Let thy scant
knowledge
find increase.
Lewis Carroll
THE THREE VOICES.
The First Voice.
[Illustration]
He trilled a carol fresh and free:
He laughed aloud for very glee:
There came a breeze from off the sea:
It passed athwart the glooming flat--
It fanned his forehead as he sat--
It lightly bore away his hat,
All to the feet of one who stood
Like maid enchanted in a wood,
Frowning as darkly as she could.
With huge umbrella, lank and brown,
Unerringly she pinned it down,
Right through the centre of the crown.
Then, with an aspect cold and grim,
Regardless of its battered rim,
She took it up and gave it him.
A while like one in dreams he stood,
Then faltered forth his gratitude
In words just short of being rude:
For it had lost its shape and shine,
And it had cost him four-and-nine,
And he was going out to dine.
[Illustration: "UNERRINGLY SHE PINNED IT DOWN. "]
"To dine! " she sneered in acid tone.
"To bend thy being to a bone
Clothed in a radiance not its own! "
The tear-drop trickled to his chin:
There was a meaning in her grin
That made him feel on fire within.
"Term it not 'radiance,'" said he:
"'Tis solid nutriment to me.
Dinner is Dinner: Tea is Tea. "
And she "Yea so? Yet wherefore cease?
Let thy scant knowledge find increase.
Say 'Men are Men, and Geese are Geese. '"
He moaned: he knew not what to say.
The thought "That I could get away! "
Strove with the thought "But I must stay. "
"To dine! " she shrieked in dragon-wrath.
"To swallow wines all foam and froth!
To simper at a table-cloth!
"Say, can thy noble spirit stoop
To join the gormandising troop
Who find a solace in the soup?
"Canst thou desire or pie or puff?
Thy well-bred manners were enough,
Without such gross material stuff. "
"Yet well-bred men," he faintly said,
"Are not unwilling to be fed:
Nor are they well without the bread. "
Her visage scorched him ere she spoke:
"There are," she said, "a kind of folk
Who have no horror of a joke.
"Such wretches live: they take their share
Of common earth and common air:
We come across them here and there:
"We grant them--there is no escape--
A sort of semi-human shape
Suggestive of the man-like Ape. "
"In all such theories," said he,
"One fixed exception there must be.
