Charles Synyard (@CharlesSynyard)

11/13 “Of all the strange things that Alice saw in her journey Through The Looking-Glass, this was the one that she always remembered most clearly. Years afterwards she could bring the whole scene back again, as if it had been only yesterday—the mild blue eyes and kindly smile of the Knight—the setting sun gleaming through his hair, and shining on his armour in a blaze of light that quite dazzled her—the horse quietly moving about, with the reins hanging loose on its neck, cropping the grass at her feet—and the black shadows of the forest behind—all this she took in like a picture, as, with one hand shading her eyes, she leant against a tree, watching the strange pair, and listening, in a half-dream, to the melancholy music of the song… “She stood and listened very attentively, but no tears came into her eyes.” So rested Alice by a tree, and stood awhile in thought, queenship only one move away! In Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871), by Lewis Carroll, Alice has been tempted by a number of malefactors who would mislead her. The White Knight is different, however. He tries her for her own good, reading her a poem and gauging her response as a test of character, and then checks if the ties of friendship are powerful enough to stay her from grasping for something she desires. When the Red Knight and declares Alice his prisoner, she is swiftly rescued by her own color’s White Knight. Both are clumsy combatants, but per the rules of chess, there is no contest, and the White Knight duly captures the Red, who cooperatively leaves the game, galloping off. “‘It was a glorious victory, wasn’t it?’ said the White Knight, as he came up panting. “‘I don’t know,’ Alice said doubtfully. ‘I don’t want to be anybody’s prisoner. I want to be a Queen.’ “‘So you will, when you’ve crossed the next brook,’ said the White Knight. ‘I’ll see you safe to the end of the wood—and then I must go back, you know. That’s the end of my move.’” His chivalric escort hinders rather than hastens Alice’s journey, though, as the accident-prone Knight keeps falling from his mount. “Whenever the horse stopped (which it did very often), he fell off in front; and whenever it went on again (which it generally did rather suddenly), he fell off behind. Otherwise he kept on pretty well, except that he had a habit of now and then falling off sideways; and as he generally did this on the side on which Alice was walking, she soon found that it was the best plan not to walk quite close to the horse.” Yet, the Knight proves a charming companion. When Alice points out that his possessions had fallen out of his box, which had been upside down, “He unfastened it as he spoke, and was just going to throw it into the bushes, when a sudden thought seemed to strike him, and he hung it carefully on a tree. ‘Can you guess why I did that?’ he said to Alice. “Alice shook her head. “‘In hopes some bees may make a nest in it—then I should get the honey.’ “‘But you’ve got a bee-hive—or something like one—fastened to the saddle,’ said Alice. “‘Yes, it’s a very good bee-hive,’ the Knight said in a discontented tone, ‘one of the best kind. But not a single bee has come near it yet. And the other thing is a mouse-trap. I suppose the mice keep the bees out—or the bees keep the mice out, I don’t know which.’ “‘I was wondering what the mouse-trap was for,’ said Alice. ‘It isn’t very likely there would be any mice on the horse’s back.” The mouse-trap should recall Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, where the Dormouse told a story of “three little [Liddell] sisters, and their names were Elsie [Lorina Charlotte, L. C.], Lacie [Alice], and Tillie [Matilda, Edith’s nickname],“ who “drew all manner of things—everything that begins with an M… such as mouse-traps…”, So this passage may relate to the Liddell girls’ home life, and their friendship with the book’s eccentric author. The attempt to attract bees seems symbolic. They are mesmerizingly pretty insects, in addition to making that wonderful sweet that exists in nature, honey. That he has a beehive (we don’t know whether with full honeycombs or empty), but bees won’t inhabit it, shows an irrationality in nature: the bees wouldn’t have to build a new hive, if only they had the instincts to reinhabit a proffered old one, but it is in their nature to build new. This is akin to growing up, which cannot just be made easy by adults planning out a path for the young: they have to do it in their own way and on their own steam, even if it’s harder, because that is how they build character. Perhaps that is why Alice is lonely in her dreams. Artist Barry Moser gives us a full-page woodcut engraving of the White Knight, modeled after Dodgson. While as I said in the eighth post in this series, the Red King is Carroll, perhaps the White Knight represents another side of him. Come to think of it, the two, the family friend and the celebrated author, have different names. Could the Red King be Lewis Carroll, while the White Knight is Charles Dodgson? An attractive thought. In passing, notice that Alice and the Knight are “a long time” putting the dish that held the plum-cake from the last chapter into the Knight’s bag—them putting the knife away is never mentioned. Does Alice clean it and put it in a pocket? To rule that this is the vorpal sword is much too speculative: but that Alice, like the hero of “Jabberwocky”, wields a magic blade (it cuts the pieces of cake after they’ve been handed out), albeit one more appropriate for a girl (as, used ceremonially on social occasions) is worth thinking on. After a few pages of conversation with Alice, the Knight seemingly finds her promising, but remains uncertain of how she will handle queenship—and with it, face moral dilemmas akin to those in adult society—and gives her a test of character. “‘You are sad,’ the Knight said in an anxious tone: ‘let me sing you a song to comfort you.’ “‘Is it very long?’ Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day. “‘It’s long,’ said the Knight, ‘but it’s very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it—either it brings the tears into their eyes, or else—‘ “‘Or else what?’ said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause. “‘Or else it doesn’t, you know.’” How will it affect Alice? The name of the song is “The Aged Aged Man”, the name of the song is called “Haddock’s Eyes”, the song itself is called “Ways and Means”, and the song really is “A-sitting On a Gate”; I prefer the first title. “So saying, he stopped his horse and let the reins fall on its neck: then, slowly beating time with one hand, and with a faint smile lighting up his gentle, foolish face, he began.” What does “The Aged Aged Man” mean? See the last two images, to read it over yourself before reading what I say. As the shoulder notes explain, “The Aged Aged Man” parodies Wordsworth’s “Resolution and Independence”, which you may read here https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45545/resolution-and-independence, in which the speaker keeps asking a leech-gatherer what he does for a living in “an attempt to adjust his more sophisticated mental image to the stark and primal reality” of the other man’s life. In “The Aged Aged Man” though, the old man has to repeat himself because the speaker isn’t listening. “I saw an aged aged man, A-sitting on a gate. ‘Who are you, aged man?’ I said. ‘And how is it you live?’ And his answer trickled through my head Like water through a sieve.” His mind wanders to absurd schemes, “a plan to dye one’s whiskers green, and always use so large a fan that they could not be seen,” “a way to feed oneself on batter, and so go on from day to day getting a little fatter”, and in time to hear the third explanation, he had “just completed my design to keep the Menai bridge from rust by boiling it with wine.” Silly stuff? The old man’s answers can seem laughable too—but the surface humor barely conceals a vein of tragedy. They are: First— “He said ’I look for butterflies That sleep among the wheat: I make them into mutton-pies, And sell them in the street. I sell them unto men,‘ he said, ’Who sail on stormy seas; And that’s the way I get my bread— A trifle, if you please.’” Second— ”His accents mild took up the tale: He said ’I go my ways, And when I find a mountain-rill, I set it in a blaze; And thence they make a stuff they call Rowlands‘ Macassar Oil— Yet twopence-halfpenny is all They give me for my toil.’” Third— “He said ’I hunt for haddocks‘ eyes Among the heather bright, And work them into waistcoat-buttons In the silent night. And these I do not sell for gold Or coin of silvery shine, But for a copper halfpenny, And that will purchase nine. ”’I sometimes dig for buttered rolls, Or set limed twigs for crabs; I sometimes search the grassy knolls For wheels of Hansom-cabs. And that's the way‘ (he gave a wink) ’By which I get my wealth— And very gladly will I drink Your Honour’s noble health.’” These schemes are all impractical—but all, too, involve the destruction of natural beauty for the most trifling gains. In the first, he bakes butterflies into meat pies, and sells them to sailors for a pittance. Given Alice’s serious and affected reception of the poem, this answers the Gnat’s question: Alice rejoices in butterflies, a beautiful and widely beloved insect by children and adults alike. In the second, he sets remote mountain streams alight—one thinks of the Cuyahoga River burning; apparently the first time it happened was in 1868, three before this book saw print—and that is how they make one of Victorian England’s most famous commercial products, Rowland’s Macassar-Oil. Think Oxi-Clean or Sham-Wow for a similarly hyped, tacky product today. For this, he gets twopence a bottle. The third time, the old man gives a more varied picture. He also digs for buttered rolls, and retrieves the fallen-off buggy wheels—but the reader knows, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. These are artifacts. This time, he strings the eyes of haddocks into waistcoat buttons, and gets almost nothing for them: he would have to blind nine fish for one penny. And he sets sticky stuff on twigs to ensnare crabs: I can imagine Alice wincing here. She expressed her fondness for crabs when she was rowing and one may have held her oar, causing her to “catch a crab”. And this old man traps the poor things! For all this enironmental destruction, what has the aged aged man gained? He is a sad sight to see. The speaker recalls him later, “Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow, Whose hair was whiter than the snow, Whose face was very like a crow, With eyes, like cinders, all aglow, Who seemed distracted with his woe, Who rocked his body to and fro, And muttered mumblingly and low, As if his mouth were full of dough, Who snorted like a buffalo— That summer evening, long ago, A-sitting on a gate.” He’s a sad, broken man. Not someone to revile, but to pity. For all this ruin of nature, what has he gotten? Bare subsistence into undignified old age. Whereas in Wordsworth’s original “Resolution and Independence”, the poet was already in a mood from contemplating nature when he met the leech-gatherer, the White Knight’s poem, Carroll’s poem, is a tragedy of industrialization, where the earth and its creatures are dismembered in the most senseless way—and it has to be done, because that is the way to make a living, and that a miserable one. The aged aged man toils in an absurd system: he makes me think of “Sixteen Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford. https://www.bitchute.com/video/etZM2Ri8wod7 How does Alice respond to this tragic song? We know she is leaning against a tree—much like the hero in “Jabberwocky”: “So rested he by the Tumtum tree, and stood awhile in thought”—listening closely enough that she could remember the scene clearly years later. She “listened very attentively, but no tears came into her eyes”—but we are only indirectly told how she DOES react. She thanks the White Knight when they are near parting. “‘…and thank you very much for coming so far—and for the song—I liked it very much.’ “‘I hope so,’ the Knight said doubtfully: ‘but you didn’t cry so much as I expected.’” What to make of this? Between “no tears came into her eyes,” and “you didn’t cry so much as I expected”? Alice didn’t find the poem or its subject boring and nod off. She certainly didn’t giggle or smile, as a child or adult might who only saw the nonsensical images. And she didn’t burst into tears, from simply thinking what happened sad, or the old man an evildoer. She was, as we can read this, on the point of crying, but held her emotions in check. This implies understanding that while the destruction of animal, fish, crustacean, and insect life, and the landscape itself for profit is lamentable, simply condemning this exploitation of the earth—the fruits of the Industrial Revolution—isn’t right either. This all came of men doing what they thought they had to to survive. Alice may not see that this is an allegory for an ongoing real-world problem, but gets that there are no easy answers. There is need for nuance, understanding, and looking at it all with straight face and the passions under control. Alice displays such control that the Knight is doubtful: does her face betray understanding of tragedy, or just unfeeling? But Alice proves her compassion by seeing the slow Knight off, when her longed-for goal is mere steps off. ”’You’ve only a few yards to go,‘ he said, ’down the hill and over that little brook, and then you'll be a Queen—But you’ll stay and see me off first?‘ he added as Alice turned with an eager look in the direction to which he pointed. ’I sha’n‘t be long. You’ll wait and wave your handkerchief when I get to that turn in the road? I think it’ll encourage me, you see.’ ”’Of course I’ll wait,’ said Alice… “So they shook hands, and then the Knight rode slowly away into the forest. ‘It won’t take long to see him off, I expect,’ Alice said to herself, as she stood watching him. ‘There he goes! Right on his head as usual! However, he gets on again pretty easily—that comes of having so many things hung round the horse—‘ So she went on talking to herself, as she watched the horse walking leisurely along the road, and the Knight tumbling off, first on one side and then on the other. After the fourth or fifth tumble he reached the turn, and then she waved her handkerchief to him, and waited till he was out of sight.” Alice passes this final test, reassuring Knight and reader. “‘I hope it encouraged him,’ she said, as she turned to run down the hill: ‘and now for the last brook, and to be a Queen! How grand it sounds!’” Queen Alice! That’s our subject for next time. #LewisCarroll #BarryMoser #ThroughTheLookingGlass #AliceInWonderland #PennyroyalPress #Pennyroyal #woodcutting #woodcut #engraving #illustration #art #poetry #IndustrialRevolution #capitalism #environmentalism #tragedy #dreams #fantasy #childrensliterature #childrensbooks #literature #books