The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Lewis Carroll, by Isa Bowman
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Title: The Story of Lewis Carroll
Told for Young People by the Real Alice in Wonderland
Author: Isa Bowman
Release Date: April 29, 2011 [EBook #35990]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF LEWIS CARROLL ***
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[Illustration: _Miss Isa Bowman as Alice in "Alice in Wonderland"_]
THE STORY OF
LEWIS CARROLL
TOLD FOR YOUNG PEOPLE BY
THE REAL ALICE IN WONDERLAND
MISS ISA BOWMAN
WITH A DIARY AND NUMEROUS
FACSIMILE LETTERS WRITTEN TO
MISS ISA BOWMAN AND
OTHERS. ALSO MANY SKETCHES
AND PHOTOS BY LEWIS CARROLL
AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS.
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
1900
COPYRIGHT, 1899
BY E. P. DUTTON & CO.
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
MISS ISA BOWMAN (IN PHOTOGRAVURE) _Frontispiece_
LEWIS CARROLL'S ROOM IN OXFORD 9
C. L. DODGSON 13
A CHINAMAN 17
BEGGAR CHILDREN 35
ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON 59
LEWIS CARROLL'S HOUSE AT EASTBOURNE 65
MISS ISA BOWMAN AND MISS BESSIE HATTON AS THE LITTLE
PRINCES IN THE TOWER 73
ISA BOWMAN AS DUKE OF YORK 77
MISS ISA BOWMAN AS "ALICE IN WONDERLAND" (IN PHOTOGRAVURE) 80
THE LITTLE PRINCES 83
"DOLLY VARDEN" 95
"A TURK" 103
FACSIMILE OF A CHARADE 108-109-110
LEWIS CARROLL
It seems to me a very difficult task to sit down at a desk and write
"reminiscences" of a friend who has gone from us all.
It is not easy to make an effort and to remember all the little personalia
of some one one has loved very much, and by whom one has been loved. And
yet it is in a measure one's duty to tell the world something of the inner
life of a famous man; and Lewis Carroll was so wonderful a personality,
and so good a man, that if my pen dragged ever so slowly, I feel that I
can at least tell something of his life which is worthy the telling.
Writing with the sense of his loss still heavy upon me, I must of
necessity colour my account with sadness. I am not in the ordinary sense
a biographer. I cannot set down a critical estimate, a cold, dispassionate
summing-up of a man I loved; but I can write of a few things that happened
when I was a little girl, and when he used to say to me that I was "_his_
little girl."
The gracious presence of Lewis Carroll is with us no longer. Never again
will his hand hold mine, and I shall never hear his voice more in this
world. Forever while I live that kindly influence will be gone from my
life, and the "Friend of little Children" has left us.
And yet in the full sorrow of it all I find some note of comfort. He was
so good and sweet, so tender and kind, so certain that there was another
and more beautiful life waiting for us, that I know, even as if I heard
him telling it to me, that some time I shall meet him once more.
In all the noise and excitement of London, amid all the distractions of a
stage life, I know this, and his presence is often very near to me, and
the kindly voice is often at my ear as it was in the old days.
To have even known such a man as he was is an inestimable boon. To have
been with him for so long as a child, to have known so intimately the man
who above all others has understood childhood, is indeed a memory on which
to look back with thanksgiving and with tears.
Now that I am no longer "his little girl," now that he is dead and my life
is so different from the quiet life he led, I can yet feel the old charm,
I can still be glad that he has kissed me and that we were friends. Little
girl and grave professor! it is a strange combination. Grave professor and
little girl! how curious it sounds! yet strange and curious as it may
seem, it was so, and the little girl, now a little girl no longer, offers
this last loving tribute to the friend and teacher she loved so well.
Forever that voice is still; be it mine to revive some ancient memories of
it.
First, however, as I have essayed to be some sort of a biographer, I feel
that before I let my pen run easily over the tale of my intimate knowledge
of Lewis Carroll I must put down very shortly some facts about his life.
The Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson died when he was sixty-six years old,
and when his famous book, "Alice in Wonderland," had been published for
thirty-three years. He was born at Daresbury, in Cheshire, and his father
was the Rev. Charles Dodgson. The first years of his life were spent at
Daresbury, but afterwards the family went to live at a place called Croft,
in Yorkshire. He went first to a private school in Yorkshire and then to
Rugby, where he spent years that he always remembered as very happy ones.
In 1850 he went to Christ Church, Oxford, and from that time till the year
of his death he was inseparably connected with "The House," as Christ
Church college is generally called, from its Latin name "Ædes Christi,"
which means, literally translated, the House of Christ.
There he won great distinction as a scholar of mathematics, and wrote many
abstruse and learned books, very different from "Alice in Wonderland."
There is a tale that when the Queen had read "Alice in Wonderland" she was
so pleased that she asked for more books by the same author. Lewis Carroll
was written to, and back, with the name of Charles Dodgson on the
title-page, came a number of the very dryest books about Algebra and
Euclid that you can imagine.
Still, even in mathematics his whimsical fancy was sometimes suffered to
peep out, and little girls who learnt the rudiments of calculation at his
knee found the path they had imagined so thorny set about with roses by
reason of the delightful fun with which he would turn a task into a joy.
But when the fun was over the little girl would find that she had learnt
the lesson (all unknowingly) just the same. Happy little girls who had
such a master. The old rhyme--
"Multiplication is vexation,
Division is as bad,
The rule of three doth puzzle me,
And Practice drives me mad,"
would never need to have been written had all arithmetic lessons been like
the arithmetic lessons given by Charles Dodgson to his little friends.
As a lecturer to his grown-up pupils he was also surprisingly lucid, and
under his deft treatment the knottiest of problems were quickly smoothed
out and made easy for his hearers to comprehend. "I always hated
mathematics at school," an ex-pupil of his told me a little while ago,
"but when I went up to Oxford I learnt from Mr. Dodgson to look upon my
mathematics as the most delightful of all my studies. His lectures were
never dry."
For twenty-six years he lectured at Oxford, finally giving up his post in
1881. From that time to the time of his death he remained in his college,
taking no actual part in the tuition, but still enjoying the Fellowship
that he had won in 1861.
This is an official account, a brief sketch of an intensely interesting
life. It tells little save that Lewis Carroll was a clever mathematician
and a sympathetic teacher; it shall be my work to present him as he was
from a more human point of view.
Lewis Carroll was a man of medium height. When I knew him his hair was a
silver-grey, rather longer than it was the fashion to wear, and his eyes
were a deep blue. He was clean shaven, and, as he walked, always seemed a
little unsteady in his gait. At Oxford he was a well-known figure. He was
a little eccentric in his clothes. In the coldest weather he would never
wear an overcoat, and he had a curious habit of always wearing, in all
seasons of the year, a pair of grey and black cotton gloves.
But for the whiteness of his hair it was difficult to tell his age from
his face, for there were no wrinkles on it. He had a curiously womanish
face, and, in direct contradiction to his real character, there seemed to
be little strength in it. One reads a great deal about the lines that a
man's life paints in his face, and there are many people who believe that
character is indicated by the curves of flesh and bone. I do not, and
never shall, believe it is true, and Lewis Carroll is only one of many
instances to support my theory. He was as firm and self-contained as a man
may be, but there was little to show it in his face.
Yet you could easily discern it in the way in which he met and talked with
his friends. When he shook hands with you--he had firm white hands, rather
large--his grip was strong and steadfast. Every one knows the kind of man
of whom it is said "his hands were all soft and flabby when he said,
'How-do-you-do.'" Well, Lewis Carroll was not a bit like that. Every one
says when he shook your hand the pressure of his was full of strength,
and you felt here indeed was a man to admire and to love. The expression
in his eyes was also very kind and charming.
[Illustration: LEWIS CARROLL'S ROOM IN OXFORD IN WHICH "ALICE IN
WONDERLAND" WAS WRITTEN]
He used to look at me, when we met, in the very tenderest, gentlest way.
Of course on an ordinary occasion I knew that his interested glance did
not mean anything of any extra importance. Nothing could have happened
since I had seen him last, yet, at the same time, his look was always so
deeply sympathetic and benevolent that one could hardly help feeling it
meant a great deal more than the expression of the ordinary man.
He was afflicted with what I believe is known as "Housemaid's knee," and
this made his movements singularly jerky and abrupt. Then again he found
it impossible to avoid stammering in his speech. He would, when engaged in
an animated conversation with a friend, talk quickly and well for a few
minutes, and then suddenly and without any very apparent cause would
begin to stutter so much, that it was often difficult to understand him.
He was very conscious of this impediment, and he tried hard to cure
himself. For several years he read a scene from some play of Shakespeare's
every day aloud, but despite this he was never quite able to cure himself
of the habit. Many people would have found this a great hindrance to the
affairs of ordinary life, and would have felt it deeply. Lewis Carroll was
different. His mind and life were so simple and open that there was no
room in them for self-consciousness, and I have often heard him jest at
his own misfortune, with a comic wonder at it.
The personal characteristic that you would notice most on meeting Lewis
Carroll was his extreme shyness. With children, of course, he was not
nearly so reserved, but in the society of people of maturer age he was
almost old-maidishly prim in his manner. When he knew a child well this
reserve would vanish completely, but it needed only a slightly
disconcerting incident to bring the cloak of shyness about him once more,
and close the lips that just before had been talking so delightfully.
I shall never forget one afternoon when we had been walking in Christ
Church meadows. On one side of the great open space the little river
Cherwell runs through groves of trees towards the Isis, where the college
boat-races are rowed. We were going quietly along by the side of the
"Cher," when he began to explain to me that the tiny stream was a
tributary, "a baby river" he put it, of the big Thames. He talked for some
minutes, explaining how rivers came down from hills and flowed eventually
to the sea, when he suddenly met a brother Don at a turning in the avenue.
He was holding my hand and giving me my lesson in geography with great
earnestness when the other man came round the corner.
[Illustration: C. L. DODGSON]
He greeted him in answer to his salutation, but the incident disturbed his
train of thought, and for the rest of the walk he became very difficult to
understand, and talked in a nervous and preoccupied manner. One strange
way in which his nervousness affected him was peculiarly characteristic.
When, owing to the stupendous success of "Alice in Wonderland" and "Alice
Through the Looking-Glass," he became a celebrity many people were anxious
to see him, and in some way or other to find out what manner of man he
was. This seemed to him horrible, and he invented a mild deception for use
when some autograph-hunter or curious person sent him a request for his
signature on a photograph, or asked him some silly question as to the
writing of one of his books, how long it took to write, and how many
copies had been sold. Through some third person he always represented that
Lewis Carroll the author and Mr. Dodgson the professor were two distinct
persons, and that the author could not be heard of at Oxford at all. On
one occasion an American actually wrote to say that he had heard that
Lewis Carroll had laid out a garden to represent some of the scenes in
"Alice in Wonderland," and that he (the American) was coming right away to
take photographs of it. Poor Lewis Carroll, he was in terror of Americans
for a week!
