Many people have tried in vain to trace its origin; one enterprising lady insisted on calling it a translation from the German. Someone else decided there was a Scandinavian flavor about it, so he called it a “Saga.” Mr. A. A. Vansittart, of Trinity College, Cambridge, made an excellent Latin translation of it, and hundreds of others have puzzled over the many “wrapped up” meanings in the strange words.
We shall meet the poem later on and discuss its many wonders. At present we must follow Charles Dodgson back into his sanctum where he was eagerly pursuing a new course—the study of anatomy and physiology. He was presented with a skeleton, and laying in the proper supply of books, he set to work in earnest. He bought a little book called “What to do in Emergencies” and perfected himself in what we know to-day as “First Aid to the Injured.” He accumulated in this way some very fine medical and surgical books, and had more than one occasion to use his newly acquired knowledge.
Most men labor all their lives to gain fame. Lewis Carroll was a hard worker, but fame came to him without an effort. Along his line of work he took his “vorpal” sword in hand and severed all the knots and twists of the mathematical Jabberwocky. It was when he played that he reached the heights; when he touched the realm of childhood he was all conquering, for he was in truth a child among them, and every child felt the youthfulness in his glance, in the wave of his hand, in the fitting of his mood to theirs, and his entire sympathy in all their small joys sorrows—such great important things in their child-world. He often declared that children were three fourths of his life, and it seems indeed a pity that none of his own could join the band of his ardent admirers.
Here he was, a young man still in spite of his forty years, holding as his highest delight the power he possessed of giving happiness to other people’s children. Yet had anyone ventured to voice this regret, he would have replied like many another in his position:
“Children—bless them! Of course I love them. I prefer other people’s children. All delight and no bother. One runs a fearful risk with one’s own.” And he might have added with his whimsical smile, “And supposing they might have been boys!”
CHAPTER IX.
MORE OF “ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS.”
Six years had passed since Alice took her trip through Wonderland, and, strange to say, she had not grown very much older, for Time has the trick of standing still in Fairyland, and when Lewis Carroll pushed her through the Looking-Glass she told everyone she met on the other side that she was seven years and six months old, not very much older, you see, than the Alice of Long Ago, with the elf-locks and the dreamy eyes. The real Alice was in truth six years older now, but real people never count in Fairyland, and surely no girl of a dozen years or more would have been able to squeeze through the other side of a Looking-Glass. Still, though so very young, Alice was quite used to travel, and knew better how to deal with all the queer people she met after her experiences in Wonderland.
Mirrors are strange things. Alice had often wondered what lay behind the big one over the parlor mantel, and wondering with Alice meant doing, for presto! up she climbed to the mantelshelf. It was easy enough to push through, for she did not have to use the slightest force, and the glass melted at her touch into a sheet of mist and there she was on the other side!
In the interval between the two “Alices,” a certain poetic streak had become strongly marked in Lewis Carroll. To him a child’s soul was like the mirror behind which little Alice peeped out from its “other side,” and gave us the reflection of her child-thoughts.
“Only a dream,” we may say, but then child-life is dream-life. So much is “make-believe” that “every day” is dipped in its golden light. It was a dainty fancy to hold us spellbound at the mirror, and many a little girl, quite “unbeknownst” to the “grown-ups,” has tried her small best to squeeze through the looking-glass just as Alice did. In the days of our grandmothers, when the cheval glass swung in a frame, the “make believe” came easier, for one could creep under it or behind it, instead of through it, with much the same result. But nowadays, with looking-glasses built in the walls, how can one pretend properly!
If fairies only knew what examples they were to the average small girl and small boy, they would be very careful about the things they did. Fortunately they are old-fashioned fairies, and have not yet learned to ride in automobiles or flying-machines, else there’s no telling what might happen.
Alice was always lucky in finding herself in the very best society—nothing more or less than royalty itself. But the Royal Court of Cards was not to be compared with the Royal Court of Chessmen, which she found behind the fireplace when she jumped down on the other side of the mantel. Of course, it was only “pretending” from the beginning; a romp with the kittens toward the close of a short winter’s day, a little girl curled up in an armchair beside the fire with the kitten in her lap, while Dinah, the mother cat, sat near by washing little Snowdrop’s face, the snow falling softly without, Alice was just the least bit drowsy, and so she talked to keep awake.
“Do you hear the snow against the window panes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug you know with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ‘Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again,’ and when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they dress themselves all in green, and dance about whenever the wind blows. ‘Oh, that’s very pretty!’ cried Alice, dropping the ball of worsted to clap her hands. ‘I do so wish it was true. I’m sure the woods look sleepy in the autumn when the leaves are getting brown.’”
