“A TURK”
The tale has been often told of how “Alice in Wonderland” came to be written, but it is a tale so well worth the telling again, that, very shortly, I will give it to you here.
Years ago in the great quadrangle of Christ Church, opposite to Mr. Dodgson, lived the little daughters of Dean Liddell, the great Greek scholar and Dean of Christ Church. The little girls were great friends of Mr. Dodgson’s, and they used often to come to him and to plead with him for a fairy tale. There was never such a teller of tales, they thought! One can imagine the whole delightful scene with little trouble.That big cool room on some summer’s afternoon, when the air was heavy with flower scents, and the sounds that came floating in through the open window were all mellowed by the distance. One can see him, that good and kindly gentleman, his mobile face all aglow with interest and love, telling the immortal story.
Round him on his knee sat the little sisters, their eyes wide open and their lips parted in breathless anticipation. When Alice (how the little Alice Liddell who was listening must have loved the tale!) rubbed the mushroom and became so big that she quite filled the little fairy house, one can almost hear the rapturous exclamations of the little ones as they heard of it.
The story, often continued on many summer afternoons, sometimes in the cool Christ Church rooms, sometimes in a slow gliding boat in a still river between banks of rushes and strange bronze and yellow waterflowers, or sometimes in a great hay-field, with theinsects whispering in the grass all round, grew in its conception and idea.
Other folk, older folk, came to hear of it from the little ones, and Mr. Dodgson was begged to write it down. Accordingly the first MS. was prepared with great care and illustrated by the author. Then, in 1865, memorable year for English children, “Alice” appeared in its present form, with Sir John Tenniel’s drawings.
In 1872 “Alice Through the Looking-Glass,” appeared, and was received as warmly as its predecessor. That fact, I think, proves most conclusively that Lewis Carroll’s success was a success of absolute merit, and due to no mere mood or fashion of the public taste. I can conceive nothing more difficult for a man who has had a great success with one book than to write a sequel which should worthily succeed it. In the present case that is exactly what Lewis Carroll did. “Through the Looking-Glass” is every whit as popular and charming asthe older book. Indeed one depends very much upon the other, and in every child’s book-shelves one sees the two masterpieces side by side.
Text of A Charade
While on the subject of the two “Alices,” I will put in a letter that he wrote mentioning his books. He was so modest about them, that it was extremely difficult to get him to say, or write, anything at all about them. I believe it was a far greater pleasure for him to know that he had pleased some child with “Alice” or “The Hunting of the Snark,” than it was to be hailed by the press and public as the first living writer for children.
“Eastbourne.“My own darling Isa,—The full value of a copy of the French ‘Alice’ is £45: but, as you want the ‘cheapest’ kind, and as you are a great friend of mine, and as I am of a very noble, generous disposition, I have made up my mind to agreatsacrifice, and have taken £3, 10s. 0d. off the price. So that you do not owe me more than £41, 10s. 0d., and this you can pay me, in gold or bank-notesas soon as you ever like. Oh dear! I wonder why I write such nonsense! Can you explain to me, my pet, how it happens that when I take up my pen to write a letter toyouit won’t write sense? Do you think the rule is that when the pen finds it has to write to a nonsensical good-for-nothing child, it sets to work to write a nonsensical good-for-nothing letter? Well, now I’lltell you the real truth. As Miss Kitty Wilson is a dear friend of yours, of course she’s asortof a friend of mine. So I thought (in my vanity) ‘perhaps she would like to have a copy’ from the author, ‘with her name written in it.’ So I’ve sent her one—but I hope she’ll understand that I do it because she’syourfriend, for, you see, I had neverheardof her before: so I wouldn’t have any other reason.“I’m still exactly ‘on the balance’ (like those scales of mine, when Nellie says ‘it won’t weigh!’) as to whether it would be wise to have my pet Isa down here! howamI to make it weigh, I wonder? Can you advise any way to do it? I’m getting on grandly with ‘Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.’ I’m afraid you’ll expect me to give you a copy of it? Well, I’ll see if I have one to spare. It won’t be out before Easter-tide, I’m afraid.“I wonder what sort of condition the book is in that I lent you to take to America? (‘Laneton Parsonage,’ I mean). Very shabby, I expect. I find lent booksnevercome back in good condition. However, I’ve got a second copy of this book, so you may keep it as your own. Love and kisses to any one you know who is lovely and kissable.—“Always your loving Uncle,“C. L. D.”
