(Enter Beatrice leading Wilfred. She leaves him at center [front], and after going round on tiptoe to make sure they are not overheard, returns and takes his arm.)
(Enter Beatrice leading Wilfred. She leaves him at center [front], and after going round on tiptoe to make sure they are not overheard, returns and takes his arm.)
B. Wiffie! I’msurethat 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 arms around his neck.)Isthere a secret, Wiffie?W. (Shaking her off.) Yes, of course!B. And you won’t tell it? (Whimpers.) Then you’re very cross!(Turns away from him and clasps her hands ecstatically.)I’m sure of this! It’s somethingquiteuncommon!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 sayIf they were going to act—a little play?B. (Jumping up 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.)
Of course the little girl had the last word, but then, as Lewis Carroll himself would say, “Little girls usually had.”
This prologue, Miss Hatch tells us, was Lewis Carroll’s only attempt in the dramatic line, and the two tots made a pretty picture as they ran off the stage.
“Mr. Dodgson’s chief form of entertaining,” writes Miss Hatch, “was giving dinner parties. Do not misunderstand me, nor picture to yourself a long row of guests on either side of a gayly-decorated table. Mr. Dodgson’s theory was that it was much more enjoyable to have your friends singly, consequently these ‘dinner parties,’ as he liked to call them, consisted almost always of one guest only, and that one a child friend. One of his charming and characteristic little notes, written in his clear writing, often on a half sheet of note paper and signed with the C.L.D. monogramwould arrive, containing an invitation, of which the following is a specimen.” [Though written when Beatrice was no longer a little girl.]
Ch. Ch. Nov. 21, ’96.“‘My dear Bee:—The reason I have for so long a time not visited the hive is alogicalone,” (he was busy on his symbolicLogic), “‘but is not (as you might imagine) that I think there is no more honey in it! Will you come and dinewith me? Any day would suit me, and I would fetch you at 6:30.“‘Ever your affectionate“‘C.L.D.’
Ch. Ch. Nov. 21, ’96.
“‘My dear Bee:—The reason I have for so long a time not visited the hive is alogicalone,” (he was busy on his symbolicLogic), “‘but is not (as you might imagine) that I think there is no more honey in it! Will you come and dinewith me? Any day would suit me, and I would fetch you at 6:30.
“‘Ever your affectionate“‘C.L.D.’
“Let us suppose this invitation has been accepted.... After turning in at the door of No. 7 staircase, and mounting a rather steep and winding stair, we find ourselves outside a heavy black door, of somewhat prisonlike appearance, over which is painted ‘The Rev. C. L. Dodgson.’ Then a passage, then a door with glass panels, and at last we reach the familiar room that we love so well. It is large and lofty and extremely cheerful-looking. All around the walls are bookcases and under them the cupboards of which I have spoken, and which even now we long to see opened that they may pour out their treasures.
“Opposite to the big window with its cushioned seat is the fireplace; and this is worthy of some notice on account of the lovely red tiles which represent the story of ‘The Hunting of the Snark.’ Over the mantelpiece hang three painted portraits of child friends, the one in the middle being the picture of a little girl in a blue cap and coat who is carrying a pair of skates.”
This picture is a fine likeness of Xie (Alexandra) Kitchin, the little daughter of the Dean of Durham, another of his Oxford favorites.
“Mr. Dodgson,” continues Miss Hatch, “seatshis guest in a corner of the red sofa, in front of the fireplace, and the few minutes before dinner are occupied with anecdotes about other child friends, small or grown up, or anything in particular that has happened to himself.... Dinner is served in the smaller room, which is also filled with bookcases and books.... Those who have had the privilege of enjoying a college dinner need not be told how excellent it is.... The rest of the evening slips away very quickly, there is so much to be shown. You may play a game—one of Mr. Dodgson’s own invention— ... or you may see pictures, lovely drawings of fairies, whom your host tells you ‘you can’t be sure don’t really exist.’ Or you may have music if you wish it.”
