“Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” (The King… “Alice in Wonderland”)
Hello, my friends!
A beautiful day here on the central coast of California…hoping all of my friends are doing well where the weather isn’t being quite so kind!
Alice seems to be everywhere these days, doesn’t she? Since I was a little girl, I’ve loved this beautiful fantasy…both ridiculous and profound…and I’ve wondered…how many of us have actually read the novel?
I’d revisited the book earlier this last year with my college girl, and as we read the first couple of chapters aloud to each other, we were so struck with the wonderful way the words were put together—so wittily and cleverly done. We found ourselves laughing out loud and having so much fun with it!
As most of us know, Alice’s adventures were inspired by a real girl, Alice Liddell…
Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), a friend of the family’s, made up the stories to entertain the young Alice and her two sisters. Alice asked him to write them down for her, which he eventually did…resulting in the book as we know it.
Mr. Dodgson was also a photographer, and took all of the photos of young Alice that I’ve included here.
I thought it would be fun to share a couple of my favorite parts from the beginning of the book with you…
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“So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
“There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, `Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural);
“…but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.”
And this very well-known part, of course…
“It was all very well to say `Drink me,' but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. `No, I'll look first,' she said, `and see whether it's marked "poison" or not'; for she had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them:
“…such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked `poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.”
“I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!”
A new card made last yesterday…
…using one of the wonderful vintage Alice images from Crafty Secrets’ “Wonderland Tea” Creative Scraps…
I added a few of the beautiful stamps from Crafty Secrets’ “Tea with Alice” stamp set…
…the frame and “TEA”…
…as well as a small rose stamped over and over again to frame the image…
A lovely, fat bow made of crinkled vintage seam binding, topped off with an old mother-of-pearl button and a few paper roses…
And a little bit of serendipity for me…while doing a last minute Costco run last night, I found this sitting on a stack of books…
“Alice I Have Been” by Melanie Benjamin
…it seemed to be the only copy they had…so I figured I HAD to buy it…it was there just for me! Can’t wait to start reading!
To close up today, I thought I’d leave you with a little advice from “Alice in Wonderland”…
“There is no use trying,” said Alice; “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Believe YOU can do the impossible today! I’m going to go and work on that before breakfast…..
See you soon with something new.
Julie
All Alice Liddell and vintage book images found online…all else are Crafty Secrets, as watermarked.
