Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (266 page)

HIAWATHA’S PHOTOGRAPHING.

[
With no apology to Mr.
Longfellow.
]

From his shoulder Hiawatha

Took the camera of rosewood,

Made of sliding, folding rosewood;

Neatly put it all together,

In its case it lay compactly,

Folded into nearly nothing;

But he opened out the hinges,

Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges

Till it looked all squares and oblongs,

Like a complicated figure

In the second book of Euclid.

This he perched upon a tripod—

Crouched beneath its dusky cover—

Stretched his hand, enforcing silence—

Said, “Be motionless, I beg you!”

Mystic, awful was the process.

All the family in order

Sat before him for their pictures:

Each in turn, as he was taken,

Volunteered his own suggestions,

His ingenious suggestions.

All of which during the course of the poem succeeded in driving poor Hiawatha to the verge of madness, until—

Finally my Hiawatha

Tumbled all the tribe together

(“Grouped” is not the right expression),

And, as happy chance would have it,

Did at last obtain a picture

Where the faces all succeeded:

Each came out a perfect likeness.

Then they joined and all abused it,

Unrestrainedly abused it,

As “the worst and ugliest picture

They could possibly have dreamed of.”

······

All together rang their voices,

Angry, loud, discordant voices,

As of dogs that howl in concert,

As of cats that wail in chorus.

But my Hiawatha’s patience,

His politeness and his patience,

Unaccountably had vanished,

And he left that happy party.

Neither did he leave them slowly,

With the calm deliberation,

The intense deliberation,

Of a photographic artist:

But he left them in a hurry,

Left them in a mighty hurry,

Stating that he would not stand it,

Stating in emphatic language

What he’d be before he’d stand it.

Hurriedly he packed his boxes:

Hurriedly the porter trundled

On a barrow all his boxes:

Hurriedly he took his ticket:

Hurriedly the train received him:

Thus departed Hiawatha.

But perhaps the cleverest part of the poem is the seemingly innocent paragraph of introduction which reads as follows:

“In an age of imitation, I can claim no special merit for this slight attempt at doing what is known to be so easy.
Any fairly practiced writer, with the slightest ear for rhythm, could compose, for hours together, in the easy running meter of ‘The Song of Hiawatha.’
Having, then, distinctly stated that I challenge no attention in the following little poem to its merely verbal jingle, I must beg the candid reader to confine his criticism to its treatment of the subject.”

Notice how metrically this sounds.
Tune up to the Hiawatha pitch and you will have the same swinging measure in the above sentences.

Lewis Carroll’s real acquaintance with Tennyson began in that eventful year of 1856.
The odd, shaggy man, with the fine head and the keen, restless eyes, fascinated the young Student greatly.
He went often to Tennyson’s home and did his best to be interested in the poet’s two little boys, Hallam and Lionel.
Had they been girls there would have been no difficulty, but he always had strained relations with boys; still, as these “roundabouts” belonged to the little Tennysons, we find a sort of armed truce kept up between them.
He bargained with Lionel to exchange manuscripts, and he got both boys to sign their names in his album; he even condescended to play a game of chess with Lionel, checkmating him in six moves, but he distinctly refused to allow that young gentleman to give him a blow on the head with a mallet in exchange for some of his verses.
However, we may be pretty sure that Lewis Carroll’s visits to the Tennysons were much pleasanter when the “roundabouts” were not visible.

That same year he made the acquaintance of John Ruskin, and the great art critic turned out to be a very valuable friend, as was also Sir James Paget, the eminent surgeon, who gave him many hints on medicine and surgery, in which Charles Dodgson was deeply interested.
His medical knowledge was quite remarkable, and the books he collected on the subject would have been valuable additions to any physician’s library.
In the year 1857 he met Thackeray, who had come to Oxford to deliver his lecture on George III, and liked him very much.
The Oxford “dons” were certainly fortunate in meeting all the “great ones” and seeing them generally at their best.

The year 1858 was an uneventful year; college routine varied by much reading, afternoons on the river or in the country, and evenings devoted to preparations for the morrow’s work.
Lewis Carroll kept a diary which harbored many fine thoughts and noble resolves, many doubts and fears, many hopes, many plans for the future, for he was making up his mind to the final step in the life of a Christ Church Student—that of taking Holy Orders, in other words, of being ordained as a clergyman.

There were one or two points to be considered: first, regarding an impediment in his speech which would make constant preaching almost impossible.
He stammered, not on all occasions, but quite enough to make steady speaking an effort, painful to himself and his hearers.
The other objection lay in the fact that Christ Church had rigid laws for its clergy concerning amusements.
Charles Dodgson had no wish to be shut out of the world; he was fond of theaters and operas, and he did not see that he was doing any special good to his fellow-creatures by putting them out of his life.
But at last, after battling with his conscience, and earnest consultation with a few wise friends, he decided that he would be ordained, though he would not become a regular preaching clergyman.

