The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll by Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
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Stuart Dodgson Collingwood >> The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll
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Course 3, which is a compromise between 1 and 2, its
essential principle being to sell the new wines _above_
their value, in order to be able to sell the old
_below_ their value. And it is clearly desirable, as
far as possible, to make the reductions _where they will
be felt,_ and the additions _where they will not be
felt._ Moreover it seems to me that reduction is most
felt where it _goes down to the next round sum,_ and an
addition in the reverse case, _i.e.,_ when it _starts
from a round sum._ Thus, if we were to take 2d. off a 5s.
8d. wine, and add it to a 4s. 4d.--thus selling them at 5s.
6d. and 4s. 6d. the reduction would be welcomed, and the
addition unnoticed; and the change would be a popular one.
The next extract shows with what light-hearted frivolity he could
approach this tremendous subject of wine:--
The consumption of Madeira (B) has been during the past
year, zero. After careful calculation I estimate that, if
this rate of consumption be steadily maintained, our present
stock will last us an infinite number of years. And although
there may be something monotonous and dreary in the prospect
of such vast cycles spent in drinking second-class Madeira,
we may yet cheer ourselves with the thought of how
economically it can be done.
To assist the Curator in the discharge of his duties, there was a Wine
Committee, and for its guidance a series of rules was drawn up. The
first runs as follows: "There shall be a Wine Committee, consisting of
five persons, including the Curator, whose duty it shall be to assist
the Curator in the management of the cellar." "Hence," wrote Mr.
Dodgson, "logically it is the bounden duty of the Curator 'to assist
himself.' I decline to say whether this clause has ever brightened
existence for me--or whether, in the shades of evening, I may ever
have been observed leaving the Common Room cellars with a small but
suspicious-looking bundle, and murmuring, 'Assist thyself, assist
thyself!'"
Every Christmas at Christ Church the children of the College servants
have a party in the Hall. This year he was asked to entertain them,
and gladly consented to do so. He hired a magic lantern and a large
number of slides, and with their help told the children the three
following stories: (1) "The Epiphany"; (2) "The Children Lost in the
Bush"; (3) "Bruno's Picnic."
I have already referred to the services held in Christ Church for the
College servants, at which Mr. Dodgson used frequently to preach. The
way in which he regarded this work is very characteristic of the man.
"Once more," he writes, "I have to thank my Heavenly Father for the
great blessing and privilege of being allowed to speak for Him! May He
bless my words to help some soul on its heavenward way." After one of
these addresses he received a note from a member of the congregation,
thanking him for what he had said. "It is very sweet," he said, "to
get such words now and then; but there is danger in them if more such
come, I must beg for silence."
During the year Mr. Dodgson wrote the following letter to the Rev.
C.A. Goodhart, Rector of Lambourne, Essex:--
Dear Sir,--Your kind, sympathising and most encouraging
letter about "Sylvie and Bruno" has deserved a better
treatment from me than to have been thus kept waiting more
than two years for an answer. But life is short; and one has
many other things to do; and I have been for years almost
hopelessly in arrears in correspondence. I keep a register,
so that letters which I intend to answer do somehow come to
the front at last.
In "Sylvie and Bruno" I took courage to introduce what I had
entirely avoided in the two "Alice" books--some reference to
subjects which are, after all, the _only_ subjects of real
interest in life, subjects which are so intimately bound up
with every topic of human interest that it needs more effort
to avoid them than to touch on them; and I felt that such a
book was more suitable to a clerical writer than one of mere
fun.
I hope I have not offended many (evidently I have not
offended _you_) by putting scenes of mere fun, and talk
about God, into the same book.
Only one of all my correspondents ever guessed there was
more to come of the book. She was a child, personally
unknown to me, who wrote to "Lewis Carroll" a sweet letter
about the book, in which she said, "I'm so glad it hasn't
got a regular wind-up, as it shows there is more to come!"
There is indeed "more to come." When I came to piece
together the mass of accumulated material I found it was
quite _double_ what could be put into one volume. So I
divided it in the middle; and I hope to bring out "Sylvie
and Bruno Concluded" next Christmas--if, that is, my
Heavenly Master gives me the time and the strength for the
task; but I am nearly 60, and have no right to count on
years to come.
