A Tangled Tale

R.

White Sugar.




 C. R.


Delta.


Magpie.


Simple Susan.






Dinah Mite.


 M. F. C.



I have received more than one remonstrance on my assertion, in the Chelsea Pensioners’ problem, that it was illogical to assume, from the datum “70  p. c. have lost an eye,” that 30  p. c. have not. Algernon Bray states, as a parallel case, “suppose Tommy’s father gives him 4 apples, and he eats one of them, how many has he left?” and says “I think we are justified in answering, 3.” I think so too. There is no “must” here, and the data are evidently meant to fix the answer exactly: but, if the question were set me “how many must he have left?”, I should understand the data to be that his father gave him 4 at least, but may have given him more.
I take this opportunity of thanking those who have sent, along with their answers to the Tenth Knot, regrets that there are no more Knots to come, or petitions that I should recall my resolution to bring them to an end. I am most grateful for their kind words; but I think it wisest to end what, at best, was but a lame attempt. “The stretched metre of an antique song” is beyond my compass; and my puppets were neither distinctly in my life (like those I now address), nor yet (like Alice and the Mock Turtle) distinctly out of it. Yet let me at least fancy, as I lay down the pen, that I carry with me into my silent life, dear reader, a farewell smile from your unseen face, and a kindly farewell pressure from your unfelt hand! And so, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say “good night!” till it be morrow.

Endnotes


“Maskee,” in Pigeon-English, means “without.”  ↩


Note by the writer.⁠—For the above Essay I am indebted to a dear friend, now deceased.  ↩






Colophon

A Tangled Tale

was published between 1880 and 1885 by

 Lewis Carroll.
This ebook was produced for

 Standard Ebooks

by

 Robin Whittleton,

and is based on a transcription produced in 2009 by

Chris Curnow, Carla Foust, Lindy Walsh, and  The Online Distributed Proofreading Team

for

 Project Gutenberg

and on digital scans available at the

 Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from

The Tribuna of the Uffizi,

a painting completed in 1777 by

 Johan Zoffany.

The cover and title pages feature the

League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy

typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by

 The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on

June 24, 2020, 5:37  p.m.

You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at

 standardebooks.org/ebooks/lewis-carroll/a-tangled-tale.
The volunteer-driven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at  standardebooks.org.


Uncopyright

May you do good and not evil.

May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.

May you share freely, never taking more than you give.

Copyright pages exist to tell you can’t do something. Unlike them, this Uncopyright page exists to tell you, among other things, that the writing and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the  U.S. public domain. The  U.S. public domain represents our collective cultural heritage, and items in it are free for anyone in the  U.S. to do almost anything at all with, without having to get permission. Public domain items are free of copyright restrictions.
Copyright laws are different around the world. If you’re not located in the  U.S., check with your local laws before using this ebook.
Non-authorship activities performed on public domain items⁠—so-called “sweat of the brow” work⁠—don’t create a new copyright. That means nobody can claim a new copyright on a public domain item for, among other things, work like digitization, markup, or typography. Regardless, to dispel any possible doubt on the copyright status of this ebook, Standard Ebooks L3C, its contributors, and the contributors to this ebook release this ebook under the terms in the  CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, thus dedicating to the worldwide public domain all of the work they’ve done on this ebook, including but not limited to metadata, the titlepage, imprint, colophon, this Uncopyright, and any changes or enhancements to, or markup on, the original text and artwork. This dedication doesn’t change the copyright status of the underlying works, which, though believed to already be in the  U.S. public domain, may not yet be in the public domain of other countries. We make this dedication in the interest of enriching our global cultural heritage, to promote free and libre culture around the world, and to give back to the unrestricted culture that has given all of us so much.