The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll Part 5

I breakfasted this morning with Fowler of Lincoln to meet Thackeray (the author), who delivered his lecture on George III. in Oxford last night. I was much pleased with what I saw of him; his manner is simple and unaffected; he shows no anxiety to shine in conversation, though full of fun and anecdote when drawn out. He seemed delighted with the reception he had met with last night: the undergraduates seem to have behaved with most unusual moderation.

The next few years of his life pa.s.sed quietly, and without any unusual events to break the monotony of college routine. He spent his mornings in the lecture-rooms, his afternoons in the country or on the river--he was very fond of boating--and his evenings in his room, reading and preparing for the next day's work. But in spite of all this outward calm of life, his mind was very much exercised on the subject of taking Holy Orders. Not only was this step necessary if he wished to retain his Studentship, but also he felt that it would give him much more influence among the undergraduates, and thus increase his power of doing good. On the other hand, he was not prepared to live the life of almost puritanical strictness which was then considered essential for a clergyman, and he saw that the impediment of speech from which he suffered would greatly interfere with the proper performance of his clerical duties.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Bishop of Lincoln. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_]

The Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Wilberforce, had expressed the opinion that the "resolution to attend theatres or operas was an absolute disqualification for Holy Orders," which discouraged him very much, until it transpired that this statement was only meant to refer to the parochial clergy. He discussed the matter with Dr. Pusey, and with Dr.

Liddon. The latter said that "he thought a deacon might lawfully, if he found himself unfit for the work, abstain from direct ministerial duty." And so, with many qualms about his own unworthiness, he at last decided to prepare definitely for ordination.

On December 22, 1861, he was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Oxford.

He never proceeded to priest's orders, partly, I think, because he felt that if he were to do so it would be his duty to undertake regular parochial work, and partly on account of his stammering. He used, however, to preach not unfrequently, and his sermons were always delightful to listen to, his extreme earnestness being evident in every word.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bishop Wilberforce. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.]

"He knew exactly what he wished to say" (I am quoting from an article in _The Guardian_), "and completely forgot his audience in his anxiety to explain his point clearly. He thought of the subject only, and the words came of themselves. Looking straight in front of him he saw, as it were, his argument mapped out in the form of a diagram, and he set to work to prove it point by point, under its separate heads, and then summed up the whole."

One sermon which he preached in the University Church, on Eternal Punishment, is not likely to be soon forgotten by those who heard it.

I, unfortunately, was not of that number, but I can well imagine how his clear-cut features would light up as he dwelt lovingly upon the mercy of that Being whose charity far exceeds "the measure of man's mind." It is hardly necessary to say that he himself did not believe in eternal punishment, or any other scholastic doctrine that contravenes the love of G.o.d.

He disliked being complimented on his sermons, but he liked to be told of any good effects that his words had had upon any member of the congregation. "Thank you for telling me that fact about my sermon," he wrote to one of his sisters, who told him of some such good fruit that one of his addresses had borne. "I have once or twice had such information volunteered; and it is a _great_ comfort--and a kind of thing that is _really_ good for one to know. It is _not_ good to be told (and I never wish to be told), 'Your sermon was so _beautiful_.' We shall not be concerned to know, in the Great Day, whether we have preached beautiful sermons, but whether they were preached with the one object of serving G.o.d."

He was always ready and willing to preach at the special service for College servants, which used to be held at Christ Church every Sunday evening; but best of all he loved to preach to children. Some of his last sermons were delivered at Christ Church, Eastbourne (the church he regularly attended during the Long Vacation), to a congregation of children. On those occasions he told them an allegory--_Victor and Arnion,_ which he intended to publish in course of time--putting all his heart into the work, and speaking with such deep feeling that at times he was almost unable to control his emotion as he told them of the love and compa.s.sion of the Good Shepherd.

I have dwelt at some length on this side of his life, for it is, I am sure, almost ignored in the popular estimate of him. He was essentially a religious man in the best sense of the term, and without any of that morbid sentimentality which is too often a.s.sociated with the word; and while his religion consecrated his talents, and raised him to a height which without it he could never have reached, the example of such a man as he was, so brilliant, so witty, so successful, and yet so full of faith, consecrates the very conception of religion, and makes it yet more beautiful.

On April 13, 1859, he paid another visit to Tennyson, this time at Farringford.

