|
THE
LIFE AND LETTERS
OF
LEWIS CARROLL
(REV. C. L. DODGSON)
BY
STUART DODGSON COLLINGWOOD
B.A. CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD
1898
TO THE
CHILD FRIENDS
OF
LEWIS CARROLL
AND TO ALL WHO LOVE HIS WRITINGS
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
PREFACE
It is with no undue confidence that I have accepted the
invitation of the brothers and sisters of Lewis Carroll to write
this Memoir. I am well aware that the path of the biographer is
beset with pitfalls, and that, for him, _suppressio veri_ is
almost necessarily _suggestio falsi_--the least omission may
distort the whole picture.
To write the life of Lewis Carroll as it should be written
would tax the powers of a man of far greater experience and
insight than I have any pretension to possess, and even he would
probably fail to represent adequately such a complex personality.
At least I have done my best to justify their choice, and if in
any way I have wronged my uncle's memory, unintentionally, I
trust that my readers will pardon me.
My task has been a delightful one. Intimately as I thought I
knew Mr. Dodgson during his life, I seem since his death to have
become still better acquainted with him. If this Memoir helps
others of his admirers to a fuller knowledge of a man whom to
know was to love, I shall not have written in vain.
I take this opportunity of thanking those who have so kindly
assisted me in my work, and first I must mention my old
schoolmaster, the Rev. Watson Hagger, M.A., to whom my readers
are indebted for the portions of this book dealing with Mr.
Dodgson's mathematical works. I am greatly indebted to Mr.
Dodgson's relatives, and to all those kind friends of his and
others who have aided me, in so many ways, in my difficult task.
In particular, I may mention the names of H.R.H. the Duchess of
Albany; Miss Dora Abdy; Mrs. Egerton Allen; Rev. F. H. Atkinson;
Sir G. Baden-Powell, M.P.; Mr. A. Ball; Rev. T. Vere Bayne; Mrs.
Bennie; Miss Blakemore; the Misses Bowman; Mrs. Boyes; Mrs.
Bremer; Mrs. Brine; Miss Mary Brown; Mrs. Calverley; Miss
Gertrude Chataway; Mrs. Chester; Mr. J. C. Cropper; Mr. Robert
Davies; Miss Decima Dodgson; the Misses Dymes; Mrs. Eschwege;
Mrs. Fuller; Mr. Harry Furniss; Rev. C. A. Goodhart; Mrs.
Hargreaves; Miss Rose Harrison; Mr. Henry Holiday; Rev. H.
Hopley; Miss Florence Jackson; Rev. A. Kingston; Mrs. Kitchin;
Mrs. Freiligrath Kroeker; Mr. F. Madan; Mrs. Maitland; Miss M. E.
Manners; Miss Adelaide Paine; Mrs. Porter; Miss Edith Rix; Rev.
C. J. Robinson, D.D.; Mr. S. Rogers; Mrs. Round; Miss Isabel
Standen; Mr. L. Sergeant; Miss Gaynor Simpson; Mrs. Southwall;
Sir John Tenniel; Miss E. Gertrude Thomson; Mrs. Woodhouse; and
Mrs. Wyper.
For their help in the work of compiling the Bibliographical
chapter and some other parts of the book, my thanks are due to
Mr. E. Baxter, Oxford; the Controller of the University Press,
Oxford; Mr. A. J. Lawrence, Rugby; Messrs. Macmillan and Co.,
London; Mr. James Parker, Oxford; and Messrs. Ward, Lock and Co.,
London.
In the extracts which I have given from Mr. Dodgson's Journal
and Correspondence it will be noticed that Italics have been
somewhat freely employed to represent the words which he
underlined. The use of Italics was so marked a feature of his
literary style, as any one who has read his books must have
observed, that without their aid the rhetorical effect, which he
always strove to produce, would have been seriously marred.
S. DODGSON COLLINGWOOD
GUILDFORD, _September_, 1898.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
CHAPTER I
(1832-1850)
Lewis Carroll's forebears--The Bishop of Elphin--Murder of
Captain Dodgson--Daresbury--Living in
"Wonderland"--Croft--Boyish amusements--His first
school--Latin verses--A good report--He goes to Rugby--_The
Rectory Umbrella_--"A Lay of Sorrow"
CHAPTER II
(1850-1860)
Matriculation at Christ Church--Death of Mrs. Dodgson--The
Great Exhibition--University and College Honours--A
wonderful year--A theatrical
treat--_Misch-Masch_--_The Train_--_College
Rhymes_--His _nom de plume_--"Dotheboys
Hall"--Alfred Tennyson--Ordination--Sermons--A visit to
Farringford--"Where does the day begin?"--The Queen visits
Oxford
CHAPTER III
(1861-1867)
Jowett--Index to "In Memoriam"--The Tennysons--The beginning
of "Alice"--Tenniel--Artistic friends--"Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland"--"Bruno's Revenge"--Tour with Dr.
Liddon--Cologne--Berlin architecture--The "Majesty of
Justice"--Peterhof--Moscow--A Russian wedding--Nijni--The
Troitska Monastery--"Hieroglyphic" writing--Giessen
CHAPTER IV
(1868-1876)
Death of Archdeacon Dodgson--Lewis Carroll's rooms at Christ
Church--"Phantasmagoria"--Translations of "Alice"--"Through
the Looking-Glass"--"Jabberwocky" in Latin--C.S.
Calverley--"Notes by an Oxford
Chiel"--Hatfield--Vivisection--"The Hunting of the Snark"
CHAPTER V
(1877-1883)
Dramatic tastes--Miss Ellen Terry--"Natural Science at
Oxford"--Mr. Dodgson as an artist--Miss E.G. Thomson--The
drawing of children--A curious dream--"The Deserted
Parks"--"Syzygies"--Circus children--Row-loving
undergraduates--A letter to _The Observer_--Resignation
of the Lectureship--He is elected Curator of the Common
Room--Dream-music.
CHAPTER VI
(1883-1887)
"The Profits of Authorship"--"Rhyme? and Reason?"--The
Common Room Cat--Visit to Jersey--Purity of
elections--Parliamentary Representation--Various literary
projects--Letters to Miss E. Rix--Being happy--"A Tangled
Tale"--Religious arguments--The "Alice" Operetta--"Alice's
Adventures Underground"--"The Game of Logic"--Mr. Harry
Furniss.
CHAPTER VII
(1888-1891)
A systematic life--"Memoria Technica"--Mr. Dodgson's
shyness--"A Lesson in Latin"--The "Wonderland"
Stamp-Case--"Wise Words about Letter-Writing"--Princess
Alice--"Sylvie and Bruno"--"The night cometh"--"The Nursery
'Alice'"--Coventry Patmore--Telepathy--Resignation of Dr.
Liddell--A letter about Logic.
CHAPTER VIII
(1892-1896)
Mr. Dodgson resigns the Curatorship--Bazaars--He lectures to
children--A mechanical "Humpty Dumpty"--A logical
controversy--Albert Chevalier--"Sylvie and Bruno
Concluded"--"Pillow Problems"--Mr. Dodgson's
generosity--College services--Religious difficulties--A
village sermon--Plans for the future--Reverence--"Symbolic
Logic"
CHAPTER IX
(1897-1898)
Logic-lectures--Irreverent anecdotes--Tolerance of his
religious views--A mathematical discovery--"The Little
Minister"--Sir George Baden-Powell--Last illness--"Thy will
be done"--"Wonderland" at last!--Letters from
friends--"Three Sunsets"--"Of such is the kingdom of Heaven"
CHAPTER X
CHILD FRIENDS
Mr. Dodgson's fondness for children--Miss Isabel
Standen--Puzzles--"Me and Myself"--A double
acrostic--"Father William"--Of drinking healths--Kisses by
post--Tired in the face--The unripe
plum--Eccentricities--"Sylvie and Bruno"--"Mr. Dodgson is
going on _well_"
CHAPTER XI
THE SAME--_continued._
Books for children--"The Lost Plum-Cake"--"An Unexpected
Guest"--Miss Isa Bowman--Interviews--"Matilda Jane"--Miss
Edith Rix--Miss Kathleen Eschwege
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
FOOTNOTES
* * * * *
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
LEWIS CARROLL--Frontispiece
_From a photograph_.
ARCHDEACON DODGSON AS A YOUNG MAN
_From a miniature, painted about_ 1826.
DARESBURY PARSONAGE, LEWIS CARROLL'S BIRTHPLACE
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.
LEWIS CARROLL, AGED 8
_From a silhouette_.
MRS. DODGSON, LEWIS CARROLL'S MOTHER
_From a silhouette_.
CROFT RECTORY; ARCHDEACON DODGSON AND FAMILY IN FOREGROUND
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1856.
TOY STATION IN GARDEN AT CROFT
_From a photograph_.
ARCHBISHOP TAIT
_From a photograph by Elliott and Fry_.
"THE ONLY SISTER WHO _WOULD_ WRITE TO HER BROTHER"
_From a drawing by Lewis Carroll_.
"THE AGE OF INNOCENCE".
_From a drawing by Lewis Carroll_.
"THE SCANTY MEAL"
_From a drawing by Lewis Carroll_.
"THE FIRST EARRING"
_From a drawing by Lewis Carroll_.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO "LAYS OF SORROW," NO. 2
_From drawings by Lewis Carroll_.
EXTERIOR OF CHRIST CHURCH
_From a photograph_.
GRAVE OF ARCHDEACON AND MRS. DODGSON IN CROFT CHURCHYARD
_From a photograph_.
LEWIS CARROLL, AGED 23
_From a photograph_.
ARCHDEACON DODGSON
_From a photograph_.
ARCHBISHOP LONGLEY
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.
"ALAS! WHAT BOOTS--"
_From a drawing by Lewis Carroll_.
ALFRED TENNYSON
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1857.
THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1875.
BISHOP WILBERFORCE
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1860.
ALICE LIDDELL AS "THE BEGGAR-CHILD"
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1858.
SKETCH FROM ST. LEONARD'S CONCERT-ROOM
_From a drawing by Lewis Carroll_.
GEORGE MACDONALD AND HIS DAUGHTER LILY
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1863.
MRS. ROSSETTI AND HER CHILDREN, DANTE GABRIEL, CHRISTINA,
AND WILLIAM
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1863.
LORINA, ALICE, AND EDITH LIDDELL
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.
GEORGE MACDONALD
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1870.
J. SANT, R.A.
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1866.
HOLMAN HUNT
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1860.
SIR JOHN MILLAIS
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1865.
CHARLOTTE M. YONGE
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1866.
CANON LIDDON
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1867.
"INSTANCE OF HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING OF THE DATE 1867"
_From a sketch by Lewis Carroll_.
SIR JOHN TENNIEL
_From a photograph by Bassano_.
LEWIS CARROLL'S STUDY AT CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD
_From a photograph_.
PROFESSOR FARADAY
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1860.
JUSTICE DENMAN
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1873.
LORD SALISBURY AND HIS TWO SONS
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1870.
FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM SIR JOHN TENNIEL TO LEWIS
CARROLL, DATED JUNE 1, 1870
JOHN RUSKIN
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1875.
HENRY HOLIDAY IN HIS STUDIO
_From a photograph_.
LEWIS CARROLL
_From a photograph_.
ELLEN TERRY
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.
TOM TAYLOR
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1863.
KATE TERRY
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1865.
MISS E. GERTRUDE THOMSON
_From a photograph_.
DR. LIDDELL
_From a photograph by Hill & Saunders_.
"RESPONSIONS"
_From a photograph by A.T. Shrimpton_.
H. FURNISS
_From a photograph_.
"BALBUS AND THE DRAGON"
_From a crayon drawing by the Rev. H.C. Gaye_.
MEDLEY OF TENNIEL'S ILLUSTRATIONS IN "ALICE"
_From an etching by Miss Whitehead_.
FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM H. FURNISS TO LEWIS CARROLL,
DATED AUGUST 23, 1886
SYLVIE AND BRUNO
_From a drawing by Henry Holiday_.
FACSIMILE OF PROGRAMME OF "ALICE IN WONDERLAND" PRODUCED
AT THE ROYAL GLOBE THEATRE, DECEMBER 26, 1888.
"THE MAD TEA PARTY"
_From a photograph by Elliott and Fry_.
THE LATE DUKE OF ALBANY
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1875.
THE DEAN OF CHRIST CHURCH
_From a photograph by Hill & Saunders_.
THE MECHANICAL "HUMPTY DUMPTY"
_From a photograph_.
LEWIS CARROLL
_From a photograph_.
THE CHESTNUTS, GUILDFORD
_From a photograph_.
LEWIS CARROLL'S GRAVE
_From a photograph_.
LORINA AND ALICE LIDDELL
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.
ALICE LIDDELL
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.
XIE KITCHIN
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.
XIE KITCHIN AS A CHINAMAN
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.
ALICE AND THE DORMOUSE
_From a photograph by Elliott and Fry_.
FACSIMILE OF A "LOOKING-GLASS" LETTER FROM LEWIS CARROLL
TO MISS EDITH BALL
ARTHUR HUGHES AND HIS DAUGHTER AGNES
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_, 1863.
"WHAT I LOOK LIKE WHEN I'M LECTURING"
_From a drawing by Lewis Carroll_.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I
(1832-1850.)
Lewis Carroll's forebears--The Bishop of Elphin--Murder of
Captain Dodgson--Daresbury--Living in
"Wonderland"--Croft--Boyish amusements--His first
school--Latin verses--A good report--He goes to
Rugby--_The Rectory Umbrella_--"A Lay of Sorrow."
The Dodgsons appear to have been for a long time connected with the
north of England, and until quite recently a branch of the family
resided at Stubb Hall, near Barnard Castle.
In the early part of the last century a certain Rev. Christopher
Dodgson held a living in Yorkshire. His son, Charles, also took Holy
Orders, and was for some time tutor to a son of the then Duke of
Northumberland. In 1762 his patron presented him to the living of
Elsdon, in Northumberland, by no means a desirable cure, as Mr.
Dodgson discovered. The following extracts from his letters to various
members of the Percy family are interesting as giving some idea of the
life of a rural clergyman a hundred years ago:
I am obliged to you for promising to write to me, but don't
give yourself the trouble of writing to this place, for 'tis
almost impossible to receive 'em, without sending a
messenger 16 miles to fetch 'em.
'Tis impossible to describe the oddity of my situation at
present, which, however, is not void of some pleasant
circumstances.
A clogmaker combs out my wig upon my curate's head, by way
of a block, and his wife powders it with a dredging-box.
The vestibule of the castle (used as a temporary parsonage)
is a low stable; above it the kitchen, in which are two
little beds joining to each other. The curate and his wife
lay in one, and Margery the maid in the other. I lay in the
parlour between two beds to keep me from being frozen to
death, for as we keep open house the winds enter from every
quarter, and are apt to sweep into bed to me.
Elsdon was once a market town as some say, and a city
according to others; but as the annals of the parish were
lost several centuries ago, it is impossible to determine
what age it was either the one or the other.
There are not the least traces of the former grandeur to be
found, whence some antiquaries are apt to believe that it
lost both its trade and charter at the Deluge.
... There is a very good understanding between the parties
[he is speaking of the Churchmen and Presbyterians who lived
in the parish], for they not only intermarry with one
another, but frequently do penance together in a white
sheet, with a white wand, barefoot, and in the coldest
season of the year. I have not finished the description for
fear of bringing on a fit of the ague. Indeed, the ideas of
sensation are sufficient to starve a man to death, without
having recourse to those of reflection.
If I was not assured by the best authority on earth that the
world is to be destroyed by fire, I should conclude that the
day of destruction is at hand, but brought on by means of an
agent very opposite to that of heat.
I have lost the use of everything but my reason, though my
head is entrenched in three night-caps, and my throat, which
is very bad, is fortified by a pair of stockings twisted in
the form of a cravat.
As washing is very cheap, I wear _two_ shirts at a
time, and, for want of a wardrobe, I hang my great coat upon
my own back, and generally keep on my boots in imitation of
my namesake of Sweden. Indeed, since the snow became two
feet deep (as I wanted a 'chaappin of Yale' from the
public-house), I made an offer of them to Margery the maid,
but her legs are too thick to make use of them, and I am
told that the greater part of my parishioners are not less
substantial, and notwithstanding this they are remarkable
for agility.
In course of time this Mr. Dodgson became Bishop of Ossory and Ferns,
and he was subsequently translated to the see of Elphin. He was warmly
congratulated on this change in his fortunes by George III., who said
that he ought indeed to be thankful to have got away from a palace
where the stabling was so bad.
The Bishop had four children, the eldest of whom, Elizabeth Anne,
married Charles Lutwidge, of Holmrook, in Cumberland. Two of the
others died almost before they had attained manhood. Charles, the
eldest son, entered the army, and rose to the rank of captain in the
4th Dragoon Guards. He met with a sad fate while serving his king and
country in Ireland. One of the Irish rebels who were supposed to have
been concerned in the murder of Lord Kilwarden offered to give himself
up to justice if Captain Dodgson would come alone and at night to take
him. Though he fully realised the risk, the brave captain decided to
trust himself to the honour of this outlaw, as he felt that no chance
should be missed of effecting so important a capture. Having first
written a letter of farewell to his wife, he set out on the night of
December 16, 1803, accompanied by a few troopers, for the
meeting-place--an old hut that stood a mile or so from Phillipstown,
in King's County. In accordance with the terms of the agreement, he
left his men a few hundred yards from the hut to await his return, and
advanced alone through the night. A cowardly shot from one of the
windows of the cottage ended his noble life, and alarmed the troopers,
who, coming up in haste, were confronted with the dead body of their
leader. The story is told that on the same night his wife heard two
shots fired, and made inquiry about it, but could find out nothing.
Shortly afterwards the news came that her husband had been killed just
at that time.
Captain Dodgson left two sons behind him--Hassard, who, after a
brilliant career as a special pleader, became a Master of the Court of
Common Pleas, and Charles, the father of the subject of this Memoir.
Charles, who was the elder of the two, was born in the year 1800, at
Hamilton, in Lanarkshire. He adopted the clerical profession, in which
he rose to high honours. He was a distinguished scholar, and took a
double first at Christ Church, Oxford. Although in after life
mathematics were his favourite pursuit, yet the fact that he
translated Tertullian for the "Library of the Fathers" is sufficient
evidence that he made good use of his classical education. In the
controversy about Baptismal Regeneration he took a prominent part,
siding on the question with the Tractarians, though his views on some
other points of Church doctrine were less advanced than those of the
leaders of the Oxford movement. He was a man of deep piety and of a
somewhat reserved and grave disposition, which, however, was tempered
by the most generous charity, so that he was universally loved by the
poor. In moments of relaxation his wit and humour were the delight of
his clerical friends, for he had the rare power of telling anecdotes
effectively. His reverence for sacred things was so great that he was
never known to relate a story which included a jest upon words from
the Bible.
In 1830 he married his cousin, Frances Jane Lutwidge, by whom he had
eleven children, all of whom, except Lewis Carroll, survive. His wife,
in the words of one who had the best possible opportunities for
observing her character, was "one of the sweetest and gentlest women
that ever lived, whom to know was to love. The earnestness of her
simple faith and love shone forth in all she did and said; she seemed
to live always in the conscious presence of God. It has been said by
her children that they never in all their lives remember to have heard
an impatient or harsh word from her lips." It is easy to trace in
Lewis Carroll's character the influence of that most gentle of
mothers; though dead she still speaks to us in some of the most
beautiful and touching passages of his works. Not so long ago I had a
conversation with an old friend of his; one of the first things she
said to me was, "Tell me about his mother." I complied with her
request as well as I was able, and, when I had finished my account of
Mrs. Dodgson's beautiful character, she said, "Ah, I knew it must have
been so; I felt sure he must have had a good mother."
On January 27, 1832, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born at Daresbury,
of which parish his father was then incumbent. The village of
Daresbury is about seven miles from Warrington; its name is supposed
to be derived from a word meaning oak, and certainly oaks are very
plentiful in the neighbourhood. A canal passes through an outlying
part of the parish. The bargemen who frequented this canal were a
special object of Mr. Dodgson's pastoral care. Once, when walking with
Lord Francis Egerton, who was a large landowner in the district, he
spoke of his desire to provide some sort of religious privileges for
them. "If I only had L100," he said, "I would turn one of those barges
into a chapel," and, at his companion's request, he described exactly
how he would have the chapel constructed and furnished. A few weeks
later he received a letter from Lord Francis to tell him that his wish
was fulfilled, and that the chapel was ready. In this strange church,
which is believed to have been the first of its kind, Mr. Dodgson
conducted service and preached every Sunday evening!
[Illustration: Daresbury Parsonage]
The parsonage is situated a mile and a half from the village, on the
glebe-farm, having been erected by a former incumbent, who, it was
said, cared more for the glebe than the parish. Here it was that
Charles spent the first eleven years of his life--years of complete
seclusion from the world, for even the passing of a cart was a matter
of great interest to the children.
[Illustration: Lewis Carroll, aged 8.]
In this quiet home the boy invented the strangest diversions for
himself; he made pets of the most odd and unlikely animals, and
numbered certain snails and toads among his intimate friends. He tried
also to encourage civilised warfare among earthworms, by supplying
them with small pieces of pipe, with which they might fight if so
disposed. His notions of charity at this early age were somewhat
rudimentary; he used to peel rushes with the idea that the pith would
afterwards "be given to the poor," though what possible use they could
put it to he never attempted to explain. Indeed he seems at this time
to have actually lived in that charming "Wonderland" which he
afterwards described so vividly; but for all that he was a thorough
boy, and loved to climb the trees and to scramble about in the old
marl-pits.
One of the few breaks in this very uneventful life was a holiday spent
with the other members of his family in Beaumaris. The journey took
three days each way, for railroads were then almost unknown; and
whatever advantages coaching may have had over travelling in trains,
speed was certainly not one of them.
Mr. Dodgson from the first used to take an active part in his son's
education, and the following anecdote will show that he had at least a
pupil who was anxious to learn. One day, when Charles was a very small
boy, he came up to his father and showed him a book of logarithms,
with the request, "Please explain." Mr. Dodgson told him that he was
much too young to understand anything about such a difficult subject.
The child listened to what his father said, and appeared to think it
irrelevant, for he still insisted, "_But_, please, explain!"
[Illustration: Mrs. Dodgson]
On one occasion Mr. and Mrs. Dodgson went to Hull, to pay a visit to
the latter's father, who had been seriously ill. From Hull Mrs.
Dodgson wrote to Charles, and he set much store by this letter, which
was probably one of the first he had received. He was afraid that some
of his little sisters would mess it, or tear it up, so he wrote upon
the back, "No one is to touch this note, for it belongs to C. L. D.";
but, this warning appearing insufficient, he added, "Covered with
slimy pitch, so that they will wet their fingers." The precious letter
ran as follows:--
My dearest Charlie, I have used you rather ill in not having
written to you sooner, but I know you will forgive me, as
your Grandpapa has liked to have me with him so much, and I
could not write and talk to him comfortably. All your notes
have delighted me, my precious children, and show me that
you have not quite forgotten me. I am always thinking of
you, and longing to have you all round me again more than
words can tell. God grant that we may find you all well and
happy on Friday evening. I am happy to say your dearest Papa
is quite well--his cough is rather _tickling_, but is
of no consequence. It delights me, my darling Charlie, to
hear that you are getting on so well with your Latin, and
that you make so few mistakes in your Exercises. You will be
happy to hear that your dearest Grandpapa is going on
nicely--indeed I hope he will soon be quite well again. He
talks a great deal and most kindly about you all. I hope my
sweetest Will says "Mama" sometimes, and that precious Tish
has not forgotten. Give them and all my other treasures,
including yourself, 1,000,000,000 kisses from me, with my
most affectionate love. I am sending you a shabby note, but
I cannot help it. Give my kindest love to Aunt Dar, and
believe me, my own dearest Charlie, to be your sincerely
affectionate
Mama.
Among the few visitors who disturbed the repose of Daresbury Parsonage
was Mr. Durnford, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, with whom Mr.
Dodgson had formed a close friendship. Another was Mr. Bayne, at that
time head-master of Warrington Grammar School, who used occasionally
to assist in the services at Daresbury. His son, Vere, was Charles's
playfellow; he is now a student of Christ Church, and the friendship
between him and Lewis Carroll lasted without interruption till the
death of the latter.
The memory of his birthplace did not soon fade from Charles's mind;
long afterwards he retained pleasant recollections of its rustic
beauty. For instance, his poem of "The Three Sunsets," which first
appeared in 1860 in _All the Year Round,_ begins with the
following stanzas, which have been slightly altered in later
editions:--
I watch the drowsy night expire,
And Fancy paints at my desire
Her magic pictures in the fire.
An island farm, 'mid seas of corn,
Swayed by the wandering breath of morn,
The happy spot where I was born.
Though nearly all Mr. Dodgson's parishioners at Daresbury have passed
away, yet there are still some few left who speak with loving
reverence of him whose lips, now long silenced, used to speak so
kindly to them; whose hands, long folded in sleep, were once so ready
to alleviate their wants and sorrows.
In 1843 Sir Robert Peel presented him to the Crown living of Croft, a
Yorkshire village about three miles south of Darlington. This
preferment made a great change in the life of the family; it opened
for them many more social opportunities, and put an end to that life
of seclusion which, however beneficial it may be for a short time, is
apt, if continued too long, to have a cramping and narrowing
influence.
The river Tees is at Croft the dividing line between Yorkshire and
Durham, and on the middle of the bridge which there crosses it is a
stone which shows where the one county ends and the other begins.
"Certain lands are held in this place," says Lewis in his
"Topographical Dictionary," "by the owner presenting on the bridge, at
the coming of every new Bishop of Durham, an old sword, pronouncing a
legendary address, and delivering the sword to the Bishop, who returns
it immediately." The Tees is subject to extraordinary floods, and
though Croft Church stands many feet above the ordinary level of the
river, and is separated from it by the churchyard and a field, yet on
one occasion the church itself was flooded, as was attested by
water-marks on the old woodwork several feet from the floor, still to
be seen when Mr. Dodgson was incumbent.
This church, which is dedicated to St. Peter, is a quaint old building
with a Norman porch, the rest of it being of more modern construction.
It contains a raised pew, which is approached by a winding flight of
stairs, and is covered in, so that it resembles nothing so much as a
four-post bedstead. This pew used to belong to the Milbanke family,
with which Lord Byron was connected. Mr. Dodgson found the
chancel-roof in so bad a state of repair that he was obliged to take
it down, and replace it by an entirely new one. The only village
school that existed when he came to the place was a sort of barn,
which stood in a corner of the churchyard. During his incumbency a
fine school-house was erected. Several members of his family used
regularly to help in teaching the children, and excellent reports were
obtained.
The Rectory is close to the church, and stands in the middle of a
beautiful garden. The former incumbent had been an enthusiastic
horticulturist, and the walls of the kitchen garden were covered with
luxuriant fruit-trees, while the greenhouses were well stocked with
rare and beautiful exotics. Among these was a specimen of that
fantastic cactus, the night-blowing Cereus, whose flowers, after an
existence of but a few hours, fade with the waning sun. On the day
when this occurred large numbers of people used to obtain Mr.
Dodgson's leave to see the curiosity.
[Illustration: Croft Rectory]
Near the Rectory is a fine hotel, built when Croft was an important
posting-station for the coaches between London and Edinburgh, but in
Mr. Dodgson's time chiefly used by gentlemen who stayed there during
the hunting season. The village is renowned for its baths and
medicinal waters. The parish of Croft includes the outlying hamlets of
Halnaby, Dalton, and Stapleton, so that the Rector's position is by no
means a sinecure. Within the village is Croft Hall, the old seat of
the Chaytors; but during Mr. Dodgson's incumbency the then Sir William
Chaytor built and lived at Clervaux Castle, calling it by an old
family name.
Shortly after accepting the living of Croft, Mr. Dodgson was appointed
examining chaplain to the Bishop of Ripon; subsequently he was made
Archdeacon of Richmond and one of the Canons of Ripon Cathedral.
Charles was at this time very fond of inventing games for the
amusement of his brothers and sisters; he constructed a rude train out
of a wheelbarrow, a barrel and a small truck, which used to convey
passengers from one "station" in the Rectory garden to another. At
each of these stations there was a refreshment-room, and the
passengers had to purchase tickets from him before they could enjoy
their ride. The boy was also a clever conjuror, and, arrayed in a
brown wig and a long white robe, used to cause no little wonder to his
audience by his sleight-of-hand. With the assistance of various
members of the family and the village carpenter, he made a troupe of
marionettes and a small theatre for them to act in. He wrote all the
plays himself the most popular being "The Tragedy of King John"--and
he was very clever at manipulating the innumerable strings by which
the movements of his puppets were regulated. One winter, when the snow
lay thick upon the lawn, he traced upon it a maze of such hopeless
intricacy as almost to put its famous rival at Hampton Court in the
shade.
[Illustration: Toy Station in garden at Croft.]
When he was twelve years old his father sent him to school at
Richmond, under Mr. Tate, a worthy son of that well-known Dr. Tate who
had made Richmond School so famous.
I am able to give his earliest impressions of school-life in his own
words, for one of his first letters home has been fortunately
preserved. It is dated August 5th, and is addressed to his two eldest
sisters. A boy who has _ten_ brothers and sisters can scarcely be
expected to write separate letters to each of them.
My dear Fanny and Memy,--I hope you are all getting on well,
as also the sweet twins, the boys I think that I like the
best, are Harry Austin, and all the Tates of which there are
7 besides a little girl who came down to dinner the first
day, but not since, and I also like Edmund Tremlet, and
William and Edward Swire, Tremlet is a sharp little fellow
about 7 years old, the youngest in the school, I also like
Kemp and Mawley. The rest of the boys that I know are
Bertram, Harry and Dick Wilson, and two Robinsons, I will
tell you all about them when I return. The boys have played
two tricks upon me which were these--they first proposed to
play at "King of the Cobblers" and asked if I would be king,
to which I agreed. Then they made me sit down and sat (on
the ground) in a circle round me, and told me to say "Go to
work" which I said, and they immediately began kicking me
and knocking me on all sides. The next game they proposed
was "Peter, the red lion," and they made a mark on a
tombstone (for we were playing in the churchyard) and one of
the boys walked with his eyes shut, holding out his finger,
trying to touch the mark; then a little boy came forward to
lead the rest and led a good many very near the mark; at
last it was my turn; they told me to shut my eyes well, and
the next minute I had my finger in the mouth of one of the
boys, who had stood (I believe) before the tombstone with
his mouth open. For 2 nights I slept alone, and for the rest
of the time with Ned Swire. The boys play me no tricks now.
The only fault (tell Mama) that there has been was coming in
one day to dinner just after grace. On Sunday we went to
church in the morning, and sat in a large pew with Mr.
Fielding, the church we went to is close by Mr. Tate's
house, we did not go in the afternoon but Mr. Tate read a
discourse to the boys on the 5th commandment. We went to
church again in the evening. Papa wished me to tell him all
the texts I had heard preached upon, please to tell him that
I could not hear it in the morning nor hardly one sentence
of the sermon, but the one in the evening was I Cor. i. 23.
I believe it was a farewell sermon, but I am not sure. Mrs.
Tate has looked through my clothes and left in the trunk a
great many that will not be wanted. I have had 3 misfortunes
in my clothes etc. 1st, I cannot find my tooth-brush, so
that I have not brushed my teeth for 3 or 4 days, 2nd, I
cannot find my blotting paper, and 3rd, I have no shoe-horn.
The chief games are, football, wrestling, leap frog, and
fighting. Excuse bad writing.
Yr affec' brother Charles.
_To_ SKEFF [_a younger brother, aged six_].
My dear Skeff,--Roar not lest thou be abolished. Yours,
etc.,--.
The discomforts which he, as a "new boy," had to put up with from his
school-mates affected him as they do not, unfortunately, affect most
boys, for in later school days he was famous as a champion of the weak
and small, while every bully had good reason to fear him. Though it is
hard for those who have only known him as the gentle and retiring don
to believe it, it is nevertheless true that long after he left school
his name was remembered as that of a boy who knew well how to use his
fists in defence of a righteous cause.
As was the custom at that time, Charles began to compose Latin verses
at a very early age, his first copy being dated November 25, 1844. The
subject was evening, and this is how he treated it:--
Phoebus aqua splendet descendens, aequora tingens
Splendore aurato. Pervenit umbra solo.
Mortales lectos quaerunt, et membra relaxant
Fessa labore dies; cuncta per orbe silet.
Imperium placidum nunc sumit Phoebe corusca.
Antris procedunt sanguine ore ferae.
These lines the boy solemnly copied into his Diary, apparently in the
most blissful ignorance of the numerous mistakes they contained.
The next year he wrote a story which appeared in the school magazine.
It was called "The Unknown One," so it was probably of the sensational
type in which small boys usually revel.
Though Richmond School, as it was in 1844, may not compare favourably
in every respect with a modern preparatory school, where supervision
has been so far "reduced to the absurd" that the unfortunate masters
hardly get a minute to themselves from sunrise till long after sunset,
yet no better or wiser men than those of the school of Mr. Tate are
now to be found. Nor, I venture to think, are the results of the
modern system more successful than those of the old one. Charles loved
his "kind old schoolmaster," as he affectionately calls him, and
surely to gain the love of the boys is the main battle in
school-management.
The impression he made upon his instructors may be gathered from the
following extracts from Mr. Tate's first report upon him:
Sufficient opportunities having been allowed me to draw from
actual observation an estimate of your son's character and
abilities, I do not hesitate to express my opinion that he
possesses, along with other and excellent natural
endowments, a very uncommon share of genius. Gentle and
cheerful in his intercourse with others, playful and ready
in conversation, he is capable of acquirements and knowledge
far beyond his years, while his reason is so clear and so
jealous of error, that he will not rest satisfied without a
most exact solution of whatever appears to him obscure. He
has passed an excellent examination just now in mathematics,
exhibiting at times an illustration of that love of precise
argument, which seems to him natural.
I must not omit to set off against these great advantages
one or two faults, of which the removal as soon as possible
is desirable, tho' I am prepared to find it a work of time.
As you are well aware, our young friend, while jealous of
error, as I said above, where important faith or principles
are concerned, is exceedingly lenient towards lesser
frailties--and, whether in reading aloud or metrical
composition, frequently sets at nought the notions of Virgil
or Ovid as to syllabic quantity. He is moreover marvellously
ingenious in replacing the ordinary inflexions of nouns and
verbs, as detailed in our grammars, by more exact analogies,
or convenient forms of his own devising. This source of
fault will in due time exhaust itself, though flowing freely
at present.... You may fairly anticipate for him a bright
career. Allow me, before I close, one suggestion which
assumes for itself the wisdom of experience and the
sincerity of the best intention. You must not entrust your
son with a full knowledge of his superiority over other
boys. Let him discover this as he proceeds. The love of
excellence is far beyond the love of excelling; and if he
should once be bewitched into a mere ambition to surpass
others I need not urge that the very quality of his
knowledge would be materially injured, and that his
character would receive a stain of a more serious
description still....
And again, when Charles was leaving Richmond, he wrote:
"Be assured that I shall always feel a peculiar interest in
the gentle, intelligent, and well-conducted boy who is now
leaving us."
Although his father had been a Westminster boy, Charles was, for some
reason or other, sent to Rugby. The great Arnold, who had, one might
almost say, created Rugby School, and who certainly had done more for
it than all his predecessors put together, had gone to his rest, and
for four years the reins of government had been in the firm hands of
Dr. Tait, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. He was Headmaster
during the whole of the time Charles was at Rugby, except the last
year, during which Dr. Goulburn held that office. Charles went up in
February, 1846, and he must have found his new life a great change
from his quiet experiences at Richmond. Football was in full swing,
and one can imagine that to a new boy "Big-side" was not an unalloyed
delight. Whether he distinguished himself as a "dropper," or ever beat
the record time in the "Crick" run, I do not know. Probably not; his
abilities did not lie much in the field of athletics. But he got on
capitally with his work, and seldom returned home without one or more
prizes. Moreover, he conducted himself so well that he never had to
enter that dreaded chamber, well known to _some_ Rugbeians, which
is approached by a staircase that winds up a little turret, and
wherein are enacted scenes better imagined than described.
[Illustration: Archbishop Tait. _From a photograph by
Messrs. Elliott and Fry_]
A schoolboy's letter home is not, usually, remarkable for the
intelligence displayed in it; as a rule it merely leads up with more
or less ingenuity to the inevitable request for money contained in the
postscript. Some of Charles's letters were of a different sort, as the
following example shows:
Yesterday evening I was walking out with a friend of mine
who attends as mathematical pupil Mr. Smythies the second
mathematical master; we went up to Mr. Smythies' house, as
he wanted to speak to him, and he asked us to stop and have
a glass of wine and some figs. He seems as devoted to his
duty as Mr. Mayor, and asked me with a smile of delight,
"Well Dodgson I suppose you're getting well on with your
mathematics?" He is very clever at them, though not equal to
Mr. Mayor, as indeed few men are, Papa excepted.... I have
read the first number of Dickens' new tale, "Davy
Copperfield." It purports to be his life, and begins with
his birth and childhood; it seems a poor plot, but some of
the characters and scenes are good. One of the persons that
amused me was a Mrs. Gummidge, a wretched melancholy person,
who is always crying, happen what will, and whenever the
fire smokes, or other trifling accident occurs, makes the
remark with great bitterness, and many tears, that she is a
"lone lorn creetur, and everything goes contrairy with her."
I have not yet been able to get the second volume Macaulay's
"England" to read. I have seen it however and one passage
struck me when seven bishops had signed the invitation to
the pretender, and King James sent for Bishop Compton (who
was one of the seven) and asked him "whether he or any of
his ecclesiastical brethren had anything to do with it?" He
replied, after a moment's thought "I am fully persuaded your
majesty, that there is not one of my brethren who is not as
innocent in the matter as myself." This was certainly no
actual lie, but certainly, as Macaulay says, it was very
little different from one.
The Mr. Mayor who is mentioned in this letter formed a very high
opinion of his pupil's ability, for in 1848 he wrote to Archdeacon
Dodgson: "I have not had a more promising boy at his age since I came
to Rugby."
Dr. Tait speaks no less warmly:--
My dear Sir,--I must not allow your son to leave school
without expressing to you the very high opinion I entertain
of him. I fully coincide in Mr. Cotton's estimate both of
his abilities and upright conduct. His mathematical
knowledge is great for his age, and I doubt not he will do
himself credit in classics. As I believe I mentioned to you
before, his examination for the Divinity prize was one of
the most creditable exhibitions I have ever seen.
During the whole time of his being in my house, his conduct
has been excellent.
Believe me to be, My dear Sir,
Yours very faithfully,
A.C. TAIT.
Public school life then was not what it is now; the atrocious system
then in vogue of setting hundreds of lines for the most trifling
offences made every day a weariness and a hopeless waste of time,
while the bad discipline which was maintained in the dormitories made
even the nights intolerable--especially for the small boys, whose beds
in winter were denuded of blankets that the bigger ones might not feel
cold.
Charles kept no diary during his time at Rugby; but, looking back upon
it, he writes in 1855:--
During my stay I made I suppose some progress in learning of
various kinds, but none of it was done _con amore_, and
I spent an incalculable time in writing out
impositions--this last I consider one of the chief faults of
Rugby School. I made some friends there, the most intimate
being Henry Leigh Bennett (as college acquaintances we find
fewer common sympathies, and are consequently less
intimate)--but I cannot say that I look back upon my life at
a Public School with any sensations of pleasure, or that any
earthly considerations would induce me to go through my
three years again.
When, some years afterwards, he visited Radley School, he was much
struck by the cubicle system which prevails in the dormitories there,
and wrote in his Diary, "I can say that if I had been thus secure from
annoyance at night, the hardships of the daily life would have been
comparative trifles to bear."
The picture on page 32 was, I believe, drawn by Charles rile he was
at Rugby in illustration of a letter received from one of his sisters.
Halnaby, as I have said before, was an outlying district of Croft
parish.
During his holidays he used to amuse himself by editing local
magazines. Indeed, they might be called _very local_ magazines,
as their circulation was confined to the inmates of Croft Rectory. The
first of these, _Useful and Instructive Poetry_, was written
about 1845. It came to an untimely end after a six months' run, and
was followed at varying intervals by several other periodicals,
equally short-lived.
In 1849 or 1850, _The Rectory Umbrella_ began to appear. As the
editor was by this time seventeen or eighteen years old, it was
naturally of a more ambitious character than any of its precursors. It
contained a serial story of the most thrilling interest, entitled,
"The Walking-Stick of Destiny," some meritorious poetry, a few
humorous essays, and several caricatures of pictures in the Vernon
Gallery. Three reproductions of these pictures follow, with extracts
from the _Umbrella_ descriptive of them.
[Illustration: The only sister who _would_ write to her
brother, though the table had just "folded down"! The other sisters
are depicted "sternly resolved to set off to Halnaby & the Castle,"
tho' it is yet "early, early morning"--Rembrondt.]
THE VERNON GALLERY.
As our readers will have seen by the preceding page, we
have commenced engraving the above series of pictures. "The
Age of Innocence," by Sir J. Reynolds, representing a young
Hippopotamus seated under a shady tree, presents to the
contemplative mind a charming union of youth and innocence.
EDITOR.
[Illustration: _"The Scanty Meal."_]
We have been unusually[001] successful in our second
engraving from the Vernon Gallery. The picture is
intended, as our readers will perceive, to illustrate the
evils of homoeopathy.[002] This idea is well carried out
through the whole picture. The thin old lady at the head of
the table is in the painter's best style; we almost fancy we
can trace in the eye of the other lady a lurking suspicion
that her glasses are not really in fault, and that the old
gentleman has helped her to _nothing_ instead of a
nonillionth.[003] Her companion has evidently got an empty
glass in his hand; the two children in front are admirably
managed, and there is a sly smile on the footman's face, as
if he thoroughly enjoyed either the bad news he is bringing
or the wrath of his mistress. The carpet is executed with
that elaborate care for which Mr. Herring is so famed, and
the picture on the whole is one of his best.
"_The First Ear-ring_"
The scene from which this excellent picture is painted
is taken from a passage in the autobiography[004] of the
celebrated Sir William Smith[005] of his life when a
schoolboy: we transcribe the passage: "One day Bill
Tomkins[006] and I were left alone in the house, the old
doctor being out; after playing a number of pranks Bill laid
me a bet of sixpence that I wouldn't pour a bottle of ink
over the doctor's cat. _I did it_, but at that moment
old Muggles came home, and caught me by the ear as I
attempted to run away. My sensations at the moment I shall
never forget; _on that occasion I received my first
ear-ring_.[007] The only remark Bill made to me, as he
paid me the money afterwards was, 'I say, didn't you just
howl jolly!'" The engraving is an excellent copy of the
picture.
[Illustration: Sir D. Wilkie Painter The First Earring.
W. Greatbach Engraver. _from the picture in the Vernon Gallery_]
The best thing in the _Rectory Umbrella_ was a parody on Lord
Macaulay's style in the "Lays of Ancient Rome"; Charles had a special
aptitude for parody, as is evidenced by several of the best-known
verses in his later books.
LAYS OF SORROW.
No. 2.
Fair stands the ancient[008] Rectory,
The Rectory of Croft,
The sun shines bright upon it,
The breezes whisper soft.
From all the house and garden
Its inhabitants come forth,
And muster in the road without,
And pace in twos and threes about,
The children of the North.
Some are waiting in the garden,
Some are waiting at the door,
And some are following behind,
And some have gone before.
But wherefore all this mustering?
Wherefore this vast array?
A gallant feat of horsemanship
Will be performed to-day.
To eastward and to westward,
The crowd divides amain,
Two youths are leading on the steed,
Both tugging at the rein;
And sorely do they labour,
For the steed[009] is very strong,
And backward moves its stubborn feet,
And backward ever doth retreat,
And drags its guides along.
And now the knight hath mounted,
Before the admiring band,
Hath got the stirrups on his feet.
The bridle in his hand.
Yet, oh! beware, sir horseman!
And tempt thy fate no more,
For such a steed as thou hast got,
Was never rid before!
The rabbits[010] bow before thee.
And cower in the straw;
The chickens[011] are submissive,
And own thy will for law;
Bullfinches and canary
Thy bidding do obey;
And e'en the tortoise in its shell
Doth never say thee nay.
But thy steed will hear no master,
Thy steed will bear no stick,
And woe to those that beat her,
And woe to those that kick![012]
For though her rider smite her,
As hard as he can hit,
And strive to turn her from the yard,
She stands in silence, pulling hard
Against the pulling bit.
And now the road to Dalton
Hath felt their coming tread,
The crowd are speeding on before,
And all have gone ahead.
Yet often look they backward,
And cheer him on, and bawl,
For slower still, and still more slow,
That horseman and that charger go,
And scarce advance at all.
