Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: Queen Alice's Dinner Party, Exercises of Voice

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THROUGH THE

LOOKING-GLASS

AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE

by LEWIS CARROLL

CONTENTS

• Looking-Glass house
• The Garden of Live Flowers.
• Looking-Glass Insects
• Tweedledum and Tweedledee
• Wool and Water
• Humpty Dumpty
• The Lion and the Unicorn
• ‘It’s My Own Invention’
• Queen Alice.
• Shaking.
• Waking
• Which Dreamed it?

For”happy summer glory– It shall not touch, with breath of bale, The pleasance of our fairy-tale.

RED

x x xNx x x x x xkx x x x x xnx x xKx x x x x x x ¹Qx x x Ï xrx

WHITE

White Pawn (Alice)to play, and win in eleven moves

PAGE PAGE

1. Alice meets R.Q. 27 1. R.Q. to K.R. 4th 32
2. Alice through Q.’s 3d (by railway) 37 2. W.Q. to Q.B.’s 4th (after shawl) 67 to Q.’s 4th (Tweedledum and Tweedledee) 50 3. W.Q. to Q.B.’s 5th (becomes 3.Alice meets W.Q. (with shawl) 67 sheep) 70
3. Alice to Q.’s 5th (shop, river, shop) 70 4.W.Q. to K.B.’s 8th (leaves egg
4. Alice to Q.’s 6th (Humpty Dumpty) 75 on shelf ) 74
5. Alice to Q.’s 7th (forest) 89 5. W.Q. to Q.B.’s 8th (flying
6. W. Kt. takes R. Kt. 104 from R. Kt.) 95
7. Alice to Q.’s 8th (coronation) 115 6. R. Kt. to K.’s 2nd (ch.) 104
8. Alice become Queen 124 7. W. Kt. to K.B.’s 5th 115
9. Alice castles (feast) 126 8. R.Q. to K.’s sq (examination) 117 11 Alice takes R.Q. and wins 132 9. Queen’s castle 124
   10. W.Q. to Q. R. 6th (soup) 131

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE

CHAPTER 1

Looking-Glass house

One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it:— it was the black kitten’s fault entirely. For the white kitten had been having its face washed by the old cat for the last quarter of an hour (and bearing it pretty well, considering); so you see that it couldn’t have had any hand in the mischief. The way Dinah washed her children’s faces was this: first she held the poor thing down by its ear with one paw, and then with the other paw she rubbed its face all over, the wrong way, beginning at the nose: and just now, as I said, she was hard at work on the white kitten, which was lying quite still and trying to purr— no doubt feeling that it was all meant for its good. But the black kitten had been finished with earlier in the afternoon, and so, while Alice was sitting curled up in a cor- ner of the great arm-chair, half talking to herself and half asleep, the kitten had been having a grand game of romps with the ball of worsted Alice had been trying to wind up, and had been rolling it up and down till it had all come

Looking-Glass house

was washing your face this morning. Now you can’t deny it, Kitty: I heard you! What that you say?’ (pretending that the kitten was speaking.) ‘Her paw went into your eye? Well, that’s your fault, for keeping your eyes open— if you’d shut them tight up, it wouldn’t have happened. Now don’t make any more excuses, but listen! Number two: you pulled Snowdrop away by the tail just as I had put down the saucer of milk before her! What, you were thirsty, were you? How do you know she wasn’t thirsty too? Now for number three: you unwound every bit of the worsted while I wasn’t look- ing!

‘That’s three faults, Kitty, and you’ve not been punished for any of them yet. You know I’m saving up all your pun-

Looking-Glass house

ishments for Wednesday week— Suppose they had saved up

all my punishments!’ she went on, talking more to herself

than the kitten. ‘What would they do at the end of a year? I

should be sent to prison, I suppose, when the day came. Or— let me see— suppose each punishment was to be going without a dinner: then, when the miserable day came, I should have to go without fifty dinners at once! Well, I

shouldn’t mind that much! I’d far rather go without them

than eat them! ‘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— when- ever the wind blows— oh, that’s very pretty!’ cried Alice, dropping the ball of worsted to clap her hands. ‘And I do so

wish it was true! I’m sure the woods look sleepy in the

autumn, when the leaves are getting brown. ‘Kitty, can you play chess? Now, don’t smile, my dear, I’m asking it seriously. Because, when we were playing just now, you watched just as if you understood it: and when I

said “Check!” you purred! Well, it was a nice check, Kitty,

and really I might have won, if it hadn’t been for that nasty Knight, that came wiggling down among my pieces. Kitty, dear, let’s pretend— ’ And here I wish I could tell you half the things Alice used to say, beginning with her favourite phrase ‘Let’s pretend.’ She had had quite a long argument with her sister only the say before— all because Alice had begun with ‘Let’s pretend we’re kings and queens;’ and her sister, who liked being very exact, had argued that they couldn’t, because there were only two of them, and Alice

had been reduced at last to say, ‘Well, you can be one of

them then, and I’ll be all the rest.” And once she had really

Looking-Glass house

only get through into Looking- glass House! I’m sure it’s got, oh! such beautiful things in it! Let’s pretend there’s a way of getting through into it, somehow, Kitty. Let’s pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we can get through. Why, it’s turning into a sort of mist now, I declare! It’ll be easy enough to get through— ’ She was up on the chimney-piece while she said this, though she hardly knew

how she had got there. And certainly the glass was begin-

ning to melt away, just like a bright silvery mist. In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had jumped lightly down into the Looking-glass room. The very first thing she did was to look whether there was a fire in the fireplace, and she was quite pleased to find that there was a

