Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (251 page)

The following letter was forwarded on the Saturday:—

"7, Lushington Road, Eastbourne,

September
26, 1895.

Dear Mr.
Hopley,—I think you will excuse the liberty I am taking in asking you to give me some food after the service on Sunday, so that I may have no need to catch the train, but can walk back at leisure.
This will save me from the worry of trying to conclude at an exact minute, and you, perhaps, from the trouble of finding short hymns, to save time.
It will not, I hope, cause your cook any trouble, as my regular rule here is
cold
dinner on Sundays.
This not from any "Sabbatarian" theory, but from the wish to let our
employés
have the day
wholly
at their own disposal.

I beg Miss Hopley's acceptance of the enclosed papers— (puzzles and diagrams.)

Believe me, very truly yours,

C.L.
Dodgson."

On Sunday our grand old church was crowded, and, although our villagers are mostly agricultural labourers, yet they breathlessly listened to a sermon forty minutes long, and apparently took in every word of it.
It was quite extempore, in very simple words, and illustrated by some delightful and most touching stories of children.
I only wish there had been a shorthand-writer there.

In the vestry after service, while he was signing his name in the Preachers' Book, a church officer handed him a bit of paper.
"Mr.
Dodgson, would you very kindly write your name on that?"
"Sir!"
drawing himself up sternly—"Sir, I never do that for any one"—and then, more kindly, "You see, if I did it for one, I must do it for all."

An amusing incident in Mr.
Dodgson's life is connected with the well-known drama, "Two Little Vagabonds."
I give the story as he wrote it in his Diary:—

Nov.
28
th.—Matinée
at the Princess's of "Two Little Vagabonds," a very sensational melodrama, capitally acted.
"Dick" and "Wally" were played by Kate Tyndall and Sydney Fairbrother, whom I guess to be about fifteen and twelve.
Both were excellent, and the latter remarkable for the perfect realism of her acting.
There was some beautiful religious dialogue between "Wally" and a hospital nurse— most reverently spoken, and reverently received by the audience.

Dec.
17
th.
—I have given books to Kate Tyndall and Sydney Fairbrother, and have heard from them, and find I was entirely mistaken in taking them for children.
Both are married women!

The following is an extract from a letter written in 1896 to one of his sisters, in allusion to a death which had recently occurred in the family:—

It is getting increasingly difficult now to remember
which
of one's friends remain alive, and
which
have gone "into the land of the great departed, into the silent land."
Also, such news comes less and less as a shock, and more and more one realises that it is an experience each of
us
has to face before long.
That fact is getting
less
dreamlike to me now, and I sometimes think what a grand thing it will be to be able to say to oneself, "Death is
over
now; there is not
that
experience to be faced again."

I am beginning to think that, if the
books I
am still hoping to write are to be done
at all,
they must be done
now
, and that I am
meant
thus to utilise the splendid health I have had, unbroken, for the last year and a half, and the working powers that are fully as great as, if not greater, than I have ever had.
I brought with me here (this letter was written from Eastbourne) the MS., such as it is (very fragmentary and unarranged) for the book about religious difficulties, and I meant, when I came here, to devote myself to that, but I have changed my plan.
It seems to me that
that
subject is one that hundreds of living men could do, if they would only try,
much
better than I could, whereas there is no living man who could (or at any rate who would take the trouble to) arrange and finish and publish the second part of the "Logic."
Also, I
have
the Logic book in my head; it will only need three or four months to write out, and I have
not
got the other book in my head, and it might take years to think out.
So I have decided to get Part ii.
finished
first
, and I am working at it day and night.
I have taken to early rising, and sometimes sit down to my work before seven, and have one and a half hours at it before breakfast.
The book will be a great novelty, and will help, I fully believe, to make the study of Logic
far
easier than it now is.
And it will, I also believe, be a help to religious thought by giving
clearness
of conception and of expression, which may enable many people to face, and conquer, many religious difficulties for themselves.
So I do really regard it as work for
God
.

