Twinkle, twinkle, little bat—
How I wonder what you’re at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle.
Who but Lewis Carroll could invent such a scene? Who could better plan the little sparkling sentences which gave the nonsense just the glitter which children found so fascinating and so laughable. Yet what did they laugh at after all? What do we laugh at even to-day in glancing over the familiar pages? What is it in the mysterious depths of childhood which Lewis Carroll has caught in his golden web? Perhaps, it is not all mere childhood; we are ourselves but “children of a larger growth,” and deep down within us at some time or other fancy runs riot and imagination does the rest. So it was with Lewis Carroll, only his fancy soared into genius, carrying with it, as someone has said, “a suggestion of clear and yet soft laughing sunshine. He never made us laugh at anything, but always with him and his knights and queens and heroes of the nursery rhymes.”
Behind much of the world’s laughter tears may be hiding, but not so in the case of Lewis Carroll; all is pure mirth that flows from him to us, and above all he possesses that indescribable thing called charm. It lurks in the quaint conversations, in the fluent measure of the songs, in the fantastic scenes so full of ideas that seem to vanish before we quite grasp them—like the Cheshire Cat—leaving only the smile behind.
To those of us—the world in short—who were denied the privilege of hearing Lewis Carroll tell his own story, the Tenniel pictures bring Wonderland very close. Our natural history alone would not help us in the least when it came to classifying the many strange animals Alice met on her journey. The Mock Turtle, the Gryphon, the Lory, the Dodo, the Cheshire Cat, the Fish and Frog footmen—how could we imagine them without the Tenniel “guidebook”? The numberless transformations of Alice could hardly be understood without photographs of her in the various stages. And certainly at the croquet party, given by the Queen of Hearts, how could anyone imagine a game played with bent-over soldiers for wickets, hedgehogs for croquet balls, and flamingoes for mallets, unless there were accompanying illustrations?
One specially interesting picture shows the Gryphon in the foreground; he and Alice paid a visit to the Mock Turtle, who, by way of entertaining his guests, gave the following description of the Lobster Quadrille. With tears running down his cheeks he began:
“‘You have never lived much under the sea’ (‘I haven’t,’ said Alice) ‘and perhaps you were never introduced to a lobster—’ (Alice began to say ‘I once tasted—’ but she checked herself hastily, and said, ‘No, never’), ‘so you can have no idea what a delightful thing a Lobster Quadrille is!’
“‘No, indeed,’ said Alice. ‘What sort of a dance is it?’
“‘Why,’ said the Gryphon, ‘you first form into a line along the seashore.’
“‘Two lines!’ cried the Mock Turtle. ‘Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on; then when you’ve cleared all the jellyfish out of the way—’
“‘That generally takes some time,’ interrupted the Gryphon.
“‘You advance twice.’
“‘Each with a lobster as a partner!’ cried the Gryphon.
“‘Of course,’ the Mock Turtle said; ‘advance twice, set to partners—’
“‘Change lobsters and retire in same order,’ continued the Gryphon.
“‘Then, you know,’ the Mock Turtle went on, ‘you throw the—’
“‘The lobsters!’ shouted the Gryphon with a bound into the air.
“‘As far out to sea as you can—’
“‘Swim after them!’ screamed the Gryphon.
“‘Turn a somersault in the sea!’ cried the Mock Turtle, capering wildly about.
“‘Change lobsters again!’ yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice.
“‘Back to land again, and—that’s all the first figure,’ said the Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping his voice, and the two creatures who had been jumping about like mad things all this time sat down again, very sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice.”
Who could read this without laughing, with no reason for the laugh but sheer delight and sympathy with the story-teller, and with dancing and motion and all the rest of it. If anyone begins to hunt for the reasons why we like “Alice in Wonderland” that person is either very, very sleepy, or she has left her youth so far behind her that, like the Lory, she absolutely refuses to tell her age, in which case she must be as old as the hills.
Then the dance, which the two gravely performed for the little girl, and who can forget the song of the Mock Turtle?
“Will you walk a little faster!” said a whiting to a snail,
“There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?
“You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!”
But the snail replied, “Too far, too far!” and gave a look askance—
Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.
“What matters it how far we go?” his scaly friend replied,
“There is another shore, you know, upon the other side,
The farther off from England the nearer is to France;
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?”
Then Alice tried to repeat “’Tis the voice of the Sluggard,” but she was so full of the Lobster Quadrille that the words came like this:
’Tis the voice of the lobster, I heard him declare,
“You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.”
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.
The whole time she was in Wonderland she never by any chance recited anything correctly, and through all of her wanderings she never met anything in the shape of a little boy, except the infant son of the Duchess, who after all turned out to be a pig and vanished in the woods. The “roundabouts” played no parts in “Alice in Wonderland,” and yet—to a man—they love it to this day.
When at last Alice bade farewell to the Mock Turtle, she left it sobbing of course, and singing with much emotion the following song, entitled:
TURTLE SOUP.
Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!
Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!
Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,
Game, or any other dish
Who would not give all else for two
pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!
Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,
Beautiful, beauti—ful Soup!
We might spend a whole chapter over the great trial scene of the Knave of Hearts. We all know that the wretched fellow stole some tarts upon a summer’s day, and that he was brought in chains before the King and Queen, to face the charges. What we did not know was that it was the fourth of July, and that Alice was one of the witnesse
s.
This, in a certain way, is the cleverest chapter in the book, for all the characters in Wonderland take part in the proceedings, which are so like, and yet so comically unlike, a real court. We forget, as Alice did, that all these royalties are but a pack of cards, and follow all the evidence with the greatest interest, including the piece of paper which the White Rabbit had just found and presented to the Court. It contained the following verses:
They told me you had been to her,
And mentioned me to him:
She gave me a good character,
But said I could not swim.
He sent them word I had not gone
(We know it to be true):
If she should push the matter on,
What would become of you?
I gave her one, they gave him two,
You gave us three or more:
They all returned from him to you,
Though they were mine before.
If I or she should chance to be
Involved in this affair,
He trusts to you to set them free,
Exactly as we were.
My notion was that you had been
(Before she had this fit)
An obstacle that came between
Him, and ourselves, and it.
Don’t let him know she liked them best,
For this must ever be
A secret, kept from all the rest,
Between yourself and me.
This truly clear explanation touches the Queen of Hearts so closely that the outsider is led to believe that she is indirectly responsible for the theft, that the poor knave is but the tool of her Majesty, whose fondness for tarts led her into temptation. Lewis Carroll had a keen eye for the dramatic climax—the packed court room, the rambling evidence, the mystifying scrap of paper, and Alice’s defiance of the King and Queen.
“‘Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved. ‘Who cares for you?’ said Alice (she had grown to her full size by this time), ‘you’re nothing but a pack of cards.’
“At this, the whole pack rose up in the air and came flying down upon her; she gave a little scream, half of fright, half of anger, and tried to beat them off and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees on to her face....”
And so Alice woke up, shook back the elf-locks, and laughed as she rubbed her eyes.
“Such a curious dream!” she said, as the wonder of it all came back to her, and she told her sister of the queer things she had seen and heard, and long after she had run away, this big sister sat with closed eyes, dreaming and wondering.
“The long grass rustled at her feet as the White Rabbit hurried by; the frightened Mouse splashed his way through the neighboring pool; she could hear the rattle of the teacups as the March Hare and his friends shared their never-ending meal, and the shrill voice of the Queen ordering off her unfortunate guests to execution. Once more the pig-baby was sneezing on the Duchess’s knee, while plates and dishes crashed around it; once more the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the Lizard’s slate pencil, and the choking of the suppressed Guinea Pigs filled the air, mixed up with the distant sob of the miserable Mock Turtle.”
Yet when she opened her eyes she knew that Wonderland must go. In reality “the grass would only be rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds, the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep bells and the Queen’s shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd boy, and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other queer noises would change ... to the confused clamor of the busy farmyard, while the lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle’s heavy sobs.”
So we have dreamed of Wonderland from that time till now, when Lewis Carroll looks out from the pages of his book and says:
“That’s all—for to-night—there may be more to-morrow.”
CHAPTER VIII.
LEWIS CARROLL AT HOME AND ABROAD.
The popularity of “Alice in Wonderland” was a never-ending source of surprise to the author, who had only to stand quietly by and rake in his profits, as edition after edition was swallowed up by a public incessantly clamoring for more, and Lewis Carroll was not too modest to enjoy the sensation he was creating in the literary world. His success came to him unsought, and was all the more lasting because the seeds of it were planted in love and laughter. Let us see what he says in the preface to “Alice Underground,” the forerunner, as we know, of “Alice in Wonderland.”
“The ‘why’ of this book cannot and need not be put into words. Those for whom a child’s mind is a sealed book, and who see no divinity in a child’s smile, would read such words in vain; while for any one who has ever loved one true child, no words are needed. For he will have known the awe that falls on one in the presence of a spirit, fresh from God’s hands, on whom no shadow of sin, and but the outermost fringe of the shadow of sorrow, has yet fallen; he will have felt the bitter contrast between the haunting selfishness that spoils his best deeds and the life that is but an overflowing love—for I think a child’s first attitude to the world is a simple love for all living things—and he will have learned that the best work a man can do is when he works for love’s sake only, with no thought of name or gain or earthly reward. No deed of ours, I suppose, on this side of the grave is really unselfish, yet if one can put forth all one’s powers in a task where nothing of reward is hoped for but a little child’s whispered thanks, and the airy touch of a little child’s pure lips, one seems to have come somewhere near to this.”
In the appendix to the same book he writes regarding laughter:
“I do not believe God means us to divide life into two halves—to wear a grave face on Sunday, and to think it out of place even so much as to mention Him on a week-day.... Surely the children’s innocent laughter is as sweet in His ears as the grandest anthem that ever rolled up from ‘the dim religious light’ of some solemn cathedral; and if I have written anything to add to those stores of innocent and healthy amusement that are laid up in books for the children I love so well, it is surely something I may hope to look back upon without shame or sorrow ... when my turn comes to walk through the valley of shadows.”
Such was the man who filled the world with laughter, and wrote “nonsense” books; a man of such deeply religious feeling that a jest that touched upon sacred things, however innocent in itself, was sure to bring down his wrath upon the head of the offender. There is a certain strain of sadness in those quoted words of his, which surely never belonged to those “golden summer days” when he made merry with the three little Liddells. We must remember that twenty-one years had passed between the telling of the story and the reprint of the original manuscript, and Lewis Carroll was just a little graver and considerably older than on that eventful day when the White Rabbit looked at his watch as if to say: “Oh—my ears and whiskers! What will the Duchess think!” as he popped down the hole with Alice at his heels.
But we are going a little too far ahead. After the writing of “Alice,” with the accompanying excitement of seeing his first-born win favor, Lewis Carroll went quietly forward in his daily routine. He had already become quite a famous lecturer, being, indeed, the only mathematical lecturer in Christ Church College, so Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was not completely overshadowed by the glory of Lewis Carroll.
From the beginning he was careful to separate these two sides of his life, and the numbers of letters which soon began to pour in upon the latter were never recognized by the grave, precise “don,” whose thoughts flowed in numbers, and so it was all through his life. When anyone wrote to him, addressing him by his real name, and praising him for the “Alice” books, he sent a printed reply which he kept “handy,” saying that as C. L. Dodgson was so often approached as the author of books bearing another name, it must be understood that Mr. Dodgson never acknowledge
d the authorship of a book which did not bear his name. He was most careful in the wording of this printed form, that it should bear no shadow of untruth. It was only his shy way of avoiding the notice of strangers, and it succeeded so well that very few people knew that the Rev. Charles Dodgson and Lewis Carroll were one and the same person. It was also hinted, and very broadly, too, that many of the queer characters Alice met on her journey through Wonderland were very dignified and stately figures in the University itself, who posed unconsciously as models. The Hatter is an acknowledged portrait, and no doubt there were many other sly caricatures, for Lewis Carroll was a born humorist.
“Alice” has been given to the public in many ways besides translations. There have been lectures, plays, magic lantern slides of Tenniel’s wonderful pictures, tableaux; and many scenes find their way, even at this day, in the nursery wall-paper covered over with Gryphons and Mock Turtles and the whole Court of Cards—a most imposing array. It has been truly stated that, with the exception of Shakespeare’s plays, no books have been so often quoted as the two “Alices.”
After the publication of “Alice in Wonderland,” Lewis Carroll contributed short stories to the various periodicals which were eager for his work. As early as 1867, he sent to Aunt Judy’s Magazine a short story called “Bruno’s Revenge,” the foundation of “Sylvie and Bruno,” which was never published in book form until 1889, twenty-two years after.
The editor of the magazine, Mrs. Gatty, in accepting the story, gave the author some wholesome advice wrapped up in a bundle of praise for the dainty little idyll. She reminded him that mathematical ability such as he possessed was also the gift of hundreds of others, but his story-telling talent, so full of exquisite touches, was peculiarly his own, and whatever of fame might come to him would be on the wings of the fairies, and not from the lecture room.
In “Bruno’s Revenge” we have, for the first time in any of his stories, a little boy. It was a sort of unwilling tribute Lewis Carroll paid to the poor despised “roundabouts,” and for all the winsome fairy ways and merry little touches, Bruno was never quite the real thing; at any rate the story was put away to simmer, and as the long years passed, it was added to bit by bit until—but that is another story.
Complete Works of Lewis Carroll Page 160