This was of course before the days of the phonograph, but Lewis Carroll had the next best thing, which Miss Hatch describes as an organette, in a large square box, through the side of which a handle is affixed. “Another box holds the tunes, circular perforated cards, all carefully catalogued by their owner. The picture of the author of ‘Alice’ keenly enjoying every note as he solemnly turns the handle, and raises or closes the lid of the box to vary the sound, is more worthy of your delight than the music itself. Never was there a more delightful host for a ‘dinner-party’ or one who took such pains for your entertainment, fresh and interesting to the last.”
One of the first things a little girl learned in herintercourse with Lewis Carroll was to be methodical and orderly, as he was himself, in the arrangement of papers, photographs, and books; he kept lists and registers of everything. Miss Hatch tells of a wonderful letter register of his own invention “that not only recorded the names of his correspondents and the dates of their letters, but also noted the contents of each communication, so that in a few seconds he could tell you what you had written to him about on a certain day in years gone by.
“Another register contained a list of every menu supplied to every guest who dined at Mr. Dodgson’s table. Yet,” she explains, “his dinners were simple enough, never more than two courses. But everything that he did must be done in the most perfect manner possible, and the same care and attention would be given to other people’s affairs, if in any way he could assist or give them pleasure.
“If he took you up to London to see a play, you were no sooner seated in the railway carriage than a game was produced from his bag and all the occupants were invited to join in playing a kind of ‘Halma’ or ‘draughts’ of his own invention, on the little wooden board that had been specially made at his design for railway use, with ‘men’ warranted not to tumble down, because they fitted into little holes in the board.”
Children, little girls especially, remember through life the numberless small kindnesses that are shownto them. Is it any wonder, then, that the name of Lewis Carroll is held in such loving memory by the scores of little girls he drew about him? Beatrice Hatch was only one among many to feel the warmth of his love. This quiet, almost solitary, man whose home was in the shadow of a great college, whose daily life was such a long walk of dull routine, could yet find time to make his own sunshine and to draw others into the light of it.
But the children didtheirpart too. He grew dependent on them as the years rolled on; a fairy circle of girls was always drawing him to them, and he was made one of them. They told him their childish secrets feeling sure of a ready sympathy and a quick appreciation. He seemed to know his way instinctively to a girl’s heart; she felt for him an affection, half of comradeship, half of reverence, for there was something inspiring in the fearless carriage of the head, the clear, serene look in the eyes, that seemed to pierce far ahead upon the path over which their own young feet were stumbling, perhaps.
With the passing of the years, some of the seven sisters married, and a fair crop of nieces and nephews shot up around him, also some small cousins in whom he took a deep interest. It is to one of these that he dedicated his poem called “Matilda Jane,” in honor of the doll who bore the name, which meant nothing in the world to such an unresponsive bit of doll-dom.
Matilda Jane, you never lookAt any toy or picture book;I show you pretty things in vain,You must be blind, Matilda Jane!I ask you riddles, tell you tales,But all our conversation fails;You never answer me again,I fear you’re dumb, Matilda Jane!Matilda, darling, when I call,You never seem to hear at all;I shout with all my might and main,But you’resodeaf, Matilda Jane!Matilda Jane, you needn’t mind,For though you’re deaf and dumb and blind,There’s some one loves you, it is plain,And that isme, Matilda Jane!
A little tender-hearted, ungrammatical, motherly “me”—how well the writer knew the small “Bessie” whose affection for this doll inspired the verses!
In after years when more serious work held him close to his study, and he made a point of declining all invitations, he took care that no small girl should be put on his black list. “If,” says Miss Hatch, “you were very anxious to get him to come to your house on any particular day, the only chance wasnottoinvitehim, but only to inform him that you would be at home; otherwise he would say ‘As you haveinvitedme, I cannot come, for I have made a ruleto decline allinvitations, but I will come the next day,’” and in answer to an invitation to tea, he wrote her in his whimsical way:
“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 touches it, it would probably be fatal.”
If only we could read half the clever letters which passed between Lewis Carroll and his girl friends, what a volume of wit and humor, of sound common sense, of clever nonsense we should find! Yet behind it all, that underlying seriousness which made his friendship so precious to those who were so fortunate as to possess it. The “little girl” whose loving picture of him tells us so much lived near him all her life; she felt his influence in all the little things that go to make up a child’s day, long after the real childhood had passed her by. And so with all the girls who knew and loved him, and even those to whom his name was but a suggestion of what he really was.
