting from an article in The Guardian), "and completely forgot his audience in his anxiety to explain his point clearly. He thought of the subject only, and the words came of themselves. Looking straight in front of him he saw, as it were, his argument mapped out in the form of a diagram, and he set to work to prove it point by point, under its separate heads, and then summed up the whole."

One sermon which he preached in the University Church, on Eternal Punishment, is not likely to be soon forgotten by those who heard it. I, unfortunately, was not of that number, but I can well imagine how his clear-cut features would light up as he dwelt lovingly upon the mercy of that Being whose charity far exceeds "the measure of man's mind." It is hardly necessary to say that he himself did not believe in eternal punishment, or any other scholastic doctrine that contravenes the love of God.

He disliked being complimented on his sermons, but he liked to be told of any good effects that his words had had upon any member of the congregation. "Thank you for telling me that fact about my sermon," he wrote to one of his sisters, who told him of some such good fruit that one of his addresses had borne. "I have once or twice had such information volunteered; and it is a great comfort—and a kind of thing that is really good for one to know. It is not good to be told (and I never wish to be told), 'Your sermon was so beautiful.' We shall not be concerned to know, in the Great Day, whether we have preached beautiful sermons, but whether they were preached with the one object of serving God."

He was always ready and willing to preach at the special service for College servants, which used to be held at Christ Church every Sunday evening; but best of all he loved to preach to children. Some of his last sermons were delivered at Christ Church, Eastbourne (the church he regularly attended during the Long Vacation), to a congregation of children. On those occasions he told them an allegory—Victor and Arnion, which he intended to publish in course of time—putting all his heart into the work, and speaking with such deep feeling that at times he was almost unable to control his emotion as he told them of the love and compassion of the Good Shepherd.

I have dwelt at some length on this side of his life, for it is, I am sure, almost ignored in the popular estimate of him. He was essentially a religious man in the best sense of the term, and without any of that morbid sentimentality which is too often associated with the word; and while his religion consecrated his talents, and raised him to a height which without it he could never have reached, the example of such a man as he was, so brilliant, so witty, so successful, and yet so full of faith, consecrates the very conception of religion, and makes it yet more beautiful.

On April 13, 1859, he paid another visit to Tennyson, this time at Farringford.

After dinner we retired for about an hour to the smoking-room, where I saw the proof-sheets of the "King's Idylls," but he would not let me read them. He walked through the garden with me when I left, and made me remark an effect produced on the thin white clouds by the moon shining through, which I had not noticed—a ring of golden light at some distance off the moon, with an interval of white between—this, he says, he has alluded to in one of his early poems ("Margaret," vol. i.), "the tender amber." I asked his opinion of Sydney Dobell—he agrees with me in liking "Grass from the Battlefield," and thinks him a writer of genius and imagination, but extravagant.

ALICE LIDDELL AS BEGGAR-CHILD.

(From a photograph by Lewis Carroll).

On another occasion he showed the poet a photograph which he had taken of Miss Alice Liddell as a beggar-child, and which Tennyson said was the most beautiful photograph he had ever seen.

Tennyson told us he had often dreamed long passages of poetry, and believed them to be good at the time, though he could never remember them after waking, except four lines which he dreamed at ten years old:—

May a cock sparrow

Write to a barrow?

I hope you'll excuse

My infantile muse;

—which, as an unpublished fragment of the Poet Laureate, may be thought interesting, but not affording much promise of his after powers. He also told us he once dreamed an enormously long poem about fairies, which began with very long lines that gradually got shorter, and ended with fifty or sixty lines of two syllables each!

On October 17, 1859, the Prince of Wales came into residence at Christ Church. The Dean met him at the station, and all the dons assembled in Tom Quadrangle to welcome him. Mr. Dodgson, as usual, had an eye to a photograph, in which hope, however, he was doomed to disappointment. His Royal Highness was tired of having his picture taken.

During his early college life he used often to spend a few days at Hastings, with his mother's sisters, the Misses Lutwidge. In a letter written from their house to his sister Mary, and dated April 11, 1860, he gives an account of a lecture he had just heard:—

I am just returned from a series of dissolving views on the Arctic regions, and, while the information there received is still fresh in my mind, I will try to give you some of it. In the first place, you may not know that one of the objects of the Arctic expeditions was to discover "the intensity of the magnetic needle." He [the lecturer] did not tell us, however, whether they had succeeded in discovering it, or whether that rather obscure question is still doubtful. One of the explorers, Baffin, "though he did not suffer all the hardships the others did, yet he came to an untimely end (of course one would think in the Arctic regions), for instance (what follows being, I suppose, one of the untimely ends he came to), being engaged in a war of the Portuguese against the Prussians, while measuring the ground in front of a fortification, a cannon-ball came against him, with the force with which cannon-balls in that day did come, and killed him dead on the spot." How many instances of this kind would you demand to prove that he did come to an untimely end? One of the ships was laid up three years in the ice, during which time, he told us, "Summer came and went frequently." This, I think, was the most remarkable phenomenon he mentioned in the whole lecture, and gave me quite a new idea of those regions.

On Tuesday I went to a concert at St. Leonard's. On the front seat sat a youth about twelve years of age, of whom the enclosed is a tolerably accurate sketch. He really was, I think, the ugliest boy I ever saw. I wish I could get an opportunity of photographing him.

The following note occurs in his Journal for May 6th:—

A Christ Church man, named Wilmot, who is just returned from the West Indies, dined in Hall. He told us some curious things about the insects in South America—one that he had himself seen was a spider charming a cockroach with flashes of light; they were both on the wall, the spider about a yard the highest, and the light was like a glow-worm, only that it came by flashes and did not shine continuously; the cockroach gradually crawled up to it, and allowed itself to be taken and killed.

GEORGE MACDONALD

AND HIS DAUGHTER LILY.

(From a photograph

by Lewis Carroll).

A few months afterwards, when in town and visiting Mr. Munroe's studio, he found there two of the children of Mr. George Macdonald, whose acquaintance he had already made: "They were a girl and boy, about seven and six years old—I claimed their acquaintance, and began at once proving to the boy, Greville, that he had better take the opportunity of having his head changed for a marble one. The effect was that in about two minutes they had entirely forgotten that I was a total stranger, and were earnestly arguing the question as if we were old acquaintances." Mr. Dodgson urged that a marble head would not have to be brushed and combed. At this the boy turned to his sister with an air of great relief, saying, "Do you hear that, Mary? It needn't be combed!" And the narrator adds, "I have no doubt combing, with his great head of long hair, like Hallam Tennyson's, was the misery of his life. His final argument was that a marble head couldn't speak, and as I couldn't convince either that he would be all the better for that, I gave in."

In November he gave a lecture at a meeting of the Ashmolean Society on "Where does the Day begin?" The problem, which was one he was very fond of propounding, may be thus stated: If a man could travel round the world so fast that the sun would be always directly above his head, and if he were to start travelling at midday on Tuesday, then in twenty-four hours he would return to his original point of departure, and would find that the day was now called Wednesday—at what point of his journey would the day change its name? The difficulty of answering this apparently simple question has cast a gloom over many a pleasant party.

On December 12th he wrote in his Diary:—

Visit of the Queen to Oxford, to the great surprise of everybody, as it had been kept a secret up to the time. She arrived in Christ Church about twelve, and came into Hall with the Dean, where the Collections were still going on, about a dozen men being in Hall. The party consisted of the Queen, Prince Albert, Princess Alice and her intended husband, the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, the Prince of Wales, Prince Alfred, and suite. They remained a minute or two looking at the pictures, and the Sub-Dean was presented: they then visited the Cathedral and Library. Evening entertainment at the Deanery, tableaux vivants . I went a little after half-past eight, and found a great party assembled—the Prince had not yet come. He arrived before nine, and I found an opportunity of reminding General Bruce of his promise to introduce me to the Prince, which he did at the next break in the conversation H.R.H. was holding with Mrs. Fellowes. He shook hands very graciously, and I began with a sort of apology for having been so importunate about the photograph. He said something of the weather being against it, and I asked if the Americans had victimised him much as a sitter; he said they had, but he did not think they had succeeded well, and I told him of the new American process of taking twelve thousand photographs in an hour. Edith Liddell coming by at the moment, I remarked on the beautiful tableau which the children might make: he assented, and also said, in answer to my question, that he had seen and admired my photographs of them. I then said that I hoped, as I had missed the photograph, he would at least give me his autograph in my album, which he promised to do. Thinking I had better bring the talk to an end, I concluded by saying that, if he would like copies of any of my photographs, I should feel honoured by his accepting them; he thanked me for this, and I then drew back, as he did not seem inclined to pursue the conversation.

A few days afterwards the Prince gave him his autograph, and also chose a dozen or so of his photograph (sic).

MRS. ROSSETTI AND HER CHILDREN

DANTE GABRIEL, CHRISTINA, AND WILLIAM.

(From a photograph by Lewis Carroll).

CHAPTER III

(1861—1867)

Jowett—Index to "In Memoriam"—The Tennysons—The beginning of "Alice"—Tenniel—Artistic friends—"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"—"Bruno's Revenge"—Tour with Dr. Liddon—Cologne—Berlin architecture—The "Majesty of Justice"—Peterhof—Moscow—A Russian wedding—Nijni—The Troitska Monastery—"Hieroglyphic" writing—Giessen.

It is my aim in this Memoir to let Mr. Dodgson tell his own story as much as possible. In order to effect this object I have drawn largely upon his Diary and correspondence. Very few men have left behind them such copious information about their lives as he has; unfortunately it is not equally copious throughout, and this fact must be my apology for the somewhat haphazard and disconnected way in which parts of this book are written. That it is the best which, under the circumstances, I have been able to do needs, I hope, no saying, but the circumstances have at times been too strong for me.

Though in later years Mr. Dodgson almost gave up the habit of dining out, at this time of his life he used to do it pretty frequently, and several of the notes in his Diary refer to after-dinner and Common Room stories. The two following extracts will show the sort of facts he recorded:—

January 2, 1861.—Mr. Grey (Canon) came to dine and stay the night. He told me a curious old custom of millers, that they place the sails of the mill as a Saint Andrew's Cross when work is entirely suspended, thus x, but in an upright cross, thus +, if they are just going to resume work. He also mentioned that he was at school with Dr. Tennyson (father of the poet), and was a great favourite of his. He remembers that Tennyson used to do his school-translations in rhyme.

May 9th.—Met in Common Room Rev. C.F. Knight, and the Hon'ble. F.J. Parker, both of Boston, U.S. The former gave an amusing account of having seen Oliver Wendell Holmes in a fishmonger's, lecturing extempore on the head of a freshly killed turtle, whose eyes and jaws still showed muscular action: the lecture of course being all "cram," but accepted as sober earnest by the mob outside.

Old Oxford men will remember the controversies that raged from about 1860 onwards over the opinions of the late Dr. Jowett. In my time the name "Jowett" only represented the brilliant translator of Plato, and the deservedly loved master of Balliol, whose sermons in the little College Chapel were often attended by other than Balliol men, and whose reputation for learning was expressed in the well-known verse of "The Masque of Balliol":—

First come I, my name is Jowett.

There's no knowledge but I know it;

I am Master of this College;

What I don't know isn't knowledge.

But in 1861 he was anything but universally popular, and I am afraid that Mr. Dodgson, nothing if not a staunch Conservative, sided with the majority against him. Thus he wrote in his Diary:—

November 20th.—Promulgation, in Congregation, of the new statute to endow Jowett. The speaking took up the whole afternoon, and the two points at issue, the endowing a Regius Professorship, and the countenancing Jowett's theological opinions, got so inextricably mixed up that I rose to beg that they might be kept separate. Once on my feet, I said more than I at first meant, and defied them ever to tire out the opposition by perpetually bringing the question on (Mem.: if I ever speak again I will try to say no more than I had resolved before rising). This was my first speech in Congregation.

At the beginning of 1862 an "Index to In Memoriam," compiled by Mr. Dodgson and his sisters, was published by Moxon. Tennyson had given his consent, and the little book proved to be very useful to his admirers.

On January 27th Morning Prayer was for the first time read in English at the Christ Church College Service. On the same day Mr. Dodgson moved over into new rooms, as the part of the College where he had formerly lived (Chaplain's Quadrangle) was to be pulled down.

During the Easter Vacation he paid another visit to the Tennysons, which he describes as follows:—

After luncheon I went to the Tennysons, and got Hallam and Lionel to sign their names in my album. Also I made a bargain with Lionel, that he was to give me some MS. of his verses, and I was to send him some of mine. It was a very difficult bargain to make; I almost despaired of it at first, he put in so many conditions—first, I was to play a game of chess with him; this, with much difficulty, was reduced to twelve moves on each side; but this made little difference, as I check-mated him at the sixth move. Second, he was to be allowed to give me one blow on the head with a mallet (this he at last consented to give up). I forget if there were others, but it ended in my getting the verses, for which I have written out "The Lonely Moor" for him.

Mr. Dodgson took a great interest in occult phenomena, and was for some time an enthusiastic member of the "Psychical Society." It was his interest in ghosts that led to his meeting with the artist Mr. Heaphy, who had painted a picture of a ghost which he himself had seen. I quote the following from a letter to his sister Mary:—

During my last visit to town, I paid a very interesting visit to a new artist, Mr. Heaphy. Do you remember that curious story of a ghost lady (in Household Words or All the Year Round), who sat to an artist for her picture; it was called "Mr. H.'s Story," and he was the writer.... He received me most kindly, and we had a very interesting talk about the ghost, which certainly is one of the most curious and inexplicable stories I ever heard. He showed me her picture (life size), and she must have been very lovely, if it is like her (or like it, which ever is the correct pronoun).... Mr. Heaphy showed me a most interesting collection of drawings he has made abroad; he has been about, hunting up the earliest and most authentic pictures of our Saviour, some merely outlines, some coloured pictures. They agree wonderfully in the character of the face, and one, he says, there is no doubt was done before the year 150.... I feel sure from his tone that he is doing this in a religious spirit, and not merely as an artist.

On July 4, 1862, there is a very important entry: "I made an expedition up the river to Godstow with the three Liddells; we had tea on the bank there, and did not reach Christ Church till half-past eight."

LORINA, ALICE, AND EDITH LIDDELL.

(From a photograph by Lewis Carroll).

On the opposite page he added, somewhat later, "On which occasion I told them the fairy-tale of 'Alice's Adventures Underground,' which I undertook to write out for Alice."

These words need to be supplemented by the verses with which he prefaced the "Wonderland":—

All in the golden afternoon

Full leisurely we glide;

For both our oars, with little skill,

By little arms are plied,

While little hands make vain pretence

Our wanderings to guide.

Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,

Beneath such dreamy weather,

To beg a tale of breath too weak

To stir the tiniest feather!

Yet what can one poor voice avail

Against three tongues together?

Imperious Prima flashes forth

Her edict "to begin it"—

In gentler tones Secunda hopes

"There will be nonsense in it!"

While Tertia interrupts the tale

Not more than once a minute.

Anon, to sudden silence won,

In fancy they pursue

The dream-child moving through a land

Of wonders wild and new,

In friendly chat with bird or beast—

And half believe it true.

And ever, as the story drained

The wells of fancy dry,

And faintly strove that weary one

To put the subject by,

"The rest next time"—"It is next time!"

The happy voices cry.

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:

Thus slowly, one by one,

Its quaint events were hammered out—

And now the tale is done,

And home we steer, a merry crew,

Beneath the setting sun.

"Alice" herself (Mrs. Reginald Hargreaves) has given an account of the scene, from which what follows is quoted:—

Most of Mr. Dodgson's stories were told to us on river expeditions to Nuneham or Godstow, near Oxford. My eldest sister, now Mrs. Skene, was "Prima," I was "Secunda," and "Tertia" was my sister Edith. I believe the beginning of "Alice" was told one summer afternoon when the sun was so burning that we had landed in the meadows down the river, deserting the boat to take refuge in the only bit of shade to be found, which was under a new-made hayrick. Here from all three came the old petition of "Tell us a story," and so began the ever-delightful tale. Sometimes to tease us—and perhaps being really tired—Mr. Dodgson would stop suddenly and say, "And that's all till next time." "Ah, but it is next time," would be the exclamation from all three; and after some persuasion the story would start afresh. Another day, perhaps, the story would begin in the boat, and Mr. Dodgson, in the middle of telling a thrilling adventure, would pretend to go fast asleep, to our great dismay.

"Alice's Adventures Underground" was the original name of the story; later on it became "Alice's Hour in Elfland." It was not until June 18, 1864, that he finally decided upon "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." The illustrating of the manuscript book gave him some trouble. He had to borrow a "Natural History" from the Deanery to learn the correct shapes of some of the strange animals with which Alice conversed; the Mock Turtle he must have evolved out of his inner consciousness, for it is, I think, a species unknown to naturalists.

He was lucky enough during the course of the year to see a ceremony which is denied to most Oxford men. When degrees are given, any tradesman who has been unable to get his due from an undergraduate about to be made a Bachelor of Arts is allowed, by custom, to pluck the Proctor's gown as he passes, and then to make his complaint. This law is more honoured in the breach than in the observance; but, on the occasion of this visit of Mr. Dodgson's to Convocation, the Proctor's gown was actually plucked—on account of an unfortunate man who had gone through the Bankruptcy Court.

GEORGE MACDONALD.

(From a photograph by Lewis Carroll).

When he promised to write out "Alice" for Miss Liddell he had no idea of publication; but his friend, Mr. George Macdonald, to whom he had shown the story, persuaded him to submit it to a publisher. Messrs. Macmillan agreed to produce it, and as Mr. Dodgson had not sufficient faith in his own artistic powers to venture to allow his illustrations to appear, it was necessary to find some artist who would undertake the work. By the advice of Tom Taylor he approached Mr. Tenniel, who was fortunately well disposed, and on April 5, 1864, the final arrangements were made.

The following interesting account of a meeting with Mr. Dodgson is from the pen of Mrs. Bennie, wife of the Rector of Glenfield, near Leicester:—

Some little time after the publication of "Alice's Adventures" we went for our summer holiday to Whitby. We were visiting friends, and my brother and sister went to the hotel. They soon after asked us to dine with them there at the table d'hôte. I had on one side of me a gentleman whom I did not know, but as I had spent a good deal of time travelling in foreign countries, I always, at once, speak to any one I am placed next. I found on this occasion I had a very agreeable neighbour, and we seemed to be much interested in the same books, and politics also were touched on. After dinner my sister and brother rather took me to task for talking so much to a complete stranger. I said. "But it was quite a treat to talk to him and to hear him talk. Of one thing I am quite sure, he is a genius." My brother and sister, who had not heard him speak, again laughed at me, and said, "You are far too easily pleased." I, however, maintained my point, and said what great delight his conversation had given me, and how remarkably clever it had been. Next morning nurse took out our two little twin daughters in front of the sea. I went out a short time afterwards, looked for them, and found them seated with my friend of the table d'hôte between them, and they were listening to him, open-mouthed, and in the greatest state of enjoyment, with his knee covered with minute toys. I, seeing their great delight, motioned to him to go on; this he did for some time. A most charming story he told them about sea-urchins and Ammonites. When it was over, I said, "You must be the author of 'Alice's Adventures.'" He laughed, but looked astonished, and said, "My dear Madam, my name is Dodgson, and 'Alice's Adventures' was written by Lewis Carroll." I replied, "Then you must have borrowed the name, for only he could have told a story as you have just done." After a little sparring he admitted the fact, and I went home and proudly told my sister and brother how my genius had turned out a greater one than I expected. They assured me I must be mistaken, and that, as I had suggested it to him, he had taken advantage of the idea, and said he was what I wanted him to be. A few days after some friends came to Whitby who knew his aunts, and confirmed the truth of his statement, and thus I made the acquaintance of one whose friendship has been the source of great pleasure for nearly thirty years. He has most generously sent us all his books, with kind inscriptions, to "Minnie and Doe," whom he photographed, but would not take Canon Bennie or me; he said he never took portraits of people of more than seventeen years of age until they were seventy. He visited us, and we often met him at Eastbourne, and his death was indeed a great loss after so many happy years of friendship with one we so greatly admired and loved.

He spent a part of the Long Vacation at Freshwater, taking great interest in the children who, for him, were the chief attraction of the seaside.

Every morning four little children dressed in yellow go by from the front down to the beach: they go by in a state of great excitement, brandishing wooden spades, and making strange noises; from that moment they disappear entirely—they are never to be seen on the beach. The only theory I can form is, that they all tumble into a hole somewhere, and continue excavating therein during the day: however that may be, I have once or twice come across them returning at night, in exactly the same state of excitement, and seemingly in quite as great a hurry to get home as they were before to get out. The evening noises they make sound to me very much like the morning noises, but I suppose they are different to them, and contain an account of the day's achievements.

J. SANT.

(From a photograph by Lewis Carroll).

His enthusiasm for photography, and his keen appreciation of the beautiful, made him prefer the society of artists to that of any other class of people. He knew the Rossettis intimately, and his Diary shows him to have been acquainted with Millais, Holman Hunt, Sant, Westmacott, Val Prinsep, Watts, and a host of others. Arthur Hughes painted a charming picture to his order ("The Lady with the Lilacs") which used to hang in his rooms at Christ Church. The Andersons were great friends of his, Mrs. Anderson being one of his favourite child-painters. Those who have visited him at Oxford will remember a beautiful girl's head, painted by her from a rough sketch she had once made in a railway carriage of a child who happened to be sitting opposite her.

HOLMAN HUNT.

(From a photograph by Lewis Carroll).

His own drawings were in no way remarkable. Ruskin, whose advice he took on his artistic capabilities, told him that he had not enough talent to make it worth his while to devote much time to sketching, but every one who saw his photographs admired them. Considering the difficulties of the "wet process," and the fact that he had a conscientious horror of "touching up" his negatives, the pictures he produced are quite wonderful. Some of them were shown to the Queen, who said that she admired them very much, and that they were "such as the Prince would have appreciated very highly, and taken much pleasure in."

On July 4, 1865, exactly three years after the memorable row up the river, Miss Alice Liddell received the first presentation copy of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland": the second was sent to Princess Beatrice.

SIR JOHN MILLAIS.

(From a photograph by Lewis Carroll).

The first edition, which consisted of two thousand copies, was condemned by both author and illustrator, for the pictures did not come out well. All purchasers were accordingly asked to return their copies, and to send their names and addresses; a new edition was prepared, and distributed to those who had sent back their old copies, which the author gave away to various homes and hospitals. The substituted edition was a complete success, "a perfect piece of artistic printing," as Mr. Dodgson called it. He hardly dared to hope that more than two thousand copies would be sold, and anticipated a considerable loss over the book. His surprise was great when edition after edition was demanded, and when he found that "Alice," far from being a monetary failure, was bringing him in a very considerable income every year.

A rough comparison between "Alice's Adventures Underground" and the book in its completed form, shows how slight were the alterations that Lewis Carroll thought it necessary to make.

The "Wonderland" is somewhat longer, but the general plan of the book, and the simplicity of diction, which is one of its principal charms, are unchanged. His memory was so good that I believe the story as he wrote it down was almost word for word the same that he had told in the boat. The whole idea came like an inspiration into his mind, and that sort of inspiration does not often come more than once in a lifetime. Nothing which he wrote afterwards had anything like the same amount of freshness, of wit, of real genius. The "Looking-Glass" most closely approached it in these qualities, but then it was only the following out of the same idea. The most ingenuous comparison of the two books I have seen was the answer of a little girl whom Lewis Carroll had asked if she had read them: "Oh yes, I've read both of them, and I think," (this more slowly and thoughtfully) "I think 'Through the Looking-Glass' is more stupid than 'Alice's Adventures.' Don't you think so?"

The critics were loud in their praises of "Alice"; there was hardly a dissentient voice among them, and the reception which the public gave the book justified their opinion. So recently as July, 1898, the Pall Mall Gazette conducted an inquiry into the popularity of children's books. "The verdict is so natural that it will surprise no normal person. The winner is 'Alice in Wonderland'; 'Through the Looking-Glass' is in the twenty, but much lower down."

SIR JOHN TENNIEL.

From a photograph by Bassano.

"Alice" has been translated into French, German, Italian, and Dutch, while one poem, "Father William," has even been turned into Arabic. Several plays have been based upon it; lectures have been given, illustrated by magic-lantern slides of Tenniel's pictures, which have also adorned wall-papers and biscuit-boxes. Mr. Dodgson himself designed a very ingenious "Wonderland" stamp-case; there has been an "Alice" birthday-book; at schools, children have been taught to read out of "Alice," while the German edition, shortened and simplified for the purpose, has also been used as a lesson-book. With the exception of Shakespeare's plays, very few, if any, books are so frequently quoted in the daily Press as the two "Alices."

C. M. YONGE.

(From a photograph by Lewis Carroll).

In 1866 Mr. Dodgson was introduced to Miss Charlotte M. Yonge, whose novels had long delighted him. "It was a pleasure I had long hoped for," he says, "and I was very much pleased with her cheerful and easy manners—the sort of person one knows in a few minutes as well as many in many years."

In 1867 he contributed a story to Aunt Judy's Magazine called "Bruno's Revenge," the charming little idyll out of which "Sylvie and Bruno" grew. The creation of Bruno was the only act of homage Lewis Carroll ever paid to boy-nature, for which, as a rule, he professed an aversion almost amounting to terror. Nevertheless, on the few occasions on which I have seen him in the company of boys, he seemed to be thoroughly at his ease, telling them stories and showing them puzzles.

I give an extract from Mrs. Gatty's letter, acknowledging the receipt of "Bruno's Revenge" for her magazine:—

I need hardly tell you that the story is delicious. It is beautiful and fantastic and childlike, and I cannot sufficiently thank you. I am so proud for Aunt Judy that you have honoured her by sending it here, rather than to the Cornhill, or one of the grander Magazines.

To-morrow I shall send the Manuscript to London probably; to-day I keep it to enjoy a little further, and that the young ladies may do so too. One word more. Make this one of a series. You may have great mathematical abilities, but so have hundreds of others. This talent is peculiarly your own, and as an Englishman you are almost unique in possessing it. If you covet fame, therefore, it will be (I think) gained by this. Some of the touches are so exquisite, one would have thought nothing short of intercourse with fairies could have put them into your head.

Somewhere about this time he was invited to witness a rehearsal of a children's play at a London theatre. As he sat in the wings, chatting to the manager, a little four-year-old girl, one of the performers, climbed up on his knee, and began talking to him. She was very anxious to be allowed to play the principal part (Mrs. Mite), which had been assigned to some other child. "I wish I might act Mrs. Mite," she said; "I know all her part, and I'd get an encore for every word."

During the year he published his book on "Determinants." To those accustomed to regard mathematics as the driest of dry subjects, and mathematicians as necessarily devoid of humour, it seems scarcely credible that "An Elementary Treatise on Determinants," and "Alice in Wonderland" were written by the same author, and it came quite as a revelation to the undergraduate who heard for the first time that Mr. Dodgson of Christ Church and Lewis Carroll were identical.

The book in question, admirable as it is in many ways, has not commanded a large sale. The nature of the subject would be against it, as most students whose aim is to get as good a place as possible in the class lists cannot afford the luxury of a separate work, and have to be content with the few chapters devoted to "Determinants" in works on Higher Algebra or the Theory of Equations, supplemented by references to Mr. Dodgson's work which can be found in the College libraries.

The general acceptance of the book would be rather restricted by the employment of new words and symbols, which, as the author himself felt, "are always a most unwelcome addition to a science already burdened with an enormous vocabulary." But the work itself is largely original, and its arrangement and style are, perhaps, as attractive as the nature of the subject will allow. Such a book as this has little interest for the general reader, yet, amongst the leisured few who are able to read mathematics for their own sake, the treatise has found warm admirers.

DR. LIDDON.

(From a photograph by Lewis Carroll).

In the Summer Vacation of 1867 he went for a tour on the Continent, accompanied by Dr. Liddon, whom I have already mentioned as having been one of his most intimate friends at this time. During the whole of this tour Mr. Dodgson kept a diary, more with the idea that it would help him afterwards to remember what he had seen than with any notion of publication. However, in later years it did occur to him that others might be interested in his impressions and experiences, though he never actually took any steps towards putting them before the public. Perhaps he was wise, for a traveller's diary always contains much information that can be obtained just as well from any guide-book. In the extracts which I reproduce here, I hope that I have not retained anything which comes under that category.

July 12th.—The Sultan and I arrived in London almost at the same time, but in different quarters—my point of entry being Paddington, and his Charing Cross. I must admit that the crowd was greatest at the latter place.

Mr. Dodgson and Dr. Liddon met at Dover, and passed the night at one of the hotels there:—

July 13th.—We breakfasted, as agreed, at eight, or at least we then sat down and nibbled bread and butter till such time as the chops should be done, which great event took place about half past. We tried pathetic appeals to the wandering waiters, who told us, "They are coming, sir," in a soothing tone, and we tried stern remonstrance, and they then said, "They are coming, sir," in a more injured tone; and after all such appeals they retired into their dens, and hid themselves behind side-boards and dish-covers, and still the chops came not. We agreed that of all virtues a waiter can display, that of a retiring disposition is quite the least desirable....

The pen refuses to describe the sufferings of some of the passengers during our smooth trip of ninety minutes: my own sensations were those of extreme surprise, and a little indignation, at there being no other sensations—it was not for that I paid my money....

We landed at Calais in the usual swarm of friendly natives, offering services and advice of all kinds; to all such remarks I returned one simple answer, Non! It was probably not strictly applicable in all cases, but it answered the purpose of getting rid of them; one by one they left me, echoing the Non! in various tones, but all expressive of disgust.

At Cologne began that feast of beautiful things which his artistic temperament fitted him so well to enjoy. Though the churches he visited and the ceremonies he witnessed belonged to a religious system widely different from his own, the largeness and generosity of his mind always led him to insist upon that substratum of true devotion—to use a favourite word of his—which underlies all forms of Christianity.

We spent an hour in the cathedral, which I will not attempt to describe further than by saying it was the most beautiful of all churches I have ever seen or can imagine. If one could imagine the spirit of devotion embodied in any material form, it would be in such a building.

In spite of all the wealth of words that has been expended upon German art, he found something new to say on this most fertile subject:—

The amount of art lavished on the whole region of Potsdam is marvellous; some of the tops of the palaces were like forests of statues, and they were all over the gardens, set on pedestals. In fact, the two principles of Berlin architecture appear to me to be these. On the house-tops, wherever there is a convenient place, put up the figure of a man; he is best placed standing on one leg. Wherever there is room on the ground, put either a circular group of busts on pedestals, in consultation, all looking inwards—or else the colossal figure of a man killing, about to kill, or having killed (the present tense is preferred) a beast; the more pricks the beast has, the better—in fact a dragon is the correct thing, but if that is beyond the artist, he may content himself with a lion or a pig. The beast—killing principle has been carried out everywhere with a relentless monotony, which makes some parts of Berlin look like a fossil slaughter-house.

He never missed an opportunity of studying the foreign drama, which was most praiseworthy, as he knew very little German and not a word of Russ:—

At the hotel [at Danzig] was a green parrot on a stand; we addressed it as "Pretty Poll," and it put its head on one side and thought about it, but wouldn't commit itself to any statement. The waiter came up to inform us of the reason of its silence: "Er spricht nicht Englisch; er spricht nicht Deutsch." It appeared that the unfortunate bird could speak nothing but Mexican! Not knowing a word of that language, we could only pity it.

July 23rd.—We strolled about and bought a few photographs, and at 11.39 left for Königsberg. On our way to the station we came across the grandest instance of the "Majesty of Justice" that I have ever witnessed. A little boy was being taken to the magistrate, or to prison (probably for picking a pocket). The achievement of this feat had been entrusted to two soldiers in full uniform, who were solemnly marching, one in front of the poor little urchin and one behind, with bayonets fixed, of course, to be ready to charge in case he should attempt an escape.

July 25th.—In the evening I visited the theatre at Königsberg, which was fairly good in every way, and very good in the singing and some of the acting. The play was "Anno 66," but I could only catch a few words here and there, so have very little idea of the plot. One of the characters was a correspondent of an English newspaper. This singular being came on in the midst of a soldiers' bivouac before Sadowa, dressed very nearly in white—a very long frock-coat, and a tall hat on the back of his head, both nearly white. He said "Morning" as a general remark, when he first came on, but afterwards talked what I suppose was broken German. He appeared to be regarded as a butt by the soldiers, and ended his career by falling into a drum.

From Königsberg the travellers went on to St. Petersburg, where they stayed several days, exploring the wonderful city and its environs:—

There is a fine equestrian statue of Peter the Great near the Admiralty. The lower part is not a pedestal, but left shapeless and rough like a real rock. The horse is rearing, and has a serpent coiled about its hind feet, on which, I think, it is treading. If this had been put up in Berlin, Peter would no doubt have been actively engaged in killing the monster, but here he takes no notice of it; in fact, the killing theory is not recognised. We found two colossal figures of lions, which are so painfully mild that each of them is rolling a great ball about like a kitten.

Aug. 1st.—About half-past ten Mr. Merrilies called for us, and with really remarkable kindness gave up his day to taking us down to Peterhof, a distance of about twenty miles, and showing us over the place. We went by steamer down the tideless, saltless Gulf of Finland; the first peculiarity extends through the Baltic, and the second through a great part of it. The piece we crossed, some fifteen miles from shore to shore, is very shallow, in many parts only six or eight feet deep, and every winter it is entirely frozen over with ice two feet thick, and when this is covered with snow it forms a secure plain, which is regularly used for travelling on, though the immense distance, without means of food or shelter, is dangerous for poorly clad foot passengers. Mr. Merrilies told us of a friend of his who, in crossing last winter, passed the bodies of eight people who had been frozen. We had a good view, on our way, of the coast of Finland, and of Kronstadt. When we landed at Peterhof, we found Mr. Muir's carriage waiting for us, and with its assistance, getting out every now and then to walk through portions where it could not go, we went over the grounds of two imperial palaces, including many little summer-houses, each of which would make a very good residence in itself, as, though small, they were fitted up and adorned in every way that taste could suggest or wealth achieve. For varied beauty and perfect combination of nature and art, I think the gardens eclipse those of Sans Souci. At every corner, or end of an avenue or path, where a piece of statuary could be introduced with effect, there one was sure to find one, in bronze or in white marble; many of the latter had a sort of circular niche built behind, with a blue background to throw the figure into relief. Here we found a series of shelving ledges made of stone, with a sheet of water gliding down over them; here a long path, stretching down slopes and flights of steps, and arched over all the way with trellises and creepers; here a huge boulder, hewn, just as it lay, into the shape of a gigantic head and face, with mild, sphinx-like eyes, as if some buried Titan were struggling to free himself; here a fountain, so artfully formed of pipes set in circles, each set shooting the water higher than those outside, as to form a solid pyramid of glittering spray; here a lawn, seen through a break in the woods below us, with threads of scarlet geraniums running over it, and looking in the distance like a huge branch of coral; and here and there long avenues of trees, lying in all directions, sometimes three or four together side by side, and sometimes radiating like a star, and stretching away into the distance till the eye was almost weary of following them. All this will rather serve to remind me, than to convey any idea, of what we saw.

But the beauties of Peterhof were quite eclipsed by the Oriental splendours of Moscow, which naturally made a great impression upon a mind accustomed to the cold sublimity of Gothic architecture at Oxford.

We gave five or six hours to a stroll through this wonderful city, a city of white houses and green roofs, of conical towers that rise one out of another like a foreshortened telescope; of bulging gilded domes, in which you see, as in a looking-glass, distorted pictures of the city; of churches which look, outside, like bunches of variegated cactus (some branches crowned with green prickly buds, others with blue, and others with red and white) and which, inside, are hung all round with eikons and lamps, and lined with illuminated pictures up to the very roof; and, finally, of pavement that goes up and down like a ploughed field, and drojky—drivers who insist on being paid thirty per cent. extra to-day, "because it is the Empress's birthday." ...

Aug. 5th.—After dinner we went by arrangement to Mr. Penny, and accompanied him to see a Russian wedding. It was a most interesting ceremony. There was a large choir, from the cathedral, who sang a long and beautiful anthem before the service began; and the deacon (from the Church of the Assumption) delivered several recitative portions of the service in the most magnificent bass voice I ever heard, rising gradually (I should say by less than half a note at a time if that is possible), and increasing in volume of sound as he rose in the scale, until his final note rang through the building like a chorus of many voices. I could not have conceived that one voice could have produced such an effect. One part of the ceremony, the crowning the married couple, was very nearly grotesque. Two gorgeous golden crowns were brought in, which the officiating priest first waved before them, and then placed on their heads—or rather the unhappy bridegroom had to wear his, but the bride, having prudently arranged her hair in a rather complicated manner with a lace veil, could not have hers put on, but had it held above her by a friend. The bridegroom, in plain evening dress, crowned like a king, holding a candle, and with a face of resigned misery, would have been pitiable if he had not been so ludicrous. When the people had gone, we were invited by the priests to see the east end of the church, behind the golden gates, and were finally dismissed with a hearty shake of the hand and the "kiss of peace," of which even I, though in lay costume, came in for a share.

One of the objects of the tour was to see the fair at Nijni Novgorod, and here the travellers arrived on August 6th, after a miserable railway journey. Owing to the breaking down of a bridge, the unfortunate passengers had been compelled to walk a mile through drenching rain.

We went to the Smernovaya (or some such name) Hotel, a truly villainous place, though no doubt the best in the town. The feeding was very good, and everything else very bad. It was some consolation to find that as we sat at dinner we furnished a subject of the liveliest interest to six or seven waiters, all dressed in white tunics, belted at the waist, and white trousers, who ranged themselves in a row and gazed in a quite absorbed way at the collection of strange animals that were feeding before them. Now and then a twinge of conscience would seize them that they were, after all, not fulfilling the great object of life as waiters, and on these occasions they would all hurry to the end of the room, and refer to a great drawer which seemed to contain nothing but spoons and corks. When we asked for anything, they first looked at each other in an alarmed way; then, when they had ascertained which understood the order best, they all followed his example, which always was to refer to the big drawer. We spent most of the afternoon wandering through the fair, and buying eikons, &c. It was a wonderful place. Besides there being distinct quarters for the Persians, the Chinese, and others, we were constantly meeting strange beings with unwholesome complexions and unheard-of costumes. The Persians, with their gentle, intelligent faces, the long eyes set wide apart, the black hair, and yellow-brown skin, crowned with a black woollen fez something like a grenadier, were about the most picturesque we met. But all the novelties of the day were thrown into the shade by our adventure at sunset, when we came upon the Tartar mosque (the only one in Nijni) exactly as one of the officials came out on the roof to utter the muezzin cry, or call to prayers. Even if it had been in no way singular in itself, it would have been deeply interesting from its novelty and uniqueness, but the cry itself was quite unlike anything I have ever heard before. The beginning of each sentence was uttered in a rapid monotone, and towards the end it rose gradually till it ended in a prolonged, shrill wail, which floated overhead through the still air with an indescribably sad and ghostlike effect; heard at night, it would have thrilled one like the cry of the Banshee.

This reminds one of the wonderful description in Mr. Kipling's "City of Dreadful Night." It is not generally known that Mr. Dodgson was a fervent admirer of Mr. Kipling's works; indeed during the last few years of his life I think he took more pleasure in his tales than in those of any other modern author.

Dr. Liddon's fame as a preacher had reached the Russian clergy, with the result that he and Mr. Dodgson found many doors open to them which are usually closed to travellers in Russia. After their visit to Nijni Novgorod they returned to Moscow, whence, escorted by Bishop Leonide, Suffragan Bishop of Moscow, they made an expedition to the Troitska Monastery.

August 12th.—A most interesting day. We breakfasted at half-past five, and soon after seven left by railway, in company with Bishop Leonide and Mr. Penny, for Troitska Monastery. We found the Bishop, in spite of his limited knowledge of English, a very conversational and entertaining fellow-traveller. The service at the cathedral had already begun when we reached it, and the Bishop took us in with him, through a great crowd which thronged the building, into a side room which opened into the chancel, where we remained during the service, and enjoyed the unusual privilege of seeing the clergy communicate—a ceremony for which the doors of the chancel are always shut, and the curtains drawn, so that the congregation never witness it. It was a most elaborate ceremony, full of crossings, and waving of incense before everything that was going to be used, but also clearly full of much deep devotion.... In the afternoon we went down to the Archbishop's palace, and were presented to him by Bishop Leonide. The Archbishop could only talk Russian, so that the conversation between him and Liddon (a most interesting one, which lasted more than an hour) was conducted in a very original fashion—the Archbishop making a remark in Russian, which was put into English by the Bishop; Liddon then answered the remark in French, and the Bishop repeated his answer in Russian to the Archbishop. So that a conversation, entirely carried on between two people, required the use of three languages!

The Bishop had kindly got one of the theological students, who could talk French, to conduct us about, which he did most zealously, taking us, among other things, to see the subterranean cells of the hermits, in which some of them live for many years. We were shown the doors of two of the inhabited ones; it was a strange and not quite comfortable feeling, in a dark narrow passage where each had to carry a candle, to be shown the low narrow door of a little cellar, and to know that a human being was living within, with only a small lamp to give him light, in solitude and silence day and night.

His experiences with an exorbitant drojky—driver at St. Petersburg are worthy of record. They remind one of a story which he himself used to tell as having happened to a friend of his at Oxford. The latter had driven up in a cab to Tom Gate, and offered the cabman the proper fare, which was, however, refused with scorn. After a long altercation he left the irate cabman to be brought to reason by the porter, a one-armed giant of prodigious strength. When he was leaving college, he stopped at the gate to ask the porter how he had managed to dispose of the cabman. "Well, sir," replied that doughty champion, "I could not persuade him to go until I floored him."

After a hearty breakfast I left Liddon to rest and write letters, and went off shopping, &c., beginning with a call on Mr. Muir at No. 61, Galerne Ulitsa. I took a drojky to the house, having first bargained with the driver for thirty kopecks; he wanted forty to begin with. When we got there we had a little scene, rather a novelty in my experience of drojky—driving. The driver began by saying "Sorok" (forty) as I got out; this was a warning of the coming storm, but I took no notice of it, but quietly handed over the thirty. He received them with scorn and indignation, and holding them out in his open hand, delivered an eloquent discourse in Russian, of which sorok was the leading idea. A woman, who stood by with a look of amusement and curiosity, perhaps understood him. I didn't, but simply held out my hand for the thirty, returned them to the purse and counted out twenty-five instead. In doing this I felt something like a man pulling the string of a shower-bath—and the effect was like it—his fury boiled over directly, and quite eclipsed all the former row. I told him in very bad Russian that I had offered thirty once, but wouldn't again; but this, oddly enough, did not pacify him. Mr. Muir's servant told him the same thing at length, and finally Mr. Muir himself came out and gave him the substance of it sharply and shortly—but he failed to see it in a proper light. Some people are very hard to please.

When staying at a friend's house at Kronstadt he wrote:—

Liddon had surrendered his overcoat early in the day, and when going we found it must be recovered from the waiting-maid, who only talked Russian, and as I had left the dictionary behind, and the little vocabulary did not contain coat, we were in some difficulty. Liddon began by exhibiting his coat, with much gesticulation, including the taking it half-off. To our delight, she appeared to understand at once—left the room, and returned in a minute with—a large clothes-brush. On this Liddon tried a further and more energetic demonstration; he took off his coat, and laid it at her feet, pointed downwards (to intimate that in the lower regions was the object of his desire), smiled with an expression of the joy and gratitude with which he would receive it, and put the coat on again. Once more a gleam of intelligence lighted up the plain but expressive features of the young person; she was absent much longer this time, and when she returned, she brought, to our dismay, a large cushion and a pillow, and began to prepare the sofa for the nap that she now saw clearly was the thing the dumb gentleman wanted. A happy thought occurred to me, and I hastily drew a sketch representing Liddon, with one coat on, receiving a second and larger one from the hands of a benignant Russian peasant. The language of hieroglyphics succeeded where all other means had failed, and we returned to St. Petersburg with the humiliating knowledge that our standard of civilisation was now reduced to the level of ancient Nineveh.

At Warsaw they made a short stay, putting up at the Hotel d'Angleterre:—

Our passage is inhabited by a tall and very friendly grey-hound, who walks in whenever the door is opened for a second or two, and who for some time threatened to make the labour of the servant, who was bringing water for a bath, of no effect, by drinking up the water as fast as it was brought.

From Warsaw they went on to Leipzig, and thence to Giessen, where they arrived on September 4th.

We moved on to Giessen, and put up at the "Rappe Hotel" for the night, and ordered an early breakfast of an obliging waiter who talked English. "Coffee!" he exclaimed delightedly, catching at the word as if it were a really original idea, "Ah, coffee—very nice—and eggs? Ham with your eggs? Very nice—" "If we can have it broiled," I said. "Boiled?" the waiter repeated, with an incredulous smile. "No, not boiled," I explained—"broiled." The waiter put aside this distinction as trivial, "Yes, yes, ham," he repeated, reverting to his favourite idea. "Yes, ham," I said, "but how cooked?" "Yes, yes, how cooked," the waiter replied, with the careless air of one who assents to a proposition more from good nature than from a real conviction of its truth.

Sept. 5th.—At midday we reached Ems, after a journey eventless, but through a very interesting country-valleys winding away in all directions among hills clothed with trees to the very top, and white villages nestling away wherever there was a comfortable corner to hide in. The trees were so small, so uniform in colour, and so continuous, that they gave to the more distant hills something of the effect of banks covered with moss. The really unique feature of the scenery was the way in which the old castles seemed to grow, rather than to have been built, on the tops of the rocky promontories that showed their heads here and there among the trees. I have never seen architecture that seemed so entirely in harmony with the spirit of the place. By some subtle instinct the old architects seem to have chosen both form and colour, the grouping of the towers with their pointed spires, and the two neutral tints, light grey and brown, on the walls and roof, so as to produce buildings which look as naturally fitted to the spot as the heath or the harebells. And, like the flowers and the rocks, they seemed instinct with no other meaning than rest and silence.

And with these beautiful words my extracts from the Diary may well conclude. Lewis Carroll's mind was completely at one with Nature, and in her pleasant places of calm and infinite repose he sought his rest—and has found it.

CHAPTER IV

(1868—1876)

Death of Archdeacon Dodgson—Lewis Carroll's rooms at Christ Church—"Phantasmagoria"—Translations of "Alice"—"Through the Looking-Glass"—"Jabberwocky" in Latin—C.S. Calverley—"Notes by an Oxford Chiel"—Hatfield—Vivisection—"The Hunting of the Snark."

The success of "Alice in Wonderland" tempted Mr. Dodgson to make another essay in the same field of literature. His idea had not yet been plagiarised, as it was afterwards, though the book had of course been parodied, a notable instance being "Alice in Blunderland," which appeared in Punch. It was very different when he came to write "Sylvie and Bruno"; the countless imitations of the two "Alice" books which had been foisted upon the public forced him to strike out in a new line. Long before the publication of his second tale, people had heard that Lewis Carroll was writing again, and the editor of a well-known magazine had offered him two guineas a page, which was a high rate of pay in those days, for the story, if he would allow it to appear in serial form.

The central idea was, as every one knows, the adventures of a little girl who had somehow or other got through a looking-glass. The first difficulty, however, was to get her through, and this question exercised his ingenuity for some time, before it was satisfactorily solved. The next thing was to secure Tenniel's services again. At first it seemed that he was to be disappointed in this matter; Tenniel was so fully occupied with other work that there seemed little hope of his being able to undertake any more. He then applied to Sir Noel Paton, with whose fairy-pictures he had fallen in love; but the artist was ill, and wrote in reply, "Tenniel is the man." In the end Tenniel consented to undertake the work, and once more author and artist settled down to work together. Mr. Dodgson was no easy man to work with; no detail was too small for his exact criticism. "Don't give Alice so much crinoline," he would write, or "The White Knight must not have whiskers; he must not be made to look old"—such were the directions he was constantly giving.

On June 21st Archdeacon Dodgson died, after an illness of only a few days' duration. Lewis Carroll was not summoned until too late, for the illness took a sudden turn for the worse, and he was unable to reach his father's bedside before the end had come. This was a terrible shock to him; his father had been his ideal of what a Christian gentleman should be, and it seemed to him at first as if a cloud had settled on his life which could never be dispelled. Two letters of his, both of them written long after the sad event, give one some idea of the grief which his father's death, and all that it entailed, caused him. The first was written long afterwards, to one who had suffered a similar bereavement. In this letter he said:—

We are sufficiently old friends, I feel sure, for me to have no fear that I shall seem intrusive in writing about your great sorrow. The greatest blow that has ever fallen on my life was the death, nearly thirty years ago, of my own dear father; so, in offering you my sincere sympathy, I write as a fellow-sufferer. And I rejoice to know that we are not only fellow-sufferers, but also fellow-believers in the blessed hope of the resurrection from the dead, which makes such a parting holy and beautiful, instead of being merely a blank despair.

The second was written to a young friend, Miss Edith Rix, who had sent him an illuminated text:

My dear Edith,—I can now tell you (what I wanted to do when you sent me that text-card, but felt I could not say it to two listeners, as it were) why that special card is one I like to have. That text is consecrated for me by the memory of one of the greatest sorrows I have known—the death of my dear father. In those solemn days, when we used to steal, one by one, into the darkened room, to take yet another look at the dear calm face, and to pray for strength, the one feature in the room that I remember was a framed text, illuminated by one of my sisters, "Then are they glad, because they are at rest; and so he bringeth them into the haven where they would be!" That text will always have, for me, a sadness and a sweetness of its own. Thank you again for sending it me. Please don't mention this when we meet. I can't talk about it.

Always affectionately yours,

C. L. DODGSON.

The object of his edition of Euclid Book V., published during the course of the year, was to meet the requirements of the ordinary Pass Examination, and to present the subject in as short and simple a form as possible. Hence the Theory of Incommensurable Magnitudes was omitted, though, as the author himself said in the Preface, to do so rendered the work incomplete, and, from a logical point of view, valueless. He hinted pretty plainly his own preference for an equivalent amount of Algebra, which would be complete in itself. It is easy to understand this preference in a mind so strictly logical as his.

So far as the object of the book itself is concerned, he succeeded admirably; the propositions are clearly and beautifully worked out, and the hints on proving Propositions in Euclid Book V., are most useful.

PROF. FARADAY.

From a photograph by Lewis Carroll.

In November he again moved into new rooms at Christ Church; the suite which he occupied from this date to the end of his life was one of the best in the College. Situated at the north-west corner of Tom Quad, on the first floor of the staircase from the entrance to which the Junior Common Room is now approached, they consist of four sitting-rooms and about an equal number of bedrooms, besides rooms for lumber, &c. From the upper floor one can easily reach the flat college roof. Mr. Dodgson saw at once that here was the very place for a photographic studio, and he lost no time in obtaining the consent of the authorities to erect one. Here he took innumerable photographs of his friends and their children, as indeed he had been doing for some time under less favourable conditions. One of his earliest pictures is an excellent likeness of Professor Faraday.

His study was characteristic of the man; oil paintings by A. Hughes, Mrs. Anderson, and Heaphy proclaimed his artistic tastes; nests of pigeon-holes, each neatly labelled, showed his love of order; shelves, filled with the best books on every subject that interested him, were evidence of his wide reading. His library has now been broken up and, except for a few books retained by his nearest relatives, scattered to the winds; such dispersions are inevitable, but they are none the less regrettable. It always seems to me that one of the saddest things about the death of a literary man is the fact that the breaking-up of his collection of books almost invariably follows; the building up of a good library, the work of a lifetime, has been so much labour lost, so far as future generations are concerned. Talent, yes, and genius too, are displayed not only in writing books but also in buying them, and it is a pity that the ruthless hammer of the auctioneer should render so much energy and skill fruitless.

LEWIS CARROLL'S STUDY

AT CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD.

Lewis Carroll's dining-room has been the scene of many a pleasant little party, for he was very fond of entertaining. In his Diary, each of the dinners and luncheons that he gave is recorded by a small diagram, which shows who his guests were, and their several positions at the table. He kept a menu book as well, that the same people might not have the same dishes too frequently. He sometimes gave large parties, but his favourite form of social relaxation was a dîner à deux.

JUSTICE DENMAN.

From a photograph by Lewis Carroll.

At the beginning of 1869 his "Phantasmagoria," a collection of poems grave and gay, was published by Macmillan. Upon the whole he was more successful in humorous poetry, but there is an undeniable dignity and pathos in his more serious verses. He gave a copy to Mr. Justice Denman, with whom he afterwards came to be very well acquainted, and who appreciated the gift highly. "I did not lay down the book," he wrote, "until I had read them [the poems] through; and enjoyed many a hearty laugh, and something like a cry or two. Moreover, I hope to read them through (as the old man said) 'again and again.'"

It had been Lewis Carroll's intention to have "Phantasmagoria" illustrated, and he had asked George du Maurier to undertake the work; but the plan fell through. In his letter to du Maurier, Mr. Dodgson had made some inquiries about Miss Florence Montgomery, the authoress of "Misunderstood." In reply du Maurier said, "Miss Florence Montgomery is a very charming and sympathetic young lady, the daughter of the admiral of that ilk. I am, like you, a very great admirer of "Misunderstood," and cried pints over it. When I was doing the last picture I had to put a long white pipe in the little boy's mouth until it was finished, so as to get rid of the horrible pathos of the situation while I was executing the work. In reading the book a second time (knowing the sad end of the dear little boy), the funny parts made me cry almost as much as the pathetic ones."

A few days after the publication of "Phantasmagoria," Lewis Carroll sent the first chapter of his new story to the press. "Behind the Looking-Glass and what Alice saw there" was his original idea for its title; it was Dr. Liddon who suggested the name finally adopted.

During this year German and French translations of "Alice in Wonderland" were published by Macmillan; the Italian edition appeared in 1872. Henri Bué, who was responsible for the French version, had no easy task to perform. In many cases the puns proved quite untranslatable; while the poems, being parodies on well-known English pieces, would have been pointless on the other side of the Channel. For instance, the lines beginning, "How doth the little crocodile" are a parody on "How doth the little busy bee," a song which a French child has, of course, never heard of. In this case Bué gave up the idea of translation altogether, and, instead, parodied La Fontaine's "Maître Corbeau" as follows:—

Maître Corbeau sur un arbre perché

Faisait son nid entre des branches;

Il avait relevé ses manches,

Car il était très affairé.

Maître Renard par là passant,

Lui dit: "Descendez donc, compère;

Venez embrasser votre frère!"

Le Corbeau, le reconnaissant,

Lui répondit en son ramage!—

"Fromage."

The dialogue in which the joke occurs about "tortoise" and "taught us" ("Wonderland," p. 142) is thus rendered:—

"La maîtresse était une vieille tortue; nous l'appelions chélonée."

"Et pourquoi l'appeliez-vous chélonée, si ce n'était pas son nom?"

"Parcequ'on ne pouvait s'empêcher de s'écrier en la voyant: Quel long nez!" dit la Fausse-Tortue d'un ton fâché; "vous êtes vraiment bien bornée!"

At two points, however, both M. Bué and Miss Antonie Zimmermann, who translated the tale into German, were fairly beaten: the reason for the whiting being so called, from its doing the boots and shoes, and for no wise fish going anywhere without a porpoise, were given up as untranslatable.

LORD SALISBURY

AND HIS TWO SONS.

From a photograph

by Lewis Carroll.

At the beginning of 1870 Lord Salisbury came up to Oxford to be installed as Chancellor of the University. Dr. Liddon introduced Mr. Dodgson to him, and thus began a very pleasant acquaintance. Of course he photographed the Chancellor and his two sons, for he never missed an opportunity of getting distinguished people into his studio.

In December, seven "Puzzles from Wonderland" appeared in Mrs. Gatty's paper, Aunt Judy's Magazine. They had originally been written for the Cecil children, with whom Lewis Carroll was already on the best terms. Meanwhile "Through the Looking-Glass" was steadily progressing—not, however, without many little hitches. One question which exercised Mr. Dodgson very much was whether the picture of the Jabberwock would do as a frontispiece, or whether it would be too frightening for little children. On this point he sought the advice of about thirty of his married lady friends, whose experiences with their own children would make them trustworthy advisers; and in the end he chose the picture of the White Knight on horseback. In 1871 the book appeared, and was an instantaneous success. Eight thousand of the first edition had been taken up by the booksellers before Mr. Dodgson had even received his own presentation copies. The compliments he received upon the "Looking-Glass" would have been enough to turn a lesser man's head, but he was, I think, proof against either praise or blame.

I can say with a clear head and conscience [wrote Henry Kingsley] that your new book is the finest thing we have had since "Martin Chuzzlewit." ... I can only say, in comparing the new "Alice" with the old, "this is a more excellent song than the other." It is perfectly splendid, but you have, doubtless, heard that from other quarters. I lunch with Macmillan habitually, and he was in a terrible pickle about not having printed enough copies the other day.

Jabberwocky[017] was at once recognised as the best and most original thing in the book, though one fair correspondent of The Queen declared that it was a translation from the German! The late Dean of Rochester, Dr. Scott, writes about it to Mr. Dodgson as follows:—

Are we to suppose, after all, that the Saga of Jabberwocky is one of the universal heirlooms which the Aryan race at its dispersion carried with it from the great cradle of the family? You must really consult Max Müller about this. It begins to be probable that the origo originalissima may be discovered in Sanscrit, and that we shall by and by have a Iabrivokaveda . The hero will turn out to be the Sun-god in one of his Avatars; and the Tumtum tree the great Ash Ygdrasil of the Scandinavian mythology.

In March, 1872, the late Mr. A.A. Vansittart, of Trinity College, Cambridge, translated the poem into Latin elegiacs. His rendering was printed, for private circulation only, I believe, several years later, but will probably be new to most of my readers. A careful comparison with the original shows the wonderful fidelity of this translation:—

"MORS IABROCHII"

Coesper[018] erat: tunc lubriciles[019] ultravia circum

Urgebant gyros gimbiculosque tophi;

Moestenui visae borogovides ire meatu;

Et profugi gemitus exgrabuêre rathae.

O fuge Iabrochium, sanguis meus![020] Ille recurvis

Unguibus, estque avidis dentibus ille minax.

Ububae fuge cautus avis vim, gnate! Neque unquam

Faedarpax contra te frumiosus eat!

Vorpali gladio juvenis succingitur: hostis

Manxumus ad medium quaeritur usque diem:

Jamque via fesso, sed plurima mente prementi,

Tumtumiae frondis suaserat umbra moram.

Consilia interdum stetit egnia[021] mente revolvens:

At gravis in densa fronde susuffrus[022] erat,

Spiculaque[023] ex oculis jacientis flammea, tulscam

Per silvam venit burbur?[024] Iabrochii!

Vorpali, semel atque iterum collectus in ictum,

Persnicuit gladio persnacuitque puer:

Deinde galumphatus, spernens informe cadaver,

Horrendum monstri rettulit ipse caput.

Victor Iabrochii, spoliis insignis opimis,

Rursus in amplexus, o radiose, meos!

O frabiose dies! CALLO clamateque CALLA!

Vix potuit laetus chorticulare pater.

Coesper erat: tunc lubriciles ultravia circum

Urgebant gyros gimbiculosque tophi;

Moestenui visae borogovides ire meatu;

Et profugi gemitus exgrabuêre rathae.

A.A.V.

JABBERWOCKY.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogroves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that scratch!

Beware the Jubjub 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 borogroves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

The story, as originally written, contained thirteen chapters, but the published book consisted of twelve only. The omitted chapter introduced a wasp, in the character of a judge or barrister, I suppose, since Mr. Tenniel wrote that "a wasp in a wig is altogether beyond the appliances of art." Apart from difficulties of illustration, the "wasp" chapter was not considered to be up to the level of the rest of the book, and this was probably the principal reason of its being left out.

"It is a curious fact," wrote Mr. Tenniel some years later, when replying to a request of Lewis Carroll's that he would illustrate another of his books, "that with 'Through the Looking-Glass' the faculty of making drawings for book illustration departed from me, and, notwithstanding all sorts of tempting inducements, I have done nothing in that direction since."

Facsimile of a letter

from Sir John Tenniel

to Lewis Carroll,

June 1, 1870.

"Through the Looking Glass" has recently appeared in a solemn judgment of the House of Lords. In Eastman Photographic Materials Company v. Comptroller General of Patents, Designs, and Trademarks (1898), the question for decision was, What constitutes an invented word? A trademark that consists of or contains an invented word or words is capable of registration. "Solio" was the word in issue in the case. Lord Macnaghten in his judgment said, when alluding to the distinguishing characteristics of an invented word:

I do not think that it is necessary that it should be wholly meaningless. To give an illustration: your lordships may remember that in a book of striking humour and fancy, which was in everybody's hands when it was first published, there is a collection of strange words where "there are" (to use the language of the author) "two meanings packed up into one word." No one would say that those were not invented words. Still they contain a meaning—a meaning is wrapped up in them if you can only find it out.

Before I leave the subject of the "Looking-Glass," I should like to mention one or two circumstances in connection with it which illustrate his reverence for sacred things. In his original manuscript the bad-tempered flower (pp. 28—33) was the passion-flower; the sacred origin of the name never struck him, until it was pointed out to him by a friend, when he at once changed it into the tiger-lily. Another friend asked him if the final scene was based upon the triumphal conclusion of "Pilgrim's Progress." He repudiated the idea, saying that he would consider such trespassing on holy ground as highly irreverent.

He seemed never to be satisfied with the amount of work he had on hand, and in 1872 he determined to add to his other labours by studying anatomy and physiology. Professor Barclay Thompson supplied him with a set of bones, and, having purchased the needful books, he set to work in good earnest. His mind was first turned to acquiring medical knowledge by his happening to be at hand when a man was seized with an epileptic fit. He had prevented the poor creature from falling, but was utterly at a loss what to do next. To be better prepared on any future occasion, he bought a little manual called "What to do in Emergencies." In later years he was constantly buying medical and surgical works, and by the end of his life he had a library of which no doctor need have been ashamed. There were only two special bequests in his will, one of some small keepsakes to his landlady at Eastbourne, Mrs. Dyer, and the other of his medical books to my brother.

Whenever a new idea presented itself to his mind he used to make a note of it; he even invented a system by which he could take notes in the dark, if some happy thought or ingenious problem suggested itself to him during a sleepless night. Like most men who systematically overtax their brains, he was a poor sleeper. He would sometimes go through a whole book of Euclid in bed; he was so familiar with the bookwork that he could actually see the figures before him in the dark, and did not confuse the letters, which is perhaps even more remarkable.

Most of his ideas were ingenious, though many were entirely useless from a practical point of view. For instance, he has an entry in his Diary on November 8, 1872: "I wrote to Calverley, suggesting an idea (which I think occurred to me yesterday) of guessing well-known poems as acrostics, and making a collection of them to hoax the public." Calverley's reply to this letter was as follows:—

My dear Sir,—I have been laid up (or laid down) for the last few days by acute lumbago, or I would have written before. It is rather absurd that I was on the point of propounding to you this identical idea. I realised, and I regret to add revealed to two girls, a fortnight ago, the truth that all existing poems were in fact acrostics; and I offered a small pecuniary reward to whichever would find out Gray's "Elegy" within half an hour! But it never occurred to me to utilise the discovery, as it did to you. I see that it might be utilised, now you mention it—and I shall instruct these two young women not to publish the notion among their friends.

This is the way Mr. Calverley treated Kirke White's poem "To an early Primrose." "The title," writes C.S.C. "might either be ignored or omitted. Possibly carpers might say that a primrose was not a rose."

         Mild offspring of a dark and sullen sire!

    Whose modest form, so delicately fine,                      Wild

        Was nursed in whistling storms                          Rose

        And cradled in the winds!

    Thee, when young Spring first questioned Winter's sway,

    And dared the sturdy blusterer to the fight,               W     a    R

        Thee on this bank he threw

        To mark his victory.

    In this low vale, the promise of the year,

    Serene thou openest to the nipping gale,

        Unnoticed and alone                                    I  ncognit O

        Thy tender elegance.

    So Virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms

    Of chill adversity, in some lone walk

        Of life she rears her head                             L owlines  S

        Obscure and unobserved.

    While every bleaching breeze that on her blows

    Chastens her spotless purity of breast,

        And hardens her to bear                                D isciplin E

        Serene the ills of life.    

In the course of their correspondence Mr. Calverley wrote a Shakespearian sonnet, the initial letters of which form the name of William Herbert; and a parody entitled "The New Hat." I reproduce them both.

When o'er the world Night spreads her mantle dun,

In dreams, my love, I see those stars, thine eyes,

Lighting the dark: but when the royal sun

Looks o'er the pines and fires the orient skies,

I bask no longer in thy beauty's ray,

And lo! my world is bankrupt of delight.

Murk night seemed lately fair-complexioned day;

Hope-bringing day now seems most doleful night.

End, weary day, that art no day to me!

Return, fair night, to me the best of days!

But O my rose, whom in my dreams I see,

Enkindle with like bliss my waking gaze!

Replete with thee, e'en hideous night grows fair:

Then what would sweet morn be, if thou wert there?

THE NEW HAT.

My boots had been wash'd, well wash'd, by a shower;

But little I car'd about that:

What I felt was the havoc a single half-hour

Had made with my beautiful Hat.

For the Boot, tho' its lustre be dimm'd, shall assume

New comeliness after a while;

But no art may restore its original bloom,

When once it hath fled, to the Tile.

I clomb to my perch, and the horses (a bay

And a brown) trotted off with a clatter;

The driver look'd round in his humorous way,

And said huskily, "Who is your hatter?"

I was pleased that he'd noticed its shape and its shine;

And, as soon as we reached the "Old Druid,"

I begged him to drink to its welfare and mine

In a glass of my favourite fluid.

A gratified smile sat, I own, on my lips

When the barmaid exclaimed to the master,

(He was standing inside with his hands on his hips),

"Just look at that gentleman's castor."

I laughed, when an organman paus'd in mid-air—

('Twas an air that I happened to know,

By a great foreign maestro)—expressly to stare

At ze gent wiz ze joli chapeau .

Yet how swift is the transit from laughter to tears!

How rife with results is a day!

That Hat might, with care, have adorned me for years;

But one show'r wash'd its beauty away.

How I lov'd thee, my Bright One! I pluck in remorse

My hands from my pockets and wring 'em:

Oh, why did not I, dear, as a matter of course,

Ere I purchas'd thee purchase a gingham?

C.S. CALVERLEY.

Mr. Dodgson spent the last night of the old year (1872) at Hatfield, where he was the guest of Lord Salisbury. There was a large party of children in the house, one of them being Princess Alice, to whom he told as much of the story of "Sylvie and Bruno" as he had then composed. While the tale was in progress Lady Salisbury entered the room, bringing in some new toy or game to amuse her little guests, who, with the usual thoughtlessness of children, all rushed off and left Mr. Dodgson. But the little Princess, suddenly appearing to remember that to do so might perhaps hurt his feelings, sat down again by his side. He read the kind thought which prompted her action, and was much pleased by it.

As Mr. Dodgson knew several members of the Punch staff, he used to send up any little incidents or remarks that particularly amused him to that paper. He even went so far as to suggest subjects for cartoons, though I do not know if his ideas were ever carried out. One of the anecdotes he sent to Punch was that of a little boy, aged four, who after having listened with much attention to the story of Lot's wife, asked ingenuously, "Where does salt come from that's not made of ladies?" This appeared on January 3, 1874.

The following is one of several such little anecdotes jotted down by Lewis Carroll for future use: Dr. Paget was conducting a school examination, and in the course of his questions he happened to ask a small child the meaning of "Average." He was utterly bewildered by the reply, "The thing that hens lay on," until the child explained that he had read in a book that hens lay on an average so many eggs a year.

JOHN RUSKIN.

From a photograph

by Lewis Carroll.

Among the notable people whom he photographed was John Ruskin, and, as several friends begged him for copies, he wrote to ask Mr. Ruskin's leave. The reply was, "Buy Number 5 of Fors Clavigera for 1871, which will give you your answer." This was not what Mr. Dodgson wanted, so he wrote back, "Can't afford ten-pence!" Finally Mr. Ruskin gave his consent.

About this time came the anonymous publication of "Notes by an Oxford Chiel," a collection of papers written on various occasions, and all of them dealing with Oxford controversies. Taking them in order, we have first "The New Method of Evaluation as applied to pi," first published by Messrs. Parker in 1865, which had for its subject the controversy about the Regius Professorship of Greek. One extract will be sufficient to show the way in which the affair was treated: "Let U = the University, G = Greek, and P = Professor. Then G P = Greek Professor; let this be reduced to its lowest terms and call the result J [i.e., Jowett]."

The second paper is called "The Dynamics of a Parti-cle," and is quite the best of the series; it is a geometrical treatment of the contest between Mr. Gathorne Hardy and Mr. Gladstone for the representation of the University. Here are some of the "Definitions" with which the subject was introduced:—

Plain Superficiality is the character of a speech, in which any two points being taken, the speaker is found to lie wholly with regard to those two points.

Plain Anger is the inclination of two voters to one another, who meet together, but whose views are not in the same direction.

When two parties, coming together, feel a Right Anger, each is said to be complimentary to the other, though, strictly speaking, this is very seldom the case.

A surd is a radical whose meaning cannot be exactly ascertained.

As the "Notes of an Oxford Chiel" has been long out of print, I will give a few more extracts from this paper:—

On Differentiation.

The effect of Differentiation on a Particle is very remarkable, the first differential being frequently of greater value than the original particle, and the second of less enlightenment.

For example, let L = "Leader", S = "Saturday", and then LS = "Leader in the Saturday" (a particle of no assignable value). Differentiating once, we get L.S.D., a function of great value. Similarly it will be found that, by taking the second Differential of an enlightened Particle (i.e., raising it to the Degree D.D.), the enlightenment becomes rapidly less. The effect is much increased by the addition of a C: in this case the enlightenment often vanishes altogether, and the Particle becomes Conservative.

PROPOSITIONS.

PROP. I. PR.

To find the value of a given Examiner.

Example.—A takes in ten books in the Final Examination and gets a 3rd class; B takes in the Examiners, and gets a 2nd. Find the value of the Examiners in terms of books. Find also their value in terms in which no Examination is held.

PROP. II. PR.

To estimate Profit and Loss.

Example.—Given a Derby Prophet, who has sent three different winners to three different betting-men, and given that none of the three horses are placed. Find the total loss incurred by the three men (a) in money, (b) in temper. Find also the Prophet. Is this latter usually possible?

PROP. IV. TH.

The end (i.e., "the product of the extremes") justifies (i.e., "is equal to"—see Latin "aequus") the means.

No example is appended to this Proposition, for obvious reasons.

PROP. V. PR.

To continue a given series.

Example.—A and B, who are respectively addicted to Fours and Fives, occupy the same set of rooms, which is always at Sixes and Sevens. Find the probable amount of reading done by A and B while the Eights are on.

The third paper was entitled "Facts, Figures, and Fancies." The best thing in it was a parody on "The Deserted Village," from which an extract will be found in a later chapter. There was also a letter to the Senior Censor of Christ Church, in burlesque of a similar letter in which the Professor of Physics met an offer of the Clarendon Trustees by a detailed enumeration of the requirements in his own department of Natural Science. Mr. Dodgson's letter deals with the imaginary requirements of the Mathematical school:—

Dear Senior Censor,—In a desultory conversation on a point connected with the dinner at our high table, you incidentally remarked to me that lobster-sauce, "though a necessary adjunct to turbot, was not entirely wholesome!"

It is entirely unwholesome. I never ask for it without reluctance: I never take a second spoonful without a feeling of apprehension on the subject of a possible nightmare. This naturally brings me to the subject of Mathematics, and of the accommodation provided by the University for carrying on the calculations necessary in that important branch of Science.

As Members of Convocation are called upon (whether personally, or, as is less exasperating, by letter) to consider the offer of the Clarendon Trustees, as well as every other subject of human, or inhuman, interest, capable of consideration, it has occurred to me to suggest for your consideration how desirable roofed buildings are for carrying on mathematical calculations: in fact, the variable character of the weather in Oxford renders it highly inexpedient to attempt much occupation, of a sedentary nature, in the open air.

Again, it is often impossible for students to carry on accurate mathematical calculations in close contiguity to one another, owing to their mutual conversation; consequently these processes require different rooms in which irrepressible conversationalists, who are found to occur in every branch of Society, might be carefully and permanently fixed.

It may be sufficient for the present to enumerate the following requisites—others might be added as funds permit:—

A. A very large room for calculating Greatest Common Measure. To this a small one might be attached for Least Common Multiple: this, however, might be dispensed with.

B. A piece of open ground for keeping Roots and practising their extraction: it would be advisable to keep Square Roots by themselves, as their corners are apt to damage others.

C. A room for reducing Fractions to their Lowest Terms. This should be provided with a cellar for keeping the Lowest Terms when found, which might also be available to the general body of Undergraduates, for the purpose of "keeping Terms."

D. A large room, which might be darkened, and fitted up with a magic lantern, for the purpose of exhibiting circulating Decimals in the act of circulation. This might also contain cupboards, fitted with glass doors, for keeping the various Scales of Notation.

E. A narrow strip of ground, railed off and carefully levelled, for investigating the properties of Asymptotes, and testing practically whether Parallel Lines meet or not: for this purpose it should reach, to use the expressive language of Euclid, "ever so far."

This last process of "continually producing the lines," may require centuries or more; but such a period, though long in the life of an individual, is as nothing in the life of the University.

As Photography is now very much employed in recording human expressions, and might possibly be adapted to Algebraical Expressions, a small photographic room would be desirable, both for general use and for representing the various phenomena of Gravity, Disturbance of Equilibrium, Resolution, &c., which affect the features during severe mathematical operations.

May I trust that you will give your immediate attention to this most important subject?

Believe me,

Sincerely yours,

Mathematicus.

Next came "The New Belfry of Christ Church, Oxford; a Monograph by D.C.L." On the title-page was a neatly drawn square—the figure of Euclid I. 46—below which was written "East view of the New Belfry, Christ Church, as seen from the meadow." The new belfry is fortunately a thing of the past, and its insolent hideousness no longer defaces Christ Church, but while it lasted it was no doubt an excellent target for Lewis Carroll's sarcasm. His article on it is divided into thirteen chapters. Three of them are perhaps worth quoting:—

§1. On the etymological significance of the new Belfry, Ch. Ch.

The word "Belfry" is derived from the French bel, "beautiful, becoming, meet," and from the German frei, "free unfettered, secure, safe." Thus, the word is strictly equivalent to "meat-safe," to which the new Belfry bears a resemblance so perfect as almost to amount to coincidence.

§4. On the chief architectural merit of the new Belfry, Ch. Ch.

Its chief merit is its simplicity—a simplicity so pure, so profound, in a word, so simple, that no other word will fitly describe it. The meagre outline, and baldness of detail, of the present Chapter, are adopted in humble imitation of this great feature.

§5. On the other architectural merits of the new Belfry, Ch. Ch.

The Belfry has no other architectural merits.

"The Vision of the Three T's" followed. It also was an attack on architectural changes in Christ Church; the general style was a parody of the "Compleat Angler." Last of all came "The Blank Cheque, a Fable," in reference to the building of the New Schools, for the expenses of which it was actually proposed (in 1874), to sign a blank cheque before any estimate had been made, or any plan laid before the University, and even before a committee had been elected to appoint an architect for the work.

At the end of 1874 Mr. Dodgson was again at Hatfield, where he told the children the story of Prince Uggug, which was afterwards made a part of "Sylvie and Bruno," though at that time it seems to have been a separate tale. But "Sylvie and Bruno," in this respect entirely unlike "Alice in Wonderland," was the result of notes taken during many years; for while he was thinking out the book he never neglected any amusing scraps of childish conversation or funny anecdotes about children which came to his notice. It is this fact which gives such verisimilitude to the prattle of Bruno; childish talk is a thing which a grown-up person cannot possibly invent. He can only listen to the actual things the children say, and then combine what he has heard into a connected narrative.

During 1875 Mr. Dodgson wrote an article on "Some Popular Fallacies about Vivisection," which was refused by the Pall Mall Gazette, the editor saying that he had never heard of most of them; on which Mr. Dodgson plaintively notes in his Diary that seven out of the thirteen fallacies dealt with in his essay had appeared in the columns of the Pall Mall Gazette. Ultimately it was accepted by the editor of The Fortnightly Review. Mr. Dodgson had a peculiar horror of vivisection. I was once walking in Oxford with him when a certain well-known professor passed us. "I am afraid that man vivisects," he said, in his gravest tone. Every year he used to get a friend to recommend him a list of suitable charities to which he should subscribe. Once the name of some Lost Dogs' Home appeared in this list. Before Mr. Dodgson sent his guinea he wrote to the secretary to ask whether the manager of the Home was in the habit of sending dogs that had to be killed to physiological laboratories for vivisection. The answer was in the negative, so the institution got the cheque. He did not, however, advocate the total abolition of vivisection—what reasonable man could?—but he would have liked to see it much more carefully restricted by law. An earlier letter of his to the Pall Mall Gazette on the same subject is sufficiently characteristic to deserve a place here. Be it noted that he signed it "Lewis Carroll," in order that whatever influence or power his writings had gained him might tell in the controversy.

VIVISECTION AS A SIGN OF THE TIMES.

To the Editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette."

Sir,—The letter which appeared in last week's Spectator, and which must have saddened the heart of every one who read it, seems to suggest a question which has not yet been asked or answered with sufficient clearness, and that is, How far may vivisection be regarded as a sign of the times, and a fair specimen of that higher civilisation which a purely secular State education is to give us? In that much-vaunted panacea for all human ills we are promised not only increase of knowledge, but also a higher moral character; any momentary doubt on this point which we may feel is set at rest at once by quoting the great crucial instance of Germany. The syllogism, if it deserves the name, is usually stated thus: Germany has a higher scientific education than England; Germany has a lower average of crime than England; ergo, a scientific education tends to improve moral conduct. Some old-fashioned logician might perhaps whisper to himself, "Praemissis particularibus nihil probatur," but such a remark, now that Aldrich is out of date, would only excite a pitying smile. May we, then, regard the practice of vivisection as a legitimate fruit, or as an abnormal development, of this higher moral character? Is the anatomist, who can contemplate unmoved the agonies he is inflicting for no higher purpose than to gratify a scientific curiosity, or to illustrate some well-established truth, a being higher or lower, in the scale of humanity, than the ignorant boor whose very soul would sicken at the horrid sight? For if ever there was an argument in favour of purely scientific education more cogent than another, it is surely this (a few years back it might have been put into the mouth of any advocate of science; now it reads like the merest mockery): "What can teach the noble quality of mercy, of sensitiveness to all forms of suffering, so powerfully as the knowledge of what suffering really is? Can the man who has once realised by minute study what the nerves are, what the brain is, and what waves of agony the one can convey to the other, go forth and wantonly inflict pain on any sentient being?" A little while ago we should have confidently replied, "He cannot do it"; in the light of modern revelations we must sorrowfully confess "He can." And let it never be said that this is done with serious forethought of the balance of pain and gain; that the operator has pleaded with himself, "Pain is indeed an evil, but so much suffering may fitly be endured to purchase so much knowledge." When I hear of one of these ardent searchers after truth giving, not a helpless dumb animal, to whom he says in effect, "You shall suffer that I may know," but his own person to the probe and to the scalpel, I will believe in him as recognising a principle of justice, and I will honour him as acting up to his principles. "But the thing cannot be!" cries some amiable reader, fresh from an interview with that most charming of men, a London physician. "What! Is it possible that one so gentle in manner, so full of noble sentiments, can be hardhearted? The very idea is an outrage to common sense!" And thus we are duped every day of our lives. Is it possible that that bank director, with his broad honest face, can be meditating a fraud? That the chairman of that meeting of shareholders, whose every tone has the ring of truth in it, can hold in his hand a "cooked" schedule of accounts? That my wine merchant, so outspoken, so confiding, can be supplying me with an adulterated article? That the schoolmaster, to whom I have entrusted my little boy, can starve or neglect him? How well I remember his words to the dear child when last we parted. "You are leaving your friends," he said, "but you will have a father in me, my dear, and a mother in Mrs. Squeers!" For all such rose-coloured dreams of the necessary immunity from human vices of educated men the facts in last week's Spectator have a terrible significance. "Trust no man further than you can see him," they seem to say. "Qui vult decipi, decipiatur."

Allow me to quote from a modern writer a few sentences bearing on this subject:—

"We are at present, legislature and nation together, eagerly pushing forward schemes which proceed on the postulate that conduct is determined, not by feelings, but by cognitions. For what else is the assumption underlying this anxious urging-on of organisations for teaching? What is the root-notion common to Secularists and Denominationalists but the notion that spread of knowledge is the one thing needful for bettering behaviour? Having both swallowed certain statistical fallacies, there has grown up in them the belief that State education will check ill-doing.... This belief in the moralising effects of intellectual culture, flatly contradicted by facts, is absurd a priori.... This faith in lesson-books and readings is one of the superstitions of the age.... Not by precept, though heard daily; not by example, unless it is followed; but only by action, often caused by the related feeling, can a moral habit be formed. And yet this truth, which mental science clearly teaches, and which is in harmony with familiar sayings, is a truth wholly ignored in current educational fanaticisms."

There need no praises of mine to commend to the consideration of all thoughtful readers these words of Herbert Spencer. They are to be found in "The Study of Sociology" (pp. 36l—367).

Let us, however, do justice to science. It is not so wholly wanting as Mr. Herbert Spencer would have us believe in principles of action—principles by which we may regulate our conduct in life. I myself once heard an accomplished man of science declare that his labours had taught him one special personal lesson which, above all others, he had laid to heart. A minute study of the nervous system, and of the various forms of pain produced by wounds had inspired in him one profound resolution; and that was—what think you?—never, under any circumstances, to adventure his own person into the field of battle! I have somewhere read in a book—a rather antiquated book, I fear, and one much discredited by modern lights—the words, "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." Truly we read these words with a new meaning in the present day! "Groan and travail" it undoubtedly does still (more than ever, so far as the brute creation is concerned); but to what end? Some higher and more glorious state? So one might have said a few years back. Not so in these days. The telos teleion of secular education, when divorced from religious or moral training, is—I say it deliberately—the purest and most unmitigated selfishness. The world has seen and tired of the worship of Nature, of Reason, of Humanity; for this nineteenth century has been reserved the development of the most refined religion of all—the worship of Self. For that, indeed, is the upshot of it all. The enslavement of his weaker brethren—"the labour of those who do not enjoy, for the enjoyment of those who do not labour"—the degradation of woman—the torture of the animal world—these are the steps of the ladder by which man is ascending to his higher civilisation. Selfishness is the key-note of all purely secular education; and I take vivisection to be a glaring, a wholly unmistakable case in point. And let it not be thought that this is an evil that we can hope to see produce the good for which we are asked to tolerate it, and then pass away. It is one that tends continually to spread. And if it be tolerated or even ignored now, the age of universal education, when the sciences, and anatomy among them, shall be the heritage of all, will be heralded by a cry of anguish from the brute creation that will ring through the length and breadth of the land! This, then, is the glorious future to which the advocate of secular education may look forward: the dawn that gilds the horizon of his hopes! An age when all forms of religious thought shall be things of the past; when chemistry and biology shall be the ABC of a State education enforced on all; when vivisection shall be practised in every college and school; and when the man of science, looking forth over a world which will then own no other sway than his, shall exult in the thought that he has made of this fair green earth, if not a heaven for man, at least a hell for animals.

I am, sir,

Your obedient servant,

Lewis Carroll.

February 10th.

On March 29, 1876, "The Hunting of the Snark" was published. Mr. Dodgson gives some interesting particulars of its evolution. The first idea for the poem was the line "For the Snark was a Boojum, you see," which came into his mind, apparently without any cause, while he was taking a country walk. The first complete verse which he composed was the one which stands last in the poem:—

In the midst of the word he was trying to say,

In the midst of his laughter and glee,

He had softly and suddenly vanished away—

For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.

HENRY HOLIDAY IN HIS STUDIO.

From a photograph

by Lewis Carroll.

The illustrations were the work of Mr. Henry Holiday, and they are thoroughly in keeping with the spirit of the poem. Many people have tried to show that "The Hunting of the Snark" was an allegory; some regarding it as being a burlesque upon the Tichborne case, and others taking the Snark as a personification of popularity. Lewis Carroll always protested that the poem had no meaning at all.

As to the meaning of the Snark [he wrote to a friend in America], I'm very much afraid I didn't mean anything but nonsense. Still, you know, words mean more than we mean to express when we use them; so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer means. So, whatever good meanings are in the book, I'm glad to accept as the meaning of the book. The best that I've seen is by a lady (she published it in a letter to a newspaper), that the whole book is an allegory on the search after happiness. I think this fits in beautifully in many ways—particularly about the bathing-machines: when the people get weary of life, and can't find happiness in towns or in books, then they rush off to the seaside, to see what bathing-machines will do for them.

Mr. H. Holiday, in a very interesting article on "The Snark's Significance" (Academy, January 29, 1898), quoted the inscription which Mr. Dodgson had written in a vellum-bound, presentation-copy of the book. It is so characteristic that I take the liberty of reproducing it here:—

Presented to Henry Holiday, most patient of artists, by Charles L. Dodgson, most exacting, but not most ungrateful of authors, March 29, 1876.

A little girl, to whom Mr. Dodgson had given a copy of the "Snark," managed to get the whole poem off by heart, and insisted on reciting, it from beginning to end during a long carriage-drive. Her friends, who, from the nature of the case, were unable to escape, no doubt wished that she, too, was a Boojum.

During the year, the first public dramatic representation of "Alice in Wonderland" was given at the Polytechnic, the entertainment taking the form of a series of tableaux, interspersed with appropriate readings and songs. Mr. Dodgson exercised a rigid censorship over all the extraneous matter introduced into the performance, and put his veto upon a verse in one of the songs, in which the drowning of kittens was treated from the humorous point of view, lest the children in the audience might learn to think lightly of death in the case of the lower animals.

CHAPTER V

(1877—1883)

Dramatic tastes—Miss Ellen Terry—"Natural Science at Oxford"—Mr. Dodgson as an artist—Miss E. G. Thomson—The drawing of children—A curious dream—"The Deserted Parks"—"Syzygies"—Circus children—Row-loving undergraduates—A letter to The Observer—Resignation of the Lectureship—He is elected Curator of the Common Room—Dream-music.

LEWIS CARROLL.

From a photograph.

Mr. Dodgson's love of the drama was not, as I have shown, a taste which he acquired in later years. From early college days he never missed anything which he considered worth seeing at the London theatres. I believe he used to reproach himself—unfairly, I think—with spending too much time on such recreations. For a man who worked so hard and so incessantly as he did; for a man to whom vacations meant rather a variation of mental employment than absolute rest of mind, the drama afforded just the sort of relief that was wanted. His vivid imagination, the very earnestness and intensity of his character enabled him to throw himself utterly into the spirit of what he saw upon the stage, and to forget in it all the petty worries and disappointments of life. The old adage says that a man cannot burn the candle at both ends; like most proverbs, it is only partially true, for often the hardest worker is the man who enters with most zest into his recreations, and this was emphatically the case with Mr. Dodgson.

Walter Pater, in his book on the Renaissance, says (I quote from rough notes only), "A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to be seen in them by the finest senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy? To burn always with this hard gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life." Here we have the truer philosophy, here we have the secret of Lewis Carroll's life. He never wasted time on social formalities; he refused to fulfil any of those (so called) duties which involve ineffable boredom, and so his mind was always fresh and ready. He said in one of his letters that he hoped that in the next world all knowledge would not be given to us suddenly, but that we should gradually grow wiser, for the acquiring knowledge was to him the real pleasure. What is this but a paraphrase of another of Pater's thoughts, "Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself is the end."

