Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Decoded

by David Day

  “Thank you,” said Alice, “it’s very interesting. I never knew so much about a whiting before.”

  “I can tell you more than that, if you like,” said the Gryphon. “Do you know why it’s called a whiting?”

  “I never thought about it,” said Alice. “Why?”

  “It does the boots and shoes,” the Gryphon replied very solemnly.

  Alice was thoroughly puzzled. “Does the boots and shoes!” she repeated in a wondering tone.

  “Why, what are your shoes done with?” said the Gryphon. “I mean, what makes them so shiny?”

  Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she gave her answer. “They’re done with blacking, I believe.”

  “Boots and shoes under the sea,” the Gryphon went on in a deep voice, “are done with a whiting. Now you know.”

  “And what are they made of?” Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity.

  “Soles and eels, of course,” the Gryphon replied rather impatiently: “any shrimp could have told you that.”

  Dodgson worked hard at cultivating contacts with men and women of influence and power. He took thousands of photographs and wrote at least ten thousand letters in efforts to gain access to what he called his photographic “victims.”

  His rather obsessive-compulsive nature was a perfect fit for this complex and difficult form of early photography. Dodgson was truly a pioneer of the art, and purchased his own camera on March 18, 1856, during the Easter vacation. It arrived in Oxford on May Day, and a week later a shipment of chemicals followed. “I am now ready to begin the art,” he wrote.

  Arthur Hughes and his daughter

  Tom Taylor

  Michael Faraday

  During the Queen’s visit to Christ Church in 1860, Dodgson reported his sighting of her and the royal entourage in the Deanery’s dining hall. Later, he explained in a strongly boastful letter to one of his sisters something of his elaborate (and somewhat embarrassing) gate-crashing scheme to meet and photograph a reluctant Prince of Wales: “You will be sorry to hear that I have failed, finally and completely, in getting H.R.H. to sit for his photograph. I will give you the history of my proceedings in the matter, which will show you that I did not fail for want of asking, and that, if ever impudence and importunity deserved to succeed, I did.”

  In the winter of 1857, the dean and his wife travelled abroad, and without permission—and to Mrs. Liddell’s displeasure when she found out—Carroll moved his photographic equipment into the Deanery so he might more easily entice a variety of the more famous Oxford academics and their children to be photographed.

  “If I’d been the whiting,” said Alice, whose thoughts were still running on the song, “I’d have said to the porpoise, ‘ “Keep back, please: we don’t want you with us!’ ”

  “They were obliged to have him with them,” the Mock Turtle said. “No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.”

  “Wouldn’t it really?” said Alice in a tone of great surprise.

  “Of course not,” said the Mock Turtle. “Why, if a fish came to me, and told me he was going a journey, I should say ‘With what porpoise?’ ”

  “Don’t you mean ‘purpose’?” said Alice.

  “I mean what I say,” the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And the Gryphon added “Come, let’s hear some of your adventures.”

  “I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,” said Alice a little timidly; “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”

  Around the same time, Dodgson took advantage of his father’s connections to set up his equipment in Lambeth Palace, official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and there he photographed scores of bishops, archdeacons, politicians and military men. In 1859, using the same modus operandi, Dodgson descended on the London studio of sculptor Alexander Munro—whom he’d met in Oxford the year before—and from there spring boarded to the home of Munro’s friend the dramatist (and later Punch editor) Tom Taylor, who provided introductions to theatrical celebrities and John Tenniel, future illustrator of the Alice books.

  Though he failed to “victimize” Darwin, he made good use of the opportunity presented by what became known as the Great Debate at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in 1860 and photographed Thomas Huxley, Samuel Wilberforce, Richard Owen, Edward Pusey, Charles Kingsley, Michael Faraday and nearly every other well-known participant and guest.

  And the list goes on—artist William Holman Hunt and family; and through him John Everett Millais and his wife, Effie Gray, the former Mrs. John Ruskin, and their children; and on to the poet-painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s house and his circle. Ellen Terry, the most famous child actor of the day, and through her some of the greatest figures in the theatre at the time, including Henry Irving, Charles Kean, William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan.

  “Explain all that,” said the Mock Turtle.

  “No, no! The adventures first,” said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: “explanations take such a dreadful time.”

  So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first saw the White Rabbit. She was a little nervous about it just at first, the two creatures got so close to her, one on each side, and opened their eyes and mouths so very wide; but she gained courage as she went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part about her repeating “You are old, Father William,” to the Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said “That’s very curious!”

  “It’s all about as curious as it can be,” said the Gryphon.

  “It all came different!” the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. “I should like to hear her try and repeat something now. Tell her to begin.” He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of authority over Alice.

  “Stand up and repeat ‘’Tis the voice of the sluggard,’ ” said the Gryphon.

