The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll Part 26

(1897-1898)

Logic-lectures--Irreverent anecdotes--Tolerance of his religious views--A mathematical discovery--"The Little Minister" Sir George Baden-Powell--Last illness--"Thy will be done"--"Wonderland" at last!--Letters from friends "Three Sunsets"--"Of such is the kingdom of Heaven."

The year 1897, the last complete year which he was destined to spend, began for Mr. Dodgson at Guildford. On January 3rd he preached in the morning at the beautiful old church of S. Mary's, the church which he always attended when he was staying with his sisters at the Chestnuts.

On the 5th he began a course of Logic Lectures at Abbot's Hospital.

The Rev. A. Kingston, late curate of Holy Trinity and S. Mary's Parishes, Guildford, had requested him to do this, and he had given his promise if as many as six people could be got together to hear him. Mr. Kingston canva.s.sed the town so well that an audience of about thirty attended the first lecture.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lewis Carroll. _From a photograph._]

A long Sunday walk was always a feature of Mr. Dodgson's life in the vacations. In earlier years the late Mr. W. Watson was his usual companion at Guildford. The two men were in some respects very much alike; a peculiar gentleness of character, a winning charm of manner which no one could resist, distinguished them both. After Mr. Watson's death his companion was usually one of the following Guildford clergymen: the Rev. J.H. Robson, LL.D., the Rev. H.R. Ware, and the Rev. A. Kingston.

On the 26th Mr. Dodgson paid a visit to the Girls' High School, to show the pupils some mathematical puzzles, and to teach the elder ones his "Memoria Technica." On the 28th he returned to Oxford, so as to be up in time for term.

I have said that he always refused invitations to dinner; accordingly his friends who knew of this peculiarity, and wished to secure him for a special evening, dared not actually invite him, but wrote him little notes stating that on such and such days they would be dining at home.

Thus there is an entry in his Journal for February 10th:

"Dined with Mrs. G--(She had not sent an 'invitation'--only 'information')."

His system of symbolic logic enabled him to work out the most complex problems with absolute certainty in a surprisingly short time. Thus he wrote on the 15th: "Made a splendid logic-problem, about "great-grandsons" (modelled on one by De Morgan). My method of solution is quite new, and I greatly doubt if any one will solve the Problem. I have sent it to Cook Wilson."

On March 7th he preached in the University Church, the first occasion on which he had done so:--

There is now [he writes] a system established of a course of six sermons at S. Mary's each year, for University men _only_, and specially meant for undergraduates. They are preached, preceded by a few prayers and a hymn, at half-past eight. This evening ended the course for this term: and it was my great privilege to preach. It has been the most formidable sermon I have ever had to preach, and it is a _great_ relief to have it over. I took, as text, Job xxviii. 28, "And unto man he said, The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom"--and the prayer in the Litany "Give us an heart to love and dread thee." It lasted three-quarters of an hour.

One can imagine how he would have treated the subject. The views which he held on the subject of reverence were, so at least it appears to me, somewhat exaggerated; they are well expressed in a letter which he wrote to a friend of his, during the year, and which runs as follows:--

Dear--, After changing my mind several times, I have at last decided to venture to ask a favour of you, and to trust that you will not misinterpret my motives in doing so.

The favour I would ask is, that you will not tell me any more stories, such as you did on Friday, of remarks which children are said to have made on very sacred subjects-- remarks which most people would recognise as irreverent, if made by _grown-up people_, but which are a.s.sumed to be innocent when made by children who are unconscious of any irreverence, the strange conclusion being drawn that they are therefore innocent when _repeated_ by a grown-up person.

The misinterpretation I would guard against is, your supposing that I regard such repet.i.tion as always _wrong_ in any grown-up person. Let me a.s.sure you that I do _not_ so regard it. I am always willing to believe that those who repeat such stories differ wholly from myself in their views of what is, and what is not, fitting treatment of sacred things, and I fully recognise that what would certainly be wrong in _me_, is not necessarily so in _them_.

So I simply ask it as a personal favour to myself. The hearing of that anecdote gave me so much pain, and spoiled so much the pleasure of my tiny dinner-party, that I feel sure you will kindly spare me such in future.

One further remark. There are quant.i.ties of such anecdotes going about. I don't in the least believe that 5 per cent.

of them were ever said by _children_. I feel sure that most of them are concocted by people who _wish_ to bring sacred subjects into ridicule--sometimes by people who _wish_ to undermine the belief that others have in religious truths: for there is no surer way of making one's beliefs _unreal_ than by learning to a.s.sociate them with ludicrous ideas.

Forgive the freedom with which I have said all this.

Sincerely yours,

C.L. Dodgson.

The entry in the Diary for April 11th (Sunday) is interesting:--

Went my eighteen-mile round by Besilsleigh. From my rooms back to them again, took me five hours and twenty-seven minutes. Had "high tea" at twenty minutes past seven. This entails only leaving a plate of cold meat, and gives much less trouble than hot dinner at six.

Dinner at six has been my rule since January 31st, when it began--I then abandoned the seven o'clock Sunday dinner, of which I entirely disapprove. It has prevented, for two terms, the College Servants' Service.

On May 12th he wrote:--

As the Prince of Wales comes this afternoon to open the Town Hall, I went round to the Deanery to invite them to come through my rooms upon the roof, to see the procession arrive.... A party of about twenty were on my roof in the afternoon, including Mrs. Moberly, Mrs. Driver, and Mrs.

Baynes, and most, if not all, of the children in Christ Church. Dinner in Hall at eight. The Dean had the Prince on his right, and Lord Salisbury on his left. My place was almost _vis-a-vis_ with the Prince. He and the Dean were the only speakers. We did not get out of Hall till nearly ten.

In June he bought a "Whiteley Exerciser," and fixed it up in his rooms. One would have thought that he would have found his long walks sufficient exercise (an eighteen-mile round was, as we have seen, no unusual thing for him to undertake), but apparently it was not so. He was so pleased with the "Exerciser," that he bought several more of them, and made presents of them to his friends.

As an instance of his broad-mindedness, the following extract from his Diary for June 20th is interesting. It must be premised that E--was a young friend of his who had recently become a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and that their place of worship in Oxford is dedicated to S. Aloysius.

I went with E-- to S. Aloysius. There was much beauty in the service, part of which consisted in a procession, with banner, all round the church, carrying the Host, preceded by a number of girls in white, with veils (who had all had their first communion that morning), strewing flowers. Many of them were quite little things of about seven. The sermon (by Father Richardson) was good and interesting, and in a very loyal tone about the Queen.

A letter he wrote some years before to a friend who had asked him about his religious opinions reveals the same catholicity of mind:--

I am a member of the English Church, and have taken Deacon's Orders, but did not think fit (for reasons I need not go into) to take Priest's Orders. My dear father was what is called a "High Churchman," and I naturally adopted those views, but have always felt repelled by the yet higher development called "Ritualism."

But I doubt if I am fully a "High Churchman" now. I find that as life slips away (I am over fifty now), and the life on the other side of the great river becomes more and more the reality, of which _this_ is only a shadow, that the petty distinctions of the many creeds of Christendom tend to slip away as well--leaving only the great truths which all Christians believe alike. More and more, as I read of the Christian religion, as Christ preached it, I stand amazed at the forms men have given to it, and the fict.i.tious barriers they have built up between themselves and their brethren. I believe that when you and I come to lie down for the last time, if only we can keep firm hold of the great truths Christ taught us--our own utter worthlessness and His infinite worth; and that He has brought us back to our one Father, and made us His brethren, and so brethren to one another--we shall have all we need to guide us through the shadows.

Most a.s.suredly I accept to the full the doctrines you refer to--that Christ died to save us, that we have no other way of salvation open to us but through His death, and that it is by faith in Him, and through no merit of ours, that we are reconciled to G.o.d; and most a.s.suredly I can cordially say, "I owe all to Him who loved me, and died on the Cross of Calvary."

He spent the Long Vacation at Eastbourne as usual, frequently walking over to Hastings, which is about twenty miles off. A good many of his mornings were spent in giving lectures and telling stories at schools.

A letter to the widow of an old college friend reveals the extraordinary sensitiveness of his nature:--

2, Bedford Well Road, Eastbourne,

_August_ 2, 1897.

My Dear Mrs. Woodhouse,--Your letter, with its mournful news, followed me down here, and I only got it on Sat.u.r.day night; so I was not able to be with you in thought when the mortal remains of my dear old friend were being committed to the ground; to await the time when our Heavenly Father shall have accomplished the number of His elect, and when you and I shall once more meet the loved ones from whom we are, for a little while only--what a little while even a long human life lasts!--parted in sorrow, yet _not_ sorrowing as those without hope.

You will be sure without words of mine, that you have my true and deep sympathy. Of all the friends I made at Ch.

Ch., your husband was the very _first_ who spoke to me--across the dinner-table in Hall. That is forty-six years ago, but I remember, as if it were only yesterday, the kindly smile with which he spoke....

September 27th and 28th are marked in his Diary "with a white stone":--

_Sept. 27th.--Dies notandus._ Discovered rule for dividing a number by 9, by mere addition and subtraction. I felt sure there must be an a.n.a.logous one for 11, and found it, and proved first rule by algebra, after working about nine hours!

_Sept. 28th.--Dies creta notandus._ I have actually _superseded_ the rules discovered yesterday! My new rules require to ascertain the 9-remainder, and the 11-remainder, which the others did _not_ require; but the new ones are much the quickest. I shall send them to _The Educational Times_, with date of discovery.

On November 4th he wrote:--

Completed a rule for dividing a given number by any divisor that is within 10 of a power of 10, either way. The _principle_ of it is not my discovery, but was sent me by Bertram Collingwood--a rule for dividing by a divisor which is within 10 of a power of 10, _below_ it.

My readers will not be surprised to learn that only eight days after this he had superseded his rule:--

An inventive morning! After waking, and before I had finished dressing, I had devised a new and much neater form in which to work my Rules for Long Division, and also decided to bring out my "Games and Puzzles," and Part iii.

of "Curiosa Mathematica," in _Numbers_, in paper covers, paged consecutively, to be ultimately issued in boards.