Another letter, written a few months later to Miss Dora Abdy, deals with the subject of "Reverence," which Mr.
Dodgson considered a virtue not held in sufficient esteem nowadays:—

My Dear Dora,—In correcting the proofs of "Through the Looking-Glass" (which is to have "An Easter Greeting" inserted at the end), I am reminded that in that letter (I enclose a copy), I had tried to express my thoughts on the very subject we talked about last night—the relation of
laughter
to religious thought.
One of the hardest things in the world is to convey a meaning accurately from one mind to another, but the
sort
of meaning I want to convey to other minds is that while the laughter of
joy
is in full harmony with our deeper life, the laughter of amusement should be kept apart from it.
The danger is too great of thus learning to look at solemn things in a spirit of
mockery
, and to seek in them opportunities for exercising
wit
.
That is the spirit which has spoiled, for me, the beauty of some of the Bible.
Surely there is a deep meaning in our prayer, "Give us an heart to love and
dread
Thee."
We do not mean
terror
: but a dread that will harmonise with love; "respect" we should call it as towards a human being, "reverence" as towards God and all religious things.

Yours affectionately,

C.L.
Dodgson.

In his "Game of Logic" Lewis Carroll introduced an original method of working logical problems by means of diagrams; this method he superseded in after years for a much simpler one, the method of "Subscripts."

In "Symbolic Logic, Part i."
(London: Macmillan, 1896) he employed both methods.
The Introduction is specially addressed "to Learners," whom Lewis Carroll advises to read the book straight through, without
dipping
.

This Rule [he says] is very desirable with other kinds of books—such as novels, for instance, where you may easily spoil much of the enjoyment you would otherwise get from the story by dipping into it further on, so that what the author meant to be a pleasant surprise comes to you as a matter of course.
Some people, I know, make a practice of looking into vol.
iii.
first, just to see how the story ends; and perhaps it
is
as well just to know that all ends
happily
—that the much persecuted lovers
do
marry after all, that he is proved to be quite innocent of the murder, that the wicked cousin is completely foiled in his plot, and gets the punishment he deserves, and that the rich uncle in India (
Qu.
Why in
India ?
Ans.
Because, somehow, uncles never
can
get rich anywhere else) dies at exactly the right moment—before taking the trouble to read vol i.
This, I say, is
just
permissible with a
novel
, where vol.
iii.
has a
meaning
, even for those who have not read the earlier part of the story; but with a
scientific
book, it is sheer insanity.
You will find the latter part
hopelessly
unintelligible, if you read it before reaching it in regular course.

CHAPTER IX

(1897—1898)

Logic-lectures—Irreverent anecdotes—Tolerance of his religious views—A mathematical discovery—"The Little Minister" Sir George Baden-Powell—Last illness—"Thy will be done"—"Wonderland" at last!—Letters from friends "Three Sunsets"—"Of such is the kingdom of Heaven."

The year 1897, the last complete year which he was destined to spend, began for Mr.
Dodgson at Guildford.
On January 3rd he preached in the morning at the beautiful old church of S.
Mary's, the church which he always attended when he was staying with his sisters at the Chestnuts.

On the 5th he began a course of Logic Lectures at Abbot's Hospital.
The Rev.
A.
Kingston, late curate of Holy Trinity and S.
Mary's Parishes, Guildford, had requested him to do this, and he had given his promise if as many as six people could be got together to hear him.
Mr.
Kingston canvassed the town so well that an audience of about thirty attended the first lecture.

LEWIS CARROLL.

A long Sunday walk was always a feature of Mr.
Dodgson's life in the vacations.
In earlier years the late Mr.
W.
Watson was his usual companion at Guildford.
The two men were in some respects very much alike; a peculiar gentleness of character, a winning charm of manner which no one could resist, distinguished them both.
After Mr.
Watson's death his companion was usually one of the following Guildford clergymen: the Rev.
J.H.
Robson, LL.D., the Rev.
H.R.
Ware, and the Rev.
A.
Kingston.

On the 26th Mr.
Dodgson paid a visit to the Girls' High School, to show the pupils some mathematical puzzles, and to teach the elder ones his "Memoria Technica."
On the 28th he returned to Oxford, so as to be up in time for term.

I have said that he always refused invitations to dinner; accordingly his friends who knew of this peculiarity, and wished to secure him for a special evening, dared not actually invite him, but wrote him little notes stating that on such and such days they would be dining at home.
Thus there is an entry in his Journal for February 10th:

"Dined with Mrs.
G—(She had not sent an 'invitation'—only 'information')."

His system of symbolic logic enabled him to work out the most complex problems with absolute certainty in a surprisingly short time.
Thus he wrote on the 15th: "Made a splendid logic-problem, about "great-grandsons" (modelled on one by De Morgan).
My method of solution is quite new, and I greatly doubt if any one will solve the Problem.
I have sent it to Cook Wilson."

On March 7th he preached in the University Church, the first occasion on which he had done so:—

There is now [he writes] a system established of a course of six sermons at S.
Mary's each year, for University men
only
, and specially meant for undergraduates.
They are preached, preceded by a few prayers and a hymn, at half-past eight.
This evening ended the course for this term: and it was my great privilege to preach.
It has been the most formidable sermon I have ever had to preach, and it is a
great
relief to have it over.
I took, as text, Job xxviii.
28, "And unto man he said, The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom"—and the prayer in the Litany "Give us an heart to love and dread thee."
It lasted three-quarters of an hour.

One can imagine how he would have treated the subject.
The views which he held on the subject of reverence were, so at least it appears to me, somewhat exaggerated; they are well expressed in a letter which he wrote to a friend of his, during the year, and which runs as follows:—

Dear—, After changing my mind several times, I have at last decided to venture to ask a favour of you, and to trust that you will not misinterpret my motives in doing so.

The favour I would ask is, that you will not tell me any more stories, such as you did on Friday, of remarks which children are said to have made on very sacred subjects—remarks which most people would recognise as irreverent, if made by
grown-up people
, but which are assumed to be innocent when made by children who are unconscious of any irreverence, the strange conclusion being drawn that they are therefore innocent when
repeated
by a grown-up person.

The misinterpretation I would guard against is, your supposing that I regard such repetition as always
wrong
in any grown-up person.
Let me assure you that I do
not
so regard it.
I am always willing to believe that those who repeat such stories differ wholly from myself in their views of what is, and what is not, fitting treatment of sacred things, and I fully recognise that what would certainly be wrong in
me
, is not necessarily so in
them
.

So I simply ask it as a personal favour to myself.
The hearing of that anecdote gave me so much pain, and spoiled so much the pleasure of my tiny dinner-party, that I feel sure you will kindly spare me such in future.

One further remark.
There are quantities of such anecdotes going about.
I don't in the least believe that 5 per cent.
of them were ever said by
children
.
I feel sure that most of them are concocted by people who
wish
to bring sacred subjects into ridicule—sometimes by people who
wish
to undermine the belief that others have in religious truths: for there is no surer way of making one's beliefs
unreal
than by learning to associate them with ludicrous ideas.

Forgive the freedom with which I have said all this.

Sincerely yours,

C.L.
Dodgson.

The entry in the Diary for April 11th (Sunday) is interesting:—

Went my eighteen-mile round by Besilsleigh.
From my rooms back to them again, took me five hours and twenty-seven minutes.
Had "high tea" at twenty minutes past seven.
This entails only leaving a plate of cold meat, and gives much less trouble than hot dinner at six.

Dinner at six has been my rule since January 31st, when it began—I then abandoned the seven o'clock Sunday dinner, of which I entirely disapprove.
It has prevented, for two terms, the College Servants' Service.

