Lewis Carroll

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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 æsthetic 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ 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 that numb 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ 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 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 shows there’s something horrid coming! And I won’t kiss you, if you’re so unkind.” ”

“ 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 244 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. ”

“ 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.
275
“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.” ”

“ 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 305 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.” ”

“ Lady Muriel laughingly remarked, à propos of my having insisted on saving her the trouble of carrying a 102 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.” ”

“ 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 xxi 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! ”

“ 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, vivâ 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!” ”

“ In the midst of the gay verses of that genial ‘bon vivant’ Horace, there stands one dreary word whose utter sadness goes to xviii one’s heart. It is the word ‘exilium’ in the well-known passage
Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium
Versatur urnâ serius ocius
Sors exitura et nos in æternum
Exilium impositura cymbæ.
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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 300 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!” ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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.) ”