And now two roads to choose from
Are in that rider's sight:
In front the road to Dalton,
And New Croft upon the right.
"I can't get by!" he bellows,
"I really am not able!
Though I pull my shoulder out of joint,
I cannot get him past this point,
For it leads unto his stable!"
Then out spake Ulfrid Longbow,[013]
A valiant youth was he,
"Lo! I will stand on thy right hand
And guard the pass for thee!"
And out spake fair Flureeza,[014]
His sister eke was she,
"I will abide on thy other side,
And turn thy steed for thee!"
And now commenced a struggle
Between that steed and rider,
For all the strength that he hath left
Doth not suffice to guide her.
Though Ulfrid and his sister
Have kindly stopped the way,
And all the crowd have cried aloud,
"We can't wait here all day!"
Round turned he as not deigning
Their words to understand,
But he slipped the stirrups from his feet
The bridle from his hand,
And grasped the mane full lightly,
And vaulted from his seat,
And gained the road in triumph,[015]
And stood upon his feet.
All firmly till that moment
Had Ulfrid Longbow stood,
And faced the foe right valiantly,
As every warrior should.
But when safe on terra firma
His brother he did spy,
"What _did_ you do that for?" he cried,
Then unconcerned he stepped aside
And let it canter by.
They gave him bread and butter,[016]
That was of public right,
As much as four strong rabbits,
Could munch from morn to night,
For he'd done a deed of daring,
And faced that savage steed,
And therefore cups of coffee sweet,
And everything that was a treat,
Were but his right and meed.
And often in the evenings,
When the fire is blazing bright,
When books bestrew the table
And moths obscure the light,
When crying children go to bed,
A struggling, kicking load;
We'll talk of Ulfrid Longbow's deed,
How, in his brother's utmost need,
Back to his aid he flew with speed,
And how he faced the fiery steed,
And kept the New Croft Road.
[Illustration: Exterior of Christ Church]
* * * * *
CHAPTER II
(1850-1860.)
Matriculation at Christ Church--Death of Mrs. Dodgson--The
Great Exhibition--University and College Honours--A
wonderful year--A theatrical treat--_Misch-Masch--The
Train--College Rhymes_--His _nom de
plume_--"Dotheboys Hall"--Alfred
Tennyson--Ordination--Sermons--A visit to
Farringford--"Where does the day begin?"--The Queen visits
Oxford.
We have traced in the boyhood of Lewis Carroll the beginnings of those
characteristic traits which afterwards, more fully developed, gave him
so distinguished a position among his contemporaries. We now come to a
period of his life which is in some respects necessarily less
interesting. We all have to pass through that painful era of
self-consciousness which prefaces manhood, that time when we feel so
deeply, and are so utterly unable to express to others, or even to
define clearly to ourselves, what it is we do feel. The natural
freedom of childhood is dead within us; the conventional freedom of
riper years is struggling to birth, and its efforts are sometimes
ludicrous to an unsympathetic observer. In Lewis Carroll's mental
attitude during this critical period there was always a calm dignity
which saved him from these absurdities, an undercurrent of
consciousness that what seemed so great to him was really very little.
On May 23, 1850, he matriculated at Christ Church, the venerable
college which had numbered his father's among other illustrious names.
A letter from Dr. Jelf, one of the canons of Christ Church, to
Archdeacon Dodgson, written when the former heard that his old
friend's son was coming up to "the House," contains the following
words: "I am sure I express the common feeling of all who remember you
at Christ Church when I say that we shall rejoice to see a son of
yours worthy to tread in your footsteps."
Lewis Carroll came into residence on January 24, 1851. From that day
to the hour of his death--a period of forty-seven years--he belonged
to "the House," never leaving it for any length of time, becoming
almost a part of it. I, for one, can hardly imagine it without him.
Though technically "in residence," he had not rooms of his own in
College during his first term. The "House" was very full; and had it
not been for one of the tutors, the Rev. J. Lew, kindly lending him
one of his own rooms, he would have had to take lodgings in the town.
The first set of rooms he occupied was in Peckwater Quadrangle, which
is annually the scene of a great bonfire on Guy Fawkes' Day, and,
generally speaking, is not the best place for a reading man to live
in.
In those days the undergraduates dining in hall were divided into
"messes." Each mess consisted of about half a dozen men, who had a
table to themselves. Dinner was served at five, and very indifferently
served, too; the dishes and plates were of pewter, and the joint was
passed round, each man cutting off what he wanted for himself. In Mr.
Dodgson's mess were Philip Pusey, the late Rev. G. C. Woodhouse, and,
among others, one who still lives in "Alice in Wonderland" as the
"Hatter."
Only a few days after term began, Mrs. Dodgson died suddenly at Croft.
The shock was a terrible one to the whole family, and especially to
her devoted husband. I have come across a delightful and most
characteristic letter from Dr. Pusey--a letter full of the kindest and
truest sympathy with the Archdeacon in his bereavement. The part of it
which bears upon Mrs. Dodgson's death I give in full:--
[Illustration: Grave of Archdeacon and Mrs. Dodgson in Croft
Churchyard.]
My dear Friend, I hear and see so little and so few persons,
that I had not heard of your sorrow until your to-day's
letter; and now I but guess what it was: only your language
is that of the very deepest. I have often thought, since I
had to think of this, how, in all adversity, what God takes
away He may give us back with increase. One cannot think
that any holy earthly love will cease, when we shall "be
like the Angels of God in Heaven." Love here must shadow our
love there, deeper because spiritual, without any alloy from
our sinful nature, and in the fulness of the love of God.
But as we grow here by God's grace will be our capacity for
endless love. So, then, if by our very sufferings we are
purified, and our hearts enlarged, we shall, in that endless
bliss, love more those whom we loved here, than if we had
never had that sorrow, never been parted....
Lewis Carroll was summoned home to attend the funeral--a sad interlude
amidst the novel experiences of a first term at College. The Oxford of
1851 was in many ways quite unlike the Oxford of 1898. The position of
the undergraduates was much more similar to that of schoolboys than is
now the case; they were subject to the same penalties--corporal
punishment, even, had only just gone out of vogue!--and were expected
to work, and to work hard.
Early rising then was strictly enforced, as the following extract from
one of his letters will show:--
I am not so anxious as usual to begin my personal history,
as the first thing I have to record is a very sad incident,
namely, my missing morning chapel; before, however, you
condemn me, you must hear how accidental it was. For some
days now I have been in the habit of, I will not say getting
up, but of being called at a quarter past six, and generally
managing to be down soon after seven. In the present
instance I had been up the night before till about half-past
twelve, and consequently when I was called I fell asleep
again, and was thunderstruck to find on waking that it was
ten minutes past eight. I have had no imposition, nor heard
anything about it. It is rather vexatious to have happened
so soon, as I had intended never to be late.
[Illustration: Lewis Carroll, aged 23.]
It was therefore obviously his custom to have his breakfast
_before_ going to chapel. I wonder how many undergraduates of the
present generation follow the same hardy rule! But then no
"impositions" threaten the modern sluggard, even if he neglects chapel
altogether.
During the Long Vacation he visited the Great Exhibition, and wrote
his sister Elizabeth a long account of what he had seen:--
I think the first impression produced on you when you get
inside is one of bewilderment. It looks like a sort of
fairyland. As far as you can look in any direction, you see
nothing but pillars hung about with shawls, carpets, &c.,
with long avenues of statues, fountains, canopies, etc.,
etc., etc. The first thing to be seen on entering is the
Crystal Fountain, a most elegant one about thirty feet high
at a rough guess, composed entirely of glass and pouring
down jets of water from basin to basin; this is in the
middle of the centre nave, and from it you can look down to
either end, and up both transepts. The centre of the nave
mostly consists of a long line of colossal statues, some
most magnificent. The one considered the finest, I believe,
is the Amazon and Tiger. She is sitting on horseback, and a
tiger has fastened on the neck of the horse in front. You
have to go to one side to see her face, and the other to see
the horse's. The horse's face is really wonderful,
expressing terror and pain so exactly, that you almost
expect to hear it scream.... There are some very ingenious
pieces of mechanism. A tree (in the French Compartment) with
birds chirping and hopping from branch to branch exactly
like life. The bird jumps across, turns round on the other
branch, so as to face back again, settles its head and neck,
and then in a few moments jumps back again. A bird standing
at the foot of the tree trying to eat a beetle is rather a
failure; it never succeeds in getting its head more than a
quarter of an inch down, and that in uncomfortable little
jerks, as if it was choking. I have to go to the Royal
Academy, so must stop: as the subject is quite inexhaustible,
there is no hope of ever coming to a regular finish.
On November 1st he won a Boulter scholarship, and at the end of the
following year obtained First Class Honours in Mathematics and a
Second in Classical Moderations. On Christmas Eve he was made a
Student on Dr. Pusey's nomination, for at that time the Dean and
Canons nominated to Studentships by turn. The only conditions on which
these old Studentships were held were that the Student should remain
unmarried, and should proceed to Holy Orders. No statute precisely
defined what work was expected of them, that question being largely
left to their own discretion.
The eight Students at the bottom of the list that is to say, the eight
who had been nominated last--had to mark, by pricking on weekly papers
called "the Bills," the attendance at morning and evening chapel. They
were allowed to arrange this duty among themselves, and, if it was
neglected, they were all punished. This long-defunct custom explains
an entry in Lewis Carroll's Diary for October 15, 1853, "Found I had
got the prickbills two hundred lines apiece, by not pricking in in the
morning," which, I must confess, mystified me exceedingly at first.
Another reference to College impositions occurs further on in his
Diary, at a time when he was a Lecturer: "Spoke to the Dean about
F--, who has brought an imposition which his tutor declares is not
his own writing, after being expressly told to write it himself."
The following is an extract from his father's letter of
congratulation, on his being nominated for the Studentship:--
My dearest Charles,--The feelings of thankfulness and
delight with which I have read your letter just received, I
must leave to _your conception_; for they are, I assure
you, beyond _my expression_; and your affectionate
heart will derive no small addition of joy from thinking of
the joy which you have occasioned to me, and to all the
circle of your home. I say "_you_ have occasioned,"
because, grateful as I am to my old friend Dr. Pusey for
what he has done, I cannot desire stronger evidence than his
own words of the fact that you have _won_, and well
won, this honour for _yourself_, and that it is
bestowed as a matter of _justice_ to _you_, and
not of _kindness_ to _me_. You will be interested
in reading extracts from his two letters to me--the first
written three years ago in answer to one from me, in which I
distinctly told him that I neither asked nor expected that
he should serve me in this matter, unless my son should
fairly reach the standard of merit by which these
appointments were regulated. In reply he says--
"I thank you for the way in which you put the application to
me. I have now, for nearly twenty years, not given a
Studentship to any friend of my own, unless there was no
very eligible person in the College. I have passed by or
declined the sons of those to whom I was personally indebted
for kindness. I can only say that I shall have _very
great_ pleasure, if circumstances permit me to nominate
your son."
In his letter received this morning he says--
"I have great pleasure in telling you that I have been
enabled to recommend your son for a Studentship this
Christmas. It must be so much more satisfactory to you that
he should be nominated thus, in consequence of the
recommendation of the College. One of the Censors brought me
to-day five names; but in their minds it was plain that they
thought your son on the whole the most eligible for the
College. It has been very satisfactory to hear of your son's
uniform steady and good conduct."
The last clause is a parallel to your own report, and I am
glad that you should have had so soon an evidence so
substantial of the truth of what I have so often inculcated,
that it is the "steady, painstaking, likely-to-do-good" man,
who in the long run wins the race against those who now and
then give a brilliant flash and, as Shakespeare says,
"straight are cold again."
[Illustration: Archdeacon Dodgson.]
In 1853 Archdeacon Dodgson was collated and installed as one of the
Canons of Ripon Cathedral. This appointment necessitated a residence
of three months in every year at Ripon, where Dr. Erskine was then
Dean. A certain Miss Anderson, who used to stay at the Deanery, had
very remarkable "clairvoyant" powers; she was able--it was averred--by
merely holding in her hand a folded paper containing some words
written by a person unknown to her, to describe his or her character.
In this way, at what precise date is uncertain, she dictated the
following description of Lewis Carroll: "Very clever head; a great
deal of number; a great deal of imitation; he would make a good actor;
diffident; rather shy in general society; comes out in the home
circle; rather obstinate; very clever; a great deal of concentration;
very affectionate; a great deal of wit and humour; not much
eventuality (or memory of events); fond of deep reading; imaginative,
fond, of reading poetry; _may_ compose." Those who knew him well
will agree that this was, at any rate, a remarkable coincidence.
Longley, afterwards Primate, was then Bishop of Ripon. His charming
character endeared him to the Archdeacon and his family, as to every
one else who saw much of him. He was one of the few men whose faces
can truly be called _beautiful_; it was a veil through which a
soul, all gentleness and truth, shone brightly.
In the early part of 1854 Mr. Dodgson was reading hard for "Greats."
For the last three weeks before the examination he worked thirteen
hours a day, spending the whole night before the _viva voce_ over
his books. But philosophy and history were not very congenial subjects
to him, and when the list was published his name was only in the third
class.
[Illustration: Archbishop Longley.]
He spent the Long Vacation at Whitby, reading Mathematics with
Professor Price. His work bore good fruit, for in October he obtained
First Class Honours in the Final Mathematical School. "I am getting
quite tired of being congratulated on various subjects," he writes;
"there seems to be no end of it. If I had shot the Dean I could hardly
have had more said about it."
In another letter dated December 13th, he says:
Enclosed you will find a list which I expect you to rejoice
over considerably; it will take me more than a day to
believe it, I expect--I feel at present very like a child
with a new toy, but I daresay I shall be tired of it soon,
and wish to be Pope of Rome next.... I have just been to Mr.
Price to see how I did in the papers, and the result will I
hope be gratifying to you. The following were the sums total
for each in the First Class, as nearly as I can remember:--
Dodgson ... ... ... 279
Bosanquet ... ... ... 261
Cookson ... ... ... 254
Fowler ... ... ... 225
Ranken ... ... ... 213
He also said he never remembered so good a set of men in.
All this is very satisfactory. I must also add (this is a
very boastful letter) that I ought to get the senior
scholarship next term.... One thing more I will add, to
crown all, and that is, I find I am the next First Class
Mathematical Student to Faussett (with the exception of
Kitchin who has given up Mathematics), so that I stand next
(as Bosanquet is going to leave) for the Lectureship.
On December 18th he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and on
October 15, 1855, he was made a "Master of the House," in honour of
the appointment of the new Dean (Dr. Liddell) who succeeded Dean
Gaisford. To be made Master of the House means that a man has all the
privileges of a Master of Arts within the walls of Christ Church. But
he must be of a certain number of terms' standing, and be admitted in
due form by the Vice-Chancellor, before he is a Master of Arts of the
University. In this wider sense Mr. Dodgson did not take his Master's
degree until 1857.
This is anticipating events, and there is much to tell of the year
1855, which was a very eventful one for him. On February 15th he was
made Sub-Librarian. "This will add L35 to my income," he writes, "not
much towards independence." For he was most anxious to have a
sufficient income to make him his own master, that he might enter on
the literary and artistic career of which he was already dreaming. On
May 14th he wrote in his Diary: "The Dean and Canons have been pleased
to give me one of the Bostock scholarships, said to be worth L20 a
year--this very nearly raises my income this year to independence.
Courage!"
His college work, during 1855, was chiefly taking private pupils, but
he had, in addition, about three and a half hours a day of lecturing
during the last term of the year. He did not, however, work as one of
the regular staff of lecturers until the next year. From that date his
work rapidly increased, and he soon had to devote regularly as much as
seven hours a day to delivering lectures, to say nothing of the time
required for preparing them.
The following extract from his Journal, June 22, 1855, will serve to
show his early love for the drama. The scene is laid at the Princess'
Theatre, then at the height of its glory:--
The evening began with a capital farce, "Away with
Melancholy," and then came the great play, "Henry VIII.,"
the greatest theatrical treat I ever had or ever expect to
have. I had no idea that anything so superb as the scenery
and dresses was ever to be seen on the stage. Kean was
magnificent as Cardinal Wolsey, Mrs. Kean a worthy successor
to Mrs. Siddons as Queen Catherine, and all the accessories
without exception were good--but oh, that exquisite vision
of Queen Catherine's! I almost held my breath to watch: the
illusion is perfect, and I felt as if in a dream all the
time it lasted. It was like a delicious reverie, or the most
beautiful poetry. This is the true end and object of
acting--to raise the mind above itself, and out of its petty
cares. Never shall I forget that wonderful evening, that
exquisite vision--sunbeams broke in through the roof, and
gradually revealed two angel forms, floating in front of the
carved work on the ceiling: the column of sunbeams shone
down upon the sleeping queen, and gradually down it floated,
a troop of angelic forms, transparent, and carrying palm
branches in their hands: they waved these over the sleeping
queen, with oh! such a sad and solemn grace. So could I
fancy (if the thought be not profane) would real angels seem
to our mortal vision, though doubtless our conception is
poor and mean to the reality. She in an ecstasy raises her
arms towards them, and to sweet slow music, they vanish as
marvellously as they came. Then the profound silence of the
audience burst at once into a rapture of applause; but even
that scarcely marred the effect of the beautiful sad waking
words of the Queen, "Spirits of peace, where are ye?" I
never enjoyed anything so much in my life before; and never
felt so inclined to shed tears at anything fictitious, save
perhaps at that poetical gem of Dickens, the death of little
Paul.
On August 21st he received a long letter from his father, full of
excellent advice on the importance to a young man of saving money:--
I will just sketch for you [writes the Archdeacon] a
supposed case, applicable to your own circumstances, of a
young man of twenty-three, making up his mind to work for
ten years, and living to do it, on an Income enabling him to
save L150 a year--supposing him to appropriate it thus:--
L s. d.
Invested at 4 per cent. ... ... 100 0 0
Life Insurance of L1,500 ... 29 15 0
Books, besides those bought in
ordinary course ... ... ... 20 5 0
_____________
L150 0 0
Suppose him at the end of the ten years to get a Living
enabling him to settle, what will be the result of his
savings:--
1. A nest egg of L1,220 ready money, for furnishing and
other expenses.
2. A sum of L1,500 secured at his death on payment of a
_very much_ smaller annual Premium than if he had then
begun to insure it.
3. A useful Library, worth more than L200, besides the
books bought out of his current Income during the period....
The picture on the opposite page is one of Mr. Dodgson's illustrations
in _Misch-Masch,_ a periodical of the nature of _The Rectory
Umbrella_, except that it contained printed stories and poems by
the editor, cut out of the various newspapers to which he had
contributed them. Of the comic papers of that day _Punch,_ of
course, held the foremost place, but it was not without rivals; there
was a certain paper called _Diogenes_, then very near its end,
which imitated _Punch's_ style, and in 1853 the proprietor of
_The Illustrated News_, at that time one of the most opulent
publishers in London, started _The Comic Times._ A capable editor
was found in Edmund Yates; "Phiz" and other well-known artists and
writers joined the staff, and 100,000 copies of the first number were
printed.
[Illustration: Studies from English Poets II "Alas! What
Boots--" Milton's Lucidas.]
Among the contributors was Frank Smedley, author of "Frank Fairleigh."
Though a confirmed invalid, and condemned to spend most of his days on
a sofa, Mr. Smedley managed to write several fine novels, full of the
joy of life, and free from the least taint of discontent or morbid
feeling. He was one of those men--one meets them here and there--whose
minds rise high above their bodily infirmities; at moments of
depression, which come to them as frequently, if not more frequently,
than to other men, they no doubt feel their weakness, and think
themselves despised, little knowing that we, the stronger ones in
body, feel nothing but admiration as we watch the splendid victory of
the soul over its earthly companion which their lives display.
It was through Frank Smedley that Mr. Dodgson became one of the
contributors to _The Comic Times_. Several of his poems appeared
in it, and Mr. Yates wrote to him in the kindest manner, expressing
warm approval of them. When _The Comic Times_ changed hands in
1856, and was reduced to half its size, the whole staff left it and
started a new venture, _The Train_. They were joined by Sala,
whose stories in _Household Words_ were at that time usually
ascribed by the uninitiated to Charles Dickens. Mr. Dodgson's
contributions to _The Train_ included the following: "Solitude"
(March, 1856); "Novelty and Romancement" (October, 1856); "The Three
Voices" (November, 1856); "The Sailor's Wife" (May, 1857); and last,
but by no means least, "Hiawatha's Photographing" (December, 1857).
All of these, except "Novelty and Romancement," have since been
republished in "Rhyme? and Reason?" and "Three Sunsets."
The last entry in Mr. Dodgson's Diary for this year reads as
follows:--
I am sitting alone in my bedroom this last night of the old
year, waiting for midnight. It has been the most eventful
year of my life: I began it a poor bachelor student, with no
definite plans or expectations; I end it a master and tutor
in Ch. Ch., with an income of more than L300 a year, and the
course of mathematical tuition marked out by God's
providence for at least some years to come. Great mercies,
great failings, time lost, talents misapplied--such has been
the past year.
His Diary is full of such modest depreciations of himself and his
work, interspersed with earnest prayers (too sacred and private to be
reproduced here) that God would forgive him the past, and help him to
perform His holy will in the future. And all the time that he was thus
speaking of himself as a sinner, and a man who was utterly falling
short of his aim, he was living a life full of good deeds and
innumerable charities, a life of incessant labour and unremitting
fulfilment of duty. So, I suppose, it is always with those who have a
really high ideal; the harder they try to approach it the more it
seems to recede from them, or rather, perhaps, it is impossible to be
both "the subject and spectator" of goodness. As Coventry Patmore
wrote:--
Become whatever good you see;
Nor sigh if, forthwith, fades from view
The grace of which you may not be
The Subject and spectator too.
The reading of "Alton Locke" turned his mind towards social subjects.
"If the book were but a little more definite," he writes, "it might
stir up many fellow-workers in the same good field of social
improvement. Oh that God, in His good providence, may make me
hereafter such a worker! But alas, what are the means? Each one has
his own _nostrum_ to propound, and in the Babel of voices nothing
is done. I would thankfully spend and be spent so long as I were sure
of really effecting something by the sacrifice, and not merely lying
down under the wheels of some irresistible Juggernaut."
He was for some time the editor of _College Rhymes_, a Christ
Church paper, in which his poem, "A Sea Dirge" (afterwards republished
in "Phantasmagoria," and again in "Rhyme? and Reason?"), first
appeared. The following verses were among his contributions to the
same magazine:--
I painted her a gushing thing,
With years perhaps a score
I little thought to find they were
At least a dozen more;
My fancy gave her eyes of blue,
A curly auburn head:
I came to find the blue a green,
The auburn turned to red.
She boxed my ears this morning,
They tingled very much;
I own that I could wish her
A somewhat lighter touch;
And if you were to ask me how
Her charms might be improved,
I would not have them _added to_,
But just a few _removed_!
She has the bear's ethereal grace,
The bland hyena's laugh,
The footstep of the elephant,
The neck of the giraffe;
I love her still, believe me,
Though my heart its passion hides;
"She is all my fancy painted her,"
But oh! _how much besides_!
It was when writing for _The Train_ that he first felt the need
of a pseudonym. He suggested "Dares" (the first syllable of his
birthplace) to Edmund Yates, but, as this did not meet with his
editor's approval, he wrote again, giving a choice of four names, (1)
Edgar Cuthwellis, (2) Edgar U. C. Westhall, (3) Louis Carroll, and (4)
Lewis Carroll. The first two were formed from the letters of his two
Christian names, Charles Lutwidge; the others are merely variant forms
of those names--Lewis = Ludovicus = Lutwidge; Carroll = Carolus =
Charles. Mr. Yates chose the last, and thenceforward it became Mr.
Dodgson's ordinary _nom de plume_. The first occasion on which he
used it was, I believe, when he wrote "The Path of Roses," a poem
which appeared in _The Train_ in May, 1856.
On June 16th he again visited the Princess's Theatre. This time the
play was "A Winter's Tale," and he "especially admired the acting of
the little Mamillius, Ellen Terry, a beautiful little creature, who
played with remarkable ease and spirit."
During the Long Vacation he spent a few weeks in the English Lake
District. In spite of the rain, of which he had his full share, he
managed to see a good deal of the best scenery, and made the ascent of
Gable in the face of an icy gale, which laid him up with neuralgia for
some days. He and his companions returned to Croft by way of Barnard
Castle, as he narrates in his Diary:--
We set out by coach for Barnard Castle at about seven, and
passed over about forty miles of the dreariest hill-country
I ever saw; the climax of wretchedness was reached in Bowes,
where yet stands the original of "Dotheboys Hall"; it has
long ceased to be used as a school, and is falling into
ruin, in which the whole place seems to be following its
example--the roofs are falling in, and the windows broken or
barricaded--the whole town looks plague-stricken. The
courtyard of the inn we stopped at was grown over with
weeds, and a mouthing idiot lolled against the corner of the
house, like the evil genius of the spot. Next to a prison or
a lunatic asylum, preserve me from living at Bowes!
Although he was anything but a sportsman, he was interested in the
subject of betting, from a mathematical standpoint solely, and in 1857
he sent a letter to _Bell's Life_, explaining a method by which a
betting man might ensure winning over any race. The system was either
to back _every_ horse, or to lay against _every_ horse,
according to the way the odds added up. He showed his scheme to a
sporting friend, who remarked, "An excellent system, and you're bound
to win--_if only you can get people to take your bets_."
In the same year he made the acquaintance of Tennyson, whose writings
he had long intensely admired. He thus describes the poet's
appearance:--
A strange shaggy-looking man; his hair, moustache, and beard
looked wild and neglected; these very much hid the character
of the face. He was dressed in a loosely fitting morning
coat, common grey flannel waistcoat and trousers, and a
carelessly tied black silk neckerchief. His hair is black; I
think the eyes too; they are keen and restless--nose
aquiline--forehead high and broad--both face and head are
fine and manly. His manner was kind and friendly from the
first; there is a dry lurking humour in his style of
talking.
I took the opportunity [he goes on to say] of asking the
meaning of two passages in his poems, which have always
puzzled me: one in "Maud"--
Strange that I hear two men
Somewhere talking of me;
Well, if it prove a girl, my boy
Will have plenty; so let it be.
He said it referred to Maud, and to the two fathers
arranging a match between himself and her.
The other was of the poet--
Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love.
He said that he was quite willing it should bear any meaning
the words would fairly bear; to the best of his recollection
his meaning when he wrote it was "the hate of the quality
hate, &c.," but he thought the meaning of "the quintessence
of hatred" finer. He said there had never been a poem so
misunderstood by the "ninnies of critics" as "Maud."
[Illustration: Alfred Tennyson. _From a photograph by Lewis
Carroll._]
During an evening spent at Tent Lodge Tennyson remarked, on the
similarity of the monkey's skull to the human, that a young monkey's
skull is quite human in shape, and gradually alters--the analogy being
borne out by the human skull being at first more like the statues of
the gods, and gradually degenerating into human; and then, turning to
Mrs. Tennyson, "There, that's the second original remark I've made
this evening!" Mr. Dodgson saw a great deal of the Tennysons after
this, and photographed the poet himself and various members of his
family.
In October he made the acquaintance of John Ruskin, who in after years
was always willing to assist him with his valuable advice on any point
of artistic criticism. Mr. Dodgson was singularly fortunate in his
friends; whenever he was in difficulties on any technical matters,
whether of religion, law, medicine, art, or whatever it might be, he
always had some one especially distinguished in that branch of study
whose aid he could seek as a friend. In particular, the names of Canon
King (now Bishop of Lincoln), and Sir James Paget occur to me; to the
latter Mr. Dodgson addressed many letters on questions of medicine and
surgery--some of them intricate enough, but never too intricate to
weary the unfailing patience of the great surgeon.
A note in Mr. Dodgson's Journal, May 9, 1857, describes his
introduction to Thackeray:--
I breakfasted this morning with Fowler of Lincoln to meet
Thackeray (the author), who delivered his lecture on George
III. in Oxford last night. I was much pleased with what I
saw of him; his manner is simple and unaffected; he shows no
anxiety to shine in conversation, though full of fun and
anecdote when drawn out. He seemed delighted with the
reception he had met with last night: the undergraduates
seem to have behaved with most unusual moderation.
The next few years of his life passed quietly, and without any unusual
events to break the monotony of college routine. He spent his mornings
in the lecture-rooms, his afternoons in the country or on the
river--he was very fond of boating--and his evenings in his room,
reading and preparing for the next day's work. But in spite of all
this outward calm of life, his mind was very much exercised on the
subject of taking Holy Orders. Not only was this step necessary if he
wished to retain his Studentship, but also he felt that it would give
him much more influence among the undergraduates, and thus increase
his power of doing good. On the other hand, he was not prepared to
live the life of almost puritanical strictness which was then
considered essential for a clergyman, and he saw that the impediment
of speech from which he suffered would greatly interfere with the
proper performance of his clerical duties.
[Illustration: The Bishop of Lincoln. _From a photograph by
Lewis Carroll_]
The Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Wilberforce, had expressed the opinion that
the "resolution to attend theatres or operas was an absolute
disqualification for Holy Orders," which discouraged him very much,
until it transpired that this statement was only meant to refer to the
parochial clergy. He discussed the matter with Dr. Pusey, and with Dr.
Liddon. The latter said that "he thought a deacon might lawfully, if
he found himself unfit for the work, abstain from direct ministerial
duty." And so, with many qualms about his own unworthiness, he at last
decided to prepare definitely for ordination.
On December 22, 1861, he was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Oxford.
He never proceeded to priest's orders, partly, I think, because he
felt that if he were to do so it would be his duty to undertake
regular parochial work, and partly on account of his stammering. He
used, however, to preach not unfrequently, and his sermons were always
delightful to listen to, his extreme earnestness being evident in
every word.
[Illustration: Bishop Wilberforce. _From a photograph by
Lewis Carroll_.]
"He knew exactly what he wished to say" (I am quoting from an article
in _The Guardian_), "and completely forgot his audience in his
anxiety to explain his point clearly. He thought of the subject only,
and the words came of themselves. Looking straight in front of him he
saw, as it were, his argument mapped out in the form of a diagram, and
he set to work to prove it point by point, under its separate heads,
and then summed up the whole."
One sermon which he preached in the University Church, on Eternal
Punishment, is not likely to be soon forgotten by those who heard it.
I, unfortunately, was not of that number, but I can well imagine how
his clear-cut features would light up as he dwelt lovingly upon the
mercy of that Being whose charity far exceeds "the measure of man's
mind." It is hardly necessary to say that he himself did not believe
in eternal punishment, or any other scholastic doctrine that
contravenes the love of God.
He disliked being complimented on his sermons, but he liked to be told
of any good effects that his words had had upon any member of the
congregation. "Thank you for telling me that fact about my sermon," he
wrote to one of his sisters, who told him of some such good fruit that
one of his addresses had borne. "I have once or twice had such
information volunteered; and it is a _great_ comfort--and a kind
of thing that is _really_ good for one to know. It is _not_
good to be told (and I never wish to be told), 'Your sermon was so
_beautiful_.' We shall not be concerned to know, in the Great
Day, whether we have preached beautiful sermons, but whether they were
preached with the one object of serving God."
He was always ready and willing to preach at the special service for
College servants, which used to be held at Christ Church every Sunday
evening; but best of all he loved to preach to children. Some of his
last sermons were delivered at Christ Church, Eastbourne (the church
he regularly attended during the Long Vacation), to a congregation of
children. On those occasions he told them an allegory--_Victor and
Arnion,_ which he intended to publish in course of time--putting
all his heart into the work, and speaking with such deep feeling that
at times he was almost unable to control his emotion as he told them
of the love and compassion of the Good Shepherd.
I have dwelt at some length on this side of his life, for it is, I am
sure, almost ignored in the popular estimate of him. He was
essentially a religious man in the best sense of the term, and without
any of that morbid sentimentality which is too often associated with
the word; and while his religion consecrated his talents, and raised
him to a height which without it he could never have reached, the
example of such a man as he was, so brilliant, so witty, so
successful, and yet so full of faith, consecrates the very conception
of religion, and makes it yet more beautiful.
On April 13, 1859, he paid another visit to Tennyson, this time at
Farringford.
After dinner we retired for about an hour to the
smoking-room, where I saw the proof-sheets of the "King's
Idylls," but he would not let me read them. He walked
through the garden with me when I left, and made me remark
an effect produced on the thin white clouds by the moon
shining through, which I had not noticed--a ring of golden
light at some distance off the moon, with an interval of
white between--this, he says, he has alluded to in one of
his early poems ("Margaret," vol. i.), "the tender amber." I
asked his opinion of Sydney Dobell--he agrees with me in
liking "Grass from the Battlefield," and thinks him a writer
of genius and imagination, but extravagant.
On another occasion he showed the poet a photograph which he had taken
of Miss Alice Liddell as a beggar-child, and which Tennyson said was
the most beautiful photograph he had ever seen.
[Illustration: Alice Liddell as Beggar-child. _From a
photograph by Lewis Carroll_.]
Tennyson told us he had often dreamed long passages of
poetry, and believed them to be good at the time, though he
could never remember them after waking, except four lines
which he dreamed at ten years old:--
May a cock sparrow
Write to a barrow?
I hope you'll excuse
My infantile muse;
--which, as an unpublished fragment of the Poet Laureate,
may be thought interesting, but not affording much promise
of his after powers.
He also told us he once dreamed an enormously long poem
about fairies, which began with very long lines that
gradually got shorter, and ended with fifty or sixty lines
of two syllables each!
On October 17, 1859, the Prince of Wales came into residence at Christ
Church. The Dean met him at the station, and all the dons assembled in
Tom Quadrangle to welcome him. Mr. Dodgson, as usual, had an eye to a
photograph, in which hope, however, he was doomed to disappointment.
His Royal Highness was tired of having his picture taken.
During his early college life he used often to spend a few days at
Hastings, with his mother's sisters, the Misses Lutwidge. In a letter
written from their house to his sister Mary, and dated April 11, 1860,
he gives an account of a lecture he had just heard:--
I am just returned from a series of dissolving views on the
Arctic regions, and, while the information there received is
still fresh in my mind, I will try to give you some of it.
In the first place, you may not know that one of the objects
of the Arctic expeditions was to discover "the intensity of
the magnetic needle." He [the lecturer] did not tell us,
however, whether they had succeeded in discovering it, or
whether that rather obscure question is still doubtful. One
of the explorers, Baffin, "_though_ he did not suffer
all the hardships the others did, _yet_ he came to an
untimely end (of course one would think in the Arctic
regions), _for instance_ (what follows being, I
suppose, one of the untimely ends he came to), being engaged
in a war of the Portuguese against the Prussians, while
measuring the ground in front of a fortification, a
cannon-ball came against him, with the force with which
cannon-balls in that day _did_ come, and killed him
dead on the spot." How many instances of this kind would you
demand to prove that he did come to an untimely end? One of
the ships was laid up three years in the ice, during which
time, he told us, "Summer came and went frequently." This, I
think, was the most remarkable phenomenon he mentioned in
the whole lecture, and gave _me_ quite a new idea of
those regions.
On Tuesday I went to a concert at St. Leonard's. On the
front seat sat a youth about twelve years of age, of whom
the enclosed is a tolerably accurate sketch. He really was,
I think, the ugliest boy I ever saw. I wish I could get an
opportunity of photographing him.
[Illustration: Sketch from St. Leonard's Concert-Room.]
The following note occurs in his Journal for May 6th:--
A Christ Church man, named Wilmot, who is just returned from
the West Indies, dined in Hall. He told us some curious
things about the insects in South America--one that he had
himself seen was a spider charming a cockroach with flashes
of light; they were both on the wall, the spider about a
yard the highest, and the light was like a glow-worm, only
that it came by flashes and did not shine continuously; the
cockroach gradually crawled up to it, and allowed itself to
be taken and killed.
A few months afterwards, when in town and visiting Mr.
Munroe's studio, he found there two of the children of Mr.
George Macdonald, whose acquaintance he had already made:
"They were a girl and boy, about seven and six years old--I
claimed their acquaintance, and began at once proving to the
boy, Greville, that he had better take the opportunity of
having his head changed for a marble one. The effect was
that in about two minutes they had entirely forgotten that I
was a total stranger, and were earnestly arguing the
question as if we were old acquaintances." Mr. Dodgson urged
that a marble head would not have to be brushed and combed.
At this the boy turned to his sister with an air of great
relief, saying, "Do you hear _that_, Mary? It needn't
be combed!" And the narrator adds, "I have no doubt combing,
with his great head of long hair, like Hallam Tennyson's,
was _the_ misery of his life. His final argument was
that a marble head couldn't speak, and as I couldn't
convince either that he would be all the better for that, I
gave in."
[Illustration: George Macdonald and his daughter Lily.
_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll._]
In November he gave a lecture at a meeting of the Ashmolean Society on
"Where does the Day begin?" The problem, which was one he was very
fond of propounding, may be thus stated: If a man could travel round
the world so fast that the sun would be always directly above his
head, and if he were to start travelling at midday on Tuesday, then in
twenty-four hours he would return to his original point of departure,
and would find that the day was now called Wednesday--at what point of
his journey would the day change its name? The difficulty of answering
this apparently simple question has cast a gloom over many a pleasant
party.
On December 12th he wrote in his Diary:--
Visit of the Queen to Oxford, to the great surprise of
everybody, as it had been kept a secret up to the time. She
arrived in Christ Church about twelve, and came into Hall
with the Dean, where the Collections were still going on,
about a dozen men being in Hall. The party consisted of the
Queen, Prince Albert, Princess Alice and her intended
husband, the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, the Prince of Wales,
Prince Alfred, and suite. They remained a minute or two
looking at the pictures, and the Sub-Dean was presented:
they then visited the Cathedral and Library. Evening
entertainment at the Deanery, _tableaux vivants_. I
went a little after half-past eight, and found a great party
assembled--the Prince had not yet come. He arrived before
nine, and I found an opportunity of reminding General Bruce
of his promise to introduce me to the Prince, which he did
at the next break in the conversation H.R.H. was holding
with Mrs. Fellowes. He shook hands very graciously, and I
began with a sort of apology for having been so importunate
about the photograph. He said something of the weather being
against it, and I asked if the Americans had victimised him
much as a sitter; he said they had, but he did not think
they had succeeded well, and I told him of the new American
process of taking twelve thousand photographs in an hour.
Edith Liddell coming by at the moment, I remarked on the
beautiful _tableau_ which the children might make: he
assented, and also said, in answer to my question, that he
had seen and admired my photographs of them. I then said
that I hoped, as I had missed the photograph, he would at
least give me his autograph in my album, which he promised
to do. Thinking I had better bring the talk to an end, I
concluded by saying that, if he would like copies of any of
my photographs, I should feel honoured by his accepting
them; he thanked me for this, and I then drew back, as he
did not seem inclined to pursue the conversation.
A few days afterwards the Prince gave him his autograph, and also
chose a dozen or so of his photograph (sic).
[Illustration: Mrs. Rossetti and her children Dante Gabriel,
Christina, and William. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll._]
* * * * *
CHAPTER III
(1861-1867)
Jowett--Index to "In Memoriam"--The Tennysons--The beginning
of "Alice"--Tenniel--Artistic friends--"Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland"--"Bruno's Revenge"--Tour with Dr.
Liddon--Cologne--Berlin architecture--The "Majesty of
Justice"--Peterhof--Moscow--A Russian wedding--Nijni--The
Troitska Monastery--"Hieroglyphic" writing--Giessen.
It is my aim in this Memoir to let Mr. Dodgson tell his own story as
much as possible. In order to effect this object I have drawn largely
upon his Diary and correspondence. Very few men have left behind them
such copious information about their lives as he has; unfortunately it
is not equally copious throughout, and this fact must be my apology
for the somewhat haphazard and disconnected way in which parts of this
book are written. That it is the best which, under the circumstances,
I have been able to do needs, I hope, no saying, but the circumstances
have at times been too strong for me.
Though in later years Mr. Dodgson almost gave up the habit of dining
out, at this time of his life he used to do it pretty frequently, and
several of the notes in his Diary refer to after-dinner and Common
Room stories. The two following extracts will show the sort of facts
he recorded:--
_January 2, 1861._--Mr. Grey (Canon) came to dine and
stay the night. He told me a curious old custom of millers,
that they place the sails of the mill as a Saint Andrew's
Cross when work is entirely suspended, thus x, but in an
upright cross, thus +, if they are just going to resume
work. He also mentioned that he was at school with Dr.
Tennyson (father of the poet), and was a great favourite of
his. He remembers that Tennyson used to do his
school-translations in rhyme.
_May 9th._--Met in Common Room Rev. C.F. Knight, and
the Hon'ble. F.J. Parker, both of Boston, U.S. The former
gave an amusing account of having seen Oliver Wendell Holmes
in a fishmonger's, lecturing _extempore_ on the head of
a freshly killed turtle, whose eyes and jaws still showed
muscular action: the lecture of course being all "cram," but
accepted as sober earnest by the mob outside.
Old Oxford men will remember the controversies that raged from about
1860 onwards over the opinions of the late Dr. Jowett. In my time the
name "Jowett" only represented the brilliant translator of Plato, and
the deservedly loved master of Balliol, whose sermons in the little
College Chapel were often attended by other than Balliol men, and
whose reputation for learning was expressed in the well-known verse of
"The Masque of Balliol":--
First come I, my name is Jowett.
There's no knowledge but I know it;
I am Master of this College;
What I don't know isn't knowledge.
But in 1861 he was anything but universally popular, and I am afraid
that Mr. Dodgson, nothing if not a staunch Conservative, sided with
the majority against him. Thus he wrote in his Diary:--
_November 20th._--Promulgation, in Congregation, of the
new statute to endow Jowett. The speaking took up the whole
afternoon, and the two points at issue, the endowing a
_Regius_ Professorship, and the countenancing Jowett's
theological opinions, got so inextricably mixed up that I
rose to beg that they might be kept separate. Once on my
feet, I said more than I at first meant, and defied them
ever to tire out the opposition by perpetually bringing the
question on (_Mem_.: if I ever speak again I will try
to say no more than I had resolved before rising). This was
my first speech in Congregation.
At the beginning of 1862 an "Index to In Memoriam," compiled by Mr.
Dodgson and his sisters, was published by Moxon. Tennyson had given
his consent, and the little book proved to be very useful to his
admirers.
On January 27th Morning Prayer was for the first time read in English
at the Christ Church College Service. On the same day Mr. Dodgson
moved over into new rooms, as the part of the College where he had
formerly lived (Chaplain's Quadrangle) was to be pulled down.
During the Easter Vacation he paid another visit to the Tennysons,
which he describes as follows:--
After luncheon I went to the Tennysons, and got Hallam and
Lionel to sign their names in my album. Also I made a
bargain with Lionel, that he was to give me some MS. of his
verses, and I was to send him some of mine. It was a very
difficult bargain to make; I almost despaired of it at
first, he put in so many conditions--first, I was to play a
game of chess with him; this, with much difficulty, was
reduced to twelve moves on each side; but this made little
difference, as I check-mated him at the sixth move. Second,
he was to be allowed to give me one blow on the head with a
mallet (this he at last consented to give up). I forget if
there were others, but it ended in my getting the verses,
for which I have written out "The Lonely Moor" for him.
Mr. Dodgson took a great interest in occult phenomena, and was for
some time an enthusiastic member of the "Psychical Society." It was
his interest in ghosts that led to his meeting with the artist Mr.
Heaphy, who had painted a picture of a ghost which he himself had
seen. I quote the following from a letter to his sister Mary:--
During my last visit to town, I paid a very interesting
visit to a new artist, Mr. Heaphy. Do you remember that
curious story of a ghost lady (in _Household Words_ or
_All the Year Round_), who sat to an artist for her
picture; it was called "Mr. H.'s Story," and he was the
writer.... He received me most kindly, and we had a very
interesting talk about the ghost, which certainly is one of
the most curious and inexplicable stories I ever heard. He
showed me her picture (life size), and she must have been
very lovely, if it is like her (or like it, which ever is
the correct pronoun).... Mr. Heaphy showed me a most
interesting collection of drawings he has made abroad; he
has been about, hunting up the earliest and most authentic
pictures of our Saviour, some merely outlines, some coloured
pictures. They agree wonderfully in the character of the
face, and one, he says, there is no doubt was done before
the year 150.... I feel sure from his tone that he is doing
this in a religious spirit, and not merely as an artist.
On July 4, 1862, there is a very important entry: "I made an
expedition _up_ the river to Godstow with the three Liddells; we
had tea on the bank there, and did not reach Christ Church till
half-past eight."
[Illustration: Lorina, Alice, and Edith Liddell. _From a
photograph by Lewis Carroll_.]