  Nothing in Dodgson’s long list of lion-hunting campaigns, however, could quite compare to the elaborate planning and persistence that went into his stalking of that greatest literary lion of his time, the poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson. And perhaps nothing is more revealing of contradictory aspects of Charles Dodgson’s character and ambitions that would inevitably place him on a collision course with the socially superior parents of Alice Liddell, and to some degree supplies us with possible psychological motives for the author’s transformation of the original Under Ground manuscript into the more complex and aggressively satirical Wonderland.

  William Holman Hunt

  Ellen Terry

  Dante Gabriel Rossetti

  In August of 1857, Dodgson met Mrs. C. R. Weld, who he discovered was the sister-in-law of Emily Weld, wife of Alfred Tennyson. Dodgson moved quickly to impress Mrs. Weld with his portraits of the Liddells and other prominent figures. He then enthused over her daughter, Agnes Grace, although Dodgson privately wrote: “[Tennyson] has addressed one sonnet to the little Agnes Grace: she hardly merits one by actual beauty.” However, by dressing her up in a costume of Red Riding Hood, he created a memorable image. He then sent “a print of her, through Mrs. Weld, for Tennyson’s acceptance.”

  “How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!” thought Alice. “I might as well be at school at once.” However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of the lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came very queer indeed:—

  “ ’Tis the voice of the lobster: I heard him declare,

  ‘You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.’

  As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose

  Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.

  When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,

  And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark:

  But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,

  His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.
”

  “That’s different from what I used to say when I was a child,” said the Gryphon.

  “Well, I never heard it before,” said the Mock Turtle; “but it sounds uncommon nonsense.”

  Alice said nothing: she had sat down with her face in her hands, wondering if anything would ever happen in a natural way again.

  Tennyson by Ape: The great literary lion was stalked.

  Upon hearing of Tennyson’s acceptance of the photograph, Dodgson packed up his camera and darkroom equipment and made straight for the Lake District. Through Mrs. Weld, Dodgson discovered the Tennyson family was staying at Tent Lodge near Coniston Water. Without warning Dodgson appeared at the door and presented his card on which he wrote: “the Artist of Agnes Grey as Little Red Riding Hood.”

  Tennyson was not at home, and Dodgson was greeted by Mrs. Tennyson and her two sons. On the pretence that he just happened to be in the area on holiday, Dodgson moved into a nearby hotel and waited for four days before calling again. Knowing that the reclusive Tennyson would refuse to sit himself, Dodgson asked Mrs. Tennyson for her permission to photograph the two boys.

  This effort finally gave him the opportunity to meet the poet laureate. A few days later, he called again with his camera, black tent and bottles of chemicals, and photographed first the two boys, then the mother, then the entire family and finally—the true target—the poet laureate himself.

  Tennyson by Dodgson: Their relationship became increasingly strained.

  The following year, Dodgson discovered that the Tennysons had shifted the location of their rural retreat southward to Farringford, on the Isle of Wight. In a letter to a cousin, Dodgson unconvincingly claims that his brother “Wilfred must have basely misrepresented me if he said I followed the Laureate down to his retreat.” Dodgson convinced no one, even in his immediate family, that it was “entirely coincidental” that he happened to visit the Isle of Wight for the first time in his life to discover Tennyson was also on the island.

  Dodgson did acknowledge, once he had made this discovery: “Being there, I had the inalienable right of a freeborn Briton to make a morning call.” So once again he appeared unannounced on their doorstep, and this time caught the laureate out in the open, mowing his lawn. By another remarkable coincidence, Dodgson discovered he had brought along a few extra prints of the Tennyson family that he thought the laureate might wish to see. The poet politely explained that his wife was ill and could not be disturbed; perhaps another time.

  “I should like to have it explained,” said the Mock Turtle.

  “She can’t explain it,” said the Gryphon hastily. “Go on with the next verse.”

  “But about his toes?” the Mock Turtle persisted. “How could he turn them out with his nose, you know?”

  “It’s the first position in dancing.” Alice said; but was dreadfully puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the subject.

  “Go on with the next verse,” the Gryphon repeated impatiently: “it begins ‘I passed by his garden.’ ”

  Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:—

  “I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,

  How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie:

  The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat,

  While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat.

  When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon,

  Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon:

  While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl,

  And concluded the banquet—”

  Tennyson had no idea how tenacious Dodgson could be. Dodgson simply camped out in nearby Freshwater and began to carry on a correspondence with Tennyson’s son Hallam, sending him amusing stories and the gift of a pocket knife, while awaiting an invitation to dinner. Eventually, Dodgson wore Tennyson down and persuaded him to sit for another portrait. On each visit, Dodgson worshipfully recorded all events and conversations with the poet.

