LEWIS CARROLL: She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and was a little startled when she heard her voice close to her ear. »You're thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can't tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.« »Perhaps it hasn't one,« Alice ventured to remark. »Tut, tut, child!« said the duchess. »Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.«
And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice's side as she spoke. Alice did not much like her keeping so close to her: first, because the Duchess was very ugly; and secondly, because she was exactly the right height to rest her chin upon Alice's shoulder, and it was an uncomfortably sharp chin. However, she did not like to be rude, so she bore it as well as she could. »The game seems to be going on rather better now,« she said. »'Tis so,« said the Duchess: »and the moral of it is – oh, 'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round!«
»Somebody said,« whispered Alice, »that it's done by everybody minding their own business!« »Ah, well! It means much the same thing,« said the Duchess, digging her sharp little chin into Alice's shoulder as she added, »and the moral of that is – take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.«
Fra ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND, 1865