“Eastbourne.
“My own darling Isa,—The full value of a copy of the French ‘Alice’ is £45: but, as you want the ‘cheapest’ kind, and as you are a great friend of mine, and as I am of a very noble, generous disposition, I have made up my mind to agreatsacrifice, and have taken £3, 10s. 0d. off the price. So that you do not owe me more than £41, 10s. 0d., and this you can pay me, in gold or bank-notesas soon as you ever like. Oh dear! I wonder why I write such nonsense! Can you explain to me, my pet, how it happens that when I take up my pen to write a letter toyouit won’t write sense? Do you think the rule is that when the pen finds it has to write to a nonsensical good-for-nothing child, it sets to work to write a nonsensical good-for-nothing letter? Well, now I’lltell you the real truth. As Miss Kitty Wilson is a dear friend of yours, of course she’s asortof a friend of mine. So I thought (in my vanity) ‘perhaps she would like to have a copy’ from the author, ‘with her name written in it.’ So I’ve sent her one—but I hope she’ll understand that I do it because she’syourfriend, for, you see, I had neverheardof her before: so I wouldn’t have any other reason.
“I’m still exactly ‘on the balance’ (like those scales of mine, when Nellie says ‘it won’t weigh!’) as to whether it would be wise to have my pet Isa down here! howamI to make it weigh, I wonder? Can you advise any way to do it? I’m getting on grandly with ‘Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.’ I’m afraid you’ll expect me to give you a copy of it? Well, I’ll see if I have one to spare. It won’t be out before Easter-tide, I’m afraid.
“I wonder what sort of condition the book is in that I lent you to take to America? (‘Laneton Parsonage,’ I mean). Very shabby, I expect. I find lent booksnevercome back in good condition. However, I’ve got a second copy of this book, so you may keep it as your own. Love and kisses to any one you know who is lovely and kissable.—
“Always your loving Uncle,“C. L. D.”
In 1876 appeared the long poem called the “Hunting of the Snark; or, An Agony in Eight Fits,” and besides those verses wehave from Lewis Carroll’s pen two books called “Phantasmagoria” and “Rhyme and Reason.”
The last work of his that attained any great celebrity was “Sylvie and Bruno,” a curious romance, half fairy tale, half mathematical treatise. Mr. Dodgson was employed of late years on his “Symbolic Logic,” only one part of which has been published, and he seems to have been influenced by his studies. One can easily trace the trail of the logician in Sylvie and Bruno, and perhaps this resulted in a certain lack of “form.” However, some of the nonsense verses in this book were up to the highest level of the author’s achievement. Even as I write the verse comes to me—
“He thought he saw a kangarooTurning a coffee-mill;He looked again, and found it wasA vegetable pill!‘Were I to swallow you,’ he said,‘I should be very ill’!”
The fascinating jingle stays in the memory when graver verse eludes all effort at recollection. I personally could repeat “The Walrus and the Carpenter” from beginning to end without hesitation, but I should find a difficulty in writing ten lines of “Hamlet” correctly.
At the beginning of “Sylvie and Bruno” is a little poem in three verses which forms an acrostic on my name. I quote it—
“Is all our life, then, but a dream,Seen faintly in the golden gleamAthwart Time’s dark resistless stream?Bowed to the earth with bitter woe,Or laughing at some raree-show,We flutter idly to and fro.Man’s little day in haste we spend,And, from its merry noontide, sendNo glance to meet the silent end.”
You see that if you take the first letter of each line, or if you take the first three letters of the first line of each verse, you get the name Isa Bowman.
Text of Prologue
Although he never wrote anything in the dramatic line, he once wrote a prologue for some private theatricals, which was to be spoken by Miss Hatch and her brother. This prologue is reproduced in facsimile on the preceding page.
Miss Hatch has also sent me a charade (reproduced on pp.108-10) which he wrote for her, and illustrated with some of his funny drawings.
I have one more letter, the last, which, as it mentions the book “Sylvie and Bruno,” I will give now.
