Chapter III

To Hang a Book . . .

“Well,” pondered Alice, “where should I go? I should love to explore the ruin, and then also there is that little house to visit.” Looking across the view, Alice could see the lake sparkling and shining in the spring sun, and as she watched a flight of swans gracefully landed, sending ripple over its surface. “Of course,” the girl said. “The lake shall be my first port of call, for it looks so beautiful today.”

    The hill was not as steep, nor the path as long, as Alice had at first thought. Indeed, it felt rather as though she almost floated along it, and it was not too many minutes before she was by the lake’s side. Alice sat down on the bank so that she could dangle her toes in the water (having first removed her stockings, of course; “for there is nothing better than damp stockings to give one chilblains,” she remarked). The water was crystal clear, and as she bathed her feet she was sure that she could see a number of small fish darting in and out of the reeds not an inch or so away.

    “I declare!” she said. “If that stickle-back is not wearing a hat!” And so it was, a most elegant top-hat which it tipped to her as it swam by. As the girl curtseyed in return (which she did not find easy, since she was sitting down, and her feet were submerged anyway), a kingfisher flew past and dropped a small envelope down to the fish.

    “I wonder what that was?” Alice mused, and she was soon to find out. The stickle-back pushed its head out of the water and asked the girl: “Would you be so kind, my dear, as to thank the kingfisher, the next time you see it, for its invitation to tea? And could you pass on my deepest apologies, since I shall be unable to oblige? So kind.” With that it dived back into the water. Alice was just about to start looking for the kingfisher, (“After all,” she thought, “it was awfully nice of it to invite the other around for a bite,”) when she heard a rustling and a ruckus coming from behind a whortleberry bush.

    Carefully and quietly, Alice walked to the bush and placed her ear close to it, although not so close that it should become snagged on a bramble, and listened. From the other side she could hear what could only be described as a rough-and-tumble, and with it a pair of indistinct voices: “No, it’s mine . . . give it to me . . . I wrote the words . . . I painted the pictures . . .” Alice waited until her curiosity was too much to bear, then ran around the bush to see what was going on.

Before her stood the strangest two people she had ever seen1. One was a slightly tubby boy with a large, flowing shirt (like those Alice had seen the Romantic Poets wearing in her school-books) and hardly any hair. He held a large pencil, attached to which was a pennant with ‘I WRITE THE WORDS’ written on it in a scrawl so bad that Alice found it almost impossible to read. The other, a girl wearing a smock covered with dabs of blue paint (she had also managed to get some of the paint in her long, red hair), carried an equally large sable to which was attached another pennant. This time the words were drawn in a hand that was exquisite, but for some reason the girl again had trouble reading them: ‘I PANTE THE PIKCHURS.’

    The pair appeared to be wrestling over a large book: one had hold of the front cover, and the other of the back, and both were tugging at it with such ferocity that Alice was afraid it would fly apart.

    “Stop, stop,” she cried, and at once the two strange fellows jumped apart, and threw the book behind them, and stood side by side to try to hide what they had been doing.

    “Stop what, I might enquire?” said the one who had been holding the pencil, “and since I am the Author, I am entitled to know, I feel!” And he bowed to Alice, as if this haughty reply were actually a formal introduction.

    “Yes, what?” the other asked. “As the Artist of this piece, I need such information to draw on.” (Which Alice thought was a very bad pun indeed).

    “Why,” Alice answered, “stop pulling that book so, of course.”

    “But it’s my book,” the Author said. “I wrote the words, just as it says on my pencil.”

    “I, however,” the Artist continued, “painted the pictures, and thus the book is mine.”

    “Perhaps it would have been better,” pondered Alice, “if you had both written and painted a book each.” However, the more she thought about it, the less like a good idea this sounded. “For, if the Author were to also be Artist, and the Artist also Author,” she thought to herself, “well, then, both should probably be Arthurs.