In signing my real name, let me beg you not to let the
information go further--I have an _intense_ dislike to
personal publicity; and, the more people there are who know
nothing of "Lewis Carroll" save his books, the happier I am.
Believe me, sincerely yours,
Charles L. Dodgson.
I have made no attempt to chronicle all the games and puzzles which
Lewis Carroll invented. A list of such as have been published will be
found in the Bibliographical chapter. He intended to bring out a book
of "Original Games and Puzzles," with illustrations by Miss E.
Gertrude Thomson. The MS. was, I believe, almost complete before his
death, and one, at least, of the pictures had been drawn. On June 30th
he wrote in his Diary, "Invented what I think is a new kind of riddle.
A Russian had three sons. The first, named Rab, became a lawyer; the
second, Ymra, became a soldier; the third became a sailor. What was
his name?"
The following letter written to a child-friend, Miss E. Drury,
illustrates Lewis Carroll's hatred of bazaars:--
Ch. Ch., Oxford, _Nov_. 10, 1892.
My dear Emmie,--I object to _all_ bazaars on the general
principle that they are very undesirable schools for young
ladies, in which they learn to be "too fast" and forward,
and are more exposed to undesirable acquaintances than in
ordinary society. And I have, besides that, special
objections to bazaars connected with charitable or religious
purposes. It seems to me that they desecrate the religious
object by their undesirable features, and that they take the
reality out of all charity by getting people to think that
they are doing a good action, when their true motive is
amusement for themselves. Ruskin has put all this far better
than I can possibly do, and, if I can find the passage, and
find the time to copy it, I will send it you. But _time_ is
a very scarce luxury for me!
Always yours affectionately,
C.L. Dodgson.
In his later years he used often to give lectures on various subjects
to children. He gave a series on "Logic" at the Oxford Girls' High
School, but he sometimes went further afield, as in the following
instance:--
Went, as arranged with Miss A. Ottley, to the High School at
Worcester, on a visit. At half-past three I had an audience
of about a hundred little girls, aged, I should think, from
about six to fourteen. I showed them two arithmetic puzzles
on the black-board, and told them "Bruno's Picnic." At
half-past seven I addressed some serious words to a second
audience of about a hundred elder girls, probably from
fifteen to twenty--an experience of the deepest interest to
me.
The illustration on the next page will be best explained by the
following letter which I have received from Mr. Walter Lindsay, of
Philadelphia, U.S.:--
Phila., _September_ 12, 1898.
Dear Sir,--I shall be very glad to furnish what information
I can with respect to the "Mechanical Humpty Dumpty" which I
constructed a few years ago, but I must begin by
acknowledging that, in one sense at least, I did not
"invent" the figure. The idea was first put into my head by
an article in the _Cosmopolitan_, somewhere about 1891, I
suppose, describing a similar contrivance. As a devoted
admirer of the "Alice" books, I determined to build a Humpty
Dumpty of my own; but I left the model set by the author of
the article mentioned, and constructed the figure on
entirely different lines. In the first place, the figure as
described in the magazine had very few movements, and not
very satisfactory ones at that; and in the second place, no
attempt whatever was made to reproduce, even in a general
way, the well-known appearance of Tenniel's drawing. Humpty,
when completed, was about two feet and a half high. His
face, of course, was white; the lower half of the egg was
dressed in brilliant blue. His stockings were grey, and the
famous cravat orange, with a zigzag pattern in blue. I am
sorry to say that the photograph hardly does him justice;
but he had travelled to so many different places during his
career, that he began to be decidedly out of shape before he
sat for his portrait.
[Illustration: The Mechanical "Humpty Dumpty."
_From a photograph._]
When Humpty was about to perform, a short "talk" was usually
given before the curtain rose, explaining the way in which
the Sheep put the egg on the shelf at the back of the little
shop, and how Alice went groping along to it. And then, just
as the explanation had reached the opening of the chapter on
Humpty Dumpty, the curtain rose, and Humpty was discovered,
sitting on the wall, and gazing into vacancy. As soon as the
audience had had time to recover, Alice entered, and the
conversation was carried on just as it is in the book.