Of being photographed he had a horror, and despite the fact that he was
continually and importunately requested to sit before the camera, only
very few photographs of him are in existence. Yet he had been himself a
great amateur photographer, and had taken many pictures that were
remarkable in their exact portraiture of the subject.
It was this exactness that he used to pride himself on in his camera work.
He always said that modern professional photographers spoilt all their
pictures by touching them up absurdly to flatter the sitter. When it was
necessary for me to have some pictures taken he sent me to Mr. H. H.
Cameron, whom he declared to be the only artist who dared to produce a
photograph that was exactly like its subject. This is one of the
photographs of me that Mr. Cameron took, and Lewis Carroll always declared
that it was a perfect specimen of portrait work.
Many of the photographs of children in this book are Lewis Carroll's work.
Miss Beatrice Hatch, to whose kindness I am indebted for these photographs
and for much interesting information, writes in the _Strand Magazine_
(April 1898):
"My earliest recollections of Mr. Dodgson are connected with
photography. He was very fond of this art at one time, though he had
entirely given it up for many years latterly. He kept various costumes
and 'properties' with which to dress us up, and, of course, that added
to the fun. What child would not thoroughly enjoy personating a
Japanese or a beggar child, or a gipsy or an Indian? Sometimes there
were excursions to the roof of the college, which was easily
accessible from the windows of the studio. Or you might stand by your
friend's side in the tiny dark room and watch him while he poured the
contents of several little strong-smelling bottles on to the glass
picture of yourself that looked so funny with its black face."
[Illustration: A CHINAMAN]
Yet, despite his love for the photographer's art, he hated the idea of
having his own picture taken for the benefit of a curious world. The
shyness that made him nervous in the presence of strangers made the idea
that any one who cared to stare into a shop window could examine and
criticise his portrait extremely repulsive to him.
I remember that this shyness of his was the only occasion of anything
approaching a quarrel between us.
I had an idle trick of drawing caricatures when I was a child, and one day
when he was writing some letters I began to make a picture of him on the
back of an envelope. I quite forget what the drawing was like--probably it
was an abominable libel--but suddenly he turned round and saw what I was
doing. He got up from his seat and turned very red, frightening me very
much. Then he took my poor little drawing, and tearing it into small
pieces threw it into the fire without a word. Afterwards he came suddenly
to me, and saying nothing, caught me up in his arms and kissed me
passionately. I was only some ten or eleven years of age at the time, but
now the incident comes back to me very clearly, and I can see it as if it
happened but yesterday--the sudden snatching of my picture, the hurried
striding across the room, and then the tender light in his face as he
caught me up to him and kissed me.
I used to see a good deal of him at Oxford, and I was constantly in Christ
Church. He would invite me to stay with him and find me rooms just outside
the college gates, where I was put into charge of an elderly dame, whose
name, if I do not forget, was Mrs. Buxall. I would spend long happy days
with my uncle, and at nine o'clock I was taken over to the little house in
St. Aldates and delivered into the hands of the landlady, who put me to
bed.
In the morning I was awakened by the deep reverberations of "Great Tom"
calling Oxford to wake and begin the new day. Those times were very
pleasant, and the remembrance of them lingers with me still. Lewis
Carroll at the time of which I am speaking had two tiny turret rooms, one
on each side of his staircase in Christ Church. He always used to tell me
that when I grew up and became married he would give me the two little
rooms, so that if I ever disagreed with my husband we could each of us
retire to a turret till we had made up our quarrel!
And those rooms of his! I do not think there was ever such a fairy-land
for children. I am sure they must have contained one of the finest
collections of musical-boxes to be found anywhere in the world. There were
big black ebony boxes with glass tops through which you could see all the
works. There was a big box with a handle, which it was quite hard exercise
for a little girl to turn, and there must have been twenty or thirty
little ones which could only play one tune. Sometimes one of the
musical-boxes would not play properly, and then I always got tremendously
excited. Uncle used to go to a drawer in the table and produce a box of
little screw-drivers and punches, and while I sat on his knee he would
unscrew the lid and take out the wheels to see what was the matter. He
must have been a clever mechanist, for the result was always the
same-after a longer or shorter period the music began again. Sometimes
when the musical-boxes had played all their tunes he used to put them in
the box backwards, and was as pleased as I at the comic effect of the
music "standing on its head," as he phrased it.
There was another and very wonderful toy which he sometimes produced for
me, and this was known as "The Bat." The ceilings of the rooms in which he
lived at the time were very high indeed, and admirably suited for the
purposes of "The Bat." It was an ingeniously constructed toy of gauze and
wire, which actually flew about the room like a bat. It was worked by a
piece of twisted elastic, and it could fly for about half a minute.
I was always a little afraid of this toy because it was too lifelike, but
there was a fearful joy in it. When the music-boxes began to pall he would
get up from his chair and look at me with a knowing smile. I always knew
what was coming even before he began to speak, and I used to dance up and
down in tremendous anticipation.
"Isa, my darling," he would say, "once upon a time there was some one
called Bob the Bat! and he lived in the top left-hand drawer of the
writing-table. What could he do when uncle wound him up?"
And then I would squeak out breathlessly, "He could really FLY!"
Bob the Bat had many adventures. There was no way of controlling the
direction of its flight, and one morning, a hot summer's morning when the
window was wide open, Bob flew out into the garden and alighted in a bowl
of salad which a scout was taking to some one's rooms. The poor fellow
was so startled by the sudden flapping apparition that he dropped the
bowl, and it was broken into a thousand pieces.
There! I have written "a thousand pieces," and a thoughtless exaggeration
of that sort was a thing that Lewis Carroll hated. "A thousand pieces?" he
would have said; "you know, Isa, that if the bowl had been broken into a
thousand pieces they would each have been so tiny that you could have
hardly seen them." And if the broken pieces had been get-at-able, he would
have made me count them as a means of impressing on my mind the folly of
needless exaggeration.
I remember how annoyed he was once when, after a morning's sea bathing at
Eastbourne, I exclaimed, "Oh, this salt water, it always makes my hair as
stiff as a poker."
He impressed it on me quite irritably that no little girl's hair could
ever possibly get as stiff as a poker. "If you had said, 'as stiff as
wires,' it would have been more like it, but even that would have been an
exaggeration." And then, seeing that I was a little frightened, he drew
for me a picture of "The little girl called Isa whose hair turned into
pokers because she was always exaggerating things."
That, and all the other pictures that he drew for me are, I'm sorry to
say, the sole property of the little fishes in the Irish Channel, where a
clumsy porter dropped them as we hurried into the boat at Holyhead.
"I nearly died of laughing," was another expression that he particularly
disliked; in fact any form of exaggeration generally called from him a
reproof, though he was sometimes content to make fun. For instance, my
sisters and I had sent him "millions of kisses" in a letter. Below you
will find the letter that he wrote in return, written in violet ink that
he always used (dreadfully ugly, I used to think it).
[Illustration]
"CH. Ch. Oxford,
"_Ap. 14, 1890_.
"MY OWN DARLING,
It's all very well for you and Nellie and Emsie to write in millions
of hugs and kisses, but please consider the _time_ it would occupy
your poor old very busy Uncle! Try hugging and kissing Emsie for a
minute by the watch, and I don't think you'll manage it more than 20
times a minute. 'Millions' must mean 2 millions at least.
20)2,000,000 hugs and kisses
60)100,000 minutes
12)1,666 hours
6)138 days (at twelve hours a day)
23 weeks.
"I couldn't go on hugging and kissing more than 12 hours a day: and I
wouldn't like to spend _Sundays_ that way. So you see it would take
_23 weeks_ of hard work. Really, my dear child, I _cannot spare the
time_.
"Why haven't I written since my last letter? Why, how _could_ I, you
silly silly child? How could I have written _since the last time_ I
_did_ write? Now, you just try it with kissing. Go and kiss Nellie,
from me, several times, and take care to manage it so as to have
kissed her _since the last time_ you _did_ kiss her. Now go back to
your place, and I'll question you.
"'Have you kissed her several times?'
"'Yes, darling Uncle.'
"'What o'clock was it when you gave her the _last_ kiss?'
"'5 minutes past 10, Uncle.'
"'Very well, now, have you kissed her _since_?'
"'Well--I--ahem! ahem! ahem! (excuse me, Uncle, I've got a bad cough).
I--think--that--I--that is, you, know, I----'
"'Yes, I see! "Isa" begins with "I," and it seems to me as if she was
going to _end_ with "I," _this_ time!'
"Anyhow, my not writing hasn't been because I was _ill_, but because I
was a horrid lazy old thing, who kept putting it off from day to day,
till at last I said to myself, 'WHO ROAR! There's no time to write
now, because they _sail_ on the 1st of April.'[1] In fact, I shouldn't
have been a bit surprised if this letter had been from _Fulham_,
instead of Louisville. Well, I suppose you _will_ be there by about
the middle of May. But mind you don't write to me from there! Please,
_please_, no more horrid letters from you! I _do_ hate them so! And as
for _kissing_ them when I get them, why, I'd just as soon
kiss--kiss--kiss _you_, you tiresome thing! So there now!
"Thank you very much for those 2 photographs--I liked
them--hum--_pretty_ well. I can't honestly say I thought them the very
best I had ever seen.
"Please give my kindest regards to your mother, and 1/2 of a kiss to
Nellie, and 1/200 a kiss to Emsie, and 1/2,000,000 a kiss to yourself.
So, with fondest love, I am, my darling, your loving Uncle,
"C. L. DODGSON."
And now, in the postscript, comes one of the rare instances in which Lewis
Carroll showed his deep religious feeling. It runs--
"_P.S._--I've thought about that little prayer you asked me to write
for Nellie and Emsie. But I would like, first, to have the words of
the one I wrote for _you_, and the words of what they _now_ say, if
they say any. And then I will pray to our Heavenly Father to help me
to write a prayer that will be really fit for them to use."
Again, I had ended one of my letters with "all join me in lufs and
kisses." It was a letter written when I was away from home and alone, and
I had put the usual ending thoughtlessly and in haste, for there was no
one that I knew in all that town who could have joined me in my messages
to him. He answered me as follows:--
"7 LUSHINGTON ROAD, EASTBOURNE,
"_Aug. 30, 90_.
"Oh, you naughty, naughty, bad wicked little girl! You forgot to put a
stamp on your letter, and your poor old uncle had to pay TWOPENCE! His
_last_ Twopence! Think of that. I shall punish you severely for this
when once I get you here. So _tremble_! Do you hear? Be good enough to
tremble!