Surely this fairy ring of girls encircles the English-speaking world, the girls whom Lewis Carroll loved, the hundreds he knew, the millions he had never seen.
When the question of dramatizing the “Alice” books was placed before the author, by Mr. Savile Clarke, who was to undertake the work, he consented gladly enough. It was to be an operetta of two acts; the libretto, or story part, by Mr. Clarke himself, the music by Mr. Walter Slaughter, and the only condition Lewis Carroll made was that nothing should be written or acted which should in any way be unsuitable forchildren.
Of course, everything was done under his eye, and he wrote an extra song for the ghosts of theOysters, who had been eaten by theWalrusand theCarpenter; he also finished that poetic gem, “’Tis the Voice of the Lobster.”
“’Tis the voice of the Lobster,” I heard him declare,“You baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.”As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose,Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a larkAnd talks with the utmost contempt of a shark;But when the tide rises and sharks are around,His words have a timid and tremulous sound.I passed by his garden, and marked with one eyeHow the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie:The Panther took pie, crust and gravy and meat,While the Owl had the dish, for his share of the treat.When the pie was all finished, the Owl—as a boonWas kindly permitted to pocket the spoon;While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl,And concluded the banquet——
That is how the poem originally ended, but musically that would never do, so the last two lines were altered in this fashion:
“But the Panther obtained both the fork and the knife,So whenhelost his temper, the Owl lost his life,”
and a rousing little song it made.
The play was produced at the Prince of Wales’ Theater, during Christmas week of 1886, where it was a great success. Lewis Carroll himself specially praises the Wonderland act, notably the Mad Tea Party. TheHatterwas finely done by Mr. Sidney Harcourt, theDormouseby little Dorothy d’Alcourt, aged six-and-a-half, and Phœbe Carlo, he tells us, was a “splendidAlice.”
He went many times to see his “dream child” on the stage, and was always very kind to the little actresses, whose dainty work madehiswork such a success. Phœbe Carlo became a very privileged young person and enjoyed many treats of hisgiving, to say nothing of a personal gift of a copy of “Alice” from the delighted author.
After the London season, the play was taken through the English provinces and was much appreciated wherever it went. On one occasion a company gave a week’s performance at Brighton, and Lewis Carroll happening to be there one afternoon, came across three of the small actresses down on the beach and spent several hours with them. “Happy, healthy little girls” he called them, and no doubt that beautiful afternoon they had the time of their lives.
These children, he found—and he had made the subject quite a study—had been acting every day in the week, and twice on the day before he met them, and yet were energetic enough to get up each morning at seven for a sea bath, to run races on the pier, and to be quite ready for anotherperformancethat night.
On December 26, 1888, there was an elaborate revival of “Alice” at the Royal Globe Theater. In theLondon Timesthe next morning appeared this notice:
“‘Alice in Wonderland,’ having failed to exhaust its popularity at the Prince of Wales’ Theater, has been revived at the Globe for a series of matinées during the holiday season. Many members of the old cast remain in the bill, but a new ‘Alice’ is presented in Miss Isa Bowman, who is not only a wonderful actress for her years, but also a nimble dancer.“In its new surroundings the fantastic scenes of the story—so cleverly transferred from the book to the stage by Mr. Savile Clarke—lose nothing of their original brightness and humor. ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass’ have the rare charm of freshness for children and for their elders, and the many strange personages concerned—the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, the Hatter, the Dormouse, the Gryphon, the Mock Turtle, the Red and White Kings and Queens, the Walrus, Humpty-Dumpty, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and all the rest of them—being seen at home, so to speak, and not on parade as in an ordinary pantomime. Even the dreaded Jabberwock pays an unconventional visit to the company from the ‘flies,’ and his appearance will not be readily forgotten. As before, Mr. Walter Slaughter’s music is an agreeable element to the performance....”
“‘Alice in Wonderland,’ having failed to exhaust its popularity at the Prince of Wales’ Theater, has been revived at the Globe for a series of matinées during the holiday season. Many members of the old cast remain in the bill, but a new ‘Alice’ is presented in Miss Isa Bowman, who is not only a wonderful actress for her years, but also a nimble dancer.
