My calendar tells
me that today in 1865 Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, published
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The
truth is Dodgson ordered reprints on this date (the book had been printed a month earlier but, unhappy with the reproduction of the illustrations, he had all but a handful of those copies recalled) and the book was finally released for sale to the public later that year. And ever since those first readers traveled
with Alice down the rabbit hole, the book has never gone out of print.
There are so many
wonderful passages in the book. One of my favourites is found in chapter VII where at a tea party with the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse,
Alice is told a very confusing story about treacle. Enjoy.
'Suppose we change the subject,' the March Hare
interrupted, yawning. 'I'm getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells
us a story.'
'I'm afraid I don't know one,' said Alice, rather
alarmed at the proposal.
'Then the Dormouse shall!' they both cried. 'Wake
up, Dormouse!' And they pinched it on both sides at once.
The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. 'I wasn't
asleep,' he said in a hoarse, feeble voice, 'I heard every word you fellows
were saying.'
'Tell us a story!' said the March Hare.
'Yes, please do!' pleaded Alice.
'And be quick about it,' added the Hatter, 'or
you'll be asleep again before it's done.'
'Once upon a time there were three little sisters,'
the Dormouse began in a great hurry; 'and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and
Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well—'
'What did they live on?' said Alice, who always
took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.
'They lived on treacle,' said the Dormouse, after
thinking a minute or two.
'They couldn't have done that, you know,' Alice
gently remarked. 'They'd have been ill.'
'So they were,' said the Dormouse; 'very
ill.'
Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an
extraordinary ways of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she
went on: 'But why did they live at the bottom of a well?'
'Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice,
very earnestly.
'I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an
offended tone, 'so I can't take more.'
'You mean you can't take less,' said the
Hatter: 'it's very easy to take more than nothing.'
'Nobody asked your opinion,' said Alice.
'Who's making personal remarks now?' the Hatter
asked triumphantly.
Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so
she helped herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the
Dormouse, and repeated her question. 'Why did they live at the bottom of a
well?'
The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think
about it, and then said, 'It was a treacle-well.'
`There's no such thing!' Alice was beginning very
angrily, but the Hatter and the March Hare went 'Sh! sh!' and the Dormouse
sulkily remarked, 'If you can't be civil, you'd better finish the story for
yourself.'
'No, please go on!' Alice said very humbly. 'I
won't interrupt again. I dare say there may be one.'
'One, indeed!' said the Dormouse indignantly.
However, he consented to go on. 'And so these three little sisters—they were
learning to draw, you know—'
'What did they draw?' said Alice, quite forgetting
her promise.
'Treacle,' said the Dormouse, without considering
at all this time.
'I want a clean cup,' interrupted the Hatter: 'let's all move one place on.'
He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed
him: the March Hare moved into the Dormouse's place, and Alice rather
unwillingly took the place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the only one who
got any advantage from the change; and Alice was a good deal worse off than
before, as the March Hare had just upset the milk-jug into his plate.
Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so
she began very cautiously: 'But I don't understand. Where did they draw the
treacle from?'
'You can draw water out of a water-well,' said the
Hatter; 'so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well—eh,
stupid?'
'But they were in the well,' Alice said to
the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last remark.
'Of course they were', said the Dormouse: 'well
in.'
This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let
the Dormouse go on for some time without interrupting it.
'They were learning to draw,' the Dormouse went on,
yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; 'and they drew
all manner of things—everything that begins with an M—'
'Why with an M?' said Alice.
'Why not?' said the March Hare.
Alice was silent.
The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and
was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again
with a little shriek, and went on: '—that begins with an M, such as
mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness—you know you say things
are "much of a muchness"—did you ever see such a thing as a drawing
of a muchness?'
'Really, now you ask me,' said Alice, very much
confused, 'I don't think—'
'Then you shouldn't talk,' said the Hatter.
This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could
bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off: the Dormouse fell asleep
instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though
she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the
last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.
Illustrations by John Tenniel.
Illustrations by John Tenniel.
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