"I've only time for one question to-day. Who in the world are the
'all' that join you in 'Lufs and kisses.' Weren't you fancying you
were at home, and sending messages (as people constantly do) from
Nellie and Emsie without their having given any? It isn't a good plan
that sending messages people haven't given. I don't mean it's in the
least _untruthful_, because everybody knows how commonly they are sent
without having been given; but it lessens the pleasure of receiving
the messages. My sisters write to me 'with best love from all.' I know
it isn't true; so I don't value it much. The other day, the husband of
one of my 'child-friends' (who always writes 'your loving') wrote to
me and ended with 'Ethel joins me in kindest regards.' In my answer I
said (of course in fun)--'I am not going to send Ethel kindest
regards, so I won't send her any message _at all_.' Then she wrote to
say she didn't even know he was writing! 'Of course I would have sent
best love,' and she added that she had given her husband a piece of
her mind! Poor husband!
"Your always loving uncle,
"C. L. D."
These letters are written in Lewis Carroll's ordinary handwriting, not a
particularly legible one. When, however, he was writing for the press no
characters could have been more clearly and distinctly formed than his.
Throughout his life he always made it his care to give as little trouble
as possible to other people. "Why should the printers have to work
overtime because my letters are ill-formed and my words run into each
other?" he once said, when a friend remonstrated with him because he took
such pains with the writing of his "copy." As a specimen of his careful
penmanship the diary that he wrote for me, which is reproduced in this
book in facsimile, is an admirable example.
They were happy days, those days in Oxford, spent with the most
fascinating companion that a child could have. In our walks about the old
town, in our visits to cathedral or chapel or hall, in our visits to his
friends he was an ideal companion, but I think I was almost happiest when
we came back to his rooms and had tea alone; when the fire-glow (it was
always winter when I stayed in Oxford) threw fantastic shadows about the
quaint room, and the thoughts of the prosiest of people must have
wandered a little into fancy-land. The shifting firelight seemed to
almost ætherealise that kindly face, and as the wonderful stories fell
from his lips, and his eyes lighted on me with the sweetest smile that
ever a man wore, I was conscious of a love and reverence for Charles
Dodgson that became nearly an adoration.
It was almost pain when the lights were turned up and we came back to
everyday life and tea.
He was very particular about his tea, which he always made himself, and in
order that it should draw properly he would walk about the room swinging
the tea-pot from side to side for exactly ten minutes. The idea of the
grave professor promenading his book-lined study and carefully waving a
tea-pot to and fro may seem ridiculous, but all the minutiæ of life
received an extreme attention at his hands, and after the first surprise
one came quickly to realise the convenience that his carefulness ensured.
[Illustration: BEGGAR CHILDREN]
Before starting on a railway journey, for instance (and how delightful
were railway journeys in the company of Lewis Carroll), he used to map
out exactly every minute of the time that we were to take on the way. The
details of the journey completed, he would exactly calculate the amount of
money that must be spent, and, in different partitions of the two purses
that he carried, arrange the various sums that would be necessary for
cabs, porters, newspapers, refreshments, and the other expenses of a
journey. It was wonderful how much trouble he saved himself _en route_ by
thus making ready beforehand. Lewis Carroll was never driven half frantic
on a station platform because he had to change a sovereign to buy a penny
paper while the train was on the verge of starting. With him journeys were
always comfortable.
Of the joys that waited on a little girl who stayed with Lewis Carroll at
his Oxford home I can give no better idea than that furnished by the diary
that follows, which he wrote for me, bit by bit, during the evenings of
one of my stays at Oxford.
[Illustrations: Facsimile:
=Isa's Visit to Oxford.=
1888.
=Chap. I.=
On Wednesday, the Eleventh of July, Isa happened to meet a friend at
Paddington Station at half-past-ten. She can't remember his name, but she
says he was an old old old gentleman, and he had invited her, she thinks,
to go with him somewhere or other, she can't remember where.
=Chap. II.=
The first thing they did, after calling at a shop, was to go to the
Panorama of the "Falls of Niagara". Isa thought it very wonderful. You
seemed to be on the top of a tower, with miles and miles of country all
round you. The things in front were real, and somehow they joined into the
picture behind, so that you couldn't tell where the real things ended and
the picture began. Near the foot of the Falls, there was a steam-packet
crossing the river, which showed what a tremendous height the Falls must
be, it looked so tiny. In the road in front were two men and a dog,
standing looking the other way. They may have been wooden figures, or part
of the picture, there was no knowing which. The man, who stood next to
Isa, said to another man "That dog looked round just now. Now see, I'll
whistle to him, and make him look round again!" And he began whistling:
and Isa almost expected, it looked so exactly like a real dog, that it
would turn its head to see who was calling it!
After that Isa and her friend (the Aged Aged Man) went to the house of a
Mr Dymes. Mrs Dymes gave them some dinner, and two of her children, called
Helen and Maud, went with them to Terry's Theatre, to see the play of
"Little Lord Fauntleroy". Little Véra Beringer was the little Lord
Fauntleroy. Isa would have liked to play the part, but the Manager at the
Theatre did not allow her, as she did not know the words, which would have
made it go off badly. Isa liked the whole play very much: the passionate
old Earl, and the gentle Mother of the little boy, and the droll "Mr.
Hobbs", and all of them.
Then they all went off by the Metropolitan Railway, and the two Miss
Dymeses got out at their station, and Isa and the A.A.M. went on to
Oxford. A kind old lady, called Mrs Symonds, had invited Isa to come and
sleep at her house: and she was soon fast asleep, and dreaming that she
and little Lord Fauntleroy were going in a steamer down the Falls of
Niagara, and whistling to a dog, who was in such a hurry to go up the
Falls that he wouldn't attend to them.
=Chap. III.=
The next morning Isa set off, almost before she was awake, with the
A.A.M., to pay a visit to a little College, called "Christ Church". You go
in under a magnificent tower, called "Tom Tower", nearly four feet high
(so that Isa had hardly to stoop at all, to go under it) into the Great
Quadrangle (which very vulgar people call "Tom Quad".) You should always
be polite, even when speaking to a Quadrangle: it might seem not to take
any notice, but it doesn't like being called names. On their way to Christ
Church they saw a tall monument, like the spire of a church, called the
"Martyrs' Memorial", put up in memory of three Bishops, Cranmer, Ridley
and Latimer, who were burned in the reign of Queen Mary, because they
would not be Roman Catholics. Christ Church was built in 1546.
They had breakfast at Ch. Ch., in the rooms of the A.A.M., and then Isa
learned how to print with the "Typewriter", and printed several beautiful
volumes of poetry, all of her own invention. By this time it was 1
o'clock, so Isa paid a visit to the Kitchen, to make sure that the
chicken, for her dinner, was being properly roasted The Kitchen is about
the oldest part of the College, so was built about 1546. It has a
fire-grate large enough to roast forty legs of mutton at once.
Then they saw the Dining Hall, in which the A.A.M. has dined several
times, (about 8,000 times, perhaps). After dinner, they went, through the
quadrangle of the Bodleian Library, into Broad Street, and, as a band was
just going by, of course they followed it. (Isa likes Bands better than
anything in the world, except Lands, and walking on Sands, and wringing
her Hands). The Band led them into the gardens of Wadham College (built in
1613), where there was a school-treat going on. The treat was, first
marching twice round the garden--then having a photograph done of them,
all in a row--then a =promise= of "Punch and Judy", which wouldn't be
ready for 20 minutes, so Isa, and Co., wouldn't wait, but went back to Ch.
Ch., and saw the "Broad Walk." In the evening they played at "Reversi",
till Isa had lost the small remainder of her temper. Then she went to bed,
and dreamed she was Judy, and was beating Punch with a stick of
Barley-sugar.
=Chap. IV.=
On Friday morning (after taking her medicine very amiably), went with the
A.A.M. (who =would= go with her, though she told him over and over she
would rather be alone) to the gardens of Worcester College (built in 1714)
where they didn't see the swans (who ought to have been on the lake), nor
the hippopotamus, who ought not to have been walking about among the
flowers, gathering honey like a busy bee.
After breakfast, Isa helped the A.A.M. to pack his luggage, because he
thought he would go away, he didn't know where, some day, he didn't know
when--so she put a lot of things, she didn't know what, into boxes, she
didn't know which.
After dinner they went to St. John's College (built in 1555), and admired
the large lawn, where more than 150 ladies, dressed in robes of gold and
silver, were not walking about.
Then they saw the Chapel of Keble College (built in 1870) and then the
New Museum, where Isa quite lost her heart to a charming stuffed Gorilla,
that smiled on her from a glass case. The Museum was finished in 1860. The
most curious thing they saw there was a "Walking Leaf," a kind of insect
that looks exactly like a withered leaf.
Then they went to New College (built in 1386), & saw, close to the
entrance, a "skew" arch (going slantwise through the wall) one of the
first ever built in England. After seeing the gardens, they returned to
Ch. Ch. (Parts of the old City walls run round the gardens of New College:
and you may still see some of the old narrow slits, through which the
defenders could shoot arrows at the attacking army, who could hardly
succeed in shooting through them from the outside).
They had tea with Mrs Paget, wife of Dr. Paget one of the Canons of Ch.
Ch. Then, after a sorrowful evening, Isa went to bed, and dreamed she was
buzzing about among the flowers, with the dear Gorilla: but there wasn't
any honey in them--only slices of bread-and-butter, and
multiplication-tables.
=Chap. V.=
On Saturday Isa had a Music Lesson, and learned to play on an American
Orguinette. It is not a =very= difficult instrument to play, as you only
have to turn a handle round and round: so she did it nicely. You put a
long piece of paper in, and it goes through the machine, and the holes in
the paper make different notes play. They put one in wrong end first, and
had a tune backwards, and soon found themselves in the day before
yesterday: so they dared not go on, for fear of making Isa so young she
would not be able to talk. The A.A.M. does not like visitors who only
howl, and get red in the face, from morning to night.
In the afternoon they went round Ch. Ch. meadow, and saw the Barges
belonging to the Colleges, and some pretty views of Magdalen Tower through
the trees.
Then they went through the Botanical Gardens, built in the year----no, by
the bye, they never were built at all. And then to Magdalen College. At
the top of the wall, in one corner, they saw a very large jolly face,
carved in stone, with a broad grin, and a little man at the side, helping
him to laugh by pulling up the corner of his mouth for him. Isa thought
that, the next time she wants to laugh, she will get Nellie and Maggie to
help her. With two people to pull up the corners of your mouth for you, it
is as easy to laugh as can be!
They went into Magdalen Meadow, which has a pretty walk all round it,
arched over with trees: and there they met a lady "from Amurrica," as she
told them, who wanted to know the way to "Addison's Walk," and
particularly wanted to know if there would be "any danger" in going there.
They told her the way, and that =most= of the lions and tigers and
buffaloes, round the meadow, were quite gentle and hardly ever killed
people: so she set off, pale and trembling, and they saw her no more:
only they heard her screams in the distance: so they guessed what had
happened to her
Then they rode in a tram-car to another part of Oxford, and called on a
lady called Mrs Jeane, and her little grand-daughter, called "Noël",
because she was born on Christmas-Day. ("Noël" is the French name for
"Christmas".) And there they had so much Tea that at last Isa nearly
turned into a "Teaser".