We are sure, too, Alice was getting sleepy in the glow of the firelight with the black kitten purring a lullaby on her lap. She had probably been playing with the Chessmen and pretending as usual, so it is small wonder that the heavy eyes closed, and the black kitten grew into the shape of the Red Queen—and so the story began.
It was the work of a few minutes to be on speaking terms with the whole Chess Court which Alice found assembled. The back of the clock on the mantelshelf looked down upon the scene with the grinning face of an old man, and even the vase wore a smiling visage. There was a good fire burning in this looking-glass grate, but the flames went the other way of course, and down among the ashes, back of the grate, the Chessmen were walking about in pairs.
Sir John Tenniel’s picture of the assembled Chessmen is very clever. The Red King and the Red Queen are in the foreground. The White Bishop is taking his ease on a lump of coal, with a smaller lump for a footstool, while the two Castles are enjoying a little promenade near by. In the background are the Red and White Knights and Bishops and all the Pawns. He has put so much life and expression into the faces of the little Chessmen that we cannot help regarding them as real people, and we cannot blame Alice for taking them very much in earnest.
She naturally found difficulty in accustoming herself to Looking-Glass Land, and the first thing she had to learn was how to read Looking-Glass fashion. She happened to pick up a book that she found on a table in the Looking-Glass Room, but when she tried to read it, it seemed to be written in an unknown language. Here is what she saw:
Then a bright thought occurred to her, and holding the book up before a looking-glass, this is what she read in quite clear English, no matter how it looks, for there is certainly no intelligent child who could fail to understand it.
JABBERWOCKY.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum
tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Alice of course puzzled over this for a long time.
“‘It seems very pretty,’ she said when she had finished it, ‘but it’s rather hard to understand!’ (You see she didn’t like to confess, even to herself, that she couldn’t make it out at all.) ‘Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas, only I don’t exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something—that’s clear at any rate.’”
For pure cleverness the poem has no equal, we will not say in the English language, but in any language whatsoever, for it seems to be a medley of all languages. Lewis Carroll composed it on the spur of the moment during an evening spent with his cousins, the Misses Wilcox, and with his natural gift of word-making the result is most surprising. The only verse that really needs explanation is the first, which is also the last of the poem. Out of the twenty-three words the verse contains, there are but twelve which are pure, honest English.
In Mr. Collingwood’s article in the Strand Magazine we have Lewis Carroll’s explanation of the remaining eleven, written down in learned fashion, brimful of his own quaint humor. For a real guide it cannot be excelled, and, though we laugh at the absurdities, we learn the lesson. Here it is:
Brillig (derived from the verb to bryl or broil), “the time of broiling dinner—i. e., the close of the afternoon.”
Slithy (compounded of slimy and lithe), “smooth and active.”
Tove (a species of badger). “They had smooth, white hair, long hind legs, and short horns like a stag; lived chiefly on cheese.”
Gyre (derived from Gayour or Giaour, a dog), “to scratch like a dog.”
Gymble (whence Gimblet), “to screw out holes in anything.”
Wabe (derived from the verb to swab or soak), “the side of a hill” (from its being soaked by the rain).
Mimsy (whence mimserable and miserable), “unhappy.”
Borogove, “an extinct kind of parrot. They had no wings, beaks turned up, and made their nests under sun-dials; lived on veal.”
Mome (hence solemome, solemne, and solemn), “grave.”
Raths. “A species of land turtle, head erect, mouth like a shark; the forelegs curved out so that the animal walked on his knees; smooth green body; lived on swallows and oysters.”
Outgrabe (past tense of the verb to outgribe; it is connected with the old verb to grike or shrike, from which are derived “shriek” and “creak”), “squeaked.”
“Hence the literal English of the passage is—‘It was evening, and the smooth active badgers were scratching and boring holes in the hillside; all unhappy were the parrots, and the green turtles squeaked out.’ There were probably sun-dials on the top of the hill, and the borogoves were afraid that their nests would be undermined. The hill was probably full of the nests of ‘raths’ which ran out squeaking with fear on hearing the ‘toves’ scratching outside. This is an obscure yet deeply affecting relic of ancient poetry.”
(Croft—1855. Ed.)
This lucid explanation was evidently one of the editor’s contributions to Misch-Masch during his college days, so this classic poem must have “simmered” for many years before Lewis Carroll put it “Through the Looking-Glass.” But when Alice questioned the all-wise Humpty-Dumpty on the subject he gave some simpler definitions. When asked the meaning of “mome raths,” he replied:
“Well, rath is a sort of green pig; but mome I’m not certain about. I think it’s short for ‘from home,’ meaning they’d lost their way, you know.”