On May 12th he wrote:—

As the Prince of Wales comes this afternoon to open the Town Hall, I went round to the Deanery to invite them to come through my rooms upon the roof, to see the procession arrive....
A party of about twenty were on my roof in the afternoon, including Mrs.
Moberly, Mrs.
Driver, and Mrs.
Baynes, and most, if not all, of the children in Christ Church.
Dinner in Hall at eight.
The Dean had the Prince on his right, and Lord Salisbury on his left.
My place was almost
vis—à—vis
with the Prince.
He and the Dean were the only speakers.
We did not get out of Hall till nearly ten.

In June he bought a "Whiteley Exerciser," and fixed it up in his rooms.
One would have thought that he would have found his long walks sufficient exercise (an eighteen-mile round was, as we have seen, no unusual thing for him to undertake), but apparently it was not so.
He was so pleased with the "Exerciser," that he bought several more of them, and made presents of them to his friends.

As an instance of his broad-mindedness, the following extract from his Diary for June 20th is interesting.
It must be premised that E—was a young friend of his who had recently become a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and that their place of worship in Oxford is dedicated to S.
Aloysius.

I went with E— to S.
Aloysius.
There was much beauty in the service, part of which consisted in a procession, with banner, all round the church, carrying the Host, preceded by a number of girls in white, with veils (who had all had their first communion that morning), strewing flowers.
Many of them were quite little things of about seven.
The sermon (by Father Richardson) was good and interesting, and in a very loyal tone about the Queen.

A letter he wrote some years before to a friend who had asked him about his religious opinions reveals the same catholicity of mind:—

I am a member of the English Church, and have taken Deacon's Orders, but did not think fit (for reasons I need not go into) to take Priest's Orders.
My dear father was what is called a "High Churchman," and I naturally adopted those views, but have always felt repelled by the yet higher development called "Ritualism."

But I doubt if I am fully a "High Churchman" now.
I find that as life slips away (I am over fifty now), and the life on the other side of the great river becomes more and more the reality, of which
this
is only a shadow, that the petty distinctions of the many creeds of Christendom tend to slip away as well—leaving only the great truths which all Christians believe alike.
More and more, as I read of the Christian religion, as Christ preached it, I stand amazed at the forms men have given to it, and the fictitious barriers they have built up between themselves and their brethren.
I believe that when you and I come to lie down for the last time, if only we can keep firm hold of the great truths Christ taught us—our own utter worthlessness and His infinite worth; and that He has brought us back to our one Father, and made us His brethren, and so brethren to one another—we shall have all we need to guide us through the shadows.

Most assuredly I accept to the full the doctrines you refer to—that Christ died to save us, that we have no other way of salvation open to us but through His death, and that it is by faith in Him, and through no merit of ours, that we are reconciled to God; and most assuredly I can cordially say, "I owe all to Him who loved me, and died on the Cross of Calvary."

He spent the Long Vacation at Eastbourne as usual, frequently walking over to Hastings, which is about twenty miles off.
A good many of his mornings were spent in giving lectures and telling stories at schools.

A letter to the widow of an old college friend reveals the extraordinary sensitiveness of his nature:—

2, Bedford Well Road, Eastbourne,

August
2, 1897.

My Dear Mrs.
Woodhouse,—Your letter, with its mournful news, followed me down here, and I only got it on Saturday night; so I was not able to be with you in thought when the mortal remains of my dear old friend were being committed to the ground; to await the time when our Heavenly Father shall have accomplished the number of His elect, and when you and I shall once more meet the loved ones from whom we are, for a little while only—what a little while even a long human life lasts!—parted in sorrow, yet
not
sorrowing as those without hope.

You will be sure without words of mine, that you have my true and deep sympathy.
Of all the friends I made at Ch.
Ch., your husband was the very
first
who spoke to me—across the dinner-table in Hall.
That is forty-six years ago, but I remember, as if it were only yesterday, the kindly smile with which he spoke....