    “No, that cannot be correct,” she continued, “since I know a good many Arthurs who can neither paint nor write. The world will be a much simpler place all told, if authors and artists mind their manners, and keep to separate professions. If they all joined together, why, we would soon be overrun with Arthurs.

    “But, please,” she asked, turning back to the pair, “don’t pull at your book so. If you go on like that you shall tear it in two.”

    “And a good thing that would be!” the Author replied. “When a book tells a tale as sad as that, to tear it in two is almost too good for it.”

    “A very good thing,” the Artist agreed. “It is so sad, that to tear it in one is more than enough!”

    “I declare,” Alice thought, “they seem to both say exactly the same as each other, but each tries to use the longest and most complex way of saying it!” However, out loud the girl asked: “What is the book about? Why is its story so sad?” And at this, the Author sad down sharply, and started to sob in little gasps.

    “If you have any right to know,” the Artist replied, “our book tells the story of Our Book.”

    “Your book tells the story of your book?” Alice enquired. “Well, I am sure that is, in some sense, true, but what is the story about?”

    “It is about Our Book,” the Author said, looking up, as if that explained everything. “It tells the story of how we, that is, the Artist and I began to write Our Book.”

    “And why,” the Artist went on, as if the Author had not concluded at all, “we did not manage to finish it.”

    “It tells it in verse,” the Author said, and he quickly flicked the book open for Alice to see. Only the first few pages of the book seemed to have been written, for all those after a poem on the thirty-eighth page were entirely blank.

    “Would you like to hear it?” the Artist went on to enquire, and before Alice could answer she found herself unceremoniously pushed down onto a grassy knoll.

    “I shall skip the first few pages,” the Author said, “since you have probably read those by now.” Alice was not entirely sure why this should be the case, but she was rather relieved to see him moving straight to the poem.

    As Alice sat, her hands in her lap, listening attentively, the Author prepared himself for the reading. First of all he waved his hands in the air, the great sleeves of his shirt billowing around him so that for a moment he was almost lost from sight. Next he coughed, then coughed again, and then once more for good measure. And after that he struck a dramatic pose, holding the book high above his head in his right hand, while his left was thrown casually behind. Then he coughed again, bowed and sat down.

    The Artist took the book from him and, all the while painting two lovely oval water-colours of the scene all three were enacting, started to read the poem2:

The Author and the Artist
Agreed to build a book,
To bind it up in walnut wood3,
To hang it from a hook,
To wait three months and three days more4,
And then to take a look.

Hanging it, declared the two,
Would make an ideal plan.
For then they could present their book
To friends across the land.
“Why, that,” the Author cried, “would be
Consummately grand!”

“We really must,” expounded he,
“Ensure the book is hung
For eighty days and ten and two4,
Until the job is done.”
“Yes, yes,” agreed the Artist. “That
Will just prolong the fun!”

“And we shall tell a sparkling tale,”
Said she, “of Sprig and Spruce.
Of Pig and Pen and Hat and Hen,
Of Whortleberry Juice.”
“And sing,” the Author sang, “a song
(If that’s of any use).”

“Under each word,” the Author cried,
“We shall plant a picture
To illustrate the meaning, clear,
Of each and every fixture.
And shall we stop at that? Why, no!
We’ll suffer no such stricture!”

“Perhaps,” (continued he), “we’ll write
An edificial story.
Perhaps include a Christmas Box,
A Tenter Hook or Lory!”
“Hush now!” the Artist cried, in fear
He’d burst in such vainglory.

“In three months’ time
(and thence three days)”
She added, “we shall hold
A book that’s fine and soaked in wine
And ready to be sold
To anyone who wants it.” “Yes!”
Agreed the Author, bold.

So, having set their minds to it,
That industrious pair
Took paper, glue and scissors (new)
And sealing wax and glair,
And set about the task; in merely
Days they were prepared!

