He thought nothing of telling his crew to steer starboard and larboard at the same time, and then we know how—
The bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes.“A thing,” as the Bellman remarked,“That frequently happens in tropical climes,When a vessel is, so to speak, ‘snarked.’”
TheBellmanhad hoped, when the wind blew toward the east, that the ship would not traveltoward the west, but it seems that with all his nautical knowledge he could not prevent it; ships are perverse animals!
“But the danger was past—they had landed at last,With their boxes, portmanteaus, and bags:Yet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view,Which consisted of chasms and crags.”
Now that they had reached the land of the Snark, theBellmanproceeded to air his knowledge on that subject.
“A snark,” he said, “had five unmistakable traits—its taste, ‘meager and mellow and crisp,’ its habit of getting up late, its slowness in taking a jest, its fondness for bathing machines, and, fifth and lastly, its ambition.” He further informed the crew that “the snarks that had feathers could bite, and those that had whiskers could scratch,” adding as an afterthought:
“‘For although common Snarks do no manner of harm,Yet I feel it my duty to say,Some are Boojums—’ The Bellman broke off in alarm,For the Baker had fainted away.”
Fit the Thirdwas theBaker’stale.
“They roused him with muffins, they roused him with ice,They roused him with mustard and cress,They roused him with jam and judicious advice,They set him conundrums to guess.”
Then he explained why it was that the name “Boojum” made him faint. It seems that a dear uncle, after whom he was named, gave him some wholesome advice about the way to hunt a snark, and this uncle seemed to be a man of much influence:
“‘You may seek it with thimbles, and seek it with care;You may hunt it with forks and hope;You may threaten its life with a railway-share;You may charm it with smiles and soap——’”“‘That’s exactly the method,’ the Bellman boldIn a hasty parenthesis cried,‘That’s exactly the way I have always been toldThat the capture of Snarks should be tried!’”“‘But, oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,If your Snark be a Boojum! For thenYou will softly and suddenly vanish away,And never be met with again!’”
This of course was a very sad thing to think of, for the man with no name, who was named after his uncle, and called in courtesy theBaker, had grown to be a great favorite with the crew; but they had no time to waste in sentiment—they were in the Snark’s own land, they had theBellman’sorders inFit the Fourth—the Hunting:
“To seek it with thimbles, to seek it with care;To pursue it with forks and hope;To threaten its life with a railway share;To charm it with smiles and soap!“For the Snark’s a peculiar creature, that won’tBe caught in a commonplace way.Do all that you know, and try all that you don’t:Not a chance must be wasted to-day!”
Then they all went to work according to their own special way, just as we would do now in our hunt for happiness through the chasms and crags of every day.
Fit the Fifthis theBeaver’sLesson, when theButcherdiscourses wisely on arithmetic and natural history, two subjects a butcher should know pretty thoroughly, and this is proved:
“While the Beaver confessed, with affectionate looksMore eloquent even than tears,It had learned in ten minutes far more than all booksWould have taught it in seventy years.”
TheBarrister’sDream occupiedFit the Sixth, and here our poet’s keen wit gave many a slap at the law and the lawyers.
TheBanker’sFate inFit the Seventhwas sad enough; he was grabbed by the Bandersnatch (that “frumious” “portmanteau” creature that we met before in theLay of the Jabberwocky) and worried and tossed about until he completely lost his senses. Some bankers are that way in the pursuit of fortune, which means happiness to them; but fortune may turn, like the Bandersnatch, and shake their minds out of their bodies, and so they left thisBankertohis fate. That is the way of people when bankers are in trouble, because they were reckless and not always careful to
“Beware the Jubjub bird, and shunThe frumious Bandersnatch.”
Fit the Eighthtreats of the vanishing of the Baker according to the prediction of his prophetic uncle. All day long the eager searchers had hunted in vain, but just at the close of the day they heard a shout in the distance and beheld theirBaker“erect and sublime” on top of a crag, waving his arms and shouting wildly; then before their startled and horrified gaze, he plunged into a chasm and disappeared forever.
“‘It’s a Snark!’ was the sound that first came to their ears.And seemed almost too good to be true.Then followed a torrent of laughter and cheers,Then the ominous words, ‘It’s a Boo——’“Then, silence. Some fancied they heard in the airA weary and wandering sighThat sounded like ‘jum!’ but the others declareIt was only a breeze that went by.“They hunted till darkness came on, but they foundNot a button, or feather, or markBy which they could tell that they stood on the groundWhere the Baker had met with the Snark.“In the midst of the word he was trying to say,In the midst of his laughter and glee,He had softly and suddenly vanished away—For the Snarkwasa Boojum, you see.”
What became of theBellmanand his crew is left to our imagination. Perhaps theBaker’sfate was a warning, or perhaps they are still hunting—nottooclose to the chasm. Lewis Carroll, always so particular about proper endings, refuses any explanation. The fact that this special Snark was a “Boojum” altered all the rules of the hunt. Nobody knows what it is, but all the same nobody wishes to meet a “Boojum.” That’s all there is about it.
“Now how absurd to talk such nonsense!” some learned school girl may exclaim; undoubtedly one who has high ideals about life and literature. But is it nonsense we are talking, and does the quaint poem really teach us nothing? Anything which brings a picture to the mind must surely have some merit, and there is much homely common sense wrapped up in the queer verses if we have but the wit to find it, and no one is too young nor too old to join in this hunt for happiness.
Read the poem over and over, put expression and feeling into it, treat theBellmanand his strange crew as if they were real human beings—there’s a lot of the human in them after all—and see if new ideas and new meanings do not pop into your head with each reading, while the verses, allunconsciously, will stick in your memory, where Tennyson or Wordsworth or even Shakespeare fails to hold a place there.
Of course, Lewis Carroll’s own especial girlfriends understood “The Hunting of the Snark” better than the less favored “outsiders.” First of all there was Lewis Carroll himself to read it to them in his own expressive way, his pleasant voice sinking impressively at exciting moments, and his clear explanation of each “portmanteau” word helping along wonderfully. We can fancy the gleam of fun in the blue eyes, the sweep of his hand across his hair, the sudden sweet smile with which he pointed his jests or clothed his moral, as the case might be. Indeed, one little girl was so fascinated with the poem which he sent her as a gift that she learned the whole of it by heart, and insisted on repeating it during a long country drive.
