CHAPTER XI.

GAMES, RIDDLES, AND PROBLEMS.

Lewis Carroll had a mind which never rested in waking hours, and as is the

case with all such active thinkers, his hours of sleeping were often

broken by long stretches of wakefulness, during which time the thinking

machinery set itself in motion and spun out problems and riddles and odd

games and puzzles.

"Puzzles and problems of all sorts were a delight to Mr. Dodgson," writes

Miss Beatrice Hatch in the _Strand Magazine_. "Many a sleepless night was

occupied by what he called a 'pillow problem'; in fact his mathematical

mind seemed always at work on something of the kind, and he loved to

discuss and argue a point connected with his logic, if he could but find a

willing listener. Sometimes, while paying an afternoon call, he would

borrow scraps of paper and leave neat little diagrams or word puzzles to

be worked out by his friends."

Logic was a study of which he was very fond. After he gave up in 1881 the

lectureship of mathematics which he had held for twenty-five years he

determined to make literature a profession; to devote part of his time to

more serious study, and a fair portion to the equally fascinating work for

children.

"In his estimation," says Miss Hatch, "logic was a most important study

for every one; no pains were spared to make it clear and interesting to

those who would consent to learn of him, either in a class that he begged

to be allowed to hold in a school or college, or to a single individual

girl who showed the smallest inclination to profit by his instructions."

He took the greatest delight in his subject and wisely argued that all

girls should learn, not only to reason, but to reason properly--that is,

logically. With this end in view he wrote for their use a little book

which he called "The Game of Logic," and the girls, whose footsteps he had

guided in childish days through realms of nonsense, were willing in many

instances to journey with him into the byways of learning, feeling sure he

would not lead them into depths where they could not follow. The little

volume contains four chapters, and the whimsical headings show us at once

that Lewis Carroll was the author, and not Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.

Chapter I.......New Lamps for Old.

Chapter II......Cross Questions.

Chapter III.....Crooked Answers.

Chapter IV......Hit or Miss.

To be sure this is not a "play" book, and even as a "game" it is one which

requires a great deal of systematic thinking and reasoning. The girl who

has reached thinking and reasoning years and does not care to do either,

had better not even peep into the book; but if she is built on sturdier

lines and wishes to peep, she must do more--she must read it step by step

and study the carefully drawn diagrams, if she would follow intelligently

the clear, precise arguments. The book is dedicated--

TO MY CHILD-FRIEND.

I charm in vain: for never again,

All keenly as my glance I bend,

Will memory, goddess coy,

Embody for my joy

Departed days, nor let me gaze

On thee, my Fairy Friend!

Yet could thy face, in mystic grace,

A moment smile on me, 'twould send

Far-darting rays of light

From Heaven athwart the night,

By which to read in very deed

Thy spirit, sweetest Friend!

So may the stream of Life's long dream

Flow gently onward to its end,

With many a floweret gay,

Adown its billowy way:

May no sigh vex nor care perplex

My loving little Friend!

His preface is most enticing. He says: "This Game requires nine

Counters--four of one color and five of another; say four red and five

gray. Besides the nine Counters, it also requires one Player _at least_. I

am not aware of any game that can be played with _less_ than this number;

while there are several that require more; take Cricket, for instance,

which requires twenty-two. How much easier it is, when you want to play a

game, to find _one_ Player than twenty-two! At the same time, though one

Player is enough, a good deal more amusement may be got by two working at

it together, and correcting each other's mistakes.

"A second advantage possessed by this Game is that, besides being an

endless source of amusement (the number of arguments that may be worked by

it being infinite), it will give the Players a little instruction as well.

But is there any great harm in that, so long as you get plenty of

amusement?"

To explain the book thoroughly would take the wit and clever handling of

Lewis Carroll himself, but to the beginner of Logic a few of these

unfinished syllogisms may prove interesting: a syllogism in logical

language consists of what is known as two _Premisses_ and one

_Conclusion_, and is a very simple form of argument when you get used to

it.

For instance, supposing someone says: "All my friends have colds"; someone

else may add: "No one can sing who has a cold"; then the third person

draws the conclusion, which is: "None of my friends can sing," and the

perfect logical argument would read as follows:

1. Premise--"All my friends have colds."

2. Premise--"No one can sing who has a cold."

3. Conclusion--"None of my friends can sing."

That is what is called a perfect syllogism, and in Chapter IV, which he

calls _Hit or Miss_, Lewis Carroll has collected a hundred examples

containing the two _Premisses_ which need the _Conclusion_. Here are some

of them. Anyone can draw her own conclusions:

Pain is wearisome;

No pain is eagerly wished for.

In each case the student is required to fill up the third space.

No bald person needs a hairbrush;

No lizards have hair.

No unhappy people chuckle;

No happy people groan.

All ducks waddle;

Nothing that waddles is graceful.

Some oysters are silent;

No silent creatures are amusing.

Umbrellas are useful on a journey;

What is useless on a journey should be left behind.

No quadrupeds can whistle;

Some cats are quadrupeds.

Some bald people wear wigs;

All your children have hair.

The whole book is brimful of humor and simple everyday reasoning that the

smallest child could understand.

Another "puzzle" book of even an earlier date is "A Tangled Tale"; this is

dedicated--

TO MY PUPIL.

Beloved pupil! Tamed by thee,

Addish, Subtrac-, Multiplica-tion,

Division, Fractions, Rule of Three,

Attest the deft manipulation!

Then onward! Let the voice of Fame,

From Age to Age repeat the story,

Till thou hast won thyself a name,

Exceeding even Euclid's glory!

In the preface he says: "This Tale originally appeared as a serial in _The

Monthly Packet_, beginning in April, 1880. The writer's intention was to

embody in each Knot (like the medicine so deftly but ineffectually

concealed in the jam of our childhood) one or more mathematical questions,

in Arithmetic, Algebra, or Geometry, as the case might be, for the

amusement and possible edification of the fair readers of that Magazine.

"October, 1885. L. C."

These are regular mathematical problems and "posers," most of them, and it

seems that the readers, being more or less ambitious, set to work in right

good earnest to answer them, and sent in the solutions to the author under

assumed names, and then he produced the real problem, the real answer, and

all the best answers of the contestants. These problems were all called

_Knots_ and were told in the form of stories.

Knot I was called _Excelsior_. It was written as a tale of adventure, and

ran as follows:

"The ruddy glow of sunset was already fading into the somber shadows of

night, when two travelers might have been observed swiftly--at a pace of

six miles in the hour--descending the rugged side of a mountain; the

younger bounding from crag to crag with the agility of a fawn, while his

companion, whose aged limbs seemed ill at ease in the heavy chain armor

habitually worn by tourists in that district, toiled on painfully at his

side."

Lewis Carroll is evidently imitating the style of some celebrated

writer--Henry James, most likely, who is rather fond of opening his story

with "two travelers," or perhaps Sir Walter Scott. He goes on:

"As is always the case under such circumstances, the younger knight was

the first to break the silence.

"'A goodly pace, I trow!' he exclaimed. 'We sped not thus in the ascent!'

"'Goodly, indeed!' the other echoed with a groan. 'We clomb it but at

three miles in the hour.'

"'And on the dead level our pace is--?' the younger suggested; for he was

weak in statistics, and left all such details to his aged companion.

"'Four miles in the hour,' the other wearily replied. 'Not an ounce more,'

he added, with that love of metaphor so common in old age, 'and not a

farthing less!'

"''Twas three hours past high noon when we left our hostelry,' the young

man said, musingly. 'We shall scarce be back by supper-time. Perchance

mine host will roundly deny us all food!'

"'He will chide our tardy return,' was the grave reply, 'and such a rebuke

will be meet.'

"'A brave conceit!' cried the other, with a merry laugh. 'And should we

bid him bring us yet another course, I trow his answer will be tart!'

"'We shall but get our deserts,' sighed the older knight, who had never

seen a joke in his life, and was somewhat displeased at his companion's

untimely levity. ''Twill be nine of the clock,' he added in an undertone,

'by the time we regain our hostelry. Full many a mile have we plodded this

day!'

"'How many? How many?' cried the eager youth, ever athirst for knowledge.

"The old man was silent.

"'Tell me,' he answered after a moment's thought, 'what time it was when

we stood together on yonder peak. Not exact to the minute!' he added,

hastily, reading a protest in the young man's face. 'An' thy guess be

within one poor half hour of the mark, 'tis all I ask of thy mother's son!

Then will I tell thee, true to the last inch, how far we shall have

trudged betwixt three and nine of the clock.'

"A groan was the young man's only reply, while his convulsed features and

the deep wrinkles that chased each other across his manly brow revealed

the abyss of arithmetical agony into which one chance question had plunged

him."

The problem in plain English is this: "Two travelers spend from three

o'clock till nine in walking along a level road, up a hill, and home

again, their pace on the level being four miles an hour, up hill three,

and down hill six. Find distance walked: also (within half an hour) the

time of reaching top of hill."

_Answer._ "Twenty-four miles: half-past six."

The explanation is very clear and very simple, but we will not give it

here. This first knot of "A Tangled Tale" offers attractions of its own,

for like the dream _Alice_ someone may exclaim, "A Knot! Oh, do let me

help to undo it!"

The second problem or "Tale" is called _Eligible Apartments_, and deals

with the adventures of one _Balbus_ and his pupils, and contains two

"Knots." One is: "The Governor of ---- wants to give a _very_ small dinner

party, and he means to ask his father's brother-in-law, his brother's

father-in-law, and his brother-in-law's father, and we're to guess how

many guests there will be." The answer is _one_. Perhaps some ambitious

person will go over the ground and prove it. The second knot deals with

the _Eligible Apartments_ which _Balbus_ and his pupils were hunting. At

the end of their walk they found themselves in a square.

"'It _is_ a Square!' was Balbus's first cry of delight as he gazed around

him. 'Beautiful! Beau-ti-ful! _And_ rectangular!' and as he plunged into

Geometry he also plunged into funny conversations with the average English

landlady, which we can better follow:

"'Which there is _one_ room, gentlemen,' said the smiling landlady, 'and a

sweet room, too. As snug a little back room----'

"'We will see it,' said Balbus gloomily as they followed her in. 'I knew

how it would be! One room in each house! No view I suppose.'

"'Which indeed there _is_, gentlemen!' the landlady indignantly protested

as she drew up the blind, and indicated the back garden.

"'Cabbages, I perceive,' said Balbus. 'Well, they're green at any rate.'

"'Which the greens at the shops,' their hostess explained, 'are by no

means dependable upon. Here you has them on the premises, _and_ of the

best.'

"'Does the window open?' was always Balbus's first question in testing a

lodging; and 'Does the chimney smoke?' his second. Satisfied on all

points, he secured the refusal of the room, and moved on to the next house

where they repeated the same performance, adding as an afterthought: 'Does

the cat scratch?'

"The landlady looked around suspiciously as if to make sure the cat was

not listening. 'I will not deceive you, gentlemen,' she said, 'it _do_

scratch, but not without you pulls its whiskers. It'll never do it,' she

repeated slowly, with a visible effort to recall the exact words between

herself and the cat, 'without you pulls its whiskers!'

"'Much may be excused in a cat so treated,' said Balbus as they left the

house, ... leaving the landlady curtseying on the doorstep and still

murmuring to herself her parting words, as if they were a form of

blessing, 'not without you pulls its whiskers!'"

He has given us a real Dickens atmosphere in the dialogue, but the

medicinal problem tucked into it all is too much like hard work.

There were ten of these "Knots," each one harder than its predecessor, and

Lewis Carroll found much interest in receiving and criticising the

answers, all sent under fictitious names.

This clever mathematician delighted in "puzzlers," and sometimes he found

a kindred soul among the guessers, which always pleased him.

One of his favorite problems was one that as early as the days of the

_Rectory Umbrella_ he brought before his limited public. He called it

_Difficulty No. 1_.

"Where in its passage round the earth does the day change its name?"

This question pursued him all through his mathematical career, and the

difficulty of answering it has never lessened. Even in "A Tangled Tale"

neither Balbus nor his ambitious young pupils could do much with the

problem.

_Difficulty No. 2_ is very humorous, and somewhat of a "catch" question.

"Which is the best--a clock that is right only once a year, or a clock

that is right twice every day?"

In March, 1897, _Vanity Fair_, a current English magazine, had the

following article entitled:

_"A New Puzzle."_

"The readers of _Vanity Fair_ have, during the last ten years, shown

so much interest in Acrostics and Hard Cases, which were at first

made the object of sustained competition for prizes in the journal,

that it has been sought to invent for them an entirely new kind of

Puzzle, such as would interest them equally with those that have

already been so successful. The subjoined letter from Mr. Lewis

Carroll will explain itself, and will introduce a Puzzle so entirely

novel and withal so interesting that the transmutation [changing] of

the original into the final word of the Doublets may be expected to

become an occupation, to the full as amusing as the guessing of the

Double Acrostics has already proved."

