4. Of all the strange things that
Alice saw in her journey Through The Looking‑Glass, this was the
one that she always remembered most clearly. Years afterward she
could bring the whole scene back again, as if it had been yesterday—the
mild blue eyes and kindly smile of the Knight—the setting sun gleaming
through his hair, and shining on his armour in a blaze of light
that quite dazzled her—the horse quietly moving about, with the
reins hanging loose on his neck, cropping the grass at her feet—and
the black shadows of the forest behind—all this she took in like a
picture, as, watching the strange pair, and listening, in a half‑dream,
to the melancholy music of the song.
This sentence appears in Chapter 8
of Through the Looking-Glass. Not only is it the
longest sentence in either book, but it is also the most photographically
vivid image in either book and brings to mind Carroll’s hobby as
a photographer. The image is poignant given the White Knight’s role
in the story. The White Knight is an aberration among the characters,
since he is the only character who treats Alice with true kindness
and compassion. He does not seem to be part of Alice’s dream at
all, since the characters in her dream behave disagreeably and induce
profound feelings of loneliness and isolation in Alice. The White
Knight seems more real than the absurd personages she has met before,
which is one reason why Alice remembers his image so clearly after
many years have passed. The photographic quality of the passage
indicates that Carroll has inserted himself and his desires into
the text, since Carroll created the White Knight as his literary
counterpart. Carroll crosses into the pages of the book to burn
his image into Alice’s mind as the most authentic and memorable
character, an effect he wished to have on the mind of the real‑life
Alice Liddell.
