Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll (life books to read .TXT) š
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Through the Looking-Glass, by
Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
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Title: Through the Looking-Glass
Author: Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
Release Date: February, 1991 [EBook #12]
Last Updated: October 6, 2016
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS ***
Produced by David Widger
One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it:āit was the black kittenās 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 couldnāt have had any hand in the mischief.
The way Dinah washed her childrenās 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 purrāno 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 corner 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 undone again; and there it was, spread over the hearth-rug, all knots and tangles, with the kitten running after its own tail in the middle.
āOh, you wicked little thing!ā cried Alice, catching up the kitten, and giving it a little kiss to make it understand that it was in disgrace. āReally, Dinah ought to have taught you better manners! You ought, Dinah, you know you ought!ā she added, looking reproachfully at the old cat, and speaking in as cross a voice as she could manageāand then she scrambled back into the arm-chair, taking the kitten and the worsted with her, and began winding up the ball again. But she didnāt get on very fast, as she was talking all the time, sometimes to the kitten, and sometimes to herself. Kitty sat very demurely on her knee, pretending to watch the progress of the winding, and now and then putting out one paw and gently touching the ball, as if it would be glad to help, if it might.
āDo you know what to-morrow is, Kitty?ā Alice began. āYouād have guessed if youād been up in the window with meāonly Dinah was making you tidy, so you couldnāt. I was watching the boys getting in sticks for the bonfireāand it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! Only it got so cold, and it snowed so, they had to leave off. Never mind, Kitty, weāll go and see the bonfire to-morrow.ā Here Alice wound two or three turns of the worsted round the kittenās neck, just to see how it would look: this led to a scramble, in which the ball rolled down upon the floor, and yards and yards of it got unwound again.
āDo you know, I was so angry, Kitty,ā Alice went on as soon as they were comfortably settled again, āwhen I saw all the mischief you had been doing, I was very nearly opening the window, and putting you out into the snow! And youād have deserved it, you little mischievous darling! What have you got to say for yourself? Now donāt interrupt me!ā she went on, holding up one finger. āIām going to tell you all your faults. Number one: you squeaked twice while Dinah was washing your face this morning. Now you canāt deny it, Kitty: I heard you! Whatās that you say?ā (pretending that the kitten was speaking.) āHer paw went into your eye? Well, thatās your fault, for keeping your eyes openāif youād shut them tight up, it wouldnāt have happened. Now donāt 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 wasnāt thirsty too? Now for number three: you unwound every bit of the worsted while I wasnāt looking!
āThatās three faults, Kitty, and youāve not been punished for any of them yet. You know Iām saving up all your punishments for Wednesday weekāSuppose they had saved up all my punishments!ā she went on, talking more to herself than the kitten. āWhat would they do at the end of a year? I should be sent to prison, I suppose, when the day came. Orālet me seeāsuppose 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 shouldnāt mind that much! Iād far rather go without them than eat them!
āDo 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, āGo to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.ā And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they dress themselves all in green, and dance aboutāwhenever the wind blowsāoh, thatās very pretty!ā cried Alice, dropping the ball of worsted to clap her hands. āAnd I do so wish it was true! Iām sure the woods look sleepy in the autumn, when the leaves are getting brown.
āKitty, can you play chess? Now, donāt smile, my dear, Iām asking it seriously. Because, when we were playing just now, you watched just as if you understood it: and when I said āCheck!ā you purred! Well, it was a nice check, Kitty, and really I might have won, if it hadnāt been for that nasty Knight, that came wiggling down among my pieces. Kitty, dear, letās pretendāā And here I wish I could tell you half the things Alice used to say, beginning with her favourite phrase āLetās pretend.ā She had had quite a long argument with her sister only the day beforeāall because Alice had begun with āLetās pretend weāre kings and queens;ā and her sister, who liked being very exact, had argued that they couldnāt, because there were only two of them, and Alice had been reduced at last to say, āWell, you can be one of them then, and Iāll be all the rest.ā And once she had really frightened her old nurse by shouting suddenly in her ear, āNurse! Do letās pretend that Iām a hungry hyaena, and youāre a bone.ā
But this is taking us away from Aliceās speech to the kitten. āLetās pretend that youāre the Red Queen, Kitty! Do you know, I think if you sat up and folded your arms, youād look exactly like her. Now do try, thereās a dear!ā And Alice got the Red Queen off the table, and set it up before the kitten as a model for it to imitate: however, the thing didnāt succeed, principally, Alice said, because the kitten wouldnāt fold its arms properly. So, to punish it, she held it up to the Looking-glass, that it might see how sulky it wasāāand if youāre not good directly,ā she added, āIāll put you through into Looking-glass House. How would you like that?ā
āNow, if youāll only attend, Kitty, and not talk so much, Iāll tell you all my ideas about Looking-glass House. First, thereās the room you can see through the glassāthatās just the same as our drawing room, only the things go the other way. I can see all of it when I get upon a chairāall but the bit behind the fireplace. Oh! I do so wish I could see that bit! I want so much to know whether theyāve a fire in the winter: you never can tell, you know, unless our fire smokes, and then smoke comes up in that room tooābut that may be only pretence, just to make it look as if they had a fire. Well then, the books are something like our books, only the words go the wrong way; I know that, because Iāve held up one of our books to the glass, and then they hold up one in the other room.
āHow would you like to live in Looking-glass House, Kitty? I wonder if theyād give you milk in there? Perhaps Looking-glass milk isnāt good to drinkāBut oh, Kitty! now we come to the passage. You can just see a little peep of the passage in Looking-glass House, if you leave the door of our drawing-room wide open: and itās very like our passage as far as you can see, only you know it may be quite different on beyond. Oh, Kitty! how nice it would be if we could only get through into Looking-glass House! Iām sure itās got, oh! such beautiful things in it! Letās pretend thereās a way of getting through into it, somehow, Kitty. Letās pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we can get through. Why, itās turning into a sort of mist now, I declare! Itāll be easy enough to get throughāā 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 beginning 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 real one, blazing away as brightly as the one she had left behind. āSo I shall be as warm here as I was in the old room,ā thought Alice: āwarmer, in fact, because thereāll be no one here to scold me away from the fire. Oh, what fun itāll be, when they see me through the glass in here, and canāt get at me!ā
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 as 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 in the Looking-glass) had got the face of a little old man, and grinned at her.
āThey donāt keep this room so tidy as the other,ā 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 āOh!ā of surprise, she was down on her hands and knees watching them. The chessmen were walking about, two and two!
āHere are the Red King and the Red Queen,ā Alice said (in a whisper, for fear of frightening them), āand there are the White King and the White
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