Soap Bubbles
and the Forces which Mould Them

22 SOAP-BUBBLES, AND water, and I might put in more. I take away the paper but not a drop runs through. If I give the sieve a jolt then the water is driven to the other side, and in a moment it has all escaped. Perhaps this will remind you of one of the exploits of our old friend Simple Simon, “ Who went for water in a sieve, But soon it all ran through.” But you see if you only manage the sieve properly, this is not quite so absurd as people generally suppose. If now I shake the water off the sieve, I can, for the same reason, set it to float on water, because its weight is not sufficient to stretch the skin of the water through all the holes. The water, therefore, remains on the other side, and it floats even though, as I have already said, there are eleven thousand holes in the bottom, any one of which is large enough to allow an ordinary pin to pass through. This experiment also illustrates how difficult it is to write real and perfect nonsense. You may remember one of the stories in Lear’s book of Nonsense Songs.