"If I can not unearth that buried city I may find another in this
wonderland. I shall not give up."
So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in
Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality--the grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds--the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep- bells, and the Queen's shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd boy--and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all thy other queer noises, would change (she knew) to the confused clamour of the busy farm-yard--while the lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle's heavy sobs.
Such was the author of "The Little Duke" and "The Dove in the Eagle's Nest," such the author of "A Flatiron for a Farthing," and "The Story of a Short Life." Such, above all, the author of "Alice in
Wonderland." Grownups imagine that they can do the trick by adopting baby language and talking down to their very critical audience.
In a
Wonderland they lie, Dreaming as the days go by, Dreaming as the summers die: Ever drifting down the stream-- Lingering in the golden gleam-- Life, what is it but a dream?
How the printed words made us forget the world in which we live, and carried us away to a
wonderland,
Rose swam out far beyond her depth, with uncle to float her back; Aunt Jessie splashed placidly in the shallow pools, with Jamie paddling near by like a little whale beside its mother; while the lads careered about, looking like a flock of distracted flamingoes, and acting like the famous dancing party in "Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland."
Marilla was as fond of morals as the Duchess in
Wonderland, and was firmly convinced that one should be tacked on to every remark made to a child who was being brought up.
His rather fantastic epics, composed with great facility and much real spirit, are almost forgotten; he is remembered chiefly by three or four short poems--'The Battle of Blenheim,' 'My days among the dead are past,' 'The Old Man's Comforts' (You are old, Father William,' wittily parodied by 'Lewis Carroll' in 'Alice in
Wonderland')--and by his excellent short prose 'Life of Nelson.'
Alice in
Wonderland, after she had drunk the contents of the magic bottle, could not have grown smaller more suddenly than I grew younger the moment I passed through that magic door.
Gentlemen: Since I arrived, a month ago, in this old
wonderland, this vast garden of Germany, my English tongue has so often proved a useless piece of baggage to me, and so troublesome to carry around, in a country where they haven't the checking system for luggage, that I finally set to work, and learned the German language.
Besides, Juneau was in Alaska, and her yearning took the form of a desire to see that
wonderland. But little she saw of it.
It is the music which makes it what it is; it is the music which changes the place from the rear room of a saloon in back of the yards to a fairy place, a
wonderland, a little comer of the high mansions of the sky.