“Christ Church,“May 16, ’90.“Dearest Isa,—I had this (‘this’ was ‘Sylvie and Bruno’) bound for you when the book first came out, and it’s been waiting here ever since Dec. 17, for I really didn’t dare to send it across the Atlantic—the whales are so inconsiderate. They’d have been sure to want to borrow it to show to the little whales, quite forgetting that the salt water would be sure to spoil it.“Also, I’ve only been waiting for you to get back to send Emsie the ‘Nursery Alice.’ I give it to the youngest in a family generally; but I’ve given oneto Maggie as well, because she travels about so much, and I thought she would like to have one to take with her. I hope Nellie’s eyes won’t getquitegreen with jealousy, at two (indeedthree!) of her sisters getting presents, and nothing for her! I’ve nothing but my love to send her to-day: but she shall havesomething someday.—Ever your loving“Uncle Charles.”
“Christ Church,“May 16, ’90.
“Dearest Isa,—I had this (‘this’ was ‘Sylvie and Bruno’) bound for you when the book first came out, and it’s been waiting here ever since Dec. 17, for I really didn’t dare to send it across the Atlantic—the whales are so inconsiderate. They’d have been sure to want to borrow it to show to the little whales, quite forgetting that the salt water would be sure to spoil it.
“Also, I’ve only been waiting for you to get back to send Emsie the ‘Nursery Alice.’ I give it to the youngest in a family generally; but I’ve given oneto Maggie as well, because she travels about so much, and I thought she would like to have one to take with her. I hope Nellie’s eyes won’t getquitegreen with jealousy, at two (indeedthree!) of her sisters getting presents, and nothing for her! I’ve nothing but my love to send her to-day: but she shall havesomething someday.—Ever your loving
“Uncle Charles.”
Socially, Lewis Carroll was of strong conservative tendencies. He viewed with wonder and a little pain the absolute levelling tendencies of the last few years of his life. I have before me an extremely interesting letter which deals with social observances, and from which I am able to make one or two extracts. The bulk of the letter is of a private nature.
“Ladies have ‘to bemuch’ more particular than gentlemen in observing the distinctions of what is called ‘social position’: and thelowertheir own position is (in the scale of ‘lady’ ship), the more jealous they seem to be in guarding it.... I’ve met with just the same thing myself from people several degrees above me. Not long ago I was staying in a house along with a young lady (about twenty years old, I should think) with a title of her own, as she was an earl’s daughter. I happened to sit nexther at dinner, and every time I spoke to her, she looked at me more as if she was looking down on me from about a mile up in the air, and as if she were saying to herself ‘Howdareyou speak tome! Why, you’re not good enough to black my shoes!’ It was so unpleasant, that, next day at luncheon, I got as far off her as I could!“Of course we are allquiteequal in God’s sight, but wedomake a lot of distinctions (some of them quite unmeaning) among ourselves!”
“Ladies have ‘to bemuch’ more particular than gentlemen in observing the distinctions of what is called ‘social position’: and thelowertheir own position is (in the scale of ‘lady’ ship), the more jealous they seem to be in guarding it.... I’ve met with just the same thing myself from people several degrees above me. Not long ago I was staying in a house along with a young lady (about twenty years old, I should think) with a title of her own, as she was an earl’s daughter. I happened to sit nexther at dinner, and every time I spoke to her, she looked at me more as if she was looking down on me from about a mile up in the air, and as if she were saying to herself ‘Howdareyou speak tome! Why, you’re not good enough to black my shoes!’ It was so unpleasant, that, next day at luncheon, I got as far off her as I could!
“Of course we are allquiteequal in God’s sight, but wedomake a lot of distinctions (some of them quite unmeaning) among ourselves!”
The picture that this letter gives of the famous writer and learned mathematician obviously rather in terror of some pert young lady fresh from the schoolroom is not without its comic side. One cannot help imagining that the girl must have been very young indeed, for if he were alive to-day there are few ladies of any state who would not feel honoured by the presence of Charles Dodgson.
