Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (235 page)

I shall be told that I am ungenerous in thus picking out a few unfavourable cases, and that some of the greatest minds of the day are to be found in the ranks of science.
I freely admit that such may be found, but my contention is that
they
made the science, not the science them; and that in any line of thought they would have been equally distinguished.
As a general principle, I do not think that the exclusive study of any
one
subject is really education; and my experience as a teacher has shown me that even a considerable proficiency in Natural Science, taken alone, is so far from proving a high degree of cultivation and great natural ability that it is fully compatible with general ignorance and an intellect quite below par.
Therefore it is that I seek to rouse an interest, beyond the limits of Oxford, in preserving classics as an essential feature of a University education.
Nor is it as a classical tutor (who might be suspected of a bias in favour of his own subject) that I write this.
On the contrary, it is as one who has taught science here for more than twenty years (for mathematics, though good-humouredly scorned by the biologists on account of the abnormal certainty of its conclusions, is still reckoned among the sciences) that I beg to sign myself,—Your obedient servant,

Charles L.
Dodgson,

Mathematical Lecturer of Christ Church, Oxford.

May 17th.

I give the above letter because I think it amusing; it must not be supposed that the writer's views on the subject remained the same all through his life.
He was a thorough Conservative, and it took a long time to reconcile him to any new departure.
In a political discussion with a friend he once said that he was "first an Englishman, and then a Conservative," but however much a man may try to put patriotism before party, the result will be but partially successful, if patriotism would lead him into opposition to the mental bias which has originally made him either a Conservative or a Radical.

He took, of course, great pleasure in the success of his books, as every author must; but the greatest pleasure of all to him was to know that they had pleased others.
Notes like the following are frequent in his Diary: "
June
25
th
.—Spent the afternoon in sending off seventy circulars to Hospitals, offering copies of 'Alice' and the 'Looking-Glass' for sick children."
He well deserved the name which one of his admirers gave him—"The man who loved little children."

In April, 1878, he saw a performance of "Olivia" at the Court Theatre.
"The gem of the piece is Olivia herself, acted by Ellen Terry with a sweetness and pathos that moved some of the audience (nearly including myself) to tears.
Her leave-taking was exquisite; and when, in her exile, she hears that her little brother had cried at the mention of her name, her exclamation 'Pet!'
was tenderness itself.
Altogether, I have not had a greater dramatic treat for a long time.
Dies cretâ notandus
."

I see that I have marked for quotation the following brief entries in the Diary:—

Aug.
4th
(at Eastbourne).—Went, morning and evening, to the new chapel-of-ease belonging to S.
Saviour's.
It has the immense advantage of
not
being crowded; but this scarcely compensates for the vile Gregorian chants, which vex and weary one's ear.

Aug.
17th
.—A very inquisitive person, who had some children with her, found out my name, and then asked me to shake hands with her child, as an admirer of my books: this I did, unwisely perhaps, as I have no intention of continuing the acquaintance of a "Mrs.
Leo Hunter."

Dec.
23rd
.—I have been making a plan for work next term, of this kind: Choose a subject (
e.g
., "Circulation," "Journeys of S.
Paul," "English Counties") for each week.
On Monday write what I know about it; during week get up subject; on Saturday write again; put the two papers away, and six months afterwards write again and compare.

As an artist, Mr.
Dodgson possessed an intense natural appreciation of the beautiful, an abhorrence of all that is coarse and unseemly which might almost be called hyper-refinement, a wonderfully good eye for form, and last, but not least, the most scrupulous conscientiousness about detail.
On the other hand his sense of colour was somewhat imperfect, and his hand was almost totally untrained, so that while he had all the enthusiasm of the true artist, his work always had the defects of an amateur.

MISS E.
GERTRUDE THOMSON.

From a photograph

by Lewis Carroll
.

In 1878 some drawings of Miss E.
Gertrude Thomson's excited his keen admiration, and he exerted himself to make her acquaintance.
Their first meeting is described so well by Miss Thomson herself in
The Gentlewoman
for January 29, 1898, that I cannot do better than quote the description of the scene as given there:—

It was at the end of December, 1878, that a letter, written in a singularly legible and rather boyish-looking hand, came to me from Christ Church, Oxford, signed "C.
L.
Dodgson."
The writer said that he had come across some fairy designs of mine, and he should like to see some more of my work.
By the same post came a letter from my London publisher (who had supplied my address) telling me that the "Rev.
C.
L.
Dodgson" was "Lewis Carroll."