And so, times without number, he allowed himself to be carried away by emotion as he saw life in the mirror of the stage; but, best of all, he loved to see the acting of children, and he generally gave copies of his books to any of the little performers who specially pleased him. On January 13, 1877, he wrote in his Diary:—

Went up to town for the day, and took E— with me to the afternoon pantomime at the Adelphi, "Goody Two-Shoes," acted entirely by children. It was a really charming performance. Little Bertie Coote, aged ten, was clown—a wonderfully clever little fellow; and Carrie Coote, about eight, was Columbine, a very pretty graceful little thing. In a few years' time she will be just the child to act "Alice," if it is ever dramatised. The harlequin was a little girl named Gilchrist, one of the most beautiful children, in face and figure, that I have ever seen. I must get an opportunity of photographing her. Little Bertie Coote, singing "Hot Codlings," was curiously like the pictures of Grimaldi.

It need hardly be said that the little girl was Miss Constance Gilchrist. Mr. Dodgson sent her a copy of "Alice in Wonderland," with a set of verses on her name.

Many people object altogether to children appearing on the stage; it is said to be bad for their morals as well as for their health. A letter which Mr. Dodgson once wrote in the St. James's Gazette contains a sufficient refutation of the latter fancy:—

I spent yesterday afternoon at Brighton, where for five hours I enjoyed the society of three exceedingly happy and healthy little girls, aged twelve, ten, and seven. I think that any one who could have seen the vigour of life in those three children—the intensity with which they enjoyed everything, great or small, that came in their way—who could have watched the younger two running races on the Pier, or have heard the fervent exclamation of the eldest at the end of the afternoon, "We have enjoyed ourselves!" would have agreed with me that here, at least, there was no excessive "physical strain," nor any imminent danger of "fatal results"! A drama, written by Mr. Savile Clarke, is now being played at Brighton, and in this (it is called "Alice in Wonderland") all three children have been engaged. They had been acting every night this week, and twice on the day before I met them, the second performance lasting till half-past ten at night, after which they got up at seven next morning to bathe! That such (apparently) severe work should co-exist with blooming health and buoyant spirits seems at first sight a paradox; but I appeal to any one who has ever worked con amore at any subject whatever to support me in the assertion that, when you really love the subject you are working at, the "physical strain" is absolutely nil; it is only when working "against the grain" that any strain is felt, and I believe the apparent paradox is to be explained by the fact that a taste for acting is one of the strongest passions of human nature, that stage-children show it nearly from infancy, and that, instead of being miserable drudges who ought to be celebrated in a new "Cry of the Children," they simply rejoice in their work "even as a giant rejoiceth to run his course."

Mr. Dodgson's general views on the mission of the drama are well shown by an extract from a circular which he sent to many of his friends in 1882:—

The stage (as every playgoer can testify) is an engine of incalculable power for influencing society; and every effort to purify and ennoble its aims seems to me to deserve all the countenance that the great, and all the material help that the wealthy, can give it; while even those who are neither great nor wealthy may yet do their part, and help to—

"Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be."

I do not know if Mr. Dodgson's suggested amendment of some lines in the "Merchant of Venice" was ever carried out, but it further illustrates the serious view he took of this subject. The hint occurs in a letter to Miss Ellen Terry, which runs as follows:—

ELLEN TERRY.

From a photograph

by Lewis Carroll.

You gave me a treat on Saturday such as I have very seldom had in my life. You must be weary by this time of hearing your own praises, so I will only say that Portia was all I could have imagined, and more. And Shylock is superb—especially in the trial-scene.

Now I am going to be very bold, and make a suggestion, which I do hope you will think well enough of to lay it before Mr. Irving. I want to see that clause omitted (in the sentence on Shylock)—

That, for this favour,

He presently become a Christian;

It is a sentiment that is entirely horrible and revolting to the feelings of all who believe in the Gospel of Love. Why should our ears be shocked by such words merely because they are Shakespeare's? In his day, when it was held to be a Christian's duty to force his belief on others by fire and sword—to burn man's body in order to save his soul—the words probably conveyed no shock. To all Christians now (except perhaps extreme Calvinists) the idea of forcing a man to abjure his religion, whatever that religion may be, is (as I have said) simply horrible.

I have spoken of it as a needless outrage on religious feeling: but surely, being so, it is a great artistic mistake. Its tendency is directly contrary to the spirit of the scene. We have despised Shylock for his avarice, and we rejoice to see him lose his wealth: we have abhorred him for his bloodthirsty cruelty, and we rejoice to see him baffled. And now, in the very fulness of our joy at the triumph of right over wrong, we are suddenly called on to see in him the victim of a cruelty a thousand times worse than his own, and to honour him as a martyr. This, I am sure, Shakespeare never meant. Two touches only of sympathy does he allow us, that we may realise him as a man, and not as a demon incarnate. "I will not pray with you"; "I had it of Leah, when I was a bachelor." But I am sure he never meant our sympathies to be roused in the supreme moment of his downfall, and, if he were alive now, I believe he would cut out those lines about becoming a Christian.

No interpolation is needed—(I should not like to suggest the putting in a single word that is not Shakespeare's)—I would read the speech thus:—

That lately stole his daughter:

Provided that he do record a gift,

Here in the court, &c.

And I would omit Gratiano's three lines at Shylock's exit, and let the text stand:—

Duke: "Get thee gone, but do it." (Exit Shylock.)

The exit, in solemn silence, would be, if possible, even grander than it now is, and would lose nothing by the omission of Gratiano's flippant jest....

TOM TAYLOR.

From a photograph

by Lewis Carroll.

On January 16th he saw "New Men and Old Acres" at the Court Theatre. The two authors of the pieces, Dubourg and Tom Taylor, were great friends of his. "It was a real treat," he writes, "being well acted in every detail. Ellen Terry was wonderful, and I should think unsurpassable in all but the lighter parts." Mr. Dodgson himself had a strong wish to become a dramatic author, but, after one or two unsuccessful attempts to get his plays produced, he wisely gave up the idea, realising that he had not the necessary constructive powers. The above reference to Miss Ellen Terry's acting is only one out of a countless number; the great actress and he were excellent friends, and she did him many a kindness in helping on young friends of his who had taken up the stage as a profession.

KATE TERRY.

From a photograph

by Lewis Carroll.

She and her sister, Miss Kate Terry, were among the distinguished people whom he photographed. The first time he saw the latter actress was, I think, in 1858, when she was playing in "The Tempest" at the Princess's. "The gem of the piece," he writes, "was the exquisitely graceful and beautiful Ariel, Miss Kate Terry. Her appearance as a sea-nymph was one of the most beautiful living pictures I ever saw, but this, and every other one in my recollection (except Queen Katherine's dream), were all outdone by the concluding scene, where Ariel is left alone, hovering over the wide ocean, watching the retreating ship. It is an innovation on Shakespeare, but a worthy one, and the conception of a true poet."

Mr. Dodgson was a frequent contributor to the daily Press. As a rule his letters appeared in the St. James's Gazette, for the editor, Mr. Greenwood, was a friend of his, but the following sarcastic epistle was an exception:—

NATURAL SCIENCE AT OXFORD.

To the Editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette."

Sir,—There is no one of the many ingenious appliances of mechanical science that is more appreciated or more successfully employed than the wedge; so subtle and imperceptible are the forces needed for the insertion of its "thin end," so astounding the results which its "thick end" may ultimately produce. Of the former process we shall see a beautiful illustration in a Congregation to be holden at Oxford on the 24th inst., when it will be proposed to grant, to those who have taken the degrees of bachelor and master in Natural Science only, the same voting powers as in the case of the "M.A." degree. This means the omission of one of the two classical languages, Latin and Greek, from what has been hitherto understood as the curriculum of an Oxford education. It is to this "thin end" of the wedge that I would call the attention of our non-residents, and of all interested in Oxford education, while the "thick end" is still looming in the distance. But why fear a "thick end" at all? I shall be asked. Has Natural Science shown any such tendency, or given any reason to fear that such a concession would lead to further demands? In answer to that question, let me sketch, in dramatic fashion, the history of her recent career in Oxford. In the dark ages of our University (some five-and-twenty years ago), while we still believed in classics and mathematics as constituting a liberal education, Natural Science sat weeping at our gates. "Ah, let me in!" she moaned; "why cram reluctant youth with your unsatisfying lore? Are they not hungering for bones; yea, panting for sulphuretted hydrogen?" We heard and we pitied. We let her in and housed her royally; we adorned her palace with re-agents and retorts, and made it a very charnel-house of bones, and we cried to our undergraduates, "The feast of Science is spread! Eat, drink, and be happy!" But they would not. They fingered the bones, and thought them dry. They sniffed at the hydrogen, and turned away. Yet for all that Science ceased not to cry, "More gold, more gold!" And her three fair daughters, Chemistry, Biology, and Physics (for the modern horse-leech is more prolific than in the days of Solomon), ceased not to plead, "Give, give!" And we gave; we poured forth our wealth like water (I beg her pardon, like H2O), and we could not help thinking there was something weird and uncanny in the ghoul-like facility with which she absorbed it.

The curtain rises on the second act of the drama. Science is still weeping, but this time it is for lack of pupils, not of teachers or machinery. "We are unfairly handicapped!" she cries. "You have prizes and scholarships for classics and mathematics, and you bribe your best students to desert us. Buy us some bright, clever boys to teach, and then see what we can do!" Once more we heard and pitied. We had bought her bones; we bought her boys. And now at last her halls were filled—not only with teachers paid to teach, but also with learners paid to learn. And we have not much to complain of in results, except that perhaps she is a little too ready to return on our hands all but the "honour-men"—all, in fact, who really need the helping hand of an educator. "Here, take back your stupid ones!" she cries. "Except as subjects for the scalpel (and we have not yet got the Human Vivisection Act through Parliament) we can do nothing with them!"

The third act of the drama is yet under rehearsal; the actors are still running in and out of the green-room, and hastily shuffling on their new and ill-fitting dresses; but its general scope is not far to seek. At no distant day our once timid and tearful guest will be turning up her nose at the fare provided for her. "Give me no more youths to teach," she will say; "but pay me handsomely, and let me think. Plato and Aristotle were all very well in their way; Diogenes and his tub for me!" The allusion is not inappropriate. There can be little doubt that some of the researches conducted by that retiring philosopher in the recesses of that humble edifice were strictly scientific, embracing several distinct branches of entomology. I do not mean, of course, that "research" is a new idea in Oxford. From time immemorial we have had our own chosen band of researchers (here called "professors"), who have advanced the boundaries of human knowledge in many directions. True, they are not left so wholly to themselves as some of these modern thinkers would wish to be, but are expected to give some few lectures, as the outcome of their "research" and the evidence of its reality, but even that condition has not always been enforced—for instance, in the case of the late Professor of Greek, Dr. Gaisford, the University was too conscious of the really valuable work he was doing in philological research to complain that he ignored the usual duties of the chair and delivered no lectures.

And, now, what is the "thick end" of the wedge? It is that Latin and Greek may both vanish from our curriculum; that logic, philosophy, and history may follow; and that the destinies of Oxford may some day be in the hands of those who have had no education other than "scientific." And why not? I shall be asked. Is it not as high a form of education as any other? That is a matter to be settled by facts. I can but offer my own little item of evidence, and leave it to others to confirm or to refute. It used once to be thought indispensable for an educated man that he should be able to write his own language correctly, if not elegantly; it seems doubtful how much longer this will be taken as a criterion. Not so many years ago I had the honour of assisting in correcting for the press some pages of the Anthropological Review, or some such periodical. I doubt not that the writers were eminent men in their own line; that each could triumphantly prove, to his own satisfaction, the unsoundness of what the others had advanced; and that all would unite in declaring that the theories of a year ago were entirely exploded by the latest German treatise; but they were not able to set forth these thoughts, however consoling in themselves, in anything resembling the language of educated society. In all my experience, I have never read, even in the "local news" of a country paper, such slipshod, such deplorable English.

I shall be told that I am ungenerous in thus picking out a few unfavourable cases, and that some of the greatest minds of the day are to be found in the ranks of science. I freely admit that such may be found, but my contention is that they made the science, not the science them; and that in any line of thought they would have been equally distinguished. As a general principle, I do not think that the exclusive study of any one subject is really education; and my experience as a teacher has shown me that even a considerable proficiency in Natural Science, taken alone, is so far from proving a high degree of cultivation and great natural ability that it is fully compatible with general ignorance and an intellect quite below par. Therefore it is that I seek to rouse an interest, beyond the limits of Oxford, in preserving classics as an essential feature of a University education. Nor is it as a classical tutor (who might be suspected of a bias in favour of his own subject) that I write this. On the contrary, it is as one who has taught science here for more than twenty years (for mathematics, though good-humouredly scorned by the biologists on account of the abnormal certainty of its conclusions, is still reckoned among the sciences) that I beg to sign myself,—Your obedient servant,

Charles L. Dodgson,

Mathematical Lecturer of Christ Church, Oxford.

May 17th.

I give the above letter because I think it amusing; it must not be supposed that the writer's views on the subject remained the same all through his life. He was a thorough Conservative, and it took a long time to reconcile him to any new departure. In a political discussion with a friend he once said that he was "first an Englishman, and then a Conservative," but however much a man may try to put patriotism before party, the result will be but partially successful, if patriotism would lead him into opposition to the mental bias which has originally made him either a Conservative or a Radical.

He took, of course, great pleasure in the success of his books, as every author must; but the greatest pleasure of all to him was to know that they had pleased others. Notes like the following are frequent in his Diary: "June 25th.—Spent the afternoon in sending off seventy circulars to Hospitals, offering copies of 'Alice' and the 'Looking-Glass' for sick children." He well deserved the name which one of his admirers gave him—"The man who loved little children."

In April, 1878, he saw a performance of "Olivia" at the Court Theatre. "The gem of the piece is Olivia herself, acted by Ellen Terry with a sweetness and pathos that moved some of the audience (nearly including myself) to tears. Her leave-taking was exquisite; and when, in her exile, she hears that her little brother had cried at the mention of her name, her exclamation 'Pet!' was tenderness itself. Altogether, I have not had a greater dramatic treat for a long time. Dies cretâ notandus."

I see that I have marked for quotation the following brief entries in the Diary:—

Aug. 4th (at Eastbourne).—Went, morning and evening, to the new chapel-of-ease belonging to S. Saviour's. It has the immense advantage of not being crowded; but this scarcely compensates for the vile Gregorian chants, which vex and weary one's ear.

Aug. 17th.—A very inquisitive person, who had some children with her, found out my name, and then asked me to shake hands with her child, as an admirer of my books: this I did, unwisely perhaps, as I have no intention of continuing the acquaintance of a "Mrs. Leo Hunter."

Dec. 23rd.—I have been making a plan for work next term, of this kind: Choose a subject (e.g., "Circulation," "Journeys of S. Paul," "English Counties") for each week. On Monday write what I know about it; during week get up subject; on Saturday write again; put the two papers away, and six months afterwards write again and compare.

As an artist, Mr. Dodgson possessed an intense natural appreciation of the beautiful, an abhorrence of all that is coarse and unseemly which might almost be called hyper-refinement, a wonderfully good eye for form, and last, but not least, the most scrupulous conscientiousness about detail. On the other hand his sense of colour was somewhat imperfect, and his hand was almost totally untrained, so that while he had all the enthusiasm of the true artist, his work always had the defects of an amateur.

MISS E. GERTRUDE THOMSON.

From a photograph

by Lewis Carroll.

In 1878 some drawings of Miss E. Gertrude Thomson's excited his keen admiration, and he exerted himself to make her acquaintance. Their first meeting is described so well by Miss Thomson herself in The Gentlewoman for January 29, 1898, that I cannot do better than quote the description of the scene as given there:—

It was at the end of December, 1878, that a letter, written in a singularly legible and rather boyish-looking hand, came to me from Christ Church, Oxford, signed "C. L. Dodgson." The writer said that he had come across some fairy designs of mine, and he should like to see some more of my work. By the same post came a letter from my London publisher (who had supplied my address) telling me that the "Rev. C. L. Dodgson" was "Lewis Carroll."

"Alice in Wonderland" had long been one of my pet books, and as one regards a favourite author as almost a personal friend, I felt less restraint than one usually feels in writing to a stranger, though I carefully concealed my knowledge of his identity, as he had not chosen to reveal it.

This was the beginning of a frequent and delightful correspondence, and as I confessed to a great love for fairy lore of every description, he asked me if I would accept a child's fairy-tale book he had written, called "Alice in Wonderland." I replied that I knew it nearly all off by heart, but that I should greatly prize a copy given to me by himself. By return came "Alice," and "Through the Looking-Glass," bound most luxuriously in white calf and gold.

And this is the graceful and kindly note that came with them: "I am now sending you 'Alice,' and the 'Looking-Glass' as well. There is an incompleteness about giving only one, and besides, the one you bought was probably in red and would not match these. If you are at all in doubt as to what to do with the (now) superfluous copy, let me suggest your giving it to some poor sick child. I have been distributing copies to all the hospitals and convalescent homes I can hear of, where there are sick children capable of reading them, and though, of course, one takes some pleasure in the popularity of the books elsewhere, it is not nearly so pleasant a thought to me as that they may be a comfort and relief to children in hours of pain and weariness. Still, no recipient can be more appropriate than one who seems to have been in fairyland herself, and to have seen, like the 'weary mariners' of old—

'Between the green brink and the running foam

White limbs unrobed in a crystal air,

Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest

To little harps of gold.'"

"Do you ever come to London?" he asked in another letter; "if so, will you allow me to call upon you?"

Early in the summer I came up to study, and I sent him word that I was in town. One night, coming into my room, after a long day spent at the British Museum, in the half-light I saw a card lying on the table. "Rev. C. L. Dodgson." Bitter, indeed, was my disappointment at having missed him, but just as I was laying it sadly down I spied a small T.O. in the corner. On the back I read that he couldn't get up to my rooms early or late enough to find me, so would I arrange to meet him at some museum or gallery the day but one following? I fixed on South Kensington Museum, by the "Schliemann" collection, at twelve o'clock.

A little before twelve I was at the rendezvous, and then the humour of the situation suddenly struck me, that I had not the ghost of an idea what he was like, nor would he have any better chance of discovering me! The room was fairly full of all sorts and conditions, as usual, and I glanced at each masculine figure in turn, only to reject it as a possibility of the one I sought. Just as the big clock had clanged out twelve, I heard the high vivacious voices and laughter of children sounding down the corridor.

At that moment a gentleman entered, two little girls clinging to his hands, and as I caught sight of the tall slim figure, with the clean-shaven, delicate, refined face, I said to myself, "That's Lewis Carroll." He stood for a moment, head erect, glancing swiftly over the room, then, bending down, whispered something to one of the children; she, after a moment's pause, pointed straight at me.

Dropping their hands he came forward, and with that winning smile of his that utterly banished the oppressive sense of the Oxford don, said simply, "I am Mr. Dodgson; I was to meet you, I think?" To which I as frankly smiled, and said, "How did you know me so soon?"

"My little friend found you. I told her I had come to meet a young lady who knew fairies, and she fixed on you at once. But I knew you before she spoke."

This acquaintance ripened into a true, artistic friendship, which lasted till Mr. Dodgson's death. In his first letter to Miss Thomson he speaks of himself as one who for twenty years had found his one amusement in photographing from life—especially photographing children; he also said that he had made attempts ("most unsuccessfully") at drawing them. When he got to know her more intimately, he asked her to criticise his work, and when she wrote expressing her willingness to do so, he sent her a pile of sketch-books, through which she went most carefully, marking the mistakes, and criticising, wherever criticism seemed to be necessary.

After this he might often have been seen in her studio, lying flat on his face, and drawing some child-model who had been engaged for his especial benefit. "I love the effort to draw," he wrote in one of his letters to her, "but I utterly fail to please even my own eye—tho' now and then I seem to get somewhere near a right line or two, when I have a live child to draw from. But I have no time left now for such things. In the next life, I do hope we shall not only see lovely forms, such as this world does not contain, but also be able to draw them."

But while he fully recognised the limits of his powers, he had great faith in his own critical judgment; and with good reason, for his perception of the beautiful in contour and attitude and grouping was almost unerring. All the drawings which Miss Thomson made for his "Three Sunsets" were submitted to his criticism, which descended to the smallest details. He concludes a letter to her, which contained the most elaborate and minute suggestions for the improvement of one of these pictures, with the following words: "I make all these suggestions with diffidence, feeling that I have really no right at all, as an amateur, to criticise the work of a real artist."

The following extract from another letter to Miss Thomson shows that seeking after perfection, that discontent with everything short of the best, which was so marked a feature of his character. She had sent him two drawings of the head of some child-friend of his:—

Your note is a puzzle—you say that "No. 2 would have been still more like if the paper had been exactly the same shade—but I'd no more at hand of the darker colour." Had I given you the impression that I was in a hurry, and was willing to have No. 2 less good than it might be made, so long as I could have it quick? If I did, I'm very sorry: I never meant to say a word like it: and, if you had written "I could make it still more like, on darker paper; but I've no more at hand. How long can you wait for me to get some?" I should have replied, "Six weeks, or six months, if you prefer it!"

I have already spoken of his love of nature, as opposed to the admiration for the morbid and abnormal. "I want you," he writes to Miss Thomson, "to do my fairy drawings from life. They would be very pretty, no doubt, done out of your own head, but they will be ten times as valuable if done from life. Mr. Furniss drew the pictures of 'Sylvie' from life. Mr. Tenniel is the only artist, who has drawn for me, who resolutely refused to use a model, and declared he no more needed one than I should need a multiplication-table to work a mathematical problem!" On another occasion he urges the importance of using models, in order to avoid the similarity of features which would otherwise spoil the pictures: "Cruikshank's splendid illustrations were terribly spoiled by his having only one pretty female face in them all. Leech settled down into two female faces. Du Maurier, I think, has only one, now. All the ladies, and all the little girls in his pictures look like twin sisters."

It is interesting to know that Sir Noel Paton and Mr. Walter Crane were, in Lewis Carroll's opinion, the most successful drawers of children: "There are but few artists who seem to draw the forms of children con amore. Walter Crane is perhaps the best (always excepting Sir Noel Paton): but the thick outlines, which he insists on using, seem to take off a good deal from the beauty of the result."

He held that no artist can hope to effect a higher type of beauty than that which life itself exhibits, as the following words show:—

I don't quite understand about fairies losing "grace," if too like human children. Of course I grant that to be like some actual child is to lose grace, because no living child is perfect in form: many causes have lowered the race from what God made it. But the perfect human form, free from these faults, is surely equally applicable to men, and fairies, and angels? Perhaps that is what you mean—that the Artist can imagine, and design, more perfect forms than we ever find in life?

I have already referred several times to Miss Ellen Terry as having been one of Mr. Dodgson's friends, but he was intimate with the whole family, and used often to pay them a visit when he was in town. On May 15, 1879, he records a very curious dream which he had about Miss Marion ("Polly") Terry:—

Last night I had a dream which I record as a curiosity, so far as I know, in the literature of dreams. I was staying, with my sisters, in some suburb of London, and had heard that the Terrys were staying near us, so went to call, and found Mrs. Terry at home, who told us that Marion and Florence were at the theatre, "the Walter House," where they had a good engagement. "In that case," I said, "I'll go on there at once, and see the performance—and may I take Polly with me?" "Certainly," said Mrs. Terry. And there was Polly, the child, seated in the room, and looking about nine or ten years old: and I was distinctly conscious of the fact, yet without any feeling of surprise at its incongruity, that I was going to take the child Polly with me to the theatre, to see the grown-up Polly act! Both pictures—Polly as a child, and Polly as a woman, are, I suppose, equally clear in my ordinary waking memory: and it seems that in sleep I had contrived to give the two pictures separate individualities.

Of all the mathematical books which Mr. Dodgson wrote, by far the most elaborate, if not the most original, was "Euclid and His Modern Rivals." The first edition was issued in 1879, and a supplement, afterwards incorporated into the second edition, appeared in 1885.

This book, as the author says, has for its object

to furnish evidence (1) that it is essential for the purposes of teaching or examining in Elementary Geometry to employ one text—book only; (2) that there are strong a priori reasons for retaining in all its main features, and especially in its sequence and numbering of Propositions, and in its treatment of Parallels, the Manual of Euclid; and (3) that no sufficient reasons have yet been shown for abandoning it in favour of any one of the modern Manuals which have been offered as substitutes.

The book is written in dramatic form, and relieved throughout by many touches in the author's happiest vein, which make it delightful not only to the scientific reader, but also to any one of average intelligence with the slightest sense of humour.

Whether the conclusions are accepted in their entirety or not, it is certain that the arguments are far more effective than if the writer had presented them in the form of an essay. Mr. Dodgson had a wide experience as a teacher and examiner, so that he knew well what he was writing about, and undoubtedly the appearance of this book has done very much to stay the hand of the innovator.

The scene opens in a College study-time, midnight. Minos, an examiner, is discovered seated between two immense piles of manuscripts. He is driven almost to distraction in his efforts to mark fairly the papers sent up, by reason of the confusion caused through the candidates offering various substitutes for Euclid. Rhadamanthus, another equally distracted examiner, comes to his room.

The two men consult together for a time, and then Rhadamanthus retires, and Minos falls asleep. Hereupon the Ghost of Euclid appears, and discusses with Minos the reasons for retaining his Manual as a whole, in its present order and arrangement. As they are mainly concerned with the wants of beginners, their attention is confined to Books I. and II.

We must be content with one short extract from the dialogue:—

Euclid.—It is, I think, a friend of yours who has amused himself by tabulating the various Theorems which might be enunciated on the single subject of Pairs of Lines. How many did he make them out to be?

Minos.—About two hundred and fifty, I believe.

Euclid.—At that rate there would probably be within the limit of my First Book—how many?

Minos.—A thousand at least.

Euclid.—What a popular school-book it will be! How boys will bless the name of the writer who first brings out the complete thousand!

With a view to discussing and criticising his various modern rivals, Euclid promises to send to Minos the ghost of a German Professor (Herr Niemand) who "has read all books, and is ready to defend any thesis, true or untrue."

"A charming companion!" as Minos drily remarks.

This brings us to Act II., in which the Manuals which reject Euclid's treatment of Parallels are dealt with one by one. Those Manuals which adopt it are reserved for Act III., Scene i.; while in Scene ii., "The Syllabus of the Association for the Improvement of Geometrical Teaching," and Wilson's "Syllabus," come under review.

Only one or two extracts need be given, which, it is hoped, will suffice to illustrate the character and style of the book:

Act II., Scene v.—Niemand and Minos are arguing for and against Henrici's "Elementary Geometry."

Minos.—I haven't quite done with points yet. I find an assertion that they never jump. Do you think that arises from their having "position," which they feel might be compromised by such conduct?

Niemand.—I cannot tell without hearing the passage read.

Minos.—It is this: "A point, in changing its position on a curve, passes in moving from one position to another through all intermediate positions. It does not move by jumps."

Niemand.—That is quite true.

Minos.—Tell me then—is every centre of gravity a point?

Niemand.—Certainly.

Minos.—Let us now consider the centre of gravity of a flea. Does it—

Niemand (indignantly).—Another word, and I shall vanish! I cannot waste a night on such trivialities.

Minos.—I can't resist giving you just one more tit-bit—the definition of a square at page 123: "A quadrilateral which is a kite, a symmetrical trapezium, and a parallelogram is a square!" And now, farewell, Henrici: "Euclid, with all thy faults, I love thee still!"

Again, from Act II., Scene vi.:—

Niemand.—He (Pierce, another "Modern Rival,") has a definition of direction which will, I think, be new to you. (Reads.)

"The direction of a line in any part is the direction of a point at that part from the next preceding point of the line!"

Minos.—That sounds mysterious. Which way along a line are "preceding" points to be found?

Niemand.—Both ways. He adds, directly afterwards, "A line has two different directions," &c.

Minos.—So your definition needs a postscript.... But there is yet another difficulty. How far from a point is the "next" point?

Niemand.—At an infinitely small distance, of course. You will find the matter fully discussed in my work on the Infinitesimal Calculus.

Minos.—A most satisfactory answer for a teacher to make to a pupil just beginning Geometry!

In Act IV. Euclid reappears to Minos, "followed by the ghosts of Archimedes, Pythagoras, &c., who have come to see fair play." Euclid thus sums up his case:—

"'The cock doth craw, the day doth daw,' and all respectable ghosts ought to be going home. Let me carry with me the hope that I have convinced you of the necessity of retaining my order and numbering, and my method of treating Straight Lines, Angles, Right Angles, and (most especially) Parallels. Leave me these untouched, and I shall look on with great contentment while other changes are made—while my proofs are abridged and improved—while alternative proofs are appended to mine—and while new Problems and Theorems are interpolated. In all these matters my Manual is capable of almost unlimited improvement."

In Appendices I. and II. Mr. Dodgson quotes the opinions of two eminent mathematical teachers, Mr. Todhunter and Professor De Morgan, in support of his argument.

Before leaving this subject I should like to refer to a very novel use of Mr. Dodgson's book—its employment in a school. Mr. G. Hopkins, Mathematical Master in the High School at Manchester, U.S., and himself the author of a "Manual of Plane Geometry," has so employed it in a class of boys aged from fourteen or fifteen upwards. He first called their attention to some of the more prominent difficulties relating to the question of Parallels, put a copy of Euclid in their hands, and let them see his treatment of them, and after some discussion placed before them Mr. Dodgson's "Euclid and His Modern Rivals" and "New Theory of Parallels."

Perhaps it is the fact that American boys are sharper than English, but at any rate the youngsters are reported to have read the two books with an earnestness and a persistency that were as gratifying to their instructor as they were complimentary to Mr. Dodgson.

In June of the same year an entry in the Diary refers to a proposal in Convocation to allow the University Club to have a cricket-ground in the Parks. This had been proposed in 1867, and then rejected. Mr. Dodgson sent round to the Common Rooms copies of a poem on "The Deserted Parks," which had been published by Messrs. Parker in 1867, and which was afterwards included in "Notes by an Oxford Chiel." I quote the first few lines:—

Museum! loveliest building of the plain

Where Cherwell winds towards the distant main;

How often have I loitered o'er thy green,

Where humble happiness endeared the scene!

How often have I paused on every charm,—

The rustic couple walking arm in arm,

The groups of trees, with seats beneath the shade

For prattling babes and whisp'ring lovers made,

The never-failing brawl, the busy mill,

Where tiny urchins vied in fistic skill.

(Two phrases only have that dusky race

Caught from the learned influence of the place;

Phrases in their simplicity sublime,

"Scramble a copper!" "Please, sir, what's the time?")

These round thy walks their cheerful influence shed;

These were thy charms—but all these charms are fled,

Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,

And rude pavilions sadden all thy green;

One selfish pastime grasps the whole domain,

And half a faction swallows up the plain;

Adown thy glades, all sacrificed to cricket,

The hollow-sounding bat now guards the wicket;

Sunk are thy mounds in shapeless level all,

Lest aught impede the swiftly rolling ball;

And trembling, shrinking from the fatal blow,

Far, far away thy hapless children go.

Ill fares the place, to luxury a prey,

Where wealth accumulates, and minds decay:

Athletic sports may flourish or may fade,

Fashion may make them, even as it has made;

But the broad Parks, the city's joy and pride,

When once destroyed can never be supplied!

Readers of "Sylvie and Bruno" will remember the way in which the invisible fairy-children save the drunkard from his evil life, and I have always felt that Mr. Dodgson meant Sylvie to be something more than a fairy—a sort of guardian angel. That such an idea would not have been inconsistent with his way of looking at things is shown by the following letter:

Ch. Ch., July, 1879.

My dear Ethel,—I have been long intending to answer your letter of April 11th, chiefly as to your question in reference to Mrs. N—'s letter about the little S—s [whose mother had recently died]. You say you don't see "how they can be guided aright by their dead mother, or how light can come from her." Many people believe that our friends in the other world can and do influence us in some way, and perhaps even "guide" us and give us light to show us our duty. My own feeling is, it may be so: but nothing has been revealed about it. That the angels do so is revealed, and we may feel sure of that; and there is a beautiful fancy (for I don't think one can call it more) that "a mother who has died leaving a child behind her in this world, is allowed to be a sort of guardian angel to that child." Perhaps Mrs. N— believes that.

Here are two other entries in the Diary:—

Aug. 26th.—Worked from about 9.45 to 6.45, and again from 10.15 to 11.45 (making 101/2 hours altogether) at an idea which occurred to me of finding limits for pi by elementary trigonometry, for the benefit of the circle-squarers.

Dec. 12th.—Invented a new way of working one word into another. I think of calling the puzzle "syzygies."

I give the first three specimens:—

           MAN }

    permanent  }

      entice   } Send MAN on ICE.

         ICE.  }

         ACRE  }

        sacred }

  credentials  } RELY on ACRE.

      entirely }

          RELY }

       PRISM   }

   prismatic   }

    dramatic   } Prove PRISM to be ODIOUS.

    melodrama  }

    melodious  }

       ODIOUS. }

In February, 1880, Mr. Dodgson proposed to the Christ Church "Staff-salaries Board," that as his tutorial work was lighter he should have £200 instead of £300 a year. It is not often that a man proposes to cut down his own salary, but the suggestion in this case was intended to help the College authorities in the policy of retrenchment which they were trying to carry out.

May 24th.—Percival, President of Trin. Coll., who has Cardinal Newman as his guest, wrote to say that the Cardinal would sit for a photo, to me, at Trinity. But I could not take my photography there and he couldn't come to me: so nothing came of it.

Aug. 19th. [At Eastbourne].—Took Ruth and Maud to the Circus (Hutchinson and Tayleure's—from America). I made friends with Mr. Tayleure, who took me to the tents of horses, and the caravan he lived in. And I added to my theatrical experiences by a chat with a couple of circus children—Ada Costello, aged 9, and Polly (Evans, I think), aged 13. I found Ada in the outer tent, with the pony on which she was to perform—practising vaulting on to it, varied with somersaults on the ground. I showed her my wire puzzle, and ultimately gave it her, promising a duplicate to Polly. Both children seemed bright and happy, and they had pleasant manners.

Sept. 2nd.—Mrs. H— took me to Dr. Bell's (the old homoeopathic doctor) to hear Lord Radstock speak about "training children." It was a curious affair. First a very long hymn; then two very long extempore prayers (not by Lord R—), which were strangely self-sufficient and wanting in reverence. Lord R—'s remarks were commonplace enough, though some of his theories were new, but, I think, not true—e.g., that encouraging emulation in schoolboys, or desiring that they should make a good position in life, was un-Christian. I escaped at the first opportunity after his speech, and went down on the beach, where I made acquaintance with a family who were banking up with sand the feet and legs of a pretty little girl perched on a sand-castle. I got her father to make her stand to be drawn. Further along the beach a merry little mite began pelting me with sand; so I drew her too.

Nov. 16th.—Thought of a plan for simplifying money-orders, by making the sender fill up two duplicate papers, one of which he hands in to be transmitted by the postmaster—it containing a key—number which the receiver has to supply in his copy to get the money. I think of suggesting this, and my plan for double postage on Sunday, to the Government.

Dec. 19th.—The idea occurred to me that a game might be made of letters, to be moved about on a chess-board till they form words.

A little book, published during this year, "Alice (a dramatic version of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice'), and other Fairy Tales for Children," by Mrs. Freiligrath-Kroeker, was very successful, and, I understand, still has a regular sale. Mr. Dodgson most gladly gave his consent to the dramatisation of his story by so talented an authoress, and shortly afterwards Mrs. Kroeker brought out "Through the Looking-Glass" in a similar form.

Jan. 17, 1881.—To the Lyceum to see "The Cup" and "The Corsican Brothers." The first is exquisitely put on, and Ellen Terry as Camma is the perfection of grace, and Irving as the villain, and Mr. Terriss as the husband, were very good. But the piece wants substance.

Jan. 19th.—Tried to go to Oxford, but the line is blocked near Didcot, so stayed another night in town. The next afternoon the line was reported clear, but the journey took 5 hours! On the day before the Dean of Ch. Ch. and his family were snowed up for 21 hours near Radley.

March 27th.—Went to S. Mary's and stayed for Holy Communion, and, as Ffoulkes was alone, I mustered up courage to help him. I read the exhortation, and was pleased to find I did not once hesitate. I think I must try preaching again soon, as he has often begged me to do.

April 16th.—Mr. Greenwood approves my theory about general elections, and wants me to write on it in the St. James's Gazette. (The letter appeared on May 5, 1881.)

May 14th.—Took the longest walk (I believe) I have ever done—round by Dorchester, Didcot and Abingdon—27 miles—took 8 hours—no blisters, I rejoice to find, and I feel very little tired.

May 26th.—The row-loving men in College are beginning to be troublesome again, and last night some 30 or 40 of them, aided by out-College men, made a great disturbance, and regularly defied the Censors. I have just been with the other Tutors into Hall, and heard the Dean make an excellent speech to the House. Some two or three will have to go down, and twelve or fifteen others will be punished in various ways. (A later note says): The punishments had to be modified—it turned out that the disturbers were nearly all out-College men.

Mr. Dodgson sent a letter to The Observer on this subject:—

Sir,—Your paper of May 29th contains a leading article on Christ Church, resting on so many mis-statements of fact that I venture to appeal to your sense of justice to allow me, if no abler writer has addressed you on the subject, an opportunity of correcting them. It will, I think, be found that in so doing I shall have removed the whole foundation on which the writer has based his attack on the House, after which I may contentedly leave the superstructure to take care of itself. "Christ Church is always provoking the adverse criticism of the outer world." The writer justifies this rather broad generalisation by quoting three instances of such provocation, which I will take one by one.

At one time we are told that "The Dean ... neglects his functions, and spends the bulk of his time in Madeira." The fact is that the Dean's absence from England more than twenty years ago during two successive winters was a sad necessity, caused by the appearance of symptoms of grave disease, from which he has now, under God's blessing, perfectly recovered.

The second instance occurred eleven years ago, when some of the undergraduates destroyed some valuable statuary in the Library. Here the writer states that the Dean first announced that criminal proceedings would be taken, and then, on discovering that the offenders were "highly connected," found himself "converted to the opinion that mercy is preferable to stern justice, and charity to the strict letter of the law." The facts are that the punishment awarded to the offenders was deliberated on and determined on by the Governing Body, consisting of the Dean, the Canons, and some twenty Senior Students; that their deliberations were most assuredly in no way affected by any thoughts of the offenders being "highly connected"; and that, when all was over, we had the satisfaction of seeing ourselves roundly abused in the papers on both sides, and charged with having been too lenient, and also with having been too severe.

The third instance occurred the other night. Some undergraduates were making a disturbance, and the Junior Censor "made his appearance in person upon the scene of riot," and "was contumeliously handled." Here the only statement of any real importance, the alleged assault by Christ Church men on the Junior Censor, is untrue. The fact is that nearly all the disturbers were out-College men, and, though it is true that the Censor was struck by a stone thrown from a window, the unenviable distinction of having thrown it belongs to no member of the House. I doubt if we have one single man here who would be capable of so base and cowardly an act.

The writer then gives us a curious account of the present constitution of the House. The Dean, whom he calls "the right reverend gentleman," is, "in a kind of way, master of the College. The Canons, in a vague kind of way, are supposed to control the College." The Senior Students "dare not call their souls their own," and yet somehow dare "to vent their wrath" on the Junior Students. His hazy, mental picture of the position of the Canons may be cleared up by explaining to him that the "control" they exercise is neither more nor less than that of any other six members of the Governing Body. The description of the Students I pass over as not admitting any appeal to actual facts.

The truth is that Christ Church stands convicted of two unpardonable crimes—being great, and having a name. Such a place must always expect to find itself "a wide mark for scorn and jeers"—a target where the little and the nameless may display their skill. Only the other day an M.P., rising to ask a question about Westminster School, went on to speak of Christ Church, and wound up with a fierce attack on the ancient House. Shall we blame him? Do we blame the wanton schoolboy, with a pebble in his hand, all powerless to resist the alluring vastness of a barndoor?

The essence of the article seems to be summed up in the following sentence: "At Christ Church all attempts to preserve order by the usual means have hitherto proved uniformly unsuccessful, and apparently remain equally fruitless." It is hard for one who, like myself, has lived here most of his life, to believe that this is seriously intended as a description of the place. However, as general statements can only be met by general statements, permit me, as one who has lived here for thirty years and has taught for five-and-twenty, to say that in my experience order has been the rule, disorder the rare exception, and that, if the writer of your leading article has had an equal amount of experience in any similar place of education, and has found a set of young men more gentlemanly, more orderly, and more pleasant in every way to deal with, than I have found here, I cannot but think him an exceptionally favoured mortal.—Yours, &c.

Charles l. Dodgson,

Student and Mathematical Lecturer of Christ Church.

In July began an amusing correspondence between Mr. Dodgson and a "circle-squarer," which lasted several months. Mr. Dodgson sent the infatuated person, whom we will call Mr. B—, a proof that the area of a circle is less than 3.15 the square of the radius. Mr. B—replied, "Your proof is not in accordance with Euclid, it assumes that a circle may be considered as a rectangle, and that two right lines can enclose a space." He returned the proof, saying that he could not accept any of it as elucidating the exact area of a circle, or as Euclidean. As Mr. Dodgson's method involved a slight knowledge of trigonometry, and he had reason to suspect that Mr. B—was entirely ignorant of that subject, he thought it worth while to put him to the test by asking him a few questions upon it, but the circle-squarer, with commendable prudence, declined to discuss anything not Euclidean. Mr. Dodgson then wrote to him, "taking leave of the subject, until he should be willing to enlarge his field of knowledge to the elements of Algebraical Geometry." Mr. B—replied, with unmixed contempt, "Algebraical Geometry is all moon-shine." He preferred "weighing cardboard" as a means of ascertaining exact truth in mathematical research. Finally he suggested that Mr. Dodgson might care to join in a prize-competition to be got up among the followers of Euclid, and as he apparently wished him to understand that he (Mr. B—) did not think much of his chances of getting a prize, Mr. Dodgson considered that the psychological moment for putting an end to the correspondence had arrived.

Meanwhile he was beginning to feel his regular College duties a terrible clog upon his literary work. The Studentship which he held was not meant to tie him down to lectures and examinations. Such work was very well for a younger man; he could best serve "the House" by his literary fame.

July 14th.—Came to a more definite decision than I have ever yet done—that it is about time to resign the Mathematical Lectureship. My chief motive for holding on has been to provide money for others (for myself, I have been many years able to retire), but even the £300 a year I shall thus lose I may fairly hope to make by the additional time I shall have for book-writing. I think of asking the G.B. (Governing Body) next term to appoint my successor, so that I may retire at the end of the year, when I shall be close on fifty years old, and shall have held the Lectureship for exactly 26 years. (I had the Honourmen for the last two terms of 1855, but was not full Lecturer till Hilary, 1856.)

Oct. 18th.—I have just taken an important step in life, by sending to the Dean a proposal to resign the Mathematical Lectureship at the end of this year. I shall now have my whole time at my own disposal, and, if God gives me life and continued health and strength, may hope, before my powers fail, to do some worthy work in writing—partly in the cause of mathematical education, partly in the cause of innocent recreation for children, and partly, I hope (though so utterly unworthy of being allowed to take up such work) in the cause of religious thought. May God bless the new form of life that lies before me, that I may use it according to His holy will!

Oct. 21st.—I had a note in the evening from the Dean, to say that he had seen the Censors on the subject of my proposed resignation at the end of the year, and that arrangements should be made, as far as could be done, to carry out my wishes; and kindly adding an expression of regret at losing my services, but allowing that I had "earned a right to retirement." So my Lectureship seems to be near its end.

Nov. 30th.—I find by my Journal that I gave my first Euclid Lecture in the Lecture-room on Monday, January 28, 1856. It consisted of twelve men, of whom nine attended. This morning, I have given what is most probably my last: the lecture is now reduced to nine, of whom all attended on Monday: this morning being a Saint's Day, the attendance was voluntary, and only two appeared—E.H. Morris, and G. Lavie. I was Lecturer when the father of the latter took his degree, viz., in 1858.

There is a sadness in coming to the end of anything in life. Man's instincts cling to the Life that will never end.

May 30, 1882.—Called on Mrs. R—. During a good part of the evening I read The Times, while the party played a round game of spelling words—a thing I will never join in. Rational conversation and good music are the only things which, to me, seem worth the meeting for, for grown-up people.

June 1st.—Went out with Charsley, and did four miles on one of his velocimans, very pleasantly.

The velociman was an early and somewhat cumbrous form of tricycle; Mr. Dodgson made many suggestions for its improvement. He never attempted to ride a bicycle, however, but, in accordance with his own dictum, "In youth, try a bicycle, in age, buy a tricycle," confined himself to the three-wheeled variety.

Nov. 8th.—Whitehead, of Trinity, told us a charming story in Common Room of a father and son. They came up together: the son got into a College—the father had to go to New Inn Hall: the son passed Responsions, while his father had to put off: finally, the father failed in Mods and has gone down: the son will probably take his degree, and may then be able to prepare his father for another try.

Among the coloured cartoons in Shrimpton's window at Oxford there used to be, when I was up, a picture which I think referred to this story.

OXFORD TYPES.

From a photograph

by A.T. Shrimpton..

Nov. 23rd.—Spent two hours "invigilating" in the rooms of W.J. Grant (who has broken his collar-bone, and is allowed to do his Greats papers in this way) while he dictated his answers to another undergraduate, Pakenham, who acted as scribe.

Nov. 24th.—Dined with Fowler (now President of C.C.C.) in hall, to meet Ranken. Both men are now mostly bald, with quite grey hair: yet how short a time it seems since we were undergraduates together at Whitby! (in 1854).

Dec 8th.—A Common Room Meeting. Fresh powers were given to the Wine Committee, and then a new Curator elected. I was proposed by Holland, and seconded by Harcourt, and accepted office with no light heart: there will be much trouble and thought needed to work it satisfactorily, but it will take me out of myself a little, and so may be a real good—my life was tending to become too much that of a selfish recluse.

During this year he composed the words of a song, "Dreamland." The air was dreamed by his friend, the late Rev. C. E. Hutchinson, of Chichester. The history of the dream is here given in the words of the dreamer:—

I found myself seated, with many others, in darkness, in a large amphitheatre. Deep stillness prevailed. A kind of hushed expectancy was upon us. We sat awaiting I know not what. Before us hung a vast and dark curtain, and between it and us was a kind of stage. Suddenly an intense wish seized me to look upon the forms of some of the heroes of past days. I cannot say whom in particular I longed to behold, but, even as I wished, a faint light flickered over the stage, and I was aware of a silent procession of figures moving from right to left across the platform in front of me. As each figure approached the left-hand corner it turned and gazed at me, and I knew (by what means I cannot say) its name. One only I recall—Saint George; the light shone with a peculiar blueish lustre on his shield and helmet as he turned and slowly faced me. The figures were shadowy, and floated like mist before me; as each one disappeared an invisible choir behind the curtain sang the "Dream music." I awoke with the melody ringing in my ears, and the words of the last line complete—"I see the shadows falling, and slowly pass away." The rest I could not recall.

DREAMLAND.

Words by LEWIS CARROLL.

Music by C.E. HUTCHINSON.

When midnight mists are creeping

And all the land is sleeping

Around me tread the mighty dead,

And slowly pass away.

Lo, warriors, saints, and sages,

From out the vanished ages,

With solemn pace and reverend face

Appear and pass away.

The blaze of noonday splendour,

The twilight soft and tender,

May charm the eye: yet they shall die,

Shall die and pass away

But here, in Dreamland's centre,

No spoiler's hand may enter,

These visions fair, this radiance rare,

Shall never pass away

I see the shadows falling,

The forms of eld recalling;

Around me tread the mighty dead,

And slowly pass away

One of the best services to education which Mr. Dodgson performed was his edition of "Euclid I. and II.," which was published in 1882. In writing "Euclid and His Modern Rivals," he had criticised somewhat severely the various substitutes proposed for Euclid, so far as they concerned beginners; but at the same time he had admitted that within prescribed limits Euclid's text is capable of amendment and improvement, and this is what he attempted to do in this book. That he was fully justified is shown by the fact that during the years 1882—1889 the book ran through eight editions. In the Introduction he enumerates, under the three headings of "Additions," "Omissions," and "Alterations," the chief points of difference between his own and the ordinary editions of Euclid, with his reasons for adopting them. They are the outcome of long experience, and the most conservative of teachers would readily accept them.

The proof of I. 24, for example, is decidedly better and more satisfactory than the ordinary proof, and the introduction of the definition of "projection" certainly simplifies the cumbrous enunciations of II. 12 and 13. Again, the alternative proof of II. 8, suggested in the Introduction, is valuable, and removes all excuse for omitting this proposition, as is commonly clone.

The figures used are from the blocks prepared for the late Mr. Todhunter's well-known edition of Euclid, to which Mr. Dodgson's manual forms an excellent stepping-stone.

At the beginning of 1883 he went up to town to see the collection of D. G. Rossetti's pictures in the Burlington Gallery. He was especially struck with "Found," which he thus describes—

A picture of a man finding, in the streets of London, a girl he had loved years before in the days of her innocence. She is huddled up against the wall, dressed in gaudy colours, and trying to turn away her agonised face, while he, holding her wrists, is looking down with an expression of pain and pity, condemnation and love, which is one of the most marvellous things I have ever seen done in painting.

Jan. 27, 1883 [His birthday].—I cannot say I feel much older at 51 than at 21! Had my first "tasting-luncheon"; it seemed to give great satisfaction. [The object of the Curator's "tasting-luncheon" was, of course, to give members of Common Room an opportunity of deciding what wines should be bought.]

March 15th.—Went up to town to fulfil my promise to Lucy A.—: to take her for her first visit to the theatre. We got to the Lyceum in good time, and the play was capitally acted. I had hinted to Beatrice (Miss Ellen Terry) how much she could add to Lucy's pleasure by sending round a "carte" of herself; she sent a cabinet. She is certainly an adept in giving gifts that gratify.

April 23d.—Tried another long walk—22 miles, to Besilsleigh, Fyfield, Kingston, Bagpuize, Frilford, Marcham, and Abingdon. The last half of the way was in the face of wind, rain, snow, and hail. Was too lame to go into Hall.

CHAPTER VI

(1883—1887)

"The Profits of Authorship"—"Rhyme? and Reason?"—The Common Room Cat—Visit to Jersey—Purity of elections—Parliamentary Representation—Various literary projects—Letters to Miss E. Rix—Being happy—"A Tangled Tale"—Religious arguments—The "Alice" Operetta—"Alice's Adventures Underground"—"The Game of Logic"—Mr. Harry Furniss.

In 1883 Lewis Carroll was advised to make a stand against the heavy discount allowed by publishers to booksellers, and by booksellers to the public. Accordingly the following notice began to appear in all his books: "In selling Mr. Lewis Carroll's books to the Trade, Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will abate 2d. in the shilling (no odd copies), and allow 5 per cent, discount within six months, and 10 per cent, for cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10 per cent, discount."

It was a bold step to take, and elicited some loud expressions of disapproval. "Rather than buy on the terms Mr. Lewis Carroll offers," "A Firm of London Booksellers" wrote in The Bookseller of August 4th, "the trade will do well to refuse to take copies of his books, new or old, so long as he adheres to the terms he has just announced to the trade for their delectation and delight." On the other hand, an editorial, which appeared in the same number of The Bookseller, expressed warm approval of the innovation.

To avoid all possible misconceptions, the author fully explained his views in a little pamphlet on "The Profits of Authorship." He showed that the bookseller makes as much profit out of every volume he sells (assuming the buyer to pay the full published price, which he did in those days more readily than he does to-day) as author and publisher together, whereas his share in the work is very small. He does not say much about the author's part in the work—that it is a very heavy one goes without saying—but in considering the publisher's share he says:—

The publisher contributes about as much as the bookseller in time and bodily labour, but in mental toil and trouble a great deal more. I speak with some personal knowledge of the matter, having myself, for some twenty years, inflicted on that most patient and painstaking firm, Messrs. Macmillan and Co., about as much wear and worry as ever publishers have lived through. The day when they undertake a book for me is a dies nefastus for them. From that day till the book is out—an interval of some two or three years on an average—there is no pause in "the pelting of the pitiless storm" of directions and questions on every conceivable detail. To say that every question gets a courteous and thoughtful reply—that they are still outside a lunatic asylum—and that they still regard me with some degree of charity—is to speak volumes in praise of their good temper and of their health, bodily and mental. I think the publisher's claim on the profits is on the whole stronger than the booksellers.

"Rhyme? and Reason?" appeared at Christmas; the dedicatory verses, inscribed "To a dear child: in memory of golden summer hours and whispers of a summer sea," were addressed to a little friend of the author's, Miss Gertrude Chataway. One of the most popular poems in the book is "Hiawatha's Photographing," a delicious parody of Longfellow's "Hiawatha." "In an age of imitation," says Lewis Carroll, in a note at the head, "I can claim no special merit for this slight attempt at doing what is known to be so easy." It is not every one who has read this note who has observed that it is really in the same metre as the poem below it.

Another excellent parody, "Atalanta in Camden-Town," exactly hit off the style of that poet who stands alone and unapproached among the poets of the day, and whom Mr. Dodgson used to call "the greatest living master of language."

"Fame's Penny Trumpet," affectionately dedicated to all "original researchers" who pant for "endowment," was an attack upon the Vivisectionists,

Who preach of Justice—plead with tears

That Love and Mercy should abound—

While marking with complacent ears

The moaning of some tortured hound.

Lewis Carroll thus addresses them:—

Fill all the air with hungry wails—

"Reward us, ere we think or write!

Without your gold mere knowledge fails

To sate the swinish appetite!"

And, where great Plato paced serene,

Or Newton paused with wistful eye,

Rush to the chase with hoofs unclean

And Babel-clamour of the stye!

Be yours the pay: be theirs the praise:

We will not rob them of their due,

Nor vex the ghosts of other days

By naming them along with you.

They sought and found undying fame:

They toiled not for reward nor thanks:

Their cheeks are hot with honest shame

For you, the modern mountebanks!

"For auld lang syne" the author sent a copy of his book to Mrs. Hargreaves (Miss Alice Liddell), accompanied by a short note.

Christ Church, December 21, 1883.

Dear Mrs. Hargreaves,—Perhaps the shortest day in the year is not quite the most appropriate time for recalling the long dreamy summer afternoons of ancient times; but anyhow if this book gives you half as much pleasure to receive as it does me to send, it will be a success indeed.

Wishing you all happiness at this happy season, I am,

Sincerely yours,

C. L. Dodgson.

The beginning of 1884 was chiefly occupied in Common Room business. The Curatorship seems to have been anything but a sinecure. Besides weightier responsibilities, it involved the care of the Common Room Cat! In this case the "care" ultimately killed the cat—but not until it had passed the span of life usually allotted to those animals, and beyond which their further existence is equally a nuisance to themselves and to every one else. As to the best way of "terminating its sublunary existence," Mr. Dodgson consulted two surgeons, one of whom was Sir James Paget. I do not know what method was finally adopted, but I am sure it was one that gave no pain to pussy's nerves, and as little as possible to her feelings.

On March 11th there was a debate in Congregation on the proposed admission of women to some of the Honour Schools at Oxford. This was one of the many subjects on which Mr. Dodgson wrote a pamphlet. During the debate he made one of his few speeches, and argued strongly against the proposal, on the score of the injury to health which it would inflict upon the girl-undergraduates.

Later in the month he and the Rev. E.F. Sampson, Tutor of Christ Church, paid a visit to Jersey, seeing various friends, notably the Rev. F.H. Atkinson, an old College friend of Mr. Dodgson's, who had helped him when he was editor of College Rhymes. I quote a few lines from a letter of his to Mr. Atkinson, as showing his views on matrimony:—

So you have been for twelve years a married man, while I am still a lonely old bachelor! And mean to keep so, for the matter of that. College life is by no means unmixed misery, though married life has no doubt many charms to which I am a stranger.

A note in his Diary on May 5th shows one of the changes in his way of life which advancing years forced him to make:—

Wrote to—(who had invited me to dine) to beg off, on the ground that, in my old age, I find dinner parties more and more fatiguing. This is quite a new departure. I much grudge giving an evening (even if it were not tiring) to bandying small-talk with dull people.

The next extract I give does not look much like old age!

I called on Mrs. M—. She was out; and only one maid in, who, having come to the gate to answer the bell, found the door blown shut on her return. The poor thing seemed really alarmed and distressed. However, I got a man to come from a neighbouring yard with a ladder, and got in at the drawing-room window—a novel way of entering a friend's house!

Oddly enough, almost exactly the same thing happened to him in 1888: "The door blew shut, with the maid outside, and no one in the house. I got the cook of the next house to let me go through their premises, and with the help of a pair of steps got over the wall between the two back-yards."

In July there appeared an article in the St. James's Gazette on the subject of "Parliamentary Elections," written by Mr. Dodgson. It was a subject in which he was much interested, and a few years before he had contributed a long letter on the "Purity of Elections" to the same newspaper. I wish I had space to give both in full; as things are, a summary and a few extracts are all I dare attempt. The writer held that there are a great number of voters, and pari passu a great number of constituencies, that like to be on the winning side, and whose votes are chiefly influenced by that consideration. The ballot-box has made it practically impossible for the individual voter to know which is going to be the winning side, but after the first few days of a general election, one side or the other has generally got a more or less decided advantage, and a weak-kneed constituency is sorely tempted to swell the tide of victory.

But this is not all. The evil extends further than to the single constituency; nay, it extends further than to a single general election; it constitutes a feature in our national history; it is darkly ominous for the future of England. So long as general elections are conducted as at present we shall be liable to oscillations of political power, like those of 1874 and 1880, but of ever-increasing violence—one Parliament wholly at the mercy of one political party, the next wholly at the mercy of the other—while the Government of the hour, joyfully hastening to undo all that its predecessors have done, will wield a majority so immense that the fate of every question will be foredoomed, and debate will be a farce; in one word, we shall be a nation living from hand to mouth, and with no settled principle—an army, whose only marching orders will be "Right about face!"

His remedy was that the result of each single election should be kept secret till the general election is over:—

It surely would involve no practical difficulty to provide that the boxes of voting papers should be sealed up by a Government official and placed in such custody as would make it impossible to tamper with them; and that when the last election had been held they should be opened, the votes counted, and the results announced.

The article on "Parliamentary Elections" proposed much more sweeping alterations. The opening paragraph will show its general purport:—

The question, how to arrange our constituencies and conduct our Parliamentary elections so as to make the House of Commons, as far as possible, a true index of the state of opinion in the nation it professes to represent, is surely equal in importance to any that the present generation has had to settle. And the leap in the dark, which we seem about to take in a sudden and vast extension of the franchise, would be robbed of half its terrors could we feel assured that each political party will be duly represented in the next Parliament, so that every side of a question will get a fair hearing.

The axioms on which his scheme was based were as follows:—

(1) That each Member of Parliament should represent approximately the same number of electors.

(2) That the minority of the two parties into which, broadly speaking, each district may be divided, should be adequately represented.

(3) That the waste of votes, caused by accidentally giving one candidate more than he needs and leaving another of the same party with less than he needs, should be, if possible, avoided.

(4) That the process of marking a ballot-paper should be reduced to the utmost possible simplicity, to meet the case of voters of the very narrowest mental calibre.

(5) That the process of counting votes should be as simple as possible.

Then came a precise proposal. I do not pause to compare it in detail with the suggestions of Mr. Hare, Mr. Courtney, and others:—

I proceed to give a summary of rules for the method I propose. Form districts which shall return three, four, or more Members, in proportion to their size. Let each elector vote for one candidate only. When the poll is closed, divide the total number of votes by the number of Members to be returned plus one, and take the next greater integer as "quota." Let the returning officer publish the list of candidates, with the votes given for each, and declare as "returned" each that has obtained the quota. If there are still Members to return, let him name a time when all the candidates shall appear before him; and each returned Member may then formally assign his surplus votes to whomsoever of the other candidates he will, while the other candidates may in like manner assign their votes to one another.

This method would enable each of the two parties in a district to return as many Members as it could muster "quotas," no matter how the votes were distributed. If, for example, 10,000 were the quota, and the "reds" mustered 30,000 votes, they could return three Members; for, suppose they had four candidates, and that A had 22,000 votes, B 4,000, C 3,000, D 1,000, A would simply have to assign 6,000 votes to B and 6,000 to C; while D, being hopeless of success, would naturally let C have his 1,000 also. There would be no risk of a seat being left vacant through two candidates of the same party sharing a quota between them—an unwritten law would soon come to be recognised—that the one with fewest votes should give place to the other. And, with candidates of two opposite parties, this difficulty could not arise at all; one or the other could always be returned by the surplus votes of his party.

Some notes from the Diary for March, 1885, are worth reproducing here:—

March 1st.—Sent off two letters of literary importance, one to Mrs. Hargreaves, to ask her consent to my publishing the original MS. of "Alice" in facsimile (the idea occurred to me the other day); the other to Mr. H. Furniss, a very clever illustrator in Punch, asking if he is open to proposals to draw pictures for me.

The letter to Mrs. Hargreaves, which, it will be noticed, was earlier in date than the short note already quoted in this chapter, ran as follows:—

My Dear Mrs. Hargreaves,—I fancy this will come to you almost like a voice from the dead, after so many years of silence, and yet those years have made no difference that I can perceive in my clearness of memory of the days when we did correspond. I am getting to feel what an old man's failing memory is as to recent events and new friends, (for instance, I made friends, only a few weeks ago, with a very nice little maid of about twelve, and had a walk with her—and now I can't recall either of her names!), but my mental picture is as vivid as ever of one who was, through so many years, my ideal child-friend. I have had scores of child-friends since your time, but they have been quite a different thing.

However, I did not begin this letter to say all that. What I want to ask is, Would you have any objection to the original MS. book of "Alice's Adventures" (which I suppose you still possess) being published in facsimile? The idea of doing so occurred to me only the other day. If, on consideration, you come to the conclusion that you would rather not have it done, there is an end of the matter. If, however, you give a favourable reply, I would be much obliged if you would lend it me (registered post, I should think, would be safest) that I may consider the possibilities. I have not seen it for about twenty years, so am by no means sure that the illustrations may not prove to be so awfully bad that to reproduce them would be absurd.

There can be no doubt that I should incur the charge of gross egoism in publishing it. But I don't care for that in the least, knowing that I have no such motive; only I think, considering the extraordinary popularity the books have had (we have sold more than 120,000 of the two), there must be many who would like to see the original form.

Always your friend,

C.L. Dodgson.

H. FURNISS.

From a photograph.

The letter to Harry Furniss elicited a most satisfactory reply. Mr. Furniss said that he had long wished to illustrate one of Lewis Carroll's books, and that he was quite prepared to undertake the work ("Sylvie and Bruno").

Two more notes from the Diary, referring to the same month follow:—

March 10th.—A great Convocation assembled in the theatre, about a proposed grant for Physiology, opposed by many (I was one) who wish restrictions to be enacted as to the practice of vivisection for research. Liddon made an excellent speech against the grant, but it was carried by 412 to 244.

March 29th.—Never before have I had so many literary projects on hand at once. For curiosity, I will here make a list of them.

(1) Supplement to "Euclid and Modern Rivals."

(2) 2nd Edition of "Euc. and Mod. Rivals."

(3) A book of Math. curiosities, which I think of calling "Pillow Problems, and other Math. Trifles." This will contain Problems worked out in the dark, Logarithms without Tables, Sines and angles do., a paper I am now writing on "Infinities and Infinitesimals," condensed Long Multiplication, and perhaps others.

(4) Euclid V.

(5) "Plain Facts for Circle-Squarers," which is nearly complete, and gives actual proof of limits 3.14158, 3.14160.

(6) A symbolical Logic, treated by my algebraic method.

(7) "A Tangled Tale."

(8) A collection of Games and Puzzles of my devising, with fairy pictures by Miss E.G. Thomson. This might also contain my "Mem. Tech." for dates; my "Cipher-writing" scheme for Letter-registration, &c., &c.

(9) Nursery Alice.

(10) Serious poems in "Phantasmagoria."

(11) "Alice's Adventures Underground."

(12) "Girl's Own Shakespeare." I have begun on "Tempest."

(13) New edition of "Parliamentary Representation."

(14) New edition of Euc. I., II.

(15) The new child's book, which Mr. Furniss is to illustrate. I have settled on no name as yet, but it will perhaps be "Sylvie and Bruno."

I have other shadowy ideas, e.g., a Geometry for Boys, a vol. of Essays on theological points freely and plainly treated, and a drama on "Alice" (for which Mr. Mackenzie would write music): but the above is a fair example of "too many irons in the fire!"

A letter written about this time to his friend, Miss Edith Rix, gives some very good hints about how to work, all the more valuable because he had himself successfully carried them out. The first hint was as follows:—

When you have made a thorough and reasonably long effort, to understand a thing, and still feel puzzled by it, stop, you will only hurt yourself by going on. Put it aside till the next morning; and if then you can't make it out, and have no one to explain it to you, put it aside entirely, and go back to that part of the subject which you do understand. When I was reading Mathematics for University honours, I would sometimes, after working a week or two at some new book, and mastering ten or twenty pages, get into a hopeless muddle, and find it just as bad the next morning. My rule was to begin the book again. And perhaps in another fortnight I had come to the old difficulty with impetus enough to get over it. Or perhaps not. I have several books that I have begun over and over again.

My second hint shall be—Never leave an unsolved difficulty behind. I mean, don't go any further in that book till the difficulty is conquered. In this point, Mathematics differs entirely from most other subjects. Suppose you are reading an Italian book, and come to a hopelessly obscure sentence—don't waste too much time on it, skip it, and go on; you will do very well without it. But if you skip a mathematical difficulty, it is sure to crop up again: you will find some other proof depending on it, and you will only get deeper and deeper into the mud.

My third hint is, only go on working so long as the brain is quite clear. The moment you feel the ideas getting confused leave off and rest, or your penalty will be that you will never learn Mathematics at all!

Two more letters to the same friend are, I think, deserving of a place here:—

Eastbourne, Sept. 25, 1885.

My dear Edith,—One subject you touch on—"the Resurrection of the Body"—is very interesting to me, and I have given it much thought (I mean long ago). My conclusion was to give up the literal meaning of the material body altogether. Identity, in some mysterious way, there evidently is; but there is no resisting the scientific fact that the actual material usable for physical bodies has been used over and over again—so that each atom would have several owners. The mere solitary fact of the existence of cannibalism is to my mind a sufficient reductio ad absurdum of the theory that the particular set of atoms I shall happen to own at death (changed every seven years, they say) will be mine in the next life—and all the other insuperable difficulties (such as people born with bodily defects) are swept away at once if we accept S. Paul's "spiritual body," and his simile of the grain of corn. I have read very little of "Sartor Resartus," and don't know the passage you quote: but I accept the idea of the material body being the "dress" of the spiritual—a dress needed for material life.

Ch. Ch., Dec. 13, 1885.

Dear Edith,—I have been a severe sufferer from Logical puzzles of late. I got into a regular tangle about the "import of propositions," as the ordinary logical books declare that "all x is z" doesn't even hint that any x's exist, but merely that the qualities are so inseparable that, if ever x occurs, z must occur also. As to "some x is z" they are discreetly silent; and the living authorities I have appealed to, including our Professor of Logic, take opposite sides! Some say it means that the qualities are so connected that, if any x's did exist, some must be z—others that it only means compatibility, i.e., that some might be z, and they would go on asserting, with perfect belief in their truthfulness, "some boots are made of brass," even if they had all the boots in the world before them, and knew that none were so made, merely because there is no inherent impossibility in making boots of brass! Isn't it bewildering? I shall have to mention all this in my great work on Logic—but I shall take the line "any writer may mean exactly what he pleases by a phrase so long as he explains it beforehand." But I shall not venture to assert "some boots are made of brass" till I have found a pair! The Professor of Logic came over one day to talk about it, and we had a long and exciting argument, the result of which was "x —x"—a magnitude which you will be able to evaluate for yourself.

C. L. Dodgson.

As an example of the good advice Mr. Dodgson used to give his young friends, the following letter to Miss Isabel Standen will serve excellently:—

Eastbourne, Aug. 4, 1885.

I can quite understand, and much sympathise with, what you say of your feeling lonely, and not what you can honestly call "happy." Now I am going to give you a bit of philosophy about that—my own experience is, that every new form of life we try is, just at first, irksome rather than pleasant. My first day or two at the sea is a little depressing; I miss the Christ Church interests, and haven't taken up the threads of interest here; and, just in the same way, my first day or two, when I get back to Christ Church, I miss the seaside pleasures, and feel with unusual clearness the bothers of business-routine. In all such cases, the true philosophy, I believe, is "wait a bit." Our mental nerves seem to be so adjusted that we feel first and most keenly, the dis—comforts of any new form of life; but, after a bit, we get used to them, and cease to notice them; and then we have time to realise the enjoyable features, which at first we were too much worried to be conscious of.

Suppose you hurt your arm, and had to wear it in a sling for a month. For the first two or three days the discomfort of the bandage, the pressure of the sling on the neck and shoulder, the being unable to use the arm, would be a constant worry. You would feel as if all comfort in life were gone; after a couple of days you would be used to the new sensations, after a week you perhaps wouldn't notice them at all; and life would seem just as comfortable as ever.

So my advice is, don't think about loneliness, or happiness, or unhappiness, for a week or two. Then "take stock" again, and compare your feelings with what they were two weeks previously. If they have changed, even a little, for the better you are on the right track; if not, we may begin to suspect the life does not suit you. But what I want specially to urge is that there's no use in comparing one's feelings between one day and the next; you must allow a reasonable interval, for the direction of change to show itself.

Sit on the beach, and watch the waves for a few seconds; you say "the tide is coming in "; watch half a dozen successive waves, and you may say "the last is the lowest; it is going out." Wait a quarter of an hour, and compare its average place with what it was at first, and you will say "No, it is coming in after all." ...

With love, I am always affectionately yours,

C. L. Dodgson.

The next event to chronicle in Lewis Carroll's Life is the publication, by Messrs. Macmillan, of "A Tangled Tale," a series of mathematical problems which had originally appeared in the Monthly Packet. In addition to the problems themselves, the author added their correct solutions, with criticisms on the solutions, correct or otherwise, which the readers of the Monthly Packet had sent in to him. With some people this is the most popular of all his books; it is certainly the most successful attempt he ever made to combine mathematics and humour. The book was illustrated by Mr. A.B. Frost, who entered most thoroughly into the spirit of the thing. One of his pictures, "Balbus was assisting his mother-in-law to convince the dragon," is irresistibly comic. A short quotation will better enable the reader to understand the point of the joke:—

Balbus was waiting for them at the hotel; the journey down had tried him, he said; so his two pupils had been the round of the place, in search of lodgings, without the old tutor who had been their inseparable companion from their childhood. They had named him after the hero of their Latin exercise-book, which overflowed with anecdotes about that versatile genius—anecdotes whose vagueness in detail was more than compensated by their sensational brilliance. "Balbus has overcome all his enemies" had been marked by their tutor, in the margin of the book, "Successful Bravery." In this way he had tried to extract a moral from every anecdote about Balbus—sometimes one of warning, as in "Balbus had borrowed a healthy dragon," against which he had written, "Rashness in Speculation "—sometimes of encouragement, as in the words, "Influence of Sympathy in United Action," which stood opposite to the anecdote "Balbus was assisting his mother-in-law to convince the dragon"—and sometimes it dwindled down to a single word, such as "Prudence," which was all he could extract from the touching record that "Balbus, having scorched the tail of the dragon, went away." His pupils liked the short morals best, as it left them more room for marginal illustrations, and in this instance they required all the space they could get to exhibit the rapidity of the hero's departure.

Balbus and his pupils go in search of lodgings, which are only to be found in a certain square; at No. 52, one of the pupils supplements the usual questions by asking the landlady if the cat scratches:—

The landlady looked round suspiciously, as if to make sure the cat was not listening. "I will not deceive you, gentlemen," she said. "It do scratch, but not without you pulls its whiskers! It'll never do it," she repeated slowly, with a visible effort to recall the exact words of some written agreement between herself and the cat, "without you pulls its whiskers!"

"Much may be excused in a cat so treated," said Balbus as they left the house and crossed to No. 70, leaving the landlady curtesying on the doorstep, and still murmuring to herself her parting words, as if they were a form of blessing—"Not without you pulls its whiskers!"

Balbus having scorched

the Dragon's Tail—Went Away!

From a crayon drawing

by the Rev. H.C. Gaye..

They secure one room at each of the following numbers—the square contains 20 doors on each side—Nine, Twenty-five, Fifty-two, and Seventy-three. They require three bedrooms and one day-room, and decide to take as day—room the one that gives them the least walking to do to get to it. The problem, of course, is to discover which room they adopted as the day-room. There are ten such "knots" in the book, and few, if any of them, can be untied without a good deal of thought.

Owing, probably, to the strain of incessant work, Mr. Dodgson about this period began to be subject to a very peculiar, yet not very uncommon, optical delusion, which takes the form of seeing moving fortifications. Considering the fact that he spent a good twelve hours out of every twenty-four in reading and writing, and that he was now well over fifty years old, it was not surprising that nature should begin to rebel at last, and warn him of the necessity of occasional rest.

Some verses on "Wonderland" by "One who loves Alice," appeared in the Christmas number of Sylvia's Home Journal, 1885. They were written by Miss M.E. Manners, and, as Lewis Carroll himself admired them, they will, I think, be read with interest:—

WONDERLAND.

How sweet those happy days gone by,

Those days of sunny weather,

When Alice fair, with golden hair,

And we—were young together;—

When first with eager gaze we scann'd

The page which told of Wonderland.

On hearthrug in the winter-time

We lay and read it over;

We read it in the summer's prime,

Amidst the hay and clover.

The trees, by evening breezes fann'd,

Murmured sweet tales of Wonderland.

We climbed the mantelpiece, and broke

The jars of Dresden china;

In Jabberwocky tongue we spoke,

We called the kitten "Dinah!"

And, oh! how earnestly we planned

To go ourselves to Wonderland.

The path was fringed with flowers rare,

With rainbow colours tinted;

The way was "up a winding stair,"

Our elders wisely hinted.

We did not wish to understand

Bed was the road to Wonderland.

We thought we'd wait till we should grow

Stronger as well as bolder,

But now, alas! full well we know

We're only growing older.

The key held by a childish hand,

Fits best the door of Wonderland.

Yet still the Hatter drinks his tea,

The Duchess finds a moral,

And Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Forget in fright their quarrel.

The Walrus still weeps on the sand,

That strews the shores of Wonderland.

And other children feel the spell

Which once we felt before them,

And while the well-known tale we tell,

We watch it stealing o'er them:

Before their dazzled eyes expand

The glorious realms of Wonderland.

Yes, "time is fleet," and we have gained

Years more than twice eleven;

Alice, dear child, hast thou remained

"Exactually" seven?

With "proper aid," "two" could command

Time to go back in Wonderland.

Or have the years (untouched by charms),

With joy and sorrow laden,

Rolled by, and brought unto thy arms

A dainty little maiden?

Another Alice, who shall stand

By thee to hear of Wonderland.

Carroll! accept the heartfelt thanks

Of children of all ages,

Of those who long have left their ranks,

Yet still must love the pages

Written by him whose magic wand

Called up the scenes of Wonderland.

Long mayst thou live, the sound to hear

Which most thy heart rejoices,

Of children's laughter ringing clear,

And children's merry voices,

Until for thee an angel-hand

Draws back the veil of Wonderland.

One Who Loves "Alice."

Three letters, written at the beginning of 1886 to Miss Edith Rix, to whom he had dedicated "A Tangled Tale," are interesting as showing the deeper side of his character:—

Guildford, Jan. 15, 1886.

My dear Edith,—I have been meaning for some time to write to you about agnosticism, and other matters in your letter which I have left unnoticed. And yet I do not know, much as what you say interests me, and much as I should like to be of use to any wandering seeker after truth, that I am at all likely to say anything that will be new to you and of any practical use.

The Moral Science student you describe must be a beautiful character, and if, as you say, she lives a noble life, then, even though she does not, as yet, see any God, for whose sake she can do things, I don't think you need be unhappy about her. "When thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee," is often supposed to mean that Nathanael had been praying, praying no doubt ignorantly and imperfectly, but yet using the light he had: and it seems to have been accepted as faith in the Messiah. More and more it seems to me (I hope you won't be very much shocked at me as an ultra "Broad" Churchman) that what a person is is of more importance in God's sight than merely what propositions he affirms or denies. You, at any rate, can do more good among those new friends of yours by showing them what a Christian is, than by telling them what a Christian believes....

I have a deep dread of argument on religious topics: it has many risks, and little chance of doing good. You and I will never argue, I hope, on any controverted religious question: though I do hope we may see the day when we may freely speak of such things, even where we happen to hold different views. But even then I should have no inclination, if we did differ, to conclude that my view was the right one, and to try to convert you to it....

Now I come to your letter dated Dec. 22nd, and must scold you for saying that my solution of the problem was "quite different to all common ways of doing it": if you think that's good English, well and good; but I must beg to differ to you, and to hope you will never write me a sentence similar from this again. However, "worse remains behind"; and if you deliberately intend in future, when writing to me about one of England's greatest poets, to call him "Shelly," then all I can say is, that you and I will have to quarrel! Be warned in time.

C. L. Dodgson.

Ch. Ch., Jan. 26, 1886.

My Dear Edith,—I am interested by what you say of Miss—. You will know, without my saying it, that if she, or any other friend of yours with any troubles, were to like to write to me, I would very gladly try to help: with all my ignorance and weakness, God has, I think, blessed my efforts in that way: but then His strength is made perfect in weakness....

Ch. Ch., Feb. 14, 1886.

My Dear Edith,... I think I've already noticed, in a way, most of the rest of that letter—except what you say about learning more things "after we are dead." I certainly like to think that may be so. But I have heard the other view strongly urged, a good deal based on "then shall we know even as we are known." But I can't believe that that means we shall have all knowledge given us in a moment—nor can I fancy it would make me any happier: it is the learning that is the chief joy, here, at any rate....

I find another remark anent "pupils"—a bold speculation that my 1,000 pupils may really "go on" in the future life, till they have really outstripped Euclid. And, please, what is Euclid to be doing all that time? ...

One of the most dreadful things you have ever told me is your students' theory of going and speaking to any one they are interested in, without any introductions. This, joined with what you say of some of them being interested in "Alice," suggests the horrid idea of their some day walking into this room and beginning a conversation. It is enough to make one shiver, even to think of it!

Never mind if people do say "Good gracious!" when you help old women: it is being, in some degree, both "good" and "gracious," one may hope. So the remark wasn't so inappropriate.

I fear I agree with your friend in not liking all sermons. Some of them, one has to confess, are rubbish: but then I release my attention from the preacher, and go ahead in any line of thought he may have started: and his after-eloquence acts as a kind of accompaniment—like music while one is reading poetry, which often, to me, adds to the effect.

C. L. Dodgson.

The "Alice" operetta, which Mr. Dodgson had despaired of, was at last to become a reality. Mr. Savile Clarke wrote on August 28th to ask his leave to dramatise the two books, and he gladly assented. He only made one condition, which was very characteristic of him, that there should be "no suggestion even of coarseness in libretto or in stage business." The hint was hardly necessary, for Mr. Savile Clarke was not the sort of man to spoil his work, or to allow others to spoil it, by vulgarity. Several alterations were made in the books before they were suitable for a dramatic performance; Mr. Dodgson had to write a song for the ghosts of the oysters, which the Walrus and the Carpenter had devoured. He also completed "Tis the voice of the lobster," so as to make it into a song. It ran as follows:—

Tis the voice of the lobster; I heard him declare

"You have baked me too brown: I must sugar my hair."

As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose

Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.

When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,

And talks with the utmost contempt of the shark;

But when the tide rises, and sharks are around,

His words have a timid and tremulous sound.

I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,

How the owl and the panther were sharing a pie:

The panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat,

And the owl had the dish for his share of the treat.

When the plate was divided, the owl, as a boon,

Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon:

But the panther obtained both the fork and the knife,

So, when he lost his temper, the owl lost its life.

The play, for the first few weeks at least, was a great success. Some notes in Mr. Dodgson's Diary which relate to it, show how he appreciated Mr. Savile Clarke's venture:—

Dec. 30th.—To London with M—, and took her to "Alice in Wonderland," Mr. Savile Clarke's play at the Prince of Wales's Theatre. The first act (Wonderland) goes well, specially the Mad Tea Party. Mr. Sydney Harcourt is a capital Hatter, and little Dorothy d'Alcourt (&aelig;t. 6 1/2) a delicious Dormouse. Phoebe Carlo is a splendid Alice. Her song and dance with the Cheshire Cat (Master C. Adeson, who played the Pirate King in "Pirates of Penzance") was a gem. As a whole the play seems a success.

Feb. 11, 1887.—Went to the "Alice" play, where we sat next a chatty old gentleman, who told me that the author of "Alice" had sent Phoebe Carlo a book, and that she had written to him to say that she would do her very best, and further, that he is "an Oxford man"—all which I hope I received with a sufficient expression of pleased interest.

Shortly before the production of the play, a Miss Whitehead had drawn a very clever medley-picture, in which nearly all Tenniel's wonderful creations—the Dormouse, the White Knight, the Mad Hatter, &c.—appeared. This design was most useful as a "poster" to advertise the play. After the London run was over, the company made a tour of the provinces, where it met with a fair amount of success.

MEDLEY OF TENNIEL'S ILLUSTRATIONS IN "ALICE."

From an etching by Miss Whitehead.

At the end of 1886, "Alice's Adventures Underground," a facsimile of the original MS. book, afterwards developed into "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," with thirty-seven illustrations by the author, was published by Macmillan & Co. A postscript to the Preface stated that any profits that might arise from the book would be given to Children's Hospitals and Convalescent Homes for Sick Children. Shortly before the book came out, Lewis Carroll wrote to Mrs. Hargreaves, giving a description of the difficulties that he had encountered in producing it:—

Christ Church, Oxford,

November 11, 1886.

My Dear Mrs. Hargreaves,—Many thanks for your permission to insert "Hospitals" in the Preface to your book. I have had almost as many adventures in getting that unfortunate facsimile finished, Above ground, as your namesake had Under it!

First, the zincographer in London, recommended to me for photographing the book, page by page, and preparing the zinc-blocks, declined to undertake it unless I would entrust the book to him, which I entirely refused to do. I felt that it was only due to you, in return for your great kindness in lending so unique a book, to be scrupulous in not letting it be even touched by the workmen's hands. In vain I offered to come and reside in London with the book, and to attend daily in the studio, to place it in position to be photographed, and turn over the pages as required. He said that could not be done because "other authors' works were being photographed there, which must on no account be seen by the public." I undertook not to look at anything but my own book; but it was no use: we could not come to terms.

Then — recommended me a certain Mr. X—, an excellent photographer, but in so small a way of business that I should have to prepay him, bit by bit, for the zinc-blocks: and he was willing to come to Oxford, and do it here. So it was all done in my studio, I remaining in waiting all the time, to turn over the pages.

But I daresay I have told you so much of the story already.

Mr. X— did a first-rate set of negatives, and took them away with him to get the zinc-blocks made. These he delivered pretty regularly at first, and there seemed to be every prospect of getting the book out by Christmas, 1885.

On October 18, 1885, I sent your book to Mrs. Liddell, who had told me your sisters were going to visit you and would take it with them. I trust it reached you safely?

Soon after this—I having prepaid for the whole of the zinc-blocks—the supply suddenly ceased, while twenty-two pages were still due, and Mr. X— disappeared!

My belief is that he was in hiding from his creditors. We sought him in vain. So things went on for months. At one time I thought of employing a detective to find him, but was assured that "all detectives are scoundrels." The alternative seemed to be to ask you to lend the book again, and get the missing pages re-photographed. But I was most unwilling to rob you of it again, and also afraid of the risk of loss of the book, if sent by post—for even "registered post" does not seem absolutely safe.

In April he called at Macmillan's and left eight blocks, and again vanished into obscurity.

This left us with fourteen pages (dotted up and down the book) still missing. I waited awhile longer, and then put the thing into the hands of a solicitor, who soon found the man, but could get nothing but promises from him. "You will never get the blocks," said the solicitor, "unless you frighten him by a summons before a magistrate." To this at last I unwillingly consented: the summons had to be taken out at — (that is where this aggravating man is living), and this entailed two journeys from Eastbourne—one to get the summons (my personal presence being necessary), and the other to attend in court with the solicitor on the day fixed for hearing the case. The defendant didn't appear; so the magistrate said he would take the case in his absence. Then I had the new and exciting experience of being put into the witness-box, and sworn, and cross-examined by a rather savage magistrate's clerk, who seemed to think that, if he only bullied me enough, he would soon catch me out in a falsehood! I had to give the magistrate a little lecture on photo-zincography, and the poor man declared the case was so complicated he must adjourn it for another week. But this time, in order to secure the presence of our slippery defendant, he issued a warrant for his apprehension, and the constable had orders to take him into custody and lodge him in prison, the night before the day when the case was to come on. The news of this effectually frightened him, and he delivered up the fourteen negatives (he hadn't done the blocks) before the fatal day arrived. I was rejoiced to get them, even though it entailed the paying a second time for getting the fourteen blocks done, and withdrew the action.

The fourteen blocks were quickly done and put into the printer's hands; and all is going on smoothly at last: and I quite hope to have the book completed, and to be able to send you a very special copy (bound in white vellum, unless you would prefer some other style of binding) by the end of the month.

Believe me always,

Sincerely yours,

C. L. Dodgson.

"The Game of Logic" was Lewis Carroll's next book; it appeared about the end of February, 1887. As a method of teaching the first principles of Logic to children it has proved most useful; the subject, usually considered very difficult to a beginner, is made extremely easy by simplification of method, and both interesting and amusing by the quaint syllogisms that the author devised, such as—

No bald person needs a hair-brush;

No lizards have hair;

Therefore[1] No lizard needs a hair brush.

Caterpillars are not eloquent;

Jones is eloquent;

Jones is not a caterpillar.

Meanwhile, with much interchange of correspondence between author and artist, the pictures for the new fairy tale, "Sylvie and Bruno," were being gradually evolved. Each of them was subjected by Lewis Carroll to the most minute criticism—hyper-criticism, perhaps, occasionally. A few instances of the sort of criticisms he used to make upon Mr. Furniss's work may be interesting; I have extracted them from a letter dated September 1, 1887. It will be seen that when he really admired a sketch he did not stint his praise:—

(1) "Sylvie helping beetle" [p. 193]. A quite charming composition.

(3) "The Doctor" and "Eric." (Mr. Furniss's idea of their appearance). No! The Doctor won't do at all! He is a smug London man, a great "ladies' man," who would hardly talk anything but medical "shop." He is forty at least, and can have had no love-affair for the last fifteen years. I want him to be about twenty-five, powerful in frame, poetical in face: capable of intelligent interest in any subject, and of being a passionate lover. How would you draw King Arthur when he first met Guinevere? Try that type.

Eric's attitude is capital: but his face is a little too near to the ordinary "masher." Please avoid that inane creature; and please don't cut his hair short. That fashion will be "out" directly.

(4) "Lady Muriel" (head); ditto (full length); "Earl."

I don't like either face of Lady Muriel. I don't think I could talk to her; and I'm quite sure I couldn't fall in love with her. Her dress ("evening," of course) is very pretty, I think.

I don't like the Earl's face either. He is proud of his title, very formal, and one who would keep one "at arm's length" always. And he is too prodigiously tall. I want a gentle, genial old man; with whom one would feel at one's ease in a moment.

(8) "Uggug becoming Porcupine" ("Sylvie and Bruno, Concluded," page 388), is exactly my conception of it. I expect this will be one of the most effective pictures in the book. The faces of the people should express intense terror.

(9) "The Professor" is altogether delightful. When you get the text, you will see that you have hit the very centre of the bull's-eye.

[A sketch of "Bruno"]. No, no! Please don't give us the (to my mind) very ugly, quite modern costume, which shows with such cruel distinctness a podgy, pot-bellied (excuse the vulgarism) boy, who couldn't run a mile to save his life. I want Bruno to be strong, but at the same time light and active—with the figure of one of the little acrobats one sees at the circus—not "Master Tommy," who habitually gorges himself with pudding. Also that dress I dislike very much. Please give him a short tunic, and real knickerbockers—not the tight knee-breeches they are rapidly shrinking to.