Yet, did the Artist choose a brush
With which to set the scene?
And did the Author grasp a quill,
And settle to his theme?
Or did they, rather, sit around
Just dreaming little dreams? Well-

Under the shining sun they worked,
Beneath the harvest moon.
Behind the stairs and under chairs
They polished their picayune.
And always careful, they, for fear
They’d finish far too soon.

Some would watch them from afar
And gasp at their motif.
Others would step closer in,
To give them port and beef
And ask them how they’d toiled, and if
It did not cause them grief?

Neither’d answer “yea” or “nay”
Nor “Indigo,” nor “Violet.”
But each would drop a single tear
(As if this were inviolate),
And sob that they had best get on;
They’d worked but a short while yet.

Oh! To hear such wails and woe!
The Author, writing long,
Complained throughout of aching limbs
And pencils, none too strong.
The Artist then would comfort him
By singing moral songs.

How those verses strengthened them
In their aspirations
To send the book around the world,
To Eskimos, and Haitians5;
For global were the Author’s words,
And Artist’s illustrations-but

Oh! To see such pains and paint!
The Artist, in her toil,
Would, week by week, with scrupulous care,
Work wonders with the oil-
Which then the Author, in his haste,
Invariably would spoil.

Eventually three months had gone.
The Author told the other:
“I’m sure that we are well on course,
Or I’m my sister’s brother.”
And so he was; with three days left,
They’d only done the cover!

Oh! To find such wasted time!
Would they complete their task?
Would they, with only days to go,
And months already past,
Write their tome of wonder? But
There was no need to ask.

“Kismet! Kismat!” the Artist cried.
“We cannot hang our book!”
“There is no need for walnut now,”
The Author added. “Look!”
Alas, the jacket bore these words:
‘This Way Up. Use No Hook.’

“I still don’t see quite why you couldn’t write your book,” said Alice.

    The Author and the Artist looked at her in horror. “Still write our book?” exclaimed the Author. “When it hadn’t been properly hung? Ugh!”6

    “Quite so, quite so,” said the Artist. “If something has not been hung, it doesn’t make for a good game at all!”

    “No indeed, no indeed,” continued the Author. “Something that has not been hung - why, it would be simply foul!”

    “It should make me quail,” said the Artist, shivering as if to press the point.

    “It would make me grouse,” said the Author, frowning in such a fearsome way that Alice felt sure he would explode. “Oh, I do wish they would stop sniping so,” she thought to herself - but she said nothing out loud, for fear of only adding to the confusion.

    Alice had to admit it, she had not understood one word of the poem. “Although,” she said, “it does seem that they are still writing their book, or at least, another like it.” And so they were, for having finished their tale the Author and the Artist had immediately sat down to work again. The Artist was quickly drawing another of her many illustrations of the lake, while the Author was scribbling away for all his worth on the previous page.

    By standing on tiptoes to peer over the Author’s shoulder, Alice found that she could at last see the pages the two had been working on. The Author was finishing his description of the picture that the Artist had just drawn (and which is reproduced for you to see if you click here). Just as Alice had first thought, it was a picture of the still waters of the beautiful lake beside them. Beneath the surface of the water, she could just discern the shapes of carp, and a few yards behind the Artist had drawn a swan, with seven cygnets following it. But Alice’s eyes were constantly drawn back to the centre-piece of the work, a marvellous, delicate impression of a lily. It was so precisely drawn that its petals appeared almost to glow with an inner light, and it seemed to the girl that the images of all the other flowers and creatures around bowed towards the lily as if in homage. Alice thought that she had never seen such a radiant work, a picture holding such peace, and strength; it’s beauty was so complete that the Author’s description could never be adequate to describe it. The Artist’s talents, magnificent anyway, were never so good as in this, her magnum opus.

    As Alice stared at the beautiful image the Artist leant over and pulled the book from the Author’s hands. She began to read the description of her picture, saying all the while such things as “Tsk, tsk,” and “This will never do,” and “Such blind faith in my work!”