“The Hunting of the Snark” created quite a sensation among his friends. The first edition was finely illustrated by Henry Holiday, whose clever drawings show how well he understood the poem, and what sympathy existed between himself and the author.
“Phantasmagoria,” his ghost poem, deals with the friendly relations always existing between ghosts and the people they are supposed to haunt; a whimsical idea, carried out in Lewis Carroll’s whimsical way, with lots of fun and a good deal of simple philosophy worked out in the verses. Onecanto is particularly amusing. Here are some of the verses:
Oh, when I was a little Ghost,A merry time had we!Each seated on his favorite post,We chumped and chawed the buttered toastThey gave us for our tea.“That story is in print!” I cried.“Don’t say it’s not, becauseIt’s known as well as Bradshaw’s Guide!”(The Ghost uneasily repliedHe hardly thought it was.)It’s not in Nursery Rhymes? And yetI almost think it is—“Three little Ghostesses” were set“On postesses,” you know, and ateTheir “buttered toastesses.”
“The Three Voices,” his next ambitious poem, is rather out of the realm of childhood. A weak-minded man and a strong-minded lady met on the seashore, she having rescued his hat from the antics of a playful breeze by pinning it down on the sands with her umbrella, right through the center of the soft crown. When she handed it to him in its battered state, he was scarcely as grateful as he might have been—he was rude, in fact,
For it had lost its shape and shine,And it had cost him four-and-nine,And he was going out to dine.“To dine!” she sneered in acid tone.“To bend thy being to a boneClothed in a radiance not its own!”“Term it not ‘radiance,’” said he:“’Tis solid nutriment to me.Dinner is Dinner: Tea is Tea.”And she “Yea so? Yet wherefore cease?Let thy scant knowledge find increase.Say ‘Men are Men, and Geese are Geese.’”
The gentleman wanted to get away from this severe lady, but he could see no escape, for she was getting excited.
“To dine!” she shrieked, in dragon-wrath.“To swallow wines all foam and froth!To simper at a tablecloth!“Canst thou desire or pie or puff?Thy well-bred manners were enough,Without such gross material stuff.”“Yet well-bred men,” he faintly said,“Are not unwilling to be fed:Nor are they well without the bread.”Her visage scorched him ere she spoke;“There are,” she said, “a kind of folkWho have no horror of a joke.“Such wretches live: they take their shareOf common earth and common air:We come across them here and there.”“We grant them—there is no escape—A sort of semihuman shapeSuggestive of the manlike Ape.”
So the arguing went on—her Voice, his Voice, and the Voice of the Sea. He tried to joke away her solemn mood with a pun.
“The world is but a Thought,” said he:“The vast, unfathomable seaIs but a Notion—unto me.”And darkly fell her answer dreadUpon his unresisting head,Like half a hundredweight of lead.“The Good and Great must ever shunThat reckless and abandoned oneWho stoops to perpetrate a pun.“The man that smokes—that reads theTimes—That goes to Christmas Pantomimes—Is capable ofanycrimes!”
Anyone can understand these verses, but it is very plain that the poem is a satire on the rise of the learned lady, who takes no interest in the lighter, pleasanter side of life; a being much detested by Lewis Carroll, who above all things loved a “womanly woman.” As he grew older he became somewhat precise and old-fashioned in his opinions—that is perhaps the reason why he was so lovable. His ideals of womanhood and little girlhood werefixed and beautiful dreams, untouched by the rush of the times. The “new woman” puzzled and pained him quite as much as the pert, precocious, up-to-date girl. Would there were more Lewis Carrolls in the world; quiet, simple, old-fashioned, courteous gentlemen with ideals!
Here is a clever little poem dedicated to girls, which he calls
A GAME OF FIVES.Five little girls, of five, four, three, two, one:Rolling on thehearthrug, full of tricks and fun.Five rosy girls, in years from ten to six:Sitting down to lessons—no more time for tricks.Five growing girls, from fifteen to eleven:Music, drawing, languages, and food enough for seven!Five winsome girls, from twenty to sixteen:Each young man that calls I say, “Now tell me which youmean!”Five dashing girls, the youngest twenty-one:But if nobody proposes, what is there to be done?Five showy girls—but thirty is an ageWhen girls may beengaging, but they somehow don’tengage.Five dressy girls, of thirty-one or more:So gracious to the shy young men they snubbed so much before!Fivepasségirls. Their age? Well, never mind!We jog along together, like the rest of human kind:But the quondam “careless bachelor” begins to think he knowsThe answer to that ancient problem “how the money goes!”
There was no theme, in short, that Lewis Carroll did not fit into a rhyme or a poem. Some of them were full of real feeling, others were sparkling with nonsense, but all had their charm. No style nor meter daunted him; no poet was too great for his clever pen to parody; no ode was too heroic for a little earthly fun; and when the measure was rollicking the rhymer was at his best. Of this last,Alice’sinvitation to the Looking-Glass world is a fair example:
To the Looking-Glass world it was Alice that said,“I’ve a scepter in hand, I’ve a crown on my head.Let the Looking-Glass creatures, whatever they be,Come and dine with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me!”Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can,And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran;Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the tea,And welcome Queen Alice with thirty-times-three!“O Looking-Glass creatures,” quoth Alice, “draw near!’Tis an honor to see me, a favor to hear;’Tis a privilege high to have dinner and teaAlong with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me!”Then fill up the glasses with treacle and ink,Or anything else that is pleasant to drink;Mix sand with the cider, and wool with the wine,And welcome Queen Alice with ninety-times-nine!
