Complete Works of Lewis Carroll

by Lewis Carroll

  To me it was of course all perfect, but it is astonishing that he never seemed either tired or to want other society. I spoke to him once of this since I have been grown up, and he told me it was the greatest pleasure he could have to converse freely with a child, and feel the depths of her mind.

  He used to write to me and I to him after that summer, and the friendship, thus begun, lasted. His letters were one of the greatest joys of my childhood.

  I don't think that he ever really understood that we, whom he had known as children, could not always remain such. I stayed with him only a few years ago, at Eastbourne, and felt for the time that I was once more a child. He never appeared to realise that I had grown up, except when I reminded him of the fact, and then he only said, "Never mind: you will always be a child to me, even when your hair is grey."

  Some of the letters, to which Miss Chataway refers in these reminiscences, I am enabled, through her kindness, to give below:—

  Christ Church, Oxford,

  October 13, 1875.

  My dear Gertrude,—I never give birthday presents, but you see I do sometimes write a birthday letter : so, as I've just arrived here, I am writing this to wish you many and many a happy return of your birthday to-morrow. I will drink your health, if only I can remember, and if you don't mind—but perhaps you object? You see, if I were to sit by you at breakfast, and to drink your tea, you wouldn't like that, would you? You would say "Boo! hoo! Here's Mr. Dodgson's drunk all my tea, and I haven't got any left!" So I am very much afraid, next time Sybil looks for you, she'll find you sitting by the sad sea-wave, and crying "Boo! hoo! Here's Mr. Dodgson has drunk my health, and I haven't got any left!" And how it will puzzle Dr. Maund, when he is sent for to see you! "My dear Madam, I'm very sorry to say your little girl has got no health at all! I never saw such a thing in my life!" "Oh, I can easily explain it!" your mother will say. "You see she would go and make friends with a strange gentleman, and yesterday he drank her health!" "Well, Mrs. Chataway," he will say, "the only way to cure her is to wait till his next birthday, and then for her to drink his health."

  And then we shall have changed healths. I wonder how you'll like mine! Oh, Gertrude, I wish you wouldn't talk such nonsense!...

  Your loving friend,

  Lewis Carroll.

  Christ Church, Oxford,

  Dec. 9, 1875.

  My dear Gertrude,—This really will not do, you know, sending one more kiss every time by post: the parcel gets so heavy it is quite expensive. When the postman brought in the last letter, he looked quite grave. "Two pounds to pay, sir!" he said. "Extra weight, sir!" (I think he cheats a little, by the way. He often makes me pay two pounds , when I think it should be pence). "Oh, if you please, Mr. Postman!" I said, going down gracefully on one knee (I wish you could see me go down on one knee to a postman—it's a very pretty sight), "do excuse me just this once! It's only from a little girl!"

  "Only from a little girl!" he growled. "What are little girls made of?" "Sugar and spice," I began to say, "and all that's ni—" but he interrupted me. "No! I don't mean that. I mean, what's the good of little girls, when they send such heavy letters?" "Well, they're not much good, certainly," I said, rather sadly.

  "Mind you don't get any more such letters," he said, "at least, not from that particular little girl. I know her well, and she's a regular bad one!" That's not true, is it? I don't believe he ever saw you, and you're not a bad one, are you? However, I promised him we would send each other very few more letters—"Only two thousand four hundred and seventy, or so," I said. "Oh!" he said, "a little number like that doesn't signify. What I meant is, you mustn't send many ."

  So you see we must keep count now, and when we get to two thousand four hundred and seventy, we mustn't write any more, unless the postman gives us leave.

  I sometimes wish I was back on the shore at Sandown; don't you?

  Your loving friend,

  Lewis Carroll.

  Why is a pig that has lost its tail like a little girl on the sea-shore?

  Because it says, "I should like another tale, please!"

  Christ Church, Oxford,

  July 21, 1876.

  My dear Gertrude,—Explain to me how I am to enjoy Sandown without you . How can I walk on the beach alone? How can I sit all alone on those wooden steps? So you see, as I shan't be able to do without you, you will have to come. If Violet comes, I shall tell her to invite you to stay with her, and then I shall come over in the Heather-Bell and fetch you.

  If I ever do come over, I see I couldn't go back the same day, so you will have to engage me a bed somewhere in Swanage; and if you can't find one, I shall expect you to spend the night on the beach, and give up your room to me. Guests of course must be thought of before children; and I'm sure in these warm nights the beach will be quite good enough for you. If you did feel a little chilly, of course you could go into a bathing-machine, which everybody knows is very comfortable to sleep in—you know they make the floor of soft wood on purpose. I send you seven kisses (to last a week) and remain

  Your loving friend,

  Lewis Carroll.

  Christ Church, Oxford,

  October 28, 1876.