However, he was not always so unfortunate in his experience of great people, and the following letter, written when he was staying with Lord Salisbury at Hatfield House, tells delightfully of his littleroyal friends, the Duchess of Albany’s children:
“Hatfield House, Hatfield,“Herts,June 8, ’89.”“My darling Isa,—I hope this will find you, but I haven’t yet had any letter fromFulham, so I can’t be sure if you have yet got into your new house.“This is Lord Salisbury’s house (he is the father, you know, of that Lady Maud Wolmer that we had luncheon with): I came yesterday, and I’m going to stay until Monday. It is such a nice house to stay in! They let one do just as one likes—it isn’t ‘Now you must do some geography! now it’s time for your sums!’ the sort of lifesomelittle girls have to lead when they are so foolish as to visit friends—but one can just please one’s own dear self.“There are some sweet little children staying in the house. Dear little ‘Wang’ is here with her mother. By the way,Imade a mistake in telling you what to call her. She is ‘the Honourable MabelPalmer’—‘Palmer’ is the family name: ‘Wolmer’ is thetitle, just as thefamilyname of Lord Salisbury is ‘Cecil,’ so that his daughter was Lady Maud Cecil, till she married.“Then there is the Duchess of Albany here, with two such sweet little children. She is the widow of Prince Leopold (the Queen’s youngest son), so her children are a Prince and Princess: the girl is ‘Alice,’ but I don’t know the boy’s Christian name: they call him ‘Albany,’ because he is the Duke of Albany.Now that I have made friends with a real live little Princess, I don’t intend ever tospeakto any more children that haven’t any titles. In fact, I’m so proud, and I hold my chin so high, that I shouldn’t evenseeyou if we met! No, darlings, you mustn’t believethat. If I made friends with adozenPrincesses, I would love you better than all of them together, even if I had them all rolled up into a sort of child-roly-poly.“Love to Nellie and Emsie.—Your ever loving Uncle,“C. L. D.”X X X X X X X
“Hatfield House, Hatfield,“Herts,June 8, ’89.”
“My darling Isa,—I hope this will find you, but I haven’t yet had any letter fromFulham, so I can’t be sure if you have yet got into your new house.
“This is Lord Salisbury’s house (he is the father, you know, of that Lady Maud Wolmer that we had luncheon with): I came yesterday, and I’m going to stay until Monday. It is such a nice house to stay in! They let one do just as one likes—it isn’t ‘Now you must do some geography! now it’s time for your sums!’ the sort of lifesomelittle girls have to lead when they are so foolish as to visit friends—but one can just please one’s own dear self.
“There are some sweet little children staying in the house. Dear little ‘Wang’ is here with her mother. By the way,Imade a mistake in telling you what to call her. She is ‘the Honourable MabelPalmer’—‘Palmer’ is the family name: ‘Wolmer’ is thetitle, just as thefamilyname of Lord Salisbury is ‘Cecil,’ so that his daughter was Lady Maud Cecil, till she married.
“Then there is the Duchess of Albany here, with two such sweet little children. She is the widow of Prince Leopold (the Queen’s youngest son), so her children are a Prince and Princess: the girl is ‘Alice,’ but I don’t know the boy’s Christian name: they call him ‘Albany,’ because he is the Duke of Albany.Now that I have made friends with a real live little Princess, I don’t intend ever tospeakto any more children that haven’t any titles. In fact, I’m so proud, and I hold my chin so high, that I shouldn’t evenseeyou if we met! No, darlings, you mustn’t believethat. If I made friends with adozenPrincesses, I would love you better than all of them together, even if I had them all rolled up into a sort of child-roly-poly.
“Love to Nellie and Emsie.—Your ever loving Uncle,
“C. L. D.”X X X X X X X
And now I think that I have done all that has been in my power to present Lewis Carroll to you in his most delightful aspect—as a friend to children. I have not pretended in any way to write an exhaustive life-story of the man who was so dear to me, but by the aid of the letters and the diaries that I have been enabled to publish, and by the few reminiscences that I have given you of Lewis Carroll as I knew him, I hope I have done something to bring still nearer to your hearts the memory of the greatest friend that children ever had.
Footnotes:
[1]This refers to my visit to America when, as a child, I played the little Duke of York in “Richard III.”
[2]At this point the real child’s answers begin, the three or four lines alone were written by Mr. Dodgson himself.—Ed.
Text of Diary
Isa’s Visit to Oxford.1888.
Chap. I.
On Wednesday, the Eleventh of July, Isa happened to meet a friend at Paddington Station at half-past-ten. She can’t remember his name, but she says he was an old old old gentleman, and he had invited her, she thinks, to go with him somewhere or other, she can’t remember where.
Chap. II.