On the opposite page he added, somewhat later, "On which occasion I
told them the fairy-tale of 'Alice's Adventures Underground,' which I
undertook to write out for Alice."
These words need to be supplemented by the verses with which he
prefaced the "Wonderland":--
All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretence
Our wanderings to guide.
Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,
Beneath such dreamy weather,
To beg a tale of breath too weak
To stir the tiniest feather!
Yet what can one poor voice avail
Against three tongues together?
Imperious Prima flashes forth
Her edict "to begin it"--
In gentler tones Secunda hopes
"There will be nonsense in it!"
While Tertia interrupts the tale
Not _more_ than once a minute.
Anon, to sudden silence won,
In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through a land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast--
And half believe it true.
And ever, as the story drained
The wells of fancy dry,
And faintly strove that weary one
To put the subject by,
"The rest next time"--"It _is_ next time!"
The happy voices cry.
Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
Thus slowly, one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out--
And now the tale is done,
And home we steer, a merry crew,
Beneath the setting sun.
"Alice" herself (Mrs. Reginald Hargreaves) has given an account of the
scene, from which what follows is quoted:--
Most of Mr. Dodgson's stories were told to us on river
expeditions to Nuneham or Godstow, near Oxford. My eldest
sister, now Mrs. Skene, was "Prima," I was "Secunda," and
"Tertia" was my sister Edith. I believe the beginning of
"Alice" was told one summer afternoon when the sun was so
burning that we had landed in the meadows down the river,
deserting the boat to take refuge in the only bit of shade
to be found, which was under a new-made hayrick. Here from
all three came the old petition of "Tell us a story," and so
began the ever-delightful tale. Sometimes to tease us--and
perhaps being really tired--Mr. Dodgson would stop suddenly
and say, "And that's all till next time." "Ah, but it is
next time," would be the exclamation from all three; and
after some persuasion the story would start afresh. Another
day, perhaps, the story would begin in the boat, and Mr.
Dodgson, in the middle of telling a thrilling adventure,
would pretend to go fast asleep, to our great dismay.
"Alice's Adventures Underground" was the original name of the story;
later on it became "Alice's Hour in Elfland." It was not until June
18, 1864, that he finally decided upon "Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland." The illustrating of the manuscript book gave him some
trouble. He had to borrow a "Natural History" from the Deanery to
learn the correct shapes of some of the strange animals with which
Alice conversed; the Mock Turtle he must have evolved out of his inner
consciousness, for it is, I think, a species unknown to naturalists.
He was lucky enough during the course of the year to see a ceremony
which is denied to most Oxford men. When degrees are given, any
tradesman who has been unable to get his due from an undergraduate
about to be made a Bachelor of Arts is allowed, by custom, to pluck
the Proctor's gown as he passes, and then to make his complaint. This
law is more honoured in the breach than in the observance; but, on the
occasion of this visit of Mr. Dodgson's to Convocation, the Proctor's
gown was actually plucked--on account of an unfortunate man who had
gone through the Bankruptcy Court.
When he promised to write out "Alice" for Miss Liddell he had no idea
of publication; but his friend, Mr. George Macdonald, to whom he had
shown the story, persuaded him to submit it to a publisher. Messrs.
Macmillan agreed to produce it, and as Mr. Dodgson had not sufficient
faith in his own artistic powers to venture to allow his illustrations
to appear, it was necessary to find some artist who would undertake
the work. By the advice of Tom Taylor he approached Mr. Tenniel, who
was fortunately well disposed, and on April 5, 1864, the final
arrangements were made.
[Illustration: George MacDonald. _From a photograph by
Lewis Carroll_.]
The following interesting account of a meeting with Mr. Dodgson is
from the pen of Mrs. Bennie, wife of the Rector of Glenfield, near
Leicester:--
Some little time after the publication of "Alice's
Adventures" we went for our summer holiday to Whitby. We
were visiting friends, and my brother and sister went to the
hotel. They soon after asked us to dine with them there at
the _table d'hote._ I had on one side of me a gentleman
whom I did not know, but as I had spent a good deal of time
travelling in foreign countries, I always, at once, speak to
any one I am placed next. I found on this occasion I had a
very agreeable neighbour, and we seemed to be much
interested in the same books, and politics also were touched
on. After dinner my sister and brother rather took me to
task for talking so much to a complete stranger. I said.
"But it was quite a treat to talk to him and to hear him
talk. Of one thing I am quite sure, he is a genius." My
brother and sister, who had not heard him speak, again
laughed at me, and said, "You are far too easily pleased."
I, however, maintained my point, and said what great delight
his conversation had given me, and how remarkably clever it
had been. Next morning nurse took out our two little twin
daughters in front of the sea. I went out a short time
afterwards, looked for them, and found them seated with my
friend of the _table d'hote_ between them, and they
were listening to him, open-mouthed, and in the greatest
state of enjoyment, with his knee covered with minute toys.
I, seeing their great delight, motioned to him to go on;
this he did for some time. A most charming story he told
them about sea-urchins and Ammonites. When it was over, I
said, "You must be the author of 'Alice's Adventures.'" He
laughed, but looked astonished, and said, "My dear Madam, my
name is Dodgson, and 'Alice's Adventures' was written by
Lewis Carroll." I replied, "Then you must have borrowed the
name, for only he could have told a story as you have just
done." After a little sparring he admitted the fact, and I
went home and proudly told my sister and brother how my
genius had turned out a greater one than I expected. They
assured me I must be mistaken, and that, as I had suggested
it to him, he had taken advantage of the idea, and said he
was what I wanted him to be. A few days after some friends
came to Whitby who knew his aunts, and confirmed the truth
of his statement, and thus I made the acquaintance of one
whose friendship has been the source of great pleasure for
nearly thirty years. He has most generously sent us all his
books, with kind inscriptions, to "Minnie and Doe," whom he
photographed, but would not take Canon Bennie or me; he said
he never took portraits of people of more than seventeen
years of age until they were seventy. He visited us, and we
often met him at Eastbourne, and his death was indeed a
great loss after so many happy years of friendship with one
we so greatly admired and loved.
He spent a part of the Long Vacation at Freshwater, taking great
interest in the children who, for him, were the chief attraction of
the seaside.
Every morning four little children dressed in yellow go by
from the front down to the beach: they go by in a state of
great excitement, brandishing wooden spades, and making
strange noises; from that moment they disappear
entirely--they are never to be seen _on_ the beach. The
only theory I can form is, that they all tumble into a hole
somewhere, and continue excavating therein during the day:
however that may be, I have once or twice come across them
returning at night, in exactly the same state of excitement,
and seemingly in quite as great a hurry to get home as they
were before to get out. The evening noises they make sound
to me very much like the morning noises, but I suppose they
are different to them, and contain an account of the day's
achievements.
His enthusiasm for photography, and his keen appreciation of the
beautiful, made him prefer the society of artists to that of any other
class of people. He knew the Rossettis intimately, and his Diary shows
him to have been acquainted with Millais, Holman Hunt, Sant,
Westmacott, Val Prinsep, Watts, and a host of others. Arthur Hughes
painted a charming picture to his order ("The Lady with the Lilacs")
which used to hang in his rooms at Christ Church. The Andersons were
great friends of his, Mrs. Anderson being one of his favourite
child-painters. Those who have visited him at Oxford will remember a
beautiful girl's head, painted by her from a rough sketch she had once
made in a railway carriage of a child who happened to be sitting
opposite her.
[Illustration: J. Sant. _From a photograph by Lewis
Carroll_.]
His own drawings were in no way remarkable. Ruskin, whose advice he
took on his artistic capabilities, told him that he had not enough
talent to make it worth his while to devote much time to sketching,
but every one who saw his photographs admired them. Considering the
difficulties of the "wet process," and the fact that he had a
conscientious horror of "touching up" his negatives, the pictures he
produced are quite wonderful. Some of them were shown to the Queen,
who said that she admired them very much, and that they were "such as
the Prince would have appreciated very highly, and taken much pleasure
in."
[Illustration: Holman Hunt. _From a photograph by Lewis
Carroll_.]
On July 4, 1865, exactly three years after the memorable row up the
river, Miss Alice Liddell received the first presentation copy of
"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland": the second was sent to Princess
Beatrice.
The first edition, which consisted of two thousand copies, was
condemned by both author and illustrator, for the pictures did not
come out well. All purchasers were accordingly asked to return their
copies, and to send their names and addresses; a new edition was
prepared, and distributed to those who had sent back their old copies,
which the author gave away to various homes and hospitals. The
substituted edition was a complete success, "a perfect piece of
artistic printing," as Mr. Dodgson called it. He hardly dared to hope
that more than two thousand copies would be sold, and anticipated a
considerable loss over the book. His surprise was great when edition
after edition was demanded, and when he found that "Alice," far from
being a monetary failure, was bringing him in a very considerable
income every year.
[Illustration: Sir John Millais. _From a photograph by
Lewis Carroll_]
A rough comparison between "Alice's Adventures Underground" and the
book in its completed form, shows how slight were the alterations that
Lewis Carroll thought it necessary to make.
The "Wonderland" is somewhat longer, but the general plan of the book,
and the simplicity of diction, which is one of its principal charms,
are unchanged. His memory was so good that I believe the story as he
wrote it down was almost word for word the same that he had told in
the boat. The whole idea came like an inspiration into his mind, and
that sort of inspiration does not often come more than once in a
lifetime. Nothing which he wrote afterwards had anything like the same
amount of freshness, of wit, of real genius. The "Looking-Glass" most
closely approached it in these qualities, but then it was only the
following out of the same idea. The most ingenuous comparison of the
two books I have seen was the answer of a little girl whom Lewis
Carroll had asked if she had read them: "Oh yes, I've read both of
them, and I think," (this more slowly and thoughtfully) "I think
'Through the Looking-Glass' is more stupid than 'Alice's Adventures.'
Don't you think so?"
The critics were loud in their praises of "Alice"; there was hardly a
dissentient voice among them, and the reception which the public gave
the book justified their opinion. So recently as July, 1898, the
_Pall Mall Gazette_ conducted an inquiry into the popularity of
children's books. "The verdict is so natural that it will surprise no
normal person. The winner is 'Alice in Wonderland'; 'Through the
Looking-Glass' is in the twenty, but much lower down."
"Alice" has been translated into French, German, Italian, and Dutch,
while one poem, "Father William," has even been turned into Arabic.
Several plays have been based upon it; lectures have been given,
illustrated by magic-lantern slides of Tenniel's pictures, which have
also adorned wall-papers and biscuit-boxes. Mr. Dodgson himself
designed a very ingenious "Wonderland" stamp-case; there has been an
"Alice" birthday-book; at schools, children have been taught to read
out of "Alice," while the German edition, shortened and simplified for
the purpose, has also been used as a lesson-book. With the exception
of Shakespeare's plays, very few, if any, books are so frequently
quoted in the daily Press as the two "Alices."
In 1866 Mr. Dodgson was introduced to Miss Charlotte M. Yonge, whose
novels had long delighted him. "It was a pleasure I had long hoped
for," he says, "and I was very much pleased with her cheerful and easy
manners--the sort of person one knows in a few minutes as well as many
in many years."
[Illustration: C. M. Yonge. _From a photograph by Lewis
Carroll_.]
In 1867 he contributed a story to _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ called
"Bruno's Revenge," the charming little idyll out of which "Sylvie and
Bruno" grew. The creation of Bruno was the only act of homage Lewis
Carroll ever paid to boy-nature, for which, as a rule, he professed an
aversion almost amounting to terror. Nevertheless, on the few
occasions on which I have seen him in the company of boys, he seemed
to be thoroughly at his ease, telling them stories and showing them
puzzles.
I give an extract from Mrs. Gatty's letter, acknowledging the receipt
of "Bruno's Revenge" for her magazine:--
I need hardly tell you that the story is _delicious_.
It is beautiful and fantastic and childlike, and I cannot
sufficiently thank you. I am so _proud_ for _Aunt
Judy_ that you have honoured _her_ by sending it
here, rather than to the _Cornhill_, or one of the
grander Magazines.
To-morrow I shall send the Manuscript to London probably;
to-day I keep it to enjoy a little further, and that the
young ladies may do so too. One word more. Make this one of
a series. You may have great mathematical abilities, but so
have hundreds of others. This talent is peculiarly your own,
and as an Englishman you are almost unique in possessing it.
If you covet fame, therefore, it will be (I think) gained by
this. Some of the touches are so exquisite, one would have
thought nothing short of intercourse with fairies could have
put them into your head.
Somewhere about this time he was invited to witness a rehearsal of a
children's play at a London theatre. As he sat in the wings, chatting
to the manager, a little four-year-old girl, one of the performers,
climbed up on his knee, and began talking to him. She was very anxious
to be allowed to play the principal part (Mrs. Mite), which had been
assigned to some other child. "I wish I might act Mrs. Mite," she
said; "I know all her part, and I'd get an _encore_ for every
word."
During the year he published his book on "Determinants." To those
accustomed to regard mathematics as the driest of dry subjects, and
mathematicians as necessarily devoid of humour, it seems scarcely
credible that "An Elementary Treatise on Determinants," and "Alice in
Wonderland" were written by the same author, and it came quite as a
revelation to the undergraduate who heard for the first time that Mr.
Dodgson of Christ Church and Lewis Carroll were identical.
The book in question, admirable as it is in many ways, has not
commanded a large sale. The nature of the subject would be against it,
as most students whose aim is to get as good a place as possible in
the class lists cannot afford the luxury of a separate work, and have
to be content with the few chapters devoted to "Determinants" in works
on Higher Algebra or the Theory of Equations, supplemented by
references to Mr. Dodgson's work which can be found in the College
libraries.
The general acceptance of the book would be rather restricted by the
employment of new words and symbols, which, as the author himself
felt, "are always a most unwelcome addition to a science already
burdened with an enormous vocabulary." But the work itself is largely
original, and its arrangement and style are, perhaps, as attractive as
the nature of the subject will allow. Such a book as this has little
interest for the general reader, yet, amongst the leisured few who are
able to read mathematics for their own sake, the treatise has found
warm admirers.
In the Summer Vacation of 1867 he went for a tour on the Continent,
accompanied by Dr. Liddon, whom I have already mentioned as having
been one of his most intimate friends at this time. During the whole
of this tour Mr. Dodgson kept a diary, more with the idea that it
would help him afterwards to remember what he had seen than with any
notion of publication. However, in later years it did occur to him
that others might be interested in his impressions and experiences,
though he never actually took any steps towards putting them before
the public. Perhaps he was wise, for a traveller's diary always
contains much information that can be obtained just as well from any
guide-book. In the extracts which I reproduce here, I hope that I have
not retained anything which comes under that category.
[Illustration: Dr. Liddon. _From a photograph by Lewis
Carroll_.]
_July 12th_.--The Sultan and I arrived in London almost
at the same time, but in different quarters--_my_ point
of entry being Paddington, and _his_ Charing Cross. I
must admit that the crowd was greatest at the latter place.
Mr. Dodgson and Dr. Liddon met at Dover, and passed the night at one
of the hotels there:--
_July 13th_.--We breakfasted, as agreed, at eight, or
at least we then sat down and nibbled bread and butter till
such time as the chops should be done, which great event
took place about half past. We tried pathetic appeals to the
wandering waiters, who told us, "They are coming, sir," in a
soothing tone, and we tried stern remonstrance, and they
then said, "They are coming, sir," in a more injured tone;
and after all such appeals they retired into their dens, and
hid themselves behind side-boards and dish-covers, and still
the chops came not. We agreed that of all virtues a waiter
can display, that of a retiring disposition is quite the
least desirable....
The pen refuses to describe the sufferings of some of the
passengers during our smooth trip of ninety minutes: my own
sensations were those of extreme surprise, and a little
indignation, at there being no other sensations--it was not
for _that_ I paid my money....
We landed at Calais in the usual swarm of friendly natives,
offering services and advice of all kinds; to all such
remarks I returned one simple answer, _Non!_ It was
probably not strictly applicable in all cases, but it
answered the purpose of getting rid of them; one by one they
left me, echoing the _Non_! in various tones, but all
expressive of disgust.
At Cologne began that feast of beautiful things which his artistic
temperament fitted him so well to enjoy. Though the churches he
visited and the ceremonies he witnessed belonged to a religious system
widely different from his own, the largeness and generosity of his
mind always led him to insist upon that substratum of true
devotion--to use a favourite word of his--which underlies all forms of
Christianity.
We spent an hour in the cathedral, which I will not attempt
to describe further than by saying it was the most beautiful
of all churches I have ever seen or can imagine. If one
could imagine the spirit of devotion embodied in any
material form, it would be in such a building.
In spite of all the wealth of words that has been expended upon German
art, he found something new to say on this most fertile subject:--
The amount of art lavished on the whole region of Potsdam is
marvellous; some of the tops of the palaces were like
forests of statues, and they were all over the gardens, set
on pedestals. In fact, the two principles of Berlin
architecture appear to me to be these. On the house-tops,
wherever there is a convenient place, put up the figure of a
man; he is best placed standing on one leg. Wherever there
is room on the ground, put either a circular group of busts
on pedestals, in consultation, all looking inwards--or else
the colossal figure of a man killing, about to kill, or
having killed (the present tense is preferred) a beast; the
more pricks the beast has, the better--in fact a dragon is
the correct thing, but if that is beyond the artist, he may
content himself with a lion or a pig. The beast-killing
principle has been carried out everywhere with a relentless
monotony, which makes some parts of Berlin look like a
fossil slaughter-house.
He never missed an opportunity of studying the foreign drama, which
was most praiseworthy, as he knew very little German and not a word of
Russ:--
At the hotel [at Danzig] was a green parrot on a stand; we
addressed it as "Pretty Poll," and it put its head on one
side and thought about it, but wouldn't commit itself to any
statement. The waiter came up to inform us of the reason of
its silence: "Er spricht nicht Englisch; er spricht nicht
Deutsch." It appeared that the unfortunate bird could speak
nothing but Mexican! Not knowing a word of that language, we
could only pity it.
_July 23rd._--We strolled about and bought a few
photographs, and at 11.39 left for Koenigsberg. On our way to
the station we came across the grandest instance of the
"Majesty of Justice" that I have ever witnessed. A little
boy was being taken to the magistrate, or to prison
(probably for picking a pocket). The achievement of this
feat had been entrusted to two soldiers in full uniform, who
were solemnly marching, one in front of the poor little
urchin and one behind, with bayonets fixed, of course, to be
ready to charge in case he should attempt an escape.
_July 25th._--In the evening I visited the theatre at
Koenigsberg, which was fairly good in every way, and very
good in the singing and some of the acting. The play was
"Anno 66," but I could only catch a few words here and
there, so have very little idea of the plot. One of the
characters was a correspondent of an English newspaper. This
singular being came on in the midst of a soldiers' bivouac
before Sadowa, dressed very nearly in white--a very long
frock-coat, and a tall hat on the back of his head, both
nearly white. He said "Morning" as a general remark, when he
first came on, but afterwards talked what I suppose was
broken German. He appeared to be regarded as a butt by the
soldiers, and ended his career by falling into a drum.
From Koenigsberg the travellers went on to St. Petersburg, where they
stayed several days, exploring the wonderful city and its environs:--
There is a fine equestrian statue of Peter the Great near
the Admiralty. The lower part is not a pedestal, but left
shapeless and rough like a real rock. The horse is rearing,
and has a serpent coiled about its hind feet, on which, I
think, it is treading. If this had been put up in Berlin,
Peter would no doubt have been actively engaged in killing
the monster, but here he takes no notice of it; in fact, the
killing theory is not recognised. We found two colossal
figures of lions, which are so painfully mild that each of
them is rolling a great ball about like a kitten.
_Aug. 1st_.--About half-past ten Mr. Merrilies called
for us, and with really remarkable kindness gave up his day
to taking us down to Peterhof, a distance of about twenty
miles, and showing us over the place. We went by steamer
down the tideless, saltless Gulf of Finland; the first
peculiarity extends through the Baltic, and the second
through a great part of it. The piece we crossed, some
fifteen miles from shore to shore, is very shallow, in many
parts only six or eight feet deep, and every winter it is
entirely frozen over with ice two feet thick, and when this
is covered with snow it forms a secure plain, which is
regularly used for travelling on, though the immense
distance, without means of food or shelter, is dangerous for
poorly clad foot passengers. Mr. Merrilies told us of a
friend of his who, in crossing last winter, passed the
bodies of eight people who had been frozen. We had a good
view, on our way, of the coast of Finland, and of Kronstadt.
When we landed at Peterhof, we found Mr. Muir's carriage
waiting for us, and with its assistance, getting out every
now and then to walk through portions where it could not go,
we went over the grounds of two imperial palaces, including
many little summer-houses, each of which would make a very
good residence in itself, as, though small, they were fitted
up and adorned in every way that taste could suggest or
wealth achieve. For varied beauty and perfect combination of
nature and art, I think the gardens eclipse those of Sans
Souci. At every corner, or end of an avenue or path, where a
piece of statuary could be introduced with effect, there one
was sure to find one, in bronze or in white marble; many of
the latter had a sort of circular niche built behind, with a
blue background to throw the figure into relief. Here we
found a series of shelving ledges made of stone, with a
sheet of water gliding down over them; here a long path,
stretching down slopes and flights of steps, and arched over
all the way with trellises and creepers; here a huge
boulder, hewn, just as it lay, into the shape of a gigantic
head and face, with mild, sphinx-like eyes, as if some
buried Titan were struggling to free himself; here a
fountain, so artfully formed of pipes set in circles, each
set shooting the water higher than those outside, as to form
a solid pyramid of glittering spray; here a lawn, seen
through a break in the woods below us, with threads of
scarlet geraniums running over it, and looking in the
distance like a huge branch of coral; and here and there
long avenues of trees, lying in all directions, sometimes
three or four together side by side, and sometimes radiating
like a star, and stretching away into the distance till the
eye was almost weary of following them. All this will rather
serve to remind me, than to convey any idea, of what we saw.
But the beauties of Peterhof were quite eclipsed by the Oriental
splendours of Moscow, which naturally made a great impression upon a
mind accustomed to the cold sublimity of Gothic architecture at
Oxford.
We gave five or six hours to a stroll through this wonderful
city, a city of white houses and green roofs, of conical
towers that rise one out of another like a foreshortened
telescope; of bulging gilded domes, in which you see, as in
a looking-glass, distorted pictures of the city; of churches
which look, outside, like bunches of variegated cactus (some
branches crowned with green prickly buds, others with blue,
and others with red and white) and which, inside, are hung
all round with _eikons_ and lamps, and lined with
illuminated pictures up to the very roof; and, finally, of
pavement that goes up and down like a ploughed field, and
_drojky_-drivers who insist on being paid thirty per
cent. extra to-day, "because it is the Empress's birthday."...
_Aug. 5th._--After dinner we went by arrangement to Mr.
Penny, and accompanied him to see a Russian wedding. It was
a most interesting ceremony. There was a large choir, from
the cathedral, who sang a long and beautiful anthem before
the service began; and the deacon (from the Church of the
Assumption) delivered several recitative portions of the
service in the most magnificent bass voice I ever heard,
rising gradually (I should say by less than half a note at a
time if that is possible), and increasing in volume of sound
as he rose in the scale, until his final note rang through
the building like a chorus of many voices. I could not have
conceived that one voice could have produced such an effect.
One part of the ceremony, the crowning the married couple,
was very nearly grotesque. Two gorgeous golden crowns were
brought in, which the officiating priest first waved before
them, and then placed on their heads--or rather the unhappy
bridegroom had to wear _his_, but the bride, having
prudently arranged her hair in a rather complicated manner
with a lace veil, could not have hers put on, but had it
held above her by a friend. The bridegroom, in plain evening
dress, crowned like a king, holding a candle, and with a
face of resigned misery, would have been pitiable if he had
not been so ludicrous. When the people had gone, we were
invited by the priests to see the east end of the church,
behind the golden gates, and were finally dismissed with a
hearty shake of the hand and the "kiss of peace," of which
even I, though in lay costume, came in for a share.
One of the objects of the tour was to see the fair at Nijni Novgorod,
and here the travellers arrived on August 6th, after a miserable
railway journey. Owing to the breaking down of a bridge, the
unfortunate passengers had been compelled to walk a mile through
drenching rain.
We went to the Smernovaya (or some such name) Hotel, a
truly villainous place, though no doubt the best in the
town. The feeding was very good, and everything else very
bad. It was some consolation to find that as we sat at
dinner we furnished a subject of the liveliest interest to
six or seven waiters, all dressed in white tunics, belted at
the waist, and white trousers, who ranged themselves in a
row and gazed in a quite absorbed way at the collection of
strange animals that were feeding before them. Now and then
a twinge of conscience would seize them that they were,
after all, not fulfilling the great object of life as
waiters, and on these occasions they would all hurry to the
end of the room, and refer to a great drawer which seemed to
contain nothing but spoons and corks. When we asked for
anything, they first looked at each other in an alarmed way;
then, when they had ascertained which understood the order
best, they all followed his example, which always was to
refer to the big drawer. We spent most of the afternoon
wandering through the fair, and buying _eikons_, &c. It
was a wonderful place. Besides there being distinct quarters
for the Persians, the Chinese, and others, we were
constantly meeting strange beings with unwholesome
complexions and unheard-of costumes. The Persians, with
their gentle, intelligent faces, the long eyes set wide
apart, the black hair, and yellow-brown skin, crowned with a
black woollen fez something like a grenadier, were about the
most picturesque we met. But all the novelties of the day
were thrown into the shade by our adventure at sunset, when
we came upon the Tartar mosque (the only one in Nijni)
exactly as one of the officials came out on the roof to
utter the muezzin cry, or call to prayers. Even if it had
been in no way singular in itself, it would have been deeply
interesting from its novelty and uniqueness, but the cry
itself was quite unlike anything I have ever heard before.
The beginning of each sentence was uttered in a rapid
monotone, and towards the end it rose gradually till it
ended in a prolonged, shrill wail, which floated overhead
through the still air with an indescribably sad and
ghostlike effect; heard at night, it would have thrilled one
like the cry of the Banshee.
This reminds one of the wonderful description in Mr. Kipling's "City
of Dreadful Night." It is not generally known that Mr. Dodgson was a
fervent admirer of Mr. Kipling's works; indeed during the last few
years of his life I think he took more pleasure in his tales than in
those of any other modern author.
Dr. Liddon's fame as a preacher had reached the Russian clergy, with
the result that he and Mr. Dodgson found many doors open to them which
are usually closed to travellers in Russia. After their visit to Nijni
Novgorod they returned to Moscow, whence, escorted by Bishop Leonide,
Suffragan Bishop of Moscow, they made an expedition to the Troitska
Monastery.
_August 12th_.--A most interesting day. We breakfasted
at half-past five, and soon after seven left by railway, in
company with Bishop Leonide and Mr. Penny, for Troitska
Monastery. We found the Bishop, in spite of his limited
knowledge of English, a very conversational and entertaining
fellow-traveller. The service at the cathedral had already
begun when we reached it, and the Bishop took us in with
him, through a great crowd which thronged the building, into
a side room which opened into the chancel, where we remained
during the service, and enjoyed the unusual privilege of
seeing the clergy communicate--a ceremony for which the
doors of the chancel are always shut, and the curtains
drawn, so that the congregation never witness it. It was a
most elaborate ceremony, full of crossings, and waving of
incense before everything that was going to be used, but
also clearly full of much deep devotion.... In the afternoon
we went down to the Archbishop's palace, and were presented
to him by Bishop Leonide. The Archbishop could only talk
Russian, so that the conversation between him and Liddon (a
most interesting one, which lasted more than an hour) was
conducted in a very original fashion--the Archbishop making
a remark in Russian, which was put into English by the
Bishop; Liddon then answered the remark in French, and the
Bishop repeated his answer in Russian to the Archbishop. So
that a conversation, entirely carried on between two people,
required the use of three languages!
The Bishop had kindly got one of the theological students,
who could talk French, to conduct us about, which he did
most zealously, taking us, among other things, to see the
subterranean cells of the hermits, in which some of them
live for many years. We were shown the doors of two of the
inhabited ones; it was a strange and not quite comfortable
feeling, in a dark narrow passage where each had to carry a
candle, to be shown the low narrow door of a little cellar,
and to know that a human being was living within, with only
a small lamp to give him light, in solitude and silence day
and night.
His experiences with an exorbitant _drojky_-driver at St.
Petersburg are worthy of record. They remind one of a story which he
himself used to tell as having happened to a friend of his at Oxford.
The latter had driven up in a cab to Tom Gate, and offered the cabman
the proper fare, which was, however, refused with scorn. After a long
altercation he left the irate cabman to be brought to reason by the
porter, a one-armed giant of prodigious strength. When he was leaving
college, he stopped at the gate to ask the porter how he had managed
to dispose of the cabman. "Well, sir," replied that doughty champion,
"I could not persuade him to go until I floored him."
After a hearty breakfast I left Liddon to rest and write
letters, and went off shopping, &c., beginning with a call
on Mr. Muir at No. 61, Galerne Ulitsa. I took a
_drojky_ to the house, having first bargained with the
driver for thirty _kopecks_; he wanted forty to begin
with. When we got there we had a little scene, rather a
novelty in my experience of _drojky_-driving. The
driver began by saying "_Sorok_" (forty) as I got out;
this was a warning of the coming storm, but I took no notice
of it, but quietly handed over the thirty. He received them
with scorn and indignation, and holding them out in his open
hand, delivered an eloquent discourse in Russian, of which
_sorok_ was the leading idea. A woman, who stood by
with a look of amusement and curiosity, perhaps understood
him. _I_ didn't, but simply held out my hand for the
thirty, returned them to the purse and counted out
twenty-five instead. In doing this I felt something like a
man pulling the string of a shower-bath--and the effect was
like it--his fury boiled over directly, and quite eclipsed
all the former row. I told him in very bad Russian that I
had offered thirty once, but wouldn't again; but this, oddly
enough, did not pacify him. Mr. Muir's servant told him the
same thing at length, and finally Mr. Muir himself came out
and gave him the substance of it sharply and shortly--but he
failed to see it in a proper light. Some people are very
hard to please.
When staying at a friend's house at Kronstadt he wrote:--
Liddon had surrendered his overcoat early in the day, and
when going we found it must be recovered from the
waiting-maid, who only talked Russian, and as I had left the
dictionary behind, and the little vocabulary did not contain
_coat_, we were in some difficulty. Liddon began by
exhibiting his coat, with much gesticulation, including the
taking it half-off. To our delight, she appeared to
understand at once--left the room, and returned in a minute
with--a large clothes-brush. On this Liddon tried a further
and more energetic demonstration; he took off his coat, and
laid it at her feet, pointed downwards (to intimate that in
the lower regions was the object of his desire), smiled with
an expression of the joy and gratitude with which he would
receive it, and put the coat on again. Once more a gleam of
intelligence lighted up the plain but expressive features of
the young person; she was absent much longer this time, and
when she returned, she brought, to our dismay, a large
cushion and a pillow, and began to prepare the sofa for the
nap that she now saw clearly was the thing the dumb
gentleman wanted. A happy thought occurred to me, and I
hastily drew a sketch representing Liddon, with one coat on,
receiving a second and larger one from the hands of a
benignant Russian peasant. The language of hieroglyphics
succeeded where all other means had failed, and we returned
to St. Petersburg with the humiliating knowledge that our
standard of civilisation was now reduced to the level of
ancient Nineveh.
[Illustration: Instance of hieroglyphic writing of the date
MDCCCLXVII--Interpretation. "There is a coat here, left in the care of
a Russian peasant, which I should be glad to receive from him."]
At Warsaw they made a short stay, putting up at the Hotel
d'Angleterre:--
Our passage is inhabited by a tall and very friendly
grey-hound, who walks in whenever the door is opened for a
second or two, and who for some time threatened to make the
labour of the servant, who was bringing water for a bath, of
no effect, by drinking up the water as fast as it was
brought.
From Warsaw they went on to Leipzig, and thence to Giessen, where they
arrived on September 4th.
We moved on to Giessen, and put up at the "Rappe Hotel" for
the night, and ordered an early breakfast of an obliging
waiter who talked English. "Coffee!" he exclaimed
delightedly, catching at the word as if it were a really
original idea, "Ah, coffee--very nice--and eggs? Ham with
your eggs? Very nice--" "If we can have it broiled," I said.
"Boiled?" the waiter repeated, with an incredulous smile.
"No, not _boiled_," I explained--"_broiled_." The
waiter put aside this distinction as trivial, "Yes, yes,
ham," he repeated, reverting to his favourite idea. "Yes,
ham," I said, "but how cooked?" "Yes, yes, how cooked," the
waiter replied, with the careless air of one who assents to
a proposition more from good nature than from a real
conviction of its truth.
_Sept. 5th_.--At midday we reached Ems, after a journey
eventless, but through a very interesting country--valleys
winding away in all directions among hills clothed with
trees to the very top, and white villages nestling away
wherever there was a comfortable corner to hide in. The
trees were so small, so uniform in colour, and so
continuous, that they gave to the more distant hills
something of the effect of banks covered with moss. The
really unique feature of the scenery was the way in which
the old castles seemed to grow, rather than to have been
built, on the tops of the rocky promontories that showed
their heads here and there among the trees. I have never
seen architecture that seemed so entirely in harmony with
the spirit of the place. By some subtle instinct the old
architects seem to have chosen both form and colour, the
grouping of the towers with their pointed spires, and the
two neutral tints, light grey and brown, on the walls and
roof, so as to produce buildings which look as naturally
fitted to the spot as the heath or the harebells. And, like
the flowers and the rocks, they seemed instinct with no
other meaning than rest and silence.
And with these beautiful words my extracts from the Diary may well
conclude. Lewis Carroll's mind was completely at one with Nature, and
in her pleasant places of calm and infinite repose he sought his
rest--and has found it.
[Illustration: Sir John Tenniel. _From a photograph by
Bassano_.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER IV
(1868-1876)
Death of Archdeacon Dodgson--Lewis Carroll's rooms at Christ
Church--"Phantasmagoria"--Translations of "Alice"--"Through
the Looking-Glass"--"Jabberwocky" in Latin--C.S.
Calverley--"Notes by an Oxford
Chiel"--Hatfield--Vivisection--"The Hunting of the Snark."
The success of "Alice in Wonderland" tempted Mr. Dodgson to make
another essay in the same field of literature. His idea had not yet
been plagiarised, as it was afterwards, though the book had of course
been parodied, a notable instance being "Alice in Blunderland," which
appeared in _Punch_. It was very different when he came to write
"Sylvie and Bruno"; the countless imitations of the two "Alice" books
which had been foisted upon the public forced him to strike out in a
new line. Long before the publication of his second tale, people had
heard that Lewis Carroll was writing again, and the editor of a
well-known magazine had offered him two guineas a page, which was a
high rate of pay in those days, for the story, if he would allow it to
appear in serial form.
The central idea was, as every one knows, the adventures of a little
girl who had somehow or other got through a looking-glass. The first
difficulty, however, was to get her through, and this question
exercised his ingenuity for some time, before it was satisfactorily
solved. The next thing was to secure Tenniel's services again. At
first it seemed that he was to be disappointed in this matter; Tenniel
was so fully occupied with other work that there seemed little hope of
his being able to undertake any more. He then applied to Sir Noel
Paton, with whose fairy-pictures he had fallen in love; but the artist
was ill, and wrote in reply, "Tenniel is _the_ man." In the end
Tenniel consented to undertake the work, and once more author and
artist settled down to work together. Mr. Dodgson was no easy man to
work with; no detail was too small for his exact criticism. "Don't
give Alice so much crinoline," he would write, or "The White Knight
must not have whiskers; he must not be made to look old"--such were
the directions he was constantly giving.
On June 21st Archdeacon Dodgson died, after an illness of only a few
days' duration. Lewis Carroll was not summoned until too late, for the
illness took a sudden turn for the worse, and he was unable to reach
his father's bedside before the end had come. This was a terrible
shock to him; his father had been his ideal of what a Christian
gentleman should be, and it seemed to him at first as if a cloud had
settled on his life which could never be dispelled. Two letters of
his, both of them written long after the sad event, give one some idea
of the grief which his father's death, and all that it entailed,
caused him. The first was written long afterwards, to one who had
suffered a similar bereavement. In this letter he said:--
We are sufficiently old friends, I feel sure, for me to have
no fear that I shall seem intrusive in writing about your
great sorrow. The greatest blow that has ever fallen on
_my_ life was the death, nearly thirty years ago, of my
own dear father; so, in offering you my sincere sympathy, I
write as a fellow-sufferer. And I rejoice to know that we
are not only fellow-sufferers, but also fellow-believers in
the blessed hope of the resurrection from the dead, which
makes such a parting holy and beautiful, instead of being
merely a blank despair.
The second was written to a young friend, Miss Edith Rix, who had sent
him an illuminated text:
My dear Edith,--I can now tell you (what I wanted to do when
you sent me that text-card, but felt I could not say it to
_two_ listeners, as it were) _why_ that special
card is one I like to have. That text is consecrated for me
by the memory of one of the greatest sorrows I have
known--the death of my dear father. In those solemn days,
when we used to steal, one by one, into the darkened room,
to take yet another look at the dear calm face, and to pray
for strength, the one feature in the room that I remember
was a framed text, illuminated by one of my sisters, "Then
are they glad, because they are at rest; and so he bringeth
them into the haven where they would be!" That text will
always have, for me, a sadness and a sweetness of its own.
Thank you again for sending it me. Please don't mention this
when we meet. I can't _talk_ about it.
Always affectionately yours,
C. L. DODGSON.
The object of his edition of Euclid Book V., published during the
course of the year, was to meet the requirements of the ordinary Pass
Examination, and to present the subject in as short and simple a form
as possible. Hence the Theory of Incommensurable Magnitudes was
omitted, though, as the author himself said in the Preface, to do so
rendered the work incomplete, and, from a logical point of view,
valueless. He hinted pretty plainly his own preference for an
equivalent amount of Algebra, which would be complete in itself. It is
easy to understand this preference in a mind so strictly logical as
his.
So far as the object of the book itself is concerned, he succeeded
admirably; the propositions are clearly and beautifully worked out,
and the hints on proving Propositions in Euclid Book V., are most
useful.
In November he again moved into new rooms at Christ Church; the suite
which he occupied from this date to the end of his life was one of the
best in the College. Situated at the north-west corner of Tom Quad, on
the first floor of the staircase from the entrance to which the Junior
Common Room is now approached, they consist of four sitting-rooms and
about an equal number of bedrooms, besides rooms for lumber, &c. From
the upper floor one can easily reach the flat college roof. Mr.
Dodgson saw at once that here was the very place for a photographic
studio, and he lost no time in obtaining the consent of the
authorities to erect one. Here he took innumerable photographs of his
friends and their children, as indeed he had been doing for some time
under less favourable conditions. One of his earliest pictures is an
excellent likeness of Professor Faraday.
[Illustration: Prof. Faraday. _From a photograph by Lewis
Carroll_.]
His study was characteristic of the man; oil paintings by A. Hughes,
Mrs. Anderson, and Heaphy proclaimed his artistic tastes; nests of
pigeon-holes, each neatly labelled, showed his love of order; shelves,
filled with the best books on every subject that interested him, were
evidence of his wide reading. His library has now been broken up and,
except for a few books retained by his nearest relatives, scattered to
the winds; such dispersions are inevitable, but they are none the less
regrettable. It always seems to me that one of the saddest things
about the death of a literary man is the fact that the breaking-up of
his collection of books almost invariably follows; the building up of
a good library, the work of a lifetime, has been so much labour lost,
so far as future generations are concerned. Talent, yes, and genius
too, are displayed not only in writing books but also in buying them,
and it is a pity that the ruthless hammer of the auctioneer should
render so much energy and skill fruitless.
[Illustration: Lewis Carroll's Study at Christ Church,
Oxford.]
Lewis Carroll's dining-room has been the scene of many a pleasant
little party, for he was very fond of entertaining. In his Diary, each
of the dinners and luncheons that he gave is recorded by a small
diagram, which shows who his guests were, and their several positions
at the table. He kept a _menu_ book as well, that the same people
might not have the same dishes too frequently. He sometimes gave large
parties, but his favourite form of social relaxation was a _diner a
deux_.
At the beginning of 1869 his "Phantasmagoria," a collection of poems
grave and gay, was published by Macmillan. Upon the whole he was more
successful in humorous poetry, but there is an undeniable dignity and
pathos in his more serious verses. He gave a copy to Mr. Justice
Denman, with whom he afterwards came to be very well acquainted, and
who appreciated the gift highly. "I did not lay down the book," he
wrote, "until I had read them [the poems] through; and enjoyed many a
hearty laugh, and something like a cry or two. Moreover, I hope to
read them through (as the _old man_ said) 'again and again.'"
[Illustration: Justice Denman. _From a photograph by Lewis
Carroll_.]
It had been Lewis Carroll's intention to have "Phantasmagoria"
illustrated, and he had asked George du Maurier to undertake the work;
but the plan fell through. In his letter to du Maurier, Mr. Dodgson
had made some inquiries about Miss Florence Montgomery, the authoress
of "Misunderstood." In reply du Maurier said, "Miss Florence
Montgomery is a very charming and sympathetic young lady, the daughter
of the admiral of that ilk. I am, like you, a very great admirer of
"Misunderstood," and cried pints over it. When I was doing the last
picture I had to put a long white pipe in the little boy's mouth until
it was finished, so as to get rid of the horrible pathos of the
situation while I was executing the work. In reading the book a second
time (knowing the sad end of the dear little boy), the funny parts
made me cry almost as much as the pathetic ones."
A few days after the publication of "Phantasmagoria," Lewis Carroll
sent the first chapter of his new story to the press. "Behind the
Looking-Glass and what Alice saw there" was his original idea for its
title; it was Dr. Liddon who suggested the name finally adopted.
During this year German and French translations of "Alice in
Wonderland" were published by Macmillan; the Italian edition appeared
in 1872. Henri Bue, who was responsible for the French version, had no
easy task to perform. In many cases the puns proved quite
untranslatable; while the poems, being parodies on well-known English
pieces, would have been pointless on the other side of the Channel.
For instance, the lines beginning, "How doth the little crocodile" are
a parody on "How doth the little busy bee," a song which a French
child has, of course, never heard of. In this case Bue gave up the
idea of translation altogether, and, instead, parodied La Fontaine's
"Maitre Corbeau" as follows:--
Maitre Corbeau sur un arbre perche
Faisait son nid entre des branches;
Il avait releve ses manches,
Car il etait tres affaire.
Maitre Renard par la passant,
Lui dit: "Descendez donc, compere;
Venez embrasser votre frere!"
Le Corbeau, le reconnaissant,
Lui repondit en son ramage!--
"Fromage."
The dialogue in which the joke occurs about "tortoise" and "taught us"
("Wonderland," p. 142) is thus rendered:--
"La maitresse etait une vieille tortue; nous l'appelions
chelonee." "Et pourquoi l'appeliez-vous chelonee, si ce
n'etait pas son nom?" "Parcequ'on ne pouvait s'empecher de
s'ecrier en la voyant: Quel long nez!" dit la Fausse-Tortue
d'un ton fache; "vous etes vraiment bien bornee!"
At two points, however, both M. Bue and Miss Antonie Zimmermann, who
translated the tale into German, were fairly beaten: the reason for
the whiting being so called, from its doing the boots and shoes, and
for no wise fish going anywhere without a porpoise, were given up as
untranslatable.
At the beginning of 1870 Lord Salisbury came up to Oxford to be
installed as Chancellor of the University. Dr. Liddon introduced Mr.
Dodgson to him, and thus began a very pleasant acquaintance. Of course
he photographed the Chancellor and his two sons, for he never missed
an opportunity of getting distinguished people into his studio.
[Illustration: Lord Salisbury and his two sons. _From a
photograph by Lewis Carroll_.]
In December, seven "Puzzles from Wonderland" appeared in Mrs. Gatty's
paper, _Aunt Judy's Magazine_. They had originally been written
for the Cecil children, with whom Lewis Carroll was already on the
best terms. Meanwhile "Through the Looking-Glass" was steadily
progressing--not, however, without many little hitches. One question
which exercised Mr. Dodgson very much was whether the picture of the
Jabberwock would do as a frontispiece, or whether it would be too
frightening for little children. On this point he sought the advice of
about thirty of his married lady friends, whose experiences with their
own children would make them trustworthy advisers; and in the end he
chose the picture of the White Knight on horseback. In 1871 the book
appeared, and was an instantaneous success. Eight thousand of the
first edition had been taken up by the booksellers before Mr. Dodgson
had even received his own presentation copies. The compliments he
received upon the "Looking-Glass" would have been enough to turn a
lesser man's head, but he was, I think, proof against either praise or
blame.
