The Spoiled Rattle

"Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel;
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel."

from "Alice Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)


For no readily discernible reason I started thinking about that rattle today. A thought popped into my head - not my own, somebody's somewhere, I forget who, lost in the mists, it may even have been Alice herself in the book - how on Earth do you "spoil" a rattle? I asked my mum this on our way to the shops, and she suggested lining the interior with Blu Tack, if it were a cage-like structure.

"Why not just dip it in cement?" I suggested. "Throw it on some rocks?"

I think we stopped thinking about ways to spoil a rattle soon after that. It did remind me of all the times I loved reading from my Lewis Carroll book. It was generously given to me by my Uncle Sean and his wife Laura a number of years ago. I have loved it and absorbed it ever since, and it still occupies a prime space on the bookshelf in my bedroom. (Ironically, I looked up the passages for this entry on the Internet because it actually was a lot faster and easier than consulting a book which at this moment is sitting less than three metres away from me in plain sight. Oh, the age in which we live.) I extensively pored over all the riddles and lingual delights collected in the back and learned Father William off by heart so well that I recited some verses of it tonight word for word even though it's been several years since I last looked at it. So I know it's supposed to be a parody of some old boring poem about a youth asking old Father William about his great life's achievements, but I don't care to follow up on it. To me, Carroll's version is perfection.

I am reminded of a story about Queen Victoria. She read "Alice in Wonderland" when it first came out and immediately decided she was a fan. She sent an express royal request to Carroll that she was to be sent a copy of his next book the instant it was published. Carroll was a mathematician by profession, however, and so he did indeed send her a copy straight away, but the topic of the book was unfortunately advanced calculus.



Father William

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door--
Pray, what is the reason of that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his gray locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment -- one shilling the box --
Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--
What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father; "don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down-stairs!"

from "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)


By the way, how *is* a raven like a writing desk?

"If you think we're wax-works, you ought to pay, you know."