Lewis Carroll in Wonderland and at Home Part 11

"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."

_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 pa.s.sage 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 cla.s.sic poem must have "simmered" for many years before Lewis Carroll put it "Through the Looking-Gla.s.s." 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.'"

It is hard to tell what he had in mind when he wrote of this deed of daring--for such it was. Possibly, St. George and the Dragon inspired him, and like the best of preachers he turned his sermon into wholesome nonsense. The Jabberwock itself was a most awe-inspiring creature, and Tenniel's drawing is most deliciously blood-curdling; half-snake, half-dragon, with "jaws that bite and claws that scratch," it is yet saved from being utterly terrible by having some nice homely looking b.u.t.tons on his waistcoat and upon his three-clawed feet, something very near akin to shoes.

The anxious father bids his brave son good-bye, little dreaming that he will see him again.

"Beware the Jubjub bird--and shun The frumious Banders.n.a.t.c.h"

are his last warning words, mostly "portmanteau" words, if one takes the time to puzzle them out. Then the brave boy goes forth into the "tulgey wood" and stands in "uffish thought" until with a "whiffling" sound the "burbling" Jabberwock is upon him.

Oh, the excitement of that moment when the "vorpal" sword went "snicker-snack" through the writhing neck of the monster! Then one can properly imagine the youth galloping in triumph (hence the "portmanteau"

word "galumphing," the first syllable of gallop and the last syllable of triumph) back to the proud papa, who says: "Come to my arms, my 'beamish boy' ... and 'chortles in his joy,'" But all the time these wonderful things are happening, just around the corner, as it were, the "toves" and the "borogoves" and the "mome raths" were pursuing their never-ending warfare on the hillside, saying, with Tennyson's _Brook_:

"Men may come and men may go-- But _we_ go on forever,"

no matter how many "Jabberwocks" are slain nor how many "beamish boys"

take their "vorpal swords in hand."

In preparing the second "Alice" book for publication, Lewis Carroll's first idea was to use the "Jabberwocky" ill.u.s.tration as a frontispiece, but, in spite of the rea.s.suring b.u.t.tons and shoes, he was afraid younger children might be "scared off" from the real enjoyment of the book. So he wrote to about thirty mothers of small children asking their advice on the matter; they evidently voted against it, for, as we all know, the _White Knight_ on his horse with its many trappings, with _Alice_ walking beside him through the woods, was the final selection, and the smallest child has grown to love the silly old fellow who tumbled off his steed every two minutes, and did many other dear, ridiculous things that only children could appreciate.

Looking-gla.s.s walking puzzled _Alice_ at first quite as much as looking-gla.s.s writing or reading. If she tried to walk downstairs in the looking-gla.s.s house "she just kept the tips of her fingers on the hand rail and floated gently down, without even touching the stairs with her feet." Then when she tried to climb to the top of the hill to get a peep into the garden, she found that she was always going backwards and in at the front door again. Finally, after many attempts, she reached the wished-for spot, and found herself among a talkative cl.u.s.ter of flowers, who all began to criticise her in the most impertinent way.