"Dear Vanity," Lewis Carroll writes:--"Just a year ago last Christmas

two young ladies, smarting under that sorest scourge of feminine

humanity, the having "nothing to do," besought me to send them "some

riddles." But riddles I had none at hand and therefore set myself to

devise some other form of verbal torture which should serve the same

purpose. The result of my meditations was a new kind of Puzzle, new

at least to me, which now that it has been fairly tested by a year's

experience, and commended by many friends, I offer to you as a newly

gathered nut to be cracked by the omnivorous teeth that have already

masticated so many of your Double Acrostics.

"The rules of the Puzzle are simple enough. Two words are proposed,

of the same length; and the Puzzle consists in linking these together

by interposing other words, each of which shall differ from the next

word _in one letter only_. That is to say, one letter may be changed

in one of the given words, then one letter in the word so obtained,

and so on, till we arrive at the other given word. The letters must

not be interchanged among themselves, but each must keep to its own

place. As an example, the word 'head' may be changed into 'tail' by

interposing the words 'heal, teal, tell, tall.' I call the two given

words 'a Doublet,' the interposed words 'Links,' and the entire

series 'a Chain,' of which I here append an example:

Head

heal

teal

tell

tall

Tail

"It is perhaps needless to state that the links should be English

words, such as might be used in good society.

"The easiest 'Doublets' are those in which the consonants in one word

answer to the consonants in the other, and the vowels to vowels;

'head' and 'tail' constitute a Doublet of this kind. Where this is

not the case, as in 'head' and 'hare,' the first thing to be done is

to transform one member of the Doublet into a word whose consonants

and vowels shall answer to those in the other member ('head, herd,

here'), after which there is seldom much difficulty in completing the

'Chain.'...

"LEWIS CARROLL."

"Doublets" was brought out in book form in 1880, and proved a very

attractive little volume.

"The Game of Logic" and "A Tangled Tale" are also in book form, the latter

cleverly illustrated by Arthur B. Frost.

It would take too long to name all the games and puzzles Lewis Carroll

invented. Some were carefully thought out, some were produced on the spur

of the moment, generally for the amusement of some special child friend.

Indeed, the puzzles and riddles and games had accumulated to such an

extent that he was arranging to publish a book of them with illustrations

by Miss E. Gertrude Thomson, but after his death the plans fell through,

and many literary projects were abandoned.

Acrostic writing was one of his favorite pastimes, and he wrote enough of

these to have filled a good fat little volume.

His Wonderland Stamp-Case, one of his own ingenious inventions, might come

under the head of "Puzzles and Problems," and, oddly enough, an

interesting description of this stamp-case was published only a short time

ago in _The Nation_. The writer describes his own copy which he bought

when it was new, some twenty years ago. There is first an envelope of red

paper, on which is printed:

The "Wonderland" Postage Stamp-Case,

Invented by Louis Carroll, Oct. 29, 1888.

This case contains 12 separate packets for

Stamps of different values, and 2 Coloured

Pictorial Surprises, taken from "Alice in

Wonderland." It is accompanied with 8 or

9 Wise Words about Letter-Writing.

1st, post-free, 13d.

On the flap of the envelope is:

Published by Emberlin & Son,

4 Magdalen Street, Oxford.

"The Stamp-Case," the writer tells us, "consists of a stiff paper folded

with the pockets on the inner leaves and a picture on each outer leaf.

This Case is inclosed in a sliding cover, and in this way the pictorial

surprise becomes possible. A picture of _Alice_ holding the _Baby_ is on

the front cover, and when this is drawn off, there is underneath a picture

of _Alice_ nursing a pig. On the back cover is the famous _Cat_, which

vanishes to a shadowy grin on the pictures beneath."

The booklet which accompanied this little stamp-case found its way to many

of his girl friends. Now, whether they bought it, or whether, under guise

of giving a present, this clever friend of theirs sent them the stamp-case

with the "eight or nine words of advice" slyly tucked in, we cannot say,

but in the case of Isa Bowman and of Beatrice Hatch the booklet evidently

made a deep impression, for both quote from it very freely, and some of

the "wise words" are certainly worth heeding, for instance:

"_Address and stamp the envelope._"

"What! Before writing the letter?"

"Most certainly; and I'll tell you what will happen if you don't. You

will go on writing till the last moment, and just in the middle of

the last sentence you will become aware that 'time's up!' Then comes

the hurried wind-up--the wildly scrawled signature--the hastily

fastened envelope which comes open in the post--the address--a mere

hieroglyphic--the horrible discovery that you've forgotten to

replenish your stamp-case--the frantic appeal to everyone in the

house to lend you a stamp--the headlong rush to the Post Office,

arriving hot and gasping, just after the box has been closed--and

finally, a week afterwards, the return of the letter from the dead

letter office, marked, 'address illegible.'"

"_Write legibly._

"The average temper of the human race would be perceptibly sweetened

if everybody obeyed this rule. A great deal of bad writing in the

world comes simply from writing _too quickly_. Of course you reply,

'I do it to save time.' A very good object no doubt; but what right

have you to do it at your friend's expense? Isn't his time as

valuable as yours? Years ago I used to receive letters from a

friend--and very interesting letters too--written in one of the most

atrocious hands ever invented. It generally took me about a week to

read one of his letters! I used to carry it about in my pocket and

take it out at leisure times to puzzle over the riddles which

composed it--holding it in different positions, till at last the

meaning of some hopeless scrawl would flash upon me, when I at once

wrote down the English under it; and when several had thus been

guessed, the context would help me with the others till at last the

whole series of hieroglyphics was deciphered. If all one's friends

wrote like that, life would be entirely spent in reading their

letters!"

_"My Ninth Rule._--When you get to the end of a note-sheet, and find

you have more to say, take another piece of paper--a whole sheet or

a scrap, as the case may demand, but whatever you do, _don't cross_!

Remember the old proverb 'Cross-writing makes cross-reading.' 'The

_old_ proverb?' you say inquiringly. 'How old?' Why, not so _very_

ancient, I must confess. In fact--I'm afraid I invented it while

writing this paragraph. Still, you know 'old' is a _comparative_

term; I think you would be quite justified in addressing a chicken

just out of the shell as 'Old Boy!' _when compared_ with another

chicken that was only half out!"

"Don't try to have the last word," he tells us--and again, "_Don't_

fill more than a page and a half with apologies for not having

written sooner."

"_On how to end a letter_," he advises the writer to "refer to your

correspondent's last letter, and make your winding up _at least as

friendly as his_; in fact, even if a shade more friendly, it will do

no harm."

"When you take your letters to the post, _carry them in your hand_.

If you put them in your pocket, you will take a long country walk (I

speak from experience), passing the post office twice, going and

returning, and when you get home you will find them still in your

pocket."

Letter-writing was as much a part of Lewis Carroll as games, and puzzles,

and problems, and mathematics, and nonsense, and little girls. Indeed, as

we view him through the stretch of years, we find him so many-sided that

he himself would have done well to draw a new geometrical figure to

represent a nature so full of strange angles and surprising shapes. If one

is fond of looking into a kaleidoscope, and watching the ever-changing

facets and colors and designs, one would be pretty apt to understand the

constant shifting of that active mind, always on the alert for new ideas,

but steady and fixed in many good old ones, which had become firm habits.

He was fond of giving his child-friends "nuts to crack," and nothing

pleased him more than to be the center of some group of little girls,

firing his conundrums and puzzles into their minds, and watching the

bright young faces catching the glow of his thoughts. He knew just how far

to go, and when to turn some dawning idea into quaint nonsense, so that

the young mind could grasp and hold it. Dear maker of nonsense, dear

teacher and friend, dear lover of children, can they ever forget you!

CHAPTER XII.

A FAIRY RING OF GIRLS.

In a little poem called "A Sea Dirge," which Lewis Carroll wrote about

this time, we find some very strange, uncomplimentary remarks, considering

the fact that most of his vacations was spent at the seashore. Eastbourne,

in the summer time, was as much his home--during the last fifteen years of

his life--as Christ Church during the Oxford term. His pretty house in a

shady, quiet street was a familiar spot to every girl friend of his

acquaintance, and many of his closest and most interesting friendships

were begun by the sea, yet he says:

There are certain things, as a spider, a ghost,

The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three--

That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most

Is a thing they call the Sea.

Pour some salt water over the floor--

Ugly I'm sure you'll allow it to be;

Suppose it extended a mile or more,

_That's_ very like the Sea.

* * * *

I had a vision of nursery maids;

Tens of thousands passed by me--

All leading children with wooden spades,

And this way by the Sea.

Who invented those spades of wood?

Who was it cut them out of the tree?

None, I think, but an idiot could--

Or one that loved the Sea.

* * * *

If you like your coffee with sand for dregs,

A decided hint of salt in your tea,

And a fishy taste in the very eggs--

By all means choose the Sea.

And if, with these dainties to drink and eat,

You prefer not a vestige of grass or tree,

And a chronic state of wet in your feet,

Then--I recommend the Sea.

Did he mean all this, we wonder, this genial gentleman, who haunted the

seashore in search of little girls, his pockets bulging with games and

puzzles? He had also a good supply of safety-pins, in case he saw someone

who wanted to wade in the sea, but whose skirts were in her way and who

had no pin handy. Then he would go gravely up to her and present her with

one of his stock.

In the earlier days he used to go to Sandown, in the Isle of Wight, and

there he met little Gertrude Chataway, who must have been a very charming

child, for he promptly fell in love with her. This was in 1875, and, from

her description of him, he must have been a _very, very_ old

gentleman--forty-three at least. He happened to live next door to

Gertrude, and during those summer days she used to watch him with much

interest, for he had a way of throwing back his head and sniffing in the

salt air that fascinated Gertrude, whose joy bubbled over when at last he

spoke to her. The two became great friends. They used to sit for hours on

the steps of their house which led to the beach, and he would delight the

little girl with his wonderful stories, often illustrating them with a

pencil as he talked. The great charm of these stories lay in the fact that

some chance remark of Gertrude's would wind him up; some question she

asked would suggest a story, and as it spread out into "lovely nonsense"

she always felt in some way that she had helped to make it grow.

This little girl was one of the child-friends who clung to the sweet

association all her life, just as the little Liddell girls never grew

quite away from his love and interest. It was to Gertrude that he

dedicated "The Hunting of the Snark," and she was the proud possessor not

only of his friendship, but of many interesting letters, covering a period

of at least ten years, during which time Gertrude passed from little

girlhood, though he never seemed to realize the change.

Two of his prime favorites in the earlier days were Ellen Terry, the

well-known English actress, and her sister Kate, who was also an actress

of some note.

Lewis Carroll, being always very fond of the drama, found it through life

his keenest delight, and it was his good fortune to see little Ellen Terry

in the first prominent part she ever took. This was in 1856, when Mr. and

Mrs. Charles Kean played in "The Winter's Tale," and Ellen took the

child's character of _Mamillius_, the little son of the King. Lewis

Carroll was carried away with the tiny actress, and it did not take him

long after that to make her acquaintance. This no doubt began in the usual

way, a chat with the child behind the scenes, a call upon her father and

mother, and, finally, an introduction to the whole family which, being

nearly as large as his own, could not fail to interest him deeply.

There were two other little Terry girls, who attracted him and to whom he

was very kind, Florence and Marion. The boys, and there were five of them,

he never noticed of course, but the four little girls came in for a good

share of the most substantial petting. Many a day at the seaside he gave

them--these busy little actresses--many a feast in his own rooms, many a

daytime frolic, for night was their working time--not that they minded in

the least, for they loved their work. There was much talk in those days

about the harm in allowing children to act at night, when they should be

snug in their beds dreaming of fairies. But Lewis Carroll thought nothing

of the kind; he delighted in the children's acting, and he knew, being

half a child himself, that the youngsters took as much delight in their

work as he did in seeing them. He always contended that acting comes

naturally to children; from babyhood they "pretend," and if they happen,

as in Ellen Terry's case and the case of other little stage people he

knew, to be born in the profession, why, this "pretending" is the finest

kind of _play_ not _work_. So he was always on the side of the little

actors and actresses who did not want to be taken away from the theater

and put to bed.

