The Complete Alice in Wonderland (44 page)

A Letter to Alice Hargreaves

(NOTE:
Alice’s Adventures Under Ground
was later published for the public, long after the original Alice books had become classics. In 1885, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) wrote the following letter to Alice Hargreaves—Hargreaves being the married name of Alice Pleasance Liddell.)

Christ Church, Oxford

March 1, 1885

My Dear Mrs. Hargreaves,

I fancy this will come to you almost like a voice from the dead, after so many years of silence—and yet those years have made no difference, that I can perceive, in my clearness of memory of the days when we did correspond. I am getting to feel what an old man’s failing memory is, as to recent events and new friends (for instance, I made friends, only a few weeks ago, with a very nice little maid of about 12, and had a walk with her—and now I ca’n’t recall either of her names!) but my mental picture is as vivid as ever, of one who was, through so many years, my ideal child-friend. I have had scores of child-friends since your time: but they have been quite a different thing.

However, I did not begin this letter to say all that. What I want to ask is whether you have any objection to the original MS being published in facsimile? The idea of doing so occurred to me only the other day. If, on consideration, you come to the conclusion that you would rather not have it done, there is an end of the matter. If, however, you give a favourable reply, I would be much obliged if you would lend it me (registered post I should think would be safest) that I may consider the possibilities. I have not seen it for about 20 years: so am by no means sure that the illustrations may not prove to be so awfully bad, that to reproduce them would be absurd.

There can be no doubt that I should incur the charge of gross egoism in publishing it. But I don’t care for that in the least: knowing that I have no motive: only I think, considering the extraordinary popularity the books have had (we have sold more than 120,000 of the two) there must be many who would like to see the original form.

Always your friend,

C. L. Dodgson

(Needless to say, once Alice and Carroll had agreed upon a worthy charity, she was in full agreement that the manuscript should be published. The surprisingly somber Preface of the published edition—written by a much older and more sentimental Lewis Carroll—follows hereafter.)

Preface

“WHO WILL RIDDLE me the How and the Why?”

So questions one of England’s sweetest singers. The “How?” has already been told, after a fashion, in the verses prefixed to “Alice in Wonderland”; and some other memories of that happy summer day are set down, for those who care to see them, in this little book—the germ that was to grow into the published volume. But the “Why?” cannot, and need not, be put into words. Those for whom a child’s mind is a sealed book, and who see no divinity in a child’s smile, would read such words in vain: while for any one that has ever loved one true child no words are needed. For he will have known the awe that falls on one in the presence of a spirit fresh from GOD’s hands, on whom no shadow of sin, and but the outermost fringe of the shadow of sorrow, has yet fallen: he will have felt the bitter contrast between the haunting selfishness that spoils his child’s first attitude to the world is a simple love for all living things: and for love’s sake only, with no thought of name, or gain, or earthly reward. No deed of ours, I suppose, on this side the grave, is really unselfish: yet is one can put forth all one’s powers in a task where nothing of reward is hoped for but a little child’s whispered thanks, and the airy touch of a little child’s pure lips, one seems to come somewhere near to this.

There was no idea of publication in my mind when I wrote this little book: that was wholly an afterthought, pressed on me by the “perhaps too partial friends” who always have to bear the blame when a writer rushes into print: and I can truly say that no praise of theirs has ever given me one hundredth part of the pleasure it has been to think of the sick children in hospitals (where it has been a delight to me to send copies) forgetting, for a few bright hours, their pain and weariness—perhaps thinking lovingly of the unknown writer of the tale—perhaps even putting up a childish prayer (and oh, how much it needs!) for one who can but dimly hope to stand, some day, not quite out of sight of those pure young faces, before the great white throne. “I am very sure,” writes a lady-visitor at a Home for Sick Children, “that there will be many loving earnest prayers for you on Easter morning from the children.”

I would like to quote further from her letters, as embodying a suggestion that may perhaps thus come to the notice of some one able and willing to carry it out.

“I want you to send me one of your Easter Greetings for a very dear child who is dying at our Home. She is just fading away, and “Alice” had brightened some of the weary hours in her illness, and I know that letter would be such a delight to her—especially if you would put “Minnie” at the top, and she could know you had sent it for her. She knows you, and would so value it … She suffers so much that I long for what I know would so please her.” … “thank you very much for sending me the letter, and for writing Minnie’s name … I am quite sure that all these children will say a loving prayer for the “Alice-man” on Easter Day: and I am sure the letter will help the little ones to the real Easter joy. How I do wish that you, who have won the hearts and confidence of so many children, would do for them what is so very near my heart, and yet what no one will do, viz. write a book for children about GOD and themselves, which is not goody, and which begins at the right end, about religion, to make them see what it really is. I get quite miserable very often over the children I come across: hardly any of them have an idea of really knowing that GOD loves them, or of loving and confiding in Him. They will love and trust me, and be sure that I want them to be happy, and will not let them suffer more than is necessary: but as for going to Him in the same way, they would never think of it. They are dreadfully afraid of Him, if they think of Him at all, which they generally only do when they have been naughty, and they look on all connected with Him as very grave and dull: and, when they are full of fun and thoroughly happy, I am sure they unconsciously hope He is not looking. I am sure I don’t wonder they think of Him in this way, for people never talk of Him in connection with what makes their little lives the brightest. If they are naughty, people put on solemn faces, and say He is very angry or shocked, or something which frightens them: and, for the rest, He is talked about only in a way that makes them think of church and having to be quiet. As for being taught that all Joy and all Gladness and Brightness is his Joy—that He is wearying for them to be happy, and is not hard and stern, but always doing things to make their days brighter, and caring for them so tenderly, and wanting them to run to Him with all their little joys and sorrows, they are not taught that. I do so long to make them trust Him as they trust us, to feel that He will “take their part” as they do with us in their little woes, and to go to Him in their plays and enjoyments and not only when they say their prayers. I was quite grateful to one little dot, a short time ago, who said to his mother “when I am in bed, I put out my hand to see if I can feel JESUS and my angel. I thought perhaps in the dark they’d touch me, but they never have yet.” I do so want them to want to go to Him, and to feel how, if He is there, it must be happy.”

Let me add—for I feel I have drifted into far too serious a vein for a preface to a fairy-tale—the deliciously naive remark of a very dear child-friend, whom I asked, after an acquaintance of two or three days, if she had read “Alice” and the “Looking-Glass.” “Oh yes,” she replied readily, “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?” But this was a question I felt it would be hardly discreet for me to enter upon.

—December 1886

Dedication

A Christmas Gift

To a Dear Child

In Memory of a Summer Day.

Chapter I

ALICE WAS beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, and where is the use of a book, thought Alice, without pictures or conversations? So she was considering in her own mind, (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid,) whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain was worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when a white rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

There was nothing very remarkable in that, nor did Alice think it so
very
much out of the way to hear the rabbit say to itself “dear, dear! I shall be too late!” (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the rabbit actually
took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket
, looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket or a watch to take out of it, and, full of curiosity, she hurried across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In a moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly, that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself, before she found herself falling down what seemed a deep well. Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what would happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything: then, she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves: here and there were maps and pictures hung on pegs. She took a jar down off one of the shelves as she passed: it was labelled “Orange Marmalade,” but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar, for fear of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.