Inscribed to a dear Child:
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- Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task,
- Eager she wields her spade: yet loves as well
- Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask
- The tale he loves to tell.
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- Rude spirits of the seething outer strife,
- Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright,
- Deem, if you list, such hours a waste of life,
- Empty of all delight!
-
- Chat on, sweet Maid, and rescue from annoy
- Hearts that by wiser talk are unbeguiled.
- Ah, happy he who owns that tenderest joy,
- The heart-love of a child!
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- Away, fond thoughts, and vex my soul no more!
- Work claims my wakeful nights, my busy days—
- Albeit bright memories of that sunlit shore
- Yet haunt my dreaming gaze!
Preface
If—and the thing is wildly possible—the charge of writing nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line
“Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes”
In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural History—I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened.
The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances, used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished, and it more than once happened, when the time came for replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to appeal to the Bellman about it—he would only refer to his Naval Code, and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which none of them had ever been able to understand—so it generally ended in its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman1 used to stand by with tears in his eyes: he knew it was all wrong, but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, “No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm”, had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words “and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one”. So remonstrance was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next varnishing day. During these bewildering intervals the ship usually sailed backwards.
As this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the Jabberwock, let me take this opportunity of answering a question that has often been asked me, how to pronounce “slithy toves”. The “i” in “slithy” is long, as in “writhe”; and “toves” is pronounced so as to rhyme with “groves”. Again, the first “o” in “borogoves” is pronounced like the “o” in “borrow”. I have heard people try to give it the sound of the “o” in “worry”. Such is Human Perversity.
This also seems a fitting occasion to notice the other hard words in that poem. Humpty-Dumpty’s theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all.
For instance, take the two words “fuming” and “furious”. Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little towards “fuming”, you will say “fuming-furious”; if they turn, by even a hair’s breadth, towards “furious”, you will say “furious-fuming”; but if you have that rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say “frumious”.
Supposing that, when Pistol uttered the well-known words—
“Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!”
Justice Shallow had felt certain that it was either William or Richard, but had not been able to settle which, so that he could not possibly say either name before the other, can it be doubted that, rather than die, he would have gasped out “Rilchiam!”.
- Helmsman: This office was usually undertaken by the Boots, who found in it a refuge from the Baker’s constant complaints about the insufficient blacking of his three pairs of boots.↑
- Fit the First: The Landing
- “Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: that alone should encourage the crew. Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: what I tell you three times is true.”
- Fit the Second: The Bellman’s Speech
- “He was thoughtful and grave—but the orders he gave were enough to bewilder a crew. When he cried ‘Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!’ What on earth was the helmsman to do?”
- Fit the Third: The Baker’s Tale
- “They roused him with muffins—they roused him with ice—they roused him with mustard and cress—they roused him with jam and judicious advice—they set him conundrums to guess.”
- Fit the Fourth: The Hunting
- “I said it in Hebrew—I said it in Dutch—I said it in German and Greek. But I wholly forgot (and it vexes me much) that English is what you speak!”
- Fit the Fifth: The Beaver’s Lesson
- “They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care; they pursued it with forks and hope; they threatened its life with a railway-share; they charmed it with smiles and soap.”
- Fit the Sixth: The Barrister’s Dream
- “He dreamed that he stood in a shadowy Court, where the Snark, with a glass in its eye, dressed in gown, bands, and wig, was defending a pig on the charge of deserting its sty.”
- Fit the Seventh: The Banker’s Fate
- “He was black in the face, and they scarcely could trace the least likeness to what he had been: while so great was his fright that his waistcoat turned white—a wonderful thing to be seen!”
- Fit the Eighth: The Vanishing
- “They gazed in delight, while the Butcher exclaimed ‘He was always a desperate wag!’ They beheld him—their Baker—their hero unnamed—on the top of a neighbouring crag,”
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- On-Line Book Initiative
- Not sure if they’re still alive or not, but it looks like most of the books and writings are still there.
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