Edith, Lorina, and Alice Liddell
photo by Lewis Carroll (1859)
photo by Lewis Carroll (1859)
THE MILLENNIUM FULCRUM EDITION 3.0
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Edith, Lorina, and Alice Liddell photo by Lewis Carroll (1859) |
PREFACE
All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our ears, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretence
Our wanderings to guide.
Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour
Beneath such dreamy weather,
To beg a tale of breath too weak
To stir the tiniest feather!
Yet what can one poor voice avail
Against three tongues together?
Imperious Prima flashes forth
Her edict 'to begin it' —
In gentler tone Secunda hopes
'There will be nonsense in it!'
While Tertia interrupts the tale
Not more than once a minute.
Anon, to sudden silence won,
In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through a land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast —
And half believe it true.
And ever, as the story drained
The wells of fancy dry,
And faintly strove that weary one
To put the subject by,
'The rest next time —' 'It is next time!'
The happy voices cry.
Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
Thus slowly, one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out —
And now the tale is done,
And home we steer, a merry crew,
Beneath the setting sun.
Alice! a childish story take,
And with a gentle hand
Lay it where Childhood's dreams are twined
In Memory's mystic band,
Like pilgrim's wither'd wreath of flowers
Pluck'd in a far-off land.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Inquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter's Riddle (see p. 58) can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz. 'Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!' This, however, is merely an afterthought: the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all.
Christmas, 1896.
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