The Story of Lewis Carroll Part 7

My Second men revere as wise: My Third from heights of wisdom fall To 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 pen To paint her myriad phases The monarch, and the slave, of men-- A mountain-summit, and a den Of dark and deadly mazes!

A flas.h.i.+ng light--a fleeting shade-- Beginning, end, and middle Of all that human art hath made, Or wit devised "Go, seek her aid, If you would guess my riddle."]

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 n.o.ble, generous disposition, I have made up my mind to a _great_ sacrifice, 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-notes _as 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 to _you_ it 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'll tell you the real truth. As Miss Kitty Wilson is a dear friend of yours, of course she's a _sort_ of 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's _your_ friend, for, you see, I had never _heard_ of 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! how _am_ I 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 books _never_ come 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 we have 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 kangaroo Turning a coffee-mill; He looked again, and found it was A 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 gleam Athwart 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, send No 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Facsimile:

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 never =saw= the 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 of =this=! It's something =quite= uncommon!"

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 say If 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. "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].

Feb 14. 1873.]

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 ill.u.s.trated 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 one to 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 get _quite_ green with jealousy, at two (indeed _three_!) of her sisters getting presents, and nothing for her! I've nothing but my love to send her to-day: but she shall have _something some_ day.--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 be _much_' more particular than gentlemen in observing the distinctions of what is called 'social position': and the _lower_ their own position is (in the scale of 'lady' s.h.i.+p), 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 t.i.tle of her own, as she was an earl's daughter. I happened to sit next her 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 'How _dare_ you speak to _me_! 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 all _quite_ equal in G.o.d's sight, but we _do_ make a lot of distinctions (some of them quite unmeaning) among ourselves!"