Humpty Dumpty gesticulated with his arms, rolled his eyes,
raised his eyebrows, frowned, turned up his nose in scorn at
Alice's ignorance, and smiled from ear to ear when he shook
hands with her. Besides this, his mouth kept time with his
words all through the dialogue, which added very greatly to
his life-like appearance.
The effect of his huge face, as it changed from one
expression to another, was ludicrous in the extreme, and we
were often obliged to repeat sentences in the conversation
(to "go back to the last remark but one") because the
audience laughed so loudly over Humpty Dumpty's expression
of face that they drowned what he was trying to say. The
funniest effect was the change from the look of
self-satisfied complacency with which he accompanied the
words: "The king has promised me--" to that of towering rage
when Alice innocently betrays her knowledge of the secret.
At the close of the scene, when Alice has vainly endeavoured
to draw him into further conversation, and at last walks
away in disgust, Humpty loses his balance on the wall,
recovers himself, totters again, and then falls off
backwards; at the same time a box full of broken glass is
dropped on the floor behind the scenes, to represent the
"heavy crash," which "shook the forest from end to
end";--and the curtain falls.
Now, as to how it was all done. Humpty was made of barrel
hoops, and covered with stiff paper and muslin. His eyes
were round balls of rags, covered with muslin, drawn
smoothly, and with the pupil and iris marked on the front.
These eyes were pivoted to a board, fastened just behind the
eye-openings in the face. To the eyeballs were sewed strong
pieces of tape, which passed through screw-eyes on the edges
of the board, and so down to a row of levers which were
hinged in the lower part of the figure. One lever raised
both eyes upward, another moved them both to the left, and
so on. The eyebrows were of worsted and indiarubber knitted
together. They were fastened at the ends, and raised and
lowered by fine white threads passing through small holes in
the face, and also operated by levers. The arms projected
into the interior of the machine, and the gestures were made
by moving the short ends inside. The right hand contained a
spring clothes-pin, by which he was enabled to hold the
note-book in which Alice set down the celebrated problem--
365
1
___
364
The movement of the mouth, in talking, was produced by a
long tape, running down to a pedal, which was controlled by
the foot of the performer. And the smile consisted of long
strips of red tape, which were drawn out through slits at
the corners of the mouth by means of threads which passed
through holes in the sides of the head. The performer--who
was always your humble servant--stood on a box behind the
wall, his head just reaching the top of the egg, which was
open all the way up the back. At the lower end of the
figure, convenient to the hands of the performer, was the
row of levers, like a little keyboard; and by striking
different chords on the keys, any desired expression could
be produced on the face.
Of course, a performance of this kind without a good Alice
would be unutterably flat; but the little girl who played
opposite to Humpty, Miss Nellie K---, was so exactly the
counterpart of Alice, both in appearance and disposition,
that most children thought she was the original, right out
of the book.
Humpty still exists, but he has not seen active life for
some years. His own popularity was the cause of his
retirement; for having given a number of performances (for
Charity, of course), and delighted many thousands of
children of all ages, the demands upon his time, from
Sunday-schools and other institutions, became so numerous
that the performers were obliged to withdraw him in
self-defence. He was a great deal of trouble to build, but
the success he met with and the pleasure he gave more than
repaid me for the bother; and I am sure that any one else
who tries it will reach the same conclusion.
Yours sincerely,
Walter Lindsay.
At the beginning of 1893 a fierce logical battle was being waged
between Lewis Carroll and Mr. Cook Wilson, Professor of Logic at
Oxford. The Professor, in spite of the countless arguments that Mr.
Dodgson hurled at his head, would not confess that he had committed a
fallacy.
On February 5th the Professor appears to have conceded a point, for
Mr. Dodgson writes: "Heard from Cook Wilson, who has long declined to
read a paper which I sent January 12th, and which seems to me to prove
the fallacy of a view of his about Hypotheticals. He now offers to
read it, if _I_ will study a proof he sent, that another problem
of mine had contradictory _data_. I have accepted his offer, and
studied and answered his paper. So I now look forward hopefully to the
result of his reading mine."
The hopes which he entertained were doomed to be disappointed; the
controversy bore no fruits save a few pamphlets and an enormous amount
of correspondence, and finally the two antagonists had to agree to
differ.