I can say with a clear head and conscience [wrote Henry
Kingsley] that your new book is the finest thing we have had
since "Martin Chuzzlewit." ... I can only say, in comparing
the new "Alice" with the old, "this is a more excellent song
than the other." It is perfectly splendid, but you have,
doubtless, heard that from other quarters. I lunch with
Macmillan habitually, and he was in a terrible pickle about
not having printed enough copies the other day.
Jabberwocky[017] was at once recognised as the best and most original
thing in the book, though one fair correspondent of _The Queen_
declared that it was a translation from the German! The late Dean of
Rochester, Dr. Scott, writes about it to Mr. Dodgson as follows:--
Are we to suppose, after all, that the Saga of Jabberwocky
is one of the universal heirlooms which the Aryan race at
its dispersion carried with it from the great cradle of the
family? You must really consult Max Mueller about this. It
begins to be probable that the _origo originalissima_
may be discovered in Sanscrit, and that we shall by and by
have a _Iabrivokaveda_. The hero will turn out to be
the Sun-god in one of his _Avatars_; and the Tumtum
tree the great Ash _Ygdrasil_ of the Scandinavian
mythology.
In March, 1872, the late Mr. A.A. Vansittart, of Trinity College,
Cambridge, translated the poem into Latin elegiacs. His rendering was
printed, for private circulation only, I believe, several years later,
but will probably be new to most of my readers. A careful comparison
with the original shows the wonderful fidelity of this translation:--
"MORS IABROCHII"
Coesper[018] erat: tunc lubriciles[019] ultravia circum
Urgebant gyros gimbiculosque tophi;
Moestenui visae borogovides ire meatu;
Et profugi gemitus exgrabuere rathae.
O fuge Iabrochium, sanguis meus![020] Ille recurvis
Unguibus, estque avidis dentibus ille minax.
Ububae fuge cautus avis vim, gnate! Neque unquam
Faedarpax contra te frumiosus eat!
Vorpali gladio juvenis succingitur: hostis
Manxumus ad medium quaeritur usque diem:
Jamque via fesso, sed plurima mente prementi,
Tumtumiae frondis suaserat umbra moram.
Consilia interdum stetit egnia[021] mente revolvens:
At gravis in densa fronde susuffrus[022] erat,
Spiculaque[023] ex oculis jacientis flammea, tulscam
Per silvam venit burbur?[024] Iabrochii!
Vorpali, semel atque iterum collectus in ictum,
Persnicuit gladio persnacuitque puer:
Deinde galumphatus, spernens informe cadaver,
Horrendum monstri rettulit ipse caput.
Victor Iabrochii, spoliis insignis opimis,
Rursus in amplexus, o radiose, meos!
O frabiose dies! CALLO clamateque CALLA!
Vix potuit laetus chorticulare pater.
Coesper erat: tunc lubriciles ultravia circum
Urgebant gyros gimbiculosque tophi;
Moestenui visae borogovides ire meatu;
Et profugi gemitus exgrabuere rathae.
A.A.V.
JABBERWOCKY.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that scratch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
The story, as originally written, contained thirteen chapters, but the
published book consisted of twelve only. The omitted chapter
introduced a wasp, in the character of a judge or barrister, I
suppose, since Mr. Tenniel wrote that "a _wasp_ in a _wig_
is altogether beyond the appliances of art." Apart from difficulties
of illustration, the "wasp" chapter was not considered to be up to the
level of the rest of the book, and this was probably the principal
reason of its being left out.
"It is a curious fact," wrote Mr. Tenniel some years later, when
replying to a request of Lewis Carroll's that he would illustrate
another of his books, "that with 'Through the Looking-Glass' the
faculty of making drawings for book illustration departed from me,
and, notwithstanding all sorts of tempting inducements, I have done
nothing in that direction since."
[Illustration: _Facsimile of a letter from Sir John Tenniel
to Lewis Carroll, June_ 1, 1870.]
"Through the Looking Glass" has recently appeared in a solemn judgment
of the House of Lords. In _Eastman Photographic Materials Company v.
Comptroller General of Patents, Designs, and Trademarks_ (1898),
the question for decision was, What constitutes an invented word? A
trademark that consists of or contains an invented word or words is
capable of registration. "Solio" was the word in issue in the case.
Lord Macnaghten in his judgment said, when alluding to the
distinguishing characteristics of an invented word:
I do not think that it is necessary that it should be wholly
meaningless. To give an illustration: your lordships may
remember that in a book of striking humour and fancy, which
was in everybody's hands when it was first published, there
is a collection of strange words where "there are" (to use
the language of the author) "two meanings packed up into one
word." No one would say that those were not invented words.
Still they contain a meaning--a meaning is wrapped up in
them if you can only find it out.
Before I leave the subject of the "Looking-Glass," I should like to
mention one or two circumstances in connection with it which
illustrate his reverence for sacred things. In his original manuscript
the bad-tempered flower (pp. 28-33) was the passion-flower; the sacred
origin of the name never struck him, until it was pointed out to him
by a friend, when he at once changed it into the tiger-lily. Another
friend asked him if the final scene was based upon the triumphal
conclusion of "Pilgrim's Progress." He repudiated the idea, saying
that he would consider such trespassing on holy ground as highly
irreverent.
He seemed never to be satisfied with the amount of work he had on
hand, and in 1872 he determined to add to his other labours by
studying anatomy and physiology. Professor Barclay Thompson supplied
him with a set of bones, and, having purchased the needful books, he
set to work in good earnest. His mind was first turned to acquiring
medical knowledge by his happening to be at hand when a man was seized
with an epileptic fit. He had prevented the poor creature from
falling, but was utterly at a loss what to do next. To be better
prepared on any future occasion, he bought a little manual called
"What to do in Emergencies." In later years he was constantly buying
medical and surgical works, and by the end of his life he had a
library of which no doctor need have been ashamed. There were only two
special bequests in his will, one of some small keepsakes to his
landlady at Eastbourne, Mrs. Dyer, and the other of his medical books
to my brother.
Whenever a new idea presented itself to his mind he used to make a
note of it; he even invented a system by which he could take notes in
the dark, if some happy thought or ingenious problem suggested itself
to him during a sleepless night. Like most men who systematically
overtax their brains, he was a poor sleeper. He would sometimes go
through a whole book of Euclid in bed; he was so familiar with the
bookwork that he could actually see the figures before him in the
dark, and did not confuse the letters, which is perhaps even more
remarkable.
Most of his ideas were ingenious, though many were entirely useless
from a practical point of view. For instance, he has an entry in his
Diary on November 8, 1872: "I wrote to Calverley, suggesting an idea
(which I think occurred to me yesterday) of guessing well-known poems
as acrostics, and making a collection of them to hoax the public."
Calverley's reply to this letter was as follows:--
My dear Sir,--I have been laid up (or laid down) for the
last few days by acute lumbago, or I would have written
before. It is rather absurd that I was on the point of
propounding to you this identical idea. I realised, and I
regret to add revealed to two girls, a fortnight ago, the
truth that all existing poems were in fact acrostics; and I
offered a small pecuniary reward to whichever would find out
Gray's "Elegy" within half an hour! But it never occurred to
me to utilise the discovery, as it did to you. I see that it
might be utilised, now you mention it--and I shall instruct
these two young women not to publish the notion among their
friends.
This is the way Mr. Calverley treated Kirke White's poem "To an early
Primrose." "The title," writes C.S.C. "might either be ignored or
omitted. Possibly carpers might say that a primrose was not a rose."
Mild offspring of a dark and sullen sire!
Whose modest form, so delicately fine, Wild
Was nursed in whistling storms Rose
And cradled in the winds!
Thee, when young Spring first questioned Winter's sway,
And dared the sturdy blusterer to the fight, W a R
Thee on this bank he threw
To mark his victory.
In this low vale, the promise of the year,
Serene thou openest to the nipping gale,
Unnoticed and alone I ncognit O
Thy tender elegance.
So Virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms
Of chill adversity, in some lone walk
Of life she rears her head L owlines S
Obscure and unobserved.
While every bleaching breeze that on her blows
Chastens her spotless purity of breast,
And hardens her to bear D isciplin E
Serene the ills of life.
In the course of their correspondence Mr. Calverley wrote a
Shakespearian sonnet, the initial letters of which form the name of
William Herbert; and a parody entitled "The New Hat." I reproduce them
both.
When o'er the world Night spreads her mantle dun,
In dreams, my love, I see those stars, thine eyes,
Lighting the dark: but when the royal sun
Looks o'er the pines and fires the orient skies,
I bask no longer in thy beauty's ray,
And lo! my world is bankrupt of delight.
Murk night seemed lately fair-complexioned day;
Hope-bringing day now seems most doleful night.
End, weary day, that art no day to me!
Return, fair night, to me the best of days!
But O my rose, whom in my dreams I see,
Enkindle with like bliss my waking gaze!
Replete with thee, e'en hideous night grows fair:
Then what would sweet morn be, if thou wert there?
THE NEW HAT.
My boots had been wash'd, well wash'd, by a shower;
But little I car'd about that:
What I felt was the havoc a single half-hour
Had made with my beautiful Hat.
For the Boot, tho' its lustre be dimm'd, shall assume
New comeliness after a while;
But no art may restore its original bloom,
When once it hath fled, to the Tile.
I clomb to my perch, and the horses (a bay
And a brown) trotted off with a clatter;
The driver look'd round in his humorous way,
And said huskily, "Who is your hatter?"
I was pleased that he'd noticed its shape and its shine;
And, as soon as we reached the "Old Druid,"
I begged him to drink to its welfare and mine
In a glass of my favourite fluid.
A gratified smile sat, I own, on my lips
When the barmaid exclaimed to the master,
(He was standing inside with his hands on his hips),
"Just look at that gentleman's castor."
I laughed, when an organman paus'd in mid-air--
('Twas an air that I happened to know,
By a great foreign _maestro_)--expressly to stare
At ze gent wiz _ze joli chapeau_.
Yet how swift is the transit from laughter to tears!
How rife with results is a day!
That Hat might, with care, have adorned me for years;
But one show'r wash'd its beauty away.
How I lov'd thee, my Bright One! I pluck in remorse
My hands from my pockets and wring 'em:
Oh, why did not I, dear, as a matter of course,
Ere I purchas'd thee purchase a gingham?
C.S. CALVERLEY.
Mr. Dodgson spent the last night of the old year (1872) at Hatfield,
where he was the guest of Lord Salisbury. There was a large party of
children in the house, one of them being Princess Alice, to whom he
told as much of the story of "Sylvie and Bruno" as he had then
composed. While the tale was in progress Lady Salisbury entered the
room, bringing in some new toy or game to amuse her little guests,
who, with the usual thoughtlessness of children, all rushed off and
left Mr. Dodgson. But the little Princess, suddenly appearing to
remember that to do so might perhaps hurt his feelings, sat down again
by his side. He read the kind thought which prompted her action, and
was much pleased by it.
As Mr. Dodgson knew several members of the _Punch_ staff, he used
to send up any little incidents or remarks that particularly amused
him to that paper. He even went so far as to suggest subjects for
cartoons, though I do not know if his ideas were ever carried out. One
of the anecdotes he sent to _Punch_ was that of a little boy,
aged four, who after having listened with much attention to the story
of Lot's wife, asked ingenuously, "Where does salt come from that's
_not_ made of ladies?" This appeared on January 3, 1874.
The following is one of several such little anecdotes jotted down by
Lewis Carroll for future use: Dr. Paget was conducting a school
examination, and in the course of his questions he happened to ask a
small child the meaning of "Average." He was utterly bewildered by the
reply, "The thing that hens lay on," until the child explained that he
had read in a book that hens lay _on an average_ so many eggs a
year.
Among the notable people whom he photographed was John Ruskin, and, as
several friends begged him for copies, he wrote to ask Mr. Ruskin's
leave. The reply was, "Buy Number 5 of _Fors Clavigera_ for 1871,
which will give you your answer." This was not what Mr. Dodgson
wanted, so he wrote back, "Can't afford ten-pence!" Finally Mr. Ruskin
gave his consent.
[Illustration: John Ruskin. _From a photograph by Lewis
Carroll_.]
About this time came the anonymous publication of "Notes by an Oxford
Chiel," a collection of papers written on various occasions, and all
of them dealing with Oxford controversies. Taking them in order, we
have first "The New Method of Evaluation as applied to [_pi_],"
first published by Messrs. Parker in 1865, which had for its subject
the controversy about the Regius Professorship of Greek. One extract
will be sufficient to show the way in which the affair was treated:
"Let U = the University, G = Greek, and P = Professor. Then G P =
Greek Professor; let this be reduced to its lowest terms and call the
result J [i.e., Jowett]."
The second paper is called "The Dynamics of a Parti-cle," and is quite
the best of the series; it is a geometrical treatment of the contest
between Mr. Gathorne Hardy and Mr. Gladstone for the representation of
the University. Here are some of the "Definitions" with which the
subject was introduced:--
_Plain Superficiality_ is the character of a speech, in
which any two points being taken, the speaker is found to
lie wholly with regard to those two points.
_Plain Anger_ is the inclination of two voters to one
another, who meet together, but whose views are not in the
same direction.
When two parties, coming together, feel a Right Anger, each
is _said_ to be _complimentary_ to the other,
though, strictly speaking, this is very seldom the case.
_A surd_ is a radical whose meaning cannot be exactly
ascertained.
As the "Notes of an Oxford Chiel" has been long out of print, I will
give a few more extracts from this paper:--
_On Differentiation._
The effect of Differentiation on a Particle is very
remarkable, the first differential being frequently of
greater value than the original particle, and the second of
less enlightenment.
For example, let L = "Leader", S = "Saturday", and then LS =
"Leader in the Saturday" (a particle of no assignable
value). Differentiating once, we get L.S.D., a function of
great value. Similarly it will be found that, by taking the
second Differential of an enlightened Particle (_i.e.,_
raising it to the Degree D.D.), the enlightenment becomes
rapidly less. The effect is much increased by the addition
of a C: in this case the enlightenment often vanishes
altogether, and the Particle becomes Conservative.
PROPOSITIONS.
PROP. I. PR.
_To find the value of a given Examiner_.
_Example_.--A takes in ten books in the Final
Examination and gets a 3rd class; B takes in the Examiners,
and gets a 2nd. Find the value of the Examiners in terms of
books. Find also their value in terms in which no
Examination is held.
PROP. II. PR.
_To estimate Profit and Loss_.
_Example_.--Given a Derby Prophet, who has sent three
different winners to three different betting-men, and given
that none of the three horses are placed. Find the total
loss incurred by the three men (_a_) in money,
(_b_) in temper. Find also the Prophet. Is this latter
usually possible?
PROP. IV. TH.
_The end_ (i.e., "_the product of the extremes")
justifies_ (i.e., "_is equal to_"--_see Latin
"aequus") the means_.
No example is appended to this Proposition, for obvious
reasons.
PROP. V. PR.
_To continue a given series._
_Example_.--A and B, who are respectively addicted to
Fours and Fives, occupy the same set of rooms, which is
always at Sixes and Sevens. Find the probable amount of
reading done by A and B while the Eights are on.
The third paper was entitled "Facts, Figures, and Fancies." The best
thing in it was a parody on "The Deserted Village," from which an
extract will be found in a later chapter. There was also a letter to
the Senior Censor of Christ Church, in burlesque of a similar letter
in which the Professor of Physics met an offer of the Clarendon
Trustees by a detailed enumeration of the requirements in his own
department of Natural Science. Mr. Dodgson's letter deals with the
imaginary requirements of the Mathematical school:--
Dear Senior Censor,--In a desultory conversation on a point
connected with the dinner at our high table, you
incidentally remarked to me that lobster-sauce, "though a
necessary adjunct to turbot, was not entirely wholesome!"
It is entirely unwholesome. I never ask for it without
reluctance: I never take a second spoonful without a feeling
of apprehension on the subject of a possible nightmare. This
naturally brings me to the subject of Mathematics, and of
the accommodation provided by the University for carrying on
the calculations necessary in that important branch of
Science.
As Members of Convocation are called upon (whether
personally, or, as is less exasperating, by letter) to
consider the offer of the Clarendon Trustees, as well as
every other subject of human, or inhuman, interest, capable
of consideration, it has occurred to me to suggest for your
consideration how desirable roofed buildings are for
carrying on mathematical calculations: in fact, the variable
character of the weather in Oxford renders it highly
inexpedient to attempt much occupation, of a sedentary
nature, in the open air.
Again, it is often impossible for students to carry on
accurate mathematical calculations in close contiguity to
one another, owing to their mutual conversation;
consequently these processes require different rooms in
which irrepressible conversationalists, who are found to
occur in every branch of Society, might be carefully and
permanently fixed.
It may be sufficient for the present to enumerate the
following requisites--others might be added as funds
permit:--
A. A very large room for calculating Greatest Common
Measure. To this a small one might be attached for Least
Common Multiple: this, however, might be dispensed with.
B. A piece of open ground for keeping Roots and practising
their extraction: it would be advisable to keep Square Roots
by themselves, as their corners are apt to damage others.
C. A room for reducing Fractions to their Lowest Terms. This
should be provided with a cellar for keeping the Lowest
Terms when found, which might also be available to the
general body of Undergraduates, for the purpose of "keeping
Terms."
D. A large room, which might be darkened, and fitted up with
a magic lantern, for the purpose of exhibiting circulating
Decimals in the act of circulation. This might also contain
cupboards, fitted with glass doors, for keeping the various
Scales of Notation.
E. A narrow strip of ground, railed off and carefully
levelled, for investigating the properties of Asymptotes,
and testing practically whether Parallel Lines meet or not:
for this purpose it should reach, to use the expressive
language of Euclid, "ever so far."
This last process of "continually producing the lines," may
require centuries or more; but such a period, though long in
the life of an individual, is as nothing in the life of the
University.
As Photography is now very much employed in recording human
expressions, and might possibly be adapted to Algebraical
Expressions, a small photographic room would be desirable,
both for general use and for representing the various
phenomena of Gravity, Disturbance of Equilibrium,
Resolution, &c., which affect the features during severe
mathematical operations.
May I trust that you will give your immediate attention to
this most important subject?
Believe me,
Sincerely yours,
Mathematicus.
Next came "The New Belfry of Christ Church, Oxford; a Monograph by
D.C.L." On the title-page was a neatly drawn square--the figure of
Euclid I. 46--below which was written "East view of the New Belfry,
Christ Church, as seen from the meadow." The new belfry is fortunately a
thing of the past, and its insolent hideousness no longer defaces Christ
Church, but while it lasted it was no doubt an excellent target for
Lewis Carroll's sarcasm. His article on it is divided into thirteen
chapters. Three of them are perhaps worth quoting:--
Sec.1. _On the etymological significance of the new Belfry, Ch. Ch_.
The word "Belfry" is derived from the French _bel_, "beautiful,
becoming, meet," and from the German _frei_, "free unfettered,
secure, safe." Thus, the word is strictly equivalent to "meat-safe,"
to which the new Belfry bears a resemblance so perfect as almost to
amount to coincidence.
Sec.4. _On the chief architectural merit of the new Belfry, Ch. Ch_.
Its chief merit is its simplicity--a simplicity so pure, so
profound, in a word, so _simple_, that no other word will fitly
describe it. The meagre outline, and baldness of detail, of the
present Chapter, are adopted in humble imitation of this great
feature.
Sec.5. _On the other architectural merits of the new Belfry, Ch. Ch_.
The Belfry has no other architectural merits.
"The Vision of the Three T's" followed. It also was an attack on
architectural changes in Christ Church; the general style was a parody
of the "Compleat Angler." Last of all came "The Blank Cheque, a
Fable," in reference to the building of the New Schools, for the
expenses of which it was actually proposed (in 1874), to sign a blank
cheque before any estimate had been made, or any plan laid before the
University, and even before a committee had been elected to appoint an
architect for the work.
At the end of 1874 Mr. Dodgson was again at Hatfield, where he told
the children the story of Prince Uggug, which was afterwards made a
part of "Sylvie and Bruno," though at that time it seems to have been
a separate tale. But "Sylvie and Bruno," in this respect entirely
unlike "Alice in Wonderland," was the result of notes taken during
many years; for while he was thinking out the book he never neglected
any amusing scraps of childish conversation or funny anecdotes about
children which came to his notice. It is this fact which gives such
verisimilitude to the prattle of Bruno; childish talk is a thing which
a grown-up person cannot possibly _invent_. He can only listen to
the actual things the children say, and then combine what he has heard
into a connected narrative.
During 1875 Mr. Dodgson wrote an article on "Some Popular Fallacies
about Vivisection," which was refused by the _Pall Mall Gazette_,
the editor saying that he had never heard of most of them; on which
Mr. Dodgson plaintively notes in his Diary that seven out of the
thirteen fallacies dealt with in his essay had appeared in the columns
of the _Pall Mall Gazette_. Ultimately it was accepted by the
editor of _The Fortnightly Review_. Mr. Dodgson had a peculiar
horror of vivisection. I was once walking in Oxford with him when a
certain well-known professor passed us. "I am afraid that man
vivisects," he said, in his gravest tone. Every year he used to get a
friend to recommend him a list of suitable charities to which he
should subscribe. Once the name of some Lost Dogs' Home appeared in
this list. Before Mr. Dodgson sent his guinea he wrote to the
secretary to ask whether the manager of the Home was in the habit of
sending dogs that had to be killed to physiological laboratories for
vivisection. The answer was in the negative, so the institution got
the cheque. He did not, however, advocate the total abolition of
vivisection--what reasonable man could?--but he would have liked to
see it much more carefully restricted by law. An earlier letter of his
to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ on the same subject is sufficiently
characteristic to deserve a place here. Be it noted that he signed it
"Lewis Carroll," in order that whatever influence or power his
writings had gained him might tell in the controversy.
VIVISECTION AS A SIGN OF THE TIMES.
_To the Editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette."_
Sir,--The letter which appeared in last week's
_Spectator_, and which must have saddened the heart of
every one who read it, seems to suggest a question which has
not yet been asked or answered with sufficient clearness,
and that is, How far may vivisection be regarded as a sign
of the times, and a fair specimen of that higher
civilisation which a purely secular State education is to
give us? In that much-vaunted panacea for all human ills we
are promised not only increase of knowledge, but also a
higher moral character; any momentary doubt on this point
which we may feel is set at rest at once by quoting the
great crucial instance of Germany. The syllogism, if it
deserves the name, is usually stated thus: Germany has a
higher scientific education than England; Germany has a
lower average of crime than England; _ergo_, a
scientific education tends to improve moral conduct. Some
old-fashioned logician might perhaps whisper to himself,
"Praemissis particularibus nihil probatur," but such a
remark, now that Aldrich is out of date, would only excite a
pitying smile. May we, then, regard the practice of
vivisection as a legitimate fruit, or as an abnormal
development, of this higher moral character? Is the
anatomist, who can contemplate unmoved the agonies he is
inflicting for no higher purpose than to gratify a
scientific curiosity, or to illustrate some well-established
truth, a being higher or lower, in the scale of humanity,
than the ignorant boor whose very soul would sicken at the
horrid sight? For if ever there was an argument in favour of
purely scientific education more cogent than another, it is
surely this (a few years back it might have been put into
the mouth of any advocate of science; now it reads like the
merest mockery): "What can teach the noble quality of mercy,
of sensitiveness to all forms of suffering, so powerfully as
the knowledge of what suffering really is? Can the man who
has once realised by minute study what the nerves are, what
the brain is, and what waves of agony the one can convey to
the other, go forth and wantonly inflict pain on any
sentient being?" A little while ago we should have
confidently replied, "He cannot do it"; in the light of
modern revelations we must sorrowfully confess "He can." And
let it never be said that this is done with serious
forethought of the balance of pain and gain; that the
operator has pleaded with himself, "Pain is indeed an evil,
but so much suffering may fitly be endured to purchase so
much knowledge." When I hear of one of these ardent
searchers after truth giving, not a helpless dumb animal, to
whom he says in effect, "_You_ shall suffer that
_I_ may know," but his own person to the probe and to
the scalpel, I will believe in him as recognising a
principle of justice, and I will honour him as acting up to
his principles. "But the thing cannot be!" cries some
amiable reader, fresh from an interview with that most
charming of men, a London physician. "What! Is it possible
that one so gentle in manner, so full of noble sentiments,
can be hardhearted? The very idea is an outrage to common
sense!" And thus we are duped every day of our lives. Is it
possible that that bank director, with his broad honest
face, can be meditating a fraud? That the chairman of that
meeting of shareholders, whose every tone has the ring of
truth in it, can hold in his hand a "cooked" schedule of
accounts? That my wine merchant, so outspoken, so confiding,
can be supplying me with an adulterated article? That the
schoolmaster, to whom I have entrusted my little boy, can
starve or neglect him? How well I remember his words to the
dear child when last we parted. "You are leaving your
friends," he said, "but you will have a father in me, my
dear, and a mother in Mrs. Squeers!" For all such
rose-coloured dreams of the necessary immunity from human
vices of educated men the facts in last week's
_Spectator_ have a terrible significance. "Trust no man
further than you can see him," they seem to say. "Qui vult
decipi, decipiatur."
Allow me to quote from a modern writer a few sentences
bearing on this subject:--
"We are at present, legislature and nation together,
eagerly pushing forward schemes which proceed on the
postulate that conduct is determined, not by feelings, but
by cognitions. For what else is the assumption underlying
this anxious urging-on of organisations for teaching? What
is the root-notion common to Secularists and
Denominationalists but the notion that spread of knowledge
is the one thing needful for bettering behaviour? Having
both swallowed certain statistical fallacies, there has
grown up in them the belief that State education will
check ill-doing.... This belief in the moralising effects
of intellectual culture, flatly contradicted by facts, is
absurd _a priori_.... This faith in lesson-books and
readings is one of the superstitions of the age.... Not by
precept, though heard daily; not by example, unless it is
followed; but only by action, often caused by the related
feeling, can a moral habit be formed. And yet this truth,
which mental science clearly teaches, and which is in
harmony with familiar sayings, is a truth wholly ignored
in current educational fanaticisms."
There need no praises of mine to commend to the
consideration of all thoughtful readers these words of
Herbert Spencer. They are to be found in "The Study of
Sociology" (pp. 36l-367).
Let us, however, do justice to science. It is not so wholly
wanting as Mr. Herbert Spencer would have us believe in
principles of action--principles by which we may regulate
our conduct in life. I myself once heard an accomplished man
of science declare that his labours had taught him one
special personal lesson which, above all others, he had laid
to heart. A minute study of the nervous system, and of the
various forms of pain produced by wounds had inspired in him
one profound resolution; and that was--what think
you?--never, under any circumstances, to adventure his own
person into the field of battle! I have somewhere read in a
book--a rather antiquated book, I fear, and one much
discredited by modern lights--the words, "the whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." Truly
we read these words with a new meaning in the present day!
"Groan and travail" it undoubtedly does still (more than
ever, so far as the brute creation is concerned); but to
what end? Some higher and more glorious state? So one might
have said a few years back. Not so in these days. The
_telos teleion_ of secular education, when divorced
from religious or moral training, is--I say it
deliberately--the purest and most unmitigated selfishness.
The world has seen and tired of the worship of Nature, of
Reason, of Humanity; for this nineteenth century has been
reserved the development of the most refined religion of
all--the worship of Self. For that, indeed, is the upshot of
it all. The enslavement of his weaker brethren--"the labour
of those who do not enjoy, for the enjoyment of those who do
not labour"--the degradation of woman--the torture of the
animal world--these are the steps of the ladder by which man
is ascending to his higher civilisation. Selfishness is the
key-note of all purely secular education; and I take
vivisection to be a glaring, a wholly unmistakable case in
point. And let it not be thought that this is an evil that
we can hope to see produce the good for which we are asked
to tolerate it, and then pass away. It is one that tends
continually to spread. And if it be tolerated or even
ignored now, the age of universal education, when the
sciences, and anatomy among them, shall be the heritage of
all, will be heralded by a cry of anguish from the brute
creation that will ring through the length and breadth of
the land! This, then, is the glorious future to which the
advocate of secular education may look forward: the dawn
that gilds the horizon of his hopes! An age when all forms
of religious thought shall be things of the past; when
chemistry and biology shall be the ABC of a State education
enforced on all; when vivisection shall be practised in
every college and school; and when the man of science,
looking forth over a world which will then own no other sway
than his, shall exult in the thought that he has made of
this fair green earth, if not a heaven for man, at least a
hell for animals.
I am, sir,
Your obedient servant,
Lewis Carroll.
_February 10th_.
On March 29, 1876, "The Hunting of the Snark" was published. Mr.
Dodgson gives some interesting particulars of its evolution. The first
idea for the poem was the line "For the Snark _was_ a Boojum, you
see," which came into his mind, apparently without any cause, while he
was taking a country walk. The first complete verse which he composed
was the one which stands last in the poem:--
In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away--
For the Snark _was_ a Boojum, you see.
The illustrations were the work of Mr. Henry Holiday, and they are
thoroughly in keeping with the spirit of the poem. Many people have
tried to show that "The Hunting of the Snark" was an allegory; some
regarding it as being a burlesque upon the Tichborne case, and others
taking the Snark as a personification of popularity. Lewis Carroll
always protested that the poem had no meaning at all.
As to the meaning of the Snark [he wrote to a friend in
America], I'm very much afraid I didn't mean anything but
nonsense. Still, you know, words mean more than we mean to
express when we use them; so a whole book ought to mean a
great deal more than the writer means. So, whatever good
meanings are in the book, I'm glad to accept as the meaning
of the book. The best that I've seen is by a lady (she
published it in a letter to a newspaper), that the whole
book is an allegory on the search after happiness. I think
this fits in beautifully in many ways--particularly about
the bathing-machines: when the people get weary of life, and
can't find happiness in towns or in books, then they rush
off to the seaside, to see what bathing-machines will do for
them.
[Illustration: Henry Holiday in his Studio. _From a
photograph_.]
Mr. H. Holiday, in a very interesting article on "The Snark's
Significance" (_Academy,_ January 29, 1898), quoted the
inscription which Mr. Dodgson had written in a vellum-bound,
presentation-copy of the book. It is so characteristic that I take the
liberty of reproducing it here:--
Presented to Henry Holiday, most patient of artists, by
Charles L. Dodgson, most exacting, but not most ungrateful
of authors, March 29, 1876.
A little girl, to whom Mr. Dodgson had given a copy of the "Snark,"
managed to get the whole poem off by heart, and insisted on reciting,
it from beginning to end during a long carriage-drive. Her friends,
who, from the nature of the case, were unable to escape, no doubt
wished that she, too, was a Boojum.
During the year, the first public dramatic representation of "Alice in
Wonderland" was given at the Polytechnic, the entertainment taking the
form of a series of _tableaux_, interspersed with appropriate
readings and songs. Mr. Dodgson exercised a rigid censorship over all
the extraneous matter introduced into the performance, and put his
veto upon a verse in one of the songs, in which the drowning of
kittens was treated from the humorous point of view, lest the children
in the audience might learn to think lightly of death in the case of
the lower animals.
[Illustration: Lewis Carroll. _From a photograph_.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER V
(1877-1883)
Dramatic tastes--Miss Ellen Terry--"Natural Science at
Oxford"--Mr. Dodgson as an artist--Miss E. G. Thomson--The
drawing of children--A curious dream--"The Deserted
Parks"--"Syzygies"--Circus children--Row-loving
undergraduates--A letter to _The Observer_--Resignation
of the Lectureship--He is elected Curator of the Common
Room--Dream-music.
Mr. Dodgson's love of the drama was not, as I have shown, a taste
which he acquired in later years. From early college days he never
missed anything which he considered worth seeing at the London
theatres. I believe he used to reproach himself--unfairly, I
think--with spending too much time on such recreations. For a man who
worked so hard and so incessantly as he did; for a man to whom
vacations meant rather a variation of mental employment than absolute
rest of mind, the drama afforded just the sort of relief that was
wanted. His vivid imagination, the very earnestness and intensity of
his character enabled him to throw himself utterly into the spirit of
what he saw upon the stage, and to forget in it all the petty worries
and disappointments of life. The old adage says that a man cannot burn
the candle at both ends; like most proverbs, it is only partially
true, for often the hardest worker is the man who enters with most
zest into his recreations, and this was emphatically the case with Mr.
Dodgson.
Walter Pater, in his book on the Renaissance, says (I quote from rough
notes only), "A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a
variegated dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to be
seen in them by the finest senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from
point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest
number of vital forces unite in their purest energy? To burn always
with this hard gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in
life." Here we have the truer philosophy, here we have the secret of
Lewis Carroll's life. He never wasted time on social formalities; he
refused to fulfil any of those (so called) duties which involve
ineffable boredom, and so his mind was always fresh and ready. He said
in one of his letters that he hoped that in the next world all
knowledge would not be given to us suddenly, but that we should
gradually grow wiser, for the _acquiring_ knowledge was to him
the real pleasure. What is this but a paraphrase of another of Pater's
thoughts, "Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself is the
end."
And so, times without number, he allowed himself to be carried away by
emotion as he saw life in the mirror of the stage; but, best of all,
he loved to see the acting of children, and he generally gave copies
of his books to any of the little performers who specially pleased
him. On January 13, 1877, he wrote in his Diary:--
Went up to town for the day, and took E-- with me to the
afternoon pantomime at the Adelphi, "Goody Two-Shoes," acted
entirely by children. It was a really charming performance.
Little Bertie Coote, aged ten, was clown--a wonderfully
clever little fellow; and Carrie Coote, about eight, was
Columbine, a very pretty graceful little thing. In a few
years' time she will be just _the_ child to act
"Alice," if it is ever dramatised. The harlequin was a
little girl named Gilchrist, one of the most beautiful
children, in face and figure, that I have ever seen. I must
get an opportunity of photographing her. Little Bertie
Coote, singing "Hot Codlings," was curiously like the
pictures of Grimaldi.
It need hardly be said that the little girl was Miss Constance
Gilchrist. Mr. Dodgson sent her a copy of "Alice in Wonderland," with
a set of verses on her name.
Many people object altogether to children appearing on the stage; it
is said to be bad for their morals as well as for their health. A
letter which Mr. Dodgson once wrote in the _St. James's Gazette_
contains a sufficient refutation of the latter fancy:--
I spent yesterday afternoon at Brighton, where for five
hours I enjoyed the society of three exceedingly happy and
healthy little girls, aged twelve, ten, and seven. I think
that any one who could have seen the vigour of life in those
three children--the intensity with which they enjoyed
everything, great or small, that came in their way--who
could have watched the younger two running races on the
Pier, or have heard the fervent exclamation of the eldest at
the end of the afternoon, "We _have_ enjoyed
ourselves!" would have agreed with me that here, at least,
there was no excessive "physical strain," nor any
_imminent_ danger of "fatal results"! A drama, written
by Mr. Savile Clarke, is now being played at Brighton, and
in this (it is called "Alice in Wonderland") all three
children have been engaged. They had been acting every night
this week, and _twice_ on the day before I met them,
the second performance lasting till half-past ten at night,
after which they got up at seven next morning to bathe! That
such (apparently) severe work should co-exist with blooming
health and buoyant spirits seems at first sight a paradox;
but I appeal to any one who has ever worked _con amore_
at any subject whatever to support me in the assertion that,
when you really love the subject you are working at, the
"physical strain" is absolutely _nil_; it is only when
working "against the grain" that any strain is felt, and I
believe the apparent paradox is to be explained by the fact
that a taste for _acting_ is one of the strongest
passions of human nature, that stage-children show it nearly
from infancy, and that, instead of being miserable drudges
who ought to be celebrated in a new "Cry of the Children,"
they simply _rejoice_ in their work "even as a giant
rejoiceth to run his course."
Mr. Dodgson's general views on the mission of the drama are well shown
by an extract from a circular which he sent to many of his friends in
1882:--
The stage (as every playgoer can testify) is an engine of
incalculable power for influencing society; and every effort
to purify and ennoble its aims seems to me to deserve all
the countenance that the great, and all the material help
that the wealthy, can give it; while even those who are
neither great nor wealthy may yet do their part, and help
to--
"Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be."
[Illustration: Ellen Terry. _From a photograph by Lewis
Carroll_.]
I do not know if Mr. Dodgson's suggested amendment of some lines in
the "Merchant of Venice" was ever carried out, but it further
illustrates the serious view he took of this subject. The hint occurs
in a letter to Miss Ellen Terry, which runs as follows:--
You gave me a treat on Saturday such as I have very seldom
had in my life. You must be weary by this time of hearing
your own praises, so I will only say that Portia was all I
could have imagined, and more. And Shylock is
superb--especially in the trial-scene.
Now I am going to be very bold, and make a suggestion, which
I do hope you will think well enough of to lay it before Mr.
Irving. I want to see that clause omitted (in the sentence
on Shylock)--
That, for this favour,
He presently become a Christian;
It is a sentiment that is entirely horrible and revolting to
the feelings of all who believe in the Gospel of Love. Why
should our ears be shocked by such words merely because they
are Shakespeare's? In his day, when it was held to be a
Christian's duty to force his belief on others by fire and
sword--to burn man's body in order to save his soul--the
words probably conveyed no shock. To all Christians now
(except perhaps extreme Calvinists) the idea of forcing a
man to abjure his religion, whatever that religion may be,
is (as I have said) simply horrible.
I have spoken of it as a needless outrage on religious
feeling: but surely, being so, it is a great artistic
mistake. Its tendency is directly contrary to the spirit of
the scene. We have despised Shylock for his avarice, and we
rejoice to see him lose his wealth: we have abhorred him for
his bloodthirsty cruelty, and we rejoice to see him baffled.
And now, in the very fulness of our joy at the triumph of
right over wrong, we are suddenly called on to see in him
the victim of a cruelty a thousand times worse than his own,
and to honour him as a martyr. This, I am sure, Shakespeare
never meant. Two touches only of sympathy does he allow us,
that we may realise him as a man, and not as a demon
incarnate. "I will not pray with you"; "I had it of Leah,
when I was a bachelor." But I am sure he never meant our
sympathies to be roused in the supreme moment of his
downfall, and, if he were alive now, I believe he would cut
out those lines about becoming a Christian.
No interpolation is needed--(I should not like to suggest
the putting in a single word that is not Shakespeare's)--I
would read the speech thus:--
That lately stole his daughter:
Provided that he do record a gift,
Here in the court, &c.
And I would omit Gratiano's three lines at Shylock's exit,
and let the text stand:--
_Duke_: "Get thee gone, but do it." (_Exit
Shylock_.)
The exit, in solemn silence, would be, if possible, even
grander than it now is, and would lose nothing by the
omission of Gratiano's flippant jest....
On January 16th he saw "New Men and Old Acres" at the Court Theatre.
The two authors of the pieces, Dubourg and Tom Taylor, were great
friends of his. "It was a real treat," he writes, "being well acted in
every detail. Ellen Terry was wonderful, and I should think
unsurpassable in all but the lighter parts." Mr. Dodgson himself had a
strong wish to become a dramatic author, but, after one or two
unsuccessful attempts to get his plays produced, he wisely gave up the
idea, realising that he had not the necessary constructive powers. The
above reference to Miss Ellen Terry's acting is only one out of a
countless number; the great actress and he were excellent friends, and
she did him many a kindness in helping on young friends of his who had
taken up the stage as a profession.
[Illustration: Tom Taylor. _From a photograph by Lewis
Carroll_.]
She and her sister, Miss Kate Terry, were among the distinguished
people whom he photographed. The first time he saw the latter actress
was, I think, in 1858, when she was playing in "The Tempest" at the
Princess's. "The gem of the piece," he writes, "was the exquisitely
graceful and beautiful Ariel, Miss Kate Terry. Her appearance as a
sea-nymph was one of the most beautiful living pictures I ever saw,
but this, and every other one in my recollection (except Queen
Katherine's dream), were all outdone by the concluding scene, where
Ariel is left alone, hovering over the wide ocean, watching the
retreating ship. It is an innovation on Shakespeare, but a worthy one,
and the conception of a true poet."
[Illustration: Kate Terry. _From a photograph by Lewis
Carroll_.]
Mr. Dodgson was a frequent contributor to the daily Press. As a rule
his letters appeared in the _St. James's Gazette_, for the
editor, Mr. Greenwood, was a friend of his, but the following
sarcastic epistle was an exception:--
NATURAL SCIENCE AT OXFORD.
_To the Editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette."_
Sir,--There is no one of the many ingenious appliances of
mechanical science that is more appreciated or more
successfully employed than the wedge; so subtle and
imperceptible are the forces needed for the insertion of its
"thin end," so astounding the results which its "thick end"
may ultimately produce. Of the former process we shall see a
beautiful illustration in a Congregation to be holden at
Oxford on the 24th inst., when it will be proposed to grant,
to those who have taken the degrees of bachelor and master
in Natural Science only, the same voting powers as in the
case of the "M.A." degree. This means the omission of one of
the two classical languages, Latin and Greek, from what has
been hitherto understood as the curriculum of an Oxford
education. It is to this "thin end" of the wedge that I
would call the attention of our non-residents, and of all
interested in Oxford education, while the "thick end" is
still looming in the distance. But why fear a "thick end" at
all? I shall be asked. Has Natural Science shown any such
tendency, or given any reason to fear that such a concession
would lead to further demands? In answer to that question,
let me sketch, in dramatic fashion, the history of her
recent career in Oxford. In the dark ages of our University
(some five-and-twenty years ago), while we still believed in
classics and mathematics as constituting a liberal
education, Natural Science sat weeping at our gates. "Ah,
let me in!" she moaned; "why cram reluctant youth with your
unsatisfying lore? Are they not hungering for bones; yea,
panting for sulphuretted hydrogen?" We heard and we pitied.
We let her in and housed her royally; we adorned her palace
with re-agents and retorts, and made it a very charnel-house
of bones, and we cried to our undergraduates, "The feast of
Science is spread! Eat, drink, and be happy!" But they would
not. They fingered the bones, and thought them dry. They
sniffed at the hydrogen, and turned away. Yet for all that
Science ceased not to cry, "More gold, more gold!" And her
three fair daughters, Chemistry, Biology, and Physics (for
the modern horse-leech is more prolific than in the days of
Solomon), ceased not to plead, "Give, give!" And we gave; we
poured forth our wealth like water (I beg her pardon, like
H{_2}O), and we could not help thinking there was something
weird and uncanny in the ghoul-like facility with which she
absorbed it.
The curtain rises on the second act of the drama. Science is
still weeping, but this time it is for lack of pupils, not
of teachers or machinery. "We are unfairly handicapped!" she
cries. "You have prizes and scholarships for classics and
mathematics, and you bribe your best students to desert us.
Buy us some bright, clever boys to teach, and then see what
we can do!" Once more we heard and pitied. We had bought her
bones; we bought her boys. And now at last her halls were
filled--not only with teachers paid to teach, but also with
learners paid to learn. And we have not much to complain of
in results, except that perhaps she is a little too ready to
return on our hands all but the "honour-men"--all, in fact,
who really need the helping hand of an educator. "Here, take
back your stupid ones!" she cries. "Except as subjects for
the scalpel (and we have not yet got the Human Vivisection
Act through Parliament) we can do nothing with them!"
The third act of the drama is yet under rehearsal; the
actors are still running in and out of the green-room, and
hastily shuffling on their new and ill-fitting dresses; but
its general scope is not far to seek. At no distant day our
once timid and tearful guest will be turning up her nose at
the fare provided for her. "Give me no more youths to
teach," she will say; "but pay me handsomely, and let me
think. Plato and Aristotle were all very well in their way;
Diogenes and his tub for me!" The allusion is not
inappropriate. There can be little doubt that some of the
researches conducted by that retiring philosopher in the
recesses of that humble edifice were strictly scientific,
embracing several distinct branches of entomology. I do not
mean, of course, that "research" is a new idea in Oxford.
From time immemorial we have had our own chosen band of
researchers (here called "professors"), who have advanced
the boundaries of human knowledge in many directions. True,
they are not left so wholly to themselves as some of these
modern thinkers would wish to be, but are expected to give
some few lectures, as the outcome of their "research" and
the evidence of its reality, but even that condition has not
always been enforced--for instance, in the case of the late
Professor of Greek, Dr. Gaisford, the University was too
conscious of the really valuable work he was doing in
philological research to complain that he ignored the usual
duties of the chair and delivered no lectures.
And, now, what is the "thick end" of the wedge? It is that
Latin and Greek may _both_ vanish from our curriculum;
that logic, philosophy, and history may follow; and that the
destinies of Oxford may some day be in the hands of those
who have had no education other than "scientific." And why
not? I shall be asked. Is it not as high a form of education
as any other? That is a matter to be settled by facts. I can
but offer my own little item of evidence, and leave it to
others to confirm or to refute. It used once to be thought
indispensable for an educated man that he should be able to
write his own language correctly, if not elegantly; it seems
doubtful how much longer this will be taken as a criterion.