  The relationship became increasingly strained. Dodgson sold to a stationer for public resale portrait photographs that the poet had expressly asked to be destroyed. He also had his sisters compile and publish an index to the poet’s work for commercial sale, and he pestered Tennyson for requests of poems for an Oxford magazine he was editing. Finally, Dodgson wrote to Tennyson to say he had acquired a manuscript of an unpublished poem that the poet had suppressed and asked if he might keep it and show it to a few friends.

  When Mrs. Tennyson wrote him a letter of rebuke over the unpublished poem, Dodgson, instead of retreating and at least feigning an apology, entered into an increasingly heated exchange, indignantly defending his sense of honour and proper etiquette. The exchange ended when Dodgson implied that Tennyson himself was no gentleman.

  Nothing enraged Dodgson more than an implication of dishonourable or ungentlemanly conduct. On the Isle of Wight, Dodgson had entered into the circle of Tennyson’s neighbour Julia Margaret Cameron, among the best-known early Victorian photographers. But in falling out with Tennyson, Dodgson soon ceased to visit the island altogether and eventually chose Eastbourne as his summer residence.

  “What is the use of repeating all that stuff,” the Mock Turtle interrupted, “if you don’t explain it as you go on? It’s by far the most confusing thing I ever heard!”

  “Yes, I think you’d better leave off,” said the Gryphon, and Alice was only too glad to do so.

  “Shall we try another figure of the lobster Quadrille?” the Gryphon went on. “Or would you like the Mock Turtle to sing you a song?”

  “Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle would be so kind,” Alice replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather offended tone, “Hm! No accounting for tastes! Sing her ‘Turtle Soup,’ will you, old fellow?”

  The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes choked with sobs, to sing this:—

  “Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,

  Waiting in a hot tureen!

  Who for such dainties would not stoop?

  Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

  Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

  Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

  Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

  Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,

  Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

  Although Tennyson does not appear in Wonderland, many have speculated that he is the White Knight in Looking-Glass. After all, as some would cleverly observe, Alfred Lord Tennyson was certainly the most famous “Isle of Wight Knight.”

  Dodgson became a gifted photographer, though it would appear he took up the pastime as a means to an end. Once he became sufficiently famous to gain entry into high society without resorting to photography, Dodgson promptly gave it up. By 1880, he had ceased taking photographs entirely—evidently without any sense of loss or regret.

  Just as remarkably, when Dodgson gained celebrity status as Lewis Carroll, he became indignant at the audacity of anyone who dared to address him without a formal and socially appropriate introduction. It seems he no longer believed in “the inalienable right of a freeborn Briton to make a morning call” (as he had written in an 1859 letter). Anyone with the temerity to ask after Mr. Lewis Carroll at the college gate was summarily ordered off the grounds by the porter. Mail addressed to Lewis Carroll at Christ Church, Oxford, was returned stamped “Unknown.”

  THE STRANGER CIRCULAR It was not just letters sent to Christ Church addressed to Lewis Carroll that were summarily dealt with. Any letters addressed to the Reverend Charles Dodgson from anyone who Dodgson did not know—or had not been formally introduced to—would receive the following notice of disavowal printed up as a leaflet by the Oxford printer Shepherd in 1890: “Mr. Dodgson is so frequently addressed by strangers on the quite unauthorized assumption that he claims, or at any rate acknowledges the authorship of books not published under his name, that he has found it necessary to print this, once and for all, as an
answer to all such applications. He neither claims nor acknowledges any connection with any pseudonym, or with any book that is not published under his own name. Having therefore no claim to retain, or even read the enclosed, he returns it for the convenience of the writer who has misaddressed it.”

  “Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,

  Game, or any other dish?

  Who would not give all else for two

  Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?

  Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?

  Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

  Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

  Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,

  Beautiful, beauti—FUL SOUP!”

  “Chorus again!” cried the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle had just begun to repeat it, when a cry of “The trial’s beginning!” was heard in the distance.

  “Come on!” cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand, it hurried off, without waiting for the end of the song.

  “What trial is it?” Alice panted as she ran; but the Gryphon only answered “Come on!” and ran the faster, while more and more faintly came, carried on the breeze that followed them, the melancholy words:—

  “Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,

  Beautiful, beautiful Soup!”

  Chapter 11: Who Stole the Tarts?

  “It began with the tea.”

  TRIAL OF THE HEART Alice’s last stop in Wonderland is in the King of Hearts’ court of justice. A trial is about to begin as the Gryphon leads Alice into the courtroom. It concerns a crime committed by the Knave of Hearts in a traditional nursery rhyme entitled “The Queen of Hearts.” This rhyme first appeared in print in the European Magazine in 1782. However, Carroll was probably most familiar with the wonderfully illustrated and annotated version published by Charles Lamb in 1805 as The King and Queen of Hearts: showing how notably the Queen made her Tarts, and how Scurvily the Knave stole them away, with other particulars belonging thereunto.