As a rule Mr. Dodgson was a stern opponent of music-halls and
music-hall singers; but he made one or two exceptions with regard to
the latter. For Chevalier he had nothing but praise; he heard him at
one of his recitals, for he never in his life entered a "Variety
Theatre." I give the passage from his Diary:--
Went to hear Mr. Albert Chevalier's Recital. I only knew of
him as being now recognised as _facile princeps_ among
music-hall singers, and did not remember that I had seen him
twice or oftener on the stage--first as "Mr. Hobbs" in
"Little Lord Fauntleroy," and afterwards as a "horsy" young
man in a _matinee_ in which Violet Vanbrugh appeared. He was
decidedly _good_ as an actor; but as a comic singer (with
considerable powers of pathos as well) he is quite
first-rate. His chief merit seems to be the earnestness with
which he throws himself into the work. The songs (mostly his
own writing) were quite inoffensive, and very funny. I am
very glad to be able to think that his influence on public
taste is towards refinement and purity. I liked best "The
Future Mrs. 'Awkins," with its taking tune, and "My Old
Dutch," which revealed powers that, I should think, would
come out grandly in Robsonian parts, such as "The Porter's
Knot." "The Little Nipper" was also well worth hearing.
Mr. Dodgson's views on Sunday Observance were old-fashioned, but he
lived up to them, and did not try to force them upon people with whose
actions he had no concern. They were purely matters of "private
opinion" with him. On October 2nd he wrote to Miss E.G. Thomson, who
was illustrating his "Three Sunsets":--
Would you kindly do _no_ sketches, or photos, for
_me_, on a Sunday? It is, in _my_ view (of
_course_ I don't condemn any one who differs from me)
inconsistent with keeping the day holy. I do _not_ hold
it to be the Jewish "Sabbath," but I _do_ hold it to be
"the Lord's Day," and so to be made very distinct from the
other days.
In December, the Logical controversy being over for a time, Mr.
Dodgson invented a new problem to puzzle his mathematical friends
with, which was called "The Monkey and Weight Problem." A rope is
supposed to be hung over a wheel fixed to the roof of a building; at
one end of the rope a weight is fixed, which exactly counterbalances a
monkey which is hanging on to the other end. Suppose that the monkey
begins to climb the rope, what will be the result? The following
extract from the Diary illustrates the several possible answers which
may be given:--
Got Professor Clifton's answer to the "Monkey and Weight
Problem." It is very curious, the different views taken by
good mathematicians. Price says the weight goes _up_, with
increasing velocity; Clifton (and Harcourt) that it goes
_up_, at the same rate as the monkey; while Sampson says
that it goes _down_.
On December 24th Mr. Dodgson received the first twelve copies of
"Sylvie and Bruno Concluded," just about four years after the
appearance of the first part of the story. In this second volume the
two fairy children are as delightful as ever; it also contains what I
think most people will agree to be the most beautiful poem Lewis
Carroll ever wrote, "Say, what is the spell, when her fledglings are
cheeping?" (p. 305). In the preface he pays a well-deserved compliment
to Mr. Harry Furniss for his wonderfully clever pictures; he also
explains how the book was written, showing that many of the amusing
remarks of Bruno had been uttered by real children. He makes
allusion to two books, which only his death prevented him from
finishing--"Original Games and Puzzles," and a paper on "Sport,"
viewed from the standpoint of the humanitarian. From a literary point
of view the second volume of "Sylvie and Bruno" lacks unity; a fairy
tale is all very well, and a novel also is all very well, but the
combination of the two is surely a mistake. However, the reader who
cares more for the spirit than the letter will not notice this
blemish; to him "Sylvie and Bruno Concluded" will be interesting and
helpful, as the revelation of a very beautiful personality.
You have made everything turn out just as I should have
chosen [writes a friend to whom he had sent a copy], and
made right all that disappointed me in the first part. I
have not only to thank you for writing an interesting book,
but for writing a helpful one too. I am sure that "Sylvie
and Bruno" has given me many thoughts that will help me all
life through. One cannot know "Sylvie" without being the
better for it. You may say that "Mister Sir" is not
consciously meant to be yourself, but I cannot help feeling
that he is. As "Mister Sir" talks, I hear your voice in
every word. I think, perhaps, that is why I like the book so
much.
