Lewis Carroll

“ Alice
Don’t you wish sometimes you could go into looking-glass house? See!
[Alice stands on an armchair and looks into the mirror.]
There’s the room you can see through the glass; it’s just the same as our living-room here, only the things go the other way. I can see all of it—all but the bit just behind the fireplace. Oh! I do wish I could see that bit! I want so much to know if they’ve a fire there. You never can tell, you know, unless our fire smokes. Then smoke comes up in that room too—but that may be just to make it look as if they had a fire—just to pretend they had. ”

“ They are all locked; she begins to weep. She walks weeping to a high glass table and sits down on its lower ledge. She sits on a big golden key and picks it up in surprise. She tries it on all the doors but it does not fit. She weeps and weeps—and Wonderland grows dark to her in her despair. In the darkness she cries, “Oh! I’m slipping! Oh, Oh! it’s a lake; Oh! my tears! I’m floating!” A mysterious light shows a “Drink me” sign around a bottle on the top of the table. Alice floats up to it panting, and holding on to the edge of the table takes up the bottle. ”

“ Alice
Perhaps not, but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.
Hatter
Ah, that accounts for it. 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! ”

“ When the crowd is chasing Alice she jumps over the footlights onto the bridge and as the curtain is falling dividing her from the crowd she appeals to the audience, “Save me, save me, who will save me?” ”

“ Alice
It’s no use speaking to you till your ears have come. I don’t think they play at all fairly and they all quarrel so and they don’t seem to have any rules in particular. And you’ve no idea how confusing it is with all the things alive; 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. ”

“ What a funny watch! It tells the day of the month, and doesn’t tell what o’clock it is.
Hatter
Why should it? Does your watch tell you what year it is?
[Pg 51]
Alice
Of course not, but that’s because it stays the same year for such a long time together.
Hatter
Which is just the case with mine.
Alice
I don’t quite understand you. What you said had no sort of meaning in it and yet it was certainly English.
Hatter
[Pouring some hot tea on the Dormouse’s nose.]
The Dormouse is asleep again.
Dormouse
Of course, of course, just what I was going to remark myself.
Hatter
Have you guessed the riddle yet? ”

“ Well, in our country you’d generally get to somewhere else—if you ran very fast for a long time as we’ve been doing.
Red Queen
A slow sort of country. 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. ”

“ The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday—but never jam today.
Alice
It must come sometimes to “jam today.”
White Queen
No, it can’t, it’s jam every other day; today isn’t any other day, you know.
Alice
I don’t understand you, it’s dreadfully confusing!
[Pg 17]
White Queen
That’s the effect of living backwards, it always makes one a little giddy at first—
Alice
Living backwards! I never heard of such a thing!
White Queen
But there’s one great advantage in it—that one’s memory works both ways.
Alice
I’m sure mine only works one way. I can’t remember things before they happen.
White Queen
It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards. ”

“ White Queen
We had such a thunderstorm next Tuesday, you can’t think.
Red Queen
She never could, you know.
White Queen
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!
[Pg 114]
Alice
I never should try to remember my name in the middle of an accident. Where would be the use of it?
Red Queen
You must excuse her. She means well, but she can’t help saying foolish things, as a general rule. ”

“ The March Hare’s garden, showing part of the Duchess’ house. On a small platform there is a tea table, set with many cups, continuing into wings to give impression of limitless length. The March Hare, Hatter, and Dormouse are crowded at one end. Alice sits on the ground where she has been dropped from the sky. Finding herself not bruised she rises and approaches the table. ”

“ And how many hours a day did you do lessons?
Mock Turtle
Ten hours the first day, nine the next, and so on.
Alice
What a curious plan!
Gryphon
That’s the reason they’re called lessons, because they lessen from day to day. ”

“ Sometimes when I’m all alone I walk up to the looking glass and talk to the other Alice. She’s so silly, that Alice; she can’t do anything by herself. She just mocks me all the time. When I laugh, she laughs, when I point my finger at her, she points her finger at me, and when I stick my tongue out at her she sticks her tongue out at me! Kitty has a twin too, haven’t you darling?
[Alice goes to the mirror to show Kitty her twin.]
Carroll
I’ll have to write a book some day about Alice—Alice in wonderland, “Child of the pure unclouded brow and dreaming eyes of wonder!” ”

