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little startled when she heard her voice close to her ear.
`You're thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you
forget to talk. I can't tell you just now what the moral of that
is, but I shall remember it in a bit.'

`Perhaps it hasn't one,' Alice ventured to remark.

`Tut, tut, child!' said the Duchess. `Everything's got a
moral, if only you can find it.' And she squeezed herself up
closer to Alice's side as she spoke.

Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first,
because the Duchess was VERY ugly; and secondly, because she was
exactly the right height to rest her chin upon Alice's shoulder,
and it was an uncomfortably sharp chin. However, she did not
like to be rude, so she bore it as well as she could.

`The game's going on rather better now,' she said, by way of
keeping up the conversation a little.

`'Tis so,' said the Duchess: `and the moral of that is--"Oh,
'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round!"'

`Somebody said,' Alice whispered, `that it's done by everybody
minding their own business!'

`Ah, well! It means much the same thing,' said the Duchess,
digging her sharp little chin into Alice's shoulder as she added,
`and the moral of THAT is--"Take care of the sense, and the
sounds will take care of themselves."'

`How fond she is of finding morals in things!' Alice thought to
herself.

`I dare say you're wondering why I don't put my arm round your
waist,' the Duchess said after a pause: `the reason is, that I'm
doubtful about the temper of your flamingo. Shall I try the
experiment?'

`HE might bite,' Alice cautiously replied, not feeling at all
anxious to have the experiment tried.

`Very true,' said the Duchess: `flamingoes and mustard both
bite. And the moral of that is--"Birds of a feather flock
together."'

`Only mustard isn't a bird,' Alice remarked.

`Right, as usual,' said the Duchess: `what a clear way you
have of putting things!'

`It's a mineral, I THINK,' said Alice.

`Of course it is,' said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree
to everything that Alice said; `there's a large mustard-mine near
here. And the moral of that is--"The more there is of mine, the
less there is of yours."'

`Oh, I know!' exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this
last remark, `it's a vegetable. It doesn't look like one, but it
is.'

`I quite agree with you,' said the Duchess; `and the moral of
that is--"Be what you would seem to be"--or if you'd like it put
more simply--"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than
what it might appear to others that what you were or might have
been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared
to them to be otherwise."'

`I think I should understand that better,' Alice said very
politely, `if I had it written down: but I can't quite follow it

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