Lewis Carroll

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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: ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 depths 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 receive the bold intruder. Would he hurl him from the steps of the dais? 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. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 'umbrella-sting'!"
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." ”

“ 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?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 Sylvle 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." ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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!" ”

“ 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?" ”

“ 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 annuum
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!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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?" ”

“ Sylvle'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." ”

“ 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." ”