Very truly yours,

C. L. Dodgson.

By Mr. Furniss's kind permission I am enabled to give an example of the other side of the correspondence, one of his letters to Mr. Dodgson, all the more interesting for the charming little sketch which it contains.

With respect to the spider, Mr. Dodgson had written: "Some writer says that the full face of a spider, as seen under a magnifying-glass, is very striking."

Facsimile of a letter

from H. Furniss to Lewis Carroll,

August 23, 1886.

SYLVIE AND BRUNO.

From a drawing

by Henry Holiday.

CHAPTER VII

(1888—1891)

A systematic life—"Memoria Technica"—Mr. Dodgson's shyness—"A Lesson in Latin"—The "Wonderland" Stamp-Case—"Wise Words about Letter-Writing"—Princess Alice—"Sylvie and Bruno"—"The night cometh"—"The Nursery 'Alice'"—Coventry Patmore—Telepathy—Resignation of Dr. Liddell—A letter about Logic.

An old bachelor is generally very precise and exact in his habits. He has no one but himself to look after, nothing to distract his attention from his own affairs; and Mr. Dodgson was the most precise and exact of old bachelors. He made a précis of every letter he wrote or received from the 1st of January, 1861, to the 8th of the same month, 1898. These précis were all numbered and entered in reference-books, and by an ingenious system of cross-numbering he was able to trace a whole correspondence, which might extend through several volumes. The last number entered in his book is 98,721.

He had scores of green cardboard boxes, all neatly labelled, in which he kept his various papers. These boxes formed quite a feature of his study at Oxford, a large number of them being arranged upon a revolving bookstand. The lists, of various sorts, which he kept were innumerable; one of them, that of unanswered correspondents, generally held seventy or eighty names at a time, exclusive of autograph-hunters, whom he did not answer on principle. He seemed to delight in being arithmetically accurate about every detail of life.

He always rose at the same early hour, and, if he was in residence at Christ Church, attended College Service. He spent the day according to a prescribed routine, which usually included a long walk into the country, very often alone, but sometimes with another Don, or perhaps, if the walk was not to be as long as usual, with some little girl-friend at his side. When he had a companion with him, he would talk the whole time, telling delightful stories, or explaining some new logical problem; if he was alone, he used to think out his books, as probably many another author has done and will do, in the course of a lonely walk. The only irregularity noticeable in his mode of life was the hour of retiring, which varied from 11 p.m. to four o'clock in the morning, according to the amount of work which he felt himself in the mood for.

He had a wonderfully good memory, except for faces and dates. The former were always a stumbling-block to him, and people used to say (most unjustly) that he was intentionally short-sighted. One night he went up to London to dine with a friend, whom he had only recently met. The next morning a gentleman greeted him as he was walking. "I beg your pardon," said Mr. Dodgson, "but you have the advantage of me. I have no remembrance of having ever seen you before this moment." "That is very strange," the other replied, "for I was your host last night!" Such little incidents as this happened more than once. To help himself to remember dates, he devised a system of mnemonics, which he circulated among his friends. As it has never been published, and as some of my readers may find it useful, I reproduce it here.

My "Memoria Technica" is a modification of Gray's; but, whereas he used both consonants and vowels to represent digits, and had to content himself with a syllable of gibberish to represent the date or whatever other number was required, I use only consonants, and fill in with vowels ad libitum, and thus can always manage to make a real word of whatever has to be represented.

The principles on which the necessary 20 consonants have been chosen are as follows:—

1. "b" and "c," the first two consonants in the alphabet.

2. "d" from "duo," "w" from "two."

3. "t" from "tres," the other may wait awhile.

4. "f" from "four," "q" from "quattuor."

5. "l" and "v," because "l" and "v" are the Roman symbols for "fifty" and "five."

6. "s" and "x" from "six."

7. "p" and "m" from "septem."

8. "h" from "huit," and "k" from the Greek "okto."

9. "n" from "nine"; and "g" because it is so like a "9."

0. "z" and "r" from "zero."

There is now one consonant still waiting for its digit, viz., "j," and one digit waiting for its consonant, viz., "3," the conclusion is obvious.

The result may be tabulated thus:—

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

0

b

d

t

f

l

s

p

h

n

z

c

w

j

q

v

x

m

k

g

r

When a word has been found, whose last consonants represent the number required, the best plan is to put it as the last word of a rhymed couplet, so that, whatever other words in it are forgotten, the rhyme will secure the only really important word.

Now suppose you wish to remember the date of the discovery of America, which is 1492; the "1" may be left out as obvious; all we need is "492."

Write it thus:—

    4 9 2

    f n d

    q g w

and try to find a word that contains "f" or "q," "n" or "g," "d" or "w." A word soon suggests itself—"found."

The poetic faculty must now be brought into play, and the following couplet will soon be evolved:—

"Columbus sailed the world around,

Until America was F O U N D."

If possible, invent the couplets for yourself; you will remember them better than any others.

June, 1888.

The inventor found this "Memoria Technica" very useful in helping him to remember the dates of the different Colleges. He often, of course, had to show his friends the sights of Oxford, and the easy way in which, asked or unasked, he could embellish his descriptions with dates used to surprise those who did not know how the thing was done. The couplet for St. John's College ran as follows:—

"They must have a bevel

To keep them so LEVEL."

The allusion is to the beautiful lawns, for which St. John's is famous.

In his power of remembering anecdotes, and bringing them out just at the right moment, Mr. Dodgson was unsurpassed. A guest brought into Christ Church Common Room was usually handed over to him to be amused. He was not a good man to tell a story to—he had always heard it before; but as a raconteur I never met his equal. And the best of it was that his stories never grew—except in number.

One would have expected that a mind so clear and logical and definite would have fought shy of the feminine intellect, which is generally supposed to be deficient in those qualities; and so it is somewhat surprising to find that by far the greater number of his friends were ladies. He was quite prepared to correct them, however, when they were guilty of what seemed to him unreasoning conduct, as is shown by the following extract from a letter of his to a young lady who had asked him to try and find a place for a governess, without giving the latter's address:—

Some of my friends are business-men, and it is pleasant to see how methodical and careful they are in transacting any business-matter. If, for instance, one of them were to write to me, asking me to look out for a place for a French governess in whom he was interested, I should be sure to admire the care with which he would give me her name in full—(in extra-legible writing if it were an unusual name)—as well as her address. Some of my friends are not men of business.

So many such requests were addressed to him that at one time he had a circular letter printed, with a list of people requiring various appointments or assistants, which he sent round to his friends.

In one respect Lewis Carroll resembled the stoic philosophers, for no outward circumstance could upset the tranquillity of his mind. He lived, in fact, the life which Marcus Aurelius commends so highly, the life of calm contentment, based on the assurance that so long as we are faithful to ourselves, no seeming evils can really harm us. But in him there was one exception to this rule. During an argument he was often excited. The war of words, the keen and subtle conflict between trained minds—in this his soul took delight, in this he sought and found the joy of battle and of victory. Yet he would not allow his serenity to be ruffled by any foe whom he considered unworthy of his steel; he refused to argue with people whom he knew to be hopelessly illogical—definitely refused, though with such tact that no wound was given, even to the most sensitive.

He was modest in the true sense of the term, neither overestimating nor underrating his own mental powers, and preferring to follow his own course without regarding outside criticism. "I never read anything about myself or my books," he writes in a letter to a friend; and the reason he used to give was that if the critics praised him he might become conceited, while, if they found fault, he would only feel hurt and angry. On October 25, 1888, he wrote in his Diary: "I see there is a leader in to-day's Standard on myself as a writer; but I do not mean to read it. It is not healthy reading, I think."

He hated publicity, and tried to avoid it in every way. "Do not tell any one, if you see me in the theatre," he wrote once to Miss Marion Terry. On another occasion, when he was dining out at Oxford, and some one, who did not know that it was a forbidden subject, turned the conversation on "Alice in Wonderland," he rose suddenly and fled from the house. I could multiply instances of this sort, but it would be unjust to his memory to insist upon the morbid way in which he regarded personal popularity. As compared with self-advertisement, it is certainly the lesser evil; but that it is an evil, and a very painful one to its possessor, Mr. Dodgson fully saw. Of course it had its humorous side, as, for instance, when he was brought into contact with lion-hunters, autograph-collectors, et hoc genus omne. He was very suspicious of unknown correspondents who addressed questions to him; in later years he either did not answer them at all, or used a typewriter. Before he bought his typewriter, he would get some friend to write for him, and even to sign "Lewis Carroll" at the end of the letter. It used to give him great amusement to picture the astonishment of the recipients of these letters, if by any chance they ever came to compare his "autographs."

On one occasion the secretary of a "Young Ladies' Academy" in the United States asked him to present some of his works to the School Library. The envelope was addressed to "Lewis Carroll, Christ Church," an incongruity which always annoyed him intensely. He replied to the Secretary, "As Mr. Dodgson's books are all on Mathematical subjects, he fears that they would not be very acceptable in a school library."

Some fourteen or fifteen years ago, the Fourth-class of the Girl's Latin School at Boston, U.S., started a magazine, and asked him if they might call it The Jabberwock. He wrote in reply:—

Mr. Lewis Carroll has much pleasure in giving to the editors of the proposed magazine permission to use the title they wish for. He finds that the Anglo-Saxon word "wocer" or "wocor" signifies "offspring" or "fruit." Taking "jabber" in its ordinary acceptation of "excited and voluble discussion," this would give the meaning of "the result of much excited discussion." Whether this phrase will have any application to the projected periodical, it will be for the future historian of American literature to determine. Mr. Carroll wishes all success to the forthcoming magazine.

From that time forward he took a great interest in the magazine, and thought very well of it. It used, I believe, to be regularly supplied to him. Only once did he express disapproval of anything it contained, and that was in 1888, when he felt it necessary to administer a rebuke for what he thought to be an irreverent joke. The sequel is given in the following extract from The Jabberwock for June, 1888:—

A FRIEND WORTH HAVING.

The Jabberwock has many friends, and perhaps a few (very few, let us hope) enemies. But, of the former, the friend who has helped us most on the road to success is Mr. Lewis Carroll, the author of "Alice in Wonderland," &c. Our readers will remember his kind letter granting us permission to use the name "Jabberwock," and also giving the meaning of that word. Since then we have received another letter from him, in which he expresses both surprise and regret at an anecdote which we published in an early number of our little paper. We would assure Mr. Carroll, as well as our other friends, that we had no intention of making light of a serious matter, but merely quoted the anecdote to show what sort of a book Washington's diary was.

But now a third letter from our kind friend has come, enclosing, to our delight, a poem, "A Lesson in Latin," the pleasantest Latin lesson we have had this year.

The first two letters from Mr. Carroll were in a beautiful literary hand, whereas the third is written with a typewriter. It is to this fact that he refers in his letter, which is as follows:—

"29, Bedford Street,

Covent Garden, LONDON,

May 16, 1888.

Dear Young Friends,—After the Black Draught of serious remonstrance which I ventured to send to you the other day, surely a Lump of Sugar will not be unacceptable? The enclosed I wrote this afternoon on purpose for you.

I hope you will grant it admission to the columns of The Jabberwock, and not scorn it as a mere play upon words.

This mode of writing, is, of course, an American invention. We never invent new machinery here; we do but use, to the best of our ability, the machines you send us. For the one I am now using, I beg you to accept my best thanks, and to believe me

Your sincere friend,

Lewis Carroll."

Surely we can patiently swallow many Black Draughts, if we are to be rewarded with so sweet a Lump of Sugar!

The enclosed poem, which has since been republished in "Three Sunsets," runs as follows:

A LESSON IN LATIN.

Our Latin books, in motley row,

Invite us to the task—

Gay Horace, stately Cicero;

Yet there's one verb, when once we know,

No higher skill we ask:

This ranks all other lore above—

We've learned "amare" means "to love"!

So hour by hour, from flower to flower,

We sip the sweets of life:

Till ah! too soon the clouds arise,

And knitted brows and angry eyes

Proclaim the dawn of strife.

With half a smile and half a sigh,

"Amare! Bitter One!" we cry.

Last night we owned, with looks forlorn,

"Too well the scholar knows

There is no rose without a thorn "—

But peace is made! we sing, this morn,

"No thorn without a rose!"

Our Latin lesson is complete:

We've learned that Love is "Bitter-sweet"

Lewis Carroll.

In October Mr. Dodgson invented a very ingenious little stamp-case, decorated with two "Pictorial Surprises," representing the "Cheshire Cat" vanishing till nothing but the grin was left, and the baby turning into a pig in "Alice's" arms. The invention was entered at Stationers' Hall, and published by Messrs. Emberlin and Son, of Oxford. As an appropriate accompaniment, he wrote "Eight or Nine Wise Words on Letter-Writing," a little booklet which is still sold along with the case. The "Wise Words," as the following extracts show, have the true "Carrollian" ring about them:—

Some American writer has said "the snakes in this district may be divided into one species—the venomous." The same principle applies here. Postage-stamp-cases may be divided into one species—the "Wonderland."

Since I have possessed a "Wonderland-Stamp-Case," Life has been bright and peaceful, and I have used no other. I believe the Queen's Laundress uses no other.

My fifth Rule is, if your friend makes a severe remark, either leave it unnoticed or make your reply distinctly less severe: and, if he makes a friendly remark, tending towards "making up" the little difference that has arisen between you, let your reply be distinctly more friendly. If, in picking a quarrel, each party declined to go more than three-eighths of the way, and if, in making friends, each was ready to go five-eighths of the way—why, there would be more reconciliations than quarrels! Which is like the Irishman's remonstrance to his gad-about daughter: "Shure, you're always goin' out! You go out three times for wanst that you come in!"

My sixth Rule is, don't try to have the last word! How many a controversy would be nipped in the bud, if each was anxious to let the other have the last word! Never mind how telling a rejoinder you leave unuttered: never mind your friend's supposing that you are silent from lack of anything to say: let the thing drop, as soon as it is possible without discourtesy: remember "Speech is silvern, but silence is golden"! (N.B. If you are a gentleman, and your friend a lady, this Rule is superfluous: you won't get the last word!)

Remember the old proverb, "Cross-writing makes cross-reading." "The old proverb?" you say inquiringly. "How old?" Well, not so very ancient, I must confess. In fact, I invented it while writing this paragraph. Still, you know, "old" is a comparative term. I think you would be quite justified in addressing a chicken, just out of the shell, as "old boy!" when compared with another chicken that was only half-out!

The pamphlet ends with an explanation of Lewis Carroll's method of using a correspondence-book, illustrated by a few imaginary pages from such a compilation, which are very humorous.

Facsimile of programme

of "Alice in Wonderland."

At the end of the year the "Alice" operetta was again produced at the Globe Theatre, with Miss Isa Bowman as the heroine. "Isa makes a delightful Alice," Mr. Dodgson writes, "and Emsie [a younger sister] is wonderfully good as Dormouse and as Second Ghost [of an oyster!], when she sings a verse, and dances the Sailor's Hornpipe."

"THE MAD TEA-PARTY."

From a photograph by Elliott & Fry.

The first of an incomplete series, "Curiosa Mathematica," was published for Mr. Dodgson by Messrs. Macmillan during the year. It was entitled "A New Theory of Parallels," and any one taking it up for the first time might be tempted to ask, Is the author serious, or is he simply giving us some jeu d'esprit? A closer inspection, however, soon settles the question, and the reader, if mathematics be his hobby, is carried irresistibly along till he reaches the last page.

The object which Mr. Dodgson set himself to accomplish was to prove Euclid I. 32 without assuming the celebrated 12th Axiom, a feat which calls up visions of the "Circle-Squarers."

The work is divided into two parts: Book I. contains certain Propositions which require no disputable Axiom for their proof, and when once the few Definitions of "amount," &c., have become familiar it is easy reading. In Book II. the author introduces a new Axiom, or rather "Quasi-Axiom"—for it's self-evident character is open to dispute. This Axiom is as follows:—

In any Circle the inscribed equilateral Tetragon (Hexagon in editions 1st and 2nd) is greater than any one of the Segments which lie outside it.

Assuming the truth of this Axiom, Mr. Dodgson proves a series of Propositions, which lead up to and enable him to accomplish the feat referred to above.

At the end of Book II. he places a proof (so far as finite magnitudes are concerned) of Euclid's Axiom, preceded by and dependent on the Axiom that "If two homogeneous magnitudes be both of them finite, the lesser may be so multiplied by a finite number as to exceed the greater." This Axiom, he says, he believes to be assumed by every writer who has attempted to prove Euclid's 12th Axiom. The proof itself is borrowed, with slight alterations, from Cuthbertson's "Euclidean Geometry."

In Appendix I. there is an alternative Axiom which may be substituted for that which introduces Book II., and which will probably commend itself to many minds as being more truly axiomatic. To substitute this, however, involves some additions and alterations, which the author appends.

Appendix II. is headed by the somewhat startling question, "Is Euclid's Axiom true?" and though true for finite magnitudes—the sense in which, no doubt, Euclid meant it to be taken—it is shown to be not universally true. In Appendix III. he propounds the question, "How should Parallels be defined?"

Appendix IV., which deals with the theory of Parallels as it stands to-day, concludes with the following words:—

I am inclined to believe that if ever Euclid I. 32 is proved without a new Axiom, it will be by some new and ampler definition of the Right Line—some definition which shall connote that mysterious property, which it must somehow possess, which causes Euclid I. 32 to be true. Try that track, my gentle reader! It is not much trodden as yet. And may success attend your search!

In the Introduction, which, as is frequently the case, ought to be read last in order to be appreciated properly, he relates his experiences with two of those "misguided visionaries," the circle-squarers. One of them had selected 3.2 as the value for "pi," and the other proved, to his own satisfaction at least, that it is correctly represented by 3! The Rev. Watson Hagger, to whose kindness, as I have already stated in my Preface, my readers are indebted for the several accounts of Mr. Dodgson's books on mathematics which appear in this Memoir, had a similar experience with one of these "cranks." This circle-squarer selected 3.125 as the value for "pi," and Mr. Hagger, who was fired with Mr. Dodgson's ambition to convince his correspondent of his error, failed as signally as Mr. Dodgson did.

The following letter is interesting as showing that, strict Conservative though he was, he was not in religious matters narrow-minded; he held his own opinions strongly, but he would never condemn those of other people. He saw "good in everything," and there was but little exaggeration, be it said in all reverence, in the phrase which an old friend of his used in speaking of him to me: "Mr. Dodgson was as broad—as broad as Christ."

Christ Church, Oxford, May 4, 1889.

Dear Miss Manners,—I hope to have a new book out very soon, and had entered your name on the list of friends to whom copies are to go; but, on second thoughts, perhaps you might prefer that I should send it to your little sister (?) (niece) Rachel, whom you mentioned in one of your letters. It is to be called "The Nursery Alice," and is meant for very young children, consisting of coloured enlargements of twenty of the pictures in "Alice," with explanations such as one would give in showing them to a little child.

I was much interested by your letter, telling me you belong to the Society of Friends. Please do not think of me as one to whom a "difference of creed" is a bar to friendship. My sense of brother— and sisterhood is at least broad enough to include Christians of all denominations; in fact, I have one valued friend (a lady who seems to live to do good kind things) who is a Unitarian.

Shall I put "Rachel Manners" in the book?

Believe me, very sincerely yours,

C. L. Dodgson.

From June 7th to June 10th he stayed at Hatfield.

THE LATE DUKE OF ALBANY."

From a photograph

by Lewis Carroll, 1875.

Once at luncheon [he writes] I had the Duchess (of Albany) as neighbour and once at breakfast, and had several other chats with her, and found her very pleasant indeed. Princess Alice is a sweet little girl. Her little brother (the Duke of Albany) was entirely fascinating, a perfect little prince, and the picture of good-humour. On Sunday afternoon I had a pleasant half-hour with the children [Princess Alice, the Duke of Albany, Honorable Mabel Palmer, Lady Victoria Manners, and Lord Haddon], telling them "Bruno's Picnic" and folding a fishing-boat for them. I got the Duchess's leave to send the little Alice a copy of the "Nursery Alice," and mean to send it with "Alice Underground" for herself.

Towards the end of the year Lewis Carroll had tremendously hard work, completing "Sylvie and Bruno." For several days on end he worked from breakfast until nearly ten in the evening without a rest. At last it was off his hands, and for a month or so he was (comparatively) an idle man. Some notes from his Diary, written during this period, follow:—

Nov. 17th.—Met, for first time, an actual believer in the "craze" that buying and selling are wrong (!) (he is rather 'out of his mind'). The most curious thing was his declaration that he himself lives on that theory, and never buys anything, and has no money! I thought of railway travelling, and ventured to ask how he got from London to Oxford? "On a bicycle!" And how he got the bicycle? "It was given him!" So I was floored, and there was no time to think of any other instances. The whole thing was so new to me that, when he declared it to be un-Christian, I quite forgot the text, "He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."

Dec. 19th.—Went over to Birmingham to see a performance of "Alice" (Mrs. Freiligrath Kroeker's version) at the High School. I rashly offered to tell "Bruno's Picnic" afterwards to the little children, thinking I should have an audience of 40 or 50, mostly children, instead of which I had to tell it from the stage to an audience of about 280, mostly older girls and grown-up people! However, I got some of the children to come on the stage with me, and the little Alice (Muriel Howard-Smith, æt. 11) stood by me, which made it less awful. The evening began with some of "Julius Caesar" in German. This and "Alice" were really capitally acted, the White Queen being quite the best I have seen (Miss B. Lloyd Owen). I was introduced to Alice and a few more, and was quite sorry to hear afterwards that the other performers wanted to shake hands.

The publication of "Sylvie and Bruno" marks an epoch in its author's life, for it was the publication of all the ideals and sentiments which he held most dear. It was a book with a definite purpose; it would be more true to say with several definite purposes. For this very reason it is not an artistic triumph as the two "Alice" books undoubtedly are; it is on a lower literary level, there is no unity in the story. But from a higher standpoint, that of the Christian and the philanthropist, the book is the best thing he ever wrote. It is a noble effort to uphold the right, or what he thought to be the right, without fear of contempt or unpopularity. The influence which his earlier books had given him he was determined to use in asserting neglected truths.

Of course the story has other features, delightful nonsense not surpassed by anything in "Wonderland," childish prattle with all the charm of reality about it, and pictures which may fairly be said to rival those of Sir John Tenniel. Had these been all, the book would have been a great success. As things are, there are probably hundreds of readers who have been scared by the religious arguments and political discussions which make up a large part of it, and who have never discovered that Sylvie is just as entrancing a personage as Alice when you get to know her.

Perhaps the sentiment of the following poem, sent to Lewis Carroll by an anonymous correspondent, may also explain why some of "Alice's" lovers have given "Sylvie" a less warm welcome:—

TO SYLVIE.

Ah! Sylvie, winsome, wise and good!

Fain would I love thee as I should.

But, to tell the truth, my dear,—

And Sylvie loves the truth to hear,—

Though fair and pure and sweet thou art,

Thine elder sister has my heart!

I gave it her long, long ago

To have and hold; and well I know,

Brave Lady Sylvie, thou wouldst scorn

To accept a heart foresworn.

Lovers thou wilt have enow

Under many a greening bough—

Lovers yet unborn galore,

Like Alice all the wide world o'er;

But, darling, I am now too old

To change. And though I still shall hold

Thee, and that puckling sprite, thy brother,

Dear, I cannot love another:

In this heart of mine I own

She must ever reign alone!

March, 1890.

N.P.

I do not know N.P.'s name and address, or I should have asked leave before giving publicity to the above verses. If these words meet his eye, I hope he will accept my most humble apologies for the liberty I have taken.

At the beginning of 1894 a Baptist minister, preaching on the text, "No man liveth to himself," made use of "Sylvie and Bruno" to enforce his argument. After saying that he had been reading that book, he proceeded as follows:

A child was asked to define charity. He said it was "givin' away what yer didn't want yerself." This was some people's idea of self-sacrifice; but it was not Christ's. Then as to serving others in view of reward: Mr. Lewis Carroll put this view of the subject very forcibly in his "Sylvie and Bruno"—an excellent book for youth; indeed, for men and women too. He first criticised Archdeacon Paley's definition of virtue (which was said to be "the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness,") and then turned to such hymns as the following:—

Whatever, Lord, we lend to Thee,

Repaid a thousandfold shall be,

Then gladly will we give to Thee,

Giver of all!

Mr. Carroll's comment was brief and to the point. He said: "Talk of Original Sin! Can you have a stronger proof of the Original Goodness there must be in this nation than the fact that Religion has been preached to us, as a commercial speculation, for a century, and that we still believe in a God?" ["Sylvie and Bruno," Part i., pp. 276, 277.] Of course it was quite true, as Mr. Carroll pointed out, that our good deeds would be rewarded; but we ought to do them because they were good, and not because the reward was great.

In the Preface to "Sylvie and Bruno," Lewis Carroll alluded to certain editions of Shakespeare which seemed to him unsuitable for children; it never seemed to strike him that his words might be read by children, and that thus his object very probably would be defeated, until this fact was pointed out to him in a letter from an unknown correspondent, Mr. J.C. Cropper, of Hampstead. Mr. Dodgson replied as follows:—

Dear Sir,—Accept my best thanks for your thoughtful and valuable suggestion about the Preface to "Sylvie and Bruno." The danger you point out had not occurred to me (I suppose I had not thought of children reading the Preface): but it is a very real one, and I am very glad to have had my attention called to it.

Believe me, truly yours,

Lewis Carroll.

Mathematical controversy carried on by correspondence was a favourite recreation of Mr. Dodgson's, and on February 20, 1890, he wrote:—

I've just concluded a correspondence with a Cambridge man, who is writing a Geometry on the "Direction" theory (Wilson's plan), and thinks he has avoided Wilson's (what I think) fallacies. He hasn't, but I can't convince him! My view of life is, that it's next to impossible to convince anybody of anything.

The following letter is very characteristic. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might," was Mr. Dodgson's rule of life, and, as the end drew near, he only worked the harder:—

Christ Church, Oxford, April 10, 1890.

My dear Atkinson,—Many and sincere thanks for your most hospitable invitation, and for the very interesting photo of the family group. The former I fear I must ask you to let me defer sine die, and regard it as a pleasant dream, not quite hopeless of being some day realised. I keep a list of such pleasant possibilities, and yours is now one of ten similar kind offers of hospitality. But as life shortens in, and the evening shadows loom in sight, one gets to grudge any time given to mere pleasure, which might entail the leaving work half finished that one is longing to do before the end comes.

There are several books I greatly desire to get finished for children. I am glad to find my working powers are as good as they ever were. Even with the mathematical book (a third edition) which I am now getting through the press, I think nothing of working six hours at a stretch.

There is one text that often occurs to me, "The night cometh, when no man can work." Kindest regards to Mrs. Atkinson, and love to Gertrude.

Always sincerely yours,

C. L. Dodgson.

For the benefit of children aged "from nought to five," as he himself phrased it, Lewis Carroll prepared a nursery edition of "Alice." He shortened the text considerably, and altered it so much that only the plot of the story remained unchanged. It was illustrated by the old pictures, coloured by Tenniel, and the cover was adorned by a picture designed by Miss E. Gertrude Thomson. As usual, the Dedication takes the form of an anagram, the solution of which is the name of one of his later child-friends. "The Nursery 'Alice,'" was published by Macmillan and Co., in March, 1890.

On August 18th the following letter on the "Eight Hours Movement" appeared in The Standard:—

Sir,—Supposing it were the custom, in a certain town, to sell eggs in paper bags at so much per bag, and that a fierce dispute had arisen between the egg vendors and the public as to how many eggs each bag should be understood to contain, the vendors wishing to be allowed to make up smaller bags; and supposing the public were to say, "In future we will pay you so much per egg, and you can make up bags as you please," would any ground remain for further dispute?

Supposing that employers of labour, when threatened with a "strike" in case they should decline to reduce the number of hours in a working day, were to reply, "In future we will pay you so much per hour, and you can make up days as you please," it does appear to me—being, as I confess, an ignorant outsider—that the dispute would die out for want of a raison d'être, and that these disastrous strikes, inflicting such heavy loss on employers and employed alike, would become things of the past.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

Lewis Carroll.

The remainder of the year was uneventful; a few notes from his Diary must represent it here:—

Oct. 4th.—Called on Mr. Coventry Patmore (at Hastings), and was very kindly received by him, and stayed for afternoon tea and dinner. He showed me some interesting pictures, including a charming little drawing, by Holman Hunt, of one of his daughters when three years old. He gave me an interesting account of his going, by Tennyson's request, to his lodging to look for the MS. of "In Memoriam," which he had left behind, and only finding it by insisting on going upstairs, in spite of the landlady's opposition, to search for it. Also he told me the story (I think I have heard it before) of what Wordsworth told his friends as the "one joke" of his life, in answer to a passing carter who asked if he had seen his wife. "My good friend, I didn't even know you had a wife!" He seems a very hale and vigorous old man for nearly seventy, which I think he gave as his age in writing to me.

Oct. 31st.—This morning, thinking over the problem of finding two squares whose sum is a square, I chanced on a theorem (which seems true, though I cannot prove it), that if x² + y² be even, its half is the sum of two squares. A kindred theorem, that 2(x² + y²) is always the sum of two squares, also seems true and unprovable.

Nov. 5th.—I have now proved the above two theorems. Another pretty deduction from the theory of square numbers is, that any number whose square is the sum of two squares, is itself the sum of two squares.

I have already mentioned Mr. Dodgson's habit of thinking out problems at night. Often new ideas would occur to him during hours of sleeplessness, and he had long wanted to hear of or invent some easy method of taking notes in the dark. At first he tried writing within oblongs cut out of cardboard, but the result was apt to be illegible. In 1891 he conceived the device of having a series of squares cut out in card, and inventing an alphabet, of which each letter was made of lines, which could be written along the edges of the squares, and dots, which could be marked at the corners. The thing worked well, and he named it the "Typhlograph," but, at the suggestion of one of his brother-students, this was subsequently changed into "Nyctograph."

He spent the Long Vacation at Eastbourne, attending service every Sunday at Christ Church, according to his usual rule.

Sept. 6, 1891.—At the evening service at Christ Church a curious thing happened, suggestive of telepathy. Before giving out the second hymn the curate read out some notices. Meanwhile I took my hymn-book, and said to myself (I have no idea why), "It will be hymn 416," and I turned to it. It was not one I recognised as having ever heard; and, on looking at it, I said, "It is very prosaic; it is a very unlikely one"—and it was really startling, the next minute, to hear the curate announce "Hymn 416."

DR. LIDDELL.

From a photograph

by Hill & Saunders..

In October it became generally known that Dean Liddell was going to resign at Christmas. This was a great blow to Mr. Dodgson, but little mitigated by the fact that the very man whom he himself would have chosen, Dr. Paget, was appointed to fill the vacant place. The old Dean was very popular in College; even the undergraduates, with whom he was seldom brought into contact, felt the magic of his commanding personality and the charm of his gracious, old-world manner. He was a man whom, once seen, it was almost impossible to forget.

Shortly before the resignation of Dr. Liddell, the Duchess of Albany spent a few days at the Deanery. Mr. Dodgson was asked to meet her Royal Highness at luncheon, but was unable to go. Princess Alice and the little Duke of Albany, however, paid him a visit, and were initiated in the art of making paper pistols. He promised to send the Princess a copy of a book called "The Fairies," and the children, having spent a happy half-hour in his rooms, returned to the Deanery. This was one of the days which he "marked with a white stone." He sent a copy of "The Nursery 'Alice'" to the little Princess Alice, and received a note of thanks from her, and also a letter from her mother, in which she said that the book had taught the Princess to like reading, and to do it out of lesson-time. To the Duke he gave a copy of a book entitled "The Merry Elves." In his little note of thanks for this gift, the boy said, "Alice and I want you to love us both." Mr. Dodgson sent Princess Alice a puzzle, promising that if she found it out, he would give her a "golden chair from Wonderland."

THE DEAN OF CHRIST CHURCH.

From a photograph

by Hill & Saunders..

At the close of the year he wrote me a long letter, which I think worthy of reproducing here, for he spent a long time over it, and it contains excellent examples of his clear way of putting things.

To S.D. Collingwood.

Ch. Ch., Oxford, Dec. 29, 1891.

My Dear Stuart,—(Rather a large note—sheet, isn't it? But they do differ in size, you know.) I fancy this book of science (which I have had a good while, without making any use of it), may prove of some use to you, with your boys. [I was a schoolmaster at that time.] Also this cycling-book (or whatever it is to be called) may be useful in putting down engagements, &c., besides telling you a lot about cycles. There was no use in sending it to me; my cycling days are over.

You ask me if your last piece of "Meritt" printing is dark enough. I think not. I should say the rollers want fresh inking. As to the matter of your specimen—[it was a poor little essay on killing animals for the purpose of scientific recreations, e.g., collecting butterflies]—I think you cannot spend your time better than in trying to set down clearly, in that essay-form, your ideas on any subject that chances to interest you; and specially any theological subject that strikes you in the course of your reading for Holy Orders.

It will be most excellent practice for you, against the time when you try to compose sermons, to try thus to realise exactly what it is you mean, and to express it clearly, and (a much harder matter) to get into proper shape the reasons of your opinions, and to see whether they do, or do not, tend to prove the conclusions you come to. You have never studied technical Logic, at all, I fancy. [I had, but I freely admit that the essay in question proved that I had not then learnt to apply my principles to practice.] It would have been a great help: but still it is not indispensable: after all, it is only the putting into rules of the way in which every mind proceeds, when it draws valid conclusions; and, by practice in careful thinking, you may get to know "fallacies" when you meet with them, without knowing the formal rules.

At present, when you try to give reasons, you are in considerable danger of propounding fallacies. Instances occur in this little essay of yours; and I hope it won't offend your amour propre very much, if an old uncle, who has studied Logic for forty years, makes a few remarks on it.

I am not going to enter at all on the subject-matter itself, or to say whether I agree, or not, with your conclusions : but merely to examine, from a logic-lecturer's point of view, your premisses as relating to them.

(1) "As the lower animals do not appear to have personality or individual existence, I cannot see that any particular one's life can be very important," &c. The word "personality" is very vague: I don't know what you mean by it. If you were to ask yourself, "What test should I use in distinguishing what has, from what has not, personality?" you might perhaps be able to express your meaning more clearly. The phrase "individual existence" is clear enough, and is in direct logical contradiction to the phrase "particular one." To say, of anything, that it has not "individual existence," and yet that it is a "particular one," involves the logical fallacy called a "contradiction in terms."

(2) "In both cases" (animal and plant) "death is only the conversion of matter from one form to another." The word "form" is very vague—I fancy you use it in a sort of chemical sense (like saying "sugar is starch in another form," where the change in nature is generally believed to be a rearrangement of the very same atoms). If you mean to assert that the difference between a live animal and a dead animal, i.e., between animate and sensitive matter, and the same matter when it becomes inanimate and insensitive, is a mere rearrangement of the same atoms, your premiss is intelligible. (It is a bolder one than any biologists have yet advanced. The most sceptical of them admits, I believe, that "vitality" is a thing per se. However, that is beside my present scope.) But this premiss is advanced to prove that it is of no "consequence" to kill an animal. But, granting that the conversion of sensitive into insensitive matter (and of course vice versa) is a mere change of "form," and therefore of no "consequence"; granting this, we cannot escape the including under this rule all similar cases. If the power of feeling pain, and the absence of that power, are only a difference of "form," the conclusion is inevitable that the feeling pain, and the not feeling it, are also only a difference in form, i.e., to convert matter, which is not feeling pain, into matter feeling pain, is only to change its "form," and, if the process of "changing form" is of no "consequence" in the case of sensitive and insensitive matter, we must admit that it is also of no "consequence" in the case of pain-feeling and not pain-feeling matter. This conclusion, I imagine, you neither intended nor foresaw. The premiss, which you use, involves the fallacy called "proving too much."

The best advice that could be given to you, when you begin to compose sermons, would be what an old friend once gave to a young man who was going out to be an Indian judge (in India, it seems, the judge decides things, without a jury, like our County Court judges). "Give your decisions boldly and clearly; they will probably be right. But do not give your reasons: they will probably be wrong" If your lot in life is to be in a country parish, it will perhaps not matter much whether the reasons given in your sermons do or do not prove your conclusions. But even there you might meet, and in a town congregation you would be sure to meet, clever sceptics, who know well how to argue, who will detect your fallacies and point them out to those who are not yet troubled with doubts, and thus undermine all their confidence in your teaching.

At Eastbourne, last summer, I heard a preacher advance the astounding argument, "We believe that the Bible is true, because our holy Mother, the Church, tells us it is." I pity that unfortunate clergyman if ever he is bold enough to enter any Young Men's Debating Club where there is some clear-headed sceptic who has heard, or heard of, that sermon. I can fancy how the young man would rub his hands, in delight, and would say to himself, "Just see me get him into a corner, and convict him of arguing in a circle!"

The bad logic that occurs in many and many a well-meant sermon, is a real danger to modern Christianity. When detected, it may seriously injure many believers, and fill them with miserable doubts. So my advice to you, as a young theological student, is "Sift your reasons well , and, before you offer them to others, make sure that they prove your conclusions."

I hope you won't give this letter of mine (which it has cost me some time and thought to write) just a single reading and then burn it; but that you will lay it aside. Perhaps, even years hence, it may be of some use to you to read it again.

Believe me always

Your affectionate Uncle,

C. L. Dodgson.

CHAPTER VIII

(1892—1896)

Mr. Dodgson resigns the Curatorship—Bazaars—He lectures to children—A mechanical "Humpty Dumpty"—A logical controversy—Albert Chevalier—"Sylvie and Bruno Concluded"—"Pillow Problems"—Mr. Dodgson's generosity—College services—Religious difficulties—A village sermon—Plans for the future—Reverence—"Symbolic Logic."

At Christ Church, as at other Colleges, the Common Room is an important feature. Open from eight in the morning until ten at night, it takes the place of a club, where the "dons" may see the newspapers, talk, write letters, or enjoy a cup of tea. After dinner, members of High Table, with their guests if any are present, usually adjourn to the Common Room for wine and dessert, while there is a smoking-room hard by for those who do not despise the harmless but unnecessary weed, and below are cellars, with a goodly store of choice old wines.

The Curator's duties were therefore sufficiently onerous. They were doubly so in Mr. Dodgson's case, for his love of minute accuracy greatly increased the amount of work he had to do. It was his office to select and purchase wines, to keep accounts, to adjust selling price to cost price, to see that the two Common Room servants performed their duties, and generally to look after the comfort and convenience of the members.

"Having heard," he wrote near the end of the year 1892, "that Strong was willing to be elected (as Curator), and Common Room willing to elect him, I most gladly resigned. The sense of relief at being free from the burdensome office, which has cost me a large amount of time and trouble, is very delightful. I was made Curator, December 8, 1882, so that I have held the office more than nine years."

The literary results of his Curatorship were three very interesting little pamphlets, "Twelve Months in a Curatorship, by One who has tried it"; "Three years in a Curatorship, by One whom it has tried"; and "Curiosissima Curatoria, by 'Rude Donatus,'" all printed for private circulation, and couched in the same serio-comic vein. As a logician he naturally liked to see his thoughts in print, for, just as the mathematical mind craves for a black-board and a piece of chalk, so the logical mind must have its paper and printing-press wherewith to set forth its deductions effectively.

A few extracts must suffice to show the style of these pamphlets, and the opportunity offered for the display of humour.

In the arrangement of the prices at which wines were to be sold to members of Common Room, he found a fine scope for the exercise of his mathematical talents and his sense of proportion. In one of the pamphlets he takes old Port and Chablis as illustrations.

The original cost of each is about 3s. a bottle; but the present value of the old Port is about 11s. a bottle. Let us suppose, then, that we have to sell to Common Room one bottle of old Port and three of Chablis, the original cost of the whole being 12s., and the present value 20s. These are our data. We have now two questions to answer. First, what sum shall we ask for the whole? Secondly, how shall we apportion that sum between the two kinds of wine?

The sum to be asked for the whole he decides, following precedent, is to be the present market-value of the wine; as to the second question, he goes on to say—

We have, as so often happens in the lives of distinguished premiers, three courses before us: (1) to charge the present value for each kind of wine; (2) to put on a certain percentage to the original value of each kind; (3) to make a compromise between these two courses.

Course 1 seems to me perfectly reasonable; but a very plausible objection has been made to it—that it puts a prohibitory price on the valuable wines, and that they would remain unconsumed. This would not, however, involve any loss to our finances; we could obviously realise the enhanced values of the old wines by selling them to outsiders, if the members of Common Room would not buy them. But I do not advocate this course.

Course 2 would lead to charging 5s. a bottle for Port and Chablis alike. The Port-drinker would be "in clover," while the Chablis-drinker would probably begin getting his wine direct from the merchant instead of from the Common Room cellar, which would be a reductio ad absurdum of the tariff. Yet I have heard this course advocated, repeatedly, as an abstract principle. "You ought to consider the original value only," I have been told. "You ought to regard the Port-drinker as a private individual, who has laid the wine in for himself, and who ought to have all the advantages of its enhanced value. You cannot fairly ask him for more than what you need to refill the bins with Port, plus the percentage thereon needed to meet the contingent expenses." I have listened to such arguments, but have never been convinced that the course is just. It seems to me that the 8s. additional value which the bottle of Port has acquired, is the property of Common Room, and that Common Room has the power to give it to whom it chooses; and it does not seem to me fair to give it all to the Port-drinker. What merit is there in preferring Port to Chablis, that could justify our selling the Port-drinker his wine at less than half what he would have to give outside, and charging the Chablis-drinker five-thirds of what he would have to give outside? At all events, I, as a Port-drinker, do not wish to absorb the whole advantage, and would gladly share it with the Chablis-drinker. The course I recommend is

Course 3, which is a compromise between 1 and 2, its essential principle being to sell the new wines above their value, in order to be able to sell the old below their value. And it is clearly desirable, as far as possible, to make the reductions where they will be felt, and the additions where they will not be felt. Moreover it seems to me that reduction is most felt where it goes down to the next round sum, and an addition in the reverse case, i.e., when it starts from a round sum. Thus, if we were to take 2d. off a 5s. 8d. wine, and add it to a 4s. 4d.—thus selling them at 5s. 6d. and 4s. 6d. the reduction would be welcomed, and the addition unnoticed; and the change would be a popular one.

The next extract shows with what light-hearted frivolity he could approach this tremendous subject of wine:—

The consumption of Madeira (B) has been during the past year, zero. After careful calculation I estimate that, if this rate of consumption be steadily maintained, our present stock will last us an infinite number of years. And although there may be something monotonous and dreary in the prospect of such vast cycles spent in drinking second-class Madeira, we may yet cheer ourselves with the thought of how economically it can be done.

To assist the Curator in the discharge of his duties, there was a Wine Committee, and for its guidance a series of rules was drawn up. The first runs as follows: "There shall be a Wine Committee, consisting of five persons, including the Curator, whose duty it shall be to assist the Curator in the management of the cellar." "Hence," wrote Mr. Dodgson, "logically it is the bounden duty of the Curator 'to assist himself.' I decline to say whether this clause has ever brightened existence for me—or whether, in the shades of evening, I may ever have been observed leaving the Common Room cellars with a small but suspicious-looking bundle, and murmuring, 'Assist thyself, assist thyself!'"

Every Christmas at Christ Church the children of the College servants have a party in the Hall. This year he was asked to entertain them, and gladly consented to do so. He hired a magic lantern and a large number of slides, and with their help told the children the three following stories: (1) "The Epiphany"; (2) "The Children Lost in the Bush"; (3) "Bruno's Picnic."

I have already referred to the services held in Christ Church for the College servants, at which Mr. Dodgson used frequently to preach. The way in which he regarded this work is very characteristic of the man. "Once more," he writes, "I have to thank my Heavenly Father for the great blessing and privilege of being allowed to speak for Him! May He bless my words to help some soul on its heavenward way." After one of these addresses he received a note from a member of the congregation, thanking him for what he had said. "It is very sweet," he said, "to get such words now and then; but there is danger in them if more such come, I must beg for silence."

During the year Mr. Dodgson wrote the following letter to the Rev. C.A. Goodhart, Rector of Lambourne, Essex:—

Dear Sir,—Your kind, sympathising and most encouraging letter about "Sylvie and Bruno" has deserved a better treatment from me than to have been thus kept waiting more than two years for an answer. But life is short; and one has many other things to do; and I have been for years almost hopelessly in arrears in correspondence. I keep a register, so that letters which I intend to answer do somehow come to the front at last.

In "Sylvie and Bruno" I took courage to introduce what I had entirely avoided in the two "Alice" books—some reference to subjects which are, after all, the only subjects of real interest in life, subjects which are so intimately bound up with every topic of human interest that it needs more effort to avoid them than to touch on them; and I felt that such a book was more suitable to a clerical writer than one of mere fun.

I hope I have not offended many (evidently I have not offended you) by putting scenes of mere fun, and talk about God, into the same book.

Only one of all my correspondents ever guessed there was more to come of the book. She was a child, personally unknown to me, who wrote to "Lewis Carroll" a sweet letter about the book, in which she said, "I'm so glad it hasn't got a regular wind-up, as it shows there is more to come!"

There is indeed "more to come." When I came to piece together the mass of accumulated material I found it was quite double what could be put into one volume. So I divided it in the middle; and I hope to bring out "Sylvie and Bruno Concluded" next Christmas—if, that is, my Heavenly Master gives me the time and the strength for the task; but I am nearly 60, and have no right to count on years to come.

In signing my real name, let me beg you not to let the information go further—I have an intense dislike to personal publicity; and, the more people there are who know nothing of "Lewis Carroll" save his books, the happier I am.

Believe me, sincerely yours,

Charles L. Dodgson.

I have made no attempt to chronicle all the games and puzzles which Lewis Carroll invented. A list of such as have been published will be found in the Bibliographical chapter. He intended to bring out a book of "Original Games and Puzzles," with illustrations by Miss E. Gertrude Thomson. The MS. was, I believe, almost complete before his death, and one, at least, of the pictures had been drawn. On June 30th he wrote in his Diary, "Invented what I think is a new kind of riddle. A Russian had three sons. The first, named Rab, became a lawyer; the second, Ymra, became a soldier; the third became a sailor. What was his name?"

The following letter written to a child-friend, Miss E. Drury, illustrates Lewis Carroll's hatred of bazaars:—

Ch. Ch., Oxford, Nov. 10, 1892.

My dear Emmie,—I object to all bazaars on the general principle that they are very undesirable schools for young ladies, in which they learn to be "too fast" and forward, and are more exposed to undesirable acquaintances than in ordinary society. And I have, besides that, special objections to bazaars connected with charitable or religious purposes. It seems to me that they desecrate the religious object by their undesirable features, and that they take the reality out of all charity by getting people to think that they are doing a good action, when their true motive is amusement for themselves. Ruskin has put all this far better than I can possibly do, and, if I can find the passage, and find the time to copy it, I will send it you. But time is a very scarce luxury for me!

Always yours affectionately,

C.L. Dodgson.

In his later years he used often to give lectures on various subjects to children. He gave a series on "Logic" at the Oxford Girls' High School, but he sometimes went further afield, as in the following instance:—

Went, as arranged with Miss A. Ottley, to the High School at Worcester, on a visit. At half-past three I had an audience of about a hundred little girls, aged, I should think, from about six to fourteen. I showed them two arithmetic puzzles on the black-board, and told them "Bruno's Picnic." At half-past seven I addressed some serious words to a second audience of about a hundred elder girls, probably from fifteen to twenty—an experience of the deepest interest to me.

The illustration on the next page will be best explained by the following letter which I have received from Mr. Walter Lindsay, of Philadelphia, U.S.:—

Phila., September 12, 1898.

Dear Sir,—I shall be very glad to furnish what information I can with respect to the "Mechanical Humpty Dumpty" which I constructed a few years ago, but I must begin by acknowledging that, in one sense at least, I did not "invent" the figure. The idea was first put into my head by an article in the Cosmopolitan, somewhere about 1891, I suppose, describing a similar contrivance. As a devoted admirer of the "Alice" books, I determined to build a Humpty Dumpty of my own; but I left the model set by the author of the article mentioned, and constructed the figure on entirely different lines. In the first place, the figure as described in the magazine had very few movements, and not very satisfactory ones at that; and in the second place, no attempt whatever was made to reproduce, even in a general way, the well-known appearance of Tenniel's drawing. Humpty, when completed, was about two feet and a half high. His face, of course, was white; the lower half of the egg was dressed in brilliant blue. His stockings were grey, and the famous cravat orange, with a zigzag pattern in blue. I am sorry to say that the photograph hardly does him justice; but he had travelled to so many different places during his career, that he began to be decidedly out of shape before he sat for his portrait.

THE MECHANICAL "HUMPTY DUMPTY."

From a photograph.

When Humpty was about to perform, a short "talk" was usually given before the curtain rose, explaining the way in which the Sheep put the egg on the shelf at the back of the little shop, and how Alice went groping along to it. And then, just as the explanation had reached the opening of the chapter on Humpty Dumpty, the curtain rose, and Humpty was discovered, sitting on the wall, and gazing into vacancy. As soon as the audience had had time to recover, Alice entered, and the conversation was carried on just as it is in the book. Humpty Dumpty gesticulated with his arms, rolled his eyes, raised his eyebrows, frowned, turned up his nose in scorn at Alice's ignorance, and smiled from ear to ear when he shook hands with her. Besides this, his mouth kept time with his words all through the dialogue, which added very greatly to his life-like appearance.

The effect of his huge face, as it changed from one expression to another, was ludicrous in the extreme, and we were often obliged to repeat sentences in the conversation (to "go back to the last remark but one") because the audience laughed so loudly over Humpty Dumpty's expression of face that they drowned what he was trying to say. The funniest effect was the change from the look of self-satisfied complacency with which he accompanied the words: "The king has promised me—" to that of towering rage when Alice innocently betrays her knowledge of the secret. At the close of the scene, when Alice has vainly endeavoured to draw him into further conversation, and at last walks away in disgust, Humpty loses his balance on the wall, recovers himself, totters again, and then falls off backwards; at the same time a box full of broken glass is dropped on the floor behind the scenes, to represent the "heavy crash," which "shook the forest from end to end";—and the curtain falls.

Now, as to how it was all done. Humpty was made of barrel hoops, and covered with stiff paper and muslin. His eyes were round balls of rags, covered with muslin, drawn smoothly, and with the pupil and iris marked on the front. These eyes were pivoted to a board, fastened just behind the eye-openings in the face. To the eyeballs were sewed strong pieces of tape, which passed through screw-eyes on the edges of the board, and so down to a row of levers which were hinged in the lower part of the figure. One lever raised both eyes upward, another moved them both to the left, and so on. The eyebrows were of worsted and indiarubber knitted together. They were fastened at the ends, and raised and lowered by fine white threads passing through small holes in the face, and also operated by levers. The arms projected into the interior of the machine, and the gestures were made by moving the short ends inside. The right hand contained a spring clothe-pin, by which he was enabled to hold the note— book in which Alice set down the celebrated problem—

365

  1

___

364

The movement of the mouth, in talking, was produced by a long tape, running down to a pedal, which was controlled by the foot of the performer. And the smile consisted of long strips of red tape, which were drawn out through slits at the corners of the mouth by means of threads which passed through holes in the sides of the head. The performer—who was always your humble servant—stood on a box behind the wall, his head just reaching the top of the egg, which was open all the way up the back. At the lower end of the figure, convenient to the hands of the performer, was the row of levers, like a little keyboard; and by striking different chords on the keys, any desired expression could be produced on the face.

Of course, a performance of this kind without a good Alice would be unutterably flat; but the little girl who played opposite to Humpty, Miss Nellie K—, was so exactly the counterpart of Alice, both in appearance and disposition, that most children thought she was the original, right out of the book.

Humpty still exists, but he has not seen active life for some years. His own popularity was the cause of his retirement; for having given a number of performances (for Charity, of course), and delighted many thousands of children of all ages, the demands upon his time, from Sunday-schools and other institutions, became so numerous that the performers were obliged to withdraw him in self-defence. He was a great deal of trouble to build, but the success he met with and the pleasure he gave more than repaid me for the bother; and I am sure that any one else who tries it will reach the same conclusion.

Yours sincerely,

Walter Lindsay.

At the beginning of 1893 a fierce logical battle was being waged between Lewis Carroll and Mr. Cook Wilson, Professor of Logic at Oxford. The Professor, in spite of the countless arguments that Mr. Dodgson hurled at his head, would not confess that he had committed a fallacy.

On February 5th the Professor appears to have conceded a point, for Mr. Dodgson writes: "Heard from Cook Wilson, who has long declined to read a paper which I sent January 12th, and which seems to me to prove the fallacy of a view of his about Hypotheticals. He now offers to read it, if I will study a proof he sent, that another problem of mine had contradictory data. I have accepted his offer, and studied and answered his paper. So I now look forward hopefully to the result of his reading mine."

The hopes which he entertained were doomed to be disappointed; the controversy bore no fruits save a few pamphlets and an enormous amount of correspondence, and finally the two antagonists had to agree to differ.

As a rule Mr. Dodgson was a stern opponent of music-halls and music-hall singers; but he made one or two exceptions with regard to the latter. For Chevalier he had nothing but praise; he heard him at one of his recitals, for he never in his life entered a "Variety Theatre." I give the passage from his Diary:—

Went to hear Mr. Albert Chevalier's Recital. I only knew of him as being now recognised as facile princeps among music-hall singers, and did not remember that I had seen him twice or oftener on the stage—first as "Mr. Hobbs" in "Little Lord Fauntleroy," and afterwards as a "horsy" young man in a matinée in which Violet Vanbrugh appeared. He was decidedly good as an actor; but as a comic singer (with considerable powers of pathos as well) he is quite first-rate. His chief merit seems to be the earnestness with which he throws himself into the work. The songs (mostly his own writing) were quite inoffensive, and very funny. I am very glad to be able to think that his influence on public taste is towards refinement and purity. I liked best "The Future Mrs. 'Awkins," with its taking tune, and "My Old Dutch," which revealed powers that, I should think, would come out grandly in Robsonian parts, such as "The Porter's Knot." "The Little Nipper" was also well worth hearing.

Mr. Dodgson's views on Sunday Observance were old-fashioned, but he lived up to them, and did not try to force them upon people with whose actions he had no concern. They were purely matters of "private opinion" with him. On October 2nd he wrote to Miss E.G. Thomson, who was illustrating his "Three Sunsets":—

Would you kindly do no sketches, or photos, for me, on a Sunday? It is, in my view (of course I don't condemn any one who differs from me) inconsistent with keeping the day holy. I do not hold it to be the Jewish "Sabbath," but I do hold it to be "the Lord's Day," and so to be made very distinct from the other days.

In December, the Logical controversy being over for a time, Mr. Dodgson invented a new problem to puzzle his mathematical friends with, which was called "The Monkey and Weight Problem." A rope is supposed to be hung over a wheel fixed to the roof of a building; at one end of the rope a weight is fixed, which exactly counterbalances a monkey which is hanging on to the other end. Suppose that the monkey begins to climb the rope, what will be the result? The following extract from the Diary illustrates the several possible answers which may be given:—

Got Professor Clifton's answer to the "Monkey and Weight Problem." It is very curious, the different views taken by good mathematicians. Price says the weight goes up, with increasing velocity; Clifton (and Harcourt) that it goes up, at the same rate as the monkey; while Sampson says that it goes down.

On December 24th Mr. Dodgson received the first twelve copies of "Sylvie and Bruno Concluded," just about four years after the appearance of the first part of the story. In this second volume the two fairy children are as delightful as ever; it also contains what I think most people will agree to be the most beautiful poem Lewis Carroll ever wrote, "Say, what is the spell, when her fledglings are cheeping?" (p. 305). In the preface he pays a well-deserved compliment to Mr. Harry Furniss for his wonderfully clever pictures; he also explains how the book was written, showing that many of the amusing remarks of Bruno had been uttered by real children. He makes allusion to two books, which only his death prevented him from finishing—"Original Games and Puzzles," and a paper on "Sport," viewed from the standpoint of the humanitarian. From a literary point of view the second volume of "Sylvie and Bruno" lacks unity; a fairy tale is all very well, and a novel also is all very well, but the combination of the two is surely a mistake. However, the reader who cares more for the spirit than the letter will not notice this blemish; to him "Sylvie and Bruno Concluded" will be interesting and helpful, as the revelation of a very beautiful personality.

You have made everything turn out just as I should have chosen [writes a friend to whom he had sent a copy], and made right all that disappointed me in the first part. I have not only to thank you for writing an interesting book, but for writing a helpful one too. I am sure that "Sylvie and Bruno" has given me many thoughts that will help me all life through. One cannot know "Sylvie" without being the better for it. You may say that "Mister Sir" is not consciously meant to be yourself, but I cannot help feeling that he is. As "Mister Sir" talks, I hear your voice in every word. I think, perhaps, that is why I like the book so much.

I have received an interesting letter from Mr. Furniss, bearing upon the subject of "Sylvie and Bruno," and Lewis Carroll's methods of work. The letter runs as follows:—

I have illustrated stories of most of our leading authors, and I can safely say that Lewis Carroll was the only one who cared to understand the illustrations to his own book. He was the W. S. Gilbert for children, and, like Gilbert producing one of his operas, Lewis Carroll took infinite pains to study every detail in producing his extraordinary and delightful books. Mr. Gilbert, as every one knows, has a model of the stage; he puts up the scenery, draws every figure, moves them about just as he wishes the real actors to move about. Lewis Carroll was precisely the same. This, of course, led to a great deal of work and trouble, and made the illustrating of his books more a matter of artistic interest than of professional profit. I was seven years illustrating his last work, and during that time I had the pleasure of many an interesting meeting with the fascinating author, and I was quite repaid for the trouble I took, not only by his generous appreciation of my efforts, but by the liberal remuneration he gave for the work, and also by the charm of having intercourse with the interesting, if somewhat erratic genius.

A book very different in character from "Sylvie and Bruno," but under the same well-known pseudonym, appeared about the same time. I refer to "Pillow Problems," the second part of the series entitled "Curiosa Mathematica."

"Pillow Problems thought out during wakeful hours" is a collection of mathematical problems, which Mr. Dodgson solved while lying awake at night. A few there are to which the title is not strictly applicable, but all alike were worked out mentally before any diagram or word of the solution was committed to paper.

The author says that his usual practice was to write down the answer first of all, and afterwards the question and its solution. His motive, he says, for publishing these problems was not from any desire to display his powers of mental calculation. Those who knew him will readily believe this, though they will hardly be inclined to accept his own modest estimate of those powers.

Still the book was intended, not for the select few who can scale the mountain heights of advanced mathematics, but for the much larger class of ordinary mathematicians, and they at least will be able to appreciate the gifted author, and to wonder how he could follow so clearly in his head the mental diagrams and intricate calculations involved in some of these "Pillow Problems."

His chief motive in publishing the book was to show how, by a little determination, the mind "can be made to concentrate itself on some intellectual subject (not necessarily mathematics), and thus banish those petty troubles and vexations which most people experience, and which—unless the mind be otherwise occupied—will persist in invading the hours of night." And this remedy, as he shows, serves a higher purpose still. In a paragraph which deserves quoting at length, as it gives us a momentary glimpse of his refined and beautiful character, he says:—

Perhaps I may venture for a moment to use a more serious tone, and to point out that there are mental troubles, much worse than mere worry, for which an absorbing object of thought may serve as a remedy. There are sceptical thoughts, which seem for the moment to uproot the firmest faith: there are blasphemous thoughts, which dart unbidden into the most reverent souls: there are unholy thoughts, which torture with their hateful presence the fancy that would fain be pure. Against all these some real mental work is a most helpful ally. That "unclean spirit" of the parable, who brought back with him seven others more wicked than himself, only did so because he found the chamber "swept and garnished," and its owner sitting with folded hands. Had he found it all alive with the "busy hum" of active work, there would have been scant welcome for him and his seven!

It would have robbed the book of its true character if Lewis Carroll had attempted to improve on the work done in his head, and consequently we have the solutions exactly as he worked them out before setting them down on paper. Of the Problems themselves there is not much to be said here; they are original, and some of them (e.g., No. 52) expressed in a style peculiarly the author's own. The subjects included in their range are Arithmetic, Algebra, Pure Geometry (Plane), Trigonometry, Algebraic Geometry, and Differential Calculus; and there is one Problem to which Mr. Dodgson says he "can proudly point," in "Transcendental Probabilities," which is here given: "A bag contains two counters, as to which nothing is known except that each is either black or white. Ascertain their colour without taking them out of the bag." The answer is, "One is black and the other white." For the solution the reader is referred to the book itself, a study of which will well repay him, apart from the chance he may have of discovering some mistake, and the consequent joy thereat!

A few extracts from the Diary follow, written during the early part of 1894:—

Feb. 1st.—Dies notandus. As Ragg was reading Prayers, and Bayne and I were the only M.A.'s in the stalls, I tried the experiment of going to the lectern and reading the lesson. I did not hesitate much, but feel it too great a strain on the nerves to be tried often. Then I went to the Latin Chapel for Holy Communion. Only Paget (Dean) and Dr. Huntley came: so, for the first time in my recollection, it had to be given up. Then I returned to my rooms, and found in The Standard the very important communication from Gladstone denying the rumour that he has decided upon resigning the Premiership, but admitting that, owing to failing powers, it may come at any moment. It will make a complete change in the position of politics! Then I got, from Cook Wilson, what I have been so long trying for—an accepted transcript of the fallacious argument over which we have had an (apparently) endless fight. I think the end is near, now.

Feb. 4th.—The idea occurred to me that it might be a pleasant variation in Backgammon to throw three dice, and choose any two of the three numbers. The average quality of the throws would be much raised. I reckon that the chance of "6, 6" would be about two and a half what it now is. It would also furnish a means, similar to giving points in billiards, for equalising players: the weaker might use three dice, the other using two. I think of calling it "Thirdie Backgammon."

March 31st.—Have just got printed, as a leaflet, "A Disputed Point in Logic"—the point Professor Wilson and I have been arguing so long. This paper is wholly in his own words, and puts the point very clearly. I think of submitting it to all my logical friends.

"A Disputed Point in Logic" appeared also, I believe, in Mind, July, 1894.

This seems a fitting place in which to speak of a side of Mr. Dodgson's character of which he himself was naturally very reticent—his wonderful generosity. My own experience of him was of a man who was always ready to do one a kindness, even though it put him to great expense and inconvenience; but of course I did not know, during his lifetime, that my experience of him was the same as that of all his other friends. The income from his books and other sources, which might have been spent in a life of luxury and selfishness, he distributed lavishly where he saw it was needed, and in order to do this he always lived in the most simple way. To make others happy was the Golden Rule of his life. On August 31st he wrote, in a letter to a friend, Miss Mary Brown: "And now what am I to tell you about myself? To say I am quite well 'goes without saying' with me. In fact, my life is so strangely free from all trial and trouble that I cannot doubt my own happiness is one of the talents entrusted to me to 'occupy' with, till the Master shall return, by doing something to make other lives happy."

In several instances, where friends in needy circumstances have written to him for loans of money, he has answered them, "I will not lend, but I will give you the £100 you ask for." To help child-friends who wanted to go on the stage, or to take up music as a profession, he has introduced them to leading actors and actresses, paid for them having lessons in singing from the best masters, sent round circulars to his numerous acquaintances begging them to patronise the first concert or recital.

In writing his books he never attempted to win popularity by acceding to the prejudices and frailties of the age—his one object was to make his books useful and helpful and ennobling. Like the great Master, in whose steps he so earnestly strove to follow, he "went about doing good." And one is glad to think that even his memory is being made to serve the same purpose. The "Alice" cots are a worthy sequel to his generous life.

Even Mr. Dodgson, with all his boasted health, was not absolutely proof against disease, for on February 12, 1895, he writes:—

Tenth day of a rather bad attack of influenza of the ague type. Last night the fever rose to a great height, partly caused by a succession of five visitors. One, however, was of my own seeking—Dean Paget, to whom I was thankful to be able to tell all I have had in my mind for a year or more, as to our Chapel services not being as helpful as they could be made. The chief fault is extreme rapidity. I long ago gave up the attempt to say the Confession at that pace; and now I say it, and the Lord's Prayer, close together, and never hear a word of the Absolution. Also many of the Lessons are quite unedifying.

On July 11th he wrote to my brother on the subject of a paper about Eternal Punishment, which was to form the first of a series of essays on Religious Difficulties:—

I am sending you the article on "Eternal Punishment" as it is. There is plenty of matter for consideration, as to which I shall be glad to know your views.

Also if there are other points, connected with religion, where you feel that perplexing difficulties exist, I should be glad to know of them in order to see whether I can see my way to saying anything helpful.

But I had better add that I do not want to deal with any such difficulties, unless they tend to affect life. Speculative difficulties which do not affect conduct, and which come into collision with any of the principles which I intend to state as axioms, lie outside the scope of my book. These axioms are:—

(1) Human conduct is capable of being right, and of being wrong.

(2) I possess Free-Will, and am able to choose between right and wrong.

(3) I have in some cases chosen wrong.

(4) I am responsible for choosing wrong.

(5) I am responsible to a person.

(6) This person is perfectly good.

I call them axioms, because I have no proofs to offer for them. There will probably be others, but these are all I can think of just now.

The Rev. H. Hopley, Vicar of Westham, has sent me the following interesting account of a sermon Mr. Dodgson preached at his church:—

In the autumn of 1895 the Vicar of Eastbourne was to have preached my Harvest Sermon at Westham, a village five miles away; but something or other intervened, and in the middle of the week I learned he could not come. A mutual friend suggested my asking Mr. Dodgson, who was then in Eastbourne, to help me, and I went with him to his rooms. I was quite a stranger to Mr. Dodgson; but knowing from hearsay how reluctant he usually was to preach, I apologised and explained my position—with Sunday so near at hand. After a moment's hesitation he consented, and in a most genial manner made me feel quite at ease as to the abruptness of my petition. On the morrow he came over to my vicarage, and made friends with my daughters, teaching them some new manner of playing croquet [probably Castle Croquet], and writing out for them puzzles and anagrams that he had composed.

The following letter was forwarded on the Saturday:—

"7, Lushington Road, Eastbourne,

September 26, 1895.

Dear Mr. Hopley,—I think you will excuse the liberty I am taking in asking you to give me some food after the service on Sunday, so that I may have no need to catch the train, but can walk back at leisure. This will save me from the worry of trying to conclude at an exact minute, and you, perhaps, from the trouble of finding short hymns, to save time. It will not, I hope, cause your cook any trouble, as my regular rule here is cold dinner on Sundays. This not from any "Sabbatarian" theory, but from the wish to let our employés have the day wholly at their own disposal.

I beg Miss Hopley's acceptance of the enclosed papers— (puzzles and diagrams.)

Believe me, very truly yours,

C.L. Dodgson."

On Sunday our grand old church was crowded, and, although our villagers are mostly agricultural labourers, yet they breathlessly listened to a sermon forty minutes long, and apparently took in every word of it. It was quite extempore, in very simple words, and illustrated by some delightful and most touching stories of children. I only wish there had been a shorthand-writer there.

In the vestry after service, while he was signing his name in the Preachers' Book, a church officer handed him a bit of paper. "Mr. Dodgson, would you very kindly write your name on that?" "Sir!" drawing himself up sternly—"Sir, I never do that for any one"—and then, more kindly, "You see, if I did it for one, I must do it for all."

An amusing incident in Mr. Dodgson's life is connected with the well-known drama, "Two Little Vagabonds." I give the story as he wrote it in his Diary:—

Nov. 28th.—Matinée at the Princess's of "Two Little Vagabonds," a very sensational melodrama, capitally acted. "Dick" and "Wally" were played by Kate Tyndall and Sydney Fairbrother, whom I guess to be about fifteen and twelve. Both were excellent, and the latter remarkable for the perfect realism of her acting. There was some beautiful religious dialogue between "Wally" and a hospital nurse— most reverently spoken, and reverently received by the audience.

Dec. 17th.—I have given books to Kate Tyndall and Sydney Fairbrother, and have heard from them, and find I was entirely mistaken in taking them for children. Both are married women!

The following is an extract from a letter written in 1896 to one of his sisters, in allusion to a death which had recently occurred in the family:—

It is getting increasingly difficult now to remember which of one's friends remain alive, and which have gone "into the land of the great departed, into the silent land." Also, such news comes less and less as a shock, and more and more one realises that it is an experience each of us has to face before long. That fact is getting less dreamlike to me now, and I sometimes think what a grand thing it will be to be able to say to oneself, "Death is over now; there is not that experience to be faced again."

I am beginning to think that, if the books I am still hoping to write are to be done at all, they must be done now, and that I am meant thus to utilise the splendid health I have had, unbroken, for the last year and a half, and the working powers that are fully as great as, if not greater, than I have ever had. I brought with me here (this letter was written from Eastbourne) the MS., such as it is (very fragmentary and unarranged) for the book about religious difficulties, and I meant, when I came here, to devote myself to that, but I have changed my plan. It seems to me that that subject is one that hundreds of living men could do, if they would only try, much better than I could, whereas there is no living man who could (or at any rate who would take the trouble to) arrange and finish and publish the second part of the "Logic." Also, I have the Logic book in my head; it will only need three or four months to write out, and I have not got the other book in my head, and it might take years to think out. So I have decided to get Part ii. finished first, and I am working at it day and night. I have taken to early rising, and sometimes sit down to my work before seven, and have one and a half hours at it before breakfast. The book will be a great novelty, and will help, I fully believe, to make the study of Logic far easier than it now is. And it will, I also believe, be a help to religious thought by giving clearness of conception and of expression, which may enable many people to face, and conquer, many religious difficulties for themselves. So I do really regard it as work for God.

Another letter, written a few months later to Miss Dora Abdy, deals with the subject of "Reverence," which Mr. Dodgson considered a virtue not held in sufficient esteem nowadays:—

My Dear Dora,—In correcting the proofs of "Through the Looking-Glass" (which is to have "An Easter Greeting" inserted at the end), I am reminded that in that letter (I enclose a copy), I had tried to express my thoughts on the very subject we talked about last night—the relation of laughter to religious thought. One of the hardest things in the world is to convey a meaning accurately from one mind to another, but the sort of meaning I want to convey to other minds is that while the laughter of joy is in full harmony with our deeper life, the laughter of amusement should be kept apart from it. The danger is too great of thus learning to look at solemn things in a spirit of mockery, and to seek in them opportunities for exercising wit. That is the spirit which has spoiled, for me, the beauty of some of the Bible. Surely there is a deep meaning in our prayer, "Give us an heart to love and dread Thee." We do not mean terror: but a dread that will harmonise with love; "respect" we should call it as towards a human being, "reverence" as towards God and all religious things.

Yours affectionately,

C.L. Dodgson.

In his "Game of Logic" Lewis Carroll introduced an original method of working logical problems by means of diagrams; this method he superseded in after years for a much simpler one, the method of "Subscripts."

In "Symbolic Logic, Part i." (London: Macmillan, 1896) he employed both methods. The Introduction is specially addressed "to Learners," whom Lewis Carroll advises to read the book straight through, without dipping.

This Rule [he says] is very desirable with other kinds of books—such as novels, for instance, where you may easily spoil much of the enjoyment you would otherwise get from the story by dipping into it further on, so that what the author meant to be a pleasant surprise comes to you as a matter of course. Some people, I know, make a practice of looking into vol. iii. first, just to see how the story ends; and perhaps it is as well just to know that all ends happily—that the much persecuted lovers do marry after all, that he is proved to be quite innocent of the murder, that the wicked cousin is completely foiled in his plot, and gets the punishment he deserves, and that the rich uncle in India (Qu. Why in India ? Ans. Because, somehow, uncles never can get rich anywhere else) dies at exactly the right moment—before taking the trouble to read vol i. This, I say, is just permissible with a novel, where vol. iii. has a meaning, even for those who have not read the earlier part of the story; but with a scientific book, it is sheer insanity. You will find the latter part hopelessly unintelligible, if you read it before reaching it in regular course.

CHAPTER IX

(1897—1898)

Logic-lectures—Irreverent anecdotes—Tolerance of his religious views—A mathematical discovery—"The Little Minister" Sir George Baden-Powell—Last illness—"Thy will be done"—"Wonderland" at last!—Letters from friends "Three Sunsets"—"Of such is the kingdom of Heaven."

The year 1897, the last complete year which he was destined to spend, began for Mr. Dodgson at Guildford. On January 3rd he preached in the morning at the beautiful old church of S. Mary's, the church which he always attended when he was staying with his sisters at the Chestnuts.

On the 5th he began a course of Logic Lectures at Abbot's Hospital. The Rev. A. Kingston, late curate of Holy Trinity and S. Mary's Parishes, Guildford, had requested him to do this, and he had given his promise if as many as six people could be got together to hear him. Mr. Kingston canvassed the town so well that an audience of about thirty attended the first lecture.

LEWIS CARROLL.

A long Sunday walk was always a feature of Mr. Dodgson's life in the vacations. In earlier years the late Mr. W. Watson was his usual companion at Guildford. The two men were in some respects very much alike; a peculiar gentleness of character, a winning charm of manner which no one could resist, distinguished them both. After Mr. Watson's death his companion was usually one of the following Guildford clergymen: the Rev. J.H. Robson, LL.D., the Rev. H.R. Ware, and the Rev. A. Kingston.

On the 26th Mr. Dodgson paid a visit to the Girls' High School, to show the pupils some mathematical puzzles, and to teach the elder ones his "Memoria Technica." On the 28th he returned to Oxford, so as to be up in time for term.

I have said that he always refused invitations to dinner; accordingly his friends who knew of this peculiarity, and wished to secure him for a special evening, dared not actually invite him, but wrote him little notes stating that on such and such days they would be dining at home. Thus there is an entry in his Journal for February 10th:

"Dined with Mrs. G—(She had not sent an 'invitation'—only 'information')."

His system of symbolic logic enabled him to work out the most complex problems with absolute certainty in a surprisingly short time. Thus he wrote on the 15th: "Made a splendid logic-problem, about "great-grandsons" (modelled on one by De Morgan). My method of solution is quite new, and I greatly doubt if any one will solve the Problem. I have sent it to Cook Wilson."

On March 7th he preached in the University Church, the first occasion on which he had done so:—

There is now [he writes] a system established of a course of six sermons at S. Mary's each year, for University men only, and specially meant for undergraduates. They are preached, preceded by a few prayers and a hymn, at half-past eight. This evening ended the course for this term: and it was my great privilege to preach. It has been the most formidable sermon I have ever had to preach, and it is a great relief to have it over. I took, as text, Job xxviii. 28, "And unto man he said, The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom"—and the prayer in the Litany "Give us an heart to love and dread thee." It lasted three-quarters of an hour.

One can imagine how he would have treated the subject. The views which he held on the subject of reverence were, so at least it appears to me, somewhat exaggerated; they are well expressed in a letter which he wrote to a friend of his, during the year, and which runs as follows:—

Dear—, After changing my mind several times, I have at last decided to venture to ask a favour of you, and to trust that you will not misinterpret my motives in doing so.

The favour I would ask is, that you will not tell me any more stories, such as you did on Friday, of remarks which children are said to have made on very sacred subjects—remarks which most people would recognise as irreverent, if made by grown-up people, but which are assumed to be innocent when made by children who are unconscious of any irreverence, the strange conclusion being drawn that they are therefore innocent when repeated by a grown-up person.

The misinterpretation I would guard against is, your supposing that I regard such repetition as always wrong in any grown-up person. Let me assure you that I do not so regard it. I am always willing to believe that those who repeat such stories differ wholly from myself in their views of what is, and what is not, fitting treatment of sacred things, and I fully recognise that what would certainly be wrong in me, is not necessarily so in them.

So I simply ask it as a personal favour to myself. The hearing of that anecdote gave me so much pain, and spoiled so much the pleasure of my tiny dinner-party, that I feel sure you will kindly spare me such in future.

One further remark. There are quantities of such anecdotes going about. I don't in the least believe that 5 per cent. of them were ever said by children. I feel sure that most of them are concocted by people who wish to bring sacred subjects into ridicule—sometimes by people who wish to undermine the belief that others have in religious truths: for there is no surer way of making one's beliefs unreal than by learning to associate them with ludicrous ideas.

Forgive the freedom with which I have said all this.

Sincerely yours,

C.L. Dodgson.

The entry in the Diary for April 11th (Sunday) is interesting:—

Went my eighteen-mile round by Besilsleigh. From my rooms back to them again, took me five hours and twenty-seven minutes. Had "high tea" at twenty minutes past seven. This entails only leaving a plate of cold meat, and gives much less trouble than hot dinner at six.

Dinner at six has been my rule since January 31st, when it began—I then abandoned the seven o'clock Sunday dinner, of which I entirely disapprove. It has prevented, for two terms, the College Servants' Service.

On May 12th he wrote:—

As the Prince of Wales comes this afternoon to open the Town Hall, I went round to the Deanery to invite them to come through my rooms upon the roof, to see the procession arrive.... A party of about twenty were on my roof in the afternoon, including Mrs. Moberly, Mrs. Driver, and Mrs. Baynes, and most, if not all, of the children in Christ Church. Dinner in Hall at eight. The Dean had the Prince on his right, and Lord Salisbury on his left. My place was almost vis—à—vis with the Prince. He and the Dean were the only speakers. We did not get out of Hall till nearly ten.

In June he bought a "Whiteley Exerciser," and fixed it up in his rooms. One would have thought that he would have found his long walks sufficient exercise (an eighteen-mile round was, as we have seen, no unusual thing for him to undertake), but apparently it was not so. He was so pleased with the "Exerciser," that he bought several more of them, and made presents of them to his friends.

As an instance of his broad-mindedness, the following extract from his Diary for June 20th is interesting. It must be premised that E—was a young friend of his who had recently become a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and that their place of worship in Oxford is dedicated to S. Aloysius.

I went with E— to S. Aloysius. There was much beauty in the service, part of which consisted in a procession, with banner, all round the church, carrying the Host, preceded by a number of girls in white, with veils (who had all had their first communion that morning), strewing flowers. Many of them were quite little things of about seven. The sermon (by Father Richardson) was good and interesting, and in a very loyal tone about the Queen.

A letter he wrote some years before to a friend who had asked him about his religious opinions reveals the same catholicity of mind:—

I am a member of the English Church, and have taken Deacon's Orders, but did not think fit (for reasons I need not go into) to take Priest's Orders. My dear father was what is called a "High Churchman," and I naturally adopted those views, but have always felt repelled by the yet higher development called "Ritualism."

But I doubt if I am fully a "High Churchman" now. I find that as life slips away (I am over fifty now), and the life on the other side of the great river becomes more and more the reality, of which this is only a shadow, that the petty distinctions of the many creeds of Christendom tend to slip away as well—leaving only the great truths which all Christians believe alike. More and more, as I read of the Christian religion, as Christ preached it, I stand amazed at the forms men have given to it, and the fictitious barriers they have built up between themselves and their brethren. I believe that when you and I come to lie down for the last time, if only we can keep firm hold of the great truths Christ taught us—our own utter worthlessness and His infinite worth; and that He has brought us back to our one Father, and made us His brethren, and so brethren to one another—we shall have all we need to guide us through the shadows.

Most assuredly I accept to the full the doctrines you refer to—that Christ died to save us, that we have no other way of salvation open to us but through His death, and that it is by faith in Him, and through no merit of ours, that we are reconciled to God; and most assuredly I can cordially say, "I owe all to Him who loved me, and died on the Cross of Calvary."

He spent the Long Vacation at Eastbourne as usual, frequently walking over to Hastings, which is about twenty miles off. A good many of his mornings were spent in giving lectures and telling stories at schools.

A letter to the widow of an old college friend reveals the extraordinary sensitiveness of his nature:—

2, Bedford Well Road, Eastbourne,

August 2, 1897.

My Dear Mrs. Woodhouse,—Your letter, with its mournful news, followed me down here, and I only got it on Saturday night; so I was not able to be with you in thought when the mortal remains of my dear old friend were being committed to the ground; to await the time when our Heavenly Father shall have accomplished the number of His elect, and when you and I shall once more meet the loved ones from whom we are, for a little while only—what a little while even a long human life lasts!—parted in sorrow, yet not sorrowing as those without hope.

You will be sure without words of mine, that you have my true and deep sympathy. Of all the friends I made at Ch. Ch., your husband was the very first who spoke to me—across the dinner-table in Hall. That is forty-six years ago, but I remember, as if it were only yesterday, the kindly smile with which he spoke....

September 27th and 28th are marked in his Diary "with a white stone":—

Sept. 27th.—Dies notandus. Discovered rule for dividing a number by 9, by mere addition and subtraction. I felt sure there must be an analogous one for 11, and found it, and proved first rule by algebra, after working about nine hours!

Sept. 28th.—Dies cretâ notandus. I have actually superseded the rules discovered yesterday! My new rules require to ascertain the 9—remainder, and the 11—remainder, which the others did not require; but the new ones are much the quickest. I shall send them to The Educational Times , with date of discovery.

On November 4th he wrote:—

Completed a rule for dividing a given number by any divisor that is within 10 of a power of 10, either way. The principle of it is not my discovery, but was sent me by Bertram Collingwood—a rule for dividing by a divisor which is within 10 of a power of 10, below it.

My readers will not be surprised to learn that only eight days after this he had superseded his rule:—

An inventive morning! After waking, and before I had finished dressing, I had devised a new and much neater form in which to work my Rules for Long Division, and also decided to bring out my "Games and Puzzles," and Part iii. of "Curiosa Mathematica," in Numbers , in paper covers, paged consecutively, to be ultimately issued in boards.

On November 20th he spent the day in London, with the object of seeing "The Little Minister" at the Haymarket. "A beautiful play, beautifully acted," he calls it, and says that he should like to see it "again and again." He especially admired the acting of Mrs. Cyril Maude (Miss Winifred Emery) as Lady Babbie. This was the last theatrical performance he ever witnessed.

He apparently kept rough notes for his Diary, and only wrote it up every few weeks, as there are no entries at all for 1898, nor even for the last week of 1897. The concluding page runs as follows:—

Dec. (W.) 10 a.m.—I am in my large room, with no fire, and open window—temperature 54°.

Dec. 17 (F.).—Maggie [one of his sisters], and our nieces Nella and Violet, came to dinner.

Dec. 19 (Sun.).—Sat up last night till 4 a.m., over a tempting problem, sent me from New York, "to find 3 equal rational-sided rt.-angled triangles ." I found two, whose sides are 20, 21, 29; 12, 35, 37; but could not find three.

Dec. 23(Th.).—I start for Guildford by the 2.7 today.

As my story of Lewis Carroll's life draws near its end, I have received some "Stray Reminiscences" from Sir George Baden-Powell, M.P., which, as they refer to several different periods of time, are as appropriate here as in any other part of the book. The Rev. E.H. Dodgson, referred to in these reminiscences, is a younger brother of Lewis Carroll's; he spent several years of his life upon the remote island of Tristan d'Acunha, where there were only about seventy or eighty inhabitants besides himself. About once a year a ship used to call, when the island-folk would exchange their cattle for cloth, corn, tea, &c., which they could not produce themselves. The island is volcanic in origin, and is exposed to the most terrific gales; the building used as a church stood at some distance from Mr. Dodgson's dwelling, and on one occasion the wind was so strong that he had to crawl on his hands and knees for the whole distance that separated the two buildings.

My first introduction (writes Sir George Baden-Powell) to the author of "Through the Looking-Glass" was about the year 1870 or 1871, and under appropriate conditions! I was then coaching at Oxford with the well-known Rev. E. Hatch, and was on friendly terms with his bright and pretty children. Entering his house one day, and facing the dining-room, I heard mysterious noises under the table, and saw the cloth move as if some one were hiding. Children's legs revealed it as no burglar, and there was nothing for it but to crawl upon them, roaring as a lion. Bursting in upon them in their strong-hold under the table, I was met by the staid but amused gaze of a reverend gentleman. Frequently afterwards did I see and hear "Lewis Carroll" entertaining the youngsters in his inimitable way.

We became friends, and greatly did I enjoy intercourse with him over various minor Oxford matters. In later years, at one time I saw much of him, in quite another rôle—namely that of ardent sympathy with the, as he thought, ill-treated and deserted islanders of Tristan d'Acunha. His brother, it will be remembered, had voluntarily been left at that island with a view to ministering to the spiritual and educational needs of the few settlers, and sent home such graphic accounts and urgent demands for aid, that "Lewis Carroll" spared no pains to organise assistance and relief. At his instance I brought the matter before Government and the House of Commons, and from that day to this frequent communication has been held with the islanders, and material assistance has been rendered them—thanks to the warm heart of "Lewis Carroll."

On December 23, 1897, as the note in his Diary states, he went down, in accordance with his usual custom, to Guildford, to spend Christmas with his sisters at the Chestnuts. He seemed to be in his ordinary health, and in the best of spirits, and there was nothing to show that the end was so near.

THE CHESTNUTS, GUILDFORD.

At Guildford he was hard at work upon the second part of his "Symbolic Logic," spending most of the day over this task. This book, alas! he was not destined to finish, which is the more to be regretted as it will be exceedingly difficult for any one else to take up the thread of the argument, even if any one could be found willing to give the great amount of time and trouble which would be needed.

On January 5th my father, the Rev. C.S. Collingwood, Rector of Southwick, near Sunderland, died after a very short illness. The telegram which brought Mr. Dodgson the news of this contained the request that he would come at once. He determined to travel north the next day—but it was not to be so. An attack of influenza, which began only with slight hoarseness, yet enough to prevent him from following his usual habit of reading family prayers, was pronounced next morning to be sufficiently serious to forbid his undertaking a journey. At first his illness seemed a trifle, but before a week had passed bronchial symptoms had developed, and Dr. Gabb, the family physician, ordered him to keep his bed. His breathing rapidly became hard and laborious, and he had to be propped up with pillows. A few days before his death he asked one of his sisters to read him that well-known hymn, every verse of which ends with 'Thy Will be done.' To another he said that his illness was a great trial of his patience. How great a trial it must have been it is hard for us to understand. With the work he had set himself still uncompleted, with a sense of youth and joyousness, which sixty years of the battle of life had in no way dulled, Lewis Carroll had to face death. He seemed to know that the struggle was over. "Take away those pillows," he said on the 13th, "I shall need them no more." The end came about half-past two on the afternoon of the 14th. One of his sisters was in the room at the time, and she only noticed that the hard breathing suddenly ceased. The nurse, whom she summoned, at first hoped that this was a sign that he had taken a turn for the better. And so, indeed, he had—he had passed from a world of incompleteness and disappointment, to another where God is putting his beautiful soul to nobler and grander work than was possible for him here, where he is learning to comprehend those difficulties which used to puzzle him so much, and where that infinite Love, which he mirrored so wonderfully in his own life, is being revealed to him "face to face."

In accordance with his expressed wish, the funeral was simple in the extreme—flowers, and flowers only, adorned the plain coffin. There was no hearse to drag it up the steep incline that leads to the beautiful cemetery where he lies. The service was taken by Dean Paget and Canon Grant, Rector of Holy Trinity and S. Mary's, Guildford. The mourners who followed him in the quiet procession were few—but the mourners who were not there, and many of whom had never seen him—who shall tell their number?

After the grave had been filled up, the wreaths which had covered the coffin were placed upon it. Many were from "child-friends" and bore such inscriptions as "From two of his child-friends"—"To the sweetest soul that ever looked with human eyes," &c. Then the mourners left him alone there—up on the pleasant downs where he had so often walked.

A marble cross, under the shadow of a pine, marks the spot, and beneath his own name they have engraved the name of "Lewis Carroll," that the children who pass by may remember their friend, who is now—himself a child in all that makes childhood most attractive—in that "Wonderland" which outstrips all our dreams and hopes.

I cannot forbear quoting from Professor Sanday's sermon at Christ Church on the Sunday after his death:—

The world will think of Lewis Carroll as one who opened out a new vein in literature, a new and a delightful vein, which added at once mirth and refinement to life.... May we not say that from our courts at Christ Church there has flowed into the literature of our time a rill, bright and sparkling, health-giving and purifying, wherever its waters extend?

