“我十分同意你所说的,”公爵夫人说,“这里面的教训是:‘你看着像什么就是什么’;或者,你可以把这话说得简单点:‘永远不要把自己想象成和别人心目中的你不一样,因为你曾经或可能曾经在人们心目中是另外一个样子。’”
`Oh, I know!' exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this last remark, `it's a vegetable. It doesn't look like one, but it is.'
`I quite agree with you,' said the Duchess; `and the moral of that is--"Be what you would seem to be"--or if you'd like it put more simply--"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."'
`I think I should understand that better,' Alice said very politely, `if I had it written down: but I can't quite follow it as you say it.'
`That's nothing to what I could say if I chose,' the Duchess replied, in a pleased tone.
`Pray don't trouble yourself to say it any longer than that,' said Alice.
`Oh, don't talk about trouble!' said the Duchess. `I make you a present of everything I've said as yet.'
`A cheap sort of present!' thought Alice. `I'm glad they don't give birthday presents like that!' But she did not venture to say it out loud.
`Thinking again?' the Duchess asked, with another dig of her sharp little chin.
`I've a right to think,' said Alice sharply, for she was beginning to feel a little worried.