Quote 46
"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else – if you ran very fast for a long time as we've been doing."
"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" (Looking-Glass 2.71-72)
In this scene, we see a good example of Looking-Glass World not being the complete opposite of the real world. Because if running keeps you in the same place, wouldn't standing still help you get somewhere?
Quote 47
Alice was puzzled. "In our country," she remarked, "there's only one day at a time."
The Red Queen said "That's a poor way of doing things. Now here, we mostly have days and nights two or three at a time, and sometimes in the winter we take as many as five nights together – for warmth, you know."
"Are five nights warmer than one night, then?" Alice ventured to ask.
"Five times as warm, of course."
"But they should be five times as cold, by the same rule – "
"Just so!" cried the Red Queen. "Five times as warm, and five times as cold – just as I'm five times as rich as you are, and five times as clever!"
Alice sighed and gave it up. "It's exactly like a riddle with no answer!" she thought. (Looking-Glass 9.59-65)
Every time Alice thinks she's figured out an organizing pattern for Looking-Glass World, it seems to change in some way.
Quote 48
"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here." (Wonderland 6.53-56)
It's Alice's own streak of madness that makes it possible for her to get to Wonderland in the first place. Perhaps we as readers feel implicated, too – we wouldn't be able to follow her adventures if we didn't share her madness to some degree.