Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (258 page)

This was told with the utmost gravity, and though we had been requested beforehand not to mention "Lewis Carroll's" books, the temptation was too strong.
I could not help saying to the child next me—

"That was like the Whiting, wasn't it?"

Our visitor, however, took up the remark, and seemed quite willing to talk about it.

"When I wrote that," he said, "I believed that whiting really did have their tails in their mouths, but I have since been told that fishmongers put the tail through the eye, not in the mouth at all."

He was not a very good carver, for Miss Bremer also describes a little difficulty he had—this time with the pastry: "An amusing incident occurred when he was at lunch with us.
He was requested to serve some pastry, and, using a knife, as it was evidently rather hard, the knife penetrated the d'oyley beneath—and his consternation was extreme when he saw the slice of linen and lace he served as an addition to the tart!"

It was, I think, through her connection with the "Alice" play that Mr.
Dodgson first came to know Miss Isa Bowman.
Her childish friendship for him was one of the joys of his later years, and one of the last letters he wrote was addressed to her.
The poem at the beginning of "Sylvie and Bruno" is an acrostic on her name—

Is all our Life, then, but a dream,

Seen faintly in the golden gleam

Athwart Times'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 the merry noontide, send

No glance to meet the silent end.

Every one has heard of Lewis Carroll's hatred of interviewers; the following letter to Miss Manners makes one feel that in some cases, at least, his feeling was justifiable:—

If your Manchester relatives ever go to the play, tell them they ought to see Isa as "Cinderella"—she is evidently a success.
And she has actually been "interviewed" by one of those dreadful newspapers reporters, and the "interview" is published with her picture!
And such rubbish he makes her talk!
She tells him that something or other was "tacitly conceded": and that "I love to see a great actress give expression to the wonderful ideas of the immortal master!"

(N.B.—I never let her talk like that when she is with
me
!)

Emsie recovered in time to go to America, with her mother and Isa and Nellie: and they all enjoyed the trip much; and Emsie has a London engagement.

Only once was an interviewer bold enough to enter Lewis Carroll's
sanctum
.
The story has been told in
The Guardian
(January 19, 1898), but will bear repetition:—

Not long ago Mr.
Dodgson happened to get into correspondence with a man whom he had never seen, on some question of religious difficulty, and he invited him to come to his rooms and have a talk on the subject.
When, therefore, a Mr.
X— was announced to him one morning, he advanced to meet him with outstretched hand and smiles of welcome.
"Come in Mr.
X—, I have been expecting you."
The delighted visitor thought this a promising beginning, and immediately pulled out a note-book and pencil, and proceeded to ask "the usual questions."
Great was Mr.
Dodgson's disgust!
Instead of his expected friend, here was another man of the same name, and one of the much-dreaded interviewers, actually sitting in his chair!
The mistake was soon explained, and the representative of the Press was bowed out as quickly as he had come in.

It was while Isa and one of her sisters were staying at Eastbourne that the visit to America was mooted.
Mr.
Dodgson suggested that it would be well for them to grow gradually accustomed to seafaring, and therefore proposed to take them by steamer to Hastings.
This plan was carried out, and the weather was unspeakably bad—far worse than anything they experienced in their subsequent trip across the Atlantic.
The two children, who were neither of them very good sailors, experienced sensations that were the reverse of pleasant.
Mr.
Dodgson did his best to console them, while he continually repeated, "Crossing the Atlantic will be much worse than this."

However, even this terrible lesson on the horrors of the sea did not act as a deterrent; it was as unsuccessful as the effort of the old lady in one of his stories: "An old lady I once knew tried to check the military ardour of a little boy by showing him a picture of a battlefield, and describing some of its horrors.
But the only answer she got was, 'I'll be a soldier.
Tell it again!'"

The Bowman children sometimes came over to visit him at Oxford, and he used to delight in showing them over the colleges, and pointing out the famous people whom they encountered.
On one of these occasions he was walking with Maggie, then a mere child, when they met the Bishop of Oxford, to whom Mr.
Dodgson introduced his little guest.
His lordship asked her what she thought of Oxford.
"I think," said the little actress, with quite a professional
aplomb,
"it's the best place in the Provinces!"
At which the Bishop was much amused.
After the child had returned to town, the Bishop sent her a copy of a little book called "Golden Dust," inscribed "From W.
Oxon," which considerably mystified her, as she knew nobody of that name!

Another little stage-friend of Lewis Carroll's was Miss Vera Beringer, the "Little Lord Fauntleroy," whose acting delighted all theatre-goers eight or nine years ago.
Once, when she was spending a holiday in the Isle of Man, he sent her the following lines:—

There was a young lady of station,

"I love man" was her sole exclamation;

But when men cried, "You flatter,"

She replied, "Oh!
no matter,

Isle of Man is the true explanation."