Then they went home, down a little narrow street, where there was a little
dog standing fixed in the middle of the street, as if its feet were glued
to the ground: they asked it how long it meant to stand there, and it said
(as well as it could) "till the week after next".
Then Isa went to bed, and dreamed she was going round Magdalen Meadow,
with the "Amurrican" lady, and there was a buffalo sitting at the top of
every tree, handing her cups of tea as she went underneath: but they all
held the cups upside-down, so that the tea poured all over her head and
ran down her face.
=Chap. VI.=
On Sunday morning they went to St. Mary's church, in High Street. In
coming home, down the street next to the one where they had found a fixed
dog, they found a fixed cat--a poor little kitten, that had put out its
head through the bars of the cellar-window, and get back again. They rang
the bell at the next door, but the maid said the cellar wasn't in that
house, and, before they could get to the right door the cat had unfixed
its head----either from its neck or from the bars, and had gone inside.
Isa thought the animals in this city have a curious way of fixing
themselves up and down the place, as if they were hat-pegs.
Then they went back to Ch. Ch., and looked at a lot of dresses, which the
A.A.M kept in a cupboard, to dress up children in, when they come to be
photographed. Some of the dresses had been used in Pantomimes at Drury
Lane: some were rags, to dress up beggar-children in: some had been very
magnificent once, but were getting quite old and shabby. Talking of old
dresses, there is one College in Oxford, so old that it is not known for
certain when it was built The people, who live there, say it was built
more than 1000 years ago: and, when they say this, the people who live in
the other Colleges never contradict them, but listen most
respectfully----only they wink a little with one eye, as if they didn't
=quite= believe it.
The same day, Isa saw a curious book of pictures of ghosts. If you look
hard at one for a minute, and then look at the ceiling, you see another
ghost there: only, when you have a black one in the book, it is a =white=
one on the ceiling: when it is green in the book, it is =pink= on the
ceiling.
In the middle of the day, as usual, Isa had her dinner: but this time it
was grander than usual. There was a dish of "Meringues" (this is
pronounced "Marangs"), which Isa thought so good that she would have liked
to live on them all the rest of her life.
They took a little walk in the afternoon, and in the middle of Broad
Street they saw a cross buried in the ground, very near the place where
the Martyrs were burned. Then they went into the gardens of Trinity
College (built in 1554) to see the "Lime Walk", a pretty little avenue of
lime-trees. The great iron "gates" at the end of the garden are not real
gates, but all done in one piece: and they couldn't open them, even if you
knocked all day. Isa thought them a miserable sham.
Then they went into the "Parks" (this word doesn't mean "parks of grass,
with trees and deer," but "parks" of guns: that is, great rows of cannons,
which stood there when King Charles the First was in Oxford, and Oliver
Cromwell fighting against him.
They saw "Mansfield College", a new College just begun to be built, with
such tremendously narrow windows that Isa was afraid the young gentlemen
who come there will not be able to see to learn their lessons, and will go
away from Oxford just as wise as they came.
Then they went to the evening service at New College, and heard some
beautiful singing and organ-playing. Then back to Ch. Ch., in pouring
rain. Isa tried to count the drops: but, when she had counted four
millions, three hundred and seventy-eight thousand, two hundred and
forty-seven, she got tired of counting, and left off.
After dinner, Isa got somebody or other (she is not sure who it was) to
finish this story for her. Then she went to bed, and dreamed she was fixed
in the middle of Oxford, with her feet fast to the ground, and her head
between the bars of a cellar-window, in a sort of final tableau. Then she
dreamed the curtain came down, and the people all called out "encore!" But
she cried out "Oh, not again! It would be =too= dreadful to have my visit
all over again!" But, on second thoughts, she smiled in her sleep, and
said "Well, do you know, after all, I think I wouldn't mind so very much
if I =did= have it all over again!".
Lewis Carroll.
THE END]
This diary, and what I have written before, show how I, as a little girl,
knew Lewis Carroll at Oxford.
For his little girl friends, of course, he reserved the most intimate side
of his nature, but on occasion he would throw off his reserve and talk
earnestly and well to some young man in whose life he took an interest.
Mr. Arthur Girdlestone is able to bear witness to this, and he has given
me an account of an evening that he once spent with Lewis Carroll, which I
reproduce here from notes made during our conversation.
Mr. Girdlestone, then an undergraduate at New College, had on one occasion
to call on Lewis Carroll at his rooms in Tom Quad. At the time of which I
am speaking Lewis Carroll had retired very much from the society which he
had affected a few years before. Indeed for the last years of his life he
was almost a recluse, and beyond dining in Hall saw hardly any one. Miss
Beatrice Hatch, one of his "girl friends," writes apropos of his
hermit-like seclusion:--
"If you were very anxious to get him to come to your house on any
particular day, the only chance was _not_ to _invite_ him, but only to
inform him that you would be at home. Otherwise he would say, 'As you have
_invited_ me I cannot come, for I have made a rule to decline all
_invitations_; but I will come the next day.' In former years he would
sometimes consent to go to a 'party' if he was quite sure he was not to be
'shown off' or introduced to any one as the author of 'Alice.' I must
again quote from a note of his in answer to an invitation to tea: 'What an
awful proposition! To drink tea from four to six would tax the
constitution even of a hardened tea drinker! For me, who hardly ever touch
it, it would probably be fatal.'"
All through the University, except in an extremely limited circle, Lewis
Carroll was regarded as a person who lived very much by himself. "When,"
Mr. Girdlestone said to me, "I went to see him on quite a slight
acquaintance, I confess it was with some slight feeling of trepidation.
However I had to on some business, and accordingly I knocked at his door
about 8.30 one winter's evening, and was invited to come in.
"He was sitting working at a writing-table, and all round him were piles
of MSS. arranged with mathematical neatness, and many of them tied up with
tape. The lamp threw his face into sharp relief as he greeted me. My
business was soon over, and I was about to go away, when he asked me if I
would have a glass of wine and sit with him for a little.
"The night outside was very cold, and the fire was bright and inviting,
and I sat down. He began to talk to me of ordinary subjects, of the things
a man might do at Oxford, of the place itself, and the affection in which
he held it. He talked quietly, and in a rather tired voice. During our
conversation my eye fell upon a photograph of a little girl--evidently
from the freshness of its appearance but newly taken--which was resting
upon the ledge of a reading-stand at my elbow. It was the picture of a
tiny child, very pretty, and I picked it up to look at it.
"'That is the baby of a girl friend of mine,' he said, and then, with an
absolute change of voice, 'there is something very strange about very
young children, something I cannot understand.' I asked him in what way,
and he explained at some length. He was far less at his ease than when
talking trivialities, and he occasionally stammered and sometimes
hesitated for a word. I cannot remember all he said, but some of his
remarks still remain with me. He said that in the company of very little
children his brain enjoyed a rest which was startlingly recuperative. If
he had been working too hard or had tired his brain in any way, to play
with children was like an actual material tonic to his whole system. I
understood him to say that the effect was almost physical!
"He said that he found it much easier to understand children, to get his
mind into correspondence with their minds when he was fatigued with other
work. Personally, I did not understand little children, and they seemed
quite outside my experience, and rather incautiously I asked him if
children never bored him. He had been standing up for most of the time,
and when I asked him that, he sat down suddenly. 'They are three-fourths
of my life,' he said. 'I cannot understand how any one could be bored by
little children. I think when you are older you will come to see this--I
hope you'll come to see it.'
"After that he changed the subject once more, and became again the
mathematician--a little formal, and rather weary."
Mr. Girdlestone probably had a unique experience, for it was but rarely
that Mr. Dodgson so far unburdened himself to a comparative stranger, and
what was even worse, to a "grown-up stranger."
Now I have given you two different phases of Lewis Carroll at
Oxford--Lewis Carroll as the little girl's companion, and Lewis Carroll
sitting by the fireside telling something of his inner self to a young
man. I am going on to talk about my life with him at Eastbourne, where I
used, year by year, to stay with him at his house in Lushington Road.
He was very fond of Eastbourne, and it was from that place that I received
the most charming letters that he wrote me. Here is one, and I could
hardly say how many times I have taken this delightful letter from its
drawer to read through and through again.
"7 LUSHINGTON ROAD, EASTBOURNE,
"_September 17, 1893_.
"Oh, you naughty, naughty little culprit! If only I could fly to
Fulham with a handy little stick (ten feet long and four inches thick
is my favourite size) how I would rap your wicked little knuckles.
However, there isn't much harm done, so I will sentence you to a
very mild punishment--only one year's imprisonment. If you'll just
tell the Fulham policeman about it, he'll manage all the rest for you,
and he'll fit you with a nice pair of handcuffs, and lock you up in a
nice cosy dark cell, and feed you on nice dry bread, and delicious
cold water.
[Illustration: ST. GEORGE THE DRAGON]
"But how badly you _do_ spell your words! I _was_ so puzzled about the
'sacks full of love and baskets full of kisses!' But at last I made
out why, of course, you meant 'a sack full of _gloves_, and a basket
full of _kittens_!' Then I understood what you were sending me. And
just then Mrs. Dyer came to tell me a large sack and a basket had
come. There was such a miawing in the house, as if all the cats in
Eastbourne had come to see me! 'Oh, just open them please, Mrs. Dyer,
and count the things in them!'
"So in a few minutes Mrs. Dyer came and said, '500 pairs of gloves in
the sack and 250 kittens in the basket.'
"'Dear me! That makes 1000 gloves! four times as many gloves as
kittens! It's very kind of Maggie, but why did she send so many
gloves? for I haven't got 1000 _hands_, you know, Mrs. Dyer.'
"And Mrs. Dyer said, 'No, indeed, you're 998 hands short of that!'
"However the next day I made out what to do, and I took the basket
with me and walked off to the parish school--the _girl's_ school, you
know--and I said to the mistress, 'How many little girls are there at
school to-day?'
"'Exactly 250, sir.'
"'And have they all been _very_ good all day?'
"'As good as gold, sir.'
"So I waited outside the door with my basket, and as each little girl
came out, I just popped a soft little kitten into her hands! Oh, what
joy there was! The little girls went all dancing home, nursing their
kittens, and the whole air was full of purring! Then, the next
morning, I went to the school, before it opened, to ask the little
girls how the kittens had behaved in the night. And they all arrived
sobbing and crying, and their faces and hands were all covered with
scratches, and they had the kittens wrapped up in their pinafores to
keep them from scratching any more. And they sobbed out, 'The kittens
have been scratching us all night, all the night.'
"So then I said to myself, 'What a nice little girl Maggie is. _Now_ I
see why she sent all those gloves, and why there are four times as
many gloves as kittens!' and I said loud to the little girls, 'Never
mind, my dear children, do your lessons _very_ nicely, and don't cry
any more, and when school is over, you'll find me at the door, and you
shall see what you shall see!'
