Letter To A 150-Year-Old Girl

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Alice

The chair you are
looking at may need
re-upholstering but 
you look great
for someone whose
150th birthday 
is next month.

Never in the history
of the English language
has a girl fallen 
soooo deeply into 
the consciousness
of any former 
or present 
child.

 

Your Wonderland Adventures
were born in England 
in 1865.

At that time, England's
former North American
colonies were busy 
exterminating one 
another.

If your creator's
day job had been 
at Harvard University–
instead of being 
a mathematician 
at Oxford University–
American History might have gone through the looking glass 
and our Civil War might have been much more civil and much less deadly.


Sincerely yours,
Mr. and Mrs. CarPeo


Postscripts:
We have eternal gratitude
to you and Lewis Carroll 
for helping to make 
Nonsense an eternal
Art Form.

The 1951 picture of you is 
an animation cel from here
and the 1865 book cover 
is from there.    ________________________________________________________________________________________________