  My dearest Gertrude,—You will be sorry, and surprised, and puzzled, to hear what a queer illness I have had ever since you went. I sent for the doctor, and said, "Give me some medicine, for I'm tired." He said, "Nonsense and stuff! You don't want medicine: go to bed!" I said, "No; it isn't the sort of tiredness that wants bed. I'm tired in the face." He looked a little grave, and said, "Oh, it's your nose that's tired: a person often talks too much when he thinks he nose a great deal." I said, "No; it isn't the nose. Perhaps it's the hair." Then he looked rather grave, and said, "Now I understand: you've been playing too many hairs on the piano-forte." "No, indeed I haven't!" I said, "and it isn't exactly the hair: it's more about the nose and chin." Then he looked a good deal graver, and said, "Have you been walking much on your chin lately?" I said, "No." "Well!" he said, "it puzzles me very much. Do you think that it's in the lips?" "Of course!" I said. "That's exactly what it is!" Then he looked very grave indeed, and said, "I think you must have been giving too many kisses." "Well," I said, "I did give one kiss to a baby child, a little friend of mine." "Think again," he said; "are you sure it was only one?" I thought again, and said, "Perhaps it was eleven times." Then the doctor said, "You must not give her any more till your lips are quite rested again." "But what am I to do?" I said, "because you see, I owe her a hundred and eighty-two more." Then he looked so grave that the tears ran down his cheeks, and he said, "You may send them to her in a box." Then I remembered a little box that I once bought at Dover, and thought I would some day give it to some little girl or other. So I have packed them all in it very carefully. Tell me if they come safe, or if any are lost on the way.

  Reading Station,

  April 13, 1878.

  My dear Gertrude,—As I have to wait here for half an hour, I have been studying Bradshaw (most things, you know, ought to be studied: even a trunk is studded with nails), and the result is that it seems I could come, any day next week, to Winckfield, so as to arrive there about one; and that, by leaving Winckfield again about half-past six, I could reach Guildford again for dinner. The next question is, How far is it from Winckfield to Rotherwick? Now do not deceive me, you wretched child! If it is more than a hundred miles, I can't come to see you, and there is no use to talk about it. If it is less, the next question is, How much less? These are serious questions, and you must be as serious as a judge in answering them. There mustn't be a smile in your pen, or a wink in your ink (perhaps you'll say, "There can't be a wink in ink: but there may be ink in a wink"—but this is trifling; you mustn't make jokes like that when I tell you to be serious) while you write to Guildford and answer these two questions. You might as well tell me at the same time whether you are still living at Rotherwick—and whether you are at home—and whether you get my letter—and whether you're still a child, or a grown-up person—and wheth
er you're going to the seaside next summer—and anything else (except the alphabet and the multiplication table) that you happen to know. I send you 10,000,000 kisses, and remain.

  Your loving friend,

  C. L. Dodgson.

  The Chestnuts, Guildford,

  April 19, 1878.

  My dear Gertrude,—I'm afraid it's "no go"—I've had such a bad cold all the week that I've hardly been out for some days, and I don't think it would be wise to try the expedition this time, and I leave here on Tuesday. But after all, what does it signify? Perhaps there are ten or twenty gentlemen, all living within a few miles of Rotherwick, and any one of them would do just as well! When a little girl is hoping to take a plum off a dish, and finds that she can't have that one, because it's bad or unripe, what does she do? Is she sorry, or disappointed? Not a bit! She just takes another instead, and grins from one little ear to the other as she puts it to her lips! This is a little fable to do you good; the little girl means you—the bad plum means me—the other plum means some other friend—and all that about the little girl putting plums to her lips means—well, it means—but you know you can't expect every bit of a fable to mean something! And the little girl grinning means that dear little smile of yours, that just reaches from the tip of one ear to the tip of the other!

  Your loving friend,

  C.L. Dodgson.

  I send you 4—3/4 kisses.

  The next letter is a good example of the dainty little notes Lewis Carroll used to scribble off on any scrap of paper that lay to his hand:—

  Chestnuts, Guildford,

  January 15, 1886.

  Yes, my child, if all be well, I shall hope, and you may fear, that the train reaching Hook at two eleven, will contain

  Your loving friend,

  C.L. Dodgson.

  Only a few years ago, illness prevented him from fulfilling his usual custom of spending Christmas with his sisters at Guildford. This is the allusion in the following letter:—

  My dear old Friend,—(The friendship is old, though the child is young.) I wish a very happy New Year, and many of them, to you and yours; but specially to you, because I know you best and love you most. And I pray God to bless you, dear child, in this bright New Year, and many a year to come. ... I write all this from my sofa, where I have been confined a prisoner for six weeks, and as I dreaded the railway journey, my doctor and I agreed that I had better not go to spend Christmas with my sisters at Guildford. So I had my Christmas dinner all alone, in my room here, and (pity me, Gertrude!) it wasn't a Christmas dinner at all—I suppose the cook thought I should not care for roast beef or plum pudding, so he sent me (he has general orders to send either fish and meat, or meat and pudding) some fried sole and some roast mutton! Never, never have I dined before, on Christmas Day, without plum pudding. Wasn't it sad? Now I think you must be content; this is a longer letter than most will get. Love to Olive. My clearest memory of her is of a little girl calling out "Good-night" from her room, and of your mother taking me in to see her in her bed, and wish her good-night. I have a yet clearer memory (like a dream of fifty years ago) of a little bare-legged girl in a sailor's jersey, who used to run up into my lodgings by the sea. But why should I trouble you with foolish reminiscences of mine that cannot interest you?