LEWIS CARROLL'S GRAVE.

From a photograph.

On the following Sunday Dean Paget, in the course of a sermon on the "Virtue of Simplicity," said:—

We may differ, according to our difference of taste or temperament, in appraising Charles Dodgson's genius; but that that great gift was his, that his best work ranks with the very best of its kind, this has been owned with a recognition too wide and spontaneous to leave room for doubt. The brilliant, venturesome imagination, defying forecast with ever-fresh surprise; the sense of humour in its finest and most naïve form; the power to touch with lightest hand the undercurrent of pathos in the midst of fun; the audacity of creative fancy, and the delicacy of insight—these are rare gifts; and surely they were his. Yes, but it was his simplicity of mind and heart that raised them all, not only in his work but in his life, in all his ways, in the man as we knew him, to something higher than any mere enumeration of them tells: that almost curious simplicity, at times, that real and touching child-likeness that marked him in all fields of thought, appearing in his love of children and in their love of him, in his dread of giving pain to any living creature, in a certain disproportion, now and then, of the view he took of things—yes, and also in that deepest life, where the pure in heart and those who become as little children see the very truth and walk in the fear and love of God.

Some extracts from the numerous sympathetic letters received by Mr. Dodgson's brothers and sisters will show how greatly his loss was felt. Thus Canon Jelf writes:—

It was quite a shock to me to see in the paper to-day the death of your dear, good brother, to whom we owe so much of the brightening of our lives with pure, innocent fun. Personally I feel his loss very much indeed. We were together in old Ch. Ch. days from 1852 onwards; and he was always such a loyal, faithful friend to me. I rejoice to think of the serious talks we had together—of the grand, brave way in which he used the opportunities he had as a man of humour, to reach the consciences of a host of readers—of his love for children—his simplicity of heart—of his care for servants—his spiritual care for them. Who can doubt that he was fully prepared for a change however sudden—for the one clear call which took him away from us? Yet the world seems darker for his going; we can only get back our brightness by realising Who gave him all his talent, all his mirth of heart—the One who never leaves us. In deep sympathy,

Yours very sincerely,

George E. Jelf.

P.S.—When you have time tell me a little about him; he was so dear to me.

Mr. Frederic Harrison writes as follows:—

The occasional visits that I received from your late brother showed me a side of his nature which to my mind was more interesting and more worthy of remembrance even than his wonderful and delightful humour—I mean his intense sympathy with all who suffer and are in need.

He came to see me several times on sundry errands of mercy, and it has been a lesson to me through life to remember his zeal to help others in difficulty, his boundless generosity, and his inexhaustible patience with folly and error.

My young daughter, like all young people in civilised countries, was brought up on his beautiful fancies and humours. But for my part I remember him mainly as a sort of missionary to all in need. We all alike grieve, and offer you our heartfelt sympathy.

I am, faithfully yours,

Frederic Harrison.

His old friend and tutor. Dr. Price, writes:—

... I feel his removal from among us as the loss of an old and dear friend and pupil, to whom I have been most warmly attached ever since he was with me at Whitby, reading mathematics, in, I think, 1853—44 years ago! And 44 years of uninterrupted friendship .... I was pleased to read yesterday in The Times newspaper the kindly obituary notice: perfectly just and true; appreciative, as it should be, as to the unusual combination of deep mathematical ability and taste with the genius that led to the writing of "Alice's Adventures."

Only the other day [writes a lady friend] he wrote to me about his admiration for my dear husband, and he ended his letter thus: "I trust that when my time comes, I may be found, like him, working to the last, and ready for the Master's call"—and truly so he was.

A friend at Oxford writes:—

Mr. Dodgson was ever the kindest and gentlest of friends, bringing sunshine into the house with him. We shall mourn his loss deeply, and my two girls are quite overcome with grief. All day memories of countless acts of kindness shown to me, and to people I have known, have crowded my mind, and I feel it almost impossible to realise that he has passed beyond the reach of our gratitude and affection.

The following are extracts from letters written by some of his "child-friends," now grown up:—

How beautiful to think of the track of light and love he has left behind him, and the amount of happiness he brought into the lives of all those he came in contact with! I shall never forget all his kindness to us, from the time he first met us as little mites in the railway train, and one feels glad to have had the privilege of knowing him.

One of Mr. Dodgson's oldest "child-friends" writes:—

He was to me a dear and true friend, and it has been my great privilege to see a good deal of him ever since I was a tiny child, and especially during the last two years. I cannot tell you how much we shall miss him here. Ch. Ch. without Mr. Dodgson will be a strange place, and it is difficult to realise it even while we listen to the special solemn anthems and hymns to his memory in our cathedral.

One who had visited him at Guildford, writes:—

It must be quite sixteen years now since he first made friends with my sister and myself as children on the beach at Eastbourne, and since then his friendship has been and must always be one of my most valued possessions. It culminated, I think, in the summer of 1892—the year when he brought me to spend a very happy Sunday at Guildford. I had not seen him before, that year, for some time; and it was then, I think, that the childish delight in his kindness, and pride in his friendship, changed into higher love and reverence, when in our long walks over the downs I saw more and more into the great tenderness and gentleness of his nature.

Shortly after Mr. Dodgson's death, his "Three Sunsets" was published by Messrs. Macmillan. The twelve "Fairy Fancies," which illustrate it, were drawn by Miss E. G. Thomson. Though they are entirely unconnected with the text, they are so thoroughly in accordance with the author's delicate refinement, and so beautiful in themselves, that they do not strike one as inappropriate.

Some of the verses are strangely in keeping with the time at which they are published.

I could not see, for blinding tears,

The glories of the west:

A heavenly music filled my ears,

A heavenly peace my breast.

"Come unto me, come unto me—

All ye that labour, unto me—

Ye heavy-laden, come to me—

And I will give you rest."

One cannot read this little volume without feeling that the shadow of some disappointment lay over Lewis Carroll's life. Such I believe to have been the case, and it was this that gave him his wonderful sympathy with all who suffered. But those who loved him would not wish to lift the veil from these dead sanctities, nor would any purpose be served by so doing. The proper use of sympathy is not to weep over sorrows that are over, and whose very memory is perhaps obliterated for him in the first joy of possessing new and higher faculties.

Before leaving the subject of this book, I should like to draw attention to a few lines on "woman's mission," lines full of the noblest chivalry, reminding one of Tennyson's "Idylls of the King":—

In the darkest path of man's despair,

Where War and Terror shake the troubled earth,

Lies woman's mission; with unblenching brow

To pass through scenes of horror and affright

Where men grow sick and tremble: unto her

All things are sanctified, for all are good.

Nothing so mean, but shall deserve her care:

Nothing so great, but she may bear her part.

No life is vain: each hath his place assigned:

Do thou thy task, and leave the rest to God.

Of the unpublished works which Mr. Dodgson left behind him, I may mention "Original Games and Puzzles"; "Symbolic Logic, Part ii.," and a portion of a mathematical book, the proofs of which are now in the hands of the Controller of the Oxford University Press.

I will conclude this chapter with a poem which appeared in Punch for January 29th, a fortnight after Lewis Carroll's death. It expresses, with all the grace and insight of the true poet, what I have tried, so feebly and ineffectually, to say:—

LEWIS CARROLL.

Born 1832. Died January 14, 1898.

Lover of children! Fellow-heir with those

Of whom the imperishable kingdom is!

Beyond all dreaming now your spirit knows

The unimagined mysteries.

Darkly as in a glass our faces look

To read ourselves, if so we may, aright;

You, like the maiden in your faërie book—

You step behind and see the light!

The heart you wore beneath your pedant's cloak

Only to children's hearts you gave away;

Yet unaware in half the world you woke

The slumbering charm of childhood's day.

We older children, too, our loss lament,

We of the "Table Round," remembering well

How he, our comrade, with his pencil lent

Your fancy's speech a firmer spell.

Master of rare woodcraft, by sympathy's

Sure touch he caught your visionary gleams,

And made your fame, the dreamer's, one with his.

The wise interpreter of dreams.

Farewell!  But near our hearts we have you yet,

Holding our heritage with loving hand,

Who may not follow where your feet are set

Upon the ways of Wonderland.[025]

LORINA AND ALICE LIDDELL.

From a photograph

by Lewis Carroll.

CHAPTER X

CHILD FRIENDS

Mr. Dodgson's fondness for children—Miss Isabel Standen—Puzzles—"Me and Myself"—A double acrostic—"Father William"—Of drinking healths—Kisses by post—Tired in the face—The unripe plum—Eccentricities—"Sylvie and Bruno"—"Mr. Dodgson is going on well."

This chapter, and the next will deal with Mr. Dodgson's friendships with children. It would have been impossible to arrange them in chronological sequence in the earlier part of this book, and the fact that they exhibit a very important and distinct side of his nature seems to justify me in assigning them a special and individual position.

For the contents of these two chapters, both my readers and myself owe a debt of gratitude to those child-friends of his, without whose ever-ready help this book could never have been written.

From very early college days began to emerge that beautiful side of Lewis Carroll's character which afterwards was to be, next to his fame as an author, the one for which he was best known—his attitude towards children, and the strong attraction they had for him. I shall attempt to point out the various influences which led him in this direction; but if I were asked for one comprehensive word wide enough to explain this tendency of his nature, I would answer unhesitatingly—Love. My readers will remember a beautiful verse in "Sylvie and Bruno"; trite though it is, I cannot forbear to quote it—

Say, whose is the skill that paints valley and hill,

Like a picture so fair to the sight?

That flecks the green meadow with sunshine and shadow,

Till the little lambs leap with delight?

'Tis a secret untold to hearts cruel and cold,

Though 'tis sung by the angels above,

In notes that ring clear for the ears that can hear,

And the name of the secret is Love!

That "secret"—an open secret for him—explains this side of his character. As he read everything in its light, so it is only in its light that we can properly understand him. I think that the following quotation from a letter to the Rev. F. H. Atkinson, accompanying a copy of "Alice" for his little daughter Gertrude, sufficiently proves the truth of what I have just stated:—

Many thanks to Mrs. Atkinson and to you for the sight of the tinted photograph of your Gertrude. As you say, the picture speaks for itself, and I can see exactly what sort of a child she is, in proof of which I send her my love and a kiss herewith. It is possible I may be the first (unseen) gentleman from whom she has had so ridiculous a message; but I can't say she is the first unseen child to whom I have sent one! I think the most precious message of the kind I ever got from a child I never saw (and never shall see in this world) was to the effect that she liked me when she read about Alice, "but please tell him, whenever I read that Easter letter he sent me I do love him!" She was in a hospital, and a lady friend who visited there had asked me to send the letter to her and some other sick children.

And now as to the secondary causes which attracted him to children. First, I think children appealed to him because he was pre-eminently a teacher, and he saw in their unspoiled minds the best material for him to work upon. In later years one of his favourite recreations was to lecture at schools on logic; he used to give personal attention to each of his pupils, and one can well imagine with what eager anticipation the children would have looked forward to the visits of a schoolmaster who knew how to make even the dullest subjects interesting and amusing.

Again, children appealed to his æsthetic faculties, for he was a keen admirer of the beautiful in every form. Poetry, music, the drama, all delighted him, but pictures more than all put together. I remember his once showing me "The Lady with the Lilacs," which Arthur Hughes had painted for him, and how he dwelt with intense pleasure on the exquisite contrasts of colour which it contained—the gold hair of a girl standing out against the purple of lilac-blossom. But with those who find in such things as these a complete satisfaction of their desire for the beautiful he had no sympathy; for no imperfect representations of life could, for him, take the place of life itself, life as God has made it—the babbling of the brook, the singing of the birds, the laughter and sweet faces of the children. And yet, recognising, as he did, what Mr. Pater aptly terms "the curious perfection of the human form," in man, as in nature, it was the soul that attracted him more than the body. His intense admiration, one might almost call it adoration, for the white innocence and uncontaminated spirituality of childhood emerges most clearly in "Sylvie and Bruno." He says very little of the personal beauty of his heroine; he might have asked, with Mr. Francis Thompson—

How can I tell what beauty is her dole,

Who cannot see her countenance for her soul?

So entirely occupied is he with her gentleness, her pity, her sincerity, and her love.

Again, the reality of children appealed strongly to the simplicity and genuineness of his own nature. I believe that he understood children even better than he understood men and women; civilisation has made adult humanity very incomprehensible, for convention is as a veil which hides the divine spark that is in each of us, and so this strange thing has come to be, that the imperfect mirrors perfection more completely than the perfected, that we see more of God in the child than in the man.

And in those moments of depression of which he had his full share, when old age seemed to mock him with all its futility and feebleness, it was the thought that the children still loved him which nerved him again to continue his life-work, which renewed his youth, so that to his friends he never seemed an old man. Even the hand of death itself only made his face look more boyish—the word is not too strong. "How wonderfully young your brother looks!" were the first words the doctor said, as he returned from the room where Lewis Carroll's body lay, to speak to the mourners below. And so he loved children because their friendship was the true source of his perennial youth and unflagging vigour. This idea is expressed in the following poem—an acrostic, which he wrote for a friend some twenty years ago:—

Around my lonely hearth, to-night,

Ghostlike the shadows wander:

Now here, now there, a childish sprite,

Earthborn and yet as angel bright,

Seems near me as I ponder.

Gaily she shouts: the laughing air

Echoes her note of gladness—

Or bends herself with earnest care

Round fairy-fortress to prepare

Grim battlement or turret-stair—

In childhood's merry madness!

New raptures still hath youth in store:

Age may but fondly cherish

Half-faded memories of yore—

Up, craven heart! repine no more!

Love stretches hands from shore to shore:

Love is, and shall not perish!

His first child-friend, so far as I know, was Miss Alice Liddell, the little companion whose innocent talk was one of the chief pleasures of his early life at Oxford, and to whom he told the tale that was to make him famous. In December, 1885, Miss M.E. Manners presented him with a little volume, of which she was the authoress, "Aunt Agatha Ann and Other Verses," and which contained a poem (which I quoted in Chapter VI.), about "Alice." Writing to acknowledge this gift, Lewis Carroll said:—

Permit me to offer you my sincere thanks for the very sweet verses you have written about my dream-child (named after a real Alice, but none the less a dream-child) and her Wonderland. That children love the book is a very precious thought to me, and, next to their love, I value the sympathy of those who come with a child's heart to what I have tried to write about a child's thoughts. Next to what conversing with an angel might be—for it is hard to imagine it—comes, I think, the privilege of having a real child's thoughts uttered to one. I have known some few real children (you have too, I am sure), and their friendship is a blessing and a help in life.

ALICE LIDDELL.

From a photograph

by Lewis Carroll.

It is interesting to note how in "Sylvie and Bruno" his idea of the thoughts of a child has become deeper and more spiritual. Yet in the earlier tale, told "all in a golden afternoon," to the plash of oars and the swish of a boat through the waters of Cherwell or Thames, the ideal child is strangely beautiful; she has all Sylvie's genuineness and honesty, all her keen appreciation of the interest of life; only there lacks that mysterious charm of deep insight into the hidden forces of nature, the gentle power that makes the sky "such a darling blue," which almost links Sylvie with the angels.

Another of Lewis Carroll's early favourites was Miss Alexandra (Xie) Kitchin, daughter of the Dean of Durham. Her father was for fifteen years the Censor of the unattached members of the University of Oxford, so that Mr. Dodgson had plenty of opportunities of photographing his little friend, and it is only fair to him to say that he did not neglect them.

It would be futile to attempt even a bare list of the children whom he loved, and who loved him; during forty years of his life he was constantly adding to their number. Some remained friends for life, but in a large proportion of cases the friendship ended with the end of childhood. To one of those few, whose affection for him had not waned with increasing years, he wrote:—

I always feel specially grateful to friends who, like you, have given me a child-friendship and a woman—friendship. About nine out of ten, I think, of my child-friendships get ship-wrecked at the critical point, "where the stream and river meet," and the child-friends, once so affectionate, become uninteresting acquaintances, whom I have no wish to set eyes on again.

XIE KITCHIN.

From a photograph

by Lewis Carroll.

These friendships usually began all very much in the same way. A chance meeting on the sea-shore, in the street, at some friend's house, led to conversation; then followed a call on the parents, and after that all sorts of kindnesses on Lewis Carroll's part, presents of books, invitations to stay with him at Oxford, or at Eastbourne, visits with him to the theatre. For the amusement of his little guests he kept a large assortment of musical-boxes, and an organette which had to be fed with paper tunes. On one occasion he ordered about twelve dozen of these tunes "on approval," and asked one of the other dons, who was considered a judge of music, to come in and hear them played over. In addition to these attractions there were clock-work bears, mice, and frogs, and games and puzzles in infinite variety.

One of his little friends, Miss Isabel Standen, has sent me the following account of her first meeting with him:—

We met for the first time in the Forbury Gardens, Reading. He was, I believe, waiting for a train. I was playing with my brothers and sisters in the Gardens. I remember his taking me on his knee and showing me puzzles, one of which he refers to in the letter (given below. This puzzle was, by the way, a great favourite of his; the problem is to draw three interlaced squares without going over the same lines twice, or taking the pen off the paper), which is so thoroughly characteristic of him in its quaint humour:—

"The Chestnuts, Guildford,

August 22, 1869.

My Dear Isabel,—Though I have only been acquainted with you for fifteen minutes, yet, as there is no one else in Reading I have known so long, I hope you will not mind my troubling you. Before I met you in the Gardens yesterday I bought some old books at a shop in Reading, which I left to be called for, and had not time to go back for them. I didn't even remark the name of the shop, but I can tell where it was, and if you know the name of the woman who keeps the shop, and would put it into the blank I have left in this note, and direct it to her I should be much obliged ... A friend of mine, called Mr. Lewis Carroll, tells me he means to send you a book. He is a very dear friend of mine. I have known him all my life (we are the same age) and have never left him. Of course he was with me in the Gardens, not a yard off—even while I was drawing those puzzles for you. I wonder if you saw him?

Your fifteen-minute friend,

C.L. Dodgson.

Have you succeeded in drawing the three squares?"

Another favourite puzzle was the following—I give it in his own words:—

A is to draw a fictitious map divided into counties.

B is to colour it (or rather mark the counties with names of

colours) using as few colours as possible.

Two adjacent counties must have different colours.

A's object is to force B to use as many colours as possible.

How many can he force B to use?

One of his most amusing letters was to a little girl called Magdalen, to whom he had given a copy of his "Hunting of the Snark":—

Christ Church,

December 15, 1875.

My dear Magdalen,—I want to explain to you why I did not call yesterday. I was sorry to miss you, but you see I had so many conversations on the way. I tried to explain to the people in the street that I was going to see you, but they wouldn't listen; they said they were in a hurry, which was rude. At last I met a wheelbarrow that I thought would attend to me, but I couldn't make out what was in it. I saw some features at first, then I looked through a telescope, and found it was a countenance; then I looked through a microscope, and found it was a face! I thought it was father like me, so I fetched a large looking-glass to make sure, and then to my great joy I found it was me. We shook hands, and were just beginning to talk, when myself came up and joined us, and we had quite a pleasant conversation. I said, "Do you remember when we all met at Sandown?" and myself said, "It was very jolly there; there was a child called Magdalen," and me said, "I used to like her a little; not much, you know—only a little." Then it was time for us to go to the train, and who do you think came to the station to see us off? You would never guess, so I must tell you. They were two very dear friends of mine, who happen to be here just now, and beg to be allowed to sign this letter as your affectionate friends,

Lewis Carroll and C.L. Dodgson.

Another child-friend, Miss F. Bremer, writes as follows:—

Our acquaintance began in a somewhat singular manner. We were playing on the Fort at Margate, and a gentleman on a seat near asked us if we could make a paper boat, with a seat at each end, and a basket in the middle for fish! We were, of course, enchanted with the idea, and our new friend—after achieving the feat—gave us his card, which we at once carried to our mother. He asked if he might call where we were staying, and then presented my elder sister with a copy of "Alice in Wonderland," inscribed "From the Author." He kindly organised many little excursions for us—chiefly in the pursuit of knowledge. One memorable visit to a light house is still fresh in our memories.

It was while calling one day upon Mrs. Bremer that he scribbled off the following double acrostic on the names of her two daughters—

        DOUBLE ACROSTIC—FIVE LETTERS.

        Two little girls near London dwell,

        More naughty than I like to tell.

                         1.

        Upon the lawn the hoops are seen:

        The balls are rolling on the green.       T  ur  F

                         2.

        The Thames is running deep and wide:

        And boats are rowing on the tide.         R ive  R

                         3.

        In winter-time, all in a row,

        The happy skaters come and go.            I  c   E

                         4.

        "Papa!" they cry, "Do let us stay!"

        He does not speak, but says they may.     N   o  D

                         5.

        "There is a land," he says, "my dear,

        Which is too hot to skate, I fear."       A fric A

At Margate also he met Miss Adelaide Paine, who afterwards became one of his greatest favourites. He could not bear to see the healthy pleasures of childhood spoiled by conventional restraint. "One piece of advice given to my parents," writes Miss Paine, "gave me very great glee, and that was not to make little girls wear gloves at the seaside; they took the advice, and I enjoyed the result." Apropos of this I may mention that, when staying at Eastbourne, he never went down to the beach without providing himself with a supply of safety-pins. Then if he saw any little girl who wanted to wade in the sea, but was afraid of spoiling her frock, he would gravely go up to her and present her with a safety-pin, so that she might fasten up her skirts out of harm's way.

Tight boots were a great aversion of his, especially for children. One little girl who was staying with him at Eastbourne had occasion to buy a new pair of boots. Lewis Carroll gave instructions to the bootmaker as to how they were to be made, so as to be thoroughly comfortable, with the result that when they came home they were more useful than ornamental, being very nearly as broad as they were long! Which shows that even hygienic principles may be pushed too far.

The first meeting with Miss Paine took place in 1876. When Lewis Carroll returned to Christ Church he sent her a copy of "The Hunting of the Snark," with the following acrostic written in the fly-leaf:—

'A re you deaf, Father William?' the young man said,

'D id you hear what I told you just now?

 E xcuse me for shouting! Don't waggle your head

 L ike a blundering, sleepy old cow!

 A little maid dwelling in Wallington Town,

 I s my friend, so I beg to remark:

 D o you think she'd be pleased if a book were sent down

 E ntitled "The Hunt of the Snark?"'

'P ack it up in brown paper!' the old man cried,

'A nd seal it with olive-and-dove.

 I command you to do it!' he added with pride,

'N or forget, my good fellow, to send her beside

 E aster Greetings, and give her my love.'

This was followed by a letter, dated June 7, 1876:—

My dear Adelaide,—Did you try if the letters at the beginnings of the lines about Father William would spell anything? Sometimes it happens that you can spell out words that way, which is very curious.

I wish you could have heard him when he shouted out "Pack it up in brown paper!" It quite shook the house. And he threw one of his shoes at his son's head (just to make him attend, you know), but it missed him.

He was glad to hear you had got the book safe, but his eyes filled with tears as he said, "I sent her my love, but she never—" he couldn't say any more, his mouth was so full of bones (he was just finishing a roast goose).

Another letter to Miss Paine is very characteristic of his quaint humour:—

Christ Church, Oxford,

March 8, 1880.

My dear Ada,—(Isn't that your short name? "Adelaide" is all very well, but you see when one's dreadfully busy one hasn't time to write such long words—particularly when it takes one half an hour to remember how to spell it—and even then one has to go and get a dictionary to see if one has spelt it right, and of course the dictionary is in another room, at the top of a high bookcase—where it has been for months and months, and has got all covered with dust—so one has to get a duster first of all, and nearly choke oneself in dusting it—and when one has made out at last which is dictionary and which is dust, even then there's the job of remembering which end of the alphabet "A" comes—for one feels pretty certain it isn't in the middle—then one has to go and wash one's hands before turning over the leaves—for they've got so thick with dust one hardly knows them by sight—and, as likely as not, the soap is lost, and the jug is empty, and there's no towel, and one has to spend hours and hours in finding things—and perhaps after all one has to go off to the shop to buy a new cake of soap—so, with all this bother, I hope you won't mind my writing it short and saying, "My dear Ada"). You said in your last letter you would like a likeness of me: so here it is, and I hope you will like it—I won't forget to call the next time but one I'm in Wallington.

Your very affectionate friend,

Lewis Carroll.

It was quite against Mr. Dodgson's usual rule to give away photographs of himself; he hated publicity, and the above letter was accompanied by another to Mrs. Paine, which ran as follows:—

I am very unwilling, usually, to give my photograph, for I don't want people, who have heard of Lewis Carroll, to be able to recognise him in the street—but I can't refuse Ada. Will you kindly take care, if any of your ordinary acquaintances (I don't speak of intimate friends) see it, that they are not told anything about the name of "Lewis Carroll"?

He even objected to having his books discussed in his presence; thus he writes to a friend:—

Your friend, Miss—was very kind and complimentary about my books, but may I confess that I would rather have them ignored? Perhaps I am too fanciful, but I have somehow taken a dislike to being talked to about them; and consequently have some trials to bear in society, which otherwise would be no trials at all.... I don't think any of my many little stage-friends have any shyness at all about being talked to of their performances. They thoroughly enjoy the publicity that I shrink from.

The child to whom the three following letters were addressed, Miss Gaynor Simpson, was one of Lewis Carroll's Guildford friends. The correct answer to the riddle propounded in the second letter is "Copal":—

December 27, 1873.

My dear Gaynor,—My name is spelt with a "G," that is to say "Dodgson ." Any one who spells it the same as that wretch (I mean of course the Chairman of Committees in the House of Commons) offends me deeply , and for ever! It is a thing I can forget, but never can forgive! If you do it again, I shall call you "'aynor." Could you live happy with such a name?

As to dancing, my dear, I never dance, unless I am allowed to do it in my own peculiar way. There is no use trying to describe it: it has to be seen to be believed. The last house I tried it in, the floor broke through. But then it was a poor sort of floor—the beams were only six inches thick, hardly worth calling beams at all: stone arches are much more sensible, when any dancing, of my peculiar kind, is to be done. Did you ever see the Rhinoceros, and the Hippopotamus, at the Zoölogical Gardens, trying to dance a minuet together? It is a touching sight.

Give any message from me to Amy that you think will be most likely to surprise her, and, believe me,

Your affectionate friend,

Lewis Carroll.

My dear Gaynor,—So you would like to know the answer to that riddle? Don't be in a hurry to tell it to Amy and Frances: triumph over them for a while!

My first lends its aid when you plunge into trade.

Gain. Who would go into trade if there were no gain in it?

My second in jollifications—

Or [The French for "gold"—] Your jollifications would

be very limited if you had no money.

My whole, laid on thinnish, imparts a neat finish

To pictorial representations.

Gaynor. Because she will be an ornament to the Shakespeare Charades—only she must be "laid on thinnish," that is, there musn't be too much of her.

Yours affectionately,

C. L. Dodgson.

My dear Gaynor,—Forgive me for having sent you a sham answer to begin with.

My first—Sea. It carries the ships of the merchants.

My second—Weed. That is, a cigar, an article much used in jollifications.

My whole—Seaweed. Take a newly painted oil—picture; lay it on its back on the floor, and spread over it, "thinnish," some wet seaweed. You will find you have "finished" that picture.

Yours affectionately,

C.L. Dodgson.

Lewis Carroll during the last fifteen years of his life always spent the Long Vacation at Eastbourne; in earlier times, Sandown, a pleasant little seaside resort in the Isle of Wight, was his summer abode. He loved the sea both for its own sake and because of the number of children whom he met at seaside places. Here is another "first meeting"; this time it is at Sandown, and Miss Gertrude Chataway is the narrator:—

I first met Mr. Lewis Carroll on the sea-shore at Sandown in the Isle of Wight, in the summer of 1875, when I was quite a little child.

We had all been taken there for change of air, and next door there was an old gentlemen—to me at any rate he seemed old—who interested me immensely. He would come on to his balcony, which joined ours, sniffing the sea-air with his head thrown back, and would walk right down the steps on to the beach with his chin in air, drinking in the fresh breezes as if he could never have enough. I do not know why this excited such keen curiosity on my part, but I remember well that whenever I heard his footstep I flew out to see him coming, and when one day he spoke to me my joy was complete.

Thus we made friends, and in a very little while I was as familiar with the interior of his lodgings as with our own.

I had the usual child's love for fairy-tales and marvels, and his power of telling stories naturally fascinated me. We used to sit for hours on the wooden steps which led from our garden on to the beach, whilst he told the most lovely tales that could possibly be imagined, often illustrating the exciting situations with a pencil as he went along.

One thing that made his stories particularly charming to a child was that he often took his cue from her remarks—a question would set him off on quite a new trail of ideas, so that one felt that one had somehow helped to make the story, and it seemed a personal possession It was the most lovely nonsense conceivable, and I naturally revelled in it. His vivid imagination would fly from one subject to another, and was never tied down in any way by the probabilities of life.

To me it was of course all perfect, but it is astonishing that he never seemed either tired or to want other society. I spoke to him once of this since I have been grown up, and he told me it was the greatest pleasure he could have to converse freely with a child, and feel the depths of her mind.

He used to write to me and I to him after that summer, and the friendship, thus begun, lasted. His letters were one of the greatest joys of my childhood.

I don't think that he ever really understood that we, whom he had known as children, could not always remain such. I stayed with him only a few years ago, at Eastbourne, and felt for the time that I was once more a child. He never appeared to realise that I had grown up, except when I reminded him of the fact, and then he only said, "Never mind: you will always be a child to me, even when your hair is grey."

Some of the letters, to which Miss Chataway refers in these reminiscences, I am enabled, through her kindness, to give below:—

Christ Church, Oxford,

October 13, 1875.

My dear Gertrude,—I never give birthday presents, but you see I do sometimes write a birthday letter : so, as I've just arrived here, I am writing this to wish you many and many a happy return of your birthday to-morrow. I will drink your health, if only I can remember, and if you don't mind—but perhaps you object? You see, if I were to sit by you at breakfast, and to drink your tea, you wouldn't like that, would you? You would say "Boo! hoo! Here's Mr. Dodgson's drunk all my tea, and I haven't got any left!" So I am very much afraid, next time Sybil looks for you, she'll find you sitting by the sad sea-wave, and crying "Boo! hoo! Here's Mr. Dodgson has drunk my health, and I haven't got any left!" And how it will puzzle Dr. Maund, when he is sent for to see you! "My dear Madam, I'm very sorry to say your little girl has got no health at all! I never saw such a thing in my life!" "Oh, I can easily explain it!" your mother will say. "You see she would go and make friends with a strange gentleman, and yesterday he drank her health!" "Well, Mrs. Chataway," he will say, "the only way to cure her is to wait till his next birthday, and then for her to drink his health."

And then we shall have changed healths. I wonder how you'll like mine! Oh, Gertrude, I wish you wouldn't talk such nonsense!...

Your loving friend,

Lewis Carroll.

Christ Church, Oxford,

Dec. 9, 1875.

My dear Gertrude,—This really will not do, you know, sending one more kiss every time by post: the parcel gets so heavy it is quite expensive. When the postman brought in the last letter, he looked quite grave. "Two pounds to pay, sir!" he said. "Extra weight, sir!" (I think he cheats a little, by the way. He often makes me pay two pounds , when I think it should be pence). "Oh, if you please, Mr. Postman!" I said, going down gracefully on one knee (I wish you could see me go down on one knee to a postman—it's a very pretty sight), "do excuse me just this once! It's only from a little girl!"

"Only from a little girl!" he growled. "What are little girls made of?" "Sugar and spice," I began to say, "and all that's ni—" but he interrupted me. "No! I don't mean that. I mean, what's the good of little girls, when they send such heavy letters?" "Well, they're not much good, certainly," I said, rather sadly.

"Mind you don't get any more such letters," he said, "at least, not from that particular little girl. I know her well, and she's a regular bad one!" That's not true, is it? I don't believe he ever saw you, and you're not a bad one, are you? However, I promised him we would send each other very few more letters—"Only two thousand four hundred and seventy, or so," I said. "Oh!" he said, "a little number like that doesn't signify. What I meant is, you mustn't send many ."

So you see we must keep count now, and when we get to two thousand four hundred and seventy, we mustn't write any more, unless the postman gives us leave.

I sometimes wish I was back on the shore at Sandown; don't you?

Your loving friend,

Lewis Carroll.

Why is a pig that has lost its tail like a little girl on the sea-shore?

Because it says, "I should like another tale, please!"

Christ Church, Oxford,

July 21, 1876.

My dear Gertrude,—Explain to me how I am to enjoy Sandown without you . How can I walk on the beach alone? How can I sit all alone on those wooden steps? So you see, as I shan't be able to do without you, you will have to come. If Violet comes, I shall tell her to invite you to stay with her, and then I shall come over in the Heather-Bell and fetch you.

If I ever do come over, I see I couldn't go back the same day, so you will have to engage me a bed somewhere in Swanage; and if you can't find one, I shall expect you to spend the night on the beach, and give up your room to me. Guests of course must be thought of before children; and I'm sure in these warm nights the beach will be quite good enough for you. If you did feel a little chilly, of course you could go into a bathing-machine, which everybody knows is very comfortable to sleep in—you know they make the floor of soft wood on purpose. I send you seven kisses (to last a week) and remain

Your loving friend,

Lewis Carroll.

Christ Church, Oxford,

October 28, 1876.

My dearest Gertrude,—You will be sorry, and surprised, and puzzled, to hear what a queer illness I have had ever since you went. I sent for the doctor, and said, "Give me some medicine, for I'm tired." He said, "Nonsense and stuff! You don't want medicine: go to bed!" I said, "No; it isn't the sort of tiredness that wants bed. I'm tired in the face." He looked a little grave, and said, "Oh, it's your nose that's tired: a person often talks too much when he thinks he nose a great deal." I said, "No; it isn't the nose. Perhaps it's the hair." Then he looked rather grave, and said, "Now I understand: you've been playing too many hairs on the piano-forte." "No, indeed I haven't!" I said, "and it isn't exactly the hair: it's more about the nose and chin." Then he looked a good deal graver, and said, "Have you been walking much on your chin lately?" I said, "No." "Well!" he said, "it puzzles me very much. Do you think that it's in the lips?" "Of course!" I said. "That's exactly what it is!" Then he looked very grave indeed, and said, "I think you must have been giving too many kisses." "Well," I said, "I did give one kiss to a baby child, a little friend of mine." "Think again," he said; "are you sure it was only one?" I thought again, and said, "Perhaps it was eleven times." Then the doctor said, "You must not give her any more till your lips are quite rested again." "But what am I to do?" I said, "because you see, I owe her a hundred and eighty-two more." Then he looked so grave that the tears ran down his cheeks, and he said, "You may send them to her in a box." Then I remembered a little box that I once bought at Dover, and thought I would some day give it to some little girl or other. So I have packed them all in it very carefully. Tell me if they come safe, or if any are lost on the way.

Reading Station,

April 13, 1878.

My dear Gertrude,—As I have to wait here for half an hour, I have been studying Bradshaw (most things, you know, ought to be studied: even a trunk is studded with nails), and the result is that it seems I could come, any day next week, to Winckfield, so as to arrive there about one; and that, by leaving Winckfield again about half-past six, I could reach Guildford again for dinner. The next question is, How far is it from Winckfield to Rotherwick? Now do not deceive me, you wretched child! If it is more than a hundred miles, I can't come to see you, and there is no use to talk about it. If it is less, the next question is, How much less? These are serious questions, and you must be as serious as a judge in answering them. There mustn't be a smile in your pen, or a wink in your ink (perhaps you'll say, "There can't be a wink in ink: but there may be ink in a wink"—but this is trifling; you mustn't make jokes like that when I tell you to be serious) while you write to Guildford and answer these two questions. You might as well tell me at the same time whether you are still living at Rotherwick—and whether you are at home—and whether you get my letter—and whether you're still a child, or a grown-up person—and whether you're going to the seaside next summer—and anything else (except the alphabet and the multiplication table) that you happen to know. I send you 10,000,000 kisses, and remain.

Your loving friend,

C. L. Dodgson.

The Chestnuts, Guildford,

April 19, 1878.

My dear Gertrude,—I'm afraid it's "no go"—I've had such a bad cold all the week that I've hardly been out for some days, and I don't think it would be wise to try the expedition this time, and I leave here on Tuesday. But after all, what does it signify? Perhaps there are ten or twenty gentlemen, all living within a few miles of Rotherwick, and any one of them would do just as well! When a little girl is hoping to take a plum off a dish, and finds that she can't have that one, because it's bad or unripe, what does she do? Is she sorry, or disappointed? Not a bit! She just takes another instead, and grins from one little ear to the other as she puts it to her lips! This is a little fable to do you good; the little girl means you—the bad plum means me—the other plum means some other friend—and all that about the little girl putting plums to her lips means—well, it means—but you know you can't expect every bit of a fable to mean something! And the little girl grinning means that dear little smile of yours, that just reaches from the tip of one ear to the tip of the other!

Your loving friend,

C.L. Dodgson.

I send you 4—3/4 kisses.

The next letter is a good example of the dainty little notes Lewis Carroll used to scribble off on any scrap of paper that lay to his hand:—

Chestnuts, Guildford,

January 15, 1886.

Yes, my child, if all be well, I shall hope, and you may fear, that the train reaching Hook at two eleven, will contain

Your loving friend,

C.L. Dodgson.

Only a few years ago, illness prevented him from fulfilling his usual custom of spending Christmas with his sisters at Guildford. This is the allusion in the following letter:—

My dear old Friend,—(The friendship is old, though the child is young.) I wish a very happy New Year, and many of them, to you and yours; but specially to you, because I know you best and love you most. And I pray God to bless you, dear child, in this bright New Year, and many a year to come. ... I write all this from my sofa, where I have been confined a prisoner for six weeks, and as I dreaded the railway journey, my doctor and I agreed that I had better not go to spend Christmas with my sisters at Guildford. So I had my Christmas dinner all alone, in my room here, and (pity me, Gertrude!) it wasn't a Christmas dinner at all—I suppose the cook thought I should not care for roast beef or plum pudding, so he sent me (he has general orders to send either fish and meat, or meat and pudding) some fried sole and some roast mutton! Never, never have I dined before, on Christmas Day, without plum pudding. Wasn't it sad? Now I think you must be content; this is a longer letter than most will get. Love to Olive. My clearest memory of her is of a little girl calling out "Good-night" from her room, and of your mother taking me in to see her in her bed, and wish her good-night. I have a yet clearer memory (like a dream of fifty years ago) of a little bare-legged girl in a sailor's jersey, who used to run up into my lodgings by the sea. But why should I trouble you with foolish reminiscences of mine that cannot interest you?

Yours always lovingly,

C. L. Dodgson.

It was a writer in The National Review who, after eulogising the talents of Lewis Carroll, and stating that he would never be forgotten, added the harsh prophecy that "future generations will not waste a single thought upon the Rev. C.L. Dodgson."

If this prediction is destined to be fulfilled, I think my readers will agree with me that it will be solely on account of his extraordinary diffidence about asserting himself. But such an unnatural division of Lewis Carroll, the author, from the Rev. C.L. Dodgson, the man, is forced in the extreme. His books are simply the expression of his normal habit of mind, as these letters show. In literature, as in everything else, he was absolutely natural.

To refer to such criticisms as this (I am thankful to say they have been very few) is not agreeable; but I feel that it is owing to Mr. Dodgson to do what I can to vindicate the real unity which underlay both his life and all his writings.

Of many anecdotes which might be adduced to show the lovable character of the man, the following little story has reached me through one of his child-friends:—

My sister and I [she writes] were spending a day of delightful sightseeing in town with him, on our way to his home at Guildford, where we were going to pass a day or two with him. We were both children, and were much interested when he took us into an American shop where the cakes for sale were cooked by a very rapid process before your eyes, and handed to you straight from the cook's hands. As the preparation of them could easily be seen from outside the window, a small crowd of little ragamuffins naturally assembled there, and I well remember his piling up seven of the cakes on one arm, and himself taking them out and doling them round to the seven hungry little youngsters. The simple kindness of his act impressed its charm on his child-friends inside the shop as much as on his little stranger friends outside.

It was only to those who had but few personal dealings with him that he seemed stiff and "donnish"; to his more intimate acquaintances, who really understood him, each little eccentricity of manner or of habits was a delightful addition to his charming and interesting personality. That he was, in some respects, eccentric cannot be denied; for instance he hardly ever wore an overcoat, and always wore a tall hat, whatever might be the climatic conditions. At dinner in his rooms small pieces of cardboard took the place of table-mats; they answered the purpose perfectly well, he said, and to buy anything else would be a mere waste of money. On the other hand, when purchasing books for himself, or giving treats to the children he loved, he never seemed to consider expense at all.

He very seldom sat down to write, preferring to stand while thus engaged. When making tea for his friends, he used, in order, I suppose, to expedite the process, to walk up and down the room waving the teapot about, and telling meanwhile those delightful anecdotes of which he had an inexhaustible supply.

Great were his preparations before going a journey; each separate article used to be carefully wrapped up in a piece of paper all to itself, so that his trunks contained nearly as much paper as of the more useful things. The bulk of the luggage was sent on a day or two before by goods train, while he himself followed on the appointed day, laden only with his well-known little black bag, which he always insisted on carrying himself.

He had a strong objection to staring colours in dress, his favourite combination being pink and grey. One little girl who came to stay with him was absolutely forbidden to wear a red frock, of a somewhat pronounced hue, while out in his company.

At meals he was very abstemious always, while he took nothing in the middle of the day except a glass of wine and a biscuit. Under these circumstances it is not very surprising that the healthy appetites of his little friends filled him with wonder, and even with alarm. When he took a certain one of them out with him to a friend's house to dinner, he used to give the host or hostess a gentle warning, to the mixed amazement and indignation of the child, "Please be careful, because she eats a good deal too much."

Another peculiarity, which I have already referred to, was his objection to being invited to dinners or any other social gatherings; he made a rule of never accepting invitations. "Because you have invited me, therefore I cannot come," was the usual form of his refusal. I suppose the reason of this was his hatred of the interference with work which engagements of this sort occasion.

He had an extreme horror of infection, as will appear from the following illustration. Miss Isa Bowman and her sister, Nellie, were at one time staying with him at Eastbourne, when news came from home that their youngest sister had caught the scarlet fever. From that day every letter which came from Mrs. Bowman to the children was held up by Mr. Dodgson, while the two little girls, standing at the opposite end of the room, had to read it as best they could. Mr. Dodgson, who was the soul of honour, used always to turn his head to one side during these readings, lest he might inadvertently see some words that were not meant for his eyes.

Some extracts from letters of his to a child-friend, who prefers to remain anonymous, follow:

November 30, 1879.

I have been awfully busy, and I've had to write heaps of letters—wheelbarrows full, almost. And it tires me so that generally I go to bed again the next minute after I get up: and sometimes I go to bed again a minute before I get up! Did you ever hear of any one being so tired as that? ...

November 7, 1882.

My dear E—, How often you must find yourself in want of a pin! For instance, you go into a shop, and you say to the man, "I want the largest penny bun you can let me have for a halfpenny." And perhaps the man looks stupid, and doesn't quite understand what you mean. Then how convenient it is to have a pin ready to stick into the back of his hand, while you say, "Now then! Look sharp, stupid!"... and even when you don't happen to want a pin, how often you think to yourself, "They say Interlacken is a very pretty place. I wonder what it looks like!" (That is the place that is painted on this pincushion.)

When you don't happen to want either a pin or pictures, it may just remind you of a friend who sometimes thinks of his dear little friend E—, and who is just now thinking of the day he met her on the parade, the first time she had been allowed to come out alone to look for him....

December 26, 1886.

My dear E—, Though rushing, rapid rivers roar between us (if you refer to the map of England, I think you'll find that to be correct), we still remember each other, and feel a sort of shivery affection for each other....

March 31, 1890.

I do sympathise so heartily with you in what you say about feeling shy with children when you have to entertain them! Sometimes they are a real terror to me—especially boys: little girls I can now and then get on with, when they're few enough. They easily become "de trop." But with little boys I'm out of my element altogether. I sent "Sylvie and Bruno" to an Oxford friend, and, in writing his thanks, he added, "I think I must bring my little boy to see you." So I wrote to say "don't," or words to that effect: and he wrote again that he could hardly believe his eyes when he got my note. He thought I doted on all children. But I'm not omnivorous!—like a pig. I pick and choose....

You are a lucky girl, and I am rather inclined to envy you, in having the leisure to read Dante—I have never read a page of him; yet I am sure the "Divina Commedia" is one of the grandest books in the world—though I am not sure whether the reading of it would raise one's life and give it a nobler purpose, or simply be a grand poetical treat. That is a question you are beginning to be able to answer: I doubt if I shall ever (at least in this life) have the opportunity of reading it; my life seems to be all torn into little bits among the host of things I want to do! It seems hard to settle what to do first. One piece of work, at any rate, I am clear ought to be done this year, and it will take months of hard work: I mean the second volume of "Sylvie and Bruno." I fully mean , if I have life and health till Xmas next, to bring it out then. When one is close on sixty years old, it seems presumptuous to count on years and years of work yet to be done....

She is rather the exception among the hundred or so of child-friends who have brightened my life. Usually the child becomes so entirely a different being as she grows into a woman, that our friendship has to change too: and that it usually does by gliding down from a loving intimacy into an acquaintance that merely consists of a smile and a bow when we meet!...

January 1, 1895.

... You are quite correct in saying it is a long time since you have heard from me: in fact, I find that I have not written to you since the 13th of last November. But what of that? You have access to the daily papers. Surely you can find out negatively, that I am all right! Go carefully through the list of bankruptcies; then run your eye down the police cases; and, if you fail to find my name anywhere, you can say to your mother in a tone of calm satisfaction, "Mr. Dodgson is going on well."

CHAPTER XI

(THE SAME—continued.)

Books for children—"The Lost Plum-Cake"—"An Unexpected Guest"—Miss Isa Bowman—Interviews—"Matilda Jane"—Miss Edith Rix—Miss Kathleen Eschwege.

Lewis Carroll's own position as an author did not prevent him from taking a great interest in children's books and their writers. He had very strong ideas on what was or was not suitable in such books, but, when once his somewhat exacting taste was satisfied, he was never tired of recommending a story to his friends. His cousin, Mrs. Egerton Allen, who has herself written several charming tales for young readers, has sent me the following letter which she received from him some years ago:—

Dear Georgie,—Many thanks. The book was at Ch. Ch. I've done an unusual thing, in thanking for a book, namely, waited to read it. I've read it right through! In fact, I found it very refreshing, when jaded with my own work at "Sylvie and Bruno" (coming out at Xmas, I hope) to lie down on the sofa and read a chapter of "Evie." I like it very much: and am so glad to have helped to bring it out. It would have been a real loss to the children of England, if you had burned the MS., as you once thought of doing....

XIE KITCHIN AS A CHINAMAN.

From a photograph

by Lewis Carroll.

The very last words of his that appeared in print took the form of a preface to one of Mrs. Allen's tales, "The Lost Plum-Cake," (Macmillan & Co., 1898). So far as I know, this was the only occasion on which he wrote a preface for another author's book, and his remarks are doubly interesting as being his last service to the children whom he loved. No apology, then, is needed for quoting from them here:—

Let me seize this opportunity of saying one earnest word to the mothers in whose hands this little book may chance to come, who are in the habit of taking their children to church with them. However well and reverently those dear little ones have been taught to behave, there is no doubt that so long a period of enforced quietude is a severe tax on their patience. The hymns, perhaps, tax it least: and what a pathetic beauty there is in the sweet fresh voices of the children, and how earnestly they sing! I took a little girl of six to church with me one day: they had told me she could hardly read at all—but she made me find all the places for her! And afterwards I said to her elder sister "What made you say Barbara couldn't read? Why, I heard her joining in, all through the hymn!" And the little sister gravely replied, "She knows the tunes, but not the words." Well, to return to my subject—children in church. The lessons, and the prayers, are not wholly beyond them: often they can catch little bits that come within the range of their small minds. But the sermons! It goes to one's heart to see, as I so often do, little darlings of five or six years old, forced to sit still through a weary half-hour, with nothing to do, and not one word of the sermon that they can understand. Most heartily can I sympathise with the little charity-girl who is said to have written to some friend, "I think, when I grows up, I'll never go to church no more. I think I'se getting sermons enough to last me all my life!" But need it be so? Would it be so very irreverent to let your child have a story—book to read during the sermon, to while away that tedious half-hour, and to make church—going a bright and happy memory, instead of rousing the thought, "I'll never go to church no more"? I think not. For my part, I should love to see the experiment tried. I am quite sure it would be a success. My advice would be to keep some books for that special purpose. I would call such books "Sunday-treats"—and your little boy or girl would soon learn to look forward with eager hope to that half-hour, once so tedious. If I were the preacher, dealing with some subject too hard for the little ones, I should love to see them all enjoying their picture-books. And if this little book should ever come to be used as a "Sunday-treat" for some sweet baby reader, I don't think it could serve a better purpose.

Lewis Carroll.

Miss M.E. Manners was another writer for children whose books pleased him. She gives an amusing account of two visits which he paid to her house in 1889:—

An Unexpected Guest.

"Mr. Dobson wants to see you, miss."

I was in the kitchen looking after the dinner, and did not feel that I particularly wished to see anybody.

"He wants a vote, or he is an agent for a special kind of tea," thought I. "I don't know him; ask him to send a message."

Presently the maid returned—

"He says he is Mr. Dodgson, of Oxford."

"Lewis Carroll!" I exclaimed; and somebody else had to superintend the cooking that day.

My apologies were soon made and cheerfully accepted. I believe I was unconventional enough to tell the exact truth concerning my occupation, and matters were soon on a friendly footing. Indeed I may say at once that the stately college don we have heard so much about never made his appearance during our intercourse with him.

He did not talk "Alice," of course; authors don't generally talk their books, I imagine; but it was undoubtedly Lewis Carroll who was present with us.

A portrait of Ellen Terry on the wall had attracted his attention, and one of the first questions he asked was, "Do you ever go to the theatre?" I explained that such things were done, occasionally, even among Quakers, but they were not considered quite orthodox.

"Oh, well, then you will not be shocked, and I may venture to produce my photographs." And out into the hall he went, and soon returned with a little black bag containing character portraits of his child-friends, Isa and Nellie Bowman.

"Isa used to be Alice until she grew too big," he said. "Nellie was one of the oyster—fairies, and Emsie, the tiny one of all, was the Dormouse."

"When 'Alice' was first dramatised," he said, "the poem of the 'Walrus and the Carpenter' fell rather flat, for people did not know when it was finished, and did not clap in the right place; so I had to write a song for the ghosts of the oysters to sing, which made it all right."

ALICE AND THE DORMOUSE.

From a photograph

Elliott & Fry.

 He was then on his way to London, to fetch Isa to stay with him at Eastbourne. She was evidently a great favourite, and had visited him before. Of that earlier time he said:—

"When people ask me why I have never married, I tell them I have never met the young lady whom I could endure for a fortnight—but Isa and I got on so well together that I said I should keep her a month, the length of the honeymoon, and we didn't get tired of each other."

Nellie afterwards joined her sister "for a few days," but the days spread to some weeks, for the poor little dormouse developed scarlet fever, and the elder children had to be kept out of harm's way until fear of infection was over.

Of Emsie he had a funny little story to tell. He had taken her to the Aquarium, and they had been watching the seals coming up dripping out of the water. With a very pitiful look she turned to him and said, "Don't they give them any towels?" [The same little girl commiserated the bear, because it had got no tail.]

Asked to stay to dinner, he assured us that he never took anything in the middle of the day but a glass of wine and a biscuit; but he would be happy to sit down with us, which he accordingly did and kindly volunteered to carve for us. His offer was gladly accepted, but the appearance of a rather diminutive piece of neck of mutton was somewhat of a puzzle to him. He had evidently never seen such a joint in his life before, and had frankly to confess that he did not know how to set about carving it. Directions only made things worse, and he bravely cut it to pieces in entirely the wrong fashion, relating meanwhile the story of a shy young man who had been asked to carve a fowl, the joints of which had been carefully wired together beforehand by his too attentive friends.

The task and the story being both finished, our visitor gazed on the mangled remains, and remarked quaintly: "I think it is just as well I don't want anything, for I don't know where I should find it."

At least one member of the party felt she could have managed matters better; but that was a point of very little consequence.

A day or two after the first call came a note saying that he would be taking Isa home before long, and if we would like to see her he would stop on the way again.

Of course we were only too delighted to have the opportunity, and, though the visit was postponed more than once, it did take place early in August, when he brought both Isa and Nellie up to town to see a performance of "Sweet Lavender." It is needless to remark that we took care, this time, to be provided with something at once substantial and carvable.

The children were bright, healthy, happy and childlike little maidens, quite devoted to their good friend, whom they called "Uncle"; and very interesting it was to see them together.

But he did not allow any undue liberties either, as a little incident showed.

He had been describing a particular kind of collapsible tumbler, which you put in your pocket and carried with you for use on a railway journey.

"There now," he continued, turning to the children, "I forgot to bring it with me after all."

"Oh Goosie," broke in Isa; "you've been talking about that tumbler for days, and now you have forgotten it."

He pulled himself up, and looked at her steadily with an air of grave reproof.

Much abashed, she hastily substituted a very subdued "Uncle" for the objectionable "Goosie," and the matter dropped.

The principal anecdote on this occasion was about a dog which had been sent into the sea after sticks. He brought them back very properly for some time, and then there appeared to be a little difficulty, and he returned swimming in a very curious manner. On closer inspection it appeared that he had caught hold of his own tail by mistake, and was bringing it to land in triumph.

This was told with the utmost gravity, and though we had been requested beforehand not to mention "Lewis Carroll's" books, the temptation was too strong. I could not help saying to the child next me—

"That was like the Whiting, wasn't it?"

Our visitor, however, took up the remark, and seemed quite willing to talk about it.

"When I wrote that," he said, "I believed that whiting really did have their tails in their mouths, but I have since been told that fishmongers put the tail through the eye, not in the mouth at all."

He was not a very good carver, for Miss Bremer also describes a little difficulty he had—this time with the pastry: "An amusing incident occurred when he was at lunch with us. He was requested to serve some pastry, and, using a knife, as it was evidently rather hard, the knife penetrated the d'oyley beneath—and his consternation was extreme when he saw the slice of linen and lace he served as an addition to the tart!"

It was, I think, through her connection with the "Alice" play that Mr. Dodgson first came to know Miss Isa Bowman. Her childish friendship for him was one of the joys of his later years, and one of the last letters he wrote was addressed to her. The poem at the beginning of "Sylvie and Bruno" is an acrostic on her name—

Is all our Life, then, but a dream,

Seen faintly in the golden gleam

Athwart Times's dark, resistless stream?

Bowed to the earth with bitter woe,

Or laughing at some raree-show,

We flutter idly to and fro.

Man's little Day in haste we spend,

And, from the merry noontide, send

No glance to meet the silent end.

Every one has heard of Lewis Carroll's hatred of interviewers; the following letter to Miss Manners makes one feel that in some cases, at least, his feeling was justifiable:—

If your Manchester relatives ever go to the play, tell them they ought to see Isa as "Cinderella"—she is evidently a success. And she has actually been "interviewed" by one of those dreadful newspapers reporters, and the "interview" is published with her picture! And such rubbish he makes her talk! She tells him that something or other was "tacitly conceded": and that "I love to see a great actress give expression to the wonderful ideas of the immortal master!"

(N.B.—I never let her talk like that when she is with me!)

Emsie recovered in time to go to America, with her mother and Isa and Nellie: and they all enjoyed the trip much; and Emsie has a London engagement.

Only once was an interviewer bold enough to enter Lewis Carroll's sanctum. The story has been told in The Guardian (January 19, 1898), but will bear repetition:—

Not long ago Mr. Dodgson happened to get into correspondence with a man whom he had never seen, on some question of religious difficulty, and he invited him to come to his rooms and have a talk on the subject. When, therefore, a Mr. X— was announced to him one morning, he advanced to meet him with outstretched hand and smiles of welcome. "Come in Mr. X—, I have been expecting you." The delighted visitor thought this a promising beginning, and immediately pulled out a note-book and pencil, and proceeded to ask "the usual questions." Great was Mr. Dodgson's disgust! Instead of his expected friend, here was another man of the same name, and one of the much-dreaded interviewers, actually sitting in his chair! The mistake was soon explained, and the representative of the Press was bowed out as quickly as he had come in.

It was while Isa and one of her sisters were staying at Eastbourne that the visit to America was mooted. Mr. Dodgson suggested that it would be well for them to grow gradually accustomed to seafaring, and therefore proposed to take them by steamer to Hastings. This plan was carried out, and the weather was unspeakably bad—far worse than anything they experienced in their subsequent trip across the Atlantic. The two children, who were neither of them very good sailors, experienced sensations that were the reverse of pleasant. Mr. Dodgson did his best to console them, while he continually repeated, "Crossing the Atlantic will be much worse than this."

However, even this terrible lesson on the horrors of the sea did not act as a deterrent; it was as unsuccessful as the effort of the old lady in one of his stories: "An old lady I once knew tried to check the military ardour of a little boy by showing him a picture of a battlefield, and describing some of its horrors. But the only answer she got was, 'I'll be a soldier. Tell it again!'"

The Bowman children sometimes came over to visit him at Oxford, and he used to delight in showing them over the colleges, and pointing out the famous people whom they encountered. On one of these occasions he was walking with Maggie, then a mere child, when they met the Bishop of Oxford, to whom Mr. Dodgson introduced his little guest. His lordship asked her what she thought of Oxford. "I think," said the little actress, with quite a professional aplomb, "it's the best place in the Provinces!" At which the Bishop was much amused. After the child had returned to town, the Bishop sent her a copy of a little book called "Golden Dust," inscribed "From W. Oxon," which considerably mystified her, as she knew nobody of that name!

Another little stage-friend of Lewis Carroll's was Miss Vera Beringer, the "Little Lord Fauntleroy," whose acting delighted all theatre-goers eight or nine years ago. Once, when she was spending a holiday in the Isle of Man, he sent her the following lines:—

There was a young lady of station,

"I love man" was her sole exclamation;

But when men cried, "You flatter,"

She replied, "Oh! no matter,

Isle of Man is the true explanation."

Many of his friendships with children began in a railway carriage, for he always took about with him a stock of puzzles when he travelled, to amuse any little companions whom chance might send him. Once he was in a carriage with a lady and her little daughter, both complete strangers to him. The child was reading "Alice in Wonderland," and when she put her book down, he began talking to her about it. The mother soon joined in the conversation, of course without the least idea who the stranger was with whom she was talking. "Isn't it sad," she said, "about poor Mr. Lewis Carroll? He's gone mad, you know." "Indeed," replied Mr. Dodgson, "I had never heard that." "Oh, I assure you it is quite true," the lady answered. "I have it on the best authority." Before Mr. Dodgson parted with her, he obtained her leave to send a present to the little girl, and a few days afterwards she received a copy of "Through the Looking-Glass," inscribed with her name, and "From the Author, in memory of a pleasant journey."

When he gave books to children, he very often wrote acrostics on their names on the fly-leaf. One of the prettiest was inscribed in a copy of Miss Yonge's "Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe," which he gave to Miss Ruth Dymes:—

R ound the wondrous globe I wander wild,

U p and down-hill—Age succeeds to youth—

T oiling all in vain to find a child

H alf so loving, half so dear as Ruth.

In another book, given to her sister Margaret, he wrote:—

M aidens, if a maid you meet

A lways free from pout and pet,

R eady smile and temper sweet,

G reet my little Margaret.

A nd if loved by all she be

R ightly, not a pampered pet,

E asily you then may see

'Tis my little Margaret.

Here are two letters to children, the one interesting as a specimen of pure nonsense of the sort which children always like, the other as showing his dislike of being praised. The first was written to Miss Gertrude Atkinson, daughter of an old College friend, but otherwise unknown to Lewis Carroll except by her photograph:—

My dear Gertrude,—So many things have happened since we met last, really I don't know which to begin talking about! For instance, England has been conquered by William the Conqueror. We haven't met since that happened, you know. How did you like it? Were you frightened?

And one more thing has happened: I have got your photograph. Thank you very much for it. I like it "awfully." Do they let you say "awfully"? or do they say, "No, my dear; little girls mustn't say 'awfully'; they should say 'very much indeed'"?

I wonder if you will ever get as far as Jersey? If not, how are we to meet?

Your affectionate friend,

C.L. Dodgson.

From the second letter, to Miss Florence Jackson, I take the following extract:—

I have two reasons for sending you this fable; one is, that in a letter you wrote me you said something about my being "clever"; and the other is that, when you wrote again you said it again! And each time I thought, "Really, I must write and ask her not to say such things; it is not wholesome reading for me."

The fable is this. The cold, frosty, bracing air is the treatment one gets from the world generally—such as contempt, or blame, or neglect; all those are very wholesome. And the hot dry air, that you breathe when you rush to the fire, is the praise that one gets from one's young, happy, rosy, I may even say florid friends! And that's very bad for me, and gives pride-fever, and conceit-cough, and such-like diseases. Now I'm sure you don't want me to be laid up with all these diseases; so please don't praise me any more!

The verses to "Matilda Jane" certainly deserve a place in this chapter. To make their meaning clear, I must state that Lewis Carroll wrote them for a little cousin of his, and that Matilda Jane was the somewhat prosaic name of her doll. The poem expresses finely the blind, unreasoning devotion which the infant mind professes for inanimate objects:—

Matilda Jane, you never look

At any toy or picture-book;

I show you pretty things in vain,

You must be blind, Matilda Jane!

I ask you riddles, tell you tales,

But all our conversation fails;

You never answer me again,

I fear you're dumb, Matilda Jane!

Matilda, darling, when I call

You never seem to hear at all;

I shout with all my might and main,

But you're so deaf, Matilda Jane!

Matilda Jane, you needn't mind,

For though you're deaf, and dumb, and blind,

There's some one loves you, it is plain,

And that is me, Matilda Jane!

In an earlier chapter I gave some of Mr. Dodgson's letters to Miss Edith Rix; the two which follow, being largely about children, seem more appropriate here:—

My dear Edith,—Would you tell your mother I was aghast at seeing the address of her letter to me: and I would much prefer "Rev. C.L. Dodgson, Ch. Ch., Oxford." When a letter comes addressed "Lewis Carroll, Ch. Ch.," it either goes to the Dead Letter Office, or it impresses on the minds of all letter-carriers, &c., through whose hands it goes, the very fact I least want them to know.

Please offer to your sister all the necessary apologies for the liberty I have taken with her name. My only excuse is, that I know no other; and how am I to guess what the full name is? It may be Carlotta, or Zealot, or Ballot, or Lotus-blossom (a very pretty name), or even Charlotte. Never have I sent anything to a young lady of whom I have a more shadowy idea. Name, an enigma; age, somewhere between 1 and 19 (you've no idea how bewildering it is, alternately picturing her as a little toddling thing of 5, and a tall girl of 15!); disposition—well, I have a fragment of information on that question—your mother says, as to my coming, "It must be when Lottie is at home, or she would never forgive us." Still, I cannot consider the mere fact that she is of an unforgiving disposition as a complete view of her character. I feel sure she has some other qualities besides.

Believe me,

Yrs affectionately,

C.L. Dodgson.

My dear child,—It seems quite within the bounds of possibility, if we go on long in this style, that our correspondence may at last assume a really friendly tone. I don't of course say it will actually do so—that would be too bold a prophecy, but only that it may tend to shape itself in that direction.

Your remark, that slippers for elephants could be made, only they would not be slippers, but boots, convinces me that there is a branch of your family in Ireland. Who are (oh dear, oh dear, I am going distracted! There's a lady in the opposite house who simply sings all day. All her songs are wails, and their tunes, such as they have, are much the same. She has one strong note in her voice, and she knows it! I think it's "A natural," but I haven't much ear. And when she gets to that note, she howls!) they? The O'Rixes, I suppose?

About your uninteresting neighbours, I sympathise with you much; but oh, I wish I had you here, that I might teach you not to say "It is difficult to visit one's district regularly, like every one else does!"

And now I come to the most interesting part of your letter—May you treat me as a perfect friend, and write anything you like to me, and ask my advice? Why, of course you may, my child! What else am I good for? But oh, my dear child-friend, you cannot guess how such words sound to me! That any one should look up to me, or think of asking my advice—well, it makes one feel humble, I think, rather than proud—humble to remember, while others think so well of me, what I really am, in myself. "Thou, that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?" Well, I won't talk about myself, it is not a healthy topic. Perhaps it may be true of any two people, that, if one could see the other through and through, love would perish. I don't know. Anyhow, I like to have the love of my child-friends, tho' I know I don't deserve it. Please write as freely as ever you like.

I went up to town and fetched Phoebe down here on Friday in last week; and we spent most of Saturday upon the beach—Phoebe wading and digging, and "as happy as a bird upon the wing" (to quote the song she sang when first I saw her). Tuesday evening brought a telegram to say she was wanted at the theatre next morning. So, instead of going to bed, Phoebe packed her things, and we left by the last train, reaching her home by a quarter to 1 a.m. However, even four days of sea-air, and a new kind of happiness, did her good, I think. I am rather lonely now she is gone. She is a very sweet child, and a thoughtful child, too. It was very touching to see (we had a little Bible-reading every day: I tried to remember that my little friend had a soul to be cared for, as well as a body) the far-away look in her eyes, when we talked of God and of heaven—as if her angel, who beholds His face continually, were whispering to her.

Of course, there isn't much companionship possible, after all, between an old man's mind and a little child's, but what there is is sweet—and wholesome, I think.

Facsimile of a "Looking-Glass Letter"

from Lewis Carroll to Miss Edith Ball.

Three letters of his to a child-friend, Miss Kathleen Eschwege, now Mrs. Round, illustrate one of those friendships which endure: the sort of friendship that he always longed for, and so often failed to secure:—

Ch. Ch., Oxford,

October 24, 1879.

My dear Kathleen,—I was really pleased to get your letter, as I had quite supposed I should never see or hear of you again. You see I knew only your Christian name—not the ghost of a surname, or the shadow of an address—and I was not prepared to spend my little all in advertisements—"If the young lady, who was travelling on the G.W. Railway, &c." —or to devote the remainder of my life to going about repeating "Kathleen," like that young woman who came from some foreign land to look for her lover, but only knew that he was called "Edward" (or "Richard" was it? I dare say you know History better than I do) and that he lived in England; so that naturally it took her some time to find him. All I knew was that you could, if you chose, write to me through Macmillan: but it is three months since we met, so I was not expecting it, and it was a pleasant surprise.

Well, so I hope I may now count you as one of my child-friends. I am fond of children (except boys), and have more child-friends than I could possibly count on my fingers, even if I were a centipede (by the way, have they fingers? I'm afraid they're only feet, but, of course, they use them for the same purpose, and that is why no other insects, except centipedes, ever succeed in doing Long Multiplication), and I have several not so very far from you—one at Beckenham, two at Balham, two at Herne Hill, one at Peckham—so there is every chance of my being somewhere near you before the year 1979. If so, may I call? I am very sorry your neck is no better, and I wish they would take you to Margate: Margate air will make any body well of any thing.

It seems you have already got my two books about "Alice." Have you also got "The Hunting of the Snark"? If not, I should be very glad to send you one. The pictures (by Mr. Holiday) are pretty: and you needn't read the verses unless you like.

How do you pronounce your surname? "esk-weej"? or how? Is it a German name?

If you can do "Doublets," with how many links do you turn KATH into LEEN?

With kind remembrances to your mother, I am

Your affectionate friend,

Charles L. Dodgson

(alias "Lewis Carroll").

Ch. Ch., Oxford,

January 20, 1892.

My dear Kathleen,—Some months ago I heard, from my cousin, May Wilcox, that you were engaged to be married. And, ever since, I have cherished the intention of writing to offer my congratulations. Some might say, "Why not write at once?" To such unreasoning creatures, the obvious reply is, "When you have bottled some peculiarly fine Port, do you usually begin to drink it at once?" Is not that a beautiful simile? Of course, I need not remark that my congratulations are like fine old Port—only finer, and older!

Accept, my dear old friend, my heartiest wishes for happiness, of all sorts and sizes, for yourself, and for him whom you have chosen as your other self. And may you love one another with a love second only to your love for God—a love that will last through bright days and dark days, in sickness and in health, through life and through death.

A few years ago I went, in the course of about three months, to the weddings of three of my old child-friends. But weddings are not very exhilarating scenes for a miserable old bachelor; and I think you'll have to excuse me from attending yours.

However, I have so far concerned myself in it that I actually dreamed about it a few nights ago! I dreamed that you had had a photograph done of the wedding—party, and had sent me a copy of it. At one side stood a group of ladies, among whom I made out the faces of Dolly and Ninty; and in the foreground, seated in a boat, were two people, a gentleman and a lady I think (could they have been the bridegroom and the bride?) engaged in the natural and usual occupation for a riverside picnic—pulling a Christmas cracker! I have no idea what put such an idea into my head. I never saw crackers used in such a scene!

I hope your mother goes on well. With kindest regards to her and your father, and love to your sisters—and to yourself too, if HE doesn't object!—I am,

Yours affectionately,

C.L. Dodgson.

P.S.—I never give wedding-presents; so please regard the enclosed as an unwedding present.

Ch. Ch., Oxford,

December 8, 1897.

My dear Kathleen,—Many thanks for the photo of yourself and your fiancé, which duly reached me January 23, 1892. Also for a wedding-card, which reached me August 28, 1892. Neither of these favours, I fear, was ever acknowledged. Our only communication since, has been, that on December 13, 1892, I sent you a biscuit—box adorned with "Looking-Glass" pictures. This you never acknowledged; so I was properly served for my negligence. I hope your little daughter, of whose arrival Mrs. Eschwege told me in December, 1893, has been behaving well? How quickly the years slip by! It seems only yesterday that I met, on the railway, a little girl who was taking a sketch of Oxford!

Your affectionate old friend,

C.L. Dodgson.

The following verses were inscribed in a copy of "Alice's Adventures," presented to the three Miss Drurys in August, 1869:—

To three puzzled little girls, from the Author.

Three little maidens weary of the rail,

Three pairs of little ears listening to a tale,

Three little hands held out in readiness,

For three little puzzles very hard to guess.

Three pairs of little eyes, open wonder-wide,

At three little scissors lying side by side.

Three little mouths that thanked an unknown Friend,

For one little book, he undertook to send.

Though whether they'll remember a friend, or book, or day—

In three little weeks is very hard to say.

He took the same three children to German Reed's entertainment, where the triple bill consisted of "Happy Arcadia," "All Abroad," and "Very Catching." A few days afterwards he sent them "Phantasmagoria," with a little poem on the fly-leaf to remind them of their treat:—

Three little maids, one winter day,

While others went to feed,

To sing, to laugh, to dance, to play,

More wisely went to—Reed.

Others, when lesson-time's begun,

Go, half inclined to cry,

Some in a walk, some in a run;

But these went in a—Fly.

I give to other little maids

A smile, a kiss, a look,

Presents whose memory quickly fades,

I give to these—a Book.

Happy Arcadia may blind,

While all abroad, their eyes;

At home, this book (I trust) they'll find

A very catching prize.

The next three letters were addressed to two of Mr. Arthur Hughes' children. They are good examples of the wild and delightful nonsense with which Lewis Carroll used to amuse his little friends:—

My dear Agnes,—You lazy thing! What? I'm to divide the kisses myself, am I? Indeed I won't take the trouble to do anything of the sort! But I'll tell you how to do it. First, you must take four of the kisses, and—and that reminds me of a very curious thing that happened to me at half-past four yesterday. Three visitors came knocking at my door, begging me to let them in. And when I opened the door, who do you think they were? You'll never guess. Why, they were three cats! Wasn't it curious? However, they all looked so cross and disagreeable that I took up the first thing I could lay my hand on (which happened to be the rolling-pin) and knocked them all down as flat as pan-cakes! "If you come knocking at my door," I said, "I shall come knocking at your heads." "That was fair, wasn't it?"

Yours affectionately,

Lewis Carroll.

My dear Agnes,—About the cats, you know. Of course I didn't leave them lying flat on the ground like dried flowers: no, I picked them up, and I was as kind as I could be to them. I lent them the portfolio for a bed—they wouldn't have been comfortable in a real bed, you know: they were too thin—but they were quite happy between the sheets of blotting-paper—and each of them had a pen-wiper for a pillow. Well, then I went to bed: but first I lent them the three dinner-bells, to ring if they wanted anything in the night.

You know I have three dinner-bells—the first (which is the largest) is rung when dinner is nearly ready; the second (which is rather larger) is rung when it is quite ready; and the third (which is as large as the other two put together) is rung all the time I am at dinner. Well, I told them they might ring if they happened to want anything—and, as they rang all the bells all night, I suppose they did want something or other, only I was too sleepy to attend to them.

In the morning I gave them some rat-tail jelly and buttered mice for breakfast, and they were as discontented as they could be. They wanted some boiled pelican, but of course I knew it wouldn't be good for them. So all I said was "Go to Number Two, Finborough Road, and ask for Agnes Hughes, and if it's really good for you, she'll give you some." Then I shook hands with them all, and wished them all goodbye, and drove them up the chimney. They seemed very sorry to go, and they took the bells and the portfolio with them. I didn't find this out till after they had gone, and then I was sorry too, and wished for them back again. What do I mean by "them"? Never mind.

How are Arthur, and Amy, and Emily? Do they still go up and down Finborough Road, and teach the cats to be kind to mice? I'm very fond of all the cats in Finborough Road.

Give them my love.

Who do I mean by "them"?

Never mind.

Your affectionate friend,

Lewis Carroll.

ARTHUR HUGHES

AND HIS DAUGHTER AGNES.

From a photograph

by Lewis Carroll.

My dear Amy,—How are you getting on, I wonder, with guessing those puzzles from "Wonderland"? If you think you've found out any of the answers, you may send them to me; and if they're wrong, I won't tell you they're right!

You asked me after those three cats. Ah! The dear creatures! Do you know, ever since that night they first came, they have never left me? Isn't it kind of them? Tell Agnes this. She will be interested to hear it. And they are so kind and thoughtful! Do you know, when I had gone out for a walk the other day, they got all my books out of the bookcase, and opened them on the floor, to be ready for me to read. They opened them all at page 50, because they thought that would be a nice useful page to begin at. It was rather unfortunate, though: because they took my bottle of gum, and tried to gum pictures upon the ceiling (which they thought would please me), and by accident they spilt a quantity of it all over the books. So when they were shut up and put by, the leaves all stuck together, and I can never read page 50 again in any of them!

However, they meant it very kindly, so I wasn't angry. I gave them each a spoonful of ink as a treat; but they were ungrateful for that, and made dreadful faces. But, of course, as it was given them as a treat, they had to drink it. One of them has turned black since: it was a white cat to begin with.

Give my love to any children you happen to meet. Also I send two kisses and a half, for you to divide with Agnes, Emily, and Godfrey. Mind you divide them fairly.

Yours affectionately,

C.L. Dodgson.

The intelligent reader will make a discovery about the first of the two following letters, which Miss Maggie Cunningham, the "child-friend" to whom both were addressed, perhaps did not hit upon at once. Mr. Dodgson wrote these two letters in 1868:—

Dear Maggie,—I found that the friend, that the little girl asked me to write to, lived at Ripon, and not at Land's End—a nice sort of place to invite to! It looked rather suspicious to me—and soon after, by dint of incessant inquiries, I found out that she was called Maggie, and lived in a Crescent! Of course I declared, "After that" (the language I used doesn't matter), "I will not address her, that's flat! So do not expect me to flatter."

Well, I hope you will soon see your beloved Pa come back—for consider, should you be quite content with only Jack? Just suppose they made a blunder! (Such things happen now and then.) Really, now, I shouldn't wonder if your "John" came home again, and your father stayed at school! A most awkward thing, no doubt. How would you receive him? You'll say, perhaps, "you'd turn him out." That would answer well, so far as concerns the boy, you know—but consider your Papa, learning lessons in a row of great inky schoolboys! This (though unlikely) might occur: "Haly" would be grieved to miss him (don't mention it to her).

No carte has yet been done of me, that does real justice to my smile; and so I hardly like, you see, to send you one. However, I'll consider if I will or not—meanwhile, I send a little thing to give you an idea of what I look like when I'm lecturing. The merest sketch, you will allow—yet still I think there's something grand in the expression of the brow and in the action of the hand.

Have you read my fairy tale in Aunt Judy's Magazine? If you have you will not fail to discover what I mean when I say "Bruno yesterday came to remind me that he was my god-son!"—on the ground that I "gave him a name"!

Your affectionate friend,

C.L. Dodgson.

P.S.—I would send, if I were not too shy, the same message to "Haly" that she (though I do not deserve it, not I!) has sent through her sister to me. My best love to yourself—to your Mother my kindest regards—to your small, fat, impertinent, ignorant brother my hatred. I think that is all.

WHAT I LOOK LIKE

WHEN I'M LECTURING.

From a drawing

by Lewis Carroll.

My dear Maggie,—I am a very bad correspondent, I fear, but I hope you won't leave off writing to me on that account. I got the little book safe, and will do my best about putting my name in, if I can only manage to remember what day my birthday is—but one forgets these things so easily.

Somebody told me (a little bird, I suppose) that you had been having better photographs done of yourselves. If so, I hope you will let me buy copies. Fanny will pay you for them. But, oh Maggie, how can you ask for a better one of me than the one I sent! It is one of the best ever done! Such grace, such dignity, such benevolence, such—as a great secret (please don't repeat it) the Queen sent to ask for a copy of it, but as it is against my rule to give in such a case, I was obliged to answer—

"Mr. Dodgson presents his compliments to her Majesty, and regrets to say that his rule is never to give his photograph except to young ladies." I am told she was annoyed about it, and said, "I'm not so old as all that comes to!" and one doesn't like to annoy Queens; but really I couldn't help it, you know.

I will conclude this chapter with some reminiscences of Lewis Carroll, which have been kindly sent me by an old child-friend of his, Mrs. Maitland, daughter of the late Rev. E.A. Litton, Rector of Naunton, and formerly Fellow of Oriel College and Vice—Principal of Saint Edmund's Hall:—

To my mind Oxford will be never quite the same again now that so many of the dear old friends of one's childhood have "gone over to the great majority."

Often, in the twilight, when the flickering firelight danced on the old wainscotted wall, have we—father and I—chatted over the old Oxford days and friends, and the merry times we all had together in Long Wall Street. I was a nervous, thin, remarkably ugly child then, and for some years I was left almost entirely to the care of Mary Pearson, my own particular attendant. I first remember Mr. Dodgson when I was about seven years old, and from that time until we went to live in Gloucestershire he was one of my most delightful friends.

I shall never forget how Mr. Dodgson and I sat once under a dear old tree in the Botanical Gardens, and how he told me, for the first time, Hans Andersen's story of the "Ugly Duckling." I cannot explain the charm of Mr. Dodgson's way of telling stories; as he spoke, the characters seemed to be real flesh and blood. This particular story made a great impression upon me, and interested me greatly, as I was very sensitive about my ugly little self. I remember his impressing upon me that it was better to be good and truthful and to try not to think of oneself than to be a pretty, selfish child, spoiled and disagreeable; and, after telling me this story, he gave me the name of "Ducky." "Never mind, little Ducky," he used often to say, "perhaps some day you will turn out a swan."

I always attribute my love for animals to the teaching of Mr. Dodgson: his stories about them, his knowledge of their lives and histories, his enthusiasm about birds and butterflies enlivened many a dull hour. The monkeys in the Botanical Gardens were our special pets, and when we fed them with nuts and biscuits he seemed to enjoy the fun as much as I did.

Every day my nurse and I used to take a walk in Christ Church Meadows, and often we would sit down on the soft grass, with the dear old Broad Walk quite close, and, when we raised our eyes, Merton College, with its walls covered with Virginian creeper. And how delighted we used to be to see the well-known figure in cap and gown coming, so swiftly, with his kind smile ready to welcome the "Ugly Duckling." I knew, as he sat beside me, that a book of fairy tales was hidden in his pocket, or that he would have some new game or puzzle to show me—and he would gravely accept a tiny daisy-bouquet for his coat with as much courtesy as if it had been the finest hot-house boutonnière.

Two or three times I went fishing with him from the bank near the Old Mill, opposite Addison's Walk, and he quite entered into my happiness when a small fish came wriggling up at the end of my bent pin, just ready for the dinner of the little white kitten "Lily," which he had given me.

My hair was a great trouble to me, as a child, for it would tangle, and Mary was not too patient with me, as I twisted about while she was trying to dress it. One day I received a long blue envelope addressed to myself, which contained a story-letter, full of drawings, from Mr. Dodgson. The first picture was of a little girl—with her hat off and her tumbled hair very much in evidence—asleep on a rustic bench under a big tree by the riverside, and two birds, holding what was evidently a very important conversation, above in the branches, their heads on one side, eyeing the sleeping child. Then there was a picture of the birds flying up to the child with twigs and straw in their beaks, preparing to build their nest in her hair. Next came the awakening, with the nest completed, and the mother-bird sitting on it; while the father-bird flew round the frightened child. And then, lastly, hundreds of birds—the air thick with them—the child fleeing, small boys with tin trumpets raised to their lips to add to the confusion, and Mary, armed with a basket of brushes and combs, bringing up the rear! After this, whenever I was restive while my hair was being arranged, Mary would show me the picture of the child with the nest on her head, and I at once became "as quiet as a lamb."

I had a daily governess, a dear old soul, who used to come every morning to teach me. I disliked particularly the large—lettered copies which she used to set me; and as I confided this to Mr. Dodgson, he came and gave me some copies himself. The only ones which I can remember were "Patience and water-gruel cure gout" (I always wondered what "gout" might be) and "Little girls should be seen and not heard" (which I thought unkind). These were written many times over, and I had to present the pages to him, without one blot or smudge, at the end of the week.

One of the Fellows of Magdalen College at that time was a Mr. Saul, a friend of my father's and of Mr. Dodgson, and a great lover of music—his rooms were full of musical instruments of every sort. Mr. Dodgson and father and I all went one afternoon to pay him a visit. At that time he was much interested in the big drum, and we found him when we arrived in full practice, with his music-book open before him. He made us all join in the concert. Father undertook the 'cello, and Mr. Dodgson hunted up a comb and some paper, and, amidst much fun and laughter, the walls echoed with the finished roll, or shake, of the big drum—a roll that was Mr. Saul's delight.

My father died on August 27, 1897, and Mr. Dodgson on January 14, 1898. And we, who are left behind in this cold, weary world can only hope we may some day meet them again. Till then, oh! Father, and my dear old childhood's friend, requiescalis in pace!

LEWIS CARROLL IN WONDERLAND AND AT HOME by Belle Moses

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I.

THERE WAS ONCE A LITTLE BOY.

CHAPTER II.

SCHOOL DAYS AT RICHMOND AND RUGBY.

CHAPTER III.

HOME LIFE DURING THE HOLIDAYS.

CHAPTER IV.

OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP AND HONORS.

CHAPTER V.

A MANY-SIDED GENIUS.

CHAPTER VI.

UP AND DOWN THE RIVER WITH THE REAL ALICE.

CHAPTER VII.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND AND WHAT SHE DID THERE.

CHAPTER VIII.

LEWIS CARROLL AT HOME AND ABROAD.

CHAPTER IX.

MORE OF “ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS.”

CHAPTER X.

“HUNTING THE SNARK” AND OTHER POEMS.

CHAPTER XI.

GAMES, RIDDLES, AND PROBLEMS.

CHAPTER XII.

A FAIRY RING OF GIRLS.

CHAPTER XIII.

“ALICE” ON THE STAGE AND OFF.

CHAPTER XIV.

A TRIP WITH SYLVIE AND BRUNO.

CHAPTER XV.

LEWIS CARROLL—MAN AND CHILD.

INTRODUCTION.

Lewis Carroll discovered a new country, simply by rowing up and down the river, and telling a story to the accompaniment of dipping oars and rippling waters, as the boat glided through. It is not everyone who can discover a country, people it with marvelous, fanciful shapes, and give it a place in our mental geography. But Lewis Carroll was not “everyone”—in fact he was like no one else to the many who called him friend. He had the magic power of creating something out of nothing, and gave to the eager children who had tired of “Aunt Louisa’s Picture Books,” and “Garlands of Poetry,” something to think about, to guess about, and to talk about.

If he had written nothing else but “Alice in Wonderland,” that one book would have been quite enough to make him famous, but his pen was never idle, and the world of children has much for which to thank him. How much, and for what, the following pages will strive to tell, and if they succeed in conveying to their readers half the charm that lay in the life of this man, who did so much for others, they will not have been written in vain.

In telling the story of his life I am indebted to many, for courtesy and assistance. I wish specially to thank my brother, Montrose J. Moses. Columbia Library, Astor Library, St. Agnes Branch of the Public Library, and Miss Brown, of the Traveling Library, have all been exceedingly kind and helpful. To Messrs. E. P. Dutton and Company I extend my thanks for permission to quote from Miss Isa Bowman’s interesting reminiscences, and to the American and English editors of The Strand I am also indebted for a similar courtesy.

Belle Moses.

New York, October, 1910.

CHAPTER I.

THERE WAS ONCE A LITTLE BOY.

There was once a little boy whose name was not Lewis Carroll. He was christened Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, in the parish church of Daresbury, England, where he was born, on January 27, 1832. A little out-of-the-way village was Daresbury, a name derived from a word meaning oak, and Daresbury was certainly famous for its beautiful oaks.

The christening of Baby Charles must have been a very happy occasion. To begin with, the tiny boy was the first child of what proved to be a “numerous family,” and the officiating clergyman was the proud papa. The name of Charles had been bestowed upon the eldest son for generations of Dodgsons, who had carried it honorably through the line, handing it down untarnished to this latest Charles, in the parish church at Daresbury.

The Dodgsons could doubtless trace their descent much further back than a great-great-grandfather, being a race of gentlemen and scholars, but the Rev. Christopher Dodgson, who lived quite a century before Baby Charles saw the light, is the earliest ancestor we hear of, and he held a living in Yorkshire. In those days, a clergyman was dependent upon some noble patron for his living, a living meaning the parish of which he had charge and the salary he received for his work, and so when the Rev. Christopher’s eldest son Charles also took holy orders, he had for his patron the Duke of Northumberland, who gave him the living of Elsden in Northumberland, a cold, bleak, barren country. The Rev. Charles took what fell to his lot with much philosophy and a saving sense of humor.

He suffered terribly from the cold despite the fact that he snuggled down between two feather beds in the big parlor, which was no doubt the best room in a most uncomfortable house. It was all he could do to keep from freezing, for the doors were rarely closed against the winds that howled around them. The good clergyman was firmly convinced that the end of the world would come by frost instead of fire. Even when safely in bed, he never felt quite comfortable unless his head was wrapped in three nightcaps, while he twisted a pair of stockings, like a cravat, around his suffering throat. He generally wore two shirts at a time, as washing was cheap, and rarely took off his coat and his boots.

This uncomplaining, jovial clergyman finally received his reward. King George III bestowed upon him the See of Elphin, which means that he was made bishop, and had no more hardships to bear. This gentleman, who was the great-grandfather of our Charles, had four children; Elizabeth Anne, the only daughter, married a certain Charles Lutwidge of Holmrook in Cumberland. There were two sons who died quite young, and Charles, the eldest, entered the army and rose to the rank of captain in the 4th Dragoon Guards. He lost his life in the performance of a perilous duty, leaving behind him two sons; Charles, the elder, turned back into the ways of his ancestors and became a clergyman, and Hassard, who studied law, had a brilliant career.

This last Charles, in 1830, married his cousin, Frances Jane Lutwidge, and in 1832 we find him baptizing another little Charles, in the parish church at Daresbury, his eldest son, and consequently his pride and hope.

