Further nonsense verse and prose

Chapter 8: LIMERICK[18]

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About This Book

A varied collection of short pieces that mixes nonsense verse, limericks, parodies, acrostics, playful correspondence, and brief comic prose. Poems range from brisk, absurd ditties to more measured, mildly melancholic lyrics, while prose items include mock-serious essays on manners, whimsical imaginings, and light mathematical or logical pastiches. The pieces rely on inventive wordplay, paradox, and satire of social convention, shifting between ear-catching rhythms and conversational wit. Arranged as a miscellany, the work emphasizes formal experimentation and a childlike playfulness tempered by occasional gentle reflection.

LIMERICK[18]

There was a young lady of station,

“I love man” was her sole exclamation;

But when men cried, “You flatter,”

She replied, “Oh! no matter,

Isle of Man is the true explanation.”

[18] The editor has received this Limerick from Miss Vera Beringer; it is probably the only one Lewis Carroll ever perpetrated. In common with the rest of the English theatre-going public, he was charmed with Miss Beringer’s acting as “Little Lord Fauntleroy” in the original London presentation of that play in 1890, and the little girl, as she then was, became one of his many child friends. He sent her the Limerick when she was spending a holiday in Manxland.