The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll Part 30

He even objected to having his books discussed in his presence; thus he writes to a friend:--

Your friend, Miss--was very kind and complimentary about my books, but may I confess that I would rather have them ignored? Perhaps I am too fanciful, but I have somehow taken a dislike to being talked to about them; and consequently have some trials to bear in society, which otherwise would be no trials at all.... I don't think any of my many little stage-friends have any shyness at all about being talked to of their performances. _They_ thoroughly enjoy the publicity that I shrink from.

The child to whom the three following letters were addressed, Miss Gaynor Simpson, was one of Lewis Carroll's Guildford friends. The correct answer to the riddle propounded in the second letter is "Copal":--

_December_ 27, 1873.

My dear Gaynor,--My name is spelt with a "G," that is to say "_Dodgson_." Any one who spells it the same as that wretch (I mean of course the Chairman of Committees in the House of Commons) offends me _deeply_, and _for ever!_ It is a thing I _can_ forget, but _never can forgive! _If you do it again, I shall call you "'aynor." Could you live happy with such a name?

As to dancing, my dear, I _never_ dance, unless I am allowed to do it _in my own peculiar way. _There is no use trying to describe it: it has to be seen to be believed.

The last house I tried it in, the floor broke through. But then it was a poor sort of floor--the beams were only six inches thick, hardly worth calling beams at all: stone arches are much more sensible, when any dancing, _of my peculiar kind_, is to be done. Did you ever see the Rhinoceros, and the Hippopotamus, at the Zoological Gardens, trying to dance a minuet together? It is a touching sight.

Give any message from me to Amy that you think will be most likely to surprise her, and, believe me,

Your affectionate friend,

Lewis Carroll.

My dear Gaynor,--So you would like to know the answer to that riddle? Don't be in a hurry to tell it to Amy and Frances: triumph over them for a while!

My first lends its aid when you plunge into trade.

_Gain_. Who would go into trade if there were no gain in it?

My second in jollifications--

_Or_ [The French for "gold"--] Your jollifications would be _very_ limited if you had no money.

My whole, laid on thinnish, imparts a neat finish To pictorial representations.

_Gaynor_. Because she will be an ornament to the Shakespeare Charades--only she must be "laid on thinnish,"

that is, _there musn't be too much of her._

Yours affectionately,

C. L. Dodgson.

My dear Gaynor,--Forgive me for having sent you a sham answer to begin with.

My first--_Sea_. It carries the ships of the merchants.

My second--_Weed_. That is, a cigar, an article much used in jollifications.

My whole--_Seaweed_. Take a newly painted oil-picture; lay it on its back on the floor, and spread over it, "thinnish,"

some wet seaweed. You will find you have "finished" that picture.

Yours affectionately,

C.L. Dodgson.

Lewis Carroll during the last fifteen years of his life always spent the Long Vacation at Eastbourne; in earlier times, Sandown, a pleasant little seaside resort in the Isle of Wight, was his summer abode. He loved the sea both for its own sake and because of the number of children whom he met at seaside places. Here is another "first meeting"; this time it is at Sandown, and Miss Gertrude Chataway is the narrator:--

I first met Mr. Lewis Carroll on the sea-sh.o.r.e at Sandown in the Isle of Wight, in the summer of 1875, when I was quite a little child.

We had all been taken there for change of air, and next door there was an old gentlemen--to me at any rate he seemed old--who interested me immensely. He would come on to his balcony, which joined ours, sniffing the sea-air with his head thrown back, and would walk right down the steps on to the beach with his chin in air, drinking in the fresh breezes as if he could never have enough. I do not know why this excited such keen curiosity on my part, but I remember well that whenever I heard his footstep I flew out to see him coming, and when one day he spoke to me my joy was complete.

Thus we made friends, and in a very little while I was as familiar with the interior of his lodgings as with our own.

I had the usual child's love for fairy-tales and marvels, and his power of telling stories naturally fascinated me. We used to sit for hours on the wooden steps which led from our garden on to the beach, whilst he told the most lovely tales that could possibly be imagined, often ill.u.s.trating the exciting situations with a pencil as he went along.

One thing that made his stories particularly charming to a child was that he often took his cue from her remarks--a question would set him off on quite a new trail of ideas, so that one felt that one had somehow helped to make the story, and it seemed a personal possession It was the most lovely nonsense conceivable, and I naturally revelled in it. His vivid imagination would fly from one subject to another, and was never tied down in any way by the probabilities of life.

To _me_ it was of course all perfect, but it is astonishing that _he_ never seemed either tired or to want other society. I spoke to him once of this since I have been grown up, and he told me it was the greatest pleasure he could have to converse freely with a child, and feel the depths of her mind.

He used to write to me and I to him after that summer, and the friendship, thus begun, lasted. His letters were one of the greatest joys of my childhood.

I don't think that he ever really understood that we, whom he had known as children, could not always remain such. I stayed with him only a few years ago, at Eastbourne, and felt for the time that I was once more a child. He never appeared to realise that I had grown up, except when I reminded him of the fact, and then he only said, "Never mind: you will always be a child to me, even when your hair is grey."

Some of the letters, to which Miss Chataway refers in these reminiscences, I am enabled, through her kindness, to give below:--

Christ Church, Oxford, _October_ 13, 1875.

My dear Gertrude,--I never give birthday _presents_, but you see I _do_ sometimes write a birthday _letter_: so, as I've just arrived here, I am writing this to wish you many and many a happy return of your birthday to-morrow. I will drink your health, if only I can remember, and if you don't mind--but perhaps you object? You see, if I were to sit by you at breakfast, and to drink your tea, you wouldn't like _that_, would you? You would say "Boo! hoo! Here's Mr. Dodgson's drunk all my tea, and I haven't got any left!" So I am very much afraid, next time Sybil looks for you, she'll find you sitting by the sad sea-wave, and crying "Boo! hoo! Here's Mr. Dodgson has drunk my health, and I haven't got any left!" And how it will puzzle Dr. Maund, when he is sent for to see you! "My dear Madam, I'm very sorry to say your little girl has got _no health at all_! I never saw such a thing in my life!"

"Oh, I can easily explain it!" your mother will say. "You see she would go and make friends with a strange gentleman, and yesterday he drank her health!" "Well, Mrs. Chataway,"

he will say, "the only way to cure her is to wait till his next birthday, and then for _her_ to drink _his_ health."

And then we shall have changed healths. I wonder how you'll like mine! Oh, Gertrude, I wish you wouldn't talk such nonsense!...

Your loving friend,

Lewis Carroll.

Christ Church, Oxford, _Dec_. 9, 1875.

My dear Gertrude,--This really will _not_ do, you know, sending one more kiss every time by post: the parcel gets so heavy it is quite expensive. When the postman brought in the last letter, he looked quite grave. "Two pounds to pay, sir!" he said. "_Extra weight_, sir!" (I think he cheats a little, by the way. He often makes me pay two _pounds_, when I think it should be _pence_). "Oh, if you please, Mr. Postman!" I said, going down gracefully on one knee (I wish you could see me go down on one knee to a postman--it's a very pretty sight), "do excuse me just this once! It's only from a little girl!"

"Only from a little girl!" he growled. "What are little girls made of?" "Sugar and spice," I began to say, "and all that's ni--" but he interrupted me. "No! I don't mean _that_. I mean, what's the good of little girls, when they send such heavy letters?" "Well, they're not _much_ good, certainly," I said, rather sadly.

"Mind you don't get any more such letters," he said, "at least, not from that particular little girl. _I know her well, and she's a regular bad one!"_ That's not true, is it? I don't believe he ever saw you, and you're not a bad one, are you? However, I promised him we would send each other _very_ few more letters--"Only two thousand four hundred and seventy, or so," I said. "Oh!" he said, "a little number like _that_ doesn't signify. What I meant is, you mustn't send _many_."

So you see we must keep count now, and when we get to two thousand four hundred and seventy, we mustn't write any more, unless the postman gives us leave.

I sometimes wish I was back on the sh.o.r.e at Sandown; don't you?