"So, in the evening, when the little girls came running out, with the
kittens still wrapped up in their pinafores, there was I, at the door,
with a big sack! And, as each little girl came out, I just popped into
her hand two pairs of gloves! And each little girl unrolled her
pinafore and took out an angry little kitten, spitting and snarling,
with its claws sticking out like a hedgehog. But it hadn't time to
scratch, for, in one moment, it found all its four claws popped into
nice soft warm gloves! And then the kittens got quite sweet-tempered
and gentle, and began purring again!
"So the little girls went dancing home again, and the next morning
they came dancing back to school. The scratches were all healed, and
they told me 'The kittens _have_ been good!' And, when any kitten
wants to catch a mouse, it just takes off _one_ of its gloves; and if
it wants to catch _two_ mice, it takes off two gloves; and if it wants
to catch _three_ mice, it takes off _three_ gloves; and if it wants to
catch _four_ mice, it takes off all its gloves. But the moment they've
caught the mice, they pop their gloves on again, because they know we
can't love them without their gloves. For, you see 'gloves' have got
'love' _inside_ them--there's none _outside_!
"So all the little girls said, 'Please thank Maggie, and we send her
250 _loves_, and 1000 _kisses_ in return for her 250 kittens and her
1000 _loves_!!' And I told them in the wrong order! and they said they
hadn't.
"Your loving old Uncle,
"C. L. D.
"Love and kisses to Nellie and Emsie."
This letter takes up eight pages of close writing, and I should very much
doubt if any child ever had a more charming one from anybody. The
whimsical fancy in it, the absolute comprehension of a child's intellect,
the quickness with which the writer employs the slightest incident or
thing that would be likely to please a little girl, is simply wonderful. I
shall never forget how the letter charmed and delighted my sister Maggie
and myself. We called it "The glove and kitten letter," and as I look at
the tremulous handwriting which is lying by my side, it all comes back to
me very vividly--like the sound of forgotten fingers on the latch to some
lonely fireside watcher, when the wind is wailing round the house with a
wilder inner note than it has in the daytime.
At Eastbourne I was happier even with Lewis Carroll than I was at Oxford.
We seemed more free, and there was the air of holiday over it all. Every
day of my stay at the house in Lushington Road was a perfect dream of
delight.
There was one regular and fixed routine which hardly ever varied, and
which I came to know by heart; and I will write an account of it here,
and ask any little girl who reads it, if she ever had such a splendid time
in her life.
To begin with, we used to get up very early indeed. Our bedroom doors
faced each other at the top of the staircase. When I came out of mine I
always knew if I might go into his room or not by his signal. If, when I
came into the passage, I found that a newspaper had been put under the
door, then I knew I might go in at once; but if there was no newspaper,
then I had to wait till it appeared. I used to sit down on the top stair
as quiet as a mouse, watching for the paper to come under the door, when I
would rush in almost before uncle had time to get out of the way. This was
always the first pleasure and excitement of the day. Then we used to
downstairs to breakfast, after which we always read a chapter out of the
Bible. So that I should remember it, I always had to tell it to him
afterwards as a story of my own.
[Illustration: "LEWIS CARROLL'S" HOUSE AT EASTBOURNE]
"Now then, Isa dearest," he would say, "tell me a story, and mind you
begin with 'once upon a time.' A story which does not begin with 'once
upon a time' can't possibly be a good story. It's _most_ important."
When I had told my story it was time to go out.
I was learning swimming at the Devonshire Park baths, and we always had a
bargain together. He would never allow me to go to the swimming-bath--which
I revelled in--until I had promised him faithfully that I would go
afterwards to the dentist's.
He had great ideas upon the importance of a regular and almost daily visit
to the dentist. He himself went to a dentist as he would have gone to a
hairdresser's, and he insisted that all the little girls he knew should go
too. The precaution sounds strange, and one might be inclined to think
that Lewis Carroll carried it to an unnecessary length; but I can only
bear personal witness to the fact that I have firm strong teeth, and have
never had a toothache in my life. I believe I owe this entirely to those
daily visits to the Eastbourne dentist.
Soon after this it was time for lunch, and we both went back hand-in-hand
to the rooms in Lushington Road. Lewis Carroll never had a proper lunch, a
fact which always used to puzzle me tremendously.
I could not understand how a big grown-up man could live on a glass of
sherry and a biscuit at dinner time. It seemed such a pity when there was
lots of mutton and rice-pudding that he should not have any. I always used
to ask him, "Aren't you hungry, uncle, even _to-day_?"
After lunch I used to have a lesson in backgammon, a game of which he was
passionately fond, and of which he could never have enough. Then came what
to me was the great trial of the day. I am afraid I was a very lazy little
girl in those days, and I know I hated walking far. The trial was, that
we should walk to the top of Beachy Head every afternoon. I used to like
it very much when I got there, but the walk was irksome. Lewis Carroll
believed very much in a great amount of exercise, and said one should
always go to bed physically wearied with the exercise of the day.
Accordingly there was no way out of it, and every afternoon I had to walk
to the top of Beachy Head. He was very good and kind. He would invent all
sorts of new games to beguile the tedium of the way. One very curious and
strange trait in his character was shown on these walks. I used to be very
fond of flowers and of animals also. A pretty dog or a hedge of
honeysuckle were always pleasant events upon a walk to me. And yet he
himself cared for neither flowers nor animals. Tender and kind as he was,
simple and unassuming in all his tastes, yet he did not like flowers! I
confess that even now I find it hard to understand. He knew children so
thoroughly and well--perhaps better than any one else--that it is all the
stranger that he did not care for things that generally attract them so
much. However, be that as it may, the fact remained. When I was in
raptures over a poppy or a dogrose, he would try hard to be as interested
as I was, but even to my childish eyes it was an obvious effort, and he
would always rather invent some new game for us to play at. Once, and once
only, I remember him to have taken an interest in a flower, and that was
because of the folk-lore that was attached to it, and not because of the
beauty of the flower itself.
We used to walk into the country that stretched, in beautiful natural
avenues of trees, inland from Eastbourne. One day while we sat under a
great tree, and the hum of the myriad insect life rivalled the murmur of
the far-away waves, he took a foxglove from the heap that lay in my lap
and told me the story of how they came by their name; how, in the old
days, when, all over England, there were great forests, like the forest
of Arden that Shakespeare loved, the pixies, the "little folks," used to
wander at night in the glades, like Titania, and Oberon, and Puck, and
because they took great pride in their dainty hands they made themselves
gloves out of the flowers. So the particular flower that the "little
folks" used came to be called "folks' gloves." Then, because the country
people were rough and clumsy in their talk, the name was shortened into
"Fox-gloves," the name that every one uses now.
When I got very tired we used to sit down upon the grass, and he used to
show me the most wonderful things made out of his handkerchief. Every one
when a child has, I suppose, seen the trick in which a handkerchief is
rolled up to look like a mouse, and then made to jump about by a movement
of the hand. He did this better than any one I ever saw, and the trick was
a never-failing joy. By a sort of consent between us the handkerchief
trick was kept especially for the walk to Beachy Head, when, about
half-way, I was a little tired and wanted to rest. When we actually got to
the Head there was tea waiting in the coastguard's cottage. He always said
I ate far too much, and he would never allow me more than one rock cake
and a cup of tea. This was an invariable rule, and much as I wished for
it, I was never allowed to have more than one rock cake.
It was in the coastguard's house or on the grass outside that I heard most
of his stories. Sometimes he would make excursions into the realms of pure
romance, where there were scaly dragons and strange beasts that sat up and
talked. In all these stories there was always an adventure in a forest,
and the great scene of each tale always took place in a wood. The
consummation of a story was always heralded by the phrase, "The children
now came to a deep dark wood." When I heard that sentence, which was
always spoken very slowly and with a solemn dropping of the voice, I
always knew that the really exciting part was coming. I used to nestle a
little nearer to him, and he used to hold me a little closer as he told of
the final adventure.
He did not always tell me fairy tales, though I think I liked the fairy
tale much the best. Sometimes he gave me accounts of adventures which had
happened to him. There was one particularly thrilling story of how he was
lost on Beachy Head in a sea fog, and had to find his way home by means of
boulders. This was the more interesting because we were on the actual
scene of the disaster, and to be there stimulated the imagination.
The summer afternoons on the great headland were very sweet and peaceful.
I have never met a man so sensible to the influences of Nature as Lewis
Carroll. When the sunset was very beautiful he was often affected by the
sight. The widespread wrinkled sea below, in the mellow melancholy light
of the afternoon, seemed to fit in with his temperament. I have still a
mental picture that I can recall of him on the cliff. Just as the sun was
setting, and a cool breeze whispered round us, he would take off his hat
and let the wind play with his hair, and he would look out to sea. Once I
saw tears in his eyes, and when we turned to go he gripped my hand much
tighter than usual.
[Illustration: MISS ISA BOWMAN AND MISS BESSIE HATTON AS THE LITTLE
PRINCES IN THE TOWER]
We generally got back to dinner about seven or earlier. He would never let
me change my frock for the meal, even if we were going to a concert or
theatre afterwards. He had a curious theory that a child should not change
her clothes twice in one day. He himself made no alteration in his dress
at dinner time, nor would he permit me to do so. Yet he was not by any
means an untidy or slovenly man. He had many little fads in dress, but his
great horror and abomination was high-heeled shoes with pointed toes. No
words were strong enough, he thought, to describe such monstrous things.
Lewis Carroll was a deeply religious man, and on Sundays at Eastbourne we
always went twice to church. Yet he held that no child should be forced
into church-going against its will. Such a state of mind in a child, he
said, needed most careful treatment, and the very worst thing to do was to
make attendance at the services compulsory. Another habit of his, which
must, I feel sure, sound rather dreadful to many, was that, should the
sermon prove beyond my comprehension, he would give me a little book to
read; it was better far, he maintained, to read, than to stare idly about
the church. When the rest of the congregation rose at the entrance of the
choir he kept his seat. He argued that rising to one's feet at such a time
tended to make the choir-boys conceited. I think he was quite right.
He kept no special books for Sunday reading, for he was most emphatically
of opinion that anything tending to make Sunday a day dreaded by a child
should be studiously avoided. He did not like me to sew on Sunday unless
it was absolutely necessary.
One would have hardly expected that a man of so reserved a nature as Lewis
Carroll would have taken much interest in the stage. Yet he was devoted to
the theatre, and one of the commonest of the treats that he gave his
little girl friends was to organise a party for the play. As a critic of
acting he was naïve and outspoken, and never hesitated to find fault if he
thought it justifiable. The following letter that he wrote to me
criticising my acting in "Richard III." when I was playing with Richard
Mansfield, is one of the most interesting that I ever received from him.
Although it was written for a child to understand and profit by, and
moreover written in the simplest possible way, it yet even now strikes me
as a trenchant and valuable piece of criticism.
[Illustration: ISA BOWMAN AS DUKE OF YORK]
"CH. CH. OXFORD,
"_Ap. 4, '89_.
