Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (279 page)

Letter-writing was as much a part of Lewis Carroll as games, and puzzles, and problems, and mathematics, and nonsense, and little girls.
Indeed, as we view him through the stretch of years, we find him so many-sided that he himself would have done well to draw a new geometrical figure to represent a nature so full of strange angles and surprising shapes.
If one is fond of looking into a kaleidoscope, and watching the ever-changing facets and colours and designs, one would be pretty apt to understand the constant shifting of that active mind, always on the alert for new ideas, but steady and fixed in many good old ones, which had become firm habits.

He was fond of giving his child-friends “nuts to crack,” and nothing pleased him more than to be the center of some group of little girls, firing his conundrums and puzzles into their minds, and watching the bright young faces catching the glow of his thoughts.
He knew just how far to go, and when to turn some dawning idea into quaint nonsense, so that the young mind could grasp and hold it.
Dear maker of nonsense, dear teacher and friend, dear lover of children, can they ever forget you!

CHAPTER XII.

A FAIRY RING OF GIRLS.

In a little poem called “A Sea Dirge,” which Lewis Carroll wrote about this time, we find some very strange, uncomplimentary remarks, considering the fact that most of his vacations was spent at the seashore.
Eastbourne, in the summer time, was as much his home—during the last fifteen years of his life—as Christ Church during the Oxford term.
His pretty house in a shady, quiet street was a familiar spot to every girl friend of his acquaintance, and many of his closest and most interesting friendships were begun by the sea, yet he says:

There are certain things, as a spider, a ghost,

The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three—

That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most

Is a thing they call the Sea.

Pour some salt water over the floor—

Ugly I’m sure you’ll allow it to be;

Suppose it extended a mile or more,

That’s
very like the Sea.

······

I had a vision of nursery maids;

Tens of thousands passed by me—

All leading children with wooden spades,

And this way by the Sea.

Who invented those spades of wood?

Who was it cut them out of the tree?

None, I think, but an idiot could—

Or one that loved the Sea.

······

If you like your coffee with sand for dregs,

A decided hint of salt in your tea,

And a fishy taste in the very eggs—

By all means choose the Sea.

And if, with these dainties to drink and eat,

You prefer not a vestige of grass or tree,

And a chronic state of wet in your feet,

Then—I recommend the Sea.

Did he mean all this, we wonder, this genial gentleman, who haunted the seashore in search of little girls, his pockets bulging with games and puzzles?
He had also a good supply of safety-pins, in case he saw someone who wanted to wade in the sea, but whose skirts were in her way and who had no pin handy.
Then he would go gravely up to her and present her with one of his stock.

In the earlier days he used to go to Sandown, in the Isle of Wight, and there he met little Gertrude Chataway, who must have been a very charming child, for he promptly fell in love with her.
This was in 1875, and, from her description of him, he must have been a
very, very
old gentleman—forty-three at least.
He happened to live next door to Gertrude, and during those summer days she used to watch him with much interest, for he had a way of throwing back his head and sniffing in the salt air that fascinated Gertrude, whose joy bubbled over when at last he spoke to her.
The two became great friends.
They used to sit for hours on the steps of their house which led to the beach, and he would delight the little girl with his wonderful stories, often illustrating them with a pencil as he talked.
The great charm of these stories lay in the fact that some chance remark of Gertrude’s would wind him up; some question she asked would suggest a story, and as it spread out into “lovely nonsense” she always felt in some way that she had helped to make it grow.

This little girl was one of the child-friends who clung to the sweet association all her life, just as the little Liddell girls never grew quite away from his love and interest.
It was to Gertrude that he dedicated “The Hunting of the Snark,” and she was the proud possessor not only of his friendship, but of many interesting letters, covering a period of at least ten years, during which time Gertrude passed from little girlhood, though he never seemed to realize the change.

Two of his prime favorites in the earlier days were Ellen Terry, the well-known English actress, and her sister Kate, who was also an actress of some note.

Lewis Carroll, being always very fond of the drama, found it through life his keenest delight, and it was his good fortune to see little Ellen Terry in the first prominent part she ever took.
This was in 1856, when Mr.
and Mrs.
Charles Kean played in “The Winter’s Tale,” and Ellen took the child’s character of
Mamillius
, the little son of the King.
Lewis Carroll was carried away with the tiny actress, and it did not take him long after that to make her acquaintance.
This no doubt began in the usual way, a chat with the child behind the scenes, a call upon her father and mother, and, finally, an introduction to the whole family which, being nearly as large as his own, could not fail to interest him deeply.

There were two other little Terry girls, who attracted him and to whom he was very kind, Florence and Marion.
The boys, and there were five of them, he never noticed of course, but the four little girls came in for a good share of the most substantial petting.
Many a day at the seaside he gave them—these busy little actresses—many a feast in his own rooms, many a daytime frolic, for night was their working time—not that they minded in the least, for they loved their work.
There was much talk in those days about the harm in allowing children to act at night, when they should be snug in their beds dreaming of fairies.
But Lewis Carroll thought nothing of the kind; he delighted in the children’s acting, and he knew, being half a child himself, that the youngsters took as much delight in their work as he did in seeing them.
He always contended that acting comes naturally to children; from babyhood they “pretend,” and if they happen, as in Ellen Terry’s case and the case of other little stage people he knew, to be born in the profession, why, this “pretending” is the finest kind of
play
not
work
.
So he was always on the side of the little actors and actresses who did not want to be taken away from the theater and put to bed.

