The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll Part 12

The stage (as every playgoer can testify) is an engine of incalculable power for influencing society; and every effort to purify and enn.o.ble its aims seems to me to deserve all the countenance that the great, and all the material help that the wealthy, can give it; while even those who are neither great nor wealthy may yet do their part, and help to-- "Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ellen Terry. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.]

I do not know if Mr. Dodgson's suggested amendment of some lines in the "Merchant of Venice" was ever carried out, but it further ill.u.s.trates the serious view he took of this subject. The hint occurs in a letter to Miss Ellen Terry, which runs as follows:--

You gave me a treat on Sat.u.r.day such as I have very seldom had in my life. You must be weary by this time of hearing your own praises, so I will only say that Portia was all I could have imagined, and more. And Shylock is superb--especially in the trial-scene.

Now I am going to be very bold, and make a suggestion, which I do hope you will think well enough of to lay it before Mr.

Irving. I want to see that clause omitted (in the sentence on Shylock)--

That, for this favour, He presently become a Christian;

It is a sentiment that is entirely horrible and revolting to the feelings of all who believe in the Gospel of Love. Why should our ears be shocked by such words merely because they are Shakespeare's? In his day, when it was held to be a Christian's duty to force his belief on others by fire and sword--to burn man's body in order to save his soul--the words probably conveyed no shock. To all Christians now (except perhaps extreme Calvinists) the idea of forcing a man to abjure his religion, whatever that religion may be, is (as I have said) simply horrible.

I have spoken of it as a needless outrage on religious feeling: but surely, being so, it is a great artistic mistake. Its tendency is directly contrary to the spirit of the scene. We have despised Shylock for his avarice, and we rejoice to see him lose his wealth: we have abhorred him for his bloodthirsty cruelty, and we rejoice to see him baffled.

And now, in the very fulness of our joy at the triumph of right over wrong, we are suddenly called on to see in him the victim of a cruelty a thousand times worse than his own, and to honour him as a martyr. This, I am sure, Shakespeare never meant. Two touches only of sympathy does he allow us, that we may realise him as a man, and not as a demon incarnate. "I will not pray with you"; "I had it of Leah, when I was a bachelor." But I am sure he never meant our sympathies to be roused in the supreme moment of his downfall, and, if he were alive now, I believe he would cut out those lines about becoming a Christian.

No interpolation is needed--(I should not like to suggest the putting in a single word that is not Shakespeare's)--I would read the speech thus:--

That lately stole his daughter: Provided that he do record a gift, Here in the court, &c.

And I would omit Gratiano's three lines at Shylock's exit, and let the text stand:--

_Duke_: "Get thee gone, but do it." (_Exit Shylock_.)

The exit, in solemn silence, would be, if possible, even grander than it now is, and would lose nothing by the omission of Gratiano's flippant jest....

On January 16th he saw "New Men and Old Acres" at the Court Theatre.

The two authors of the pieces, Dubourg and Tom Taylor, were great friends of his. "It was a real treat," he writes, "being well acted in every detail. Ellen Terry was wonderful, and I should think unsurpa.s.sable in all but the lighter parts." Mr. Dodgson himself had a strong wish to become a dramatic author, but, after one or two unsuccessful attempts to get his plays produced, he wisely gave up the idea, realising that he had not the necessary constructive powers. The above reference to Miss Ellen Terry's acting is only one out of a countless number; the great actress and he were excellent friends, and she did him many a kindness in helping on young friends of his who had taken up the stage as a profession.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tom Taylor. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.]

She and her sister, Miss Kate Terry, were among the distinguished people whom he photographed. The first time he saw the latter actress was, I think, in 1858, when she was playing in "The Tempest" at the Princess's. "The gem of the piece," he writes, "was the exquisitely graceful and beautiful Ariel, Miss Kate Terry. Her appearance as a sea-nymph was one of the most beautiful living pictures I ever saw, but this, and every other one in my recollection (except Queen Katherine's dream), were all outdone by the concluding scene, where Ariel is left alone, hovering over the wide ocean, watching the retreating ship. It is an innovation on Shakespeare, but a worthy one, and the conception of a true poet."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Kate Terry. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.]

Mr. Dodgson was a frequent contributor to the daily Press. As a rule his letters appeared in the _St. James's Gazette_, for the editor, Mr. Greenwood, was a friend of his, but the following sarcastic epistle was an exception:--

NATURAL SCIENCE AT OXFORD.

