I've always loved Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the sequel, Through the Looking Glass. I think Lewis Carroll might have been one of the greatest imaginative genius of all times.
Many years ago, I decided to make a miniature scene of Alice in the garden of talking flowers. I thought that I would put some other characters in the scene--some who appeared in one of the two Alice stories, and some I made up on my own. The garden led me to create Humpty Dumpty on his wall.
In Through the Looking Glass Alice has a somewhat lengthy discussion with Humpty Dumpty. They spoke of several things, one of which was Birthdays and Unbirthdays. This led to a discussion of word definitions. Humpty begins by saying "There's glory for you!"
There's glory for you!'
`I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'
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There's arrogance for you!! In the scene, Humpty Dumpty sits in all his glory on his voice giving out his brilliant advice to all who make appointments to confer with him (for a fee!)
From there I had the idea of writing stories about personality types in exaggeration, some based on the characters in the Alice stories. I had fun with Humpty Dumpty.
In the land of Dzitzel, he is renamed Barton B. Humpty G. Bumper Begooo. Barton, like Humpty Dumpty, has an arrogant personality. In addition, Barton, though he thinks he knows everything, still gets everything wrong.
click to read the introduction to Barton
click to read Barton's story