For another interpretation of Alice’s arithmetic, see “Multiplication in Changing Bases: A Note on Lewis Carroll,” by Francine Abeles, in Historia Mathematica, Vol. 3 (1976), pages 183–84.
5. Most of the poems in the two Alice books are parodies of poems or popular songs that were well known to Carroll’s contemporary readers. With few exceptions the originals have now been forgotten, their titles kept alive only by the fact that Carroll chose to poke fun at them. Because much of the wit of a burlesque is missed if one is not familiar with what is being caricatured, all the originals will be reprinted in this edition. Here we have a skillful parody of the best-known poem of Isaac Watts (1674–1748), English theologian and writer of such well-known hymns as “O God, our help in ages past.” Watts’s poem, “Against Idleness and Mischief” (from his Divine Songs for Children, 1715), is reprinted below in its entirety.
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!
How skillfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labours hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.
In works of labour or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.
In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be passed,
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.
Carroll has chosen the lazy, slow-moving crocodile as a creature far removed from the rapid-flying, ever-busy bee.
6. Alice’s earlier expansions have been cited by cosmologists to illustrate aspects of the expanding-universe theory. Her narrow escape in this passage calls to mind a diminishing-universe theory once advanced in Carrollian jest by the eminent mathematician Sir Edmund Whittaker. Perhaps the total amount of matter in the universe is continually growing smaller, and eventually the entire universe will fade away into nothing at all. “This would have the recommendation,” Whittaker said, “of supplying a very simple picture of the final destiny of the universe.” (Eddington’s Principle in the Philosophy of Science, a lecture by Whittaker published in 1951 by Cambridge University Press.) A similar vanish would occur if the universe has enough matter to stop expanding and go the other way toward a Big Crunch.
7. Bathing machines were small individual locker rooms on wheels. They were drawn into the sea by horses to the depth desired by the bather, who then emerged modestly through a door facing the sea. A huge umbrella in back of the machine concealed the bather from public view. On the beach the machines were of course used for privacy in dressing and undressing. This quaint Victorian contraption was invented about 1750 by Benjamin Beale, a Quaker who lived at Margate, and was first used on the Margate beach. The machines were later introduced at Weymouth by Ralph Allen, the original of Mr. Allworthy in Fielding’s Tom Jones. In Smollett’s Humphry Clinker (1771), a letter of Matt Bramble’s describes a bathing machine at Scarborough. (See Notes and Queries, August 13, 1904, Series 10, Vol. 2, pages 130–31.)
The second “fit” of Carroll’s great nonsense poem, The Hunting of the Snark (subtitled: An Agony in Eight Fits) tells us that a fondness for bathing machines is one of the “five unmistakable marks” by which a genuine snark can be recognized.
The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,
Which it constantly carries about,
And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes—
A sentiment open to doubt.
8. In his article “In Search of Alice’s Brother’s Latin Grammar,” in Jabberwocky (Spring 1975), Selwyn Goodacre argues that the book may have been The Comic Latin Grammar (1840). It was anonymously written by Percival Leigh, a writer for Punch, with illustrations by Punch cartoonist John Leech. Carroll owned a first edition.
Only one noun in the book is declined in full: musa, the Latin word for “muse.” Goodacre suggests that Alice, “looking over her brother’s shoulder at his Latin Grammar, mistook musa for mus,” the Latin word for “mouse.” Further comments on this speculation appear in Jabberwocky (Spring 1977). Everett Bleiler notes that Alice’s declining omits the ablative form.
9. Hugh O’Brien, writing on “The French Lesson Book” in Notes and Queries (December 1963), identified the book as La Bagatelle: Intended to introduce children of three or four years old to some knowledge of the French language (1804).
10. In two of Tenniel’s illustrations for the next chapter, you will see the head of an ape. It has been suggested that Tenniel intended his ape to be a caricature of Charles Darwin. This seems unlikely. The face of Tenniel’s ape, in his second picture, exactly duplicates that of an ape in his political cartoon in Punch (October 11, 1856), where the ape represents “King Bomba,” the nickname for Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies.
