Lewis Carroll

“ 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 yearning
For the brotherly hand-grip of peace?
Whence the music that fills all our being—that thrills
Around 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!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ 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 amending 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!” ”

“ Molesworth’s lovely little tale of the Four Winds Farm. It is neither a dream nor a fairy story, but concerns the fortune of a real little boy, named Gratian; yet the dream and the fairy tale seem to enter into his life, and make part of it. The farmhouse in which the child lives is set exactly at the meeting-place of the four winds, and they, from the moment of his birth, have acted as his self-elected godmothers.... All the winds love the boy, and, held in the balance of their influence, he grows up as a boy should, simply and truly, with a tender heart and firm mind. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.
289
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.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ The Rectory Children—“There is no writer of children’s books more worthy of their admiration and love than Mrs. Molesworth. Her bright and sweet invention is so truthful, her characters so faithfully drawn, and the teaching of her stories so tender and noble, that while they please and charm they insensibly distil into the youthful mind the most valuable lessons. In The Rectory Children we have a fresh, bright story that will be sure to please all her young admirers.”—Christian at Work. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 152 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. ”

“ 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!” ”