Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bankBANGK, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peepedPEEPT into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversationskahn-ver-SAY-shuhnz in it, “and what is the useYOOS of a book,” thought Alice “without pictures or conversationskahn-ver-SAY-shuhnz?”

So she was considering in her own mind (as wellWEL as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisiesDAY-zeez, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran closeKLOHS by her.

There was nothing so very remarkable in that. Nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, “Oh dearDEER! Oh dearDEER! I shall be late!” (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this. But at the time it all seemed quite natural). But when the Rabbit actually took a watchWAHCH out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurriedHER-eed on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watchWAHCH to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

The rabbit-hole went straight on likeLYK a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep wellWEL.

Either the wellWEL was very deep. Or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and see what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything. Then she looked at the sides of the wellWEL, and noticed that they were filled with cupboardsKUB-erdz and bookBUUK-shelves. Here and there she sawSAW maps and pictures hung upon pegsPEGZ. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed. It was labelled “ORANGE MARMALADEMAR-muh-layd”. But to her great disappointmentdi-suh-POYNT-muhnt it was empty: she did not likeLYK to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of the cupboardsKUB-erdz as she fell past it.

“Well!” thought Alice to herself, “after such a fallFAWL as this, I shall think nothing of tumblingTUM-buh-ling down stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, evenEE-vin if I fell off the top of the houseHOWS!” (Which was very likely true.)

Down, down, down. Would the fallFAWL never come to an end? “I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?” she said aloud. “I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think—” (forFOR, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroomSKOOL-room, and though this was not a very good opportunity forFOR showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, stillSTIL it was good practice to say it over) “—yes, that’s about the rightRYT distance—but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?” (Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thoughtTHAWT they were nice grand words to say.)