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Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, the Pennsylvania State University, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA 18201-1291 is a Portable Document File produced as part of an ongoing student publication project, the Pennsylvania State University’s Electronic Classics Series, to bring classical works of literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them.
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Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll she was hard at work on the white kitten, which was lying THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
quite still and trying to purr—no doubt feeling that it was all meant for its good.
by
But the black kitten had been finished with earlier in the afternoon, and so, while Alice was sitting curled up in a cor-LEWIS CARROLL
ner of the great arm-chair, half talking to herself and half asleep, the kitten had been having a grand game of romps CHAPTER 1
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
undone again; and there it was, spread over the hearth-rug, all knots and tangles, with the kitten running after its own One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had noth-tail in the middle.
ing to do with it:—it was the black kitten’s fault entirely. For
‘Oh, you wicked little thing!’ cried Alice, catching up the the white kitten had been having its face washed by the old kitten, and giving it a little kiss to make it understand that it cat for the last quarter of an hour (and bearing it pretty well, was in disgrace. ‘Really, Dinah ought to have taught you considering); so you see that it couldn’t have had any hand in better manners! You ought, Dinah, you know you ought!’
the mischief.
she added, looking reproachfully at the old cat, and speak-The way Dinah washed her children’s faces was this: first ing in as cross a voice as she could manage—and then she she held the poor thing down by its ear with one paw, and scrambled back into the arm-chair, taking the kitten and the then with the other paw she rubbed its face all over, the worsted with her, and began winding up the ball again. But wrong way, beginning at the nose: and just now, as I said, she didn’t get on very fast, as she was talking all the time, 3
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll sometimes to the kitten, and sometimes to herself. Kitty sat got to say for yourself? Now don’t interrupt me!’ she went very demurely on her knee, pretending to watch the progress on, holding up one finger. ‘I’m going to tell you all your of the winding, and now and then putting out one paw and faults. Number one: you squeaked twice while Dinah was gently touching the ball, as if it would be glad to help, if it washing your face this morning. Now you can’t deny it, Kitty: might.
I heard you! What that you say?’ (pretending that the kitten
‘Do you know what to-morrow is, Kitty?’ Alice began.
was speaking.) ‘Her paw went into your eye? Well, that’s
‘You’d have guessed if you’d been up in the window with your fault, for keeping your eyes open—if you’d shut them me—only Dinah was making you tidy, so you couldn’t. I tight up, it wouldn’t have happened. Now don’t make any was watching the boys getting in sticks for the bonfire—and more excuses, but listen! Number two: you pulled Snow-it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! Only it got so cold, and it drop away by the tail just as I had put down the saucer of snowed so, they had to leave off. Never mind, Kitty, we’ll go milk before her! What, you were thirsty, were you? How do and see the bonfire to-morrow.’ Here Alice wound two or you know she wasn’t thirsty too? Now for number three: three turns of the worsted round the kitten’s neck, just to see you unwound every bit of the worsted while I wasn’t look-how it would look: this led to a scramble, in which the ball ing!
rolled down upon the floor, and yards and yards of it got
‘That’s three faults, Kitty, and you’ve not been punished unwound again.
for any of them yet. You know I’m saving up all your pun-
‘Do you know, I was so angry, Kitty,’ Alice went on as soon ishments for Wednesday week—Suppose they had saved up as they were comfortably settled again, ‘when I saw all the all my punishments!’ she went on, talking more to herself mischief you had been doing, I was very nearly opening the than the kitten. ‘What would they do at the end of a year? I window, and putting you out into the snow! And you’d have should be sent to prison, I suppose, when the day came.
deserved it, you little mischievous darling! What have you Or—let me see—suppose each punishment was to be going 4
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll without a dinner: then, when the miserable day came, I that came wiggling down among my pieces. Kitty, dear, let’s should have to go without fifty dinners at once! Well, I pretend—’ And here I wish I could tell you half the things shouldn’t mind that much! I’d far rather go without them Alice used to say, beginning with her favourite phrase ‘Let’s than eat them!
