You must not hastily
To such conclusions jump.
To such conclusions jump.
Lewis Carroll
'
Then tell me how! Don't put me off
With your 'another time'! "
The old man smiled to see him,
To hear his sudden sally;
He liked the lad to speak his mind
Enthusiastically;
And thought "There's no hum-drum in him,
Nor any shilly-shally. "
"And would you be a poet
Before you've been to school?
Ah, well! I hardly thought you
So absolute a fool.
First learn to be spasmodic--
A very simple rule.
"For first you write a sentence,
And then you chop it small;
Then mix the bits, and sort them out
Just as they chance to fall:
The order of the phrases makes
No difference at all.
"Then, if you'd be impressive,
Remember what I say,
That abstract qualities begin
With capitals alway:
The True, the Good, the Beautiful--
Those are the things that pay!
"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.
Then tell me how! Don't put me off
With your 'another time'! "
The old man smiled to see him,
To hear his sudden sally;
He liked the lad to speak his mind
Enthusiastically;
And thought "There's no hum-drum in him,
Nor any shilly-shally. "
"And would you be a poet
Before you've been to school?
Ah, well! I hardly thought you
So absolute a fool.
First learn to be spasmodic--
A very simple rule.
"For first you write a sentence,
And then you chop it small;
Then mix the bits, and sort them out
Just as they chance to fall:
The order of the phrases makes
No difference at all.
"Then, if you'd be impressive,
Remember what I say,
That abstract qualities begin
With capitals alway:
The True, the Good, the Beautiful--
Those are the things that pay!
"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.