Ellen Terry proved also to be one of his lifelong friends; the talented

actress found his praise a most precious thing, and his criticism, always

so honest, and usually so keen and true, she accepted with the grace of

the great artist. Often, too, he asked her aid for some other girl friend

with dramatic talent, and she never failed to lend a helping hand when she

could. From first to last her acting charmed him. Often he would take a

little girl to some Shakespearean treat at the theater, and would raise

her to the "seventh heaven" of delight by penciling a note to Miss Terry

asking for an interview or perhaps a photograph for his small companion,

and these requests were never refused.

Every Christmas the Rev. Charles Dodgson spent with his sisters, who since

their father's death had lived at Guildford, in a pretty house called _The

Chestnuts_. His coming at Christmas was always a great event, for of

course some very youthful ladies in the neighborhood were in a state of

suppressed excitement over his yearly arrival, which meant Christmas

jollity--with charades and tableaux and all sorts of odd and interesting

games, and, _of course_, stories.

One of his special Guildford favorites was Gaynor Simpson, to whom he

wrote several of his clever letters. In one, evidently an answer to hers,

he begged her never again to leave out the g in the name Dodgson, asking

in a very plaintive manner what _she_ would think if he left out the G in

_her_ name and called her "Aynor" instead of Gaynor.

In this same letter he confessed that he never danced except in his own

peculiar way, that the last house he danced in, the floors broke through,

but as the beams were only six inches thick, it was a very poor sort of

floor, when one came to think--that stone arches were much better for

_his_ sort of dancing.

Indeed, the poem he wrote about the sea must have been just a bit of a

joke, for it was at Margate, another seaside resort, that he met Adelaide

Paine, another of his favorites, and to her he presented a copy of "The

Hunting of the Snark," with an acrostic on her name written on the fly

leaf. This little maid was further honored by receiving a photograph, not

of Lewis Carroll, but of Mr. Dodgson, and in a note to her mother he

begged in his usual odd way that she would never let any but her intimate

friends know anything about the name of "Lewis Carroll," as he did not

wish people who had heard of him to recognize him in the street.

The friendships that were not cemented at the seaside or under the shelter

of old "Tom Quad" were very often begun in the railway train. English

trains are not like ours in America. In Lewis Carroll's time the

"first-class" accommodations were called _carriages_, in which four or

five people, often total strangers, were shut up for hours together,

actually locked in by the guard; and if one of these people chanced to be

Lewis Carroll, and another a restless, active little girl, why, in the

twinkling of an eye the sign of fellowship had flashed between them, and

they were friends.

One special friend made in this fashion was a dear little maid named

Kathleen Eschwege, who stayed a child to him always during their eighteen

years of friendship, in spite of all the changes the years brought in

their train; her marriage among the rest, on which occasion he wrote her

that as he never gave wedding presents, he hoped the inclosed he sent in

his letter she would accept as an _unwedding_ present.

This letter bore the date of January 20, 1892; five years later he wrote

to acknowledge a photograph she had sent him in January, 1892, also her

wedding-card in August of the same year. But he salved his conscience by

reminding her that a certain biscuit-box--decorated with "Looking-Glass"

pictures--which he had sent her in December, 1892, had never been

acknowledged by _her_.

Our "don's" memory sometimes played him tricks we see, especially in later

years. On one occasion, failing to recognize someone who passed him on the

street, he was much chagrined to find out that he had been the gentleman's

guest at dinner only the night before.

Another pleasant railway friendship was established with three little

Drury girls, as early as 1869. They did not know who he was until he sent

them a copy of "Alice in Wonderland"--with the following verse on the fly

leaf:

TO THREE PUZZLED LITTLE GIRLS.

(_From the Author._)

Three little maidens weary of the rail,

Three pairs of little ears listening to a tale,

Three little hands held out in readiness

For three little puzzles very hard to guess.

Three pairs of little eyes and open wonder-wide

At three little scissors lying side by side,

Three little mouths that thanked an unknown friend

For one little book he undertook to send.

Though whether they'll remember a friend or book or day--

In three little weeks is very hard to say.

Edith Rix was another favorite but apparently beyond the usual age, for

his letters to her have quite a grown-up tone, and he helped her through

many girlish quandaries with his wholesome advice.

There are scores of others--so many that their very names would mean

nothing to us unless we knew the circumstances which began the

acquaintance, and the numerous incidents which could only occur in the

company of Lewis Carroll.

As we know, there were three great influences in his life: his reverence

for holy things, his fondness for mathematics, and his love of little

girls. It is this last trait which colors our picture of him and makes him

stand forth in our minds apart from other men of his time. There have been

many great preachers and eminent mathematicians, and these brilliant men

may have loved childhood in a certain way, but to step aside from their

high places to mingle with the children would never have occurred to them.

The small girls who were "seen and not heard" dropped their eyes bashfully

when the great ones passed, and bobbed a little old-fashioned curtsy in

return for a stately preoccupied nod. But not so Lewis Carroll. No

childish eyes ever sought his in vain. His own blue ones always smiled

back, and there was something so glowing in this smile which lit up his

whole face, that children, all unconsciously, drew near the warmth of it.

His love for girls speaks well for the home-life and surroundings of his

earlier years, when in the company of his seven sisters he learned to know

girls pretty thoroughly. These girls of whom we have such scant knowledge

possessed, we are sure, some potent charm to make this "big brother"

forever afterwards the champion of little girls, and being a thoughtful

fellow, he must have watched with pleasure the way they bloomed from

childhood to girlhood and from girlhood to womanhood, in the sweet

seclusion of Croft Rectory. It was this intimacy and comradeship with his

sisters which made him so easily the intimate and comrade of so many

little girls, understanding all their traits and peculiarities and their

"girl nature" better sometimes than they did themselves.

Some of his friends moved in royal circles. Princess Beatrice, who

received the second presentation copy of "Alice in Wonderland," was one of

them; but in later years the two children of the Duchess of Albany (Queen

Victoria's daughter-in-law), Alice and the young Duke, claimed his

friendship, and despite his preference for girls, Lewis Carroll could not

help liking the lad, whose gentle disposition and studious habits set him

somewhat apart from other boys.

Near home, that is to say in Oxford, or more properly, within a stone's

throw of Christ Church itself, dwelt the Rev. E. Hatch and his bright and

interesting family of children, with all of whom Lewis Carroll was on the

most intimate terms, though his special favorite was Beatrice, better

known as Bee. This little girl came so close upon the Liddell children in

his long list of friends that she almost caught the echo of those happy

days of "Wonderland," and she has much to say about this association in

an interesting article published in the _Strand Magazine_ some years ago.

"My earliest recollections of Mr. Dodgson," she writes, "are connected

with photography. He was very fond of this art at one time, though he had

entirely given it up for many years latterly. He kept various costumes and

'properties' with which to dress us up, and of course that added to the

fun. What child would not thoroughly enjoy personating a Japanese or a

beggar child or a gypsy or an Indian? Sometimes there were excursions to

the roof of the college, which was easily accessible from the windows of

the studio. Or you might stand by your tall friend's side in the tiny dark

room, and watch him while he poured the contents of several little

strong-smelling bottles on the glass picture of yourself that looked so

funny with its black face; and when you grew tired of this there were many

delights to be found in the cupboards in the big room downstairs. Musical

boxes of different colors and different tunes, the dear old woolly bear

that walked when he was wound up, toys, picture-books, and packets of

photographs of other children, who had also enjoyed these mornings of

bliss.

"The following letter written to me in 1873, about a large wax doll that

Mr. Dodgson had presented to me, and which I left behind when I went on a

visit from home, is an interesting specimen. Emily and Mabel [referred to

in the letter] were other dolls of mine and known also by him, but though

they have long since departed this life, I need hardly say I still possess

_the_ doll 'Alice.'

"'My dear Birdie: I met her just outside Tom Gate, walking very stiffly

and I think she was trying to find her way to my rooms. So I said, "Why

have you come here without Birdie?" So she said, "Birdie's gone! and

Emily's gone! and Mabel isn't kind to me!"' And two little waxy tears came

running down her cheeks.

"Why, how stupid of me! I've never told who it was all the time! It was

your own doll. I was very glad to see her, and took her to my room, and

gave her some Vesta matches to eat, and a cup of nice melted wax to drink,

for the poor little thing was very hungry and thirsty after her long walk.

So I said, 'Come and sit by the fire and let's have a comfortable chat?'

'Oh, no! no!' she said, 'I'd _much_ rather not; you know I do melt so

_very_ easily!' And she made me take her quite to the other side of the

room, where it was _very_ cold; and then she sat on my knee and fanned

herself with a pen-wiper, because she said she was afraid the end of her

nose was beginning to melt.

"'You have no _idea_ how careful we have to be--we dolls,' she said. 'Why,

there was a sister of mine--would you believe it?--she went up to the fire

to warm her hands, and one of her hands dropped right off! There now!' 'Of

course it dropped _right_ off,' I said, 'because it was the _right_

hand.' 'And how do you know it was the _right_ hand, Mister Carroll?' the

doll said. So I said, 'I think it must have been the _right_ hand because

the other hand was _left_.'

"The doll said, 'I shan't laugh. It's a very bad joke. Why, even a common

wooden doll could make a better joke than that. And besides they've made

my mouth so stiff and hard that I _can't_ laugh if I try ever so much.'

'Don't be cross about it,' I said, 'but tell me this: I'm going to give

Birdie and the other children one photograph each, whichever they choose;

which do you think Birdie will choose?' 'I don't know,' said the doll;

'you'd better ask her!' So I took her home in a hansom cab. Which would

you like, do you think? Arthur as Cupid? or Arthur and Wilfred together?

or you and Ethel as beggar children? or Ethel standing on a box? or, one

of yourself?

"'Your affectionate friend,

"'LEWIS CARROLL.'"

There were, as you see, special occasions when boys were accepted, or

rather tolerated, and special boys with whom he exchanged courtesies from

time to time. The little Hatch boys were favored, we cannot say for their

own small sakes, but because there were two little sisters and _their_

feelings had to be considered. Lewis Carroll even took their pictures, and

went so far as to write a little prologue for Beatrice and her brother

Wilfred. The "grown-ups" were to give some private theatricals which the

children were to introduce in the following dialogue:

(Enter Beatrice leading Wilfred. She leaves him at center [front],

and after going round on tiptoe to make sure they are not overheard,

returns and takes his arm.)

B. Wiffie! I'm _sure_ that something is the matter!

All day there's been-oh, such a fuss and clatter!

Mamma's been trying on a funny dress--

I never saw the house in such a mess!

(_Puts her arms around his neck._)

_Is_ there a secret, Wiffie?

W. (_Shaking her off._) Yes, of course!

B. And you won't tell it? (_Whimpers._) Then you're very cross!

(_Turns away from him and clasps her hands ecstatically._)

I'm sure of this! It's something _quite_ uncommon!

W. (Stretching up his arms with a mock heroic air.)

Oh, Curiosity! Thy name is woman!

(_Puts his arm round her coaxingly._)

Well, Birdie, then I'll tell! (_Mysteriously._)

What should you say

If they were going to act--a little play?

B. (_Jumping up and clapping her hands._)

I'd say, "How nice!"

W. (_Pointing to audience._)

But will it please the rest?

B. Oh, yes! Because, you know, they'll do their best!

(_Turns to audience._)

You'll praise them, won't you, when you've seen the play?

Just say, "How nice!" before you go away!

(_They run away hand in hand._)

Of course the little girl had the last word, but then, as Lewis Carroll

himself would say, "Little girls usually had."

This prologue, Miss Hatch tells us, was Lewis Carroll's only attempt in

the dramatic line, and the two tots made a pretty picture as they ran off

the stage.

"Mr. Dodgson's chief form of entertaining," writes Miss Hatch, "was giving

dinner parties. Do not misunderstand me, nor picture to yourself a long

row of guests on either side of a gayly-decorated table. Mr. Dodgson's

theory was that it was much more enjoyable to have your friends singly,

consequently these 'dinner parties,' as he liked to call them, consisted

almost always of one guest only, and that one a child friend. One of his

charming and characteristic little notes, written in his clear writing,

often on a half sheet of note paper and signed with the C.L.D. monogram

[Monogram: CLD] would arrive, containing an invitation, of which the

following is a specimen." [Though written when Beatrice was no longer a

little girl.]

Ch. Ch. Nov. 21, '96.

"'MY DEAR BEE:--The reason I have for so long a time not visited the

hive is a _logical_ one," (he was busy on his symbolic _Logic_),

"'but is not (as you might imagine) that I think there is no more

honey in it! Will you come and dine with me? Any day would suit me,

and I would fetch you at 6:30.

"'Ever your affectionate

"'C.L.D.'