pretend.’ She had had quite a long argument with her sister
‘Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty?
only the day before—all because Alice had begun with ‘Let’s How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing pretend we’re kings and queens;’ and her sister, who liked the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow loves the being very exact, had argued that they couldn’t, because there trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it were only two of them, and Alice had been reduced at last to covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and say, ‘Well, you can be one of them then, and I’ll be all the perhaps it says, “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes rest.’ And once she had really frightened her old nurse by again.” And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they shouting suddenly in her ear, ‘Nurse! Do let’s pretend that dress themselves all in green, and dance about—whenever I’m a hungry hyaena, and you’re a bone.’
the wind blows—oh, that’s very pretty!’ cried Alice, drop-But this is taking us away from Alice’s speech to the kitten.
ping the ball of worsted to clap her hands. ‘And I do so wish
‘Let’s pretend that you’re the Red Queen, Kitty! Do you it was true! I’m sure the woods look sleepy in the autumn, know, I think if you sat up and folded your arms, you’d look when the leaves are getting brown.
exactly like her. Now do try, there’s a dear!’ And Alice got
‘Kitty, can you play chess? Now, don’t smile, my dear, I’m the Red Queen off the table, and set it up before the kitten asking it seriously. Because, when we were playing just now, as a model for it to imitate: however, the thing didn’t suc-you watched just as if you understood it: and when I said ceed, principally, Alice said, because the kitten wouldn’t fold
“Check!” you purred! Well, it was a nice check, Kitty, and its arms properly. So, to punish it, she held it up to the Look-really I might have won, if it hadn’t been for that nasty Knight, ing-glass, that it might see how sulky it was—‘and if you’re 5
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll not good directly,’ she added, ‘I’ll put you through into Look-can see, only you know it may be quite different on beyond.
ing-glass House. How would you like that?’
Oh, Kitty! how nice it would be if we could only get through
‘Now, if you’ll only attend, Kitty, and not talk so much, I’ll into Looking-glass House! I’m sure it’s got, oh! such beauti-tell you all my ideas about Looking-glass House. First, there’s ful things in it!
the room you can see through the glass—that’s just the same Let’s pretend there’s a way of getting through into it, some-as our drawing room, only the things go the other way. I can how, Kitty. Let’s pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, see all of it when I get upon a chair—all but the bit behind so that we can get through. Why, it’s turning into a sort of the fireplace. Oh! I do so wish I could see that bit! I want so mist now, I declare! It’ll be easy enough to get through—’
much to know whether they’ve a fire in the winter: you never She was up on the chimney-piece while she said this, though can tell, you know, unless our fire smokes, and then smoke she hardly knew how she had got there. And certainly the comes up in that room too—but that may be only pretence, glass was beginning to melt away, just like a bright silvery just to make it look as if they had a fire. Well then, the books mist.
are something like our books, only the words go the wrong In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had way; I know that, because I’ve held up one of our books to jumped lightly down into the Looking-glass room. The very the glass, and then they hold up one in the other room.
first thing she did was to look whether there was a fire in the
‘How would you like to live in Looking-glass House, Kitty?
fireplace, and she was quite pleased to find that there was a I wonder if they’d give you milk in there? Perhaps Looking-real one, blazing away as brightly as the one she had left glass milk isn’t good to drink—But oh, Kitty! now we come behind. ‘So I shall be as warm here as I was in the old room,’
to the passage. You can just see a little peep of the passage in thought Alice: ‘warmer, in fact, because there’ll be no one Looking-glass House, if you leave the door of our drawing-here to scold me away from the fire. Oh, what fun it’ll be, room wide open: and it’s very like our passage as far as you when they see me through the glass in here, and can’t get at 6
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll me!’
