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Lacing Pillow

Detail from an Illustration by Henry Holiday (cut by Joseph Swain) to Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, 1876.

 

273    The Boots and the Broker were sharpening a spade--

274        Each working the grindstone in turn:

275    But the Beaver went on making lace, and displayed

276        No interest in the concern:

 

277    Though the Barrister tried to appeal to its pride,

278        And vainly proceeded to cite

279    A number of cases, in which making laces

280        Had been proved an infringement of right.

 

Why should a peaceful activity like lace-making have "proved an infringement of right"? The Beaver's "lace-making" may have been used to symbolize dissection in context with C. L. Dodgson's (aka Lewis Carroll's) involvement in the vivisection debate.

 

 

• Eva Amsen, Alice's Adventures in Animal Experimentation, 2007-09-19, network.nature.com/people/eva/blog/2007/09/19/alices-adve....

• Lewis Carroll, Some Popular Fallacies About Vivisection, Fortnightly Review [London: 1865-1934] 23 (1875 Jun): 847-854; Online at Animal Rights History, 2003.

www.animalrightshistory.org/animal-rights-quotes/literatu...

• On the usage of lace-needles with microscopes see pg. 391 in Darwin, C. R. 1849, On the use of the microscope on board ship, in Owen, R., Zoology. In Herschel, J. F. W. ed., A manual of scientific enquiry; prepared for the use of Her Majesty's Navy, and adapted for travellers in general. London: John Murray, pp. 389-395.

darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=side&i...

• Jed Mayer: The vivisection of the Snark, 2009-06-22: Victorian Poetry (Amazon etext in HTML)

www.amazon.com/vivisection-Snark-fictional-animal-Report/...

• Rod Preece: Darwinism, Christianity, and the Great Vivisection Debate , Journal of the History of Ideas - Volume 64, Number 3, July 2003, pp. 399-419

www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3654233

• Letters on vivisection from/to Charles Darwin: www.darwinproject.ac.uk/advanced-search?as-corresp=&a...

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Uploaded on December 30, 2010
Taken on December 30, 2012