"Let us suppose this invitation has been accepted.... After turning in at

the door of No. 7 staircase, and mounting a rather steep and winding

stair, we find ourselves outside a heavy black door, of somewhat

prisonlike appearance, over which is painted 'The Rev. C. L. Dodgson.'

Then a passage, then a door with glass panels, and at last we reach the

familiar room that we love so well. It is large and lofty and extremely

cheerful-looking. All around the walls are bookcases and under them the

cupboards of which I have spoken, and which even now we long to see opened

that they may pour out their treasures.

"Opposite to the big window with its cushioned seat is the fireplace; and

this is worthy of some notice on account of the lovely red tiles which

represent the story of 'The Hunting of the Snark.' Over the mantelpiece

hang three painted portraits of child friends, the one in the middle being

the picture of a little girl in a blue cap and coat who is carrying a pair

of skates."

This picture is a fine likeness of Xie (Alexandra) Kitchin, the little

daughter of the Dean of Durham, another of his Oxford favorites.

"Mr. Dodgson," continues Miss Hatch, "seats his guest in a corner of the

red sofa, in front of the fireplace, and the few minutes before dinner are

occupied with anecdotes about other child friends, small or grown up, or

anything in particular that has happened to himself.... Dinner is served

in the smaller room, which is also filled with bookcases and books....

Those who have had the privilege of enjoying a college dinner need not be

told how excellent it is.... The rest of the evening slips away very

quickly, there is so much to be shown. You may play a game--one of Mr.

Dodgson's own invention-- ... or you may see pictures, lovely drawings of

fairies, whom your host tells you 'you can't be sure don't really exist.'

Or you may have music if you wish it."

This was of course before the days of the phonograph, but Lewis Carroll

had the next best thing, which Miss Hatch describes as an organette, in a

large square box, through the side of which a handle is affixed. "Another

box holds the tunes, circular perforated cards, all carefully catalogued

by their owner. The picture of the author of 'Alice' keenly enjoying every

note as he solemnly turns the handle, and raises or closes the lid of the

box to vary the sound, is more worthy of your delight than the music

itself. Never was there a more delightful host for a 'dinner-party' or one

who took such pains for your entertainment, fresh and interesting to the

last."

One of the first things a little girl learned in her intercourse with

Lewis Carroll was to be methodical and orderly, as he was himself, in the

arrangement of papers, photographs, and books; he kept lists and registers

of everything. Miss Hatch tells of a wonderful letter register of his own

invention "that not only recorded the names of his correspondents and the

dates of their letters, but also noted the contents of each communication,

so that in a few seconds he could tell you what you had written to him

about on a certain day in years gone by.

"Another register contained a list of every menu supplied to every guest

who dined at Mr. Dodgson's table. Yet," she explains, "his dinners were

simple enough, never more than two courses. But everything that he did

must be done in the most perfect manner possible, and the same care and

attention would be given to other people's affairs, if in any way he could

assist or give them pleasure.

"If he took you up to London to see a play, you were no sooner seated in

the railway carriage than a game was produced from his bag and all the

occupants were invited to join in playing a kind of 'Halma' or 'draughts'

of his own invention, on the little wooden board that had been specially

made at his design for railway use, with 'men' warranted not to tumble

down, because they fitted into little holes in the board."

Children, little girls especially, remember through life the numberless

small kindnesses that are shown to them. Is it any wonder, then, that the

name of Lewis Carroll is held in such loving memory by the scores of

little girls he drew about him? Beatrice Hatch was only one among many to

feel the warmth of his love. This quiet, almost solitary, man whose home

was in the shadow of a great college, whose daily life was such a long

walk of dull routine, could yet find time to make his own sunshine and to

draw others into the light of it.

But the children did _their_ part too. He grew dependent on them as the

years rolled on; a fairy circle of girls was always drawing him to them,

and he was made one of them. They told him their childish secrets feeling

sure of a ready sympathy and a quick appreciation. He seemed to know his

way instinctively to a girl's heart; she felt for him an affection, half

of comradeship, half of reverence, for there was something inspiring in

the fearless carriage of the head, the clear, serene look in the eyes,

that seemed to pierce far ahead upon the path over which their own young

feet were stumbling, perhaps.

With the passing of the years, some of the seven sisters married, and a

fair crop of nieces and nephews shot up around him, also some small

cousins in whom he took a deep interest. It is to one of these that he

dedicated his poem called "Matilda Jane," in honor of the doll who bore

the name, which meant nothing in the world to such an unresponsive bit of

doll-dom.

Matilda Jane, you never look

At any toy or picture book;

I show you pretty things in vain,

You must be blind, Matilda Jane!

I ask you riddles, tell you tales,

But all our conversation fails;

You never answer me again,

I fear you're dumb, Matilda Jane!

Matilda, darling, when I call,

You never seem to hear at all;

I shout with all my might and main,

But you're _so_ deaf, Matilda Jane!

Matilda Jane, you needn't mind,

For though you're deaf and dumb and blind,

There's some one loves you, it is plain,

And that is _me_, Matilda Jane!

A little tender-hearted, ungrammatical, motherly "_me_"--how well the

writer knew the small "Bessie" whose affection for this doll inspired the

verses!

In after years when more serious work held him close to his study, and he

made a point of declining all invitations, he took care that no small girl

should be put on his black list. "If," says Miss Hatch, "you were very

anxious to get him to come to your house on any particular day, the only

chance was _not_ to _invite_ him, but only to inform him that you would be

at home; otherwise he would say 'As you have _invited_ me, I cannot come,

for I have made a rule to decline all _invitations_, but I will come the

next day,'" and in answer to an invitation to tea, he wrote her in his

whimsical way:

"What an awful proposition! To drink tea from four to six would tax the

constitution even of a hardened tea-drinker. For me, who hardly ever

touches it, it would probably be fatal."

If only we could read half the clever letters which passed between Lewis

Carroll and his girl friends, what a volume of wit and humor, of sound

common sense, of clever nonsense we should find! Yet behind it all, that

underlying seriousness which made his friendship so precious to those who

were so fortunate as to possess it. The "little girl" whose loving picture

of him tells us so much lived near him all her life; she felt his

influence in all the little things that go to make up a child's day, long

after the real childhood had passed her by. And so with all the girls who

knew and loved him, and even those to whom his name was but a suggestion

of what he really was.

Surely this fairy ring of girls encircles the English-speaking world, the

girls whom Lewis Carroll loved, the hundreds he knew, the millions he had

never seen.

CHAPTER XIII.

"ALICE" ON THE STAGE AND OFF.

When the question of dramatizing the "Alice" books was placed before the

author, by Mr. Savile Clarke, who was to undertake the work, he consented

gladly enough. It was to be an operetta of two acts; the libretto, or

story part, by Mr. Clarke himself, the music by Mr. Walter Slaughter, and

the only condition Lewis Carroll made was that nothing should be written

or acted which should in any way be unsuitable for children.

Of course, everything was done under his eye, and he wrote an extra song

for the ghosts of the _Oysters_, who had been eaten by the _Walrus_ and

the _Carpenter_; he also finished that poetic gem, "'Tis the Voice of the

Lobster."

"'Tis the voice of the Lobster," I heard him declare,

"You 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 talks with the utmost contempt of a shark;

But when the tide rises and sharks are around,

His words have a timid and tremulous sound.

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, for his 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----

That is how the poem originally ended, but musically that would never do,

so the last two lines were altered in this fashion:

"But the Panther obtained both the fork and the knife,

So when _he_ lost his temper, the Owl lost his life,"

and a rousing little song it made.

The play was produced at the Prince of Wales' Theater, during Christmas

week of 1886, where it was a great success. Lewis Carroll himself

specially praises the Wonderland act, notably the Mad Tea Party. The

_Hatter_ was finely done by Mr. Sidney Harcourt, the _Dormouse_ by little

Dorothy d'Alcourt, aged six-and-a-half, and Phoebe Carlo, he tells us,

was a "splendid _Alice_."

He went many times to see his "dream child" on the stage, and was always

very kind to the little actresses, whose dainty work made _his_ work such

a success. Phoebe Carlo became a very privileged young person and

enjoyed many treats of his giving, to say nothing of a personal gift of a

copy of "Alice" from the delighted author.

After the London season, the play was taken through the English provinces

and was much appreciated wherever it went. On one occasion a company gave

a week's performance at Brighton, and Lewis Carroll happening to be there

one afternoon, came across three of the small actresses down on the beach

and spent several hours with them. "Happy, healthy little girls" he

called them, and no doubt that beautiful afternoon they had the time of

their lives.

These children, he found--and he had made the subject quite a study--had

been acting every day in the week, and twice on the day before he met

them, and yet were energetic enough to get up each morning at seven for a

sea bath, to run races on the pier, and to be quite ready for another

performance that night.

On December 26, 1888, there was an elaborate revival of "Alice" at the

Royal Globe Theater. In the _London Times_ the next morning appeared this

notice:

"'Alice in Wonderland,' having failed to exhaust its popularity at

the Prince of Wales' Theater, has been revived at the Globe for a

series of matinees during the holiday season. Many members of the old

cast remain in the bill, but a new 'Alice' is presented in Miss Isa

Bowman, who is not only a wonderful actress for her years, but also a

nimble dancer.

"In its new surroundings the fantastic scenes of the story--so

cleverly transferred from the book to the stage by Mr. Savile

Clarke--lose nothing of their original brightness and humor. 'Alice's

Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass' have the rare

charm of freshness for children and for their elders, and the many

strange personages concerned--the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar, the

Cheshire Cat, the Hatter, the Dormouse, the Gryphon, the Mock Turtle,

the Red and White Kings and Queens, the Walrus, Humpty-Dumpty,

Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and all the rest of them--being seen at

home, so to speak, and not on parade as in an ordinary pantomime.

Even the dreaded Jabberwock pays an unconventional visit to the

company from the 'flies,' and his appearance will not be readily

forgotten. As before, Mr. Walter Slaughter's music is an agreeable

element to the performance...."

The programme of this performance certainly spreads a feast before the

children's eyes. First of all, think of a forest in autumn! (They had to

change the season a little to get the bright colors of red and yellow.)

Here it is that _Alice_ falls asleep and the Elves sing to her. Then there

is the awakening in Wonderland--such a Wonderland as few children dreamed

of. And then all our favorites appear and do just the things we always

thought they would do if they had the chance. The _Cheshire Cat_ grins and

vanishes, and then the grin appears without the cat, and then the cat

grows behind the grin, and everything is so impossible and wonderful that

one shivers with delight. There is a good old fairy tale that every child

knows; it is called "Oh! if I could but shiver!" and everyone who really

enjoys a fairy tale understands the feeling--the delight of shivering--to

see the Jabberwock pass before you in all his terrifying, delicious

ugliness, flapping his huge wings, rolling his bulging eyes, and opening

and shutting those dreadful jaws of his; and yet to know he isn't

"_really, real_" any more than Sir John Tenniel's picture of him in the

dear old "Alice" book at home, that you can actually go with _Alice_

straight into Wonderland and back again, safe and sound, and really see

what happened just as she did, and actually squeeze through into

Looking-Glass Land, all made so delightfully possible by clever scenery

and acting.

A more charming, dainty little "Alice" never danced herself into the heart

of anyone as Isa Bowman did into the heart of Lewis Carroll. She came into

his life when all of his best-beloved children had passed forever beyond

the portals of childhood, never to return; loved more in these later days

for the memory of what they had been. But here was a child who aroused all

the associations of earlier years, who had made "Alice" real again, whose

clever acting gave just that dreamlike, elfin touch which the real Alice

of Long Ago had suggested; a sweet-natured, lovable, most attractive

child, the child perhaps who won his deepest affections because she came

to him when the others had vanished, and clung to him in the twilight.

There must have been several little Bowmans. We know of four little

sisters--Isa, Emsie, Nellie, and Maggie, and Master Charles Bowman was the

_Cheshire Cat_ in the revival of "Alice in Wonderland," and to all of

these--we are considering the girls of course, the boy never

counted--Lewis Carroll showed his sweetest, most lovable side. They called

him "Uncle," and a more devoted uncle they could not possibly have found.

As for Isa herself, there was a special niche all her own; she was, as he

often told her, "_his_ little girl," and in a loving memoir of him she has

given to the world of children a beautiful picture of what he really was.

There was something in the grip of his firm white hands, in his glance so

deeply sympathetic, so tender and kind, that always stirred the little

girl just as her sharp eyes noted a certain peculiarity in his walk. His

stammer also impressed her, for it generally came when he least expected

it, and though he tried all his life to cure it, he never succeeded.

