Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (272 page)

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.’”