"Alice in Wonderland" had long been one of my pet books, and as one regards a favourite author as almost a personal friend, I felt less restraint than one usually feels in writing to a stranger, though I carefully concealed my knowledge of his identity, as he had not chosen to reveal it.

This was the beginning of a frequent and delightful correspondence, and as I confessed to a great love for fairy lore of every description, he asked me if I would accept a child's fairy-tale book he had written, called "Alice in Wonderland."
I replied that I knew it nearly all off by heart, but that I should greatly prize a copy given to me by himself.
By return came "Alice," and "Through the Looking-Glass," bound most luxuriously in white calf and gold.

And this is the graceful and kindly note that came with them: "I am now sending you 'Alice,' and the 'Looking-Glass' as well.
There is an incompleteness about giving only one, and besides, the one you bought was probably in red and would not match these.
If you are at all in doubt as to what to do with the (now) superfluous copy, let me suggest your giving it to some poor sick child.
I have been distributing copies to all the hospitals and convalescent homes I can hear of, where there are sick children capable of reading them, and though, of course, one takes some pleasure in the popularity of the books elsewhere, it is not nearly so pleasant a thought to me as that they may be a comfort and relief to children in hours of pain and weariness.
Still, no recipient
can
be more appropriate than one who seems to have been in fairyland herself, and to have seen, like the 'weary mariners' of old—

'Between the green brink and the running foam

White limbs unrobed in a crystal air,

Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest

To little harps of gold.'"

"Do you ever come to London?"
he asked in another letter; "if so, will you allow me to call upon you?"

Early in the summer I came up to study, and I sent him word that I was in town.
One night, coming into my room, after a long day spent at the British Museum, in the half-light I saw a card lying on the table.
"Rev.
C.
L.
Dodgson."
Bitter, indeed, was my disappointment at having missed him, but just as I was laying it sadly down I spied a small T.O.
in the corner.
On the back I read that he couldn't get up to my rooms early or late enough to find me, so would I arrange to meet him at some museum or gallery the day but one following?
I fixed on South Kensington Museum, by the "Schliemann" collection, at twelve o'clock.

A little before twelve I was at the rendezvous, and then the humour of the situation suddenly struck me, that
I
had not the ghost of an idea what
he
was like, nor would
he
have any better chance of discovering
me!
The room was fairly full of all sorts and conditions, as usual, and I glanced at each masculine figure in turn, only to reject it as a possibility of the one I sought.
Just as the big clock had clanged out twelve, I heard the high vivacious voices and laughter of children sounding down the corridor.

At that moment a gentleman entered, two little girls clinging to his hands, and as I caught sight of the tall slim figure, with the clean-shaven, delicate, refined face, I said to myself, "
That's
Lewis Carroll."
He stood for a moment, head erect, glancing swiftly over the room, then, bending down, whispered something to one of the children; she, after a moment's pause, pointed straight at me.

Dropping their hands he came forward, and with that winning smile of his that utterly banished the oppressive sense of the Oxford don, said simply, "I am Mr.
Dodgson; I was to meet you, I think?"
To which I as frankly smiled, and said, "How did you know me so soon?"

"My little friend found you.
I told her I had come to meet a young lady who knew fairies, and she fixed on you at once.
But
I
knew you before she spoke."

This acquaintance ripened into a true, artistic friendship, which lasted till Mr.
Dodgson's death.
In his first letter to Miss Thomson he speaks of himself as one who for twenty years had found his one amusement in photographing from life—especially photographing children; he also said that he had made attempts ("most unsuccessfully") at drawing them.
When he got to know her more intimately, he asked her to criticise his work, and when she wrote expressing her willingness to do so, he sent her a pile of sketch-books, through which she went most carefully, marking the mistakes, and criticising, wherever criticism seemed to be necessary.

After this he might often have been seen in her studio, lying flat on his face, and drawing some child-model who had been engaged for his especial benefit.
"I
love
the effort to draw," he wrote in one of his letters to her, "but I utterly fail to please even my own eye—tho' now and then I seem to get somewhere
near
a right line or two, when I have a live child to draw from.
But I have no time left now for such things.
In the next life, I do
hope
we shall not only
see
lovely forms, such as this world does not contain, but also be able to
draw
them."