The living at Daresbury was the beginning of a long life of service to the Church. The father of our Charles rose to be one of the foremost clergymen of his time, a man of wide learning, of deep piety, and of great charity, beloved by rich and poor. Though of somewhat sober nature, in moments of recreation he could throw off his cares like a boy, delighting his friends by his wit and humor, and the rare gift of telling anecdotes, a gift his son inherited in full measure, long before he took the name of “Lewis Carroll,” some twenty years after he was received into the fold of the parish church at Daresbury.

Little Charles headed the list of eleven young Dodgsons, and the mother of this infant brigade was a woman in a thousand. We all know what mothers are; then we can imagine this one, so kind and gentle that never a harsh word was known to pass her lips, and may be able to trace her quiet, helpful influence on the character of our Boy, just as we see her delicate features reproduced in many of his later pictures.

A boy must be a poor specimen, indeed, if such a father and mother could not bring out the best in him. Saddled as he was, with the responsibility of being the oldest of eleven, and consequently an example held up to younger brothers and sisters, Charles was grave and serious beyond his years. Only an eldest child can appreciate what a responsibility this really is. You mustn’t do “so and so” for fear one of the younger ones might do likewise! If his parents had not been very remarkable people, this same Charles might have developed into a virtuous little prig. “Good Brother Charles who never does wrong” might have grown into a terrible bugbear to the other small Dodgsons, had he not been brimful of fun and humor himself. As it was he soon became their leader in all their games and plays, and the quiet parsonage on the glebe farm, full a mile and a half from even the small traffic of the village, rang at least with the echoes of laughter and chatter from these youngsters with strong healthy lungs.

We cannot be quite sure whether they were good children or bad children, for time somehow throws a halo around childhood, but let us hope they were “jes’ middlin’.” We cannot bear to think of all those prim little saints, with ramrods down their backs, sitting sedately of a Sunday in the family pew—perhaps it took two family pews to hold them—with folded hands and pious expressions. We can’t believe these Dodgsons were so silly; they were reverent little souls doubtless, and probably were not bad in church, but oh! let us hope they got into mischief sometimes. There was plenty of room for it in the big farm parsonage.

“An island farm ’mid seas of corn,

Swayed by the wand’ring breath of morn.

The happy spot where I was born,”

wrote Lewis Carroll many years after, when “Alice in Wonderland” had made him famous.

Glebe farms were very common in England; they consisted of large tracts of land surrounding the parsonage, which the pastor was at liberty to cultivate for his own use, or to eke out his often scanty income, and as the parsonage at Daresbury was comparatively small, and the glebe or farm lands fairly large, we can be sure these boys and girls loved to be out of doors, and little Charlie at a very early age began to number some queer companions among his intimate friends. His small hands burrowing in the soft, damp earth, brought up squirming, wriggling things—earthworms, snails, and the like. He made pets of them, studying their habits in his “small boy” way, and having long, serious talks with them, lying on the ground beside them as they crawled around him. An ant-hill was to him a tiny town, and many a long hour the child must have spent busying himself in their small affairs, settling imaginary disputes, helping the workers, supplying provisions in the way of crumbs, and thus early beginning to understand the ways of the woodland things about which he loved to write in after years. He had, for boon companions, certain toads, with whom he held animated conversations, and it is said that he really taught earthworms the art of warfare by supplying them with small pieces of pipe with which to fight.

He did not, like Hiawatha in the legend, “Learn of ev’ry bird its language,” but he invented a language of his own, in which no doubt he discoursed wisely to the toads and snails who had time to listen; he learned to speak this language quite fluently, so that in later years when eager children clustered about him, and with wide eyes and peals of laughter listened to his nonsense verses, full of the queerest words they ever heard, they could still understand from the very tones of his voice exactly what he meant. Indeed, when little Charles Lutwidge Dodgson grew up to be Lewis Carroll, he worked this funny language of his by equally funny rules, so that, as he said, “a perfectly balanced mind could understand it.”

Of course, there were other companions for the Dodgson children—cats and dogs, and horses and cows, and in the village of Warrington, seven miles away, there were children to be found of their own size and age, but Daresbury itself was very lonely. A canal ran through the far end of the parish, and here bargemen used to ply to and fro, carrying produce and fodder to the near-by towns. Mr. Dodgson took a keen interest in these men who seemed to have no settled place of worship.

In a quiet, persuasive way he suggested to Sir Francis Egerton, a large landholder of the country, that it would be nice to turn one of the barges into a chapel, describing how it could be done for a hundred pounds, well knowing, clever man, that he was talking to a most interested listener; for a few weeks later he received a letter from Sir Francis telling him that the chapel was ready. In this odd little church, the first of its kind, Mr. Dodgson preached every Sunday evening.

But at Daresbury itself life was very monotonous; even the passing of a cart was a great event, and going away was a great adventure. There was one never-to-be-forgotten occasion when the family went off on a holiday jaunt to Beaumaris. Railroads were then very rare things, so they made the journey in three days by coach, allowing also three days for the return trip.

It was great fun traveling in one of those old-time coaches with all the luggage strapped behind, and all the bright young faces atop, and four fast-trotting horses dashing over the ground, and a nice long holiday with fine summer weather to look forward to. But in winter, in those days, traveling was a serious matter; only a favored few could squeeze into the body of the coach; the others still sat atop, muffled to the chin, yet numb with the cold, as the horses went faster and faster, and the wind whistled by, and one’s breath froze on the way. Let us hope the little Dodgsons went in the summer time.

Daresbury must have been a beautiful place, with its pleasant walks, its fine meadows, its deep secluded woods, and best of all, those wonderful oak trees which the boy loved to climb, and under whose shade he would lie by the hour, filling his head with all those quaint fancies which he has since given to the world. He was a clever little fellow, eager to learn, and from the first his father superintended his education, being himself a scholar of very high order. He had the English idea of sending his eldest son along the path he himself had trod; first to a public school, then to Oxford, and finally into the Church, if the boy had any leaning that way.

Education in those days began early, and not by way of the kindergarten; the small boy had scarcely lost his baby lisp before he was put to the study of Latin and Greek, and Charles, besides, developed a passion for mathematics. It is told that when a very small boy he showed his father a book of logarithms, asking him to explain it, but Mr. Dodgson mildly though firmly refused.

“You are too young to understand such a difficult subject,” he replied; “a few years later you will enjoy the study—wait a while.”

“But,” persisted the boy, his mind firmly bent on obtaining information, “please explain.” Whether the father complied with his request is not recorded, but we rather believe that explanations were set aside for the time. Certain it is, they were demanded again and again, for the boy soon developed a wonderful head for figures and signs, a knowledge which grew with the years, as we shall see later.

When he was still quite a little boy, his mother and father went to Hull to visit Mrs. Dodgson’s father who had been ill. The children, some five or six in number—the entire eleven had not yet arrived—were left in the care of an accommodating aunt, but Charles, being the eldest, received a letter from his mother in which he took much pride, his one idea being to keep it out of the clutches of his little sisters, whose hands were always ready for mischief. He wrote upon the back of the note, forbidding them to touch his property, explaining cunningly that it was covered with slimy pitch, a most uncomfortable warning, but it was “the ounce of prevention,” for the letter has been handed down to us, and a sweet, cheery letter it was, so full of mother-love and care, and tender pride in the little brood at home. No wonder he prized it!

This is probably the first letter he ever received, and it takes very little imagination to picture the important air with which he carried it about, and the care with which he hoarded it through all the years.

There is a dear little picture of our Boy taken when he was eight years old. Photography was not yet in use, so this black print of him is the copy of a silhouette which was the way people had their “pictures taken” in those days. It was always a profile picture, and little Charles’s finely shaped head, with its slightly bulging forehead and delicate features, stands sharply outlined. We have also a silhouette of Mrs. Dodgson, and the resemblance between the two is very marked.

When the boy was eleven, a great change came into his life. Sir Robert Peel, the famous statesman, presented to his father the Crown living of Croft, a Yorkshire village about three miles from Darlington. A Crown living is always an exceptionally good one, as it is usually given by royal favor, and accompanied by a comfortable salary. Mr. Dodgson was sorry to leave his old parishioners and the little parsonage where he had seen so much quiet happiness, but he was glad at the same time, to get away from the dullness and monotony of Daresbury. With a growing family of children it was absolutely necessary to come more into contact with people, and Croft was a typical, delightful English town, famous even to-day for its baths and medicinal waters. Before Mr. Dodgson’s time it was an important posting-station for the coaches running between London and Edinburgh, and boasted of a fine hotel near the rectory, used later by gentlemen in the hunting season.

Mr. Dodgson’s parish consisted not only of Croft proper, but included the neighboring hamlets of Halnaby, Dalton and Stapleton, so he was a pretty busy man going from one to the other, and the little Dodgsons were busy, too, making new friends and settling down into their new and commodious quarters.

The village of Croft is on the river Tees, in fact it stands on the dividing line between Yorkshire and Durham. A bridge divides the two counties, and midway on it is a stone which marks the boundary line. It was an old custom for certain landholders to stand on this bridge at the coming of each new Bishop of Durham, and to present him with an old sword, with an appropriate address of welcome. This sword the Bishop returned immediately.

The Tees often overflowed its banks—indeed, floods were not infrequent in these smiling English landscape countries, kept so fertile and green by the tiny streams which intersect them. Two or three heavy rainfalls will swell the waters, sending them rushing over the country with enormous force. Jean Ingelow in her poem “High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire” paints a vivid picture of the havoc such a flood may make in a peaceful land:

 “Where the river, winding down,

Onward floweth to the town.”

But the quaint old church at Croft has doubtless weathered more than one overflow from the restless river Tees.

The rectory, a large brick house, with a sloping tile roof and tall chimneys, stood well back in a very beautiful garden, filled with all sorts of rare plants, intersected by winding gravel paths. As in all English homes, the kitchen garden was a most attractive spot; its high walls were covered with luxuriant fruit trees, and everybody knows that English “wall fruit” is the most delicious kind. The trees are planted very close to the wall, and the spreading boughs, when they are heavy with the ripening fruit, are not bent with the weight of it, but are thoroughly propped and supported by these walls of solid brick, so the undisturbed fruit comes to a perfect maturity without any of the accidents which occur in the ordinary orchard. The garden itself was bright with kitchen greens, filled with everything needed for household use.

With so much space the little Dodgsons had room to grow and “multiply” to the full eleven, and fine times they had with plays and games, usually invented by their clever brother. One of the principal diversions was a toy railroad with “stations” built at various sections of the garden, usually very pretty and rustic looking, planned and built by Charles himself. He also made a rude train out of a wheelbarrow, a barrel, and a small truck, and was able to convey his passengers comfortably from station to station, exacting fare at each trip.

He was something of a conjurer, too, and in wig and gown, could amaze his audience for hours with his inexhaustible supply of tricks. He also made some quaint-looking marionettes, and a theater for them to act in, even writing the plays, which were masterpieces in their way. Once he traced a maze upon the snow-covered lawn of the rectory.

Mazes were often found in the real old-time gardens of England; they consisted of intersecting paths bordered by clipped shrubbery and generally arranged in geometrical designs, very puzzling to the unwary person who got lost in them, unable to discover a way out, until by some happy accident the right path was found. “Threading the Maze” was a fashionable pastime in the days of the Tudors; the maze at Hampton Court being one of the most remarkable of that period.

Charles’s early knowledge of mathematics made his work on the snow-covered lawn all the more remarkable, for the love of that particular branch of learning certainly grew with his growth.

Meanwhile, it was a very serious, earnest little boy, who looked down the long line of Dodgsons, saying with a choke in his voice: “I must leave you and this lovely rectory, and this fair, smiling countryside, and go to school.”

He was shy, and the thought struck terror; but everybody who is anybody in England goes to some fine public school before becoming an Oxford or a Cambridge student, and for that reason Charles Lutwidge Dodgson buried his regrets beneath a smiling face, bade farewell to his household, and at the mature age of twelve, armed with enough Greek and Latin to have made a dictionary, with a knowledge of mathematics that a college “don” might well have envied, set forth to this alluring world of books and learning.

CHAPTER II.

SCHOOL DAYS AT RICHMOND AND RUGBY.

With the removal to Croft, Mr. Dodgson was brought more and more into prominence; he was appointed examing chaplain to the Bishop of Ripon, and finally he was made Archdeacon of Richmond and one of the Canons of Ripon Cathedral.

The Grammar School at Richmond was well known in that section of England. It was under the rule of a certain Mr. Tate, whose father, Dr. Tate, had made the school famous some years before, and it was there that our Boy had his first taste of school life.

Holidays in those days were not arranged as they are now, for one of the first letters of Charles, sent home from Richmond, was dated August 5th; so it is probable that the term began in midsummer. This special letter was written to his two eldest sisters and gives an excellent picture of those first days, when as a “new boy” he suffered at the hands of his schoolmates. As advanced as he was in Latin and Greek and mathematics, this letter, for a twelve-year-old boy, does not show any remarkable progress in English. The spelling was precise and correct, but the punctuation was peculiar, to say the least.

Still his description of the school life, when one overcame the presence of commas and the absence of periods, presented a vivid picture to the mind. He tells of the funny tricks the boys played upon him because he was a “new boy.” One was called “King of the Cobblers.” He was told to sit on the ground while the boys gathered around him and to say “Go to work”; immediately they all fell upon him, and kicked and knocked him about pretty roughly. Another trick was “The Red Lion,” and was played in the churchyard; they made a mark on a tombstone and one of the boys ran toward it with his finger pointed and eyes shut, trying to see how near he could get to the mark. When his turn came, and he walked toward the tombstone, some boy who stood ready beside it, had his mouth open to bite the outstretched finger on its way to the mark. He closes his letter by stating three uncomfortable things connected with his arrival—the loss of his toothbrush and his failure to clean his teeth for several days in consequence; his inability to find his blotting-paper, and his lack of a shoe-horn.

The games the Richmond boys played—football, wrestling, leapfrog and fighting—he slurred over contemptuously, they held no attraction for him.

A schoolboy or girl of the present day can have no idea of the discomforts of school life in Charles Dodgson’s time, and the boy whose gentle manners were the result of sweet home influence and association with girls, found the rough ways of the English schoolboy a constant trial. Strong and active as he was, he was always up in arms for those weaker and smaller than himself. Bullying enraged him, and distasteful as it was, he soon learned the art of using his fists for the protection of himself and others. These were the school-days of Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, and Little Paul Dombey. Of course, all schoolmasters were not like Squeers or Creakle, nor all schoolmasters’ wives like Mrs. Squeers, nor indeed all schools like Dotheboys’ Hall or Salem Hall, or Dr. Blimber’s cramming establishment, but many of the inconveniences were certainly prominent in the best schools.

Flogging was considered the surest road to knowledge; kind, honest, liberal-minded teachers kept a birch-rod and a ferrule within gripping distance, and the average schoolboy thus treated like a little beast, could be pardoned for behaving like one. In spring or summer the big, bare, comfortless schoolhouses were all very well, but when the days grew chill, the small boy shivered on his hard bench in his draughty corner, and in winter time the scarcity of fires was trying to ordinary flesh and blood. The poor unfortunate who rose at six, and had to fetch and carry his own water from an outdoor pump, or if he had taken the precaution to draw it the night before, had found it frozen in his pitcher, was not to be blamed if washing was merely a figure of speech.

Mr. and Mrs. Tate were most considerate to their boys, and Richmond was a model school of its class. Charles loved his “kind old schoolmaster” as he called him, and he was not alone in this feeling, for Mr. Tate’s influence over the boys was maintained through the affection and respect they had for him. Of course he let them “fight it out” among themselves according to the boy-nature; but the earnest little fellow with the grave face and the eager, questioning eyes, attracted him greatly, and he began to study him in his keen, kind way, finding much to admire and praise in the letters which he wrote to his father, and predicting for him a bright career. Admitting that he had found young Dodgson superior to other boys, he wisely suggested that he should never know this fact, but should learn to love excellence for its own sake, and not for the sake of excelling.

Charles made quite a name for himself during those first school days. Mathematics still fascinated him and Latin grew to be second nature; he stood finely in both, and while at Richmond he developed another taste, the love of composition, often contributing to the school magazine. The special story recorded was called “The Unknown One,” but doubtless many a rhyme and jingle which could be traced to him found its way into this same little magazine, not forgetting odd sketches which he began to do at a very early age. They were all rough, for the most part grotesque, but full of simple fun and humor, for the quiet studious schoolboy loved a joke.

Charles stayed at the Richmond school for three years; then he took the next step in an English boy’s life, he entered Rugby, one of the great public schools.

In America, a public school is a school for the people, where free instruction is given to all alike; but the English public school is another thing. It is a school for gentlemen’s sons, where tuition fees are far from small, and “extras” mount up on the yearly bills.

Rugby had become a very celebrated school when the great Dr. Arnold was Head-Master. Up to that time it was neither so well known nor so popular as Eton, but Dr. Arnold had governed it so vigorously that his hand was felt long after his untimely death, which occurred just four years before Charles was ready to enter the school. The Head-Master at that time was, strangely enough, named Tait, spelt a little differently from the Richmond schoolmaster. Dr. Tait, who afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury, was a most capable man, who governed the school for two of the three years that our Boy was a pupil. The last year, Dr. Goulburn was Head-Master.

Charles found Rugby a great change from the quiet of Richmond. He went up in February of 1846, the beginning of the second term, when football was in full swing. The teams practiced on the broad open campus known as “Big-side,” and a “new boy” could only look on and applaud the great creatures who led the game. Rugby was swarming with boys—three hundred at least—from small fourteen-year-olders of the lowest “form,” or class, to those of eighteen or twenty of the fifth and sixth, the highest forms. They treated little Dodgson in their big, burly, schoolboy fashion, hazed him to their hearts’ content when he first entered, shrugging their shoulders good-naturedly over his love of study, in preference to the great games of cricket and football.

To have a fair glimpse of our Boy’s life at this period, some little idea of Rugby and its surroundings might serve as a guide. Those who visit the school to-day, with its pile of modern, convenient, and ugly architecture, have no conception of what it was over sixty years ago, and even in 1846 it bore no resemblance to the original school founded by one Lawrence Sheriffe, “citizen and grocer of London” during the reign of Henry VIII. To begin with, it is situated in Shakespeare’s own country, Warwickshire on the Avon River, and that in itself was enough to rouse the interest of any musing, bookish boy like Charles Dodgson.

From “Tom Brown’s School Days,” that ever popular book by Thomas Hughes, we may perhaps understand the feelings of the “new boy” just passing through the big, imposing school gates, with the oriel window above, and entering historic Rugby.

What first struck his view was the great school field or “close” as they called it, with its famous elms, and next, “the long line of gray buildings, beginning with the chapel and ending with the schoolhouse, the residence of the Head-Master where the great flag was lazily waving from the highest round tower.”

As we follow Tom Brown through his first day, we can imagine our Boy’s sensations when he found himself in this howling wilderness of boys. The eye of a boy is as keen as that of a girl regarding dress, and before Tom Brown was allowed to enter Rugby gates he was taken into the town and provided with a cat-skin cap, at seven and sixpence.

“‘You see,’ said his friend as they strolled up toward the school gates, in explanation of his conduct, ‘a great deal depends on how a fellow cuts up at first. If he’s got nothing odd about him and answers straightforward, and holds his head up, he gets on.’”

Having passed the gates, Tom was taken first to the matron’s room, to deliver up his trunk key, then on a tour of inspection through the schoolhouse hall which opened into the quadrangle. This was “a great room, thirty feet long and eighteen high or thereabouts, with two great tables running the whole length, and two large fireplaces at the side with blazing fires in them.”

This hall led into long dark passages with a fire at the end of each, and this was the hallway upon which the studies opened.

Now, to Charles Dodgson as well as to Tom Brown, a study conjured up untold luxury; it was in truth a “Rugby boy’s citadel” usually six feet long and four feet broad. It was rather a gloomy light which came in through the bars and grating of the one window, but these precautions had to be taken with the studies on the ground floor, to keep the small boys from slipping out after “lock-up” time.

Under the window was usually a wooden table covered with green baize, a three-legged stool, a cupboard, and nails for hat and coat. The rest of the furnishings included “a plain flat-bottom candlestick with iron extinguisher and snuffers, a wooden candle-box, a staff-handle brush, leaden ink-pot, basin and bottle for washing the hands, and a saucer or gallipot for soap.” There was always a cotton curtain or a blind before the window. For such a mansion the Rugby schoolboy paid from ten to fifteen shillings a year, and the tenant bought his own furniture. Tom Brown had a “hard-seated sofa covered with red stuff,” big enough to hold two in a “tight squeeze,” and he had, besides, a good, stout, wooden chair. Those boys who had looking-glasses in their rooms were able to comb their own locks, those who were not so fortunate went to what was known as the “combing-house” and had it done for them.

Unfortunately there are recorded very few details of these school-days at Rugby. We can only conjecture, from our knowledge of the boy and his studious ways, that Charles Dodgson’s study was his castle, his home, and freehold while he was in the school. He drew around him a circle of friends, for the somewhat sober lad had the gift of talking, and could be jolly and entertaining when he liked.

The chapel at Rugby was an unpretentious Gothic building, very imposing and solemn to little Dodgson, who had been brought up in a most reverential way, but the Rugbeans viewed it in another light. Tom Brown’s chosen chum explained it to him in this wise:

“That’s the chapel you see, and there just behind it is the place for fights; it’s most out of the way for masters, who all live on the other side and don’t come by here after first lesson or callings-over. That’s when the fights come off.”

All this must have shocked the simple, law-abiding son of a clergyman. It took from four to six years to tame the average Rugby boy, but little Charles needed no discipline; he was not a “goody-goody” boy, he simply had a natural aversion to rough games and sports. He liked to keep a whole skin, and his mind clear for his studies; he was fond of tramping through the woods, or fishing along the banks of the pretty, winding Avon, or rowing up and down the river, or lying on some grassy slope, still weaving the many odd fancies which grew into clearer shape as the years passed. The boys at Rugby did not know he was a genius, he did not know it himself, happy little lad, just a bit quiet and old-fashioned, for the noisy, blustering life about him. In fact, strange as it may seem, Charles Dodgson was never really a little boy until he was quite grown up.

He easily fell in with the routine of the school, but discipline, even as late as 1846, was hard to maintain. The Head-Master had his hands full; there were six under-masters—one for each form—and special tutors for the boys who required them, and from the fifth and sixth forms, certain monitors were selected called “præposters,” who were supposed to preserve order among the lower forms. In reality they bullied the smaller boys, for the system of fagging was much abused in those days, and the poor little fags had to be bootblacks, water-carriers, and general servants to very hard task-masters, while the “præposter” had little thought of doing any service for the service he exacted; in fact the unfortunate fag had to submit in silence to any indignity inflicted by an older boy, for if by chance a report of such doings came to the ears of the Head-Master or his associates, the talebearer was “sent to Coventry,” in other words, he was shunned and left to himself by all his companions.

Injustice like this made little Dodgson’s blood boil; he submitted of course with the other small boys, but he always had a peculiar distaste for the life at Rugby. He owned several years later that none of the studying at Rugby was done from real love of it, and he specially bewailed the time he lost in writing out impositions, and he further confessed that under no consideration would he live over those three years again.

These “impositions” were the hundreds of lines of Latin or Greek which the boys had to copy out with their own hands, for the most trifling offenses—a weary and hopeless waste of time, with little good accomplished.

In spite of many drawbacks, he got on finely with his work, seldom returning home for the various holidays without one or more prizes, and we cannot believe that he was quite outside of all the fun and frolic of a Rugby schoolboy’s life. For instance, we may be sure that he went bravely through that terrible ordeal for the newcomer, called “singing in Hall.” “Each new boy,” we are told, “was mounted in turn upon a table, a candle in each hand, and told to sing a song. If he made a false note, a violent hiss followed, and during the performance pellets and crusts of bread were thrown at boy or candles, often knocking them out of his hands and covering him with tallow. The singing over, he descended and pledged the house in a bumper of salt and water, stirred by a tallow candle. He was then free of the house and retired to his room, feeling very uncomfortable.”

“On the night after ‘new boys’ night’ there was chorus singing, in which solos and quartets of all sorts were sung, especially old Rugby’s favorites such as:

“‘It’s my delight, on a shiny night

In the season of the year,’

and the proceedings always wound up with ‘God save the Queen.’”

Guy Fawkes’ Day was another well-known festival at Rugby. There were bonfires in the town, but they were never kindled until eight o’clock, which was “lock-up” time for Rugby school. The boys resented this as it was great fun and they were out of it, so each year there was a lively scrimmage between the Rugbeans and the town, the former bent on kindling the bonfires before “lock-up” time, the latter doing all they could to hold back the ever-pressing enemy. Victory shifted with the years, from one side to the other, but the boys had their fun all the same, which was over half the battle.

Charles must have gone through Rugby with rapid strides, accomplishing in three years’ time what Tom Brown did in eight, and when he left he had the proud distinction of being among the very few who had never gone up a certain winding staircase leading, by a small door, into the Master’s private presence, where the rod awaited the culprit, and a good heavy rod it was.

During these years Dickens was doing his best work, and while at Rugby, Charles read “David Copperfield,” which came out in numbers in the Penny Magazine. He was specially interested in Mrs. Gummidge, that mournful, tearful lady, who was constantly bemoaning that she was “a lone lorn creetur,” and that everything went “contrairy” with her. Dickens’s humor touched a chord of sympathy in him, and if we go over in our minds, the weeping animals we know in “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass,” we will find many excellent portraits of Mrs. Gummidge.

He also read Macaulay’s “History of England,” and from it was particularly struck by a passage describing the seven bishops who had signed the invitation to the Pretender. Bishop Compton, one of the seven, when accused by King James, and asked whether he or any of his ecclesiastical brethren had anything to do with it, replied: “I am fully persuaded, your Majesty, that there is not one of my brethren who is not innocent in the matter as myself.” This tickled the boy’s sense of humor. Those touches always appealed to him; as he grew older they took even a firmer hold upon him and he was quick to pluck a laugh from the heart of things.

His life at Rugby was somewhat of a strain; with a brain beginning to teem with a thousand fairy fancies that the boys around him could not appreciate, he was forced to thrust them out of sight. He flung himself into his studies, coming out at examinations on top in mathematics, Latin, and divinity, and saving that other part of him for his sisters, when he went home for the holidays.

Meantime he continued to write verses and stories and to draw clever caricatures. There is one of these drawings peculiarly Rugbean in character; it is supposed to be a scene in which four of his sisters are roughly handling a fifth, because she would write to her brother when they wished to go to Halnaby and the Castle. This noble effort he signed “Rembrandt.”

The picture is really very funny. The five girls have very much the appearance of the marionettes he was fond of making, especially the unfortunate correspondent who has been pulled into a horizontal position by the stern sister. The whole story is told by the expression of the eyes and mouth of each, for the clever schoolboy had all the secrets of caricature, without quite enough genius in that direction to make him an artist.

The Rugby days ended in glory; our Boy, no longer little Dodgson, but young Dodgson, came home loaded with honors. Mr. Mayor, his mathematical master, wrote to his father in 1848, that he had never had a more promising boy at his age, since he came to Rugby. Mr. Tait also wrote complimenting him most highly not only for his high standing in mathematics and divinity, but for his conduct while at Rugby, which was all that could be desired.

We can now see the dawning of the two great loves of his life, but there was another love, which Rugby brought forth in all its beauty and strength, the love for girls. From that time he became their champion, their friend, and their comrade; whatever of youth and of boyhood was in his nature came out in brilliant flashes in their company. Boys, in his estimation, had to be, of course—a necessary evil, to be wrestled with and subdued. But girls—God bless ’em! were girls; that was enough for young Dodgson to the end of the chapter.

CHAPTER III.

HOME LIFE DURING THE HOLIDAYS.

When Charles came home on his holiday visits, he was undoubtedly the busiest person at Croft Rectory. We must remember there were ten eager little brothers and sisters who wanted the latest news from “the front,” meaning Rugby of course, and Charles found many funny things to tell of the school doings, many exciting matches to recount, many a thrilling adventure, and, alas! many a tale of some popular hero’s downfall and disgrace. He had sketches to show, and verses to read to a most enthusiastic audience, the girls giggling over his funny tales, the boys roaring with excitement as in fancy they pictured the scene at “Big-side” during some great football scrimmage, for Charles’s descriptions were so vivid, indeed he was such a good talker always, that a few quaint sentences would throw the whole picture on the canvas.

Vacation time was devoted to literary schemes of all kinds. From little boyhood until he was way up in his “teens,” he was the editor of one magazine or another of home manufacture, chiefly, indeed, of his own composition, or drawn from local items of interest to the young people of Croft Rectory. While he was still at Richmond School, Useful and Instructive Poetry was born and died in six months’ time, and many others shared the same fate; but the young editor was undaunted.

This was the age of small periodicals and he had caught the craze; it was also the age when great genius was burning brightly in England. Tennyson was in his prime; Dickens was writing his stories, and Macaulay his history of England. There were many other geniuses who influenced his later years, Carlyle, Browning and others, but the first three caught his boyish fancy and were his guides during those early days of editorship. Punch, the great English magazine of wit and humor, attracted him immensely, and many a time his rough drawings caught the spirit of some of the famous cartoons. He never imagined, as he laughed over the broad humor of John Tenniel, that the great cartoonist would one day stand beside him and share the honors of “Alice in Wonderland.”

One of his last private efforts in the editorial line was The Rectory Umbrella, a magazine undertaken when he was about seventeen or eighteen years old, on the bridge, one might say, between boyhood and his approaching Oxford days. His mind had developed quickly, though his views of life did not go far beyond the rectory grounds. He evidently took his title out of the umbrella-stand in the rectory hall, the same stand doubtless which furnished him with “The Walking Stick of Destiny,” a story of the lurid, exciting sort, which made his readers’ hair rise. The magazine also contained a series of sketches supposed to have been copied from paintings by Rembrandt, Sir Joshua Reynolds and others whose works hang in the Vernon Gallery. One specially funny caricature of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s “Age of Innocence” represents a baby hippopotamus smiling serenely under a tree not half big enough to shade him.

Another sketch ridicules homeopathy and is extremely funny. Homeopathy is a branch of medical science which believes in very small doses of medicine, and this picture represents housekeeping on a homeopathic plan; a family of six bony specimens are eating infinitesimal grains of food, which they can only see through the spectacles they all wear, and their table talk hovers round millionths and nonillionths of grains.

But the cleverest poem in The Rectory Umbrella is the parody on “Horatius,” Macaulay’s famous poem, which is supposed to be a true tale of his brothers’ adventures with an obdurate donkey. It is the second of the series called “Lays of Sorrow,” in imitation of Macaulay’s “Lays of Ancient Rome,” and the tragedy lies in the sad fact that the donkey succeeds in getting the better of the boys.

“Horatius” was a great favorite with budding orators of that day. The Rugby boys declaimed it on every occasion, and reading it over in these modern times of peace, one is stirred by the martial note in it. No wonder boys like Charles Dodgson loved Macaulay, and it is pretty safe to say that he must have had it by heart, to have treated it in such spirited style and with such pure fun. Indeed, fun bubbled up through everything he wrote; wholesome, honest fun, which was a safety valve for an over-serious lad.

This period was his halting time, and the humorous skits he dashed off were done in moments of recreation. He was mapping out his future in a methodical way peculiarly his own. Oxford was to be his goal, divinity and mathematics his principal studies, and he was working hard for his examinations. The desire of the eldest son to follow in his father’s footsteps was strengthened by his own natural inclination, for into the boy nature crept a rare golden streak of piety. The reverence for holy things was a beautiful trait in his character from the beginning to the end of his life; it never pushed itself aggressively to the front, but it sweetened the whole of his intercourse with people, and was perhaps the secret of the wonderful power he had with children.

The intervening months between Rugby and Oxford were also the boundary-line between boyhood and young manhood, that most important period when the character shifts into a steadier pose, when the young eyes try vainly to pierce the mists of the future, and the young heart-throbs are sometimes very painful. Between those Rugby school-days and the more serious Oxford ones, something happened—we know not what—which cast a shadow on our Boy’s life. He was young enough to live it down, yet old enough to feel keenly whatever sorrow crossed his path, and as he never married, we naturally suspect that some unhappy love affair, or death perhaps, had cut him off from all the joys so necessary to a young and deep-feeling man. Whatever it was—and he kept his own secret—it did not mar the sweetness of his nature, it did not kill his youth, nor deaden the keen wit which was to make the world laugh one day. It drew some pathetic lines upon his face, a wistful touch about mouth and eyes, as we can see in all his portraits.

A slight reserve hung as a veil between him and people of his own age, but it opened his heart all the wider to the children, whose true knight he became when, as “Lewis Carroll” he went forth to conquer with a laugh. We say “children,” but we mean “girls.” The little boy might just as well have been a caged animal at the Zoo, for all the notice he inspired. Of course, there were some younger brothers of his own to be considered, but he had such a generous provision of sisters that he didn’t mind, and then, besides, one’s own people are different somehow; we know well enough we wouldn’t change our brothers and sisters for the finest little paragons that walk. So with Lewis Carroll; he strongly objected to everybody else’s little brothers but his own, and it is even true that in later years there were some small nephews and boy cousins, to whom he was extremely kind. But as yet there is no Lewis Carroll, only a grave and earnest Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, reading hard to enter Christ Church, Oxford, that grand old edifice steeped in history, where his own father had “blazed a trail.”

Mathematics absorbed many hours of each day, and Latin and Greek were quite as important. English as a “course” was not thought of as it is to-day; the classics were before everything else, although ancient and modern history came into use.

For lighter reading, Dickens was a never-failing source of supply. All during this holiday period “David Copperfield” was coming out in monthly instalments, and though the hero was “only a boy,” there was something in the pathetic figure of lonely little David, irresistibly appealing to the young fellow who hated oppression and injustice of any kind, and was always on the side of the weak. While the dainty picture of Little Em’ly might have been his favorite, he was keenly alive to the absurdities of Mrs. Gummidge, the doglike devotion of Peggotty, and the horrors of the “cheap school,” which turned out little shivering cowards instead of wholesome hearty English boys.

Later on, he visited the spot on which Dickens had founded Dotheboys Hall in “Nicholas Nickleby.” “Barnard’s Castle” was a most desolate region in Yorkshire. He tells of a trip by coach, over a land of dreary hills, into Bowes, a Godforsaken village where the original of Dotheboys Hall was still standing, though in a very dilapidated state, actually falling to pieces. As we well know, after the writing of “Nicholas Nickleby,” government authorities began to look into the condition of the “cheap schools” and to remedy some of the evils. Even the more expensive schools, where the tired little brains were crammed to the brim until the springs were worn out and the minds were gone, were exposed by the great novelist when he wrote “Dombey and Son” and told of Dr. Blimber’s school, where poor little Paul studied until his head grew too heavy for his fragile body. The victims of these three schools—David, Smike, and Little Paul—twined themselves about the heartstrings of the thoughtful young student, and many a humorous bit besides, in the works of Lewis Carroll, bears a decided flavor of those dips into Dickens.

Macaulay furnished a more solid background in the reading line. His history, such a complete chronicle of England from the fall of the Stuarts to the reign of Victoria, appealed strongly to the patriotism of the English boy, and the fact that Macaulay was not only a writer of English history, but at the same time a maker of history, served to strengthen this feeling.

If we compare the life of Lord Macaulay with the life of Lewis Carroll, we will see that there was something strangely alike about them. Both were unmarried, living alone, but with strong family ties which softened their lives and kept them from becoming crusty old bachelors. It is very probable, indeed, that the younger man modeled his life somewhat along the lines of the older, whom he greatly admired. Both were parts of great institutions; Macaulay stood out from the background of Parliament, as Lewis Carroll did from Oxford or more particularly Christ Church, and both names shone more brilliantly outside the routine of daily life.

But the influence that crept closer to the heart of this boy was that of Tennyson. The great poet with the wonderful dark face, the piercing eyes, the shaggy mane, sending forth clarion messages to the world in waves of song, was the inspiration of many a quaint phrase and poetic turn of thought which came from the pen of Lewis Carroll. For Tennyson became to him a thing of flesh and blood, a friend, and many a pleasant hour was spent in the poet’s home in later years, when the fame of “Alice” had stirred his ambition to do other things. Many a verse of real poetry could trace its origin to association with the great man, who was quick to discover that there were depths in the soul of his young friend where genius dwelt.

Meantime Charles Dodgson read his poems over and over, in the seclusion of Croft Rectory, during that quiet pause in his life before he went up to Oxford.

There was a village school of some importance in Croft, and members of the Dodgson family were interested in its welfare, often lending a hand with the teaching, and during those months, no doubt, Charles took his turn. For society, his own family seemed to be sufficient. If he had any boy friends, there are no records of their intercourse; indeed, the only friend mentioned is T. Vere Bayne, who in childish days was his playfellow and who later became, like himself, a Student of Christ Church. This association cemented a lasting friendship. One or two Rugbeans claimed some intimacy, but his true friendships were formed when Lewis Carroll grew up and really became young.

Walking was always a favorite pastime; the woods were full of the things he loved, the wild things whose life stirred in the rustling of the leaves or the crackle of a twig, as some tiny animal whisked by. The squirrels were friendly, the hares lifted up their long ears, stared at him and scurried out of sight. Turtles and snails came out of the river to sun themselves on the banks; the air was full of the hum of insects and the chirp of birds.

As he lay under the friendly shelter of some great tree, he thought of this tree as a refuge for the teeming life about it; the beauty of its foliage, its spreading branches, were as nothing to its convenience as a home for the birds and chipmunks and the burrowing things that lived beneath its roots or in the hollows of its trunk.

These creatures became real companions in time. He studied their ways and habits, he looked them up in the Natural History, and noting their peculiarities, tucked them away in that quaint cupboard of his which he called his memory.

How many things were to come out of that cupboard in later days! He himself did not know what was hidden there. It reminded one of a chest which only a special key could open, and he did not even know there was a key, until on a certain “golden afternoon” he found it floating on the surface of the river. He grasped it, thrust it into the rusty lock, and lo!—but dear me, we are going too far ahead, for that is quite another chapter, and we have left Charles Dodgson lying under a tree, watching the lizards and snails and ants at their work or play, weaving his quaint fancies, dreaming perhaps, or chatting with some little sister or other who chanced to be with him. There was always a sister to chat with, which in part accounted for his liking for girls.

So, through a long vista of years, we have the picture of our Boy, between eighteen and nineteen, when he was about to put boyhood by forever and enter the stately ranks of the Oxford undergraduates. As he stands before us now, young, ardent, hopeful, and inexperienced, we can see no glimmer of the fairy wand which turned him into a wizard.

We see only a boy, somewhat old for his years, very manly in his ways, with a well-formed head, on which the clustering dark hair grew thick; a sensitive mouth and deep blue eyes, full of expression. He was clever, imitative, and consequently a good actor in the little plays he wrote and dramatized; he was very shy, but at his best in the home circle. He enjoyed nothing so much as an argument, always holding his ground with great obstinacy; a fine student, frank and affectionate, brimful of wit and humor, fond of reading, with a quiet determination to excel in whatever he undertook. With such weapons he was well equipped to “storm the citadel” at Oxford.

On May 23, 1850, he went up to matriculate—that is, to register his name and go through some examinations and the formality of becoming a student. Christ Church was to be his college, as it had been his father’s before him. Archdeacon Dodgson was much gratified by the many letters he received congratulating him on the fact that he had a son worthy to succeed him, for he was well remembered in the college, where he had left a brilliant record behind him.

It certainly sounds a little queer to have the name of a church attached to one of the colleges of a university, but our colleges in America are comparatively so new that we cannot grasp the vastness and the antiquity of the great English universities. Under the shelter of Oxford, and covering an area of at least five miles, twenty colleges or more were grouped, each one a community in itself, and all under the rule of the Chancellor of Oxford. Christ Church received as students those most interested in the divinity courses, though in other respects the undergraduates could take up whatever studies they pleased, and Charles Dodgson put most of his energy into mathematics and the necessary study of the classics.

Seven months intervened between his matriculation and his real entrance into Oxford; these seven months we have just reviewed, full of study and pleasant family associations, with youthful experiments in literature, full of promise for the future—and something deeper still—which must have touched him just here, “where the brook and river meet.”

Into all our lives at some time or other comes a solemn silence; it may spring from many causes, from a joy which cannot be spoken, or from a sorrow too deep for utterance, but it comes, and we cover it gently and hide it away, as something too sacred for the common light of every day.

This was the silence which came to Lewis Carroll on the threshold of his career; but lusty youth was with him as he stood before the portal of a brilliant future, and there was courage and high hope in his heart as he knocked for entrance.

CHAPTER IV.

OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP AND HONORS.

On January 24, 1851, just three days before his nineteenth birthday, Charles Dodgson took up his residence at Christ Church, and from that time to the day of his death his name was always associated with the fine old building which was his Alma Mater. The men of Christ Church called it the “House,” and were very proud of their college, as well they might be, for Oxford could not boast of a more imposing structure. There is a great difference between a university and a college. A university is great enough to shelter many colleges, and its chancellor is ruler over all. When we reflect that Christ Church College, alone, included as many important buildings as are to be found in some of our modern American universities, we may have some idea of the extent of Oxford University, within whose boundaries twenty such colleges could be counted.

Their names were all familiar to the young fellow, and many a time, in those early days, he could be found in his boat upon the river, floating gently down stream, the whole panorama of Oxford spread out before him.

“Now rising o’er the level plain,

’Mid academic groves enshrined.

The Gothic tower, the Grecian fane,

Ascend in solemn state combined.”

The spire of St. Aldates (pronounced St. Olds); Sir Christopher Wren’s domed tower over the entrance to Christ Church; the spires of the Cathedral of St. Mary; the tower of All Saints; the twin towers of All Souls; the dome of Radcliffe Library; the massive tower of Merton, and the beautiful pinnacles of Magdalen, all passed before him, “rising o’er the level plain” as the verse puts it, backed by dense foliage, and sharply outlined against the blue horizon.

History springs up with every step one takes in Oxford. The University can trace its origin to the time of Alfred the Great. Beginning with only three colleges, each year this great center of learning became more important. Henry I built the Palace of Beaumont at Oxford, because he wished frequent opportunities to talk with men of learning. It was from the Castle of Oxford that the Empress Maud escaped at dead of night, in a white gown, over the snow and the frozen river, when Stephen usurped the throne. It was in the Palace of Beaumont that Richard the Lion-Hearted was born, and so on, through the centuries, great deeds and great events could be traced to the very gates of Oxford.

But most of all, the young student’s affections centered around Christ Church, and indeed, for the first few years of his college life, he had little occasion to go outside of its broad boundaries unless for a row upon the river.

Christ Church really owes its foundation to the famous Cardinal Wolsey. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson had its history by heart; how the wicked old prelate, wishing to leave behind him a monument of lasting good to cover his many misdeeds, obtained the royal license to found the college as early as 1525; how, in 1529, as Shakespeare said, he bade “a long farewell to all his greatness,” and his possessions, including Cardinal College as it was then called, fell into the ruthless hands of Henry VIII; and how, after many ups and downs, the present foundation of Christ Church was created under “letters patent of Henry VIII dated November 4, 1546.”

Christ Church, with its imposing front of four hundred feet, is built around the Great Quadrangle, quite famous in the history of the college. It includes in the embrace of its four sides the library and picture gallery, the Cathedral and the Chapter House, and the homes of the dean and his associates. There was another smaller quadrangle called Peckwater Quadrangle, where young Dodgson had his rooms when he first entered college, but later when he became a tutor or a “don” as the instructors were usually called, he moved into the Great Quadrangle. A beautiful meadow lies beyond the south gate, spreading out in a long and fertile stretch to the river’s edge.

The massive front gate has towers and turrets on either side, while just above it is the great “Tom Tower,” the present home of “Tom” the famous bell, measuring over seven feet in diameter and weighing over seven tons. This bell was originally dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury, and bore a Latin inscription in praise of the saint. It was brought from the famous Abbey of Oseney, when that cloister was transferred to Oxford, and on the accession of Queen Mary, the ruling dean rechristened it Mary, out of compliment to her; but this was not a lasting change; “Tom” was indeed the favored name. After “Bonnie Prince Charlie” came into his own, and Christopher Wren’s tower was completed, the great bell was moved to the new resting place, where it rang first on the anniversary of the Restoration, May 29, 1684, and since then has rung each morning and evening, at the opening and closing of the college gates.

“Tom Tower,” as it is called, overlooks that portion of the Great Quadrangle popularly known as “Tom Quad,” and it was in this corner of the Great Quadrangle that Lewis Carroll had his rooms. He speaks of it often in his many reminiscences, as he also spoke of the new bell tower over the hall staircase in the southeast corner. This new tower was built to hold the twelve bells which form the famous Christ Church peal, some twenty years after his entrance as an undergraduate. This, and the new entrance to the cathedral from “Tom Quad,” were designed by the architect, George Bodley, and Lewis Carroll, who was then a very dignified and retiring “don,” ridiculed his work in a clever little booklet called “The Vision of the Three T’s.”

In it he calls the new tower the “Tea-chest,” the passage to the cathedral the “Trench,” the entrance itself the “Tunnel” (here we have the three T’s). The architect, whose initials are G. B., he thinly disguises as “Jeeby,” and his disapproval is expressed through “Our Willie,” meaning William E. Gladstone, who gives vent to his rage in this fashion:

“For as I’m true knight, a fouler sight,

I’d never live to see.

Before I’d be the ruffian dark,

Who planned this ghastly show,

I’d serve as secretary’s clerk [pronounced clark]

To Ayrton or to Lowe.

Before I’d own the loathly thing,

That Christ Church Quad reveals,

I’d serve as shoeblack’s underling

To Odger and to Beales.”

But no thought of ridicule entered the earnest young scholar’s mind during those early days at Oxford. Everything he saw in his surroundings was most impressive. There was much about the college routine to remind him of the old Rugby days. Indeed, it was not so very long before his time that the birch-rod was laid aside in Oxford; the rules were still very strict, and the student was forced to work hard to gain any standing whatever.

Young Dodgson went into his studies, as he did into everything else, with his whole soul. He devoted a great deal of his time to mathematics, and quite as much to divinity, but just as he had settled down for months of serious work, the news of his mother’s sudden death sent him hurrying back to Croft Rectory to join the sorrowing household. It was a terrible blow to them all; with this young family growing up around her, she could ill be spared, and the loss of her filled those first Oxford days with dark shadows for the boy—he was only a boy still for all his nineteen years—and we can imagine how deeply he mourned for his mother.

What we know of her is very faint and shadowy. That her influence was keenly felt for many years, we can only glean from the love and reverence with which the memory of her was guarded; for this English home hid its grief in the depths of its heart, and only the privileged few might enter and console.

This was the first and only break in the family for many years. Charles went back to Oxford immediately after the funeral, and took up his studies again with redoubled zeal.

Thomas Gaisford was dean of Christ Church during the four years that Charles Dodgson was an undergraduate. He was a most able man, well known as scholar, writer, and thinker, but he died, much lamented, in 1855, just as the young student was thinking seriously of a life devoted to his college. George Henry Liddell came into residence as dean of Christ Church, an office which he held for nearly forty years, and as Dean Liddell stood for a great deal in the life of Charles Dodgson, we shall hear much of him from time to time, dating more especially from the comradeship of his three little daughters, who were the first “really truly” friends of Lewis Carroll.

But we are jumping over too many years at once, and must go back a few steps. His hard study during the first year won him a Boulter scholarship; the next year he took First Class honors in mathematics, and a second in classical studies, and on Christmas Eve, 1852, he was made a Student of Christ Church College.

To become a Student of Christ Church was not only a great honor, conferred only on one altogether worthy of it, but it was a very serious step in life for a young man. A Student remained unmarried and always took Holy Orders; he was of course compelled to be very regular at chapel service, and to be devoted, heart and soul, to the interests of Christ Church, all of which this special young Student had no difficulty in following to the letter.

From that time forth he ordered his life as he planned his mathematics, clearly and simply, and once his career was settled, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson dropped from his young shoulders—he was only twenty—the mantle of over-seriousness, and looked about for young companionship. He found what he needed in the households of the masters and the tutors, whose homes looked out upon the Great Quadrangle. Here on sunny days the nurses brought the children for an airing; chubby little boys in long trousers and “roundabouts,” dainty little girls, with corkscrew ringlets and long pantalets and muslin “frocks” and poke bonnets, in the depths of which were hidden the rosebud faces. These were the favorites of the young Student, whose slim figure in cap and gown was often the center of an animated group of tiny girls; one on his lap, one perhaps on his shoulder, several at his knee, while he told them stories of the animals he knew, and drew funny little pictures on stray bits of paper. The “roundabouts” went to the wall: they were only boys!

His coming was always hailed with delight. Sometimes he would take them for a stroll, always full of wonder and interest to the children, for alone, with these chosen friends of his, his natural shyness left him, the sensitive mouth took smiling curves, the deep blue eyes were full of laughter, and he spun story after story for them in his quaint way, filling their little heads with odd fancies which would never have been there but for him. The “bunnies” held animated conversations with these small maids; every chirp and twitter of the birds grew to mean something to them. He took them across the meadow, and showed them the turtles swimming on the river bank; sometimes even—oh, treat of treats!—he took them in his boat, and pulling gently down the pretty rippling stream, told them stories of the shining fish they could see darting here and there in its depths, and of wonderful creatures they could not see, who would not show themselves while curious little girls were staring into the water.

These were hours of pure recreation for him. The small girls could not know what genuine pleasure they gave; the young undergraduates could never understand his lack of sympathy with their many sports. Athletics never appealed to him, even boating he enjoyed in his own mild way; a quiet pull up or down the river, a shady bank, an hour’s rest under the trees, a companion perhaps, generally some small girl, whose round-eyed interest inspired some remarkable tale—this was what he liked best. On other days a tramp of miles gave just the exercise he needed.

His busy day began at a quarter past six, with breakfast at seven, and chapel at eight. Then came the day’s lectures in Greek and Latin, mathematics, divinity, and the classics.

Meals were served to the undergraduates in the Hall. The men were divided into “messes” just as in military posts; each “mess” consisted of about six men, who were served at a small table. There were many such tables scattered over the Hall, a vast and ancient room, completed at the time of Wolsey’s fall, 1529, an interesting spot full of memorials of Henry VIII and Wolsey. The great west window with its two rows of shields, some with a Cardinal’s hat, others with the royal arms of Henry VIII, is most interesting, while the wainscoting, decorated with shields also arranged in orderly fashion, is very attractive. The Hall is filled with portraits of celebrities, from Henry VIII, Wolsey and Elizabeth to the many students, and famous deans, who have added luster to Christ Church.

In Charles Dodgson’s time, the meals were poorly served. The Hall was lighted at night with candles in brass candlesticks made to hold three lights each. The undergraduates were served on pewter plates, and the poor young fellows were in the hands of the cook and butler, and consequently were cheated up to their eyes. They did not complain in Charles Dodgson’s time, but after he graduated and became a master himself he no doubt took part in what was known as the “Bread and Butter” campaign, when the undergraduates rose up in a body and settled the cook and butler for all time, appointing a steward who could overlook the doings of those below in the kitchen.

This kitchen is a very wonderful old place, the first portion of Wolsey’s work to be completed, and so strongly was it built, and so well has it lasted, that it seems scarcely to have been touched by time. Of course there are some modern improvements, but the great ranges are still there, and the wide fireplace and spits worked by a “smoke jack.” Wolsey’s own gridiron hangs just above the fireplace, a large uncouth affair, fit for cooking the huge hunks of meat the Cardinal liked best.

We must not imagine that the years at Oxford were “all work and no play,” for Charles Dodgson’s many vacations were spent either at home, where his father made much of him, his brothers looked up to him, and his sisters petted and spoiled him, or on little trips of interest and amusement.

Once, during what is known as the “Long Vacation,” he visited London at the time of the Great Exhibition, and wrote a vivid letter of description to his sister Elizabeth. What seemed to interest him most was the vastness of everything he saw, the huge crystal fountain and the colossal statues on either side of the central aisle. One statue he particularly noticed. It was called the “Amazon and the Tiger,” and many of us have doubtless seen the picture, the strong, erect, girlish figure on horseback, and the tiger clinging to the horse, his teeth buried in his neck, the girl’s face full of terror, the horse rearing with fright and pain. He always liked anything that told a story, either in statues or in pictures, and in after years, when he became a skilled photographer, he was fond of taking his many girlfriends in costume, for somehow it always suggested a story.

He was also very fond of the theater, and he made many a trip to London to see a special play. Shakespeare was his delight, and “Henry VIII” was certainly the most appropriate play for a Student of Christ Church College to see. The great actor, Charles Kean, took the part of Cardinal Wolsey, and Mrs. Kean shone forth as poor Queen Katharine, the discarded wife of Henry VIII. What impressed him most was the vision of the sleeping queen, the troops of floating angels with palm branches in their hands, which they waved slowly over her, while shafts of light fell upon them from above. Then as the Queen awoke they vanished, and raising her arms she called “Spirits of peace, where are ye?” Poor Queen, no wonder her audience shed tears! Henry VIII was not an easy man to get along with, even in his sweetest mood!

In 1854, Charles Dodgson began hard study for final examinations, working sometimes as many as thirteen hours a day during the last three weeks, but the subjects which he had to prepare were philosophy and history, neither of which were special favorites, and though he passed fairly well, his name was not among the first.

During the following Long Vacation he went to Whitby, where he prepared for final examination in mathematics, and so well did he work that he took First Class honors and became quite a distinguished personage among the undergraduates. His prowess in so difficult a subject traveled even beyond the college walls, and congratulations poured in upon him until he laughingly declared that if he had shot the Dean there could not have been more commotion. This meant a great deal to him; to begin with, he stood head on the list of five very able men who were close to him in the marking. He came out number 279 and the lowest of the five was 213, so it was a hard fight in a hard subject, and Lewis Carroll might be forgiven for a little quiet “bragging” in the letter he wrote his father, telling the result of the examinations. Of one thing he was now quite sure—a future lectureship in Christ Church College.

On December 18, 1854, he graduated, taking the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and the following year, October 15, 1855, to celebrate the appointment of Dean Liddell, he was made a “Master of the House,” meaning that under the roof of Christ Church College he had all the privileges of a Master of Arts, which is the next higher degree; but he did not become a Master of Arts in the University until two years later. When a college graduate puts B.A. after his name, we know that means Bachelor of Arts, the first college degree, and M.A. means Master of Arts, the second degree.

The young Student was glad to be free of college restraint and to begin work. Archdeacon Dodgson was not a rich man, and though his son had never faced the trials of poverty, he was anxious to become independent. Now that the “grinding” study was over, his thoughts turned fondly to a literary life. His numerous clever sketches, too, gave him hope of better work hereafter, and this we know had been his dream through his boyish years; it was his dream still, but where his talent would lie he had no idea, though hazy poems and queer jumbles of words popped into his mind on the slightest notice. Still he could not settle down seriously to such work just at first; there was other work at hand and he must learn to wait. During the first year of tutorship he took many private pupils, besides lecturing in mathematics, his chosen profession, from three to three and a half hours a day. The next year he was one of the regular lecturers, and often lectured seven hours a day, not counting the time it took him to prepare his work.

Mathematicians are born, not made; this young fellow had not only the power of solving problems, but the rare gift of being able to teach others to solve them also, and many a student has been heard to declare that mathematics was never a dull study with Mr. Dodgson to explain. We can imagine the slight, youthful figure of the young college “don,” his clean-cut, refined face, full of light and interest, his blue eyes flashing as he tackled some difficult problem, wrestled with it before his class in the lecture-hall, and undid the tangle without the slightest trouble.

He “took to” problems as naturally as a duck to water; the harder they were the more resolutely he bent to his task. Sometimes the tussle kept him awake half the night, often he was up at dawn to renew the battle, but he usually “won out,” and this is what made him so good a teacher—he never “let go.” Whatever mathematical ax he had to grind, he always managed to put a keen edge upon it sooner or later.

To his many friends, especially his many girl friends, this side of his character was most remarkable. How this fun-making, fun-loving, story-telling nonsense rhymer could turn in a twinkling into the grave, precise “don” and discourse on rectangles, and polygons, and parallel lines, and unknown quantities was more than they could understand.

Girls, the best of them, the rarest and finest of them, are not, as a rule, fond of mathematics. They “take” it in school, as they “take” whooping cough and measles at home, but in those days they seldom went further than the “first steps” in plain arithmetic. Girls, especially the little girls of Charles Dodgson’s immediate circle, rarely went to school; they were usually in the care of governesses who helped them along the narrow path of learning which they themselves had trod, and these little maids could truly say, with all their hearts:

“Multiplication is vexation,

Division is as bad,

The Rule of Three, it puzzles me,

And Fractions drive me mad!”

It was certainly thought quite unnecessary to educate girls in higher mathematics; those were not the days when colleges for girls were thought of. The little daughters of the wise Oxford men were considered finely grounded if they had mastered the three R’s—(“Reading, ’Riting, and ’Rithmetic”) and the young “don” knew pretty well how far they were led along these paths, for if we remember our “Alice in Wonderland” we may easily recall that interesting conversation between Alice, the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon, about schools, the Mock Turtle remarking with a sigh:

“I took only the regular course.”

“What was that?” inquired Alice.

“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied, “and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”

“What else had you to learn?” asks Alice later on.

“Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the subjects on his flappers, “Mystery—ancient and modern—with Seography; then Drawling—the Drawling-master was an old Conger-eel that used to come once a week; he taught us Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.” [Drawing, sketching, and painting in oils.] Lewis Carroll loved this play upon words.

“What was that like?” said Alice.

“Well, I can’t show it you myself,” the Mock Turtle said, “I’m too stiff. And the Gryphon never learnt it.”

“Hadn’t time,” said the Gryphon. “I went to the Classical master though. He was an old Crab, he was.”

“I never went to him,” the Mock Turtle said, with a sigh; “he taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say.”

“So he did, so he did,” said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn, and both creatures hid their faces in their paws.

It is doubtful if any little girl in Lewis Carroll’s time ever learned “Laughing and Grief” unless she was very ambitious, but many a quick, active young mind absorbed the simple problems which he was constantly turning into games for them.

So the years passed over the head of this young Student of Christ Church. They were pleasantly broken by long vacations at Croft Rectory, by trips through the beautiful English country, by one special journey to the English lakes, where Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge lived and wrote their poems. These trips were often afoot, and Charles Dodgson was very proud of the long distances he could tramp, no matter what the wind or the weather. There was nothing he liked better unless it was the occasional visits he made to the Princess’s Theatre in London.

On June 16, 1856, he records seeing “A Winter’s Tale,” where he was specially pleased with little Ellen Terry, a beautiful tiny creature, who played the child’s part of Mamillius in the most charming way. This was the first of many meetings with the famous actress, who became one of his child-friends in later years. But that was when he was Lewis Carroll. As yet he was only Charles Dodgson, a struggling young Student, anxious for independence, interested in his work, simple, sincere, devout, a dreamer of dreams which had not yet taken shape, and above all, a true lover of little girls, no matter how plain, or fretful, or rumpled, or even dirty. His kindly eyes could see beneath the creases on the top, his gentle fingers clasped the shrinking, trembling little hands; his low voice charmed them all unconsciously, and no doubt the children he loved did for him as much as he did for them. If he felt the strain of overwork nothing soothed him like a romp with his favorites, and young as he was, when dreaming of the future and the magic circle in which he would write his name, it was not of the great world he was thinking, but of bright young faces, with dancing eyes and sunny curls, and eager voices continually demanding—“One more story.”

CHAPTER V.

A MANY-SIDED GENIUS.

We have traveled over the years with some speed, from the time that little Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was christened by his proud papa to the moment when the same proud father heard that his eldest son was made a student of Christ College—a good large slice out of a birthday-cake—twenty candles—if one counts birthdays by candles. It’s a charming old German fashion, for the older one grows the brighter the lights become, and if you chance to get real old—a fine “threescore and ten”—why, if there’s a candle for each year, there you are—in a perfect blaze of glory!

We have just passed over the very oldest part of our Boy’s life; from the time he became Lewis Carroll, Charles Dodgson began to go backward; he did a lot of things backward, as we shall see later. He wrote letters backward, he told stories backward, he spelled and counted backward—in fact, he was so fond of doing things backward we do not wonder that he stepped out from the circle of the years, and turned backward to find the boyhood he had somehow missed before. This is when Lewis Carroll was born; but that is a story in itself.

Outwardly the life of the young Student seemed unchanged, but that is all we mortals know about it; the fairies were already at work. In moments of leisure little poems went forth to the world—a world which at first consisted of Croft Rectory—for there was another and last family magazine, of which he was sole editor and composer. He named it Misch-Masch, a curious old German word, which in our English means Hodge-Podge, and everybody, young and old, knows what a jumble Hodge-Podge is—something like New England succotash.

Misch-Masch was started by this enterprising young editor during the year after his graduation. He had become a person of vast experience between Misch-Masch and the days of The Rectory Umbrella, having been editor of College Rhymes, his college paper. He also wrote stories for the Oxonian Advertiser and the Whitby Gazette, and this printed matter, together with many new and original ideas and drawings, found a place in his new home venture.

His mathematical genius blossomed forth in a wonderful labyrinth or maze, a geometrical design within a given square form, of a tangle of intersecting lines and angles containing a hidden pathway to the center. These designs, that seem so remarkable to outsiders, were very simple to the editor of Misch-Masch, who was always inventing puzzles of some sort.

He also wrote a series of “Studies from the English Poets,” which he illustrated himself. One specially good drawing was of the following line from one of Keats’s poems. “She did so—but ’tis doubtful how or whence.” The picture represents a very fat old lady, with a capitally drawn placid face, perched on a post marked “Dangerous,” seemingly in midwater. In her chubby hand is a basket with the long neck of a goose hanging out.

Mr. Stuart Collingwood, Lewis Carroll’s nephew, gives a most interesting account of these early editorial efforts, in an article written for the Strand, an English magazine. Speaking of the above illustration he says:

“Keats is the author whom our artist has honored, and surely the shade of that much neglected songster owes something to a picture which must popularize one passage at least in his works.

“The only way I can account for the lady’s hazardous position is by supposing her to have attempted to cross a frozen lake after a thaw has set in. The goose, whose long neck projects from her basket, proves that she has just returned from market; probably the route across the lake was her shortest way home. We are to suppose that for some time she proceeded without any knowledge of the risk she was running, when suddenly she felt the ice giving way under her. By frantic exertions she succeeded in reaching the notice-board, to which she clung for days and nights together, till the ice was all melted and a deluge of rain caused the water to rise so many feet that at last she was compelled for dear life to climb to the top of the post.” We can now understand how well the illustration fits in with the line:

“She did so, but ’tis doubtful how or whence.”

Mr. Collingwood continues:

“Whether she sustained life by eating raw goose is uncertain. At least she did not follow Father William’s example by devouring the beak. The question naturally suggests itself: Why was she not rescued? My answer is that either such a dense fog enveloped the whole neighborhood that even her bulky form was invisible, or that she was so unpopular a character that each man feared the hatred of the rest if he should go to her succor.”

Mr. Collingwood concludes his article with the following riddle which the renowned editor of Misch-Masch presented to his readers; there must be an answer, and it is therefore worth while guessing, for Lewis Carroll would never have written a riddle without one:

A monument, men all agree—

Am I in all sincerity;

Half-cat, half-hindrance made

If head and tail removed shall be

Then, most of all you strengthen me.

Replace my head—the stand you see

On which my tail is laid.

Misch-Masch had a short but brilliant career, for magazines with a wider circulation than Croft Rectory began to claim his attention. The Comic Times was a small periodical very much on the order of Punch. Edmund Yates was the editor, and among the writers and artists were some of the best known in England. Charles Dodgson’s poetry and sketches were too clever to hide themselves from public view, and he became a regular contributor. Later, The Comic Times changed hands, and the old staff started a new magazine called The Train, in 1856, and the quiet Oxford “don” found his poetry in such demand that after talking it over with the editor, he decided to adopt a suitable pen name. He first suggested “Dares” in compliment to his birthplace, Daresbury, but the editor preferred a real name. Then he took his first two names, Charles Lutwidge, and transposing them he got two names, Edgar Cuthwellis or Edgar U. C. Westhill, neither of which sounded in the least interesting. Finally he decided to take the two names and look at them backward—this very queer young fellow always preferred to look at things backward—Lutwidge Charles. That was certainly not promising. Then he took one name at a time and analyzed it in his own quaint way. Lutwidge was surely derived from the Latin word Ludovicus—which in good sound English meant Lewis—ah, that was not bad! Now for Charles. Its Latin equivalent was Carolus—which could be easily changed in Carroll. The whole thing worked out like one of his own word puzzles, and Lewis Carroll he was, henceforth, whenever he made his appearance in print.

There was not much ceremony at this christening. Just two clever men put their heads together and the result was—Lewis Carroll! Charles Lutwidge Dodgson retired to his rooms at Christ Church College, where he prepared his lectures on mathematics and wrote the most learned text-books for the University; but Lewis Carroll peeped out into the world, which he found full of light and laughter and happy childhood, and as Lewis Carroll he was known to that world henceforth.

The first poem to appear with his new name was called “The Path of Roses,” a very solemn, serious poem about half a yard long and not specially interesting, save as a contribution to a most interesting little paper. The Train was really very ambitious, full, indeed, of the best talent of the day. There were short stories and serials, poems, timely articles, jokes, puns, anecdates—in short, all the attractions that help toward the making of an attractive magazine, and though the illustrations were nothing but old-fashioned woodcuts, the reading was quite as good, and in many cases better than what we find in the average magazine of to-day.

Many of the little poems Lewis Carroll wrote at this time he tucked away in some cubby-hole and made use of later in one or the other of his books. One of his very earliest printed bits is called:

MY FANCY.

I painted her a gushing thing,

With years perhaps a score,

I little thought to find they were

At least a dozen more.

My fancy gave her eyes of blue,

A curly auburn head;

I came to find the blue—a green,

The auburn turned to red.

She boxed my ears this morning,

They tingled very much;

I own that I could wish her

A somewhat lighter touch.

And if you were to ask me how

Her charms might be improved,

I would not have them added to,

But just a few removed!

She has the bear’s ethereal grace,

The bland hyena’s laugh,

The footstep of the elephant,

The neck of the giraffe;

I love her still, believe me,

Tho’ my heart its passion hides—

“She is all my fancy painted her,”

But, oh—how much besides!

The quoted line—“She is all my fancy painted her”—is the line upon which he built the poem; he was very fond of doing this, and though no special mention is made of the fact, it is highly probable that these three telling verses found their way into Misch-Masch, among the “Studies from the Poets.” It is unfortunate, too, that we have not some funny drawing of this wonderful “gushing thing” of the giraffe neck, “the bear’s ethereal grace,” and the “footstep of the elephant,” for Lewis Carroll’s drawings generally followed his thoughts; a pencil and bit of paper were always ready in some inner pocket, for illustrating purposes, and it is doubtful if any celebrated artist could produce more sketches on such a variety of subjects. His power to make his pencil “talk” impressed his sisters and brothers greatly; they caught every scrap of paper that fluttered from his hands, treasured it, and if the drawing was distinct enough, they coloured it with crayons or touched it up in black and white, for the use of The Rectory Umbrella and the later publication of Misch-Masch. In his secret soul he longed to be an artist; he certainly possessed genius of a queer sort. A few strokes would tell the story, usually a funny one or a quaint one, but all his art failed to make his people look quite real or natural—just dolls stuffed with sawdust. But they were fine caricatures, and the young artist had to content himself with this smaller talent.

The Train published many of his poems during 1856-57. “Solitude,” “Novelty and Romancement,” “The Three Voices,” followed one another in quick succession, but the best of all was decidedly “Hiawatha’s Photographing,” and this for more reasons than one. In the first place, from the time he went into residence at Christ Church photography was his great delight; he “took” people whenever he could—canons, deacons, deans, students, undergraduates and children. The “grown-ups” submitted with a gentle sort of patience, but he made his camera such a point of attraction for the youngsters that he could “take” them as often as he liked, and he has left behind him a wonderful array of photographs, many of well-known, even celebrated people, among whom we may find Tennyson, the Rossetti family, Ellen and Kate Terry, John Ruskin, George Macdonald, Charlotte M. Yonge, Sir John Millais, and many others known to fame; and considering that photography had not reached its present perfection, Lewis Carroll’s photographs show remarkable skill. He would not have been Lewis Carroll if he had not gone into this fascinating pastime with his whole soul. Whenever he met a new face which interested him, we may be sure it was not long before the busy camera was at work. There is no doubt that his admiring family suffered agonies in posing, to say nothing of his friends who were not always beautiful enough to produce “pretty pictures”; their criticisms were often based entirely on their disappointment: hence the poem,

HIAWATHA’S PHOTOGRAPHING.

[With no apology to Mr. Longfellow.]

From his shoulder Hiawatha

Took the camera of rosewood,

Made of sliding, folding rosewood;

Neatly put it all together,

In its case it lay compactly,

Folded into nearly nothing;

But he opened out the hinges,

Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges

Till it looked all squares and oblongs,

Like a complicated figure

In the second book of Euclid.

This he perched upon a tripod—

Crouched beneath its dusky cover—

Stretched his hand, enforcing silence—

Said, “Be motionless, I beg you!”

Mystic, awful was the process.

All the family in order

Sat before him for their pictures:

Each in turn, as he was taken,

Volunteered his own suggestions,

His ingenious suggestions.

All of which during the course of the poem succeeded in driving poor Hiawatha to the verge of madness, until—

Finally my Hiawatha

Tumbled all the tribe together

(“Grouped” is not the right expression),

And, as happy chance would have it,

Did at last obtain a picture

Where the faces all succeeded:

Each came out a perfect likeness.

Then they joined and all abused it,

Unrestrainedly abused it,

As “the worst and ugliest picture

They could possibly have dreamed of.”

······

All together rang their voices,

Angry, loud, discordant voices,

As of dogs that howl in concert,

As of cats that wail in chorus.

But my Hiawatha’s patience,

His politeness and his patience,

Unaccountably had vanished,

And he left that happy party.

Neither did he leave them slowly,

With the calm deliberation,

The intense deliberation,

Of a photographic artist:

But he left them in a hurry,

Left them in a mighty hurry,

Stating that he would not stand it,

Stating in emphatic language

What he’d be before he’d stand it.

Hurriedly he packed his boxes:

Hurriedly the porter trundled

On a barrow all his boxes:

Hurriedly he took his ticket:

Hurriedly the train received him:

Thus departed Hiawatha.

But perhaps the cleverest part of the poem is the seemingly innocent paragraph of introduction which reads as follows:

“In an age of imitation, I can claim no special merit for this slight attempt at doing what is known to be so easy. Any fairly practiced writer, with the slightest ear for rhythm, could compose, for hours together, in the easy running meter of ‘The Song of Hiawatha.’ Having, then, distinctly stated that I challenge no attention in the following little poem to its merely verbal jingle, I must beg the candid reader to confine his criticism to its treatment of the subject.”

Notice how metrically this sounds. Tune up to the Hiawatha pitch and you will have the same swinging measure in the above sentences.

Lewis Carroll’s real acquaintance with Tennyson began in that eventful year of 1856. The odd, shaggy man, with the fine head and the keen, restless eyes, fascinated the young Student greatly. He went often to Tennyson’s home and did his best to be interested in the poet’s two little boys, Hallam and Lionel. Had they been girls there would have been no difficulty, but he always had strained relations with boys; still, as these “roundabouts” belonged to the little Tennysons, we find a sort of armed truce kept up between them. He bargained with Lionel to exchange manuscripts, and he got both boys to sign their names in his album; he even condescended to play a game of chess with Lionel, checkmating him in six moves, but he distinctly refused to allow that young gentleman to give him a blow on the head with a mallet in exchange for some of his verses. However, we may be pretty sure that Lewis Carroll’s visits to the Tennysons were much pleasanter when the “roundabouts” were not visible.

That same year he made the acquaintance of John Ruskin, and the great art critic turned out to be a very valuable friend, as was also Sir James Paget, the eminent surgeon, who gave him many hints on medicine and surgery, in which Charles Dodgson was deeply interested. His medical knowledge was quite remarkable, and the books he collected on the subject would have been valuable additions to any physician’s library. In the year 1857 he met Thackeray, who had come to Oxford to deliver his lecture on George III, and liked him very much. The Oxford “dons” were certainly fortunate in meeting all the “great ones” and seeing them generally at their best.

The year 1858 was an uneventful year; college routine varied by much reading, afternoons on the river or in the country, and evenings devoted to preparations for the morrow’s work. Lewis Carroll kept a diary which harbored many fine thoughts and noble resolves, many doubts and fears, many hopes, many plans for the future, for he was making up his mind to the final step in the life of a Christ Church Student—that of taking Holy Orders, in other words, of being ordained as a clergyman.

There were one or two points to be considered: first, regarding an impediment in his speech which would make constant preaching almost impossible. He stammered, not on all occasions, but quite enough to make steady speaking an effort, painful to himself and his hearers. The other objection lay in the fact that Christ Church had rigid laws for its clergy concerning amusements. Charles Dodgson had no wish to be shut out of the world; he was fond of theaters and operas, and he did not see that he was doing any special good to his fellow-creatures by putting them out of his life. But at last, after battling with his conscience, and earnest consultation with a few wise friends, he decided that he would be ordained, though he would not become a regular preaching clergyman.

It took him two years to reach this decision, for he was slow to act on such occasions, but strong of purpose when the step was taken. On October 17, 1859, the young Prince of Wales (the late King Edward VII) came into residence at Christ Church College. This was a mark of special favor to Dean Liddell, who had for many years been chaplain to Queen Victoria and her husband, the Prince Consort. Of course there was much ceremony attending the arrival of his Royal Highness; the Dean went in person to the station to meet him, and all the “dons” were drawn up in a body in Tom Quadrangle to give him the proper sort of greeting. “Hiawatha” had his camera along—“in its case it lay compactly,” but his poor little Highness had been “served up” on the camera to his utter disgust, and nothing would induce him to be photographed.

Later in the season, the Queen, the Prince Consort, and several princes and princesses came up to Oxford and surprised everybody. Christ Church was certainly in a flutter, and the day was turned into a gala occasion. There was a brilliant reception that evening at Dean Liddell’s and tableaux vivants, to which we may be sure our modest Lewis Carroll gave much assistance. He was already on intimate terms with the three little Liddells, Lorina, Alice, and Edith, and as the children were to pose in a tableau, he was certainly there to help and suggest with a score of quaint ideas.

He had a pleasant talk with the Prince of Wales, who shook hands cordially and condescended to ask several questions of the young photographer, praising the photographs which he had seen, and promised to choose some for himself some day. He regarded the pleasant-looking, chatty young fellow as just one of the college “dons”; he had never even heard of Lewis Carroll, indeed that gentleman was too newly born to be known very well anywhere outside of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s study, and it is extremely doubtful if the grave Student himself knew of half the fun and merriment hidden away in the new name. As a result of his interview with the prince, Lewis Carroll obtained his autograph, which was quite a gem among his collection.

There is no doubt he had many fine autographs and also an album, as he mentions several times. Autograph-hunting was not carried to the excess that it was later on, and is to-day. It is, to put it mildly, a very bad habit. Total strangers have no hesitancy in asking this favor of celebrities, who, as a rule, object to the wholesale signing of their names.

But the signatures in Lewis Carroll’s album were those of friends, which was quite another matter, and it was consequently most interesting to turn the leaves of the precious volume, and see in what friendly esteem he was held by the foremost men and women of his time. To him a letter or a sentiment would have had no meaning nor value if not addressed personally to himself; whereas, the autograph fiend of the present day would be content with the signature no matter to whom addressed. Lewis Carroll suffered from these pests in later years, as well as from the photograph fiend, to him as malicious as a hornet, and from whom he fled in terror.

Yet we find many good pictures of him, notwithstanding, the one which we have chosen for our frontispiece being the youngest and most attractive—Lewis Carroll at the age of twenty-three. There is another taken some two years later, when the dignity of the Oxford “don” set well on the slim young figure. His face was always curiously youthful in expression: the eyes, deep blue, looked childlike in their innocent trust; a child had but to gaze into their depths and claim a friend. Little girls, particularly, remembered their beauty, for they felt a thrill at their youthful heartstrings when those eyes, brimful of kindliness, turned upon them and warmed their childish souls. They were quick to feel the gentle pressure of his hand, his touch upon their shoulders or on their heads, which drew these little magnets close to his side where he loved to have them, for behind the shyness and reserve of Lewis Carroll was a great wealth of tenderness and love which only his girl friends understood, because it was only to them that he cared to show this part of himself.

Of course in his own home this side of him expanded in the sunny companionship of seven younger sisters. Naturally they did not look upon him with the awe of the later generation, but they brought to the surface many winning characteristics which might never have come to light but for them.

It had been his delight from early boyhood to tackle problems and to solve them; the “girl problem” he had studied from the very beginning, in all its stages, and so it is small wonder that he knew girls quite as well as he did mathematics, and loved them even better, if the truth must be told, though they were often quite as puzzling.

On December 22, 1861, in spite of many doubts and misgivings as to his worthiness, Charles Dodgson was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Oxford. He did this partly from his duty as a Student of Christ Church, but more because of the influence it would give him among the undergraduates, whose welfare he had so much at heart. He preached often but he never became a regular officiating clergyman, and his sermons were always delightful because they were never what we call “preachy.”

He was so truly good and religious, his faith was so simple, his desire to do right was so unfailing, that in spite of the slight drawback in his speech he had the gift of impressing his hearers deeply. His sermons were dedicated to the service of God, and he was content if they bore good fruit; he did not care what people said about them. He often preached at the evening service for the college servants; but most of all he loved to preach to children, to see the earnest young faces upturned to him, to feel that they were following each word. It was then that he put his whole heart into the task before him; the light grew in his eyes, he forgot to stammer, forgot everything, save the young souls he was leading, in his eagerness to show them the way.

Such was the character of Lewis Carroll up to the year 1862, that momentous year in which he found the golden key of Fairyland. He had often peeped through the closed gates but he had never been able to squeeze through; he might have jumped over them, but that is forbidden in Fairyland, where everything happens in the most natural way.

He had succeeded beyond his hopes in his efforts for independence; he was establishing a brilliant record as a mathematical lecturer; he had several scholarships which paid him a small yearly sum, and he was also sublibrarian. His little poems were making their way into public notice and his more serious work had been “Notes on the First Two Books of Euclid,” “Text-Books on Plane Geometry and Plane Trigonometry,” and “Notes on the First Part of Algebra.”

Socially, the retiring “don” was scarcely known beyond the University. He ran up to London whenever the theaters offered anything tempting; he visited the studios of well-known artists, who were all fond of him, and he cultivated the friendship of men of learning and letters. If these gentlemen happened to have attractive little daughters, he cultivated their acquaintance also. One special anecdote we have of a visit to the studio of Mr. Munroe, where he found two of the children of George Macdonald, the author of many books, among them “At the Back of the North Wind,” a most charming fairy tale. These two children, a boy and a girl, instantly made friends with Lewis Carroll, who suggested to the boy, Greville, that he thought a marble head would be such a useful thing, much better than a real one because it would not have to be brushed and combed. This appealed to the small boy, whose long hair was a torment, but after consideration he decided that a marble head would not be able to speak, and it was better to have his hair pulled and be able to cry out. In the case of the general small boy Lewis Carroll preferred marble, but he was overruled. Mr. Macdonald’s two daughters, Lily and Mary, were, however, great favorites of his; indeed, his girl friends were rapidly multiplying. Sometimes they came to see him in the pleasant rooms at Christ Church College, which were full of curious things that children love. Sometimes they had tea with him or went for a stroll, for Oxford had many beautiful walks about her colleges.

A visit to him was always a great event, but perhaps those who enjoyed him most were his intimates in “Tom Quadrangle.” The three little Liddell girls were at that time his special favorites; their bright companionship brought forth the many sides of his genius; under the spell of their winsome chatter the long golden afternoon would glide happily by, while under his spell they would sit for hours listening to the wonder tales he spun for them.

CHAPTER VI.

UP AND DOWN THE RIVER WITH THE REAL ALICE.

We generally speak of Oxford-on-the-Thames. Indeed, if we were to journey by water from London to Oxford, we would certainly go by way of the Thames, and a pleasant journey that would be, too, gliding between well-wooded, fertile shores with charming landscape towns on either side and bits of history peeping out in unexpected places. But into the heart of Oxford itself the Thames sends forth its tributaries in opposite directions; the Isis on one side, the Cherwell on the other. The Cherwell is what is called a “canoe river,” the Isis is the race course of Oxford, where all the “eights” (every racing crew consists of eight men) come to practice for the great day and the great race, which takes place sometimes at Henley, sometimes at Oxford itself, when the Isis is gay with bunting and flags.

On one side of Christ Church Meadow is a long line of barges which have been made stationary and which are used as boathouses by the various college clubs; these are situated just below what is known as Folly Bridge, a name familiar to all Oxford men, and the goal of many pleasant trips. The original bridge was destroyed in 1779, but tradition tells us that the first bridge was capped by a tower which was the study or observatory of Roger Bacon, the Franciscan Friar who invented the telescope, gunpowder, and many other things unknown to the people of his time. It was even hinted that he had cunningly built this tower that it might fall instantly on anyone passing beneath it who proved to be more learned than himself. One could see it from Christ Church Meadow, and doubtless Lewis Carroll pointed it out to his small companions, as they strolled across to the water’s edge, where perhaps a boat rocked lazily at its moorings.

It was the work of a moment to steady it so that the eager youngsters could scramble in, then he stepped in himself, pushing off with his oar, and a few long, steady strokes brought them in midstream. This was an ordinary afternoon occurrence, and the children alone knew the delights of being the chosen companions of Lewis Carroll. He would let them row, while he would lounge among the cushions and “spin yarns” that brought peals of merry laughter that rippled over the surface of the water. He knew by heart every story and tradition of Oxford, from the time the Romans reduced it from a city of some importance to a mere “ford for oxen to pass over,” which, indeed, was the origin of its name, long before the Christian era.

He had a story or a legend about every place they passed, but most of all they loved the stories he “made up” as he went along. He had a low, well-pitched voice, with the delightful trick of dropping it in moments of profound interest, sometimes stopping altogether and closing his eyes in pretended sleep, when his listeners were truly thrilled. This, of course, produced a stampede, which he enjoyed immensely, and sometimes he would “wake up,” take the oars himself, and pull for some green shady nook that loomed invitingly in the distance; here they would land and under the friendly trees they would have their tea, perhaps, and then they might induce him to finish the story—if they were ever so good.

It was on just such an occasion that he chanced to find the golden key to Wonderland. The time was midsummer, the place on the way up the river toward Godstow Bridge; the company consisted of three winsome little girls, Lorina, Alice, and Edith Liddell, or Prima, Secunda, and Tertia, as he called them by number in Latin. He tells of this himself in the following dainty poem—the introduction to “Alice in Wonderland”:

 All in the golden afternoon

Full leisurely we glide;

For both our oars, with little skill,

By little arms are plied,

While little hands make vain pretence

Our wanderings to guide.

Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,

Beneath such dreamy weather,

To beg a tale, of breath too weak

To stir the tiniest feather!

Yet what can one poor voice avail

Against three tongues together?

Imperious Prima flashes forth

Her edict “to begin it”—

In gentler tone Secunda hopes

“There will be nonsense in it”—

While Tertia interrupts the tale,

Not more than once a minute.

Anon, to sudden silence won,

In fancy they pursue

The dream-child moving through a land

Of wonders wild and new,

In friendly chat with bird or beast—

And half believe it true.

And ever as the story drained

The wells of fancy dry,

And faintly strove that weary one

To put the subject by,

“The rest next time”—“It is next time!”

The happy voices cry.

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:

Thus slowly one by one,

Its quaint events were hammered out—

And now the tale is done,

And home we steer, a merry crew,

Beneath the setting sun.

Alice! a childish story take,

And with a gentle hand

Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are twined

In Memory’s mystic band,

Like pilgrims’ withered wreath of flowers

Plucked in a far-off land.

It was a very hot day, the fourth of July, 1862, that this special little picnic party set out for its trip up the river. Godstow Bridge was a quaint old-fashioned structure of three arches. In the very middle it was broken by a tiny wooded island, and guarding the east end was a picturesque inn called The Trout. Through the middle arch they could catch a distant glimpse of Oxford, with Christ Church spire quite plainly to be seen. They had often gone as far as the bridge and had their tea in the ruins of the old nunnery near by, a spot known to history as the burial-place of Fair Rosamond, that beautiful lady who was supposed to have been poisoned by Queen Eleanor, the jealous wife of Henry II. But this day the sun streamed down on the little party so pitilessly that they landed in a cool, green meadow and took refuge under a hayrick. Lewis Carroll stretched himself out at full length in the protecting shade, while the expectant little girls grouped themselves about him.

“Now begin it,” demanded Lorina, who was called Prima in the poem. Secunda [Alice] probably knew the story-teller pretty well when she asked for nonsense, while tiny Tertia, the youngest, simply clamored for “more, more, more,” as the speaker’s breath gave out.

Now, as Lewis Carroll lay there, a thousand odd fancies elbowing one another in his active brain, his hands groping in the soft moist earth about him, his fingers suddenly closed over that magic Golden Key. It was a queer invisible key, just the kind that fairies use, and neither Lorina, Alice, nor Edith would have been able to find it if they had hunted ever so long. He must have found it on the water and brought it ashore quite by accident, for there was the gleam of sunlight still upon it, and it was very shady under the hayrick. Perhaps there was a door somewhere that the key might fit; but no, there was only the hayrick towering above him, and only the brown earth stretching all about him. Perhaps a white rabbit did whisk by, perhaps the real Alice really fell asleep, at any rate when Prima said “Begin it,” that is how he started. The Golden Key opened the brown earth—in popped the white rabbit—down dropped the sleeping Alice—down—down—down—and while she was falling, clutching at things on the way, Lewis Carroll turned, with one of his rare sweet smiles, to the eager trio and began the story of “Alice’s Adventures Underground.”

The whole of that long afternoon he held the children spellbound. He did not finish the story during that one sitting. Summer has many long days, and the quiet, prudent young “don” was not reckless enough to scatter all his treasures at once; and, besides, all the queer things that happened to Alice would have lost half their interest in the shadow of a hayrick, and how could one conjure up Mock Turtles and Lorys and Gryphons on the dry land? Lewis Carroll’s own recollection of the beginning of “Alice” is certainly dated from that “golden afternoon” in the boat, and any idea of publishing the web of nonsense he was weaving never crossed his mind. Indeed, if he could have imagined that his small audience of three would grow to be as many millions in the years to come, the book would have lost half its charm, and the real child that lay hidden under the cap and gown of this grave young Student of thirty might never have been known to the world.

Into his mind, with all the freshness of unbidden thought, popped this story of Alice and her strange adventures, and while he chose the name of Alice in seeming carelessness, there is no doubt that the little maid who originally owned the name had many points in common with the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, never suspected save by the two most concerned.

To begin with, the real Alice had an Imagination; any child who demands nonsense in a story has an Imagination. Nothing was too impossible or absurd to put into a story, for one could always “make believe” it was something else you see, and a constant “make believe” made everything seem quite real. Dearly as he loved this posy of small girls, Lewis Carroll could not help being just the least bit partial to Alice, because, as he himself might have quaintly expressed it, she understood everything he said, even before he said it.

She was a dear little round, chubby child, a great camera favorite and consequently a frequent visitor to his rooms, for he took her picture on all occasions. One, as a beggar child, has become quite famous. She is pictured standing, with her ragged dress slipping from her shoulders and her right hand held as if begging for pennies; the other hand rests upon her hip, and her head is bent in a meek fashion; but the mouth has a roguish curve, and there is just the shadow of a laugh in the dark eyes, for of course it’s only “make believe,” and no one knows it better than Alice herself. Lewis Carroll liked the little bit of acting she did in this trifling part. A child’s acting always appealed to him, and many of his youngest and best friends were regularly on the stage.