Lewis Carroll called such words “portmanteaus” because there were two meanings wrapped up in one word, and all through “Jabberwocky” these queer “portmanteau” words give us the key to the real meaning of the poem. In the preface to a collection of his poems, he gives us the rule for the building of these “portmanteau” words. He says: “Take the two words ‘fuming’ and ‘furious.’ Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little toward ‘fuming’ you will say ‘fuming-furious’; if they turn by even a hair’s breadth toward ‘furious’ you will say ‘furious-fuming’; but if you have that rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say ‘frumious.’”
It is hard to tell what he had in mind when he wrote of this deed of daring—for such it was. Possibly, St. George and the Dragon inspired him, and like the best of preachers he turned his sermon into wholesome nonsense. The Jabberwock itself was a most awe-inspiring creature, and Tenniel’s drawing is most deliciously blood-curdling; half-snake, half-dragon, with “jaws that bite and claws that scratch,” it is yet saved from being utterly terrible by having some nice homely looking buttons on his waistcoat and upon his three-clawed feet, something very near akin to shoes.
The anxious father bids his brave son good-bye, little dreaming that he will see him again.
“Beware the Jubjub bird—and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch”
are his last warning words, mostly “portmanteau” words, if one takes the time to puzzle them out. Then the brave boy goes forth into the “tulgey wood” and stands in “uffish thought” until with a “whiffling” sound the “burbling” Jabberwock is upon him.
Oh, the excitement of that moment when the “vorpal” sword went “snicker-snack” through the writhing neck of the monster! Then one can properly imagine the youth galloping in triumph (hence the “portmanteau” word “galumphing,” the first syllable of gallop and the last syllable of triumph) back to the proud papa, who says: “Come to my arms, my ‘beamish boy’ ... and ‘chortles in his joy,’” But all the time these wonderful things are happening, just around the corner, as it were, the “toves” and the “borogoves” and the “mome raths” were pursuing their never-ending warfare on the hillside, saying, with Tennyson’s Brook:
“Men may come and men may go—
But we go on forever,”
no matter how many “Jabberwocks” are slain nor how many “beamish boys” take their “vorpal swords in hand.”
In preparing the second “Alice” book for publication, Lewis Carroll’s first idea was to use the “Jabberwocky” illustration as a frontispiece, but, in spite of the reassuring buttons and shoes, he was afraid younger children might be “scared off” from the real enjoyment of the book. So he wrote to about thirty mothers of small children asking their advice on the matter; they evidently voted against it, for, as we all know, the White Knight on his horse with its many trappings, with Alice walking beside him through the woods, was the final selection, and the smallest child has grown to love the silly old fellow who tumbled off his steed every two minutes, and did many other dear, ridiculous things that only children could appreciate.
Looking-glass walking puzzled Alice at first quite as much as looking-glass writing or reading. If she tried to walk downstairs in the looking-glass house “she just kept the tips of her fingers on the hand rail and floated gently down, without even touching the stairs with her feet.” Then when she tried to climb to the top of the hill to get a peep into the garden, she found that she was always going backwards and in at the front door again. Finally, after many attempts, she reached the wished-for spot, and found herself amon
g a talkative cluster of flowers, who all began to criticise her in the most impertinent way.
“Oh, Tiger-lily!” said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving gracefully about in the wind, “I wish you could talk!”
“We can talk,” said the Tiger-lily, “when there’s anybody worth talking to” ... At length, as the Tiger-lily went on waving about, she spoke again in a timid voice, almost in a whisper:
“And can all the flowers talk?”
“As well as you can,” said the Tiger-lily, “and a great deal louder.”
“It isn’t manners for us to begin, you know,” said the Rose, “and I really was wondering when you’d speak! Said I to myself, ‘Her face has got some sense in it though it’s not a clever one!’ Still you’ve the right colour and that goes a long way.”
“I don’t care about the colour,” the Tiger-lily remarked. “If only her petals curled up a little more, she’d be all right.”
Alice didn’t like being criticised, so she began asking questions:
“Aren’t you sometimes frightened at being planted out here with nobody to take care of you?”
“There’s the tree in the middle,” said the Rose. “What else is it good for?”
“But what could it do if any danger came?” Alice asked.
“It could bark,” said the Rose.
“It says ‘bough-wough’,” cried a Daisy. “That’s why its branches are called boughs.”
“Didn’t you know that?” cried another Daisy. And here they all began shouting together.
Complete Works of Lewis Carroll Page 162