I have received an interesting letter from Mr. Furniss, bearing upon
the subject of "Sylvie and Bruno," and Lewis Carroll's methods of
work. The letter runs as follows:--
I have illustrated stories of most of our leading authors,
and I can safely say that Lewis Carroll was the only one who
cared to understand the illustrations to his own book. He
was the W. S. Gilbert for children, and, like Gilbert
producing one of his operas, Lewis Carroll took infinite
pains to study every detail in producing his extraordinary
and delightful books. Mr. Gilbert, as every one knows, has a
model of the stage; he puts up the scenery, draws every
figure, moves them about just as he wishes the real actors
to move about. Lewis Carroll was precisely the same. This,
of course, led to a great deal of work and trouble, and made
the illustrating of his books more a matter of artistic
interest than of professional profit. I was _seven years_
illustrating his last work, and during that time I had the
pleasure of many an interesting meeting with the fascinating
author, and I was quite repaid for the trouble I took, not
only by his generous appreciation of my efforts, but by the
liberal remuneration he gave for the work, and also by the
charm of having intercourse with the interesting, if
somewhat erratic genius.
A book very different in character from "Sylvie and Bruno," but under
the same well-known pseudonym, appeared about the same time. I refer
to "Pillow Problems," the second part of the series entitled "Curiosa
Mathematica."
"Pillow Problems thought out during wakeful hours" is a collection of
mathematical problems, which Mr. Dodgson solved while lying awake at
night. A few there are to which the title is not strictly applicable,
but all alike were worked out mentally before any diagram or word of
the solution was committed to paper.
The author says that his usual practice was to write down the
_answer_ first of all, and afterwards the question and its
solution. His motive, he says, for publishing these problems was not
from any desire to display his powers of mental calculation. Those who
knew him will readily believe this, though they will hardly be
inclined to accept his own modest estimate of those powers.
Still the book was intended, not for the select few who can scale the
mountain heights of advanced mathematics, but for the much larger
class of ordinary mathematicians, and they at least will be able to
appreciate the gifted author, and to wonder how he could follow so
clearly in his head the mental diagrams and intricate calculations
involved in some of these "Pillow Problems."
His chief motive in publishing the book was to show how, by a little
determination, the mind "can be made to concentrate itself on some
intellectual subject (not necessarily mathematics), and thus banish
those petty troubles and vexations which most people experience, and
which--unless the mind be otherwise occupied--_will_ persist in
invading the hours of night." And this remedy, as he shows, serves a
higher purpose still. In a paragraph which deserves quoting at length,
as it gives us a momentary glimpse of his refined and beautiful
character, he says:--
Perhaps I may venture for a moment to use a more serious
tone, and to point out that there are mental troubles, much
worse than mere worry, for which an absorbing object of
thought may serve as a remedy. There are sceptical thoughts,
which seem for the moment to uproot the firmest faith: there
are blasphemous thoughts, which dart unbidden into the most
reverent souls: there are unholy thoughts, which torture
with their hateful presence the fancy that would fain be
pure. Against all these some real mental work is a most
helpful ally. That "unclean spirit" of the parable, who
brought back with him seven others more wicked than himself,
only did so because he found the chamber "swept and
garnished," and its owner sitting with folded hands. Had he
found it all alive with the "busy hum" of active _work_,
there would have been scant welcome for him and his seven!
It would have robbed the book of its true character if Lewis Carroll
had attempted to improve on the work done in his head, and
consequently we have the solutions exactly as he worked them out
before setting them down on paper. Of the Problems themselves there is
not much to be said here; they are original, and some of them (e.g.,
No. 52) expressed in a style peculiarly the author's own. The subjects
included in their range are Arithmetic, Algebra, Pure Geometry
(Plane), Trigonometry, Algebraic Geometry, and Differential Calculus;
and there is one Problem to which Mr. Dodgson says he "can proudly
point," in "Transcendental Probabilities," which is here given: "A bag
contains two counters, as to which nothing is known except that each
is either black or white. Ascertain their colour without taking them
out of the bag." The answer is, "One is black and the other white."
For the solution the reader is referred to the book itself, a study of
which will well repay him, apart from the chance he may have of
discovering some mistake, and the consequent joy thereat!
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