Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (248 page)

The bad logic that occurs in many and many a well-meant sermon, is a real danger to modern Christianity.
When detected, it may seriously injure many believers, and fill them with miserable doubts.
So my advice to you, as a young theological student, is "Sift your reasons
well
, and, before you offer them to others, make sure that they prove your conclusions."

I hope you won't give this letter of mine (which it has cost me some time and thought to write) just a single reading and then burn it; but that you will lay it aside.
Perhaps, even years hence, it may be of some use to you to read it again.

Believe me always

Your affectionate Uncle,

C.
L.
Dodgson.

CHAPTER VIII

(1892—1896)

Mr.
Dodgson resigns the Curatorship—Bazaars—He lectures to children—A mechanical "Humpty Dumpty"—A logical controversy—Albert Chevalier—"Sylvie and Bruno Concluded"—"Pillow Problems"—Mr.
Dodgson's generosity—College services—Religious difficulties—A village sermon—Plans for the future—Reverence—"Symbolic Logic."

At Christ Church, as at other Colleges, the Common Room is an important feature.
Open from eight in the morning until ten at night, it takes the place of a club, where the "dons" may see the newspapers, talk, write letters, or enjoy a cup of tea.
After dinner, members of High Table, with their guests if any are present, usually adjourn to the Common Room for wine and dessert, while there is a smoking-room hard by for those who do not despise the harmless but unnecessary weed, and below are cellars, with a goodly store of choice old wines.

The Curator's duties were therefore sufficiently onerous.
They were doubly so in Mr.
Dodgson's case, for his love of minute accuracy greatly increased the amount of work he had to do.
It was his office to select and purchase wines, to keep accounts, to adjust selling price to cost price, to see that the two Common Room servants performed their duties, and generally to look after the comfort and convenience of the members.

"Having heard," he wrote near the end of the year 1892, "that Strong was willing to be elected (as Curator), and Common Room willing to elect him, I most gladly resigned.
The sense of relief at being free from the burdensome office, which has cost me a large amount of time and trouble, is very delightful.
I was made Curator, December 8, 1882, so that I have held the office more than nine years."

The literary results of his Curatorship were three very interesting little pamphlets, "Twelve Months in a Curatorship, by One who has tried it"; "Three years in a Curatorship, by One whom it has tried"; and "Curiosissima Curatoria, by 'Rude Donatus,'" all printed for private circulation, and couched in the same serio-comic vein.
As a logician he naturally liked to see his thoughts in print, for, just as the mathematical mind craves for a black-board and a piece of chalk, so the logical mind must have its paper and printing-press wherewith to set forth its deductions effectively.

A few extracts must suffice to show the style of these pamphlets, and the opportunity offered for the display of humour.

In the arrangement of the prices at which wines were to be sold to members of Common Room, he found a fine scope for the exercise of his mathematical talents and his sense of proportion.
In one of the pamphlets he takes old Port and Chablis as illustrations.

The original cost of each is about 3s.
a bottle; but the present value of the old Port is about 11s.
a bottle.
Let us suppose, then, that we have to sell to Common Room one bottle of old Port and three of Chablis, the original cost of the whole being 12s., and the present value 20s.
These are our data.
We have now two questions to answer.
First, what sum shall we ask for the whole?
Secondly, how shall we apportion that sum between the two kinds of wine?

The sum to be asked for the whole he decides, following precedent, is to be the present market-value of the wine; as to the second question, he goes on to say—

We have, as so often happens in the lives of distinguished premiers, three courses before us: (1) to charge the
present
value for each kind of wine; (2) to put on a certain percentage to the
original
value of each kind; (3) to make a compromise between these two courses.

Course 1 seems to me perfectly reasonable; but a very plausible objection has been made to it—that it puts a prohibitory price on the valuable wines, and that they would remain unconsumed.
This would not, however, involve any loss to our finances; we could obviously realise the enhanced values of the old wines by selling them to outsiders, if the members of Common Room would not buy them.
But I do not advocate this course.

Course 2 would lead to charging 5s.
a bottle for Port and Chablis alike.
The Port-drinker would be "in clover," while the Chablis-drinker would probably begin getting his wine direct from the merchant instead of from the Common Room cellar, which would be a
reductio ad absurdum
of the tariff.
Yet I have heard this course advocated, repeatedly, as an abstract principle.
"You ought to consider the
original
value only," I have been told.
"You ought to regard the Port-drinker as a private individual, who has laid the wine in for himself, and who ought to have all the advantages of its enhanced value.
You cannot fairly ask him for more than what you need to refill the bins with Port,
plus
the percentage thereon needed to meet the contingent expenses."
I have listened to such arguments, but have never been convinced that the course is just.
It seems to me that the 8s.
additional value which the bottle of Port has acquired, is the property of
Common Room
, and that Common Room has the power to give it to whom it chooses; and it does not seem to me fair to give it all to the Port-drinker.
What merit is there in preferring Port to Chablis, that could justify our selling the Port-drinker his wine at less than half what he would have to give outside, and charging the Chablis-drinker five-thirds of what he would have to give outside?
At all events, I, as a Port-drinker, do not wish to absorb the whole advantage, and would gladly share it with the Chablis-drinker.
The course I recommend is

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!