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53 



gardeners at it, busily painting them red. Alice thought 

 this a very ciirious thing, and she went nearer to watch 

 them, and just as she came up to them, she heard one of 

 them say, "Look out now. Five! Don't go splashing 

 paint over me like that!" . . . "Would you tell me 

 please," said Alice, a little timidly, " why you are painting 

 those roses? " Five and Seven said nothing but looked at 

 Two. Two began in a low voice, "Why, the fact is, you 

 see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red rose-tree and 

 we put in a white one by mistake, and if the Queen was to 

 find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. 

 So, you see. Miss, we're doing our best, afore she comes. " 



So it seems that in Wonderland, when they made a mis- 

 take all that they had to do was to wash it out or paint it 

 over. Nothing, it would seem, in that fair country of dreams 

 was indelible. How very different it is in life, where we can 

 never expect figs of thistles or as the old Hindu fable quaintly 

 put it many hundreds of years before Christ, "He that plants 

 j^ij',^ a thorn bush must never expect to gather roses." Such a 

 land of poesy was that India of old, which they even called 

 >v "Jambudvipa, the Land of the Rose-apple Tree." 

 if she is Beauty and Love, so is she War and Strife. 

 Omar Khayyam says: 



" I sometimes think that never blows so red 

 The Rose, as where some buried Caesar bled. 



And, true to her reputation for spice and variety, when 

 Mistress Rose cries "War," beware of her. She plays no 

 fair game of war, nor shims she to fight on both sides at once, 



-:^ry^ 



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