The Rugby days ended in glory; our Boy, no longer little Dodgson, but young Dodgson, came home loaded with honors. Mr. Mayor, his mathematical master, wrote to his father in 1848, that he had never had a more promising boy at his age, since he came to Rugby. Mr. Tait also wrote complimenting him most highly not only for his high standing in mathematics and divinity, but for his conduct while at Rugby, which was all that could be desired.
We can now see the dawning of the two great loves of his life, but there was another love, which Rugby brought forth in all its beauty and strength, the love for girls. From that time he became their champion, their friend, and their comrade; whatever of youth and of boyhood was in his nature came out in brilliant flashes in their company. Boys, in his estimation, had to be, of course—a necessary evil, to be wrestled with and subdued. But girls—God bless ’em! were girls; that was enough for young Dodgson to the end of the chapter.
CHAPTER III.
HOME LIFE DURING THE HOLIDAYS.
hen Charles came home on his holiday visits, he was undoubtedly the busiest person at Croft Rectory. We must remember there were ten eager little brothers and sisters who wanted the latest news from “the front,” meaning Rugby of course, and Charles found many funny things to tell of the school doings, many exciting matches to recount, many a thrilling adventure, and, alas! many a tale of some popular hero’s downfall and disgrace. He had sketches to show, and verses to read to a most enthusiastic audience, the girls giggling over his funny tales, the boys roaring with excitement as in fancy they pictured the scene at “Big-side” during some great football scrimmage, for Charles’s descriptions were so vivid, indeed he was such a good talker always, that a few quaint sentences would throw the whole picture on the canvas.
Vacation time was devoted to literary schemes of all kinds. From little boyhood until he was way up in his “teens,” he was the editor of one magazine or another of home manufacture, chiefly, indeed, of his own composition, or drawn from local items of interest to the young people of Croft Rectory. While he was still at Richmond School, Useful and Instructive Poetry was born and died in six months’ time, and many others shared the same fate; but the young editor was undaunted.
This was the age of small periodicals and he had caught the craze; it was also the age when great genius was burning brightly in England. Tennyson was in his prime; Dickens was writing his stories, and Macaulay his history of England. There were many other geniuses who influenced his later years, Carlyle, Browning and others, but the first three caught his boyish fancy and were his guides during those early days of editorship. Punch, the great English magazine of wit and humor, attracted him immensely, and many a time his rough drawings caught the spirit of some of the famous cartoons. He never imagined, as he laughed over the broad humor of John Tenniel, that the great cartoonist would one day stand beside him and share the honors of “Alice in Wonderland.”