Not so many years ago I had the honour of assisting in
correcting for the press some pages of the
_Anthropological Review_, or some such periodical. I
doubt not that the writers were eminent men in their own
line; that each could triumphantly prove, to his own
satisfaction, the unsoundness of what the others had
advanced; and that all would unite in declaring that the
theories of a year ago were entirely exploded by the latest
German treatise; but they were not able to set forth these
thoughts, however consoling in themselves, in anything
resembling the language of educated society. In all my
experience, I have never read, even in the "local news" of
a country paper, such slipshod, such deplorable English.
I shall be told that I am ungenerous in thus picking out a
few unfavourable cases, and that some of the greatest minds
of the day are to be found in the ranks of science. I freely
admit that such may be found, but my contention is that
_they_ made the science, not the science them; and that
in any line of thought they would have been equally
distinguished. As a general principle, I do not think that
the exclusive study of any _one_ subject is really
education; and my experience as a teacher has shown me that
even a considerable proficiency in Natural Science, taken
alone, is so far from proving a high degree of cultivation
and great natural ability that it is fully compatible with
general ignorance and an intellect quite below par.
Therefore it is that I seek to rouse an interest, beyond the
limits of Oxford, in preserving classics as an essential
feature of a University education. Nor is it as a classical
tutor (who might be suspected of a bias in favour of his own
subject) that I write this. On the contrary, it is as one
who has taught science here for more than twenty years (for
mathematics, though good-humouredly scorned by the
biologists on account of the abnormal certainty of its
conclusions, is still reckoned among the sciences) that I
beg to sign myself,--Your obedient servant,
Charles L. Dodgson,
_Mathematical Lecturer of Christ Church, Oxford.
May 17th._
I give the above letter because I think it amusing; it must not be
supposed that the writer's views on the subject remained the same all
through his life. He was a thorough Conservative, and it took a long
time to reconcile him to any new departure. In a political discussion
with a friend he once said that he was "first an Englishman, and then
a Conservative," but however much a man may try to put patriotism
before party, the result will be but partially successful, if
patriotism would lead him into opposition to the mental bias which has
originally made him either a Conservative or a Radical.
He took, of course, great pleasure in the success of his books, as
every author must; but the greatest pleasure of all to him was to know
that they had pleased others. Notes like the following are frequent in
his Diary: "_June_ 25_th_.--Spent the afternoon in sending
off seventy circulars to Hospitals, offering copies of 'Alice' and the
'Looking-Glass' for sick children." He well deserved the name which
one of his admirers gave him--"The man who loved little children."
In April, 1878, he saw a performance of "Olivia" at the Court Theatre.
"The gem of the piece is Olivia herself, acted by Ellen Terry with a
sweetness and pathos that moved some of the audience (nearly including
myself) to tears. Her leave-taking was exquisite; and when, in her
exile, she hears that her little brother had cried at the mention of
her name, her exclamation 'Pet!' was tenderness itself. Altogether, I
have not had a greater dramatic treat for a long time. _Dies creta
notandus_."
I see that I have marked for quotation the following brief entries in
the Diary:--
_Aug. 4th_ (at Eastbourne).--Went, morning and
evening, to the new chapel-of-ease belonging to S.
Saviour's. It has the immense advantage of _not_ being
crowded; but this scarcely compensates for the vile
Gregorian chants, which vex and weary one's ear.
_Aug. 17th_.--A very inquisitive person, who had some
children with her, found out my name, and then asked me to
shake hands with her child, as an admirer of my books: this
I did, unwisely perhaps, as I have no intention of
continuing the acquaintance of a "Mrs. Leo Hunter."
_Dec. 23rd_.--I have been making a plan for work next
term, of this kind: Choose a subject (_e.g._,
"Circulation," "Journeys of S. Paul," "English Counties")
for each week. On Monday write what I know about it; during
week get up subject; on Saturday write again; put the two
papers away, and six months afterwards write again and
compare.
As an artist, Mr. Dodgson possessed an intense natural appreciation of
the beautiful, an abhorrence of all that is coarse and unseemly which
might almost be called hyper-refinement, a wonderfully good eye for
form, and last, but not least, the most scrupulous conscientiousness
about detail. On the other hand his sense of colour was somewhat
imperfect, and his hand was almost totally untrained, so that while he
had all the enthusiasm of the true artist, his work always had the
defects of an amateur.
[Illustration: Miss E. Gertrude Thomson.]
In 1878 some drawings of Miss E. Gertrude Thomson's excited his keen
admiration, and he exerted himself to make her acquaintance. Their
first meeting is described so well by Miss Thomson herself in _The
Gentlewoman_ for January 29, 1898, that I cannot do better than
quote the description of the scene as given there:--
It was at the end of December, 1878, that a letter, written
in a singularly legible and rather boyish-looking hand, came
to me from Christ Church, Oxford, signed "C. L. Dodgson."
The writer said that he had come across some fairy designs
of mine, and he should like to see some more of my work. By
the same post came a letter from my London publisher (who
had supplied my address) telling me that the "Rev. C. L.
Dodgson" was "Lewis Carroll."
"Alice in Wonderland" had long been one of my pet books, and
as one regards a favourite author as almost a personal
friend, I felt less restraint than one usually feels in
writing to a stranger, though I carefully concealed my
knowledge of his identity, as he had not chosen to reveal
it.
This was the beginning of a frequent and delightful
correspondence, and as I confessed to a great love for fairy
lore of every description, he asked me if I would accept a
child's fairy-tale book he had written, called "Alice in
Wonderland." I replied that I knew it nearly all off by
heart, but that I should greatly prize a copy given to me by
himself. By return came "Alice," and "Through the
Looking-Glass," bound most luxuriously in white calf and
gold.
And this is the graceful and kindly note that came with
them: "I am now sending you 'Alice,' and the 'Looking-Glass'
as well. There is an incompleteness about giving only one,
and besides, the one you bought was probably in red and
would not match these. If you are at all in doubt as to what
to do with the (now) superfluous copy, let me suggest your
giving it to some poor sick child. I have been distributing
copies to all the hospitals and convalescent homes I can
hear of, where there are sick children capable of reading
them, and though, of course, one takes some pleasure in the
popularity of the books elsewhere, it is not nearly so
pleasant a thought to me as that they may be a comfort and
relief to children in hours of pain and weariness. Still, no
recipient _can_ be more appropriate than one who seems
to have been in fairyland herself, and to have seen, like
the 'weary mariners' of old--
'Between the green brink and the running foam
White limbs unrobed in a crystal air,
Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest
To little harps of gold.'"
"Do you ever come to London?" he asked in another letter;
"if so, will you allow me to call upon you?"
Early in the summer I came up to study, and I sent him word
that I was in town. One night, coming into my room, after a
long day spent at the British Museum, in the half-light I
saw a card lying on the table. "Rev. C. L. Dodgson." Bitter,
indeed, was my disappointment at having missed him, but just
as I was laying it sadly down I spied a small T.O. in the
corner. On the back I read that he couldn't get up to my
rooms early or late enough to find me, so would I arrange to
meet him at some museum or gallery the day but one
following? I fixed on South Kensington Museum, by the
"Schliemann" collection, at twelve o'clock.
A little before twelve I was at the rendezvous, and then the
humour of the situation suddenly struck me, that _I_
had not the ghost of an idea what _he_ was like, nor
would _he_ have any better chance of discovering
_me!_ The room was fairly full of all sorts and
conditions, as usual, and I glanced at each masculine figure
in turn, only to reject it as a possibility of the one I
sought. Just as the big clock had clanged out twelve, I
heard the high vivacious voices and laughter of children
sounding down the corridor.
At that moment a gentleman entered, two little girls
clinging to his hands, and as I caught sight of the tall
slim figure, with the clean-shaven, delicate, refined face,
I said to myself, "_That's_ Lewis Carroll." He stood
for a moment, head erect, glancing swiftly over the room,
then, bending down, whispered something to one of the
children; she, after a moment's pause, pointed straight at
me.
Dropping their hands he came forward, and with that winning
smile of his that utterly banished the oppressive sense of
the Oxford don, said simply, "I am Mr. Dodgson; I was to
meet you, I think?" To which I as frankly smiled, and said,
"How did you know me so soon?"
"My little friend found you. I told her I had come to meet a
young lady who knew fairies, and she fixed on you at once.
But _I_ knew you before she spoke."
This acquaintance ripened into a true, artistic friendship, which
lasted till Mr. Dodgson's death. In his first letter to Miss Thomson
he speaks of himself as one who for twenty years had found his one
amusement in photographing from life--especially photographing
children; he also said that he had made attempts ("most
unsuccessfully") at drawing them. When he got to know her more
intimately, he asked her to criticise his work, and when she wrote
expressing her willingness to do so, he sent her a pile of
sketch-books, through which she went most carefully, marking the
mistakes, and criticising, wherever criticism seemed to be necessary.
After this he might often have been seen in her studio, lying flat on
his face, and drawing some child-model who had been engaged for his
especial benefit. "I _love_ the effort to draw," he wrote in one
of his letters to her, "but I utterly fail to please even my own
eye--tho' now and then I seem to get somewhere _near_ a right
line or two, when I have a live child to draw from. But I have no time
left now for such things. In the next life, I do _hope_ we shall
not only _see_ lovely forms, such as this world does not contain,
but also be able to _draw_ them."
But while he fully recognised the limits of his powers, he had great
faith in his own critical judgment; and with good reason, for his
perception of the beautiful in contour and attitude and grouping was
almost unerring. All the drawings which Miss Thomson made for his
"Three Sunsets" were submitted to his criticism, which descended to
the smallest details. He concludes a letter to her, which contained
the most elaborate and minute suggestions for the improvement of one
of these pictures, with the following words: "I make all these
suggestions with diffidence, feeling that I have _really no_
right at all, as an amateur, to criticise the work of a real artist."
The following extract from another letter to Miss Thomson shows that
seeking after perfection, that discontent with everything short of the
best, which was so marked a feature of his character. She had sent him
two drawings of the head of some child-friend of his:--
Your note is a puzzle--you say that "No. 2 would have been
still more like if the paper had been exactly the same
shade--but I'd no more at hand of the darker colour." Had I
given you the impression that I was in a _hurry_, and
was willing to have No. 2 _less_ good than it
_might_ be made, so long as I could have it
_quick?_ If I did, I'm very sorry: I never _meant_
to say a word like it: and, if you had written "I could make
it still more like, on darker paper; but I've no more at
hand. How long can you wait for me to get some?" I should
have replied, "Six weeks, or six _months_, if you
prefer it!"
I have already spoken of his love of nature, as opposed to the
admiration for the morbid and abnormal. "I want you," he writes to
Miss Thomson, "to do my fairy drawings from _life_. They would be
very pretty, no doubt, done out of your own head, but they will be ten
times as valuable if done from life. Mr. Furniss drew the pictures of
'Sylvie' from life. Mr. Tenniel is the only artist, who has drawn for
me, who resolutely refused to use a model, and declared he no more
needed one than I should need a multiplication-table to work a
mathematical problem!" On another occasion he urges the importance of
using models, in order to avoid the similarity of features which would
otherwise spoil the pictures: "Cruikshank's splendid illustrations
were terribly spoiled by his having only _one_ pretty female face
in them all. Leech settled down into _two_ female faces. Du
Maurier, I think, has only _one_, now. All the ladies, and all
the little girls in his pictures look like twin sisters."
It is interesting to know that Sir Noel Paton and Mr. Walter Crane
were, in Lewis Carroll's opinion, the most successful drawers of
children: "There are but few artists who seem to draw the forms of
children _con amore_. Walter Crane is perhaps the best (always
excepting Sir Noel Paton): but the thick outlines, which he insists on
using, seem to take off a good deal from the beauty of the result."
He held that no artist can hope to effect a higher type of beauty than
that which life itself exhibits, as the following words show:--
I don't quite understand about fairies losing "grace," if
too like human children. Of course I grant that to be like
some _actual_ child is to lose grace, because no living
child is perfect in form: many causes have lowered the race
from what God made it. But the _perfect_ human form,
free from these faults, is surely equally applicable to men,
and fairies, and angels? Perhaps that is what you mean--that
the Artist can imagine, and design, more perfect forms than
we ever find in life?
I have already referred several times to Miss Ellen Terry as having
been one of Mr. Dodgson's friends, but he was intimate with the whole
family, and used often to pay them a visit when he was in town. On May
15, 1879, he records a very curious dream which he had about Miss
Marion ("Polly") Terry:--
Last night I had a dream which I record as a curiosity, so
far as I know, in the literature of dreams. I was staying,
with my sisters, in some suburb of London, and had heard
that the Terrys were staying near us, so went to call, and
found Mrs. Terry at home, who told us that Marion and
Florence were at the theatre, "the Walter House," where they
had a good engagement. "In that case," I said, "I'll go on
there at once, and see the performance--and may I take Polly
with me?" "Certainly," said Mrs. Terry. And there was Polly,
the child, seated in the room, and looking about nine or ten
years old: and I was distinctly conscious of the fact, yet
without any feeling of surprise at its incongruity, that I
was going to take the _child_ Polly with me to the
theatre, to see the _grown-up_ Polly act! Both
pictures--Polly as a child, and Polly as a woman, are, I
suppose, equally clear in my ordinary waking memory: and it
seems that in sleep I had contrived to give the two pictures
separate individualities.
Of all the mathematical books which Mr. Dodgson wrote, by far the most
elaborate, if not the most original, was "Euclid and His Modern
Rivals." The first edition was issued in 1879, and a supplement,
afterwards incorporated into the second edition, appeared in 1885.
This book, as the author says, has for its object
to furnish evidence (1) that it is essential for the
purposes of teaching or examining in Elementary Geometry to
employ one text-book only; (2) that there are strong _a
priori_ reasons for retaining in all its main features,
and especially in its sequence and numbering of
Propositions, and in its treatment of Parallels, the Manual
of Euclid; and (3) that no sufficient reasons have yet been
shown for abandoning it in favour of any one of the modern
Manuals which have been offered as substitutes.
The book is written in dramatic form, and relieved throughout by many
touches in the author's happiest vein, which make it delightful not
only to the scientific reader, but also to any one of average
intelligence with the slightest sense of humour.
Whether the conclusions are accepted in their entirety or not, it is
certain that the arguments are far more effective than if the writer
had presented them in the form of an essay. Mr. Dodgson had a wide
experience as a teacher and examiner, so that he knew well what he was
writing about, and undoubtedly the appearance of this book has done
very much to stay the hand of the innovator.
The scene opens in a College study--time, midnight. Minos, an
examiner, is discovered seated between two immense piles of
manuscripts. He is driven almost to distraction in his efforts to mark
fairly the papers sent up, by reason of the confusion caused through
the candidates offering various substitutes for Euclid. Rhadamanthus,
another equally distracted examiner, comes to his room.
The two men consult together for a time, and then Rhadamanthus
retires, and Minos falls asleep. Hereupon the Ghost of Euclid appears,
and discusses with Minos the reasons for retaining his Manual as a
whole, in its present order and arrangement. As they are mainly
concerned with the wants of beginners, their attention is confined to
Books I. and II.
We must be content with one short extract from the dialogue:--
_Euclid_.--It is, I think, a friend of yours who has
amused himself by tabulating the various Theorems which
might be enunciated on the single subject of Pairs of Lines.
How many did he make them out to be?
_Minos_.--About two hundred and fifty, I believe.
_Euclid_.--At that rate there would probably be within
the limit of my First Book--how many?
_Minos_.--A thousand at least.
_Euclid_.--What a popular school-book it will be! How
boys will bless the name of the writer who first brings out
the complete thousand!
With a view to discussing and criticising his various modern rivals,
Euclid promises to send to Minos the ghost of a German Professor (Herr
Niemand) who "has read all books, and is ready to defend any thesis,
true or untrue."
"A charming companion!" as Minos drily remarks.
This brings us to Act II., in which the Manuals which reject Euclid's
treatment of Parallels are dealt with one by one. Those Manuals which
adopt it are reserved for Act III., Scene i.; while in Scene ii., "The
Syllabus of the Association for the Improvement of Geometrical
Teaching," and Wilson's "Syllabus," come under review.
Only one or two extracts need be given, which, it is hoped, will
suffice to illustrate the character and style of the book:
Act II., Scene v.--Niemand and Minos are arguing for and against
Henrici's "Elementary Geometry."
_Minos_.--I haven't quite done with points yet. I find
an assertion that they never jump. Do you think that arises
from their having "position," which they feel might be
compromised by such conduct?
_Niemand_.--I cannot tell without hearing the passage
read.
_Minos_.--It is this: "A point, in changing its
position on a curve, passes in moving from one position to
another through all intermediate positions. It does not move
by jumps."
_Niemand_.--That is quite true.
_Minos_.--Tell me then--is every centre of gravity a
point?
_Niemand_.--Certainly.
_Minos_.--Let us now consider the centre of gravity of
a flea. Does it--
_Niemand (indignantly)_.--Another word, and I shall
vanish! I cannot waste a night on such trivialities.
_Minos_.--I can't resist giving you just _one_
more tit-bit--the definition of a square at page 123: "A
quadrilateral which is a kite, a symmetrical trapezium, and
a parallelogram is a square!" And now, farewell, Henrici:
"Euclid, with all thy faults, I love thee still!"
Again, from Act II., Scene vi.:--
_Niemand_.--He (Pierce, another "Modern Rival,") has a
definition of direction which will, I think, be new to you.
_(Reads.)_
"The _direction of a line_ in any part is the direction
of a point at that part from the next preceding point of the
line!"
_Minos_.--That sounds mysterious. Which way along a
line are "preceding" points to be found?
_Niemand_.--_Both ways._ He adds, directly
afterwards, "A line has two different directions," &c.
_Minos_.--So your definition needs a postscript.... But
there is yet another difficulty. How far from a point is the
"next" point?
_Niemand_.--At an infinitely small distance, of course.
You will find the matter fully discussed in my work on the
Infinitesimal Calculus.
_Minos_.--A most satisfactory answer for a teacher to
make to a pupil just beginning Geometry!
In Act IV. Euclid reappears to Minos, "followed by the ghosts of
Archimedes, Pythagoras, &c., who have come to see fair play." Euclid
thus sums up his case:--
"'The cock doth craw, the day doth daw,' and all respectable
ghosts ought to be going home. Let me carry with me the hope
that I have convinced you of the necessity of retaining my
order and numbering, and my method of treating Straight
Lines, Angles, Right Angles, and (most especially)
Parallels. Leave me these untouched, and I shall look on
with great contentment while other changes are made--while
my proofs are abridged and improved--while alternative
proofs are appended to mine--and while new Problems and
Theorems are interpolated. In all these matters my Manual is
capable of almost unlimited improvement."
In Appendices I. and II. Mr. Dodgson quotes the opinions of two
eminent mathematical teachers, Mr. Todhunter and Professor De Morgan,
in support of his argument.
Before leaving this subject I should like to refer to a very novel use
of Mr. Dodgson's book--its employment in a school. Mr. G. Hopkins,
Mathematical Master in the High School at Manchester, U.S., and
himself the author of a "Manual of Plane Geometry," has so employed it
in a class of boys aged from fourteen or fifteen upwards. He first
called their attention to some of the more prominent difficulties
relating to the question of Parallels, put a copy of Euclid in their
hands, and let them see his treatment of them, and after some
discussion placed before them Mr. Dodgson's "Euclid and His Modern
Rivals" and "New Theory of Parallels."
Perhaps it is the fact that American boys are sharper than English,
but at any rate the youngsters are reported to have read the two books
with an earnestness and a persistency that were as gratifying to their
instructor as they were complimentary to Mr. Dodgson.
In June of the same year an entry in the Diary refers to a proposal in
Convocation to allow the University Club to have a cricket-ground in
the Parks. This had been proposed in 1867, and then rejected. Mr.
Dodgson sent round to the Common Rooms copies of a poem on "The
Deserted Parks," which had been published by Messrs. Parker in 1867,
and which was afterwards included in "Notes by an Oxford Chiel." I
quote the first few lines:--
Museum! loveliest building of the plain
Where Cherwell winds towards the distant main;
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endeared the scene!
How often have I paused on every charm,--
The rustic couple walking arm in arm,
The groups of trees, with seats beneath the shade
For prattling babes and whisp'ring lovers made,
The never-failing brawl, the busy mill,
Where tiny urchins vied in fistic skill.
(Two phrases only have that dusky race
Caught from the learned influence of the place;
Phrases in their simplicity sublime,
"Scramble a copper!" "Please, sir, what's the time?")
These round thy walks their cheerful influence shed;
These were thy charms--but all these charms are fled,
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
And rude pavilions sadden all thy green;
One selfish pastime grasps the whole domain,
And half a faction swallows up the plain;
Adown thy glades, all sacrificed to cricket,
The hollow-sounding bat now guards the wicket;
Sunk are thy mounds in shapeless level all,
Lest aught impede the swiftly rolling ball;
And trembling, shrinking from the fatal blow,
Far, far away thy hapless children go.
Ill fares the place, to luxury a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and minds decay:
Athletic sports may flourish or may fade,
Fashion may make them, even as it has made;
But the broad Parks, the city's joy and pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied!
Readers of "Sylvie and Bruno" will remember the way in which the
invisible fairy-children save the drunkard from his evil life, and I
have always felt that Mr. Dodgson meant Sylvie to be something more
than a fairy--a sort of guardian angel. That such an idea would not
have been inconsistent with his way of looking at things is shown by
the following letter:
Ch. Ch., _July_, 1879.
My dear Ethel,--I have been long intending to answer your
letter of April 11th, chiefly as to your question in
reference to Mrs. N--'s letter about the little S--s [whose
mother had recently died]. You say you don't see "how they
can be guided aright by their dead mother, or how light can
come from her." Many people believe that our friends in the
other world can and do influence us in some way, and perhaps
even "guide" us and give us light to show us our duty. My
own feeling is, it _may_ be so: but nothing has been
revealed about it. That the angels do so _is_ revealed,
and we may feel sure of _that_; and there is a
beautiful fancy (for I don't think one can call it more)
that "a mother who has died leaving a child behind her in
this world, is allowed to be a sort of guardian angel to
that child." Perhaps Mrs. N-- believes that.
Here are two other entries in the Diary:--
_Aug. 26th_.--Worked from about 9.45 to 6.45, and again
from 10.15 to 11.45 (making 101/2 hours altogether) at an
idea which occurred to me of finding limits for _pi_ by
elementary trigonometry, for the benefit of the
circle-squarers.
_Dec. 12th_.--Invented a new way of working one word
into another. I think of calling the puzzle "syzygies."
I give the first three specimens:--
MAN }
permanent }
entice } Send MAN on ICE.
ICE. }
ACRE }
sacred }
credentials } RELY on ACRE.
entirely }
RELY }
PRISM }
prismatic }
dramatic } Prove PRISM to be ODIOUS.
melodrama }
melodious }
ODIOUS. }
In February, 1880, Mr. Dodgson proposed to the Christ Church
"Staff-salaries Board," that as his tutorial work was lighter he
should have L200 instead of L300 a year. It is not often that a man
proposes to cut down _his own_ salary, but the suggestion in this
case was intended to help the College authorities in the policy of
retrenchment which they were trying to carry out.
_May 24th_.--Percival, President of Trin. Coll., who
has Cardinal Newman as his guest, wrote to say that the
Cardinal would sit for a photo, to me, at Trinity. But I
could not take my photography there and he couldn't come to
me: so nothing came of it.
_Aug. 19th_. [At Eastbourne].--Took Ruth and Maud to
the Circus (Hutchinson and Tayleure's--from America). I
made friends with Mr. Tayleure, who took me to the tents of
horses, and the caravan he lived in. And I added to my
theatrical experiences by a chat with a couple of circus
children--Ada Costello, aged 9, and Polly (Evans, I think),
aged 13. I found Ada in the outer tent, with the pony on
which she was to perform--practising vaulting on to it,
varied with somersaults on the ground. I showed her my wire
puzzle, and ultimately gave it her, promising a duplicate to
Polly. Both children seemed bright and happy, and they had
pleasant manners.
_Sept. 2nd_.--Mrs. H-- took me to Dr. Bell's (the old
homoeopathic doctor) to hear Lord Radstock speak about
"training children." It was a curious affair. First a very
long hymn; then two very long extempore prayers (not by Lord
R--), which were strangely self-sufficient and wanting in
reverence. Lord R--'s remarks were commonplace enough,
though some of his theories were new, but, I think, not
true--_e.g.,_ that encouraging emulation in
schoolboys, or desiring that they should make a good
position in life, was un-Christian. I escaped at the first
opportunity after his speech, and went down on the beach,
where I made acquaintance with a family who were banking up
with sand the feet and legs of a pretty little girl perched
on a sand-castle. I got her father to make her stand to be
drawn. Further along the beach a merry little mite began
pelting me with sand; so I drew _her_ too.
_Nov. 16th_.--Thought of a plan for simplifying
money-orders, by making the sender fill up two duplicate
papers, one of which he hands in to be transmitted by the
postmaster--it containing a key-number which the receiver
has to supply in _his_ copy to get the money. I think
of suggesting this, and my plan for double postage on
Sunday, to the Government.
_Dec. 19th_.--The idea occurred to me that a game might
be made of letters, to be moved about on a chess-board till
they form words.
A little book, published during this year, "Alice (a dramatic version
of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice'), and other Fairy Tales for Children," by
Mrs. Freiligrath-Kroeker, was very successful, and, I understand,
still has a regular sale. Mr. Dodgson most gladly gave his consent to
the dramatisation of his story by so talented an authoress, and
shortly afterwards Mrs. Kroeker brought out "Through the
Looking-Glass" in a similar form.
_Jan._ 17, 1881.--To the Lyceum to see "The Cup" and
"The Corsican Brothers." The first is exquisitely put on,
and Ellen Terry as Camma is the perfection of grace, and
Irving as the villain, and Mr. Terriss as the husband, were
very good. But the piece wants substance.
_Jan._ 19_th_.--Tried to go to Oxford, but the
line is blocked near Didcot, so stayed another night in
town. The next afternoon the line was reported clear, but
the journey took 5 hours! On the day before the Dean of Ch.
Ch. and his family were snowed up for 21 hours near Radley.
_March_ 27_th_.--Went to S. Mary's and stayed for
Holy Communion, and, as Ffoulkes was alone, I mustered up
courage to help him. I read the exhortation, and was pleased
to find I did not once hesitate. I think I must try
preaching again soon, as he has often begged me to do.
_April_ 16_th_.--Mr. Greenwood approves my theory
about general elections, and wants me to write on it in the
_St. James's Gazette_. (The letter appeared on May 5,
1881.)
_May_ 14_th_.--Took the longest walk (I believe) I
have ever done--round by Dorchester, Didcot and Abingdon--27
miles--took 8 hours--no blisters, I rejoice to find, and I
feel very little tired.
_May_ 26_th_.--The row-loving men in College are
beginning to be troublesome again, and last night some 30 or
40 of them, aided by out-College men, made a great
disturbance, and regularly defied the Censors. I have just
been with the other Tutors into Hall, and heard the Dean
make an excellent speech to the House. Some two or three
will have to go down, and twelve or fifteen others will be
punished in various ways. (A later note says): The
punishments had to be modified--it turned out that the
disturbers were nearly all out-College men.
[Illustration 229: DR. Liddell. _From a photograph by Hill &
Saunders._]
Mr. Dodgson sent a letter to _The Observer_ on this subject:--
Sir,--Your paper of May 29th contains a leading article on
Christ Church, resting on so many mis-statements of fact
that I venture to appeal to your sense of justice to allow
me, if no abler writer has addressed you on the subject, an
opportunity of correcting them. It will, I think, be found
that in so doing I shall have removed the whole foundation
on which the writer has based his attack on the House, after
which I may contentedly leave the superstructure to take
care of itself. "Christ Church is always provoking the
adverse criticism of the outer world." The writer justifies
this rather broad generalisation by quoting three instances
of such provocation, which I will take one by one.
At one time we are told that "The Dean ... neglects his
functions, and spends the bulk of his time in Madeira." The
fact is that the Dean's absence from England more than
twenty years ago during two successive winters was a sad
necessity, caused by the appearance of symptoms of grave
disease, from which he has now, under God's blessing,
perfectly recovered.
The second instance occurred eleven years ago, when some of
the undergraduates destroyed some valuable statuary in the
Library. Here the writer states that the Dean first
announced that criminal proceedings would be taken, and
then, on discovering that the offenders were "highly
connected," found himself "converted to the opinion that
mercy is preferable to stern justice, and charity to the
strict letter of the law." The facts are that the punishment
awarded to the offenders was deliberated on and determined
on by the Governing Body, consisting of the Dean, the
Canons, and some twenty Senior Students; that their
deliberations were most assuredly in no way affected by any
thoughts of the offenders being "highly connected"; and
that, when all was over, we had the satisfaction of seeing
ourselves roundly abused in the papers on both sides, and
charged with having been too lenient, and also with having
been too severe.
The third instance occurred the other night. Some
undergraduates were making a disturbance, and the Junior
Censor "made his appearance in person upon the scene of
riot," and "was contumeliously handled." Here the only
statement of any real importance, the alleged assault by
Christ Church men on the Junior Censor, is untrue. The fact
is that nearly all the disturbers were out-College men, and,
though it is true that the Censor was struck by a stone
thrown from a window, the unenviable distinction of having
thrown it belongs to no member of the House. I doubt if we
have one single man here who would be capable of so base and
cowardly an act.
The writer then gives us a curious account of the present
constitution of the House. The Dean, whom he calls "the
right reverend gentleman," is, "in a kind of way, master of
the College. The Canons, in a vague kind of way, are
supposed to control the College." The Senior Students "dare
not call their souls their own," and yet somehow dare "to
vent their wrath" on the Junior Students. His hazy, mental
picture of the position of the Canons may be cleared up by
explaining to him that the "control" they exercise is
neither more nor less than that of any other six members of
the Governing Body. The description of the Students I pass
over as not admitting any appeal to actual facts.
The truth is that Christ Church stands convicted of two
unpardonable crimes--being great, and having a name. Such a
place must always expect to find itself "a wide mark for
scorn and jeers"--a target where the little and the nameless
may display their skill. Only the other day an M.P., rising
to ask a question about Westminster School, went on to speak
of Christ Church, and wound up with a fierce attack on the
ancient House. Shall we blame him? Do we blame the wanton
schoolboy, with a pebble in his hand, all powerless to
resist the alluring vastness of a barndoor?
The essence of the article seems to be summed up in the
following sentence: "At Christ Church all attempts to
preserve order by the usual means have hitherto proved
uniformly unsuccessful, and apparently remain equally
fruitless." It is hard for one who, like myself, has lived
here most of his life, to believe that this is seriously
intended as a description of the place. However, as general
statements can only be met by general statements, permit me,
as one who has lived here for thirty years and has taught
for five-and-twenty, to say that in my experience order has
been the rule, disorder the rare exception, and that, if the
writer of your leading article has had an equal amount of
experience in any similar place of education, and has found
a set of young men more gentlemanly, more orderly, and more
pleasant in every way to deal with, than I have found here,
I cannot but think him an exceptionally favoured
mortal.--Yours, &c.
Charles L. Dodgson,
_Student and Mathematical Lecturer of Christ Church_.
In July began an amusing correspondence between Mr. Dodgson and a
"circle-squarer," which lasted several months. Mr. Dodgson sent the
infatuated person, whom we will call Mr. B--, a proof that the area of
a circle is less than 3.15 the square of the radius. Mr. B--replied,
"Your proof is not in accordance with Euclid, it assumes that a circle
may be considered as a rectangle, and that two right lines can enclose
a space." He returned the proof, saying that he could not accept any
of it as elucidating the exact area of a circle, or as Euclidean. As
Mr. Dodgson's method involved a slight knowledge of trigonometry, and
he had reason to suspect that Mr. B--was entirely ignorant of that
subject, he thought it worth while to put him to the test by asking
him a few questions upon it, but the circle-squarer, with commendable
prudence, declined to discuss anything not Euclidean. Mr. Dodgson then
wrote to him, "taking leave of the subject, until he should be willing
to enlarge his field of knowledge to the elements of Algebraical
Geometry." Mr. B--replied, with unmixed contempt, "Algebraical
Geometry is all moon-shine." _He_ preferred "weighing cardboard"
as a means of ascertaining exact truth in mathematical research.
Finally he suggested that Mr. Dodgson might care to join in a
prize-competition to be got up among the followers of Euclid, and as
he apparently wished him to understand that he (Mr. B--) did not think
much of his chances of getting a prize, Mr. Dodgson considered that
the psychological moment for putting an end to the correspondence had
arrived.
Meanwhile he was beginning to feel his regular College duties a
terrible clog upon his literary work. The Studentship which he held
was not meant to tie him down to lectures and examinations. Such work
was very well for a younger man; he could best serve "the House" by
his literary fame.
_July_ 14_th._--Came to a more definite decision
than I have ever yet done--that it is about time to resign
the Mathematical Lectureship. My chief motive for holding on
has been to provide money for others (for myself, I have
been many years able to retire), but even the L300 a year I
shall thus lose I may fairly hope to make by the additional
time I shall have for book-writing. I think of asking the
G.B. (Governing Body) next term to appoint my successor, so
that I may retire at the end of the year, when I shall be
close on fifty years old, and shall have held the
Lectureship for exactly 26 years. (I had the Honourmen for
the last two terms of 1855, but was not full Lecturer till
Hilary, 1856.)
_Oct_. 18_th_.--I have just taken an important
step in life, by sending to the Dean a proposal to resign
the Mathematical Lectureship at the end of this year. I
shall now have my whole time at my own disposal, and, if God
gives me life and continued health and strength, may hope,
before my powers fail, to do some worthy work in
writing--partly in the cause of mathematical education,
partly in the cause of innocent recreation for children, and
partly, I hope (though so utterly unworthy of being allowed
to take up such work) in the cause of religious thought. May
God bless the new form of life that lies before me, that I
may use it according to His holy will!
_Oct. 21st_.--I had a note in the evening from the
Dean, to say that he had seen the Censors on the subject of
my proposed resignation at the end of the year, and that
arrangements should be made, as far as could be done, to
carry out my wishes; and kindly adding an expression of
regret at losing my services, but allowing that I had
"earned a right to retirement." So my Lectureship seems to
be near its end.
_Nov. 30th_.--I find by my Journal that I gave my
_first_ Euclid Lecture in the Lecture-room on Monday,
January 28, 1856. It consisted of twelve men, of whom nine
attended. This morning, I have given what is most probably
my _last_: the lecture is now reduced to nine, of whom
all attended on Monday: this morning being a Saint's Day,
the attendance was voluntary, and only two appeared--E.H.
Morris, and G. Lavie. I was Lecturer when the _father_
of the latter took his degree, viz., in 1858.
There is a sadness in coming to the end of anything in life.
Man's instincts cling to the Life that will never end.
_May 30, 1882._--Called on Mrs. R--. During a good part
of the evening I read _The Times_, while the party
played a round game of spelling words--a thing I will never
join in. Rational conversation and _good_ music are the
only things which, to me, seem worth the meeting for, for
grown-up people.
_June 1st._--Went out with Charsley, and did four miles
on one of his velocimans, very pleasantly.
The velociman was an early and somewhat cumbrous form of tricycle; Mr.
Dodgson made many suggestions for its improvement. He never attempted
to ride a bicycle, however, but, in accordance with his own dictum,
"In youth, try a bicycle, in age, buy a tricycle," confined himself to
the three-wheeled variety.
[Illustration: XI Oxford types From a photograph by A.T.
Shrimpton]
_Nov. 8th_.--Whitehead, of Trinity, told us a charming
story in Common Room of a father and son. They came up
together: the son got into a College--the father had to go
to New Inn Hall: the son passed Responsions, while his
father had to put off: finally, the father failed in Mods
and has gone down: the son will probably take his degree,
and may then be able to prepare his father for another try.
Among the coloured cartoons in Shrimpton's
window at Oxford there used to be, when I was
up, a picture which I think referred to this story.
_Nov. 23rd._--Spent two hours "invigilating" in the
rooms of W.J. Grant (who has broken his collar-bone, and is
allowed to do his Greats papers in this way) while he
dictated his answers to another undergraduate, Pakenham, who
acted as scribe.
_Nov. 24th_.--Dined with Fowler (now President of
C.C.C.) in hall, to meet Ranken. Both men are now mostly
bald, with quite grey hair: yet how short a time it seems
since we were undergraduates together at Whitby! (in 1854).
_Dec 8th._--A Common Room Meeting. Fresh powers were
given to the Wine Committee, and then a new Curator elected.
I was proposed by Holland, and seconded by Harcourt, and
accepted office with no light heart: there will be much
trouble and thought needed to work it satisfactorily, but it
will take me out of myself a little, and so may be a real
good--my life was tending to become too much that of a
selfish recluse.
During this year he composed the words of a song, "Dreamland." The air
was _dreamed_ by his friend, the late Rev. C. E. Hutchinson, of
Chichester. The history of the dream is here given in the words of the
dreamer:--
I found myself seated, with many others, in darkness, in a
large amphitheatre. Deep stillness prevailed. A kind of
hushed expectancy was upon us. We sat awaiting I know not
what. Before us hung a vast and dark curtain, and between it
and us was a kind of stage. Suddenly an intense wish seized
me to look upon the forms of some of the heroes of past
days. I cannot say whom in particular I longed to behold,
but, even as I wished, a faint light flickered over the
stage, and I was aware of a silent procession of figures
moving from right to left across the platform in front of
me. As each figure approached the left-hand corner it turned
and gazed at me, and I knew (by what means I cannot say) its
name. One only I recall--Saint George; the light shone with
a peculiar blueish lustre on his shield and helmet as he
turned and slowly faced me. The figures were shadowy, and
floated like mist before me; as each one disappeared an
invisible choir behind the curtain sang the "Dream music." I
awoke with the melody ringing in my ears, and the words of
the last line complete--"I see the shadows falling, and
slowly pass away." The rest I could not recall.
[Illustration: Dreamland--Facsimile of Words and Music.]
DREAMLAND.
Words by LEWIS CARROLL.
Music by C.E. HUTCHINSON.
When midnight mists are creeping
And all the land is sleeping
Around me tread the mighty dead,
And slowly pass away.
Lo, warriors, saints, and sages,
From out the vanished ages,
With solemn pace and reverend face
Appear and pass away.
The blaze of noonday splendour,
The twilight soft and tender,
May charm the eye: yet they shall die,
Shall die and pass away
But here, in Dreamland's centre,
No spoiler's hand may enter,
These visions fair, this radiance rare,
Shall never pass away
I see the shadows falling,
The forms of eld recalling;
Around me tread the mighty dead,
And slowly pass away
One of the best services to education which Mr. Dodgson performed was
his edition of "Euclid I. and II.," which was published in 1882. In
writing "Euclid and His Modern Rivals," he had criticised somewhat
severely the various substitutes proposed for Euclid, so far as they
concerned beginners; but at the same time he had admitted that within
prescribed limits Euclid's text is capable of amendment and
improvement, and this is what he attempted to do in this book. That he
was fully justified is shown by the fact that during the years
1882-1889 the book ran through eight editions. In the Introduction he
enumerates, under the three headings of "Additions," "Omissions," and
"Alterations," the chief points of difference between his own and the
ordinary editions of Euclid, with his reasons for adopting them. They
are the outcome of long experience, and the most conservative of
teachers would readily accept them.
The proof of I. 24, for example, is decidedly better and more
satisfactory than the ordinary proof, and the introduction of the
definition of "projection" certainly simplifies the cumbrous
enunciations of II. 12 and 13. Again, the alternative proof of II. 8,
suggested in the Introduction, is valuable, and removes all excuse for
omitting this proposition, as is commonly clone.
The figures used are from the blocks prepared for the late Mr.
Todhunter's well-known edition of Euclid, to which Mr. Dodgson's
manual forms an excellent stepping-stone.
At the beginning of 1883 he went up to town to see the collection of
D. G. Rossetti's pictures in the Burlington Gallery. He was especially
struck with "Found," which he thus describes--
A picture of a man finding, in the streets of London, a girl
he had loved years before in the days of her innocence. She
is huddled up against the wall, dressed in gaudy colours,
and trying to turn away her agonised face, while he, holding
her wrists, is looking down with an expression of pain and
pity, condemnation and love, which is one of the most
marvellous things I have ever seen done in painting.
_Jan_. 27, 1883 [His birthday].--I cannot say I feel
much older at 51 than at 21! Had my first
"tasting-luncheon"; it seemed to give great satisfaction.
[The object of the Curator's "tasting-luncheon" was, of
course, to give members of Common Room an opportunity of
deciding what wines should be bought.]
_March_ 15_th._--Went up to town to fulfil my
promise to Lucy A.--: to take her for her _first_ visit
to the theatre. We got to the Lyceum in good time, and the
play was capitally acted. I had hinted to Beatrice (Miss
Ellen Terry) how much she could add to Lucy's pleasure by
sending round a "carte" of herself; she sent a cabinet. She
is certainly an adept in giving gifts that gratify.
_April_ 23_d_.--Tried another long walk--22 miles,
to Besilsleigh, Fyfield, Kingston, Bagpuize, Frilford,
Marcham, and Abingdon. The last half of the way was in the
face of wind, rain, snow, and hail. Was too lame to go into
Hall.
* * * * *
CHAPTER VI
(1883-1887)
"The Profits of Authorship"--"Rhyme? and Reason?"--The
Common Room Cat--Visit to Jersey--Purity of
elections--Parliamentary Representation--Various literary
projects--Letters to Miss E. Rix--Being happy--"A Tangled
Tale"--Religious arguments--The "Alice" Operetta--"Alice's
Adventures Underground"--"The Game of Logic"--Mr. Harry
Furniss.
In 1883 Lewis Carroll was advised to make a stand against the heavy
discount allowed by publishers to booksellers, and by booksellers to
the public. Accordingly the following notice began to appear in all
his books: "In selling Mr. Lewis Carroll's books to the Trade, Messrs.
Macmillan and Co. will abate 2d. in the shilling (no odd copies), and
allow 5 per cent, discount within six months, and 10 per cent, for
cash. In selling them to the Public (for cash only) they will allow 10
per cent, discount."
It was a bold step to take, and elicited some loud expressions of
disapproval. "Rather than buy on the terms Mr. Lewis Carroll offers,"
"A Firm of London Booksellers" wrote in _The Bookseller_ of August
4th, "the trade will do well to refuse to take copies of his books,
new or old, so long as he adheres to the terms he has just announced
to the trade for their delectation and delight." On the other hand, an
editorial, which appeared in the same number of _The Bookseller,_
expressed warm approval of the innovation.
To avoid all possible misconceptions, the author fully explained his
views in a little pamphlet on "The Profits of Authorship." He showed
that the bookseller makes as much profit out of every volume he sells
(assuming the buyer to pay the full published price, which he did in
those days more readily than he does to-day) as author and publisher
together, whereas his share in the work is very small. He does not say
much about the author's part in the work--that it is a very heavy one
goes without saying--but in considering the publisher's share he
says:--
The publisher contributes about as much as the bookseller in
time and bodily labour, but in mental toil and trouble a
great deal more. I speak with some personal knowledge of the
matter, having myself, for some twenty years, inflicted on
that most patient and painstaking firm, Messrs. Macmillan
and Co., about as much wear and worry as ever publishers
have lived through. The day when they undertake a book for
me is a _dies nefastus_ for them. From that day till
the book is out--an interval of some two or three years on
an average--there is no pause in "the pelting of the
pitiless storm" of directions and questions on every
conceivable detail. To say that every question gets a
courteous and thoughtful reply--that they are still outside
a lunatic asylum--and that they still regard me with some
degree of charity--is to speak volumes in praise of their
good temper and of their health, bodily and mental. I think
the publisher's claim on the profits is on the whole
stronger than the booksellers.
"Rhyme? and Reason?" appeared at Christmas; the dedicatory verses,
inscribed "To a dear child: in memory of golden summer hours and
whispers of a summer sea," were addressed to a little friend of the
author's, Miss Gertrude Chataway. One of the most popular poems in the
book is "Hiawatha's Photographing," a delicious parody of Longfellow's
"Hiawatha." "In an age of imitation," says Lewis Carroll, in a note at
the head, "I can claim no special merit for this slight attempt at
doing what is known to be so easy." It is not every one who has read
this note who has observed that it is really in the same metre as the
poem below it.
Another excellent parody, "Atalanta in Camden-Town," exactly hit off
the style of that poet who stands alone and unapproached among the
poets of the day, and whom Mr. Dodgson used to call "the greatest
living master of language."
"Fame's Penny Trumpet," affectionately dedicated to all "original
researchers" who pant for "endowment," was an attack upon the
Vivisectionists,
Who preach of Justice--plead with tears
That Love and Mercy should abound--
While marking with complacent ears
The moaning of some tortured hound.
