SYLVIE and BRUNO by LEWIS CARROLL
SYLVIE and BRUNO by LEWIS CARROLL
Is all our Life, then but a dream
Seen faintly in the goldern gleam
Athwart Time’s dark resistless stream?
Bowed to the earth with bitter woe
Or laughing at some raree-show
We flutter idly to and fro.
Man’s little Day in haste we spend,
And, from its merry noontide, send
No glance to meet the silent end.
CONTENTS
Preface [Moved to the end]
CHAPTER 1 Less Bread! More Taxes!
CHAPTER 2 L’amie Inconnue
CHAPTER 3 Birthday Presents
CHAPTER 4 A Cunning Conspiracy
CHAPTER 5 A Beggar’s Palace
CHAPTER 6 The Magic Locket
CHAPTER 7 The Barons Embassy
CHAPTER 8 A Ride on a Lion
CHAPTER 9 A Jester and a Bear
CHAPTER 10 The Other Professor
CHAPTER 11 Peter and Paul
CHAPTER 12 A Musical Gardener
CHAPTER 13 A Visit to Dogland
CHAPTER 14 Fairy-Sylvie
CHAPTER 15 Bruno’s Revenge
CHAPTER 16 A Changed Crocodile
CHAPTER 17 The Three Badgers
CHAPTER 18 Queer Street, number forty
CHAPTER 19 How to make a Phlizz
CHAPTER 20 Light come, light go
CHAPTER 21 Through the Ivory Door
CHAPTER 22 Crossing the Line
CHAPTER 23 An outlandish watch
CHAPTER 24 The Frogs’ Birthday-treat
CHAPTER 25 Looking Easward
Preface [Moved to the end]
SYLVIE AND BRUNO
CHAPTER 1.
LESS BREAD! MORE TAXES!
–and then all the people cheered again, and one man, who was more
excited than the rest, flung his hat high into the air, and shouted
(as well as I could make out) “Who roar for the Sub-Warden?” Everybody
roared, but whether it was for the Sub-Warden, or not, did not clearly
appear: some were shouting “Bread!” and some “Taxes!”, but no one
seemed to know what it was they really wanted.
All this I saw from the open window of the Warden’s breakfast-saloon,
looking across the shoulder of the Lord Chancellor, who had sprung to
his feet the moment the shouting began, almost as if he had been
expecting it, and had rushed to the window which commanded the best
view of the market-place.
“What can it all mean?” he kept repeating to himself, as, with his
hands clasped behind him, and his gown floating in the air, he paced
rapidly up and down the room. “I never heard such shouting before–
and at this time of the morning, too! And with such unanimity!
Doesn’t it strike you as very remarkable?”
I represented, modestly, that to my ears it appeared that they were
shouting for different things, but the Chancellor would not listen to
my suggestion for a moment. “They all shout the same words, I assure
you!” he said: then, leaning well out of the window, he whispered to a
man who was standing close underneath, “Keep’em together, ca’n’t you?
The Warden will be here directly. Give’em the signal for the march up!”
All this was evidently not meant for my ears, but I could scarcely help
hearing it, considering that my chin was almost on the Chancellor’s
shoulder.
The ‘march up’ was a very curious sight:
[Image…The march-up]
a straggling procession of men, marching two and two, began from the
other side of the market-place, and advanced in an irregular zig-zag
fashion towards the Palace, wildly tacking from side to side, like a
sailing vessel making way against an unfavourable wind so that the head
of the procession was often further from us at the end of one tack than
it had been at the end of the previous one.
Yet it was evident that all was being done under orders, for I noticed
that all eyes were fixed on the man who stood just under the window,
and to whom the Chancellor was continually whispering. This man held
his hat in one hand and a little green flag in the other: whenever he
waved the flag the procession advanced a little nearer, when he dipped
it they sidled a little farther off, and whenever he waved his hat they
all raised a hoarse cheer. “Hoo-roah!” they cried, carefully keeping
time with the hat as it bobbed up and down. “Hoo-roah! Noo! Consti!
Tooshun! Less! Bread! More! Taxes!”
“That’ll do, that’ll do!” the Chancellor whispered. “Let ’em rest a bit