  Yours always lovingly,

  C. L. Dodgson.

  It was a writer in The National Review who, after eulogising the talents of Lewis Carroll, and stating that he would never be forgotten, added the harsh prophecy that "future generations will not waste a single thought upon the Rev. C.L. Dodgson."

  If this prediction is destined to be fulfilled, I think my readers will agree with me that it will be solely on account of his extraordinary diffidence about asserting himself. But such an unnatural division of Lewis Carroll, the author, from the Rev. C.L. Dodgson, the man, is forced in the extreme. His books are simply the expression of his normal habit of mind, as these letters show. In literature, as in everything else, he was absolutely natural.

  To refer to such criticisms as this (I am thankful to say they have been very few) is not agreeable; but I feel that it is owing to Mr. Dodgson to do what I can to vindicate the real unity which underlay both his life and all his writings.

  Of many anecdotes which might be adduced to show the lovable character of the man, the following little story has reached me through one of his child-friends:—

  My sister and I [she writes] were spending a day of delightful sightseeing in town with him, on our way to his home at Guildford, where we were going to pass a day or two with him. We were both children, and were much interested when he took us into an American shop where the cakes for sale were cooked by a very rapid process before your eyes, and handed to you straight from the cook's hands. As the preparation of them could easily be seen from outside the window, a small crowd of little ragamuffins naturally assembled there, and I well remember his piling up seven of the cakes on one arm, and himself taking them out and doling them round to the seven hungry little youngsters. The simple kindness of his act impressed its charm on his child-friends inside the shop as much as on his little stranger friends outside.

  It was only to those who had but few personal dealings with him that he seemed stiff and "donnish"; to his more intimate acquaintances, who really understood him, each little eccentricity of manner or of habits was a delightful addition to his charming and interesting personality. That he was, in some respects, eccentric cannot be denied; for instance he hardly ever wore an overcoat, and always wore a tall hat, whatever might be the climatic conditions. At dinner in his rooms small pieces of cardboard took the place of table-mats; they answered the purpose perfectly well, he said, and to buy anything else would be a mere waste of money. On the other hand, when purchasing books for himself, or giving treats to the children he loved, he never seemed to consider expense at all.

  He very seldom sat down to write, preferring to stand while thus engaged. When making tea for his friends, he used, in order, I suppose, to expedite the process, to walk up and down the room waving the teapot about, and telling meanwhile those delightful anecdotes of which he had an inexhaustible supply.

  Great were his preparations before going a journey; each separate article used to be carefully wrapped up in a piece of paper all to itself, so that his trunks contained nearly as much paper as of the more useful things. The bulk of the luggage was sent on a day or two before by goods train, while he himself followed on the appointed day, laden only with his well-known little black bag, which he always insisted on carrying himself.

  He had a strong objection to staring colours in dress, his favourite combination being pink and grey. One little girl who came to stay with him was absolutely forbidden to wear a red frock, of a somewhat pronounced hue, while out in his company.

  At meals he was very abstemious always, while he took nothing in the middle of the day except a glass of wine and a biscuit. Under these circumstances it is not very surprising that the healthy appetites of his little friends filled him with wonder, and even with alarm. When he took a certain one of them out with him to a friend's house to dinner, he used to give the host or hostess a gentle warning, to the mixed amazement and indignation of the child, "Please be careful, because she eats a good deal too much."

  Another peculiarity, which I have already referred to, was his objection to being invited to dinners or any other social gatherings; he made a rule of never accepting invitations. "Because you have invited me, therefore I cannot come," was the usual form of his refusal. I suppose the reason of this was his hatred of the interference with work which engagements of this sort occasion.

  He had an extreme horror of infection, as will appear from the following illustration. Miss Isa Bowman and her sister, Nellie, were at one time staying with him at Eastbourne, when news came from home that their youngest sister had caught the scarlet fever. From that day every letter which came from Mrs. Bowman to the children was held up by Mr. Dodgson, while the two little girls, standing at the opposite
end of the room, had to read it as best they could. Mr. Dodgson, who was the soul of honour, used always to turn his head to one side during these readings, lest he might inadvertently see some words that were not meant for his eyes.

  Some extracts from letters of his to a child-friend, who prefers to remain anonymous, follow:

  November 30, 1879.

  I have been awfully busy, and I've had to write heaps of letters—wheelbarrows full, almost. And it tires me so that generally I go to bed again the next minute after I get up: and sometimes I go to bed again a minute before I get up! Did you ever hear of any one being so tired as that? ...

  November 7, 1882.

  My dear E—, How often you must find yourself in want of a pin! For instance, you go into a shop, and you say to the man, "I want the largest penny bun you can let me have for a halfpenny." And perhaps the man looks stupid, and doesn't quite understand what you mean. Then how convenient it is to have a pin ready to stick into the back of his hand, while you say, "Now then! Look sharp, stupid!"... and even when you don't happen to want a pin, how often you think to yourself, "They say Interlacken is a very pretty place. I wonder what it looks like!" (That is the place that is painted on this pincushion.)