This melody is next given to the clarinets, and then again to the strings as its brief development leads to the second part of the first movement, _The Garden of Live Flowers_. Here Alice finds herself surrounded by talkative flowers, who, to quote the tigerlily, will speak “when there’s anybody worth talking to.” The music reflects the brisk chatter of the garden folk: [Music: Allegro 3 Flutes] The second movement, _Jabberwocky_, is without doubt the masterpiece of the suite, for in it Taylor shows his skill as a tonal narrator, his humor, and his consummate mastery of orchestration. After a seven measure introduction, a solo clarinet establishes the “brillig” atmosphere with this motive: [Music] The actual encounter with the Jabberwock is depicted by means of a fugue, started by the basses “burbling,” which an English writer described as sounding like “Bach gone wrong.” [Music] The fight ends with a series of xylophone glissandos telling us how “through and through the vorpal blade went snickersnack!” Then the dying agonies of the Jabberwock, a bassoon cadenza: [Music] The hero comes “galumphing back” to this figure, played by the piano: [Music] while the clarinet simultaneously sounds again the original heroic theme. In the third movement, _Looking Glass Insects_, the composer again shows us his ability in orchestration, this time with more delicate touches. The several themes describe the bee-elephant, the rocking-horse-fly, the snap-dragon-fly, and the bread-and-butter-fly, but as the composer himself remarks, “there is no use trying to decide which insect any one of them stands for.” The fourth movement tells of _The White Knight_, the “toy Don Quixote, mild, chivalrous, ridiculous, and rather touching,” who fell off in front when the horse stopped, and backwards when it went on again. After a brief, galloping introduction, the first theme starts off bravely: [Music] but falls out of the saddle before very long: [Music] The first theme doubtless represents the Knight’s own conception of himself as something of a dare-devil, but three hard falls necessitate his giving way to the somewhat sentimental and pathetic second theme, in which a solo violoncello paints him as he really was: [Music] [Music: A page from the orchestra score “Through the Looking Glass” - “Looking Glass Insects”] The two themes, in various forms, alternate until the close, when Alice waves her handkerchief as the Knight rides off, for he thought it would encourage him if she did. American critics have been practically unanimous in their praise of the _Looking Glass_ Suite, but when it was first played in London (1925) at the Queen’s Hall Promenade Concerts, the English writers were by no means unqualified in their approval. A perusal of their comments almost gives one the impression that they resented an American’s attempt to depict such characteristically British humor.