The real sentiment always cropped out in his verses to little girls; from youth to age he was their “good knight and true” and all his fairest thoughts were kept for them. Many a grown woman has carefully hoarded among her treasures some bit of verse from Lewis Carroll, which her happy childhood inspired him to write; but the dedication of “Alice through the Looking-Glass” was to the unknown child, whom his book went forth to please:
Child of the pure, unclouded browAnd dreaming eyes of wonder!Though time be fleet, and I and thouAre half a life asunder,Thy loving smile will surely hailThe love-gift of a fairy tale.I have not seen thy sunny face,Nor heard thy silver laughter:No thought of me shall find a placeIn thy young life’s hereafter,Enough that now thou wilt not failTo listen to my fairy tale.A tale begun in other days,When summer suns were glowing,A simple chime, that served to timeThe rhythm of our rowing,Whose echoes live in memory yet,Though envious years would say “forget.”Come, hearken then, ere voice of dread,With bitter tidings laden,Shall summon to unwelcome bedA melancholy maiden!We are but older children, dear,Who fret to find our bedtime near.Without, the frost, the blinding snow,The storm-wind’s moody madness;Within, the firelight’s ruddy glow,And childhood’s nest of gladness.The magic words shall hold thee fast;Thou shalt not heed the raving blast.And though the shadow of a sighMay tremble through the story,For “happy summer days” gone byAnd vanished summer glory,It shall not touch, with breath of bale,The pleasance of our fairy tale.
These are only a meager handful of his many poems. Through his life this gift stayed with him, with all its early spirit and freshness; the added years but added grace and lightness to his touch, for in the “Story of Sylvie and Bruno” there are some gems: but that is another chapter and we shall hear them later.
And so the years passed, and the writer of the “Alices” and the “Jabberwocky” and “The Hunting of the Snark” and other poems fastened himself slowly but surely into the loyal hearts of his many readers, and the grave mathematical lecturerof Christ Church seemed just a trifle older and graver than of yore. He was very reserved, very shy, and kept somewhat aloof from his fellow “dons”; but let a little girl tapeverso faintly at his study door, the knock was heard, the door flung wide, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson vanished into some inner sanctum, and Lewis Carroll stood smiling on the threshold to welcome her with open arms.
Lewis Carroll had a mind which never rested in waking hours, and as is the case with all such active thinkers, his hours of sleeping were often broken by long stretches of wakefulness, during which time the thinking machinery set itself in motion and spun out problems and riddles and odd games and puzzles.
“Puzzles and problems of all sorts were a delight to Mr. Dodgson,” writes Miss Beatrice Hatch in theStrand Magazine. “Many a sleepless night was occupied by what he called a ‘pillow problem’; in fact his mathematical mind seemed always at work on something of the kind, and he loved to discuss and argue a point connected with his logic, if he could but find a willing listener. Sometimes, while paying an afternoon call, he would borrow scraps of paper and leave neat little diagrams or word puzzles to be worked out by his friends.”
Logic was a study of which he was very fond. After he gave up in 1881 the lectureship ofmathematics which he had held for twenty-five years he determined to make literature a profession; to devote part of his time to more serious study, and a fair portion to the equally fascinating work for children.
“In his estimation,” says Miss Hatch, “logic was a most important study for every one; no pains were spared to make it clear and interesting to those who would consent to learn of him, either in a class that he begged to be allowed to hold in a school or college, or to a single individual girl who showed the smallest inclination to profit by his instructions.”
He took the greatest delight in his subject and wisely argued that all girls should learn, not only to reason, but to reason properly—that is, logically. With this end in view he wrote for their use a little book which he called “The Game of Logic,” and the girls, whose footsteps he had guided in childish days through realms of nonsense, were willing in many instances to journey with him into the byways of learning, feeling sure he would not lead them into depths where they could not follow. The little volume contains four chapters, and the whimsical headings show us at once that Lewis Carroll was the author, and not Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.
Chapter I.........New Lamps for Old.Chapter II.......Cross Questions.Chapter III......Crooked Answers.Chapter IV......Hit or Miss.
To be sure this is not a “play” book, and even as a “game” it is one which requires a great deal of systematic thinking and reasoning. The girl who has reached thinking and reasoning years and does not care to do either, had better not even peep into the book; but if she is built on sturdier lines and wishes to peep, she must do more—she must read it step by step and study the carefully drawn diagrams, if she would follow intelligently the clear, precise arguments. The book is dedicated—
TO MY CHILD-FRIEND.I charm in vain: for never again,All keenly as my glance I bend,Will memory, goddess coy,Embody for my joyDeparted days, nor let me gazeOn thee, my Fairy Friend!Yet could thy face, in mystic grace,A moment smile on me, ’twould sendFar-darting rays of lightFrom Heaven athwart the night,By which to read in very deedThy spirit, sweetest Friend!So may the stream of Life’s long dreamFlow gently onward to its end,With many a floweret gay,Adown its billowy way:May no sigh vex nor care perplexMy loving little Friend!
His preface is most enticing. He says: “This Game requires nine Counters—four of one color and five of another; say four red and five gray. Besides the nine Counters, it also requires one Playerat least. I am not aware of any game that can be played withlessthan this number; while there are several that require more; take Cricket, for instance, which requires twenty-two. How much easier it is, when you want to play a game, to findonePlayer than twenty-two! At the same time, though one Player is enough, a good deal more amusement may be got by two working at it together, and correcting each other’s mistakes.
“A second advantage possessed by this Game is that, besides being an endless source of amusement (the number of arguments that may be worked by it being infinite), it will give the Players a little instruction as well. But is there any great harm in that, so long as you get plenty of amusement?”
To explain the book thoroughly would take the wit and clever handling of Lewis Carroll himself, but to the beginner of Logic a few of these unfinished syllogisms may prove interesting: a syllogism in logical language consists of what is known as twoPremissesand oneConclusion, and is a very simple form of argument when you get used to it.
For instance, supposing someone says: “All my friends have colds”; someone else may add: “No one can sing who has a cold”; then the thirdperson draws the conclusion, which is: “None of my friends can sing,” and the perfect logical argument would read as follows:
1. Premise—“All my friends have colds.”2. Premise—“No one can sing who has a cold.”3. Conclusion—“None of my friends can sing.”
That is what is called a perfect syllogism, and in Chapter IV, which he callsHit or Miss, Lewis Carroll has collected a hundred examples containing the twoPremisseswhich need theConclusion. Here are some of them. Anyone can draw her own conclusions:
Pain is wearisome;No pain is eagerly wished for.
In each case the student is required to fill up the third space.
No bald person needs a hairbrush;No lizards have hair.No unhappy people chuckle;No happy people groan.All ducks waddle;Nothing that waddles is graceful.Some oysters are silent;No silent creatures are amusing.Umbrellas are useful on a journey;What is useless on a journey should be left behind.No quadrupeds can whistle;Some cats are quadrupeds.Some bald people wear wigs;All your children have hair.
