Part 11 (1/2)

”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 a.s.sembled. 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-gla.s.s 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 a.s.sembled 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 _p.a.w.ns_. 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-Gla.s.s Land, and the first thing she had to learn was how to read Looking-Gla.s.s fas.h.i.+on. She happened to pick up a book that she found on a table in the Looking-Gla.s.s Room, but when she tried to read it, it seemed to be written in an unknown language. Here is what she saw:

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Then a bright thought occurred to her, and holding the book up before a looking-gla.s.s, 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 Banders.n.a.t.c.h!”

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 Wilc.o.x, 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 fas.h.i.+on, 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.”