The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll Part 20

The principles on which the necessary 20 consonants have been chosen are as follows:--

1. "b" and "c," the first two consonants in the alphabet.

2. "d" from "duo," "w" from "two."

3. "t" from "tres," the other may wait awhile.

4. "f" from "four," "q" from "quattuor."

5. "l" and "v," because "l" and "v" are the Roman symbols for "fifty" and "five."

6. "s" and "x" from "six."

7. "p" and "m" from "septem."

8. "h" from "huit," and "k" from the Greek "okto."

9. "n" from "nine"; and "g" because it is so like a "9."

0. "z" and "r" from "zero."

There is now one consonant still waiting for its digit, viz., "j," and one digit waiting for its consonant, viz., "3," the conclusion is obvious.

The result may be tabulated thus:--

|1 |2 |3 |4 |5 |6 |7 |8 |9 |0 |

|b |d |t |f |l |s |p |h |n |z | |c |w |j |q |v |x |m |k |g |r |

When a word has been found, whose last consonants represent the number required, the best plan is to put it as the last word of a rhymed couplet, so that, whatever other words in it are forgotten, the rhyme will secure the only really important word.

Now suppose you wish to remember the date of the discovery of America, which is 1492; the "1" may be left out as obvious; all we need is "492."

Write it thus:--

4 9 2 f n d q g w

and try to find a word that contains "f" or "q," "n" or "g,"

"d" or "w." A word soon suggests itself--"found."

The poetic faculty must now be brought into play, and the following couplet will soon be evolved:--

"Columbus sailed the world around, Until America was F O U N D."

If possible, invent the couplets for yourself; you will remember them better than any others.

_June_, 1888.

The inventor found this "Memoria Technica" very useful in helping him to remember the dates of the different Colleges. He often, of course, had to show his friends the sights of Oxford, and the easy way in which, asked or unasked, he could embellish his descriptions with dates used to surprise those who did not know how the thing was done.

The couplet for St. John's College ran as follows:--

"They must have a bevel To keep them so LEVEL."

The allusion is to the beautiful lawns, for which St. John's is famous.

In his power of remembering anecdotes, and bringing them out just at the right moment, Mr. Dodgson was unsurpa.s.sed. A guest brought into Christ Church Common Room was usually handed over to him to be amused.

He was not a good man to tell a story to--he had always heard it before; but as a _raconteur_ I never met his equal. And the best of it was that his stories never grew--except in number.

One would have expected that a mind so clear and logical and definite would have fought shy of the feminine intellect, which is generally supposed to be deficient in those qualities; and so it is somewhat surprising to find that by far the greater number of his friends were ladies. He was quite prepared to correct them, however, when they were guilty of what seemed to him unreasoning conduct, as is shown by the following extract from a letter of his to a young lady who had asked him to try and find a place for a governess, without giving the latter's address:--

Some of my friends are business-men, and it is pleasant to see how methodical and careful they are in transacting any business-matter. If, for instance, one of them were to write to me, asking me to look out for a place for a French governess in whom he was interested, I should be sure to admire the care with which he would give me _her name in full_--(in extra-legible writing if it were an unusual name)--as well as her address. Some of my friends are not men of business.

So many such requests were addressed to him that at one time he had a circular letter printed, with a list of people requiring various appointments or a.s.sistants, which he sent round to his friends.

In one respect Lewis Carroll resembled the stoic philosophers, for no outward circ.u.mstance could upset the tranquillity of his mind. He lived, in fact, the life which Marcus Aurelius commends so highly, the life of calm contentment, based on the a.s.surance that so long as we are faithful to ourselves, no seeming evils can really harm us. But in him there was one exception to this rule. During an argument he was often excited. The war of words, the keen and subtle conflict between trained minds--in this his soul took delight, in this he sought and found the joy of battle and of victory. Yet he would not allow his serenity to be ruffled by any foe whom he considered unworthy of his steel; he refused to argue with people whom he knew to be hopelessly illogical--definitely refused, though with such tact that no wound was given, even to the most sensitive.

