Quote of the Day, 12/3/07

`I don't know what you mean by YOUR way,' said the Queen: `all the ways about here belong to ME--but why did you come out here at all?' she added in a kinder tone. `Curtsey while you're thinking what to say, it saves time.'

Alice wondered a little at this...

`I only wanted to see what the garden was like, your Majesty--'

`That's right,' said the Queen, patting her on the head, which Alice didn't like at all, `though, when you say "garden,"--I'VE seen gardens, compared with which this would be a wilderness.'

Alice didn't dare to argue the point, but went on: `--and I thought I'd try and find my way to the top of that hill--'

`When you say "hill,"' the Queen interrupted, `_I_ could show you hills, in comparison with which you'd call that a valley.'

`No, I shouldn't,' said Alice, surprised into contradicting her at last: `a hill CAN'T be a valley, you know. That would be nonsense--'

The Red Queen shook her head, `You may call it "nonsense" if you like,' she said, `but I'VE heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!'

...Just at this moment, somehow or other, they began to run.

Alice never could quite make out, in thinking it over afterwards, how it was that they began: all she remembers is, that they were running hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do to keep up with her: and still the Queen kept crying `Faster! Faster!' but Alice felt she COULD NOT go faster, though she had not breath left to say so.

The most curious part of the thing was, that the trees and the other things round them never changed their places at all: however fast they went, they never seemed to pass anything...

And they went so fast that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground, breathless and giddy.

Alice looked round her in great surprise. `Why, I do believe we've been under this tree the whole time! Everything's just as it was!'

`Of course it is,' said the Queen, `what would you have it?'

`Well, in OUR country,' said Alice, still panting a little, `you'd generally get to somewhere else--if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing.'

`A slow sort of country!' said the Queen. `Now, HERE, you see, it takes all the running YOU can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!'

--Through the Looking Glass