The flightless dodo became extinct about 1681. Charles Lovett informed me that the Oxford University Museum, which Carroll often visited with the Liddell children, contained (and still does) the remains of a dodo, and a famous painting of the bird by John Savory. The dodo was native to the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. Dutch sailors and colonists killed the “disgusting birds,” as they called them, for food, and their eggs (just one to a nest) were eaten by the farm animals of the early settlers. The dodo is one of the earliest examples of an animal species totally exterminated by the human species. See “The Dodo in the Caucus Race,” by Stephen Jay Gould, in Natural History (November 1996).
Carroll’s Dodo was intended as a caricature of himself—his stammer is said to have made him pronounce his name “Dodo-Dodgson.” The Duck is the Reverend Robinson Duckworth, who often accompanied Carroll on boating expeditions with the Liddell sisters. The Lory, an Australian parrot, is Lorina, who was the eldest of the sisters (this explains why, in the second paragraph of the next chapter, she says to Alice, “I’m older than you, and must know better”). Edith Liddell is the Eaglet.
It is amusing to note that when his biography entered the Encyclopaedia Britannica it was inserted just before the entry on the Dodo. The individuals in this “queer-looking party” represent the participants in an episode entered in Carroll’s diary on June 17, 1862. Carroll took his sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth, and his Aunt Lucy Lutwidge (the “other curious creatures”?) on a boating expedition, along with the Reverend Duckworth and the three Liddell girls.
June 17 (Tu). Expedition to Nuneham. Duckworth (of Trinity) and Ina, Alice and Edith came with us. We set out about 12.30 and got to Nuneham about 2: dined there, then walked in the park and set off for home about 4.30. About a mile above Nuneham heavy rain came on, and after bearing it a short time I settled that we had better leave the boat and walk: three miles of this drenched us all pretty well. I went on first with the children, as they could walk much faster than Elizabeth, and took them to the only house I knew in Sandford, Mrs. Broughton’s, where Ranken lodges. I left them with her to get their clothes dried, and went off to find a vehicle, but none was to be had there, so on the others arriving, Duckworth and I walked on to Iffley, whence we sent them a fly.
In the original manuscript, Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, a number of details appear relating to this experience that Carroll later deleted because he thought they would have little interest to anyone outside the circle of individuals involved. When the facsimile edition of the manuscript was published in 1886, Duckworth received a copy inscribed, “The Duck from the Dodo.”
Chapter III
A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale
They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank—the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable.
The first question of course was, how to get dry again: they had a consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed quite natural to Alice to find
herself talking familiarly with them, as if she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument with the Lory, who at last turned sulky, and would only say “I’m older than you, and must know better.” And this Alice would not allow, without knowing how old it was, and, as the Lory positively refused to tell its age, there was no more to be said.
At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of some authority among them, called out “Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! I’ll soon make you dry enough!” They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon.
“Ahem!” said the Mouse with an important air. “Are you all ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please! ‘William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria—’”1
“Ugh!” said the Lory, with a shiver.
“I beg your pardon!” said the Mouse, frowning, but very politely. “Did you speak?”
“Not I!” said the Lory, hastily.
“I thought you did,” said the Mouse. “I proceed. ‘Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him; and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable—’”
“Found what?” said the Duck.
“Found it,” the Mouse replied rather crossly: “of course you know what ‘it’ means.”
“I know what ‘it’ means well enough, when I find a thing,” said the Duck: “it’s generally a frog, or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?”
The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on, “‘—found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him the crown. William’s conduct at first was moderate. But the insolence of his Normans—’ How are you getting on now, my dear?” it continued, turning to Alice as it spoke.
“As wet as ever,” said Alice in a melancholy tone: “it doesn’t seem to dry me at all.”
“In that case,” said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, “I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies—”
“Speak English!” said the Eaglet. “I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!” And the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a smile: some of the other birds tittered audibly.
“What I was going to say,” said the Dodo in an offended tone, “was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.”2
“What is a Caucus-race?” said Alice; not that she much wanted to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.
“Why,” said the Dodo, “the best way to explain it is to do it.” (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter-day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)
First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (“the exact shape doesn’t matter,” it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no “One, two, three, and away!” but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out “The race is over!” and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking “But who has won?”
This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it stood for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said “Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.”
“But who is to give the prizes?” quite a chorus of voices asked.
“Why, she, of course,” said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out, in a confused way, “Prizes! Prizes!”
Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits3 (luckily the salt water had not got into it), and handed them round as prizes. There was exactly one a-piece, all round.
“But she must have a prize herself, you know,” said the Mouse.
“Of course,” the Dodo replied very gravely. “What else have you got in your pocket?” it went on, turning to Alice.
“Only a thimble,” said Alice sadly.
“Hand it over here,” said the Dodo.
Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly presented the thimble, saying “We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble”; and, when it had finished this short speech, they all cheered.
Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could.
The next thing was to eat the comfits: this caused some noise and confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not taste theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on the back. However, it was over at last, and they sat down again in a ring, and begged the Mouse to tell them something more.
“You promised to tell me your history, you know,” said Alice, “and why it is you hate—C and D,” she added in a whisper, half afraid that it would be offended again.
“Mine is a long and a sad tale!” said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing.
“It is a long tail, certainly,” said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse’s tail; “but why do you call it sad?” And she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the tale was something like this:—4
“Fury said to
a mouse, That
he met in the
house, ‘Let
us both go
to law: I
will prose-
cute you.—
Come, I’ll
take no de-
nial: We
must have
the trial;
For really
this morn-
ing I’ve
nothing
to do.’
Said the
mouse to
the cur,
‘Such a
trial, dear
sir, With
no jury
or judge,
would
be wast-
ing our
breath.’
‘I’ll be
judge,
I’ll be
jury,’
said
cun-
ning
old
Fury:
‘I’ll
try
the
whole
cause,
and
con-
demn
you to
death.’ 5
“You are not attending!” said the Mouse to Alice, severely. “What are you thinking of?”
“I beg your pardon,” said Alice very humbly: “you had got to the fifth bend, I think?”
“I had not!” cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily.
“A knot!” said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking anxiously about her “Oh, do let me help to undo it!”6
“I shall do nothing of the sort,” said the Mouse, getting up and walking away. “You insult me by talking such nonsense!”
“I didn’t mean it!” pleaded poor Alice. “But you’re so easily offended, you know!”
The Mouse only growled in reply.
“Please come back, and finish your story!” Alice called after it. And the others all joined in chorus “Yes, please do!” But the Mouse only shook its head impatiently, and walked a little
quicker.
“What a pity it wouldn’t stay!” sighed the Lory, as soon as it was quite out of sight. And an old Crab took the opportunity of saying to her daughter “Ah, my dear! Let this be a lesson to you never to lose your temper!” “Hold your tongue, Ma!” said the young Crab, a little snappishly. “You’re enough to try the patience of an oyster!”
“I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!” said Alice aloud, addressing nobody in particular. “She’d soon fetch it back!”
“And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?” said the Lory.
Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about her pet: “Dinah’s our cat. And she’s such a capital one for catching mice, you ca’n’t think! And oh, I wish you could see her after the birds! Why, she’ll eat a little bird as soon as look at it!”
This speech caused a remarkable sensation among the party. Some of the birds hurried off at once: one old Magpie began wrapping itself up very carefully, remarking “I really must be getting home: the night-air doesn’t suit my throat!” And a Canary called out in a trembling voice, to its children, “Come away, my dears! It’s high time you were all in bed!” On various pretexts they all moved off, and Alice was soon left alone.
“I wish I hadn’t mentioned Dinah!” she said to herself in a melancholy tone. “Nobody seems to like her, down here, and I’m sure she’s the best cat in the world! Oh, my dear Dinah! I wonder if I shall ever see you any more!” And here poor Alice began to cry again, for she felt very lonely and low-spirited. In a little while, however, she again heard a little pattering of footsteps in the distance, and she looked up eagerly, half hoping that the Mouse had changed his mind, and was coming back to finish his story.
1. Roger Lancelyn Green, editor of Carroll’s diary, identifies this dusty passage as an actual quotation from Havilland Chepmell’s Short Course of History (1862), pages 143–44. Carroll was distantly related to the earls Edwin and Morcar, but Green thinks it unlikely that Carroll knew this. (See The Diaries of Lewis Carroll, Vol. 1, page 2.) Chepmell’s book was one of the lesson books studied by the Liddell children. Green elsewhere suggests that Carroll may have intended the Mouse to represent Miss Prickett, the children’s governess.
The Annotated Alice Page 6