The first thing they did, after calling at a shop, was to go to the Panorama of the “Falls of Niagara”. Isa thought it very wonderful. You seemed to be on the top of a tower, with miles and miles of country all round you. The things in front were real, and somehow they joined into the picture behind, so that you couldn’t tell where the real things ended and the picture began. Near the foot of the Falls, there was a steam-packet crossing the river, which showed what a tremendous height the Falls must be, it looked so tiny. In the road in front were two men and a dog, standing looking the other way. They may have been wooden figures, or part of the picture, there was no knowing which. The man, who stood next to Isa, said to another man “That dog looked round just now. Now see, I’ll whistle to him, and make him look round again!” And he began whistling: and Isa almost expected, it looked so exactly like a real dog, that it would turn its head to see who was calling it!
After that Isa and her friend (the Aged Aged Man) went to the house of a Mr Dymes. Mrs Dymes gave them some dinner, and two of her children, called Helen and Maud, went with them to Terry’s Theatre, to see the play of “Little Lord Fauntleroy”. Little Véra Beringer was the little Lord Fauntleroy. Isa would have liked to play the part, but the Manager at the Theatre did not allow her, as she did not know the words, which would have made it go off badly. Isa liked the whole play very much: the passionate old Earl, and the gentle Mother of the little boy, and the droll “Mr. Hobbs”, and all of them.
Then they all went off by the Metropolitan Railway, and the two Miss Dymeses got out at their station, and Isa and the A.A.M. went on to Oxford. A kind old lady, called Mrs Symonds, had invited Isa to come and sleep at her house: and she was soon fast asleep, and dreaming that she and little Lord Fauntleroy were going in a steamer down the Falls of Niagara, and whistling to a dog, who was in such a hurry to go up the Falls that he wouldn’t attend to them.
Chap. III.
The next morning Isa set off, almost before she was awake, with the A.A.M., to pay a visit to a little College, called “Christ Church”. You go in under a magnificent tower, called “Tom Tower”, nearly four feet high (so that Isa had hardly to stoop at all, to go under it) into the Great Quadrangle (which very vulgar people call “Tom Quad”.) You should always be polite, even when speaking to a Quadrangle: it might seem not to take any notice, but it doesn’t like being called names. On their way to Christ Church they saw a tall monument, like the spire of a church, called the “Martyrs’ Memorial”, put up in memory of three Bishops, Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer, who were burned in the reign of Queen Mary, because they would not be Roman Catholics. Christ Church was built in 1546.
They had breakfast at Ch. Ch., in the rooms of the A.A.M., and then Isa learned how to print with the “Typewriter”, and printed several beautiful volumes of poetry, all of her own invention. By this time it was 1 o’clock, so Isa paid a visit to the Kitchen, to make sure that the chicken, for her dinner, was being properly roasted The Kitchen is about the oldest part of the College, so was built about 1546. It has a fire-grate large enough to roast forty legs of mutton at once.
Then they saw the Dining Hall, in which the A.A.M. has dined several times, (about 8,000 times, perhaps). After dinner, they went, through the quadrangle of the Bodleian Library, into Broad Street, and, as a band was just going by, of course they followed it. (Isa likes Bands better than anything in the world, except Lands, and walking on Sands, and wringing her Hands). The Band led them into the gardens of Wadham College (built in 1613), where there was a school-treat going on. The treat was, first marching twice round the garden—then having a photograph done of them, all in a row—then apromiseof “Punch and Judy”, which wouldn’t be ready for 20 minutes, so Isa, and Co., wouldn’t wait, but went back to Ch. Ch., and saw the “Broad Walk.” In the evening they played at “Reversi”, till Isa had lost the small remainder of her temper. Then she went to bed, and dreamed she was Judy, and was beating Punch with a stick of Barley-sugar.
Chap. IV.
On Friday morning (after taking her medicine very amiably), went with the A.A.M. (whowouldgo with her, though she told him over and over she would rather be alone) to the gardens of Worcester College (built in 1714) where they didn’t see the swans (who ought to have been on the lake), nor the hippopotamus, who ought not to have been walking about among the flowers, gathering honey like a busy bee.
After breakfast, Isa helped the A.A.M. to pack his luggage, because he thought he would go away, he didn’t know where, some day, he didn’t know when—so she put a lot of things, she didn’t know what, into boxes, she didn’t know which.
After dinner they went to St. John’s College (built in 1555), and admired the large lawn, where more than 150 ladies, dressed in robes of gold and silver, were not walking about.
Then they saw the Chapel of Keble College (built in 1870) and then the New Museum, where Isa quite lost her heart to a charming stuffed Gorilla, that smiled on her from a glass case. The Museum was finished in 1860. The most curious thing they saw there was a “Walking Leaf,” a kind of insect that looks exactly like a withered leaf.