Here something began squeaking on the table behind Alice, Then she began looking about, and noticed that what could and made her turn her head just in time to see one of the be seen from the old room was quite common and uninter-White Pawns roll over and begin kicking: she watched it esting, but that all the rest was a different as possible. For with great curiosity to see what would happen next.
instance, the pictures on the wall next the fire seemed to be
‘It is the voice of my child!’ the White Queen cried out as all alive, and the very clock on the chimney-piece (you know she rushed past the King, so violently that she knocked him you can only see the back of it in the Looking-glass) had got over among the cinders. ‘My precious Lily! My imperial the face of a little old man, and grinned at her.
kitten!’ and she began scrambling wildly up the side of the
‘They don’t keep this room so tidy as the other,’ Alice fender.
thought to herself, as she noticed several of the chessmen
‘Imperial fiddlestick!’ said the King, rubbing his nose, which down in the hearth among the cinders: but in another mo-had been hurt by the fall. He had a right to be a little an-ment, with a little ‘Oh!’ of surprise, she was down on her noyed with the Queen, for he was covered with ashes from hands and knees watching them. The chessmen were walk-head to foot.
ing about, two and two!
Alice was very anxious to be of use, and, as the poor little
‘Here are the Red King and the Red Queen,’ Alice said (in Lily was nearly screaming herself into a fit, she hastily picked a whisper, for fear of frightening them), ‘and there are the up the Queen and set her on the table by the side of her White King and the White Queen sitting on the edge of the noisy little daughter.
shovel—and here are two castles walking arm in arm—I don’t The Queen gasped, and sat down: the rapid journey through think they can hear me,’ she went on, as she put her head the air had quite taken away her breath and for a minute or closer down, ‘and I’m nearly sure they can’t see me. I feel two she could do nothing but hug the little Lily in silence.
somehow as if I were invisible—’
As soon as she had recovered her breath a little, she called 7
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll out to the White King, who was sitting sulkily among the much astonished to cry out, but his eyes and his mouth ashes, ‘Mind the volcano!’
went on getting larger and larger, and rounder and rounder,
‘What volcano?’ said the King, looking up anxiously into till her hand shook so with laughing that she nearly let him the fire, as if he thought that was the most likely place to drop upon the floor.
find one.
‘Oh! please don’t make such faces, my dear!’ she cried out,
‘Blew—me—up,’ panted the Queen, who was still a little quite forgetting that the King couldn’t hear her. ‘You make out of breath. ‘Mind you come up—the regular way—don’t me laugh so that I can hardly hold you! And don’t keep your get blown up!’
mouth so wide open! All the ashes will get into it—there, Alice watched the White King as he slowly struggled up now I think you’re tidy enough!’ she added, as she smoothed from bar to bar, till at last she said, ‘Why, you’ll be hours his hair, and set him upon the table near the Queen.
and hours getting to the table, at that rate. I’d far better help The King immediately fell flat on his back, and lay per-you, hadn’t I?’ But the King took no notice of the question: fectly still: and Alice was a little alarmed at what she had it was quite clear that he could neither hear her nor see her.
done, and went round the room to see if she could find any So Alice picked him up very gently, and lifted him across water to throw over him. However, she could find nothing more slowly than she had lifted the Queen, that she mightn’t but a bottle of ink, and when she got back with it she found take his breath away: but, before she put him on the table, he had recovered, and he and the Queen were talking to-she thought she might as well dust him a little, he was so gether in a frightened whisper—so low, that Alice could covered with ashes.
hardly hear what they said.
She said afterwards that she had never seen in all her life The King was saying, ‘I assure, you my dear, I turned cold such a face as the King made, when he found himself held in to the very ends of my whiskers!’
the air by an invisible hand, and being dusted: he was far too To which the Queen replied, ‘You haven’t got any whis-8
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll kers.’
anxious about him, and had the ink all ready to throw over
‘The horror of that moment,’ the King went on, ‘I shall him, in case he fainted again), she turned over the leaves, to never, never forget!’
find some part that she could read, ‘—for it’s all in some
‘You will, though,’ the Queen said, ‘if you don’t make a language I don’t know,’ she said to herself.
memorandum of it.’
It was like this.
