CHAPTER XII.
A FAIRY RING OF GIRLS.
n a little poem called “A Sea Dirge,” which Lewis Carroll wrote about this time, we find some very strange, uncomplimentary remarks, considering the fact that most of his vacations was spent at the seashore. Eastbourne, in the summer time, was as much his home—during the last fifteen years of his life—as Christ Church during the Oxford term. His pretty house in a shady, quiet street was a familiar spot to every girl friend of his acquaintance, and many of his closest and most interesting friendships were begun by the sea, yet he says:
There are certain things, as a spider, a ghost,
The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three—
That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most
Is a thing they call the Sea.
Pour some salt water over the floor—
Ugly I’m sure you’ll allow it to be;
Suppose it extended a mile or more,
That’s very like the Sea.
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I had a vision of nursery maids;
Tens of thousands passed by me—
All leading children with wooden spades,
And this way by the Sea.
Who invented those spades of wood?
Who was it cut them out of the tree?
None, I think, but an idiot could—
Or one that loved the Sea.
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If you like your coffee with sand for dregs,
A decided hint of salt in your tea,
And a fishy taste in the very eggs—
By all means choose the Sea.
And if, with these dainties to drink and eat,
You prefer not a vestige of grass or tree,
And a chronic state of wet in your feet,
Then—I recommend the Sea.
Did he mean all this, we wonder, this genial gentleman, who haunted the seashore in search of little girls, his pockets bulging with games and puzzles? He had also a good supply of safety-pins, in case he saw someone who wanted to wade in the sea, but whose skirts were in her way and who had no pin handy. Then he would go gravely up to her and present her with one of his stock.
In the earlier days he used to go to Sandown, in the Isle of Wight, and there he met little Gertrude Chataway, who must have been a very charming child, for he promptly fell in love with her. This was in 1875, and, from her description of him, he must have been a very, very old gentleman—forty-three at least. He happened to live next door to Gertrude, and during those summer days she used to watch him with much interest, for he had a way of throwing back his head and sniffing in the salt air that fascinated Gertrude, whose joy bubbled over when at last he spoke to her. The two became great friends. They used to sit for hours on the steps of their house which led to the beach, and he would delight the little girl with his wonderful stories, often illustrating them with a pencil as he talked. The great charm of these stories lay in the fact that some chance remark of Gertrude’s would wind him up; some question she asked would suggest a story, and as it spread out into “lovely nonsense” she always felt in some way that she had helped to make it grow.
This little girl was one of the child-friends who clung to the sweet association all her life, just as the little Liddell girls never grew quite away from his love and interest. It was to Gertrude that he dedicated “The Hunting of the Snark,” and she was the proud possessor not only of his friendship, but of many interesting letters, covering a period of at least ten years, during which time Gertrude passed from little girlhood, though he never seemed to realize the change.
Two of his prime favorites in the earlier days were Ellen Terry, the well-known English actress, and her sister Kate, who was also an actress of some note.