Alice's Adventure In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (top 10 novels to read .TXT) 📗

the simple rules their friends had taught them:

such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long;

and that if you cut your finger _very_ deeply with a knife, it usually

bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a

bottle marked “poison,” it is almost certain to disagree with you,

sooner or later.

However, this bottle was _not_ marked “poison,” so Alice ventured to

taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed

flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and

hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off.

---------

“What a curious feeling!” said Alice; “I must be shutting up like a

telescope.”

And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face

brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going

through the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she

waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further:

she felt a little nervous about this; “for it might end, you know,”

said Alice to herself, “in my going out altogether, like a candle. I

wonder what I should be like then?” And she tried to fancy what the

flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could

not remember ever having seen such a thing.

After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going

into the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the

door, she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she

went back to the table for it, she found she could not possibly reach

it: she could see it quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her

best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery;

and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing

sat down and cried.

“Come, there’s no use in crying like that!” said Alice to herself,

rather sharply; “I advise you to leave off this minute!” She generally

gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it),

and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into

her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having

cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself,

for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people.

“But it’s no use now,” thought poor Alice, “to pretend to be two

people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make _one_ respectable

person!”

Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table:

she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words

“EAT ME” were beautifully marked in currants. “Well, I’ll eat it,” said

Alice, “and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it

makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I’ll

get into the garden, and I don’t care which happens!”

She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, “Which way? Which

way?”, holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was

growing, and she was quite surprised to find that she remained the same

size: to be sure, this generally happens when one eats cake, but Alice

had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way

things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go

on in the common way.

So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.

CHAPTER II.

The Pool of Tears

“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that

for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); “now I’m

opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!”

(for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of

sight, they were getting so far off). “Oh, my poor little feet, I

wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m

sure _I_ shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble

myself about you: you must manage the best way you can;—but I must be

kind to them,” thought Alice, “or perhaps they won’t walk the way I

want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every

Christmas.”

And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. “They must

go by the carrier,” she thought; “and how funny it’ll seem, sending

presents to one’s own feet! And how odd the directions will look!

_Alice’s Right Foot, Esq., Hearthrug, near the Fender,_ (_with

Alice’s love_).

Oh dear, what nonsense I’m talking!”

Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was

now more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden

key and hurried off to the garden door.

Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to

look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more

hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Alice, “a great girl like

you,” (she might well say this), “to go on crying in this way! Stop

this moment, I tell you!” But she went on all the same, shedding

gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about

four inches deep and reaching half down the hall.

After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and

she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White

Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves

in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a

great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, “Oh! the Duchess, the

Duchess! Oh! won’t she be savage if I’ve kept her waiting!” Alice felt

so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any one; so, when the

Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, “If you please,

sir—” The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and

the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go.

Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she

kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking: “Dear, dear! How

queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual.

I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the

same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling

a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who

in the world am I? Ah, _that’s_ the great puzzle!” And she began

thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as

herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them.

“I’m sure I’m not Ada,” she said, “for her hair goes in such long

ringlets, and mine doesn’t go in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I can’t

be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a

very little! Besides, _she’s_ she, and _I’m_ I, and—oh dear, how

puzzling it all is! I’ll try if I know all the things I used to know.

Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen,

and four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that

rate! However, the Multiplication Table doesn’t signify: let’s try

Geography. London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of

Rome, and Rome—no, _that’s_ all wrong, I’m certain! I must have been

changed for Mabel! I’ll try and say ‘_How doth the little_—’” and she

crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons, and began

to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words

did not come the same as they used to do:—

“How doth the little crocodile

Improve his shining tail,

And pour the waters of the Nile

On every golden scale!

“How cheerfully he seems to grin,

How neatly spread his claws,

And welcome little fishes in

With gently smiling jaws!”

“I’m sure those are not the right words,” said poor Alice, and her eyes

filled with tears again as she went on, “I must be Mabel after all, and

I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to

no toys to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I’ve

made up my mind about it; if I’m Mabel, I’ll stay down here! It’ll be

no use their putting their heads down and saying ‘Come up again, dear!’

I shall only look up and say ‘Who am I then? Tell me that first, and

then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up: if not, I’ll stay down

here till I’m somebody else’—but, oh dear!” cried Alice, with a sudden

burst of tears, “I do wish they _would_ put their heads down! I am so

_very_ tired of being all alone here!”

As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was surprised to see

that she had put on one of the Rabbit’s little white kid gloves while

she was talking. “How _can_ I have done that?” she thought. “I must be

growing small again.” She got up and went to the table to measure

herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was

now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly: she soon

found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she

dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether.

“That _was_ a narrow escape!” said Alice, a good deal frightened at the

sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence; “and

now for the garden!” and she ran with all speed back to the little

door: but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden

key was lying on the glass table as before, “and things are worse than

ever,” thought the poor child, “for I never was so small as this

before, never! And I declare it’s too bad, that it is!”

As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment,

splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that

she had somehow fallen into the sea, “and in that case I can go back by

railway,” she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in

her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go

to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the

sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row

of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she

soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when

she was nine feet high.

“I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying

to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by

being drowned in my own tears! That _will_ be a queer thing, to be

sure! However, everything is queer to-day.”

Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way

off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought

it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small

she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had

slipped in like herself.

“Would it be of any use, now,” thought Alice, “to speak to this mouse?

Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very

likely it can talk: at any rate, there’s no harm in trying.” So she

began: “O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired

of swimming about here, O Mouse!” (Alice thought this must be the right

way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but

she remembered having seen in her brother’s Latin Grammar, “A mouse—of

a mouse—to a mouse—a mouse—O mouse!”) The Mouse looked at her rather

inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes,

but it said nothing.

“Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,” thought Alice; “I daresay it’s

a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.” (For, with all

her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago

anything had happened.) So she began again: “Où est ma chatte?” which

was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a

sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with

fright. “Oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Alice hastily, afraid that she

had hurt the poor animal’s feelings. “I quite forgot you didn’t like

cats.”

“Not like cats!” cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. “Would

_you_ like cats