The whole book is brimful of humor and simple everyday reasoning that the smallest child could understand.
Another “puzzle” book of even an earlier date is “A Tangled Tale”; this is dedicated—
TO MY PUPIL.Belovéd pupil! Tamed by thee,Addish, Subtrac-, Multiplica-tion,Division, Fractions, Rule of Three,Attest the deft manipulation!Then onward! Let the voice of Fame,From Age to Age repeat the story,Till thou hast won thyself a name,Exceeding even Euclid’s glory!
In the preface he says: “This Tale originally appeared as a serial inThe Monthly Packet, beginning in April, 1880. The writer’s intention was to embody in each Knot (like the medicine so deftly but ineffectually concealed in the jam of our childhood) one or more mathematical questions, in Arithmetic, Algebra, or Geometry, as the case might be, for the amusement and possible edification of the fair readers of that Magazine.
“October, 1885.L. C.”
These are regular mathematical problems and “posers,” most of them, and it seems that the readers, being more or less ambitious, set to work in right good earnest to answer them, and sent in the solutions to the author under assumed names, and then he produced the real problem, the real answer, and all the best answers of the contestants. These problems were all calledKnotsand were told in the form of stories.
Knot I was calledExcelsior. It was written as a tale of adventure, and ran as follows:
“The ruddy glow of sunset was already fading into the somber shadows of night, when two travelers might have been observed swiftly—at a pace of six miles in the hour—descending the rugged side of a mountain; the younger bounding from crag to crag with the agility of a fawn, while his companion, whose aged limbs seemed ill at ease in the heavy chain armor habitually worn by tourists in that district, toiled on painfully at his side.”
Lewis Carroll is evidently imitating the style of some celebrated writer—Henry James, most likely, who is rather fond of opening his story with “two travelers,” or perhaps Sir Walter Scott. He goes on:
“As is always the case under such circumstances, the younger knight was the first to break the silence.
“‘A goodly pace, I trow!’ he exclaimed. ‘We sped not thus in the ascent!’
“‘Goodly, indeed!’ the other echoed with agroan. ‘We clomb it but at three miles in the hour.’
“‘And on the dead level our pace is—?’ the younger suggested; for he was weak in statistics, and left all such details to his aged companion.
“‘Four miles in the hour,’ the other wearily replied. ‘Not an ounce more,’ he added, with that love of metaphor so common in old age, ‘and not a farthing less!’
“‘’Twas three hours past high noon when we left our hostelry,’ the young man said, musingly. ‘We shall scarce be back by supper-time. Perchance mine host will roundly deny us all food!’
“‘He will chide our tardy return,’ was the grave reply, ‘and such a rebuke will be meet.’
“‘A brave conceit!’ cried the other, with a merry laugh. ‘And should we bid him bring us yet another course, I trow his answer will be tart!’
“‘We shall but get our deserts,’ sighed the older knight, who had never seen a joke in his life, and was somewhat displeased at his companion’s untimely levity. ‘’Twill be nine of the clock,’ he added in an undertone, ‘by the time we regain our hostelry. Full many a mile have we plodded this day!’
“‘How many? How many?’ cried the eager youth, ever athirst for knowledge.
“The old man was silent.
“‘Tell me,’ he answered after a moment’sthought, ‘what time it was when we stood together on yonder peak. Not exact to the minute!’ he added, hastily, reading a protest in the young man’s face. ‘An’ thy guess be within one poor half hour of the mark, ’tis all I ask of thy mother’s son! Then will I tell thee, true to the last inch, how far we shall have trudged betwixt three and nine of the clock.’
“A groan was the young man’s only reply, while his convulsed features and the deep wrinkles that chased each other across his manly brow revealed the abyss of arithmetical agony into which one chance question had plunged him.”
The problem in plain English is this: “Two travelers spend from three o’clock till nine in walking along a level road, up a hill, and home again, their pace on the level being four miles an hour, up hill three, and down hill six. Find distance walked: also (within half an hour) the time of reaching top of hill.”
Answer.“Twenty-four miles: half-past six.”
The explanation is very clear and very simple, but we will not give it here. This first knot of “A Tangled Tale” offers attractions of its own, for like the dreamAlicesomeone may exclaim, “A Knot! Oh, do let me help to undo it!”
The second problem or “Tale” is calledEligible Apartments, and deals with the adventures of oneBalbusand his pupils, and contains two “Knots.” One is: “The Governor of —— wants to give averysmall dinner party, and he means to ask hisfather’s brother-in-law, his brother’s father-in-law, and his brother-in-law’s father, and we’re to guess how many guests there will be.” The answer isone. Perhaps some ambitious person will go over the ground and prove it. The second knot deals with theEligible ApartmentswhichBalbusand his pupils were hunting. At the end of their walk they found themselves in a square.
“‘Itisa Square!’ was Balbus’s first cry of delight as he gazed around him. ‘Beautiful! Beau-ti-ful!Andrectangular!’ and as he plunged into Geometry he also plunged into funny conversations with the average English landlady, which we can better follow:
“‘Which there isoneroom, gentlemen,’ said the smiling landlady, ‘and a sweet room, too. As snug a little back room——’
“‘We will see it,’ said Balbus gloomily as they followed her in. ‘I knew how it would be! One room in each house! No view I suppose.’
“‘Which indeed thereis, gentlemen!’ the landlady indignantly protested as she drew up the blind, and indicated the back garden.
“‘Cabbages, I perceive,’ said Balbus. ‘Well, they’re green at any rate.’
“‘Which the greens at the shops,’ their hostess explained, ‘are by no means dependable upon. Here you has them on the premises,andof the best.’
“‘Does the window open?’ was always Balbus’sfirst question in testing a lodging; and ‘Does the chimney smoke?’ his second. Satisfied on all points, he secured the refusal of the room, and moved on to the next house where they repeated the same performance, adding as an afterthought: ‘Does the cat scratch?’
“The landlady looked around suspiciously as if to make sure the cat was not listening. ‘I will not deceive you, gentlemen,’ she said, ‘itdoscratch, but not without you pulls its whiskers. It’ll never do it,’ she repeated slowly, with a visible effort to recall the exact words between herself and the cat, ‘without you pulls its whiskers!’
