Cross Purposes and The Shadows. George MacDonald

      And that is how my wisdom passes.

      Howlowlwhoolhoolwoolool.

      "I can see the wind. Now who can do that?

      I see the dreams that he has in his hat;

      I see him snorting them out as he goes—

      Out at his stupid old trumpet-nose.

      Ten thousand things that you couldn't think

      I write them down with pen and ink.

      Howlowlwhooloolwhitit that's wit.

      "You may call it learning—'tis mother-wit.

      No one else sees the lady-moon sit

      On the sea, her nest, all night, but the owl,

      Hatching the boats and the long-legged fowl.

      When the oysters gape to sing by rote,

      She crams a pearl down each stupid throat.

      Howlowlwhitit that's wit, there's a fowl!"

      And so singing, he threw the book in Richard's face, spread out his great, silent, soft wings, and sped away into the depths of the tree. When the book struck Richard, he found that it was only a lump of wet moss.

      While talking to the owl he had spied a hollow behind one of the branches. Judging this to be the way the owl meant, he went to see, and found a rude, ill-defined staircase going down into the very heart of the trunk. But so large was the tree that this could not have hurt it in the least. Down this stair, then, Richard scrambled as best he could, followed by Alice—not of her own will, she gave him clearly to understand, but because she could do no better. Down, down they went, slipping and falling sometimes, but never very far, because the stair went round and round. It caught Richard when he slipped, and he caught Alice when she did. They had begun to fear that there was no end to the stair, it went round and round so steadily, when, creeping through a crack, they found themselves in a great hall, supported by thousands of pillars of gray stone. Where the little light came from they could not tell. This hall they began to cross in a straight line, hoping to reach one side, and intending to walk along it till they came to some opening. They kept straight by going from pillar to pillar, as they had done before by the trees. Any honest plan will do in Fairyland, if you only stick to it. And no plan will do if you do not stick to it.