His shyness, too, was very noticeable, not so much with children, except

just at first until he knew them well, but with grown people he was, as

she put it, "almost old-maidishly prim in his manner." This shyness was

shown in many ways, particularly in a morbid horror of having his picture

taken. As fond as he was of taking other people, he dreaded seeing his own

photograph among strangers, and once when Isa herself made a caricature of

him, he suddenly got up from his seat, took the drawing out of her hands,

tore it in small pieces and threw it into the fire without a word; then he

caught the frightened little girl in his strong arms and kissed her

passionately, his face, at first so flushed and angry, softening with a

tender light.

Many and many a happy time she spent with him at Oxford. He found rooms

for her just outside the college gates, and a nice comfortable dame to

take charge of her. The long happy days were spent in his rooms, and every

night at nine she was taken over to the little house in St. Aldates ("St.

Olds") and put to bed by the landlady.

In the morning the deep notes of "Great Tom" woke her and then began

another lovely day with her "Uncle." She speaks of two tiny turret rooms,

one on each side of his staircase in Christ Church. "He used to tell me,"

she writes, "that when I grew up and became married, he would give me the

two little rooms, so that if I ever disagreed with my husband, we could

each of us retire to a turret until we had made up our quarrel."

She, too, was fascinated by his collection of music-boxes, the finest, she

thought, to be found anywhere in the world. "There were big black ebony

boxes with glass tops, through which you could see all the works. There

was a big box with a handle, which it was quite hard exercise for a little

girl to turn, and there must have been twenty or thirty little ones which

could only play one tune. Sometimes one of the musical boxes would not

play properly and then I always got tremendously excited. Uncle used to

go to a drawer in the table and produce a box of little screw-drivers and

punches, and while I sat on his knee, he would unscrew the lid and take

out the wheels to see what was the matter. He must have been a clever

mechanist, for the result was always the same--after a longer or shorter

period, the music began again. Sometimes, when the musical boxes had

played all their tunes, he used to put them in the box backwards, and was

as pleased as I was at the comic effect of the music 'standing on its

head,' as he phrased it.

"There was another and very wonderful toy which he sometimes produced for

me, and this was known as 'The Bat.' The ceilings of the rooms in which he

lived were very high, indeed, and admirably suited for the purposes of

'The Bat.' It was an ingeniously constructed toy of gauze and wire, which

actually flew about the room like a bat. It was worked by a piece of

twisted elastic, and it could fly for about half a minute. I was always a

little afraid of this toy because it was too lifelike, but there was a

fearful joy in it. When the music boxes began to pall, he would get up

from his chair and look at me with a knowing smile. I always knew what was

coming, even before he began to speak, and I used to dance up and down in

tremendous anticipation.

"'Isa, my darling,' he would say, 'once upon a time there was someone

called Bob, the Bat! and he lived in the top left-hand drawer of the

writing table. What could he do when Uncle wound him up?'"

"And then I would squeak out breathlessly: 'He could really _fly_!'"

And Bob the Bat had many wonderful adventures. She tells us how, on a hot

summer morning when the window was wide open, Bob flew out into the garden

and landed in a bowl of salad that one of the servants was carrying to

someone's room. The poor fellow was so frightened by this sudden

apparition that he promptly dropped the bowl, breaking it into countless

pieces.

Lewis Carroll never liked "his little girl" to exaggerate. "I remember,"

she tells us, "how annoyed he once was when, after a morning's sea bathing

at Eastbourne, I exclaimed: 'Oh, this salt water, it always makes my hair

as stiff as a poker!'

"He impressed upon me quite irritably that no little girl's hair could

ever possibly get as _stiff as a poker_. 'If you had said "as stiff as

wires" it would have been more like it, but even that would have been an

exaggeration.' And then seeing I was a little frightened, he drew for me a

picture of 'The little girl called Isa, whose hair turned into pokers

because she was always exaggerating things.'

"'I nearly died of laughing' was another expression that he particularly

disliked; in fact, any form of exaggeration generally called from him a

reproof, though he was sometimes content to make fun. For instance, my

sisters and I had sent him 'millions of kisses' in a letter.' Here is his

answer:

"'Ch. Ch. Oxford. Ap. 14, 1890.

"'MY OWN DARLING:

"'It's all very well for you and Nellie and Emsie to write in

millions of hugs and kisses, but please consider the _time_ it would

occupy your poor old very busy uncle! Try hugging and kissing Emsie

for a minute by the watch and I don't think you'll manage it more

than 20 times a minute. "Millions" must mean two millions at least.'"

Then follows a characteristic example in arithmetic:

20)2,000,000 hugs and kisses.

------------

60)100,000 minutes.

----------

12)1,666 hours.

--------

6)138 days (at twelve hours a day).

-----

23 weeks.

"I couldn't go on hugging and kissing more than 12 hours a day; and I

wouldn't like to spend _Sundays_ that way. So you see it would take

_23_ weeks of hard work. Really, my dear child, I cannot spare the

time.

"Why haven't I written since my last letter? Why, how could I have

written _since the last time I did_ write? Now you just try it with

kissing. Go and kiss Nellie, from me, several times, and take care to

manage it so as to have kissed her _since the last time you did_ kiss

her. Now go back to your place and I'll question you.

"'Have you kissed her several times?'

"'Yes, darling Uncle.'

"'What o'clock was it when you gave her the _last_ kiss?'

"'Five minutes past 10, Uncle.'

"'Very well, now, have you kissed her _since_?'

"'Well--I--ahem! ahem! ahem! (excuse me, Uncle, I've got a bad cough)

I--think--that--I--that is, you know, I--'

"'Yes, I see! "Isa" begins with "I," and it seems to me as if she was

going to _end_ with "I" _this_ time!'"

The rest of the letter refers to Isa's visit to America, when she

went to play the little _Duke of York_ in "Richard III."

"Mind you don't write me from there," he warns her. "Please,

_please_, no more horrid letters from you! I _do_ hate them so! And

as for kissing them when I get them, why, I'd just as soon

kiss--kiss--kiss--_you_, you tiresome thing! So there now!

"Thank you very much for those 2 photographs--I liked

them--hum--_pretty_ well. I can't honestly say I thought them the

very best I had ever seen.

"Please give my kindest regards to your mother, and 1/2 of a kiss to

Nellie, and 1/200 of a kiss to Emsie, 1/2000000 of a kiss to

yourself. So with fondest love, I am, my darling,

"Your loving Uncle,

"C. L. DODGSON."

And at the end of this letter, teeming with fun and laughter, could

anything be sweeter than this postscript?

"I've thought about that little prayer you asked me to write for Nellie

and Emsie. But I would like first to have the words of the one I wrote for

_you_, and the words of what they say _now_, if they say any. And then I

will pray to our Heavenly Father to help me to write a prayer that will be

really fit for them to use."

In letter-writing, and even in his story-telling, Lewis Carroll made

frequent use of italics. His own speech was so emphatic that his writing

would have looked odd without them, and many of his cleverest bits of

nonsense would have been lost but for their aid.

Another time Isa ended a letter to him with "All join me in lufs and

kisses." Now Miss Isa was away on a visit and had no one near to join her

in such a message, but that is what she would have put had she been at

home, and this is the letter he wrote in reply:

"7 Lushington Road, Eastbourne,

"Aug. 30, '90.

"Oh, you naughty, naughty, bad, wicked little girl! You forgot to put

a stamp on your letter, and your poor old Uncle had to pay

_Twopence_! His _last_ Twopence! Think of that. I shall punish you

severely for this, once I get you here. So tremble! Do you hear? Be

good enough to tremble!

"I've only time for one question to-day. Who in the world are the

'all' that join you in 'lufs and kisses'? Weren't you fancying you

were at home and sending messages (as people constantly do) from

Nellie and Emsie, without their having given any? It isn't a good

plan--that sending messages people haven't given. I don't mean it's

in the least _untruthful_, because everybody knows how commonly they

are sent without having been given; but it lessens the pleasure of

receiving messages. My sisters write to me 'with best love from all.'

I know it isn't true, so don't value it much. The other day the

husband of one of my 'child-friends' (who always writes 'your

loving') wrote to me and ended with 'Ethel joins me in kindest

regards.' In my answer I said (of course in fun)--'I am not going to

send Ethel kindest regards, so I won't send her any message _at

all_.' Then she wrote to say she didn't even know he was writing. 'Of

course I would have sent best love,' and she added that she had

given her husband a piece of her mind. Poor Husband!

"Your always loving Uncle,

"C.L.D."

These initials were always joined as a monogram and written backward,

thus, [Monogram: CLD], which no doubt, after the years of practice he had,

he dashed off with an easy flourish. His general writing was not very

legible, but when he was writing for the press he was very careful. "Why

should the printers have to work overtime because my letters are

ill-formed and my words run into each other?" he once said, and Miss

Bowman has put in her little volume the facsimile of a diary he once wrote

for her, where every letter was carefully formed so that Isa could read

every word herself.

"They were happy days," she writes, "those days in Oxford, spent with the

most fascinating companion that a child could have. In our walks about the

old town, in our visits to the Cathedral or Chapel Hall, in our visits to

his friends, he was an ideal companion, but I think I was always happiest

when we came back to his rooms and had tea alone; when the fire glow (it

was always winter when I stayed in Oxford) threw fantastic shadows about

the quaint room, and the thoughts of the prosiest people must have

wandered a little into fairyland. The shifting firelight seemed almost to

etherealize that kindly face, and as the wonderful stories fell from his

lips, and his eyes lighted on me with the sweetest smile that ever a man

wore, I was conscious of a love and reverence for Charles Dodgson that

became nearly an adoration."

"He was very particular," she tells us, "about his tea, which he always

made himself, and in order that it should draw properly he would walk

about the room, swinging the teapot from side to side, for exactly ten

minutes. The idea of the grave professor promenading his book-lined study

and carefully waving a teapot to and fro may seem ridiculous, but all the

minutiae of life received an extreme attention at his hands."

The diary referred to, which he so carefully printed for Isa, covered

several days' visit to Oxford in 1888, which oddly enough happened to be

in midsummer, and being her first, was never forgotten. It was written in

six "chapters" and jotted down faithfully the happenings of each day. What

little girl could resist the feast of fun and frolic he had planned for

those happy days!

First, he met her at Paddington station; then he took her to see a

panorama of the Falls of Niagara, after which they had dinner with a Mrs.

Dymes, and two of her children, Helen and Maud, went with them to Terry's

Theater to see "Little Lord Fauntleroy" played by Vera Beringer, another

little actress friend of Lewis Carroll. After this they all took the

Metropolitan railway; the little Dymes girls got off at their station, but

Isa and the Aged Aged Man, as he called himself, went on to Oxford. There

they saw everything to be seen, beginning with Christ Church, where the

"A.A.M." lived, and here and there Lewis Carroll managed to throw bits of

history into the funny little diary. They saw all the colleges, and Christ

Church Meadow, and the barges which the Oxford crews used as boathouses,

and took long walks, and went to St. Mary's Church on Sunday, and lots of

other interesting things.

Every year she stayed a while with him at Eastbourne, where she tells us

she was even happier if possible. Her day at Eastbourne began very early.

Her room faced his, and after she was dressed in the morning she would

steal into the little passage quiet as a mouse, and sit on the top stair,

her eye on his closed door, watching for the signal of admission into his

room; this was a newspaper pushed under his door. The moment she saw that,

she was at liberty to rush in and fling herself upon him, after which

excitement they went down to breakfast. Then he read a chapter from the

Bible and made her tell it to him afterwards as a story of her own,

beginning always with, "Once upon a time." After which there was a daily

visit to the swimming-bath followed by one to the dentist--he always

insisted on this, going himself quite as regularly.

After lunch, which with him consisted of a glass of sherry and a biscuit,

while little Miss Isa ate a good substantial dinner, there was a game of

backgammon, of which he was very fond, and then a long, long walk to the

top of Beachy Head, which Isa hated. She says:

"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 in these walks. I used to be

very fond of flowers and animals also. A pretty dog or a hedge of

honeysuckle was always a pleasant event upon our 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....

He knew children so thoroughly and well, that it is all the stranger that

he did not care for things that generally attract them so much.... When I

was in raptures over a poppy or a dog-rose, he would try hard to be as

interested as I was, but even to my childish eyes it was an 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 folklore that was attached to it, and not because of the

beauty of the flower itself.

"... One day while we sat under a great tree, and the hum of the myriad

insect life rivaled 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 it came by

its 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 'foxgloves,' the name that everyone uses now."