Alice looked on with great interest as the King took an enormous memorandum-book out of his pocket, and began YKCOWREBBAJ
writing. A sudden thought struck her, and she took hold of the end of the pencil, which came some way over his shoul-sevot yhtils eht dna ,gillirb sawT‘
der, and began writing for him.
ebaw eht ni elbmig dna eryg diD
The poor King look puzzled and unhappy, and struggled
,sevogorob eht erew ysmim llA
with the pencil for some time without saying anything; but
.ebargtuo shtar emom eht dnA
Alice was too strong for him, and at last he panted out, ‘My dear! I really must get a thinner pencil. I can’t manage this She puzzled over this for some time, but at last a bright one a bit; it writes all manner of things that I don’t intend—’
thought struck her. ‘Why, it’s a Looking-glass book, of course!
‘What manner of things?’ said the Queen, looking over the And if I hold it up to a glass, the words will all go the right book (in which Alice had put ‘ The white knight is sliding way again.’
down the poker. He balances very badly’) ‘That’s not a memo-This was the poem that Alice read.
randum of your feelings!’
There was a book lying near Alice on the table, and while she sat watching the White King (for she was still a little 9
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll JABBERWOCKY
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
And burbled as it came!
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
He left it dead, and with its head
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
He went galumphing back.
Beware the Jujub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!’
‘And has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
O frabjous day! Calloh! Callay!’
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
He chortled in his joy.
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
10
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
‘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 CHAPTER II
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 The Garden of Live Flowers
exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that’s clear, at any rate—’
‘I should see the garden far better,’ said Alice to herself, ‘if
‘But oh!’ thought Alice, suddenly jumping up, ‘if I don’t I could get to the top of that hill: and here’s a path that leads make haste I shall have to go back through the Looking-straight to it—at least, no, it doesn’t do that—’ (after going glass, before I’ve seen what the rest of the house is like! Let’s a few yards along the path, and turning several sharp cor-have a look at the garden first!’ She was out of the room in a ners), ‘but I suppose it will at last. But how curiously it twists!
moment, and ran down stairs—or, at least, it wasn’t exactly It’s more like a corkscrew than a path! Well, this turn goes to running, but a new invention of hers for getting down stairs the hill, I suppose—no, it doesn’t! This goes straight back to quickly and easily, as Alice said to herself. She just kept the the house! Well then, I’ll try it the other way.’
tips of her fingers on the hand-rail, and floated gently down And so she did: wandering up and down, and trying turn without even touching the stairs with her feet; then she floated after turn, but always coming back to the house, do what on through the hall, and would have gone straight out at the she would. Indeed, once, when she turned a corner rather door in the same way, if she hadn’t caught hold of the door-more quickly than usual, she ran against it before she could post. She was getting a little giddy with so much floating in stop herself.
the air, and was rather glad to find herself walking again in
‘It’s no use talking about it,’ Alice said, looking up at the the natural way.
house and pretending it was arguing with her. ‘I’m not going in again yet. I know I should have to get through the Look-11
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll ing-glass again—back into the old room—and there’d be an as the Tiger-lily only went on waving about, she spoke again, end of all my adventures!’
in a timid voice—almost in a whisper. ‘And can all the flow-So, resolutely turning her back upon the house, she set out ers talk?’
once more down the path, determined to keep straight on
‘As well as you can,’ said the Tiger-lily. ‘And a great deal till she got to the hill. For a few minutes all went on well, louder.’
and she was just saying, ‘I really shall do it this time—’ when
‘It isn’t manners for us to begin, you know,’ said the Rose, the path gave a sudden twist and shook itself (as she de-
‘and I really was wondering when you’d speak! Said I to myself, scribed it afterwards), and the next moment she found her-
“Her face has got some sense in it, thought it’s not a clever self actually walking in at the door.
one!” Still, you’re the right colour, and that goes a long way.’
‘Oh, it’s too bad!’ she cried. Ì never saw such a house for
‘I don’t care about the colour,’ the Tiger-lily remarked. ‘If getting in the way! Never!’
only her petals curled up a little more, she’d be all right.’
