Humpty Dumpty

“ ‘If he smiled much more, the ends of his mouth might meet behind,’ she thought: ‘and then I don’t know what would happen to his head! I’m afraid it would come off!’
‘Yes, all his horses and all his men,’ Humpty Dumpty went on. ”

“ He said they were magic, and you must always make a wish before setting them off."
"Oh, thank you, Mother Goose; they are much better than none at all," said Humpty Dumpty, gratefully; and he looked quite happy once more, as the good old lady nodded "good-by," and proceeded on her way, while the gander waved a yellow webbed foot in farewell.
"I will set off one cracker before breakfast, one at noon, and one to-night," thought Humpty Dumpty, as he tumbled out of bed bright and early next morning; "as I have so few, I must make them go as far as possible." ”

“ He has changed even the unforgiving cherubim in the Genesis story to those King's men who try in such a friendly way to restore Humpty-Dumpty. But the story can't let them. That would leave the hero back on his wall again—like some Greek philosopher. This other way, we think of him as starting out to conquer the world.
Humpty-Dumpty is a story for boys. Cinderella for girls. In Cinderella five able females, two old and three young, contend most resourcefully to capture one stupid young man. It is a terrible story. The beautiful surface barely masks [140] the hungry wiles underneath. ”

“ ‘To be sure I was!’ Humpty Dumpty said gaily, as she turned it round for him. ‘I thought it looked a little queer. As I was saying, that seems to be done right—though I haven’t time to look it over thoroughly just now—and that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents—’
‘Certainly,’ said Alice.
‘And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!’
‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory,”’ Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ”

“ ‘When I make a word do a lot of work like that,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘I always pay it extra.’
‘Oh!’ said Alice. ”

“ Indeed, authorities on the subject of Vers de Société seem somewhat in the position of the charming philosopher of Wonderland fame:
“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’
“‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
“‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘Which is to be the master—that’s all.’”
But though there is variance of opinion concerning the limits of the field, there is harmony of conviction regarding the intrinsic qualities of Vers de Société. ”

“ The woman's story had stirred him strangely. "It's a pity there's not more like him," he continued. "I guess that too few Jims and too many M'randys is what is the matter with this dizzy old planet."
"What's that ye're grumbling about, Humpty Dumpty?" asked the pock-marked Irishman as he came up with his nine-banded armadillo, all ready for the performance. ”

“ ‘They gave it me,’ Humpty Dumpty continued thoughtfully, as he crossed one knee over the other and clasped his hands round it, ‘they gave it me—for an un-birthday present.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Alice said with a puzzled air. ”

“ ‘What does it mean?’
‘Must a name mean something?’ Alice asked doubtfully.
‘Of course it must,’ Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh: ‘my name means the shape I am—and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost.’
‘Why do you sit out here all alone?’ said Alice, not wishing to begin an argument. ”

“ It would be hundreds of years before any emergent Amazons would ever grasp the fact that a man is vulnerable only in his pride, but delicate as Humpty-Dumpty once that is meddled with--though some of them paid the fact a cautious lip-service. ”

“ Humpty Dumpty was sitting with his legs crossed, like a Turk, on the top of a high wall—such a narrow one that Alice quite wondered how he could keep his balance—and, as his eyes were steadily fixed in the opposite direction, and he didn’t take the least notice of her, she thought he must be a stuffed figure after all. ”

“ He was usually represented as an old man, bald, flat-nosed, half drunk, riding upon a broad-backed ass, or reeling along by the aid of a staff, uttering shrewd maxims and doing ludicrous acts. People wonder that the pantomime called "Humpty Dumpty" should be played a thousand nights in New York; but the substance of all that boisterous nonsense, that exhibition of rollicking freedom from restraints of law, usage, and gravitation, has amused mankind for unknown thousands of years; for it is merely what remains to us of the legendary Bacchus and his jovial crew. ”

“ They may write such things in a book,’ Humpty Dumpty said in a calmer tone. ‘That’s what you call a History of England, that is. Now, take a good look at me! I’m one that has spoken to a King, I am: mayhap you’ll never see such another: and to show you I’m not proud, you may shake hands with me!’ And he grinned almost from ear to ear, as he leant forwards (and as nearly as possible fell off the wall in doing so) and offered Alice his hand. ”

“ Alice sighed and gave it up. “It’s exactly like a riddle with no answer!” she thought.
“Humpty Dumpty saw it too,” the White Queen went on in a low voice, more as if she were talking to herself. “He came to the door with a corkscrew in his hand—”
“What did he want?” said the Red Queen.
“He said he would come in,” the White Queen went on, “because he was looking for a hippopotamus. Now, as it happened, there wasn’t such a thing in the house, that morning.”
“Is there generally?” Alice asked in an astonished tone.
“Well, only on Thursdays,” said the Queen. ”

“ So she got up, and held out her hand. ‘Good-bye, till we meet again!’ she said as cheerfully as she could.
‘I shouldn’t know you again if we did meet,’ Humpty Dumpty replied in a discontented tone, giving her one of his fingers to shake; ‘you’re so exactly like other people.’
‘The face is what one goes by, generally,’ Alice remarked in a thoughtful tone.
‘That’s just what I complain of,’ said Humpty Dumpty. ‘Your face is the same as everybody has—the two eyes, so—’ (marking their places in the air with this thumb) ‘nose in the middle, mouth under. It’s always the same. ”

“ Neighborhoods used to go on in that simple fashion; life used to be "co-operative."
Mother said something like that after Leslie and Harry had gone away.
"Only you can't get them into it again," objected Rosamond. "It's a case of Humpty Dumpty. The world will go on."
"One world will," said Barbara. "But the world is manifold. You can set up any kind of a monad you like, and a world will shape itself round it. You've just got to live your own way, and everything that belongs to it will be sure to join on. You'll have a world before you know it. ”