This special walk always ended in the coastguard's house, where they

partook of tea and rock cake, and here most of his prettiest stories were

told. The most thrilling part occurred when "the children came to a deep

dark wood," always described with a solemn dropping of the voice; by that

Isa knew that the exciting part was coming, then she crept nearer to him,

and he held her close while he finished the tale. Isa, as was quite

natural, was a most dramatic little person, so she always knew what

emotions would suit the occasion, and used them like the clever little

actress that she was.

We find something very beautiful in this intimacy between the grave

scholar and the light-hearted, innocent little girl, who used to love to

watch him in some of those deep silences which neither cared to break.

This small maid understood his every mood. A beautiful sunset, she tells

us, touched him deeply. He would take off his hat and let the wind toss

his hair, and look seaward with a very grave face. Once she saw tears in

his eyes, and he gripped her hand very hard as they turned away.

Perhaps, what caught her childish fancy more than anything else, was his

observance of Sunday. He always took Isa twice to church, and she went

because she wanted to go; he did not believe in forcing children in such

matters, but he made a point of slipping some interesting little book in

his pocket, so in case she got tired, or the sermon was beyond her, she

would have something pleasant to do instead of staring idly about the

church or falling asleep, which was just as bad. Another peculiarity, she

tells us, was his habit of keeping seated at the entrance of the choir. He

contended that the rising of the congregation made the choir-boys

conceited.

One could go on telling anecdotes of Lewis Carroll and this well-beloved

child, but of a truth his own letters will show far better than any

description how he regarded this "star" child of his. So far as her acting

went, he never spared either praise or criticism where he thought it just.

Here is a letter criticising her acting as the little _Duke of York_:

"Ch. Ch. Oxford. Ap. 4, '89.

"MY LORD DUKE:--The photographs your Grace did me the honor 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 darling Isa'? Which do you like best?

"Now, I'm gong to find fault with my pet about her acting. What's the

good of an old Uncle like me except to find fault?"

Then follows some excellent criticism on the proper emphasis of

words, explained so that the smallest child could understand; he also

notes some mispronounced words, and then he adds:

"One thing more. (What an impertinent 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 forget _yourself_ enough. It was

not so much a real prince talking to his brother and uncle; it was

Isa Bowman talking to people she didn't care much 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 there was

any audience. If you ever get 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 is 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."

The crosses were unmistakably kisses. He was certainly a most affectionate

"Uncle." He rarely signed his name "Charles." It was only on special

occasions and to very "special" people.

Here is another letter written to Isa's sister Nellie, thanking her for a

"tidy" she made him. (He called it an Antimacassar.) "The only ordinary

thing about it," Isa tells us, "is the date." The letter reads backward.

One has to begin at the very bottom and read up, instead of reading from

the top downward:

"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, Nellie

dear my."

He had often written a looking-glass letter which could only be read by

holding it up to a mirror, but this sort of writing was a new departure.

In one of her letters Isa sent "sacks full of love and baskets full of

kisses."

"How badly you _do_ spell your words!" he answered her. "I _was_ so

puzzled about the 'sacks full of love and baskets full of kisses.' But at

last I made out that, of course, you meant a 'sack full of _gloves_ and a

basket full of _kittens_.'" Then he composed a regular nonsense story on

the subject. Isa and her sisters called it the "glove and kitten letter"

and read it over and over with much delight, for it was full of quaint

fancies, such as Lewis Carroll loved to shower upon the children.

When "Bootle's Baby" was put upon the stage, Maggie Bowman, though but a

tiny child, played the part of _Mignon_, the little lost girl, who walked

into the hearts of the soldiers, and especially one young fellow, to whom

she clung most of all. Lewis Carroll, besides taking a personal interest

in Maggie herself, was charmed with the play, which appealed to him

strongly, so when little Maggie came to Oxford with the company she was

treated like a queen. She stayed four days, during which time her "Uncle"

took her to see everything worth looking at, and made a rhyming diary for

her which he called--

MAGGIE'S VISIT TO OXFORD.

When Maggie once to Oxford came

On tour as "Bootle's Baby,"

She said: "I'll see this place of fame,

However dull the day be!"

So with her friend she visited

The sights that it was rich in,

And first of all she poked her head

Inside the Christ Church Kitchen.

The cooks around that little child

Stood waiting in a ring;

And every time that Maggie smiled,

Those cooks began to sing--

Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom!

"Roast, boil, and bake,

For Maggie's sake!

Bring cutlets fine

For _her_ to dine;

Meringues so sweet

For _her_ to eat--

For Maggie may be

Bootle's Baby."

There are a great many verses describing her walks and what she saw, among

other wonders "a lovely Pussy Cat."

And everywhere that Maggie went

That Cat was sure to go--

Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom!

"Miaow! Miaow!

Come make your bow!

Take off your hats,

Ye Pussy Cats!

And purr and purr

To welcome _her_--

For Maggie may be

Bootle's Baby!"

So back to Christ Church-not too late

For them to go and see

A Christ Church Undergraduate,

Who gave them cakes and tea.

* * * *

In Magdalen Park the deer are wild

With joy that Maggie brings

Some bread, a friend had given the child,

To feed the pretty things.

They flock round Maggie without fear,

They breakfast and they lunch,

They dine, they sup, those happy deer--

Still as they munch and munch,

Shouting the Battle-cry of Freedom!

"Yes, deer are we,

And dear is she.

We love this child

So sweet and mild:

We all are fed

With Maggie's bread--

For Maggie may be

Bootle's Baby!"

* * * *

They met a Bishop on their way--

A Bishop large as life--

With loving smile that seemed to say

"Will Maggie be my wife?"

Maggie thought _not_, because you see

She was so _very_ young,

And he was old as old could be--

So Maggie held her tongue.

"My Lord, she's Bootle's Baby; we

Are going up and down,"

Her friend explained, "that she may see

The sights of Oxford-town."

"Now, say what kind of place it is!"

The Bishop gayly cried,

"The best place in the Provinces!"

The little maid replied.

* * * *

Away next morning Maggie went

From Oxford-town; but yet

The happy hours she there had spent

She could not soon forget.

* * * *

"Oxford, good-bye!

She seemed to sigh,

You dear old City

With gardens pretty,

And lawns and flowers

And College towers,

And Tom's great Bell,

Farewell! farewell!

For Maggie may be

Bootle's Baby!"

Here is just a piece of a letter which shows that Lewis Carroll could

tease when he liked. It is evident that Isa washed to buy the "Alice" book

in French, to give to a friend, so she naively wrote to headquarters to

ask the price. This is the reply:

"Eastbourne.

"MY OWN DARLING ISA,--The value of a copy of the French 'Alice' is

L45: but, as you want the 'cheapest' kind, and as you are a great

friend of mine, and as I am of a very noble, generous disposition, I

have made up my mind to a _great_ sacrifice, and have taken L3, 10s,

0d, off the price, so that you do not owe me more than L41, 10s, 0d,

and this you can pay me, in gold or bank notes, _as soon as you ever

like_. Oh, dear! I wonder why I write such nonsense! Can you explain

to me, my pet, how it happens that when I take up my pen to write a

letter to _you_, it won't write sense. Do you think the rule is that

when the pen finds it has to write to a nonsensical, good-for-nothing

child it sets to work to write a nonsensical, good-for-nothing

letter? Well, now I'll tell you the real truth. As Miss Kitty Wilson

is a dear friend of yours, of course she's a _sort_ of a friend of

mine. So I thought (in my vanity) 'perhaps she would like to have a

copy "from the author" with her name written in it.' So I sent her

one--but I hope she'll understand that I do it because she's _your_

friend, for you see I had never _heard_ of her before; so I wouldn't

have any other reason."

When he published his last long story, "Sylvie and Bruno," the dedication

was to her, an acrostic on her name; but as "Sylvie and Bruno" will be

spoken of later on, perhaps it will be more interesting to give the dainty

little verses where they belong. He sent his pet a specially bound copy of

the new book, with the following letter:

"Christ Church, May 16, '90.

"DEAREST ISA:--I had this bound for you when the book first came out,

and it's been waiting here ever since Dec. 17, for I really didn't

dare to send it across the Atlantic--the whales are _so_

inconsiderate. They'd have been sure to want to borrow it to show to

the little whales, quite forgetting that the salt water would be sure

to spoil it.

"Also I've been waiting for you to get back to send Emsie the

'Nursery Alice.' I give it to the youngest in a family generally, but

I've given one to Maggie as well, because she travels about so much,

and I thought she would like to have one to take with her. I hope

Nellie's eyes won't get _quite_ green with jealousy at two (indeed

three) of her sisters getting presents, and nothing for her! I've

nothing but my love to send her to-day, but she shall have _something

some_ day.--Ever your loving

"UNCLE CHARLES."

The "Nursery Alice" he refers to was arranged by himself for children

"from naught to five" as he quaintly puts it. It contained twenty

beautiful colored drawings from the Tenniel illustrations, with a cover

designed by E. Gertrude Thomson, of whose work he was very fond. The words

were simplified for nursery readers.

In another letter to Isa he talks very seriously about "social position."

"Ladies," he writes, "have to be _much_ more particular in observing the

distinctions of what is called 'social position,' and the _lower_ their

own position is (in the scale of 'lady' ship) the more jealous they seem

to be in guarding it.... Not long ago I was staying in a house with a

young lady (about twenty years old I should think) with a title of her

own, as she was an earl's daughter. I happened to sit next to her at

dinner, and every time I spoke to her she looked at me more as if she was

looking down on me from about a mile up in the air, and as if she was

saying to herself, 'How _dare_ you speak to _me_! Why you're not good

enough to black my shoes!' It was so unpleasant that next day at luncheon

I got as far from her as I could.

"Of course we are all _quite_ equal in God's sight, but we _do_ make a lot

of distinctions (some of them quite unmeaning) among ourselves!"

However, he was not always so unfortunate among great people, the "truly

great" that is. In Lord Salisbury's house he was always a welcome and

honored guest, for in a letter to "his little girl" from Hatfield House he

tells her of the Duchess of Albany and her two children.

"She is the widow of Prince Leopold (the Queen's youngest son), so her

children are a Prince and a Princess; the girl is Alice, but I don't know

the boy's Christian name; they call him 'Albany' because he is the Duke of

Albany.

"Now that I have made friends with a real live little Princess, I don't

intend ever to _speak_ to children who haven't any titles. In fact, I'm so

proud, and I hold my chin so high, that I shouldn't even _see_ you if we

met! No, darlings, you mustn't believe _that_. If I made friends with a

_dozen_ Princesses, I would love you better than all of them together,

even if I had them all rolled up into a sort of child-roly-poly.

"Love to Nellie and Emsie.--Your loving Uncle,

"C.L.D.

"XXXXXXX

"[kisses]."

Nothing could give us a better glimpse of the wholesome nature of this

quiet "don" of ours than these letters to a little child; a wholesome

child like himself, whose every emotion was to him like the page of some

fairy book, to be read and read again. Isa Bowman could not know, child as

she was, _what_ she was to this man, who with all his busy life, and all

his gifts and talents, and all his many friendships, was so curiously

lonely. But later, when she was grown, and wrote the little book of

memories from which we have drawn so many sweet lessons, she doubtless

realized, as she rolled back the years, what they had been to her--and

what to Lewis Carroll.

CHAPTER XIV.

A TRIP WITH SYLVIE AND BRUNO.

Is all our life, then, but a dream,

Seen faintly in the golden gleam

Athwart Time's dark resistless stream?

Bowed to the earth with bitter woe,

Or laughing at some raree-show,

We flitter idly to and fro.

Man's little day in haste we spend,

And from its merry noontide send

No glance to meet the silent end.

This beautiful dedication to little Isa Bowman, on the front page of

"Sylvie and Bruno," was much prized by her on account of the double

acrostic cleverly woven in the lines. The first letter of each line read

downward was one way she could see her name, and the first three letters

in the first line of each verse was another, but naturally the

light-hearted child missed the note of deep sadness underlying the tuneful

words. Lewis Carroll had reached that milestone in a man's life, _not_

when he pauses to look backward, but when his one desire is to press

forward to the heights--to the goal. His thoughts were not so much colored

by memories of earlier years as by anticipation, even dreams of what the

future might hold. Therefore, in our trip with _Sylvie_ and _Bruno_ into

the realms of dreamland, we must bear in mind in reading the story that

the _man_ is the dreamer, and not the _children_, nor does he see _quite_

through their eyes in his views of men and things. Children, as a rule,

live in the present; neither the past nor the future perplexes them, and

"Mister Sir," as little _Bruno_ called their friend, the Dreamer, looked

on these fairy children, dainty _Sylvie_ and graceful _Bruno_, as gleams

of light in his shadowy way, little passing gleams, as elusive as they

were brilliant.

