Complete Works of Lewis Carroll

by Lewis Carroll

  When you don't happen to want either a pin or pictures, it may just remind you of a friend who sometimes thinks of his dear little friend E—, and who is just now thinking of the day he met her on the parade, the first time she had been allowed to come out alone to look for him....

  December 26, 1886.

  My dear E—, Though rushing, rapid rivers roar between us (if you refer to the map of England, I think you'll find that to be correct), we still remember each other, and feel a sort of shivery affection for each other....

  March 31, 1890.

  I do sympathise so heartily with you in what you say about feeling shy with children when you have to entertain them! Sometimes they are a real terror to me—especially boys: little girls I can now and then get on with, when they're few enough. They easily become "de trop." But with little boys I'm out of my element altogether. I sent "Sylvie and Bruno" to an Oxford friend, and, in writing his thanks, he added, "I think I must bring my little boy to see you." So I wrote to say "don't," or words to that effect: and he wrote again that he could hardly believe his eyes when he got my note. He thought I doted on all children. But I'm not omnivorous!—like a pig. I pick and choose....

  You are a lucky girl, and I am rather inclined to envy you, in having the leisure to read Dante—I have never read a page of him; yet I am sure the "Divina Commedia" is one of the grandest books in the world—though I am not sure whether the reading of it would raise one's life and give it a nobler purpose, or simply be a grand poetical treat. That is a question you are beginning to be able to answer: I doubt if I shall ever (at least in this life) have the opportunity of reading it; my life seems to be all torn into little bits among the host of things I want to do! It seems hard to settle what to do first. One piece of work, at any rate, I am clear ought to be done this year, and it will take months of hard work: I mean the second volume of "Sylvie and Bruno." I fully mean , if I have life and health till Xmas next, to bring it out then. When one is close on sixty years old, it seems presumptuous to count on years and years of work yet to be done....

  She is rather the exception among the hundred or so of child-friends who have brightened my life. Usually the child becomes so entirely a different being as she grows into a woman, that our friendship has to change too: and that it usually does by gliding down from a loving intimacy into an acquaintance that merely consists of a smile and a bow when we meet!...

  January 1, 1895.

  ... You are quite correct in saying it is a long time since you have heard from me: in fact, I find that I have not written to you since the 13th of last November. But what of that? You have access to the daily papers. Surely you can find out negatively, that I am all right! Go carefully through the list of bankruptcies; then run your eye down the police cases; and, if you fail to find my name anywhere, you can say to your mother in a tone of calm satisfaction, "Mr. Dodgson is going on well."

  CHAPTER XI

  (THE SAME—continued.)

  Books for children—"The Lost Plum-Cake"—"An Unexpected Guest"—Miss Isa Bowman—Interviews—"Matilda Jane"—Miss Edith Rix—Miss Kathleen Eschwege.

  Lewis Carroll's own position as an author did not prevent him from taking a great interest in children's books and their writers. He had very strong ideas on what was or was not suitable in such books, but, when once his somewhat exacting taste was satisfied, he was never tired of recommending a story to his friends. His cousin, Mrs. Egerton Allen, who has herself written several charming tales for young readers, has sent me the following letter which she received from him some years ago:—

  Dear Georgie,—Many thanks. The book was at Ch. Ch. I've done an unusual thing, in thanking for a book, namely, waited to read it. I've read it right through! In fact, I found it very refreshing, when jaded with my own work at "Sylvie and Bruno" (coming out at Xmas, I hope) to lie down on the sofa and read a chapter of "Evie." I like it very much: and am so glad to have helped to bring it out. It would have been a real loss to the children of England, if you had burned the MS., as you once thought of doing....

  XIE KITCHIN AS A CHINAMAN.

  From a photograph

  by Lewis Carroll.

  The very last words of his that appeared in print took the form of a preface to one of Mrs. Allen's tales, "The Lost Plum-Cake," (Macmillan & Co., 1898). So far as I know, this was the only occasion on which he wrote a preface for another author's book, and his remarks are doubly interesting as being his last service to the children whom he loved. No apology, then, is needed for quoting from them here:—

  Let me seize this opportunity of saying one earnest word to the mothers in whose hands this little book may chance to come, who are in the habit of taking their children to church with them. However well and reverently those dear little ones have been taught to behave, there is no doubt that so long a period of enforced quietude is a severe tax on their patience. The hymns, perhaps, tax it least: and what a pathetic beauty there is in the sweet fresh voices of the children, and how earnestly they sing! I took a little girl of six to church with me one day: they had told me she could hardly read at all—but she made me find all the places for her! And afterwards I said to her elder sister "What made you say Barbara couldn't read? Why, I heard her joining in, all through the hymn!" And the little sister gravely replied, "She knows the tunes, but not the words." Well, to return to my subject—children in church. The lessons, and the prayers, are not wholly beyond them: often they can catch little bits that come within the range of their small minds. But the sermons! It goes to one's heart to see, as I so often do, little darlings of five or six years old, forced to sit still through a weary half-hour, with nothing to do, and not one word of the sermon that they can understand. Most heartily can I sympathise with the little charity-girl who is said to have written to some friend, "I think, when I grows up, I'll never go to church no more. I think I'se getting sermons enough to last me all my life!" But need it be so? Would it be so very irreverent to let your child have a story—book to read during the sermon, to while away that tedious half-hour, and to make church—going a bright and happy memory, instead of rousing the thought, "I'll never go to church no more"? I think not. For my part, I should love to see the experiment tried. I am quite sure it would be a success. My advice would be to keep some books for that special purpose. I would call such books "Sunday-treats"—and your little boy or girl would soon learn to look forward with eager hope to that half-hour, once so tedious. If I were the preacher, dealing with some subject too hard for the little ones, I should love to see them all enjoying their picture-books. And if this little book should ever come to be used as a "Sunday-treat" for some sweet baby reader, I don't think it could serve a better purpose.

  Lewis Carroll.

  Miss M.E. Manners was another writer for children whose books pleased him. She gives an amusing account of two visits which he paid to her house in 1889:—

  An Unexpected Guest.

  "Mr. Dobson wants to see you, miss."

  I was in the kitchen looking after the dinner, and did not feel that I particularly wished to see anybody.

  "He wants a vote, or he is an agent for a special kind of tea," thought I. "I don't know him; ask him to send a message."

  Presently the maid returned—

  "He says he is Mr. Dodgson, of Oxford."

  "Lewis Carroll!" I exclaimed; and somebody else had to superintend the cooking that day.

  My apologies were soon made and cheerfully accepted. I believe I was unconventional enough to tell the exact truth concerning my occupation, and matters were soon on a friendly footing. Indeed I may say at once that the stately college don we have heard so much about never made his appearance during our intercourse with him.

  He did not talk "Alice," of course; authors don't generally talk their books, I imagine; but it was undoubtedly Lewis Carroll who was present with us.

  A portrait of Ellen Terry on the wall had attracted his attention, and one of the first questions he asked was, "Do you ever go to the theatre?"
I explained that such things were done, occasionally, even among Quakers, but they were not considered quite orthodox.

  "Oh, well, then you will not be shocked, and I may venture to produce my photographs." And out into the hall he went, and soon returned with a little black bag containing character portraits of his child-friends, Isa and Nellie Bowman.

  "Isa used to be Alice until she grew too big," he said. "Nellie was one of the oyster—fairies, and Emsie, the tiny one of all, was the Dormouse."

  "When 'Alice' was first dramatised," he said, "the poem of the 'Walrus and the Carpenter' fell rather flat, for people did not know when it was finished, and did not clap in the right place; so I had to write a song for the ghosts of the oysters to sing, which made it all right."

  ALICE AND THE DORMOUSE.

  From a photograph

  Elliott & Fry.

  He was then on his way to London, to fetch Isa to stay with him at Eastbourne. She was evidently a great favourite, and had visited him before. Of that earlier time he said:—

  "When people ask me why I have never married, I tell them I have never met the young lady whom I could endure for a fortnight—but Isa and I got on so well together that I said I should keep her a month, the length of the honeymoon, and we didn't get tired of each other."

  Nellie afterwards joined her sister "for a few days," but the days spread to some weeks, for the poor little dormouse developed scarlet fever, and the elder children had to be kept out of harm's way until fear of infection was over.

  Of Emsie he had a funny little story to tell. He had taken her to the Aquarium, and they had been watching the seals coming up dripping out of the water. With a very pitiful look she turned to him and said, "Don't they give them any towels?" [The same little girl commiserated the bear, because it had got no tail.]

  Asked to stay to dinner, he assured us that he never took anything in the middle of the day but a glass of wine and a biscuit; but he would be happy to sit down with us, which he accordingly did and kindly volunteered to carve for us. His offer was gladly accepted, but the appearance of a rather diminutive piece of neck of mutton was somewhat of a puzzle to him. He had evidently never seen such a joint in his life before, and had frankly to confess that he did not know how to set about carving it. Directions only made things worse, and he bravely cut it to pieces in entirely the wrong fashion, relating meanwhile the story of a shy young man who had been asked to carve a fowl, the joints of which had been carefully wired together beforehand by his too attentive friends.

  The task and the story being both finished, our visitor gazed on the mangled remains, and remarked quaintly: "I think it is just as well I don't want anything, for I don't know where I should find it."

  At least one member of the party felt she could have managed matters better; but that was a point of very little consequence.

  A day or two after the first call came a note saying that he would be taking Isa home before long, and if we would like to see her he would stop on the way again.

  Of course we were only too delighted to have the opportunity, and, though the visit was postponed more than once, it did take place early in August, when he brought both Isa and Nellie up to town to see a performance of "Sweet Lavender." It is needless to remark that we took care, this time, to be provided with something at once substantial and carvable.

  The children were bright, healthy, happy and childlike little maidens, quite devoted to their good friend, whom they called "Uncle"; and very interesting it was to see them together.

  But he did not allow any undue liberties either, as a little incident showed.

  He had been describing a particular kind of collapsible tumbler, which you put in your pocket and carried with you for use on a railway journey.

  "There now," he continued, turning to the children, "I forgot to bring it with me after all."

  "Oh Goosie," broke in Isa; "you've been talking about that tumbler for days, and now you have forgotten it."

  He pulled himself up, and looked at her steadily with an air of grave reproof.

  Much abashed, she hastily substituted a very subdued "Uncle" for the objectionable "Goosie," and the matter dropped.

  The principal anecdote on this occasion was about a dog which had been sent into the sea after sticks. He brought them back very properly for some time, and then there appeared to be a little difficulty, and he returned swimming in a very curious manner. On closer inspection it appeared that he had caught hold of his own tail by mistake, and was bringing it to land in triumph.

  This was told with the utmost gravity, and though we had been requested beforehand not to mention "Lewis Carroll's" books, the temptation was too strong. I could not help saying to the child next me—

  "That was like the Whiting, wasn't it?"

  Our visitor, however, took up the remark, and seemed quite willing to talk about it.

  "When I wrote that," he said, "I believed that whiting really did have their tails in their mouths, but I have since been told that fishmongers put the tail through the eye, not in the mouth at all."

  He was not a very good carver, for Miss Bremer also describes a little difficulty he had—this time with the pastry: "An amusing incident occurred when he was at lunch with us. He was requested to serve some pastry, and, using a knife, as it was evidently rather hard, the knife penetrated the d'oyley beneath—and his consternation was extreme when he saw the slice of linen and lace he served as an addition to the tart!"

  It was, I think, through her connection with the "Alice" play that Mr. Dodgson first came to know Miss Isa Bowman. Her childish friendship for him was one of the joys of his later years, and one of the last letters he wrote was addressed to her. The poem at the beginning of "Sylvie and Bruno" is an acrostic on her name—

  Is all our Life, then, but a dream,

  Seen faintly in the golden gleam

  Athwart Times'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 the merry noontide, send

  No glance to meet the silent end.

  Every one has heard of Lewis Carroll's hatred of interviewers; the following letter to Miss Manners makes one feel that in some cases, at least, his feeling was justifiable:—

  If your Manchester relatives ever go to the play, tell them they ought to see Isa as "Cinderella"—she is evidently a success. And she has actually been "interviewed" by one of those dreadful newspapers reporters, and the "interview" is published with her picture! And such rubbish he makes her talk! She tells him that something or other was "tacitly conceded": and that "I love to see a great actress give expression to the wonderful ideas of the immortal master!"

  (N.B.—I never let her talk like that when she is with me!)

  Emsie recovered in time to go to America, with her mother and Isa and Nellie: and they all enjoyed the trip much; and Emsie has a London engagement.

  Only once was an interviewer bold enough to enter Lewis Carroll's sanctum. The story has been told in The Guardian (January 19, 1898), but will bear repetition:—

  Not long ago Mr. Dodgson happened to get into correspondence with a man whom he had never seen, on some question of religious difficulty, and he invited him to come to his rooms and have a talk on the subject. When, therefore, a Mr. X— was announced to him one morning, he advanced to meet him with outstretched hand and smiles of welcome. "Come in Mr. X—, I have been expecting you." The delighted visitor thought this a promising beginning, and immediately pulled out a note-book and pencil, and proceeded to ask "the usual questions." Great was Mr. Dodgson's disgust! Instead of his expected friend, here was another man of the same name, and one of the much-dreaded interviewers, actually sitting in his chair! The mistake was soon explained, and the representative of the Press was bowed out as quickly as he had come in.

  It was while Isa and one of her sisters were staying
at Eastbourne that the visit to America was mooted. Mr. Dodgson suggested that it would be well for them to grow gradually accustomed to seafaring, and therefore proposed to take them by steamer to Hastings. This plan was carried out, and the weather was unspeakably bad—far worse than anything they experienced in their subsequent trip across the Atlantic. The two children, who were neither of them very good sailors, experienced sensations that were the reverse of pleasant. Mr. Dodgson did his best to console them, while he continually repeated, "Crossing the Atlantic will be much worse than this."

  However, even this terrible lesson on the horrors of the sea did not act as a deterrent; it was as unsuccessful as the effort of the old lady in one of his stories: "An old lady I once knew tried to check the military ardour of a little boy by showing him a picture of a battlefield, and describing some of its horrors. But the only answer she got was, 'I'll be a soldier. Tell it again!'"

  The Bowman children sometimes came over to visit him at Oxford, and he used to delight in showing them over the colleges, and pointing out the famous people whom they encountered. On one of these occasions he was walking with Maggie, then a mere child, when they met the Bishop of Oxford, to whom Mr. Dodgson introduced his little guest. His lordship asked her what she thought of Oxford. "I think," said the little actress, with quite a professional aplomb, "it's the best place in the Provinces!" At which the Bishop was much amused. After the child had returned to town, the Bishop sent her a copy of a little book called "Golden Dust," inscribed "From W. Oxon," which considerably mystified her, as she knew nobody of that name!