“ Is a garden of high, very conventional and artificial looking flowers. On a large mushroom sits the Caterpillar smoking a hookah. Alice is whirling about trying to get her equilibrium after her fall. She goes to the mushroom timidly and, conscious of her size, for her chin reaches the top of the mushroom, she gazes at the Caterpillar wonderingly. ”

“ There’s nothing like eating hay when you’re faint.
Alice
I should think throwing cold water over you would be better.
King
I didn’t say there was nothing better; I said there was nothing like it. ”

“ Won’t there ever be any way of our getting through, uncle?
Carroll
Do you think Kitty would find looking-glass milk digestible?
Alice
It doesn’t sound awful good, does it; but I might leave her at home. She’s been into an awful lot of mischief today. She found sister’s knitting and chased the ball all over the garden where sister was playing croquet with the neighbors. And I ran and ran after the naughty little thing until I was all out of breath and so tired! I am tired.
[She yawns and makes herself comfortable in the armchair.] ”

“ When you have traveled all along the board this way and haven’t been taken by the enemy you may be a queen.
Alice
Why do people always play with kings and queens? Mother has them in her playing cards too. Look!
[Alice goes to the mantel and takes a pack of playing cards from the ledge.]
Here’s the King of Hearts and here’s his wife; she’s the Queen of Hearts—isn’t she cross-looking? wants to bite one’s head off. ”

“ Cheshire Puss, would you tell me please, which way I ought to walk from here?
Cat
That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice
I don’t much care where—
[Pg 70]
Cat
Then it doesn’t matter which way you walk. ”

“ When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less. ”

“ White Rabbit
[Enters, stretching out a red and white checked sash with which he separates Alice from the creatures.]
Check!
Mock Turtle
They won’t let her stay in our square.
[Pg 46]
White Rabbit
The Queen is coming this way.
Gryphon
She’ll chop our heads off. Come on, come on, let’s fly!
[The Mock Turtle and Gryphon grab Alice and fly into the air.]
CURTAIN
[The Curtain rises to reveal small silhouettes of the Gryphon, Mock Turtle, and Alice in an orange-colored moon far away in the sky. Down below the White Rabbit is shouting to them, “You’ll be safe in the March Hare’s garden.”] ”

“ Curtsey while you’re thinking what to say. It saves time. ”

“ Alice
But why did they live at the bottom of a well?
March Hare
Take some more tea.
Alice
I’ve had nothing yet, so I can’t take more.
Hatter
You mean, you can’t take less; it’s very easy to take more than nothing.
Alice
Nobody asked your opinion.
Hatter
Who’s making personal remarks now?
Alice
[Helps herself to tea and bread and butter.]
Why did they live at the bottom of a well?
[Pg 58]
Dormouse
[Takes a minute or two to think.]
It was a treacle-well.
Alice
There’s no such thing!
Hatter and March Hare
Sh! Sh!
Dormouse
If you can’t be civil, you’d better finish the story for yourself. ”

“ I suppose you don’t want to lose your name?
Alice
No, indeed.
Red Queen
And yet I don’t know, only think how convenient it would be if you could manage to go home without it! For instance, if the governess wanted to call you to your lessons, she would call out “come here,” and there she would have to leave off, because there wouldn’t be any name for her to call, and of course you wouldn’t have to go, you know. ”

“ Alice
What’s the war about?
King
The red Chess King has the whole army against us but he can’t kill a man who has thirteen hearts.
[The Duchess, Queen, Frog, and followers go out. The Knave and the Five-Spot, Seven-Spot, and Nine-Spot of Hearts stand behind the King.]
Larger Image King: I only wish I had such eyes; to be able to see Nobody! ”

“ What day of the month is it?
Alice
The fourth.
Hatter
Two days wrong. I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works! ”

“ Alice
I’ve heard something like it.
Dormouse
Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle—
[Pg 54]
Hatter
Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse when the Queen bawled out, “He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!”
Alice
How dreadfully savage!
Hatter
And ever since that, he won’t do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.
Alice
Is that the reason so many tea things are put out here?
Hatter
Yes, that’s it; it’s always tea time, and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.
Alice
Then you keep moving round, I suppose?
Hatter
Exactly so, as the things get used up. ”

