And To Think That it Happened On Liddell Lane.

...And it happened so innocently, too.

I was emailing a customer, and in my winsome 'Varky way, I wished to include lines from "The Walrus and the Carpenter:

"The time has come," the Walrus said, 

"To talk of many things:

Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--

Of cabbages--and kings--

And why the sea is boiling hot--

And whether pigs have wings."

Being unhappy with keyboarding more than I must, I went online and found the poem, ctrl C'd the passage, then ctrl V'd the thing in place. Hey, presto! I are literate! 

What began in innocency moved into dreadfulness, for I Followed a Link. Then another, and another, from one fan site, to a scholarly site, to another until: the man who has entertained generations of children (and adults) with his tales of Alice, either down a rabbit hole, or through a  looking-glass, this Victorian author, poet and mathematician, this paragon of the fantastic, this acme of excellence, this man of his age became besmeared with accusations vile. His life and career, through the alchemy of Presentist thought, were brought to nought with the smarmy scholarship of modern biographers who knew neither the man nor his times. Pedophilia, not merely whispered, but shouted, and writ large.

You know, I never considered such a thing, even reading about Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), and his friendship with the Liddell family and children when I grew up. I don't think that way (unless forced).  I grew up with adult friends and kin, none  of whom showed any inclination to fiddle about, fiddle about. 

I am angry, angry because apparently the current high-water mark of biographical scholarship requires one to suppose, to extrapolate, perhaps even to project. (This has been my suspicion of Freud, that he attempted to exonerate his own loathsomeness by painting everyone else with it, but hey, that's my Inner Biographer talking.)

So now, one cannot study the man without facing the bootless accusation as well. I rage, I blog! 

What horror might we learn about Dr. Seuss today?

Oh. This.