“In its new surroundings the fantastic scenes of the story—so cleverly transferred from the book to the stage by Mr. Savile Clarke—lose nothing of their original brightness and humor. ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass’ have the rare charm of freshness for children and for their elders, and the many strange personages concerned—the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, the Hatter, the Dormouse, the Gryphon, the Mock Turtle, the Red and White Kings and Queens, the Walrus, Humpty-Dumpty, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and all the rest of them—being seen at home, so to speak, and not on parade as in an ordinary pantomime. Even the dreaded Jabberwock pays an unconventional visit to the company from the ‘flies,’ and his appearance will not be readily forgotten. As before, Mr. Walter Slaughter’s music is an agreeable element to the performance....”
The programme of this performance certainly spreads a feast before the children’s eyes. First of all, think of a forest in autumn! (They had to change the season a little to get the bright colors of red and yellow.) Here it is thatAlicefalls asleep and the Elves sing to her. Then there is the awakening in Wonderland—such a Wonderland as few children dreamed of. And then all our favorites appear and do just the things we always thought they would do if they had the chance. TheCheshire Catgrins and vanishes, and then the grin appears without the cat, and then the cat grows behind the grin, and everything is so impossible and wonderful that one shivers with delight. There is a good old fairy tale that every child knows; it iscalled “Oh! if I could but shiver!” and everyone who really enjoys a fairy tale understands the feeling—the delight of shivering—to see the Jabberwock pass before you in all his terrifying, delicious ugliness, flapping his huge wings, rolling his bulging eyes, and opening and shutting those dreadful jaws of his; and yet to know he isn’t “really, real” any more than Sir John Tenniel’s picture of him in the dear old “Alice” book at home, that you can actually go withAlicestraight into Wonderland and back again, safe and sound, and really see what happened just as she did, and actually squeeze through into Looking-Glass Land, all made so delightfully possible by clever scenery and acting.
A more charming, dainty little “Alice” never danced herself into the heart of anyone as Isa Bowman did into the heart of Lewis Carroll. She came into his life when all of his best-beloved children had passed forever beyond the portals of childhood, never to return; loved more in these later days for the memory of what they had been. But here was a child who aroused all the associations of earlier years, who had made “Alice” real again, whose clever acting gave just that dreamlike, elfin touch which the real Alice of Long Ago had suggested; a sweet-natured, lovable, most attractive child, the child perhaps who won his deepest affections because she came to him when the others had vanished, and clung to him in the twilight.
There must have been several little Bowmans.We know of four little sisters—Isa, Emsie, Nellie, and Maggie, and Master Charles Bowman was theCheshire Catin the revival of “Alice in Wonderland,” and to all of these—we are considering the girls of course, the boy never counted—Lewis Carroll showed his sweetest, most lovable side. They called him “Uncle,” and a more devoted uncle they could not possibly have found. As for Isa herself, there was a special niche all her own; she was, as he often told her, “hislittle girl,” and in a loving memoir of him she has given to the world of children a beautiful picture of what he really was.
There was something in the grip of his firm white hands, in his glance so deeply sympathetic, so tender and kind, that always stirred the little girl just as her sharp eyes noted a certain peculiarity in his walk. His stammer also impressed her, for it generally came when he least expected it, and though he tried all his life to cure it, he never succeeded.
His shyness, too, was very noticeable, not so much with children, except just at first until he knew them well, but with grown people he was, as she put it, “almost old-maidishly prim in his manner.” This shyness was shown in many ways, particularly in a morbid horror of having his picture taken. As fond as he was of taking other people, he dreaded seeing his own photograph among strangers, and once when Isa herself made a caricature of him, he suddenly got up from his seat, took the drawing outof her hands, tore it in small pieces and threw it into the fire without a word; then he caught the frightened little girl in his strong arms and kissed her passionately, his face, at first so flushed and angry, softening with a tender light.
Many and many a happy time she spent with him at Oxford. He found rooms for her just outside the college gates, and a nice comfortable dame to take charge of her. The long happy days were spent in his rooms, and every night at nine she was taken over to the little house in St. Aldates (“St. Olds”) and put to bed by the landlady.