"MY LORD DUKE,--The photographs, which Your Grace did me the honour of
sending arrived safely; and I can assure your Royal Highness that I am
very glad to have them, and like them _very_ much, particularly the
large head of your late Royal Uncle's little little son. I do not
wonder that your excellent Uncle Richard should say 'off with his
head!' as a hint to the photographer to print it off. Would your
Highness like me to go on calling you the Duke of York, or shall I say
'my own own darling Isa?' Which do you like best?
"Now I'm going to find fault with my pet about her acting. What's the
good of an old Uncle like me except to find fault?
"You do the meeting with the Prince of Wales _very_ nicely and
lovingly; and, in teasing your Uncle for his dagger and his sword, you
are very sweet and playful and--'but _that's_ not finding fault!' Isa
says to herself. Isn't it? Well, I'll try again. Didn't I hear you say
'In weightier things you'll say a _beggar_ nay,' leaning on the word
'beggar'? If so, it was a mistake. _My_ rule for knowing which word to
lean on is the word that tells you something _new_, something that is
_different_ from what you expected.
"Take the sentence 'first I bought a bag of apples, then I bought a
bag of pears,' you wouldn't say 'then I bought a _bag_ of pears.' The
'bag' is nothing new, because it was a bag in the first part of the
sentence. But the _pears_ are new, and different from the _apples_.
So you would say, 'then I bought a bag of _pears_.'
"Do you understand that, my pet?"
"Now what you say to Richard amounts to this, 'With light gifts you'll
say to a beggar "yes": with heavy gifts you'll say to a beggar "nay."'
The words 'you'll say to a beggar' are the same both times; so you
mustn't lean on any of _those_ words. But 'light' is different from
'heavy,' and 'yes' is different from 'nay.' So the way to say the
sentence would be 'with _light_ gifts you'll say to a beggar "_yes_":
with _heavy_ gifts you'll say to a beggar "_nay_".' And the way to say
the lines in the play is--
'O, then I see you will _part_ but with _light_ gifts;
In _weightier_ things you'll say a beggar _nay_.'
"One more sentence.
"When Richard says, 'What, would you have my _weapon_, little Lord?'
and you reply 'I _would_, that I might thank you as you call me,'
didn't I hear you pronounce 'thank' as if it were spelt with an 'e'? I
know it's very common (I often do it myself) to say 'thenk you!' as an
exclamation by itself. I suppose it's an odd way of pronouncing the
word. But I'm sure it's wrong to pronounce it so when it comes into a
_sentence_. It will sound _much_ nicer if you'll pronounce it so as to
rhyme with 'bank.'
"One more thing. ('What an impertinent old uncle! Always finding
fault!') You're not as _natural_, when acting the Duke, as you were
when you acted Alice. You seemed to me not to forgot _yourself_
enough. It was not so much a real _prince_ talking to his elder
brother and his uncle; it was _Isa Bowman_ talking to people she
didn't _much_ care about, for an audience to listen to--I don't mean
it was that all _through_, but _sometimes_ you were _artificial_. Now
don't be jealous of Miss Hatton, when I say she was _sweetly_ natural.
She looked and spoke like a _real_ Prince of Wales. And she didn't
seem to know that there was any audience. If you are ever to be a
_good_ actress (as I hope you will), you must learn to _forget_ 'Isa'
altogether, and _be_ the character you are playing. Try to think 'This
is _really_ the Prince of Wales. I'm his little brother, and I'm
_very_ glad to meet him, and I love him _very_ much,' and 'this is
_really_ my uncle: he's very kind, and lets me say saucy things to
him,' and _do_ forget that there's anybody else listening!
"My sweet pet, I _hope_ you won't be offended with me for saying what
I fancy might make your acting better!
"Your loving old Uncle,
"CHARLES.
X for NELLIE.
X for MAGGIE.
X for EMSIE.
X for ISA."
He was a fairly constant patron of all the London theatres, save the
Gaiety and the Adelphi, which he did not like, and numbered a good many
theatrical folk among his acquaintances. Miss Ellen Terry was one of his
greatest friends. Once I remember we made an expedition from Eastbourne to
Margate to visit Miss Sarah Thorne's theatre, and especially for the
purpose of seeing Miss Violet Vanbrugh's Ophelia. He was a great admirer
of both Miss Violet and Miss Irene Vanbrugh as actresses. Of Miss Thorne's
school of acting, too, he had the highest opinion, and it was his often
expressed wish that all intending players could have so excellent a course
of tuition. Among the male members of the theatrical profession he had no
especial favourites, excepting Mr. Toole and Mr. Richard Mansfield.
He never went to a music-hall, but considered that, properly managed, they
might be beneficial to the public. It was only when the refrain of some
particularly vulgar music-hall song broke upon his ears in the streets
that he permitted himself to speak harshly about variety theatres.
Comic opera, when it was wholesome, he liked, and was a frequent visitor
to the Savoy theatre. The good old style of Pantomime, too, was a great
delight to him, and he would often speak affectionately of the pantomimes
at Brighton during the régime of Mr. and Mrs. Nye Chart. But of the
up-to-date pantomime he had a horror, and nothing would induce him to
visit one. "When pantomimes are written for children once more," he said,
"I will go. Not till then."
Once when a friend told him that she was about to take her little girls to
the pantomime, he did not rest till he had dissuaded her.
To conclude what I have said about Lewis Carroll's affection for the
dramatic art, I will give a kind of examination paper, written for a child
who had been learning a recitation called "The Demon of the Pit." Though
his stuttering prevented him from being himself anything of a reciter, he
loved correct elocution, and would take any pains to make a child
perfect in a piece.
[Illustration: THE LITTLE PRINCES]
First of all there is an explanatory paragraph.
"As you don't ask any questions about 'The Demon of the Pit,' I suppose
you understand it all. So please answer these questions just as you would
do if a younger child (say Mollie) asked them."
_Mollie._ Please, Ethel, will you explain this poem to me. There are
some very hard words in it.
_Ethel._ What are they, dear?
_Mollie._ Well, in the first line, "If you chance to make a sally."
What does "sally" mean?
_Ethel._ Dear Mollie, I believe sally means to take a chance work.[2]
_Mollie._ Then, near the end of the first verse--"Whereupon she'll
call her cronies"--what does "whereupon" mean? And what are cronies?
_Ethel._ I think whereupon means at the same time, and cronies means
her favourite playfellows.
_Mollie._ "And invest in proud polonies." What's to "invest?"
_Ethel._ To invest means to spend money in anything you fancy.
_Mollie._ And what's "A woman of the day?"
_Ethel._ A woman of the day means a wonder of the time with the
general public.
_Mollie._ "Pyrotechnic blaze of wit." What's pyrotechnic?
_Ethel._ Mollie, I think you will find that pyrotechnic means quick,
with flashes of lightning.
_Mollie._ Then the 8 lines that begin "The astounding infant
wonder"--please explain "rôle" and "mise" and "tout ensemble" and
"grit."
_Ethel._ Well, Mollie, "rôle" means so many different things, but in
"The Demon of the Pit" I should think it meant the leading part of the
piece, and "mise" means something extra good introduced, and "tout"
means to seek for applause, but "ensemble" means the whole of the
parts taken together, and grit means something good.
_Mollie._ "And the Goblins prostrate tumble." What's "prostrate"?
_Ethel._ I believe prostrate means to be cast down and unhappy.
_Mollie._ "And his accents shake a bit." What are "accents"?
_Ethel._ To accent is to lay stress upon a word.
_Mollie._ "Waits resignedly behind." What's "resignedly"?
_Ethel._ Resignedly means giving up, yielding.
_Mollie._ "They have tripe as light to dream on." What does "as" mean
here? and what does "to dream on" mean?
_Ethel._ Mollie, dear, your last question is very funny. In the first
place, I have always been told that hot suppers are not good for any
one, and I should think that tripe would _not be light_ to dream on
but VERY heavy.
_Mollie._ Thank you, Ethel.
I have now nearly finished my little memoir of Lewis Carroll; that is to
say, I have written down all that I can remember of my personal knowledge
of him. But I think it is from the letters and the diaries published in
this book that my readers must chiefly gain an insight into the character
of the greatest friend to children who ever lived. Not only did he study
children's ways for his own pleasure, but he studied them in order that he
might please them. For instance, here is a letter that he wrote to my
little sister Nelly eight years ago, which begins on the last page and is
written entirely backwards--a kind of variant on his famous
"Looking-Glass" writing. You have to begin at the last word and read
backwards before you can understand it. The only ordinary thing about it
is the date. It begins--I mean _begins_ if one was to read it in the
ordinary way--with the characteristic monogram, C. L. D.
"_Nov. 1, 1891._
"C. L. D., Uncle loving your! Instead grandson his to it give to had
you that so, years 80 or 70 for it forgot you that was it pity a what
and: him of fond so were you wonder don't I and, gentleman old nice
very a was he. For it made you that _him_ been have _must_ it see you
so: _grandfather_ my was, _then_ alive was that, 'Dodgson Uncle' only
the. Born was _I_ before long was that, see you, then But. 'Dodgson
Uncle for pretty thing some make I'll now,' it began you when,
yourself to said you that, me telling her without, knew I course of
and: ago years many great a it made had you said she. Me told Isa what
from was it? For meant was it who out made I how know you do! Lasted
has it well how and. Grandfather my for made had you Antimacassar
pretty that me give to you of nice so was it, Nelly dear my."
[Illustration]
Miss Hatch has also sent me an original letter that Lewis Carroll wrote to
her in 1873, about a large wax doll that he had given her. It is
interesting to notice that this letter, written long before any of the
others that he wrote to me, is identically the same in form and
expression. It is a striking proof how fresh and unimpaired the writer's
sympathies must have been. Year after year he retained the same sweet,
kindly temperament, and, if anything, his love for children seemed to
increase as he grew older.
"MY DEAR BIRDIE,--I met her just outside Tom Gate, walking very
stiffly, and I think she was trying to find her way to my rooms. So I
said, 'Why have you come here without Birdie?' So she said, 'Birdie's
gone! and Emily's gone! and Mabel isn't kind to me!' And two little
waxy tears came running down her cheeks.
"Why, how stupid of me! I've never told you who it was all the time!
It was your new doll. I was very glad to see her, and I took her to my
room, and gave her some vesta matches to eat, and a cup of nice melted
wax to drink, for the poor little thing was _very_ hungry and thirsty
after her long walk. So I said, 'Come and sit down by the fire, and
let's have a comfortable chat?' 'Oh no! _no_!' she said, 'I'd _much_
rather not. You know I do melt so _very_ easily!' And she made me take
her quite to the other side of the room, where it was _very_ cold: and
then she sat on my knee, and fanned herself with a pen-wiper, because
she said she was afraid the end of her nose was beginning to melt.
"'You've no _idea_ how careful we have to be,' we dolls, she said.
'Why, there was a sister of mine--would you believe it?--she went up
to the fire to warm her hands, and one of her hands dropped _right_
off! There now!' 'Of course it dropped _right_ off,' I said, 'because
it was the _right_ hand.' 'And how do you know it was the _right_
hand, Mister Carroll?' the doll said. So I said, 'I think it must have
been the _right_ hand because the other hand was _left_.'
"The doll said, 'I shan't laugh. It's a very bad joke. Why, even a
common wooden doll could make a better joke than that. And besides,
they've made my mouth so stiff and hard, that I _can't_ laugh if I try
ever so much?' 'Don't be cross about it,' I said, 'but tell me this:
I'm going to give Birdie and the other children one photograph each,
which ever they choose; which do you think Birdie will choose?' 'I
don't know,' said the doll; 'you'd better ask her!' So I took her home
in a hansom cab. Which would you like, do you think? Arthur as Cupid?
or Arthur and Wilfred together? or you and Ethel as beggar children?
or Ethel standing on a box? or, one of yourself?--Your affectionate
friend,
"LEWIS CARROLL."
Among the bundle of letters and MS. before me, I find written on a half
sheet of note-paper the following Ollendorfian dialogue. It is interesting
because, slight and trivial as it is, it in some strange way bears the
imprint of Lewis Carroll's style. The thing is written in the familiar
violet ink, and neatly dated in the corner 29/9/90:--
"Let's go and look at the house I want to buy. Now do be quick! You move
so slow! What a time you take with your boots!"
"Don't make such a row about it: it's not two o'clock yet. How do you like
_this_ house?"
"I don't like it. It's too far down the hill. Let's go higher. I heard a
nice account of one at the top, built on an improved plan."
"What does the rent amount to?"
"Oh, the rent's all right: it's only nine pounds a year."
* * * * *
Over all matters connected with letter writing, Lewis Carroll was
accustomed to take great pains. All letters that he received that were of
any interest or importance whatever he kept, putting them away in old
biscuit tins, numbers of which he kept for the purpose.
[Illustration: "DOLLY VARDEN"]
In 1888 he published a little book which he called "Eight or Nine Wise
Words about Letter Writing," and as this little book of mine is so full of
letters, I think I can do no better than make a few extracts:--
"_Write Legibly._--The average temper of the human race would be
perceptibly sweeter if every one obeyed this rule! A great deal of the
bad writing in the world comes simply from writing too quickly. Of
course you reply, 'I do it to save time.' A very good object, no
doubt; but what right have you to do it at your friend's expense?
Isn't _his_ time as valuable as yours? Years ago I used to receive
letters from a friend--and very interesting letters too--written in
one of the most atrocious hands ever invented. It generally took me
about a _week_ to read one of his letters! I used to carry it about in
my pocket, and take it out at leisure times, to puzzle over the
riddles which composed it--holding it in different positions, and at
different distances, till at last the meaning of some hopeless scrawl
would flash upon me, when I at once wrote down the English under it;
and, when several had thus been guessed, the context would help one
with the others, till at last the whole series of hieroglyphics was
deciphered. If _all_ one's friends wrote like that, life would be
entirely spent in reading their letters."
In writing the last wise word, the author no doubt had some of his girl
correspondents in his mind's eye, for he says--
"_My Ninth Rule._--When you get to the end of a note sheet, and find
you have more to say, take another piece of paper--a whole sheet or a
scrap, as the case may demand; but, whatever you do, _don't cross_!
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'm afraid 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!"
I have another diary to give to my readers, a diary that Lewis Carroll
wrote for my sister Maggie when, a tiny child, she came to Oxford to play
the child part, Mignon, in "Booties' Baby." He was delighted with the
pretty play, for the interest that the soldiers took in the little lost
girl, and how a mere interest ripened into love, till the little Mignon
was queen of the barracks, went straight to his heart. I give the diary in
full:--
"MAGGIE'S VISIT TO OXFORD
JUNE 9 TO 13, 1899
When Maggie once to Oxford came
On tour as 'Booties' Baby,'
She said 'I'll see this place of fame,
However dull the day be!'
So with her friend she visited
The sights that it was rich in:
And first of all she poked her head
Inside the Christ Church Kitchen.
The cooks around that little child
Stood waiting in a ring:
And, every time that Maggie smiled,
Those cooks began to sing--
Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom!
'Roast, boil, and bake,
For Maggie's sake!
Bring cutlets fine,
For _her_ to dine:
Meringues so sweet,
For _her_ to eat--
For Maggie may be
Bootles' Baby!'
Then hand-in-hand, in pleasant talk,
They wandered, and admired
The Hall, Cathedral, and Broad Walk,
Till Maggie's feet were tired:
One friend they called upon--her name
Was Mrs. Hassall--then
Into a College Room they came,
Some savage Monster's Den!
'And, when that Monster dined, I guess
He tore her limb from limb?'
Well, no: in fact, I must confess
That _Maggie dined with him_!
To Worcester Garden next they strolled--
Admired its quiet lake:
Then to St. John's, a College old,
Their devious way they take.
In idle mood they sauntered round
Its lawns so green and flat:
And in that Garden Maggie found
A lovely Pussey-Cat!
A quarter of an hour they spent
In wandering to and fro:
And everywhere that Maggie went,
That Cat was sure to go--
Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom!
'Miaow! Miaow!
Come, make your bow!
Take off your hats,
Ye Pussy Cats!
And purr, and purr,
To welcome _her_--
For Maggie may be
Bootles' Baby!'
So back to Christ Church--not too late
For them to go and see
A Christ Church Undergraduate,
Who gave them cakes and tea.
Next day she entered, with her guide,
The Garden called 'Botanic':
And there a fierce Wild-Boar she spied,
Enough to cause a panic!
But Maggie didn't mind, not she!
She would have faced _alone_,
That fierce Wild-Boar, because, you see,
The thing was made of stone!
On Magdalen walls they saw a face
That filled her with delight,
A giant-face, that made grimace
And grinned with all its might!
A little friend, industrious,
Pulled upwards, all the while,
The corner of its mouth, and thus
He helped that face to smile!
'How nice,' thought Maggie, 'it would be
If _I_ could have a friend
To do that very thing for _me_,
And make my mouth turn up with glee,
By pulling at one end!'
In Magdalen Park the deer are wild
With joy that Maggie brings
Some bread a friend had given the child,
To feed the pretty things.
They flock round Maggie without fear:
They breakfast and they lunch,
They dine, they sup, those happy deer--
Still, as they munch and munch,
Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom!
'Yes, Deer are we,
And dear is she!
We love this child
So sweet and mild:
We all rejoice
At Maggie's voice:
We all are fed
With Maggie's bread--
For Maggie may be
Bootles' Baby!'
To Pembroke College next they go,
Where little Maggie meets
The Master's wife and daughter: so
Once more into the streets.
They met a Bishop on their way--
A Bishop large as life--
With loving smile that seemed to say
'Will Maggie be my wife?'
Maggie thought _not_, because, you see,
She was so _very_ young,
And he was old as old could be--
So Maggie held her tongue.
'My Lord, she's _Bootles' Baby_: we
Are going up and down,'
Her friend explained, 'that she may see
The sights of Oxford-town.'
'Now say what kind of place it is!'
The Bishop gaily cried.
'The best place in the Provinces!'
That little maid replied.
Next to New College, where they saw
Two players hurl about
A hoop, but by what rule or law
They could not quite make out.
'Ringo' the Game is called, although
'Les Graces' was once its name,
When _it_ was--as its name will show--
A much more _graceful_ Game.
The Misses Symonds next they sought,
Who begged the child to take
A book they long ago had bought--
A gift for friendship's sake!
Away, next morning, Maggie went
From Oxford-town: but yet
The happy hours she there had spent
She could not soon forget.
The train is gone: it rumbles on:
The engine-whistle screams:
But Maggie's deep in rosy sleep--
And softly, in her dreams,
Whispers the Battle-cry of Freedom!
'Oxford, good-bye!'
She seems to sigh,
'You dear old City,
With Gardens pretty,
And lawns, and flowers,
And College-towers,
And Tom's great Bell--
Farewell, farewell!
For Maggie may be
Booties' Baby!'
--LEWIS CARROLL."
[Illustration: "A TURK"]
The tale has been often told of how "Alice in Wonderland" came to be
written, but it is a tale so well worth the telling again, that, very
shortly, I will give it to you here.
Years ago in the great quadrangle of Christ Church, opposite to Mr.
Dodgson, lived the little daughters of Dean Liddell, the great Greek
scholar and Dean of Christ Church. The little girls were great friends of
Mr. Dodgson's, and they used often to come to him and to plead with him
for a fairy tale. There was never such a teller of tales, they thought!
One can imagine the whole delightful scene with little trouble. That big
cool room on some summer's afternoon, when the air was heavy with flower
scents, and the sounds that came floating in through the open window were
all mellowed by the distance. One can see him, that good and kindly
gentleman, his mobile face all aglow with interest and love, telling the
immortal story.
Round him on his knee sat the little sisters, their eyes wide open and
their lips parted in breathless anticipation. When Alice (how the little
Alice Liddell who was listening must have loved the tale!) rubbed the
mushroom and became so big that she quite filled the little fairy house,
one can almost hear the rapturous exclamations of the little ones as they
heard of it.
The story, often continued on many summer afternoons, sometimes in the
cool Christ Church rooms, sometimes in a slow gliding boat in a still
river between banks of rushes and strange bronze and yellow waterflowers,
or sometimes in a great hay-field, with the insects whispering in the
grass all round, grew in its conception and idea.
Other folk, older folk, came to hear of it from the little ones, and Mr.
Dodgson was begged to write it down. Accordingly the first MS. was
prepared with great care and illustrated by the author. Then, in 1865,
memorable year for English children, "Alice" appeared in its present form,
with Sir John Tenniel's drawings.
In 1872 "Alice Through the Looking-Glass," appeared, and was received as
warmly as its predecessor. That fact, I think, proves most conclusively
that Lewis Carroll's success was a success of absolute merit, and due to
no mere mood or fashion of the public taste. I can conceive nothing more
difficult for a man who has had a great success with one book than to
write a sequel which should worthily succeed it. In the present case that
is exactly what Lewis Carroll did. "Through the Looking-Glass" is every
whit as popular and charming as the older book. Indeed one depends very
much upon the other, and in every child's book-shelves one sees the two
masterpieces side by side.
[Illustrations: Facsimile:
B.H.
from C. L. D.
A CHARADE.
[NB FIVE POUNDS will be given to any one who succeeds in writing an
original poetical Charade, introducing the line "My First is followed by a
bird," but making no use of the answer to this Charade.
Ap 8 1878
(signed)
Lewis Carroll]
My First is a singular at best
More plural is my Second.
My Third is far the pluralest--
So plural-plural, I protest,
It scarcely can be reckoned!
My First is followed by a bird
My Second by believers
In magic art: my simple Third
Follows, too often, hopes absurd,
And plausible deceivers.
My First to get at wisdom tries--
A failure melancholy!
My Second men revere as wise:
My Third from heights of wisdom fall
To depths of frantic folly!
My First is ageing day by day,
My Second's age is ended.
My Third enjoys an age, they say,
That never seems to fade away,
Through centuries extended!
My Whole? I need a Poet's pen
To paint her myriad phases
The monarch, and the slave, of men--
A mountain-summit, and a den
Of dark and deadly mazes!
A flashing light--a fleeting shade--
Beginning, end, and middle
Of all that human art hath made,
Or wit devised "Go, seek her aid,
If you would guess my riddle."]
While on the subject of the two "Alices," I will put in a letter that he
wrote mentioning his books. He was so modest about them, that it was
extremely difficult to get him to say, or write, anything at all about
them. I believe it was a far greater pleasure for him to know that he had
pleased some child with "Alice" or "The Hunting of the Snark," than it was
to be hailed by the press and public as the first living writer for
children.
"EASTBOURNE.
"MY OWN DARLING ISA,--The full value of a copy of the French 'Alice'
is £45: but, as you want the 'cheapest' kind, and as you are a great
friend of mine, and as I am of a very noble, generous disposition, I
have made up my mind to a _great_ sacrifice, and have taken £3, 10s.
0d. off the price. So that you do not owe me more than £41, 10s. 0d.,
and this you can pay me, in gold or bank-notes _as soon as you ever
like_. Oh dear! I wonder why I write such nonsense! Can you explain to
me, my pet, how it happens that when I take up my pen to write a
letter to _you_ it won't write sense? Do you think the rule is that
when the pen finds it has to write to a nonsensical good-for-nothing
child, it sets to work to write a nonsensical good-for-nothing letter?
Well, now I'll tell you the real truth. As Miss Kitty Wilson is a
dear friend of yours, of course she's a _sort_ of a friend of mine. So
I thought (in my vanity) 'perhaps she would like to have a copy' from
the author, 'with her name written in it.' So I've sent her one--but I
hope she'll understand that I do it because she's _your_ friend, for,
you see, I had never _heard_ of her before: so I wouldn't have any
other reason.
"I'm still exactly 'on the balance' (like those scales of mine, when
Nellie says 'it won't weigh!') as to whether it would be wise to have
my pet Isa down here! how _am_ I to make it weigh, I wonder? Can you
advise any way to do it? I'm getting on grandly with 'Sylvie and Bruno
Concluded.' I'm afraid you'll expect me to give you a copy of it?
Well, I'll see if I have one to spare. It won't be out before
Easter-tide, I'm afraid.
"I wonder what sort of condition the book is in that I lent you to
take to America? ('Laneton Parsonage,' I mean). Very shabby, I expect.
I find lent books _never_ come back in good condition. However, I've
got a second copy of this book, so you may keep it as your own. Love
and kisses to any one you know who is lovely and kissable.--
"Always your loving Uncle,
"C. L. D."
In 1876 appeared the long poem called the "Hunting of the Snark; or, An
Agony in Eight Fits," and besides those verses we have from Lewis
Carroll's pen two books called "Phantasmagoria" and "Rhyme and Reason."
The last work of his that attained any great celebrity was "Sylvie and
Bruno," a curious romance, half fairy tale, half mathematical treatise.
Mr. Dodgson was employed of late years on his "Symbolic Logic," only one
part of which has been published, and he seems to have been influenced by
his studies. One can easily trace the trail of the logician in Sylvie and
Bruno, and perhaps this resulted in a certain lack of "form." However,
some of the nonsense verses in this book were up to the highest level of
the author's achievement. Even as I write the verse comes to me--
"He thought he saw a kangaroo
Turning a coffee-mill;
He looked again, and found it was
A vegetable pill!
'Were I to swallow you,' he said,
'I should be very ill'!"
The fascinating jingle stays in the memory when graver verse eludes all
effort at recollection. I personally could repeat "The Walrus and the
Carpenter" from beginning to end without hesitation, but I should find a
difficulty in writing ten lines of "Hamlet" correctly.
At the beginning of "Sylvie and Bruno" is a little poem in three verses
which forms an acrostic on my name. I quote it--
"Is all our life, then, but a dream,
Seen faintly in the golden gleam
Athwart Time's dark resistless stream?
Bowed to the earth with bitter woe,
Or laughing at some raree-show,
We flutter idly to and fro.
Man's little day in haste we spend,
And, from its merry noontide, send
No glance to meet the silent end."
You see that if you take the first letter of each line, or if you take the
first three letters of the first line of each verse, you get the name Isa
Bowman.
[Illustration: Facsimile:
Prologue
[Enter Beatrice, leading Wilfred She leaves him to centre (front) & after
going round on tip-toe to make sure they are not overheard returns & takes
his arm.]
B. "Wiffie! I'm sure that something is the matter!
All day there's been--oh such a fuss and clatter!
Mamma's been trying on a funny dress--
I never =saw= the house in such a mess!
(puts her arm round his neck)
Is there a secret, Wiffie?"
W. (Shaking her off) "yes, of course!"
B. "And you won't tell it? (whispers) Then you're very cross!
(turns away from, & clasps her hands, looking up ecstatically)
I'm sure of =this=! It's something =quite= uncommon!"
W. (stretching up his arms with a mock-heroic air)
"Oh, Curiosity! Thy name is Woman!
(puts his arm round her coaxingly)
Well, Birdie, then I'll tell. (mysteriously) What should you say
If they were going to act--a little play?"
B. (jumping and clapping her hands)
"I'd say '=How nice=!'"
W. (pointing to audience)
"But will it please the rest?"
B. "Oh =yes=! Because, you know, they'll do their best!
[turns to audience]
"You'll praise them, won't you, when you've seen the play?
Just say '=How nice=!' before you go away!"
[they run away hand in hand].
Feb 14. 1873.]
Although he never wrote anything in the dramatic line, he once wrote a
prologue for some private theatricals, which was to be spoken by Miss
Hatch and her brother. This prologue is reproduced in facsimile on the
preceding page.
Miss Hatch has also sent me a charade (reproduced on pp. 108-10) which he
wrote for her, and illustrated with some of his funny drawings.
I have one more letter, the last, which, as it mentions the book "Sylvie
and Bruno," I will give now.
"CHRIST CHURCH,
"_May 16, '90_.
"DEAREST ISA,--I had this ('this' was 'Sylvie and Bruno') bound for
you when the book first came out, and it's been waiting here ever
since Dec. 17, for I really didn't dare to send it across the
Atlantic--the whales are so inconsiderate. They'd have been sure to
want to borrow it to show to the little whales, quite forgetting that
the salt water would be sure to spoil it.
"Also, I've only been waiting for you to get back to send Emsie the
'Nursery Alice.' I give it to the youngest in a family generally; but
I've given one to Maggie as well, because she travels about so much,
and I thought she would like to have one to take with her. I hope
Nellie's eyes won't get _quite_ green with jealousy, at two (indeed
_three_!) of her sisters getting presents, and nothing for her! I've
nothing but my love to send her to-day: but she shall have _something
some_ day.--Ever your loving
"UNCLE CHARLES."
Socially, Lewis Carroll was of strong conservative tendencies. He viewed
with wonder and a little pain the absolute levelling tendencies of the
last few years of his life. I have before me an extremely interesting
letter which deals with social observances, and from which I am able to
make one or two extracts. The bulk of the letter is of a private nature.
"Ladies have 'to be _much_' more particular than gentlemen in
observing the distinctions of what is called 'social position': and
the _lower_ their own position is (in the scale of 'lady' ship), the
more jealous they seem to be in guarding it.... I've met with just the
same thing myself from people several degrees above me. Not long ago I
was staying in a house along with a young lady (about twenty years
old, I should think) with a title of her own, as she was an earl's
daughter. I happened to sit next her at dinner, and every time I
spoke to her, she looked at me more as if she was looking down on me
from about a mile up in the air, and as if she were saying to herself
'How _dare_ you speak to _me_! Why, you're not good enough to black my
shoes!' It was so unpleasant, that, next day at luncheon, I got as far
off her as I could!
"Of course we are all _quite_ equal in God's sight, but we _do_ make a
lot of distinctions (some of them quite unmeaning) among ourselves!"
The picture that this letter gives of the famous writer and learned
mathematician obviously rather in terror of some pert young lady fresh
from the schoolroom is not without its comic side. One cannot help
imagining that the girl must have been very young indeed, for if he were
alive to-day there are few ladies of any state who would not feel honoured
by the presence of Charles Dodgson.
However, he was not always so unfortunate in his experience of great
people, and the following letter, written when he was staying with Lord
Salisbury at Hatfield House, tells delightfully of his little royal
friends, the Duchess of Albany's children:
"HATFIELD HOUSE, HATFIELD,
"HERTS, _June 8, '89_."
"MY DARLING ISA,--I hope this will find you, but I haven't yet had any
letter from _Fulham_, so I can't be sure if you have yet got into your
new house.
"This is Lord Salisbury's house (he is the father, you know, of that
Lady Maud Wolmer that we had luncheon with): I came yesterday, and I'm
going to stay until Monday. It is such a nice house to stay in! They
let one do just as one likes--it isn't 'Now you must do some
geography! now it's time for your sums!' the sort of life _some_
little girls have to lead when they are so foolish as to visit
friends--but one can just please one's own dear self.
"There are some sweet little children staying in the house. Dear
little 'Wang' is here with her mother. By the way, _I_ made a mistake
in telling you what to call her. She is 'the Honourable Mabel
_Palmer_'--'Palmer' is the family name: 'Wolmer' is the _title_, just
as the _family_ name of Lord Salisbury is 'Cecil,' so that his
daughter was Lady Maud Cecil, till she married.
"Then there is the Duchess of Albany here, with two such sweet little
children. She is the widow of Prince Leopold (the Queen's youngest
son), so her children are a Prince and Princess: the girl is 'Alice,'
but I don't know the boy's Christian name: they call him 'Albany,'
because he is the Duke of Albany. Now that I have made friends with a
real live little Princess, I don't intend ever to _speak_ to any more
children that haven't any titles. In fact, I'm so proud, and I hold my
chin so high, that I shouldn't even _see_ you if we met! No, darlings,
you mustn't believe _that_. If I made friends with a _dozen_
Princesses, I would love you better than all of them together, even if
I had them all rolled up into a sort of child-roly-poly.
"Love to Nellie and Emsie.--Your ever loving Uncle,
"C. L. D."
X X X X X X X
And now I think that I have done all that has been in my power to present
Lewis Carroll to you in his most delightful aspect--as a friend to
children. I have not pretended in any way to write an exhaustive
life-story of the man who was so dear to me, but by the aid of the letters
and the diaries that I have been enabled to publish, and by the few
reminiscences that I have given you of Lewis Carroll as I knew him, I hope
I have done something to bring still nearer to your hearts the memory of
the greatest friend that children ever had.
Footnotes:
[1] This refers to my visit to America when, as a child, I played the
little Duke of York in "Richard III."
[2] At this point the real child's answers begin, the three or four lines
alone were written by Mr. Dodgson himself.--ED.
Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
Underlined passages are indicated by =underline=.
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