No More Learning

"Next, when you are describing
A shape, or sound, or tint;
Don't state the matter plainly,
But put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things
With a sort of mental squint. "

"For instance, if I wished, Sir,
Of mutton-pies to tell,
Should I say 'dreams of fleecy flocks
Pent in a wheaten cell'? "
"Why, yes," the old man said: "that phrase
Would answer very well.

"Then fourthly, there are epithets
That suit with any word--
As well as Harvey's Reading Sauce
With fish, or flesh, or bird--
Of these, 'wild,' 'lonely,' 'weary,' 'strange,'
Are much to be preferred. "

"And will it do, O will it do
To take them in a lump--
As 'the wild man went his weary way
To a strange and lonely pump'? "
"Nay, nay! You must not hastily
To such conclusions jump.

"Such epithets, like pepper,
Give zest to what you write;
And, if you strew them sparely,
They whet the appetite:
But if you lay them on too thick,
You spoil the matter quite!

[Illustration: "THE WILD MAN WENT HIS WEARY WAY"]

"Last, as to the arrangement:
Your reader, you should show him,
Must take what information he
Can get, and look for no im-
mature disclosure of the drift
And purpose of your poem.

"Therefore, to test his patience--
How much he can endure--
Mention no places, names, or dates,
And evermore be sure
Throughout the poem to be found
Consistently obscure.

"First fix upon the limit
To which it shall extend:
Then fill it up with 'Padding'
(Beg some of any friend):
Your great SENSATION-STANZA
You place towards the end. "

"And what is a Sensation,
Grandfather, tell me, pray?
I think I never heard the word
So used before to-day:
Be kind enough to mention one
'_Exempli gratia_. '"

And the old man, looking sadly
Across the garden-lawn,
Where here and there a dew-drop
Yet glittered in the dawn,
Said "Go to the Adelphi,
And see the 'Colleen Bawn. '

"The word is due to Boucicault--
The theory is his,
Where Life becomes a Spasm,
And History a Whiz:
If that is not Sensation,
I don't know what it is.
"Now try your hand, ere Fancy
Have lost its present glow--"
"And then," his grandson added,
"We'll publish it, you know:
Green cloth--gold-lettered at the back--
In duodecimo! "

Then proudly smiled that old man
To see the eager lad
Rush madly for his pen and ink
And for his blotting-pad--
But, when he thought of _publishing_,
His face grew stern and sad.

[Illustration]




THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK,

An Agony in Eight Fits.


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 (in p. 144)

"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
helmsman[1] 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.