The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hunting of the Snark, by Lewis Carroll

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Title: The Hunting of the Snark
An Agony in Eight Fits

Author: Lewis Carroll

Posting Date: June 25, 2008 [EBook #13]
Release Date: March 8, 1992

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK ***

THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK

Lewis Carroll

THE MILLENNIUM FULCRUM EDITION 1.2

THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK
an Agony in Eight Fits
by
Lewis Carroll

PREFACE

If--and the thing is wildly possible--the charge of writing nonsense
were ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive
poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line (in p.4)

"Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes."

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal
indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of
such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral purpose
of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so cautiously
inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural History--I will
take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened.

The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances, used
to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished,
and it more than once happened, when the time came for replacing it,
that no one on board could remember which end of the ship it belonged
to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to appeal to the Bellman
about it--he would only refer to his Naval Code, and read out in
pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which none of them had ever been
able to understand--so it generally ended in its being fastened on,
anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman used to stand by with tears in
his eyes; he knew it was all wrong, but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, "No
one shall speak to the Man at the Helm," had been completed by the
Bellman himself with the words "and the Man at the Helm shall