Then they went to New College (built in 1386), & saw, close to the entrance, a “skew” arch (going slantwise through the wall) one of the first ever built in England. After seeing the gardens, they returned to Ch. Ch. (Parts of the old City walls run round the gardens of New College: and you may still see some of the old narrow slits, through which the defenders could shoot arrows at the attacking army, who could hardly succeed in shooting through them from the outside).
They had tea with Mrs Paget, wife of Dr. Paget one of the Canons of Ch. Ch. Then, after a sorrowful evening, Isa went to bed, and dreamed she was buzzing about among the flowers, with the dear Gorilla: but there wasn’t any honey in them—only slices of bread-and-butter, and multiplication-tables.
Chap. V.
On Saturday Isa had a Music Lesson, and learned to play on an American Orguinette. It is not averydifficult instrument to play, as you only have to turn a handle round and round: so she did it nicely. You put a long piece of paper in, and it goes through the machine, and the holes in the paper make different notes play. They put one in wrong end first, and had a tune backwards, and soon found themselves in the day before yesterday: so they dared not go on, for fear of making Isa so young she would not be able to talk. The A.A.M. does not like visitors who only howl, and get red in the face, from morning to night.
In the afternoon they went round Ch. Ch. meadow, and saw the Barges belonging to the Colleges, and some pretty views of Magdalen Tower through the trees.
Then they went through the Botanical Gardens, built in the year——no, by the bye, they never were built at all. And then to Magdalen College. At the top of the wall, in one corner, they saw a very large jolly face, carved in stone, with a broad grin, and a little man at the side, helping him to laugh by pulling up the corner of his mouth for him. Isa thought that, the next time she wants to laugh, she will get Nellie and Maggie to help her. With two people to pull up the corners of your mouth for you, it is as easy to laugh as can be!
They went into Magdalen Meadow, which has a pretty walk all round it, arched over with trees: and there they met a lady “from Amurrica,” as she told them, who wanted to know the way to “Addison’s Walk,” and particularly wanted to know if there would be “any danger” in going there. They told her the way, and thatmostof the lions and tigers and buffaloes, round the meadow, were quite gentle and hardly ever killed people: so she set off, pale and trembling, and they saw her no more: only they heard her screams in the distance: so they guessed what had happened to her
Then they rode in a tram-car to another part of Oxford, and called on a lady called Mrs Jeane, and her little grand-daughter, called “Noël”, because she was born on Christmas-Day. (“Noël” is the French name for “Christmas”.) And there they had so much Tea that at last Isa nearly turned into a “Teaser”.
Then they went home, down a little narrow street, where there was a little dog standing fixed in the middle of the street, as if its feet were glued to the ground: they asked it how long it meant to stand there, and it said (as well as it could) “till the week after next”.
Then Isa went to bed, and dreamed she was going round Magdalen Meadow, with the “Amurrican” lady, and there was a buffalo sitting at the top of every tree, handing her cups of tea as she went underneath: but they all held the cups upside-down, so that the tea poured all over her head and ran down her face.
Chap. VI.
On Sunday morning they went to St. Mary’s church, in High Street. In coming home, down the street next to the one where they had found a fixed dog, they found a fixed cat—a poor little kitten, that had put out its head through the bars of the cellar-window, and get back again. They rang the bell at the next door, but the maid said the cellar wasn’t in that house, and, before they could get to the right door the cat had unfixed its head——either from its neck or from the bars, and had gone inside. Isa thought the animals in this city have a curious way of fixing themselves up and down the place, as if they were hat-pegs.
Then they went back to Ch. Ch., and looked at a lot of dresses, which the A.A.M kept in a cupboard, to dress up children in, when they come to be photographed. Some of the dresses had been used in Pantomimes at Drury Lane: some were rags, to dress up beggar-children in: some had been very magnificent once, but were getting quite old and shabby. Talking of old dresses, there is one College in Oxford, so old that it is not known for certain when it was built The people, who live there, say it was built more than 1000 years ago: and, when they say this, the people who live in the other Colleges never contradict them, but listen most respectfully——only they wink a little with one eye, as if they didn’tquitebelieve it.
The same day, Isa saw a curious book of pictures of ghosts. If you look hard at one for a minute, and then look at the ceiling, you see another ghost there: only, when you have a black one in the book, it is awhiteone on the ceiling: when it is green in the book, it ispinkon the ceiling.
