Lewis Carroll in Wonderland and at Home Part 16

"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!

But we've got our brave Captain to thank"

(So the crew would protest), "that he's bought _us_ the best-- A perfect and absolute blank!"

And true enough, the _Bellman's_ idea of the ocean was a big square basin, with the lat.i.tude and longitude carefully written out on the margin. They found, however, that their "brave Captain" knew very little about navigation, he--

"Had only one notion for crossing the ocean, And that was to tingle his bell."

He thought nothing of telling his crew to steer starboard and larboard at the same time, and then we know how--

The bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes.

"A thing," as the Bellman remarked, "That frequently happens in tropical climes, When a vessel is, so to speak, 'snarked.'"

The _Bellman_ had hoped, when the wind blew toward the east, that the s.h.i.+p would not travel toward the west, but it seems that with all his nautical knowledge he could not prevent it; s.h.i.+ps are perverse animals!

"But the danger was past--they had landed at last, With their boxes, portmanteaus, and bags: Yet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view, Which consisted of chasms and crags."

Now that they had reached the land of the Snark, the _Bellman_ proceeded to air his knowledge on that subject.

"A snark," he said, "had five unmistakable traits--its taste, 'meager and mellow and crisp,' its habit of getting up late, its slowness in taking a jest, its fondness for bathing machines, and, fifth and lastly, its ambition." He further informed the crew that "the snarks that had feathers could bite, and those that had whiskers could scratch," adding as an afterthought:

"'For although common Snarks do no manner of harm, Yet I feel it my duty to say, Some are Boojums--' The Bellman broke off in alarm, For the Baker had fainted away."

_Fit the Third_ was the _Baker's_ tale.

"They roused him with m.u.f.fins, they roused him with ice, They roused him with mustard and cress, They roused him with jam and judicious advice, They set him conundrums to guess."

Then he explained why it was that the name "Boojum" made him faint. It seems that a dear uncle, after whom he was named, gave him some wholesome advice about the way to hunt a snark, and this uncle seemed to be a man of much influence:

"'You may seek it with thimbles, and seek it with care; You may hunt it with forks and hope; You may threaten its life with a railway-share; You may charm it with smiles and soap----'"

"'That's exactly the method,' the Bellman bold In a hasty parenthesis cried, 'That's exactly the way I have always been told That the capture of Snarks should be tried!'"

"'But, oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day, If your Snark be a Boojum! For then You will softly and suddenly vanish away, And never be met with again!'"

This of course was a very sad thing to think of, for the man with no name, who was named after his uncle, and called in courtesy the _Baker_, had grown to be a great favorite with the crew; but they had no time to waste in sentiment--they were in the Snark's own land, they had the _Bellman's_ orders in _Fit the Fourth_--the Hunting:

"To seek it with thimbles, to seek it with care; To pursue it with forks and hope; To threaten its life with a railway share; To charm it with smiles and soap!

"For the Snark's a peculiar creature, that won't Be caught in a commonplace way.

Do all that you know, and try all that you don't: Not a chance must be wasted to-day!"

Then they all went to work according to their own special way, just as we would do now in our hunt for happiness through the chasms and crags of every day.

_Fit the Fifth_ is the _Beaver's_ Lesson, when the _Butcher_ discourses wisely on arithmetic and natural history, two subjects a butcher should know pretty thoroughly, and this is proved:

"While the Beaver confessed, with affectionate looks More eloquent even than tears, It had learned in ten minutes far more than all books Would have taught it in seventy years."

The _Barrister's_ Dream occupied _Fit the Sixth_, and here our poet's keen wit gave many a slap at the law and the lawyers.

The _Banker's_ Fate in _Fit the Seventh_ was sad enough; he was grabbed by the Banders.n.a.t.c.h (that "frumious" "portmanteau" creature that we met before in the _Lay of the Jabberwocky_) and worried and tossed about until he completely lost his senses. Some bankers are that way in the pursuit of fortune, which means happiness to them; but fortune may turn, like the Banders.n.a.t.c.h, and shake their minds out of their bodies, and so they left this _Banker_ to his fate. That is the way of people when bankers are in trouble, because they were reckless and not always careful to

"Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Banders.n.a.t.c.h."