Lewis Carroll thus addresses them:--
Fill all the air with hungry wails--
"Reward us, ere we think or write!
Without your gold mere knowledge fails
To sate the swinish appetite!"
And, where great Plato paced serene,
Or Newton paused with wistful eye,
Rush to the chase with hoofs unclean
And Babel-clamour of the stye!
Be yours the pay: be theirs the praise:
We will not rob them of their due,
Nor vex the ghosts of other days
By naming them along with you.
They sought and found undying fame:
They toiled not for reward nor thanks:
Their cheeks are hot with honest shame
For you, the modern mountebanks!
"For auld lang syne" the author sent a copy of his book to Mrs.
Hargreaves (Miss Alice Liddell), accompanied by a short note.
Christ Church, _December_ 21, 1883.
Dear Mrs. Hargreaves,--Perhaps the shortest day in the year
is not _quite_ the most appropriate time for recalling the
long dreamy summer afternoons of ancient times; but anyhow
if this book gives you half as much pleasure to receive as
it does me to send, it will be a success indeed.
Wishing you all happiness at this happy season, I am,
Sincerely yours,
C. L. Dodgson.
The beginning of 1884 was chiefly occupied in Common Room business.
The Curatorship seems to have been anything but a sinecure. Besides
weightier responsibilities, it involved the care of the Common Room
Cat! In this case the "care" ultimately killed the cat--but not until
it had passed the span of life usually allotted to those animals, and
beyond which their further existence is equally a nuisance to
themselves and to every one else. As to the best way of "terminating
its sublunary existence," Mr. Dodgson consulted two surgeons, one of
whom was Sir James Paget. I do not know what method was finally
adopted, but I am sure it was one that gave no pain to pussy's nerves,
and as little as possible to her feelings.
On March 11th there was a debate in Congregation on the proposed
admission of women to some of the Honour Schools at Oxford. This was
one of the many subjects on which Mr. Dodgson wrote a pamphlet. During
the debate he made one of his few speeches, and argued strongly
against the proposal, on the score of the injury to health which it
would inflict upon the girl-undergraduates.
Later in the month he and the Rev. E.F. Sampson, Tutor of Christ
Church, paid a visit to Jersey, seeing various friends, notably the
Rev. F.H. Atkinson, an old College friend of Mr. Dodgson's, who had
helped him when he was editor of _College Rhymes_. I quote a few
lines from a letter of his to Mr. Atkinson, as showing his views on
matrimony:--
So you have been for twelve years a married man, while I am
still a lonely old bachelor! And mean to keep so, for the
matter of that. College life is by no means unmixed misery,
though married life has no doubt many charms to which I am a
stranger.
A note in his Diary on May 5th shows one of the changes in his way of
life which advancing years forced him to make:--
Wrote to -- (who had invited me to dine) to beg off, on the
ground that, in my old age, I find dinner parties more and
more fatiguing. This is quite a new departure. I much grudge
giving an evening (even if it were not tiring) to bandying
small-talk with dull people.
The next extract I give does not look much like old age!
I called on Mrs. M--. She was out; and only one maid in,
who, having come to the gate to answer the bell, found the
door blown shut on her return. The poor thing seemed really
alarmed and distressed. However, I got a man to come from a
neighbouring yard with a ladder, and got in at the
drawing-room window--a novel way of entering a friend's
house!
Oddly enough, almost exactly the same thing happened to him in 1888:
"The door blew shut, with the maid outside, and no one in the house. I
got the cook of the next house to let me go through their premises,
and with the help of a pair of steps got over the wall between the two
back-yards."
In July there appeared an article in the _St. James's Gazette_ on
the subject of "Parliamentary Elections," written by Mr. Dodgson. It
was a subject in which he was much interested, and a few years before
he had contributed a long letter on the "Purity of Elections" to the
same newspaper. I wish I had space to give both in full; as things
are, a summary and a few extracts are all I dare attempt. The writer
held that there are a great number of voters, and _pari passu_ a
great number of constituencies, that like to be on the winning side,
and whose votes are chiefly influenced by that consideration. The
ballot-box has made it practically impossible for the individual voter
to know which is going to be the winning side, but after the first few
days of a general election, one side or the other has generally got a
more or less decided advantage, and a weak-kneed constituency is
sorely tempted to swell the tide of victory.
But this is not all. The evil extends further than to the
single constituency; nay, it extends further than to a
single general election; it constitutes a feature in our
national history; it is darkly ominous for the future of
England. So long as general elections are conducted as at
present we shall be liable to oscillations of political
power, like those of 1874 and 1880, but of ever-increasing
violence--one Parliament wholly at the mercy of one
political party, the next wholly at the mercy of the
other--while the Government of the hour, joyfully hastening
to undo all that its predecessors have done, will wield a
majority so immense that the fate of every question will be
foredoomed, and debate will be a farce; in one word, we
shall be a nation living from hand to mouth, and with no
settled principle--an army, whose only marching orders will
be "Right about face!"
His remedy was that the result of each single election should be kept
secret till the general election is over:--
It surely would involve no practical difficulty to provide
that the boxes of voting papers should be sealed up by a
Government official and placed in such custody as would make
it impossible to tamper with them; and that when the last
election had been held they should be opened, the votes
counted, and the results announced.
The article on "Parliamentary Elections" proposed much more sweeping
alterations. The opening paragraph will show its general purport:--
The question, how to arrange our constituencies and conduct
our Parliamentary elections so as to make the House of
Commons, as far as possible, a true index of the state of
opinion in the nation it professes to represent, is surely
equal in importance to any that the present generation has
had to settle. And the leap in the dark, which we seem about
to take in a sudden and vast extension of the franchise,
would be robbed of half its terrors could we feel assured
that each political party will be duly represented in the
next Parliament, so that every side of a question will get a
fair hearing.
The axioms on which his scheme was based were as follows:--
(1) That each Member of Parliament should represent
approximately the same number of electors.
(2) That the minority of the two parties into which, broadly
speaking, each district may be divided, should be adequately
represented.
(3) That the waste of votes, caused by accidentally giving
one candidate more than he needs and leaving another of the
same party with less than he needs, should be, if possible,
avoided.
(4) That the process of marking a ballot-paper should be
reduced to the utmost possible simplicity, to meet the case
of voters of the very narrowest mental calibre.
(5) That the process of counting votes should be as simple
as possible.
Then came a precise proposal. I do not pause to compare it in detail
with the suggestions of Mr. Hare, Mr. Courtney, and others:--
I proceed to give a summary of rules for the method I
propose. Form districts which shall return three, four, or
more Members, in proportion to their size. Let each elector
vote for one candidate only. When the poll is closed, divide
the total number of votes by the number of Members to be
returned _plus_ one, and take the next greater integer as
"quota." Let the returning officer publish the list of
candidates, with the votes given for each, and declare as
"returned" each that has obtained the quota. If there are
still Members to return, let him name a time when all the
candidates shall appear before him; and each returned Member
may then formally assign his surplus votes to whomsoever of
the other candidates he will, while the other candidates may
in like manner assign their votes to one another.
This method would enable each of the two parties in a
district to return as many Members as it could muster
"quotas," no matter how the votes were distributed. If, for
example, 10,000 were the quota, and the "reds" mustered
30,000 votes, they could return three Members; for, suppose
they had four candidates, and that A had 22,000 votes, B
4,000, C 3,000, D 1,000, A would simply have to assign 6,000
votes to B and 6,000 to C; while D, being hopeless of
success, would naturally let C have his 1,000 also. There
would be no risk of a seat being left vacant through two
candidates of the same party sharing a quota between
them--an unwritten law would soon come to be
recognised--that the one with fewest votes should give place
to the other. And, with candidates of two opposite parties,
this difficulty could not arise at all; one or the other
could always be returned by the surplus votes of his party.
Some notes from the Diary for March, 1885, are worth reproducing
here:--
_March_ 1_st_.--Sent off two letters of literary
importance, one to Mrs. Hargreaves, to ask her consent to my
publishing the original MS. of "Alice" in facsimile (the
idea occurred to me the other day); the other to Mr. H.
Furniss, a very clever illustrator in _Punch_, asking
if he is open to proposals to draw pictures for me.
The letter to Mrs. Hargreaves, which, it will be noticed, was earlier
in date than the short note already quoted in this chapter, ran as
follows:--
My Dear Mrs. Hargreaves,--I fancy this will come to you
almost like a voice from the dead, after so many years of
silence, and yet those years have made no difference that I
can perceive in _my_ clearness of memory of the days when we
_did_ correspond. I am getting to feel what an old man's
failing memory is as to recent events and new friends, (for
instance, I made friends, only a few weeks ago, with a very
nice little maid of about twelve, and had a walk with
her--and now I can't recall either of her names!), but my
mental picture is as vivid as ever of one who was, through
so many years, my ideal child-friend. I have had scores of
child-friends since your time, but they have been quite a
different thing.
However, I did not begin this letter to say all _that_. What
I want to ask is, Would you have any objection to the
original MS. book of "Alice's Adventures" (which I suppose
you still possess) being published in facsimile? The idea of
doing so occurred to me only the other day. If, on
consideration, you come to the conclusion that you would
rather _not_ have it done, there is an end of the matter.
If, however, you give a favourable reply, I would be much
obliged if you would lend it me (registered post, I should
think, would be safest) that I may consider the
possibilities. I have not seen it for about twenty years, so
am by no means sure that the illustrations may not prove to
be so awfully bad that to reproduce them would be absurd.
There can be no doubt that I should incur the charge of
gross egoism in publishing it. But I don't care for that in
the least, knowing that I have no such motive; only I think,
considering the extraordinary popularity the books have had
(we have sold more than 120,000 of the two), there must be
many who would like to see the original form.
Always your friend,
C.L. Dodgson.
The letter to Harry Furniss elicited a most satisfactory reply. Mr.
Furniss said that he had long wished to illustrate one of Lewis
Carroll's books, and that he was quite prepared to undertake the work
("Sylvie and Bruno").
[Illustration: H. Furniss. _From a photograph_.]
Two more notes from the Diary, referring to the same month follow:--
_March 10th_.--A great Convocation assembled in the
theatre, about a proposed grant for Physiology, opposed by
many (I was one) who wish restrictions to be enacted as to
the practice of vivisection for research. Liddon made an
excellent speech against the grant, but it was carried by
412 to 244.
_March 29th_.--Never before have I had so many literary
projects on hand at once. For curiosity, I will here make a
list of them.
(1) Supplement to "Euclid and Modern Rivals."
(2) 2nd Edition of "Euc. and Mod. Rivals."
(3) A book of Math. curiosities, which I think of calling
"Pillow Problems, and other Math. Trifles." This will
contain Problems worked out in the dark, Logarithms without
Tables, Sines and angles do., a paper I am now writing on
"Infinities and Infinitesimals," condensed Long
Multiplication, and perhaps others.
(4) Euclid V.
(5) "Plain Facts for Circle-Squarers," which is nearly
complete, and gives actual proof of limits 3.14158, 3.14160.
(6) A symbolical Logic, treated by my algebraic method.
(7) "A Tangled Tale."
(8) A collection of Games and Puzzles of my devising, with
fairy pictures by Miss E.G. Thomson. This might also contain
my "Mem. Tech." for dates; my "Cipher-writing" scheme for
Letter-registration, &c., &c.
(9) Nursery Alice.
(10) Serious poems in "Phantasmagoria."
(11) "Alice's Adventures Underground."
(12) "Girl's Own Shakespeare." I have begun on "Tempest."
(13) New edition of "Parliamentary Representation."
(14) New edition of Euc. I., II.
(15) The new child's book, which Mr. Furniss is to
illustrate. I have settled on no name as yet, but it will
perhaps be "Sylvie and Bruno."
I have other shadowy ideas, _e.g._, a Geometry for
Boys, a vol. of Essays on theological points freely and
plainly treated, and a drama on "Alice" (for which Mr.
Mackenzie would write music): but the above is a fair
example of "too many irons in the fire!"
A letter written about this time to his friend, Miss Edith Rix, gives
some very good hints about how to work, all the more valuable because
he had himself successfully carried them out. The first hint was as
follows:--
When you have made a thorough and reasonably long effort, to
understand a thing, and still feel puzzled by it,
_stop_, you will only hurt yourself by going on. Put it
aside till the next morning; and if _then_ you can't
make it out, and have no one to explain it to you, put it
aside entirely, and go back to that part of the subject
which you _do_ understand. When I was reading
Mathematics for University honours, I would sometimes, after
working a week or two at some new book, and mastering ten or
twenty pages, get into a hopeless muddle, and find it just
as bad the next morning. My rule was _to begin the book
again_. And perhaps in another fortnight I had come to
the old difficulty with impetus enough to get over it. Or
perhaps not. I have several books that I have begun over and
over again.
My second hint shall be--Never leave an unsolved difficulty
_behind_. I mean, don't go any further in that book
till the difficulty is conquered. In this point, Mathematics
differs entirely from most other subjects. Suppose you are
reading an Italian book, and come to a hopelessly obscure
sentence--don't waste too much time on it, skip it, and go
on; you will do very well without it. But if you skip a
_mathematical_ difficulty, it is sure to crop up again:
you will find some other proof depending on it, and you will
only get deeper and deeper into the mud.
My third hint is, only go on working so long as the brain is
_quite_ clear. The moment you feel the ideas getting
confused leave off and rest, or your penalty will be that
you will never learn Mathematics _at all_!
Two more letters to the same friend are, I think, deserving of a place
here:--
Eastbourne, _Sept_. 25, 1885.
My dear Edith,--One subject you touch on--"the Resurrection
of the Body"--is very interesting to me, and I have given it
much thought (I mean long ago). _My_ conclusion was to
give up the _literal_ meaning of the _material_
body altogether. _Identity_, in some mysterious way,
there evidently is; but there is no resisting the scientific
fact that the actual _material_ usable for
_physical_ bodies has been used over and over again--so
that each atom would have several owners. The mere solitary
fact of the existence of _cannibalism_ is to my mind a
sufficient _reductio ad absurdum_ of the theory that
the particular set of atoms I shall happen to own at death
(changed every seven years, they say) will be mine in the
next life--and all the other insuperable difficulties (such
as people born with bodily defects) are swept away at once
if we accept S. Paul's "spiritual body," and his simile of
the grain of corn. I have read very little of "Sartor
Resartus," and don't know the passage you quote: but I
accept the idea of the material body being the "dress" of
the spiritual--a dress needed for material life.
Ch. Ch., _Dec_. 13, 1885.
Dear Edith,--I have been a severe sufferer from
_Logical_ puzzles of late. I got into a regular tangle
about the "import of propositions," as the ordinary logical
books declare that "all _x_ is _z_" doesn't even
_hint_ that any _x_'s exist, but merely that the
qualities are so inseparable that, if ever _x_ occurs,
_z_ must occur also. As to "some _x_ is _z_"
they are discreetly silent; and the living authorities I
have appealed to, including our Professor of Logic, take
opposite sides! Some say it means that the qualities are so
connected that, if any _x_'s _did_ exist, some
_must_ be _z_--others that it only means
compatibility, _i.e.,_ that some _might_ be
_z_, and they would go on asserting, with perfect
belief in their truthfulness, "some boots are made of
brass," even if they had all the boots in the world before
them, and knew that _none_ were so made, merely because
there is no inherent impossibility in making boots of brass!
Isn't it bewildering? I shall have to mention all this in my
great work on Logic--but _I_ shall take the line "any
writer may mean exactly what he pleases by a phrase so long
as he explains it beforehand." But I shall not venture to
assert "some boots are made of brass" till I have found a
pair! The Professor of Logic came over one day to talk about
it, and we had a long and exciting argument, the result of
which was "_x -x_"--a magnitude which you will be able
to evaluate for yourself.
C. L. Dodgson.
As an example of the good advice Mr. Dodgson used to give his young
friends, the following letter to Miss Isabel Standen will serve
excellently:--
Eastbourne, _Aug_. 4, 1885.
I can quite understand, and much sympathise with, what you
say of your feeling lonely, and not what you can honestly
call "happy." Now I am going to give you a bit of philosophy
about that--my own experience is, that _every_ new form
of life we try is, just at first, irksome rather than
pleasant. My first day or two at the sea is a little
depressing; I miss the Christ Church interests, and haven't
taken up the threads of interest here; and, just in the same
way, my first day or two, when I get back to Christ Church,
I miss the seaside pleasures, and feel with unusual
clearness the bothers of business-routine. In all such
cases, the true philosophy, I believe, is "_wait_ a
bit." Our mental nerves seem to be so adjusted that we feel
_first_ and most keenly, the _dis_-comforts of any
new form of life; but, after a bit, we get used to them, and
cease to notice them; and _then_ we have time to
realise the enjoyable features, which at first we were too
much worried to be conscious of.
Suppose you hurt your arm, and had to wear it in a sling for
a month. For the first two or three days the discomfort of
the bandage, the pressure of the sling on the neck and
shoulder, the being unable to use the arm, would be a
constant worry. You would feel as if all comfort in life
were gone; after a couple of days you would be used to the
new sensations, after a week you perhaps wouldn't notice
them at all; and life would seem just as comfortable as
ever.
So my advice is, don't think about loneliness, or happiness,
or unhappiness, for a week or two. Then "take stock" again,
and compare your feelings with what they were two weeks
previously. If they have changed, even a little, for the
better you are on the right track; if not, we may begin to
suspect the life does not suit you. But what I want
_specially_ to urge is that there's no use in comparing
one's feelings between one day and the next; you must allow
a reasonable interval, for the _direction of_ change to
show itself.
Sit on the beach, and watch the waves for a few seconds; you
say "the tide is coming in "; watch half a dozen successive
waves, and you may say "the last is the lowest; it is going
out." Wait a quarter of an hour, and compare its
_average_ place with what it was at first, and you will
say "No, it is coming in after all." ...
With love, I am always affectionately yours,
C. L. Dodgson.
The next event to chronicle in Lewis Carroll's Life is the
publication, by Messrs. Macmillan, of "A Tangled Tale," a series of
mathematical problems which had originally appeared in the _Monthly
Packet_. In addition to the problems themselves, the author added
their correct solutions, with criticisms on the solutions, correct or
otherwise, which the readers of the _Monthly Packet_ had sent in
to him. With some people this is the most popular of all his books; it
is certainly the most successful attempt he ever made to combine
mathematics and humour. The book was illustrated by Mr. A.B. Frost,
who entered most thoroughly into the spirit of the thing. One of his
pictures, "Balbus was assisting his mother-in-law to convince the
dragon," is irresistibly comic. A short quotation will better enable
the reader to understand the point of the joke:--
Balbus was waiting for them at the hotel; the journey down
had tried him, he said; so his two pupils had been the round
of the place, in search of lodgings, without the old tutor
who had been their inseparable companion from their
childhood. They had named him after the hero of their Latin
exercise-book, which overflowed with anecdotes about that
versatile genius--anecdotes whose vagueness in detail was
more than compensated by their sensational brilliance.
"Balbus has overcome all his enemies" had been marked by
their tutor, in the margin of the book, "Successful
Bravery." In this way he had tried to extract a moral from
every anecdote about Balbus--sometimes one of warning, as in
"Balbus had borrowed a healthy dragon," against which he had
written, "Rashness in Speculation "--sometimes of
encouragement, as in the words, "Influence of Sympathy in
United Action," which stood opposite to the anecdote "Balbus
was assisting his mother-in-law to convince the dragon"--and
sometimes it dwindled down to a single word, such as
"Prudence," which was all he could extract from the touching
record that "Balbus, having scorched the tail of the dragon,
went away." His pupils liked the short morals best, as it
left them more room for marginal illustrations, and in this
instance they required all the space they could get to
exhibit the rapidity of the hero's departure.
Balbus and his pupils go in search of lodgings, which are only to be
found in a certain square; at No. 52, one of the pupils supplements
the usual questions by asking the landlady if the cat scratches:--
The landlady looked round suspiciously, as if to make sure
the cat was not listening. "I will not deceive you,
gentlemen," she said. "It _do_ scratch, but not without
you pulls its whiskers! It'll never do it," she repeated
slowly, with a visible effort to recall the exact words of
some written agreement between herself and the cat, "without
you pulls its whiskers!"
"Much may be excused in a cat so treated," said Balbus as
they left the house and crossed to No. 70, leaving the
landlady curtesying on the doorstep, and still murmuring to
herself her parting words, as if they were a form of
blessing--"Not without you pulls its whiskers!"
[Illustration: _From a crayon drawing by the Rev. H.C.
Gaye_.]
They secure one room at each of the following numbers--the square
contains 20 doors on each side--Nine, Twenty-five, Fifty-two, and
Seventy-three. They require three bedrooms and one day-room, and
decide to take as day-room the one that gives them the least walking
to do to get to it. The problem, of course, is to discover which room
they adopted as the day-room. There are ten such "knots" in the book,
and few, if any of them, can be untied without a good deal of thought.
Owing, probably, to the strain of incessant work, Mr. Dodgson about
this period began to be subject to a very peculiar, yet not very
uncommon, optical delusion, which takes the form of seeing moving
fortifications. Considering the fact that he spent a good twelve hours
out of every twenty-four in reading and writing, and that he was now
well over fifty years old, it was not surprising that nature should
begin to rebel at last, and warn him of the necessity of occasional
rest.
Some verses on "Wonderland" by "One who loves Alice," appeared in the
Christmas number of _Sylvia's Home Journal_, 1885. They were
written by Miss M.E. Manners, and, as Lewis Carroll himself admired
them, they will, I think, be read with interest:--
WONDERLAND.
How sweet those happy days gone by,
Those days of sunny weather,
When Alice fair, with golden hair,
And we--were young together;--
When first with eager gaze we scann'd
The page which told of Wonderland.
On hearthrug in the winter-time
We lay and read it over;
We read it in the summer's prime,
Amidst the hay and clover.
The trees, by evening breezes fann'd,
Murmured sweet tales of Wonderland.
We climbed the mantelpiece, and broke
The jars of Dresden china;
In Jabberwocky tongue we spoke,
We called the kitten "Dinah!"
And, oh! how earnestly we planned
To go ourselves to Wonderland.
The path was fringed with flowers rare,
With rainbow colours tinted;
The way was "up a winding stair,"
Our elders wisely hinted.
We did not wish to understand
_Bed_ was the road to Wonderland.
We thought we'd wait till we should grow
Stronger as well as bolder,
But now, alas! full well we know
We're only growing older.
The key held by a childish hand,
Fits best the door of Wonderland.
Yet still the Hatter drinks his tea,
The Duchess finds a moral,
And Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Forget in fright their quarrel.
The Walrus still weeps on the sand,
That strews the shores of Wonderland.
And other children feel the spell
Which once we felt before them,
And while the well-known tale we tell,
We watch it stealing o'er them:
Before their dazzled eyes expand
The glorious realms of Wonderland.
Yes, "time is fleet," and we have gained
Years more than twice eleven;
Alice, dear child, hast thou remained
"Exactually" seven?
With "proper aid," "two" could command
Time to go back in Wonderland.
Or have the years (untouched by charms),
With joy and sorrow laden,
Rolled by, and brought unto thy arms
A dainty little maiden?
Another Alice, who shall stand
By thee to hear of Wonderland.
Carroll! accept the heartfelt thanks
Of children of all ages,
Of those who long have left their ranks,
Yet still must love the pages
Written by him whose magic wand
Called up the scenes of Wonderland.
Long mayst thou live, the sound to hear
Which most thy heart rejoices,
Of children's laughter ringing clear,
And children's merry voices,
Until for thee an angel-hand
Draws back the veil of Wonderland.
One Who Loves "Alice."
Three letters, written at the beginning of 1886 to Miss Edith Rix, to
whom he had dedicated "A Tangled Tale," are interesting as showing the
deeper side of his character:--
Guildford, _Jan_. 15, 1886.
My dear Edith,--I have been meaning for some time to write
to you about agnosticism, and other matters in your letter
which I have left unnoticed. And yet I do not know, much as
what you say interests me, and much as I should like to be
of use to any wandering seeker after truth, that I am at all
likely to say anything that will be new to you and of any
practical use.
The Moral Science student you describe must be a beautiful
character, and if, as you say, she lives a noble life, then,
even though she does not, as yet, see any God, for whose
sake she can do things, I don't think you need be unhappy
about her. "When thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee,"
is often supposed to mean that Nathanael had been
_praying_, praying no doubt ignorantly and imperfectly,
but yet using the light he had: and it seems to have been
accepted as faith in the Messiah. More and more it seems to
me (I hope you won't be _very_ much shocked at me as an
ultra "Broad" Churchman) that what a person _is_ is of
more importance in God's sight than merely what propositions
he affirms or denies. _You_, at any rate, can do more
good among those new friends of yours by showing them what a
Christian _is_, than by telling them what a Christian
_believes_....
I have a deep dread of argument on religious topics: it has
many risks, and little chance of doing good. You and I will
never _argue_, I hope, on any controverted religious
question: though I do hope we may see the day when we may
freely _speak_ of such things, even where we happen to
hold different views. But even then I should have no
inclination, if we did differ, to conclude that my view was
the right one, and to try to convert you to it....
Now I come to your letter dated Dec. 22nd, and must scold
you for saying that my solution of the problem was "quite
different _to_ all common ways of doing it": if
_you_ think that's good English, well and good; but
_I_ must beg to differ to you, and to hope you will
_never_ write me a sentence similar from this again.
However, "worse remains behind"; and if you deliberately
intend in future, when writing to me about one of England's
greatest poets, to call him "Shelly," then all I can say is,
that you and I will have to quarrel! Be warned in time.
C. L. Dodgson.
CH. Ch., _Jan_. 26, 1886.
My Dear Edith,--I am interested by what you say of Miss--.
You will know, without my saying it, that if she, or any
other friend of yours with any troubles, were to like to
write to me, I would _very_ gladly try to help: with
all my ignorance and weakness, God has, I think, blessed my
efforts in that way: but then His strength is made perfect
in weakness....
Ch. Ch., _Feb_. 14, 1886.
My Dear Edith,... I think I've already noticed, in a way,
most of the rest of that letter--except what you say about
learning more things "after we are dead." _I_ certainly
like to think that may be so. But I have heard the other
view strongly urged, a good deal based on "then shall we
know even as we are known." But I can't believe that that
means we shall have _all_ knowledge given us in a
moment--nor can I fancy it would make me any happier: it is
the _learning_ that is the chief joy, here, at any
rate....
I find another remark anent "pupils"--a bold speculation
that my 1,000 pupils may really "go on" in the future life,
till they _have_ really outstripped Euclid. And,
please, what is _Euclid_ to be doing all that time? ...
One of the most dreadful things you have ever told me is
your students' theory of going and speaking to any one they
are interested in, without any introductions. This, joined
with what you say of some of them being interested in
"Alice," suggests the horrid idea of their some day walking
into this room and beginning a conversation. It is enough to
make one shiver, even to think of it!
Never mind if people do say "Good gracious!" when you help
old women: it _is_ being, in some degree, both "good"
_and_ "gracious," one may hope. So the remark wasn't so
inappropriate.
I fear I agree with your friend in not liking all sermons.
Some of them, one has to confess, are rubbish: but then I
release my attention from the preacher, and go ahead in any
line of thought he may have started: and his after-eloquence
acts as a kind of accompaniment--like music while one is
reading poetry, which often, to me, adds to the effect.
C. L. Dodgson.
The "Alice" operetta, which Mr. Dodgson had despaired of, was at last
to become a reality. Mr. Savile Clarke wrote on August 28th to ask his
leave to dramatise the two books, and he gladly assented. He only made
one condition, which was very characteristic of him, that there should
be "no _suggestion_ even of coarseness in libretto or in stage
business." The hint was hardly necessary, for Mr. Savile Clarke was
not the sort of man to spoil his work, or to allow others to spoil it,
by vulgarity. Several alterations were made in the books before they
were suitable for a dramatic performance; Mr. Dodgson had to write a
song for the ghosts of the oysters, which the Walrus and the Carpenter
had devoured. He also completed "Tis the voice of the lobster," so as
to make it into a song. It ran as follows:--
Tis the voice of the lobster; I heard him declare
"You have baked me too brown: I must sugar my hair."
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.
When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
And talks with the utmost contempt of the shark;
But when the tide rises, and sharks are around,
His words have a timid and tremulous sound.
I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,
How the owl and the panther were sharing a pie:
The panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat,
And the owl had the dish for his share of the treat.
When the plate was divided, the owl, as a boon,
Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon:
But the panther obtained both the fork and the knife,
So, when _he_ lost his temper, the owl lost its life.
The play, for the first few weeks at least, was a great success. Some
notes in Mr. Dodgson's Diary which relate to it, show how he
appreciated Mr. Savile Clarke's venture:--
_Dec. 30th._--To London with M--, and took her to
"Alice in Wonderland," Mr. Savile Clarke's play at the
Prince of Wales's Theatre. The first act (Wonderland) goes
well, specially the Mad Tea Party. Mr. Sydney Harcourt is a
capital Hatter, and little Dorothy d'Alcourt (aet. 61/2) a
delicious Dormouse. Phoebe Carlo is a splendid Alice. Her
song and dance with the Cheshire Cat (Master C. Adeson, who
played the Pirate King in "Pirates of Penzance") was a gem.
As a whole the play seems a success.
_Feb_. 11, 1887.--Went to the "Alice" play, where we
sat next a chatty old gentleman, who told me that the author
of "Alice" had sent Phoebe Carlo a book, and that she had
written to him to say that she would do her very best, and
further, that he is "an Oxford man"--all which I hope I
received with a sufficient expression of pleased interest.
Shortly before the production of the play, a Miss Whitehead had drawn
a very clever medley-picture, in which nearly all Tenniel's wonderful
creations--the Dormouse, the White Knight, the Mad Hatter,
&c.--appeared. This design was most useful as a "poster" to advertise
the play. After the London run was over, the company made a tour of
the provinces, where it met with a fair amount of success.
[Illustration: Medley of Tenniel's Illustrations in "Alice."
_From an etching by Miss Whitehead; used as a theatrical
advertisement_.]
At the end of 1886, "Alice's Adventures Underground," a facsimile of
the original MS. book, afterwards developed into "Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland," with thirty-seven illustrations by the author, was
published by Macmillan & Co. A postscript to the Preface stated that
any profits that might arise from the book would be given to
Children's Hospitals and Convalescent Homes for Sick Children. Shortly
before the book came out, Lewis Carroll wrote to Mrs. Hargreaves,
giving a description of the difficulties that he had encountered in
producing it:--
Christ Church, Oxford,
_November_ 11, 1886.
My Dear Mrs. Hargreaves,--Many thanks for your permission to
insert "Hospitals" in the Preface to your book. I have had
almost as many adventures in getting that unfortunate
facsimile finished, _Above_ ground, as your namesake
had _Under_ it!
First, the zincographer in London, recommended to me for
photographing the book, page by page, and preparing the
zinc-blocks, declined to undertake it unless I would entrust
the book to _him_, which I entirely refused to do. I
felt that it was only due to you, in return for your great
kindness in lending so unique a book, to be scrupulous in
not letting it be even _touched_ by the workmen's
hands. In vain I offered to come and reside in London with
the book, and to attend daily in the studio, to place it in
position to be photographed, and turn over the pages as
required. He said that could not be done because "other
authors' works were being photographed there, which must on
no account be seen by the public." I undertook not to look
at _anything_ but my own book; but it was no use: we
could not come to terms.
Then -- recommended me a certain Mr. X--, an excellent
photographer, but in so small a way of business that I
should have to _prepay_ him, bit by bit, for the
zinc-blocks: and _he_ was willing to come to Oxford,
and do it here. So it was all done in my studio, I remaining
in waiting all the time, to turn over the pages.
But I daresay I have told you so much of the story already.
Mr. X-- did a first-rate set of negatives, and took them
away with him to get the zinc-blocks made. These he
delivered pretty regularly at first, and there seemed to be
every prospect of getting the book out by Christmas, 1885.
On October 18, 1885, I sent your book to Mrs. Liddell, who
had told me your sisters were going to visit you and would
take it with them. I trust it reached you safely?
Soon after this--I having prepaid for the whole of the
zinc-blocks--the supply suddenly ceased, while twenty-two
pages were still due, and Mr. X-- disappeared!
My belief is that he was in hiding from his creditors. We
sought him in vain. So things went on for months. At one
time I thought of employing a detective to find him, but was
assured that "all detectives are scoundrels." The
alternative seemed to be to ask you to lend the book again,
and get the missing pages re-photographed. But I was most
unwilling to rob you of it again, and also afraid of the
risk of loss of the book, if sent by post--for even
"registered post" does not seem _absolutely_ safe.
In April he called at Macmillan's and left _eight_
blocks, and again vanished into obscurity.
This left us with fourteen pages (dotted up and down the
book) still missing. I waited awhile longer, and then put
the thing into the hands of a solicitor, who soon found the
man, but could get nothing but promises from him. "You will
never get the blocks," said the solicitor, "unless you
frighten him by a summons before a magistrate." To this at
last I unwillingly consented: the summons had to be taken
out at--(that is where this aggravating man is living),
and this entailed two journeys from Eastbourne--one to get
the summons (my _personal_ presence being necessary),
and the other to attend in court with the solicitor on the
day fixed for hearing the case. The defendant didn't appear;
so the magistrate said he would take the case in his
absence. Then I had the new and exciting experience of being
put into the witness-box, and sworn, and cross-examined by a
rather savage magistrate's clerk, who seemed to think that,
if he only bullied me enough, he would soon catch me out in
a falsehood! I had to give the magistrate a little lecture
on photo-zincography, and the poor man declared the case was
so complicated he must adjourn it for another week. But this
time, in order to secure the presence of our slippery
defendant, he issued a warrant for his apprehension, and the
constable had orders to take him into custody and lodge him
in prison, the night before the day when the case was to
come on. The news of _this_ effectually frightened him,
and he delivered up the fourteen negatives (he hadn't done
the blocks) before the fatal day arrived. I was rejoiced to
get them, even though it entailed the paying a second time
for getting the fourteen blocks done, and withdrew the
action.
The fourteen blocks were quickly done and put into the
printer's hands; and all is going on smoothly at last: and I
quite hope to have the book completed, and to be able to
send you a very special copy (bound in white vellum, unless
you would prefer some other style of binding) by the end of
the month.
Believe me always,
Sincerely yours,
C. L. Dodgson.
"The Game of Logic" was Lewis Carroll's next book; it appeared about
the end of February, 1887. As a method of teaching the first
principles of Logic to children it has proved most useful; the
subject, usually considered very difficult to a beginner, is made
extremely easy by simplification of method, and both interesting and
amusing by the quaint syllogisms that the author devised, such as--
No bald person needs a hair-brush;
No lizards have hair;
Therefore[1] No lizard needs a hair brush.
Caterpillars are not eloquent;
Jones is eloquent;
Jones is not a caterpillar.
Meanwhile, with much interchange of correspondence between author and
artist, the pictures for the new fairy tale, "Sylvie and Bruno," were
being gradually evolved. Each of them was subjected by Lewis Carroll
to the most minute criticism--hyper-criticism, perhaps, occasionally.
A few instances of the sort of criticisms he used to make upon Mr.
Furniss's work may be interesting; I have extracted them from a letter
dated September 1, 1887. It will be seen that when he really admired a
sketch he did not stint his praise:--
(1) "Sylvie helping beetle" [p. 193]. A quite charming
composition.
(3) "The Doctor" and "Eric." (Mr. Furniss's idea of their
appearance). No! The Doctor won't do _at all!_ He is a
smug London man, a great "ladies' man," who would hardly
talk anything but medical "shop." He is forty at least, and
can have had no love-affair for the last fifteen years. I
want him to be about twenty-five, powerful in frame,
poetical in face: capable of intelligent interest in any
subject, and of being a passionate lover. How would you draw
King Arthur when he first met Guinevere? Try _that_
type.
Eric's attitude is capital: but his face is a little too
near to the ordinary "masher." Please avoid _that_
inane creature; and please don't cut his hair short. That
fashion will be "out" directly.
(4) "Lady Muriel" (head); ditto (full length); "Earl."
I don't like _either_ face of Lady Muriel. I don't
think I could talk to her; and I'm quite sure I couldn't
fall in love with her. Her dress ("evening," of course) is
very pretty, I think.
I don't like the Earl's face either. He is proud of his
title, very formal, and one who would keep one "at arm's
length" always. And he is too prodigiously tall. I want a
gentle, genial old man; with whom one would feel at one's
ease in a moment.
(8) "Uggug becoming Porcupine" ("Sylvie and Bruno,
Concluded," page 388), is exactly my conception of it. I
expect this will be one of the most effective pictures in
the book. The faces of the people should express intense
_terror_.
(9) "The Professor" is altogether _delightful_. When
you get the text, you will see that you have hit the very
centre of the bull's-eye.
[A sketch of "Bruno"]. No, no! Please don't give us the (to
my mind) very ugly, quite modern costume, which shows with
such cruel distinctness a podgy, pot-bellied (excuse the
vulgarism) boy, who couldn't run a mile to save his life. I
want Bruno to be _strong_, but at the same time light
and active--with the figure of one of the little acrobats
one sees at the circus--not "Master Tommy," who habitually
gorges himself with pudding. Also that dress I dislike very
much. Please give him a short tunic, and _real_
knickerbockers--not the tight knee-breeches they are rapidly
shrinking to.
Very truly yours,
C. L. Dodgson.
By Mr. Furniss's kind permission I am enabled to give an example of
the other side of the correspondence, one of his letters to Mr.
Dodgson, all the more interesting for the charming little sketch which
it contains.
With respect to the spider, Mr. Dodgson had written: "Some writer says
that the full face of a spider, as seen under a magnifying-glass, is
very striking."
[Illustration: _Facsimile of a letter from H. Furniss to
Lewis Carroll, August 23, 1886_.]
[Illustration: Sylvie and Bruno. _From a drawing by Henry
Holiday_.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER VII
(1888-1891)
A systematic life--"Memoria Technica"--Mr. Dodgson's
shyness--"A Lesson in Latin"--The "Wonderland"
Stamp-Case--"Wise Words about Letter-Writing"--Princess
Alice--"Sylvie and Bruno"--"The night cometh"--"The Nursery
'Alice'"--Coventry Patmore--Telepathy--Resignation of Dr.
Liddell--A letter about Logic.
An old bachelor is generally very precise and exact in his habits. He
has no one but himself to look after, nothing to distract his
attention from his own affairs; and Mr. Dodgson was the most precise
and exact of old bachelors. He made a precis of every letter he wrote
or received from the 1st of January, 1861, to the 8th of the same
month, 1898. These precis were all numbered and entered in
reference-books, and by an ingenious system of cross-numbering he was
able to trace a whole correspondence, which might extend through
several volumes. The last number entered in his book is 98,721.
He had scores of green cardboard boxes, all neatly labelled, in which
he kept his various papers. These boxes formed quite a feature of his
study at Oxford, a large number of them being arranged upon a
revolving bookstand. The lists, of various sorts, which he kept were
innumerable; one of them, that of unanswered correspondents,
generally held seventy or eighty names at a time, exclusive of
autograph-hunters, whom he did not answer on principle. He seemed to
delight in being arithmetically accurate about every detail of life.
He always rose at the same early hour, and, if he was in residence at
Christ Church, attended College Service. He spent the day according to
a prescribed routine, which usually included a long walk into the
country, very often alone, but sometimes with another Don, or perhaps,
if the walk was not to be as long as usual, with some little
girl-friend at his side. When he had a companion with him, he would
talk the whole time, telling delightful stories, or explaining some
new logical problem; if he was alone, he used to think out his books,
as probably many another author has done and will do, in the course of
a lonely walk. The only irregularity noticeable in his mode of life
was the hour of retiring, which varied from 11 p.m. to four o'clock in
the morning, according to the amount of work which he felt himself in
the mood for.
He had a wonderfully good memory, except for faces and dates. The
former were always a stumbling-block to him, and people used to say
(most unjustly) that he was intentionally short-sighted. One night he
went up to London to dine with a friend, whom he had only recently
met. The next morning a gentleman greeted him as he was walking. "I
beg your pardon," said Mr. Dodgson, "but you have the advantage of me.
I have no remembrance of having ever seen you before this moment."
"That is very strange," the other replied, "for I was your host last
night!" Such little incidents as this happened more than once. To help
himself to remember dates, he devised a system of mnemonics, which he
circulated among his friends. As it has never been published, and as
some of my readers may find it useful, I reproduce it here.
My "Memoria Technica" is a modification of Gray's; but,
whereas he used both consonants and vowels to represent
digits, and had to content himself with a syllable of
gibberish to represent the date or whatever other number was
required, I use only consonants, and fill in with vowels _ad
libitum,_ and thus can always manage to make a real word of
whatever has to be represented.
The principles on which the necessary 20 consonants have
been chosen are as follows:--
1. "b" and "c," the first two consonants in the alphabet.
2. "d" from "duo," "w" from "two."
3. "t" from "tres," the other may wait awhile.
4. "f" from "four," "q" from "quattuor."
5. "l" and "v," because "l" and "v" are the Roman symbols
for "fifty" and "five."
6. "s" and "x" from "six."
7. "p" and "m" from "septem."
8. "h" from "huit," and "k" from the Greek "okto."
9. "n" from "nine"; and "g" because it is so like a "9."
0. "z" and "r" from "zero."
There is now one consonant still waiting for its digit,
viz., "j," and one digit waiting for its consonant, viz.,
"3," the conclusion is obvious.
The result may be tabulated thus:--
|1 |2 |3 |4 |5 |6 |7 |8 |9 |0 |
|b |d |t |f |l |s |p |h |n |z |
|c |w |j |q |v |x |m |k |g |r |
When a word has been found, whose last consonants represent
the number required, the best plan is to put it as the last
word of a rhymed couplet, so that, whatever other words in
it are forgotten, the rhyme will secure the only really
important word.
Now suppose you wish to remember the date of the discovery
of America, which is 1492; the "1" may be left out as
obvious; all we need is "492."
Write it thus:--
4 9 2
f n d
q g w
and try to find a word that contains "f" or "q," "n" or "g,"
"d" or "w." A word soon suggests itself--"found."
The poetic faculty must now be brought into play, and the
following couplet will soon be evolved:--
"Columbus sailed the world around,
Until America was F O U N D."
If possible, invent the couplets for yourself; you will
remember them better than any others.
_June_, 1888.
The inventor found this "Memoria Technica" very useful in helping him
to remember the dates of the different Colleges. He often, of course,
had to show his friends the sights of Oxford, and the easy way in
which, asked or unasked, he could embellish his descriptions with
dates used to surprise those who did not know how the thing was done.
The couplet for St. John's College ran as follows:--
"They must have a bevel
To keep them so LEVEL."
The allusion is to the beautiful lawns, for which St. John's is
famous.
In his power of remembering anecdotes, and bringing them out just at
the right moment, Mr. Dodgson was unsurpassed. A guest brought into
Christ Church Common Room was usually handed over to him to be amused.
He was not a good man to tell a story to--he had always heard it
before; but as a _raconteur_ I never met his equal. And the best
of it was that his stories never grew--except in number.
One would have expected that a mind so clear and logical and definite
would have fought shy of the feminine intellect, which is generally
supposed to be deficient in those qualities; and so it is somewhat
surprising to find that by far the greater number of his friends were
ladies. He was quite prepared to correct them, however, when they were
guilty of what seemed to him unreasoning conduct, as is shown by the
following extract from a letter of his to a young lady who had asked
him to try and find a place for a governess, without giving the
latter's address:--
Some of my friends are business-men, and it is pleasant to
see how methodical and careful they are in transacting any
business-matter. If, for instance, one of them were to write
to me, asking me to look out for a place for a French
governess in whom he was interested, I should be sure to
admire the care with which he would give me _her name in
full_--(in extra-legible writing if it were an unusual
name)--as well as her address. Some of my friends are not
men of business.
So many such requests were addressed to him that at one time he had a
circular letter printed, with a list of people requiring various
appointments or assistants, which he sent round to his friends.
In one respect Lewis Carroll resembled the stoic philosophers, for no
outward circumstance could upset the tranquillity of his mind. He
lived, in fact, the life which Marcus Aurelius commends so highly, the
life of calm contentment, based on the assurance that so long as we
are faithful to ourselves, no seeming evils can really harm us. But in
him there was one exception to this rule. During an argument he was
often excited. The war of words, the keen and subtle conflict between
trained minds--in this his soul took delight, in this he sought and
found the joy of battle and of victory. Yet he would not allow his
serenity to be ruffled by any foe whom he considered unworthy of his
steel; he refused to argue with people whom he knew to be hopelessly
illogical--definitely refused, though with such tact that no wound was
given, even to the most sensitive.