He was modest in the true sense of the term, neither overestimating nor underrating his own mental powers, and preferring to follow his own course without regarding outside criticism. "I never read anything about myself or my books," he writes in a letter to a friend; and the reason he used to give was that if the critics praised him he might become conceited, while, if they found fault, he would only feel hurt and angry. On October 25, 1888, he wrote in his Diary: "I see there is a leader in to-day's _Standard_ on myself as a writer; but I do not mean to read it. It is not healthy reading, I think."

He hated publicity, and tried to avoid it in every way. "Do not tell any one, if you see me in the theatre," he wrote once to Miss Marion Terry. On another occasion, when he was dining out at Oxford, and some one, who did not know that it was a forbidden subject, turned the conversation on "Alice in Wonderland," he rose suddenly and fled from the house. I could multiply instances of this sort, but it would be unjust to his memory to insist upon the morbid way in which he regarded personal popularity. As compared with self-advertis.e.m.e.nt, it is certainly the lesser evil; but that it _is_ an evil, and a very painful one to its possessor, Mr. Dodgson fully saw. Of course it had its humorous side, as, for instance, when he was brought into contact with lion-hunters, autograph-collectors, _et hoc genus omne_. He was very suspicious of unknown correspondents who addressed questions to him; in later years he either did not answer them at all, or used a typewriter. Before he bought his typewriter, he would get some friend to write for him, and even to sign "Lewis Carroll" at the end of the letter. It used to give him great amus.e.m.e.nt to picture the astonishment of the recipients of these letters, if by any chance they ever came to compare his "autographs."

On one occasion the secretary of a "Young Ladies' Academy" in the United States asked him to present some of his works to the School Library. The envelope was addressed to "Lewis Carroll, Christ Church,"

an incongruity which always annoyed him intensely. He replied to the Secretary, "As Mr. Dodgson's books are all on Mathematical subjects, he fears that they would not be very acceptable in a school library."

Some fourteen or fifteen years ago, the Fourth-cla.s.s of the Girl's Latin School at Boston, U.S., started a magazine, and asked him if they might call it _The Jabberwock._ He wrote in reply:--

Mr. Lewis Carroll has much pleasure in giving to the editors of the proposed magazine permission to use the t.i.tle they wish for. He finds that the Anglo-Saxon word "wocer" or "wocor" signifies "offspring" or "fruit." Taking "jabber" in its ordinary acceptation of "excited and voluble discussion," this would give the meaning of "the result of much excited discussion." Whether this phrase will have any application to the projected periodical, it will be for the future historian of American literature to determine. Mr.

Carroll wishes all success to the forthcoming magazine.

From that time forward he took a great interest in the magazine, and thought very well of it. It used, I believe, to be regularly supplied to him. Only once did he express disapproval of anything it contained, and that was in 1888, when he felt it necessary to administer a rebuke for what he thought to be an irreverent joke. The sequel is given in the following extract from _The Jabberwock_ for June, 1888:--

A FRIEND WORTH HAVING.

_The Jabberwock_ has many friends, and perhaps a few (very few, let us hope) enemies. But, of the former, the friend who has helped us most on the road to success is Mr.

Lewis Carroll, the author of "Alice in Wonderland," &c. Our readers will remember his kind letter granting us permission to use the name "Jabberwock," and also giving the meaning of that word. Since then we have received another letter from him, in which he expresses both surprise and regret at an anecdote which we published in an early number of our little paper. We would a.s.sure Mr. Carroll, as well as our other friends, that we had no intention of making light of a serious matter, but merely quoted the anecdote to show what sort of a book Washington's diary was.

But now a third letter from our kind friend has come, enclosing, to our delight, a poem, "A Lesson in Latin," the pleasantest Latin lesson we have had this year.

The first two letters from Mr. Carroll were in a beautiful literary hand, whereas the third is written with a typewriter. It is to this fact that he refers in his letter, which is as follows:--

"29, Bedford Street, Covent Garden, LONDON,

_May_ 16, 1888.

Dear Young Friends,--After the Black Draught of serious remonstrance which I ventured to send to you the other day, surely a Lump of Sugar will not be unacceptable? The enclosed I wrote this afternoon on purpose for you.

I hope you will grant it admission to the columns of _The Jabberwock_, and not scorn it as a mere play upon words.

This mode of writing, is, of course, an American invention.

We never invent new machinery here; we do but use, to the best of our ability, the machines you send us. For the one I am now using, I beg you to accept my best thanks, and to believe me