The day of the irresponsible, bubbling nonsense is over; we catch flashes

of it now and then, but the fun is forced, and however much of a dear

_Sylvie_ may be, and however much of a darling _Bruno_ may be, they are

not _quite_ natural.

In a very long and very serious preface, wholly unlike his usual style,

the author tells us something of the history of the book. As early as 1867

the idea of "Sylvie and Bruno" first came to him in the shape of a little

fairy tale which he wrote for _Aunt Judy's Magazine_, but it was not until

long after the publication of "Alice Through the Looking-Glass" that he

determined to turn the adventures of these fairy children into something

more than stray stories. The public, at least, the insatiable children,

wanted something more from him, and as the second "Alice" had been so

satisfactory, he decided to venture again into the dream-world; he would

not hurry about it; he would take his time; he would pluck a flower here

and there as the years passed, and press it for safe-keeping; he would

create something poetic and beautiful in the way of children, culled from

the best of all the children he ever knew. This work should be a gem, cut

and polished until its luster eclipsed all other work of his.

And so from 1874 to 1889, a period of fifteen years, he jotted down quaint

fancies and bits of dialogue which he thought would work well into the

story. During this interval he passed from the prime of life into serious

middle age, though there was so little change in his outward living and in

his general appearance (he was always very boyish-looking) that even he

himself failed to recognize the gulf of time between forty-two and

fifty-seven.

In this interval he had become deeply interested in the study of logic and

when he began to gather together the mass of material he had collected for

his book, he found so much matter which stepped outside of childish realms

that he decided to please both the "grown-ups" and the youngsters by

weaving it all into a story, which he accordingly did, with the result

that he pleased no one. The children would not take the trouble to wade

through the interwoven love story, while their elders, who from

experience had expected something fresh and breezy from the pen of Lewis

Carroll, who longed to get away from the world of facts and logic and deep

discussions which buzzed about them, were even more sorely disappointed.

All flights of genius are short and quick. Had our author sat down when

the idea of a long story first came to him, and written it off in his

natural style, "Sylvie and Bruno" might have been another of the world's

classics; but he put too much thought upon it, and the chapters show most

plainly where the pen was laid down and where taken up again.

But for all that the book sold well, chiefly, indeed, because it was Lewis

Carroll who wrote it; though its popularity died down in a short time.

About six years ago, however (1904), the enterprising publishers brought

forth a new edition of the book, leaving out all the grown-up part, and

bringing the fairy children right before us in all their simple

loveliness. The experiment, so far as the story went, was most successful,

and to those who have not a previous acquaintance with "Sylvie and Bruno"

this little volume would give much more pleasure than the big two-volume

original.

One of Lewis Carroll's special objects in writing this story was a sort of

tardy appreciation of the much-despised boy. In the character of _Bruno_

he has given us a sweet little fellow, but we cannot get over the feeling

that he is a girl in boy's clothes, his bits of mischief are all so

dainty and alluring; but we would like to beat him with, say, a spray of

goldenrod for such a fairy child, every time he says politely and

priggishly "Mister Sir" to his invisible companion. What boy was _ever_

guilty of using such a term! The street urchin would naturally say

"Mister," but the well-bred home boy would say "Sir," so the combination

sounds absurd.

_Sylvie_ and _Bruno_ were supposed to be the fairies that teach children

to be good, and to do this they wandered pretty well over the earth in

their fairy way. Somehow we miss the real children through all their

dainty play and laughter, but the pictures of the two children, by Harry

Furniss, are beautiful enough to make us really believe in fairies. There

is a question Lewis Carroll asks quite gravely in his book--"What is the

best time for seeing Fairies?" And he answers it in truly Lewis Carroll

style:

"The first rule is, that it must be a _very_ hot day--that we may consider

as settled: and you must be a _little_ sleepy--but not too sleepy to keep

your eyes open, mind. Well, and you ought to feel a little what one may

call 'fairyish' the Scotch call it 'eerie,' and perhaps that's a prettier

word; if you don't know what it means, I'm afraid I can hardly explain it;

you must wait till you meet a Fairy and then you'll know.

"And the last rule is, that the crickets should not be chirping. I can't

stop to explain that; you must take it on trust for the present.

"So, if all these things happen together, you have a good chance of seeing

a Fairy, or at least a much better chance than if they didn't."

Later on he tells us the rule about the crickets. "They always leave off

chirping when a Fairy goes by, ... so whenever you're walking out and the

crickets suddenly leave off chirping you may be sure that they see a

Fairy."

Another dainty description is _Bruno's_ singing to the accompaniment of

tuneful harebells, and the song was a regular serenade:

Rise, oh, rise! The daylight dies,

The owls are hooting, ting, ting, ting!

Wake, oh, wake! Beside the lake

The elves are fluting, ting, ting, ting!

Welcoming our Fairy King,

We sing, sing, sing.

Hear, oh, hear! From far and near

The music stealing, ting, ting, ting!

Fairy bells adorn the dells

Are merrily pealing, ting, ting, ting!

Welcoming our Fairy King,

We ring, ring, ring.

See, oh, see! On every tree

What lamps are shining, ting, ting, ting!

They are eyes of fiery flies

To light our dining, ting, ting, ting!

Welcoming our Fairy King,

They swing, swing, swing.

Haste, oh, haste, to take and taste

The dainties waiting, ting, ting, ting!

Honey-dew is stored----

But here _Bruno's_ song came to a sudden end and was never finished.

Fairies have the oddest ways of doing things, but then _Sylvie_ was coming

through the long grass, that charming woodland child that little _Bruno_

loved and teased.

The artist put all his skill into the drawing of this tiny maiden, skill

assisted by Lewis Carroll's own ideas of what a fairy-girl should look

like, and the fact that Mr. Furniss took _seven years_ to illustrate this

book to the author's satisfaction and his own, shows how very particular

both were to get at the spirit of the story.

Indeed, the great trouble with the story is that it is all spirit; there

is no _real_ story to it, and this the keen scent of everyday children

soon discovered.

But in one thing it excels: the verses are every bit as charming as either

the Wonderland or Looking-Glass verses, with all the old-time delicious

nonsense. Take, for instance--

THE GARDENER'S SONG.

He thought he saw an Albatross

That fluttered round the lamp;

He looked again, and found it was

A Penny-Postage-Stamp.

"You'd best be getting home," he said:

"The nights are very damp!"

He thought he saw an Argument

That proved he was the Pope;

He looked again, and found it was

A Bar-of-Mottled-Soap.

"A fact so dread," he faintly said,

"Extinguishes all hope!"

He thought he saw a Banker's-Clerk

Descending from the Bus;

He looked again, and found it was

A Hippopotamus.

"If this should stay to dine," he said,

"There won't be much for us!"

He thought he saw a Buffalo

Upon the chimney-piece;

He looked again, and found it was

His Sister's-Husband's-Niece.

"Unless you leave this house," he said,

"I'll send for the police!"

He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four

That stood beside his bed;

He looked again, and found it was

A Bear without a head.

"Poor thing!" he said, "poor, silly thing!

It's waiting to be fed!"

He thought he saw a Garden-Door

That opened with a key;

He looked again, and found it was

A Double-Rule-of-Three.

"And all its mystery," he said,

"Is clear as day to me!"

He thought he saw a Kangaroo

That worked a coffee-mill;

He looked again, and found it was

A Vegetable-Pill.

"Were I to swallow this," he said,

"I should be very ill!"

He thought he saw a Rattlesnake

That questioned him in Greek;

He looked again, and found it was

The Middle-of-Next-Week.

"The one thing I regret," he said,

"Is that it cannot speak!"

The gardener was a very remarkable person, whose time was spent raking the

beds and making up extra verses to this beautiful poem; the last one ran:

He thought he saw an Elephant

That practiced on a fife;

He looked again, and found it was

A letter from his wife.

"At length I realize," he said,

"The bitterness of Life!"

"What a wild being it was who sung these wild words! A gardener he seemed

to be, yet surely a mad one by the way he brandished his rake, madder by

the way he broke ever and anon into a frantic jig, maddest of all by the

shriek in which he brought out the last words of the stanza.

"It was so far a description of himself that he had the _feet_ of an

elephant, but the rest of him was skin and bone; and the wisps of loose

straw that bristled all about him suggested that he had been originally

stuffed with it, and that nearly all the stuffing had come out."

In "Sylvie and Bruno," probably to a greater extent than in all his other

books, are some clever caricatures of well-known people. The two

professors are certainly taken from life, probably from Oxford. One is

called "The Professor" and one "The Other Professor." The _Baron_, the

_Vice-Warden_ and _my Lady_ were all too real, and as for the fat _Prince

Uggug_, well, any kind feeling Lewis Carroll may have had toward boys when

he fashioned _Bruno_ had entirely vanished when _Prince Uggug_ came upon

the scene. All the ugly, rough, ill-mannered, bad boys Lewis Carroll had

ever heard of were rolled into this wretched, fat, pig of a prince; but

the story of this prince proved fascinating to the _real_ little royalties

to whom he told it during one Christmas week at Lord Salisbury's. Most

likely he selected this story with an object, in order to show how

necessary it was that those of royal blood should behave like true princes

and princesses if they would be truly loved. Our good "don" was fond of

pointing a moral now and then. _Uggug_, with all his badness, somehow

appeals to the human child, far more than _Bruno_, with his baby talk and

his old-man wisdom and his odd little "fay" ways. _Sylvie_ was much more

natural. _Bruno_, however, was a sweet little songster; it needed no

urging to set him to music, and he always sang quite plainly when he had

real rhymes to tackle. One of his favorites was called:

THE BADGERS AND THE HERRINGS.

There be three Badgers on a mossy stone,

Beside a dark and covered way.

Each dreams himself a monarch on his throne,

And so they stay and stay--

Though their old Father languishes alone,

They stay, and stay, and stay.

There be three Herrings loitering around,

Longing to share that mossy seat.

Each Herring tries to sing what she has found

That makes life seem so sweet

Thus, with a grating and uncertain sound,

They bleat, and bleat, and bleat.

The Mother-Herring, on the salt sea-wave,

Sought vainly for her absent ones;

The Father-Badger, writhing in a cave,

Shrieked out, "Return, my sons!

You shall have buns," he shrieked, "if you'll behave!

Yea buns, and buns, and buns!"

"I fear," said she, "your sons have gone astray.

My daughters left me while I slept."

"Yes'm," the Badger said, "it's as you say.

They should be better kept."

Thus the poor parents talked the time away,

And wept, and wept, and wept.

But the thoughtless young ones, who had wandered from home, are having a

good time, a rollicking good time, for the _Herrings_ sing:

Oh, dear, beyond our dearest dreams,

Fairer than all that fairest seems!

To feast the rosy hours away,

To revel in a roundelay!

How blest would be

A life so free--

Ipwergis pudding to consume

And drink the subtle Azzigoom!

And if in other days and hours,

'Mid other fluffs and other flowers,

The choice were given me how to dine--

"Name what thou wilt: it shall be thine!"

Oh, then I see

The life for me--

Ipwergis pudding to consume

And drink the subtle Azzigoom!

The Badgers did not care to talk to Fish;

They did not dote on Herrings' songs;

They never had experienced the dish

To which that name belongs.

"And, oh, to pinch their tails" (this was their wish)

"With tongs, yea, tongs, and tongs!"

"And are not these the Fish," the eldest sighed,

"Whose mother dwells beneath the foam?"

"They _are_ the Fish!" the second one replied,

"And they have left their home!"

"Oh, wicked Fish," the youngest Badger cried,

"To roam, yea, roam, and roam!"

Gently the Badgers trotted to the shore--

The sandy shore that fringed the bay.

Each in his mouth a living Herring bore--

Those aged ones waxed gay.

Clear rang their voices through the ocean's roar.

"Hooray, hooray, hooray!'"

Most of Lewis Carroll's best nonsense rhymes abounded with all sorts of

queer animals. In earlier years he had made quite a study of natural

history, so that he knew enough about the habits of the animals who

figured in his verses to make humorous portraits of them. Yet we know,

apart from the earth-worms and snails of "little boy" days, he never cared

to cultivate their acquaintance except in a casual way. He was never

unkind to them, and fought with all his might against vivisection (which

in plain English means cutting up live animals for scientific purposes),

as well as against the cruel pastime of English cross-country hunting,

where one poor little fox is run to earth and torn in pieces by the savage

hounds. Big hunting, where the object was a man-eating lion or some other

animal which menaced human life, he heartily approved of, but wanton

cruelty he could not abide. Yet the dog he might use every effort to save

from the knife of science did not appeal to him as a pet; he preferred a

nice, plump, rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed, ringleted little girl--if _she_

liked dogs, why, very well, only none of them in _his_ rooms, thank you!

