|
Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll:
"We had the best of educations -- in fact, we went to school every day --" "I've been to a day-school, too," said Alice. You needn't be so proud as all that." With extras?" asked the Mock Turtle, a little anxiously. "Yes," said Alice; "we learned French and music." "And washing?" said the Mock Turtle. "Certainly not!" said Alice indignantly. "Ah! Then yours wasn't a really good school," said the Mock Turtle in a tone of great relief. "Now, at ours, they had, at the end of the bill, 'French, music, and washing--extra.'" "You couldn't have wanted it much," said Alice; "living at the bottom of the sea." "I couldn't afford to learn it," said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. "I only took the regular course." "What was that?" inquired Alice. "Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with," the Mock Turtle replied; "and then the different branches of Arithmetic -- Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision." "I never heard of 'Uglification," Alice ventured to say, "What is it?" "Never heard of UGLIFYING!" the Gryphon exclaimed. "You know what to beautify is, I suppose?" "Yes," said Alice doubtfully: "it means-to-make-anything-prettier." "Well, then," the Gryphon went on,"if you don't know what to uglify is, you ARE a simpleton." "And how many hours a day did you do lessons?" said Alice in a hurry to change the subject. "Ten hours the first day, nine the next, and so on." said the Mock Turtle. "that's the reason they're called lessons," the Gryphon remarked: "because they lessen from day to day"
BACK TO MARINE LIFE |