“‘Much may be excused in a cat so treated,’ said Balbus as they left the house, ... leaving the landlady curtseying on the doorstep and still murmuring to herself her parting words, as if they were a form of blessing, ‘not without you pulls its whiskers!’”
He has given us a real Dickens atmosphere in the dialogue, but the medicinal problem tucked into it all is too much like hard work.
There were ten of these “Knots,” each one harder than its predecessor, and Lewis Carroll found much interest in receiving and criticising the answers, all sent under fictitious names.
This clever mathematician delighted in “puzzlers,” and sometimes he found a kindred soul among the guessers, which always pleased him.
One of his favorite problems was one that asearly as the days of theRectory Umbrellahe brought before his limited public. He called itDifficulty No. 1.
“Where in its passage round the earth does the day change its name?”
This question pursued him all through his mathematical career, and the difficulty of answering it has never lessened. Even in “A Tangled Tale” neither Balbus nor his ambitious young pupils could do much with the problem.
Difficulty No. 2is very humorous, and somewhat of a “catch” question.
“Which is the best—a clock that is right only once a year, or a clock that is right twice every day?”
In March, 1897,Vanity Fair, a current English magazine, had the following article entitled:
“A New Puzzle.”“The readers ofVanity Fairhave, during the last ten years, shown so much interest in Acrostics and Hard Cases, which were at first made the object of sustained competition for prizes in the journal, that it has been sought to invent for them an entirely new kind of Puzzle, such as would interest them equally with those that have already been so successful. The subjoined letter from Mr. Lewis Carroll will explain itself, and will introduce a Puzzle so entirely novel and withal so interesting thatthe transmutation [changing] of the original into the final word of the Doublets may be expected to become an occupation, to the full as amusing as the guessing of the Double Acrostics has already proved.”“Dear Vanity,” Lewis Carroll writes:—“Just a year ago last Christmas two young ladies, smarting under that sorest scourge of feminine humanity, the having “nothing to do,” besought me to send them “some riddles.” But riddles I had none at hand and therefore set myself to devise some other form of verbal torture which should serve the same purpose. The result of my meditations was a new kind of Puzzle, new at least to me, which now that it has been fairly tested by a year’s experience, and commended by many friends, I offer to you as a newly gathered nut to be cracked by the omnivorous teeth that have already masticated so many of your Double Acrostics.“The rules of the Puzzle are simple enough. Two words are proposed, of the same length; and the Puzzle consists in linking these together by interposing other words, each of which shall differ from the next wordin one letter only. That is to say, one letter may be changed in one of the given words, then one letter in the word so obtained, and so on, till we arrive at the other given word. The letters must not be interchanged among themselves, but each must keep to its own place. As an example, the word ‘head’ may be changed into ‘tail’by interposing the words ‘heal, teal, tell, tall.’ I call the two given words ‘a Doublet,’ the interposed words ‘Links,’ and the entire series ‘a Chain,’ of which I here append an example:HeadhealtealtelltallTail“It is perhaps needless to state that the links should be English words, such as might be used in good society.“The easiest ‘Doublets’ are those in which the consonants in one word answer to the consonants in the other, and the vowels to vowels; ‘head’ and ‘tail’ constitute a Doublet of this kind. Where this is not the case, as in ‘head’ and ‘hare,’ the first thing to be done is to transform one member of the Doublet into a word whose consonants and vowels shall answer to those in the other member (‘head, herd, here’), after which there is seldom much difficulty in completing the ‘Chain.’...“Lewis Carroll.”
“A New Puzzle.”
“The readers ofVanity Fairhave, during the last ten years, shown so much interest in Acrostics and Hard Cases, which were at first made the object of sustained competition for prizes in the journal, that it has been sought to invent for them an entirely new kind of Puzzle, such as would interest them equally with those that have already been so successful. The subjoined letter from Mr. Lewis Carroll will explain itself, and will introduce a Puzzle so entirely novel and withal so interesting thatthe transmutation [changing] of the original into the final word of the Doublets may be expected to become an occupation, to the full as amusing as the guessing of the Double Acrostics has already proved.”
“Dear Vanity,” Lewis Carroll writes:—“Just a year ago last Christmas two young ladies, smarting under that sorest scourge of feminine humanity, the having “nothing to do,” besought me to send them “some riddles.” But riddles I had none at hand and therefore set myself to devise some other form of verbal torture which should serve the same purpose. The result of my meditations was a new kind of Puzzle, new at least to me, which now that it has been fairly tested by a year’s experience, and commended by many friends, I offer to you as a newly gathered nut to be cracked by the omnivorous teeth that have already masticated so many of your Double Acrostics.
“The rules of the Puzzle are simple enough. Two words are proposed, of the same length; and the Puzzle consists in linking these together by interposing other words, each of which shall differ from the next wordin one letter only. That is to say, one letter may be changed in one of the given words, then one letter in the word so obtained, and so on, till we arrive at the other given word. The letters must not be interchanged among themselves, but each must keep to its own place. As an example, the word ‘head’ may be changed into ‘tail’by interposing the words ‘heal, teal, tell, tall.’ I call the two given words ‘a Doublet,’ the interposed words ‘Links,’ and the entire series ‘a Chain,’ of which I here append an example:
HeadhealtealtelltallTail
“It is perhaps needless to state that the links should be English words, such as might be used in good society.
“The easiest ‘Doublets’ are those in which the consonants in one word answer to the consonants in the other, and the vowels to vowels; ‘head’ and ‘tail’ constitute a Doublet of this kind. Where this is not the case, as in ‘head’ and ‘hare,’ the first thing to be done is to transform one member of the Doublet into a word whose consonants and vowels shall answer to those in the other member (‘head, herd, here’), after which there is seldom much difficulty in completing the ‘Chain.’...
“Lewis Carroll.”
“Doublets” was brought out in book form in 1880, and proved a very attractive little volume.
“The Game of Logic” and “A Tangled Tale” are also in book form, the latter cleverly illustrated by Arthur B. Frost.
It would take too long to name all the games and puzzles Lewis Carroll invented. Some were carefully thought out, some were produced on the spur of the moment, generally for the amusement of some special child friend. Indeed, the puzzles and riddles and games had accumulated to such an extent that he was arranging to publish a book of them with illustrations by Miss E. Gertrude Thomson, but after his death the plans fell through, and many literary projects were abandoned.
Acrostic writing was one of his favorite pastimes, and he wrote enough of these to have filled a good fat little volume.
His Wonderland Stamp-Case, one of his own ingenious inventions, might come under the head of “Puzzles and Problems,” and, oddly enough, an interesting description of this stamp-case was published only a short time ago inThe Nation. The writer describes his own copy which he bought when it was new, some twenty years ago. There is first an envelope of red paper, on which is printed:
The “Wonderland” Postage Stamp-Case,Invented by Louis Carroll, Oct. 29, 1888.This case contains 12 separate packets forStamps of different values, and 2 ColouredPictorial Surprises, taken from “Alice inWonderland.” It is accompanied with 8 or9 Wise Words about Letter-Writing.1st, post-free, 13d.
On the flap of the envelope is:
Published by Emberlin & Son,4 Magdalen Street, Oxford.
“The Stamp-Case,” the writer tells us, “consists of a stiff paper folded with the pockets on the inner leaves and a picture on each outer leaf. This Case is inclosed in a sliding cover, and in this way the pictorial surprise becomes possible. A picture ofAliceholding theBabyis on the front cover, and when this is drawn off, there is underneath a picture ofAlicenursing a pig. On the back cover is the famousCat, which vanishes to a shadowy grin on the pictures beneath.”
The booklet which accompanied this little stamp-case found its way to many of his girl friends. Now, whether they bought it, or whether, under guise of giving a present, this clever friend of theirs sent them the stamp-case with the “eight or nine words of advice” slyly tucked in, we cannot say, but in the case of Isa Bowman and of Beatrice Hatch the booklet evidently made a deep impression, for both quote from it very freely, and some of the “wise words” are certainly worth heeding, for instance:
“Address and stamp the envelope.”“What! Before writing the letter?”“Most certainly; and I’ll tell you what will happen if you don’t. You will go on writing till the last moment, and just in the middle of the last sentence you willbecome aware that ‘time’s up!’ Then comes the hurried wind-up—the wildly scrawled signature—the hastily fastened envelope which comes open in the post—the address—a mere hieroglyphic—the horrible discovery that you’ve forgotten to replenish your stamp-case—the frantic appeal to everyone in the house to lend you a stamp—the headlong rush to the Post Office, arriving hot and gasping, just after the box has been closed—and finally, a week afterwards, the return of the letter from the dead letter office, marked, ‘address illegible.’”“Write legibly.“The average temper of the human race would be perceptibly sweetened if everybody obeyed this rule. A great deal of bad writing in the world comes simply from writingtoo 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, 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 me 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!”“My Ninth Rule.—When you get to the end of a note-sheet, and find you have more to say, take another pieceof 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.’ ‘Theoldproverb?’ you say inquiringly. ‘How old?’ Why, not soveryancient, I must confess. In fact—I’m afraid I invented it while writing this paragraph. Still, you know ‘old’ is acomparativeterm; I think you would be quite justified in addressing a chicken just out of the shell as ‘Old Boy!’when comparedwith another chicken that was only half out!”“Don’t try to have the last word,” he tells us—and again, “Don’tfill more than a page and a half with apologies for not having written sooner.”“On how to end a letter,” he advises the writer to “refer to your correspondent’s last letter, and make your winding upat least as friendly as his; in fact, even if a shade more friendly, it will do no harm.”“When you take your letters to the post,carry them in your hand. If you put them in your pocket, you will take a long country walk (I speak from experience), passing the post office twice, going and returning, and when you get home you will find them still in your pocket.”
“Address and stamp the envelope.”
“What! Before writing the letter?”
“Most certainly; and I’ll tell you what will happen if you don’t. You will go on writing till the last moment, and just in the middle of the last sentence you willbecome aware that ‘time’s up!’ Then comes the hurried wind-up—the wildly scrawled signature—the hastily fastened envelope which comes open in the post—the address—a mere hieroglyphic—the horrible discovery that you’ve forgotten to replenish your stamp-case—the frantic appeal to everyone in the house to lend you a stamp—the headlong rush to the Post Office, arriving hot and gasping, just after the box has been closed—and finally, a week afterwards, the return of the letter from the dead letter office, marked, ‘address illegible.’”
“Write legibly.
“The average temper of the human race would be perceptibly sweetened if everybody obeyed this rule. A great deal of bad writing in the world comes simply from writingtoo 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, 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 me 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!”
“My Ninth Rule.—When you get to the end of a note-sheet, and find you have more to say, take another pieceof 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.’ ‘Theoldproverb?’ you say inquiringly. ‘How old?’ Why, not soveryancient, I must confess. In fact—I’m afraid I invented it while writing this paragraph. Still, you know ‘old’ is acomparativeterm; I think you would be quite justified in addressing a chicken just out of the shell as ‘Old Boy!’when comparedwith another chicken that was only half out!”
“Don’t try to have the last word,” he tells us—and again, “Don’tfill more than a page and a half with apologies for not having written sooner.”
“On how to end a letter,” he advises the writer to “refer to your correspondent’s last letter, and make your winding upat least as friendly as his; in fact, even if a shade more friendly, it will do no harm.”
“When you take your letters to the post,carry them in your hand. If you put them in your pocket, you will take a long country walk (I speak from experience), passing the post office twice, going and returning, and when you get home you will find them still in your pocket.”
Letter-writing was as much a part of Lewis Carroll as games, and puzzles, and problems, and mathematics, and nonsense, and little girls. Indeed, as we view him through the stretch of years, we find him so many-sided that he himself would have done well to draw a new geometrical figure to represent a nature so full of strange angles and surprising shapes. If one is fond of looking into akaleidoscope, and watching the ever-changing facets and colors and designs, one would be pretty apt to understand the constant shifting of that active mind, always on the alert for new ideas, but steady and fixed in many good old ones, which had become firm habits.
He was fond of giving his child-friends “nuts to crack,” and nothing pleased him more than to be the center of some group of little girls, firing his conundrums and puzzles into their minds, and watching the bright young faces catching the glow of his thoughts. He knew just how far to go, and when to turn some dawning idea into quaint nonsense, so that the young mind could grasp and hold it. Dear maker of nonsense, dear teacher and friend, dear lover of children, can they ever forget you!