Ellen Terry proved also to be one of his lifelong friends; the talented actress found his praise a most precious thing, and his criticism, always so honest, and usually so keen and true, she accepted with the grace of the great artist.
Often, too, he asked her aid for some other girl friend with dramatic talent, and she never failed to lend a helping hand when she could.
From first to last her acting charmed him.
Often he would take a little girl to some Shakespearean treat at the theater, and would raise her to the “seventh heaven” of delight by penciling a note to Miss Terry asking for an interview or perhaps a photograph for his small companion, and these requests were never refused.

Every Christmas the Rev.
Charles Dodgson spent with his sisters, who since their father’s death had lived at Guildford, in a pretty house called
The Chestnuts
.
His coming at Christmas was always a great event, for of course some very youthful ladies in the neighborhood were in a state of suppressed excitement over his yearly arrival, which meant Christmas jollity—with charades and tableaux and all sorts of odd and interesting games, and,
of course
, stories.

One of his special Guildford favorites was Gaynor Simpson, to whom he wrote several of his clever letters.
In one, evidently an answer to hers, he begged her never again to leave out the g in the name Dodgson, asking in a very plaintive manner what
she
would think if he left out the G in
her
name and called her “Aynor” instead of Gaynor.

In this same letter he confessed that he never danced except in his own peculiar way, that the last house he danced in, the floors broke through, but as the beams were only six inches thick, it was a very poor sort of floor, when one came to think—that stone arches were much better for
his
sort of dancing.

Indeed, the poem he wrote about the sea must have been just a bit of a joke, for it was at Margate, another seaside resort, that he met Adelaide Paine, another of his favorites, and to her he presented a copy of “The Hunting of the Snark,” with an acrostic on her name written on the fly leaf.
This little maid was further honored by receiving a photograph, not of Lewis Carroll, but of Mr.
Dodgson, and in a note to her mother he begged in his usual odd way that she would never let any but her intimate friends know anything about the name of “Lewis Carroll,” as he did not wish people who had heard of him to recognize him in the street.

The friendships that were not cemented at the seaside or under the shelter of old “Tom Quad” were very often begun in the railway train.
English trains are not like ours in America.
In Lewis Carroll’s time the “first-class” accommodations were called
carriages
, in which four or five people, often total strangers, were shut up for hours together, actually locked in by the guard; and if one of these people chanced to be Lewis Carroll, and another a restless, active little girl, why, in the twinkling of an eye the sign of fellowship had flashed between them, and they were friends.

One special friend made in this fashion was a dear little maid named Kathleen Eschwege, who stayed a child to him always during their eighteen years of friendship, in spite of all the changes the years brought in their train; her marriage among the rest, on which occasion he wrote her that as he never gave wedding presents, he hoped the inclosed he sent in his letter she would accept as an
unwedding
present.

This letter bore the date of January 20, 1892; five years later he wrote to acknowledge a photograph she had sent him in January, 1892, also her wedding-card in August of the same year.
But he salved his conscience by reminding her that a certain biscuit-box—decorated with “Looking-Glass” pictures—which he had sent her in December, 1892, had never been acknowledged by
her
.

Our “don’s” memory sometimes played him tricks we see, especially in later years.
On one occasion, failing to recognize someone who passed him on the street, he was much chagrined to find out that he had been the gentleman’s guest at dinner only the night before.

Another pleasant railway friendship was established with three little Drury girls, as early as 1869.
They did not know who he was until he sent them a copy of “Alice in Wonderland”—with the following verse on the fly leaf:

TO THREE PUZZLED LITTLE GIRLS.

(
From the Author.
)

Three little maidens weary of the rail,

Three pairs of little ears listening to a tale,

Three little hands held out in readiness

For three little puzzles very hard to guess.

Three pairs of little eyes and open wonder-wide

At three little scissors lying side by side,

Three little mouths that thanked an unknown friend

For one little book he undertook to send.

Though whether they’ll remember a friend or book or day—

In three little weeks is very hard to say.

Edith Rix was another favorite but apparently beyond the usual age, for his letters to her have quite a grown-up tone, and he helped her through many girlish quandaries with his wholesome advice.

There are scores of others—so many that their very names would mean nothing to us unless we knew the circumstances which began the acquaintance, and the numerous incidents which could only occur in the company of Lewis Carroll.

As we know, there were three great influences in his life: his reverence for holy things, his fondness for mathematics, and his love of little girls.
It is this last trait which colours our picture of him and makes him stand forth in our minds apart from other men of his time.
There have been many great preachers and eminent mathematicians, and these brilliant men may have loved childhood in a certain way, but to step aside from their high places to mingle with the children would never have occurred to them.
The small girls who were “seen and not heard” dropped their eyes bashfully when the great ones passed, and bobbed a little old-fashioned curtsy in return for a stately preoccupied nod.
But not so Lewis Carroll.
No childish eyes ever sought his in vain.
His own blue ones always smiled back, and there was something so glowing in this smile which lit up his whole face, that children, all unconsciously, drew near the warmth of it.

His love for girls speaks well for the home-life and surroundings of his earlier years, when in the company of his seven sisters he learned to know girls pretty thoroughly.
These girls of whom we have such scant knowledge possessed, we are sure, some potent charm to make this “big brother” forever afterwards the champion of little girls, and being a thoughtful fellow, he must have watched with pleasure the way they bloomed from childhood to girlhood and from girlhood to womanhood, in the sweet seclusion of Croft Rectory.
It was this intimacy and comradeship with his sisters which made him so easily the intimate and comrade of so many little girls, understanding all their traits and peculiarities and their “girl nature” better sometimes than they did themselves.