Looking-Glass house

real one, blazing away as brightly as the one she had left behind. ‘So I shall be as warm here as I was in the old room,’ thought Alice: ‘warmer, in fact, because there’ll be no one here to scold me away from the fire. Oh, what fun it’ll be, when they see me through the glass in here, and can’t get at me!’ Then she began looking about, and noticed that what could be seen from the old room was quite common and uninteresting, but that all the rest was a different as possible. For instance, the pictures on the wall next the fire seemed to be all alive, and the very clock on the chimney-piece (you know you can only see the back of it inthe Looking-glass) had got the face of a little old man, and grinned at her. ‘They don’t keep this room so tidy as the other,’ Alice thought to herself, as she noticed several of the chessmen down in the hearth among the cinders: but in another moment, with a little ‘Oh!’ of surprise, she was down on her hands and knees watching them. The chessmen were walk- ing about, two and two! ‘Here are the Red King and the Red Queen,’ Alice said (in a whisper, for fear of frightening them), ‘and there are the White King and the White Queen sitting on the edge of the shovel— and here are two castles walking arm in arm— I don’t think they can hear me,’ she went on, as she put her head closer down, ‘and I’m nearly sure they can’t see me. I feel somehow as if I were invisible— ’ Here something began squeaking on the table behind Alice, and made her turn her head just in time to see one of the White Pawns roll over and begin kicking: she watched it with great curiosity to see what would happen next. ‘It is the voice of my child!’ the White Queen cried out as she rushed past the King, so violently that she knocked him over among the cinders. ‘My precious Lily! My impe- rial kitten!’ and she began scrambling wildly up the side of the fender.

Looking-Glass house

called out to the White King, who was sitting sulkily among the ashes, ‘Mind the volcano!’ ‘What volcano?’ said the King, looking up anxiously into the fire, as if he thought that was the most likely place to find one. ‘Blew—me— up,’ panted the Queen, who was still a lit- tle out of breath. ‘Mind you come up— the regular way— don’t get blown up!’ Alice watched the White King as he slowly struggled up from bar to bar, till at last she said, ‘Why, you’ll be hours and hours getting to the table, at that rate. I’d far better help you, hadn’t I?’ But the King took no notice of the question: it was quite clear that he could neither hear her nor see her.

So Alice picked him up very gently, and lifted him across more slowly than she had lifted the Queen, that she mightn’t take his breath away: but, before she put him on the table, she thought she might as well dust him a little, he was so covered with ashes. She said afterwards that she had never seen in all her life such a face as the King made, when he found himself held in the air by an invisible hand, and being dusted: he was far

Looking-Glass house

too much astonished to cry out, but his eyes and his mouth went on getting larger and larger, and rounder and rounder, till her hand shook so with laughing that she nearly let him drop upon the floor.

‘Oh! please don’t make such faces, my dear!’ she cried

out, quite forgetting that the King couldn’t hear her. ‘You make me laugh so that I can hardly hold you! And don’t keep your mouth so wide open! All the ashes will get into it— there, now I think you’re tidy enough!’ she added, as she smoothed his hair, and set him upon the table near the Queen.

The King immediately fell flat on his back, and lay per- fectly still: and Alice was a little alarmed at what she had done, and went round the room to see if she could find any water to throw over him. However, she could find nothing but a bottle of ink, and when she got back with it she found he had recovered, and he and the Queen were talking together in a frightened whisper— so low, that Alice could hardly hear what they said.

Looking-Glass house

She puzzled over this for some time, but at last a bright thought struck her. ‘Why, it’s a Looking-glass book, of course! And if I hold it up to a glass, the words will all go the right way again.” This was the poem that Alice read.

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 Jujub 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.

Looking-Glass house

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 has thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Calloh! 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.

‘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, ever 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—’

‘But oh!’ thought Alice, suddenly jumping up, ‘if I don’t make haste I shall have to go back through the Looking- glass, before I’ve seen what the rest of the house is like! Let’s have a look at the garden first!’ She was out of the room in a moment, and ran down stairs— or, at least, it wasn’t exactly running, but a new invention of hers for get- ting down stairs quickly and easily, as Alice said to herself. She just kept the tips of her fingers on the hand-rail, and floated gently down without even touching the stairs with