_Fit the Eighth_ treats of the vanis.h.i.+ng of the Baker according to the prediction of his prophetic uncle. All day long the eager searchers had hunted in vain, but just at the close of the day they heard a shout in the distance and beheld their _Baker_ "erect and sublime" on top of a crag, waving his arms and shouting wildly; then before their startled and horrified gaze, he plunged into a chasm and disappeared forever.

"'It's a Snark!' was the sound that first came to their ears.

And seemed almost too good to be true.

Then followed a torrent of laughter and cheers, Then the ominous words, 'It's a Boo----'

"Then, silence. Some fancied they heard in the air A weary and wandering sigh That sounded like 'jum!' but the others declare It was only a breeze that went by.

"They hunted till darkness came on, but they found Not a b.u.t.ton, or feather, or mark By which they could tell that they stood on the ground Where the Baker had met with the Snark.

"In the midst of the word he was trying to say, In the midst of his laughter and glee, He had softly and suddenly vanished away-- For the Snark _was_ a Boojum, you see."

What became of the _Bellman_ and his crew is left to our imagination.

Perhaps the _Baker's_ fate was a warning, or perhaps they are still hunting--not _too_ close to the chasm. Lewis Carroll, always so particular about proper endings, refuses any explanation. The fact that this special Snark was a "Boojum" altered all the rules of the hunt. n.o.body knows what it is, but all the same n.o.body wishes to meet a "Boojum." That's all there is about it.

"Now how absurd to talk such nonsense!" some learned school girl may exclaim; undoubtedly one who has high ideals about life and literature.

But is it nonsense we are talking, and does the quaint poem really teach us nothing? Anything which brings a picture to the mind must surely have some merit, and there is much homely common sense wrapped up in the queer verses if we have but the wit to find it, and no one is too young nor too old to join in this hunt for happiness.

Read the poem over and over, put expression and feeling into it, treat the _Bellman_ and his strange crew as if they were real human beings--there's a lot of the human in them after all--and see if new ideas and new meanings do not pop into your head with each reading, while the verses, all unconsciously, will stick in your memory, where Tennyson or Wordsworth or even Shakespeare fails to hold a place there.

Of course, Lewis Carroll's own especial girlfriends understood "The Hunting of the Snark" better than the less favored "outsiders." First of all there was Lewis Carroll himself to read it to them in his own expressive way, his pleasant voice sinking impressively at exciting moments, and his clear explanation of each "portmanteau" word helping along wonderfully. We can fancy the gleam of fun in the blue eyes, the sweep of his hand across his hair, the sudden sweet smile with which he pointed his jests or clothed his moral, as the case might be. Indeed, one little girl was so fascinated with the poem which he sent her as a gift that she learned the whole of it by heart, and insisted on repeating it during a long country drive.

"The Hunting of the Snark" created quite a sensation among his friends.

The first edition was finely ill.u.s.trated by Henry Holiday, whose clever drawings show how well he understood the poem, and what sympathy existed between himself and the author.

"Phantasmagoria," his ghost poem, deals with the friendly relations always existing between ghosts and the people they are supposed to haunt; a whimsical idea, carried out in Lewis Carroll's whimsical way, with lots of fun and a good deal of simple philosophy worked out in the verses. One canto is particularly amusing. Here are some of the verses:

Oh, when I was a little Ghost, A merry time had we!

Each seated on his favorite post, We chumped and chawed the b.u.t.tered toast They gave us for our tea.

"That story is in print!" I cried.

"Don't say it's not, because It's known as well as Bradshaw's Guide!"

(The Ghost uneasily replied He hardly thought it was.)

It's not in Nursery Rhymes? And yet I almost think it is-- "Three little Ghostesses" were set "On postesses," you know, and ate Their "b.u.t.tered toastesses."

"The Three Voices," his next ambitious poem, is rather out of the realm of childhood. A weak-minded man and a strong-minded lady met on the seash.o.r.e, she having rescued his hat from the antics of a playful breeze by pinning it down on the sands with her umbrella, right through the center of the soft crown. When she handed it to him in its battered state, he was scarcely as grateful as he might have been--he was rude, in fact,

For it had lost its shape and s.h.i.+ne, And it had cost him four-and-nine, And he was going out to dine.

"To dine!" she sneered in acid tone.

"To bend thy being to a bone Clothed in a radiance not its own!"

"Term it not 'radiance,'" said he: "'Tis solid nutriment to me.

Dinner is Dinner: Tea is Tea."