He took another picture of the children perched upon a sofa; Lorina in the center, a little sister nestling close to her on either side, making a pretty pyramid of the three dark heads. Yet in studying the faces one can understand why it was Alice who inspired him. Lorina’s eyes are looking straight ahead, but the lids are dropped with a little conscious air, as if the business of having one’s picture taken was a very serious matter, to say nothing of the responsibility of keeping two small sisters in order. Edith is staring the camera out of countenance, uncertain whether to laugh or to frown, a pretty child with curls drooping over her face; but Alice, with the elf-locks and the straight heavy “bang,” is looking far away with those wonderful eyes of hers; perhaps she was even then thinking of Wonderland, perhaps even then a light flashed from her to Lewis Carroll in the shape of a promise to take her there some day. At any rate, if it hadn’t been for Alice there would have been no Wonderland, and without Wonderland, childhood is but a tale half-told, and even to this day, nearly fifty years since that “golden afternoon,” every little girl bearing the name of Alice who has read the book and has anything of an imagination, firmly believes that she is the sole and only Alice who could venture into Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland.

After he had told the story and the original Alice had expressed her approval, he promised to write it out for her to keep. Of course this took time, because, in the first place, his writing was not quite plain enough for a child to read easily, so every letter was carefully printed. Then the illustrations were troublesome, and he drew as many as he could, consulting a book on natural history for the correct forms of the queer animals Alice found. The Mock Turtle was his own invention, for there never was such an animal on land or sea.

This book was handed over to the small Alice, who little dreamed at that time of the treasure she was to have in her keeping. Over twenty years later, when Alice had become Mrs. Reginald Hargreaves, the great popularity of “Alice in Wonderland” tempted the publishers to bring out a reproduction of the original manuscript. This could not be done without borrowing the precious volume from the original Alice, who was willing to trust it in the hands of her old friend, knowing how over-careful he would be, and, as he resolved that he would not allow any workman to touch it, he had some funny experiences.

To reproduce a book it must first be photographed, and of course Lewis Carroll consulted an expert. He offered to bring the book to London, to go daily to his studio and hold it in position to be photographed, turning over the pages one by one, but the photographer wished to do all that himself. Finally, a man was found who was willing to come to Oxford and do the work in Lewis Carroll’s own way, while he stood near by turning over the pages himself rather than let him touch them.

The photographer succeeded in getting a fine set of negatives, and in October, 1880, Lewis Carroll sent the book in safe custody back to its owner, thinking his troubles were over. The next step was to have plates made from the pictures, and these plates in turn could pass into print. The photographer was prompt at first in delivering the plates as they were made, but, finally, like the Baker in “The Hunting of the Snark,” he “softly and suddenly vanished away,” holding still twenty-two of the fine blocks on which the plates were made, leaving the book so far—incomplete.

There ensued a lively search for the missing photographer. This lasted for months, thereby delaying the publication of the book, which was due Christmas. Then, as suddenly as he had disappeared, he reappeared like a ghost at the publishers, left eight of the twenty-two zinc blocks, and again vanished. Finally, when a year had passed and poor Lewis Carroll, at his wits’ end, had resolved to borrow the book again in order to photograph the remaining fourteen pages, the man was frightened by threats of arrest, and delivered up the fourteen negatives which he had not yet transferred to the blocks.

The distracted author was glad to find them, even though he had to pay a second time for getting the blocks done properly. However, the book was finished in time for the Christmas sale of 1886, just twenty-one years after “Alice” made her first bow, and the best thing about it was that all the profits were given to the Children’s Hospitals and Convalescent Homes for Sick Children. It was thoroughly illustrated with thirty-seven of the author’s own drawings, and the grown-up “Alice” received a beautiful special copy bound in white vellum; but pretty as it was, it could not take the place of that other volume carefully written out for the sole pleasure of one little girl. Nothing was too much trouble if it succeeded in giving pleasure to any little girl whom Lewis Carroll knew and loved; even those he did not really know, and consequently could not love, he sought to please, just because they were “little girls.”

Alice was among the chosen few who retained his friendship through the years. She was his first favorite, and she was indirectly the source of his good luck, and we may be sure there was a certain winsomeness about her long after the elf-locks were gathered into decorous coils of dark hair.

True, the formal old bachelor came forward in their later association, and the numerous letters he wrote her always began “My dear Mrs. Hargreaves,” but his fondness for her outlived many other passing affections.

To go back to the little Alice and the fair smiling river, and that wizard Lewis Carroll, who told the wonder tales so long ago. Once the children had a taste of “Alice,” she grew to be a great favorite; sometimes a chapter was told on the river, sometimes in his study, often in the garden or after tea in Christ Church Meadows—in fact, wherever they caught a glimpse of the grave young man in cap and gown, the trio of small Liddells fell upon him, and in this fashion, as he tells us himself, “the quaint events were hammered out.”

When he presented the promised copy it might have passed forever from his mind, which was full of the higher mathematics he was teaching to the young men of Christ Church, but he chanced one day to show the manuscript to George Macdonald, the well-known writer, who was so charmed with it that he advised his friend to send it to a publisher. He accordingly carried it to London, and Macmillan & Co. took it at once. This was a great surprise. He never dreamed of his nonsense being considered seriously, and growing suddenly about as young as a great, big, bashful boy, he refused to allow his own rough illustrations to appear in print, so he hunted over the long list of his artist friends, for the genius who could best illustrate the adventures of his dream-child. At last his friend, Tom Taylor, a well-known dramatist, suggested Mr. Tenniel, the clever cartoonist for Punch, who was quite willing to undertake this rather odd bit of work, and on July 4, 1865, exactly three years since that memorable afternoon, Alice Liddell received the first printed copy of “Alice in Wonderland,” the name the author finally selected for his book.

His first idea, as we know, was “Alice’s Adventures Underground,” the second was “Alice’s Hour in Elfland,” but the last seemed best of all, for Wonderland might mean any place where wonderful things could happen. And this was Lewis Carroll’s idea; anywhere the dream “Alice” chose to go would be Wonderland, and none knew better than he did how eagerly the child-mind paints its own fairy nooks and corners.

He was not at all excited about his first big venture; no doubt Alice herself took much more interest. To feel that you are about to be put into print is certainly a great experience, almost as great as being photographed; and, knowing how conscientious Lewis Carroll was about little things, we may be quite sure that her suggestions crept into many of the pictures, while it is equally certain that the few additions he made to the original “Alice” were carefully considered and firmly insisted upon by this critical young person.

The first edition of two thousand copies was a great disappointment; the pictures were badly printed, and all who had bought them were asked to send them back with their names and addresses, as a new edition would be printed immediately and they would then receive perfect copies. The old copies Lewis Carroll gave away to various homes and hospitals, while the new edition, upon which he feared a great loss, sold so rapidly that he was astonished, and still more so when edition after edition was demanded by the public, and far from being a failure, “Alice in Wonderland” brought her author both fame and money.

From that time forward, fortune smiled upon him; there were no strenuous efforts to increase his income. “Alice” yielded him an abundance each year, and he was beset by none of the cares and perplexities which are the dragons most writers encounter with their literary swords. He welcomed the fortune, not so much for the good it brought to him alone, but for the power it gave him to help others. His countless charities are not recorded because they were swallowed up in the “little things” he did, not in the great benefits which are trumpeted over the world. His own life, so simple, so full of purpose, flowed on as usual; he was not one to change his habits with the turn of Fortune’s wheel, no matter what it brought him.

Of course, everyone knew that a certain Lewis Carroll had written a clever, charming book of nonsense, called “Alice in Wonderland”; that he was an Oxford man, very much of a scholar, and little known outside of the University. What people did not know was that this same Lewis Carroll had for a double a certain “grave and reverend” young “don,” named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who, while “Alice” was making the whole world laugh, retired to his sanctum and wrote in rapid succession the following learned pamphlets: “The Condensation of Determinants,” “An Elementary Treatise on Determinants,” “The Fifth Book of Euclid, treated Algebraically,” “The Algebraic Formulæ for Responsions.”

Now, whatever these may be, they certainly did not interest children in the least, and Charles Lutwidge Dodgson did not care in the least, so long as he could smooth the thorny path of mathematics for his struggling undergraduates. But Lewis Carroll was quite a different matter. So long as the children were pleased, little he cared for algebra or geometry.

A funny tale is told about Queen Victoria. It seems that Lewis Carroll sent the second presentation copy of “Alice in Wonderland” to Princess Beatrice, the Queen’s youngest daughter. Her mother was so pleased with the book that she asked to have the author’s other works sent to her, and we can imagine her surprise when she received a large package of learned treatises by the mathematical lecturer of Christ Church College.

Who can tell through what curious byways the thought of the dream-child came dancing across the flagstones of the great “Tom Quad.” Yet across those same flagstones danced the little Liddells when they thought there was any possibility of a romp or a story; for Lewis Carroll lived in the northwest angle, while the girls lived in the beautiful deanery in the northeast angle, and it was only a “puss-in-the-corner” game to get from one place to the other.

“Alice” was written on the ground floor of this northwest angle, and it was in this sunny room that Lewis Carroll and the real Alice held many a consultation about the new book.

All true fame is to a certain extent due to accident; an act of heroism is generally performed on the spur of the moment; a great poem is an inspiration; a great invention, though preceded possibly by years of study, is born of a single moment’s inspiration; so “Alice” came to Lewis Carroll on the wings of inspiration. His study of girls and their varying moods has left its impress on a world of little girls, and there is scarcely a home to-day, in England or America, where there is not a special niche reserved for “Alice in Wonderland,” while this interesting young lady has been served up in French, German, Italian, and Dutch, and the famous poem of Father William has even been translated into Arabic. Whether the Chinese or the Japanese have discovered this funny little dream-child we cannot tell, but perhaps in time she may journey there and amuse the little maids with the jet-black hair, the creamy skin, and the slanting eyes. Perhaps she may even stir them to laughter.

Surely all must agree that the Gryphon himself bears a strong resemblance to the Chinese dragons, and it might be, such are the wonders of Wonderland, that the Mock Turtle can be found in Japan. Who knows! At any rate the little English Alice never thought of the consequences of that “golden afternoon”; it was good to be in the boat, to pull through the rippling waters and stir a faint breeze as the oars

“with little skill—

By little arms are plied”;

then to gather under the friendly shade of the hayrick and listen to the wonder tale “with lots of nonsense in it.”

Dear little Alice of Long Ago! To you we owe a debt of gratitude. All the little Alices of the past and all the little Alices of the future will have their Wonderland because, while floating up and down the river with the real Alice, Lewis Carroll found the Golden Key.

CHAPTER VII.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND AND WHAT SHE DID THERE.

Acertain little girl who had been poring over “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There” with eager interest, when asked which of the “Alices” she preferred, answered at once that she thought “Through the Looking-Glass” was “stupider” than “Alice in Wonderland,” and when people laughed she was surprised, for she had enjoyed both books.

Stupid was certainly not the word she meant to use, nor yet silly, which might have suggested itself if she had stopped to think. Nonsense is really what she meant, and only very poor nonsense can be stupid or silly. Good nonsense is exceedingly clever; it takes clever people to write it and only clever people can understand and appreciate it, so when the real Alice hoped “there would be nonsense in it” she was only looking for what she was sure to find: something odd, bright, and funny, with a laugh tucked away in unexpected places.

Nonsense is very ancient and respectable, tracing its origin back to the days of the Court Fool, whose office it was to make merry for the king and courtiers. An undersized man was usually selected, one with some deformity being preferred, whereat the courtiers might laugh; one with sharp tongue and ready wit, to make the time fly. He was clothed in “motley”—that is, his dress, cut in the fashion of the times, was of many ill-assorted hues, while the fool’s cap with its bells, and the bauble or rattle which he held in his hand, completed his grotesque appearance.

To the Fool was allowed the freedom of the court and a close intimacy with his royal master, to whom he could say what he pleased without fear of offense; his duty was to amuse, and the sharper his wit the better. It was called nonsense, though a sword could not thrust with keener malice, and historic moments have often hung upon a fool’s jest. The history of the Court Fool is the history of mediæval England, France, Spain, and Italy, of a time when a quick figure of speech might turn the tide of war, and the Fool could reel off his “nonsense” when others dared not speak. No one was spared; the king himself was often the victim of the fool’s tongue, and under the guise of nonsense much wisdom lurked.

So it has been ever since; the Court Jester has passed away with other old court customs, but the nonsense that was “writ in books” lived after them, so good, so wholesome that we laugh at it with its old-time swing and sting.

The nonsense that we find in books to-day is of a higher order than that of the poor little Court Fool who, swaggering outwardly, trembled inwardly, as he sent his barbed shaft of wit against some lordly breast. The wisdom hides in the simple fun of everyday that makes life a thing of sunshine and holds the shadows back.

Lewis Carroll had this gift of nonsense more than any other writer of his time. Dickens and Thackeray possessed wit and humor of a high quality, but they could not command so large an audience, for children turn to healthy nonsense as sunflowers to the sun, and Lewis Carroll gave them all they wanted. “Grown-ups,” too, began to listen, detecting behind the fun much, perhaps, which had escaped even the author himself, until he put on his “grown-up” glasses and began to ponder.

Where the real charm lies in “Alice in Wonderland” would be very difficult to say. If a thousand children were asked to pick out their favorite parts, it is probable that not ten of them would think alike. A great many would say “I like any part,” and really with such a fascinating book how can one choose? The very opening is enough to cure any little girl of drowsiness on a summer day, and the picture of the pompous little White Rabbit with his bulging waistcoat and his imposing watch chain, for all the world like an everyday Englishman, is a type no doubt that the lively little girls and the grave young “don” knew pretty well.

Every page gives one something to think about. To begin with, the fact that Alice is dreaming, is plain from the beginning, and that very odd sensation of falling through space often comes during the first few moments of sleep. A busy dreamer can accomplish a great deal in a very short time, as we all know, and the most remarkable things happen in the simplest way. There is a story, for instance, of one little girl, who, after a nice warm bath, was carried to bed and tucked in up to her rosy chin. Her heavy eyes shut immediately and lo! in half a minute she was back in the big porcelain tub, splashing about like a little mermaid; then nurse pulled the stopper out, and through the waste-pipe went water, small girl, and all. When she opened her eyes with a start, she found she had been dreaming not quite two minutes. So suppose the real Alice had been dreaming a half an hour; it was quite long enough to skip through “Wonderland,” and to have delightful and curious things constantly happening.

It was the White Rabbit talking to himself that first attracted her, but a short stay in “Wonderland” got her quite used to all sorts of animals and their funny talk, and the way she had of growing larger or smaller on the shortest notice was very puzzling and amusing. How like real people was this dream-child; how many everyday folks find themselves too small for great places, and too great for the small ones, and how many experiments they try to make themselves larger or smaller! You see Lewis Carroll thought of all this, though he did not spoil his story by stopping to explain. It is, indeed, poor nonsense that has to be explained every step of the way.

The dream “Alice” just at first was apt to cry if anything unusual or unpleasant happened; a bad habit with some children, the real Alice was given to understand. At any rate, when she drank out of the bottle that tasted of “cherry tart, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, toffy, and hot buttered toast,” and found herself growing smaller and smaller, she cried, because she was only ten inches high and could not possibly reach the Golden Key on the glass table. Then she took herself to task very sharply, saying: “Come, there’s no use in crying like that! I advise you to leave off this minute!”

“She generally gave herself very good advice (though she seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes, and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. ‘But it’s no use now,’ thought poor Alice, ‘to pretend to be two people, when there’s hardly enough left of me to make one respectable person.’”

Then when she found the little glass box with a cake in it marked “Eat Me” in currants, she decided that if she ate it something different might happen, for otherwise she would go out like a candle if she grew any smaller. Of course, as soon as she swallowed the whole cake, she took a start and soon stood nine feet high in her slippers.

“‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice (she was so surprised that for the moment she quite forgot to speak good English), ‘now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was. Good-bye, feet!’ (for when she looked down at her feet they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off.) ‘Oh, my poor little feet! I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m sure I shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you; you must manage the best way you can; but I must be kind to them,’ thought Alice, ‘or perhaps they won’t walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.’”

“And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. ‘They must go by the carrier,’ she thought; ‘and how funny it’ll seem, sending presents to one’s own feet, and how odd the directions will look!

Alice’s Right Foot, Esq.,

Hearthrug,

near the Fender,

(with Alice’s love).

Oh, dear, what nonsense I’m talking.’”

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

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

This change she found more puzzling still: everything seemed mixed up, the Multiplication Table, Geography, even the verses which had been familiar to her from babyhood. She tried to say “How doth the little busy bee,” but the words would not come right; instead she began repeating, in a hoarse, strange voice, the following noble lines:

“How doth the little crocodile

Improve his shining tail,

And pour the waters of the Nile

On every golden scale!

“How cheerfully he seems to grin,

How neatly spreads his claws,

And welcomes little fishes in,

With gently smiling jaws!”

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

When the book was translated into French, however, this odd little rhyme not being known to the French children, the translator, M. Henri Bué, had to substitute something else which they could understand—one of their own French rhymes made into a parody of La Fontaine’s “Maître Corbeau” (Master Raven).

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

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

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

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

“The time and place of the Lory’s birth is uncertain; the egg from which it was hatched was most probably, to judge from the colour of the bird, one of those magnificent Easter eggs which our readers have doubtless seen. The experiment of hatching an Easter egg is at any rate worth trying.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“‘Who are you?’ said the Caterpillar.

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

“‘What do you mean by that?’ said the Caterpillar sternly. ‘Explain yourself!’

“‘I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, sir,’ said Alice, ‘because I’m not myself, you see.’

“‘I don’t see,’ said the Caterpillar.

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

“‘It isn’t,’ said the Caterpillar.

“‘Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,’ said Alice, ‘but when you have to turn into a chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel it a little queer, won’t you?’

“‘Not a bit,’ said the Caterpillar.

“‘Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,’ said Alice; ‘all I know is, it would feel very queer to me.’

“‘You!’ said the Caterpillar, contemptuously, ‘Who are you?’ Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation.”

It was the Caterpillar who asked her to recite “You are old, Father William,” and Alice began in this fashion:

“You are old, Father William,” the young man said,

“And your hair has become very white;

And yet you incessantly stand on your head—

Do you think at your age it is right?”

“In my youth,” Father William replied to his son,

“I feared it might injure the brain;

But now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,

Why, I do it again and again.”

“You are old,” said the youth, “as I mentioned before,

And have grown most uncommonly fat;

Yet you turned a back somersault in at the door—

Pray, what is the reason of that?”

“In my youth,” said the sage, as he shook his gray locks,

“I kept all my limbs very supple

By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box—

Allow me to sell you a couple.”

“You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too weak

For anything tougher than suet;

Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—

Pray, how did you manage to do it?”

“In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law,

And argued each case with my wife;

And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw

Has lasted the rest of my life.”

“You are old,” said the youth; “one would hardly suppose

That your eye was as steady as ever;

Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—

What made you so awfully clever?”

“I have answered three questions, and that is enough,”

Said his father; “don’t give yourself airs!

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

Be off, or I’ll kick you downstairs!”

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

One odd thing about her change of size was that she never grew up or dwindled away unless she ate something or drank something. Now every little girl has had similar experience when it came to eating and drinking. “Eat so and so,” says a “grown-up,” “and you will be tall and strong,” and “if you don’t eat this thing or that, you will be little all your life,” so Alice was only going through the same trials in Wonderland.

Her meeting with the Duchess and the peppery Cook, and the screaming Baby, and the grinning Cheshire Cat, occupied some thrilling moments. She found the Duchess conversational but cross, and the Cook sprinkling pepper lavishly into the soup she was stirring, and out of it for the matter of that, so that everybody was sneezing. The Cat was the sole exception; it sat on the hearth and grinned from ear to ear. Alice opened the conversation by asking the Duchess, who was holding the Baby and jumping it up and down so roughly that it howled dismally, why the Cat grinned in that absurd way.

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

“‘I didn’t know that Cheshire Cats always grinned—in fact I didn’t know that Cats could grin.’

“‘They all can,’ said the Duchess, ‘and most of ’em do.’

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

“‘You don’t know much,’ said the Duchess; ‘and that’s a fact.’

“Alice did not like the tone of this remark and thought it would be well to introduce some other subject of conversation.”

Then the Cook began throwing things about, and the Duchess, to quiet the howling Baby, sang the following beautiful lullaby, which she emphasized by a violent shake at the end of every line. Considering Lewis Carroll’s rather strong feeling on the boy question, they were most appropriate lines, indeed.

Speak roughly to your little boy,

And beat him when he sneezes;

He only does it to annoy,

Because he know it teases.

Chorus.

(In which the Cook and the Baby joined.)

Wow! wow! wow!

I speak severely to my boy,

I beat him when he sneezes,

For he can thoroughly enjoy

The pepper when he pleases!

Chorus.

Wow! wow! wow!

Imagine the quiet “don” beating time to this beautiful measure, his blue eyes gleaming with fun, his expressive voice shaded to just the right tones to give colour to the chorus, while the little girls chimed in at the proper moment. It was no trouble for him to make rhymes, being endowed with this wonderful gift of nonsense, and in conversation he was equally clever. He gave the Duchess quite the air of a learned lady, even though she did not know that mustard was a vegetable. When Alice suggested that it was a mineral, she was quite ready to agree. “‘There’s a large mustard mine near here,’ she observed, ‘and the moral of that is’ [the Duchess had a moral for everything], ‘The more there is of mine—the less there is of yours.’ ‘Oh, I know!’ exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this last remark, ‘it’s a vegetable. It doesn’t look like one but it is.’

“‘I quite agree with you,’ said the Duchess, ‘and the moral of that is, “Be what you would seem to be,” or if you’d like to put it more simply, “Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.”’

“‘I think I should understand that better,’ said Alice, very politely, ‘if I had it written down, but I can’t quite follow it as you say it.’

“‘That’s nothing to what I could say if I chose,’” the Duchess replied in a pleasant tone.

Alice’s talk with the Cheshire Cat, which had the remarkable power of appearing and vanishing in portions, the table gossip at the Mad Tea Party, to which she was an uninvited guest, are too well-known to quote. Many a time the Mad Tea Party has been the theme of some nursery play or school entertainment. The Mad Hatter and the March Hare were certainly the maddest things that ever were. When the Hatter complained of his watch being two days wrong, he turned angrily to the March Hare, saying:

“‘I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works.’

“‘It was the best butter,’ the March Hare meekly replied.

“‘Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,’ the Hatter grumbled; ‘you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread knife.’

“The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily; then he dipped it into his cup of tea and looked at it again; but he could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, ‘It was the best butter you know.’”

Surely nothing could be more amusing that this party of mad ones, and the sleepy Dormouse, who sat between the March Hare and the Hatter, contributed his share to the fun, while the Hatter’s songs, which he sang at the concert given by the Queen of Hearts, was certainly very familiar to Alice. It began:

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat—

How I wonder what you’re at!

Up above the world you fly,

Like a tea tray in the sky.

Twinkle, twinkle.

Who but Lewis Carroll could invent such a scene? Who could better plan the little sparkling sentences which gave the nonsense just the glitter which children found so fascinating and so laughable. Yet what did they laugh at after all? What do we laugh at even to-day in glancing over the familiar pages? What is it in the mysterious depths of childhood which Lewis Carroll has caught in his golden web? Perhaps, it is not all mere childhood; we are ourselves but “children of a larger growth,” and deep down within us at some time or other fancy runs riot and imagination does the rest. So it was with Lewis Carroll, only his fancy soared into genius, carrying with it, as someone has said, “a suggestion of clear and yet soft laughing sunshine. He never made us laugh at anything, but always with him and his knights and queens and heroes of the nursery rhymes.”

Behind much of the world’s laughter tears may be hiding, but not so in the case of Lewis Carroll; all is pure mirth that flows from him to us, and above all he possesses that indescribable thing called charm. It lurks in the quaint conversations, in the fluent measure of the songs, in the fantastic scenes so full of ideas that seem to vanish before we quite grasp them—like the Cheshire Cat—leaving only the smile behind.

To those of us—the world in short—who were denied the privilege of hearing Lewis Carroll tell his own story, the Tenniel pictures bring Wonderland very close. Our natural history alone would not help us in the least when it came to classifying the many strange animals Alice met on her journey. The Mock Turtle, the Gryphon, the Lory, the Dodo, the Cheshire Cat, the Fish and Frog footmen—how could we imagine them without the Tenniel “guidebook”? The numberless transformations of Alice could hardly be understood without photographs of her in the various stages. And certainly at the croquet party, given by the Queen of Hearts, how could anyone imagine a game played with bent-over soldiers for wickets, hedgehogs for croquet balls, and flamingoes for mallets, unless there were accompanying illustrations?

One specially interesting picture shows the Gryphon in the foreground; he and Alice paid a visit to the Mock Turtle, who, by way of entertaining his guests, gave the following description of the Lobster Quadrille. With tears running down his cheeks he began:

“‘You have never lived much under the sea’ (‘I haven’t,’ said Alice) ‘and perhaps you were never introduced to a lobster—’ (Alice began to say ‘I once tasted—’ but she checked herself hastily, and said, ‘No, never’), ‘so you can have no idea what a delightful thing a Lobster Quadrille is!’

“‘No, indeed,’ said Alice. ‘What sort of a dance is it?’

“‘Why,’ said the Gryphon, ‘you first form into a line along the seashore.’

“‘Two lines!’ cried the Mock Turtle. ‘Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on; then when you’ve cleared all the jellyfish out of the way—’

“‘That generally takes some time,’ interrupted the Gryphon.

“‘You advance twice.’

“‘Each with a lobster as a partner!’ cried the Gryphon.

“‘Of course,’ the Mock Turtle said; ‘advance twice, set to partners—’

“‘Change lobsters and retire in same order,’ continued the Gryphon.

“‘Then, you know,’ the Mock Turtle went on, ‘you throw the—’

“‘The lobsters!’ shouted the Gryphon with a bound into the air.

“‘As far out to sea as you can—’

“‘Swim after them!’ screamed the Gryphon.

“‘Turn a somersault in the sea!’ cried the Mock Turtle, capering wildly about.

“‘Change lobsters again!’ yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice.

“‘Back to land again, and—that’s all the first figure,’ said the Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping his voice, and the two creatures who had been jumping about like mad things all this time sat down again, very sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice.”

Who could read this without laughing, with no reason for the laugh but sheer delight and sympathy with the story-teller, and with dancing and motion and all the rest of it. If anyone begins to hunt for the reasons why we like “Alice in Wonderland” that person is either very, very sleepy, or she has left her youth so far behind her that, like the Lory, she absolutely refuses to tell her age, in which case she must be as old as the hills.

Then the dance, which the two gravely performed for the little girl, and who can forget the song of the Mock Turtle?

“Will you walk a little faster!” said a whiting to a snail,

“There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.

See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!

They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance?

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?

“You can really have no notion how delightful it will be

When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!”

But the snail replied, “Too far, too far!” and gave a look askance—

Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.

Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.

Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.

“What matters it how far we go?” his scaly friend replied,

“There is another shore, you know, upon the other side,

The farther off from England the nearer is to France;

Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?”

Then Alice tried to repeat “’Tis the voice of the Sluggard,” but she was so full of the Lobster Quadrille that the words came like this:

’Tis the voice of the lobster, I heard him declare,

“You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.”

As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose

Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.

The whole time she was in Wonderland she never by any chance recited anything correctly, and through all of her wanderings she never met anything in the shape of a little boy, except the infant son of the Duchess, who after all turned out to be a pig and vanished in the woods. The “roundabouts” played no parts in “Alice in Wonderland,” and yet—to a man—they love it to this day.

When at last Alice bade farewell to the Mock Turtle, she left it sobbing of course, and singing with much emotion the following song, entitled:

TURTLE SOUP.

Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,

Waiting in a hot tureen!

Who for such dainties would not stoop?

Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,

Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,

Game, or any other dish

Who would not give all else for two

pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?

Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,

Beautiful, beauti—ful Soup!

We might spend a whole chapter over the great trial scene of the Knave of Hearts. We all know that the wretched fellow stole some tarts upon a summer’s day, and that he was brought in chains before the King and Queen, to face the charges. What we did not know was that it was the fourth of July, and that Alice was one of the witnesses.

This, in a certain way, is the cleverest chapter in the book, for all the characters in Wonderland take part in the proceedings, which are so like, and yet so comically unlike, a real court. We forget, as Alice did, that all these royalties are but a pack of cards, and follow all the evidence with the greatest interest, including the piece of paper which the White Rabbit had just found and presented to the Court. It contained the following verses:

They told me you had been to her,

And mentioned me to him:

She gave me a good character,

But said I could not swim.

He sent them word I had not gone

(We know it to be true):

If she should push the matter on,

What would become of you?

I gave her one, they gave him two,

You gave us three or more:

They all returned from him to you,

Though they were mine before.

If I or she should chance to be

Involved in this affair,

He trusts to you to set them free,

Exactly as we were.

My notion was that you had been

(Before she had this fit)

An obstacle that came between

Him, and ourselves, and it.

Don’t let him know she liked them best,

For this must ever be

A secret, kept from all the rest,

Between yourself and me.

This truly clear explanation touches the Queen of Hearts so closely that the outsider is led to believe that she is indirectly responsible for the theft, that the poor knave is but the tool of her Majesty, whose fondness for tarts led her into temptation. Lewis Carroll had a keen eye for the dramatic climax—the packed court room, the rambling evidence, the mystifying scrap of paper, and Alice’s defiance of the King and Queen.

“‘Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved. ‘Who cares for you?’ said Alice (she had grown to her full size by this time), ‘you’re nothing but a pack of cards.’

“At this, the whole pack rose up in the air and came flying down upon her; she gave a little scream, half of fright, half of anger, and tried to beat them off and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees on to her face....”

And so Alice woke up, shook back the elf-locks, and laughed as she rubbed her eyes.

“Such a curious dream!” she said, as the wonder of it all came back to her, and she told her sister of the queer things she had seen and heard, and long after she had run away, this big sister sat with closed eyes, dreaming and wondering.

“The long grass rustled at her feet as the White Rabbit hurried by; the frightened Mouse splashed his way through the neighboring pool; she could hear the rattle of the teacups as the March Hare and his friends shared their never-ending meal, and the shrill voice of the Queen ordering off her unfortunate guests to execution. Once more the pig-baby was sneezing on the Duchess’s knee, while plates and dishes crashed around it; once more the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the Lizard’s slate pencil, and the choking of the suppressed Guinea Pigs filled the air, mixed up with the distant sob of the miserable Mock Turtle.”

Yet when she opened her eyes she knew that Wonderland must go. In reality “the grass would only be rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds, the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep bells and the Queen’s shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd boy, and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other queer noises would change ... to the confused clamor of the busy farmyard, while the lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle’s heavy sobs.”

So we have dreamed of Wonderland from that time till now, when Lewis Carroll looks out from the pages of his book and says:

“That’s all—for to-night—there may be more to-morrow.”

CHAPTER VIII.

LEWIS CARROLL AT HOME AND ABROAD.

The popularity of “Alice in Wonderland” was a never-ending source of surprise to the author, who had only to stand quietly by and rake in his profits, as edition after edition was swallowed up by a public incessantly clamoring for more, and Lewis Carroll was not too modest to enjoy the sensation he was creating in the literary world. His success came to him unsought, and was all the more lasting because the seeds of it were planted in love and laughter. Let us see what he says in the preface to “Alice Underground,” the forerunner, as we know, of “Alice in Wonderland.”

“The ‘why’ of this book cannot and need not be put into words. Those for whom a child’s mind is a sealed book, and who see no divinity in a child’s smile, would read such words in vain; while for any one who has ever loved one true child, no words are needed. For he will have known the awe that falls on one in the presence of a spirit, fresh from God’s hands, on whom no shadow of sin, and but the outermost fringe of the shadow of sorrow, has yet fallen; he will have felt the bitter contrast between the haunting selfishness that spoils his best deeds and the life that is but an overflowing love—for I think a child’s first attitude to the world is a simple love for all living things—and he will have learned that the best work a man can do is when he works for love’s sake only, with no thought of name or gain or earthly reward. No deed of ours, I suppose, on this side of the grave is really unselfish, yet if one can put forth all one’s powers in a task where nothing of reward is hoped for but a little child’s whispered thanks, and the airy touch of a little child’s pure lips, one seems to have come somewhere near to this.”

In the appendix to the same book he writes regarding laughter:

“I do not believe God means us to divide life into two halves—to wear a grave face on Sunday, and to think it out of place even so much as to mention Him on a week-day.... Surely the children’s innocent laughter is as sweet in His ears as the grandest anthem that ever rolled up from ‘the dim religious light’ of some solemn cathedral; and if I have written anything to add to those stores of innocent and healthy amusement that are laid up in books for the children I love so well, it is surely something I may hope to look back upon without shame or sorrow ... when my turn comes to walk through the valley of shadows.”

Such was the man who filled the world with laughter, and wrote “nonsense” books; a man of such deeply religious feeling that a jest that touched upon sacred things, however innocent in itself, was sure to bring down his wrath upon the head of the offender. There is a certain strain of sadness in those quoted words of his, which surely never belonged to those “golden summer days” when he made merry with the three little Liddells. We must remember that twenty-one years had passed between the telling of the story and the reprint of the original manuscript, and Lewis Carroll was just a little graver and considerably older than on that eventful day when the White Rabbit looked at his watch as if to say: “Oh—my ears and whiskers! What will the Duchess think!” as he popped down the hole with Alice at his heels.

But we are going a little too far ahead. After the writing of “Alice,” with the accompanying excitement of seeing his first-born win favor, Lewis Carroll went quietly forward in his daily routine. He had already become quite a famous lecturer, being, indeed, the only mathematical lecturer in Christ Church College, so Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was not completely overshadowed by the glory of Lewis Carroll.

From the beginning he was careful to separate these two sides of his life, and the numbers of letters which soon began to pour in upon the latter were never recognized by the grave, precise “don,” whose thoughts flowed in numbers, and so it was all through his life. When anyone wrote to him, addressing him by his real name, and praising him for the “Alice” books, he sent a printed reply which he kept “handy,” saying that as C. L. Dodgson was so often approached as the author of books bearing another name, it must be understood that Mr. Dodgson never acknowledged the authorship of a book which did not bear his name. He was most careful in the wording of this printed form, that it should bear no shadow of untruth. It was only his shy way of avoiding the notice of strangers, and it succeeded so well that very few people knew that the Rev. Charles Dodgson and Lewis Carroll were one and the same person. It was also hinted, and very broadly, too, that many of the queer characters Alice met on her journey through Wonderland were very dignified and stately figures in the University itself, who posed unconsciously as models. The Hatter is an acknowledged portrait, and no doubt there were many other sly caricatures, for Lewis Carroll was a born humorist.

“Alice” has been given to the public in many ways besides translations. There have been lectures, plays, magic lantern slides of Tenniel’s wonderful pictures, tableaux; and many scenes find their way, even at this day, in the nursery wall-paper covered over with Gryphons and Mock Turtles and the whole Court of Cards—a most imposing array. It has been truly stated that, with the exception of Shakespeare’s plays, no books have been so often quoted as the two “Alices.”

After the publication of “Alice in Wonderland,” Lewis Carroll contributed short stories to the various periodicals which were eager for his work. As early as 1867, he sent to Aunt Judy’s Magazine a short story called “Bruno’s Revenge,” the foundation of “Sylvie and Bruno,” which was never published in book form until 1889, twenty-two years after.

The editor of the magazine, Mrs. Gatty, in accepting the story, gave the author some wholesome advice wrapped up in a bundle of praise for the dainty little idyll. She reminded him that mathematical ability such as he possessed was also the gift of hundreds of others, but his story-telling talent, so full of exquisite touches, was peculiarly his own, and whatever of fame might come to him would be on the wings of the fairies, and not from the lecture room.

In “Bruno’s Revenge” we have, for the first time in any of his stories, a little boy. It was a sort of unwilling tribute Lewis Carroll paid to the poor despised “roundabouts,” and for all the winsome fairy ways and merry little touches, Bruno was never quite the real thing; at any rate the story was put away to simmer, and as the long years passed, it was added to bit by bit until—but that is another story.

Between the publication of “Alice” and the summer vacation of 1867 he wrote several very learned mathematical works that earned him much distinction among the Christ Church undergraduates, who found it hard to believe that Mr. Dodgson and Lewis Carroll were so closely connected. It was during this summer (1867) that he and Dr. Liddon took a short tour on the Continent.

The two men had much in common and were firm friends. Both had the true Oxford spirit, both were churchmen, Dr. Liddon being quite a famous preacher, and both were men of high intelligence with a good supply of humor; consequently the prospect of a trip to Russia together was a very delightful one. Lewis Carroll kept a journal which was such a complete record of his experiences that at one time he thought of publishing it, though it was never done.

He went up to London on July 12th, remarking in his characteristic way that he and the Sultan of Turkey arrived on the same day, his entrance being at Paddington station—the Sultan’s at Charing Cross, where, he was forced to admit, the crowd was much greater. He met Dr. Liddon at Dover and they crossed to Calais, finding the passage unusually smooth and uneventful, feeling in some way that they had paid their money in vain, for the trip across the channel is generally one of storm and stress.

All such tours have practically the same object—to see and to enjoy—and the young “don” came out of his den for this express purpose. It had been impossible in the busy years since his graduation to take his holidays far away from home, but at the age of thirty-five he felt that he had earned the right, and proceeded to use it in his own way. Their route lay through Germany, stopping at Cologne, Danzig, Berlin and Königsberg, among other places, and he feasted on the beauties which these various cities had to offer him; the architecture and paintings, the pageantry of strange religions, the music in the great cathedrals, and last, but not least, the foreign drama interested him greatly. The German acting was easy enough to follow, as he knew a little of the language; but the Russian tongue was beyond him, and he could only rely upon the gestures and expression.

Their special object in going to Russia was to see the great fair at Nijni-Novgorod. This fair brought all the corners of the earth together; Chinese, Persians, Tartars, native Russians, mingled in the busy, surging life about them, and lent colour and variety to every step. The two friends spent their time pleasantly, for the fame of Dr. Liddon’s preaching had reached Russia, and the clergy opened their doors to the travelers and took them over many churches and monasteries, which otherwise they might never have seen. They stopped in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kronstadt, Warsaw, taking in Leipzig, Giessen, Ems, and many smaller places on the homeward road.

They visited a famous monastery while in Moscow, and were even shown the subterranean cells of the hermits. At Kronstadt they had a most amusing experience. They went to call upon a friend, and Dr. Liddon, forgetting his scanty knowledge of the Russian language, rashly handed his overcoat to one of the servants. When they were ready to leave there was a waiting-maid in attendance—but no overcoat. The damsel spoke no English, the gentleman spoke no Russian, so Dr. Liddon asked for his overcoat with what he considered the most appropriate gesture. Intelligence beamed upon the maiden’s face; she ran from the room, returning with a clothes brush. No, Dr. Liddon did not want his coat brushed; he tried other gestures, succeeding so beautifully that the girl was convinced that he wanted to take a nap on the sofa, and brought a cushion and a pillow for that purpose. Still no overcoat, and Dr. Liddon was in despair until Lewis Carroll made a sketch of his friend with one coat on, in the act of putting on another, in the hands of an obliging Russian peasant. The drawing was so expressive that the maid understood at once; the mystery was solved—and the coat recovered.

With this gift of drawing a situation, it is remarkable that Lewis Carroll never became an artist. With all his artistic ideas, and with his real knowledge of art, it seems a pity that he could not have gratified his ambition, but after serious consultation with John Ruskin, who as critic and friend examined his work, he decided that his natural gift was not great enough to push, and sensibly resolved not to waste so much precious time. Still, to the end of his life, he drew for amusement’s sake and for the pleasure it gave his small friends.

Altogether their tour was a very pleasant one, and their return was through Germany, that most interesting country of hills and valleys and pretty white villages nestling among the trees. What Lewis Carroll specially liked was the way the old castles seemed to spring out of the rock on which they had been built, as if they had grown there without the aid of bricks and mortar. He admired the spirit of the old architects, which guided them to plan buildings naturally suited to their surroundings, and was never tired of the beautiful hills, so densely covered with small trees as to look moss-grown in the distance.

On his return to Oxford, he plunged at once into very active work. The new term was beginning—there were lectures to prepare and courses to plan, and undergraduates to interview, all of which kept him quite busy for a while, though it did not interfere with certain cozy afternoon teas, when he related his summer adventures to his numerous girl friends, and kept them in a gale of laughter over his many queer experiences.

But these same little girls were clamoring for another book, and a hundred thousand others were alike eager for it, to judge by the heavy budgets of mail he received, so he cast about in that original mind of his for a worthy sequel to “Alice in Wonderland.” He was willing to write a sequel then, for “Alice” was still fresh and amusing to a host of children, and its luster had been undimmed as yet by countless imitations. To be sure “Alice in Blunderland” had appeared in Punch, the well-known English paper of wit and humor, but then Punch was Punch, and spared nothing which might yield a ripple of laughter.

When it was known that he had finally determined to write the book, a leading magazine offered him two guineas a page (a sum equal to about ten dollars in our money) for the privilege of printing it as a serial. This story as we know was called “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There,” though few people take time to use the full title. It is usually read by youngsters right “on top” of “Alice in Wonderland.” They speak of the two books as the “Alices,” and some of the best editions are even bound together, so closely are the stories connected.

With Lewis Carroll’s aptness for doing things backward, is it any wonder that he pushed Alice through the Looking-Glass? And so full of grace and beauty and absurd situations is the story he has given us, we quite forget that it was written for the public, and not entirely for three little girls “all on a summer’s day.” No doubt they heard the chapters for they were right there across “Tom Quad” and could be summoned by a whistle, if need be, along with some other little girls who had sprung up within the walls of Christ Church.

At any rate the story turned out far beyond his expectations and he was again fortunate in securing Tenniel as his illustrator. It was no easy task to illustrate for Lewis Carroll, who criticised every stroke, and being quite enough of an artist to know exactly what he wanted, he was never satisfied until he had it. This often tried the patience of those who worked with him, but his own good humor and unfailing courtesy generally won in the end.

In the midst of this pleasant work came the greatest sorrow of his life, the death of his father, Archdeacon Dodgson, on June 21, 1868. Seventeen years had passed since his mother’s death, which had left him stunned on the very threshold of his college life; but he was only a boy in spite of his unusual gravity, and his youth somehow fought for him when he battled with his grief. In those intervening years, he and his father had grown very close together. One never took a step without consulting the other. Christ Church and all it meant to one of them was alike dear to the other. The archdeacon took the keenest interest in his son’s outside work, and we may be quite sure that “Alice” was as much read and as thoroughly enjoyed by this grave scholar as by any other member of his household. It was the suddenness of his death which left its lasting mark on Lewis Carroll, and the fact that he was summoned too late to see his father alive. It was a terrible shock, and a grief of which he could never speak. He wrote some beautiful letters about it, but those who knew him well respected the wall of silence he erected.

In truth, our quiet, self-contained “don” was a man of deep emotions; the quiet, the poise, had come through years of inward struggle, and he maintained it at the cost of being considered a little cold by people who never could know the trouble it had been to smother the fire. He put away his sorrow with other sacred things, and on his return to Oxford went to work in his characteristic way on a pamphlet concerning the Fifth Book of Euclid, written principally to aid the students during examinations, and which was considered an excellent bit of work.

In November, 1868, he moved into new quarters in Christ Church and, as he occupied these rooms for the rest of his life, a little description of them just here would not be out of place.

“Tom Quad,” we must not forget, was the Great Quadrangle of Christ Church, where all the masters and heads of the college lived with their families. This was called being in residence, and a pretty sight it was to see the great stretch of green, and its well-kept paths gay with the life that poured from the doors and peeped through the windows of this wonderful place; a sunny day brought out all the young ones, and just here Lewis Carroll’s closest ties were formed.

The angles of “Tom Quad” were the choice spots for a lodging, and Lewis Carroll lived in the west angle, first on the ground floor, where, as we know, “Alice in Wonderland” was written; then, when he made his final move, it was to the floor above, which was brighter and sunnier, giving him more rooms and more space. This upper floor looked out upon the flat roof of the college, an excellent place for photography, to which he was still devoted, and he asked permission of those in charge to erect a studio there. This was easily obtained, and could the walls tell tales they would hum with the voices of the celebrated “flies” this clever young “spider” lured into his den. For he took beautiful photographs at a time when photography was not the perfect system that it is now, and nothing pleased him better than posing well-known people. All the big lights of Oxford sat before his camera, including Lord Salisbury, who was Chancellor at that time. Artists, sculptors, writers, actors of note had their pleasant hour in Lewis Carroll’s studio.

Our “don” was very partial to great people, that is, the truly great, the men and women who truly counted in the world, whether by birth and breeding or by some accomplished deed or high aim. Being a cultured gentleman himself, he had a vast respect for culture in other people—not a bad trait when all is told, and setting very naturally upon an Englishman born of gentle stock, with generations of ladies and gentlemen at his back. One glance into the sensitive, refined face of Charles Dodgson would convince us at once that no friendship he ever formed had anything but the highest aim for him. He might have chosen for his motto—

“Only what thou art in thyself, not what thou hast, determines thy value.”

Even among his girl friends, the “little lady,” no matter how poor or plain, was his first object; that was a strong enough foundation. The rest was easy.

But here we have been outside in the studio soaring a bit in the sky, when our real destination is that suite of beautiful big rooms where Lewis Carroll lived and wrote and entertained his many friends, for hospitality was one of his greatest pleasures, and his dining-room and dinner parties are well remembered by every child friend he knew, to say nothing of those privileged elders who were sometimes allowed to join them. He was very particular about his dinners and luncheons, taking care to have upon the table only what his young guests could eat.

He had four sitting rooms and quite as many bedrooms, to say nothing of store-rooms, closets and so forth. His study was a great room, full of comfortable sofas and chairs, and stools and tables, and cubby-holes and cupboards, where many wonderfully interesting things were hidden from view, to be brought forth at just the right moment for special entertainment.

Lewis Carroll had English ideas about comfortable surroundings. He loved books, and his shelves were well filled with volumes of his own choosing; a rare and valuable library, where each book was a tried friend.

A man with so many sitting rooms must certainly have had use for them all, and knowing how methodical he was we may feel quite sure that the room where he wrote “Through the Looking-Glass” was not the sanctum where he prepared his lectures and wrote his books on Logic and Higher Mathematics; it might have served for an afternoon frolic or a tea party of little girls; that would have been in keeping, as probably he received the undergraduates in his sanctum.

As for the other two sitting rooms, “let’s pretend,” as Alice herself says, that one was dedicated to the writing of poetry, and the other to the invention of games and puzzles; he had quite enough work of all kinds on hand to keep every room thoroughly aired. We shall hear about these rooms again from little girls whose greatest delight it was to visit them. What we want to do now is to picture Lewis Carroll in his new quarters, energetically pushing Alice through the Looking-Glass, while at the same time he was busily writing “Phantasmagoria,” a queer ghost poem which attracted much attention. It was published with a great many shorter poems in the early part of 1869, preceding the publication of the new “Alice,” on which he was working chapter by chapter with Sir John Tenniel.

It was wonderful how closely the artist followed the queer mazes of Lewis Carroll’s thought. He was able to draw the strange animals and stranger situations just as the author wished to have them, but there came a point at which the artist halted and shook his head.

“I don’t like the ‘Wasp Chapter,’” was the substance of a letter from artist to author, and he could not see his way to illustrating it. Indeed, even with his skill, a wasp in a wig was rather a difficult subject and, as Lewis Carroll wouldn’t take off the wig, they were at a standstill. Rather than sacrifice the wig it was determined to cut out the chapter, and as it was really not so good as the other chapters, it was not much loss to the book, which rounded out very easily to just the dozen, full of the cleverest illustrations Tenniel ever drew. It was his last attempt at illustrating: the gift deserted him suddenly and never returned. His original cartoon work was always excellent, but the “Alices” had brought him a peculiar fame which would never have come to him through the columns of Punch, and Lewis Carroll, always generous in praising others, was quick to recognize the master hand which followed his thought. There was something in every stroke which appealed to the laughter of children, and the power of producing unthinkable animals amounted almost to inspiration. No doubt there may be illustrators of the present day quite as clever in their line, but Lewis Carroll stood alone in a new world which he created; there were none before him and none followed him, and his Knight of the Brush was faithful and true.

“Through the Looking-Glass” was published in 1871, and at once took its place as another “Alice” classic. There is much to be said about this book—so much, indeed, that it requires a chapter of its own, for many agree in considering it even more of a masterpiece than “Alice in Wonderland,” and though more carefully planned out than its predecessor, there is no hint of hard labor in the brilliant nonsense.

Those who have known and loved the man recognize in the “Alices” the best and most attractive part of him. In spite of his persistent stammering, he was a ready and natural talker, and when in the mood he could be as irresistibly funny as any of the characters in his book. His knowledge of English was so great that he could take the most ordinary expression and draw from it a new and unexpected meaning; his habit of “playing upon words” is one of his very funniest traits. When the Mock Turtle said in that memorable conversation with Alice which we all know by heart: “no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise,” he meant, of course, without a purpose, and having made the joke he refused explanations and seemed offended that Alice needed any. Another humorous idea was that the whitings always held their tails in their mouths.

“The reason is,” said the Gryphon, “that they would go with the lobsters to the dance. So they were thrown out to sea. So they had to fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in their mouths. So they couldn’t get them out again. That’s all.”

This is not the natural position of the whiting, as we all know, but the device of the fishmonger to make his windows attractive, and Alice herself came perilously near saying that she had eaten them for dinner cooked in that fashion and sprinkled over with bread crumbs. It was just Lewis Carroll’s funny way of viewing things, in much the same fashion that one of his child-friends would look at them. His was a real child’s mind, full of wonder depths where all sorts of impossible things existed, two-sided triangles, parallel lines that met in a point, whitings who had their tails in their mouths, and many other delightful contradictions, some of which he gave to the world. Others he stored away for the benefit of the numberless little girls who had permission to rummage in the store-house.

“Alice through the Looking-Glass” made its bow with a flourish of trumpets. All the “Nonsense” world was waiting for it, and for once expectation was not disappointed and the author found himself almost hidden beneath his mantle of glory. People praised him so much that it is quite a wonder his head was not completely turned. Henry Kingsley, the novelist, thought it “perfectly splendid,” and indeed many others fully agreed with him.

As for the children—and after all they were his real critics—the little girl who thought “Through the Looking-Glass” “stupider” than Wonderland, voiced the popular sentiment. Those who were old enough to read the book themselves soon knew by heart all the fascinating poetry, and if the story had no other merit, “The Jabberwocky” alone would have been enough to recommend it. Of all the queer fancies of a queer mind, this poem was the most remarkable, and even to-day, with all our clever verse-makers and nonsense-rhymers, no one has succeeded in getting out of apparently meaningless words so much real meaning and genuine fun as are to be found in this one little classic.

Many people have tried in vain to trace its origin; one enterprising lady insisted on calling it a translation from the German. Someone else decided there was a Scandinavian flavor about it, so he called it a “Saga.” Mr. A. A. Vansittart, of Trinity College, Cambridge, made an excellent Latin translation of it, and hundreds of others have puzzled over the many “wrapped up” meanings in the strange words.

We shall meet the poem later on and discuss its many wonders. At present we must follow Charles Dodgson back into his sanctum where he was eagerly pursuing a new course—the study of anatomy and physiology. He was presented with a skeleton, and laying in the proper supply of books, he set to work in earnest. He bought a little book called “What to do in Emergencies” and perfected himself in what we know to-day as “First Aid to the Injured.” He accumulated in this way some very fine medical and surgical books, and had more than one occasion to use his newly acquired knowledge.

Most men labor all their lives to gain fame. Lewis Carroll was a hard worker, but fame came to him without an effort. Along his line of work he took his “vorpal” sword in hand and severed all the knots and twists of the mathematical Jabberwocky. It was when he played that he reached the heights; when he touched the realm of childhood he was all conquering, for he was in truth a child among them, and every child felt the youthfulness in his glance, in the wave of his hand, in the fitting of his mood to theirs, and his entire sympathy in all their small joys sorrows—such great important things in their child-world. He often declared that children were three fourths of his life, and it seems indeed a pity that none of his own could join the band of his ardent admirers.

Here he was, a young man still in spite of his forty years, holding as his highest delight the power he possessed of giving happiness to other people’s children. Yet had anyone ventured to voice this regret, he would have replied like many another in his position:

“Children—bless them! Of course I love them. I prefer other people’s children. All delight and no bother. One runs a fearful risk with one’s own.” And he might have added with his whimsical smile, “And supposing they might have been boys!”

CHAPTER IX.

MORE OF “ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS.”

Six years had passed since Alice took her trip through Wonderland, and, strange to say, she had not grown very much older, for Time has the trick of standing still in Fairyland, and when Lewis Carroll pushed her through the Looking-Glass she told everyone she met on the other side that she was seven years and six months old, not very much older, you see, than the Alice of Long Ago, with the elf-locks and the dreamy eyes. The real Alice was in truth six years older now, but real people never count in Fairyland, and surely no girl of a dozen years or more would have been able to squeeze through the other side of a Looking-Glass. Still, though so very young, Alice was quite used to travel, and knew better how to deal with all the queer people she met after her experiences in Wonderland.

Mirrors are strange things. Alice had often wondered what lay behind the big one over the parlor mantel, and wondering with Alice meant doing, for presto! up she climbed to the mantelshelf. It was easy enough to push through, for she did not have to use the slightest force, and the glass melted at her touch into a sheet of mist and there she was on the other side!

In the interval between the two “Alices,” a certain poetic streak had become strongly marked in Lewis Carroll. To him a child’s soul was like the mirror behind which little Alice peeped out from its “other side,” and gave us the reflection of her child-thoughts.

“Only a dream,” we may say, but then child-life is dream-life. So much is “make-believe” that “every day” is dipped in its golden light. It was a dainty fancy to hold us spellbound at the mirror, and many a little girl, quite “unbeknownst” to the “grown-ups,” has tried her small best to squeeze through the looking-glass just as Alice did. In the days of our grandmothers, when the cheval glass swung in a frame, the “make believe” came easier, for one could creep under it or behind it, instead of through it, with much the same result. But nowadays, with looking-glasses built in the walls, how can one pretend properly!

If fairies only knew what examples they were to the average small girl and small boy, they would be very careful about the things they did. Fortunately they are old-fashioned fairies, and have not yet learned to ride in automobiles or flying-machines, else there’s no telling what might happen.

Alice was always lucky in finding herself in the very best society—nothing more or less than royalty itself. But the Royal Court of Cards was not to be compared with the Royal Court of Chessmen, which she found behind the fireplace when she jumped down on the other side of the mantel. Of course, it was only “pretending” from the beginning; a romp with the kittens toward the close of a short winter’s day, a little girl curled up in an armchair beside the fire with the kitten in her lap, while Dinah, the mother cat, sat near by washing little Snowdrop’s face, the snow falling softly without, Alice was just the least bit drowsy, and so she talked to keep awake.

“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. ‘I do so wish it was true. I’m sure the woods look sleepy in the autumn when the leaves are getting brown.’”

We are sure, too, Alice was getting sleepy in the glow of the firelight with the black kitten purring a lullaby on her lap. She had probably been playing with the Chessmen and pretending as usual, so it is small wonder that the heavy eyes closed, and the black kitten grew into the shape of the Red Queen—and so the story began.

It was the work of a few minutes to be on speaking terms with the whole Chess Court which Alice found assembled. The back of the clock on the mantelshelf looked down upon the scene with the grinning face of an old man, and even the vase wore a smiling visage. There was a good fire burning in this looking-glass grate, but the flames went the other way of course, and down among the ashes, back of the grate, the Chessmen were walking about in pairs.

Sir John Tenniel’s picture of the assembled Chessmen is very clever. The Red King and the Red Queen are in the foreground. The White Bishop is taking his ease on a lump of coal, with a smaller lump for a footstool, while the two Castles are enjoying a little promenade near by. In the background are the Red and White Knights and Bishops and all the Pawns. He has put so much life and expression into the faces of the little Chessmen that we cannot help regarding them as real people, and we cannot blame Alice for taking them very much in earnest.

She naturally found difficulty in accustoming herself to Looking-Glass Land, and the first thing she had to learn was how to read Looking-Glass fashion. She happened to pick up a book that she found on a table in the Looking-Glass Room, but when she tried to read it, it seemed to be written in an unknown language. Here is what she saw:

Then a bright thought occurred to her, and holding the book up before a looking-glass, this is what she read in quite clear English, no matter how it looks, for there is certainly no intelligent child who could fail to understand it.

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 Jubjub 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.

Alice of course puzzled over this for a long time.

“‘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.’”

For pure cleverness the poem has no equal, we will not say in the English language, but in any language whatsoever, for it seems to be a medley of all languages. Lewis Carroll composed it on the spur of the moment during an evening spent with his cousins, the Misses Wilcox, and with his natural gift of word-making the result is most surprising. The only verse that really needs explanation is the first, which is also the last of the poem. Out of the twenty-three words the verse contains, there are but twelve which are pure, honest English.

In Mr. Collingwood’s article in the Strand Magazine we have Lewis Carroll’s explanation of the remaining eleven, written down in learned fashion, brimful of his own quaint humor. For a real guide it cannot be excelled, and, though we laugh at the absurdities, we learn the lesson. Here it is:

Brillig (derived from the verb to bryl or broil), “the time of broiling dinner—i. e., the close of the afternoon.”

Slithy (compounded of slimy and lithe), “smooth and active.”

Tove (a species of badger). “They had smooth, white hair, long hind legs, and short horns like a stag; lived chiefly on cheese.”

Gyre (derived from Gayour or Giaour, a dog), “to scratch like a dog.”

Gymble (whence Gimblet), “to screw out holes in anything.”

Wabe (derived from the verb to swab or soak), “the side of a hill” (from its being soaked by the rain).

Mimsy (whence mimserable and miserable), “unhappy.”

Borogove, “an extinct kind of parrot. They had no wings, beaks turned up, and made their nests under sun-dials; lived on veal.”

Mome (hence solemome, solemne, and solemn), “grave.”

Raths. “A species of land turtle, head erect, mouth like a shark; the forelegs curved out so that the animal walked on his knees; smooth green body; lived on swallows and oysters.”

Outgrabe (past tense of the verb to outgribe; it is connected with the old verb to grike or shrike, from which are derived “shriek” and “creak”), “squeaked.”

“Hence the literal English of the passage is—‘It was evening, and the smooth active badgers were scratching and boring holes in the hillside; all unhappy were the parrots, and the green turtles squeaked out.’ There were probably sun-dials on the top of the hill, and the borogoves were afraid that their nests would be undermined. The hill was probably full of the nests of ‘raths’ which ran out squeaking with fear on hearing the ‘toves’ scratching outside. This is an obscure yet deeply affecting relic of ancient poetry.”

(Croft—1855. Ed.)

This lucid explanation was evidently one of the editor’s contributions to Misch-Masch during his college days, so this classic poem must have “simmered” for many years before Lewis Carroll put it “Through the Looking-Glass.” But when Alice questioned the all-wise Humpty-Dumpty on the subject he gave some simpler definitions. When asked the meaning of “mome raths,” he replied:

“Well, rath is a sort of green pig; but mome I’m not certain about. I think it’s short for ‘from home,’ meaning they’d lost their way, you know.”

Lewis Carroll called such words “portmanteaus” because there were two meanings wrapped up in one word, and all through “Jabberwocky” these queer “portmanteau” words give us the key to the real meaning of the poem. In the preface to a collection of his poems, he gives us the rule for the building of these “portmanteau” words. He says: “Take the two words ‘fuming’ and ‘furious.’ Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little toward ‘fuming’ you will say ‘fuming-furious’; if they turn by even a hair’s breadth toward ‘furious’ you will say ‘furious-fuming’; but if you have that rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say ‘frumious.’”

It is hard to tell what he had in mind when he wrote of this deed of daring—for such it was. Possibly, St. George and the Dragon inspired him, and like the best of preachers he turned his sermon into wholesome nonsense. The Jabberwock itself was a most awe-inspiring creature, and Tenniel’s drawing is most deliciously blood-curdling; half-snake, half-dragon, with “jaws that bite and claws that scratch,” it is yet saved from being utterly terrible by having some nice homely looking buttons on his waistcoat and upon his three-clawed feet, something very near akin to shoes.

The anxious father bids his brave son good-bye, little dreaming that he will see him again.

 “Beware the Jubjub bird—and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch”

are his last warning words, mostly “portmanteau” words, if one takes the time to puzzle them out. Then the brave boy goes forth into the “tulgey wood” and stands in “uffish thought” until with a “whiffling” sound the “burbling” Jabberwock is upon him.

Oh, the excitement of that moment when the “vorpal” sword went “snicker-snack” through the writhing neck of the monster! Then one can properly imagine the youth galloping in triumph (hence the “portmanteau” word “galumphing,” the first syllable of gallop and the last syllable of triumph) back to the proud papa, who says: “Come to my arms, my ‘beamish boy’ ... and ‘chortles in his joy,’” But all the time these wonderful things are happening, just around the corner, as it were, the “toves” and the “borogoves” and the “mome raths” were pursuing their never-ending warfare on the hillside, saying, with Tennyson’s Brook:

“Men may come and men may go—

But we go on forever,”

no matter how many “Jabberwocks” are slain nor how many “beamish boys” take their “vorpal swords in hand.”

In preparing the second “Alice” book for publication, Lewis Carroll’s first idea was to use the “Jabberwocky” illustration as a frontispiece, but, in spite of the reassuring buttons and shoes, he was afraid younger children might be “scared off” from the real enjoyment of the book. So he wrote to about thirty mothers of small children asking their advice on the matter; they evidently voted against it, for, as we all know, the White Knight on his horse with its many trappings, with Alice walking beside him through the woods, was the final selection, and the smallest child has grown to love the silly old fellow who tumbled off his steed every two minutes, and did many other dear, ridiculous things that only children could appreciate.

Looking-glass walking puzzled Alice at first quite as much as looking-glass writing or reading. If she tried to walk downstairs in the looking-glass house “she just kept the tips of her fingers on the hand rail and floated gently down, without even touching the stairs with her feet.” Then when she tried to climb to the top of the hill to get a peep into the garden, she found that she was always going backwards and in at the front door again. Finally, after many attempts, she reached the wished-for spot, and found herself among a talkative cluster of flowers, who all began to criticise her in the most impertinent way.

“Oh, 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” ... At length, as the Tiger-lily 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’ve 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 ‘bough-wough’,” 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.

Lewis Carroll loved this play upon words, and children, strange to say, loved it too, and were quick to see the point of his puns. The Red Queen, whom Alice met shortly after this, was a most dictatorial person.

“Where do you come from?” she asked, “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.”

Evidently some little girls were often 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 your 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 this a valley.”

“No, I shouldn’t,” said Alice, surprised into contradicting her at last. “A hill can’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!”

Which last remark seemed to settle the matter, for Alice had nothing further to say on the subject.

Nonsense, indeed; and what delightful nonsense it is! Is it any wonder that the little girls for whom Lewis Carroll labored so lovingly should reward him with their laughter?

Alice entered Checker-Board Land in the Red Queen’s company; she was apprenticed as a pawn, with the promise that when she entered the eighth square she would become a queen [she probably was confusing chess with checkers], and the Red Queen explained how she would travel.

“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, and the fifth is mostly water, the sixth belongs to Humpty Dumpty, ... 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 its all feasting and fun.”

The rest of her adventures occurred on those eight squares—sometimes in company with the Red Queen or the White Queen or both. Things went more rapidly than in Wonderland, the people were brisker and smarter. When the Red Queen left her on the border of Checker-Board Land, she gave her this parting advice:

“Speak in French when you can’t think of the English for a thing, turn out your toes as you walk, and remember who you are!”

How many little girls have had the same advice from their governesses or their mamma—“Turn out your toes when you walk, and remember who you are!”

This is what made Lewis Carroll so irresistibly funny—the way he had of bringing in the most common everyday expressions in the most uncommon, unexpected places. Only in Alice’s case it took her quite a long time to remember who she was, just because the Red Queen told her not to forget. Children are very queer about that—little girls in particular—at least those that Lewis Carroll knew, and he certainly was acquainted with a great many who did remarkably queer things.

Alice’s meeting with the two fat little men named Tweedledum and Tweedledee recalled to her memory the old rhyme:

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.

Fierce little men they were, one with Dum embroidered on his collar, the other showing Dee on his. They were not accustomed to good society nor fine grammar. They were exactly alike as they stood motionless before her, their arms about each other.

“I know what you’re thinking about,” said Tweedledum, “but it isn’t so—nohow.” [Behold the beautiful grammar.]

“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.”

Now, Alice particularly wanted to know which road to take out of the woods, but somehow or other her polite question was never answered by either of the funny little brothers. They were very sociable and seemed most anxious to keep her with them, so for her entertainment Tweedledum repeated that beautiful and pathetic poem called:

THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER.

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 would get it clear?”

“I doubt it,” said the Carpenter,

And shed a bitter tear.

Then comes the sad and sober part of the tale, when the Oysters were tempted to stroll along the beach, in company with these wily two, who lured them far away from their snug ocean beds.

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.”

Then the Oysters became terrified, as they saw all these grewsome preparations, and their fate loomed up before them. So the two old weeping hypocrites sat on the rocks and calmly devoured their late companions.

“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 sympathize.”

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.

The poor dear little Oysters! How any little girl, with a heart under her pinafore, could read these lines unmoved it is hard to say. Think of those innocent young dears, standing before these dreadful ogres.

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.

All the same, Tenniel has made most attractive pictures of them, feet and all. And think—oh, horror! of their supplying the treat! It was indeed an awful tragedy. Yet behind it all there lurks some fun, though Lewis Carroll was too clever to let us quite into his secret. All the young ones want is the story, but those who are old enough to love their Dickens and to look for his special characters outside of his books will certainly recognize in the Walrus the hypocritical Mr. Pecksniff, whose tears flowed on every occasion when he was not otherwise employed in robbing his victims, and other little pleasantries. And as for the Carpenter, there is something very scholarly in the set of his cap and the combing of his scant locks; possibly a caricature of some shining light of Oxford, for we know there were many in his books. Indeed, the whole poem may be something of an allegory, representing examination; the Oysters, the undergraduate victims before the college faculty (the Walrus and the Carpenter) who are just ready to “eat ’em alive”—poor innocent undergraduates!

But whatever the hidden meaning, Tweedledum and Tweedledee were not the sort of people to look deep into things, and Alice, being a little girl and very partial to oysters, thought the Walrus and the Carpenter were very unpleasant characters and had no sympathy with them at all.

Dreaming by a ruddy blaze in a big armchair keeps one much busier than if one fell asleep in a rocking boat or on the river bank on a golden summer day.

The scenes and all the company changed so often in Looking-Glass Land that Alice had all she could do to keep pace with her adventures. For you see all this time she was only a pawn, moving over an immense chess-board from square to square, until in the end she should be made queen. The White Queen whom Alice met shortly was a very lopsided person, quite unlike the Red Queen, who was neat enough no matter how sharp her tongue. Alice had to fix her hair, and straighten her shawl, and set her right and tidy.

“Really, you should have a lady’s maid,” she remarked.

“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 can’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 remarked 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 can’t remember things before they happen.”

“It’s a poor memory that only works backwards,” the Queen remarked.

“What sort of things do you remember best?” Alice ventured to ask.

“Oh, the 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 begin till next Wednesday; and of course the crime comes last of all.” Then the Queen for further illustration began to scream—

“Oh, oh, oh!” shouted the Queen.... “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.... “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 asked, 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.”

Alice’s meeting with Humpty-Dumpty in the sixth square has gone down in history. It has been played in nurseries and in private theatricals, and many ingenious Humpty-Dumptys have been fashioned by clever people.

Possibly the dear old rhyme which generations of childhood have handed about as a riddle is responsible for our great interest in Humpty-Dumpty.

Humpty-Dumpty sat on the 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.

This is an old version, but modern children have made a better ending, thus:

Couldn’t put Humpty-Dumpty up again.

Then there’s a mysterious pause, and some eager small boy or girl asks, “Now what is it?” and before one has time to answer, someone calls out—

“It’s an egg; it’s an egg!” and the riddle is a riddle no longer.

One clever mechanical Humpty was made of barrel hoops covered with stiff paper and muslin. The eyes, nose, and mouth were connected with various tapes, which the inventor had in charge behind the scenes, and so well did he work them that Humpty in his hands turned out a fine imitation of the Humpty-Dumpty Sir John Tenniel has made us remember; the same Humpty-Dumpty who asked Alice her name and her business, and who informed her proudly that if he did tumble off the wall, “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 wouldn’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....”

“Yes, all his horses and all his men,” Humpty-Dumpty went on. “They’d pick me up 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.”

Such a nice, common old chap is Humpty-Dumpty, so “stuck-up” because he has spoken to a King; and argue! Well, Alice never heard anything like it before, and found difficulty in keeping up a conversation that was disputed every step of the way. She found him worse than the Cheshire Cat or even the Duchess for that matter, and not half so well-bred.

He too favored Alice with the following poem, which he assured her was written entirely for her amusement, and here it is, with enough of Lewis Carroll’s “nonsense” in it to let us know where it came from:

In winter, when the fields are white,

I sing this song for your delight:—

In spring, when woods are getting green,

I’ll try and tell you what I mean:

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 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 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 someone 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.

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——

With which highly satisfactory ending Humpty remarked:

“That’s all. Good-bye.”

Alice 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 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 next square—the seventh—took Alice through the woods. Here she met some old friends: the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit of Wonderland fame, mixed in with a great many new beings, including the Lion and the Unicorn, who, as the old ballad tells us, “were fighting for the crown”; and then as the Red Queen had promised from the beginning, the White Knight—after a battle with the Red Knight who held Alice prisoner—took her in charge to guide her through the woods. Whoever has read the humorous and yet pathetic story of “Don Quixote” will see at once where Lewis Carroll found his gentle, valiant old White Knight and his horse, so like yet so unlike the famous steed Rosenante.

He, too, had a song for Alice, which he called “The Aged, Aged Man,” and which he sang to her, set to very mechancholy music. It is doubtful if Alice understood it for she wasn’t thinking of age, you see. She was only seven years and six months old, and probably paid no attention. She was thinking instead of the strange kindly smile of the knight, “the setting sun gleaming through his hair and shining on his armor in a blaze of light that quite dazzled her; the horse quietly moving about with the reins hanging loose on his neck, cropping the grass at her feet, and the black shadows of the forest behind.” Certainly Lewis Carroll could paint a picture to remain with us always. The poem is rather too long to quote here, but the experiences of this “Aged, Aged Man” are well worth reading.

Alice was now hastening toward the end of her journey and events were tumbling over each other. She had reached the eighth square, where, oh, joy! a golden crown awaited her, also the Red Queen and the White Queen in whose company she traveled through the very stirring episodes of that very famous dinner party, when the candles on the table all grew up to the ceiling, and the glass bottles each took a pair of plates for wings, and forks for legs, and went fluttering in all directions. Everything was in the greatest confusion, and when the White Queen disappeared in the soup tureen, and the soup ladle began walking up the table toward Alice’s chair, she could stand it no longer. She jumped up “and seized the tablecloth with both hands; one good pull, and plates, dishes, guests, and candles came crashing down together in a heap on the floor.” And then Alice began to shake the Red Queen as the cause of all the mischief.

“The Red Queen made no resistance whatever; only her face grew very small, and her eyes got large and green; and still, as Alice went on shaking her, she kept on growing shorter, and fatter, and softer, and rounder, and—and it really was a kitten after all.”

And Alice, opening her eyes in the red glow of the fire, lay snug in the armchair, while the Looking-Glass on the mantel caught the reflection of a very puzzled little face. The “dream-child” had come back to everyday, and was trying to retrace her journey as she lay there blinking at the firelight, and wondering if, back of the blaze, the Chessmen were still walking to and fro.

And Lewis Carroll, as he penned the last words of “Alice’s Adventures through the Looking-Glass,” remembered once more the little girl who had been his inspiration, and wrote a loving tribute to her at the very end of the book, an acrostic on her name—Alice Pleasance Liddell.

A boat, beneath a sunny sky

Lingering onward dreamily

In an evening of July.

Children three that nestle near,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Pleased a simple tale to hear.

Long has paled that sunny sky;

Echoes fade and memories die:

Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,

Alice moving under skies,

Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,

Dreaming as the days go by,

Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream,

Lingering in the golden gleam,

Life, what is it but a dream?

CHAPTER X.

“HUNTING THE SNARK” AND OTHER POEMS.

There is no doubt that the second “Alice” book was quite as successful as the first, but regarding its merit there is much difference of opinion. As a rule the “grown-ups” prefer it. They like the clever situations and the quaint logic, no less than the very evident good writing; but this of course did not influence the children in the least. They liked “Alice” and the pretty idea of her trip through the Looking-Glass, but for real delight “Wonderland” was big enough for them, and to whisk down into a rabbit-hole on a summer’s day was a much easier process than squeezing through a looking-glass at the close of a short winter’s afternoon, not being quite sure that one would not fall into the fire on the other side.

The very care that Lewis Carroll took in the writing of this book deprived it of a certain charm of originality which always clings to the pages of “Wonderland.” Each chapter is so methodically planned and so well carried out that, while we never lose sight of the author and his cleverness, fairyland does not seem quite so real as in the book which was written with no plan at all, but the earnest desire to please three children. Then again there was a certain staidness in the prim little girl who pushed her way through the Looking-Glass. And there were no wonderful cakes marked “eat me,” and bottles marked “drink me,” which kept the Wonderland Alice in a perpetual state of growing or shrinking; so the fact that nothing happened to Alice at all during this second journey lessened its interest somewhat for the young ones to whom constant change is the spice of life. A very little girl, while she might enjoy the flower chapter, and might be tempted to build her own fanciful tales about the rest of the garden, would not be so attracted toward the insect chapter, which may possibly have been written with the praiseworthy idea of teaching children not to be afraid of these harmless buzzing things that are too busy with their own concerns to bother them.

There are, in truth, little “cut and dried” speeches in the Looking-Glass “Alice,” which we do not find in “Wonderland.” A real hand is moving the Chessman over the giant board, and the Red and the White Queen often speak like automatic toys. We miss the savage “off with his head” of the Queen of Hearts, who, for all her cardboard stiffness, seemed a thing of flesh and blood. But the poetry in the two “Alices” is of very much the same quality.

In his prose “nonsense” anyone might notice the difference of years between the two books, but Lewis Carroll’s poetry never loses its youthful tone. It was as easy for him to write verses as to teach mathematics, and that was saying a good deal. It was as easy for him to write verses at sixty as at thirty, and that is saying even more. From the time he could hold a pencil he could make a rhyme, and his earlier editorial ventures, as we know, were full of his own work which in after years made its way to the public, either through the magazines or in collection of poems, such as “Rhyme and Reason,” “Phantasmagoria,” and “The Three Sunsets.”

In The Train, that early English magazine before mentioned, are several poems written by him and signed by his newly borrowed name of Lewis Carroll, but they are very sentimental and high-flown, utterly unlike anything he wrote either before or after.

Between the publication of “Through the Looking-Glass” and “The Hunting of the Snark” was a period of five years, during which, according to his usual custom, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, in the seclusion of Christ Church, calmly pursued his scholarly way, smiling sedately over the literary antics of Lewis Carroll, for the Rev. Charles was a sober, over-serious bachelor, whose one aim and object at that time was the proper treatment of Euclid, for during those five years he wrote the following pamphlets: “Symbols, etc., to be used in Euclid—Books I and II,” “Number of Propositions in Euclid,” “Enunciations—Euclid I-VI,” “Euclid—Book V. Proved Algebraically,” “Preliminary Algebra and Euclid—Book V,” “Examples in Arithmetic,” “Euclid—Books I and II.”

He also wrote many other valuable pamphlets concerning the government of Oxford and of Christ Church in particular, for the retiring “don” took a keen interest in the University life, and his influence was felt in many spicy articles and apt rhymes, usually brought forth as timely skits. Notes by an Oxford Chiel, published at Oxford in 1874, included much of this material, where his clever verses, mostly satirical, generally hit the mark.

And all this while, Lewis Carroll was gathering in the harvest yielded by the two “Alices,” and planning more books for his child-friends, who, we may be sure, were growing in numbers.

We find him at the Christmas celebration of 1874, at Hatfield, the home of Lord Salisbury, as usual, the central figure of a crowd of happy children. On this occasion he told them the story of Prince Uggug, which was afterwards a part of “Sylvie and Bruno.” Many of the chapters of this book had been published as separate stories in Aunt Judy’s Magazine and other periodicals, and, as such, they were very sweet and dainty as well as amusing. It was Lewis Carroll’s own special charm in telling these stories which really lent them colour and drew the children; they lost much in print, for they lacked the sturdy foundations of nonsense on which the “Alices” were built.

On March 29, 1876, “The Hunting of the Snark” was published, a new effort in “nonsense” verse-making, which stands side by side with “Jabberwocky” in point of cleverness and interest.

The beauty of Lewis Carroll’s “nonsense” was that he never tried to be funny or “smart.” The queer words and the still queerer ideas popped into his head in the simplest way. His command of language, including that important knowledge of how to make “portmanteau” words, was his greatest aid, and the poem which he called “An Agony in Eight Fits” depends entirely upon the person who reads it for the cleverness of its meaning. To children it is one big fairy tale where the more ridiculous the situations, the more true to the rules of fairyland. The Snark, being a “portmanteau” word, is a cross between a snake and a shark, hence Snark, and the fact that he dedicated this wonderful bit of word-making to a little girl, goes far to prove that the poem was intended as much for children as for “grown-ups.”

The little girl in this instance was Gertrude Chataway, and the verses are an acrostic on her name:

Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task,

Eager she wields her spade: yet loves as well

Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask

The tale he loves to tell.

Rude spirit of the seething outer strife,

Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright,

Deem, if you list, such hours a waste of life,

Empty of all delight!

Chat on, sweet maid, and rescue from annoy,

Hearts that by wiser talk are unbeguiled;

Ah, happy he who owns that tenderest joy,

The heart-love of a child!

Away, fond thoughts, and vex my soul no more!

Work claims my wakeful nights, my busy days,

Albeit bright memories of that sunlit shore

Yet haunt my dreaming gaze!

There was scarcely a little girl who claimed friendship with Lewis Carroll who was not the proud possessor of an acrostic poem written by him—either on the title-page of some book that he had given her, or as the dedication of some published book of his own.

“The Hunting of the Snark” owed its existence to a country walk, when the last verse came suddenly into the mind of our poet:

“In the midst of the word he was trying to say,

In the midst of his laughter and glee,

He had softly and suddenly vanished away—

For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.”

In a very humorous preface to the book, Lewis Carroll attempted some sort of an explanation, which leaves us as much in the dark as ever. He writes:

“If—and the thing is wildly possible—the charge of writing nonsense was ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line:

“‘Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes.’

“In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of such a deed; I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral purpose of the poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural History. I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened.

“The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances, used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished; and more than once it happened, when the time came for replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to appeal to the Bellman about it—he would only refer to his Naval Code and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which none of them had ever been able to understand, so it generally ended in its being fastened on anyhow across the rudder. The Helmsman used to stand by with tears in his eyes; he knew it was all wrong, but, alas! Rule 4, of the Code, ‘No one shall speak to the man at the helm,’ had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words, ‘and the man at the helm shall speak to no one,’ so remonstrance was impossible and no steering could be done till the next varnishing day. During these bewildering intervals the ship usually sailed backward.”

Is it any wonder that a poem, based upon such an explanation, should be a perfect bundle of nonsense? But we know from experience that Lewis Carroll’s nonsense was not stupidity, and that not one verse in all that delightful bundle missed its own special meaning and purpose.

We do not propose to find the key to this remarkable work—for two reasons: first, because there are different keys for different minds; and second, because the unexplainable things in many cases come nearer the “mind’s eye,” as Shakespeare calls it, without words. We cannot tell why we understand such and such a thing, but we do understand it, and that is enough—quite according to Lewis Carroll’s ideas, for he always appeals to our imagination and that is never guided by rules. The higher it soars, the more fantastic the region over which it hovers, the nearer it gets to the land of “make believe,” “let’s pretend” and “supposing,” the better pleased is Lewis Carroll. In a delightful letter to some American children, published in The Critic shortly after his death, he gives his own ideas as to the meaning of the Snark.

“I’m very much afraid I didn’t mean anything but nonsense,” he wrote; “still you know words mean more than we mean to express when we use them, so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer means. So whatever good meanings are in the book, I shall be glad to accept as the meaning of the book. The best that I’ve seen is by a lady (she published it in a letter to a newspaper) that the whole book is an allegory on the search after happiness. I think this fits beautifully in many ways, particularly about the bathing machines; when people get weary of life, and can’t find happiness in towns or in books, then they rush off to the seaside to see what bathing machines will do for them.”

Taking this idea for the foundation of the poem, it is easy to explain Fit the First, better named The Landing, though where they landed it is almost impossible to say.

“Just the place for a Snark,” the Bellman cried, and, as he stated this fact three distinct times, it was undoubtedly true. That was the Bellman’s rule—once was uncertain, twice was possible, three times was “dead sure.” And the Bellman being a person of some authority, ought to have known. The crew consisted of a Boots, a Maker of Bonnets and Hoods, a Barrister, a Broker, a Billiard-marker, a Banker, a Beaver, a Butcher, and a nameless being who passed for the Baker, and who, in the end, turned out to be the luckless victim of the Snark. He is thus beautifully described:

 “There was one who was famed for a number of things

He forgot when he entered the ship:

His umbrella, his watch, all his jewels and rings,

And the clothes he had brought for the trip.

“He had forty-two boxes, all carefully packed,

With his name painted clearly on each:

But, since he omitted to mention the fact,

They were all left behind on the beach.

“The loss of his clothes hardly mattered, because

He had seven coats on when he came,

With three pair of boots—but the worst of it was,

He had wholly forgotten his name.

“He would answer to ‘Hi!’ or to any loud cry,

Such as ‘Fry me!’ or ‘Fritter my wig!’

To ‘What-you-may-call-um!’ or ‘What-was-his-name!’

But especially ‘Thing-um-a-jig!’

“While, for those who preferred a more forcible word,

He had different names from these:

His intimate friends called him ‘Candle-ends,’

And his enemies ‘Toasted-cheese.’

“‘His form is ungainly, his intellect small’

(So the Bellman would often remark);

‘But his courage is perfect! and that, after all,

Is the thing that one needs with a Snark.’

“He would joke with hyenas, returning their stare

With an impudent wag of the head:

And he once went a walk, paw-in-paw with a bear,

‘Just to keep up its spirits,’ he said.

“He came as a Baker: but owned when too late—

And it drove the poor Bellman half-mad—

He could only bake Bride-cake, for which I may state,

No materials were to be had.”

Notice how ingeniously the actors in this drama are introduced; all the “B’s,” as it were, buzzing after the phantom of happiness, which eludes them, no matter how hard they struggle to find it. Notice, too, that all these beings are unmarried, a fact shown by the Baker not being able to make a bride-cake as there are no materials on hand. All these creatures, while hunting for happiness, came to prey upon each other. The Butcher only killed Beavers, the Barrister was hunting among his fellow sailors for a good legal case. The Banker took charge of all their cash, for it certainly takes money to hunt properly for a Snark, and it is a well-known fact that bankers need all the money they can get.

Fit the Second describes the Bellman and why he had such influence with his crew:

The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies:

Such a carriage, such ease, and such grace!

Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,

The moment one looked in his face!

He had bought a large map representing the sea,

Without the least vestige of land:

And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be

A map they could all understand.

“What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators,

Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?”

So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply,

“They are merely conventional signs!”

“Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!

But we’ve got our brave Captain to thank”

(So the crew would protest), “that he’s bought us the best—

A perfect and absolute blank!”

And true enough, the Bellman’s idea of the ocean was a big square basin, with the latitude and longitude carefully written out on the margin. They found, however, that their “brave Captain” knew very little about navigation, he—

“Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,

And that was to tingle his bell.”

He thought nothing of telling his crew to steer starboard and larboard at the same time, and then we know how—

The bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes.

“A thing,” as the Bellman remarked,

“That frequently happens in tropical climes,

When a vessel is, so to speak, ‘snarked.’”

The Bellman had hoped, when the wind blew toward the east, that the ship would not travel toward the west, but it seems that with all his nautical knowledge he could not prevent it; ships are perverse animals!

“But the danger was past—they had landed at last,

With their boxes, portmanteaus, and bags:

Yet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view,

Which consisted of chasms and crags.”

Now that they had reached the land of the Snark, the Bellman proceeded to air his knowledge on that subject.

“A snark,” he said, “had five unmistakable traits—its taste, ‘meager and mellow and crisp,’ its habit of getting up late, its slowness in taking a jest, its fondness for bathing machines, and, fifth and lastly, its ambition.” He further informed the crew that “the snarks that had feathers could bite, and those that had whiskers could scratch,” adding as an afterthought:

“‘For although common Snarks do no manner of harm,

Yet I feel it my duty to say,

Some are Boojums—’ The Bellman broke off in alarm,

For the Baker had fainted away.”

Fit the Third was the Baker’s tale.

“They roused him with muffins, they roused him with ice,

They roused him with mustard and cress,

They roused him with jam and judicious advice,

They set him conundrums to guess.”

Then he explained why it was that the name “Boojum” made him faint. It seems that a dear uncle, after whom he was named, gave him some wholesome advice about the way to hunt a snark, and this uncle seemed to be a man of much influence:

“‘You may seek it with thimbles, and seek it with care;

You may hunt it with forks and hope;

You may threaten its life with a railway-share;

You may charm it with smiles and soap——’”

“‘That’s exactly the method,’ the Bellman bold

In a hasty parenthesis cried,

‘That’s exactly the way I have always been told

That the capture of Snarks should be tried!’”

“‘But, oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,

If your Snark be a Boojum! For then

You will softly and suddenly vanish away,

And never be met with again!’”

This of course was a very sad thing to think of, for the man with no name, who was named after his uncle, and called in courtesy the Baker, had grown to be a great favorite with the crew; but they had no time to waste in sentiment—they were in the Snark’s own land, they had the Bellman’s orders in Fit the Fourth—the Hunting:

“To seek it with thimbles, to seek it with care;

To pursue it with forks and hope;

To threaten its life with a railway share;

To charm it with smiles and soap!

“For the Snark’s a peculiar creature, that won’t

Be caught in a commonplace way.

Do all that you know, and try all that you don’t:

Not a chance must be wasted to-day!”

Then they all went to work according to their own special way, just as we would do now in our hunt for happiness through the chasms and crags of every day.

Fit the Fifth is the Beaver’s Lesson, when the Butcher discourses wisely on arithmetic and natural history, two subjects a butcher should know pretty thoroughly, and this is proved:

“While the Beaver confessed, with affectionate looks

More eloquent even than tears,

It had learned in ten minutes far more than all books

Would have taught it in seventy years.”

The Barrister’s Dream occupied Fit the Sixth, and here our poet’s keen wit gave many a slap at the law and the lawyers.

The Banker’s Fate in Fit the Seventh was sad enough; he was grabbed by the Bandersnatch (that “frumious” “portmanteau” creature that we met before in the Lay of the Jabberwocky) and worried and tossed about until he completely lost his senses. Some bankers are that way in the pursuit of fortune, which means happiness to them; but fortune may turn, like the Bandersnatch, and shake their minds out of their bodies, and so they left this Banker to his fate. That is the way of people when bankers are in trouble, because they were reckless and not always careful to

“Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch.”

Fit the Eighth treats of the vanishing of the Baker according to the prediction of his prophetic uncle. All day long the eager searchers had hunted in vain, but just at the close of the day they heard a shout in the distance and beheld their Baker “erect and sublime” on top of a crag, waving his arms and shouting wildly; then before their startled and horrified gaze, he plunged into a chasm and disappeared forever.

“‘It’s a Snark!’ was the sound that first came to their ears.

And seemed almost too good to be true.

Then followed a torrent of laughter and cheers,

Then the ominous words, ‘It’s a Boo——’

“Then, silence. Some fancied they heard in the air

A weary and wandering sigh

That sounded like ‘jum!’ but the others declare

It was only a breeze that went by.