“ Mock Turtle
Would you like to see a little of it?
Alice
Very much indeed.
Mock Turtle
Come, let’s try the first figure. We can do it without lobsters, you know; which shall sing?
Gryphon
Oh, you sing, I’ve forgotten the words.
[Pg 40] [Creatures solemnly dance round and round Alice, treading on her toes, waving fore-paws to mark time while Mock Turtle sings.]
First Verse
“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! ”

“ Look at the map!
[Pg 10] [She takes a right angle course to the portieres and points to them with her sceptre.]
Alice
It’s marked out just like a big chessboard. I wouldn’t mind being a pawn, though of course I should like to be a Red Queen best.
Red Queen
That’s easily managed. When you get to the eighth square you’ll be a Queen. It’s a huge game of chess that’s being played—all over the world. Come on, we’ve got to run. Faster, don’t try to talk. ”

“ Alice
[Re-enters in dismay and dashes out to the left.]
She’s running away from me.
[The White Queen backs in from right and Alice backs in from left. They meet. The gardeners cry “The Queen” and throw themselves flat upon the ground; their backs are like the backs of the rest of the pack. Music stops. Alice looks at the Queen curiously.] ”

“ Red Queen
We gave you the opportunity of doing it, but I dare say you’ve not had many lessons in manners yet.
Alice
Manners are not taught in lessons; lessons teach you to do sums, and things of that sort. ”

“ Alice
I won’t be tried—I won’t-I won’t!
SCENE TWO
Is a court room suggesting playing cards. The jurymen are all kinds of creatures. The King and Queen of Hearts are seated on the throne. The Knave is before them in chains. The White Rabbit has a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in the other. In the middle of the court stands a table with a large dish of tarts upon it. ”

“ Alice
He might bite.
Duchess
Very true; flamingoes and mustard both bite. And the moral of that is—“Birds of a feather flock together.”
[Pg 90]
Alice
Only mustard isn’t a bird.
Duchess
Right, as usual; what a clear way you have of putting things.
Alice
It’s a mineral, I think.
Duchess
Of course it is; 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.”
Alice
Oh! I know, it’s a vegetable. It doesn’t look like one, but it is.
Duchess
I quite agree with you, and the moral of that is—“Be what you would seem to be;” ”

“ Alice
I believe so, they have their tails in their mouths—and they’re all over crumbs.
Mock Turtle
You’re wrong about the crumbs, crumbs would all wash off in the sea. But they have their tails in their mouths; and the reason is—
[Pg 42] [Mock Turtle yawns and shuts his eyes.]
Tell her about the reason and all that.
Gryphon
The reason is, 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. ”

“ Tut, tut, child! Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it. ”

“ always speak the truth—think before you speak—and write it down afterwards. ”

“ Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it. ”

“ She never was really well brought up, but it’s amazing how good tempered she is! Pat her on the head, and see how pleased she’ll be! A little kindness and putting her hair in papers would do wonders with her. ”

“ If everybody minded her own business, the world would go round a deal faster than it does. ”

“ Why is a raven like a writing-desk? ”

“ Alice
Stupid things!
White Rabbit
Silence in the court!
Jurors
[Write in chorus.]
Stupid things!
One Juror
How do you spell stupid?
Alice
A nice muddle their slates will be in before the trial’s over.
Queen
There’s a pencil squeaking. Cut it down!
Jurors
[In chorus as they write.]
Squeaking—
[Pg 118]
King
[Wears a crown over his wig; puts on his spectacles as he says.]
Herald, read the accusation!
White Rabbit
[Blows three blasts on his trumpet, unrolls parchment scroll and reads to music.]
[Pg 119] The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,
All on a summer day ”

“ Others
[Glad to distract Queen’s attention from themselves.]
Cut hers off, cut hers off, cut—
Alice
[Cries in fear and takes a quick bite at the tart. If there is a trap door on the stage Alice disappears down it, leaving the [Pg 97] crowd circling around the hole screaming and amazed. If the stage has no trap door, a bridge is built across the footlights with stairs leading down into the orchestra pit. ”

“ What does it matter where my body happens to be? ”