In the morning the deep notes of “Great Tom” woke her and then began another lovely day with her “Uncle.” She speaks of two tiny turret rooms, one on each side of his staircase in Christ Church. “He used to tell me,” she writes, “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 until we had made up our quarrel.”
She, too, was fascinated by his collection of music-boxes, the finest, she thought, 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 playproperly 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 was 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 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 atime there was someone 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 reallyfly!’”
And Bob the Bat had many wonderful adventures. She tells us how, on a hot summer morning when the window was wide open, Bob flew out into the garden and landed in a bowl of salad that one of the servants was carrying to someone’s room. The poor fellow was so frightened by this sudden apparition that he promptly dropped the bowl, breaking it into countless pieces.
Lewis Carroll never liked “his little girl” to exaggerate. “I remember,” she tells us, “how annoyed he once was 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 upon me quite irritably that no little girl’s hair could ever possibly get asstiff 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 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.’
“‘I nearly died of laughing’ was another expressionthat 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.’ Here is his answer:
“‘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 thetimeit 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 two millions at least.’”Then follows a characteristic example in arithmetic:20)2,000,000hugs and kisses.60)100,000minutes.12)1,666hours.6)138days (at twelve hours a day).23weeks.“I couldn’t go on hugging and kissing more than 12 hours a day; and I wouldn’t like to spendSundaysthat way. So you see it would take23weeks 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 have writtensince the last time I didwrite? 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 hersince the last time you didkiss 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 thelastkiss?’“‘Five minutes past 10, Uncle.’“‘Very well, now, have you kissed hersince?’“‘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 toendwith “I”thistime!’”The rest of the letter refers to Isa’s visit to America, when she went to play the littleDuke of Yorkin “Richard III.”“Mind you don’t write me from there,” he warns her. “Please,please, no more horrid letters from you! Idohate 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—prettywell. I can’t honestly say I thought them the very best I had ever seen.“Please give my kindest regards to your mother, and ½ of a kiss to Nellie, and1⁄200of a kiss to Emsie,1⁄2000000of a kiss to yourself. So with fondest love, I am, my darling,“Your loving Uncle,“C. L. Dodgson.”
“‘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 thetimeit 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 two millions at least.’”
Then follows a characteristic example in arithmetic:
“I couldn’t go on hugging and kissing more than 12 hours a day; and I wouldn’t like to spendSundaysthat way. So you see it would take23weeks 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 have writtensince the last time I didwrite? 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 hersince the last time you didkiss 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 thelastkiss?’
“‘Five minutes past 10, Uncle.’
“‘Very well, now, have you kissed hersince?’
“‘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 toendwith “I”thistime!’”
The rest of the letter refers to Isa’s visit to America, when she went to play the littleDuke of Yorkin “Richard III.”
“Mind you don’t write me from there,” he warns her. “Please,please, no more horrid letters from you! Idohate 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—prettywell. I can’t honestly say I thought them the very best I had ever seen.
“Please give my kindest regards to your mother, and ½ of a kiss to Nellie, and1⁄200of a kiss to Emsie,1⁄2000000of a kiss to yourself. So with fondest love, I am, my darling,
“Your loving Uncle,“C. L. Dodgson.”
And at the end of this letter, teeming with fun and laughter, could anything be sweeter than this postscript?
“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 foryou, and the words of what they saynow, 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.”
In letter-writing, and even in his story-telling, Lewis Carroll made frequent use of italics. His own speech was so emphatic that his writing would have looked odd without them, and many of his cleverest bits of nonsense would have been lost but for their aid.
Another time Isa ended a letter to him with “All join me in lufs and kisses.” Now Miss Isa was away on a visit and had no one near to join her in such a message, but that is what she would have put had she been at home, and this is the letter he wrote in reply:
“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 payTwopence! HislastTwopence! Think of that. I shall punish you severely for this, 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 leastuntruthful, because everybody knows how commonly they are sent without having been given; but it lessens the pleasure of receiving messages. My sisters write to me ‘with best love from all.’ I know it isn’t true, so 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 messageat 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 shehad given her husband a piece of her mind. Poor Husband!“Your always loving Uncle,“C.L.D.”