In a little poem called “A Sea Dirge,” which Lewis Carroll wrote about this time, we find some very strange, uncomplimentary remarks, considering the fact that most of his vacations was spent at the seashore. Eastbourne, in the summer time, was as much his home—during the last fifteen years of his life—as Christ Church during the Oxford term. His pretty house in a shady, quiet street was a familiar spot to every girl friend of his acquaintance, and many of his closest and most interesting friendships were begun by the sea, yet he says:
There are certain things, as a spider, a ghost,The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three—That I hate, but the thing that I hate the mostIs a thing they call the Sea.Pour some salt water over the floor—Ugly I’m sure you’ll allow it to be;Suppose it extended a mile or more,That’svery like the Sea.······I had a vision of nursery maids;Tens of thousands passed by me—All leading children with wooden spades,And this way by the Sea.Who invented those spades of wood?Who was it cut them out of the tree?None, I think, but an idiot could—Or one that loved the Sea.······If you like your coffee with sand for dregs,A decided hint of salt in your tea,And a fishy taste in the very eggs—By all means choose the Sea.And if, with these dainties to drink and eat,You prefer not a vestige of grass or tree,And a chronic state of wet in your feet,Then—I recommend the Sea.
Did he mean all this, we wonder, this genial gentleman, who haunted the seashore in search of little girls, his pockets bulging with games and puzzles? He had also a good supply of safety-pins, in case he saw someone who wanted to wade in the sea, but whose skirts were in her way and who had no pin handy. Then he would go gravely up to her and present her with one of his stock.
In the earlier days he used to go to Sandown, in the Isle of Wight, and there he met little Gertrude Chataway, who must have been a very charming child, for he promptly fell in love with her. Thiswas in 1875, and, from her description of him, he must have been avery, veryold gentleman—forty-three at least. He happened to live next door to Gertrude, and during those summer days she used to watch him with much interest, for he had a way of throwing back his head and sniffing in the salt air that fascinated Gertrude, whose joy bubbled over when at last he spoke to her. The two became great friends. They used to sit for hours on the steps of their house which led to the beach, and he would delight the little girl with his wonderful stories, often illustrating them with a pencil as he talked. The great charm of these stories lay in the fact that some chance remark of Gertrude’s would wind him up; some question she asked would suggest a story, and as it spread out into “lovely nonsense” she always felt in some way that she had helped to make it grow.
This little girl was one of the child-friends who clung to the sweet association all her life, just as the little Liddell girls never grew quite away from his love and interest. It was to Gertrude that he dedicated “The Hunting of the Snark,” and she was the proud possessor not only of his friendship, but of many interesting letters, covering a period of at least ten years, during which time Gertrude passed from little girlhood, though he never seemed to realize the change.
Two of his prime favorites in the earlier days were Ellen Terry, the well-known English actress,and her sister Kate, who was also an actress of some note.
Lewis Carroll, being always very fond of the drama, found it through life his keenest delight, and it was his good fortune to see little Ellen Terry in the first prominent part she ever took. This was in 1856, when Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean played in “The Winter’s Tale,” and Ellen took the child’s character ofMamillius, the little son of the King. Lewis Carroll was carried away with the tiny actress, and it did not take him long after that to make her acquaintance. This no doubt began in the usual way, a chat with the child behind the scenes, a call upon her father and mother, and, finally, an introduction to the whole family which, being nearly as large as his own, could not fail to interest him deeply.
There were two other little Terry girls, who attracted him and to whom he was very kind, Florence and Marion. The boys, and there were five of them, he never noticed of course, but the four little girls came in for a good share of the most substantial petting. Many a day at the seaside he gave them—these busy little actresses—many a feast in his own rooms, many a daytime frolic, for night was their working time—not that they minded in the least, for they loved their work. There was much talk in those days about the harm in allowing children to act at night, when they should be snug in their beds dreaming of fairies. But LewisCarroll thought nothing of the kind; he delighted in the children’s acting, and he knew, being half a child himself, that the youngsters took as much delight in their work as he did in seeing them. He always contended that acting comes naturally to children; from babyhood they “pretend,” and if they happen, as in Ellen Terry’s case and the case of other little stage people he knew, to be born in the profession, why, this “pretending” is the finest kind ofplaynotwork. So he was always on the side of the little actors and actresses who did not want to be taken away from the theater and put to bed.
Ellen Terry proved also to be one of his lifelong friends; the talented actress found his praise a most precious thing, and his criticism, always so honest, and usually so keen and true, she accepted with the grace of the great artist. Often, too, he asked her aid for some other girl friend with dramatic talent, and she never failed to lend a helping hand when she could. From first to last her acting charmed him. Often he would take a little girl to some Shakespearean treat at the theater, and would raise her to the “seventh heaven” of delight by penciling a note to Miss Terry asking for an interview or perhaps a photograph for his small companion, and these requests were never refused.
Every Christmas the Rev. Charles Dodgson spent with his sisters, who since their father’s death had lived at Guildford, in a pretty house calledThe Chestnuts. His coming at Christmas was alwaysa great event, for of course some very youthful ladies in the neighborhood were in a state of suppressed excitement over his yearly arrival, which meant Christmas jollity—with charades and tableaux and all sorts of odd and interesting games, and,of course, stories.
One of his special Guildford favorites was Gaynor Simpson, to whom he wrote several of his clever letters. In one, evidently an answer to hers, he begged her never again to leave out the g in the name Dodgson, asking in a very plaintive manner whatshewould think if he left out the G inhername and called her “Aynor” instead of Gaynor.
In this same letter he confessed that he never danced except in his own peculiar way, that the last house he danced in, the floors broke through, but as the beams were only six inches thick, it was a very poor sort of floor, when one came to think—that stone arches were much better forhissort of dancing.
Indeed, the poem he wrote about the sea must have been just a bit of a joke, for it was at Margate, another seaside resort, that he met Adelaide Paine, another of his favorites, and to her he presented a copy of “The Hunting of the Snark,” with an acrostic on her name written on the fly leaf. This little maid was further honored by receiving a photograph, not of Lewis Carroll, but of Mr. Dodgson, and in a note to her mother he begged in his usual odd way that she would never let any but herintimate friends know anything about the name of “Lewis Carroll,” as he did not wish people who had heard of him to recognize him in the street.