It took him two years to reach this decision, for he was slow to act on such occasions, but strong of purpose when the step was taken.
On October 17, 1859, the young Prince of Wales (the late King Edward VII) came into residence at Christ Church College.
This was a mark of special favor to Dean Liddell, who had for many years been chaplain to Queen Victoria and her husband, the Prince Consort.
Of course there was much ceremony attending the arrival of his Royal Highness; the Dean went in person to the station to meet him, and all the “dons” were drawn up in a body in Tom Quadrangle to give him the proper sort of greeting.
“Hiawatha” had his camera along—“in its case it lay compactly,” but his poor little Highness had been “served up” on the camera to his utter disgust, and nothing would induce him to be photographed.

Later in the season, the Queen, the Prince Consort, and several princes and princesses came up to Oxford and surprised everybody.
Christ Church was certainly in a flutter, and the day was turned into a gala occasion.
There was a brilliant reception that evening at Dean Liddell’s and
tableaux vivants
, to which we may be sure our modest Lewis Carroll gave much assistance.
He was already on intimate terms with the three little Liddells, Lorina, Alice, and Edith, and as the children were to pose in a tableau, he was certainly there to help and suggest with a score of quaint ideas.

He had a pleasant talk with the Prince of Wales, who shook hands cordially and condescended to ask several questions of the young photographer, praising the photographs which he had seen, and promised to choose some for himself some day.
He regarded the pleasant-looking, chatty young fellow as just one of the college “dons”; he had never even heard of Lewis Carroll, indeed that gentleman was too newly born to be known very well anywhere outside of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s study, and it is extremely doubtful if the grave Student himself knew of half the fun and merriment hidden away in the new name.
As a result of his interview with the prince, Lewis Carroll obtained his autograph, which was quite a gem among his collection.

There is no doubt he had many fine autographs and also an album, as he mentions several times.
Autograph-hunting was not carried to the excess that it was later on, and is to-day.
It is, to put it mildly, a very bad habit.
Total strangers have no hesitancy in asking this favor of celebrities, who, as a rule, object to the wholesale signing of their names.

But the signatures in Lewis Carroll’s album were those of friends, which was quite another matter, and it was consequently most interesting to turn the leaves of the precious volume, and see in what friendly esteem he was held by the foremost men and women of his time.
To him a letter or a sentiment would have had no meaning nor value if not addressed personally to himself; whereas, the autograph fiend of the present day would be content with the signature no matter to whom addressed.
Lewis Carroll suffered from these pests in later years, as well as from the photograph fiend, to him as malicious as a hornet, and from whom he fled in terror.

Yet we find many good pictures of him, notwithstanding, the one which we have chosen for our frontispiece being the youngest and most attractive—Lewis Carroll at the age of twenty-three.
There is another taken some two years later, when the dignity of the Oxford “don” set well on the slim young figure.
His face was always curiously youthful in expression: the eyes, deep blue, looked childlike in their innocent trust; a child had but to gaze into their depths and claim a friend.
Little girls, particularly, remembered their beauty, for they felt a thrill at their youthful heartstrings when those eyes, brimful of kindliness, turned upon them and warmed their childish souls.
They were quick to feel the gentle pressure of his hand, his touch upon their shoulders or on their heads, which drew these little magnets close to his side where he loved to have them, for behind the shyness and reserve of Lewis Carroll was a great wealth of tenderness and love which only his girl friends understood, because it was only to them that he cared to show this part of himself.

Of course in his own home this side of him expanded in the sunny companionship of seven younger sisters.
Naturally they did not look upon him with the awe of the later generation, but they brought to the surface many winning characteristics which might never have come to light but for them.

It had been his delight from early boyhood to tackle problems and to solve them; the “girl problem” he had studied from the very beginning, in all its stages, and so it is small wonder that he knew girls quite as well as he did mathematics, and loved them even better, if the truth must be told, though they were often quite as puzzling.

On December 22, 1861, in spite of many doubts and misgivings as to his worthiness, Charles Dodgson was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Oxford.
He did this partly from his duty as a Student of Christ Church, but more because of the influence it would give him among the undergraduates, whose welfare he had so much at heart.
He preached often but he never became a regular officiating clergyman, and his sermons were always delightful because they were never what we call “preachy.”

He was so truly good and religious, his faith was so simple, his desire to do right was so unfailing, that in spite of the slight drawback in his speech he had the gift of impressing his hearers deeply.
His sermons were dedicated to the service of God, and he was content if they bore good fruit; he did not care what people said about them.
He often preached at the evening service for the college servants; but most of all he loved to preach to children, to see the earnest young faces upturned to him, to feel that they were following each word.
It was then that he put his whole heart into the task before him; the light grew in his eyes, he forgot to stammer, forgot everything, save the young souls he was leading, in his eagerness to show them the way.

Such was the character of Lewis Carroll up to the year 1862, that momentous year in which he found the golden key of Fairyland.
He had often peeped through the closed gates but he had never been able to squeeze through; he might have jumped over them, but that is forbidden in Fairyland, where everything happens in the most natural way.

He had succeeded beyond his hopes in his efforts for independence; he was establishing a brilliant record as a mathematical lecturer; he had several scholarships which paid him a small yearly sum, and he was also sublibrarian.
His little poems were making their way into public notice and his more serious work had been “Notes on the First Two Books of Euclid,” “Text-Books on Plane Geometry and Plane Trigonometry,” and “Notes on the First Part of Algebra.”