The crew was complete: it included a Boots —
A maker of Bonnets and Hoods —
A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes —
And a Broker, to value their goods.
From right to left (semitic justification has been applied for at the appropriate government agencies):
The Boots, AKA Charles Darwin
The Bonnet, AKA Friedrich Nietzsche
The Barrister, AKA Martin Heidegger
The Broker, AKA Eric Satie
The Bellman, AKA The White Knight AKA Sir John Tenniel
The observant reader (I use the singular because so far that is the sum total of my reader) may detect a pattern here. Stella Snead's absence has been noted by the sole reader, to whom I had to soulfully admit that Snead did not meet my rigorous criteria for inclusion into the hunting party of the Snark (all members must have been alive during Carroll's lifetime). The sole reader is not only acutely observant, remarkably well-read and well-seeing, but even better, quite good looking.
If memory serves, Satie enjoyed creating miniscule models of houses shaped out of lead, which he kept in a cabinet in his home. He would periodically advertise these houses in the local newspaper — making no mention of their actual size — and would take great delight in ushering the prospective home-purchaser into his parlor, and there solemnly presenting him with the unexpected lilliputian house. One can imagine Nietzsche's reaction to this — the Gallic humor! the German silence!
Satie's aptly-named piano piece, Vexations, is an ideal soundtrack for la vie snarque, and so here are several recent performances of it, really worth a listen.
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