The friendships that were not cemented at the seaside or under the shelter of old “Tom Quad” were very often begun in the railway train. English trains are not like ours in America. In Lewis Carroll’s time the “first-class” accommodations were calledcarriages, in which four or five people, often total strangers, were shut up for hours together, actually locked in by the guard; and if one of these people chanced to be Lewis Carroll, and another a restless, active little girl, why, in the twinkling of an eye the sign of fellowship had flashed between them, and they were friends.
One special friend made in this fashion was a dear little maid named Kathleen Eschwege, who stayed a child to him always during their eighteen years of friendship, in spite of all the changes the years brought in their train; her marriage among the rest, on which occasion he wrote her that as he never gave wedding presents, he hoped the inclosed he sent in his letter she would accept as anunweddingpresent.
This letter bore the date of January 20, 1892; five years later he wrote to acknowledge a photograph she had sent him in January, 1892, also her wedding-card in August of the same year. But he salved his conscience by reminding her that a certain biscuit-box—decorated with “Looking-Glass”pictures—which he had sent her in December, 1892, had never been acknowledged byher.
Our “don’s” memory sometimes played him tricks we see, especially in later years. On one occasion, failing to recognize someone who passed him on the street, he was much chagrined to find out that he had been the gentleman’s guest at dinner only the night before.
Another pleasant railway friendship was established with three little Drury girls, as early as 1869. They did not know who he was until he sent them a copy of “Alice in Wonderland”—with the following verse on the fly leaf:
TO THREE PUZZLED LITTLE GIRLS.(From the Author.)Three little maidens weary of the rail,Three pairs of little ears listening to a tale,Three little hands held out in readinessFor three little puzzles very hard to guess.Three pairs of little eyes and open wonder-wideAt three little scissors lying side by side,Three little mouths that thanked an unknown friendFor one little book he undertook to send.Though whether they’ll remember a friend or book or day—In three little weeks is very hard to say.
Edith Rix was another favorite but apparently beyond the usual age, for his letters to her have quite a grown-up tone, and he helped her through many girlish quandaries with his wholesome advice.
There are scores of others—so many that their very names would mean nothing to us unless we knew the circumstances which began the acquaintance, and the numerous incidents which could only occur in the company of Lewis Carroll.
As we know, there were three great influences in his life: his reverence for holy things, his fondness for mathematics, and his love of little girls. It is this last trait which colors our picture of him and makes him stand forth in our minds apart from other men of his time. There have been many great preachers and eminent mathematicians, and these brilliant men may have loved childhood in a certain way, but to step aside from their high places to mingle with the children would never have occurred to them. The small girls who were “seen and not heard” dropped their eyes bashfully when the great ones passed, and bobbed a little old-fashioned curtsy in return for a stately preoccupied nod. But not so Lewis Carroll. No childish eyes ever sought his in vain. His own blue ones always smiled back, and there was something so glowing in this smile which lit up his whole face, that children, all unconsciously, drew near the warmth of it.
His love for girls speaks well for the home-life and surroundings of his earlier years, when in the company of his seven sisters he learned to know girls pretty thoroughly. These girls of whom we have such scant knowledge possessed, we are sure,some potent charm to make this “big brother” forever afterwards the champion of little girls, and being a thoughtful fellow, he must have watched with pleasure the way they bloomed from childhood to girlhood and from girlhood to womanhood, in the sweet seclusion of Croft Rectory. It was this intimacy and comradeship with his sisters which made him so easily the intimate and comrade of so many little girls, understanding all their traits and peculiarities and their “girl nature” better sometimes than they did themselves.
Some of his friends moved in royal circles. Princess Beatrice, who received the second presentation copy of “Alice in Wonderland,” was one of them; but in later years the two children of the Duchess of Albany (Queen Victoria’s daughter-in-law), Alice and the young Duke, claimed his friendship, and despite his preference for girls, Lewis Carroll could not help liking the lad, whose gentle disposition and studious habits set him somewhat apart from other boys.
Near home, that is to say in Oxford, or more properly, within a stone’s throw of Christ Church itself, dwelt the Rev. E. Hatch and his bright and interesting family of children, with all of whom Lewis Carroll was on the most intimate terms, though his special favorite was Beatrice, better known as Bee. This little girl came so close upon the Liddell children in his long list of friends that she almost caught the echo of those happy days of“Wonderland,” and she has much to say about this association in an interesting article published in theStrand Magazinesome years ago.
“My earliest recollections of Mr. Dodgson,” she writes, “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 gypsy 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 tall friend’s side in the tiny dark room, and watch him while he poured the contents of several little strong-smelling bottles on the glass picture of yourself that looked so funny with its black face; and when you grew tired of this there were many delights to be found in the cupboards in the big room downstairs. Musical boxes of different colors and different tunes, the dear old woolly bear that walked when he was wound up, toys, picture-books, and packets of photographs of other children, who had also enjoyed these mornings of bliss.
“The following letter written to me in 1873, about a large wax doll that Mr. Dodgson had presented to me, and which I left behind when I went on a visit from home, is an interesting specimen. Emily and Mabel [referred to in the letter] wereother dolls of mine and known also by him, but though they have long since departed this life, I need hardly say I still possessthedoll ‘Alice.’
“‘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 who it was all the time! It was your own doll. I was very glad to see her, and 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 by the fire and let’s have a comfortable chat?’ ‘Oh, no! no!’ she said, ‘I’dmuchrather not; you know I do melt soveryeasily!’ And she made me take her quite to the other side of the room, where it wasverycold; 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 have noideahow 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 droppedrightoff,’ I said, ‘because it was therighthand.’ ‘And how do you know it was therighthand, Mister Carroll?’ the doll said. So I said, ‘I think it must have been therighthand because the other hand wasleft.’
“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 Ican’tlaugh 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, whichever 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 asCupid? 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.’”
There were, as you see, special occasions when boys were accepted, or rather tolerated, and special boys with whom he exchanged courtesies from time to time. The little Hatch boys were favored, we cannot say for their own small sakes, but because there were two little sisters andtheirfeelings had to be considered. Lewis Carroll even took their pictures, and went so far as to write a little prologue for Beatrice and her brother Wilfred. The “grown-ups”were to give some private theatricals which the children were to introduce in the following dialogue: