with me and walked off to the parish school--the _girl's_ school, you
know--and I said to the mistress, 'How many little girls are there at
school to-day?'
"'Exactly 250, sir.'
"'And have they all been _very_ good all day?'
"'As good as gold, sir.'
"So I waited outside the door with my basket, and as each little girl
came out, I just popped a soft little kitten into her hands! Oh, what
joy there was! The little girls went all dancing home, nursing their
kittens, and the whole air was full of purring! Then, the next
morning, I went to the school, before it opened, to ask the little
girls how the kittens had behaved in the night. And they all arrived
sobbing and crying, and their faces and hands were all covered with
scratches, and they had the kittens wrapped up in their pinafores to
keep them from scratching any more. And they sobbed out, 'The kittens
have been scratching us all night, all the night.'
"So then I said to myself, 'What a nice little girl Maggie is. _Now_ I
see why she sent all those gloves, and why there are four times as
many gloves as kittens!' and I said loud to the little girls, 'Never
mind, my dear children, do your lessons _very_ nicely, and don't cry
any more, and when school is over, you'll find me at the door, and you
shall see what you shall see!'
"So, in the evening, when the little girls came running out, with the
kittens still wrapped up in their pinafores, there was I, at the door,
with a big sack! And, as each little girl came out, I just popped into
her hand two pairs of gloves! And each little girl unrolled her
pinafore and took out an angry little kitten, spitting and snarling,
with its claws sticking out like a hedgehog. But it hadn't time to
scratch, for, in one moment, it found all its four claws popped into
nice soft warm gloves! And then the kittens got quite sweet-tempered
and gentle, and began purring again!
"So the little girls went dancing home again, and the next morning
they came dancing back to school. The scratches were all healed, and
they told me 'The kittens _have_ been good!' And, when any kitten
wants to catch a mouse, it just takes off _one_ of its gloves; and if
it wants to catch _two_ mice, it takes off two gloves; and if it wants
to catch _three_ mice, it takes off _three_ gloves; and if it wants to
catch _four_ mice, it takes off all its gloves. But the moment they've
caught the mice, they pop their gloves on again, because they know we
can't love them without their gloves. For, you see 'gloves' have got
'love' _inside_ them--there's none _outside_!
"So all the little girls said, 'Please thank Maggie, and we send her
250 _loves_, and 1000 _kisses_ in return for her 250 kittens and her
1000 _loves_!!' And I told them in the wrong order! and they said they
hadn't.
"Your loving old Uncle,
"C. L. D.
"Love and kisses to Nellie and Emsie."
This letter takes up eight pages of close writing, and I should very much
doubt if any child ever had a more charming one from anybody. The
whimsical fancy in it, the absolute comprehension of a child's intellect,
the quickness with which the writer employs the slightest incident or
thing that would be likely to please a little girl, is simply wonderful. I
shall never forget how the letter charmed and delighted my sister Maggie
and myself. We called it "The glove and kitten letter," and as I look at
the tremulous handwriting which is lying by my side, it all comes back to
me very vividly--like the sound of forgotten fingers on the latch to some
lonely fireside watcher, when the wind is wailing round the house with a
wilder inner note than it has in the daytime.
At Eastbourne I was happier even with Lewis Carroll than I was at Oxford.
We seemed more free, and there was the air of holiday over it all. Every
day of my stay at the house in Lushington Road was a perfect dream of
delight.
There was one regular and fixed routine which hardly ever varied, and
which I came to know by heart; and I will write an account of it here,
and ask any little girl who reads it, if she ever had such a splendid time
in her life.
To begin with, we used to get up very early indeed. Our bedroom doors
faced each other at the top of the staircase. When I came out of mine I
always knew if I might go into his room or not by his signal. If, when I
came into the passage, I found that a newspaper had been put under the
door, then I knew I might go in at once; but if there was no newspaper,
then I had to wait till it appeared. I used to sit down on the top stair
as quiet as a mouse, watching for the paper to come under the door, when I
would rush in almost before uncle had time to get out of the way. This was
always the first pleasure and excitement of the day. Then we used to
downstairs to breakfast, after which we always read a chapter out of the
Bible. So that I should remember it, I always had to tell it to him
afterwards as a story of my own.
[Illustration: "LEWIS CARROLL'S" HOUSE AT EASTBOURNE]
"Now then, Isa dearest," he would say, "tell me a story, and mind you
begin with 'once upon a time.' A story which does not begin with 'once
upon a time' can't possibly be a good story. It's _most_ important."
When I had told my story it was time to go out.
I was learning swimming at the Devonshire Park baths, and we always had a
bargain together. He would never allow me to go to the swimming-bath--which
I revelled in--until I had promised him faithfully that I would go
afterwards to the dentist's.
He had great ideas upon the importance of a regular and almost daily visit
to the dentist. He himself went to a dentist as he would have gone to a
hairdresser's, and he insisted that all the little girls he knew should go
too. The precaution sounds strange, and one might be inclined to think
that Lewis Carroll carried it to an unnecessary length; but I can only
bear personal witness to the fact that I have firm strong teeth, and have
never had a toothache in my life. I believe I owe this entirely to those
daily visits to the Eastbourne dentist.
Soon after this it was time for lunch, and we both went back hand-in-hand
to the rooms in Lushington Road. Lewis Carroll never had a proper lunch, a
fact which always used to puzzle me tremendously.
I could not understand how a big grown-up man could live on a glass of
sherry and a biscuit at dinner time. It seemed such a pity when there was
lots of mutton and rice-pudding that he should not have any. I always used
to ask him, "Aren't you hungry, uncle, even _to-day_?"
After lunch I used to have a lesson in backgammon, a game of which he was
passionately fond, and of which he could never have enough. Then came what
to me was the great trial of the day. I am afraid I was a very lazy little
girl in those days, and I know I hated walking far. The trial was, that
we should walk to the top of Beachy Head every afternoon. I used to like
it very much when I got there, but the walk was irksome. Lewis Carroll
believed very much in a great amount of exercise, and said one should
always go to bed physically wearied with the exercise of the day.
Accordingly there was no way out of it, and every afternoon I had to walk
to the top of Beachy Head. He was very good and kind. He would invent all
sorts of new games to beguile the tedium of the way. One very curious and
strange trait in his character was shown on these walks. I used to be very
fond of flowers and of animals also. A pretty dog or a hedge of
honeysuckle were always pleasant events upon a walk to me. And yet he
himself cared for neither flowers nor animals. Tender and kind as he was,
simple and unassuming in all his tastes, yet he did not like flowers! I
confess that even now I find it hard to understand. He knew children so
thoroughly and well--perhaps better than any one else--that it is all the
stranger that he did not care for things that generally attract them so
much. However, be that as it may, the fact remained. When I was in
raptures over a poppy or a dogrose, he would try hard to be as interested
as I was, but even to my childish eyes it was an obvious effort, and he
would always rather invent some new game for us to play at. Once, and once
only, I remember him to have taken an interest in a flower, and that was
because of the folk-lore that was attached to it, and not because of the
beauty of the flower itself.
We used to walk into the country that stretched, in beautiful natural
avenues of trees, inland from Eastbourne. One day while we sat under a
great tree, and the hum of the myriad insect life rivalled the murmur of
the far-away waves, he took a foxglove from the heap that lay in my lap
and told me the story of how they came by their name; how, in the old
days, when, all over England, there were great forests, like the forest
of Arden that Shakespeare loved, the pixies, the "little folks," used to
wander at night in the glades, like Titania, and Oberon, and Puck, and
because they took great pride in their dainty hands they made themselves
gloves out of the flowers. So the particular flower that the "little
folks" used came to be called "folks' gloves." Then, because the country
people were rough and clumsy in their talk, the name was shortened into
"Fox-gloves," the name that every one uses now.
When I got very tired we used to sit down upon the grass, and he used to
show me the most wonderful things made out of his handkerchief. Every one
when a child has, I suppose, seen the trick in which a handkerchief is
rolled up to look like a mouse, and then made to jump about by a movement
of the hand. He did this better than any one I ever saw, and the trick was
a never-failing joy. By a sort of consent between us the handkerchief
trick was kept especially for the walk to Beachy Head, when, about
half-way, I was a little tired and wanted to rest. When we actually got to
the Head there was tea waiting in the coastguard's cottage. He always said
I ate far too much, and he would never allow me more than one rock cake
and a cup of tea. This was an invariable rule, and much as I wished for
it, I was never allowed to have more than one rock cake.
It was in the coastguard's house or on the grass outside that I heard most
of his stories. Sometimes he would make excursions into the realms of pure
romance, where there were scaly dragons and strange beasts that sat up and
talked. In all these stories there was always an adventure in a forest,
and the great scene of each tale always took place in a wood. The
consummation of a story was always heralded by the phrase, "The children
now came to a deep dark wood." When I heard that sentence, which was
always spoken very slowly and with a solemn dropping of the voice, I
always knew that the really exciting part was coming. I used to nestle a
little nearer to him, and he used to hold me a little closer as he told of
the final adventure.
He did not always tell me fairy tales, though I think I liked the fairy
tale much the best. Sometimes he gave me accounts of adventures which had
happened to him. There was one particularly thrilling story of how he was
lost on Beachy Head in a sea fog, and had to find his way home by means of
boulders. This was the more interesting because we were on the actual
scene of the disaster, and to be there stimulated the imagination.
The summer afternoons on the great headland were very sweet and peaceful.
I have never met a man so sensible to the influences of Nature as Lewis
Carroll. When the sunset was very beautiful he was often affected by the
sight. The widespread wrinkled sea below, in the mellow melancholy light
of the afternoon, seemed to fit in with his temperament. I have still a
mental picture that I can recall of him on the cliff. Just as the sun was
setting, and a cool breeze whispered round us, he would take off his hat
and let the wind play with his hair, and he would look out to sea. Once I
saw tears in his eyes, and when we turned to go he gripped my hand much
tighter than usual.
[Illustration: MISS ISA BOWMAN AND MISS BESSIE HATTON AS THE LITTLE
PRINCES IN THE TOWER]
We generally got back to dinner about seven or earlier. He would never let
me change my frock for the meal, even if we were going to a concert or
theatre afterwards. He had a curious theory that a child should not change
her clothes twice in one day. He himself made no alteration in his dress
at dinner time, nor would he permit me to do so. Yet he was not by any
means an untidy or slovenly man. He had many little fads in dress, but his
great horror and abomination was high-heeled shoes with pointed toes. No
words were strong enough, he thought, to describe such monstrous things.
Lewis Carroll was a deeply religious man, and on Sundays at Eastbourne we
always went twice to church. Yet he held that no child should be forced
into church-going against its will. Such a state of mind in a child, he
said, needed most careful treatment, and the very worst thing to do was to
make attendance at the services compulsory. Another habit of his, which
must, I feel sure, sound rather dreadful to many, was that, should the
sermon prove beyond my comprehension, he would give me a little book to
read; it was better far, he maintained, to read, than to stare idly about
the church. When the rest of the congregation rose at the entrance of the
choir he kept his seat. He argued that rising to one's feet at such a time
tended to make the choir-boys conceited. I think he was quite right.
He kept no special books for Sunday reading, for he was most emphatically
of opinion that anything tending to make Sunday a day dreaded by a child
should be studiously avoided. He did not like me to sew on Sunday unless
it was absolutely necessary.
One would have hardly expected that a man of so reserved a nature as Lewis
Carroll would have taken much interest in the stage. Yet he was devoted to
the theatre, and one of the commonest of the treats that he gave his
little girl friends was to organise a party for the play. As a critic of
acting he was naive and outspoken, and never hesitated to find fault if he
thought it justifiable. The following letter that he wrote to me
criticising my acting in "Richard III." when I was playing with Richard
Mansfield, is one of the most interesting that I ever received from him.
Although it was written for a child to understand and profit by, and
moreover written in the simplest possible way, it yet even now strikes me
as a trenchant and valuable piece of criticism.
[Illustration: ISA BOWMAN AS DUKE OF YORK]
"CH. CH. OXFORD,
"_Ap. 4, '89_.
"MY LORD DUKE,--The photographs, which Your Grace did me the honour of
sending arrived safely; and I can assure your Royal Highness that I am
very glad to have them, and like them _very_ much, particularly the
large head of your late Royal Uncle's little little son. I do not
wonder that your excellent Uncle Richard should say 'off with his
head!' as a hint to the photographer to print it off. Would your
Highness like me to go on calling you the Duke of York, or shall I say
'my own own darling Isa?' Which do you like best?
"Now I'm going to find fault with my pet about her acting. What's the
good of an old Uncle like me except to find fault?
"You do the meeting with the Prince of Wales _very_ nicely and
lovingly; and, in teasing your Uncle for his dagger and his sword, you
are very sweet and playful and--'but _that's_ not finding fault!' Isa
says to herself. Isn't it? Well, I'll try again. Didn't I hear you say
'In weightier things you'll say a _beggar_ nay,' leaning on the word
'beggar'? If so, it was a mistake. _My_ rule for knowing which word to
lean on is the word that tells you something _new_, something that is
_different_ from what you expected.
"Take the sentence 'first I bought a bag of apples, then I bought a
bag of pears,' you wouldn't say 'then I bought a _bag_ of pears.' The
'bag' is nothing new, because it was a bag in the first part of the
sentence. But the _pears_ are new, and different from the _apples_.
So you would say, 'then I bought a bag of _pears_.'
"Do you understand that, my pet?"
"Now what you say to Richard amounts to this, 'With light gifts you'll
say to a beggar "yes": with heavy gifts you'll say to a beggar "nay."'
The words 'you'll say to a beggar' are the same both times; so you
mustn't lean on any of _those_ words. But 'light' is different from
'heavy,' and 'yes' is different from 'nay.' So the way to say the
sentence would be 'with _light_ gifts you'll say to a beggar "_yes_":
with _heavy_ gifts you'll say to a beggar "_nay_".' And the way to say
the lines in the play is--
'O, then I see you will _part_ but with _light_ gifts;
In _weightier_ things you'll say a beggar _nay_.'
"One more sentence.
"When Richard says, 'What, would you have my _weapon_, little Lord?'
and you reply 'I _would_, that I might thank you as you call me,'
didn't I hear you pronounce 'thank' as if it were spelt with an 'e'? I
know it's very common (I often do it myself) to say 'thenk you!' as an
exclamation by itself. I suppose it's an odd way of pronouncing the
word. But I'm sure it's wrong to pronounce it so when it comes into a
_sentence_. It will sound _much_ nicer if you'll pronounce it so as to
rhyme with 'bank.'
"One more thing. ('What an impertinent old uncle! Always finding
fault!') You're not as _natural_, when acting the Duke, as you were
when you acted Alice. You seemed to me not to forgot _yourself_
enough. It was not so much a real _prince_ talking to his elder
brother and his uncle; it was _Isa Bowman_ talking to people she
didn't _much_ care about, for an audience to listen to--I don't mean
it was that all _through_, but _sometimes_ you were _artificial_. Now
don't be jealous of Miss Hatton, when I say she was _sweetly_ natural.
She looked and spoke like a _real_ Prince of Wales. And she didn't
seem to know that there was any audience. If you are ever to be a
_good_ actress (as I hope you will), you must learn to _forget_ 'Isa'
altogether, and _be_ the character you are playing. Try to think 'This
is _really_ the Prince of Wales. I'm his little brother, and I'm
_very_ glad to meet him, and I love him _very_ much,' and 'this is
_really_ my uncle: he's very kind, and lets me say saucy things to
him,' and _do_ forget that there's anybody else listening!
"My sweet pet, I _hope_ you won't be offended with me for saying what
I fancy might make your acting better!
"Your loving old Uncle,
"CHARLES.
X for NELLIE.
X for MAGGIE.
X for EMSIE.
X for ISA."
He was a fairly constant patron of all the London theatres, save the
Gaiety and the Adelphi, which he did not like, and numbered a good many
theatrical folk among his acquaintances. Miss Ellen Terry was one of his
greatest friends. Once I remember we made an expedition from Eastbourne to
Margate to visit Miss Sarah Thorne's theatre, and especially for the
purpose of seeing Miss Violet Vanbrugh's Ophelia. He was a great admirer
of both Miss Violet and Miss Irene Vanbrugh as actresses. Of Miss Thorne's
school of acting, too, he had the highest opinion, and it was his often
expressed wish that all intending players could have so excellent a course
of tuition. Among the male members of the theatrical profession he had no
especial favourites, excepting Mr. Toole and Mr. Richard Mansfield.
He never went to a music-hall, but considered that, properly managed, they
might be beneficial to the public. It was only when the refrain of some
particularly vulgar music-hall song broke upon his ears in the streets
that he permitted himself to speak harshly about variety theatres.
Comic opera, when it was wholesome, he liked, and was a frequent visitor
to the Savoy theatre. The good old style of Pantomime, too, was a great
delight to him, and he would often speak affectionately of the pantomimes
at Brighton during the regime of Mr. and Mrs. Nye Chart. But of the
up-to-date pantomime he had a horror, and nothing would induce him to
visit one. "When pantomimes are written for children once more," he said,
"I will go. Not till then."
Once when a friend told him that she was about to take her little girls to
the pantomime, he did not rest till he had dissuaded her.
To conclude what I have said about Lewis Carroll's affection for the
dramatic art, I will give a kind of examination paper, written for a child
who had been learning a recitation called "The Demon of the Pit." Though
his stuttering prevented him from being himself anything of a reciter, he
loved correct elocution, and would take any pains to make a child
perfect in a piece.
[Illustration: THE LITTLE PRINCES]
First of all there is an explanatory paragraph.
"As you don't ask any questions about 'The Demon of the Pit,' I suppose
you understand it all. So please answer these questions just as you would
do if a younger child (say Mollie) asked them."
_Mollie._ Please, Ethel, will you explain this poem to me. There are
some very hard words in it.
_Ethel._ What are they, dear?
_Mollie._ Well, in the first line, "If you chance to make a sally."
What does "sally" mean?
_Ethel._ Dear Mollie, I believe sally means to take a chance work.[2]
_Mollie._ Then, near the end of the first verse--"Whereupon she'll
call her cronies"--what does "whereupon" mean? And what are cronies?
_Ethel._ I think whereupon means at the same time, and cronies means
her favourite playfellows.
_Mollie._ "And invest in proud polonies." What's to "invest?"
_Ethel._ To invest means to spend money in anything you fancy.
_Mollie._ And what's "A woman of the day?"
_Ethel._ A woman of the day means a wonder of the time with the
general public.
_Mollie._ "Pyrotechnic blaze of wit." What's pyrotechnic?
_Ethel._ Mollie, I think you will find that pyrotechnic means quick,
with flashes of lightning.
_Mollie._ Then the 8 lines that begin "The astounding infant
wonder"--please explain "role" and "mise" and "tout ensemble" and
"grit."
_Ethel._ Well, Mollie, "role" means so many different things, but in
"The Demon of the Pit" I should think it meant the leading part of the
piece, and "mise" means something extra good introduced, and "tout"
means to seek for applause, but "ensemble" means the whole of the
parts taken together, and grit means something good.
_Mollie._ "And the Goblins prostrate tumble." What's "prostrate"?
_Ethel._ I believe prostrate means to be cast down and unhappy.
_Mollie._ "And his accents shake a bit." What are "accents"?
_Ethel._ To accent is to lay stress upon a word.
_Mollie._ "Waits resignedly behind." What's "resignedly"?
_Ethel._ Resignedly means giving up, yielding.
_Mollie._ "They have tripe as light to dream on." What does "as" mean
here? and what does "to dream on" mean?
_Ethel._ Mollie, dear, your last question is very funny. In the first
place, I have always been told that hot suppers are not good for any
one, and I should think that tripe would _not be light_ to dream on
but VERY heavy.
_Mollie._ Thank you, Ethel.
I have now nearly finished my little memoir of Lewis Carroll; that is to
say, I have written down all that I can remember of my personal knowledge
of him. But I think it is from the letters and the diaries published in
this book that my readers must chiefly gain an insight into the character
of the greatest friend to children who ever lived. Not only did he study
children's ways for his own pleasure, but he studied them in order that he
might please them. For instance, here is a letter that he wrote to my
little sister Nelly eight years ago, which begins on the last page and is
written entirely backwards--a kind of variant on his famous
"Looking-Glass" writing. You have to begin at the last word and read
backwards before you can understand it. The only ordinary thing about it
is the date. It begins--I mean _begins_ if one was to read it in the
ordinary way--with the characteristic monogram, C. L. D.
"_Nov. 1, 1891._
"C. L. D., Uncle loving your! Instead grandson his to it give to had
you that so, years 80 or 70 for it forgot you that was it pity a what
and: him of fond so were you wonder don't I and, gentleman old nice
very a was he. For it made you that _him_ been have _must_ it see you
so: _grandfather_ my was, _then_ alive was that, 'Dodgson Uncle' only
the. Born was _I_ before long was that, see you, then But. 'Dodgson
Uncle for pretty thing some make I'll now,' it began you when,
yourself to said you that, me telling her without, knew I course of
and: ago years many great a it made had you said she. Me told Isa what
from was it? For meant was it who out made I how know you do! Lasted
has it well how and. Grandfather my for made had you Antimacassar
pretty that me give to you of nice so was it, Nelly dear my."
[Illustration]