He was modest in the true sense of the term, neither overestimating
nor underrating his own mental powers, and preferring to follow his
own course without regarding outside criticism. "I never read anything
about myself or my books," he writes in a letter to a friend; and the
reason he used to give was that if the critics praised him he might
become conceited, while, if they found fault, he would only feel hurt
and angry. On October 25, 1888, he wrote in his Diary: "I see there is
a leader in to-day's _Standard_ on myself as a writer; but I do
not mean to read it. It is not healthy reading, I think."
He hated publicity, and tried to avoid it in every way. "Do not tell
any one, if you see me in the theatre," he wrote once to Miss Marion
Terry. On another occasion, when he was dining out at Oxford, and some
one, who did not know that it was a forbidden subject, turned the
conversation on "Alice in Wonderland," he rose suddenly and fled from
the house. I could multiply instances of this sort, but it would be
unjust to his memory to insist upon the morbid way in which he
regarded personal popularity. As compared with self-advertisement, it
is certainly the lesser evil; but that it _is_ an evil, and a
very painful one to its possessor, Mr. Dodgson fully saw. Of course it
had its humorous side, as, for instance, when he was brought into
contact with lion-hunters, autograph-collectors, _et hoc genus
omne_. He was very suspicious of unknown correspondents who
addressed questions to him; in later years he either did not answer
them at all, or used a typewriter. Before he bought his typewriter, he
would get some friend to write for him, and even to sign "Lewis
Carroll" at the end of the letter. It used to give him great amusement
to picture the astonishment of the recipients of these letters, if by
any chance they ever came to compare his "autographs."
On one occasion the secretary of a "Young Ladies' Academy" in the
United States asked him to present some of his works to the School
Library. The envelope was addressed to "Lewis Carroll, Christ Church,"
an incongruity which always annoyed him intensely. He replied to the
Secretary, "As Mr. Dodgson's books are all on Mathematical subjects,
he fears that they would not be very acceptable in a school library."
Some fourteen or fifteen years ago, the Fourth-class of the Girl's
Latin School at Boston, U.S., started a magazine, and asked him if
they might call it _The Jabberwock._ He wrote in reply:--
Mr. Lewis Carroll has much pleasure in giving to the editors
of the proposed magazine permission to use the title they
wish for. He finds that the Anglo-Saxon word "wocer" or
"wocor" signifies "offspring" or "fruit." Taking "jabber" in
its ordinary acceptation of "excited and voluble
discussion," this would give the meaning of "the result of
much excited discussion." Whether this phrase will have any
application to the projected periodical, it will be for the
future historian of American literature to determine. Mr.
Carroll wishes all success to the forthcoming magazine.
From that time forward he took a great interest in the magazine, and
thought very well of it. It used, I believe, to be regularly supplied
to him. Only once did he express disapproval of anything it contained,
and that was in 1888, when he felt it necessary to administer a rebuke
for what he thought to be an irreverent joke. The sequel is given in
the following extract from _The Jabberwock_ for June, 1888:--
A FRIEND WORTH HAVING.
_The Jabberwock_ has many friends, and perhaps a few
(very few, let us hope) enemies. But, of the former, the
friend who has helped us most on the road to success is Mr.
Lewis Carroll, the author of "Alice in Wonderland," &c. Our
readers will remember his kind letter granting us permission
to use the name "Jabberwock," and also giving the meaning of
that word. Since then we have received another letter from
him, in which he expresses both surprise and regret at an
anecdote which we published in an early number of our little
paper. We would assure Mr. Carroll, as well as our other
friends, that we had no intention of making light of a
serious matter, but merely quoted the anecdote to show what
sort of a book Washington's diary was.
But now a third letter from our kind friend has come,
enclosing, to our delight, a poem, "A Lesson in Latin," the
pleasantest Latin lesson we have had this year.
The first two letters from Mr. Carroll were in a beautiful
literary hand, whereas the third is written with a
typewriter. It is to this fact that he refers in his letter,
which is as follows:--
"29, Bedford Street,
Covent Garden, LONDON,
_May_ 16, 1888.
Dear Young Friends,--After the Black Draught of serious
remonstrance which I ventured to send to you the other day,
surely a Lump of Sugar will not be unacceptable? The
enclosed I wrote this afternoon on purpose for you.
I hope you will grant it admission to the columns of _The
Jabberwock_, and not scorn it as a mere play upon words.
This mode of writing, is, of course, an American invention.
We never invent new machinery here; we do but use, to the
best of our ability, the machines you send us. For the one I
am now using, I beg you to accept my best thanks, and to
believe me
Your sincere friend,
Lewis Carroll."
Surely we can patiently swallow many Black Draughts, if we
are to be rewarded with so sweet a Lump of Sugar!
The enclosed poem, which has since been republished in
"Three Sunsets," runs as follows:
A LESSON IN LATIN.
Our Latin books, in motley row,
Invite us to the task--
Gay Horace, stately Cicero;
Yet there's one verb, when once we know,
No higher skill we ask:
This ranks all other lore above--
We've learned "amare" means "to love"!
So hour by hour, from flower to flower,
We sip the sweets of life:
Till ah! too soon the clouds arise,
And knitted brows and angry eyes
Proclaim the dawn of strife.
With half a smile and half a sigh,
"Amare! Bitter One!" we cry.
Last night we owned, with looks forlorn,
"Too well the scholar knows
There is no rose without a thorn "--
But peace is made! we sing, this morn,
"No thorn without a rose!"
Our Latin lesson is complete:
We've learned that Love is "Bitter-sweet"
Lewis Carroll.
In October Mr. Dodgson invented a very ingenious little stamp-case,
decorated with two "Pictorial Surprises," representing the "Cheshire
Cat" vanishing till nothing but the grin was left, and the baby
turning into a pig in "Alice's" arms. The invention was entered at
Stationers' Hall, and published by Messrs. Emberlin and Son, of
Oxford. As an appropriate accompaniment, he wrote "Eight or Nine Wise
Words on Letter-Writing," a little booklet which is still sold along
with the case. The "Wise Words," as the following extracts show, have
the true "Carrollian" ring about them:--
Some American writer has said "the snakes in this district
may be divided into one species--the venomous." The same
principle applies here. Postage-stamp-cases may be divided
into one species--the "Wonderland."
Since I have possessed a "Wonderland-Stamp-Case," Life has
been bright and peaceful, and I have used no other. I
believe the Queen's Laundress uses no other.
My fifth Rule is, if your friend makes a severe remark,
either leave it unnoticed or make your reply distinctly less
severe: and, if he makes a friendly remark, tending towards
"making up" the little difference that has arisen between
you, let your reply be distinctly _more_ friendly. If,
in picking a quarrel, each party declined to go more than
_three-eighths_ of the way, and if, in making friends,
each was ready to go _five-eighths_ of the way--why,
there would be more reconciliations than quarrels! Which is
like the Irishman's remonstrance to his gad-about daughter:
"Shure, you're _always_ goin' out! You go out
_three_ times for wanst that you come in!"
My sixth Rule is, _don't try to have the last word!_
How many a controversy would be nipped in the bud, if each
was anxious to let the _other_ have the last word!
Never mind how telling a rejoinder you leave unuttered:
never mind your friend's supposing that you are silent from
lack of anything to say: let the thing drop, as soon as it
is possible without discourtesy: remember "Speech is
silvern, but silence is golden"! (N.B. If you are a
gentleman, and your friend a lady, this Rule is superfluous:
_you won't get the last word!_)
Remember the old proverb, "Cross-writing makes
cross-reading." "The _old_ proverb?" you say
inquiringly. "_How_ old?" Well, not so _very_
ancient, I must confess. In fact, I invented it while
writing this paragraph. Still, you know, "old" is a
_comparative_ term. I think you would be _quite_
justified in addressing a chicken, just out of the shell, as
"old boy!" _when compared_ with another chicken that
was only half-out!
The pamphlet ends with an explanation of Lewis Carroll's method of
using a correspondence-book, illustrated by a few imaginary pages from
such a compilation, which are very humorous.
[Illustration: _Facsimile of programme of "Alice in
Wonderland_."]
At the end of the year the "Alice" operetta was again produced at the
Globe Theatre, with Miss Isa Bowman as the heroine. "Isa makes a
delightful Alice," Mr. Dodgson writes, "and Emsie [a younger sister]
is wonderfully good as Dormouse and as Second Ghost [of an oyster!],
when she sings a verse, and dances the Sailor's Hornpipe."
[Illustration: "The Mad Tea-Party." _From a photograph by
Elliott & Fry_.]
The first of an incomplete series, "Curiosa Mathematica," was
published for Mr. Dodgson by Messrs. Macmillan during the year. It was
entitled "A New Theory of Parallels," and any one taking it up for the
first time might be tempted to ask, Is the author serious, or is he
simply giving us some _jeu d'esprit?_ A closer inspection,
however, soon settles the question, and the reader, if mathematics be
his hobby, is carried irresistibly along till he reaches the last
page.
The object which Mr. Dodgson set himself to accomplish was to prove
Euclid I. 32 without assuming the celebrated 12th Axiom, a feat which
calls up visions of the "Circle-Squarers."
The work is divided into two parts: Book I. contains certain
Propositions which require no disputable Axiom for their proof, and
when once the few Definitions of "amount," &c., have become familiar
it is easy reading. In Book II. the author introduces a new Axiom, or
rather "Quasi-Axiom"--for it's _self-evident_ character is open
to dispute. This Axiom is as follows:--
In any Circle the inscribed equilateral Tetragon (Hexagon in
editions 1st and 2nd) is greater than any one of the
Segments which lie outside it.
Assuming the truth of this Axiom, Mr. Dodgson proves a series of
Propositions, which lead up to and enable him to accomplish the feat
referred to above.
At the end of Book II. he places a proof (so far as finite magnitudes
are concerned) of Euclid's Axiom, preceded by and dependent on the
Axiom that "If two homogeneous magnitudes be both of them finite, the
lesser may be so multiplied by a finite number as to exceed the
greater." This Axiom, he says, he believes to be assumed by every
writer who has attempted to prove Euclid's 12th Axiom. The proof
itself is borrowed, with slight alterations, from Cuthbertson's
"Euclidean Geometry."
In Appendix I. there is an alternative Axiom which may be substituted
for that which introduces Book II., and which will probably commend
itself to many minds as being more truly axiomatic. To substitute
this, however, involves some additions and alterations, which the
author appends.
Appendix II. is headed by the somewhat startling question, "Is
Euclid's Axiom true?" and though true for finite magnitudes--the sense
in which, no doubt, Euclid meant it to be taken--it is shown to be not
universally true. In Appendix III. he propounds the question, "How
should Parallels be defined?"
Appendix IV., which deals with the theory of Parallels as it stands
to-day, concludes with the following words:--
I am inclined to believe that if ever Euclid I. 32 is proved
without a new Axiom, it will be by some new and ampler
definition of the _Right Line_--some definition which
shall connote that mysterious property, which it must
somehow possess, which causes Euclid I. 32 to be true. Try
_that_ track, my gentle reader! It is not much trodden
as yet. And may success attend your search!
In the Introduction, which, as is frequently the case, ought to be
read _last_ in order to be appreciated properly, he relates his
experiences with two of those "misguided visionaries," the
circle-squarers. One of them had selected 3.2 as the value for
"_pi_," and the other proved, to his own satisfaction at least,
that it is correctly represented by 3! The Rev. Watson Hagger, to
whose kindness, as I have already stated in my Preface, my readers are
indebted for the several accounts of Mr. Dodgson's books on
mathematics which appear in this Memoir, had a similar experience with
one of these "cranks." This circle-squarer selected 3.125 as the value
for "_pi_," and Mr. Hagger, who was fired with Mr. Dodgson's
ambition to convince his correspondent of his error, failed as
signally as Mr. Dodgson did.
The following letter is interesting as showing that, strict
Conservative though he was, he was not in religious matters
narrow-minded; he held his own opinions strongly, but he would never
condemn those of other people. He saw "good in everything," and there
was but little exaggeration, be it said in all reverence, in the
phrase which an old friend of his used in speaking of him to me: "Mr.
Dodgson was as broad--as broad as _Christ_."
Christ Church, Oxford, _May_ 4, 1889.
Dear Miss Manners,--I hope to have a new book out very soon,
and had entered your name on the list of friends to whom
copies are to go; but, on second thoughts, perhaps you might
prefer that I should send it to your little sister (?)
(niece) Rachel, whom you mentioned in one of your letters.
It is to be called "The Nursery Alice," and is meant for
very young children, consisting of coloured enlargements of
twenty of the pictures in "Alice," with explanations such as
one would give in showing them to a little child.
I was much interested by your letter, telling me you belong
to the Society of Friends. Please do not think of _me_
as one to whom a "difference of creed" is a bar to
friendship. My sense of brother- and sisterhood is at least
broad enough to include _Christians_ of all
denominations; in fact, I have one valued friend (a lady who
seems to live to do good kind things) who is a Unitarian.
Shall I put "Rachel Manners" in the book?
Believe me, very sincerely yours,
C. L. Dodgson.
From June 7th to June 10th he stayed at Hatfield.
Once at luncheon [he writes] I had the Duchess (of Albany)
as neighbour and once at breakfast, and had several other
chats with her, and found her very pleasant indeed. Princess
Alice is a sweet little girl. Her little brother (the Duke
of Albany) was entirely fascinating, a perfect little
prince, and the picture of good-humour. On Sunday afternoon
I had a pleasant half-hour with the children [Princess
Alice, the Duke of Albany, Honorable Mabel Palmer, Lady
Victoria Manners, and Lord Haddon], telling them "Bruno's
Picnic" and folding a fishing-boat for them. I got the
Duchess's leave to send the little Alice a copy of the
"Nursery Alice," and mean to send it with "Alice
Underground" for herself.
Towards the end of the year Lewis Carroll had tremendously hard work,
completing "Sylvie and Bruno." For several days on end he worked from
breakfast until nearly ten in the evening without a rest. At last it
was off his hands, and for a month or so he was (comparatively) an
idle man. Some notes from his Diary, written during this period,
follow:--
_Nov. 17th._--Met, for first time, an actual believer
in the "craze" that buying and selling are wrong (!) (he is
rather 'out of his mind'). The most curious thing was his
declaration that he himself _lives_ on that theory, and
never buys anything, and has no money! I thought of railway
travelling, and ventured to ask how he got from London to
Oxford? "On a bicycle!" And how he got the bicycle? "It was
given him!" So I was floored, and there was no time to think
of any other instances. The whole thing was so new to me
that, when he declared it to be _un-Christian_, I quite
forgot the text, "He that hath no sword, let him sell his
garment, and buy one."
_Dec. 19th._--Went over to Birmingham to see a
performance of "Alice" (Mrs. Freiligrath Kroeker's version)
at the High School. I rashly offered to tell "Bruno's
Picnic" afterwards to the little children, thinking I should
have an audience of 40 or 50, mostly children, instead of
which I had to tell it from the stage to an audience of
about 280, mostly older girls and grown-up people! However,
I got some of the children to come on the stage with me, and
the little Alice (Muriel Howard-Smith, aet. 11) stood by me,
which made it less awful. The evening began with some of
"Julius Caesar" in German. This and "Alice" were really
capitally acted, the White Queen being quite the best I have
seen (Miss B. Lloyd Owen). I was introduced to Alice and a
few more, and was quite sorry to hear afterwards that the
other performers wanted to shake hands.
The publication of "Sylvie and Bruno" marks an epoch in its author's
life, for it was the publication of all the ideals and sentiments
which he held most dear. It was a book with a definite purpose; it
would be more true to say with several definite purposes. For this
very reason it is not an artistic triumph as the two "Alice" books
undoubtedly are; it is on a lower literary level, there is no unity in
the story. But from a higher standpoint, that of the Christian and the
philanthropist, the book is the best thing he ever wrote. It is a
noble effort to uphold the right, or what he thought to be the right,
without fear of contempt or unpopularity. The influence which his
earlier books had given him he was determined to use in asserting
neglected truths.
[Illustration: The Late Duke of Albany. _From a photograph
by Lewis Carroll._]
Of course the story has other features, delightful nonsense not
surpassed by anything in "Wonderland," childish prattle with all the
charm of reality about it, and pictures which may fairly be said to
rival those of Sir John Tenniel. Had these been all, the book would
have been a great success. As things are, there are probably hundreds
of readers who have been scared by the religious arguments and
political discussions which make up a large part of it, and who have
never discovered that Sylvie is just as entrancing a personage as
Alice when you get to know her.
Perhaps the sentiment of the following poem, sent to Lewis Carroll by
an anonymous correspondent, may also explain why some of "Alice's"
lovers have given "Sylvie" a less warm welcome:--
TO SYLVIE.
Ah! Sylvie, winsome, wise and good!
Fain would I love thee as I should.
But, to tell the truth, my dear,--
And Sylvie loves the truth to hear,--
Though fair and pure and sweet thou art,
Thine elder sister has my heart!
I gave it her long, long ago
To have and hold; and well I know,
Brave Lady Sylvie, thou wouldst scorn
To accept a heart foresworn.
Lovers thou wilt have enow
Under many a greening bough--
Lovers yet unborn galore,
Like Alice all the wide world o'er;
But, darling, I am now too old
To change. And though I still shall hold
Thee, and that puckling sprite, thy brother,
Dear, I cannot _love_ another:
In this heart of mine I own
_She_ must ever reign alone!
_March_, 1890.
N.P.
I do not know N.P.'s name and address, or I should have asked leave
before giving publicity to the above verses. If these words meet his
eye, I hope he will accept my most humble apologies for the liberty I
have taken.
At the beginning of 1894 a Baptist minister, preaching on the text,
"No man liveth to himself," made use of "Sylvie and Bruno" to enforce
his argument. After saying that he had been reading that book, he
proceeded as follows:
A child was asked to define charity. He said it was "givin'
away what yer didn't want yerself." This was some people's
idea of self-sacrifice; but it was not Christ's. Then as to
serving others in view of reward: Mr. Lewis Carroll put this
view of the subject very forcibly in his "Sylvie and
Bruno"--an excellent book for youth; indeed, for men and
women too. He first criticised Archdeacon Paley's definition
of virtue (which was said to be "the doing good to mankind,
in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of
everlasting happiness,") and then turned to such hymns as
the following:--
Whatever, Lord, we lend to Thee,
_Repaid a thousandfold shall be_,
Then gladly will we give to Thee,
Giver of all!
Mr. Carroll's comment was brief and to the point. He said:
"Talk of Original _Sin_! Can you have a stronger proof
of the Original Goodness there must be in this nation than
the fact that Religion has been preached to us, as a
commercial speculation, for a century, and that we still
believe in a God?" ["Sylvie and Bruno," Part i., pp. 276,
277.] Of course it was quite true, as Mr. Carroll pointed
out, that our good deeds would be rewarded; but we ought to
do them because they were _good_, and not because the
reward was great.
In the Preface to "Sylvie and Bruno," Lewis Carroll alluded to certain
editions of Shakespeare which seemed to him unsuitable for children;
it never seemed to strike him that his words might be read by
children, and that thus his object very probably would be defeated,
until this fact was pointed out to him in a letter from an unknown
correspondent, Mr. J.C. Cropper, of Hampstead. Mr. Dodgson replied as
follows:--
Dear Sir,--Accept my best thanks for your thoughtful and
valuable suggestion about the Preface to "Sylvie and Bruno."
The danger you point out had not occurred to me (I suppose I
had not thought of _children_ reading the Preface): but
it is a very real one, and I am very glad to have had my
attention called to it.
Believe me, truly yours,
Lewis Carroll.
Mathematical controversy carried on by correspondence was a favourite
recreation of Mr. Dodgson's, and on February 20, 1890, he wrote:--
I've just concluded a correspondence with a Cambridge man,
who is writing a Geometry on the "Direction" theory
(Wilson's plan), and thinks he has avoided Wilson's (what
_I_ think) fallacies. He _hasn't_, but I can't
convince him! My view of life is, that it's next to
impossible to convince _anybody_ of _anything_.
The following letter is very characteristic. "Whatsoever thy hand
findeth to do, do it with all thy might," was Mr. Dodgson's rule of
life, and, as the end drew near, he only worked the harder:--
Christ Church, Oxford, _April_ 10, 1890.
My dear Atkinson,--Many and sincere thanks for your most
hospitable invitation, and for the very interesting photo of
the family group. The former I fear I must ask you to let me
defer _sine die_, and regard it as a pleasant dream,
not _quite_ hopeless of being some day realised. I keep
a list of such pleasant possibilities, and yours is now one
of ten similar kind offers of hospitality. But as life
shortens in, and the evening shadows loom in sight, one gets
to _grudge any_ time given to mere pleasure, which
might entail the leaving work half finished that one is
longing to do before the end comes.
There are several books I _greatly_ desire to get
finished for children. I am glad to find my working powers
are as good as they ever were. Even with the mathematical
book (a third edition) which I am now getting through the
press, I think nothing of working six hours at a stretch.
There is one text that often occurs to me, "The night
cometh, when no man can work." Kindest regards to Mrs.
Atkinson, and love to Gertrude.
Always sincerely yours,
C. L. Dodgson.
For the benefit of children aged "from nought to five," as
he himself phrased it, Lewis Carroll prepared a nursery
edition of "Alice." He shortened the text considerably, and
altered it so much that only the plot of the story remained
unchanged. It was illustrated by the old pictures, coloured
by Tenniel, and the cover was adorned by a picture designed
by Miss E. Gertrude Thomson. As usual, the Dedication takes
the form of an anagram, the solution of which is the name of
one of his later child-friends. "_The Nursery
'Alice,_'" was published by Macmillan and Co., in March,
1890.
On August 18th the following letter on the "Eight Hours
Movement" appeared in _The Standard:_--
Sir,--Supposing it were the custom, in a
certain town, to sell eggs in paper bags at so much per bag,
and that a fierce dispute had arisen between the egg vendors
and the public as to how many eggs each bag should be
understood to contain, the vendors wishing to be allowed to
make up smaller bags; and supposing the public were to say,
"In future we will pay you so much per egg, and you can make
up bags as you please," would any ground remain for further
dispute?
Supposing that employers of labour, when threatened with a
"strike" in case they should decline to reduce the number of
hours in a working day, were to reply, "In future we will
pay you so much per hour, and you can make up days as you
please," it does appear to me--being, as I confess, an
ignorant outsider--that the dispute would die out for want
of a _raison d'etre_, and that these disastrous
strikes, inflicting such heavy loss on employers and
employed alike, would become things of the past.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
Lewis Carroll.
The remainder of the year was uneventful; a few notes from his Diary
must represent it here:--
_Oct. 4th._--Called on Mr. Coventry Patmore (at
Hastings), and was very kindly received by him, and stayed
for afternoon tea and dinner. He showed me some interesting
pictures, including a charming little drawing, by Holman
Hunt, of one of his daughters when three years old. He gave
me an interesting account of his going, by Tennyson's
request, to his lodging to look for the MS. of "In
Memoriam," which he had left behind, and only finding it by
insisting on going upstairs, in spite of the landlady's
opposition, to search for it. Also he told me the story (I
think I have heard it before) of what Wordsworth told his
friends as the "one joke" of his life, in answer to a
passing carter who asked if he had seen his wife. "My good
friend, I didn't even know you had a wife!" He seems a very
hale and vigorous old man for nearly seventy, which I think
he gave as his age in writing to me.
_Oct. 31st._--This morning, thinking over the problem
of finding two squares whose sum is a square, I chanced on a
theorem (which seems _true_, though I cannot prove it),
that if x squared + y squared be even, its half is the sum of two squares.
A kindred theorem, that 2(x squared + y squared) is always the sum of two
squares, also seems true and unprovable.
_Nov. 5th.--_I have now proved the above two theorems.
Another pretty deduction from the theory of square numbers
is, that any number whose square is the sum of two squares,
is itself the sum of two squares.
I have already mentioned Mr. Dodgson's habit of thinking out problems
at night. Often new ideas would occur to him during hours of
sleeplessness, and he had long wanted to hear of or invent some easy
method of taking notes in the dark. At first he tried writing within
oblongs cut out of cardboard, but the result was apt to be illegible.
In 1891 he conceived the device of having a series of squares cut out
in card, and inventing an alphabet, of which each letter was made of
lines, which could be written along the edges of the squares, and
dots, which could be marked at the corners. The thing worked well, and
he named it the "Typhlograph," but, at the suggestion of one of his
brother-students, this was subsequently changed into "Nyctograph."
He spent the Long Vacation at Eastbourne, attending service every
Sunday at Christ Church, according to his usual rule.
_Sept._ 6, 1891.--At the evening service at Christ
Church a curious thing happened, suggestive of telepathy.
Before giving out the second hymn the curate read out some
notices. Meanwhile I took my hymn-book, and said to myself
(I have no idea _why_), "It will be hymn 416," and I
turned to it. It was not one I recognised as having ever
heard; and, on looking at it, I said, "It is very prosaic;
it is a very unlikely one"--and it was really startling,
the next minute, to hear the curate announce "Hymn 416."
In October it became generally known that Dean Liddell was going to
resign at Christmas. This was a great blow to Mr. Dodgson, but little
mitigated by the fact that the very man whom he himself would have
chosen, Dr. Paget, was appointed to fill the vacant place. The old
Dean was very popular in College; even the undergraduates, with whom
he was seldom brought into contact, felt the magic of his commanding
personality and the charm of his gracious, old-world manner. He was a
man whom, once seen, it was almost impossible to forget.
[Illustration: The Dean of Christ Church. _From a
photograph by Hill & Saunders._]
Shortly before the resignation of Dr. Liddell, the Duchess of Albany
spent a few days at the Deanery. Mr. Dodgson was asked to meet her
Royal Highness at luncheon, but was unable to go. Princess Alice and
the little Duke of Albany, however, paid him a visit, and were
initiated in the art of making paper pistols. He promised to send the
Princess a copy of a book called "The Fairies," and the children,
having spent a happy half-hour in his rooms, returned to the Deanery.
This was one of the days which he "marked with a white stone." He sent
a copy of "The Nursery 'Alice'" to the little Princess Alice, and
received a note of thanks from her, and also a letter from her mother,
in which she said that the book had taught the Princess to like
reading, and to do it out of lesson-time. To the Duke he gave a copy
of a book entitled "The Merry Elves." In his little note of thanks for
this gift, the boy said, "Alice and I want you to love us both." Mr.
Dodgson sent Princess Alice a puzzle, promising that if she found it
out, he would give her a "golden chair from Wonderland."
At the close of the year he wrote me a long letter, which I think
worthy of reproducing here, for he spent a long time over it, and it
contains excellent examples of his clear way of putting things.
_To S.D. Collingwood._
Ch. Ch., Oxford, _Dec_. 29, 1891.
My Dear Stuart,--(Rather a large note-sheet, isn't it? But
they do differ in size, you know.) I fancy this book of
science (which I have had a good while, without making any
use of it), may prove of some use to you, with your boys. [I
was a schoolmaster at that time.] Also this cycling-book (or
whatever it is to be called) may be useful in putting down
engagements, &c., besides telling you a lot about cycles.
There was no use in sending it to _me; my _cycling days
are over.
You ask me if your last piece of "Meritt" printing is dark
enough. I think not. I should say the rollers want fresh
inking. As to the _matter_ of your specimen--[it was a
poor little essay on killing animals for the purpose of
scientific recreations, _e.g._, collecting
butterflies]--I think you _cannot_ spend your time
better than in trying to set down clearly, in that
essay-form, your ideas on any subject that chances to
interest you; and _specially_ any theological subject
that strikes you in the course of your reading for Holy
Orders.
It will be most _excellent_ practice for you, against
the time when you try to compose sermons, to try thus to
realise exactly what it is you mean, and to express it
clearly, and (a much harder matter) to get into proper shape
the _reasons_ of your opinions, and to see whether they
do, or do not, tend to prove the conclusions you come to.
You have never studied technical Logic, at all, I fancy. [I
_had_, but I freely admit that the essay in question
proved that I had not then learnt to apply my principles to
practice.] It would have been a great help: but still it is
not indispensable: after all, it is only the putting into
rules of the way in which _every_ mind proceeds, when
it draws valid conclusions; and, by practice in careful
thinking, you may get to know "fallacies" when you meet with
them, without knowing the formal _rules_.
At present, when you try to give _reasons_, you are in
considerable danger of propounding fallacies. Instances
occur in this little essay of yours; and I hope it won't
offend your _amour propre_ very much, if an old uncle,
who has studied Logic for forty years, makes a few remarks
on it.
I am not going to enter _at all_ on the subject-matter
itself, or to say whether I agree, or not, with your
_conclusions_: but merely to examine, from a
logic-lecturer's point of view, your _premisses_ as
relating to them.
(1) "As the lower animals do not appear to have personality
or individual existence, I cannot see that any particular
one's life can be very important," &c. The word
"personality" is very vague: I don't know what you mean by
it. If you were to ask yourself, "What test should I use in
distinguishing what _has_, from what has _not_,
personality?" you might perhaps be able to express your
meaning more clearly. The phrase "individual existence" is
clear enough, and is in direct logical contradiction to the
phrase "particular one." To say, of anything, that it has
_not_ "individual existence," and yet that it _is_
a "particular one," involves the logical fallacy called a
"contradiction in terms."
(2) "In both cases" (animal and plant) "death is only the
conversion of matter from one form to another." The word
"form" is very vague--I fancy you use it in a sort of
_chemical_ sense (like saying "sugar is starch in
another form," where the change in nature is generally
believed to be a rearrangement of the very same atoms). If
you mean to assert that the difference between a live animal
and a dead animal, _i.e.,_ between animate and
sensitive matter, and the same matter when it becomes
inanimate and insensitive, is a mere rearrangement of the
same atoms, your premiss is intelligible. (It is a bolder
one than any biologists have yet advanced. The most
sceptical of them admits, I believe, that "vitality" is a
thing _per se. _However, that is beside my present
scope.) But this premiss is advanced to prove that it is of
no "consequence" to kill an animal. But, granting that the
conversion of sensitive into insensitive matter (and of
course _vice versa_) is a mere change of "form," and
_therefore_ of no "consequence"; granting this, we
cannot escape the including under this rule all similar
cases. If the _power_ of feeling pain, and the
_absence_ of that power, are only a difference of
"form," the conclusion is inevitable that the _feeling_
pain, and the _not_ feeling it, are _also_ only a
difference in form, _i.e.,_ to convert matter, which is
_not_ feeling pain, into matter _feeling_ pain, is
only to change its "form," and, if the process of "changing
form" is of no "consequence" in the case of sensitive and
insensitive matter, we must admit that it is _also_ of
no "consequence" in the case of pain-feeling and _not_
pain-feeling matter. This conclusion, I imagine, you neither
intended nor foresaw. The premiss, which you use, involves
the fallacy called "proving too much."
The best advice that could be given to you, when you begin
to compose sermons, would be what an old friend once gave to
a young man who was going out to be an Indian judge (in
India, it seems, the judge decides things, without a jury,
like our County Court judges). "Give _your decisions_
boldly and clearly; they will probably be _right_. But
do _not_ give your _reasons: they_ will probably
be _wrong"_ If your lot in life is to be in a
_country_ parish, it will perhaps not matter
_much_ whether the reasons given in your sermons do or
do not prove your conclusions. But even there you
_might_ meet, and in a town congregation you would be
_sure_ to meet, clever sceptics, who know well how to
argue, who will detect your fallacies and point them out to
those who are _not_ yet troubled with doubts, and thus
undermine _all_ their confidence in your teaching.
At Eastbourne, last summer, I heard a preacher advance the
astounding argument, "We believe that the Bible is true,
because our holy Mother, the Church, tells us it is." I pity
that unfortunate clergyman if ever he is bold enough to
enter any Young Men's Debating Club where there is some
clear-headed sceptic who has heard, or heard of, that
sermon. I can fancy how the young man would rub his hands,
in delight, and would say to himself, "Just see me get him
into a corner, and convict him of arguing in a circle!"
The bad logic that occurs in many and many a well-meant
sermon, is a real danger to modern Christianity. When
detected, it may seriously injure many believers, and fill
them with miserable doubts. So my advice to you, as a young
theological student, is "Sift your reasons _well_, and,
before you offer them to others, make sure that they prove
your conclusions."
I hope you won't give this letter of mine (which it has cost
me some time and thought to write) just a single reading and
then burn it; but that you will lay it aside. Perhaps, even
years hence, it may be of some use to you to read it again.
Believe me always
Your affectionate Uncle,
C. L. Dodgson.
* * * * *
CHAPTER VIII
(1892-1896)
Mr. Dodgson resigns the Curatorship--Bazaars--He lectures to
children--A mechanical "Humpty Dumpty"--A logical
controversy--Albert Chevalier--"Sylvie and Bruno
Concluded"--"Pillow Problems"--Mr. Dodgson's
generosity--College services--Religious difficulties--A
village sermon--Plans for the future--Reverence--"Symbolic
Logic."
At Christ Church, as at other Colleges, the Common Room is an
important feature. Open from eight in the morning until ten at night,
it takes the place of a club, where the "dons" may see the newspapers,
talk, write letters, or enjoy a cup of tea. After dinner, members of
High Table, with their guests if any are present, usually adjourn to
the Common Room for wine and dessert, while there is a smoking-room
hard by for those who do not despise the harmless but unnecessary
weed, and below are cellars, with a goodly store of choice old wines.
The Curator's duties were therefore sufficiently onerous. They were
doubly so in Mr. Dodgson's case, for his love of minute accuracy
greatly increased the amount of work he had to do. It was his office
to select and purchase wines, to keep accounts, to adjust selling
price to cost price, to see that the two Common Room servants
performed their duties, and generally to look after the comfort and
convenience of the members.
"Having heard," he wrote near the end of the year 1892, "that Strong
was willing to be elected (as Curator), and Common Room willing to
elect him, I most gladly resigned. The sense of relief at being free
from the burdensome office, which has cost me a large amount of time
and trouble, is very delightful. I was made Curator, December 8, 1882,
so that I have held the office more than nine years."
The literary results of his Curatorship were three very interesting
little pamphlets, "Twelve Months in a Curatorship, by One who has
tried it"; "Three years in a Curatorship, by One whom it has tried";
and "Curiosissima Curatoria, by 'Rude Donatus,'" all printed for
private circulation, and couched in the same serio-comic vein. As a
logician he naturally liked to see his thoughts in print, for, just as
the mathematical mind craves for a black-board and a piece of chalk,
so the logical mind must have its paper and printing-press wherewith
to set forth its deductions effectively.
A few extracts must suffice to show the style of these pamphlets, and
the opportunity offered for the display of humour.
In the arrangement of the prices at which wines were to be sold to
members of Common Room, he found a fine scope for the exercise of his
mathematical talents and his sense of proportion. In one of the
pamphlets he takes old Port and Chablis as illustrations.
The original cost of each is about 3s. a bottle; but the
present value of the old Port is about 11s. a bottle. Let us
suppose, then, that we have to sell to Common Room one
bottle of old Port and three of Chablis, the original cost
of the whole being 12s., and the present value 20s. These
are our data. We have now two questions to answer. First,
what sum shall we ask for the whole? Secondly, how shall we
apportion that sum between the two kinds of wine?
The sum to be asked for the whole he decides, following precedent, is
to be the present market-value of the wine; as to the second question,
he goes on to say--
We have, as so often happens in the lives of distinguished
premiers, three courses before us: (1) to charge the
_present_ value for each kind of wine; (2) to put on a
certain percentage to the _original_ value of each
kind; (3) to make a compromise between these two courses.
Course 1 seems to me perfectly reasonable; but a very
plausible objection has been made to it--that it puts a
prohibitory price on the valuable wines, and that they would
remain unconsumed. This would not, however, involve any loss
to our finances; we could obviously realise the enhanced
values of the old wines by selling them to outsiders, if the
members of Common Room would not buy them. But I do not
advocate this course.
Course 2 would lead to charging 5s. a bottle for Port and
Chablis alike. The Port-drinker would be "in clover," while
the Chablis-drinker would probably begin getting his wine
direct from the merchant instead of from the Common Room
cellar, which would be a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the
tariff. Yet I have heard this course advocated, repeatedly,
as an abstract principle. "You ought to consider the
_original_ value only," I have been told. "You ought to
regard the Port-drinker as a private individual, who has
laid the wine in for himself, and who ought to have all the
advantages of its enhanced value. You cannot fairly ask him
for more than what you need to refill the bins with Port,
_plus_ the percentage thereon needed to meet the
contingent expenses." I have listened to such arguments, but
have never been convinced that the course is just. It seems
to me that the 8s. additional value which the bottle of Port
has acquired, is the property of _Common Room_, and
that Common Room has the power to give it to whom it
chooses; and it does not seem to me fair to give it all to
the Port-drinker. What merit is there in preferring Port to
Chablis, that could justify our selling the Port-drinker his
wine at less than half what he would have to give outside,
and charging the Chablis-drinker five-thirds of what he
would have to give outside? At all events, I, as a
Port-drinker, do not wish to absorb the whole advantage, and
would gladly share it with the Chablis-drinker. The course I
recommend is
Course 3, which is a compromise between 1 and 2, its
essential principle being to sell the new wines _above_
their value, in order to be able to sell the old
_below_ their value. And it is clearly desirable, as
far as possible, to make the reductions _where they will
be felt,_ and the additions _where they will not be
felt._ Moreover it seems to me that reduction is most
felt where it _goes down to the next round sum,_ and an
addition in the reverse case, _i.e.,_ when it _starts
from a round sum._ Thus, if we were to take 2d. off a 5s.
8d. wine, and add it to a 4s. 4d.--thus selling them at 5s.
6d. and 4s. 6d. the reduction would be welcomed, and the
addition unnoticed; and the change would be a popular one.
The next extract shows with what light-hearted frivolity he could
approach this tremendous subject of wine:--
The consumption of Madeira (B) has been during the past
year, zero. After careful calculation I estimate that, if
this rate of consumption be steadily maintained, our present
stock will last us an infinite number of years. And although
there may be something monotonous and dreary in the prospect
of such vast cycles spent in drinking second-class Madeira,
we may yet cheer ourselves with the thought of how
economically it can be done.
To assist the Curator in the discharge of his duties, there was a Wine
Committee, and for its guidance a series of rules was drawn up. The
first runs as follows: "There shall be a Wine Committee, consisting of
five persons, including the Curator, whose duty it shall be to assist
the Curator in the management of the cellar." "Hence," wrote Mr.
Dodgson, "logically it is the bounden duty of the Curator 'to assist
himself.' I decline to say whether this clause has ever brightened
existence for me--or whether, in the shades of evening, I may ever
have been observed leaving the Common Room cellars with a small but
suspicious-looking bundle, and murmuring, 'Assist thyself, assist
thyself!'"
Every Christmas at Christ Church the children of the College servants
have a party in the Hall. This year he was asked to entertain them,
and gladly consented to do so. He hired a magic lantern and a large
number of slides, and with their help told the children the three
following stories: (1) "The Epiphany"; (2) "The Children Lost in the
Bush"; (3) "Bruno's Picnic."
I have already referred to the services held in Christ Church for the
College servants, at which Mr. Dodgson used frequently to preach. The
way in which he regarded this work is very characteristic of the man.
"Once more," he writes, "I have to thank my Heavenly Father for the
great blessing and privilege of being allowed to speak for Him! May He
bless my words to help some soul on its heavenward way." After one of
these addresses he received a note from a member of the congregation,
thanking him for what he had said. "It is very sweet," he said, "to
get such words now and then; but there is danger in them if more such
come, I must beg for silence."
During the year Mr. Dodgson wrote the following letter to the Rev.
C.A. Goodhart, Rector of Lambourne, Essex:--
Dear Sir,--Your kind, sympathising and most encouraging
letter about "Sylvie and Bruno" has deserved a better
treatment from me than to have been thus kept waiting more
than two years for an answer. But life is short; and one has
many other things to do; and I have been for years almost
hopelessly in arrears in correspondence. I keep a register,
so that letters which I intend to answer do somehow come to
the front at last.
In "Sylvie and Bruno" I took courage to introduce what I had
entirely avoided in the two "Alice" books--some reference to
subjects which are, after all, the _only_ subjects of real
interest in life, subjects which are so intimately bound up
with every topic of human interest that it needs more effort
to avoid them than to touch on them; and I felt that such a
book was more suitable to a clerical writer than one of mere
fun.
I hope I have not offended many (evidently I have not
offended _you_) by putting scenes of mere fun, and talk
about God, into the same book.
Only one of all my correspondents ever guessed there was
more to come of the book. She was a child, personally
unknown to me, who wrote to "Lewis Carroll" a sweet letter
about the book, in which she said, "I'm so glad it hasn't
got a regular wind-up, as it shows there is more to come!"
There is indeed "more to come." When I came to piece
together the mass of accumulated material I found it was
quite _double_ what could be put into one volume. So I
divided it in the middle; and I hope to bring out "Sylvie
and Bruno Concluded" next Christmas--if, that is, my
Heavenly Master gives me the time and the strength for the
task; but I am nearly 60, and have no right to count on
years to come.
In signing my real name, let me beg you not to let the
information go further--I have an _intense_ dislike to
personal publicity; and, the more people there are who know
nothing of "Lewis Carroll" save his books, the happier I am.
Believe me, sincerely yours,
Charles L. Dodgson.
I have made no attempt to chronicle all the games and puzzles which
Lewis Carroll invented. A list of such as have been published will be
found in the Bibliographical chapter. He intended to bring out a book
of "Original Games and Puzzles," with illustrations by Miss E.
Gertrude Thomson. The MS. was, I believe, almost complete before his
death, and one, at least, of the pictures had been drawn. On June 30th
he wrote in his Diary, "Invented what I think is a new kind of riddle.
A Russian had three sons. The first, named Rab, became a lawyer; the
second, Ymra, became a soldier; the third became a sailor. What was
his name?"
The following letter written to a child-friend, Miss E. Drury,
illustrates Lewis Carroll's hatred of bazaars:--
Ch. Ch., Oxford, _Nov_. 10, 1892.
My dear Emmie,--I object to _all_ bazaars on the general
principle that they are very undesirable schools for young
ladies, in which they learn to be "too fast" and forward,
and are more exposed to undesirable acquaintances than in
ordinary society. And I have, besides that, special
objections to bazaars connected with charitable or religious
purposes. It seems to me that they desecrate the religious
object by their undesirable features, and that they take the
reality out of all charity by getting people to think that
they are doing a good action, when their true motive is
amusement for themselves. Ruskin has put all this far better
than I can possibly do, and, if I can find the passage, and
find the time to copy it, I will send it you. But _time_ is
a very scarce luxury for me!
Always yours affectionately,
C.L. Dodgson.
In his later years he used often to give lectures on various subjects
to children. He gave a series on "Logic" at the Oxford Girls' High
School, but he sometimes went further afield, as in the following
instance:--
Went, as arranged with Miss A. Ottley, to the High School at
Worcester, on a visit. At half-past three I had an audience
of about a hundred little girls, aged, I should think, from
about six to fourteen. I showed them two arithmetic puzzles
on the black-board, and told them "Bruno's Picnic." At
half-past seven I addressed some serious words to a second
audience of about a hundred elder girls, probably from
fifteen to twenty--an experience of the deepest interest to
me.
The illustration on the next page will be best explained by the
following letter which I have received from Mr. Walter Lindsay, of
Philadelphia, U.S.:--
Phila., _September_ 12, 1898.
Dear Sir,--I shall be very glad to furnish what information
I can with respect to the "Mechanical Humpty Dumpty" which I
constructed a few years ago, but I must begin by
acknowledging that, in one sense at least, I did not
"invent" the figure. The idea was first put into my head by
an article in the _Cosmopolitan_, somewhere about 1891, I
suppose, describing a similar contrivance. As a devoted
admirer of the "Alice" books, I determined to build a Humpty
Dumpty of my own; but I left the model set by the author of
the article mentioned, and constructed the figure on
entirely different lines. In the first place, the figure as
described in the magazine had very few movements, and not
very satisfactory ones at that; and in the second place, no
attempt whatever was made to reproduce, even in a general
way, the well-known appearance of Tenniel's drawing. Humpty,
when completed, was about two feet and a half high. His
face, of course, was white; the lower half of the egg was
dressed in brilliant blue. His stockings were grey, and the
famous cravat orange, with a zigzag pattern in blue. I am
sorry to say that the photograph hardly does him justice;
but he had travelled to so many different places during his
career, that he began to be decidedly out of shape before he
sat for his portrait.
[Illustration: The Mechanical "Humpty Dumpty."
_From a photograph._]
When Humpty was about to perform, a short "talk" was usually
given before the curtain rose, explaining the way in which
the Sheep put the egg on the shelf at the back of the little
shop, and how Alice went groping along to it. And then, just
as the explanation had reached the opening of the chapter on
Humpty Dumpty, the curtain rose, and Humpty was discovered,
sitting on the wall, and gazing into vacancy. As soon as the
audience had had time to recover, Alice entered, and the
conversation was carried on just as it is in the book.
