Between the publication of “Alice” and the summer vacation of 1867 he wrote several very learned mathematical works that earned him much distinction among the Christ Church undergraduates, who found it hard to believe that Mr. Dodgson and Lewis Carroll were so closely connected. It was during this summer (1867) that he and Dr. Liddon took a short tour on the Continent.
The two men had much in common and were firm friends. Both had the true Oxford spirit, both were churchmen, Dr. Liddon being quite a famous preacher, and both were men of high intelligence with a good supply of humor; consequently the prospect of a trip to Russia together was a very delightful one. Lewis Carroll kept a journal which was such a complete record of his experiences that at one time he thought of publishing it, though it was never done.
He went up to London on July 12th, remarking in his characteristic way that he and the Sultan of Turkey arrived on the same day, his entrance being at Paddington station—the Sultan’s at Charing Cross, where, he was forced to admit, the crowd was much greater. He met Dr. Liddon at Dover and they crossed to Calais, finding the passage unusually smooth and uneventful, feeling in some way that they had paid their money in vain, for the trip across the channel is generally one of storm and stress.
All such tours have practically the same object—to see and to enjoy—and the young “don” came out of his den for this express purpose. It had been impossible in the busy years since his graduation to take his holidays far away from home, but at the age of thirty-five he felt that he had earned the right, and proceeded to use it in his own way. Their route lay through Germany, stopping at Cologne, Danzig, Berlin and Königsberg, among other places, and he feasted on the beauties which these various cities had to offer him; the architecture and paintings, the pageantry of strange religions, the music in the great cathedrals, and last, but not least, the foreign drama interested him greatly. The German acting was easy enough to follow, as he knew a little of the language; but the Russian tongue was beyond him, and he could only rely upon the gestures and expression.
Their special object in going to Russia was to see the great fair at Nijni-Novgorod. This fair brought all the corners of the earth together; Chinese, Persians, Tartars, native Russians, mingled in the busy, surging life about them, and lent colour and variety to every step. The two friends spent their time pleasantly, for the fame of Dr. Liddon’s preaching had reached Russia, and the clergy opened their doors to the travelers and took them over many churches and monasteries, which otherwise they might never have seen. They stopped in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kronstadt, Warsaw, taking in Leipzig, Giessen, Ems, and many smaller places on the homeward road.
They visited a famous monastery while in Moscow, and were even shown the subterranean cells of the hermits. At Kronstadt they had a most amusing experience. They went to call upon a friend, and Dr. Liddon, forgetting his scanty knowledge of the Russian language, rashly handed his overcoat to one of the servants. When they were ready to leave there was a waiting-maid in attendance—but no overcoat. The damsel spoke no English, the gentleman spoke no Russian, so Dr. Liddon asked for his overcoat with what he considered the most appropriate gesture. Intelligence beamed upon the maiden’s face; she ran from the room, returning with a clothes brush. No, Dr. Liddon did not want his coat brushed; he tried other gestures, succeeding so beautifully that the girl was convinced that he wanted to take a nap on the sofa, and brought a cushion and a pillow for that purpose. Still no overcoat, and Dr. Liddon was in despair until Lewis Carroll made a sketch of his friend with one coat on, in the act of putting on another, in the hands of an obliging Russian peasant. The drawing was so expressive that the maid understood at once; the mystery was solved—and the coat recovered.
With this gift of drawing a situation, it is remarkable that Lewis Carroll never became an artist. With all his artistic ideas, and with his real knowledge of art, it seems a pity that he could not have gratified his ambition, but after serious consultation with John Ruskin, who as critic and friend examined his work, he decided that his natural gift was not great enough to push, and sensibly resolved not to waste so much precious time. Still, to the end of his life, he drew for amusement’s sake and for the pleasure it gave his small friends.
Altogether their tour was a very pleasant one, and their return was through Germany, that most interesting country of hills and valleys and pretty white villages nestling among the trees. What Lewis Carroll specially liked was the way the old castles seemed to spring out of the rock on which they had been built, as if they had grown there without the aid of bricks and mortar. He admired the spirit of the old architects, which guided them to plan buildings naturally suited to their surroundings, and was never tired of the beautiful hills, so densely covered with small trees as to look moss-grown in the distance.
On his return to Oxford, he plunged at once into very active work. The new term was beginning—there were lectures to prepare and courses to plan, and undergraduates to interview, all of which kept him quite busy for a while, though it did not interfere with certain cozy afternoon teas, when he related his summer adventures to his numerous girl friends, and kept them in a gale of laughter over his many queer experiences.
But these same little girls were clamoring for another book, and a hundred thousand others were alike eager for it, to judge by the heavy budgets of mail he received, so he cast about in that original mind of his for a worthy sequel to “Alice in Wonderland.” He was willing to write a sequel then, for “Alice” was still fresh and amusing to a host of children, and its luster had been undimmed as yet by countless imitations. To be sure “Alice in Blunderland” had appeared in Punch, the well-known English paper of wit and humor, but then Punch was Punch, and spared nothing which might yield a ripple of laughter.
