At one point in Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll has Alice complaining incredulously to the Queen about the fact that they seemed to be getting nowhere though the two had been running side by side for quite some time. Befuddled by the turn of events, Alice volunteers that if they had been running that fast in her country “You'd generally get to somewhere else”. The Queen is heard to retort, somewhat indignantly, that in her realm one must run that fast just to stay in the same spot.