These fairy children, _Sylvie_ and _Bruno_, travel many leagues in the

story, for good fairies must be able to go from place to place very

quickly. We find them in Elfland, and Outland, and even Dogland.

A quaint episode in this book is the loss of Queen Titania's baby.

"We put it in a flower," Sylvie explained, with her eyes full of tears.

"Only we can't remember _which_!" And there's a real fairy hunt for the

missing baby, which must have been found somewhere, for fairies are never

completely lost. All through this fairy tale move real people doing real

things, acting real parts, coming often in contact with their good

fairies, but parting always on the borderland, bearing with them but a

memory of the beautiful children, and an echo of _Sylvie's_ song as it

dies away in the distance.

Say, what is the spell, when her fledglings are cheeping,

That lures the bird home to her nest?

Or wakes the tired mother, whose infant is weeping,

To cuddle and croon it to rest?

What's the magic that charms the glad babe in her arms,

Till it cooes with the voice of the dove?

'Tis a secret, and so let us whisper it low--

And the name of the secret is Love!

For I think it is Love,

For I feel it is Love,

For I'm sure it is nothing but Love!

Say, whence is the voice that, when anger is burning,

Bids the whirl of the tempest to cease?

That stirs the vexed soul with an aching--a yearning

For the brotherly hand-grip of peace?

Whence the music that fills all our being--that thrills

Around us, beneath, and above?

'Tis a secret; none knows how it comes, how it goes;

But the name of the secret is Love!

For I think it is Love,

For I feel it is Love,

For I'm sure it is nothing but Love!

Say, whose is the skill that paints valley and hill,

Like a picture so fair to the sight?

That decks the green meadow with sunshine and shadow,

Till the little lambs leap with delight?

'Tis a secret untold to hearts cruel and cold,

Though 'tis sung by the angels above,

In notes that ring clear for the ears that can hear--

And the name of the secret is Love!

For I think it is Love,

For I feel it is Love,

For I'm sure it is nothing but Love!

CHAPTER XV.

LEWIS CARROLL--MAN AND CHILD.

Love was indeed the keynote of Lewis Carroll's life. It was his rule,

which governed everything he did, whether it was a lecture on mathematics

or a "nonsense" story to a group of little girls. It was, above all, his

religion, and meant much more to him than mere church forms, though the

beautiful services at Oxford always impressed him deeply. Living as he

did, apart from the stir and bustle of a great city, in a beautiful old

town, full of historic associations, the heart and center of English

learning, where men had time for high thoughts and high deeds, it is no

wonder that his ideals should soar beyond the limits of an everyday world,

and no one who watched the daily routine of this quiet, self-contained,

precise "don" could imagine how the great heart beneath the student's

clerical coat craved the love of those for whom he truly cared.

Outsiders saw only a busy scholar, absorbed in his work, to all

appearances somewhat of a recluse. It is true, however, that his last busy

years, devoted to a book on "Symbolic Logic," kept him tied to his study

during most of the Oxford term, and that in consequence he had little time

for sociability, if he wished to complete his work.

The first part of "Symbolic Logic" was published in 1896, and although

sixty-four years old at the time, his writing and his reasoning were quite

as clear as in the earlier days. He never reached the point of "going down

hill." Everything that he undertook showed the vigorous strain in him, and

though the end of his life was not far off, those who loved him were never

tortured by a long and painful illness. As he said of himself, his life

had been so singularly free from the cares and worries that assail most

people, the current flowed so evenly that his mental and physical health

endured till the last.

In later years the tall, slim figure, the clean-shaven, delicate, refined

face, the quiet, courteous, rather distant manner, were much commented

upon alike by friends and strangers. With "grown-ups" he had always the

air of the absent-minded scholar, but no matter how occupied, the presence

of a little girl broke down the crust of his reserve and he became

immediately the sunny companion, the fascinating weaver of tales, the old,

enticing Lewis Carroll.

But he was above all things what we would call "a settled old bachelor."

He had little "ways" essentially his own, little peculiarities in which

no doubt he took a secret and childish pride. With children these were

always more or less amusing.

If he was going on a railway journey, for instance, he mapped out every

minute of his time; then he would calculate the amount of money to be

spent, and he always carried two purses, arranging methodically the sums

for cabs, porters, newspapers, refreshments, and so forth, in different

partitions, so he always had the correct change and always secured the

best of service. In packing he was also very particular; everything in his

trunk had to be separately wrapped up in a piece of paper, and his luggage

(he probably traveled with several trunks) always preceded him by a day or

so, while his only encumbrance was a well-known little black bag which he

always carried himself.

In dress, he was also a trifle "odd." He was scrupulously neat and very

scholarly in appearance, with frock coat and immaculate linen, but he

never wore an overcoat no matter how cold the weather, and in all seasons

he wore a pair of gray and black cotton gloves and a tall hat.

He had a horror of staring colors, especially in little girls' dresses. He

loved pink and gray, but any child visiting him, who dared to bring with

her a dress of startling hue, such as red or green or yellow, was

forbidden to wear it in his company.

His appetite was unusually small, and he used to marvel at the good solid

food his girl friends managed to consume. Once, when he took a special

favorite out to dine, he warned his hostess to be careful in helping her

as she ate far too much.

In writing, he seldom sat down; how he managed we are not told, but most

likely his desk was a high one.

He was a great walker in all winds and weather. Sometimes he overdid it,

and came home with blistered feet and aching joints, sometimes soaked to

the skin when overtaken by an unexpected rain; but always elated over the

distance he had traveled. He forgot, in the sheer delight of active

exercise, that he was not absolutely proof against illness, and that added

years needed added care; and as we find that the many severe colds which

now constantly attacked him came usually in the winter, there is every

reason to believe that human imprudence weakened a very strong

constitution, and that Lewis Carroll minus an overcoat meant Lewis Carroll

plus a very bad cold.

On one occasion (February, 1895) he was laid up with a ten days' attack of

influenza, with very high and alarming fever. Yet as late as December,

1897, a few weeks before his death, he boasted of sitting in his large

room with no fire, an open window, and a temperature of 54 deg.

Another time he had a severe attack of illness which prevented him from

spending his usual Christmas with his sisters at Guildford. He was a

prisoner in his room for over six weeks, but in writing to one of his

beloved child friends he joked over it all, his only regret being the loss

of the Christmas plum pudding.

From the time of the publication of "Alice in Wonderland" Lewis Carroll

was a man of independent means; had he wished, he might have lived in

great style and luxury, but being simple and unassuming in his tastes, he

was content with his spacious book-lined rooms, with their air of solid,

old-fashioned comfort. The things around him, which he cared for most,

were things endeared by association, from the pictures of his girl friends

upon the walls to that delightful and mysterious cupboard in which

generations of children had loved to rummage.

He was fond, too, of practicing little economies where one would least

expect them. In giving those enjoyable dinners of his, he kept neatly cut

pieces of cardboard to slip under the plates and dishes; table mats he

considered a needless luxury and a mere waste of money, while the

cardboard could be renewed from time to time, with little trouble or

expense. But if he wished to buy books for himself or take some little

girl pet off for a treat, he never seemed to count the cost, and he gave

so generously that many a child of the old days has cause to remember. On

one occasion he found a crowd of ragamuffins surrounding the window of a

shop where they were cooking cakes. Something in the wistful glances of

the little street urchins stirred him strangely as he was passing by, a

little girl on either side of him. Suddenly he darted into the shop, and

before long came out, his arms piled with the freshly made cakes, which he

passed around to the hungry, big-eyed little fellows, leaving the small

girls inside the shop, where they could enjoy the pretty scene which

stamped itself forever in their memories.

His charities were never known, save that he gave freely in many

directions. He was opposed to _lending_ money, but if the case was worthy

he was willing to _give_ whatever was necessary, and this he did with a

kindliness and grace peculiarly his own. He was interested in hospitals,

especially the children's wards, and many a donation of books and pictures

and games and puzzles found their way to these pathetic little sufferers,

whose heavy hours were lightened by his thoughtfulness. Hundreds of the

"Alice" books were given in this fashion and many a generous check

anonymously sent eased the pain of a great big sorrowful world of sick

children. After his death his old friends, wishing that something special

should be done to honor his memory, subscribed a sum of money to endow a

cot in the Children's Hospital in Great Ormond Street. This was called the

"Alice in Wonderland" cot, and is devoted to little patients connected

with the stage, in which he had always shown such an interest.

Much has been said of Lewis Carroll's reverence for sacred things; from

the days of his solemn little boyhood this was a most noticeable trait of

his character. He had, as we have seen, no "cut and dried" notions

regarding religion, but he was old-fashioned in many of his ideas, and

while he did not believe in making the Sabbath a day of dull, monotonous

ordeal, he set it apart from other days, and made of it a beautiful day of

rest. He put from him the weekly cares and worries, brushing aside all

work, and requiring others connected with him to do likewise. He wrote to

Miss E. Gertrude Thomson, who was illustrating "The Three Sunsets"--his

last collection of poems--(published in 1898), that she would oblige him

greatly by making no drawings or photographs for him on a Sunday.

When he could, especially during the last years of his life, he gave a

sermon, either at Guildford, Eastbourne, or at Oxford. It was through his

influence that the Sunday dinner hour at the University was changed from

seven to six o'clock, in order that the servants might be able to attend

services. These he often conducted himself, and sometimes, in his direct

and earnest talks, appealed to many who were hard to reach. Above all,

however, a flock of children inspired his best efforts, and the simple

fact that he always practiced what he preached made his words all the more

impressive. In short, but for the impediment in his speech, he would have

made a great preacher.

It was this simple, childlike faith of his that kept him always young--in

touch with the youth about him. Old age was never associated with him, and

constant exercise made him as lithe and active as a boy. There is an

amusing tale of some distinguished personage who went to call on the Rev.

Mr. Hatch, and while waiting for his host, he heard a great commotion

under the dining table. Stooping down he saw children's legs waving

frantically below, and, diving down himself to join the fun, he came face

to face with Lewis Carroll, who had been the foundation of this animated,

wriggling mass.

On another occasion Lewis Carroll went to call upon a friend, and finding

her out, was about to turn away, when the maid, who had come from the

front door to answer the bell at the gate, gave a startled cry--for the

door had blown shut, and she was locked out of the house. Lewis Carroll

was, as usual, equal to the occasion; he borrowed a ladder from some kind

neighbor, climbed in at the drawing-room window, and after performing

numerous acrobatic feats of the "small boy" type, managed to open the

front door for the anxious maid.

His constant association with children made his activity in many ways

equal to theirs. He certainly could outwalk them, for eighteen to twenty

miles could not daunt him, and many a small girl who was brave enough to

accompany him on what he called "a short walk" had tired feet and aching

joints when the walk was over.

On December 23, 1897, he made ready for his yearly visit to Guildford,

where he spent the usual happy Christmas, but in the early part of the New

Year a slight hoarseness heralded the return of his old enemy--influenza.

At first there seemed to be nothing alarming in his illness, but the

disease spread very rapidly. The labored breathing, the short, painful

gasps, quickly sapped his strength. On January 14, 1898, before his

anxious family could quite realize it, the blow had fallen; the life which

had meant so much to them, to everyone, went out, as Lewis Carroll folded

his hands, closed his eyes, and said with that unquestioning faith, which

had been his mainstay through the years: "Father, Thy will be done!"

Through the land there was mourning. Countless children bowed their sunny

heads as the storm of grief passed over them, and it seemed as if, during

the quiet funeral, a hush had come upon the world. They laid him to rest

beneath the shadow of a tall pine, and a pure white cross bearing his own

name and the name of "Lewis Carroll" rose to mark the spot, that the

children who passed by might never forget their friend.

It seems, indeed, now that the years have passed, that the Angel of Death

was very gentle with this fair soul. After all, does he not live in the

happy fun and laughter he has left behind him, and will not the coming

generations of children find in the wonder tales the same fascination that

held the children of long ago? While childhood lasts on earth, while the

memory of him lives in millions of childish hearts, Lewis Carroll can

never die.

THE END.

Transcriber's Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.

The illustration noted on page 150 is the title and first stanza of the

poem "Jabberwocky" printed as a mirror image.

Punctuation has been corrected without note.

The following misprints have been corrected:

"remakable" corrected to "remarkable" (page 16)

"heartrug" corrected to "hearthrug" (page 197)

"Cupil" corrected to "Cupid" (page 233)

"childen" corrected to "children" (page 242)

"perfomance" corrected to "performance" (page 244)

"ememy" corrected to "enemy" (page 295)