_To the Editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette."_

Sir,--There is no one of the many ingenious appliances of mechanical science that is more appreciated or more successfully employed than the wedge; so subtle and imperceptible are the forces needed for the insertion of its "thin end," so astounding the results which its "thick end"

may ultimately produce. Of the former process we shall see a beautiful ill.u.s.tration in a Congregation to be holden at Oxford on the 24th inst., when it will be proposed to grant, to those who have taken the degrees of bachelor and master in Natural Science only, the same voting powers as in the case of the "M.A." degree. This means the omission of one of the two cla.s.sical languages, Latin and Greek, from what has been hitherto understood as the curriculum of an Oxford education. It is to this "thin end" of the wedge that I would call the attention of our non-residents, and of all interested in Oxford education, while the "thick end" is still looming in the distance. But why fear a "thick end" at all? I shall be asked. Has Natural Science shown any such tendency, or given any reason to fear that such a concession would lead to further demands? In answer to that question, let me sketch, in dramatic fashion, the history of her recent career in Oxford. In the dark ages of our University (some five-and-twenty years ago), while we still believed in cla.s.sics and mathematics as const.i.tuting a liberal education, Natural Science sat weeping at our gates. "Ah, let me in!" she moaned; "why cram reluctant youth with your unsatisfying lore? Are they not hungering for bones; yea, panting for sulphuretted hydrogen?" We heard and we pitied.

We let her in and housed her royally; we adorned her palace with re-agents and retorts, and made it a very charnel-house of bones, and we cried to our undergraduates, "The feast of Science is spread! Eat, drink, and be happy!" But they would not. They fingered the bones, and thought them dry. They sniffed at the hydrogen, and turned away. Yet for all that Science ceased not to cry, "More gold, more gold!" And her three fair daughters, Chemistry, Biology, and Physics (for the modern horse-leech is more prolific than in the days of Solomon), ceased not to plead, "Give, give!" And we gave; we poured forth our wealth like water (I beg her pardon, like H{_2}O), and we could not help thinking there was something weird and uncanny in the ghoul-like facility with which she absorbed it.

The curtain rises on the second act of the drama. Science is still weeping, but this time it is for lack of pupils, not of teachers or machinery. "We are unfairly handicapped!" she cries. "You have prizes and scholarships for cla.s.sics and mathematics, and you bribe your best students to desert us.

Buy us some bright, clever boys to teach, and then see what we can do!" Once more we heard and pitied. We had bought her bones; we bought her boys. And now at last her halls were filled--not only with teachers paid to teach, but also with learners paid to learn. And we have not much to complain of in results, except that perhaps she is a little too ready to return on our hands all but the "honour-men"--all, in fact, who really need the helping hand of an educator. "Here, take back your stupid ones!" she cries. "Except as subjects for the scalpel (and we have not yet got the Human Vivisection Act through Parliament) we can do nothing with them!"

The third act of the drama is yet under rehearsal; the actors are still running in and out of the green-room, and hastily shuffling on their new and ill-fitting dresses; but its general scope is not far to seek. At no distant day our once timid and tearful guest will be turning up her nose at the fare provided for her. "Give me no more youths to teach," she will say; "but pay me handsomely, and let me think. Plato and Aristotle were all very well in their way; Diogenes and his tub for me!" The allusion is not inappropriate. There can be little doubt that some of the researches conducted by that retiring philosopher in the recesses of that humble edifice were strictly scientific, embracing several distinct branches of entomology. I do not mean, of course, that "research" is a new idea in Oxford.

From time immemorial we have had our own chosen band of researchers (here called "professors"), who have advanced the boundaries of human knowledge in many directions. True, they are not left so wholly to themselves as some of these modern thinkers would wish to be, but are expected to give some few lectures, as the outcome of their "research" and the evidence of its reality, but even that condition has not always been enforced--for instance, in the case of the late Professor of Greek, Dr. Gaisford, the University was too conscious of the really valuable work he was doing in philological research to complain that he ignored the usual duties of the chair and delivered no lectures.

And, now, what is the "thick end" of the wedge? It is that Latin and Greek may _both_ vanish from our curriculum; that logic, philosophy, and history may follow; and that the destinies of Oxford may some day be in the hands of those who have had no education other than "scientific." And why not? I shall be asked. Is it not as high a form of education as any other? That is a matter to be settled by facts. I can but offer my own little item of evidence, and leave it to others to confirm or to refute. It used once to be thought indispensable for an educated man that he should be able to write his own language correctly, if not elegantly; it seems doubtful how much longer this will be taken as a criterion.

Not so many years ago I had the honour of a.s.sisting in correcting for the press some pages of the _Anthropological Review_, or some such periodical. I doubt not that the writers were eminent men in their own line; that each could triumphantly prove, to his own satisfaction, the unsoundness of what the others had advanced; and that all would unite in declaring that the theories of a year ago were entirely exploded by the latest German treatise; but they were not able to set forth these thoughts, however consoling in themselves, in anything resembling the language of educated society. In all my experience, I have never read, even in the "local news" of a country paper, such slipshod, such deplorable English.

I shall be told that I am ungenerous in thus picking out a few unfavourable cases, and that some of the greatest minds of the day are to be found in the ranks of science. I freely admit that such may be found, but my contention is that _they_ made the science, not the science them; and that in any line of thought they would have been equally distinguished. As a general principle, I do not think that the exclusive study of any _one_ subject is really education; and my experience as a teacher has shown me that even a considerable proficiency in Natural Science, taken alone, is so far from proving a high degree of cultivation and great natural ability that it is fully compatible with general ignorance and an intellect quite below par.

Therefore it is that I seek to rouse an interest, beyond the limits of Oxford, in preserving cla.s.sics as an essential feature of a University education. Nor is it as a cla.s.sical tutor (who might be suspected of a bias in favour of his own subject) that I write this. On the contrary, it is as one who has taught science here for more than twenty years (for mathematics, though good-humouredly scorned by the biologists on account of the abnormal certainty of its conclusions, is still reckoned among the sciences) that I beg to sign myself,--Your obedient servant,

Charles L. Dodgson,

_Mathematical Lecturer of Christ Church, Oxford.

May 17th._

I give the above letter because I think it amusing; it must not be supposed that the writer's views on the subject remained the same all through his life. He was a thorough Conservative, and it took a long time to reconcile him to any new departure. In a political discussion with a friend he once said that he was "first an Englishman, and then a Conservative," but however much a man may try to put patriotism before party, the result will be but partially successful, if patriotism would lead him into opposition to the mental bias which has originally made him either a Conservative or a Radical.

He took, of course, great pleasure in the success of his books, as every author must; but the greatest pleasure of all to him was to know that they had pleased others. Notes like the following are frequent in his Diary: "_June_ 25_th_.--Spent the afternoon in sending off seventy circulars to Hospitals, offering copies of 'Alice' and the 'Looking-Gla.s.s' for sick children." He well deserved the name which one of his admirers gave him--"The man who loved little children."

In April, 1878, he saw a performance of "Olivia" at the Court Theatre.

"The gem of the piece is Olivia herself, acted by Ellen Terry with a sweetness and pathos that moved some of the audience (nearly including myself) to tears. Her leave-taking was exquisite; and when, in her exile, she hears that her little brother had cried at the mention of her name, her exclamation 'Pet!' was tenderness itself. Altogether, I have not had a greater dramatic treat for a long time. _Dies creta notandus_."

I see that I have marked for quotation the following brief entries in the Diary:--

_Aug. 4th_ (at Eastbourne).--Went, morning and evening, to the new chapel-of-ease belonging to S.

Saviour's. It has the immense advantage of _not_ being crowded; but this scarcely compensates for the vile Gregorian chants, which vex and weary one's ear.

_Aug. 17th_.--A very inquisitive person, who had some children with her, found out my name, and then asked me to shake hands with her child, as an admirer of my books: this I did, unwisely perhaps, as I have no intention of continuing the acquaintance of a "Mrs. Leo Hunter."

_Dec. 23rd_.--I have been making a plan for work next term, of this kind: Choose a subject (_e.g._, "Circulation," "Journeys of S. Paul," "English Counties") for each week. On Monday write what I know about it; during week get up subject; on Sat.u.r.day write again; put the two papers away, and six months afterwards write again and compare.

As an artist, Mr. Dodgson possessed an intense natural appreciation of the beautiful, an abhorrence of all that is coa.r.s.e and unseemly which might almost be called hyper-refinement, a wonderfully good eye for form, and last, but not least, the most scrupulous conscientiousness about detail. On the other hand his sense of colour was somewhat imperfect, and his hand was almost totally untrained, so that while he had all the enthusiasm of the true artist, his work always had the defects of an amateur.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Miss E. Gertrude Thomson.]

In 1878 some drawings of Miss E. Gertrude Thomson's excited his keen admiration, and he exerted himself to make her acquaintance. Their first meeting is described so well by Miss Thomson herself in _The Gentlewoman_ for January 29, 1898, that I cannot do better than quote the description of the scene as given there:--

It was at the end of December, 1878, that a letter, written in a singularly legible and rather boyish-looking hand, came to me from Christ Church, Oxford, signed "C. L. Dodgson."

The writer said that he had come across some fairy designs of mine, and he should like to see some more of my work. By the same post came a letter from my London publisher (who had supplied my address) telling me that the "Rev. C. L.

Dodgson" was "Lewis Carroll."

"Alice in Wonderland" had long been one of my pet books, and as one regards a favourite author as almost a personal friend, I felt less restraint than one usually feels in writing to a stranger, though I carefully concealed my knowledge of his ident.i.ty, as he had not chosen to reveal it.

This was the beginning of a frequent and delightful correspondence, and as I confessed to a great love for fairy lore of every description, he asked me if I would accept a child's fairy-tale book he had written, called "Alice in Wonderland." I replied that I knew it nearly all off by heart, but that I should greatly prize a copy given to me by himself. By return came "Alice," and "Through the Looking-Gla.s.s," bound most luxuriously in white calf and gold.

And this is the graceful and kindly note that came with them: "I am now sending you 'Alice,' and the 'Looking-Gla.s.s'

as well. There is an incompleteness about giving only one, and besides, the one you bought was probably in red and would not match these. If you are at all in doubt as to what to do with the (now) superfluous copy, let me suggest your giving it to some poor sick child. I have been distributing copies to all the hospitals and convalescent homes I can hear of, where there are sick children capable of reading them, and though, of course, one takes some pleasure in the popularity of the books elsewhere, it is not nearly so pleasant a thought to me as that they may be a comfort and relief to children in hours of pain and weariness. Still, no recipient _can_ be more appropriate than one who seems to have been in fairyland herself, and to have seen, like the 'weary mariners' of old--