Humpty Dumpty gesticulated with his arms, rolled his eyes,
raised his eyebrows, frowned, turned up his nose in scorn at
Alice's ignorance, and smiled from ear to ear when he shook
hands with her. Besides this, his mouth kept time with his
words all through the dialogue, which added very greatly to
his life-like appearance.
The effect of his huge face, as it changed from one
expression to another, was ludicrous in the extreme, and we
were often obliged to repeat sentences in the conversation
(to "go back to the last remark but one") because the
audience laughed so loudly over Humpty Dumpty's expression
of face that they drowned what he was trying to say. The
funniest effect was the change from the look of
self-satisfied complacency with which he accompanied the
words: "The king has promised me--" to that of towering rage
when Alice innocently betrays her knowledge of the secret.
At the close of the scene, when Alice has vainly endeavoured
to draw him into further conversation, and at last walks
away in disgust, Humpty loses his balance on the wall,
recovers himself, totters again, and then falls off
backwards; at the same time a box full of broken glass is
dropped on the floor behind the scenes, to represent the
"heavy crash," which "shook the forest from end to
end";--and the curtain falls.
Now, as to how it was all done. Humpty was made of barrel
hoops, and covered with stiff paper and muslin. His eyes
were round balls of rags, covered with muslin, drawn
smoothly, and with the pupil and iris marked on the front.
These eyes were pivoted to a board, fastened just behind the
eye-openings in the face. To the eyeballs were sewed strong
pieces of tape, which passed through screw-eyes on the edges
of the board, and so down to a row of levers which were
hinged in the lower part of the figure. One lever raised
both eyes upward, another moved them both to the left, and
so on. The eyebrows were of worsted and indiarubber knitted
together. They were fastened at the ends, and raised and
lowered by fine white threads passing through small holes in
the face, and also operated by levers. The arms projected
into the interior of the machine, and the gestures were made
by moving the short ends inside. The right hand contained a
spring clothes-pin, by which he was enabled to hold the
note-book in which Alice set down the celebrated problem--
365
1
___
364
The movement of the mouth, in talking, was produced by a
long tape, running down to a pedal, which was controlled by
the foot of the performer. And the smile consisted of long
strips of red tape, which were drawn out through slits at
the corners of the mouth by means of threads which passed
through holes in the sides of the head. The performer--who
was always your humble servant--stood on a box behind the
wall, his head just reaching the top of the egg, which was
open all the way up the back. At the lower end of the
figure, convenient to the hands of the performer, was the
row of levers, like a little keyboard; and by striking
different chords on the keys, any desired expression could
be produced on the face.
Of course, a performance of this kind without a good Alice
would be unutterably flat; but the little girl who played
opposite to Humpty, Miss Nellie K---, was so exactly the
counterpart of Alice, both in appearance and disposition,
that most children thought she was the original, right out
of the book.
Humpty still exists, but he has not seen active life for
some years. His own popularity was the cause of his
retirement; for having given a number of performances (for
Charity, of course), and delighted many thousands of
children of all ages, the demands upon his time, from
Sunday-schools and other institutions, became so numerous
that the performers were obliged to withdraw him in
self-defence. He was a great deal of trouble to build, but
the success he met with and the pleasure he gave more than
repaid me for the bother; and I am sure that any one else
who tries it will reach the same conclusion.
Yours sincerely,
Walter Lindsay.
At the beginning of 1893 a fierce logical battle was being waged
between Lewis Carroll and Mr. Cook Wilson, Professor of Logic at
Oxford. The Professor, in spite of the countless arguments that Mr.
Dodgson hurled at his head, would not confess that he had committed a
fallacy.
On February 5th the Professor appears to have conceded a point, for
Mr. Dodgson writes: "Heard from Cook Wilson, who has long declined to
read a paper which I sent January 12th, and which seems to me to prove
the fallacy of a view of his about Hypotheticals. He now offers to
read it, if _I_ will study a proof he sent, that another problem
of mine had contradictory _data_. I have accepted his offer, and
studied and answered his paper. So I now look forward hopefully to the
result of his reading mine."
The hopes which he entertained were doomed to be disappointed; the
controversy bore no fruits save a few pamphlets and an enormous amount
of correspondence, and finally the two antagonists had to agree to
differ.
As a rule Mr. Dodgson was a stern opponent of music-halls and
music-hall singers; but he made one or two exceptions with regard to
the latter. For Chevalier he had nothing but praise; he heard him at
one of his recitals, for he never in his life entered a "Variety
Theatre." I give the passage from his Diary:--
Went to hear Mr. Albert Chevalier's Recital. I only knew of
him as being now recognised as _facile princeps_ among
music-hall singers, and did not remember that I had seen him
twice or oftener on the stage--first as "Mr. Hobbs" in
"Little Lord Fauntleroy," and afterwards as a "horsy" young
man in a _matinee_ in which Violet Vanbrugh appeared. He was
decidedly _good_ as an actor; but as a comic singer (with
considerable powers of pathos as well) he is quite
first-rate. His chief merit seems to be the earnestness with
which he throws himself into the work. The songs (mostly his
own writing) were quite inoffensive, and very funny. I am
very glad to be able to think that his influence on public
taste is towards refinement and purity. I liked best "The
Future Mrs. 'Awkins," with its taking tune, and "My Old
Dutch," which revealed powers that, I should think, would
come out grandly in Robsonian parts, such as "The Porter's
Knot." "The Little Nipper" was also well worth hearing.
Mr. Dodgson's views on Sunday Observance were old-fashioned, but he
lived up to them, and did not try to force them upon people with whose
actions he had no concern. They were purely matters of "private
opinion" with him. On October 2nd he wrote to Miss E.G. Thomson, who
was illustrating his "Three Sunsets":--
Would you kindly do _no_ sketches, or photos, for
_me_, on a Sunday? It is, in _my_ view (of
_course_ I don't condemn any one who differs from me)
inconsistent with keeping the day holy. I do _not_ hold
it to be the Jewish "Sabbath," but I _do_ hold it to be
"the Lord's Day," and so to be made very distinct from the
other days.
In December, the Logical controversy being over for a time, Mr.
Dodgson invented a new problem to puzzle his mathematical friends
with, which was called "The Monkey and Weight Problem." A rope is
supposed to be hung over a wheel fixed to the roof of a building; at
one end of the rope a weight is fixed, which exactly counterbalances a
monkey which is hanging on to the other end. Suppose that the monkey
begins to climb the rope, what will be the result? The following
extract from the Diary illustrates the several possible answers which
may be given:--
Got Professor Clifton's answer to the "Monkey and Weight
Problem." It is very curious, the different views taken by
good mathematicians. Price says the weight goes _up_, with
increasing velocity; Clifton (and Harcourt) that it goes
_up_, at the same rate as the monkey; while Sampson says
that it goes _down_.
On December 24th Mr. Dodgson received the first twelve copies of
"Sylvie and Bruno Concluded," just about four years after the
appearance of the first part of the story. In this second volume the
two fairy children are as delightful as ever; it also contains what I
think most people will agree to be the most beautiful poem Lewis
Carroll ever wrote, "Say, what is the spell, when her fledglings are
cheeping?" (p. 305). In the preface he pays a well-deserved compliment
to Mr. Harry Furniss for his wonderfully clever pictures; he also
explains how the book was written, showing that many of the amusing
remarks of Bruno had been uttered by real children. He makes
allusion to two books, which only his death prevented him from
finishing--"Original Games and Puzzles," and a paper on "Sport,"
viewed from the standpoint of the humanitarian. From a literary point
of view the second volume of "Sylvie and Bruno" lacks unity; a fairy
tale is all very well, and a novel also is all very well, but the
combination of the two is surely a mistake. However, the reader who
cares more for the spirit than the letter will not notice this
blemish; to him "Sylvie and Bruno Concluded" will be interesting and
helpful, as the revelation of a very beautiful personality.
You have made everything turn out just as I should have
chosen [writes a friend to whom he had sent a copy], and
made right all that disappointed me in the first part. I
have not only to thank you for writing an interesting book,
but for writing a helpful one too. I am sure that "Sylvie
and Bruno" has given me many thoughts that will help me all
life through. One cannot know "Sylvie" without being the
better for it. You may say that "Mister Sir" is not
consciously meant to be yourself, but I cannot help feeling
that he is. As "Mister Sir" talks, I hear your voice in
every word. I think, perhaps, that is why I like the book so
much.
I have received an interesting letter from Mr. Furniss, bearing upon
the subject of "Sylvie and Bruno," and Lewis Carroll's methods of
work. The letter runs as follows:--
I have illustrated stories of most of our leading authors,
and I can safely say that Lewis Carroll was the only one who
cared to understand the illustrations to his own book. He
was the W. S. Gilbert for children, and, like Gilbert
producing one of his operas, Lewis Carroll took infinite
pains to study every detail in producing his extraordinary
and delightful books. Mr. Gilbert, as every one knows, has a
model of the stage; he puts up the scenery, draws every
figure, moves them about just as he wishes the real actors
to move about. Lewis Carroll was precisely the same. This,
of course, led to a great deal of work and trouble, and made
the illustrating of his books more a matter of artistic
interest than of professional profit. I was _seven years_
illustrating his last work, and during that time I had the
pleasure of many an interesting meeting with the fascinating
author, and I was quite repaid for the trouble I took, not
only by his generous appreciation of my efforts, but by the
liberal remuneration he gave for the work, and also by the
charm of having intercourse with the interesting, if
somewhat erratic genius.
A book very different in character from "Sylvie and Bruno," but under
the same well-known pseudonym, appeared about the same time. I refer
to "Pillow Problems," the second part of the series entitled "Curiosa
Mathematica."
"Pillow Problems thought out during wakeful hours" is a collection of
mathematical problems, which Mr. Dodgson solved while lying awake at
night. A few there are to which the title is not strictly applicable,
but all alike were worked out mentally before any diagram or word of
the solution was committed to paper.
The author says that his usual practice was to write down the
_answer_ first of all, and afterwards the question and its
solution. His motive, he says, for publishing these problems was not
from any desire to display his powers of mental calculation. Those who
knew him will readily believe this, though they will hardly be
inclined to accept his own modest estimate of those powers.
Still the book was intended, not for the select few who can scale the
mountain heights of advanced mathematics, but for the much larger
class of ordinary mathematicians, and they at least will be able to
appreciate the gifted author, and to wonder how he could follow so
clearly in his head the mental diagrams and intricate calculations
involved in some of these "Pillow Problems."
His chief motive in publishing the book was to show how, by a little
determination, the mind "can be made to concentrate itself on some
intellectual subject (not necessarily mathematics), and thus banish
those petty troubles and vexations which most people experience, and
which--unless the mind be otherwise occupied--_will_ persist in
invading the hours of night." And this remedy, as he shows, serves a
higher purpose still. In a paragraph which deserves quoting at length,
as it gives us a momentary glimpse of his refined and beautiful
character, he says:--
Perhaps I may venture for a moment to use a more serious
tone, and to point out that there are mental troubles, much
worse than mere worry, for which an absorbing object of
thought may serve as a remedy. There are sceptical thoughts,
which seem for the moment to uproot the firmest faith: there
are blasphemous thoughts, which dart unbidden into the most
reverent souls: there are unholy thoughts, which torture
with their hateful presence the fancy that would fain be
pure. Against all these some real mental work is a most
helpful ally. That "unclean spirit" of the parable, who
brought back with him seven others more wicked than himself,
only did so because he found the chamber "swept and
garnished," and its owner sitting with folded hands. Had he
found it all alive with the "busy hum" of active _work_,
there would have been scant welcome for him and his seven!
It would have robbed the book of its true character if Lewis Carroll
had attempted to improve on the work done in his head, and
consequently we have the solutions exactly as he worked them out
before setting them down on paper. Of the Problems themselves there is
not much to be said here; they are original, and some of them (e.g.,
No. 52) expressed in a style peculiarly the author's own. The subjects
included in their range are Arithmetic, Algebra, Pure Geometry
(Plane), Trigonometry, Algebraic Geometry, and Differential Calculus;
and there is one Problem to which Mr. Dodgson says he "can proudly
point," in "Transcendental Probabilities," which is here given: "A bag
contains two counters, as to which nothing is known except that each
is either black or white. Ascertain their colour without taking them
out of the bag." The answer is, "One is black and the other white."
For the solution the reader is referred to the book itself, a study of
which will well repay him, apart from the chance he may have of
discovering some mistake, and the consequent joy thereat!
A few extracts from the Diary follow, written during the early part of
1894:--
_Feb._ 1_st.--Dies notandus._ As Ragg was reading
Prayers, and Bayne and I were the only M.A.'s in the stalls,
I tried the experiment of going to the lectern and reading
the lesson. I did not hesitate much, but feel it too great a
strain on the nerves to be tried often. Then I went to the
Latin Chapel for Holy Communion. Only Paget (Dean) and Dr.
Huntley came: so, for the first time in my recollection, it
had to be given up. Then I returned to my rooms, and found
in _The Standard_ the very important communication from
Gladstone denying the rumour that he has decided upon
resigning the Premiership, but admitting that, owing to
failing powers, it may come at any moment. It will make a
complete change in the position of politics! Then I got,
from Cook Wilson, what I have been so long trying for--an
accepted transcript of the fallacious argument over which we
have had an (apparently) endless fight. I think the end is
near, _now_.
_Feb._ 4_th._--The idea occurred to me that it
might be a pleasant variation in Backgammon to throw
_three_ dice, and choose any two of the three numbers.
The average quality of the throws would be much raised. I
reckon that the chance of "6, 6" would be about two and a
half what it now is. It would also furnish a means, similar
to giving points in billiards, for equalising players: the
weaker might use three dice, the other using two. I think of
calling it "Thirdie Backgammon."
_March_ 31_st._--Have just got printed, as a
leaflet, "A Disputed Point in Logic"--the point Professor
Wilson and I have been arguing so long. This paper is wholly
in his own words, and puts the point very clearly. I think
of submitting it to all my logical friends.
"A Disputed Point in Logic" appeared also, I believe, in
_Mind_, July, 1894.
This seems a fitting place in which to speak of a side of Mr.
Dodgson's character of which he himself was naturally very
reticent--his wonderful generosity. My own experience of him was of a
man who was always ready to do one a kindness, even though it put him
to great expense and inconvenience; but of course I did not know,
during his lifetime, that my experience of him was the same as that of
all his other friends. The income from his books and other sources,
which might have been spent in a life of luxury and selfishness, he
distributed lavishly where he saw it was needed, and in order to do
this he always lived in the most simple way. To make others happy was
the Golden Rule of his life. On August 31st he wrote, in a letter to a
friend, Miss Mary Brown: "And now what am I to tell you about myself?
To say I am quite well 'goes without saying' with me. In fact, my life
is so strangely free from all trial and trouble that I cannot doubt my
own happiness is one of the talents entrusted to me to 'occupy' with,
till the Master shall return, by doing something to make other lives
happy."
In several instances, where friends in needy circumstances have
written to him for loans of money, he has answered them, "I will not
_lend_, but I will _give_ you the L100 you ask for." To help
child-friends who wanted to go on the stage, or to take up music as a
profession, he has introduced them to leading actors and actresses,
paid for them having lessons in singing from the best masters, sent
round circulars to his numerous acquaintances begging them to
patronise the first concert or recital.
In writing his books he never attempted to win popularity by acceding
to the prejudices and frailties of the age--his one object was to make
his books useful and helpful and ennobling. Like the great Master, in
whose steps he so earnestly strove to follow, he "went about doing
good." And one is glad to think that even his memory is being made to
serve the same purpose. The "Alice" cots are a worthy sequel to his
generous life.
Even Mr. Dodgson, with all his boasted health, was not absolutely
proof against disease, for on February 12, 1895, he writes:--
Tenth day of a rather bad attack of influenza of the ague
type. Last night the fever rose to a great height, partly
caused by a succession of _five_ visitors. One,
however, was of my own seeking--Dean Paget, to whom I was
thankful to be able to tell all I have had in my mind for a
year or more, as to our Chapel services _not_ being as
helpful as they could be made. The chief fault is extreme
_rapidity_. I long ago gave up the attempt to say the
Confession at that pace; and now I say it, and the Lord's
Prayer, close together, and never hear a word of the
Absolution. Also many of the Lessons are quite unedifying.
On July 11th he wrote to my brother on the subject of a paper about
Eternal Punishment, which was to form the first of a series of essays
on Religious Difficulties:--
I am sending you the article on "Eternal Punishment" as it
is. There is plenty of matter for consideration, as to which
I shall be glad to know your views.
Also if there are other points, connected with religion,
where you feel that perplexing difficulties exist, I should
be glad to know of them in order to see whether I can see my
way to saying anything helpful.
But I had better add that I do not want to deal with any
such difficulties, _unless_ they tend to affect _life.
Speculative_ difficulties which do not affect conduct, and
which come into collision with any of the principles which I
intend to state as axioms, lie outside the scope of my book.
These axioms are:--
(1) Human conduct is capable of being _right_, and of
being _wrong_.
(2) I possess Free-Will, and am able to choose between
right and wrong.
(3) I have in some cases chosen wrong.
(4) I am responsible for choosing wrong.
(5) I am responsible to a person.
(6) This person is perfectly good.
I call them axioms, because I have no _proofs_ to offer for
them. There will probably be others, but these are all I can
think of just now.
The Rev. H. Hopley, Vicar of Westham, has sent me the following
interesting account of a sermon Mr. Dodgson preached at his church:--
In the autumn of 1895 the Vicar of Eastbourne was to have
preached my Harvest Sermon at Westham, a village five miles
away; but something or other intervened, and in the middle
of the week I learned he could not come. A mutual friend
suggested my asking Mr. Dodgson, who was then in Eastbourne,
to help me, and I went with him to his rooms. I was quite a
stranger to Mr. Dodgson; but knowing from hearsay how
reluctant he usually was to preach, I apologised and
explained my position--with Sunday so near at hand. After a
moment's hesitation he consented, and in a most genial
manner made me feel quite at ease as to the abruptness of my
petition. On the morrow he came over to my vicarage, and
made friends with my daughters, teaching them some new
manner of playing croquet [probably Castle Croquet], and
writing out for them puzzles and anagrams that he had
composed.
The following letter was forwarded on the Saturday:--
"7, Lushington Road, Eastbourne,
_September_ 26, 1895.
Dear Mr. Hopley,--I think you will excuse the liberty
I am taking in asking you to give me some food after the
service on Sunday, so that I may have no need to catch the
train, but can walk back at leisure. This will save me from
the worry of trying to conclude at an exact minute, and
you, perhaps, from the trouble of finding short hymns, to save
time. It will not, I hope, cause your cook any trouble, as
my regular rule here is _cold_ dinner on Sundays. This not
from any "Sabbatarian" theory, but from the wish to let our
_employes_ have the day _wholly_ at their own disposal.
I beg Miss Hopley's acceptance of the enclosed papers--
(puzzles and diagrams.)
Believe me, very truly yours,
C.L. Dodgson."
On Sunday our grand old church was crowded, and, although
our villagers are mostly agricultural labourers, yet they
breathlessly listened to a sermon forty minutes long, and
apparently took in every word of it. It was quite extempore,
in very simple words, and illustrated by some delightful and
most touching stories of children. I only wish there had
been a shorthand-writer there.
In the vestry after service, while he was signing his name
in the Preachers' Book, a church officer handed him a bit of
paper. "Mr. Dodgson, would you very kindly write your name
on that?" "Sir!" drawing himself up sternly--"Sir, I never
do that for any one"--and then, more kindly, "You see, if I
did it for one, I must do it for all."
An amusing incident in Mr. Dodgson's life is connected with the
well-known drama, "Two Little Vagabonds." I give the story as he wrote
it in his Diary:--
_Nov._ 28_th.--Matinee_ at the Princess's of "Two Little
Vagabonds," a very sensational melodrama, capitally acted.
"Dick" and "Wally" were played by Kate Tyndall and Sydney
Fairbrother, whom I guess to be about fifteen and twelve.
Both were excellent, and the latter remarkable for the
perfect realism of her acting. There was some beautiful
religious dialogue between "Wally" and a hospital nurse--
most reverently spoken, and reverently received by the
audience.
_Dec._ 17_th._--I have given books to Kate Tyndall and
Sydney Fairbrother, and have heard from them, and find I was
entirely mistaken in taking them for children. Both are
married women!
The following is an extract from a letter written in 1896 to one of
his sisters, in allusion to a death which had recently occurred in the
family:--
It is getting increasingly difficult now to remember _which_
of one's friends remain alive, and _which_ have gone "into
the land of the great departed, into the silent land." Also,
such news comes less and less as a shock, and more and more
one realises that it is an experience each of _us_ has to
face before long. That fact is getting _less_ dreamlike to
me now, and I sometimes think what a grand thing it will be
to be able to say to oneself, "Death is _over_ now; there is
not _that_ experience to be faced again."
I am beginning to think that, if the _books I_ am still
hoping to write are to be done _at all,_ they must be done
_now_, and that I am _meant_ thus to utilise the splendid
health I have had, unbroken, for the last year and a half,
and the working powers that are fully as great as, if not
greater, than I have ever had. I brought with me here (this
letter was written from Eastbourne) the MS., such as it is
(very fragmentary and unarranged) for the book about
religious difficulties, and I meant, when I came here, to
devote myself to that, but I have changed my plan. It seems
to me that _that_ subject is one that hundreds of living men
could do, if they would only try, _much_ better than I
could, whereas there is no living man who could (or at any
rate who would take the trouble to) arrange and finish and
publish the second part of the "Logic." Also, I _have_ the
Logic book in my head; it will only need three or four
months to write out, and I have _not_ got the other book in
my head, and it might take years to think out. So I have
decided to get Part ii. finished _first_, and I am working
at it day and night. I have taken to early rising, and
sometimes sit down to my work before seven, and have one and
a half hours at it before breakfast. The book will be a
great novelty, and will help, I fully believe, to make the
study of Logic _far_ easier than it now is. And it will, I
also believe, be a help to religious thought by giving
_clearness_ of conception and of expression, which may
enable many people to face, and conquer, many religious
difficulties for themselves. So I do really regard it as
work for _God_.
Another letter, written a few months later to Miss Dora Abdy, deals
with the subject of "Reverence," which Mr. Dodgson considered a virtue
not held in sufficient esteem nowadays:--
My Dear Dora,--In correcting the proofs of "Through the
Looking-Glass" (which is to have "An Easter Greeting"
inserted at the end), I am reminded that in that letter (I
enclose a copy), I had tried to express my thoughts on the
very subject we talked about last night--the relation of
_laughter_ to religious thought. One of the hardest things
in the world is to convey a meaning accurately from one mind
to another, but the _sort_ of meaning I want to convey to
other minds is that while the laughter of _joy_ is in full
harmony with our deeper life, the laughter of amusement
should be kept apart from it. The danger is too great of
thus learning to look at solemn things in a spirit of
_mockery_, and to seek in them opportunities for exercising
_wit_. That is the spirit which has spoiled, for me, the
beauty of some of the Bible. Surely there is a deep meaning
in our prayer, "Give us an heart to love and _dread_ Thee."
We do not mean _terror_: but a dread that will harmonise
with love; "respect" we should call it as towards a human
being, "reverence" as towards God and all religious things.
Yours affectionately,
C.L. Dodgson.
In his "Game of Logic" Lewis Carroll introduced an original method of
working logical problems by means of diagrams; this method he
superseded in after years for a much simpler one, the method of
"Subscripts."
In "Symbolic Logic, Part i." (London: Macmillan, 1896) he employed
both methods. The Introduction is specially addressed "to Learners,"
whom Lewis Carroll advises to read the book straight through, without
_dipping_.
This Rule [he says] is very desirable with other kinds of
books--such as novels, for instance, where you may easily
spoil much of the enjoyment you would otherwise get from the
story by dipping into it further on, so that what the author
meant to be a pleasant surprise comes to you as a matter of
course. Some people, I know, make a practice of looking into
vol. iii. first, just to see how the story ends; and perhaps
it _is_ as well just to know that all ends
_happily_--that the much persecuted lovers _do_
marry after all, that he is proved to be quite innocent of
the murder, that the wicked cousin is completely foiled in
his plot, and gets the punishment he deserves, and that the
rich uncle in India (_Qu._ Why in _India? Ans._
Because, somehow, uncles never _can_ get rich anywhere
else) dies at exactly the right moment--before taking the
trouble to read vol i. This, I say, is _just_
permissible with a _novel_, where vol. iii. has a
_meaning_, even for those who have not read the earlier
part of the story; but with a _scientific_ book, it is
sheer insanity. You will find the latter part
_hopelessly_ unintelligible, if you read it before
reaching it in regular course.
* * * * *
CHAPTER IX
(1897-1898)
Logic-lectures--Irreverent anecdotes--Tolerance of his
religious views--A mathematical discovery--"The Little
Minister" Sir George Baden-Powell--Last illness--"Thy will
be done"--"Wonderland" at last!--Letters from friends "Three
Sunsets"--"Of such is the kingdom of Heaven."
The year 1897, the last complete year which he was destined to spend,
began for Mr. Dodgson at Guildford. On January 3rd he preached in the
morning at the beautiful old church of S. Mary's, the church which he
always attended when he was staying with his sisters at the Chestnuts.
On the 5th he began a course of Logic Lectures at Abbot's Hospital.
The Rev. A. Kingston, late curate of Holy Trinity and S. Mary's
Parishes, Guildford, had requested him to do this, and he had given
his promise if as many as six people could be got together to hear
him. Mr. Kingston canvassed the town so well that an audience of about
thirty attended the first lecture.
[Illustration: Lewis Carroll. _From a photograph._]
A long Sunday walk was always a feature of Mr. Dodgson's life in the
vacations. In earlier years the late Mr. W. Watson was his usual
companion at Guildford. The two men were in some respects very much
alike; a peculiar gentleness of character, a winning charm of manner
which no one could resist, distinguished them both. After Mr. Watson's
death his companion was usually one of the following Guildford
clergymen: the Rev. J.H. Robson, LL.D., the Rev. H.R. Ware, and the
Rev. A. Kingston.
On the 26th Mr. Dodgson paid a visit to the Girls' High School, to
show the pupils some mathematical puzzles, and to teach the elder ones
his "Memoria Technica." On the 28th he returned to Oxford, so as to be
up in time for term.
I have said that he always refused invitations to dinner; accordingly
his friends who knew of this peculiarity, and wished to secure him for
a special evening, dared not actually invite him, but wrote him little
notes stating that on such and such days they would be dining at home.
Thus there is an entry in his Journal for February 10th:
"Dined with Mrs. G--(She had not sent an
'invitation'--only 'information')."
His system of symbolic logic enabled him to work out the most complex
problems with absolute certainty in a surprisingly short time. Thus he
wrote on the 15th: "Made a splendid logic-problem, about
"great-grandsons" (modelled on one by De Morgan). My method of
solution is quite new, and I greatly doubt if any one will solve the
Problem. I have sent it to Cook Wilson."
On March 7th he preached in the University Church, the first occasion
on which he had done so:--
There is now [he writes] a system established of a course of
six sermons at S. Mary's each year, for University men
_only_, and specially meant for undergraduates. They
are preached, preceded by a few prayers and a hymn, at
half-past eight. This evening ended the course for this
term: and it was my great privilege to preach. It has been
the most formidable sermon I have ever had to preach, and it
is a _great_ relief to have it over. I took, as text,
Job xxviii. 28, "And unto man he said, The fear of the Lord,
that is wisdom"--and the prayer in the Litany "Give us an
heart to love and dread thee." It lasted three-quarters of
an hour.
One can imagine how he would have treated the subject. The views which
he held on the subject of reverence were, so at least it appears to
me, somewhat exaggerated; they are well expressed in a letter which he
wrote to a friend of his, during the year, and which runs as
follows:--
Dear--, After changing my mind several times, I have at
last decided to venture to ask a favour of you, and to trust
that you will not misinterpret my motives in doing so.
The favour I would ask is, that you will not tell me any
more stories, such as you did on Friday, of remarks which
children are said to have made on very sacred subjects--
remarks which most people would recognise as irreverent, if
made by _grown-up people_, but which are assumed to be
innocent when made by children who are unconscious of any
irreverence, the strange conclusion being drawn that they
are therefore innocent when _repeated_ by a grown-up person.
The misinterpretation I would guard against is, your
supposing that I regard such repetition as always _wrong_ in
any grown-up person. Let me assure you that I do _not_ so
regard it. I am always willing to believe that those who
repeat such stories differ wholly from myself in their views
of what is, and what is not, fitting treatment of sacred
things, and I fully recognise that what would certainly be
wrong in _me_, is not necessarily so in _them_.
So I simply ask it as a personal favour to myself. The
hearing of that anecdote gave me so much pain, and spoiled
so much the pleasure of my tiny dinner-party, that I feel
sure you will kindly spare me such in future.
One further remark. There are quantities of such anecdotes
going about. I don't in the least believe that 5 per cent.
of them were ever said by _children_. I feel sure that most
of them are concocted by people who _wish_ to bring sacred
subjects into ridicule--sometimes by people who _wish_ to
undermine the belief that others have in religious truths:
for there is no surer way of making one's beliefs _unreal_
than by learning to associate them with ludicrous ideas.
Forgive the freedom with which I have said all this.
Sincerely yours,
C.L. Dodgson.
The entry in the Diary for April 11th (Sunday) is interesting:--
Went my eighteen-mile round by Besilsleigh. From my rooms
back to them again, took me five hours and twenty-seven
minutes. Had "high tea" at twenty minutes past seven. This
entails only leaving a plate of cold meat, and gives much
less trouble than hot dinner at six.
Dinner at six has been my rule since January 31st, when it
began--I then abandoned the seven o'clock Sunday dinner, of
which I entirely disapprove. It has prevented, for two
terms, the College Servants' Service.
On May 12th he wrote:--
As the Prince of Wales comes this afternoon to open the Town
Hall, I went round to the Deanery to invite them to come
through my rooms upon the roof, to see the procession
arrive.... A party of about twenty were on my roof in the
afternoon, including Mrs. Moberly, Mrs. Driver, and Mrs.
Baynes, and most, if not all, of the children in Christ
Church. Dinner in Hall at eight. The Dean had the Prince on
his right, and Lord Salisbury on his left. My place was almost
_vis-a-vis_ with the Prince. He and the Dean were the
only speakers. We did not get out of Hall till nearly ten.
In June he bought a "Whiteley Exerciser," and fixed it up in his
rooms. One would have thought that he would have found his long walks
sufficient exercise (an eighteen-mile round was, as we have seen, no
unusual thing for him to undertake), but apparently it was not so. He
was so pleased with the "Exerciser," that he bought several more of
them, and made presents of them to his friends.
As an instance of his broad-mindedness, the following extract from his
Diary for June 20th is interesting. It must be premised that E--was a
young friend of his who had recently become a member of the Roman
Catholic Church, and that their place of worship in Oxford is
dedicated to S. Aloysius.
I went with E-- to S. Aloysius. There was much beauty in the
service, part of which consisted in a procession, with
banner, all round the church, carrying the Host, preceded by
a number of girls in white, with veils (who had all had
their first communion that morning), strewing flowers. Many
of them were quite little things of about seven. The sermon
(by Father Richardson) was good and interesting, and in a
very loyal tone about the Queen.
A letter he wrote some years before to a friend who had asked him
about his religious opinions reveals the same catholicity of mind:--
I am a member of the English Church, and have taken Deacon's
Orders, but did not think fit (for reasons I need not go
into) to take Priest's Orders. My dear father was what is
called a "High Churchman," and I naturally adopted those
views, but have always felt repelled by the yet higher
development called "Ritualism."
But I doubt if I am fully a "High Churchman" now. I find
that as life slips away (I am over fifty now), and the life
on the other side of the great river becomes more and more
the reality, of which _this_ is only a shadow, that the
petty distinctions of the many creeds of Christendom tend to
slip away as well--leaving only the great truths which all
Christians believe alike. More and more, as I read of the
Christian religion, as Christ preached it, I stand amazed at
the forms men have given to it, and the fictitious barriers
they have built up between themselves and their brethren. I
believe that when you and I come to lie down for the last
time, if only we can keep firm hold of the great truths
Christ taught us--our own utter worthlessness and His
infinite worth; and that He has brought us back to our one
Father, and made us His brethren, and so brethren to one
another--we shall have all we need to guide us through the
shadows.
Most assuredly I accept to the full the doctrines you refer
to--that Christ died to save us, that we have no other way
of salvation open to us but through His death, and that it
is by faith in Him, and through no merit of ours, that we
are reconciled to God; and most assuredly I can cordially
say, "I owe all to Him who loved me, and died on the Cross
of Calvary."
He spent the Long Vacation at Eastbourne as usual, frequently walking
over to Hastings, which is about twenty miles off. A good many of his
mornings were spent in giving lectures and telling stories at schools.
A letter to the widow of an old college friend reveals the
extraordinary sensitiveness of his nature:--
2, Bedford Well Road, Eastbourne,
_August_ 2, 1897.
My Dear Mrs. Woodhouse,--Your letter, with its mournful
news, followed me down here, and I only got it on Saturday
night; so I was not able to be with you in thought when the
mortal remains of my dear old friend were being committed to
the ground; to await the time when our Heavenly Father shall
have accomplished the number of His elect, and when you and
I shall once more meet the loved ones from whom we are, for
a little while only--what a little while even a long human
life lasts!--parted in sorrow, yet _not_ sorrowing as
those without hope.
You will be sure without words of mine, that you have my
true and deep sympathy. Of all the friends I made at Ch.
Ch., your husband was the very _first_ who spoke to
me--across the dinner-table in Hall. That is forty-six years
ago, but I remember, as if it were only yesterday, the
kindly smile with which he spoke....
September 27th and 28th are marked in his Diary "with a white
stone":--
_Sept. 27th.--Dies notandus._ Discovered rule for
dividing a number by 9, by mere addition and subtraction. I
felt sure there must be an analogous one for 11, and found
it, and proved first rule by algebra, after working about
nine hours!
_Sept. 28th.--Dies creta notandus._ I have actually
_superseded_ the rules discovered yesterday! My new
rules require to ascertain the 9-remainder, and the
11-remainder, which the others did _not_ require; but
the new ones are much the quickest. I shall send them to
_The Educational Times_, with date of discovery.
On November 4th he wrote:--
Completed a rule for dividing a given number by any divisor
that is within 10 of a power of 10, either way. The
_principle_ of it is not my discovery, but was sent me
by Bertram Collingwood--a rule for dividing by a divisor
which is within 10 of a power of 10, _below_ it.
My readers will not be surprised to learn that only eight days after
this he had superseded his rule:--
An inventive morning! After waking, and before I had
finished dressing, I had devised a new and much neater form
in which to work my Rules for Long Division, and also
decided to bring out my "Games and Puzzles," and Part iii.
of "Curiosa Mathematica," in _Numbers_, in paper covers,
paged consecutively, to be ultimately issued in boards.
On November 20th he spent the day in London, with the object of seeing
"The Little Minister" at the Haymarket. "A beautiful play, beautifully
acted," he calls it, and says that he should like to see it "again and
again." He especially admired the acting of Mrs. Cyril Maude (Miss
Winifred Emery) as Lady Babbie. This was the last theatrical
performance he ever witnessed.
He apparently kept rough notes for his Diary, and only wrote it up
every few weeks, as there are no entries at all for 1898, nor even for
the last week of 1897. The concluding page runs as follows:--
_Dec. (W.) 10 a.m._--I am in my large room, with no fire,
and open window--temperature 54 degrees.
_Dec. 17 (F.)._--Maggie [one of his sisters], and our nieces
Nella and Violet, came to dinner.
_Dec. 19 (Sun.)._--Sat up last night till 4 a.m., over a
tempting problem, sent me from New York, "to find 3 equal
rational-sided rt.-angled _triangles_." I found _two_,
whose sides are 20, 21, 29; 12, 35, 37; but could not find
_three_.
_Dec. 23(Th.)._--I start for Guildford by the 2.7 today.
As my story of Lewis Carroll's life draws near its end, I have
received some "Stray Reminiscences" from Sir George Baden-Powell,
M.P., which, as they refer to several different periods of time, are
as appropriate here as in any other part of the book. The Rev. E.H.
Dodgson, referred to in these reminiscences, is a younger brother of
Lewis Carroll's; he spent several years of his life upon the remote
island of Tristan d'Acunha, where there were only about seventy or
eighty inhabitants besides himself. About once a year a ship used to
call, when the island-folk would exchange their cattle for cloth,
corn, tea, &c., which they could not produce themselves. The island is
volcanic in origin, and is exposed to the most terrific gales; the
building used as a church stood at some distance from Mr. Dodgson's
dwelling, and on one occasion the wind was so strong that he had to
crawl on his hands and knees for the whole distance that separated
the two buildings.
My first introduction (writes Sir George Baden-Powell) to
the author of "Through the Looking-Glass" was about the year
1870 or 1871, and under appropriate conditions! I was then
coaching at Oxford with the well-known Rev. E. Hatch, and
was on friendly terms with his bright and pretty children.
Entering his house one day, and facing the dining-room, I
heard mysterious noises under the table, and saw the cloth
move as if some one were hiding. Children's legs revealed it
as no burglar, and there was nothing for it but to crawl
upon them, roaring as a lion. Bursting in upon them in their
strong-hold under the table, I was met by the staid but
amused gaze of a reverend gentleman. Frequently afterwards
did I see and hear "Lewis Carroll" entertaining the
youngsters in his inimitable way.
We became friends, and greatly did I enjoy intercourse with
him over various minor Oxford matters. In later years, at one
time I saw much of him, in quite another _role_--namely
that of ardent sympathy with the, as he thought, ill-treated
and deserted islanders of Tristan d'Acunha. His brother, it
will be remembered, had voluntarily been left at that island
with a view to ministering to the spiritual and educational
needs of the few settlers, and sent home such graphic
accounts and urgent demands for aid, that "Lewis Carroll"
spared no pains to organise assistance and relief. At his
instance I brought the matter before Government and the
House of Commons, and from that day to this frequent
communication has been held with the islanders, and material
assistance has been rendered them--thanks to the warm heart
of "Lewis Carroll."
On December 23, 1897, as the note in his Diary states, he went down,
in accordance with his usual custom, to Guildford, to spend Christmas
with his sisters at the Chestnuts. He seemed to be in his ordinary
health, and in the best of spirits, and there was nothing to show that
the end was so near.
[Illustration: The Chestnuts, Guildford. _From a
photograph._]
At Guildford he was hard at work upon the second part of his "Symbolic
Logic," spending most of the day over this task. This book, alas! he
was not destined to finish, which is the more to be regretted as it
will be exceedingly difficult for any one else to take up the thread
of the argument, even if any one could be found willing to give the
great amount of time and trouble which would be needed.
On January 5th my father, the Rev. C.S. Collingwood, Rector of
Southwick, near Sunderland, died after a very short illness. The
telegram which brought Mr. Dodgson the news of this contained the
request that he would come at once. He determined to travel north the
next day--but it was not to be so. An attack of influenza, which began
only with slight hoarseness, yet enough to prevent him from following
his usual habit of reading family prayers, was pronounced next morning
to be sufficiently serious to forbid his undertaking a journey. At
first his illness seemed a trifle, but before a week had passed
bronchial symptoms had developed, and Dr. Gabb, the family physician,
ordered him to keep his bed. His breathing rapidly became hard and
laborious, and he had to be propped up with pillows. A few days before
his death he asked one of his sisters to read him that well-known
hymn, every verse of which ends with 'Thy Will be done.' To another he
said that his illness was a great trial of his patience. How great a
trial it must have been it is hard for us to understand. With the work
he had set himself still uncompleted, with a sense of youth and
joyousness, which sixty years of the battle of life had in no way
dulled, Lewis Carroll had to face death. He seemed to know that the
struggle was over. "Take away those pillows," he said on the 13th, "I
shall need them no more." The end came about half-past two on the
afternoon of the 14th. One of his sisters was in the room at the time,
and she only noticed that the hard breathing suddenly ceased. The
nurse, whom she summoned, at first hoped that this was a sign that he
had taken a turn for the better. And so, indeed, he had--he had passed
from a world of incompleteness and disappointment, to another where
God is putting his beautiful soul to nobler and grander work than was
possible for him here, where he is learning to comprehend those
difficulties which used to puzzle him so much, and where that infinite
Love, which he mirrored so wonderfully in his own life, is being
revealed to him "face to face."
In accordance with his expressed wish, the funeral was simple in the
extreme--flowers, and flowers only, adorned the plain coffin. There
was no hearse to drag it up the steep incline that leads to the
beautiful cemetery where he lies. The service was taken by Dean Paget
and Canon Grant, Rector of Holy Trinity and S. Mary's, Guildford. The
mourners who followed him in the quiet procession were few--but the
mourners who were not there, and many of whom had never seen him--who
shall tell _their_ number?
After the grave had been filled up, the wreaths which had covered the
coffin were placed upon it. Many were from "child-friends" and bore
such inscriptions as "From two of his child-friends"--"To the sweetest
soul that ever looked with human eyes," &c. Then the mourners left him
alone there--up on the pleasant downs where he had so often walked.
A marble cross, under the shadow of a pine, marks the spot, and
beneath his own name they have engraved the name of "Lewis Carroll,"
that the children who pass by may remember their friend, who is
now--himself a child in all that makes childhood most attractive--in
that "Wonderland" which outstrips all our dreams and hopes.
I cannot forbear quoting from Professor Sanday's sermon at Christ
Church on the Sunday after his death:--
The world will think of Lewis Carroll as one who opened out
a new vein in literature, a new and a delightful vein, which
added at once mirth and refinement to life.... May we not
say that from our courts at Christ Church there has flowed
into the literature of our time a rill, bright and
sparkling, health-giving and purifying, wherever its waters
extend?
[Illustration: Lewis Carroll's grave. _From a photograph._]
On the following Sunday Dean Paget, in the course of a sermon on the
"Virtue of Simplicity," said:--
We may differ, according to our difference of taste or
temperament, in appraising Charles Dodgson's genius; but
that that great gift was his, that his best work ranks with
the very best of its kind, this has been owned with a
recognition too wide and spontaneous to leave room for
doubt. The brilliant, venturesome imagination, defying
forecast with ever-fresh surprise; the sense of humour in
its finest and most naive form; the power to touch with
lightest hand the undercurrent of pathos in the midst of
fun; the audacity of creative fancy, and the delicacy of
insight--these are rare gifts; and surely they were his.
Yes, but it was his simplicity of mind and heart that raised
them all, not only in his work but in his life, in all his
ways, in the man as we knew him, to something higher than
any mere enumeration of them tells: that almost curious
simplicity, at times, that real and touching child-likeness
that marked him in all fields of thought, appearing in his
love of children and in their love of him, in his dread of
giving pain to any living creature, in a certain
disproportion, now and then, of the view he took of
things--yes, and also in that deepest life, where the pure
in heart and those who become as little children see the
very truth and walk in the fear and love of God.
Some extracts from the numerous sympathetic letters received by Mr.
Dodgson's brothers and sisters will show how greatly his loss was
felt. Thus Canon Jelf writes:--
It was quite a shock to me to see in the paper to-day the
death of your dear, good brother, to whom we owe so much of
the brightening of our lives with pure, innocent fun.
Personally I feel his loss very much indeed. We were
together in old Ch. Ch. days from 1852 onwards; and he was
always such a loyal, faithful friend to me. I rejoice to
think of the _serious_ talks we had together--of the grand,
brave way in which he used the opportunities he had as a man
of humour, to reach the consciences of a host of readers--of
his love for children--his simplicity of heart--of his care
for servants--his spiritual care for them. Who can doubt
that he was fully prepared for a change however sudden--for
the one clear call which took him away from us? Yet the
world seems darker for his going; we can only get back our
brightness by realising Who gave him all his talent, all his
mirth of heart--the One who never leaves us. In deep
sympathy,
Yours very sincerely,
George E. Jelf.
P.S.--When you have time tell me a little about him; he was
so dear to me.
Mr. Frederic Harrison writes as follows:--
The occasional visits that I received from your late brother
showed me a side of his nature which to my mind was more
interesting and more worthy of remembrance even than his
wonderful and delightful humour--I mean his intense sympathy
with all who suffer and are in need.
He came to see me several times on sundry errands of mercy,
and it has been a lesson to me through life to remember his
zeal to help others in difficulty, his boundless generosity,
and his inexhaustible patience with folly and error.
My young daughter, like all young people in civilised
countries, was brought up on his beautiful fancies and
humours. But for my part I remember him mainly as a sort of
missionary to all in need. We all alike grieve, and offer
you our heartfelt sympathy.
I am, faithfully yours,
Frederic Harrison.
< |