“ This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated the first verse:
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
‘That’s enough to begin with,’ Humpty Dumpty interrupted: ‘there are plenty of hard words there. “Brillig” means four o’clock in the afternoon—the time when you begin broiling things for dinner.’
‘That’ll do very well,’ said Alice: ‘and “slithy”?’
‘Well, “slithy” means “lithe and slimy.” “Lithe” is the same as “active.” ”

“ You see it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.’
‘I see it now,’ Alice remarked thoughtfully: ‘and what are “toves”?’
‘Well, “toves” are something like badgers—they’re something like lizards—and they’re something like corkscrews.’
‘They must be very curious looking creatures.’
‘They are that,’ said Humpty Dumpty: ‘also they make their nests under sun-dials—also they live on cheese.’
‘And what’s the “gyre” and to “gimble”?’
‘To “gyre” is to go round and round like a gyroscope. ”

“ Alice didn’t want to begin another argument, so she said nothing.
‘Seven years and six months!’ Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. ‘An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you’d asked my advice, I’d have said “Leave off at seven”—but it’s too late now.’
‘I never ask advice about growing,’ Alice said indignantly.
‘Too proud?’ the other inquired.
Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. ‘I mean,’ she said, ‘that one can’t help growing older.’
‘One can’t, perhaps,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘but two can. ”

“ Such is Human Perversity.
This also seems a fitting occasion to notice the other hard words in that poem. Humpty-Dumpty’s theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all.
For instance, take the two words “fuming” and “furious.” Make up your mind that you will say both xi words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little towards “fuming,” you will say “fuming-furious;” if they turn, by even a hair’s breadth, towards “furious,” you will say “furious-fuming;” ”

“ 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, you know. 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?” ”

“ Filipino riddles deal largely with animals, plants and objects of local character; such must have been made in the Islands even if influenced by Spanish models and ideas. Some depend upon purely local customs and conditions—thus numbers 170, 237, etc., could only originate locally. Some, to which the answers are such words as egg, needle and thread, etc., (answers Page 8common to riddles in all European lands) , may be due to outside influence and may still have some local or native touch or flavor, in their metaphors; thus No. 102 is actually our “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;” ”

“ It pleased him, because Dumpty always said he was going to be a soldier when he grew up, and he often played at being one. That pony knew lots of things, it could say what the time was, and could tell how many of the Kings of England had been named Edward, but when the clown asked the pony "who was the butcher's sweetheart?" Topsy made a great mistake and all the people laughed, for he went and nodded at Binkie's grown-up sister, and she had always promised to marry Dumpty when he was big enough. ”

“ So Humpty rolled in next door, and told the Farmer’s Wife that he wanted to be put into boiling hot water as he was too brittle to be of any use to himself or to any one else.
“Indeed you shall,” said the Farmer’s Wife, “what is more I shall wrap you up in a piece of spotted calico, so that you will have a nice colored dress; you will come out, looking as bright as an Easter Egg.” ”

“ Humphrey, think of the trouble it is like to bring on our good master and mistress. Have you no thought for anyone but yourself? Yet, I give thanks thou art safe, so—far—my—good—Humpi—” and here he rolled off to sleep and left me in quiet.
Yet not in peace, for I could not sleep that night for many an hour. For my life seemed to have taken a strange turn round since morning. Before to-day I had thought the ’prentice’s life the merriest life in the world. I had cared for nobody, and it had troubled me little if nobody cared for me. ”

“ Dumps, for about the first time in his life, felt grateful and polite; and he and the gentlemanly-looking young man parted with mutual expressions of good will.
‘There are at least some well-disposed men in the world,’ ruminated the misanthropical Dumps, as he proceeded towards his destination.
Rat—tat—ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-rat—knocked a hackney-coachman at Kitterbell’s door, in imitation of a gentleman’s servant, just as Dumps reached it; and out came an old lady in a large toque, and an old gentleman in a blue coat, and three female copies of the old lady in pink dresses, and shoes to match. ”

“ O! thou hast no head for business, Humphry: thou hast no genius for business, my good Humphry. (smiling conceitedly.)
Humph. Why, for certain your honour has a marvellous deal of wit, but I dont know how it is, nothing that we take in hand ever comes to any good; and what provokes me, more than all the rest, is, that the more pains we take about it, the worse it always succeeds.
Roy. Humph! we can't guard against every cross accident.
Humph. To be sure sir, cross accidents will happen to every body, but certes! we have more than our own share of them. ”

“ I resign! I abdicate. Let me be the bell boy, or the furnace man. Why even in the movies I have never been treated like this. It's a crime. It's an outrage!" coughed Humpy, struggling to a sitting position and trying to pry his crown upward.
"Now Humpy," began Dorothy reprovingly, "you're talking like a dummy instead of a King. Just wait—"
"I am a dummy," insisted the poor fellow, feeling of himself to make sure. "Has that old wretch changed me one hair's breadth by her villainous magic? Oh, to think I should have sunk so low!"
"She's a fraud," hissed Pajuka, who had also picked himself up. ”

“ At a hedge they rose only to dip again, and here Humphrey, who drew up to watch them, marked how they worked in the teeth of the gale, and was near enough to see their great grey bills, their anxious, glittering eyes, and their hurtling feathers blown awry as they breasted the hedge, fought over, and dipped again.
"'Tis the same as life," he reflected. "Go aloft and strive for high opinions, and the wind of doubt blows you before it like a leaf. Up there you can travel with the storm, not against it. ”