After dinner we retired for about an hour to the smoking-room, where I saw the proof-sheets of the "King's Idylls," but he would not let me read them. He walked through the garden with me when I left, and made me remark an effect produced on the thin white clouds by the moon shining through, which I had not noticed--a ring of golden light at some distance off the moon, with an interval of white between--this, he says, he has alluded to in one of his early poems ("Margaret," vol. i.), "the tender amber." I asked his opinion of Sydney Dobell--he agrees with me in liking "Gra.s.s from the Battlefield," and thinks him a writer of genius and imagination, but extravagant.

On another occasion he showed the poet a photograph which he had taken of Miss Alice Liddell as a beggar-child, and which Tennyson said was the most beautiful photograph he had ever seen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Alice Liddell as Beggar-child. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll_.]

Tennyson told us he had often dreamed long pa.s.sages of poetry, and believed them to be good at the time, though he could never remember them after waking, except four lines which he dreamed at ten years old:--

May a c.o.c.k sparrow Write to a barrow?

I hope you'll excuse My infantile muse;

--which, as an unpublished fragment of the Poet Laureate, may be thought interesting, but not affording much promise of his after powers.

He also told us he once dreamed an enormously long poem about fairies, which began with very long lines that gradually got shorter, and ended with fifty or sixty lines of two syllables each!

On October 17, 1859, the Prince of Wales came into residence at Christ Church. The Dean met him at the station, and all the dons a.s.sembled in Tom Quadrangle to welcome him. Mr. Dodgson, as usual, had an eye to a photograph, in which hope, however, he was doomed to disappointment.

His Royal Highness was tired of having his picture taken.

During his early college life he used often to spend a few days at Hastings, with his mother's sisters, the Misses Lutwidge. In a letter written from their house to his sister Mary, and dated April 11, 1860, he gives an account of a lecture he had just heard:--

I am just returned from a series of dissolving views on the Arctic regions, and, while the information there received is still fresh in my mind, I will try to give you some of it.

In the first place, you may not know that one of the objects of the Arctic expeditions was to discover "the intensity of the magnetic needle." He [the lecturer] did not tell us, however, whether they had succeeded in discovering it, or whether that rather obscure question is still doubtful. One of the explorers, Baffin, "_though_ he did not suffer all the hardships the others did, _yet_ he came to an untimely end (of course one would think in the Arctic regions), _for instance_ (what follows being, I suppose, one of the untimely ends he came to), being engaged in a war of the Portuguese against the Prussians, while measuring the ground in front of a fortification, a cannon-ball came against him, with the force with which cannon-b.a.l.l.s in that day _did_ come, and killed him dead on the spot." How many instances of this kind would you demand to prove that he did come to an untimely end? One of the ships was laid up three years in the ice, during which time, he told us, "Summer came and went frequently." This, I think, was the most remarkable phenomenon he mentioned in the whole lecture, and gave _me_ quite a new idea of those regions.

On Tuesday I went to a concert at St. Leonard's. On the front seat sat a youth about twelve years of age, of whom the enclosed is a tolerably accurate sketch. He really was, I think, the ugliest boy I ever saw. I wish I could get an opportunity of photographing him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sketch from St. Leonard's Concert-Room.]

The following note occurs in his Journal for May 6th:--

A Christ Church man, named Wilmot, who is just returned from the West Indies, dined in Hall. He told us some curious things about the insects in South America--one that he had himself seen was a spider charming a c.o.c.kroach with flashes of light; they were both on the wall, the spider about a yard the highest, and the light was like a glow-worm, only that it came by flashes and did not shine continuously; the c.o.c.kroach gradually crawled up to it, and allowed itself to be taken and killed.

A few months afterwards, when in town and visiting Mr.

Munroe's studio, he found there two of the children of Mr.

George Macdonald, whose acquaintance he had already made: "They were a girl and boy, about seven and six years old--I claimed their acquaintance, and began at once proving to the boy, Greville, that he had better take the opportunity of having his head changed for a marble one. The effect was that in about two minutes they had entirely forgotten that I was a total stranger, and were earnestly arguing the question as if we were old acquaintances." Mr. Dodgson urged that a marble head would not have to be brushed and combed.

At this the boy turned to his sister with an air of great relief, saying, "Do you hear _that_, Mary? It needn't be combed!" And the narrator adds, "I have no doubt combing, with his great head of long hair, like Hallam Tennyson's, was _the_ misery of his life. His final argument was that a marble head couldn't speak, and as I couldn't convince either that he would be all the better for that, I gave in."

[Ill.u.s.tration: George Macdonald and his daughter Lily.

_From a photograph by Lewis Carroll._]

In November he gave a lecture at a meeting of the Ashmolean Society on "Where does the Day begin?" The problem, which was one he was very fond of propounding, may be thus stated: If a man could travel round the world so fast that the sun would be always directly above his head, and if he were to start travelling at midday on Tuesday, then in twenty-four hours he would return to his original point of departure, and would find that the day was now called Wednesday--at what point of his journey would the day change its name? The difficulty of answering this apparently simple question has cast a gloom over many a pleasant party.

On December 12th he wrote in his Diary:--

Visit of the Queen to Oxford, to the great surprise of everybody, as it had been kept a secret up to the time. She arrived in Christ Church about twelve, and came into Hall with the Dean, where the Collections were still going on, about a dozen men being in Hall. The party consisted of the Queen, Prince Albert, Princess Alice and her intended husband, the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, the Prince of Wales, Prince Alfred, and suite. They remained a minute or two looking at the pictures, and the Sub-Dean was presented: they then visited the Cathedral and Library. Evening entertainment at the Deanery, _tableaux vivants_. I went a little after half-past eight, and found a great party a.s.sembled--the Prince had not yet come. He arrived before nine, and I found an opportunity of reminding General Bruce of his promise to introduce me to the Prince, which he did at the next break in the conversation H.R.H. was holding with Mrs. Fellowes. He shook hands very graciously, and I began with a sort of apology for having been so importunate about the photograph. He said something of the weather being against it, and I asked if the Americans had victimised him much as a sitter; he said they had, but he did not think they had succeeded well, and I told him of the new American process of taking twelve thousand photographs in an hour.

Edith Liddell coming by at the moment, I remarked on the beautiful _tableau_ which the children might make: he a.s.sented, and also said, in answer to my question, that he had seen and admired my photographs of them. I then said that I hoped, as I had missed the photograph, he would at least give me his autograph in my alb.u.m, which he promised to do. Thinking I had better bring the talk to an end, I concluded by saying that, if he would like copies of any of my photographs, I should feel honoured by his accepting them; he thanked me for this, and I then drew back, as he did not seem inclined to pursue the conversation.

A few days afterwards the Prince gave him his autograph, and also chose a dozen or so of his photograph (sic).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mrs. Rossetti and her children Dante Gabriel, Christina, and William. _From a photograph by Lewis Carroll._]

CHAPTER III

(1861-1867)

Jowett--Index to "In Memoriam"--The Tennysons--The beginning of "Alice"--Tenniel--Artistic friends--"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"--"Bruno's Revenge"--Tour with Dr.

Liddon--Cologne--Berlin architecture--The "Majesty of Justice"--Peterhof--Moscow--A Russian wedding--Nijni--The Troitska Monastery--"Hieroglyphic" writing--Giessen.

It is my aim in this Memoir to let Mr. Dodgson tell his own story as much as possible. In order to effect this object I have drawn largely upon his Diary and correspondence. Very few men have left behind them such copious information about their lives as he has; unfortunately it is not equally copious throughout, and this fact must be my apology for the somewhat haphazard and disconnected way in which parts of this book are written. That it is the best which, under the circ.u.mstances, I have been able to do needs, I hope, no saying, but the circ.u.mstances have at times been too strong for me.

Though in later years Mr. Dodgson almost gave up the habit of dining out, at this time of his life he used to do it pretty frequently, and several of the notes in his Diary refer to after-dinner and Common Room stories. The two following extracts will show the sort of facts he recorded:--

_January 2, 1861._--Mr. Grey (Canon) came to dine and stay the night. He told me a curious old custom of millers, that they place the sails of the mill as a Saint Andrew's Cross when work is entirely suspended, thus x, but in an upright cross, thus +, if they are just going to resume work. He also mentioned that he was at school with Dr.

Tennyson (father of the poet), and was a great favourite of his. He remembers that Tennyson used to do his school-translations in rhyme.

_May 9th._--Met in Common Room Rev. C.F. Knight, and the Hon'ble. F.J. Parker, both of Boston, U.S. The former gave an amusing account of having seen Oliver Wendell Holmes in a fishmonger's, lecturing _extempore_ on the head of a freshly killed turtle, whose eyes and jaws still showed muscular action: the lecture of course being all "cram," but accepted as sober earnest by the mob outside.