    “It’s no good,” she said to Alice at last, “he’s done it again. He’s Over-Gilda’d the Lily. My design will never be able to live up to such praise!” So saying, she drew a large eraser from her back pocket and, while the girl gasped in horror, swiftly blanked the beautiful piece from the page. She then took the pencil from the Author, who appeared not to notice, and wrote in the picture’s place:

This Page Left Intentionally Blank7

(“Although it isn’t really blank at all,” she confided to Alice.)

    Having removed the picture, the Artist handed the book back to the Author, who hurriedly flipped the pages until he came to the one on which he had been working. He added a single, large, full-stop to the final sentence, then closed the book shut with a snap.

    “It’s no good, you know,” he said to Alice, dispiritedly. “We still don’t have a book we can give our friends.”

    “It’s true, it’s true,” said the Artist, sitting down beside the Author, and assuming the same glum expression. “All we have is the cover, and (as I think we have already adequately explained) we can go no further with the book because of it.”

    “That’s right, that’s right,” added the Author. “All we have left is this book” - and here he waved the book he held in Alice’s direction - “to explain why we cannot give them anything. Though it won’t be much of a surprise. I’m sure most of them know about it already.”

    “But, surely,” Alice pondered, “you will give them that book instead, in order to provide such an explanation. So, you see, you shall be giving them a book, after all.”

    “Indeed, indeed,” said the Artist. “But, d’you see, if we give them this book, then we shall be giving them a book, so there will be no need to give them this book to explain the reason for not giving them a book. The situation could not be more clear.”

    “It’s at this point,” the Author interjected, “that my head begins to ache a little.”

    “And no wonder!” thought Alice. “Whose head would not ache, if it were as empty as that pair’s?” But she decided it would be rude to say such a thing out loud, so instead she tried to change the subject.

    “Would you happen to know . . .” she began; but she had hardly got the words form her mouth when the Author interrupted.

    “You were about to ask,” he said, flipping the book open again and writing a few lines, “if we had by any chance seen the White Rabbit’s watch.”

    “To which the answer would have to be ‘yes,”’ said the Artist. “I have drawn it on many occasions. However, if you were to ask if we know of its whereabouts at the present moment . . .”

    “. . . we should answer ‘no,’” the Author concluded.

    “Oh dear,” said Alice (who had decided it would be easier on all concerned to simply ignore the fact that they had known what she was about to say). “I do so want to find it soon. I have to be back in my seat before the curtain rises.”

    “If I were you,” said the Artist, (“And she really would quite like to be, you know,” the Author interrupted - most rudely in Alice’s opinion), “I should start my search over there.” And she pointed at the very whortleberry bush behind which Alice had first discovered them. “Just go round it once to the left,” she continued, “then once to the right. You’ll soon be there. Good day!” And with that both she and the Author turned their backs on the girl, just as if a royal audience had been concluded.

    Alice decided to follow the Artist’s advice immediately. “After all,” she thought, “there seems to be very little point staying a moment longer with these strange fellows.” She said her goodbyes and waved to the pair - who ignored her - and then started to run to the left of the whortleberry bush. It was much larger than she had originally imagined, and she soon came to believe that it would take a hundred years to run all the way around. However, just as she was about to stop for a rest she came upon a familiar sight.

    “Oh dear!” she exclaimed, for there in front of her were the Artist and the Author once more, still fighting over their additions to the book. (The Artist was trying to bury it in a small pit, while the Author was saying: “I suppose we could give them this book instead of the original, but I can’t help feeling it’s been done . . .8”)

    “Of course,” Alice said, “I still have to run to the right,” and she immediately started in the opposite direction. On this occasion it took her hardly any time at all to run around the bush, and within seconds she was standing on a little path which led to a yellow brick building, all covered with towers and minarets and windows. “Why,” the girl cried, “it’s that queer little house.” And she ran straight up to it, to knock on the door.

Chapter II - Mackintosh and Mystery Chapter II - Mackintosh and Mystery | Chapter IV - The Whether-House Chapter IV - The Whether-House