“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 payTwopence! HislastTwopence! Think of that. I shall punish you severely for this, 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 leastuntruthful, because everybody knows how commonly they are sent without having been given; but it lessens the pleasure of receiving messages. My sisters write to me ‘with best love from all.’ I know it isn’t true, so 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 messageat 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 shehad given her husband a piece of her mind. Poor Husband!
“Your always loving Uncle,“C.L.D.”
These initials were always joined as a monogram and written backward, thus,, which no doubt, after the years of practice he had, he dashed off with an easy flourish. His general writing was not very legible, but when he was writing for the press he was very careful. “Why should the printers have to work overtime because my letters are ill-formed and my words run into each other?” he once said, and Miss Bowman has put in her little volume the facsimile of a diary he once wrote for her, where every letter was carefully formed so that Isa could read every word herself.
“They were happy days,” she writes, “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 the Cathedral or Chapel Hall, in our visits to his friends, he was an ideal companion, but I think I was always 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 people must have wandered a little into fairyland. The shifting firelight seemed almost to etherealize that kindly face, and as the wonderful stories fellfrom 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.”
“He was very particular,” she tells us, “about his tea, which he always made himself, and in order that it should draw properly he would walk about the room, swinging the teapot from side to side, for exactly ten minutes. The idea of the grave professor promenading his book-lined study and carefully waving a teapot to and fro may seem ridiculous, but all the minutiæ of life received an extreme attention at his hands.”
The diary referred to, which he so carefully printed for Isa, covered several days’ visit to Oxford in 1888, which oddly enough happened to be in midsummer, and being her first, was never forgotten. It was written in six “chapters” and jotted down faithfully the happenings of each day. What little girl could resist the feast of fun and frolic he had planned for those happy days!
First, he met her at Paddington station; then he took her to see a panorama of the Falls of Niagara, after which they had dinner with a Mrs. Dymes, and two of her children, Helen and Maud, went with them to Terry’s Theater to see “Little Lord Fauntleroy” played by Vera Beringer, another little actress friend of Lewis Carroll. After this they all took the Metropolitan railway; the little Dymes girls got off at their station, but Isa and the AgedAged Man, as he called himself, went on to Oxford. There they saw everything to be seen, beginning with Christ Church, where the “A.A.M.” lived, and here and there Lewis Carroll managed to throw bits of history into the funny little diary. They saw all the colleges, and Christ Church Meadow, and the barges which the Oxford crews used as boathouses, and took long walks, and went to St. Mary’s Church on Sunday, and lots of other interesting things.
Every year she stayed a while with him at Eastbourne, where she tells us she was even happier if possible. Her day at Eastbourne began very early. Her room faced his, and after she was dressed in the morning she would steal into the little passage quiet as a mouse, and sit on the top stair, her eye on his closed door, watching for the signal of admission into his room; this was a newspaper pushed under his door. The moment she saw that, she was at liberty to rush in and fling herself upon him, after which excitement they went down to breakfast. Then he read a chapter from the Bible and made her tell it to him afterwards as a story of her own, beginning always with, “Once upon a time.” After which there was a daily visit to the swimming-bath followed by one to the dentist—he always insisted on this, going himself quite as regularly.
After lunch, which with him consisted of a glass of sherry and a biscuit, while little Miss Isa ate a good substantial dinner, there was a game ofbackgammon, of which he was very fond, and then a long, long walk to the top of Beachy Head, which Isa hated. She says:
“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 in these walks. I used to be very fond of flowers and animals also. A pretty dog or a hedge of honeysuckle was always a pleasant event upon our 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.... He knew children so thoroughly and well, that it is all the stranger that he did not care for things that generally attract them so much.... When I was in raptures over a poppy or a dog-rose, he would try hard to be as interested as I was, but even to my childish eyes it was an 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 folklore that was attached to it, and not because of the beauty of the flower itself.
“... One day while we sat under a great tree,and the hum of the myriad insect life rivaled 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 it came by its 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 ‘foxgloves,’ the name that everyone uses now.”
