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.
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"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.
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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.