However, there was the hill full in sight, so there was noth-Alice didn’t like being criticised, so she began asking ques-ing to be done but start again. This time she came upon a tions. ‘Aren’t you sometimes frightened at being planted out large flower-bed, with a border of daisies, and a willow-tree here, with nobody to take care of you?’
growing in the middle.
‘There’s the tree in the middle,’ said the Rose: ‘what else is
‘O Tiger-lily,’ said Alice, addressing herself to one that was it good for?’
waving gracefully about in the wind, ‘I wish you could talk!’
‘But what could it do, if any danger came?’ Alice asked.
‘We can talk,’ said the Tiger-lily: ‘when there’s anybody
‘It says “Bough-wough!” cried a Daisy: ‘that’s why its worth talking to.’
branches are called boughs!’
Alice was so astonished that she could not speak for a
‘Didn’t you know that?’ cried another Daisy, and here they minute: it quite seemed to take her breath away. At length, all began shouting together, till the air seemed quite full of 12
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll little shrill voices. ‘Silence, every one of you!’ cried the Ti-too soft—so that the flowers are always asleep.’
ger-lily, waving itself passionately from side to side, and trem-This sounded a very good reason, and Alice was quite pleased bling with excitement. ‘They know I can’t get at them!’ it to know it. ‘I never thought of that before!’ she said.
panted, bending its quivering head towards Alice, ‘or they
‘It’s my opinion that you never think at all,’ the Rose said wouldn’t dare to do it!’
in a rather severe tone.
‘Never mind!’ Alice said in a soothing tone, and stooping
‘I never saw anybody that looked stupider,’ a Violet said, so down to the daisies, who were just beginning again, she whis-suddenly, that Alice quite jumped; for it hadn’t spoken be-pered, ‘If you don’t hold your tongues, I’ll pick you!’
fore.
There was silence in a moment, and several of the pink
‘Hold your tongue!’ cried the Tiger-lily. ‘As if you ever saw daisies turned white.
anybody! You keep your head under the leaves, and snore
‘That’s right!’ said the Tiger-lily. ‘The daisies are worst of away there, till you know no more what’s going on in the all. When one speaks, they all begin together, and it’s enough world, than if you were a bud!’
to make one wither to hear the way they go on!’
‘Are there any more people in the garden besides me?’ Alice
‘How is it you can all talk so nicely?’ Alice said, hoping to said, not choosing to notice the Rose’s last remark.
get it into a better temper by a compliment. ‘I’ve been in
‘There’s one other flower in the garden that can move about many gardens before, but none of the flowers could talk.’
like you,’ said the Rose. ‘I wonder how you do it—’ (‘You’re
‘Put your hand down, and feel the ground,’ said the Tiger-always wondering,’ said the Tiger-lily), ‘but she’s more bushy lily. ‘Then you’ll know why.
than you are.’
Alice did so. ‘It’s very hard,’ she said, ‘but I don’t see what
‘Is she like me?’ Alice asked eagerly, for the thought crossed that has to do with it.’
her mind, ‘There’s another little girl in the garden, some-
‘In most gardens,’ the Tiger-lily said, ‘they make the beds where!’
13
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
‘Well, she has the same awkward shape as you,’ the Rose had indeed: when Alice first found her in the ashes, she had said, ‘but she’s redder—and her petals are shorter, I think.’
been only three inches high—and here she was, half a head
‘Her petals are done up close, almost like a dahlia,’ the taller than Alice herself!
Tiger-lily interrupted: ‘not tumbled about anyhow, like
‘It’s the fresh air that does it,’ said the Rose: ‘wonderfully yours.’
fine air it is, out here.’
‘But that’s not your fault,’ the Rose added kindly: ‘you’re
‘I think I’ll go and meet her,’ said Alice, for, though the beginning to fade, you know—and then one can’t help one’s flowers were interesting enough, she felt that it would be far petals getting a little untidy.’
grander to have a talk with a real Queen.
Alice didn’t like this idea at all: so, to change the subject,
‘You can’t possibly do that,’ said the Rose: ‘ I should advise she asked ‘Does she ever come out here?’
you to walk the other way.’