This special walk always ended in the coastguard’s house, where they partook of tea and rock cake, and here most of his prettiest stories were told. The most thrilling part occurred when “the children came to a deep dark wood,” always described with a solemn dropping of the voice; by that Isa knew that the exciting part was coming, then she crept nearer to him, and he held her close while he finished the tale. Isa, as was quite natural, was a most dramatic little person, so she always knew what emotions would suit the occasion, and used them like the clever little actress that she was.
We find something very beautiful in this intimacy between the grave scholar and the light-hearted,innocent little girl, who used to love to watch him in some of those deep silences which neither cared to break. This small maid understood his every mood. A beautiful sunset, she tells us, touched him deeply. He would take off his hat and let the wind toss his hair, and look seaward with a very grave face. Once she saw tears in his eyes, and he gripped her hand very hard as they turned away.
Perhaps, what caught her childish fancy more than anything else, was his observance of Sunday. He always took Isa twice to church, and she went because she wanted to go; he did not believe in forcing children in such matters, but he made a point of slipping some interesting little book in his pocket, so in case she got tired, or the sermon was beyond her, she would have something pleasant to do instead of staring idly about the church or falling asleep, which was just as bad. Another peculiarity, she tells us, was his habit of keeping seated at the entrance of the choir. He contended that the rising of the congregation made the choir-boys conceited.
One could go on telling anecdotes of Lewis Carroll and this well-beloved child, but of a truth his own letters will show far better than any description how he regarded this “star” child of his. So far as her acting went, he never spared either praise or criticism where he thought it just. Here is a letter criticising her acting as the littleDuke of York:
“Ch. Ch. Oxford. Ap. 4, ’89.“My Lord Duke:—The photographs your Grace did me the honor of sending arrived safely; and I can assure your Royal Highness that I am very glad to have them, and like themverymuch, 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 darling Isa’? Which do you like best?“Now, I’m gong to find fault with my pet about her acting. What’s the good of an old Uncle like me except to find fault?”Then follows some excellent criticism on the proper emphasis of words, explained so that the smallest child could understand; he also notes some mispronounced words, and then he adds:“One thing more. (What an impertinent uncle! Always finding fault!) You’re not asnaturalwhen acting the Duke as you were when you acted Alice. You seemed to me not to forgetyourselfenough. It was not so much a real prince talking to his brother and uncle; it was Isa Bowman talking to people she didn’t care much about, for an audience to listen to. I don’t mean it was that allthrough, butsometimesyou wereartificial. Now, don’t be jealous of Miss Hatton when I say she wassweetlynatural. She looked and spoke like a real Prince of Wales. And she didn’t seem to know there was any audience. If you ever get to be agoodactress (as I hope you will) you must learn to forget ‘Isa’ altogether, andbethe character you are playing. Try to think ‘This isreallythe Prince of Wales. I’m his little brother and I’mveryglad to meet him, and I love himverymuch, and this isreallymy uncle; he is very kind and lets me say saucy things to him,’ anddoforget that there’s anybody else listening!“My sweet pet, Ihopeyou 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 Isa.”“X for Emsie.
“Ch. Ch. Oxford. Ap. 4, ’89.
“My Lord Duke:—The photographs your Grace did me the honor of sending arrived safely; and I can assure your Royal Highness that I am very glad to have them, and like themverymuch, 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 darling Isa’? Which do you like best?
“Now, I’m gong to find fault with my pet about her acting. What’s the good of an old Uncle like me except to find fault?”
Then follows some excellent criticism on the proper emphasis of words, explained so that the smallest child could understand; he also notes some mispronounced words, and then he adds:
“One thing more. (What an impertinent uncle! Always finding fault!) You’re not asnaturalwhen acting the Duke as you were when you acted Alice. You seemed to me not to forgetyourselfenough. It was not so much a real prince talking to his brother and uncle; it was Isa Bowman talking to people she didn’t care much about, for an audience to listen to. I don’t mean it was that allthrough, butsometimesyou wereartificial. Now, don’t be jealous of Miss Hatton when I say she wassweetlynatural. She looked and spoke like a real Prince of Wales. And she didn’t seem to know there was any audience. If you ever get to be agoodactress (as I hope you will) you must learn to forget ‘Isa’ altogether, andbethe character you are playing. Try to think ‘This isreallythe Prince of Wales. I’m his little brother and I’mveryglad to meet him, and I love himverymuch, and this isreallymy uncle; he is very kind and lets me say saucy things to him,’ anddoforget that there’s anybody else listening!