When it was known that he had finally determined to write the book, a leading magazine offered him two guineas a page (a sum equal to about ten dollars in our money) for the privilege of printing it as a serial. This story as we know was called “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There,” though few people take time to use the full title. It is usually read by youngsters right “on top” of “Alice in Wonderland.” They speak of the two books as the “Alices,” and some of the best editions are even bound together, so closely are the stories connected.
With Lewis Carroll’s aptness for doing things backward, is it any wonder that he pushed Alice through the Looking-Glass? And so full of grace and beauty and absurd situations is the story he has given us, we quite forget that it was written for the public, and not entirely for three little girls “all on a summer’s day.” No doubt they heard the chapters for they were right there across “Tom Quad” and could be summoned by a whistle, if need be, along with some other little girls who had sprung up within the walls of Christ Church.
At any rate the story turned out far beyond his expectations and he was again fortunate in securing Tenniel as his illustrator. It was no easy task to illustrate for Lewis Carroll, who criticised every stroke, and being quite enough of an artist to know exactly what he wanted, he was never satisfied until he had it. This often tried the patience of those who worked with him, but his own good humor and unfailing courtesy generally won in the end.
In the midst of this pleasant work came the greatest sorrow of his life, the death of his father, Archdeacon Dodgson, on June 21, 1868. Seventeen years had passed since his mother’s death, which had left him stunned on the very threshold of his college life; but he was only a boy in spite of his unusual gravity, and his youth somehow fought for him when he battled with his grief. In those intervening years, he and his father had grown very close together. One never took a step without consulting the other. Christ Church and all it meant to one of them was alike dear to the other. The archdeacon took the keenest interest in his son’s outside work, and we may be quite sure that “Alice” was as much read and as thoroughly enjoyed by this grave scholar as by any other member of his household. It was the suddenness of his death which left its lasting mark on
Lewis Carroll, and the fact that he was summoned too late to see his father alive. It was a terrible shock, and a grief of which he could never speak. He wrote some beautiful letters about it, but those who knew him well respected the wall of silence he erected.
In truth, our quiet, self-contained “don” was a man of deep emotions; the quiet, the poise, had come through years of inward struggle, and he maintained it at the cost of being considered a little cold by people who never could know the trouble it had been to smother the fire. He put away his sorrow with other sacred things, and on his return to Oxford went to work in his characteristic way on a pamphlet concerning the Fifth Book of Euclid, written principally to aid the students during examinations, and which was considered an excellent bit of work.
In November, 1868, he moved into new quarters in Christ Church and, as he occupied these rooms for the rest of his life, a little description of them just here would not be out of place.
“Tom Quad,” we must not forget, was the Great Quadrangle of Christ Church, where all the masters and heads of the college lived with their families. This was called being in residence, and a pretty sight it was to see the great stretch of green, and its well-kept paths gay with the life that poured from the doors and peeped through the windows of this wonderful place; a sunny day brought out all the young ones, and just here Lewis Carroll’s closest ties were formed.
The angles of “Tom Quad” were the choice spots for a lodging, and Lewis Carroll lived in the west angle, first on the ground floor, where, as we know, “Alice in Wonderland” was written; then, when he made his final move, it was to the floor above, which was brighter and sunnier, giving him more rooms and more space. This upper floor looked out upon the flat roof of the college, an excellent place for photography, to which he was still devoted, and he asked permission of those in charge to erect a studio there. This was easily obtained, and could the walls tell tales they would hum with the voices of the celebrated “flies” this clever young “spider” lured into his den. For he took beautiful photographs at a time when photography was not the perfect system that it is now, and nothing pleased him better than posing well-known people. All the big lights of Oxford sat before his camera, including Lord Salisbury, who was Chancellor at that time. Artists, sculptors, writers, actors of note had their pleasant hour in Lewis Carroll’s studio.
Our “don” was very partial to great people, that is, the truly great, the men and women who truly counted in the world, whether by birth and breeding or by some accomplished deed or high aim. Being a cultured gentleman himself, he had a vast respect for culture in other people—not a bad trait when all is told, and setting very naturally upon an Englishman born of gentle stock, with generations of ladies and gentlemen at his back. One glance into the sensitive, refined face of Charles Dodgson would convince us at once that no friendship he ever formed had anything but the highest aim for him. He might have chosen for his motto—
“Only what thou art in thyself, not what thou hast, determines thy value.”
Even among his girl friends, the “little lady,” no matter how poor or plain, was his first object; that was a strong enough foundation. The rest was easy.
But here we have been outside in the studio soaring a bit in the sky, when our real destination is that suite of beautiful big rooms where Lewis Carroll lived and wrote and entertained his many friends, for hospitality was one of his greatest pleasures, and his dining-room and dinner parties are well remembered by every child friend he knew, to say nothing of those privileged elders who were sometimes allowed to join them. He was very particular about his dinners and luncheons, taking care to have upon the table only what his young guests could eat.
He had four sitting rooms and quite as many bedrooms, to say nothing of store-rooms, closets and so forth. His study was a great room, full of comfortable sofas and chairs, and stools and tables, and cubby-holes and cupboards, where many wonderfully interesting things were hidden from view, to be brought forth at just the right moment for special entertainment.
Lewis Carroll had English ideas about comfortable surroundings. He loved books, and his shelves were well filled with volumes of his own choosing; a rare and valuable library, where each book was a tried friend.
A man with so many sitting rooms must certainly have had use for them all, and knowing how methodical he was we may feel quite sure that the room where he wrote “Through the Looking-Glass” was not the sanctum where he prepared his lectures and wrote his books on Logic and Higher Mathematics; it might have served for an afternoon frolic or a tea party of little girls; that would have been in keeping, as probably he received the undergraduates in his sanctum.
As for the other two sitting rooms, “let’s pretend,” as Alice herself says, that one was dedicated to the writing of poetry, and the other to the invention of games and puzzles; he had quite enough work of all kinds on hand to keep every room thoroughly aired. We shall hear about these rooms again from little girls whose greatest delight it was to visit them. What we want to do now is to picture Lewis Carroll in his new quarters, energetically pushing Alice through the Looking-Glass, while at the same time he was busily writing “Phantasmagoria,” a queer ghost poem which attracted much attention. It was published with a great many shorter poems in the early part of 1869, preceding the publication of the new “Alice,” on which he was working chapter by chapter with Sir John Tenniel.
It was wonderful how closely the artist followed the queer mazes of Lewis Carroll’s thought. He was able to draw the strange animals and stranger situations just as the author wished to have them, but there came a point at which the artist halted and shook his head.
“I don’t like the ‘Wasp Chapter,’” was the substance of a letter from artist to author, and he could not see his way to illustrating it. Indeed, even with his skill, a wasp in a wig was rather a difficult subject and, as Lewis Carroll wouldn’t take off the wig, they were at a standstill. Rather than sacrifice the wig it was determined to cut out the chapter, and as it was really not so good as the other chapters, it was not much loss to the book, which rounded out very easily to just the dozen, full of the cleverest illustrations Tenniel ever drew. It was his last attempt at illustrating: the gift deserted him suddenly and never returned. His original cartoon work was always excellent, but the “Alices” had brought him a peculiar fame which would never have come to him through the columns of Punch, and Lewis Carroll, always generous in praising others, was quick to recognize the master hand which followed his thought. There was something in every stroke which appealed to the laughter of children, and the power of producing unthinkable animals amounted almost to inspiration. No doubt there may be illustrators of the present day quite as clever in their line, but Lewis Carroll stood alone in a new world which he created; there were none before him and none followed him, and his Knight of the Brush was faithful and true.
“Through the Looking-Glass” was published in 1871, and at once took its place as another “Alice” classic. There is much to be said about this book—so much, indeed, that it requires a chapter of its own, for many agree in considering it even more of a masterpiece than “Alice in Wonderland,” and though more carefully planned out than its predecessor, there is no hint of hard labor in the brilliant nonsense.
Those who have known and loved the man recognize in the “Alices” the best and most attractive part of him. In spite of his persistent stammering, he was a ready and natural talker, and when in the mood he could be as irresistibly funny as any of the characters in his book. His knowledge of English was so great that he could take the most ordinary expression and draw from it a new and unexpected meaning; his habit of “playing upon words” is one of his very funniest traits. When the Mock Turtle said in that memorable conversation with Alice which we all know by heart: “no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise,” he meant, of course, without a purpose, and having made the joke he refused explanations and seemed offended that Alice needed any. Another humorous idea was that the whit
ings always held their tails in their mouths.
“The reason is,” said the Gryphon, “that they would go with the lobsters to the dance. So they were thrown out to sea. So they had to fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in their mouths. So they couldn’t get them out again. That’s all.”
This is not the natural position of the whiting, as we all know, but the device of the fishmonger to make his windows attractive, and Alice herself came perilously near saying that she had eaten them for dinner cooked in that fashion and sprinkled over with bread crumbs. It was just Lewis Carroll’s funny way of viewing things, in much the same fashion that one of his child-friends would look at them. His was a real child’s mind, full of wonder depths where all sorts of impossible things existed, two-sided triangles, parallel lines that met in a point, whitings who had their tails in their mouths, and many other delightful contradictions, some of which he gave to the world. Others he stored away for the benefit of the numberless little girls who had permission to rummage in the store-house.
“Alice through the Looking-Glass” made its bow with a flourish of trumpets. All the “Nonsense” world was waiting for it, and for once expectation was not disappointed and the author found himself almost hidden beneath his mantle of glory. People praised him so much that it is quite a wonder his head was not completely turned. Henry Kingsley, the novelist, thought it “perfectly splendid,” and indeed many others fully agreed with him.
As for the children—and after all they were his real critics—the little girl who thought “Through the Looking-Glass” “stupider” than Wonderland, voiced the popular sentiment. Those who were old enough to read the book themselves soon knew by heart all the fascinating poetry, and if the story had no other merit, “The Jabberwocky” alone would have been enough to recommend it. Of all the queer fancies of a queer mind, this poem was the most remarkable, and even to-day, with all our clever verse-makers and nonsense-rhymers, no one has succeeded in getting out of apparently meaningless words so much real meaning and genuine fun as are to be found in this one little classic.
Complete Works of Lewis Carroll Page 161