Many of his friendships with children began in a railway carriage, for he always took about with him a stock of puzzles when he travelled, to amuse any little companions whom chance might send him.
Once he was in a carriage with a lady and her little daughter, both complete strangers to him.
The child was reading "Alice in Wonderland," and when she put her book down, he began talking to her about it.
The mother soon joined in the conversation, of course without the least idea who the stranger was with whom she was talking.
"Isn't it sad," she said, "about poor Mr.
Lewis Carroll?
He's gone mad, you know."
"Indeed," replied Mr.
Dodgson, "I had never heard that."
"Oh, I assure you it is quite true," the lady answered.
"I have it on the best authority."
Before Mr.
Dodgson parted with her, he obtained her leave to send a present to the little girl, and a few days afterwards she received a copy of "Through the Looking-Glass," inscribed with her name, and "From the Author, in memory of a pleasant journey."

When he gave books to children, he very often wrote acrostics on their names on the fly-leaf.
One of the prettiest was inscribed in a copy of Miss Yonge's "Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe," which he gave to Miss Ruth Dymes:—

R ound the wondrous globe I wander wild,

U p and down-hill—Age succeeds to youth—

T oiling all in vain to find a child

H alf so loving, half so dear as Ruth.

In another book, given to her sister Margaret, he wrote:—

M aidens, if a maid you meet

A lways free from pout and pet,

R eady smile and temper sweet,

G reet my little Margaret.

A nd if loved by all she be

R ightly, not a pampered pet,

E asily you then may see

'Tis my little Margaret.

Here are two letters to children, the one interesting as a specimen of pure nonsense of the sort which children always like, the other as showing his dislike of being praised.
The first was written to Miss Gertrude Atkinson, daughter of an old College friend, but otherwise unknown to Lewis Carroll except by her photograph:—

My dear Gertrude,—So many things have happened since we met last, really I don't know
which
to begin talking about!
For instance, England has been conquered by William the Conqueror.
We haven't met since
that
happened, you know.
How did you like it?
Were you frightened?

And one more thing has happened: I have got your photograph.
Thank you very much for it.
I like it "awfully."
Do they let you say "awfully"?
or do they say, "No, my dear; little girls mustn't say 'awfully'; they should say 'very much indeed'"?

I wonder if you will ever get as far as Jersey?
If not, how
are
we to meet?

Your affectionate friend,

C.L.
Dodgson.

From the second letter, to Miss Florence Jackson, I take the following extract:—

I have two reasons for sending you this fable; one is, that in a letter you wrote me you said something about my being "clever"; and the other is that, when you wrote again you said it again!
And
each
time I thought, "Really, I
must
write and ask her
not
to say such things; it is not wholesome reading for me."

The fable is this.
The cold, frosty, bracing air is the treatment one gets from the world generally—such as contempt, or blame, or neglect; all those are very wholesome.
And the hot dry air, that you breathe when you rush to the fire, is the praise that one gets from one's young, happy, rosy, I may even say
florid
friends!
And that's very bad for me, and gives pride-fever, and conceit-cough, and such-like diseases.
Now I'm sure you don't want me to be laid up with all these diseases; so please don't praise me
any
more!

The verses to "Matilda Jane" certainly deserve a place in this chapter.
To make their meaning clear, I must state that Lewis Carroll wrote them for a little cousin of his, and that Matilda Jane was the somewhat prosaic name of her doll.
The poem expresses finely the blind, unreasoning devotion which the infant mind professes for inanimate objects:—

Matilda Jane, you never look

At 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're
so
deaf, 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 is
me
, Matilda Jane!

In an earlier chapter I gave some of Mr.
Dodgson's letters to Miss Edith Rix; the two which follow, being largely about children, seem more appropriate here:—

My dear Edith,—Would you tell your mother I was aghast at seeing the address of her letter to me: and I would much prefer "Rev.
C.L.
Dodgson, Ch.
Ch., Oxford."
When a letter comes addressed "Lewis Carroll, Ch.
Ch.," it either goes to the Dead Letter Office, or it impresses on the minds of all letter-carriers, &c., through whose hands it goes, the very fact I least want them to know.

Please offer to your sister all the necessary apologies for the liberty I have taken with her name.
My only excuse is, that I know no other; and how
am
I to guess what the full name is?
It
may
be Carlotta, or Zealot, or Ballot, or Lotus-blossom (a very pretty name), or even Charlotte.
Never have I sent anything to a young lady of whom I have a more shadowy idea.
Name, an enigma; age, somewhere between 1 and 19 (you've no idea how bewildering it is, alternately picturing her as a little toddling thing of 5, and a tall girl of 15!); disposition—well, I
have
a fragment of information on
that
question—your mother says, as to my coming, "It must be when Lottie is at home, or she would never forgive us."
Still, I
cannot
consider the mere fact that she is of an unforgiving disposition as a complete view of her character.
I feel sure she has some other qualities besides.