“My sweet pet, Ihopeyou 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 Isa.”“X for Emsie.
The crosses were unmistakably kisses. He was certainly a most affectionate “Uncle.” He rarely signed his name “Charles.” It was only on special occasions and to very “special” people.
Here is another letter written to Isa’s sister Nellie, thanking her for a “tidy” she made him. (He called it an Antimacassar.) “The only ordinary thing about it,” Isa tells us, “is the date.” The letter reads backward. One has to begin at the very bottom and read up, instead of reading from the top downward:
“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 thathimbeen havemustit see you so:Grandfathermy was,thenalive was that, ‘Dodgson Uncle’ only the, born wasIbefore 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, Nellie dear my.”
“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 thathimbeen havemustit see you so:Grandfathermy was,thenalive was that, ‘Dodgson Uncle’ only the, born wasIbefore 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, Nellie dear my.”
He had often written a looking-glass letter which could only be read by holding it up to a mirror, but this sort of writing was a new departure.
In one of her letters Isa sent “sacks full of love and baskets full of kisses.”
“How badly youdospell your words!” he answered her. “Iwasso puzzled about the ‘sacks full of love and baskets full of kisses.’ But at last I made out that, of course, you meant a ‘sack full ofglovesand a basket full ofkittens.’” Thenhe composed a regular nonsense story on the subject. Isa and her sisters called it the “glove and kitten letter” and read it over and over with much delight, for it was full of quaint fancies, such as Lewis Carroll loved to shower upon the children.
When “Bootle’s Baby” was put upon the stage, Maggie Bowman, though but a tiny child, played the part ofMignon, the little lost girl, who walked into the hearts of the soldiers, and especially one young fellow, to whom she clung most of all. Lewis Carroll, besides taking a personal interest in Maggie herself, was charmed with the play, which appealed to him strongly, so when little Maggie came to Oxford with the company she was treated like a queen. She stayed four days, during which time her “Uncle” took her to see everything worth looking at, and made a rhyming diary for her which he called—
MAGGIE’S VISIT TO OXFORD.When Maggie once to Oxford cameOn tour as “Bootle’s Baby,”She said: “I’ll see this place of fame,However dull the day be!”So with her friend she visitedThe sights that it was rich in,And first of all she poked her headInside the Christ Church Kitchen.The cooks around that little childStood 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 fineForherto dine;Meringues so sweetForherto eat—For Maggie may beBootle’s Baby.”
There are a great many verses describing her walks and what she saw, among other wonders “a lovely Pussy Cat.”
And everywhere that Maggie wentThat 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 purrTo welcomeher—For Maggie may beBootle’s Baby!”So back to Christ Church-not too lateFor them to go and seeA Christ Church Undergraduate,Who gave them cakes and tea.······In Magdalen Park the deer are wildWith joy that Maggie bringsSome 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 childSo sweet and mild:We all are fedWith Maggie’s bread—For Maggie may beBootle’s Baby!”······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 thoughtnot, because you seeShe was soveryyoung,And he was old as old could be—So Maggie held her tongue.“My Lord, she’s Bootle’s Baby; weAre going up and down,”Her friend explained, “that she may seeThe sights of Oxford-town.”“Now, say what kind of place it is!”The Bishop gayly cried,“The best place in the Provinces!”The little maid replied.······Away next morning Maggie wentFrom Oxford-town; but yetThe happy hours she there had spentShe could not soon forget.······“Oxford, good-bye!She seemed to sigh,You dear old CityWith gardens pretty,And lawns and flowersAnd College towers,And Tom’s great Bell,Farewell! farewell!For Maggie may beBootle’s Baby!”
Here is just a piece of a letter which shows that Lewis Carroll could tease when he liked. It is evident that Isa washed to buy the “Alice” book in French, to give to a friend, so she naïvely wrote to headquarters to ask the price. This is the reply: