Monday, April 17, 2006

Go ask Alice

...about her views of the rest of the world...the environment, the sovereignty of nations, the consequences of actions, the egocentricity of...oh nevermind, I forgot this was just a faery story, a little light bed time reading to put me to sleep at night.

So the boat was left to drift down the stream as it would, till it glided gently in among the waving rushes. And then the little sleeves were carefully rolled up, and the little arms were plunged in elbow-deep, to get hold of the rushes a good long way down before breaking them off…while with bright eager eyes she caught at one bunch after another of the darling scented rushes.

“I only hope the boat won’t tipple over!” she said to herself. “Oh, what a lovely one! Only I couldn’t quite reach it.” And it certainly did seem a little provoking…that, though she managed to pick plenty of beautiful rushes as the boat glided by, there was always a more lovely one that she couldn’t reach.

“The prettiest are always further!” she said at last, with a sigh at the obstinacy of the rushes in growing so far off, as with flushed cheeks and dripping hair and hands, she scrambled back into her place, and began to arrange her new-found treasures.

What mattered it to her just then that the rushes had begun to fade, and to lose all their scent and beauty, from the very moment that she picked them? Even real scented rushes, you know, last only a very little while—and these, being dream rushes, melted away almost like snow, as they lay in heaps at her feet—but Alice hardly noticed this, there were so many other curious things to think about.

Through the Looking Glass- Lewis Carroll

No comments: