LEWIS CARROLL
IN WONDERLAND AND AT HOME

LEWIS CARROLL.

LEWIS CARROLL
IN WONDERLAND AND AT HOME

THE STORY OF HIS LIFE

BY
BELLE MOSES
AUTHOR OF
“LOUISA MAY ALCOTT”

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1910

Copyright, 1910, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Published October, 1910
Printed in the United States of America

TO
E. M. M. and M. J. M.

INTRODUCTION.

Lewis Carroll discovered a new country, simply by rowing up and down the river, and telling a story to the accompaniment of dipping oars and rippling waters, as the boat glided through. It is not everyone who can discover a country, people it with marvelous, fanciful shapes, and give it a place in our mental geography. But Lewis Carroll was not “everyone”—in fact he was like no one else to the many who called him friend. He had the magic power of creating something out of nothing, and gave to the eager children who had tired of “Aunt Louisa’s Picture Books,” and “Garlands of Poetry,” something to think about, to guess about, and to talk about.

If he had written nothing else but “Alice in Wonderland,” that one book would have been quite enough to make him famous, but his pen was never idle, and the world of children has much for which to thank him. How much, and for what, the following pages will strive to tell, and if they succeed in conveying to their readers half the charm that lay in the life of this man, who did so much for others, they will not have been written in vain.

In telling the story of his life I am indebted to many, for courtesy and assistance. I wish specially to thank my brother, Montrose J. Moses. Columbia Library, Astor Library, St. Agnes Branch of the Public Library, and Miss Brown, of the Traveling Library, have all been exceedingly kind and helpful. To Messrs. E. P. Dutton and Company I extend my thanks for permission to quote from Miss Isa Bowman’s interesting reminiscences, and to the American and English editors of The Strand I am also indebted for a similar courtesy.

Belle Moses.

New York, October, 1910.

CONTENTS

LEWIS CARROLL.

CHAPTER I.

THERE WAS ONCE A LITTLE BOY.

here was once a little boy whose name was not Lewis Carroll. He was christened Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, in the parish church of Daresbury, England, where he was born, on January 27, 1832. A little out-of-the-way village was Daresbury, a name derived from a word meaning oak, and Daresbury was certainly famous for its beautiful oaks.

The christening of Baby Charles must have been a very happy occasion. To begin with, the tiny boy was the first child of what proved to be a “numerous family,” and the officiating clergyman was the proud papa. The name of Charles had been bestowed upon the eldest son for generations of Dodgsons, who had carried it honorably through the line, handing it down untarnished to this latest Charles, in the parish church at Daresbury.

The Dodgsons could doubtless trace their descent much further back than a great-great-grandfather, being a race of gentlemen and scholars, but the Rev. Christopher Dodgson, who lived quite a century before Baby Charles saw the light, is the earliest ancestor we hear of, and he held a living in Yorkshire. In those days, a clergyman was dependent upon some noble patron for his living, a living meaning the parish of which he had charge and the salary he received for his work, and so when the Rev. Christopher’s eldest son Charles also took holy orders, he had for his patron the Duke of Northumberland, who gave him the living of Elsden in Northumberland, a cold, bleak, barren country. The Rev. Charles took what fell to his lot with much philosophy and a saving sense of humor.

He suffered terribly from the cold despite the fact that he snuggled down between two feather beds in the big parlor, which was no doubt the best room in a most uncomfortable house. It was all he could do to keep from freezing, for the doors were rarely closed against the winds that howled around them. The good clergyman was firmly convinced that the end of the world would come by frost instead of fire. Even when safely in bed, he never felt quite comfortable unless his head was wrapped in three nightcaps, while he twisted a pair of stockings, like a cravat, around his suffering throat. He generally wore two shirts at a time, as washing was cheap, and rarely took off his coat and his boots.

This uncomplaining, jovial clergyman finally received his reward. King George III bestowed upon him the See of Elphin, which means that he was made bishop, and had no more hardships to bear. This gentleman, who was the great-grandfather of our Charles, had four children; Elizabeth Anne, the only daughter, married a certain Charles Lutwidge of Holmrook in Cumberland. There were two sons who died quite young, and Charles, the eldest, entered the army and rose to the rank of captain in the 4th Dragoon Guards. He lost his life in the performance of a perilous duty, leaving behind him two sons; Charles, the elder, turned back into the ways of his ancestors and became a clergyman, and Hassard, who studied law, had a brilliant career.

This last Charles, in 1830, married his cousin, Frances Jane Lutwidge, and in 1832 we find him baptizing another little Charles, in the parish church at Daresbury, his eldest son, and consequently his pride and hope.

The living at Daresbury was the beginning of a long life of service to the Church. The father of our Charles rose to be one of the foremost clergymen of his time, a man of wide learning, of deep piety, and of great charity, beloved by rich and poor. Though of somewhat sober nature, in moments of recreation he could throw off his cares like a boy, delighting his friends by his wit and humor, and the rare gift of telling anecdotes, a gift his son inherited in full measure, long before he took the name of “Lewis Carroll,” some twenty years after he was received into the fold of the parish church at Daresbury.

Little Charles headed the list of eleven young Dodgsons, and the mother of this infant brigade was a woman in a thousand. We all know what mothers are; then we can imagine this one, so kind and gentle that never a harsh word was known to pass her lips, and may be able to trace her quiet, helpful influence on the character of our Boy, just as we see her delicate features reproduced in many of his later pictures.

A boy must be a poor specimen, indeed, if such a father and mother could not bring out the best in him. Saddled as he was, with the responsibility of being the oldest of eleven, and consequently an example held up to younger brothers and sisters, Charles was grave and serious beyond his years. Only an eldest child can appreciate what a responsibility this really is. You mustn’t do “so and so” for fear one of the younger ones might do likewise! If his parents had not been very remarkable people, this same Charles might have developed into a virtuous little prig. “Good Brother Charles who never does wrong” might have grown into a terrible bugbear to the other small Dodgsons, had he not been brimful of fun and humor himself. As it was he soon became their leader in all their games and plays, and the quiet parsonage on the glebe farm, full a mile and a half from even the small traffic of the village, rang at least with the echoes of laughter and chatter from these youngsters with strong healthy lungs.

We cannot be quite sure whether they were good children or bad children, for time somehow throws a halo around childhood, but let us hope they were “jes’ middlin’.” We cannot bear to think of all those prim little saints, with ramrods down their backs, sitting sedately of a Sunday in the family pew—perhaps it took two family pews to hold them—with folded hands and pious expressions. We can’t believe these Dodgsons were so silly; they were reverent little souls doubtless, and probably were not bad in church, but oh! let us hope they got into mischief sometimes. There was plenty of room for it in the big farm parsonage.

“An island farm ’mid seas of corn,
Swayed by the wand’ring breath of morn.
The happy spot where I was born,”

wrote Lewis Carroll many years after, when “Alice in Wonderland” had made him famous.

Glebe farms were very common in England; they consisted of large tracts of land surrounding the parsonage, which the pastor was at liberty to cultivate for his own use, or to eke out his often scanty income, and as the parsonage at Daresbury was comparatively small, and the glebe or farm lands fairly large, we can be sure these boys and girls loved to be out of doors, and little Charlie at a very early age began to number some queer companions among his intimate friends. His small hands burrowing in the soft, damp earth, brought up squirming, wriggling things—earthworms, snails, and the like. He made pets of them, studying their habits in his “small boy” way, and having long, serious talks with them, lying on the ground beside them as they crawled around him. An ant-hill was to him a tiny town, and many a long hour the child must have spent busying himself in their small affairs, settling imaginary disputes, helping the workers, supplying provisions in the way of crumbs, and thus early beginning to understand the ways of the woodland things about which he loved to write in after years. He had, for boon companions, certain toads, with whom he held animated conversations, and it is said that he really taught earthworms the art of warfare by supplying them with small pieces of pipe with which to fight.

He did not, like Hiawatha in the legend, “Learn of ev’ry bird its language,” but he invented a language of his own, in which no doubt he discoursed wisely to the toads and snails who had time to listen; he learned to speak this language quite fluently, so that in later years when eager children clustered about him, and with wide eyes and peals of laughter listened to his nonsense verses, full of the queerest words they ever heard, they could still understand from the very tones of his voice exactly what he meant. Indeed, when little Charles Lutwidge Dodgson grew up to be Lewis Carroll, he worked this funny language of his by equally funny rules, so that, as he said, “a perfectly balanced mind could understand it.”

Of course, there were other companions for the Dodgson children—cats and dogs, and horses and cows, and in the village of Warrington, seven miles away, there were children to be found of their own size and age, but Daresbury itself was very lonely. A canal ran through the far end of the parish, and here bargemen used to ply to and fro, carrying produce and fodder to the near-by towns. Mr. Dodgson took a keen interest in these men who seemed to have no settled place of worship.

In a quiet, persuasive way he suggested to Sir Francis Egerton, a large landholder of the country, that it would be nice to turn one of the barges into a chapel, describing how it could be done for a hundred pounds, well knowing, clever man, that he was talking to a most interested listener; for a few weeks later he received a letter from Sir Francis telling him that the chapel was ready. In this odd little church, the first of its kind, Mr. Dodgson preached every Sunday evening.

But at Daresbury itself life was very monotonous; even the passing of a cart was a great event, and going away was a great adventure. There was one never-to-be-forgotten occasion when the family went off on a holiday jaunt to Beaumaris. Railroads were then very rare things, so they made the journey in three days by coach, allowing also three days for the return trip.

It was great fun traveling in one of those old-time coaches with all the luggage strapped behind, and all the bright young faces atop, and four fast-trotting horses dashing over the ground, and a nice long holiday with fine summer weather to look forward to. But in winter, in those days, traveling was a serious matter; only a favored few could squeeze into the body of the coach; the others still sat atop, muffled to the chin, yet numb with the cold, as the horses went faster and faster, and the wind whistled by, and one’s breath froze on the way. Let us hope the little Dodgsons went in the summer time.

Daresbury must have been a beautiful place, with its pleasant walks, its fine meadows, its deep secluded woods, and best of all, those wonderful oak trees which the boy loved to climb, and under whose shade he would lie by the hour, filling his head with all those quaint fancies which he has since given to the world. He was a clever little fellow, eager to learn, and from the first his father superintended his education, being himself a scholar of very high order. He had the English idea of sending his eldest son along the path he himself had trod; first to a public school, then to Oxford, and finally into the Church, if the boy had any leaning that way.

Education in those days began early, and not by way of the kindergarten; the small boy had scarcely lost his baby lisp before he was put to the study of Latin and Greek, and Charles, besides, developed a passion for mathematics. It is told that when a very small boy he showed his father a book of logarithms, asking him to explain it, but Mr. Dodgson mildly though firmly refused.

“You are too young to understand such a difficult subject,” he replied; “a few years later you will enjoy the study—wait a while.”

“But,” persisted the boy, his mind firmly bent on obtaining information, “please explain.” Whether the father complied with his request is not recorded, but we rather believe that explanations were set aside for the time. Certain it is, they were demanded again and again, for the boy soon developed a wonderful head for figures and signs, a knowledge which grew with the years, as we shall see later.

When he was still quite a little boy, his mother and father went to Hull to visit Mrs. Dodgson’s father who had been ill. The children, some five or six in number—the entire eleven had not yet arrived—were left in the care of an accommodating aunt, but Charles, being the eldest, received a letter from his mother in which he took much pride, his one idea being to keep it out of the clutches of his little sisters, whose hands were always ready for mischief. He wrote upon the back of the note, forbidding them to touch his property, explaining cunningly that it was covered with slimy pitch, a most uncomfortable warning, but it was “the ounce of prevention,” for the letter has been handed down to us, and a sweet, cheery letter it was, so full of mother-love and care, and tender pride in the little brood at home. No wonder he prized it!

This is probably the first letter he ever received, and it takes very little imagination to picture the important air with which he carried it about, and the care with which he hoarded it through all the years.

There is a dear little picture of our Boy taken when he was eight years old. Photography was not yet in use, so this black print of him is the copy of a silhouette which was the way people had their “pictures taken” in those days. It was always a profile picture, and little Charles’s finely shaped head, with its slightly bulging forehead and delicate features, stands sharply outlined. We have also a silhouette of Mrs. Dodgson, and the resemblance between the two is very marked.

When the boy was eleven, a great change came into his life. Sir Robert Peel, the famous statesman, presented to his father the Crown living of Croft, a Yorkshire village about three miles from Darlington. A Crown living is always an exceptionally good one, as it is usually given by royal favor, and accompanied by a comfortable salary. Mr. Dodgson was sorry to leave his old parishioners and the little parsonage where he had seen so much quiet happiness, but he was glad at the same time, to get away from the dullness and monotony of Daresbury. With a growing family of children it was absolutely necessary to come more into contact with people, and Croft was a typical, delightful English town, famous even to-day for its baths and medicinal waters. Before Mr. Dodgson’s time it was an important posting-station for the coaches running between London and Edinburgh, and boasted of a fine hotel near the rectory, used later by gentlemen in the hunting season.

Mr. Dodgson’s parish consisted not only of Croft proper, but included the neighboring hamlets of Halnaby, Dalton and Stapleton, so he was a pretty busy man going from one to the other, and the little Dodgsons were busy, too, making new friends and settling down into their new and commodious quarters.

The village of Croft is on the river Tees, in fact it stands on the dividing line between Yorkshire and Durham. A bridge divides the two counties, and midway on it is a stone which marks the boundary line. It was an old custom for certain landholders to stand on this bridge at the coming of each new Bishop of Durham, and to present him with an old sword, with an appropriate address of welcome. This sword the Bishop returned immediately.

The Tees often overflowed its banks—indeed, floods were not infrequent in these smiling English landscape countries, kept so fertile and green by the tiny streams which intersect them. Two or three heavy rainfalls will swell the waters, sending them rushing over the country with enormous force. Jean Ingelow in her poem “High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire” paints a vivid picture of the havoc such a flood may make in a peaceful land:

“Where the river, winding down,
Onward floweth to the town.”

But the quaint old church at Croft has doubtless weathered more than one overflow from the restless river Tees.

The rectory, a large brick house, with a sloping tile roof and tall chimneys, stood well back in a very beautiful garden, filled with all sorts of rare plants, intersected by winding gravel paths. As in all English homes, the kitchen garden was a most attractive spot; its high walls were covered with luxuriant fruit trees, and everybody knows that English “wall fruit” is the most delicious kind. The trees are planted very close to the wall, and the spreading boughs, when they are heavy with the ripening fruit, are not bent with the weight of it, but are thoroughly propped and supported by these walls of solid brick, so the undisturbed fruit comes to a perfect maturity without any of the accidents which occur in the ordinary orchard. The garden itself was bright with kitchen greens, filled with everything needed for household use.

With so much space the little Dodgsons had room to grow and “multiply” to the full eleven, and fine times they had with plays and games, usually invented by their clever brother. One of the principal diversions was a toy railroad with “stations” built at various sections of the garden, usually very pretty and rustic looking, planned and built by Charles himself. He also made a rude train out of a wheelbarrow, a barrel, and a small truck, and was able to convey his passengers comfortably from station to station, exacting fare at each trip.

He was something of a conjurer, too, and in wig and gown, could amaze his audience for hours with his inexhaustible supply of tricks. He also made some quaint-looking marionettes, and a theater for them to act in, even writing the plays, which were masterpieces in their way. Once he traced a maze upon the snow-covered lawn of the rectory.

Mazes were often found in the real old-time gardens of England; they consisted of intersecting paths bordered by clipped shrubbery and generally arranged in geometrical designs, very puzzling to the unwary person who got lost in them, unable to discover a way out, until by some happy accident the right path was found. “Threading the Maze” was a fashionable pastime in the days of the Tudors; the maze at Hampton Court being one of the most remarkable of that period.

Charles’s early knowledge of mathematics made his work on the snow-covered lawn all the more remarkable, for the love of that particular branch of learning certainly grew with his growth.

Meanwhile, it was a very serious, earnest little boy, who looked down the long line of Dodgsons, saying with a choke in his voice: “I must leave you and this lovely rectory, and this fair, smiling countryside, and go to school.”

He was shy, and the thought struck terror; but everybody who is anybody in England goes to some fine public school before becoming an Oxford or a Cambridge student, and for that reason Charles Lutwidge Dodgson buried his regrets beneath a smiling face, bade farewell to his household, and at the mature age of twelve, armed with enough Greek and Latin to have made a dictionary, with a knowledge of mathematics that a college “don” might well have envied, set forth to this alluring world of books and learning.

CHAPTER II.

SCHOOL DAYS AT RICHMOND AND RUGBY.

ith the removal to Croft, Mr. Dodgson was brought more and more into prominence; he was appointed examing chaplain to the Bishop of Ripon, and finally he was made Archdeacon of Richmond and one of the Canons of Ripon Cathedral.

The Grammar School at Richmond was well known in that section of England. It was under the rule of a certain Mr. Tate, whose father, Dr. Tate, had made the school famous some years before, and it was there that our Boy had his first taste of school life.

Holidays in those days were not arranged as they are now, for one of the first letters of Charles, sent home from Richmond, was dated August 5th; so it is probable that the term began in midsummer. This special letter was written to his two eldest sisters and gives an excellent picture of those first days, when as a “new boy” he suffered at the hands of his schoolmates. As advanced as he was in Latin and Greek and mathematics, this letter, for a twelve-year-old boy, does not show any remarkable progress in English. The spelling was precise and correct, but the punctuation was peculiar, to say the least.

Still his description of the school life, when one overcame the presence of commas and the absence of periods, presented a vivid picture to the mind. He tells of the funny tricks the boys played upon him because he was a “new boy.” One was called “King of the Cobblers.” He was told to sit on the ground while the boys gathered around him and to say “Go to work”; immediately they all fell upon him, and kicked and knocked him about pretty roughly. Another trick was “The Red Lion,” and was played in the churchyard; they made a mark on a tombstone and one of the boys ran toward it with his finger pointed and eyes shut, trying to see how near he could get to the mark. When his turn came, and he walked toward the tombstone, some boy who stood ready beside it, had his mouth open to bite the outstretched finger on its way to the mark. He closes his letter by stating three uncomfortable things connected with his arrival—the loss of his toothbrush and his failure to clean his teeth for several days in consequence; his inability to find his blotting-paper, and his lack of a shoe-horn.

The games the Richmond boys played—football, wrestling, leapfrog and fighting—he slurred over contemptuously, they held no attraction for him.

A schoolboy or girl of the present day can have no idea of the discomforts of school life in Charles Dodgson’s time, and the boy whose gentle manners were the result of sweet home influence and association with girls, found the rough ways of the English schoolboy a constant trial. Strong and active as he was, he was always up in arms for those weaker and smaller than himself. Bullying enraged him, and distasteful as it was, he soon learned the art of using his fists for the protection of himself and others. These were the school-days of Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, and Little Paul Dombey. Of course, all schoolmasters were not like Squeers or Creakle, nor all schoolmasters’ wives like Mrs. Squeers, nor indeed all schools like Dotheboys’ Hall or Salem Hall, or Dr. Blimber’s cramming establishment, but many of the inconveniences were certainly prominent in the best schools.

Flogging was considered the surest road to knowledge; kind, honest, liberal-minded teachers kept a birch-rod and a ferrule within gripping distance, and the average schoolboy thus treated like a little beast, could be pardoned for behaving like one. In spring or summer the big, bare, comfortless schoolhouses were all very well, but when the days grew chill, the small boy shivered on his hard bench in his draughty corner, and in winter time the scarcity of fires was trying to ordinary flesh and blood. The poor unfortunate who rose at six, and had to fetch and carry his own water from an outdoor pump, or if he had taken the precaution to draw it the night before, had found it frozen in his pitcher, was not to be blamed if washing was merely a figure of speech.

Mr. and Mrs. Tate were most considerate to their boys, and Richmond was a model school of its class. Charles loved his “kind old schoolmaster” as he called him, and he was not alone in this feeling, for Mr. Tate’s influence over the boys was maintained through the affection and respect they had for him. Of course he let them “fight it out” among themselves according to the boy-nature; but the earnest little fellow with the grave face and the eager, questioning eyes, attracted him greatly, and he began to study him in his keen, kind way, finding much to admire and praise in the letters which he wrote to his father, and predicting for him a bright career. Admitting that he had found young Dodgson superior to other boys, he wisely suggested that he should never know this fact, but should learn to love excellence for its own sake, and not for the sake of excelling.

Charles made quite a name for himself during those first school days. Mathematics still fascinated him and Latin grew to be second nature; he stood finely in both, and while at Richmond he developed another taste, the love of composition, often contributing to the school magazine. The special story recorded was called “The Unknown One,” but doubtless many a rhyme and jingle which could be traced to him found its way into this same little magazine, not forgetting odd sketches which he began to do at a very early age. They were all rough, for the most part grotesque, but full of simple fun and humor, for the quiet studious schoolboy loved a joke.

Charles stayed at the Richmond school for three years; then he took the next step in an English boy’s life, he entered Rugby, one of the great public schools.

In America, a public school is a school for the people, where free instruction is given to all alike; but the English public school is another thing. It is a school for gentlemen’s sons, where tuition fees are far from small, and “extras” mount up on the yearly bills.

Rugby had become a very celebrated school when the great Dr. Arnold was Head-Master. Up to that time it was neither so well known nor so popular as Eton, but Dr. Arnold had governed it so vigorously that his hand was felt long after his untimely death, which occurred just four years before Charles was ready to enter the school. The Head-Master at that time was, strangely enough, named Tait, spelt a little differently from the Richmond schoolmaster. Dr. Tait, who afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury, was a most capable man, who governed the school for two of the three years that our Boy was a pupil. The last year, Dr. Goulburn was Head-Master.

Charles found Rugby a great change from the quiet of Richmond. He went up in February of 1846, the beginning of the second term, when football was in full swing. The teams practiced on the broad open campus known as “Big-side,” and a “new boy” could only look on and applaud the great creatures who led the game. Rugby was swarming with boys—three hundred at least—from small fourteen-year-olders of the lowest “form,” or class, to those of eighteen or twenty of the fifth and sixth, the highest forms. They treated little Dodgson in their big, burly, schoolboy fashion, hazed him to their hearts’ content when he first entered, shrugging their shoulders good-naturedly over his love of study, in preference to the great games of cricket and football.

To have a fair glimpse of our Boy’s life at this period, some little idea of Rugby and its surroundings might serve as a guide. Those who visit the school to-day, with its pile of modern, convenient, and ugly architecture, have no conception of what it was over sixty years ago, and even in 1846 it bore no resemblance to the original school founded by one Lawrence Sheriffe, “citizen and grocer of London” during the reign of Henry VIII. To begin with, it is situated in Shakespeare’s own country, Warwickshire on the Avon River, and that in itself was enough to rouse the interest of any musing, bookish boy like Charles Dodgson.

From “Tom Brown’s School Days,” that ever popular book by Thomas Hughes, we may perhaps understand the feelings of the “new boy” just passing through the big, imposing school gates, with the oriel window above, and entering historic Rugby.

What first struck his view was the great school field or “close” as they called it, with its famous elms, and next, “the long line of gray buildings, beginning with the chapel and ending with the schoolhouse, the residence of the Head-Master where the great flag was lazily waving from the highest round tower.”

As we follow Tom Brown through his first day, we can imagine our Boy’s sensations when he found himself in this howling wilderness of boys. The eye of a boy is as keen as that of a girl regarding dress, and before Tom Brown was allowed to enter Rugby gates he was taken into the town and provided with a cat-skin cap, at seven and sixpence.

“‘You see,’ said his friend as they strolled up toward the school gates, in explanation of his conduct, ‘a great deal depends on how a fellow cuts up at first. If he’s got nothing odd about him and answers straightforward, and holds his head up, he gets on.’”

Having passed the gates, Tom was taken first to the matron’s room, to deliver up his trunk key, then on a tour of inspection through the schoolhouse hall which opened into the quadrangle. This was “a great room, thirty feet long and eighteen high or thereabouts, with two great tables running the whole length, and two large fireplaces at the side with blazing fires in them.”

This hall led into long dark passages with a fire at the end of each, and this was the hallway upon which the studies opened.

Now, to Charles Dodgson as well as to Tom Brown, a study conjured up untold luxury; it was in truth a “Rugby boy’s citadel” usually six feet long and four feet broad. It was rather a gloomy light which came in through the bars and grating of the one window, but these precautions had to be taken with the studies on the ground floor, to keep the small boys from slipping out after “lock-up” time.

Under the window was usually a wooden table covered with green baize, a three-legged stool, a cupboard, and nails for hat and coat. The rest of the furnishings included “a plain flat-bottom candlestick with iron extinguisher and snuffers, a wooden candle-box, a staff-handle brush, leaden ink-pot, basin and bottle for washing the hands, and a saucer or gallipot for soap.” There was always a cotton curtain or a blind before the window. For such a mansion the Rugby schoolboy paid from ten to fifteen shillings a year, and the tenant bought his own furniture. Tom Brown had a “hard-seated sofa covered with red stuff,” big enough to hold two in a “tight squeeze,” and he had, besides, a good, stout, wooden chair. Those boys who had looking-glasses in their rooms were able to comb their own locks, those who were not so fortunate went to what was known as the “combing-house” and had it done for them.

Unfortunately there are recorded very few details of these school-days at Rugby. We can only conjecture, from our knowledge of the boy and his studious ways, that Charles Dodgson’s study was his castle, his home, and freehold while he was in the school. He drew around him a circle of friends, for the somewhat sober lad had the gift of talking, and could be jolly and entertaining when he liked.

The chapel at Rugby was an unpretentious Gothic building, very imposing and solemn to little Dodgson, who had been brought up in a most reverential way, but the Rugbeans viewed it in another light. Tom Brown’s chosen chum explained it to him in this wise:

“That’s the chapel you see, and there just behind it is the place for fights; it’s most out of the way for masters, who all live on the other side and don’t come by here after first lesson or callings-over. That’s when the fights come off.”

All this must have shocked the simple, law-abiding son of a clergyman. It took from four to six years to tame the average Rugby boy, but little Charles needed no discipline; he was not a “goody-goody” boy, he simply had a natural aversion to rough games and sports. He liked to keep a whole skin, and his mind clear for his studies; he was fond of tramping through the woods, or fishing along the banks of the pretty, winding Avon, or rowing up and down the river, or lying on some grassy slope, still weaving the many odd fancies which grew into clearer shape as the years passed. The boys at Rugby did not know he was a genius, he did not know it himself, happy little lad, just a bit quiet and old-fashioned, for the noisy, blustering life about him. In fact, strange as it may seem, Charles Dodgson was never really a little boy until he was quite grown up.

He easily fell in with the routine of the school, but discipline, even as late as 1846, was hard to maintain. The Head-Master had his hands full; there were six under-masters—one for each form—and special tutors for the boys who required them, and from the fifth and sixth forms, certain monitors were selected called “præposters,” who were supposed to preserve order among the lower forms. In reality they bullied the smaller boys, for the system of fagging was much abused in those days, and the poor little fags had to be bootblacks, water-carriers, and general servants to very hard task-masters, while the “præposter” had little thought of doing any service for the service he exacted; in fact the unfortunate fag had to submit in silence to any indignity inflicted by an older boy, for if by chance a report of such doings came to the ears of the Head-Master or his associates, the talebearer was “sent to Coventry,” in other words, he was shunned and left to himself by all his companions.

Injustice like this made little Dodgson’s blood boil; he submitted of course with the other small boys, but he always had a peculiar distaste for the life at Rugby. He owned several years later that none of the studying at Rugby was done from real love of it, and he specially bewailed the time he lost in writing out impositions, and he further confessed that under no consideration would he live over those three years again.

These “impositions” were the hundreds of lines of Latin or Greek which the boys had to copy out with their own hands, for the most trifling offenses—a weary and hopeless waste of time, with little good accomplished.

In spite of many drawbacks, he got on finely with his work, seldom returning home for the various holidays without one or more prizes, and we cannot believe that he was quite outside of all the fun and frolic of a Rugby schoolboy’s life. For instance, we may be sure that he went bravely through that terrible ordeal for the newcomer, called “singing in Hall.” “Each new boy,” we are told, “was mounted in turn upon a table, a candle in each hand, and told to sing a song. If he made a false note, a violent hiss followed, and during the performance pellets and crusts of bread were thrown at boy or candles, often knocking them out of his hands and covering him with tallow. The singing over, he descended and pledged the house in a bumper of salt and water, stirred by a tallow candle. He was then free of the house and retired to his room, feeling very uncomfortable.”

“On the night after ‘new boys’ night’ there was chorus singing, in which solos and quartets of all sorts were sung, especially old Rugby’s favorites such as:

“‘It’s my delight, on a shiny night
In the season of the year,’

and the proceedings always wound up with ‘God save the Queen.’”

Guy Fawkes’ Day was another well-known festival at Rugby. There were bonfires in the town, but they were never kindled until eight o’clock, which was “lock-up” time for Rugby school. The boys resented this as it was great fun and they were out of it, so each year there was a lively scrimmage between the Rugbeans and the town, the former bent on kindling the bonfires before “lock-up” time, the latter doing all they could to hold back the ever-pressing enemy. Victory shifted with the years, from one side to the other, but the boys had their fun all the same, which was over half the battle.

Charles must have gone through Rugby with rapid strides, accomplishing in three years’ time what Tom Brown did in eight, and when he left he had the proud distinction of being among the very few who had never gone up a certain winding staircase leading, by a small door, into the Master’s private presence, where the rod awaited the culprit, and a good heavy rod it was.

During these years Dickens was doing his best work, and while at Rugby, Charles read “David Copperfield,” which came out in numbers in the Penny Magazine. He was specially interested in Mrs. Gummidge, that mournful, tearful lady, who was constantly bemoaning that she was “a lone lorn creetur,” and that everything went “contrairy” with her. Dickens’s humor touched a chord of sympathy in him, and if we go over in our minds, the weeping animals we know in “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass,” we will find many excellent portraits of Mrs. Gummidge.

He also read Macaulay’s “History of England,” and from it was particularly struck by a passage describing the seven bishops who had signed the invitation to the Pretender. Bishop Compton, one of the seven, when accused by King James, and asked whether he or any of his ecclesiastical brethren had anything to do with it, replied: “I am fully persuaded, your Majesty, that there is not one of my brethren who is not innocent in the matter as myself.” This tickled the boy’s sense of humor. Those touches always appealed to him; as he grew older they took even a firmer hold upon him and he was quick to pluck a laugh from the heart of things.

His life at Rugby was somewhat of a strain; with a brain beginning to teem with a thousand fairy fancies that the boys around him could not appreciate, he was forced to thrust them out of sight. He flung himself into his studies, coming out at examinations on top in mathematics, Latin, and divinity, and saving that other part of him for his sisters, when he went home for the holidays.

Meantime he continued to write verses and stories and to draw clever caricatures. There is one of these drawings peculiarly Rugbean in character; it is supposed to be a scene in which four of his sisters are roughly handling a fifth, because she would write to her brother when they wished to go to Halnaby and the Castle. This noble effort he signed “Rembrandt.”

The picture is really very funny. The five girls have very much the appearance of the marionettes he was fond of making, especially the unfortunate correspondent who has been pulled into a horizontal position by the stern sister. The whole story is told by the expression of the eyes and mouth of each, for the clever schoolboy had all the secrets of caricature, without quite enough genius in that direction to make him an artist.

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.”

One of his last private efforts in the editorial line was The Rectory Umbrella, a magazine undertaken when he was about seventeen or eighteen years old, on the bridge, one might say, between boyhood and his approaching Oxford days. His mind had developed quickly, though his views of life did not go far beyond the rectory grounds. He evidently took his title out of the umbrella-stand in the rectory hall, the same stand doubtless which furnished him with “The Walking Stick of Destiny,” a story of the lurid, exciting sort, which made his readers’ hair rise. The magazine also contained a series of sketches supposed to have been copied from paintings by Rembrandt, Sir Joshua Reynolds and others whose works hang in the Vernon Gallery. One specially funny caricature of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s “Age of Innocence” represents a baby hippopotamus smiling serenely under a tree not half big enough to shade him.

Another sketch ridicules homeopathy and is extremely funny. Homeopathy is a branch of medical science which believes in very small doses of medicine, and this picture represents housekeeping on a homeopathic plan; a family of six bony specimens are eating infinitesimal grains of food, which they can only see through the spectacles they all wear, and their table talk hovers round millionths and nonillionths of grains.

But the cleverest poem in The Rectory Umbrella is the parody on “Horatius,” Macaulay’s famous poem, which is supposed to be a true tale of his brothers’ adventures with an obdurate donkey. It is the second of the series called “Lays of Sorrow,” in imitation of Macaulay’s “Lays of Ancient Rome,” and the tragedy lies in the sad fact that the donkey succeeds in getting the better of the boys.

“Horatius” was a great favorite with budding orators of that day. The Rugby boys declaimed it on every occasion, and reading it over in these modern times of peace, one is stirred by the martial note in it. No wonder boys like Charles Dodgson loved Macaulay, and it is pretty safe to say that he must have had it by heart, to have treated it in such spirited style and with such pure fun. Indeed, fun bubbled up through everything he wrote; wholesome, honest fun, which was a safety valve for an over-serious lad.

This period was his halting time, and the humorous skits he dashed off were done in moments of recreation. He was mapping out his future in a methodical way peculiarly his own. Oxford was to be his goal, divinity and mathematics his principal studies, and he was working hard for his examinations. The desire of the eldest son to follow in his father’s footsteps was strengthened by his own natural inclination, for into the boy nature crept a rare golden streak of piety. The reverence for holy things was a beautiful trait in his character from the beginning to the end of his life; it never pushed itself aggressively to the front, but it sweetened the whole of his intercourse with people, and was perhaps the secret of the wonderful power he had with children.

The intervening months between Rugby and Oxford were also the boundary-line between boyhood and young manhood, that most important period when the character shifts into a steadier pose, when the young eyes try vainly to pierce the mists of the future, and the young heart-throbs are sometimes very painful. Between those Rugby school-days and the more serious Oxford ones, something happened—we know not what—which cast a shadow on our Boy’s life. He was young enough to live it down, yet old enough to feel keenly whatever sorrow crossed his path, and as he never married, we naturally suspect that some unhappy love affair, or death perhaps, had cut him off from all the joys so necessary to a young and deep-feeling man. Whatever it was—and he kept his own secret—it did not mar the sweetness of his nature, it did not kill his youth, nor deaden the keen wit which was to make the world laugh one day. It drew some pathetic lines upon his face, a wistful touch about mouth and eyes, as we can see in all his portraits.

A slight reserve hung as a veil between him and people of his own age, but it opened his heart all the wider to the children, whose true knight he became when, as “Lewis Carroll” he went forth to conquer with a laugh. We say “children,” but we mean “girls.” The little boy might just as well have been a caged animal at the Zoo, for all the notice he inspired. Of course, there were some younger brothers of his own to be considered, but he had such a generous provision of sisters that he didn’t mind, and then, besides, one’s own people are different somehow; we know well enough we wouldn’t change our brothers and sisters for the finest little paragons that walk. So with Lewis Carroll; he strongly objected to everybody else’s little brothers but his own, and it is even true that in later years there were some small nephews and boy cousins, to whom he was extremely kind. But as yet there is no Lewis Carroll, only a grave and earnest Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, reading hard to enter Christ Church, Oxford, that grand old edifice steeped in history, where his own father had “blazed a trail.”

Mathematics absorbed many hours of each day, and Latin and Greek were quite as important. English as a “course” was not thought of as it is to-day; the classics were before everything else, although ancient and modern history came into use.

For lighter reading, Dickens was a never-failing source of supply. All during this holiday period “David Copperfield” was coming out in monthly instalments, and though the hero was “only a boy,” there was something in the pathetic figure of lonely little David, irresistibly appealing to the young fellow who hated oppression and injustice of any kind, and was always on the side of the weak. While the dainty picture of Little Em’ly might have been his favorite, he was keenly alive to the absurdities of Mrs. Gummidge, the doglike devotion of Peggotty, and the horrors of the “cheap school,” which turned out little shivering cowards instead of wholesome hearty English boys.

Later on, he visited the spot on which Dickens had founded Dotheboys Hall in “Nicholas Nickleby.” “Barnard’s Castle” was a most desolate region in Yorkshire. He tells of a trip by coach, over a land of dreary hills, into Bowes, a Godforsaken village where the original of Dotheboys Hall was still standing, though in a very dilapidated state, actually falling to pieces. As we well know, after the writing of “Nicholas Nickleby,” government authorities began to look into the condition of the “cheap schools” and to remedy some of the evils. Even the more expensive schools, where the tired little brains were crammed to the brim until the springs were worn out and the minds were gone, were exposed by the great novelist when he wrote “Dombey and Son” and told of Dr. Blimber’s school, where poor little Paul studied until his head grew too heavy for his fragile body. The victims of these three schools—David, Smike, and Little Paul—twined themselves about the heartstrings of the thoughtful young student, and many a humorous bit besides, in the works of Lewis Carroll, bears a decided flavor of those dips into Dickens.

Macaulay furnished a more solid background in the reading line. His history, such a complete chronicle of England from the fall of the Stuarts to the reign of Victoria, appealed strongly to the patriotism of the English boy, and the fact that Macaulay was not only a writer of English history, but at the same time a maker of history, served to strengthen this feeling.

If we compare the life of Lord Macaulay with the life of Lewis Carroll, we will see that there was something strangely alike about them. Both were unmarried, living alone, but with strong family ties which softened their lives and kept them from becoming crusty old bachelors. It is very probable, indeed, that the younger man modeled his life somewhat along the lines of the older, whom he greatly admired. Both were parts of great institutions; Macaulay stood out from the background of Parliament, as Lewis Carroll did from Oxford or more particularly Christ Church, and both names shone more brilliantly outside the routine of daily life.

But the influence that crept closer to the heart of this boy was that of Tennyson. The great poet with the wonderful dark face, the piercing eyes, the shaggy mane, sending forth clarion messages to the world in waves of song, was the inspiration of many a quaint phrase and poetic turn of thought which came from the pen of Lewis Carroll. For Tennyson became to him a thing of flesh and blood, a friend, and many a pleasant hour was spent in the poet’s home in later years, when the fame of “Alice” had stirred his ambition to do other things. Many a verse of real poetry could trace its origin to association with the great man, who was quick to discover that there were depths in the soul of his young friend where genius dwelt.

Meantime Charles Dodgson read his poems over and over, in the seclusion of Croft Rectory, during that quiet pause in his life before he went up to Oxford.

There was a village school of some importance in Croft, and members of the Dodgson family were interested in its welfare, often lending a hand with the teaching, and during those months, no doubt, Charles took his turn. For society, his own family seemed to be sufficient. If he had any boy friends, there are no records of their intercourse; indeed, the only friend mentioned is T. Vere Bayne, who in childish days was his playfellow and who later became, like himself, a Student of Christ Church. This association cemented a lasting friendship. One or two Rugbeans claimed some intimacy, but his true friendships were formed when Lewis Carroll grew up and really became young.

Walking was always a favorite pastime; the woods were full of the things he loved, the wild things whose life stirred in the rustling of the leaves or the crackle of a twig, as some tiny animal whisked by. The squirrels were friendly, the hares lifted up their long ears, stared at him and scurried out of sight. Turtles and snails came out of the river to sun themselves on the banks; the air was full of the hum of insects and the chirp of birds.

As he lay under the friendly shelter of some great tree, he thought of this tree as a refuge for the teeming life about it; the beauty of its foliage, its spreading branches, were as nothing to its convenience as a home for the birds and chipmunks and the burrowing things that lived beneath its roots or in the hollows of its trunk.

These creatures became real companions in time. He studied their ways and habits, he looked them up in the Natural History, and noting their peculiarities, tucked them away in that quaint cupboard of his which he called his memory.

How many things were to come out of that cupboard in later days! He himself did not know what was hidden there. It reminded one of a chest which only a special key could open, and he did not even know there was a key, until on a certain “golden afternoon” he found it floating on the surface of the river. He grasped it, thrust it into the rusty lock, and lo!—but dear me, we are going too far ahead, for that is quite another chapter, and we have left Charles Dodgson lying under a tree, watching the lizards and snails and ants at their work or play, weaving his quaint fancies, dreaming perhaps, or chatting with some little sister or other who chanced to be with him. There was always a sister to chat with, which in part accounted for his liking for girls.

So, through a long vista of years, we have the picture of our Boy, between eighteen and nineteen, when he was about to put boyhood by forever and enter the stately ranks of the Oxford undergraduates. As he stands before us now, young, ardent, hopeful, and inexperienced, we can see no glimmer of the fairy wand which turned him into a wizard.

We see only a boy, somewhat old for his years, very manly in his ways, with a well-formed head, on which the clustering dark hair grew thick; a sensitive mouth and deep blue eyes, full of expression. He was clever, imitative, and consequently a good actor in the little plays he wrote and dramatized; he was very shy, but at his best in the home circle. He enjoyed nothing so much as an argument, always holding his ground with great obstinacy; a fine student, frank and affectionate, brimful of wit and humor, fond of reading, with a quiet determination to excel in whatever he undertook. With such weapons he was well equipped to “storm the citadel” at Oxford.

On May 23, 1850, he went up to matriculate—that is, to register his name and go through some examinations and the formality of becoming a student. Christ Church was to be his college, as it had been his father’s before him. Archdeacon Dodgson was much gratified by the many letters he received congratulating him on the fact that he had a son worthy to succeed him, for he was well remembered in the college, where he had left a brilliant record behind him.

It certainly sounds a little queer to have the name of a church attached to one of the colleges of a university, but our colleges in America are comparatively so new that we cannot grasp the vastness and the antiquity of the great English universities. Under the shelter of Oxford, and covering an area of at least five miles, twenty colleges or more were grouped, each one a community in itself, and all under the rule of the Chancellor of Oxford. Christ Church received as students those most interested in the divinity courses, though in other respects the undergraduates could take up whatever studies they pleased, and Charles Dodgson put most of his energy into mathematics and the necessary study of the classics.

Seven months intervened between his matriculation and his real entrance into Oxford; these seven months we have just reviewed, full of study and pleasant family associations, with youthful experiments in literature, full of promise for the future—and something deeper still—which must have touched him just here, “where the brook and river meet.”

Into all our lives at some time or other comes a solemn silence; it may spring from many causes, from a joy which cannot be spoken, or from a sorrow too deep for utterance, but it comes, and we cover it gently and hide it away, as something too sacred for the common light of every day.

This was the silence which came to Lewis Carroll on the threshold of his career; but lusty youth was with him as he stood before the portal of a brilliant future, and there was courage and high hope in his heart as he knocked for entrance.

CHAPTER IV.

OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP AND HONORS.

n January 24, 1851, just three days before his nineteenth birthday, Charles Dodgson took up his residence at Christ Church, and from that time to the day of his death his name was always associated with the fine old building which was his Alma Mater. The men of Christ Church called it the “House,” and were very proud of their college, as well they might be, for Oxford could not boast of a more imposing structure. There is a great difference between a university and a college. A university is great enough to shelter many colleges, and its chancellor is ruler over all. When we reflect that Christ Church College, alone, included as many important buildings as are to be found in some of our modern American universities, we may have some idea of the extent of Oxford University, within whose boundaries twenty such colleges could be counted.

Their names were all familiar to the young fellow, and many a time, in those early days, he could be found in his boat upon the river, floating gently down stream, the whole panorama of Oxford spread out before him.

“Now rising o’er the level plain,
’Mid academic groves enshrined.
The Gothic tower, the Grecian fane,
Ascend in solemn state combined.”

The spire of St. Aldates (pronounced St. Olds); Sir Christopher Wren’s domed tower over the entrance to Christ Church; the spires of the Cathedral of St. Mary; the tower of All Saints; the twin towers of All Souls; the dome of Radcliffe Library; the massive tower of Merton, and the beautiful pinnacles of Magdalen, all passed before him, “rising o’er the level plain” as the verse puts it, backed by dense foliage, and sharply outlined against the blue horizon.

History springs up with every step one takes in Oxford. The University can trace its origin to the time of Alfred the Great. Beginning with only three colleges, each year this great center of learning became more important. Henry I built the Palace of Beaumont at Oxford, because he wished frequent opportunities to talk with men of learning. It was from the Castle of Oxford that the Empress Maud escaped at dead of night, in a white gown, over the snow and the frozen river, when Stephen usurped the throne. It was in the Palace of Beaumont that Richard the Lion-Hearted was born, and so on, through the centuries, great deeds and great events could be traced to the very gates of Oxford.

But most of all, the young student’s affections centered around Christ Church, and indeed, for the first few years of his college life, he had little occasion to go outside of its broad boundaries unless for a row upon the river.

Christ Church really owes its foundation to the famous Cardinal Wolsey. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson had its history by heart; how the wicked old prelate, wishing to leave behind him a monument of lasting good to cover his many misdeeds, obtained the royal license to found the college as early as 1525; how, in 1529, as Shakespeare said, he bade “a long farewell to all his greatness,” and his possessions, including Cardinal College as it was then called, fell into the ruthless hands of Henry VIII; and how, after many ups and downs, the present foundation of Christ Church was created under “letters patent of Henry VIII dated November 4, 1546.”

Christ Church, with its imposing front of four hundred feet, is built around the Great Quadrangle, quite famous in the history of the college. It includes in the embrace of its four sides the library and picture gallery, the Cathedral and the Chapter House, and the homes of the dean and his associates. There was another smaller quadrangle called Peckwater Quadrangle, where young Dodgson had his rooms when he first entered college, but later when he became a tutor or a “don” as the instructors were usually called, he moved into the Great Quadrangle. A beautiful meadow lies beyond the south gate, spreading out in a long and fertile stretch to the river’s edge.

The massive front gate has towers and turrets on either side, while just above it is the great “Tom Tower,” the present home of “Tom” the famous bell, measuring over seven feet in diameter and weighing over seven tons. This bell was originally dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury, and bore a Latin inscription in praise of the saint. It was brought from the famous Abbey of Oseney, when that cloister was transferred to Oxford, and on the accession of Queen Mary, the ruling dean rechristened it Mary, out of compliment to her; but this was not a lasting change; “Tom” was indeed the favored name. After “Bonnie Prince Charlie” came into his own, and Christopher Wren’s tower was completed, the great bell was moved to the new resting place, where it rang first on the anniversary of the Restoration, May 29, 1684, and since then has rung each morning and evening, at the opening and closing of the college gates.

“Tom Tower,” as it is called, overlooks that portion of the Great Quadrangle popularly known as “Tom Quad,” and it was in this corner of the Great Quadrangle that Lewis Carroll had his rooms. He speaks of it often in his many reminiscences, as he also spoke of the new bell tower over the hall staircase in the southeast corner. This new tower was built to hold the twelve bells which form the famous Christ Church peal, some twenty years after his entrance as an undergraduate. This, and the new entrance to the cathedral from “Tom Quad,” were designed by the architect, George Bodley, and Lewis Carroll, who was then a very dignified and retiring “don,” ridiculed his work in a clever little booklet called “The Vision of the Three T’s.”

In it he calls the new tower the “Tea-chest,” the passage to the cathedral the “Trench,” the entrance itself the “Tunnel” (here we have the three T’s). The architect, whose initials are G. B., he thinly disguises as “Jeeby,” and his disapproval is expressed through “Our Willie,” meaning William E. Gladstone, who gives vent to his rage in this fashion:

“For as I’m true knight, a fouler sight,
I’d never live to see.
Before I’d be the ruffian dark,
Who planned this ghastly show,
I’d serve as secretary’s clerk [pronounced clark]
To Ayrton or to Lowe.
Before I’d own the loathly thing,
That Christ Church Quad reveals,
I’d serve as shoeblack’s underling
To Odger and to Beales.”

But no thought of ridicule entered the earnest young scholar’s mind during those early days at Oxford. Everything he saw in his surroundings was most impressive. There was much about the college routine to remind him of the old Rugby days. Indeed, it was not so very long before his time that the birch-rod was laid aside in Oxford; the rules were still very strict, and the student was forced to work hard to gain any standing whatever.

Young Dodgson went into his studies, as he did into everything else, with his whole soul. He devoted a great deal of his time to mathematics, and quite as much to divinity, but just as he had settled down for months of serious work, the news of his mother’s sudden death sent him hurrying back to Croft Rectory to join the sorrowing household. It was a terrible blow to them all; with this young family growing up around her, she could ill be spared, and the loss of her filled those first Oxford days with dark shadows for the boy—he was only a boy still for all his nineteen years—and we can imagine how deeply he mourned for his mother.

What we know of her is very faint and shadowy. That her influence was keenly felt for many years, we can only glean from the love and reverence with which the memory of her was guarded; for this English home hid its grief in the depths of its heart, and only the privileged few might enter and console.

This was the first and only break in the family for many years. Charles went back to Oxford immediately after the funeral, and took up his studies again with redoubled zeal.

Thomas Gaisford was dean of Christ Church during the four years that Charles Dodgson was an undergraduate. He was a most able man, well known as scholar, writer, and thinker, but he died, much lamented, in 1855, just as the young student was thinking seriously of a life devoted to his college. George Henry Liddell came into residence as dean of Christ Church, an office which he held for nearly forty years, and as Dean Liddell stood for a great deal in the life of Charles Dodgson, we shall hear much of him from time to time, dating more especially from the comradeship of his three little daughters, who were the first “really truly” friends of Lewis Carroll.

But we are jumping over too many years at once, and must go back a few steps. His hard study during the first year won him a Boulter scholarship; the next year he took First Class honors in mathematics, and a second in classical studies, and on Christmas Eve, 1852, he was made a Student of Christ Church College.

To become a Student of Christ Church was not only a great honor, conferred only on one altogether worthy of it, but it was a very serious step in life for a young man. A Student remained unmarried and always took Holy Orders; he was of course compelled to be very regular at chapel service, and to be devoted, heart and soul, to the interests of Christ Church, all of which this special young Student had no difficulty in following to the letter.

From that time forth he ordered his life as he planned his mathematics, clearly and simply, and once his career was settled, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson dropped from his young shoulders—he was only twenty—the mantle of over-seriousness, and looked about for young companionship. He found what he needed in the households of the masters and the tutors, whose homes looked out upon the Great Quadrangle. Here on sunny days the nurses brought the children for an airing; chubby little boys in long trousers and “roundabouts,” dainty little girls, with corkscrew ringlets and long pantalets and muslin “frocks” and poke bonnets, in the depths of which were hidden the rosebud faces. These were the favorites of the young Student, whose slim figure in cap and gown was often the center of an animated group of tiny girls; one on his lap, one perhaps on his shoulder, several at his knee, while he told them stories of the animals he knew, and drew funny little pictures on stray bits of paper. The “roundabouts” went to the wall: they were only boys!

His coming was always hailed with delight. Sometimes he would take them for a stroll, always full of wonder and interest to the children, for alone, with these chosen friends of his, his natural shyness left him, the sensitive mouth took smiling curves, the deep blue eyes were full of laughter, and he spun story after story for them in his quaint way, filling their little heads with odd fancies which would never have been there but for him. The “bunnies” held animated conversations with these small maids; every chirp and twitter of the birds grew to mean something to them. He took them across the meadow, and showed them the turtles swimming on the river bank; sometimes even—oh, treat of treats!—he took them in his boat, and pulling gently down the pretty rippling stream, told them stories of the shining fish they could see darting here and there in its depths, and of wonderful creatures they could not see, who would not show themselves while curious little girls were staring into the water.

These were hours of pure recreation for him. The small girls could not know what genuine pleasure they gave; the young undergraduates could never understand his lack of sympathy with their many sports. Athletics never appealed to him, even boating he enjoyed in his own mild way; a quiet pull up or down the river, a shady bank, an hour’s rest under the trees, a companion perhaps, generally some small girl, whose round-eyed interest inspired some remarkable tale—this was what he liked best. On other days a tramp of miles gave just the exercise he needed.

His busy day began at a quarter past six, with breakfast at seven, and chapel at eight. Then came the day’s lectures in Greek and Latin, mathematics, divinity, and the classics.

Meals were served to the undergraduates in the Hall. The men were divided into “messes” just as in military posts; each “mess” consisted of about six men, who were served at a small table. There were many such tables scattered over the Hall, a vast and ancient room, completed at the time of Wolsey’s fall, 1529, an interesting spot full of memorials of Henry VIII and Wolsey. The great west window with its two rows of shields, some with a Cardinal’s hat, others with the royal arms of Henry VIII, is most interesting, while the wainscoting, decorated with shields also arranged in orderly fashion, is very attractive. The Hall is filled with portraits of celebrities, from Henry VIII, Wolsey and Elizabeth to the many students, and famous deans, who have added luster to Christ Church.

In Charles Dodgson’s time, the meals were poorly served. The Hall was lighted at night with candles in brass candlesticks made to hold three lights each. The undergraduates were served on pewter plates, and the poor young fellows were in the hands of the cook and butler, and consequently were cheated up to their eyes. They did not complain in Charles Dodgson’s time, but after he graduated and became a master himself he no doubt took part in what was known as the “Bread and Butter” campaign, when the undergraduates rose up in a body and settled the cook and butler for all time, appointing a steward who could overlook the doings of those below in the kitchen.

This kitchen is a very wonderful old place, the first portion of Wolsey’s work to be completed, and so strongly was it built, and so well has it lasted, that it seems scarcely to have been touched by time. Of course there are some modern improvements, but the great ranges are still there, and the wide fireplace and spits worked by a “smoke jack.” Wolsey’s own gridiron hangs just above the fireplace, a large uncouth affair, fit for cooking the huge hunks of meat the Cardinal liked best.

We must not imagine that the years at Oxford were “all work and no play,” for Charles Dodgson’s many vacations were spent either at home, where his father made much of him, his brothers looked up to him, and his sisters petted and spoiled him, or on little trips of interest and amusement.

Once, during what is known as the “Long Vacation,” he visited London at the time of the Great Exhibition, and wrote a vivid letter of description to his sister Elizabeth. What seemed to interest him most was the vastness of everything he saw, the huge crystal fountain and the colossal statues on either side of the central aisle. One statue he particularly noticed. It was called the “Amazon and the Tiger,” and many of us have doubtless seen the picture, the strong, erect, girlish figure on horseback, and the tiger clinging to the horse, his teeth buried in his neck, the girl’s face full of terror, the horse rearing with fright and pain. He always liked anything that told a story, either in statues or in pictures, and in after years, when he became a skilled photographer, he was fond of taking his many girlfriends in costume, for somehow it always suggested a story.

He was also very fond of the theater, and he made many a trip to London to see a special play. Shakespeare was his delight, and “Henry VIII” was certainly the most appropriate play for a Student of Christ Church College to see. The great actor, Charles Kean, took the part of Cardinal Wolsey, and Mrs. Kean shone forth as poor Queen Katharine, the discarded wife of Henry VIII. What impressed him most was the vision of the sleeping queen, the troops of floating angels with palm branches in their hands, which they waved slowly over her, while shafts of light fell upon them from above. Then as the Queen awoke they vanished, and raising her arms she called “Spirits of peace, where are ye?” Poor Queen, no wonder her audience shed tears! Henry VIII was not an easy man to get along with, even in his sweetest mood!

In 1854, Charles Dodgson began hard study for final examinations, working sometimes as many as thirteen hours a day during the last three weeks, but the subjects which he had to prepare were philosophy and history, neither of which were special favorites, and though he passed fairly well, his name was not among the first.

During the following Long Vacation he went to Whitby, where he prepared for final examination in mathematics, and so well did he work that he took First Class honors and became quite a distinguished personage among the undergraduates. His prowess in so difficult a subject traveled even beyond the college walls, and congratulations poured in upon him until he laughingly declared that if he had shot the Dean there could not have been more commotion. This meant a great deal to him; to begin with, he stood head on the list of five very able men who were close to him in the marking. He came out number 279 and the lowest of the five was 213, so it was a hard fight in a hard subject, and Lewis Carroll might be forgiven for a little quiet “bragging” in the letter he wrote his father, telling the result of the examinations. Of one thing he was now quite sure—a future lectureship in Christ Church College.

On December 18, 1854, he graduated, taking the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and the following year, October 15, 1855, to celebrate the appointment of Dean Liddell, he was made a “Master of the House,” meaning that under the roof of Christ Church College he had all the privileges of a Master of Arts, which is the next higher degree; but he did not become a Master of Arts in the University until two years later. When a college graduate puts B.A. after his name, we know that means Bachelor of Arts, the first college degree, and M.A. means Master of Arts, the second degree.

The young Student was glad to be free of college restraint and to begin work. Archdeacon Dodgson was not a rich man, and though his son had never faced the trials of poverty, he was anxious to become independent. Now that the “grinding” study was over, his thoughts turned fondly to a literary life. His numerous clever sketches, too, gave him hope of better work hereafter, and this we know had been his dream through his boyish years; it was his dream still, but where his talent would lie he had no idea, though hazy poems and queer jumbles of words popped into his mind on the slightest notice. Still he could not settle down seriously to such work just at first; there was other work at hand and he must learn to wait. During the first year of tutorship he took many private pupils, besides lecturing in mathematics, his chosen profession, from three to three and a half hours a day. The next year he was one of the regular lecturers, and often lectured seven hours a day, not counting the time it took him to prepare his work.

Mathematicians are born, not made; this young fellow had not only the power of solving problems, but the rare gift of being able to teach others to solve them also, and many a student has been heard to declare that mathematics was never a dull study with Mr. Dodgson to explain. We can imagine the slight, youthful figure of the young college “don,” his clean-cut, refined face, full of light and interest, his blue eyes flashing as he tackled some difficult problem, wrestled with it before his class in the lecture-hall, and undid the tangle without the slightest trouble.

He “took to” problems as naturally as a duck to water; the harder they were the more resolutely he bent to his task. Sometimes the tussle kept him awake half the night, often he was up at dawn to renew the battle, but he usually “won out,” and this is what made him so good a teacher—he never “let go.” Whatever mathematical ax he had to grind, he always managed to put a keen edge upon it sooner or later.

To his many friends, especially his many girl friends, this side of his character was most remarkable. How this fun-making, fun-loving, story-telling nonsense rhymer could turn in a twinkling into the grave, precise “don” and discourse on rectangles, and polygons, and parallel lines, and unknown quantities was more than they could understand.

Girls, the best of them, the rarest and finest of them, are not, as a rule, fond of mathematics. They “take” it in school, as they “take” whooping cough and measles at home, but in those days they seldom went further than the “first steps” in plain arithmetic. Girls, especially the little girls of Charles Dodgson’s immediate circle, rarely went to school; they were usually in the care of governesses who helped them along the narrow path of learning which they themselves had trod, and these little maids could truly say, with all their hearts:

“Multiplication is vexation,
Division is as bad,
The Rule of Three, it puzzles me,
And Fractions drive me mad!”

It was certainly thought quite unnecessary to educate girls in higher mathematics; those were not the days when colleges for girls were thought of. The little daughters of the wise Oxford men were considered finely grounded if they had mastered the three R’s—(“Reading, ’Riting, and ’Rithmetic”) and the young “don” knew pretty well how far they were led along these paths, for if we remember our “Alice in Wonderland” we may easily recall that interesting conversation between Alice, the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon, about schools, the Mock Turtle remarking with a sigh:

“I took only the regular course.”

“What was that?” inquired Alice.

“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied, “and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”

“What else had you to learn?” asks Alice later on.

“Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the subjects on his flappers, “Mystery—ancient and modern—with Seography; then Drawling—the Drawling-master was an old Conger-eel that used to come once a week; he taught us Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.” [Drawing, sketching, and painting in oils.] Lewis Carroll loved this play upon words.

“What was that like?” said Alice.

“Well, I can’t show it you myself,” the Mock Turtle said, “I’m too stiff. And the Gryphon never learnt it.”

“Hadn’t time,” said the Gryphon. “I went to the Classical master though. He was an old Crab, he was.”

“I never went to him,” the Mock Turtle said, with a sigh; “he taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say.”

“So he did, so he did,” said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn, and both creatures hid their faces in their paws.

It is doubtful if any little girl in Lewis Carroll’s time ever learned “Laughing and Grief” unless she was very ambitious, but many a quick, active young mind absorbed the simple problems which he was constantly turning into games for them.

So the years passed over the head of this young Student of Christ Church. They were pleasantly broken by long vacations at Croft Rectory, by trips through the beautiful English country, by one special journey to the English lakes, where Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge lived and wrote their poems. These trips were often afoot, and Charles Dodgson was very proud of the long distances he could tramp, no matter what the wind or the weather. There was nothing he liked better unless it was the occasional visits he made to the Princess’s Theatre in London.

On June 16, 1856, he records seeing “A Winter’s Tale,” where he was specially pleased with little Ellen Terry, a beautiful tiny creature, who played the child’s part of Mamillius in the most charming way. This was the first of many meetings with the famous actress, who became one of his child-friends in later years. But that was when he was Lewis Carroll. As yet he was only Charles Dodgson, a struggling young Student, anxious for independence, interested in his work, simple, sincere, devout, a dreamer of dreams which had not yet taken shape, and above all, a true lover of little girls, no matter how plain, or fretful, or rumpled, or even dirty. His kindly eyes could see beneath the creases on the top, his gentle fingers clasped the shrinking, trembling little hands; his low voice charmed them all unconsciously, and no doubt the children he loved did for him as much as he did for them. If he felt the strain of overwork nothing soothed him like a romp with his favorites, and young as he was, when dreaming of the future and the magic circle in which he would write his name, it was not of the great world he was thinking, but of bright young faces, with dancing eyes and sunny curls, and eager voices continually demanding—“One more story.”

CHAPTER V.

A MANY-SIDED GENIUS.

e have traveled over the years with some speed, from the time that little Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was christened by his proud papa to the moment when the same proud father heard that his eldest son was made a student of Christ College—a good large slice out of a birthday-cake—twenty candles—if one counts birthdays by candles. It’s a charming old German fashion, for the older one grows the brighter the lights become, and if you chance to get real old—a fine “threescore and ten”—why, if there’s a candle for each year, there you are—in a perfect blaze of glory!

We have just passed over the very oldest part of our Boy’s life; from the time he became Lewis Carroll, Charles Dodgson began to go backward; he did a lot of things backward, as we shall see later. He wrote letters backward, he told stories backward, he spelled and counted backward—in fact, he was so fond of doing things backward we do not wonder that he stepped out from the circle of the years, and turned backward to find the boyhood he had somehow missed before. This is when Lewis Carroll was born; but that is a story in itself.

Outwardly the life of the young Student seemed unchanged, but that is all we mortals know about it; the fairies were already at work. In moments of leisure little poems went forth to the world—a world which at first consisted of Croft Rectory—for there was another and last family magazine, of which he was sole editor and composer. He named it Misch-Masch, a curious old German word, which in our English means Hodge-Podge, and everybody, young and old, knows what a jumble Hodge-Podge is—something like New England succotash.

Misch-Masch was started by this enterprising young editor during the year after his graduation. He had become a person of vast experience between Misch-Masch and the days of The Rectory Umbrella, having been editor of College Rhymes, his college paper. He also wrote stories for the Oxonian Advertiser and the Whitby Gazette, and this printed matter, together with many new and original ideas and drawings, found a place in his new home venture.

His mathematical genius blossomed forth in a wonderful labyrinth or maze, a geometrical design within a given square form, of a tangle of intersecting lines and angles containing a hidden pathway to the center. These designs, that seem so remarkable to outsiders, were very simple to the editor of Misch-Masch, who was always inventing puzzles of some sort.

He also wrote a series of “Studies from the English Poets,” which he illustrated himself. One specially good drawing was of the following line from one of Keats’s poems. “She did so—but ’tis doubtful how or whence.” The picture represents a very fat old lady, with a capitally drawn placid face, perched on a post marked “Dangerous,” seemingly in midwater. In her chubby hand is a basket with the long neck of a goose hanging out.

Mr. Stuart Collingwood, Lewis Carroll’s nephew, gives a most interesting account of these early editorial efforts, in an article written for the Strand, an English magazine. Speaking of the above illustration he says:

“Keats is the author whom our artist has honored, and surely the shade of that much neglected songster owes something to a picture which must popularize one passage at least in his works.

“The only way I can account for the lady’s hazardous position is by supposing her to have attempted to cross a frozen lake after a thaw has set in. The goose, whose long neck projects from her basket, proves that she has just returned from market; probably the route across the lake was her shortest way home. We are to suppose that for some time she proceeded without any knowledge of the risk she was running, when suddenly she felt the ice giving way under her. By frantic exertions she succeeded in reaching the notice-board, to which she clung for days and nights together, till the ice was all melted and a deluge of rain caused the water to rise so many feet that at last she was compelled for dear life to climb to the top of the post.” We can now understand how well the illustration fits in with the line:

“She did so, but ’tis doubtful how or whence.”

Mr. Collingwood continues:

“Whether she sustained life by eating raw goose is uncertain. At least she did not follow Father William’s example by devouring the beak. The question naturally suggests itself: Why was she not rescued? My answer is that either such a dense fog enveloped the whole neighborhood that even her bulky form was invisible, or that she was so unpopular a character that each man feared the hatred of the rest if he should go to her succor.”

Mr. Collingwood concludes his article with the following riddle which the renowned editor of Misch-Masch presented to his readers; there must be an answer, and it is therefore worth while guessing, for Lewis Carroll would never have written a riddle without one:

A monument, men all agree—
Am I in all sincerity;
Half-cat, half-hindrance made
If head and tail removed shall be
Then, most of all you strengthen me.
Replace my head—the stand you see
On which my tail is laid.

Misch-Masch had a short but brilliant career, for magazines with a wider circulation than Croft Rectory began to claim his attention. The Comic Times was a small periodical very much on the order of Punch. Edmund Yates was the editor, and among the writers and artists were some of the best known in England. Charles Dodgson’s poetry and sketches were too clever to hide themselves from public view, and he became a regular contributor. Later, The Comic Times changed hands, and the old staff started a new magazine called The Train, in 1856, and the quiet Oxford “don” found his poetry in such demand that after talking it over with the editor, he decided to adopt a suitable pen name. He first suggested “Dares” in compliment to his birthplace, Daresbury, but the editor preferred a real name. Then he took his first two names, Charles Lutwidge, and transposing them he got two names, Edgar Cuthwellis or Edgar U. C. Westhill, neither of which sounded in the least interesting. Finally he decided to take the two names and look at them backward—this very queer young fellow always preferred to look at things backward—Lutwidge Charles. That was certainly not promising. Then he took one name at a time and analyzed it in his own quaint way. Lutwidge was surely derived from the Latin word Ludovicus—which in good sound English meant Lewis—ah, that was not bad! Now for Charles. Its Latin equivalent was Carolus—which could be easily changed in Carroll. The whole thing worked out like one of his own word puzzles, and Lewis Carroll he was, henceforth, whenever he made his appearance in print.

There was not much ceremony at this christening. Just two clever men put their heads together and the result was—Lewis Carroll! Charles Lutwidge Dodgson retired to his rooms at Christ Church College, where he prepared his lectures on mathematics and wrote the most learned text-books for the University; but Lewis Carroll peeped out into the world, which he found full of light and laughter and happy childhood, and as Lewis Carroll he was known to that world henceforth.

The first poem to appear with his new name was called “The Path of Roses,” a very solemn, serious poem about half a yard long and not specially interesting, save as a contribution to a most interesting little paper. The Train was really very ambitious, full, indeed, of the best talent of the day. There were short stories and serials, poems, timely articles, jokes, puns, anecdates—in short, all the attractions that help toward the making of an attractive magazine, and though the illustrations were nothing but old-fashioned woodcuts, the reading was quite as good, and in many cases better than what we find in the average magazine of to-day.

Many of the little poems Lewis Carroll wrote at this time he tucked away in some cubby-hole and made use of later in one or the other of his books. One of his very earliest printed bits is called:

MY FANCY.
I painted her a gushing thing,
With years perhaps a score,
I little thought to find they were
At least a dozen more.
My fancy gave her eyes of blue,
A curly auburn head;
I came to find the blue—a green,
The auburn turned to red.
She boxed my ears this morning,
They tingled very much;
I own that I could wish her
A somewhat lighter touch.
And if you were to ask me how
Her charms might be improved,
I would not have them added to,
But just a few removed!
She has the bear’s ethereal grace,
The bland hyena’s laugh,
The footstep of the elephant,
The neck of the giraffe;
I love her still, believe me,
Tho’ my heart its passion hides—
“She is all my fancy painted her,”
But, oh—how much besides!

The quoted line—“She is all my fancy painted her”—is the line upon which he built the poem; he was very fond of doing this, and though no special mention is made of the fact, it is highly probable that these three telling verses found their way into Misch-Masch, among the “Studies from the Poets.” It is unfortunate, too, that we have not some funny drawing of this wonderful “gushing thing” of the giraffe neck, “the bear’s ethereal grace,” and the “footstep of the elephant,” for Lewis Carroll’s drawings generally followed his thoughts; a pencil and bit of paper were always ready in some inner pocket, for illustrating purposes, and it is doubtful if any celebrated artist could produce more sketches on such a variety of subjects. His power to make his pencil “talk” impressed his sisters and brothers greatly; they caught every scrap of paper that fluttered from his hands, treasured it, and if the drawing was distinct enough, they colored it with crayons or touched it up in black and white, for the use of The Rectory Umbrella and the later publication of Misch-Masch. In his secret soul he longed to be an artist; he certainly possessed genius of a queer sort. A few strokes would tell the story, usually a funny one or a quaint one, but all his art failed to make his people look quite real or natural—just dolls stuffed with sawdust. But they were fine caricatures, and the young artist had to content himself with this smaller talent.

The Train published many of his poems during 1856-57. “Solitude,” “Novelty and Romancement,” “The Three Voices,” followed one another in quick succession, but the best of all was decidedly “Hiawatha’s Photographing,” and this for more reasons than one. In the first place, from the time he went into residence at Christ Church photography was his great delight; he “took” people whenever he could—canons, deacons, deans, students, undergraduates and children. The “grown-ups” submitted with a gentle sort of patience, but he made his camera such a point of attraction for the youngsters that he could “take” them as often as he liked, and he has left behind him a wonderful array of photographs, many of well-known, even celebrated people, among whom we may find Tennyson, the Rossetti family, Ellen and Kate Terry, John Ruskin, George Macdonald, Charlotte M. Yonge, Sir John Millais, and many others known to fame; and considering that photography had not reached its present perfection, Lewis Carroll’s photographs show remarkable skill. He would not have been Lewis Carroll if he had not gone into this fascinating pastime with his whole soul. Whenever he met a new face which interested him, we may be sure it was not long before the busy camera was at work. There is no doubt that his admiring family suffered agonies in posing, to say nothing of his friends who were not always beautiful enough to produce “pretty pictures”; their criticisms were often based entirely on their disappointment: hence the poem,

HIAWATHA’S PHOTOGRAPHING.
[With no apology to Mr. Longfellow.]
From his shoulder Hiawatha
Took the camera of rosewood,
Made of sliding, folding rosewood;
Neatly put it all together,
In its case it lay compactly,
Folded into nearly nothing;
But he opened out the hinges,
Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges
Till it looked all squares and oblongs,
Like a complicated figure
In the second book of Euclid.
This he perched upon a tripod—
Crouched beneath its dusky cover—
Stretched his hand, enforcing silence—
Said, “Be motionless, I beg you!”
Mystic, awful was the process.
All the family in order
Sat before him for their pictures:
Each in turn, as he was taken,
Volunteered his own suggestions,
His ingenious suggestions.

All of which during the course of the poem succeeded in driving poor Hiawatha to the verge of madness, until—

Finally my Hiawatha
Tumbled all the tribe together
(“Grouped” is not the right expression),
And, as happy chance would have it,
Did at last obtain a picture
Where the faces all succeeded:
Each came out a perfect likeness.
Then they joined and all abused it,
Unrestrainedly abused it,
As “the worst and ugliest picture
They could possibly have dreamed of.”
······
All together rang their voices,
Angry, loud, discordant voices,
As of dogs that howl in concert,
As of cats that wail in chorus.
But my Hiawatha’s patience,
His politeness and his patience,
Unaccountably had vanished,
And he left that happy party.
Neither did he leave them slowly,
With the calm deliberation,
The intense deliberation,
Of a photographic artist:
But he left them in a hurry,
Left them in a mighty hurry,
Stating that he would not stand it,
Stating in emphatic language
What he’d be before he’d stand it.
Hurriedly he packed his boxes:
Hurriedly the porter trundled
On a barrow all his boxes:
Hurriedly he took his ticket:
Hurriedly the train received him:
Thus departed Hiawatha.

But perhaps the cleverest part of the poem is the seemingly innocent paragraph of introduction which reads as follows:

“In an age of imitation, I can claim no special merit for this slight attempt at doing what is known to be so easy. Any fairly practiced writer, with the slightest ear for rhythm, could compose, for hours together, in the easy running meter of ‘The Song of Hiawatha.’ Having, then, distinctly stated that I challenge no attention in the following little poem to its merely verbal jingle, I must beg the candid reader to confine his criticism to its treatment of the subject.”

Notice how metrically this sounds. Tune up to the Hiawatha pitch and you will have the same swinging measure in the above sentences.

Lewis Carroll’s real acquaintance with Tennyson began in that eventful year of 1856. The odd, shaggy man, with the fine head and the keen, restless eyes, fascinated the young Student greatly. He went often to Tennyson’s home and did his best to be interested in the poet’s two little boys, Hallam and Lionel. Had they been girls there would have been no difficulty, but he always had strained relations with boys; still, as these “roundabouts” belonged to the little Tennysons, we find a sort of armed truce kept up between them. He bargained with Lionel to exchange manuscripts, and he got both boys to sign their names in his album; he even condescended to play a game of chess with Lionel, checkmating him in six moves, but he distinctly refused to allow that young gentleman to give him a blow on the head with a mallet in exchange for some of his verses. However, we may be pretty sure that Lewis Carroll’s visits to the Tennysons were much pleasanter when the “roundabouts” were not visible.

That same year he made the acquaintance of John Ruskin, and the great art critic turned out to be a very valuable friend, as was also Sir James Paget, the eminent surgeon, who gave him many hints on medicine and surgery, in which Charles Dodgson was deeply interested. His medical knowledge was quite remarkable, and the books he collected on the subject would have been valuable additions to any physician’s library. In the year 1857 he met Thackeray, who had come to Oxford to deliver his lecture on George III, and liked him very much. The Oxford “dons” were certainly fortunate in meeting all the “great ones” and seeing them generally at their best.

The year 1858 was an uneventful year; college routine varied by much reading, afternoons on the river or in the country, and evenings devoted to preparations for the morrow’s work. Lewis Carroll kept a diary which harbored many fine thoughts and noble resolves, many doubts and fears, many hopes, many plans for the future, for he was making up his mind to the final step in the life of a Christ Church Student—that of taking Holy Orders, in other words, of being ordained as a clergyman.

There were one or two points to be considered: first, regarding an impediment in his speech which would make constant preaching almost impossible. He stammered, not on all occasions, but quite enough to make steady speaking an effort, painful to himself and his hearers. The other objection lay in the fact that Christ Church had rigid laws for its clergy concerning amusements. Charles Dodgson had no wish to be shut out of the world; he was fond of theaters and operas, and he did not see that he was doing any special good to his fellow-creatures by putting them out of his life. But at last, after battling with his conscience, and earnest consultation with a few wise friends, he decided that he would be ordained, though he would not become a regular preaching clergyman.

It took him two years to reach this decision, for he was slow to act on such occasions, but strong of purpose when the step was taken. On October 17, 1859, the young Prince of Wales (the late King Edward VII) came into residence at Christ Church College. This was a mark of special favor to Dean Liddell, who had for many years been chaplain to Queen Victoria and her husband, the Prince Consort. Of course there was much ceremony attending the arrival of his Royal Highness; the Dean went in person to the station to meet him, and all the “dons” were drawn up in a body in Tom Quadrangle to give him the proper sort of greeting. “Hiawatha” had his camera along—“in its case it lay compactly,” but his poor little Highness had been “served up” on the camera to his utter disgust, and nothing would induce him to be photographed.

Later in the season, the Queen, the Prince Consort, and several princes and princesses came up to Oxford and surprised everybody. Christ Church was certainly in a flutter, and the day was turned into a gala occasion. There was a brilliant reception that evening at Dean Liddell’s and tableaux vivants, to which we may be sure our modest Lewis Carroll gave much assistance. He was already on intimate terms with the three little Liddells, Lorina, Alice, and Edith, and as the children were to pose in a tableau, he was certainly there to help and suggest with a score of quaint ideas.

He had a pleasant talk with the Prince of Wales, who shook hands cordially and condescended to ask several questions of the young photographer, praising the photographs which he had seen, and promised to choose some for himself some day. He regarded the pleasant-looking, chatty young fellow as just one of the college “dons”; he had never even heard of Lewis Carroll, indeed that gentleman was too newly born to be known very well anywhere outside of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s study, and it is extremely doubtful if the grave Student himself knew of half the fun and merriment hidden away in the new name. As a result of his interview with the prince, Lewis Carroll obtained his autograph, which was quite a gem among his collection.

There is no doubt he had many fine autographs and also an album, as he mentions several times. Autograph-hunting was not carried to the excess that it was later on, and is to-day. It is, to put it mildly, a very bad habit. Total strangers have no hesitancy in asking this favor of celebrities, who, as a rule, object to the wholesale signing of their names.

But the signatures in Lewis Carroll’s album were those of friends, which was quite another matter, and it was consequently most interesting to turn the leaves of the precious volume, and see in what friendly esteem he was held by the foremost men and women of his time. To him a letter or a sentiment would have had no meaning nor value if not addressed personally to himself; whereas, the autograph fiend of the present day would be content with the signature no matter to whom addressed. Lewis Carroll suffered from these pests in later years, as well as from the photograph fiend, to him as malicious as a hornet, and from whom he fled in terror.

Yet we find many good pictures of him, notwithstanding, the one which we have chosen for our frontispiece being the youngest and most attractive—Lewis Carroll at the age of twenty-three. There is another taken some two years later, when the dignity of the Oxford “don” set well on the slim young figure. His face was always curiously youthful in expression: the eyes, deep blue, looked childlike in their innocent trust; a child had but to gaze into their depths and claim a friend. Little girls, particularly, remembered their beauty, for they felt a thrill at their youthful heartstrings when those eyes, brimful of kindliness, turned upon them and warmed their childish souls. They were quick to feel the gentle pressure of his hand, his touch upon their shoulders or on their heads, which drew these little magnets close to his side where he loved to have them, for behind the shyness and reserve of Lewis Carroll was a great wealth of tenderness and love which only his girl friends understood, because it was only to them that he cared to show this part of himself.

Of course in his own home this side of him expanded in the sunny companionship of seven younger sisters. Naturally they did not look upon him with the awe of the later generation, but they brought to the surface many winning characteristics which might never have come to light but for them.

It had been his delight from early boyhood to tackle problems and to solve them; the “girl problem” he had studied from the very beginning, in all its stages, and so it is small wonder that he knew girls quite as well as he did mathematics, and loved them even better, if the truth must be told, though they were often quite as puzzling.

On December 22, 1861, in spite of many doubts and misgivings as to his worthiness, Charles Dodgson was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Oxford. He did this partly from his duty as a Student of Christ Church, but more because of the influence it would give him among the undergraduates, whose welfare he had so much at heart. He preached often but he never became a regular officiating clergyman, and his sermons were always delightful because they were never what we call “preachy.”

He was so truly good and religious, his faith was so simple, his desire to do right was so unfailing, that in spite of the slight drawback in his speech he had the gift of impressing his hearers deeply. His sermons were dedicated to the service of God, and he was content if they bore good fruit; he did not care what people said about them. He often preached at the evening service for the college servants; but most of all he loved to preach to children, to see the earnest young faces upturned to him, to feel that they were following each word. It was then that he put his whole heart into the task before him; the light grew in his eyes, he forgot to stammer, forgot everything, save the young souls he was leading, in his eagerness to show them the way.

Such was the character of Lewis Carroll up to the year 1862, that momentous year in which he found the golden key of Fairyland. He had often peeped through the closed gates but he had never been able to squeeze through; he might have jumped over them, but that is forbidden in Fairyland, where everything happens in the most natural way.

He had succeeded beyond his hopes in his efforts for independence; he was establishing a brilliant record as a mathematical lecturer; he had several scholarships which paid him a small yearly sum, and he was also sublibrarian. His little poems were making their way into public notice and his more serious work had been “Notes on the First Two Books of Euclid,” “Text-Books on Plane Geometry and Plane Trigonometry,” and “Notes on the First Part of Algebra.”

Socially, the retiring “don” was scarcely known beyond the University. He ran up to London whenever the theaters offered anything tempting; he visited the studios of well-known artists, who were all fond of him, and he cultivated the friendship of men of learning and letters. If these gentlemen happened to have attractive little daughters, he cultivated their acquaintance also. One special anecdote we have of a visit to the studio of Mr. Munroe, where he found two of the children of George Macdonald, the author of many books, among them “At the Back of the North Wind,” a most charming fairy tale. These two children, a boy and a girl, instantly made friends with Lewis Carroll, who suggested to the boy, Greville, that he thought a marble head would be such a useful thing, much better than a real one because it would not have to be brushed and combed. This appealed to the small boy, whose long hair was a torment, but after consideration he decided that a marble head would not be able to speak, and it was better to have his hair pulled and be able to cry out. In the case of the general small boy Lewis Carroll preferred marble, but he was overruled. Mr. Macdonald’s two daughters, Lily and Mary, were, however, great favorites of his; indeed, his girl friends were rapidly multiplying. Sometimes they came to see him in the pleasant rooms at Christ Church College, which were full of curious things that children love. Sometimes they had tea with him or went for a stroll, for Oxford had many beautiful walks about her colleges.

A visit to him was always a great event, but perhaps those who enjoyed him most were his intimates in “Tom Quadrangle.” The three little Liddell girls were at that time his special favorites; their bright companionship brought forth the many sides of his genius; under the spell of their winsome chatter the long golden afternoon would glide happily by, while under his spell they would sit for hours listening to the wonder tales he spun for them.

CHAPTER VI.

UP AND DOWN THE RIVER WITH THE REAL ALICE.

e generally speak of Oxford-on-the-Thames. Indeed, if we were to journey by water from London to Oxford, we would certainly go by way of the Thames, and a pleasant journey that would be, too, gliding between well-wooded, fertile shores with charming landscape towns on either side and bits of history peeping out in unexpected places. But into the heart of Oxford itself the Thames sends forth its tributaries in opposite directions; the Isis on one side, the Cherwell on the other. The Cherwell is what is called a “canoe river,” the Isis is the race course of Oxford, where all the “eights” (every racing crew consists of eight men) come to practice for the great day and the great race, which takes place sometimes at Henley, sometimes at Oxford itself, when the Isis is gay with bunting and flags.

On one side of Christ Church Meadow is a long line of barges which have been made stationary and which are used as boathouses by the various college clubs; these are situated just below what is known as Folly Bridge, a name familiar to all Oxford men, and the goal of many pleasant trips. The original bridge was destroyed in 1779, but tradition tells us that the first bridge was capped by a tower which was the study or observatory of Roger Bacon, the Franciscan Friar who invented the telescope, gunpowder, and many other things unknown to the people of his time. It was even hinted that he had cunningly built this tower that it might fall instantly on anyone passing beneath it who proved to be more learned than himself. One could see it from Christ Church Meadow, and doubtless Lewis Carroll pointed it out to his small companions, as they strolled across to the water’s edge, where perhaps a boat rocked lazily at its moorings.

It was the work of a moment to steady it so that the eager youngsters could scramble in, then he stepped in himself, pushing off with his oar, and a few long, steady strokes brought them in midstream. This was an ordinary afternoon occurrence, and the children alone knew the delights of being the chosen companions of Lewis Carroll. He would let them row, while he would lounge among the cushions and “spin yarns” that brought peals of merry laughter that rippled over the surface of the water. He knew by heart every story and tradition of Oxford, from the time the Romans reduced it from a city of some importance to a mere “ford for oxen to pass over,” which, indeed, was the origin of its name, long before the Christian era.

He had a story or a legend about every place they passed, but most of all they loved the stories he “made up” as he went along. He had a low, well-pitched voice, with the delightful trick of dropping it in moments of profound interest, sometimes stopping altogether and closing his eyes in pretended sleep, when his listeners were truly thrilled. This, of course, produced a stampede, which he enjoyed immensely, and sometimes he would “wake up,” take the oars himself, and pull for some green shady nook that loomed invitingly in the distance; here they would land and under the friendly trees they would have their tea, perhaps, and then they might induce him to finish the story—if they were ever so good.

It was on just such an occasion that he chanced to find the golden key to Wonderland. The time was midsummer, the place on the way up the river toward Godstow Bridge; the company consisted of three winsome little girls, Lorina, Alice, and Edith Liddell, or Prima, Secunda, and Tertia, as he called them by number in Latin. He tells of this himself in the following dainty poem—the introduction to “Alice in Wonderland”:

All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretence
Our wanderings to guide.
Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,
Beneath such dreamy weather,
To beg a tale, of breath too weak
To stir the tiniest feather!
Yet what can one poor voice avail
Against three tongues together?
Imperious Prima flashes forth
Her edict “to begin it”—
In gentler tone Secunda hopes
“There will be nonsense in it”—
While Tertia interrupts the tale,
Not more than once a minute.
Anon, to sudden silence won,
In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through a land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast—
And half believe it true.
And ever as the story drained
The wells of fancy dry,
And faintly strove that weary one
To put the subject by,
“The rest next time”—“It is next time!”
The happy voices cry.

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
Thus slowly one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out—
And now the tale is done,
And home we steer, a merry crew,
Beneath the setting sun.
Alice! a childish story take,
And with a gentle hand
Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are twined
In Memory’s mystic band,
Like pilgrims’ withered wreath of flowers
Plucked in a far-off land.

It was a very hot day, the fourth of July, 1862, that this special little picnic party set out for its trip up the river. Godstow Bridge was a quaint old-fashioned structure of three arches. In the very middle it was broken by a tiny wooded island, and guarding the east end was a picturesque inn called The Trout. Through the middle arch they could catch a distant glimpse of Oxford, with Christ Church spire quite plainly to be seen. They had often gone as far as the bridge and had their tea in the ruins of the old nunnery near by, a spot known to history as the burial-place of Fair Rosamond, that beautiful lady who was supposed to have been poisoned by Queen Eleanor, the jealous wife of Henry II. But this day the sun streamed down on the little party so pitilessly that they landed in a cool, green meadow and took refuge under a hayrick. Lewis Carroll stretched himself out at full length in the protecting shade, while the expectant little girls grouped themselves about him.

“Now begin it,” demanded Lorina, who was called Prima in the poem. Secunda [Alice] probably knew the story-teller pretty well when she asked for nonsense, while tiny Tertia, the youngest, simply clamored for “more, more, more,” as the speaker’s breath gave out.

Now, as Lewis Carroll lay there, a thousand odd fancies elbowing one another in his active brain, his hands groping in the soft moist earth about him, his fingers suddenly closed over that magic Golden Key. It was a queer invisible key, just the kind that fairies use, and neither Lorina, Alice, nor Edith would have been able to find it if they had hunted ever so long. He must have found it on the water and brought it ashore quite by accident, for there was the gleam of sunlight still upon it, and it was very shady under the hayrick. Perhaps there was a door somewhere that the key might fit; but no, there was only the hayrick towering above him, and only the brown earth stretching all about him. Perhaps a white rabbit did whisk by, perhaps the real Alice really fell asleep, at any rate when Prima said “Begin it,” that is how he started. The Golden Key opened the brown earth—in popped the white rabbit—down dropped the sleeping Alice—down—down—down—and while she was falling, clutching at things on the way, Lewis Carroll turned, with one of his rare sweet smiles, to the eager trio and began the story of “Alice’s Adventures Underground.”

The whole of that long afternoon he held the children spellbound. He did not finish the story during that one sitting. Summer has many long days, and the quiet, prudent young “don” was not reckless enough to scatter all his treasures at once; and, besides, all the queer things that happened to Alice would have lost half their interest in the shadow of a hayrick, and how could one conjure up Mock Turtles and Lorys and Gryphons on the dry land? Lewis Carroll’s own recollection of the beginning of “Alice” is certainly dated from that “golden afternoon” in the boat, and any idea of publishing the web of nonsense he was weaving never crossed his mind. Indeed, if he could have imagined that his small audience of three would grow to be as many millions in the years to come, the book would have lost half its charm, and the real child that lay hidden under the cap and gown of this grave young Student of thirty might never have been known to the world.

Into his mind, with all the freshness of unbidden thought, popped this story of Alice and her strange adventures, and while he chose the name of Alice in seeming carelessness, there is no doubt that the little maid who originally owned the name had many points in common with the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, never suspected save by the two most concerned.

To begin with, the real Alice had an Imagination; any child who demands nonsense in a story has an Imagination. Nothing was too impossible or absurd to put into a story, for one could always “make believe” it was something else you see, and a constant “make believe” made everything seem quite real. Dearly as he loved this posy of small girls, Lewis Carroll could not help being just the least bit partial to Alice, because, as he himself might have quaintly expressed it, she understood everything he said, even before he said it.

She was a dear little round, chubby child, a great camera favorite and consequently a frequent visitor to his rooms, for he took her picture on all occasions. One, as a beggar child, has become quite famous. She is pictured standing, with her ragged dress slipping from her shoulders and her right hand held as if begging for pennies; the other hand rests upon her hip, and her head is bent in a meek fashion; but the mouth has a roguish curve, and there is just the shadow of a laugh in the dark eyes, for of course it’s only “make believe,” and no one knows it better than Alice herself. Lewis Carroll liked the little bit of acting she did in this trifling part. A child’s acting always appealed to him, and many of his youngest and best friends were regularly on the stage.

He took another picture of the children perched upon a sofa; Lorina in the center, a little sister nestling close to her on either side, making a pretty pyramid of the three dark heads. Yet in studying the faces one can understand why it was Alice who inspired him. Lorina’s eyes are looking straight ahead, but the lids are dropped with a little conscious air, as if the business of having one’s picture taken was a very serious matter, to say nothing of the responsibility of keeping two small sisters in order. Edith is staring the camera out of countenance, uncertain whether to laugh or to frown, a pretty child with curls drooping over her face; but Alice, with the elf-locks and the straight heavy “bang,” is looking far away with those wonderful eyes of hers; perhaps she was even then thinking of Wonderland, perhaps even then a light flashed from her to Lewis Carroll in the shape of a promise to take her there some day. At any rate, if it hadn’t been for Alice there would have been no Wonderland, and without Wonderland, childhood is but a tale half-told, and even to this day, nearly fifty years since that “golden afternoon,” every little girl bearing the name of Alice who has read the book and has anything of an imagination, firmly believes that she is the sole and only Alice who could venture into Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland.

After he had told the story and the original Alice had expressed her approval, he promised to write it out for her to keep. Of course this took time, because, in the first place, his writing was not quite plain enough for a child to read easily, so every letter was carefully printed. Then the illustrations were troublesome, and he drew as many as he could, consulting a book on natural history for the correct forms of the queer animals Alice found. The Mock Turtle was his own invention, for there never was such an animal on land or sea.

This book was handed over to the small Alice, who little dreamed at that time of the treasure she was to have in her keeping. Over twenty years later, when Alice had become Mrs. Reginald Hargreaves, the great popularity of “Alice in Wonderland” tempted the publishers to bring out a reproduction of the original manuscript. This could not be done without borrowing the precious volume from the original Alice, who was willing to trust it in the hands of her old friend, knowing how over-careful he would be, and, as he resolved that he would not allow any workman to touch it, he had some funny experiences.

To reproduce a book it must first be photographed, and of course Lewis Carroll consulted an expert. He offered to bring the book to London, to go daily to his studio and hold it in position to be photographed, turning over the pages one by one, but the photographer wished to do all that himself. Finally, a man was found who was willing to come to Oxford and do the work in Lewis Carroll’s own way, while he stood near by turning over the pages himself rather than let him touch them.

The photographer succeeded in getting a fine set of negatives, and in October, 1880, Lewis Carroll sent the book in safe custody back to its owner, thinking his troubles were over. The next step was to have plates made from the pictures, and these plates in turn could pass into print. The photographer was prompt at first in delivering the plates as they were made, but, finally, like the Baker in “The Hunting of the Snark,” he “softly and suddenly vanished away,” holding still twenty-two of the fine blocks on which the plates were made, leaving the book so far—incomplete.

There ensued a lively search for the missing photographer. This lasted for months, thereby delaying the publication of the book, which was due Christmas. Then, as suddenly as he had disappeared, he reappeared like a ghost at the publishers, left eight of the twenty-two zinc blocks, and again vanished. Finally, when a year had passed and poor Lewis Carroll, at his wits’ end, had resolved to borrow the book again in order to photograph the remaining fourteen pages, the man was frightened by threats of arrest, and delivered up the fourteen negatives which he had not yet transferred to the blocks.

The distracted author was glad to find them, even though he had to pay a second time for getting the blocks done properly. However, the book was finished in time for the Christmas sale of 1886, just twenty-one years after “Alice” made her first bow, and the best thing about it was that all the profits were given to the Children’s Hospitals and Convalescent Homes for Sick Children. It was thoroughly illustrated with thirty-seven of the author’s own drawings, and the grown-up “Alice” received a beautiful special copy bound in white vellum; but pretty as it was, it could not take the place of that other volume carefully written out for the sole pleasure of one little girl. Nothing was too much trouble if it succeeded in giving pleasure to any little girl whom Lewis Carroll knew and loved; even those he did not really know, and consequently could not love, he sought to please, just because they were “little girls.”

Alice was among the chosen few who retained his friendship through the years. She was his first favorite, and she was indirectly the source of his good luck, and we may be sure there was a certain winsomeness about her long after the elf-locks were gathered into decorous coils of dark hair.

True, the formal old bachelor came forward in their later association, and the numerous letters he wrote her always began “My dear Mrs. Hargreaves,” but his fondness for her outlived many other passing affections.

To go back to the little Alice and the fair smiling river, and that wizard Lewis Carroll, who told the wonder tales so long ago. Once the children had a taste of “Alice,” she grew to be a great favorite; sometimes a chapter was told on the river, sometimes in his study, often in the garden or after tea in Christ Church Meadows—in fact, wherever they caught a glimpse of the grave young man in cap and gown, the trio of small Liddells fell upon him, and in this fashion, as he tells us himself, “the quaint events were hammered out.”

When he presented the promised copy it might have passed forever from his mind, which was full of the higher mathematics he was teaching to the young men of Christ Church, but he chanced one day to show the manuscript to George Macdonald, the well-known writer, who was so charmed with it that he advised his friend to send it to a publisher. He accordingly carried it to London, and Macmillan & Co. took it at once. This was a great surprise. He never dreamed of his nonsense being considered seriously, and growing suddenly about as young as a great, big, bashful boy, he refused to allow his own rough illustrations to appear in print, so he hunted over the long list of his artist friends, for the genius who could best illustrate the adventures of his dream-child. At last his friend, Tom Taylor, a well-known dramatist, suggested Mr. Tenniel, the clever cartoonist for Punch, who was quite willing to undertake this rather odd bit of work, and on July 4, 1865, exactly three years since that memorable afternoon, Alice Liddell received the first printed copy of “Alice in Wonderland,” the name the author finally selected for his book.

His first idea, as we know, was “Alice’s Adventures Underground,” the second was “Alice’s Hour in Elfland,” but the last seemed best of all, for Wonderland might mean any place where wonderful things could happen. And this was Lewis Carroll’s idea; anywhere the dream “Alice” chose to go would be Wonderland, and none knew better than he did how eagerly the child-mind paints its own fairy nooks and corners.

He was not at all excited about his first big venture; no doubt Alice herself took much more interest. To feel that you are about to be put into print is certainly a great experience, almost as great as being photographed; and, knowing how conscientious Lewis Carroll was about little things, we may be quite sure that her suggestions crept into many of the pictures, while it is equally certain that the few additions he made to the original “Alice” were carefully considered and firmly insisted upon by this critical young person.

The first edition of two thousand copies was a great disappointment; the pictures were badly printed, and all who had bought them were asked to send them back with their names and addresses, as a new edition would be printed immediately and they would then receive perfect copies. The old copies Lewis Carroll gave away to various homes and hospitals, while the new edition, upon which he feared a great loss, sold so rapidly that he was astonished, and still more so when edition after edition was demanded by the public, and far from being a failure, “Alice in Wonderland” brought her author both fame and money.

From that time forward, fortune smiled upon him; there were no strenuous efforts to increase his income. “Alice” yielded him an abundance each year, and he was beset by none of the cares and perplexities which are the dragons most writers encounter with their literary swords. He welcomed the fortune, not so much for the good it brought to him alone, but for the power it gave him to help others. His countless charities are not recorded because they were swallowed up in the “little things” he did, not in the great benefits which are trumpeted over the world. His own life, so simple, so full of purpose, flowed on as usual; he was not one to change his habits with the turn of Fortune’s wheel, no matter what it brought him.

Of course, everyone knew that a certain Lewis Carroll had written a clever, charming book of nonsense, called “Alice in Wonderland”; that he was an Oxford man, very much of a scholar, and little known outside of the University. What people did not know was that this same Lewis Carroll had for a double a certain “grave and reverend” young “don,” named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who, while “Alice” was making the whole world laugh, retired to his sanctum and wrote in rapid succession the following learned pamphlets: “The Condensation of Determinants,” “An Elementary Treatise on Determinants,” “The Fifth Book of Euclid, treated Algebraically,” “The Algebraic Formulæ for Responsions.”

Now, whatever these may be, they certainly did not interest children in the least, and Charles Lutwidge Dodgson did not care in the least, so long as he could smooth the thorny path of mathematics for his struggling undergraduates. But Lewis Carroll was quite a different matter. So long as the children were pleased, little he cared for algebra or geometry.

A funny tale is told about Queen Victoria. It seems that Lewis Carroll sent the second presentation copy of “Alice in Wonderland” to Princess Beatrice, the Queen’s youngest daughter. Her mother was so pleased with the book that she asked to have the author’s other works sent to her, and we can imagine her surprise when she received a large package of learned treatises by the mathematical lecturer of Christ Church College.

Who can tell through what curious byways the thought of the dream-child came dancing across the flagstones of the great “Tom Quad.” Yet across those same flagstones danced the little Liddells when they thought there was any possibility of a romp or a story; for Lewis Carroll lived in the northwest angle, while the girls lived in the beautiful deanery in the northeast angle, and it was only a “puss-in-the-corner” game to get from one place to the other.

“Alice” was written on the ground floor of this northwest angle, and it was in this sunny room that Lewis Carroll and the real Alice held many a consultation about the new book.

All true fame is to a certain extent due to accident; an act of heroism is generally performed on the spur of the moment; a great poem is an inspiration; a great invention, though preceded possibly by years of study, is born of a single moment’s inspiration; so “Alice” came to Lewis Carroll on the wings of inspiration. His study of girls and their varying moods has left its impress on a world of little girls, and there is scarcely a home to-day, in England or America, where there is not a special niche reserved for “Alice in Wonderland,” while this interesting young lady has been served up in French, German, Italian, and Dutch, and the famous poem of Father William has even been translated into Arabic. Whether the Chinese or the Japanese have discovered this funny little dream-child we cannot tell, but perhaps in time she may journey there and amuse the little maids with the jet-black hair, the creamy skin, and the slanting eyes. Perhaps she may even stir them to laughter.

Surely all must agree that the Gryphon himself bears a strong resemblance to the Chinese dragons, and it might be, such are the wonders of Wonderland, that the Mock Turtle can be found in Japan. Who knows! At any rate the little English Alice never thought of the consequences of that “golden afternoon”; it was good to be in the boat, to pull through the rippling waters and stir a faint breeze as the oars

“with little skill—
By little arms are plied”;

then to gather under the friendly shade of the hayrick and listen to the wonder tale “with lots of nonsense in it.”

Dear little Alice of Long Ago! To you we owe a debt of gratitude. All the little Alices of the past and all the little Alices of the future will have their Wonderland because, while floating up and down the river with the real Alice, Lewis Carroll found the Golden Key.