Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (226 page)

SIR JOHN MILLAIS.

(From a photograph by Lewis Carroll)
.

The first edition, which consisted of two thousand copies, was condemned by both author and illustrator, for the pictures did not come out well.
All purchasers were accordingly asked to return their copies, and to send their names and addresses; a new edition was prepared, and distributed to those who had sent back their old copies, which the author gave away to various homes and hospitals.
The substituted edition was a complete success, "a perfect piece of artistic printing," as Mr.
Dodgson called it.
He hardly dared to hope that more than two thousand copies would be sold, and anticipated a considerable loss over the book.
His surprise was great when edition after edition was demanded, and when he found that "Alice," far from being a monetary failure, was bringing him in a very considerable income every year.

A rough comparison between "Alice's Adventures Underground" and the book in its completed form, shows how slight were the alterations that Lewis Carroll thought it necessary to make.

The "Wonderland" is somewhat longer, but the general plan of the book, and the simplicity of diction, which is one of its principal charms, are unchanged.
His memory was so good that I believe the story as he wrote it down was almost word for word the same that he had told in the boat.
The whole idea came like an inspiration into his mind, and that sort of inspiration does not often come more than once in a lifetime.
Nothing which he wrote afterwards had anything like the same amount of freshness, of wit, of real genius.
The "Looking-Glass" most closely approached it in these qualities, but then it was only the following out of the same idea.
The most ingenuous comparison of the two books I have seen was the answer of a little girl whom Lewis Carroll had asked if she had read them: "Oh yes, I've read both of them, and I think," (this more slowly and thoughtfully) "I think 'Through the Looking-Glass' is more stupid than 'Alice's Adventures.'
Don't you think so?"

The critics were loud in their praises of "Alice"; there was hardly a dissentient voice among them, and the reception which the public gave the book justified their opinion.
So recently as July, 1898, the
Pall Mall Gazette
conducted an inquiry into the popularity of children's books.
"The verdict is so natural that it will surprise no normal person.
The winner is 'Alice in Wonderland'; 'Through the Looking-Glass' is in the twenty, but much lower down."

SIR JOHN TENNIEL.

From a photograph by Bassano
.

"Alice" has been translated into French, German, Italian, and Dutch, while one poem, "Father William," has even been turned into Arabic.
Several plays have been based upon it; lectures have been given, illustrated by magic-lantern slides of Tenniel's pictures, which have also adorned wall-papers and biscuit-boxes.
Mr.
Dodgson himself designed a very ingenious "Wonderland" stamp-case; there has been an "Alice" birthday-book; at schools, children have been taught to read out of "Alice," while the German edition, shortened and simplified for the purpose, has also been used as a lesson-book.
With the exception of Shakespeare's plays, very few, if any, books are so frequently quoted in the daily Press as the two "Alices."

C.
M.
YONGE.

(From a photograph by Lewis Carroll)
.

In 1866 Mr.
Dodgson was introduced to Miss Charlotte M.
Yonge, whose novels had long delighted him.
"It was a pleasure I had long hoped for," he says, "and I was very much pleased with her cheerful and easy manners—the sort of person one knows in a few minutes as well as many in many years."

In 1867 he contributed a story to
Aunt Judy's Magazine
called "Bruno's Revenge," the charming little idyll out of which "Sylvie and Bruno" grew.
The creation of Bruno was the only act of homage Lewis Carroll ever paid to boy-nature, for which, as a rule, he professed an aversion almost amounting to terror.
Nevertheless, on the few occasions on which I have seen him in the company of boys, he seemed to be thoroughly at his ease, telling them stories and showing them puzzles.

I give an extract from Mrs.
Gatty's letter, acknowledging the receipt of "Bruno's Revenge" for her magazine:—

I need hardly tell you that the story is
delicious
.
It is beautiful and fantastic and childlike, and I cannot sufficiently thank you.
I am so
proud
for
Aunt Judy
that you have honoured
her
by sending it here, rather than to the
Cornhill
, or one of the grander Magazines.

To-morrow I shall send the Manuscript to London probably; to-day I keep it to enjoy a little further, and that the young ladies may do so too.
One word more.
Make this one of a series.
You may have great mathematical abilities, but so have hundreds of others.
This talent is peculiarly your own, and as an Englishman you are almost unique in possessing it.
If you covet fame, therefore, it will be (I think) gained by this.
Some of the touches are so exquisite, one would have thought nothing short of intercourse with fairies could have put them into your head.

Somewhere about this time he was invited to witness a rehearsal of a children's play at a London theatre.
As he sat in the wings, chatting to the manager, a little four-year-old girl, one of the performers, climbed up on his knee, and began talking to him.
She was very anxious to be allowed to play the principal part (Mrs.
Mite), which had been assigned to some other child.
"I wish I might act Mrs.
Mite," she said; "I know all her part, and I'd get an
encore
for every word."

During the year he published his book on "Determinants."
To those accustomed to regard mathematics as the driest of dry subjects, and mathematicians as necessarily devoid of humour, it seems scarcely credible that "An Elementary Treatise on Determinants," and "Alice in Wonderland" were written by the same author, and it came quite as a revelation to the undergraduate who heard for the first time that Mr.
Dodgson of Christ Church and Lewis Carroll were identical.

The book in question, admirable as it is in many ways, has not commanded a large sale.
The nature of the subject would be against it, as most students whose aim is to get as good a place as possible in the class lists cannot afford the luxury of a separate work, and have to be content with the few chapters devoted to "Determinants" in works on Higher Algebra or the Theory of Equations, supplemented by references to Mr.
Dodgson's work which can be found in the College libraries.

The general acceptance of the book would be rather restricted by the employment of new words and symbols, which, as the author himself felt, "are always a most unwelcome addition to a science already burdened with an enormous vocabulary."
But the work itself is largely original, and its arrangement and style are, perhaps, as attractive as the nature of the subject will allow.
Such a book as this has little interest for the general reader, yet, amongst the leisured few who are able to read mathematics for their own sake, the treatise has found warm admirers.