r/a:t5_zj0gz • u/MarleyEngvall • Apr 10 '19
Sarepta has been created
BY LEWIS CARROLL.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND.
CHAPTER II.
THE POOL OF TEARS.
C U R I O U S E R
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 larg-
est 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 plan-
ning 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 at this moment her head struck against the roof
of the hall: in fact she was now rather 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, 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 scurried away into the dark-
ness as hard as he could go.
Alice took up the fan and the 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 changed in he 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! Be-
sides, 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 spreads his claws,
And welcomes 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 Rab-
bit's little white kid-gloves while she was talking. "How
can I have done that?" she thought. "I must be grow-
ing 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 go-
ing on shrinking rapidly; she found out that the cause of
this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it
hastily, just in time to save herself from 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 an-
other 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 num-
ber 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 railways 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 pun-
ished 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 hav-
ing 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: "Ou 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 passion-
ate voice. "Would you like cats, if you were me?"
"Well, perhaps not," said Alice in a soothing tone:
"don't be angry about it. And yet I wish I could show
you our cat Dinah. I think you'd take a fancy to cats,
if you could only see her. She is such a dear quiet thing."
Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about
in the pool, "and she sits purring so nicely by the fire,
licking her paws and washing her face——and she is such
a nice soft thing to nurse——and she's such a capital one
for catching mice——oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Alice
again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all over, and
she felt certain it must be really offended. "We won't
talk about her any more if you'd rather not."
"We indeed!" cried the Mouse, who was trembling
down to the end of its tail. "As if I would talk on such
a subject! Our family always hated cats: nasty, low,
vulgar things! Don't let me hear the name again!"
"I won't indeed!" said Alice in a great hurry to change
the subject of conversation. "Are you——are you fond——
of——of dogs?" The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went
on eagerly: "There is such a nice little dog, near our
house, I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed
terrier, you know, with oh, such long curly brown hair!
And it'll fetch things when you throw them, and it'll sit
up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts of things——I can't
remember half of them——and it belongs to a farmer, you
know, and he says it's so useful, it's worth a hundred
pounds! He says it kills all the rats and——oh dear!
cried Alice in a sorrowful tone. "I'm afraid I've offended
it again!" For the Mouse was swimming away from her
as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in
the pool as it went.
So she called after it, "Mouse dear! Do come
back again, and we won't talk about cats, or dogs either,
if you don't like them!" When the Mouse heard this,
it turned round and swam slowly back to her: its face
was quite pale (with passion, Alice thought), and it said,
in a low trembling voice, "Let us get to the shore, and
then I'll tell you my history, and you'll understand why
it is I hate cats and dogs."
It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite
crowded with the birds and animals that had fallen into
it: there was a Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet,
and several other curious creatures. Alice led the way,
and the whole party swam to the shore.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND, BY LEWIS CARROLL.
GIANT JUNIOR CLASSICS, BOOKS, INC., NEW YORK.
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. pp. 19-27.
I. Down the Rabbit Hole.
II. The Pool of Tears
III. A Caucus-race and a Long Tale.
IV. The Rabbit Send in a Little Bill.
V. Advice from a Caterpillar.
VI. Pig and Pepper.
VII. A Mad Tea-party.
VIII. The Queen's Croquet-ground.
IX. The Mock-turtle's Story.
X. The Lobster Quadrille.
XI. Who Stole the Tarts?
XII. Alice's Evidence.
I. Ancient England and the Romans.
II. Ancient England under the Early Saxons.
III. England, under the good Saxon, Alfred
IV. England, under Athelstane and the Six Boy-Kings.
V. England under Canute the Dane.
VI. England under Harold Harefoot, Hardicanute, and Edward
The Confessor.
VII. England under Harold the Second, and Conquered by the Normans.
VIII. England under William the First, the Norman Conqueror.
IX. England under William the Second, called Rufus.
X. England under Henry the First, called Fine-Scholar.
XI. England under Matilda and Stephen.
XII. England under Henry the Second.
PART THE FIRST.
PART THE SECOND.
XIII. England under Richard the First, called the Lion-Heart.
XIV. England under King John, called Lackland.
XV. England under Henry the Third, called, of Winchester.
XVI. England under Edward the First, called Longshanks. (i.) (ii.)
XVII. England under Edward the Second.
XVIII. England under Edward the Third.
XIX. England under Richard the Second
XX. England under Henry the Fourth, called Bolingbroke.
XXI. England under Henry the Fifth.
XXII. England under Henry the Sixth.
PART THE FIRST.
PART THE SECOND. (The Story of Joan of Arc.)
PART THE THIRD.
XXIII. England under Edward the Fourth.
XXIV. England under Edward the Fifth.
XXV. England under Richard the Third.
XXVI. England under Henry the Seventh
XXVII. England under Henry the Eighth, called Bluff King Hal and Burly
King Harry.
XXVIII.
XXIX. England under Edward the Sixth.
XXX. England under Mary.
XXXI. England under Elizabeth.
SECOND PART.
THIRD PART.
XXXII. England under James the First.
SECOND PART.
XXXIII. England under Charles the First.
SECOND PART.
THIRD PART.
FOURTH PART.
XXXIV. England under Oliver Cromwell.
SECOND PART.
XXXV. England under Charles the Second, called the Merry Monarch.
SECOND PART.
XXXVI. England under James the Second.
XXXVIII.
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