Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (222 page)

STUDIES FROM ENGLISH POETS II

"Alas!
What Boots"

Milton's Lucidas.

Among the contributors was Frank Smedley, author of "Frank Fairleigh."
Though a confirmed invalid, and condemned to spend most of his days on a sofa, Mr.
Smedley managed to write several fine novels, full of the joy of life, and free from the least taint of discontent or morbid feeling.
He was one of those men—one meets them here and there—whose minds rise high above their bodily infirmities; at moments of depression, which come to them as frequently, if not more frequently, than to other men, they no doubt feel their weakness, and think themselves despised, little knowing that we, the stronger ones in body, feel nothing but admiration as we watch the splendid victory of the soul over its earthly companion which their lives display.

It was through Frank Smedley that Mr.
Dodgson became one of the contributors to
The Comic Times
.
Several of his poems appeared in it, and Mr.
Yates wrote to him in the kindest manner, expressing warm approval of them.
When
The Comic Times
changed hands in 1856, and was reduced to half its size, the whole staff left it and started a new venture,
The Train
.
They were joined by Sala, whose stories in
Household Words
were at that time usually ascribed by the uninitiated to Charles Dickens.
Mr.
Dodgson's contributions to
The Train
included the following: "Solitude" (March, 1856); "Novelty and Romancement" (October, 1856); "The Three Voices" (November, 1856); "The Sailor's Wife" (May, 1857); and last, but by no means least, "Hiawatha's Photographing" (December, 1857).
All of these, except "Novelty and Romancement," have since been republished in "Rhyme?
and Reason?"
and "Three Sunsets."

The last entry in Mr.
Dodgson's Diary for this year reads as follows:—

I am sitting alone in my bedroom this last night of the old year, waiting for midnight.
It has been the most eventful year of my life: I began it a poor bachelor student, with no definite plans or expectations; I end it a master and tutor in Ch.
Ch., with an income of more than £300 a year, and the course of mathematical tuition marked out by God's providence for at least some years to come.
Great mercies, great failings, time lost, talents misapplied—such has been the past year.

His Diary is full of such modest depreciations of himself and his work, interspersed with earnest prayers (too sacred and private to be reproduced here) that God would forgive him the past, and help him to perform His holy will in the future.
And all the time that he was thus speaking of himself as a sinner, and a man who was utterly falling short of his aim, he was living a life full of good deeds and innumerable charities, a life of incessant labour and unremitting fulfilment of duty.
So, I suppose, it is always with those who have a really high ideal; the harder they try to approach it the more it seems to recede from them, or rather, perhaps, it is impossible to be both "the subject and spectator" of goodness.
As Coventry Patmore wrote:—

Become whatever good you see;

Nor sigh if, forthwith, fades from view

The grace of which you may not be

The Subject and spectator too.

The reading of "Alton Locke" turned his mind towards social subjects.
"If the book were but a little more definite," he writes, "it might stir up many fellow-workers in the same good field of social improvement.
Oh that God, in His good providence, may make me hereafter such a worker!
But alas, what are the means?
Each one has his own
nostrum
to propound, and in the Babel of voices nothing is done.
I would thankfully spend and be spent so long as I were sure of really effecting something by the sacrifice, and not merely lying down under the wheels of some irresistible Juggernaut."

He was for some time the editor of
College Rhymes
, a Christ Church paper, in which his poem, "A Sea Dirge" (afterwards republished in "Phantasmagoria," and again in "Rhyme?
and Reason?"), first appeared.
The following verses were among his contributions to the same magazine:—

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,

Though my heart its passion hides;

"She is all my fancy painted her,"

But oh!
how much besides
!

It was when writing for
The Train
that he first felt the need of a pseudonym.
He suggested "Dares" (the first syllable of his birthplace) to Edmund Yates, but, as this did not meet with his editor's approval, he wrote again, giving a choice of four names, (1) Edgar Cuthwellis, (2) Edgar U.
C.
Westhall, (3) Louis Carroll, and (4) Lewis Carroll.
The first two were formed from the letters of his two Christian names, Charles Lutwidge; the others are merely variant forms of those names—Lewis = Ludovicus = Lutwidge; Carroll = Carolus = Charles.
Mr.
Yates chose the last, and thenceforward it became Mr.
Dodgson's ordinary
nom de plume
.
The first occasion on which he used it was, I believe, when he wrote "The Path of Roses," a poem which appeared in
The Train
in May, 1856.

On June 16th he again visited the Princess's Theatre.
This time the play was "A Winter's Tale," and he "especially admired the acting of the little Mamillius, Ellen Terry, a beautiful little creature, who played with remarkable ease and spirit."

During the Long Vacation he spent a few weeks in the English Lake District.
In spite of the rain, of which he had his full share, he managed to see a good deal of the best scenery, and made the ascent of Gable in the face of an icy gale, which laid him up with neuralgia for some days.
He and his companions returned to Croft by way of Barnard Castle, as he narrates in his Diary:—

We set out by coach for Barnard Castle at about seven, and passed over about forty miles of the dreariest hill-country I ever saw; the climax of wretchedness was reached in Bowes, where yet stands the original of "Dotheboys Hall"; it has long ceased to be used as a school, and is falling into ruin, in which the whole place seems to be following its example—the roofs are falling in, and the windows broken or barricaded—the whole town looks plague-stricken.
The courtyard of the inn we stopped at was grown over with weeds, and a mouthing idiot lolled against the corner of the house, like the evil genius of the spot.
Next to a prison or a lunatic asylum, preserve me from living at Bowes!

Although he was anything but a sportsman, he was interested in the subject of betting, from a mathematical standpoint solely, and in 1857 he sent a letter to
Bell's Life
, explaining a method by which a betting man might ensure winning over any race.
The system was either to back
every
horse, or to lay against
every
horse, according to the way the odds added up.
He showed his scheme to a sporting friend, who remarked, "An excellent system, and you're bound to win—
if only you can get people to take your bets
."

In the same year he made the acquaintance of Tennyson, whose writings he had long intensely admired.
He thus describes the poet's appearance:—

ALFRED TENNYSON.

(From a photograph by Lewis Carroll)
.

A strange shaggy-looking man; his hair, moustache, and beard looked wild and neglected; these very much hid the character of the face.
He was dressed in a loosely fitting morning coat, common grey flannel waistcoat and trousers, and a carelessly tied black silk neckerchief.
His hair is black; I think the eyes too; they are keen and restless—nose aquiline—forehead high and broad—both face and head are fine and manly.
His manner was kind and friendly from the first; there is a dry lurking humour in his style of talking.
I took the opportunity [he goes on to say] of asking the meaning of two passages in his poems, which have always puzzled me: one in "Maud"—

Strange that I hear two men

Somewhere talking of me;

Well, if it prove a girl, my boy

Will have plenty; so let it be.

He said it referred to Maud, and to the two fathers arranging a match between himself and her.

The other was of the poet—

Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,

The love of love.

He said that he was quite willing it should bear any meaning the words would fairly bear; to the best of his recollection his meaning when he wrote it was "the hate of the quality hate, &c.," but he thought the meaning of "the quintessence of hatred" finer.
He said there had never been a poem so misunderstood by the "ninnies of critics" as "Maud."

During an evening spent at Tent Lodge Tennyson remarked, on the similarity of the monkey's skull to the human, that a young monkey's skull is quite human in shape, and gradually alters—the analogy being borne out by the human skull being at first more like the statues of the gods, and gradually degenerating into human; and then, turning to Mrs.
Tennyson, "There, that's the second original remark I've made this evening!"
Mr.
Dodgson saw a great deal of the Tennysons after this, and photographed the poet himself and various members of his family.

In October he made the acquaintance of John Ruskin, who in after years was always willing to assist him with his valuable advice on any point of artistic criticism.
Mr.
Dodgson was singularly fortunate in his friends; whenever he was in difficulties on any technical matters, whether of religion, law, medicine, art, or whatever it might be, he always had some one especially distinguished in that branch of study whose aid he could seek as a friend.
In particular, the names of Canon King (now Bishop of Lincoln), and Sir James Paget occur to me; to the latter Mr.
Dodgson addressed many letters on questions of medicine and surgery—some of them intricate enough, but never too intricate to weary the unfailing patience of the great surgeon.

A note in Mr.
Dodgson's Journal, May 9, 1857, describes his introduction to Thackeray:—

THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN.

(From a photograph by Lewis Carroll)
.

I breakfasted this morning with Fowler of Lincoln to meet Thackeray (the author), who delivered his lecture on George III.
in Oxford last night.
I was much pleased with what I saw of him; his manner is simple and unaffected; he shows no anxiety to shine in conversation, though full of fun and anecdote when drawn out.
He seemed delighted with the reception he had met with last night: the undergraduates seem to have behaved with most unusual moderation.