In the middle of the day, as usual, Isa had her dinner: but this time it was grander than usual. There was a dish of “Meringues” (this is pronounced “Marangs”), which Isa thought so good that she would have liked to live on them all the rest of her life.
They took a little walk in the afternoon, and in the middle of Broad Street they saw a cross buried in the ground, very near the place where the Martyrs were burned. Then they went into the gardens of Trinity College (built in 1554) to see the “Lime Walk”, a pretty little avenue of lime-trees. The great iron “gates” at the end of the garden are not real gates, but all done in one piece: and they couldn’t open them, even if you knocked all day. Isa thought them a miserable sham.
Then they went into the “Parks” (this word doesn’t mean “parks of grass, with trees and deer,” but “parks” of guns: that is, great rows of cannons, which stood there when King Charles the First was in Oxford, and Oliver Cromwell fighting against him.
They saw “Mansfield College”, a new College just begun to be built, with such tremendously narrow windows that Isa was afraid the young gentlemen who come there will not be able to see to learn their lessons, and will go away from Oxford just as wise as they came.
Then they went to the evening service at New College, and heard some beautiful singing and organ-playing. Then back to Ch. Ch., in pouring rain. Isa tried to count the drops: but, when she had counted four millions, three hundred and seventy-eight thousand, two hundred and forty-seven, she got tired of counting, and left off.
After dinner, Isa got somebody or other (she is not sure who it was) to finish this story for her. Then she went to bed, and dreamed she was fixed in the middle of Oxford, with her feet fast to the ground, and her head between the bars of a cellar-window, in a sort of final tableau. Then she dreamed the curtain came down, and the people all called out “encore!” But she cried out “Oh, not again! It would betoodreadful to have my visit all over again!” But, on second thoughts, she smiled in her sleep, and said “Well, do you know, after all, I think I wouldn’t mind so very much if Ididhave it all over again!”.
Lewis Carroll.
THE END
Return to end of Diary.
Text of A Charade.
B.H.from C. L. D.
A CHARADE.
[NB FIVE POUNDS will be given to any one who succeeds in writing an original poetical Charade, introducing the line “My First is followed by a bird,” but making no use of the answer to this Charade.Ap 8 1878(signed)Lewis Carroll
[NB FIVE POUNDS will be given to any one who succeeds in writing an original poetical Charade, introducing the line “My First is followed by a bird,” but making no use of the answer to this Charade.Ap 8 1878
(signed)Lewis Carroll
My First is a singular at bestMore plural is my Second.My Third is far the pluralest—So plural-plural, I protest,It scarcely can be reckoned!My First is followed by a birdMy Second by believersIn magic art: my simple ThirdFollows, too often, hopes absurd,And plausible deceivers.My First to get at wisdom tries—A failure melancholy!My Second men revere as wise:My Third from heights of wisdom fallTo depths of frantic folly!My First is ageing day by day,My Second’s age is ended.My Third enjoys an age, they say,That never seems to fade away,Through centuries extended!My Whole? I need a Poet’s penTo paint her myriad phasesThe monarch, and the slave, of men—A mountain-summit, and a denOf dark and deadly mazes!A flashing light—a fleeting shade—Beginning, end, and middleOf all that human art hath made,Or wit devised “Go, seek her aid,If you would guess my riddle.”
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Text of Prologue.
Prologue
[Enter Beatrice, leading Wilfred She leaves him to centre (front) & after going round on tip-toe to make sure they are not overheard returns & takes his arm.]
B. “Wiffie! I’m sure that something is the matter!All day there’s been—oh such a fuss and clatter!Mamma’s been trying on a funny dress—I neversawthe house in such a mess!(puts her arm round his neck)Is there a secret, Wiffie?”W. (Shaking her off) “yes, of course!”B. “And you won’t tell it? (whispers) Then you’re very cross!(turns away from, & clasps her hands, looking up ecstatically)I’m sure ofthis! 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 and clapping her hands)“I’d say ‘How nice!’”W. (pointing to audience)“But will it please the rest?”B. “Ohyes! Because, you know, they’ll do their best![turns to audience]“You’ll praise them, won’t you, when you’ve seen the play?Just say ‘How nice!’ before you go away!”[they run away hand in hand].Feb 14. 1873.
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