“They hunted till darkness came on, but they found

Not a button, or feather, or mark

By which they could tell that they stood on the ground

Where the Baker had met with the Snark.

“In the midst of the word he was trying to say,

In the midst of his laughter and glee,

He had softly and suddenly vanished away—

For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.”

What became of the Bellman and his crew is left to our imagination. Perhaps the Baker’s fate was a warning, or perhaps they are still hunting—not too close to the chasm. Lewis Carroll, always so particular about proper endings, refuses any explanation. The fact that this special Snark was a “Boojum” altered all the rules of the hunt. Nobody knows what it is, but all the same nobody wishes to meet a “Boojum.” That’s all there is about it.

“Now how absurd to talk such nonsense!” some learned school girl may exclaim; undoubtedly one who has high ideals about life and literature. But is it nonsense we are talking, and does the quaint poem really teach us nothing? Anything which brings a picture to the mind must surely have some merit, and there is much homely common sense wrapped up in the queer verses if we have but the wit to find it, and no one is too young nor too old to join in this hunt for happiness.

Read the poem over and over, put expression and feeling into it, treat the Bellman and his strange crew as if they were real human beings—there’s a lot of the human in them after all—and see if new ideas and new meanings do not pop into your head with each reading, while the verses, all unconsciously, will stick in your memory, where Tennyson or Wordsworth or even Shakespeare fails to hold a place there.

Of course, Lewis Carroll’s own especial girlfriends understood “The Hunting of the Snark” better than the less favored “outsiders.” First of all there was Lewis Carroll himself to read it to them in his own expressive way, his pleasant voice sinking impressively at exciting moments, and his clear explanation of each “portmanteau” word helping along wonderfully. We can fancy the gleam of fun in the blue eyes, the sweep of his hand across his hair, the sudden sweet smile with which he pointed his jests or clothed his moral, as the case might be. Indeed, one little girl was so fascinated with the poem which he sent her as a gift that she learned the whole of it by heart, and insisted on repeating it during a long country drive.

“The Hunting of the Snark” created quite a sensation among his friends. The first edition was finely illustrated by Henry Holiday, whose clever drawings show how well he understood the poem, and what sympathy existed between himself and the author.

“Phantasmagoria,” his ghost poem, deals with the friendly relations always existing between ghosts and the people they are supposed to haunt; a whimsical idea, carried out in Lewis Carroll’s whimsical way, with lots of fun and a good deal of simple philosophy worked out in the verses. One canto is particularly amusing. Here are some of the verses:

Oh, when I was a little Ghost,

A merry time had we!

Each seated on his favorite post,

We chumped and chawed the buttered toast

They gave us for our tea.

“That story is in print!” I cried.

“Don’t say it’s not, because

It’s known as well as Bradshaw’s Guide!”

(The Ghost uneasily replied

He hardly thought it was.)

It’s not in Nursery Rhymes? And yet

I almost think it is—

“Three little Ghostesses” were set

“On postesses,” you know, and ate

Their “buttered toastesses.”

“The Three Voices,” his next ambitious poem, is rather out of the realm of childhood. A weak-minded man and a strong-minded lady met on the seashore, she having rescued his hat from the antics of a playful breeze by pinning it down on the sands with her umbrella, right through the center of the soft crown. When she handed it to him in its battered state, he was scarcely as grateful as he might have been—he was rude, in fact,

For it had lost its shape and shine,

And it had cost him four-and-nine,

And he was going out to dine.

“To dine!” she sneered in acid tone.

“To bend thy being to a bone

Clothed in a radiance not its own!”

“Term it not ‘radiance,’” said he:

“’Tis solid nutriment to me.

Dinner is Dinner: Tea is Tea.”

And she “Yea so? Yet wherefore cease?

Let thy scant knowledge find increase.

Say ‘Men are Men, and Geese are Geese.’”

The gentleman wanted to get away from this severe lady, but he could see no escape, for she was getting excited.

“To dine!” she shrieked, in dragon-wrath.

“To swallow wines all foam and froth!

To simper at a tablecloth!

“Canst thou desire or pie or puff?

Thy well-bred manners were enough,

Without such gross material stuff.”

“Yet well-bred men,” he faintly said,

“Are not unwilling to be fed:

Nor are they well without the bread.”

Her visage scorched him ere she spoke;

“There are,” she said, “a kind of folk

Who have no horror of a joke.

“Such wretches live: they take their share

Of common earth and common air:

We come across them here and there.”

“We grant them—there is no escape—

A sort of semihuman shape

Suggestive of the manlike Ape.”

So the arguing went on—her Voice, his Voice, and the Voice of the Sea. He tried to joke away her solemn mood with a pun.

“The world is but a Thought,” said he:

“The vast, unfathomable sea

Is but a Notion—unto me.”

And darkly fell her answer dread

Upon his unresisting head,

Like half a hundredweight of lead.

“The Good and Great must ever shun

That reckless and abandoned one

Who stoops to perpetrate a pun.

“The man that smokes—that reads the Times—

That goes to Christmas Pantomimes—

Is capable of any crimes!”

Anyone can understand these verses, but it is very plain that the poem is a satire on the rise of the learned lady, who takes no interest in the lighter, pleasanter side of life; a being much detested by Lewis Carroll, who above all things loved a “womanly woman.” As he grew older he became somewhat precise and old-fashioned in his opinions—that is perhaps the reason why he was so lovable. His ideals of womanhood and little girlhood were fixed and beautiful dreams, untouched by the rush of the times. The “new woman” puzzled and pained him quite as much as the pert, precocious, up-to-date girl. Would there were more Lewis Carrolls in the world; quiet, simple, old-fashioned, courteous gentlemen with ideals!

Here is a clever little poem dedicated to girls, which he calls

A GAME OF FIVES.

Five little girls, of five, four, three, two, one:

Rolling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun.

Five rosy girls, in years from ten to six:

Sitting down to lessons—no more time for tricks.

Five growing girls, from fifteen to eleven:

Music, drawing, languages, and food enough for seven!

Five winsome girls, from twenty to sixteen:

Each young man that calls I say, “Now tell me which you mean!”

Five dashing girls, the youngest twenty-one:

But if nobody proposes, what is there to be done?

Five showy girls—but thirty is an age

When girls may be engaging, but they somehow don’t engage.

Five dressy girls, of thirty-one or more:

So gracious to the shy young men they snubbed so much before!

Five passé girls. Their age? Well, never mind!

We jog along together, like the rest of human kind:

But the quondam “careless bachelor” begins to think he knows

The answer to that ancient problem “how the money goes!”

There was no theme, in short, that Lewis Carroll did not fit into a rhyme or a poem. Some of them were full of real feeling, others were sparkling with nonsense, but all had their charm. No style nor meter daunted him; no poet was too great for his clever pen to parody; no ode was too heroic for a little earthly fun; and when the measure was rollicking the rhymer was at his best. Of this last, Alice’s invitation to the Looking-Glass world is a fair example:

To the Looking-Glass world it was Alice that said,

“I’ve a scepter in hand, I’ve a crown on my head.

Let the Looking-Glass creatures, whatever they be,

Come and dine with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me!”

Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can,

And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran;

Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the tea,

And welcome Queen Alice with thirty-times-three!

“O Looking-Glass creatures,” quoth Alice, “draw near!

’Tis an honor to see me, a favor to hear;

’Tis a privilege high to have dinner and tea

Along with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me!”

Then fill up the glasses with treacle and ink,

Or anything else that is pleasant to drink;

Mix sand with the cider, and wool with the wine,

And welcome Queen Alice with ninety-times-nine!

The real sentiment always cropped out in his verses to little girls; from youth to age he was their “good knight and true” and all his fairest thoughts were kept for them. Many a grown woman has carefully hoarded among her treasures some bit of verse from Lewis Carroll, which her happy childhood inspired him to write; but the dedication of “Alice through the Looking-Glass” was to the unknown child, whom his book went forth to please:

Child of the pure, unclouded brow

And dreaming eyes of wonder!

Though time be fleet, and I and thou

Are half a life asunder,

Thy loving smile will surely hail

The love-gift of a fairy tale.

I have not seen thy sunny face,

Nor heard thy silver laughter:

No thought of me shall find a place

In thy young life’s hereafter,

Enough that now thou wilt not fail

To listen to my fairy tale.

A tale begun in other days,

When summer suns were glowing,

A simple chime, that served to time

The rhythm of our rowing,

Whose echoes live in memory yet,

Though envious years would say “forget.”

Come, hearken then, ere voice of dread,

With bitter tidings laden,

Shall summon to unwelcome bed

A melancholy maiden!

We are but older children, dear,

Who fret to find our bedtime near.

Without, the frost, the blinding snow,

The storm-wind’s moody madness;

Within, the firelight’s ruddy glow,

And childhood’s nest of gladness.

The magic words shall hold thee fast;

Thou shalt not heed the raving blast.

And though the shadow of a sigh

May tremble through the story,

For “happy summer days” gone by

And vanished summer glory,

It shall not touch, with breath of bale,

The pleasance of our fairy tale.

These are only a meager handful of his many poems. Through his life this gift stayed with him, with all its early spirit and freshness; the added years but added grace and lightness to his touch, for in the “Story of Sylvie and Bruno” there are some gems: but that is another chapter and we shall hear them later.

And so the years passed, and the writer of the “Alices” and the “Jabberwocky” and “The Hunting of the Snark” and other poems fastened himself slowly but surely into the loyal hearts of his many readers, and the grave mathematical lecturer of Christ Church seemed just a trifle older and graver than of yore. He was very reserved, very shy, and kept somewhat aloof from his fellow “dons”; but let a little girl tap ever so faintly at his study door, the knock was heard, the door flung wide, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson vanished into some inner sanctum, and Lewis Carroll stood smiling on the threshold to welcome her with open arms.

CHAPTER XI.

GAMES, RIDDLES, AND PROBLEMS.

Lewis Carroll had a mind which never rested in waking hours, and as is the case with all such active thinkers, his hours of sleeping were often broken by long stretches of wakefulness, during which time the thinking machinery set itself in motion and spun out problems and riddles and odd games and puzzles.

“Puzzles and problems of all sorts were a delight to Mr. Dodgson,” writes Miss Beatrice Hatch in the Strand Magazine. “Many a sleepless night was occupied by what he called a ‘pillow problem’; in fact his mathematical mind seemed always at work on something of the kind, and he loved to discuss and argue a point connected with his logic, if he could but find a willing listener. Sometimes, while paying an afternoon call, he would borrow scraps of paper and leave neat little diagrams or word puzzles to be worked out by his friends.”

Logic was a study of which he was very fond. After he gave up in 1881 the lectureship of mathematics which he had held for twenty-five years he determined to make literature a profession; to devote part of his time to more serious study, and a fair portion to the equally fascinating work for children.

“In his estimation,” says Miss Hatch, “logic was a most important study for every one; no pains were spared to make it clear and interesting to those who would consent to learn of him, either in a class that he begged to be allowed to hold in a school or college, or to a single individual girl who showed the smallest inclination to profit by his instructions.”

He took the greatest delight in his subject and wisely argued that all girls should learn, not only to reason, but to reason properly—that is, logically. With this end in view he wrote for their use a little book which he called “The Game of Logic,” and the girls, whose footsteps he had guided in childish days through realms of nonsense, were willing in many instances to journey with him into the byways of learning, feeling sure he would not lead them into depths where they could not follow. The little volume contains four chapters, and the whimsical headings show us at once that Lewis Carroll was the author, and not Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.

Chapter I.........New Lamps for Old.

Chapter II.......Cross Questions.

Chapter III......Crooked Answers.

Chapter IV......Hit or Miss.

To be sure this is not a “play” book, and even as a “game” it is one which requires a great deal of systematic thinking and reasoning. The girl who has reached thinking and reasoning years and does not care to do either, had better not even peep into the book; but if she is built on sturdier lines and wishes to peep, she must do more—she must read it step by step and study the carefully drawn diagrams, if she would follow intelligently the clear, precise arguments. The book is dedicated—

TO MY CHILD-FRIEND.

I charm in vain: for never again,

All keenly as my glance I bend,

Will memory, goddess coy,

Embody for my joy

Departed days, nor let me gaze

On thee, my Fairy Friend!

Yet could thy face, in mystic grace,

A moment smile on me, ’twould send

Far-darting rays of light

From Heaven athwart the night,

By which to read in very deed

Thy spirit, sweetest Friend!

So may the stream of Life’s long dream

Flow gently onward to its end,

With many a floweret gay,

Adown its billowy way:

May no sigh vex nor care perplex

My loving little Friend!

His preface is most enticing. He says: “This Game requires nine Counters—four of one colour and five of another; say four red and five gray. Besides the nine Counters, it also requires one Player at least. I am not aware of any game that can be played with less than this number; while there are several that require more; take Cricket, for instance, which requires twenty-two. How much easier it is, when you want to play a game, to find one Player than twenty-two! At the same time, though one Player is enough, a good deal more amusement may be got by two working at it together, and correcting each other’s mistakes.

“A second advantage possessed by this Game is that, besides being an endless source of amusement (the number of arguments that may be worked by it being infinite), it will give the Players a little instruction as well. But is there any great harm in that, so long as you get plenty of amusement?”

To explain the book thoroughly would take the wit and clever handling of Lewis Carroll himself, but to the beginner of Logic a few of these unfinished syllogisms may prove interesting: a syllogism in logical language consists of what is known as two Premisses and one Conclusion, and is a very simple form of argument when you get used to it.

For instance, supposing someone says: “All my friends have colds”; someone else may add: “No one can sing who has a cold”; then the third person draws the conclusion, which is: “None of my friends can sing,” and the perfect logical argument would read as follows:

1. Premise—“All my friends have colds.”

2. Premise—“No one can sing who has a cold.”

3. Conclusion—“None of my friends can sing.”

That is what is called a perfect syllogism, and in Chapter IV, which he calls Hit or Miss, Lewis Carroll has collected a hundred examples containing the two Premisses which need the Conclusion. Here are some of them. Anyone can draw her own conclusions:

Pain is wearisome;

No pain is eagerly wished for.

In each case the student is required to fill up the third space.

No bald person needs a hairbrush;

No lizards have hair.

No unhappy people chuckle;

No happy people groan.

All ducks waddle;

Nothing that waddles is graceful.

Some oysters are silent;

No silent creatures are amusing.

Umbrellas are useful on a journey;

What is useless on a journey should be left behind.

No quadrupeds can whistle;

Some cats are quadrupeds.

Some bald people wear wigs;

All your children have hair.

The whole book is brimful of humor and simple everyday reasoning that the smallest child could understand.

Another “puzzle” book of even an earlier date is “A Tangled Tale”; this is dedicated—

TO MY PUPIL.

Belovéd pupil! Tamed by thee,

Addish, Subtrac-, Multiplica-tion,

Division, Fractions, Rule of Three,

Attest the deft manipulation!

Then onward! Let the voice of Fame,

From Age to Age repeat the story,

Till thou hast won thyself a name,

Exceeding even Euclid’s glory!

In the preface he says: “This Tale originally appeared as a serial in The Monthly Packet, beginning in April, 1880. The writer’s intention was to embody in each Knot (like the medicine so deftly but ineffectually concealed in the jam of our childhood) one or more mathematical questions, in Arithmetic, Algebra, or Geometry, as the case might be, for the amusement and possible edification of the fair readers of that Magazine.

“October, 1885. L. C.”

These are regular mathematical problems and “posers,” most of them, and it seems that the readers, being more or less ambitious, set to work in right good earnest to answer them, and sent in the solutions to the author under assumed names, and then he produced the real problem, the real answer, and all the best answers of the contestants. These problems were all called Knots and were told in the form of stories.

Knot I was called Excelsior. It was written as a tale of adventure, and ran as follows:

“The ruddy glow of sunset was already fading into the somber shadows of night, when two travelers might have been observed swiftly—at a pace of six miles in the hour—descending the rugged side of a mountain; the younger bounding from crag to crag with the agility of a fawn, while his companion, whose aged limbs seemed ill at ease in the heavy chain armor habitually worn by tourists in that district, toiled on painfully at his side.”

Lewis Carroll is evidently imitating the style of some celebrated writer—Henry James, most likely, who is rather fond of opening his story with “two travelers,” or perhaps Sir Walter Scott. He goes on:

“As is always the case under such circumstances, the younger knight was the first to break the silence.

“‘A goodly pace, I trow!’ he exclaimed. ‘We sped not thus in the ascent!’

“‘Goodly, indeed!’ the other echoed with a groan. ‘We clomb it but at three miles in the hour.’

“‘And on the dead level our pace is—?’ the younger suggested; for he was weak in statistics, and left all such details to his aged companion.

“‘Four miles in the hour,’ the other wearily replied. ‘Not an ounce more,’ he added, with that love of metaphor so common in old age, ‘and not a farthing less!’

“‘’Twas three hours past high noon when we left our hostelry,’ the young man said, musingly. ‘We shall scarce be back by supper-time. Perchance mine host will roundly deny us all food!’

“‘He will chide our tardy return,’ was the grave reply, ‘and such a rebuke will be meet.’

“‘A brave conceit!’ cried the other, with a merry laugh. ‘And should we bid him bring us yet another course, I trow his answer will be tart!’

“‘We shall but get our deserts,’ sighed the older knight, who had never seen a joke in his life, and was somewhat displeased at his companion’s untimely levity. ‘’Twill be nine of the clock,’ he added in an undertone, ‘by the time we regain our hostelry. Full many a mile have we plodded this day!’

“‘How many? How many?’ cried the eager youth, ever athirst for knowledge.

“The old man was silent.

“‘Tell me,’ he answered after a moment’s thought, ‘what time it was when we stood together on yonder peak. Not exact to the minute!’ he added, hastily, reading a protest in the young man’s face. ‘An’ thy guess be within one poor half hour of the mark, ’tis all I ask of thy mother’s son! Then will I tell thee, true to the last inch, how far we shall have trudged betwixt three and nine of the clock.’

“A groan was the young man’s only reply, while his convulsed features and the deep wrinkles that chased each other across his manly brow revealed the abyss of arithmetical agony into which one chance question had plunged him.”

The problem in plain English is this: “Two travelers spend from three o’clock till nine in walking along a level road, up a hill, and home again, their pace on the level being four miles an hour, up hill three, and down hill six. Find distance walked: also (within half an hour) the time of reaching top of hill.”

Answer. “Twenty-four miles: half-past six.”

The explanation is very clear and very simple, but we will not give it here. This first knot of “A Tangled Tale” offers attractions of its own, for like the dream Alice someone may exclaim, “A Knot! Oh, do let me help to undo it!”

The second problem or “Tale” is called Eligible Apartments, and deals with the adventures of one Balbus and his pupils, and contains two “Knots.” One is: “The Governor of —— wants to give a very small dinner party, and he means to ask his father’s brother-in-law, his brother’s father-in-law, and his brother-in-law’s father, and we’re to guess how many guests there will be.” The answer is one. Perhaps some ambitious person will go over the ground and prove it. The second knot deals with the Eligible Apartments which Balbus and his pupils were hunting. At the end of their walk they found themselves in a square.

“‘It is a Square!’ was Balbus’s first cry of delight as he gazed around him. ‘Beautiful! Beau-ti-ful! And rectangular!’ and as he plunged into Geometry he also plunged into funny conversations with the average English landlady, which we can better follow:

“‘Which there is one room, gentlemen,’ said the smiling landlady, ‘and a sweet room, too. As snug a little back room——’

“‘We will see it,’ said Balbus gloomily as they followed her in. ‘I knew how it would be! One room in each house! No view I suppose.’

“‘Which indeed there is, gentlemen!’ the landlady indignantly protested as she drew up the blind, and indicated the back garden.

“‘Cabbages, I perceive,’ said Balbus. ‘Well, they’re green at any rate.’

“‘Which the greens at the shops,’ their hostess explained, ‘are by no means dependable upon. Here you has them on the premises, and of the best.’

“‘Does the window open?’ was always Balbus’s first question in testing a lodging; and ‘Does the chimney smoke?’ his second. Satisfied on all points, he secured the refusal of the room, and moved on to the next house where they repeated the same performance, adding as an afterthought: ‘Does the cat scratch?’

“The landlady looked around suspiciously as if to make sure the cat was not listening. ‘I will not deceive you, gentlemen,’ she said, ‘it do scratch, but not without you pulls its whiskers. It’ll never do it,’ she repeated slowly, with a visible effort to recall the exact words between herself and the cat, ‘without you pulls its whiskers!’

“‘Much may be excused in a cat so treated,’ said Balbus as they left the house, ... leaving the landlady curtseying on the doorstep and still murmuring to herself her parting words, as if they were a form of blessing, ‘not without you pulls its whiskers!’”

He has given us a real Dickens atmosphere in the dialogue, but the medicinal problem tucked into it all is too much like hard work.

There were ten of these “Knots,” each one harder than its predecessor, and Lewis Carroll found much interest in receiving and criticising the answers, all sent under fictitious names.

This clever mathematician delighted in “puzzlers,” and sometimes he found a kindred soul among the guessers, which always pleased him.

One of his favorite problems was one that as early as the days of the Rectory Umbrella he brought before his limited public. He called it Difficulty No. 1.

“Where in its passage round the earth does the day change its name?”

This question pursued him all through his mathematical career, and the difficulty of answering it has never lessened. Even in “A Tangled Tale” neither Balbus nor his ambitious young pupils could do much with the problem.

Difficulty No. 2 is very humorous, and somewhat of a “catch” question.

“Which is the best—a clock that is right only once a year, or a clock that is right twice every day?”

In March, 1897, Vanity Fair, a current English magazine, had the following article entitled:

“A New Puzzle.”

“The readers of Vanity Fair have, during the last ten years, shown so much interest in Acrostics and Hard Cases, which were at first made the object of sustained competition for prizes in the journal, that it has been sought to invent for them an entirely new kind of Puzzle, such as would interest them equally with those that have already been so successful. The subjoined letter from Mr. Lewis Carroll will explain itself, and will introduce a Puzzle so entirely novel and withal so interesting that the transmutation [changing] of the original into the final word of the Doublets may be expected to become an occupation, to the full as amusing as the guessing of the Double Acrostics has already proved.”

“Dear Vanity,” Lewis Carroll writes:—“Just a year ago last Christmas two young ladies, smarting under that sorest scourge of feminine humanity, the having “nothing to do,” besought me to send them “some riddles.” But riddles I had none at hand and therefore set myself to devise some other form of verbal torture which should serve the same purpose. The result of my meditations was a new kind of Puzzle, new at least to me, which now that it has been fairly tested by a year’s experience, and commended by many friends, I offer to you as a newly gathered nut to be cracked by the omnivorous teeth that have already masticated so many of your Double Acrostics.

“The rules of the Puzzle are simple enough. Two words are proposed, of the same length; and the Puzzle consists in linking these together by interposing other words, each of which shall differ from the next word in one letter only. That is to say, one letter may be changed in one of the given words, then one letter in the word so obtained, and so on, till we arrive at the other given word. The letters must not be interchanged among themselves, but each must keep to its own place. As an example, the word ‘head’ may be changed into ‘tail’ by interposing the words ‘heal, teal, tell, tall.’ I call the two given words ‘a Doublet,’ the interposed words ‘Links,’ and the entire series ‘a Chain,’ of which I here append an example:

Head

heal

teal

tell

tall

Tail

“It is perhaps needless to state that the links should be English words, such as might be used in good society.

“The easiest ‘Doublets’ are those in which the consonants in one word answer to the consonants in the other, and the vowels to vowels; ‘head’ and ‘tail’ constitute a Doublet of this kind. Where this is not the case, as in ‘head’ and ‘hare,’ the first thing to be done is to transform one member of the Doublet into a word whose consonants and vowels shall answer to those in the other member (‘head, herd, here’), after which there is seldom much difficulty in completing the ‘Chain.’...

“Lewis Carroll.”

“Doublets” was brought out in book form in 1880, and proved a very attractive little volume.

“The Game of Logic” and “A Tangled Tale” are also in book form, the latter cleverly illustrated by Arthur B. Frost.

It would take too long to name all the games and puzzles Lewis Carroll invented. Some were carefully thought out, some were produced on the spur of the moment, generally for the amusement of some special child friend. Indeed, the puzzles and riddles and games had accumulated to such an extent that he was arranging to publish a book of them with illustrations by Miss E. Gertrude Thomson, but after his death the plans fell through, and many literary projects were abandoned.

Acrostic writing was one of his favorite pastimes, and he wrote enough of these to have filled a good fat little volume.

His Wonderland Stamp-Case, one of his own ingenious inventions, might come under the head of “Puzzles and Problems,” and, oddly enough, an interesting description of this stamp-case was published only a short time ago in The Nation. The writer describes his own copy which he bought when it was new, some twenty years ago. There is first an envelope of red paper, on which is printed:

The “Wonderland” Postage Stamp-Case,

Invented by Louis Carroll, Oct. 29, 1888.

This case contains 12 separate packets for

Stamps of different values, and 2 Coloured

Pictorial Surprises, taken from “Alice in

Wonderland.” It is accompanied with 8 or

9 Wise Words about Letter-Writing.

1st, post-free, 13d.

On the flap of the envelope is:

Published by Emberlin & Son,

4 Magdalen Street, Oxford.

“The Stamp-Case,” the writer tells us, “consists of a stiff paper folded with the pockets on the inner leaves and a picture on each outer leaf. This Case is inclosed in a sliding cover, and in this way the pictorial surprise becomes possible. A picture of Alice holding the Baby is on the front cover, and when this is drawn off, there is underneath a picture of Alice nursing a pig. On the back cover is the famous Cat, which vanishes to a shadowy grin on the pictures beneath.”

The booklet which accompanied this little stamp-case found its way to many of his girl friends. Now, whether they bought it, or whether, under guise of giving a present, this clever friend of theirs sent them the stamp-case with the “eight or nine words of advice” slyly tucked in, we cannot say, but in the case of Isa Bowman and of Beatrice Hatch the booklet evidently made a deep impression, for both quote from it very freely, and some of the “wise words” are certainly worth heeding, for instance:

“Address and stamp the envelope.”

“What! Before writing the letter?”

“Most certainly; and I’ll tell you what will happen if you don’t. You will go on writing till the last moment, and just in the middle of the last sentence you will become aware that ‘time’s up!’ Then comes the hurried wind-up—the wildly scrawled signature—the hastily fastened envelope which comes open in the post—the address—a mere hieroglyphic—the horrible discovery that you’ve forgotten to replenish your stamp-case—the frantic appeal to everyone in the house to lend you a stamp—the headlong rush to the Post Office, arriving hot and gasping, just after the box has been closed—and finally, a week afterwards, the return of the letter from the dead letter office, marked, ‘address illegible.’”

“Write legibly.

“The average temper of the human race would be perceptibly sweetened if everybody obeyed this rule. A great deal of bad writing in the world comes simply from writing too quickly. Of course you reply, ‘I do it to save time.’ A very good object no doubt; but what right have you to do it at your friend’s expense? Isn’t his time as valuable as yours? Years ago I used to receive letters from a friend—and very interesting letters too—written in one of the most atrocious hands ever invented. It generally took me about a week to read one of his letters! I used to carry it about in my pocket and take it out at leisure times to puzzle over the riddles which composed it—holding it in different positions, till at last the meaning of some hopeless scrawl would flash upon me, when I at once wrote down the English under it; and when several had thus been guessed, the context would help me with the others till at last the whole series of hieroglyphics was deciphered. If all one’s friends wrote like that, life would be entirely spent in reading their letters!”

“My Ninth Rule.—When you get to the end of a note-sheet, and find you have more to say, take another piece of paper—a whole sheet or a scrap, as the case may demand, but whatever you do, don’t cross! Remember the old proverb ‘Cross-writing makes cross-reading.’ ‘The old proverb?’ you say inquiringly. ‘How old?’ Why, not so very ancient, I must confess. In fact—I’m afraid I invented it while writing this paragraph. Still, you know ‘old’ is a comparative term; I think you would be quite justified in addressing a chicken just out of the shell as ‘Old Boy!’ when compared with another chicken that was only half out!”

“Don’t try to have the last word,” he tells us—and again, “Don’t fill more than a page and a half with apologies for not having written sooner.”

“On how to end a letter,” he advises the writer to “refer to your correspondent’s last letter, and make your winding up at least as friendly as his; in fact, even if a shade more friendly, it will do no harm.”

“When you take your letters to the post, carry them in your hand. If you put them in your pocket, you will take a long country walk (I speak from experience), passing the post office twice, going and returning, and when you get home you will find them still in your pocket.”

Letter-writing was as much a part of Lewis Carroll as games, and puzzles, and problems, and mathematics, and nonsense, and little girls. Indeed, as we view him through the stretch of years, we find him so many-sided that he himself would have done well to draw a new geometrical figure to represent a nature so full of strange angles and surprising shapes. If one is fond of looking into a kaleidoscope, and watching the ever-changing facets and colours and designs, one would be pretty apt to understand the constant shifting of that active mind, always on the alert for new ideas, but steady and fixed in many good old ones, which had become firm habits.

He was fond of giving his child-friends “nuts to crack,” and nothing pleased him more than to be the center of some group of little girls, firing his conundrums and puzzles into their minds, and watching the bright young faces catching the glow of his thoughts. He knew just how far to go, and when to turn some dawning idea into quaint nonsense, so that the young mind could grasp and hold it. Dear maker of nonsense, dear teacher and friend, dear lover of children, can they ever forget you!

CHAPTER XII.

A FAIRY RING OF GIRLS.

In a little poem called “A Sea Dirge,” which Lewis Carroll wrote about this time, we find some very strange, uncomplimentary remarks, considering the fact that most of his vacations was spent at the seashore. Eastbourne, in the summer time, was as much his home—during the last fifteen years of his life—as Christ Church during the Oxford term. His pretty house in a shady, quiet street was a familiar spot to every girl friend of his acquaintance, and many of his closest and most interesting friendships were begun by the sea, yet he says:

There are certain things, as a spider, a ghost,

The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three—

That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most

Is a thing they call the Sea.

Pour some salt water over the floor—

Ugly I’m sure you’ll allow it to be;

Suppose it extended a mile or more,

That’s very like the Sea.

······

I had a vision of nursery maids;

Tens of thousands passed by me—

All leading children with wooden spades,

And this way by the Sea.

Who invented those spades of wood?

Who was it cut them out of the tree?

None, I think, but an idiot could—

Or one that loved the Sea.

······

If you like your coffee with sand for dregs,

A decided hint of salt in your tea,

And a fishy taste in the very eggs—

By all means choose the Sea.

And if, with these dainties to drink and eat,

You prefer not a vestige of grass or tree,

And a chronic state of wet in your feet,

Then—I recommend the Sea.

Did he mean all this, we wonder, this genial gentleman, who haunted the seashore in search of little girls, his pockets bulging with games and puzzles? He had also a good supply of safety-pins, in case he saw someone who wanted to wade in the sea, but whose skirts were in her way and who had no pin handy. Then he would go gravely up to her and present her with one of his stock.

In the earlier days he used to go to Sandown, in the Isle of Wight, and there he met little Gertrude Chataway, who must have been a very charming child, for he promptly fell in love with her. This was in 1875, and, from her description of him, he must have been a very, very old gentleman—forty-three at least. He happened to live next door to Gertrude, and during those summer days she used to watch him with much interest, for he had a way of throwing back his head and sniffing in the salt air that fascinated Gertrude, whose joy bubbled over when at last he spoke to her. The two became great friends. They used to sit for hours on the steps of their house which led to the beach, and he would delight the little girl with his wonderful stories, often illustrating them with a pencil as he talked. The great charm of these stories lay in the fact that some chance remark of Gertrude’s would wind him up; some question she asked would suggest a story, and as it spread out into “lovely nonsense” she always felt in some way that she had helped to make it grow.

This little girl was one of the child-friends who clung to the sweet association all her life, just as the little Liddell girls never grew quite away from his love and interest. It was to Gertrude that he dedicated “The Hunting of the Snark,” and she was the proud possessor not only of his friendship, but of many interesting letters, covering a period of at least ten years, during which time Gertrude passed from little girlhood, though he never seemed to realize the change.

Two of his prime favorites in the earlier days were Ellen Terry, the well-known English actress, and her sister Kate, who was also an actress of some note.

Lewis Carroll, being always very fond of the drama, found it through life his keenest delight, and it was his good fortune to see little Ellen Terry in the first prominent part she ever took. This was in 1856, when Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean played in “The Winter’s Tale,” and Ellen took the child’s character of Mamillius, the little son of the King. Lewis Carroll was carried away with the tiny actress, and it did not take him long after that to make her acquaintance. This no doubt began in the usual way, a chat with the child behind the scenes, a call upon her father and mother, and, finally, an introduction to the whole family which, being nearly as large as his own, could not fail to interest him deeply.

There were two other little Terry girls, who attracted him and to whom he was very kind, Florence and Marion. The boys, and there were five of them, he never noticed of course, but the four little girls came in for a good share of the most substantial petting. Many a day at the seaside he gave them—these busy little actresses—many a feast in his own rooms, many a daytime frolic, for night was their working time—not that they minded in the least, for they loved their work. There was much talk in those days about the harm in allowing children to act at night, when they should be snug in their beds dreaming of fairies. But Lewis Carroll thought nothing of the kind; he delighted in the children’s acting, and he knew, being half a child himself, that the youngsters took as much delight in their work as he did in seeing them. He always contended that acting comes naturally to children; from babyhood they “pretend,” and if they happen, as in Ellen Terry’s case and the case of other little stage people he knew, to be born in the profession, why, this “pretending” is the finest kind of play not work. So he was always on the side of the little actors and actresses who did not want to be taken away from the theater and put to bed.

Ellen Terry proved also to be one of his lifelong friends; the talented actress found his praise a most precious thing, and his criticism, always so honest, and usually so keen and true, she accepted with the grace of the great artist. Often, too, he asked her aid for some other girl friend with dramatic talent, and she never failed to lend a helping hand when she could. From first to last her acting charmed him. Often he would take a little girl to some Shakespearean treat at the theater, and would raise her to the “seventh heaven” of delight by penciling a note to Miss Terry asking for an interview or perhaps a photograph for his small companion, and these requests were never refused.

Every Christmas the Rev. Charles Dodgson spent with his sisters, who since their father’s death had lived at Guildford, in a pretty house called The Chestnuts. His coming at Christmas was always a great event, for of course some very youthful ladies in the neighborhood were in a state of suppressed excitement over his yearly arrival, which meant Christmas jollity—with charades and tableaux and all sorts of odd and interesting games, and, of course, stories.

One of his special Guildford favorites was Gaynor Simpson, to whom he wrote several of his clever letters. In one, evidently an answer to hers, he begged her never again to leave out the g in the name Dodgson, asking in a very plaintive manner what she would think if he left out the G in her name and called her “Aynor” instead of Gaynor.

In this same letter he confessed that he never danced except in his own peculiar way, that the last house he danced in, the floors broke through, but as the beams were only six inches thick, it was a very poor sort of floor, when one came to think—that stone arches were much better for his sort of dancing.

Indeed, the poem he wrote about the sea must have been just a bit of a joke, for it was at Margate, another seaside resort, that he met Adelaide Paine, another of his favorites, and to her he presented a copy of “The Hunting of the Snark,” with an acrostic on her name written on the fly leaf. This little maid was further honored by receiving a photograph, not of Lewis Carroll, but of Mr. Dodgson, and in a note to her mother he begged in his usual odd way that she would never let any but her intimate friends know anything about the name of “Lewis Carroll,” as he did not wish people who had heard of him to recognize him in the street.

The friendships that were not cemented at the seaside or under the shelter of old “Tom Quad” were very often begun in the railway train. English trains are not like ours in America. In Lewis Carroll’s time the “first-class” accommodations were called carriages, in which four or five people, often total strangers, were shut up for hours together, actually locked in by the guard; and if one of these people chanced to be Lewis Carroll, and another a restless, active little girl, why, in the twinkling of an eye the sign of fellowship had flashed between them, and they were friends.

One special friend made in this fashion was a dear little maid named Kathleen Eschwege, who stayed a child to him always during their eighteen years of friendship, in spite of all the changes the years brought in their train; her marriage among the rest, on which occasion he wrote her that as he never gave wedding presents, he hoped the inclosed he sent in his letter she would accept as an unwedding present.

This letter bore the date of January 20, 1892; five years later he wrote to acknowledge a photograph she had sent him in January, 1892, also her wedding-card in August of the same year. But he salved his conscience by reminding her that a certain biscuit-box—decorated with “Looking-Glass” pictures—which he had sent her in December, 1892, had never been acknowledged by her.

Our “don’s” memory sometimes played him tricks we see, especially in later years. On one occasion, failing to recognize someone who passed him on the street, he was much chagrined to find out that he had been the gentleman’s guest at dinner only the night before.

Another pleasant railway friendship was established with three little Drury girls, as early as 1869. They did not know who he was until he sent them a copy of “Alice in Wonderland”—with the following verse on the fly leaf:

TO THREE PUZZLED LITTLE GIRLS.

(From the Author.)

Three little maidens weary of the rail,

Three pairs of little ears listening to a tale,

Three little hands held out in readiness

For three little puzzles very hard to guess.

Three pairs of little eyes and open wonder-wide

At three little scissors lying side by side,

Three little mouths that thanked an unknown friend

For one little book he undertook to send.

Though whether they’ll remember a friend or book or day—

In three little weeks is very hard to say.

Edith Rix was another favorite but apparently beyond the usual age, for his letters to her have quite a grown-up tone, and he helped her through many girlish quandaries with his wholesome advice.

There are scores of others—so many that their very names would mean nothing to us unless we knew the circumstances which began the acquaintance, and the numerous incidents which could only occur in the company of Lewis Carroll.

As we know, there were three great influences in his life: his reverence for holy things, his fondness for mathematics, and his love of little girls. It is this last trait which colours our picture of him and makes him stand forth in our minds apart from other men of his time. There have been many great preachers and eminent mathematicians, and these brilliant men may have loved childhood in a certain way, but to step aside from their high places to mingle with the children would never have occurred to them. The small girls who were “seen and not heard” dropped their eyes bashfully when the great ones passed, and bobbed a little old-fashioned curtsy in return for a stately preoccupied nod. But not so Lewis Carroll. No childish eyes ever sought his in vain. His own blue ones always smiled back, and there was something so glowing in this smile which lit up his whole face, that children, all unconsciously, drew near the warmth of it.

His love for girls speaks well for the home-life and surroundings of his earlier years, when in the company of his seven sisters he learned to know girls pretty thoroughly. These girls of whom we have such scant knowledge possessed, we are sure, some potent charm to make this “big brother” forever afterwards the champion of little girls, and being a thoughtful fellow, he must have watched with pleasure the way they bloomed from childhood to girlhood and from girlhood to womanhood, in the sweet seclusion of Croft Rectory. It was this intimacy and comradeship with his sisters which made him so easily the intimate and comrade of so many little girls, understanding all their traits and peculiarities and their “girl nature” better sometimes than they did themselves.

Some of his friends moved in royal circles. Princess Beatrice, who received the second presentation copy of “Alice in Wonderland,” was one of them; but in later years the two children of the Duchess of Albany (Queen Victoria’s daughter-in-law), Alice and the young Duke, claimed his friendship, and despite his preference for girls, Lewis Carroll could not help liking the lad, whose gentle disposition and studious habits set him somewhat apart from other boys.

Near home, that is to say in Oxford, or more properly, within a stone’s throw of Christ Church itself, dwelt the Rev. E. Hatch and his bright and interesting family of children, with all of whom Lewis Carroll was on the most intimate terms, though his special favorite was Beatrice, better known as Bee. This little girl came so close upon the Liddell children in his long list of friends that she almost caught the echo of those happy days of “Wonderland,” and she has much to say about this association in an interesting article published in the Strand Magazine some years ago.

“My earliest recollections of Mr. Dodgson,” she writes, “are connected with photography. He was very fond of this art at one time, though he had entirely given it up for many years latterly. He kept various costumes and ‘properties’ with which to dress us up, and of course that added to the fun. What child would not thoroughly enjoy personating a Japanese or a beggar child or a gypsy or an Indian? Sometimes there were excursions to the roof of the college, which was easily accessible from the windows of the studio. Or you might stand by your tall friend’s side in the tiny dark room, and watch him while he poured the contents of several little strong-smelling bottles on the glass picture of yourself that looked so funny with its black face; and when you grew tired of this there were many delights to be found in the cupboards in the big room downstairs. Musical boxes of different colours and different tunes, the dear old woolly bear that walked when he was wound up, toys, picture-books, and packets of photographs of other children, who had also enjoyed these mornings of bliss.

“The following letter written to me in 1873, about a large wax doll that Mr. Dodgson had presented to me, and which I left behind when I went on a visit from home, is an interesting specimen. Emily and Mabel [referred to in the letter] were other dolls of mine and known also by him, but though they have long since departed this life, I need hardly say I still possess the doll ‘Alice.’

“‘My dear Birdie: I met her just outside Tom Gate, walking very stiffly and I think she was trying to find her way to my rooms. So I said, “Why have you come here without Birdie?” So she said, “Birdie’s gone! and Emily’s gone! and Mabel isn’t kind to me!”’ And two little waxy tears came running down her cheeks.

“Why, how stupid of me! I’ve never told who it was all the time! It was your own doll. I was very glad to see her, and took her to my room, and gave her some Vesta matches to eat, and a cup of nice melted wax to drink, for the poor little thing was very hungry and thirsty after her long walk. So I said, ‘Come and sit by the fire and let’s have a comfortable chat?’ ‘Oh, no! no!’ she said, ‘I’d much rather not; you know I do melt so very easily!’ And she made me take her quite to the other side of the room, where it was very cold; and then she sat on my knee and fanned herself with a pen-wiper, because she said she was afraid the end of her nose was beginning to melt.

“‘You have no idea how careful we have to be—we dolls,’ she said. ‘Why, there was a sister of mine—would you believe it?—she went up to the fire to warm her hands, and one of her hands dropped right off! There now!’ ‘Of course it dropped right off,’ I said, ‘because it was the right hand.’ ‘And how do you know it was the right hand, Mister Carroll?’ the doll said. So I said, ‘I think it must have been the right hand because the other hand was left.’

“The doll said, ‘I shan’t laugh. It’s a very bad joke. Why, even a common wooden doll could make a better joke than that. And besides they’ve made my mouth so stiff and hard that I can’t laugh if I try ever so much.’ ‘Don’t be cross about it,’ I said, ‘but tell me this: I’m going to give Birdie and the other children one photograph each, whichever they choose; which do you think Birdie will choose?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said the doll; ‘you’d better ask her!’ So I took her home in a hansom cab. Which would you like, do you think? Arthur as Cupid? or Arthur and Wilfred together? or you and Ethel as beggar children? or Ethel standing on a box? or, one of yourself?

“‘Your affectionate friend,

“‘Lewis Carroll.’”

There were, as you see, special occasions when boys were accepted, or rather tolerated, and special boys with whom he exchanged courtesies from time to time. The little Hatch boys were favored, we cannot say for their own small sakes, but because there were two little sisters and their feelings had to be considered. Lewis Carroll even took their pictures, and went so far as to write a little prologue for Beatrice and her brother Wilfred. The “grown-ups” were to give some private theatricals which the children were to introduce in the following dialogue:

(Enter Beatrice leading Wilfred. She leaves him at center [front], and after going round on tiptoe to make sure they are not overheard, returns and takes his arm.)

B. Wiffie! I’m sure that something is the matter!

All day there’s been-oh, such a fuss and clatter!

Mamma’s been trying on a funny dress—

I never saw the house in such a mess!

(Puts her arms around his neck.)

Is there a secret, Wiffie?

W. (Shaking her off.) Yes, of course!

B. And you won’t tell it? (Whimpers.) Then you’re very cross!

(Turns away from him and clasps her hands ecstatically.)

I’m sure of this! It’s something quite uncommon!

W. (Stretching up his arms with a mock heroic air.)

Oh, Curiosity! Thy name is woman!

(Puts his arm round her coaxingly.)

Well, Birdie, then I’ll tell! (Mysteriously.)

What should you say

If they were going to act—a little play?

B. (Jumping up and clapping her hands.)

I’d say, “How nice!”

W. (Pointing to audience.)

But will it please the rest?

B. Oh, yes! Because, you know, they’ll do their best!

(Turns to audience.)

You’ll praise them, won’t you, when you’ve seen the play?

Just say, “How nice!” before you go away!

(They run away hand in hand.)

Of course the little girl had the last word, but then, as Lewis Carroll himself would say, “Little girls usually had.”

This prologue, Miss Hatch tells us, was Lewis Carroll’s only attempt in the dramatic line, and the two tots made a pretty picture as they ran off the stage.

“Mr. Dodgson’s chief form of entertaining,” writes Miss Hatch, “was giving dinner parties. Do not misunderstand me, nor picture to yourself a long row of guests on either side of a gayly-decorated table. Mr. Dodgson’s theory was that it was much more enjoyable to have your friends singly, consequently these ‘dinner parties,’ as he liked to call them, consisted almost always of one guest only, and that one a child friend. One of his charming and characteristic little notes, written in his clear writing, often on a half sheet of note paper and signed with the C.L.D. monogram

would arrive, containing an invitation, of which the following is a specimen.” [Though written when Beatrice was no longer a little girl.]

Ch. Ch. Nov. 21, ’96.

“‘My dear Bee:—The reason I have for so long a time not visited the hive is a logical one,” (he was busy on his symbolic Logic), “‘but is not (as you might imagine) that I think there is no more honey in it! Will you come and dine with me? Any day would suit me, and I would fetch you at 6:30.

“‘Ever your affectionate

“‘C.L.D.’

“Let us suppose this invitation has been accepted.... After turning in at the door of No. 7 staircase, and mounting a rather steep and winding stair, we find ourselves outside a heavy black door, of somewhat prisonlike appearance, over which is painted ‘The Rev. C. L. Dodgson.’ Then a passage, then a door with glass panels, and at last we reach the familiar room that we love so well. It is large and lofty and extremely cheerful-looking. All around the walls are bookcases and under them the cupboards of which I have spoken, and which even now we long to see opened that they may pour out their treasures.

“Opposite to the big window with its cushioned seat is the fireplace; and this is worthy of some notice on account of the lovely red tiles which represent the story of ‘The Hunting of the Snark.’ Over the mantelpiece hang three painted portraits of child friends, the one in the middle being the picture of a little girl in a blue cap and coat who is carrying a pair of skates.”

This picture is a fine likeness of Xie (Alexandra) Kitchin, the little daughter of the Dean of Durham, another of his Oxford favorites.

“Mr. Dodgson,” continues Miss Hatch, “seats his guest in a corner of the red sofa, in front of the fireplace, and the few minutes before dinner are occupied with anecdotes about other child friends, small or grown up, or anything in particular that has happened to himself.... Dinner is served in the smaller room, which is also filled with bookcases and books.... Those who have had the privilege of enjoying a college dinner need not be told how excellent it is.... The rest of the evening slips away very quickly, there is so much to be shown. You may play a game—one of Mr. Dodgson’s own invention— ... or you may see pictures, lovely drawings of fairies, whom your host tells you ‘you can’t be sure don’t really exist.’ Or you may have music if you wish it.”

This was of course before the days of the phonograph, but Lewis Carroll had the next best thing, which Miss Hatch describes as an organette, in a large square box, through the side of which a handle is affixed. “Another box holds the tunes, circular perforated cards, all carefully catalogued by their owner. The picture of the author of ‘Alice’ keenly enjoying every note as he solemnly turns the handle, and raises or closes the lid of the box to vary the sound, is more worthy of your delight than the music itself. Never was there a more delightful host for a ‘dinner-party’ or one who took such pains for your entertainment, fresh and interesting to the last.”

One of the first things a little girl learned in her intercourse with Lewis Carroll was to be methodical and orderly, as he was himself, in the arrangement of papers, photographs, and books; he kept lists and registers of everything. Miss Hatch tells of a wonderful letter register of his own invention “that not only recorded the names of his correspondents and the dates of their letters, but also noted the contents of each communication, so that in a few seconds he could tell you what you had written to him about on a certain day in years gone by.

“Another register contained a list of every menu supplied to every guest who dined at Mr. Dodgson’s table. Yet,” she explains, “his dinners were simple enough, never more than two courses. But everything that he did must be done in the most perfect manner possible, and the same care and attention would be given to other people’s affairs, if in any way he could assist or give them pleasure.

“If he took you up to London to see a play, you were no sooner seated in the railway carriage than a game was produced from his bag and all the occupants were invited to join in playing a kind of ‘Halma’ or ‘draughts’ of his own invention, on the little wooden board that had been specially made at his design for railway use, with ‘men’ warranted not to tumble down, because they fitted into little holes in the board.”

Children, little girls especially, remember through life the numberless small kindnesses that are shown to them. Is it any wonder, then, that the name of Lewis Carroll is held in such loving memory by the scores of little girls he drew about him? Beatrice Hatch was only one among many to feel the warmth of his love. This quiet, almost solitary, man whose home was in the shadow of a great college, whose daily life was such a long walk of dull routine, could yet find time to make his own sunshine and to draw others into the light of it.

But the children did their part too. He grew dependent on them as the years rolled on; a fairy circle of girls was always drawing him to them, and he was made one of them. They told him their childish secrets feeling sure of a ready sympathy and a quick appreciation. He seemed to know his way instinctively to a girl’s heart; she felt for him an affection, half of comradeship, half of reverence, for there was something inspiring in the fearless carriage of the head, the clear, serene look in the eyes, that seemed to pierce far ahead upon the path over which their own young feet were stumbling, perhaps.

With the passing of the years, some of the seven sisters married, and a fair crop of nieces and nephews shot up around him, also some small cousins in whom he took a deep interest. It is to one of these that he dedicated his poem called “Matilda Jane,” in honor of the doll who bore the name, which meant nothing in the world to such an unresponsive bit of doll-dom.

 Matilda Jane, you never look

At any toy or picture book;

I show you pretty things in vain,

You must be blind, Matilda Jane!

I ask you riddles, tell you tales,

But all our conversation fails;

You never answer me again,

I fear you’re dumb, Matilda Jane!

Matilda, darling, when I call,

You never seem to hear at all;

I shout with all my might and main,

But you’re so deaf, Matilda Jane!

Matilda Jane, you needn’t mind,

For though you’re deaf and dumb and blind,

There’s some one loves you, it is plain,

And that is me, Matilda Jane!

A little tender-hearted, ungrammatical, motherly “me”—how well the writer knew the small “Bessie” whose affection for this doll inspired the verses!

In after years when more serious work held him close to his study, and he made a point of declining all invitations, he took care that no small girl should be put on his black list. “If,” says Miss Hatch, “you were very anxious to get him to come to your house on any particular day, the only chance was not to invite him, but only to inform him that you would be at home; otherwise he would say ‘As you have invited me, I cannot come, for I have made a rule to decline all invitations, but I will come the next day,’” and in answer to an invitation to tea, he wrote her in his whimsical way:

“What an awful proposition! To drink tea from four to six would tax the constitution even of a hardened tea-drinker. For me, who hardly ever touches it, it would probably be fatal.”

If only we could read half the clever letters which passed between Lewis Carroll and his girl friends, what a volume of wit and humor, of sound common sense, of clever nonsense we should find! Yet behind it all, that underlying seriousness which made his friendship so precious to those who were so fortunate as to possess it. The “little girl” whose loving picture of him tells us so much lived near him all her life; she felt his influence in all the little things that go to make up a child’s day, long after the real childhood had passed her by. And so with all the girls who knew and loved him, and even those to whom his name was but a suggestion of what he really was.

Surely this fairy ring of girls encircles the English-speaking world, the girls whom Lewis Carroll loved, the hundreds he knew, the millions he had never seen.

CHAPTER XIII.

“ALICE” ON THE STAGE AND OFF.

When the question of dramatizing the “Alice” books was placed before the author, by Mr. Savile Clarke, who was to undertake the work, he consented gladly enough. It was to be an operetta of two acts; the libretto, or story part, by Mr. Clarke himself, the music by Mr. Walter Slaughter, and the only condition Lewis Carroll made was that nothing should be written or acted which should in any way be unsuitable for children.

Of course, everything was done under his eye, and he wrote an extra song for the ghosts of the Oysters, who had been eaten by the Walrus and the Carpenter; he also finished that poetic gem, “’Tis the Voice of the Lobster.”

“’Tis the voice of the Lobster,” I heard him declare,

“You baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.”

As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose,

Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.

When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark

And talks with the utmost contempt of a shark;

But when the tide rises and sharks are around,

His words have a timid and tremulous sound.

I passed by his garden, and marked with one eye

How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie:

The Panther took pie, crust and gravy and meat,

While the Owl had the dish, for his share of the treat.

When the pie was all finished, the Owl—as a boon

Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon;

While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl,

And concluded the banquet——

That is how the poem originally ended, but musically that would never do, so the last two lines were altered in this fashion:

“But the Panther obtained both the fork and the knife,

So when he lost his temper, the Owl lost his life,”

and a rousing little song it made.

The play was produced at the Prince of Wales’ Theater, during Christmas week of 1886, where it was a great success. Lewis Carroll himself specially praises the Wonderland act, notably the Mad Tea Party. The Hatter was finely done by Mr. Sidney Harcourt, the Dormouse by little Dorothy d’Alcourt, aged six-and-a-half, and Phœbe Carlo, he tells us, was a “splendid Alice.”

He went many times to see his “dream child” on the stage, and was always very kind to the little actresses, whose dainty work made his work such a success. Phœbe Carlo became a very privileged young person and enjoyed many treats of his giving, to say nothing of a personal gift of a copy of “Alice” from the delighted author.

After the London season, the play was taken through the English provinces and was much appreciated wherever it went. On one occasion a company gave a week’s performance at Brighton, and Lewis Carroll happening to be there one afternoon, came across three of the small actresses down on the beach and spent several hours with them. “Happy, healthy little girls” he called them, and no doubt that beautiful afternoon they had the time of their lives.

These children, he found—and he had made the subject quite a study—had been acting every day in the week, and twice on the day before he met them, and yet were energetic enough to get up each morning at seven for a sea bath, to run races on the pier, and to be quite ready for another performance that night.

On December 26, 1888, there was an elaborate revival of “Alice” at the Royal Globe Theater. In the London Times the next morning appeared this notice:

“‘Alice in Wonderland,’ having failed to exhaust its popularity at the Prince of Wales’ Theater, has been revived at the Globe for a series of matinées during the holiday season. Many members of the old cast remain in the bill, but a new ‘Alice’ is presented in Miss Isa Bowman, who is not only a wonderful actress for her years, but also a nimble dancer.

“In its new surroundings the fantastic scenes of the story—so cleverly transferred from the book to the stage by Mr. Savile Clarke—lose nothing of their original brightness and humor. ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass’ have the rare charm of freshness for children and for their elders, and the many strange personages concerned—the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, the Hatter, the Dormouse, the Gryphon, the Mock Turtle, the Red and White Kings and Queens, the Walrus, Humpty-Dumpty, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and all the rest of them—being seen at home, so to speak, and not on parade as in an ordinary pantomime. Even the dreaded Jabberwock pays an unconventional visit to the company from the ‘flies,’ and his appearance will not be readily forgotten. As before, Mr. Walter Slaughter’s music is an agreeable element to the performance....”

The programme of this performance certainly spreads a feast before the children’s eyes. First of all, think of a forest in autumn! (They had to change the season a little to get the bright colours of red and yellow.) Here it is that Alice falls asleep and the Elves sing to her. Then there is the awakening in Wonderland—such a Wonderland as few children dreamed of. And then all our favorites appear and do just the things we always thought they would do if they had the chance. The Cheshire Cat grins and vanishes, and then the grin appears without the cat, and then the cat grows behind the grin, and everything is so impossible and wonderful that one shivers with delight. There is a good old fairy tale that every child knows; it is called “Oh! if I could but shiver!” and everyone who really enjoys a fairy tale understands the feeling—the delight of shivering—to see the Jabberwock pass before you in all his terrifying, delicious ugliness, flapping his huge wings, rolling his bulging eyes, and opening and shutting those dreadful jaws of his; and yet to know he isn’t “really, real” any more than Sir John Tenniel’s picture of him in the dear old “Alice” book at home, that you can actually go with Alice straight into Wonderland and back again, safe and sound, and really see what happened just as she did, and actually squeeze through into Looking-Glass Land, all made so delightfully possible by clever scenery and acting.

A more charming, dainty little “Alice” never danced herself into the heart of anyone as Isa Bowman did into the heart of Lewis Carroll. She came into his life when all of his best-beloved children had passed forever beyond the portals of childhood, never to return; loved more in these later days for the memory of what they had been. But here was a child who aroused all the associations of earlier years, who had made “Alice” real again, whose clever acting gave just that dreamlike, elfin touch which the real Alice of Long Ago had suggested; a sweet-natured, lovable, most attractive child, the child perhaps who won his deepest affections because she came to him when the others had vanished, and clung to him in the twilight.

There must have been several little Bowmans. We know of four little sisters—Isa, Emsie, Nellie, and Maggie, and Master Charles Bowman was the Cheshire Cat in the revival of “Alice in Wonderland,” and to all of these—we are considering the girls of course, the boy never counted—Lewis Carroll showed his sweetest, most lovable side. They called him “Uncle,” and a more devoted uncle they could not possibly have found. As for Isa herself, there was a special niche all her own; she was, as he often told her, “his little girl,” and in a loving memoir of him she has given to the world of children a beautiful picture of what he really was.

There was something in the grip of his firm white hands, in his glance so deeply sympathetic, so tender and kind, that always stirred the little girl just as her sharp eyes noted a certain peculiarity in his walk. His stammer also impressed her, for it generally came when he least expected it, and though he tried all his life to cure it, he never succeeded.

His shyness, too, was very noticeable, not so much with children, except just at first until he knew them well, but with grown people he was, as she put it, “almost old-maidishly prim in his manner.” This shyness was shown in many ways, particularly in a morbid horror of having his picture taken. As fond as he was of taking other people, he dreaded seeing his own photograph among strangers, and once when Isa herself made a caricature of him, he suddenly got up from his seat, took the drawing out of her hands, tore it in small pieces and threw it into the fire without a word; then he caught the frightened little girl in his strong arms and kissed her passionately, his face, at first so flushed and angry, softening with a tender light.

Many and many a happy time she spent with him at Oxford. He found rooms for her just outside the college gates, and a nice comfortable dame to take charge of her. The long happy days were spent in his rooms, and every night at nine she was taken over to the little house in St. Aldates (“St. Olds”) and put to bed by the landlady.

In the morning the deep notes of “Great Tom” woke her and then began another lovely day with her “Uncle.” She speaks of two tiny turret rooms, one on each side of his staircase in Christ Church. “He used to tell me,” she writes, “that when I grew up and became married, he would give me the two little rooms, so that if I ever disagreed with my husband, we could each of us retire to a turret until we had made up our quarrel.”

She, too, was fascinated by his collection of music-boxes, the finest, she thought, to be found anywhere in the world. “There were big black ebony boxes with glass tops, through which you could see all the works. There was a big box with a handle, which it was quite hard exercise for a little girl to turn, and there must have been twenty or thirty little ones which could only play one tune. Sometimes one of the musical boxes would not play properly and then I always got tremendously excited. Uncle used to go to a drawer in the table and produce a box of little screw-drivers and punches, and while I sat on his knee, he would unscrew the lid and take out the wheels to see what was the matter. He must have been a clever mechanist, for the result was always the same—after a longer or shorter period, the music began again. Sometimes, when the musical boxes had played all their tunes, he used to put them in the box backwards, and was as pleased as I was at the comic effect of the music ‘standing on its head,’ as he phrased it.

“There was another and very wonderful toy which he sometimes produced for me, and this was known as ‘The Bat.’ The ceilings of the rooms in which he lived were very high, indeed, and admirably suited for the purposes of ‘The Bat.’ It was an ingeniously constructed toy of gauze and wire, which actually flew about the room like a bat. It was worked by a piece of twisted elastic, and it could fly for about half a minute. I was always a little afraid of this toy because it was too lifelike, but there was a fearful joy in it. When the music boxes began to pall, he would get up from his chair and look at me with a knowing smile. I always knew what was coming, even before he began to speak, and I used to dance up and down in tremendous anticipation.

“‘Isa, my darling,’ he would say, ‘once upon a time there was someone called Bob, the Bat! and he lived in the top left-hand drawer of the writing table. What could he do when Uncle wound him up?’”

“And then I would squeak out breathlessly: ‘He could really fly!’”

And Bob the Bat had many wonderful adventures. She tells us how, on a hot summer morning when the window was wide open, Bob flew out into the garden and landed in a bowl of salad that one of the servants was carrying to someone’s room. The poor fellow was so frightened by this sudden apparition that he promptly dropped the bowl, breaking it into countless pieces.

Lewis Carroll never liked “his little girl” to exaggerate. “I remember,” she tells us, “how annoyed he once was when, after a morning’s sea bathing at Eastbourne, I exclaimed: ‘Oh, this salt water, it always makes my hair as stiff as a poker!’

“He impressed upon me quite irritably that no little girl’s hair could ever possibly get as stiff as a poker. ‘If you had said “as stiff as wires” it would have been more like it, but even that would have been an exaggeration.’ And then seeing I was a little frightened, he drew for me a picture of ‘The little girl called Isa, whose hair turned into pokers because she was always exaggerating things.’

“‘I nearly died of laughing’ was another expression that he particularly disliked; in fact, any form of exaggeration generally called from him a reproof, though he was sometimes content to make fun. For instance, my sisters and I had sent him ‘millions of kisses’ in a letter.’ Here is his answer:

“‘Ch. Ch. Oxford. Ap. 14, 1890.

“‘My own Darling:

“‘It’s all very well for you and Nellie and Emsie to write in millions of hugs and kisses, but please consider the time it would occupy your poor old very busy uncle! Try hugging and kissing Emsie for a minute by the watch and I don’t think you’ll manage it more than 20 times a minute. “Millions” must mean two millions at least.’”

Then follows a characteristic example in arithmetic:

20)2,000,000

hugs and kisses.

60)100,000

minutes.

12)1,666

hours.

6)138

days (at twelve hours a day).

23

weeks.

“I couldn’t go on hugging and kissing more than 12 hours a day; and I wouldn’t like to spend Sundays that way. So you see it would take 23 weeks of hard work. Really, my dear child, I cannot spare the time.

“Why haven’t I written since my last letter? Why, how could I have written since the last time I did write? Now you just try it with kissing. Go and kiss Nellie, from me, several times, and take care to manage it so as to have kissed her since the last time you did kiss her. Now go back to your place and I’ll question you.

“‘Have you kissed her several times?’

“‘Yes, darling Uncle.’

“‘What o’clock was it when you gave her the last kiss?’

“‘Five minutes past 10, Uncle.’

“‘Very well, now, have you kissed her since?’

“‘Well—I—ahem! ahem! ahem! (excuse me, Uncle, I’ve got a bad cough) I—think—that—I—that is, you know, I—’

“‘Yes, I see! “Isa” begins with “I,” and it seems to me as if she was going to end with “I” this time!’”

The rest of the letter refers to Isa’s visit to America, when she went to play the little Duke of York in “Richard III.”

“Mind you don’t write me from there,” he warns her. “Please, please, no more horrid letters from you! I do hate them so! And as for kissing them when I get them, why, I’d just as soon kiss—kiss—kiss—you, you tiresome thing! So there now!

“Thank you very much for those 2 photographs—I liked them—hum—pretty well. I can’t honestly say I thought them the very best I had ever seen.

“Please give my kindest regards to your mother, and ½ of a kiss to Nellie, and 1⁄200 of a kiss to Emsie, 1⁄2000000 of a kiss to yourself. So with fondest love, I am, my darling,

“Your loving Uncle,

“C. L. Dodgson.”

And at the end of this letter, teeming with fun and laughter, could anything be sweeter than this postscript?

“I’ve thought about that little prayer you asked me to write for Nellie and Emsie. But I would like first to have the words of the one I wrote for you, and the words of what they say now, if they say any. And then I will pray to our Heavenly Father to help me to write a prayer that will be really fit for them to use.”

In letter-writing, and even in his story-telling, Lewis Carroll made frequent use of italics. His own speech was so emphatic that his writing would have looked odd without them, and many of his cleverest bits of nonsense would have been lost but for their aid.

Another time Isa ended a letter to him with “All join me in lufs and kisses.” Now Miss Isa was away on a visit and had no one near to join her in such a message, but that is what she would have put had she been at home, and this is the letter he wrote in reply:

 “7 Lushington Road, Eastbourne,

“Aug. 30, ’90.

“Oh, you naughty, naughty, bad, wicked little girl! You forgot to put a stamp on your letter, and your poor old Uncle had to pay Twopence! His last Twopence! Think of that. I shall punish you severely for this, once I get you here. So tremble! Do you hear? Be good enough to tremble!

“I’ve only time for one question to-day. Who in the world are the ‘all’ that join you in ‘lufs and kisses’? Weren’t you fancying you were at home and sending messages (as people constantly do) from Nellie and Emsie, without their having given any? It isn’t a good plan—that sending messages people haven’t given. I don’t mean it’s in the least untruthful, because everybody knows how commonly they are sent without having been given; but it lessens the pleasure of receiving messages. My sisters write to me ‘with best love from all.’ I know it isn’t true, so don’t value it much. The other day the husband of one of my ‘child-friends’ (who always writes ‘your loving’) wrote to me and ended with ‘Ethel joins me in kindest regards.’ In my answer I said (of course in fun)—‘I am not going to send Ethel kindest regards, so I won’t send her any message at all.’ Then she wrote to say she didn’t even know he was writing. ‘Of course I would have sent best love,’ and she added that she had given her husband a piece of her mind. Poor Husband!

“Your always loving Uncle,

“C.L.D.”

These initials were always joined as a monogram and written backward, thus,

, which no doubt, after the years of practice he had, he dashed off with an easy flourish. His general writing was not very legible, but when he was writing for the press he was very careful. “Why should the printers have to work overtime because my letters are ill-formed and my words run into each other?” he once said, and Miss Bowman has put in her little volume the facsimile of a diary he once wrote for her, where every letter was carefully formed so that Isa could read every word herself.

“They were happy days,” she writes, “those days in Oxford, spent with the most fascinating companion that a child could have. In our walks about the old town, in our visits to the Cathedral or Chapel Hall, in our visits to his friends, he was an ideal companion, but I think I was always happiest when we came back to his rooms and had tea alone; when the fire glow (it was always winter when I stayed in Oxford) threw fantastic shadows about the quaint room, and the thoughts of the prosiest people must have wandered a little into fairyland. The shifting firelight seemed almost to etherealize that kindly face, and as the wonderful stories fell from his lips, and his eyes lighted on me with the sweetest smile that ever a man wore, I was conscious of a love and reverence for Charles Dodgson that became nearly an adoration.”

“He was very particular,” she tells us, “about his tea, which he always made himself, and in order that it should draw properly he would walk about the room, swinging the teapot from side to side, for exactly ten minutes. The idea of the grave professor promenading his book-lined study and carefully waving a teapot to and fro may seem ridiculous, but all the minutiæ of life received an extreme attention at his hands.”

The diary referred to, which he so carefully printed for Isa, covered several days’ visit to Oxford in 1888, which oddly enough happened to be in midsummer, and being her first, was never forgotten. It was written in six “chapters” and jotted down faithfully the happenings of each day. What little girl could resist the feast of fun and frolic he had planned for those happy days!

First, he met her at Paddington station; then he took her to see a panorama of the Falls of Niagara, after which they had dinner with a Mrs. Dymes, and two of her children, Helen and Maud, went with them to Terry’s Theater to see “Little Lord Fauntleroy” played by Vera Beringer, another little actress friend of Lewis Carroll. After this they all took the Metropolitan railway; the little Dymes girls got off at their station, but Isa and the Aged Aged Man, as he called himself, went on to Oxford. There they saw everything to be seen, beginning with Christ Church, where the “A.A.M.” lived, and here and there Lewis Carroll managed to throw bits of history into the funny little diary. They saw all the colleges, and Christ Church Meadow, and the barges which the Oxford crews used as boathouses, and took long walks, and went to St. Mary’s Church on Sunday, and lots of other interesting things.

Every year she stayed a while with him at Eastbourne, where she tells us she was even happier if possible. Her day at Eastbourne began very early. Her room faced his, and after she was dressed in the morning she would steal into the little passage quiet as a mouse, and sit on the top stair, her eye on his closed door, watching for the signal of admission into his room; this was a newspaper pushed under his door. The moment she saw that, she was at liberty to rush in and fling herself upon him, after which excitement they went down to breakfast. Then he read a chapter from the Bible and made her tell it to him afterwards as a story of her own, beginning always with, “Once upon a time.” After which there was a daily visit to the swimming-bath followed by one to the dentist—he always insisted on this, going himself quite as regularly.

After lunch, which with him consisted of a glass of sherry and a biscuit, while little Miss Isa ate a good substantial dinner, there was a game of backgammon, of which he was very fond, and then a long, long walk to the top of Beachy Head, which Isa hated. She says:

“Lewis Carroll believed very much in a great amount of exercise, and said one should always go to bed physically wearied with the exercise of the day. Accordingly, there was no way out of it, and every afternoon I had to walk to the top of Beachy Head. He was very good and kind. He would invent all sorts of new games to beguile the tedium of the way. One very curious and strange trait in his character was shown in these walks. I used to be very fond of flowers and animals also. A pretty dog or a hedge of honeysuckle was always a pleasant event upon our walk to me. And yet he himself cared for neither flowers nor animals. Tender and kind as he was, simple and unassuming in all his tastes, yet he did not like flowers.... He knew children so thoroughly and well, that it is all the stranger that he did not care for things that generally attract them so much.... When I was in raptures over a poppy or a dog-rose, he would try hard to be as interested as I was, but even to my childish eyes it was an effort, and he would always rather invent some new game for us to play at. Once, and once only, I remember him to have taken an interest in a flower, and that was because of the folklore that was attached to it, and not because of the beauty of the flower itself.

“... One day while we sat under a great tree, and the hum of the myriad insect life rivaled the murmur of the far-away waves, he took a foxglove from the heap that lay in my lap, and told me the story of how it came by its name; how in the old days, when all over England there were great forests, like the forest of Arden that Shakespeare loved, the pixies, the ‘little folks,’ used to wander at night in the glades, like Titania and Oberon and Puck, and because they took great pride in their dainty hands they made themselves gloves out of the flowers. So the particular flower that the ‘little folks’ used came to be called ‘folks’ gloves.’ Then, because the country people were rough and clumsy in their talk, the name was shortened into ‘foxgloves,’ the name that everyone uses now.”

This special walk always ended in the coastguard’s house, where they partook of tea and rock cake, and here most of his prettiest stories were told. The most thrilling part occurred when “the children came to a deep dark wood,” always described with a solemn dropping of the voice; by that Isa knew that the exciting part was coming, then she crept nearer to him, and he held her close while he finished the tale. Isa, as was quite natural, was a most dramatic little person, so she always knew what emotions would suit the occasion, and used them like the clever little actress that she was.

We find something very beautiful in this intimacy between the grave scholar and the light-hearted, innocent little girl, who used to love to watch him in some of those deep silences which neither cared to break. This small maid understood his every mood. A beautiful sunset, she tells us, touched him deeply. He would take off his hat and let the wind toss his hair, and look seaward with a very grave face. Once she saw tears in his eyes, and he gripped her hand very hard as they turned away.

Perhaps, what caught her childish fancy more than anything else, was his observance of Sunday. He always took Isa twice to church, and she went because she wanted to go; he did not believe in forcing children in such matters, but he made a point of slipping some interesting little book in his pocket, so in case she got tired, or the sermon was beyond her, she would have something pleasant to do instead of staring idly about the church or falling asleep, which was just as bad. Another peculiarity, she tells us, was his habit of keeping seated at the entrance of the choir. He contended that the rising of the congregation made the choir-boys conceited.

One could go on telling anecdotes of Lewis Carroll and this well-beloved child, but of a truth his own letters will show far better than any description how he regarded this “star” child of his. So far as her acting went, he never spared either praise or criticism where he thought it just. Here is a letter criticising her acting as the little Duke of York:

“Ch. Ch. Oxford. Ap. 4, ’89.

“My Lord Duke:—The photographs your Grace did me the honor of sending arrived safely; and I can assure your Royal Highness that I am very glad to have them, and like them very much, particularly the large head of your late Royal Uncle’s little, little son. I do not wonder that your excellent Uncle Richard should say ‘off with his head’ as a hint to the photographer to print it off. Would your Highness like me to go on calling you the Duke of York, or shall I say ‘my own darling Isa’? Which do you like best?

“Now, I’m gong to find fault with my pet about her acting. What’s the good of an old Uncle like me except to find fault?”

Then follows some excellent criticism on the proper emphasis of words, explained so that the smallest child could understand; he also notes some mispronounced words, and then he adds:

“One thing more. (What an impertinent uncle! Always finding fault!) You’re not as natural when acting the Duke as you were when you acted Alice. You seemed to me not to forget yourself enough. It was not so much a real prince talking to his brother and uncle; it was Isa Bowman talking to people she didn’t care much about, for an audience to listen to. I don’t mean it was that all through, but sometimes you were artificial. Now, don’t be jealous of Miss Hatton when I say she was sweetly natural. She looked and spoke like a real Prince of Wales. And she didn’t seem to know there was any audience. If you ever get to be a good actress (as I hope you will) you must learn to forget ‘Isa’ altogether, and be the character you are playing. Try to think ‘This is really the Prince of Wales. I’m his little brother and I’m very glad to meet him, and I love him very much, and this is really my uncle; he is very kind and lets me say saucy things to him,’ and do forget that there’s anybody else listening!

“My sweet pet, I hope you won’t be offended with me for saying what I fancy might make your acting better.

“Your loving old Uncle,

“Charles.

“X for Nellie.

“X for Maggie. “X for Isa.”

“X for Emsie.

The crosses were unmistakably kisses. He was certainly a most affectionate “Uncle.” He rarely signed his name “Charles.” It was only on special occasions and to very “special” people.

Here is another letter written to Isa’s sister Nellie, thanking her for a “tidy” she made him. (He called it an Antimacassar.) “The only ordinary thing about it,” Isa tells us, “is the date.” The letter reads backward. One has to begin at the very bottom and read up, instead of reading from the top downward:

“Nov. 1, 1891.

“C.L.D., Uncle loving your! Instead grandson his to it give to had you that so, years 80 or 70 for it forgot you that was it pity a what and; him of fond so were you wonder don’t I and, gentleman old nice very a was he. For it made you that him been have must it see you so: Grandfather my was, then alive was that, ‘Dodgson Uncle’ only the, born was I before long was that see you then But. ‘Dodgson Uncle for pretty thing some make I’ll now,’ it began you when yourself to said you that, me telling her without, knew I course of and: ago years many great a it made had you said she. Me told Isa what from was it? For meant was it who out made I how know you do! Lasted has it well how and Grandfather my for made had you Antimacassar pretty that me give to you of nice so was it, Nellie dear my.”

He had often written a looking-glass letter which could only be read by holding it up to a mirror, but this sort of writing was a new departure.

In one of her letters Isa sent “sacks full of love and baskets full of kisses.”

“How badly you do spell your words!” he answered her. “I was so puzzled about the ‘sacks full of love and baskets full of kisses.’ But at last I made out that, of course, you meant a ‘sack full of gloves and a basket full of kittens.’” Then he composed a regular nonsense story on the subject. Isa and her sisters called it the “glove and kitten letter” and read it over and over with much delight, for it was full of quaint fancies, such as Lewis Carroll loved to shower upon the children.

When “Bootle’s Baby” was put upon the stage, Maggie Bowman, though but a tiny child, played the part of Mignon, the little lost girl, who walked into the hearts of the soldiers, and especially one young fellow, to whom she clung most of all. Lewis Carroll, besides taking a personal interest in Maggie herself, was charmed with the play, which appealed to him strongly, so when little Maggie came to Oxford with the company she was treated like a queen. She stayed four days, during which time her “Uncle” took her to see everything worth looking at, and made a rhyming diary for her which he called—

MAGGIE’S VISIT TO OXFORD.

When Maggie once to Oxford came

On tour as “Bootle’s Baby,”

She said: “I’ll see this place of fame,

However dull the day be!”

So with her friend she visited

The sights that it was rich in,

And first of all she poked her head

Inside the Christ Church Kitchen.

The cooks around that little child

Stood waiting in a ring;

And every time that Maggie smiled,

Those cooks began to sing—

Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom!

“Roast, boil, and bake,

For Maggie’s sake!

Bring cutlets fine

For her to dine;

Meringues so sweet

For her to eat—

For Maggie may be

Bootle’s Baby.”

There are a great many verses describing her walks and what she saw, among other wonders “a lovely Pussy Cat.”

And everywhere that Maggie went

That Cat was sure to go—

Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom!

“Miaow! Miaow!

Come make your bow!

Take off your hats,

Ye Pussy Cats!

And purr and purr

To welcome her—

For Maggie may be

Bootle’s Baby!”

So back to Christ Church-not too late

For them to go and see

A Christ Church Undergraduate,

Who gave them cakes and tea.

······

In Magdalen Park the deer are wild

With joy that Maggie brings

Some bread, a friend had given the child,

To feed the pretty things.

They flock round Maggie without fear,

They breakfast and they lunch,

They dine, they sup, those happy deer—

Still as they munch and munch,

Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom!

“Yes, deer are we,

And dear is she.

We love this child

So sweet and mild:

We all are fed

With Maggie’s bread—

For Maggie may be

Bootle’s Baby!”

······

They met a Bishop on their way—

A Bishop large as life—

With loving smile that seemed to say

“Will Maggie be my wife?”

Maggie thought not, because you see

She was so very young,

And he was old as old could be—

So Maggie held her tongue.

“My Lord, she’s Bootle’s Baby; we

Are going up and down,”

Her friend explained, “that she may see

The sights of Oxford-town.”

“Now, say what kind of place it is!”

The Bishop gayly cried,

“The best place in the Provinces!”

The little maid replied.

······

Away next morning Maggie went

From Oxford-town; but yet

The happy hours she there had spent

She could not soon forget.

······

“Oxford, good-bye!

She seemed to sigh,

You dear old City

With gardens pretty,

And lawns and flowers

And College towers,

And Tom’s great Bell,

Farewell! farewell!

For Maggie may be

Bootle’s Baby!”

Here is just a piece of a letter which shows that Lewis Carroll could tease when he liked. It is evident that Isa washed to buy the “Alice” book in French, to give to a friend, so she naïvely wrote to headquarters to ask the price. This is the reply:

“Eastbourne.

“My own darling Isa,—The value of a copy of the French ‘Alice’ is £45: but, as you want the ‘cheapest’ kind, and as you are a great friend of mine, and as I am of a very noble, generous disposition, I have made up my mind to a great sacrifice, and have taken £3, 10s, 0d, off the price, so that you do not owe me more than £41, 10s, 0d, and this you can pay me, in gold or bank notes, as soon as you ever like. Oh, dear! I wonder why I write such nonsense! Can you explain to me, my pet, how it happens that when I take up my pen to write a letter to you, it won’t write sense. Do you think the rule is that when the pen finds it has to write to a nonsensical, good-for-nothing child it sets to work to write a nonsensical, good-for-nothing letter? Well, now I’ll tell you the real truth. As Miss Kitty Wilson is a dear friend of yours, of course she’s a sort of a friend of mine. So I thought (in my vanity) ‘perhaps she would like to have a copy “from the author” with her name written in it.’ So I sent her one—but I hope she’ll understand that I do it because she’s your friend, for you see I had never heard of her before; so I wouldn’t have any other reason.”

When he published his last long story, “Sylvie and Bruno,” the dedication was to her, an acrostic on her name; but as “Sylvie and Bruno” will be spoken of later on, perhaps it will be more interesting to give the dainty little verses where they belong. He sent his pet a specially bound copy of the new book, with the following letter:

“Christ Church, May 16, ’90.

“Dearest Isa:—I had this bound for you when the book first came out, and it’s been waiting here ever since Dec. 17, for I really didn’t dare to send it across the Atlantic—the whales are so inconsiderate. They’d have been sure to want to borrow it to show to the little whales, quite forgetting that the salt water would be sure to spoil it.

“Also I’ve been waiting for you to get back to send Emsie the ‘Nursery Alice.’ I give it to the youngest in a family generally, but I’ve given one to Maggie as well, because she travels about so much, and I thought she would like to have one to take with her. I hope Nellie’s eyes won’t get quite green with jealousy at two (indeed three) of her sisters getting presents, and nothing for her! I’ve nothing but my love to send her to-day, but she shall have something some day.—Ever your loving

“Uncle Charles.”

The “Nursery Alice” he refers to was arranged by himself for children “from naught to five” as he quaintly puts it. It contained twenty beautiful coloured drawings from the Tenniel illustrations, with a cover designed by E. Gertrude Thomson, of whose work he was very fond. The words were simplified for nursery readers.

In another letter to Isa he talks very seriously about “social position.”

“Ladies,” he writes, “have to be much more particular in observing the distinctions of what is called ‘social position,’ and the lower their own position is (in the scale of ‘lady’ ship) the more jealous they seem to be in guarding it.... Not long ago I was staying in a house with a young lady (about twenty years old I should think) with a title of her own, as she was an earl’s daughter. I happened to sit next to her at dinner, and every time I spoke to her she looked at me more as if she was looking down on me from about a mile up in the air, and as if she was saying to herself, ‘How dare you speak to me! Why you’re not good enough to black my shoes!’ It was so unpleasant that next day at luncheon I got as far from her as I could.

“Of course we are all quite equal in God’s sight, but we do make a lot of distinctions (some of them quite unmeaning) among ourselves!”

However, he was not always so unfortunate among great people, the “truly great” that is. In Lord Salisbury’s house he was always a welcome and honored guest, for in a letter to “his little girl” from Hatfield House he tells her of the Duchess of Albany and her two children.

“She is the widow of Prince Leopold (the Queen’s youngest son), so her children are a Prince and a Princess; the girl is Alice, but I don’t know the boy’s Christian name; they call him ‘Albany’ because he is the Duke of Albany.

“Now that I have made friends with a real live little Princess, I don’t intend ever to speak to children who haven’t any titles. In fact, I’m so proud, and I hold my chin so high, that I shouldn’t even see you if we met! No, darlings, you mustn’t believe that. If I made friends with a dozen Princesses, I would love you better than all of them together, even if I had them all rolled up into a sort of child-roly-poly.

“Love to Nellie and Emsie.—Your loving Uncle,

“C.L.D.

“XXXXXXX

“[kisses].”

Nothing could give us a better glimpse of the wholesome nature of this quiet “don” of ours than these letters to a little child; a wholesome child like himself, whose every emotion was to him like the page of some fairy book, to be read and read again. Isa Bowman could not know, child as she was, what she was to this man, who with all his busy life, and all his gifts and talents, and all his many friendships, was so curiously lonely. But later, when she was grown, and wrote the little book of memories from which we have drawn so many sweet lessons, she doubtless realized, as she rolled back the years, what they had been to her—and what to Lewis Carroll.

CHAPTER XIV.

A TRIP WITH SYLVIE AND BRUNO.

Is all our life, then, but a dream,

Seen faintly in the golden gleam

Athwart Time’s dark resistless stream?

Bowed to the earth with bitter woe,

Or laughing at some raree-show,

We flitter idly to and fro.

Man’s little day in haste we spend,

And from its merry noontide send

No glance to meet the silent end.

This beautiful dedication to little Isa Bowman, on the front page of “Sylvie and Bruno,” was much prized by her on account of the double acrostic cleverly woven in the lines. The first letter of each line read downward was one way she could see her name, and the first three letters in the first line of each verse was another, but naturally the light-hearted child missed the note of deep sadness underlying the tuneful words. Lewis Carroll had reached that milestone in a man’s life, not when he pauses to look backward, but when his one desire is to press forward to the heights—to the goal. His thoughts were not so much coloured by memories of earlier years as by anticipation, even dreams of what the future might hold. Therefore, in our trip with Sylvie and Bruno into the realms of dreamland, we must bear in mind in reading the story that the man is the dreamer, and not the children, nor does he see quite through their eyes in his views of men and things. Children, as a rule, live in the present; neither the past nor the future perplexes them, and “Mister Sir,” as little Bruno called their friend, the Dreamer, looked on these fairy children, dainty Sylvie and graceful Bruno, as gleams of light in his shadowy way, little passing gleams, as elusive as they were brilliant.

The day of the irresponsible, bubbling nonsense is over; we catch flashes of it now and then, but the fun is forced, and however much of a dear Sylvie may be, and however much of a darling Bruno may be, they are not quite natural.

In a very long and very serious preface, wholly unlike his usual style, the author tells us something of the history of the book. As early as 1867 the idea of “Sylvie and Bruno” first came to him in the shape of a little fairy tale which he wrote for Aunt Judy’s Magazine, but it was not until long after the publication of “Alice Through the Looking-Glass” that he determined to turn the adventures of these fairy children into something more than stray stories. The public, at least, the insatiable children, wanted something more from him, and as the second “Alice” had been so satisfactory, he decided to venture again into the dream-world; he would not hurry about it; he would take his time; he would pluck a flower here and there as the years passed, and press it for safe-keeping; he would create something poetic and beautiful in the way of children, culled from the best of all the children he ever knew. This work should be a gem, cut and polished until its luster eclipsed all other work of his.

And so from 1874 to 1889, a period of fifteen years, he jotted down quaint fancies and bits of dialogue which he thought would work well into the story. During this interval he passed from the prime of life into serious middle age, though there was so little change in his outward living and in his general appearance (he was always very boyish-looking) that even he himself failed to recognize the gulf of time between forty-two and fifty-seven.

In this interval he had become deeply interested in the study of logic and when he began to gather together the mass of material he had collected for his book, he found so much matter which stepped outside of childish realms that he decided to please both the “grown-ups” and the youngsters by weaving it all into a story, which he accordingly did, with the result that he pleased no one. The children would not take the trouble to wade through the interwoven love story, while their elders, who from experience had expected something fresh and breezy from the pen of Lewis Carroll, who longed to get away from the world of facts and logic and deep discussions which buzzed about them, were even more sorely disappointed.

All flights of genius are short and quick. Had our author sat down when the idea of a long story first came to him, and written it off in his natural style, “Sylvie and Bruno” might have been another of the world’s classics; but he put too much thought upon it, and the chapters show most plainly where the pen was laid down and where taken up again.

But for all that the book sold well, chiefly, indeed, because it was Lewis Carroll who wrote it; though its popularity died down in a short time. About six years ago, however (1904), the enterprising publishers brought forth a new edition of the book, leaving out all the grown-up part, and bringing the fairy children right before us in all their simple loveliness. The experiment, so far as the story went, was most successful, and to those who have not a previous acquaintance with “Sylvie and Bruno” this little volume would give much more pleasure than the big two-volume original.

One of Lewis Carroll’s special objects in writing this story was a sort of tardy appreciation of the much-despised boy. In the character of Bruno he has given us a sweet little fellow, but we cannot get over the feeling that he is a girl in boy’s clothes, his bits of mischief are all so dainty and alluring; but we would like to beat him with, say, a spray of goldenrod for such a fairy child, every time he says politely and priggishly “Mister Sir” to his invisible companion. What boy was ever guilty of using such a term! The street urchin would naturally say “Mister,” but the well-bred home boy would say “Sir,” so the combination sounds absurd.

Sylvie and Bruno were supposed to be the fairies that teach children to be good, and to do this they wandered pretty well over the earth in their fairy way. Somehow we miss the real children through all their dainty play and laughter, but the pictures of the two children, by Harry Furniss, are beautiful enough to make us really believe in fairies. There is a question Lewis Carroll asks quite gravely in his book—“What is the best time for seeing Fairies?” And he answers it in truly Lewis Carroll style:

“The first rule is, that it must be a very hot day—that we may consider as settled: and you must be a little sleepy—but not too sleepy to keep your eyes open, mind. Well, and you ought to feel a little what one may call ‘fairyish’ the Scotch call it ‘eerie,’ and perhaps that’s a prettier word; if you don’t know what it means, I’m afraid I can hardly explain it; you must wait till you meet a Fairy and then you’ll know.

“And the last rule is, that the crickets should not be chirping. I can’t stop to explain that; you must take it on trust for the present.

“So, if all these things happen together, you have a good chance of seeing a Fairy, or at least a much better chance than if they didn’t.”

Later on he tells us the rule about the crickets. “They always leave off chirping when a Fairy goes by, ... so whenever you’re walking out and the crickets suddenly leave off chirping you may be sure that they see a Fairy.”

Another dainty description is Bruno’s singing to the accompaniment of tuneful harebells, and the song was a regular serenade:

Rise, oh, rise! The daylight dies,

The owls are hooting, ting, ting, ting!

Wake, oh, wake! Beside the lake

The elves are fluting, ting, ting, ting!

Welcoming our Fairy King,

We sing, sing, sing.

Hear, oh, hear! From far and near

The music stealing, ting, ting, ting!

Fairy bells adorn the dells

Are merrily pealing, ting, ting, ting!

Welcoming our Fairy King,

We ring, ring, ring.

See, oh, see! On every tree

What lamps are shining, ting, ting, ting!

They are eyes of fiery flies

To light our dining, ting, ting, ting!

Welcoming our Fairy King,

They swing, swing, swing.

Haste, oh, haste, to take and taste

The dainties waiting, ting, ting, ting!

Honey-dew is stored——

But here Bruno’s song came to a sudden end and was never finished. Fairies have the oddest ways of doing things, but then Sylvie was coming through the long grass, that charming woodland child that little Bruno loved and teased.

The artist put all his skill into the drawing of this tiny maiden, skill assisted by Lewis Carroll’s own ideas of what a fairy-girl should look like, and the fact that Mr. Furniss took seven years to illustrate this book to the author’s satisfaction and his own, shows how very particular both were to get at the spirit of the story.

Indeed, the great trouble with the story is that it is all spirit; there is no real story to it, and this the keen scent of everyday children soon discovered.

But in one thing it excels: the verses are every bit as charming as either the Wonderland or Looking-Glass verses, with all the old-time delicious nonsense. Take, for instance—

THE GARDENER’S SONG.

He thought he saw an Albatross

That fluttered round the lamp;

He looked again, and found it was

A Penny-Postage-Stamp.

“You’d best be getting home,” he said:

“The nights are very damp!”

He thought he saw an Argument

That proved he was the Pope;

He looked again, and found it was

A Bar-of-Mottled-Soap.

“A fact so dread,” he faintly said,

“Extinguishes all hope!”

He thought he saw a Banker’s-Clerk

Descending from the Bus;

He looked again, and found it was

A Hippopotamus.

“If this should stay to dine,” he said,

“There won’t be much for us!”

He thought he saw a Buffalo

Upon the chimney-piece;

He looked again, and found it was

His Sister’s-Husband’s-Niece.

“Unless you leave this house,” he said,

“I’ll send for the police!”

He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four

That stood beside his bed;

He looked again, and found it was

A Bear without a head.

“Poor thing!” he said, “poor, silly thing!

It’s waiting to be fed!”

He thought he saw a Garden-Door

That opened with a key;

He looked again, and found it was

A Double-Rule-of-Three.

“And all its mystery,” he said,

“Is clear as day to me!”

He thought he saw a Kangaroo

That worked a coffee-mill;

He looked again, and found it was

A Vegetable-Pill.

“Were I to swallow this,” he said,

“I should be very ill!”

He thought he saw a Rattlesnake

That questioned him in Greek;

He looked again, and found it was

The Middle-of-Next-Week.

“The one thing I regret,” he said,

“Is that it cannot speak!”

The gardener was a very remarkable person, whose time was spent raking the beds and making up extra verses to this beautiful poem; the last one ran:

He thought he saw an Elephant

That practiced on a fife;

He looked again, and found it was

A letter from his wife.

“At length I realize,” he said,

“The bitterness of Life!”

“What a wild being it was who sung these wild words! A gardener he seemed to be, yet surely a mad one by the way he brandished his rake, madder by the way he broke ever and anon into a frantic jig, maddest of all by the shriek in which he brought out the last words of the stanza.

“It was so far a description of himself that he had the feet of an elephant, but the rest of him was skin and bone; and the wisps of loose straw that bristled all about him suggested that he had been originally stuffed with it, and that nearly all the stuffing had come out.”

In “Sylvie and Bruno,” probably to a greater extent than in all his other books, are some clever caricatures of well-known people. The two professors are certainly taken from life, probably from Oxford. One is called “The Professor” and one “The Other Professor.” The Baron, the Vice-Warden and my Lady were all too real, and as for the fat Prince Uggug, well, any kind feeling Lewis Carroll may have had toward boys when he fashioned Bruno had entirely vanished when Prince Uggug came upon the scene. All the ugly, rough, ill-mannered, bad boys Lewis Carroll had ever heard of were rolled into this wretched, fat, pig of a prince; but the story of this prince proved fascinating to the real little royalties to whom he told it during one Christmas week at Lord Salisbury’s. Most likely he selected this story with an object, in order to show how necessary it was that those of royal blood should behave like true princes and princesses if they would be truly loved. Our good “don” was fond of pointing a moral now and then. Uggug, with all his badness, somehow appeals to the human child, far more than Bruno, with his baby talk and his old-man wisdom and his odd little “fay” ways. Sylvie was much more natural. Bruno, however, was a sweet little songster; it needed no urging to set him to music, and he always sang quite plainly when he had real rhymes to tackle. One of his favorites was called:

THE BADGERS AND THE HERRINGS.

There be three Badgers on a mossy stone,

Beside a dark and covered way.

Each dreams himself a monarch on his throne,

And so they stay and stay—

Though their old Father languishes alone,

They stay, and stay, and stay.

There be three Herrings loitering around,

Longing to share that mossy seat.

Each Herring tries to sing what she has found

That makes life seem so sweet

Thus, with a grating and uncertain sound,

They bleat, and bleat, and bleat.

The Mother-Herring, on the salt sea-wave,

Sought vainly for her absent ones;

The Father-Badger, writhing in a cave,

Shrieked out, “Return, my sons!

You shall have buns,” he shrieked, “if you’ll behave!

Yea buns, and buns, and buns!”

“I fear,” said she, “your sons have gone astray.

My daughters left me while I slept.”

“Yes’m,” the Badger said, “it’s as you say.

They should be better kept.”

Thus the poor parents talked the time away,

And wept, and wept, and wept.

But the thoughtless young ones, who had wandered from home, are having a good time, a rollicking good time, for the Herrings sing:

Oh, dear, beyond our dearest dreams,

Fairer than all that fairest seems!

To feast the rosy hours away,

To revel in a roundelay!

How blest would be

A life so free—

Ipwergis pudding to consume

And drink the subtle Azzigoom!

And if in other days and hours,

’Mid other fluffs and other flowers,

The choice were given me how to dine—

“Name what thou wilt: it shall be thine!”

Oh, then I see

The life for me—

Ipwergis pudding to consume

And drink the subtle Azzigoom!

The Badgers did not care to talk to Fish;

They did not dote on Herrings’ songs;

They never had experienced the dish

To which that name belongs.

“And, oh, to pinch their tails” (this was their wish)

“With tongs, yea, tongs, and tongs!”

“And are not these the Fish,” the eldest sighed,

“Whose mother dwells beneath the foam?”

“They are the Fish!” the second one replied,

“And they have left their home!”

“Oh, wicked Fish,” the youngest Badger cried,

“To roam, yea, roam, and roam!”

Gently the Badgers trotted to the shore—

The sandy shore that fringed the bay.

Each in his mouth a living Herring bore—

Those aged ones waxed gay.

Clear rang their voices through the ocean’s roar.

“Hooray, hooray, hooray!’”

Most of Lewis Carroll’s best nonsense rhymes abounded with all sorts of queer animals. In earlier years he had made quite a study of natural history, so that he knew enough about the habits of the animals who figured in his verses to make humorous portraits of them. Yet we know, apart from the earth-worms and snails of “little boy” days, he never cared to cultivate their acquaintance except in a casual way. He was never unkind to them, and fought with all his might against vivisection (which in plain English means cutting up live animals for scientific purposes), as well as against the cruel pastime of English cross-country hunting, where one poor little fox is run to earth and torn in pieces by the savage hounds. Big hunting, where the object was a man-eating lion or some other animal which menaced human life, he heartily approved of, but wanton cruelty he could not abide. Yet the dog he might use every effort to save from the knife of science did not appeal to him as a pet; he preferred a nice, plump, rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed, ringleted little girl—if she liked dogs, why, very well, only none of them in his rooms, thank you!

These fairy children, Sylvie and Bruno, travel many leagues in the story, for good fairies must be able to go from place to place very quickly. We find them in Elfland, and Outland, and even Dogland.

A quaint episode in this book is the loss of Queen Titania’s baby.

“We put it in a flower,” Sylvie explained, with her eyes full of tears. “Only we can’t remember which!” And there’s a real fairy hunt for the missing baby, which must have been found somewhere, for fairies are never completely lost. All through this fairy tale move real people doing real things, acting real parts, coming often in contact with their good fairies, but parting always on the borderland, bearing with them but a memory of the beautiful children, and an echo of Sylvie’s song as it dies away in the distance.

Say, what is the spell, when her fledglings are cheeping,

That lures the bird home to her nest?

Or wakes the tired mother, whose infant is weeping,

To cuddle and croon it to rest?

What’s the magic that charms the glad babe in her arms,

Till it cooes with the voice of the dove?

’Tis a secret, and so let us whisper it low—

And the name of the secret is Love!

For I think it is Love,

For I feel it is Love,

For I’m sure it is nothing but Love!

Say, whence is the voice that, when anger is burning,

Bids the whirl of the tempest to cease?

That stirs the vexed soul with an aching—a yearning

For the brotherly hand-grip of peace?

Whence the music that fills all our being—that thrills

Around us, beneath, and above?

’Tis a secret; none knows how it comes, how it goes;

But the name of the secret is Love!

For I think it is Love,

For I feel it is Love,

For I’m sure it is nothing but Love!

Say, whose is the skill that paints valley and hill,

Like a picture so fair to the sight?

That decks the green meadow with sunshine and shadow,

Till the little lambs leap with delight?

’Tis a secret untold to hearts cruel and cold,

Though ’tis sung by the angels above,

In notes that ring clear for the ears that can hear—

And the name of the secret is Love!

For I think it is Love,

For I feel it is Love,

For I’m sure it is nothing but Love!

CHAPTER XV.

LEWIS CARROLL—MAN AND CHILD.

Love was indeed the keynote of Lewis Carroll’s life. It was his rule, which governed everything he did, whether it was a lecture on mathematics or a “nonsense” story to a group of little girls. It was, above all, his religion, and meant much more to him than mere church forms, though the beautiful services at Oxford always impressed him deeply. Living as he did, apart from the stir and bustle of a great city, in a beautiful old town, full of historic associations, the heart and center of English learning, where men had time for high thoughts and high deeds, it is no wonder that his ideals should soar beyond the limits of an everyday world, and no one who watched the daily routine of this quiet, self-contained, precise “don” could imagine how the great heart beneath the student’s clerical coat craved the love of those for whom he truly cared.

Outsiders saw only a busy scholar, absorbed in his work, to all appearances somewhat of a recluse. It is true, however, that his last busy years, devoted to a book on “Symbolic Logic,” kept him tied to his study during most of the Oxford term, and that in consequence he had little time for sociability, if he wished to complete his work.

The first part of “Symbolic Logic” was published in 1896, and although sixty-four years old at the time, his writing and his reasoning were quite as clear as in the earlier days. He never reached the point of “going down hill.” Everything that he undertook showed the vigorous strain in him, and though the end of his life was not far off, those who loved him were never tortured by a long and painful illness. As he said of himself, his life had been so singularly free from the cares and worries that assail most people, the current flowed so evenly that his mental and physical health endured till the last.

In later years the tall, slim figure, the clean-shaven, delicate, refined face, the quiet, courteous, rather distant manner, were much commented upon alike by friends and strangers. With “grown-ups” he had always the air of the absent-minded scholar, but no matter how occupied, the presence of a little girl broke down the crust of his reserve and he became immediately the sunny companion, the fascinating weaver of tales, the old, enticing Lewis Carroll.

But he was above all things what we would call “a settled old bachelor.” He had little “ways” essentially his own, little peculiarities in which no doubt he took a secret and childish pride. With children these were always more or less amusing.

If he was going on a railway journey, for instance, he mapped out every minute of his time; then he would calculate the amount of money to be spent, and he always carried two purses, arranging methodically the sums for cabs, porters, newspapers, refreshments, and so forth, in different partitions, so he always had the correct change and always secured the best of service. In packing he was also very particular; everything in his trunk had to be separately wrapped up in a piece of paper, and his luggage (he probably traveled with several trunks) always preceded him by a day or so, while his only encumbrance was a well-known little black bag which he always carried himself.

In dress, he was also a trifle “odd.” He was scrupulously neat and very scholarly in appearance, with frock coat and immaculate linen, but he never wore an overcoat no matter how cold the weather, and in all seasons he wore a pair of gray and black cotton gloves and a tall hat.

He had a horror of staring colours, especially in little girls’ dresses. He loved pink and gray, but any child visiting him, who dared to bring with her a dress of startling hue, such as red or green or yellow, was forbidden to wear it in his company.

His appetite was unusually small, and he used to marvel at the good solid food his girl friends managed to consume. Once, when he took a special favorite out to dine, he warned his hostess to be careful in helping her as she ate far too much.

In writing, he seldom sat down; how he managed we are not told, but most likely his desk was a high one.

He was a great walker in all winds and weather. Sometimes he overdid it, and came home with blistered feet and aching joints, sometimes soaked to the skin when overtaken by an unexpected rain; but always elated over the distance he had traveled. He forgot, in the sheer delight of active exercise, that he was not absolutely proof against illness, and that added years needed added care; and as we find that the many severe colds which now constantly attacked him came usually in the winter, there is every reason to believe that human imprudence weakened a very strong constitution, and that Lewis Carroll minus an overcoat meant Lewis Carroll plus a very bad cold.

On one occasion (February, 1895) he was laid up with a ten days’ attack of influenza, with very high and alarming fever. Yet as late as December, 1897, a few weeks before his death, he boasted of sitting in his large room with no fire, an open window, and a temperature of 54°.

Another time he had a severe attack of illness which prevented him from spending his usual Christmas with his sisters at Guildford. He was a prisoner in his room for over six weeks, but in writing to one of his beloved child friends he joked over it all, his only regret being the loss of the Christmas plum pudding.

From the time of the publication of “Alice in Wonderland” Lewis Carroll was a man of independent means; had he wished, he might have lived in great style and luxury, but being simple and unassuming in his tastes, he was content with his spacious book-lined rooms, with their air of solid, old-fashioned comfort. The things around him, which he cared for most, were things endeared by association, from the pictures of his girl friends upon the walls to that delightful and mysterious cupboard in which generations of children had loved to rummage.

He was fond, too, of practicing little economies where one would least expect them. In giving those enjoyable dinners of his, he kept neatly cut pieces of cardboard to slip under the plates and dishes; table mats he considered a needless luxury and a mere waste of money, while the cardboard could be renewed from time to time, with little trouble or expense. But if he wished to buy books for himself or take some little girl pet off for a treat, he never seemed to count the cost, and he gave so generously that many a child of the old days has cause to remember. On one occasion he found a crowd of ragamuffins surrounding the window of a shop where they were cooking cakes. Something in the wistful glances of the little street urchins stirred him strangely as he was passing by, a little girl on either side of him. Suddenly he darted into the shop, and before long came out, his arms piled with the freshly made cakes, which he passed around to the hungry, big-eyed little fellows, leaving the small girls inside the shop, where they could enjoy the pretty scene which stamped itself forever in their memories.

His charities were never known, save that he gave freely in many directions. He was opposed to lending money, but if the case was worthy he was willing to give whatever was necessary, and this he did with a kindliness and grace peculiarly his own. He was interested in hospitals, especially the children’s wards, and many a donation of books and pictures and games and puzzles found their way to these pathetic little sufferers, whose heavy hours were lightened by his thoughtfulness. Hundreds of the “Alice” books were given in this fashion and many a generous check anonymously sent eased the pain of a great big sorrowful world of sick children. After his death his old friends, wishing that something special should be done to honor his memory, subscribed a sum of money to endow a cot in the Children’s Hospital in Great Ormond Street. This was called the “Alice in Wonderland” cot, and is devoted to little patients connected with the stage, in which he had always shown such an interest.

Much has been said of Lewis Carroll’s reverence for sacred things; from the days of his solemn little boyhood this was a most noticeable trait of his character. He had, as we have seen, no “cut and dried” notions regarding religion, but he was old-fashioned in many of his ideas, and while he did not believe in making the Sabbath a day of dull, monotonous ordeal, he set it apart from other days, and made of it a beautiful day of rest. He put from him the weekly cares and worries, brushing aside all work, and requiring others connected with him to do likewise. He wrote to Miss E. Gertrude Thomson, who was illustrating “The Three Sunsets”—his last collection of poems—(published in 1898), that she would oblige him greatly by making no drawings or photographs for him on a Sunday.

When he could, especially during the last years of his life, he gave a sermon, either at Guildford, Eastbourne, or at Oxford. It was through his influence that the Sunday dinner hour at the University was changed from seven to six o’clock, in order that the servants might be able to attend services. These he often conducted himself, and sometimes, in his direct and earnest talks, appealed to many who were hard to reach. Above all, however, a flock of children inspired his best efforts, and the simple fact that he always practiced what he preached made his words all the more impressive. In short, but for the impediment in his speech, he would have made a great preacher.

It was this simple, childlike faith of his that kept him always young—in touch with the youth about him. Old age was never associated with him, and constant exercise made him as lithe and active as a boy. There is an amusing tale of some distinguished personage who went to call on the Rev. Mr. Hatch, and while waiting for his host, he heard a great commotion under the dining table. Stooping down he saw children’s legs waving frantically below, and, diving down himself to join the fun, he came face to face with Lewis Carroll, who had been the foundation of this animated, wriggling mass.

On another occasion Lewis Carroll went to call upon a friend, and finding her out, was about to turn away, when the maid, who had come from the front door to answer the bell at the gate, gave a startled cry—for the door had blown shut, and she was locked out of the house. Lewis Carroll was, as usual, equal to the occasion; he borrowed a ladder from some kind neighbor, climbed in at the drawing-room window, and after performing numerous acrobatic feats of the “small boy” type, managed to open the front door for the anxious maid.

His constant association with children made his activity in many ways equal to theirs. He certainly could outwalk them, for eighteen to twenty miles could not daunt him, and many a small girl who was brave enough to accompany him on what he called “a short walk” had tired feet and aching joints when the walk was over.

On December 23, 1897, he made ready for his yearly visit to Guildford, where he spent the usual happy Christmas, but in the early part of the New Year a slight hoarseness heralded the return of his old enemy—influenza. At first there seemed to be nothing alarming in his illness, but the disease spread very rapidly. The labored breathing, the short, painful gasps, quickly sapped his strength. On January 14, 1898, before his anxious family could quite realize it, the blow had fallen; the life which had meant so much to them, to everyone, went out, as Lewis Carroll folded his hands, closed his eyes, and said with that unquestioning faith, which had been his mainstay through the years: “Father, Thy will be done!”

Through the land there was mourning. Countless children bowed their sunny heads as the storm of grief passed over them, and it seemed as if, during the quiet funeral, a hush had come upon the world. They laid him to rest beneath the shadow of a tall pine, and a pure white cross bearing his own name and the name of “Lewis Carroll” rose to mark the spot, that the children who passed by might never forget their friend.

It seems, indeed, now that the years have passed, that the Angel of Death was very gentle with this fair soul. After all, does he not live in the happy fun and laughter he has left behind him, and will not the coming generations of children find in the wonder tales the same fascination that held the children of long ago? While childhood lasts on earth, while the memory of him lives in millions of childish hearts, Lewis Carroll can never die.

THE END.

THE STORY OF LEWIS CARROLL by Isa Bowman

This short memoir was first published in 1899 and was intended for a younger audience of readers.  It contains Carroll’s diary entries and numerous facsimile letters written to Bowman and others, as well as many sketches and photos by Carroll himself.

LEWIS CARROLL

It seems to me a very difficult task to sit down at a desk and write “reminiscences” of a friend who has gone from us all.

It is not easy to make an effort and to remember all the little personalia of some one one has loved very much, and by whom one has been loved. And yet it is in a measure one’s duty to tell the world something of the inner life of a famous man; and Lewis Carroll was so wonderful a personality, and so good a man, that if my pen dragged ever so slowly, I feel that I can at least tell something of his life which is worthy the telling.

Writing with the sense of his loss still heavy upon me, I must of necessity colour my account with sadness. I am not in the ordinary sense a biographer. I cannot set down a critical estimate, a cold, dispassionate summing-up of a man I loved; but I can write of a few things that happened when I was a little girl, and when he used to say to me that I was “his little girl.”

The gracious presence of Lewis Carroll is with us no longer. Never again will his hand hold mine, and I shall never hear his voice more in this world. Forever while I live that kindly influence will be gone from my life, and the “Friend of little Children” has left us.

And yet in the full sorrow of it all I find some note of comfort. He was so good and sweet, so tender and kind, so certain that there was another and more beautiful life waiting for us, that I know, even as if I heard him telling it to me, that some time I shall meet him once more.

In all the noise and excitement of London, amid all the distractions of a stage life, I know this, and his presence is often very near to me, and the kindly voice is often at my ear as it was in the old days.

To have even known such a man as he was is an inestimable boon. To have been with him for so long as a child, to have known so intimately the man who above all others has understood childhood, is indeed a memory on which to look back with thanksgiving and with tears.

Now that I am no longer “his little girl,” now that he is dead and my life is so different from the quiet life he led, I can yet feel the old charm, I can still be glad that he has kissed me and that we were friends. Little girl and grave professor! it is a strange combination. Grave professor and little girl! how curious it sounds! yet strange and curious as it may seem, it was so, and the little girl, now a little girl no longer, offers this last loving tribute to the friend and teacher she loved so well. Forever that voice is still; be it mine to revive some ancient memories of it.

First, however, as I have essayed to be some sort of a biographer, I feel that before I let my pen run easily over the tale of my intimate knowledge of Lewis Carroll I must put down very shortly some facts about his life.

The Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson died when he was sixty-six years old, and when his famous book, “Alice in Wonderland,” had been published for thirty-three years. He was born at Daresbury, in Cheshire, and his father was the Rev. Charles Dodgson. The first years of his life were spent at Daresbury, but afterwards the family went to live at a place called Croft, in Yorkshire. He went first to a private school in Yorkshire and then to Rugby, where he spent years that he always remembered as very happy ones. In 1850 he went to Christ Church, Oxford, and from that time till the year of his death he was inseparably connected with “The House,” as Christ Church college is generally called, from its Latin name “Ædes Christi,” which means, literally translated, the House of Christ.

There he won great distinction as a scholar of mathematics, and wrote many abstruse and learned books, very different from “Alice in Wonderland.” There is a tale that when the Queen had read “Alice in Wonderland” she was so pleased that she asked for more books by the same author. Lewis Carroll was written to, and back, with the name of Charles Dodgson on the title-page, came a number of the very dryest books about Algebra and Euclid that you can imagine.

Still, even in mathematics his whimsical fancy was sometimes suffered to peep out, and little girls who learnt the rudiments of calculation at his knee found the path they had imagined so thorny set about with roses by reason of the delightful fun with which he would turn a task into a joy. But when the fun was over the little girl would find that she had learnt the lesson (all unknowingly) just the same. Happy little girls who had such a master. The old rhyme—

“Multiplication is vexation,
Division is as bad,
The rule of three doth puzzle me,
And Practice drives me mad,”

would never need to have been written had all arithmetic lessons been like the arithmetic lessons given by Charles Dodgson to his little friends.

As a lecturer to his grown-up pupils he was also surprisingly lucid, and under his deft treatment the knottiest of problems were quickly smoothed out and made easy for his hearers to comprehend. “I always hated mathematics at school,” an ex-pupil of his told me a little while ago, “but when I went up to Oxford I learnt from Mr. Dodgson to look upon my mathematics as the most delightful of all my studies. His lectures were never dry.”

For twenty-six years he lectured at Oxford, finally giving up his post in 1881. From that time to the time of his death he remained in his college, taking no actual part in the tuition, but still enjoying the Fellowship that he had won in 1861.

This is an official account, a brief sketch of an intensely interesting life. It tells little save that Lewis Carroll was a clever mathematician and a sympathetic teacher; it shall be my work to present him as he was from a more human point of view.

Lewis Carroll was a man of medium height. When I knew him his hair was a silver-grey, rather longer than it was the fashion to wear, and his eyes were a deep blue. He was clean shaven, and, as he walked, always seemed a little unsteady in his gait. At Oxford he was a well-known figure. He was a little eccentric in his clothes. In the coldest weather he would never wear an overcoat, and he had a curious habit of always wearing, in all seasons of the year, a pair of grey and black cotton gloves.

But for the whiteness of his hair it was difficult to tell his age from his face, for there were no wrinkles on it. He had a curiously womanish face, and, in direct contradiction to his real character, there seemed to be little strength in it. One reads a great deal about the lines that a man’s life paints in his face, and there are many people who believe that character is indicated by the curves of flesh and bone. I do not, and never shall, believe it is true, and Lewis Carroll is only one of many instances to support my theory. He was as firm and self-contained as a man may be, but there was little to show it in his face.

Yet you could easily discern it in the way in which he met and talked with his friends. When he shook hands with you—he had firm white hands, rather large—his grip was strong and steadfast. Every one knows the kind of man of whom it is said “his hands were all soft and flabby when he said, ‘How-do-you-do.’” Well, Lewis Carroll was not a bit like that. Every one says when he shook your hand the pressure of his was full of strength, and you felt here indeed was a man to admire and to love. The expression in his eyes was also very kind and charming.

LEWIS CARROLL’S ROOM IN OXFORD IN WHICH “ALICE IN WONDERLAND” WAS WRITTEN

He used to look at me, when we met, in the very tenderest, gentlest way. Of course on an ordinary occasion I knew that his interested glance did not mean anything of any extra importance. Nothing could have happened since I had seen him last, yet, at the same time, his look was always so deeply sympathetic and benevolent that one could hardly help feeling it meant a great deal more than the expression of the ordinary man.

He was afflicted with what I believe is known as “Housemaid’s knee,” and this made his movements singularly jerky and abrupt. Then again he found it impossible to avoid stammering in his speech. He would, when engaged in an animated conversation with a friend, talk quickly and well for a few minutes, and then suddenly and without any very apparent cause would begin to stutter so much, that it was often difficult to understand him. He was very conscious of this impediment, and he tried hard to cure himself. For several years he read a scene from some play of Shakespeare’s every day aloud, but despite this he was never quite able to cure himself of the habit. Many people would have found this a great hindrance to the affairs of ordinary life, and would have felt it deeply. Lewis Carroll was different. His mind and life were so simple and open that there was no room in them for self-consciousness, and I have often heard him jest at his own misfortune, with a comic wonder at it.

The personal characteristic that you would notice most on meeting Lewis Carroll was his extreme shyness. With children, of course, he was not nearly so reserved, but in the society of people of maturer age he was almost old-maidishly prim in his manner. When he knew a child well this reserve would vanish completely, but it needed only a slightly disconcerting incident to bring the cloak of shyness about him once more, and close the lips that just before had been talking so delightfully.

I shall never forget one afternoon when we had been walking in Christ Church meadows. On one side of the great open space the little river Cherwell runs through groves of trees towards the Isis, where the college boat-races are rowed. We were going quietly along by the side of the “Cher,” when he began to explain to me that the tiny stream was a tributary, “a baby river” he put it, of the big Thames. He talked for some minutes, explaining how rivers came down from hills and flowed eventually to the sea, when he suddenly met a brother Don at a turning in the avenue.

He was holding my hand and giving me my lesson in geography with great earnestness when the other man came round the corner.

C. L. DODGSON

He greeted him in answer to his salutation, but the incident disturbed his train of thought, and for the rest of the walk he became very difficult to understand, and talked in a nervous and preoccupied manner. One strange way in which his nervousness affected him was peculiarly characteristic. When, owing to the stupendous success of “Alice in Wonderland” and “Alice Through the Looking-Glass,” he became a celebrity many people were anxious to see him, and in some way or other to find out what manner of man he was. This seemed to him horrible, and he invented a mild deception for use when some autograph-hunter or curious person sent him a request for his signature on a photograph, or asked him some silly question as to the writing of one of his books, how long it took to write, and how many copies had been sold. Through some third person he always represented that Lewis Carroll the author and Mr. Dodgson the professor were two distinct persons, and that the author could not be heard of at Oxford at all. On one occasion an American actually wrote to say that he had heard that Lewis Carroll had laid out a garden to represent some of the scenes in “Alice in Wonderland,” and that he (the American) was coming right away to take photographs of it. Poor Lewis Carroll, he was in terror of Americans for a week!

Of being photographed he had a horror, and despite the fact that he was continually and importunately requested to sit before the camera, only very few photographs of him are in existence. Yet he had been himself a great amateur photographer, and had taken many pictures that were remarkable in their exact portraiture of the subject.

It was this exactness that he used to pride himself on in his camera work. He always said that modern professional photographers spoilt all their pictures by touching them up absurdly to flatter the sitter. When it was necessary for me to have some pictures taken he sent me to Mr. H. H. Cameron, whom he declared to be the only artist who dared to produce a photograph that was exactly like its subject. This is one of the photographs of me that Mr. Cameron took, and Lewis Carroll always declared that it was a perfect specimen of portrait work.

Many of the photographs of children in this book are Lewis Carroll’s work. Miss Beatrice Hatch, to whose kindness I am indebted for these photographs and for much interesting information, writes in the Strand Magazine (April 1898):

“My earliest recollections of Mr. Dodgson are connected with photography. He was very fond of this art at one time, though he had entirely given it up for many years latterly. He kept various costumes and ‘properties’ with which to dress us up, and, of course, that added to the fun. What child would not thoroughly enjoy personating a Japanese or a beggar child, or a gipsy or an Indian? Sometimes there were excursions to the roof of the college, which was easily accessible from the windows of the studio. Or you might stand by your friend’s side in the tiny dark room and watch him while he poured the contents of several little strong-smelling bottles on to the glass picture of yourself that looked so funny with its black face.”

A CHINAMAN

Yet, despite his love for the photographer’s art, he hated the idea of having his own picture taken for the benefit of a curious world. The shyness that made him nervous in the presence of strangers made the idea that any one who cared to stare into a shop window could examine and criticise his portrait extremely repulsive to him.

I remember that this shyness of his was the only occasion of anything approaching a quarrel between us.

I had an idle trick of drawing caricatures when I was a child, and one day when he was writing some letters I began to make a picture of him on the back of an envelope. I quite forget what the drawing was like—probably it was an abominable libel—but suddenly he turned round and saw what I was doing. He got up from his seat and turned very red, frightening me very much. Then he took my poor little drawing, and tearing it into small pieces threw it into the fire without a word. Afterwards he came suddenly to me, and saying nothing, caught me up in his arms and kissed me passionately. I was only some ten or eleven years of age at the time, but now the incident comes back to me very clearly, and I can see it as if it happened but yesterday—the sudden snatching of my picture, the hurried striding across the room, and then the tender light in his face as he caught me up to him and kissed me.

I used to see a good deal of him at Oxford, and I was constantly in Christ Church. He would invite me to stay with him and find me rooms just outside the college gates, where I was put into charge of an elderly dame, whose name, if I do not forget, was Mrs. Buxall. I would spend long happy days with my uncle, and at nine o’clock I was taken over to the little house in St. Aldates and delivered into the hands of the landlady, who put me to bed.

In the morning I was awakened by the deep reverberations of “Great Tom” calling Oxford to wake and begin the new day. Those times were very pleasant, and the remembrance of them lingers with me still. Lewis Carroll at the time of which I am speaking had two tiny turret rooms, one on each side of his staircase in Christ Church. He always used to tell me that when I grew up and became married he would give me the two little rooms, so that if I ever disagreed with my husband we could each of us retire to a turret till we had made up our quarrel!

And those rooms of his! I do not think there was ever such a fairy-land for children. I am sure they must have contained one of the finest collections of musical-boxes to be found anywhere in the world. There were big black ebony boxes with glass tops through which you could see all the works. There was a big box with a handle, which it was quite hard exercise for a little girl to turn, and there must have been twenty or thirty little ones which could only play one tune. Sometimes one of the musical-boxes would not play properly, and then I always got tremendously excited. Uncle used to go to a drawer in the table and produce a box of little screw-drivers and punches, and while I sat on his knee he would unscrew the lid and take out the wheels to see what was the matter. He must have been a clever mechanist, for the result was always the same-after a longer or shorter period the music began again. Sometimes when the musical-boxes had played all their tunes he used to put them in the box backwards, and was as pleased as I at the comic effect of the music “standing on its head,” as he phrased it.

There was another and very wonderful toy which he sometimes produced for me, and this was known as “The Bat.” The ceilings of the rooms in which he lived at the time were very high indeed, and admirably suited for the purposes of “The Bat.” It was an ingeniously constructed toy of gauze and wire, which actually flew about the room like a bat. It was worked by a piece of twisted elastic, and it could fly for about half a minute.

I was always a little afraid of this toy because it was too lifelike, but there was a fearful joy in it. When the music-boxes began to pall he would get up from his chair and look at me with a knowing smile. I always knew what was coming even before he began to speak, and I used to dance up and down in tremendous anticipation.

“Isa, my darling,” he would say, “once upon a time there was some one called Bob the Bat! and he lived in the top left-hand drawer of the writing-table. What could he do when uncle wound him up?”

And then I would squeak out breathlessly, “He could really Fly!”

Bob the Bat had many adventures. There was no way of controlling the direction of its flight, and one morning, a hot summer’s morning when the window was wide open, Bob flew out into the garden and alighted in a bowl of salad which a scout was taking to some one’s rooms. The poor fellow was so startled by the sudden flapping apparition that he dropped the bowl, and it was broken into a thousand pieces.

There! I have written “a thousand pieces,” and a thoughtless exaggeration of that sort was a thing that Lewis Carroll hated. “A thousand pieces?” he would have said; “you know, Isa, that if the bowl had been broken into a thousand pieces they would each have been so tiny that you could have hardly seen them.” And if the broken pieces had been get-at-able, he would have made me count them as a means of impressing on my mind the folly of needless exaggeration.

I remember how annoyed he was once when, after a morning’s sea bathing at Eastbourne, I exclaimed, “Oh, this salt water, it always makes my hair as stiff as a poker.”

He impressed it on me quite irritably that no little girl’s hair could ever possibly get as stiff as a poker. “If you had said, ‘as stiff as wires,’ it would have been more like it, but even that would have been an exaggeration.” And then, seeing that I was a little frightened, he drew for me a picture of “The little girl called Isa whose hair turned into pokers because she was always exaggerating things.”

That, and all the other pictures that he drew for me are, I’m sorry to say, the sole property of the little fishes in the Irish Channel, where a clumsy porter dropped them as we hurried into the boat at Holyhead.

“I nearly died of laughing,” was another expression that he particularly disliked; in fact any form of exaggeration generally called from him a reproof, though he was sometimes content to make fun. For instance, my sisters and I had sent him “millions of kisses” in a letter. Below you will find the letter that he wrote in return, written in violet ink that he always used (dreadfully ugly, I used to think it).

“CH. Ch. Oxford,
“Ap. 14, 1890.

“My own Darling,

It’s all very well for you and Nellie and Emsie to write in millions of hugs and kisses, but please consider the time it would occupy your poor old very busy Uncle! Try hugging and kissing Emsie for a minute by the watch, and I don’t think you’ll manage it more than 20 times a minute. ‘Millions’ must mean 2 millions at least.

20)2,000,000 hugs and kisses
60)100,000 minutes
12)1,666 hours
6)138 days (at twelve hours a day)
23 weeks.

“I couldn’t go on hugging and kissing more than 12 hours a day: and I wouldn’t like to spend Sundays that way. So you see it would take 23 weeks of hard work. Really, my dear child, I cannot spare the time.

“Why haven’t I written since my last letter? Why, how could I, you silly silly child? How could I have written since the last time I did write? Now, you just try it with kissing. Go and kiss Nellie, from me, several times, and take care to manage it so as to have kissed her since the last time you did kiss her. Now go back to your place, and I’ll question you.

“‘Have you kissed her several times?’

“‘Yes, darling Uncle.’

“‘What o’clock was it when you gave her the last kiss?’

“‘5 minutes past 10, Uncle.’

“‘Very well, now, have you kissed her since?’

“‘Well—I—ahem! ahem! ahem! (excuse me, Uncle, I’ve got a bad cough). I—think—that—I—that is, you, know, I——’

“‘Yes, I see! “Isa” begins with “I,” and it seems to me as if she was going to end with “I,” this time!’

“Anyhow, my not writing hasn’t been because I was ill, but because I was a horrid lazy old thing, who kept putting it off from day to day, till at last I said to myself, ‘WHO ROAR! There’s no time to write now, because they sail on the 1st of April.’  In fact, I shouldn’t have been a bit surprised if this letter had been from Fulham, instead of Louisville. Well, I suppose you will be there by about the middle of May. But mind you don’t write to me from there! Please, please, no more horrid letters from you! I do hate them so! And as for kissing them when I get them, why, I’d just as soon kiss—kiss—kiss you, you tiresome thing! So there now!

“Thank you very much for those 2 photographs—I liked them—hum—pretty well. I can’t honestly say I thought them the very best I had ever seen.

“Please give my kindest regards to your mother, and ½ of a kiss to Nellie, and 1⁄200 a kiss to Emsie, and 1⁄2,000,000 a kiss to yourself. So, with fondest love, I am, my darling, your loving Uncle,

“C. L. Dodgson.”

And now, in the postscript, comes one of the rare instances in which Lewis Carroll showed his deep religious feeling. It runs—

“P.S.—I’ve thought about that little prayer you asked me to write for Nellie and Emsie. But I would like, first, to have the words of the one I wrote for you, and the words of what they now say, if they say any. And then I will pray to our Heavenly Father to help me to write a prayer that will be really fit for them to use.”

Again, I had ended one of my letters with “all join me in lufs and kisses.” It was a letter written when I was away from home and alone, and I had put the usual ending thoughtlessly and in haste, for there was no one that I knew in all that town who could have joined me in my messages to him. He answered me as follows:—

“7 Lushington Road, Eastbourne,
“Aug. 30, 90.

“Oh, you naughty, naughty, bad wicked little girl! You forgot to put a stamp on your letter, and your poor old uncle had to pay TWOPENCE! His last Twopence! Think of that. I shall punish you severely for this when once I get you here. So tremble! Do you hear? Be good enough to tremble!

“I’ve only time for one question to-day. Who in the world are the ‘all’ that join you in ‘Lufs and kisses.’ Weren’t you fancying you were at home, and sending messages (as people constantly do) from Nellie and Emsie without their having given any? It isn’t a good plan that sending messages people haven’t given. I don’t mean it’s in the least untruthful, because everybody knows how commonly they are sent without having been given; but it lessens the pleasure of receiving the messages. My sisters write to me ‘with best love from all.’ I know it isn’t true; so I don’t value it much. The other day, the husband of one of my ‘child-friends’ (who always writes ‘your loving’) wrote to me and ended with ‘Ethel joins me in kindest regards.’ In my answer I said (of course in fun)—‘I am not going to send Ethel kindest regards, so I won’t send her any message at all.’ Then she wrote to say she didn’t even know he was writing! ‘Of course I would have sent best love,’ and she added that she had given her husband a piece of her mind! Poor husband!

“Your always loving uncle,
“C. L. D.”

These letters are written in Lewis Carroll’s ordinary handwriting, not a particularly legible one. When, however, he was writing for the press no characters could have been more clearly and distinctly formed than his. Throughout his life he always made it his care to give as little trouble as possible to other people. “Why should the printers have to work overtime because my letters are ill-formed and my words run into each other?” he once said, when a friend remonstrated with him because he took such pains with the writing of his “copy.” As a specimen of his careful penmanship the diary that he wrote for me, which is reproduced in this book in facsimile, is an admirable example.

They were happy days, those days in Oxford, spent with the most fascinating companion that a child could have. In our walks about the old town, in our visits to cathedral or chapel or hall, in our visits to his friends he was an ideal companion, but I think I was almost happiest when we came back to his rooms and had tea alone; when the fire-glow (it was always winter when I stayed in Oxford) threw fantastic shadows about the quaint room, and the thoughts of the prosiest of people must have wandered a little into fancy-land. The shifting firelight seemed to almost ætherealise that kindly face, and as the wonderful stories fell from his lips, and his eyes lighted on me with the sweetest smile that ever a man wore, I was conscious of a love and reverence for Charles Dodgson that became nearly an adoration.

It was almost pain when the lights were turned up and we came back to everyday life and tea.

He was very particular about his tea, which he always made himself, and in order that it should draw properly he would walk about the room swinging the tea-pot from side to side for exactly ten minutes. The idea of the grave professor promenading his book-lined study and carefully waving a tea-pot to and fro may seem ridiculous, but all the minutiæ of life received an extreme attention at his hands, and after the first surprise one came quickly to realise the convenience that his carefulness ensured.

BEGGAR CHILDREN

Before starting on a railway journey, for instance (and how delightful were railway journeys in the company of Lewis Carroll), he used to map out exactly every minute of the time that we were to take on the way. The details of the journey completed, he would exactly calculate the amount of money that must be spent, and, in different partitions of the two purses that he carried, arrange the various sums that would be necessary for cabs, porters, newspapers, refreshments, and the other expenses of a journey. It was wonderful how much trouble he saved himself en route by thus making ready beforehand. Lewis Carroll was never driven half frantic on a station platform because he had to change a sovereign to buy a penny paper while the train was on the verge of starting. With him journeys were always comfortable.

Of the joys that waited on a little girl who stayed with Lewis Carroll at his Oxford home I can give no better idea than that furnished by the diary that follows, which he wrote for me, bit by bit, during the evenings of one of my stays at Oxford.

This diary, and what I have written before, show how I, as a little girl, knew Lewis Carroll at Oxford.

For his little girl friends, of course, he reserved the most intimate side of his nature, but on occasion he would throw off his reserve and talk earnestly and well to some young man in whose life he took an interest.

Mr. Arthur Girdlestone is able to bear witness to this, and he has given me an account of an evening that he once spent with Lewis Carroll, which I reproduce here from notes made during our conversation.

Mr. Girdlestone, then an undergraduate at New College, had on one occasion to call on Lewis Carroll at his rooms in Tom Quad. At the time of which I am speaking Lewis Carroll had retired very much from the society which he had affected a few years before. Indeed for the last years of his life he was almost a recluse, and beyond dining in Hall saw hardly any one. Miss Beatrice Hatch, one of his “girl friends,” writes apropos of his hermit-like seclusion:—

“If you were very anxious to get him to come to your house on any particular day, the only chance was not to invite him, but only to inform him that you would be at home. Otherwise he would say, ‘As you have invited me I cannot come, for I have made a rule to decline all invitations; but I will come the next day.’ In former years he would sometimes consent to go to a ‘party’ if he was quite sure he was not to be ‘shown off’ or introduced to any one as the author of ‘Alice.’ I must again quote from a note of his in answer to an invitation to tea: ‘What an awful proposition! To drink tea from four to six would tax the constitution even of a hardened tea drinker! For me, who hardly ever touch it, it would probably be fatal.’”

All through the University, except in an extremely limited circle, Lewis Carroll was regarded as a person who lived very much by himself. “When,” Mr. Girdlestone said to me, “I went to see him on quite a slight acquaintance, I confess it was with some slight feeling of trepidation. However I had to on some business, and accordingly I knocked at his door about 8.30 one winter’s evening, and was invited to come in.

“He was sitting working at a writing-table, and all round him were piles of MSS. arranged with mathematical neatness, and many of them tied up with tape. The lamp threw his face into sharp relief as he greeted me. My business was soon over, and I was about to go away, when he asked me if I would have a glass of wine and sit with him for a little.

“The night outside was very cold, and the fire was bright and inviting, and I sat down. He began to talk to me of ordinary subjects, of the things a man might do at Oxford, of the place itself, and the affection in which he held it. He talked quietly, and in a rather tired voice. During our conversation my eye fell upon a photograph of a little girl—evidently from the freshness of its appearance but newly taken—which was resting upon the ledge of a reading-stand at my elbow. It was the picture of a tiny child, very pretty, and I picked it up to look at it.

“‘That is the baby of a girl friend of mine,’ he said, and then, with an absolute change of voice, ‘there is something very strange about very young children, something I cannot understand.’ I asked him in what way, and he explained at some length. He was far less at his ease than when talking trivialities, and he occasionally stammered and sometimes hesitated for a word. I cannot remember all he said, but some of his remarks still remain with me. He said that in the company of very little children his brain enjoyed a rest which was startlingly recuperative. If he had been working too hard or had tired his brain in any way, to play with children was like an actual material tonic to his whole system. I understood him to say that the effect was almost physical!

“He said that he found it much easier to understand children, to get his mind into correspondence with their minds when he was fatigued with other work. Personally, I did not understand little children, and they seemed quite outside my experience, and rather incautiously I asked him if children never bored him. He had been standing up for most of the time, and when I asked him that, he sat down suddenly. ‘They are three-fourths of my life,’ he said. ‘I cannot understand how any one could be bored by little children. I think when you are older you will come to see this—I hope you’ll come to see it.’

“After that he changed the subject once more, and became again the mathematician—a little formal, and rather weary.”

Mr. Girdlestone probably had a unique experience, for it was but rarely that Mr. Dodgson so far unburdened himself to a comparative stranger, and what was even worse, to a “grown-up stranger.”

Now I have given you two different phases of Lewis Carroll at Oxford—Lewis Carroll as the little girl’s companion, and Lewis Carroll sitting by the fireside telling something of his inner self to a young man. I am going on to talk about my life with him at Eastbourne, where I used, year by year, to stay with him at his house in Lushington Road.

He was very fond of Eastbourne, and it was from that place that I received the most charming letters that he wrote me. Here is one, and I could hardly say how many times I have taken this delightful letter from its drawer to read through and through again.

“7 Lushington Road, Eastbourne,
“September 17, 1893.

“Oh, you naughty, naughty little culprit! If only I could fly to Fulham with a handy little stick (ten feet long and four inches thick is my favourite size) how I would rap your wicked little knuckles. However, there isn’t much harm done, so I will sentence you to a very mild punishment—only one year’s imprisonment. If you’ll just tell the Fulham policeman about it, he’ll manage all the rest for you, and he’ll fit you with a nice pair of handcuffs, and lock you up in a nice cosy dark cell, and feed you on nice dry bread, and delicious cold water.

ST. GEORGE THE DRAGON

“But how badly you do spell your words! I was so puzzled about the ‘sacks full of love and baskets full of kisses!’ But at last I made out why, of course, you meant ‘a sack full of gloves, and a basket full of kittens!’ Then I understood what you were sending me. And just then Mrs. Dyer came to tell me a large sack and a basket had come. There was such a miawing in the house, as if all the cats in Eastbourne had come to see me! ‘Oh, just open them please, Mrs. Dyer, and count the things in them!’

“So in a few minutes Mrs. Dyer came and said, ‘500 pairs of gloves in the sack and 250 kittens in the basket.’

“‘Dear me! That makes 1000 gloves! four times as many gloves as kittens! It’s very kind of Maggie, but why did she send so many gloves? for I haven’t got 1000 hands, you know, Mrs. Dyer.’

“And Mrs. Dyer said, ‘No, indeed, you’re 998 hands short of that!’

“However the next day I made out what to do, and I took the basket with me and walked off to the parish school—the girl’s school, you know—and I said to the mistress, ‘How many little girls are there at school to-day?’

“‘Exactly 250, sir.’

“‘And have they all been very good all day?’

“‘As good as gold, sir.’

“So I waited outside the door with my basket, and as each little girl came out, I just popped a soft little kitten into her hands! Oh, what joy there was! The little girls went all dancing home, nursing their kittens, and the whole air was full of purring! Then, the next morning, I went to the school, before it opened, to ask the little girls how the kittens had behaved in the night. And they all arrived sobbing and crying, and their faces and hands were all covered with scratches, and they had the kittens wrapped up in their pinafores to keep them from scratching any more. And they sobbed out, ‘The kittens have been scratching us all night, all the night.’

“So then I said to myself, ‘What a nice little girl Maggie is. Now I see why she sent all those gloves, and why there are four times as many gloves as kittens!’ and I said loud to the little girls, ‘Never mind, my dear children, do your lessons very nicely, and don’t cry any more, and when school is over, you’ll find me at the door, and you shall see what you shall see!’

“So, in the evening, when the little girls came running out, with the kittens still wrapped up in their pinafores, there was I, at the door, with a big sack! And, as each little girl came out, I just popped into her hand two pairs of gloves! And each little girl unrolled her pinafore and took out an angry little kitten, spitting and snarling, with its claws sticking out like a hedgehog. But it hadn’t time to scratch, for, in one moment, it found all its four claws popped into nice soft warm gloves! And then the kittens got quite sweet-tempered and gentle, and began purring again!

“So the little girls went dancing home again, and the next morning they came dancing back to school. The scratches were all healed, and they told me ‘The kittens have been good!’ And, when any kitten wants to catch a mouse, it just takes off one of its gloves; and if it wants to catch two mice, it takes off two gloves; and if it wants to catch three mice, it takes off three gloves; and if it wants to catch four mice, it takes off all its gloves. But the moment they’ve caught the mice, they pop their gloves on again, because they know we can’t love them without their gloves. For, you see ‘gloves’ have got ‘love’ inside them—there’s none outside!

“So all the little girls said, ‘Please thank Maggie, and we send her 250 loves, and 1000 kisses in return for her 250 kittens and her 1000 loves!!’ And I told them in the wrong order! and they said they hadn’t.

“Your loving old Uncle,
“C. L. D.

“Love and kisses to Nellie and Emsie.”

This letter takes up eight pages of close writing, and I should very much doubt if any child ever had a more charming one from anybody. The whimsical fancy in it, the absolute comprehension of a child’s intellect, the quickness with which the writer employs the slightest incident or thing that would be likely to please a little girl, is simply wonderful. I shall never forget how the letter charmed and delighted my sister Maggie and myself. We called it “The glove and kitten letter,” and as I look at the tremulous handwriting which is lying by my side, it all comes back to me very vividly—like the sound of forgotten fingers on the latch to some lonely fireside watcher, when the wind is wailing round the house with a wilder inner note than it has in the daytime.

At Eastbourne I was happier even with Lewis Carroll than I was at Oxford. We seemed more free, and there was the air of holiday over it all. Every day of my stay at the house in Lushington Road was a perfect dream of delight.

There was one regular and fixed routine which hardly ever varied, and which I came to know by heart; and I will write an account of it here, and ask any little girl who reads it, if she ever had such a splendid time in her life.

To begin with, we used to get up very early indeed. Our bedroom doors faced each other at the top of the staircase. When I came out of mine I always knew if I might go into his room or not by his signal. If, when I came into the passage, I found that a newspaper had been put under the door, then I knew I might go in at once; but if there was no newspaper, then I had to wait till it appeared. I used to sit down on the top stair as quiet as a mouse, watching for the paper to come under the door, when I would rush in almost before uncle had time to get out of the way. This was always the first pleasure and excitement of the day. Then we used to downstairs to breakfast, after which we always read a chapter out of the Bible. So that I should remember it, I always had to tell it to him afterwards as a story of my own.

“LEWIS CARROLL’S” HOUSE AT EASTBOURNE

“Now then, Isa dearest,” he would say, “tell me a story, and mind you begin with ‘once upon a time.’ A story which does not begin with ‘once upon a time’ can’t possibly be a good story. It’s most important.”

When I had told my story it was time to go out.

I was learning swimming at the Devonshire Park baths, and we always had a bargain together. He would never allow me to go to the swimming-bath—which I revelled in—until I had promised him faithfully that I would go afterwards to the dentist’s.

He had great ideas upon the importance of a regular and almost daily visit to the dentist. He himself went to a dentist as he would have gone to a hairdresser’s, and he insisted that all the little girls he knew should go too. The precaution sounds strange, and one might be inclined to think that Lewis Carroll carried it to an unnecessary length; but I can only bear personal witness to the fact that I have firm strong teeth, and have never had a toothache in my life. I believe I owe this entirely to those daily visits to the Eastbourne dentist.

Soon after this it was time for lunch, and we both went back hand-in-hand to the rooms in Lushington Road. Lewis Carroll never had a proper lunch, a fact which always used to puzzle me tremendously.

I could not understand how a big grown-up man could live on a glass of sherry and a biscuit at dinner time. It seemed such a pity when there was lots of mutton and rice-pudding that he should not have any. I always used to ask him, “Aren’t you hungry, uncle, even to-day?”

After lunch I used to have a lesson in backgammon, a game of which he was passionately fond, and of which he could never have enough. Then came what to me was the great trial of the day. I am afraid I was a very lazy little girl in those days, and I know I hated walking far. The trial was, that we should walk to the top of Beachy Head every afternoon. I used to like it very much when I got there, but the walk was irksome. Lewis Carroll believed very much in a great amount of exercise, and said one should always go to bed physically wearied with the exercise of the day. Accordingly there was no way out of it, and every afternoon I had to walk to the top of Beachy Head. He was very good and kind. He would invent all sorts of new games to beguile the tedium of the way. One very curious and strange trait in his character was shown on these walks. I used to be very fond of flowers and of animals also. A pretty dog or a hedge of honeysuckle were always pleasant events upon a walk to me. And yet he himself cared for neither flowers nor animals. Tender and kind as he was, simple and unassuming in all his tastes, yet he did not like flowers! I confess that even now I find it hard to understand. He knew children so thoroughly and well—perhaps better than any one else—that it is all the stranger that he did not care for things that generally attract them so much. However, be that as it may, the fact remained. When I was in raptures over a poppy or a dogrose, he would try hard to be as interested as I was, but even to my childish eyes it was an obvious effort, and he would always rather invent some new game for us to play at. Once, and once only, I remember him to have taken an interest in a flower, and that was because of the folk-lore that was attached to it, and not because of the beauty of the flower itself.

We used to walk into the country that stretched, in beautiful natural avenues of trees, inland from Eastbourne. One day while we sat under a great tree, and the hum of the myriad insect life rivalled the murmur of the far-away waves, he took a foxglove from the heap that lay in my lap and told me the story of how they came by their name; how, in the old days, when, all over England, there were great forests, like the forest of Arden that Shakespeare loved, the pixies, the “little folks,” used to wander at night in the glades, like Titania, and Oberon, and Puck, and because they took great pride in their dainty hands they made themselves gloves out of the flowers. So the particular flower that the “little folks” used came to be called “folks’ gloves.” Then, because the country people were rough and clumsy in their talk, the name was shortened into “Fox-gloves,” the name that every one uses now.

When I got very tired we used to sit down upon the grass, and he used to show me the most wonderful things made out of his handkerchief. Every one when a child has, I suppose, seen the trick in which a handkerchief is rolled up to look like a mouse, and then made to jump about by a movement of the hand. He did this better than any one I ever saw, and the trick was a never-failing joy. By a sort of consent between us the handkerchief trick was kept especially for the walk to Beachy Head, when, about half-way, I was a little tired and wanted to rest. When we actually got to the Head there was tea waiting in the coastguard’s cottage. He always said I ate far too much, and he would never allow me more than one rock cake and a cup of tea. This was an invariable rule, and much as I wished for it, I was never allowed to have more than one rock cake.

It was in the coastguard’s house or on the grass outside that I heard most of his stories. Sometimes he would make excursions into the realms of pure romance, where there were scaly dragons and strange beasts that sat up and talked. In all these stories there was always an adventure in a forest, and the great scene of each tale always took place in a wood. The consummation of a story was always heralded by the phrase, “The children now came to a deep dark wood.” When I heard that sentence, which was always spoken very slowly and with a solemn dropping of the voice, I always knew that the really exciting part was coming. I used to nestle a little nearer to him, and he used to hold me a little closer as he told of the final adventure.

He did not always tell me fairy tales, though I think I liked the fairy tale much the best. Sometimes he gave me accounts of adventures which had happened to him. There was one particularly thrilling story of how he was lost on Beachy Head in a sea fog, and had to find his way home by means of boulders. This was the more interesting because we were on the actual scene of the disaster, and to be there stimulated the imagination.

The summer afternoons on the great headland were very sweet and peaceful. I have never met a man so sensible to the influences of Nature as Lewis Carroll. When the sunset was very beautiful he was often affected by the sight. The widespread wrinkled sea below, in the mellow melancholy light of the afternoon, seemed to fit in with his temperament. I have still a mental picture that I can recall of him on the cliff. Just as the sun was setting, and a cool breeze whispered round us, he would take off his hat and let the wind play with his hair, and he would look out to sea. Once I saw tears in his eyes, and when we turned to go he gripped my hand much tighter than usual.

MISS ISA BOWMAN AND MISS BESSIE HATTON
AS THE LITTLE PRINCES IN THE TOWER

We generally got back to dinner about seven or earlier. He would never let me change my frock for the meal, even if we were going to a concert or theatre afterwards. He had a curious theory that a child should not change her clothes twice in one day. He himself made no alteration in his dress at dinner time, nor would he permit me to do so. Yet he was not by any means an untidy or slovenly man. He had many little fads in dress, but his great horror and abomination was high-heeled shoes with pointed toes. No words were strong enough, he thought, to describe such monstrous things.

Lewis Carroll was a deeply religious man, and on Sundays at Eastbourne we always went twice to church. Yet he held that no child should be forced into church-going against its will. Such a state of mind in a child, he said, needed most careful treatment, and the very worst thing to do was to make attendance at the services compulsory. Another habit of his, which must, I feel sure, sound rather dreadful to many, was that, should the sermon prove beyond my comprehension, he would give me a little book to read; it was better far, he maintained, to read, than to stare idly about the church. When the rest of the congregation rose at the entrance of the choir he kept his seat. He argued that rising to one’s feet at such a time tended to make the choir-boys conceited. I think he was quite right.

He kept no special books for Sunday reading, for he was most emphatically of opinion that anything tending to make Sunday a day dreaded by a child should be studiously avoided. He did not like me to sew on Sunday unless it was absolutely necessary.

One would have hardly expected that a man of so reserved a nature as Lewis Carroll would have taken much interest in the stage. Yet he was devoted to the theatre, and one of the commonest of the treats that he gave his little girl friends was to organise a party for the play. As a critic of acting he was naïve and outspoken, and never hesitated to find fault if he thought it justifiable. The following letter that he wrote to me criticising my acting in “Richard III.” when I was playing with Richard Mansfield, is one of the most interesting that I ever received from him. Although it was written for a child to understand and profit by, and moreover written in the simplest possible way, it yet even now strikes me as a trenchant and valuable piece of criticism.

ISA BOWMAN AS DUKE OF YORK

 “Ch. Ch. Oxford,
“Ap. 4, ’89.

“My Lord Duke,—The photographs, which Your Grace did me the honour of sending arrived safely; and I can assure your Royal Highness that I am very glad to have them, and like them very much, particularly the large head of your late Royal Uncle’s little little son. I do not wonder that your excellent Uncle Richard should say ‘off with his head!’ as a hint to the photographer to print it off. Would your Highness like me to go on calling you the Duke of York, or shall I say ‘my own own darling Isa?’ Which do you like best?

“Now I’m going to find fault with my pet about her acting. What’s the good of an old Uncle like me except to find fault?

“You do the meeting with the Prince of Wales very nicely and lovingly; and, in teasing your Uncle for his dagger and his sword, you are very sweet and playful and—‘but that’s not finding fault!’ Isa says to herself. Isn’t it? Well, I’ll try again. Didn’t I hear you say ‘In weightier things you’ll say a beggar nay,’ leaning on the word ‘beggar’? If so, it was a mistake. My rule for knowing which word to lean on is the word that tells you something new, something that is different from what you expected.

“Take the sentence ‘first I bought a bag of apples, then I bought a bag of pears,’ you wouldn’t say ‘then I bought a bag of pears.’ The ‘bag’ is nothing new, because it was a bag in the first part of the sentence. But the pears are new, and different from the apples. So you would say, ‘then I bought a bag of pears.’

“Do you understand that, my pet?”

“Now what you say to Richard amounts to this, ‘With light gifts you’ll say to a beggar “yes”: with heavy gifts you’ll say to a beggar “nay.”’ The words ‘you’ll say to a beggar’ are the same both times; so you mustn’t lean on any of those words. But ‘light’ is different from ‘heavy,’ and ‘yes’ is different from ‘nay.’ So the way to say the sentence would be ‘with light gifts you’ll say to a beggar “yes”: with heavy gifts you’ll say to a beggar “nay”.’ And the way to say the lines in the play is—

‘O, then I see you will part but with light gifts;
In weightier things you’ll say a beggar nay.’

“One more sentence.

“When Richard says, ‘What, would you have my weapon, little Lord?’ and you reply ‘I would, that I might thank you as you call me,’ didn’t I hear you pronounce ‘thank’ as if it were spelt with an ‘e’? I know it’s very common (I often do it myself) to say ‘thenk you!’ as an exclamation by itself. I suppose it’s an odd way of pronouncing the word. But I’m sure it’s wrong to pronounce it so when it comes into a sentence. It will sound much nicer if you’ll pronounce it so as to rhyme with ‘bank.’

“One more thing. (‘What an impertinent old uncle! Always finding fault!’) You’re not as natural, when acting the Duke, as you were when you acted Alice. You seemed to me not to forgot yourself enough. It was not so much a real prince talking to his elder brother and his uncle; it was Isa Bowman talking to people she didn’t much care about, for an audience to listen to—I don’t mean it was that all through, but sometimes you were artificial. Now don’t be jealous of Miss Hatton, when I say she was sweetly natural. She looked and spoke like a real Prince of Wales. And she didn’t seem to know that there was any audience. If you are ever to be a good actress (as I hope you will), you must learn to forget ‘Isa’ altogether, and be the character you are playing. Try to think ‘This is really the Prince of Wales. I’m his little brother, and I’m very glad to meet him, and I love him very much,’ and ‘this is really my uncle: he’s very kind, and lets me say saucy things to him,’ and do forget that there’s anybody else listening!

“My sweet pet, I hope you won’t be offended with me for saying what I fancy might make your acting better!

“Your loving old Uncle,
“Charles.

X for Nellie.
X for Maggie.
X for Emsie.
X for Isa.”

He was a fairly constant patron of all the London theatres, save the Gaiety and the Adelphi, which he did not like, and numbered a good many theatrical folk among his acquaintances. Miss Ellen Terry was one of his greatest friends. Once I remember we made an expedition from Eastbourne to Margate to visit Miss Sarah Thorne’s theatre, and especially for the purpose of seeing Miss Violet Vanbrugh’s Ophelia. He was a great admirer of both Miss Violet and Miss Irene Vanbrugh as actresses. Of Miss Thorne’s school of acting, too, he had the highest opinion, and it was his often expressed wish that all intending players could have so excellent a course of tuition. Among the male members of the theatrical profession he had no especial favourites, excepting Mr. Toole and Mr. Richard Mansfield.

He never went to a music-hall, but considered that, properly managed, they might be beneficial to the public. It was only when the refrain of some particularly vulgar music-hall song broke upon his ears in the streets that he permitted himself to speak harshly about variety theatres.

Comic opera, when it was wholesome, he liked, and was a frequent visitor to the Savoy theatre. The good old style of Pantomime, too, was a great delight to him, and he would often speak affectionately of the pantomimes at Brighton during the régime of Mr. and Mrs. Nye Chart. But of the up-to-date pantomime he had a horror, and nothing would induce him to visit one. “When pantomimes are written for children once more,” he said, “I will go. Not till then.”

Once when a friend told him that she was about to take her little girls to the pantomime, he did not rest till he had dissuaded her.

To conclude what I have said about Lewis Carroll’s affection for the dramatic art, I will give a kind of examination paper, written for a child who had been learning a recitation called “The Demon of the Pit.” Though his stuttering prevented him from being himself anything of a reciter, he loved correct elocution, and would take any pains to make a child perfect in a piece.

THE LITTLE PRINCES

First of all there is an explanatory paragraph.

“As you don’t ask any questions about ‘The Demon of the Pit,’ I suppose you understand it all. So please answer these questions just as you would do if a younger child (say Mollie) asked them.”

Mollie. Please, Ethel, will you explain this poem to me. There are some very hard words in it.

Ethel. What are they, dear?

Mollie. Well, in the first line, “If you chance to make a sally.” What does “sally” mean?

Ethel. Dear Mollie, I believe sally means to take a chance work.

Mollie. Then, near the end of the first verse—“Whereupon she’ll call her cronies”—what does “whereupon” mean? And what are cronies?

Ethel. I think whereupon means at the same time, and cronies means her favourite playfellows.

Mollie. “And invest in proud polonies.” What’s to “invest?”

Ethel. To invest means to spend money in anything you fancy.

Mollie. And what’s “A woman of the day?”

Ethel. A woman of the day means a wonder of the time with the general public.

Mollie. “Pyrotechnic blaze of wit.” What’s pyrotechnic?

Ethel. Mollie, I think you will find that pyrotechnic means quick, with flashes of lightning.

Mollie. Then the 8 lines that begin “The astounding infant wonder”—please explain “rôle” and “mise” and “tout ensemble” and “grit.”

Ethel. Well, Mollie, “rôle” means so many different things, but in “The Demon of the Pit” I should think it meant the leading part of the piece, and “mise” means something extra good introduced, and “tout” means to seek for applause, but “ensemble” means the whole of the parts taken together, and grit means something good.

Mollie. “And the Goblins prostrate tumble.” What’s “prostrate”?

Ethel. I believe prostrate means to be cast down and unhappy.

Mollie. “And his accents shake a bit.” What are “accents”?

Ethel. To accent is to lay stress upon a word.

Mollie. “Waits resignedly behind.” What’s “resignedly”?

Ethel. Resignedly means giving up, yielding.

Mollie. “They have tripe as light to dream on.” What does “as” mean here? and what does “to dream on” mean?

Ethel. Mollie, dear, your last question is very funny. In the first place, I have always been told that hot suppers are not good for any one, and I should think that tripe would not be light to dream on but VERY heavy.

Mollie. Thank you, Ethel.

I have now nearly finished my little memoir of Lewis Carroll; that is to say, I have written down all that I can remember of my personal knowledge of him. But I think it is from the letters and the diaries published in this book that my readers must chiefly gain an insight into the character of the greatest friend to children who ever lived. Not only did he study children’s ways for his own pleasure, but he studied them in order that he might please them. For instance, here is a letter that he wrote to my little sister Nelly eight years ago, which begins on the last page and is written entirely backwards—a kind of variant on his famous “Looking-Glass” writing. You have to begin at the last word and read backwards before you can understand it. The only ordinary thing about it is the date. It begins—I mean begins if one was to read it in the ordinary way—with the characteristic monogram, C. L. D.

“Nov. 1, 1891.

“C. L. D., Uncle loving your! Instead grandson his to it give to had you that so, years 80 or 70 for it forgot you that was it pity a what and: him of fond so were you wonder don’t I and, gentleman old nice very a was he. For it made you that him been have must it see you so: grandfather my was, then alive was that, ‘Dodgson Uncle’ only the. Born was I before long was that, see you, then But. ‘Dodgson Uncle for pretty thing some make I’ll now,’ it began you when, yourself to said you that, me telling her without, knew I course of and: ago years many great a it made had you said she. Me told Isa what from was it? For meant was it who out made I how know you do! Lasted has it well how and. Grandfather my for made had you Antimacassar pretty that me give to you of nice so was it, Nelly dear my.”

Miss Hatch has also sent me an original letter that Lewis Carroll wrote to her in 1873, about a large wax doll that he had given her. It is interesting to notice that this letter, written long before any of the others that he wrote to me, is identically the same in form and expression. It is a striking proof how fresh and unimpaired the writer’s sympathies must have been. Year after year he retained the same sweet, kindly temperament, and, if anything, his love for children seemed to increase as he grew older.

“My dear Birdie,—I met her just outside Tom Gate, walking very stiffly, and I think she was trying to find her way to my rooms. So I said, ‘Why have you come here without Birdie?’ So she said, ‘Birdie’s gone! and Emily’s gone! and Mabel isn’t kind to me!’ And two little waxy tears came running down her cheeks.

“Why, how stupid of me! I’ve never told you who it was all the time! It was your new doll. I was very glad to see her, and I took her to my room, and gave her some vesta matches to eat, and a cup of nice melted wax to drink, for the poor little thing was very hungry and thirsty after her long walk. So I said, ‘Come and sit down by the fire, and let’s have a comfortable chat?’ ‘Oh no! no!’ she said, ‘I’d much rather not. You know I do melt so very easily!’ And she made me take her quite to the other side of the room, where it was very cold: and then she sat on my knee, and fanned herself with a pen-wiper, because she said she was afraid the end of her nose was beginning to melt.

“‘You’ve no idea how careful we have to be,’ we dolls, she said. ‘Why, there was a sister of mine—would you believe it?—she went up to the fire to warm her hands, and one of her hands dropped right off! There now!’ ‘Of course it dropped right off,’ I said, ‘because it was the right hand.’ ‘And how do you know it was the right hand, Mister Carroll?’ the doll said. So I said, ‘I think it must have been the right hand because the other hand was left.’

“The doll said, ‘I shan’t laugh. It’s a very bad joke. Why, even a common wooden doll could make a better joke than that. And besides, they’ve made my mouth so stiff and hard, that I can’t laugh if I try ever so much?’ ‘Don’t be cross about it,’ I said, ‘but tell me this: I’m going to give Birdie and the other children one photograph each, which ever they choose; which do you think Birdie will choose?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said the doll; ‘you’d better ask her!’ So I took her home in a hansom cab. Which would you like, do you think? Arthur as Cupid? or Arthur and Wilfred together? or you and Ethel as beggar children? or Ethel standing on a box? or, one of yourself?—Your affectionate friend,

“Lewis Carroll.”

Among the bundle of letters and MS. before me, I find written on a half sheet of note-paper the following Ollendorfian dialogue. It is interesting because, slight and trivial as it is, it in some strange way bears the imprint of Lewis Carroll’s style. The thing is written in the familiar violet ink, and neatly dated in the corner 29/9/90:—

“Let’s go and look at the house I want to buy. Now do be quick! You move so slow! What a time you take with your boots!”

“Don’t make such a row about it: it’s not two o’clock yet. How do you like this house?”

“I don’t like it. It’s too far down the hill. Let’s go higher. I heard a nice account of one at the top, built on an improved plan.”

“What does the rent amount to?”

“Oh, the rent’s all right: it’s only nine pounds a year.”

Over all matters connected with letter writing, Lewis Carroll was accustomed to take great pains. All letters that he received that were of any interest or importance whatever he kept, putting them away in old biscuit tins, numbers of which he kept for the purpose.

“DOLLY VARDEN”

In 1888 he published a little book which he called “Eight or Nine Wise Words about Letter Writing,” and as this little book of mine is so full of letters, I think I can do no better than make a few extracts:—

“Write Legibly.—The average temper of the human race would be perceptibly sweeter if every one obeyed this rule! A great deal of the bad writing in the world comes simply from writing too quickly. Of course you reply, ‘I do it to save time.’ A very good object, no doubt; but what right have you to do it at your friend’s expense? Isn’t his time as valuable as yours? Years ago I used to receive letters from a friend—and very interesting letters too—written in one of the most atrocious hands ever invented. It generally took me about a week to read one of his letters! I used to carry it about in my pocket, and take it out at leisure times, to puzzle over the riddles which composed it—holding it in different positions, and at different distances, till at last the meaning of some hopeless scrawl would flash upon me, when I at once wrote down the English under it; and, when several had thus been guessed, the context would help one with the others, till at last the whole series of hieroglyphics was deciphered. If all one’s friends wrote like that, life would be entirely spent in reading their letters.”

In writing the last wise word, the author no doubt had some of his girl correspondents in his mind’s eye, for he says—

“My Ninth Rule.—When you get to the end of a note sheet, and find you have more to say, take another piece of paper—a whole sheet or a scrap, as the case may demand; but, whatever you do, don’t cross! Remember the old proverb, ‘Cross writing makes cross reading.’ ‘The old proverb,’ you say inquiringly; ‘how old?’ Well, not so very ancient, I must confess. In fact I’m afraid I invented it while writing this paragraph. Still you know ‘old’ is a comparative term. I think you would be quite justified in addressing a chicken just out of the shell as ‘Old Boy!’ when compared with another chicken that was only half out!”

I have another diary to give to my readers, a diary that Lewis Carroll wrote for my sister Maggie when, a tiny child, she came to Oxford to play the child part, Mignon, in “Booties’ Baby.” He was delighted with the pretty play, for the interest that the soldiers took in the little lost girl, and how a mere interest ripened into love, till the little Mignon was queen of the barracks, went straight to his heart. I give the diary in full:—

“MAGGIE’S VISIT TO OXFORD

June 9 to 13, 1899

When Maggie once to Oxford came
On tour as ‘Booties’ Baby,’
She said ‘I’ll see this place of fame,
However dull the day be!’

So with her friend she visited
The sights that it was rich in:
And first of all she poked her head
Inside the Christ Church Kitchen.

The cooks around that little child
Stood waiting in a ring:
And, every time that Maggie smiled,
Those cooks began to sing—
Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom!

‘Roast, boil, and bake,
For Maggie’s sake!
Bring cutlets fine,
For her to dine:
Meringues so sweet,
For her to eat—
For Maggie may be
Bootles’ Baby!’

Then hand-in-hand, in pleasant talk,
They wandered, and admired
The Hall, Cathedral, and Broad Walk,
Till Maggie’s feet were tired:

One friend they called upon—her name
Was Mrs. Hassall—then
Into a College Room they came,
Some savage Monster’s Den!

‘And, when that Monster dined, I guess
He tore her limb from limb?’
Well, no: in fact, I must confess
That Maggie dined with him!

To Worcester Garden next they strolled—
Admired its quiet lake:
Then to St. John’s, a College old,
Their devious way they take.

In idle mood they sauntered round
Its lawns so green and flat:
And in that Garden Maggie found
A lovely Pussey-Cat!

A quarter of an hour they spent
In wandering to and fro:
And everywhere that Maggie went,
That Cat was sure to go—
Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom!

‘Miaow! Miaow!
Come, make your bow!
Take off your hats,
Ye Pussy Cats!
And purr, and purr,
To welcome her—
For Maggie may be
Bootles’ Baby!’

So back to Christ Church—not too late
For them to go and see
A Christ Church Undergraduate,
Who gave them cakes and tea.

Next day she entered, with her guide,
The Garden called ‘Botanic’:
And there a fierce Wild-Boar she spied,
Enough to cause a panic!

But Maggie didn’t mind, not she!
She would have faced alone,
That fierce Wild-Boar, because, you see,
The thing was made of stone!

On Magdalen walls they saw a face
That filled her with delight,
A giant-face, that made grimace
And grinned with all its might!

A little friend, industrious,
Pulled upwards, all the while,
The corner of its mouth, and thus
He helped that face to smile!

‘How nice,’ thought Maggie, ‘it would be
If I could have a friend
To do that very thing for me,
And make my mouth turn up with glee,
By pulling at one end!’

In Magdalen Park the deer are wild
With joy that Maggie brings
Some bread a friend had given the child,
To feed the pretty things.

They flock round Maggie without fear:
They breakfast and they lunch,
They dine, they sup, those happy deer—
Still, as they munch and munch,
Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom!

‘Yes, Deer are we,
And dear is she!
We love this child
So sweet and mild:
We all rejoice
At Maggie’s voice:
We all are fed
With Maggie’s bread—
For Maggie may be
Bootles’ Baby!’

To Pembroke College next they go,
Where little Maggie meets
The Master’s wife and daughter: so
Once more into the streets.

They met a Bishop on their way—
A Bishop large as life—
With loving smile that seemed to say
‘Will Maggie be my wife?’

Maggie thought not, because, you see,
She was so very young,
And he was old as old could be—
So Maggie held her tongue.

‘My Lord, she’s Bootles’ Baby: we
Are going up and down,’
Her friend explained, ‘that she may see
The sights of Oxford-town.’

‘Now say what kind of place it is!’
The Bishop gaily cried.
‘The best place in the Provinces!’
That little maid replied.

Next to New College, where they saw
Two players hurl about
A hoop, but by what rule or law
They could not quite make out.

‘Ringo’ the Game is called, although
‘Les Graces’ was once its name,
When it was—as its name will show—
A much more graceful Game.

The Misses Symonds next they sought,
Who begged the child to take
A book they long ago had bought—
A gift for friendship’s sake!

Away, next morning, Maggie went
From Oxford-town: but yet
The happy hours she there had spent
She could not soon forget.

The train is gone: it rumbles on:
The engine-whistle screams:
But Maggie’s deep in rosy sleep—
And softly, in her dreams,
Whispers the Battle-cry of Freedom!

‘Oxford, good-bye!’
She seems to sigh,
‘You dear old City,
With Gardens pretty,
And lawns, and flowers,
And College-towers,
And Tom’s great Bell—
Farewell, farewell!
For Maggie may be
Booties’ Baby!’

—Lewis Carroll.”

“A TURK”

The tale has been often told of how “Alice in Wonderland” came to be written, but it is a tale so well worth the telling again, that, very shortly, I will give it to you here.

Years ago in the great quadrangle of Christ Church, opposite to Mr. Dodgson, lived the little daughters of Dean Liddell, the great Greek scholar and Dean of Christ Church. The little girls were great friends of Mr. Dodgson’s, and they used often to come to him and to plead with him for a fairy tale. There was never such a teller of tales, they thought! One can imagine the whole delightful scene with little trouble. That big cool room on some summer’s afternoon, when the air was heavy with flower scents, and the sounds that came floating in through the open window were all mellowed by the distance. One can see him, that good and kindly gentleman, his mobile face all aglow with interest and love, telling the immortal story.

Round him on his knee sat the little sisters, their eyes wide open and their lips parted in breathless anticipation. When Alice (how the little Alice Liddell who was listening must have loved the tale!) rubbed the mushroom and became so big that she quite filled the little fairy house, one can almost hear the rapturous exclamations of the little ones as they heard of it.

The story, often continued on many summer afternoons, sometimes in the cool Christ Church rooms, sometimes in a slow gliding boat in a still river between banks of rushes and strange bronze and yellow waterflowers, or sometimes in a great hay-field, with the insects whispering in the grass all round, grew in its conception and idea.

Other folk, older folk, came to hear of it from the little ones, and Mr. Dodgson was begged to write it down. Accordingly the first MS. was prepared with great care and illustrated by the author. Then, in 1865, memorable year for English children, “Alice” appeared in its present form, with Sir John Tenniel’s drawings.

In 1872 “Alice Through the Looking-Glass,” appeared, and was received as warmly as its predecessor. That fact, I think, proves most conclusively that Lewis Carroll’s success was a success of absolute merit, and due to no mere mood or fashion of the public taste. I can conceive nothing more difficult for a man who has had a great success with one book than to write a sequel which should worthily succeed it. In the present case that is exactly what Lewis Carroll did. “Through the Looking-Glass” is every whit as popular and charming as the older book. Indeed one depends very much upon the other, and in every child’s book-shelves one sees the two masterpieces side by side.

While on the subject of the two “Alices,” I will put in a letter that he wrote mentioning his books. He was so modest about them, that it was extremely difficult to get him to say, or write, anything at all about them. I believe it was a far greater pleasure for him to know that he had pleased some child with “Alice” or “The Hunting of the Snark,” than it was to be hailed by the press and public as the first living writer for children.

“Eastbourne.

“My own darling Isa,—The full value of a copy of the French ‘Alice’ is £45: but, as you want the ‘cheapest’ kind, and as you are a great friend of mine, and as I am of a very noble, generous disposition, I have made up my mind to a great sacrifice, and have taken £3, 10s. 0d. off the price. So that you do not owe me more than £41, 10s. 0d., and this you can pay me, in gold or bank-notes as soon as you ever like. Oh dear! I wonder why I write such nonsense! Can you explain to me, my pet, how it happens that when I take up my pen to write a letter to you it won’t write sense? Do you think the rule is that when the pen finds it has to write to a nonsensical good-for-nothing child, it sets to work to write a nonsensical good-for-nothing letter? Well, now I’ll tell you the real truth. As Miss Kitty Wilson is a dear friend of yours, of course she’s a sort of a friend of mine. So I thought (in my vanity) ‘perhaps she would like to have a copy’ from the author, ‘with her name written in it.’ So I’ve sent her one—but I hope she’ll understand that I do it because she’s your friend, for, you see, I had never heard of her before: so I wouldn’t have any other reason.

“I’m still exactly ‘on the balance’ (like those scales of mine, when Nellie says ‘it won’t weigh!’) as to whether it would be wise to have my pet Isa down here! how am I to make it weigh, I wonder? Can you advise any way to do it? I’m getting on grandly with ‘Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.’ I’m afraid you’ll expect me to give you a copy of it? Well, I’ll see if I have one to spare. It won’t be out before Easter-tide, I’m afraid.

“I wonder what sort of condition the book is in that I lent you to take to America? (‘Laneton Parsonage,’ I mean). Very shabby, I expect. I find lent books never come back in good condition. However, I’ve got a second copy of this book, so you may keep it as your own. Love and kisses to any one you know who is lovely and kissable.—

“Always your loving Uncle,
“C. L. D.”

In 1876 appeared the long poem called the “Hunting of the Snark; or, An Agony in Eight Fits,” and besides those verses we have from Lewis Carroll’s pen two books called “Phantasmagoria” and “Rhyme and Reason.”

The last work of his that attained any great celebrity was “Sylvie and Bruno,” a curious romance, half fairy tale, half mathematical treatise. Mr. Dodgson was employed of late years on his “Symbolic Logic,” only one part of which has been published, and he seems to have been influenced by his studies. One can easily trace the trail of the logician in Sylvie and Bruno, and perhaps this resulted in a certain lack of “form.” However, some of the nonsense verses in this book were up to the highest level of the author’s achievement. Even as I write the verse comes to me—

“He thought he saw a kangaroo
Turning a coffee-mill;
He looked again, and found it was
A vegetable pill!
‘Were I to swallow you,’ he said,
‘I should be very ill’!”

The fascinating jingle stays in the memory when graver verse eludes all effort at recollection. I personally could repeat “The Walrus and the Carpenter” from beginning to end without hesitation, but I should find a difficulty in writing ten lines of “Hamlet” correctly.

At the beginning of “Sylvie and Bruno” is a little poem in three verses which forms an acrostic on my name. I quote it—

“Is all our life, then, but a dream,
Seen faintly in the golden gleam
Athwart Time’s dark resistless stream?

Bowed to the earth with bitter woe,
Or laughing at some raree-show,
We flutter idly to and fro.

Man’s little day in haste we spend,
And, from its merry noontide, send
No glance to meet the silent end.”

You see that if you take the first letter of each line, or if you take the first three letters of the first line of each verse, you get the name Isa Bowman.

Although he never wrote anything in the dramatic line, he once wrote a prologue for some private theatricals, which was to be spoken by Miss Hatch and her brother. This prologue is reproduced in facsimile on the preceding page.

Miss Hatch has also sent me a charade (reproduced on pp. ) which he wrote for her, and illustrated with some of his funny drawings.

I have one more letter, the last, which, as it mentions the book “Sylvie and Bruno,” I will give now.

“Christ Church,
“May 16, ’90.

“Dearest Isa,—I had this (‘this’ was ‘Sylvie and Bruno’) bound for you when the book first came out, and it’s been waiting here ever since Dec. 17, for I really didn’t dare to send it across the Atlantic—the whales are so inconsiderate. They’d have been sure to want to borrow it to show to the little whales, quite forgetting that the salt water would be sure to spoil it.

“Also, I’ve only been waiting for you to get back to send Emsie the ‘Nursery Alice.’ I give it to the youngest in a family generally; but I’ve given one to Maggie as well, because she travels about so much, and I thought she would like to have one to take with her. I hope Nellie’s eyes won’t get quite green with jealousy, at two (indeed three!) of her sisters getting presents, and nothing for her! I’ve nothing but my love to send her to-day: but she shall have something some day.—Ever your loving

“Uncle Charles.”

Socially, Lewis Carroll was of strong conservative tendencies. He viewed with wonder and a little pain the absolute levelling tendencies of the last few years of his life. I have before me an extremely interesting letter which deals with social observances, and from which I am able to make one or two extracts. The bulk of the letter is of a private nature.

“Ladies have ‘to be much’ more particular than gentlemen in observing the distinctions of what is called ‘social position’: and the lower their own position is (in the scale of ‘lady’ ship), the more jealous they seem to be in guarding it.... I’ve met with just the same thing myself from people several degrees above me. Not long ago I was staying in a house along with a young lady (about twenty years old, I should think) with a title of her own, as she was an earl’s daughter. I happened to sit next her at dinner, and every time I spoke to her, she looked at me more as if she was looking down on me from about a mile up in the air, and as if she were saying to herself ‘How dare you speak to me! Why, you’re not good enough to black my shoes!’ It was so unpleasant, that, next day at luncheon, I got as far off her as I could!

“Of course we are all quite equal in God’s sight, but we do make a lot of distinctions (some of them quite unmeaning) among ourselves!”

The picture that this letter gives of the famous writer and learned mathematician obviously rather in terror of some pert young lady fresh from the schoolroom is not without its comic side. One cannot help imagining that the girl must have been very young indeed, for if he were alive to-day there are few ladies of any state who would not feel honoured by the presence of Charles Dodgson.

However, he was not always so unfortunate in his experience of great people, and the following letter, written when he was staying with Lord Salisbury at Hatfield House, tells delightfully of his little royal friends, the Duchess of Albany’s children:

“Hatfield House, Hatfield,
“Herts, June 8, ’89.”

“My darling Isa,—I hope this will find you, but I haven’t yet had any letter from Fulham, so I can’t be sure if you have yet got into your new house.

“This is Lord Salisbury’s house (he is the father, you know, of that Lady Maud Wolmer that we had luncheon with): I came yesterday, and I’m going to stay until Monday. It is such a nice house to stay in! They let one do just as one likes—it isn’t ‘Now you must do some geography! now it’s time for your sums!’ the sort of life some little girls have to lead when they are so foolish as to visit friends—but one can just please one’s own dear self.

“There are some sweet little children staying in the house. Dear little ‘Wang’ is here with her mother. By the way, I made a mistake in telling you what to call her. She is ‘the Honourable Mabel Palmer’—‘Palmer’ is the family name: ‘Wolmer’ is the title, just as the family name of Lord Salisbury is ‘Cecil,’ so that his daughter was Lady Maud Cecil, till she married.

“Then there is the Duchess of Albany here, with two such sweet little children. She is the widow of Prince Leopold (the Queen’s youngest son), so her children are a Prince and Princess: the girl is ‘Alice,’ but I don’t know the boy’s Christian name: they call him ‘Albany,’ because he is the Duke of Albany. Now that I have made friends with a real live little Princess, I don’t intend ever to speak to any more children that haven’t any titles. In fact, I’m so proud, and I hold my chin so high, that I shouldn’t even see you if we met! No, darlings, you mustn’t believe that. If I made friends with a dozen Princesses, I would love you better than all of them together, even if I had them all rolled up into a sort of child-roly-poly.

“Love to Nellie and Emsie.—Your ever loving Uncle,

“C. L. D.”
X X X X X X X

And now I think that I have done all that has been in my power to present Lewis Carroll to you in his most delightful aspect—as a friend to children. I have not pretended in any way to write an exhaustive life-story of the man who was so dear to me, but by the aid of the letters and the diaries that I have been enabled to publish, and by the few reminiscences that I have given you of Lewis Carroll as I knew him, I hope I have done something to bring still nearer to your hearts the memory of the greatest friend that children ever had.

Guildford Cemetery, Surrey, England – Carroll’s final resting place

Carroll’s grave in Guildford Cemetery