The Story of Lewis Carroll Part 3

Mr. Girdlestone said to me, "I went to see him on quite a slight acquaintance, I confess it was with some slight feeling of trepidation.

However I had to on some business, and accordingly I knocked at his door about 8.30 one winter's evening, and was invited to come in.

"He was sitting working at a writing-table, and all round him were piles of MSS. arranged with mathematical neatness, and many of them tied up with tape. The lamp threw his face into sharp relief as he greeted me. My business was soon over, and I was about to go away, when he asked me if I would have a gla.s.s of wine and sit with him for a little.

"The night outside was very cold, and the fire was bright and inviting, and I sat down. He began to talk to me of ordinary subjects, of the things a man might do at Oxford, of the place itself, and the affection in which he held it. He talked quietly, and in a rather tired voice. During our conversation my eye fell upon a photograph of a little girl--evidently from the freshness of its appearance but newly taken--which was resting upon the ledge of a reading-stand at my elbow. It was the picture of a tiny child, very pretty, and I picked it up to look at it.

"'That is the baby of a girl friend of mine,' he said, and then, with an absolute change of voice, 'there is something very strange about very young children, something I cannot understand.' I asked him in what way, and he explained at some length. He was far less at his ease than when talking trivialities, and he occasionally stammered and sometimes hesitated for a word. I cannot remember all he said, but some of his remarks still remain with me. He said that in the company of very little children his brain enjoyed a rest which was startlingly recuperative. If he had been working too hard or had tired his brain in any way, to play with children was like an actual material tonic to his whole system. I understood him to say that the effect was almost physical!

"He said that he found it much easier to understand children, to get his mind into correspondence with their minds when he was fatigued with other work. Personally, I did not understand little children, and they seemed quite outside my experience, and rather incautiously I asked him if children never bored him. He had been standing up for most of the time, and when I asked him that, he sat down suddenly. 'They are three-fourths of my life,' he said. 'I cannot understand how any one could be bored by little children. I think when you are older you will come to see this--I hope you'll come to see it.'

"After that he changed the subject once more, and became again the mathematician--a little formal, and rather weary."

Mr. Girdlestone probably had a unique experience, for it was but rarely that Mr. Dodgson so far unburdened himself to a comparative stranger, and what was even worse, to a "grown-up stranger."

Now I have given you two different phases of Lewis Carroll at Oxford--Lewis Carroll as the little girl's companion, and Lewis Carroll sitting by the fireside telling something of his inner self to a young man. I am going on to talk about my life with him at Eastbourne, where I used, year by year, to stay with him at his house in Lus.h.i.+ngton Road.

He was very fond of Eastbourne, and it was from that place that I received the most charming letters that he wrote me. Here is one, and I could hardly say how many times I have taken this delightful letter from its drawer to read through and through again.

"7 LUs.h.i.+NGTON ROAD, EASTBOURNE, "_September 17, 1893_.

"Oh, you naughty, naughty little culprit! If only I could fly to Fulham with a handy little stick (ten feet long and four inches thick is my favourite size) how I would rap your wicked little knuckles.

However, there isn't much harm done, so I will sentence you to a very mild punishment--only one year's imprisonment. If you'll just tell the Fulham policeman about it, he'll manage all the rest for you, and he'll fit you with a nice pair of handcuffs, and lock you up in a nice cosy dark cell, and feed you on nice dry bread, and delicious cold water.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. GEORGE THE DRAGON]

"But how badly you _do_ spell your words! I _was_ so puzzled about the 'sacks full of love and baskets full of kisses!' But at last I made out why, of course, you meant 'a sack full of _gloves_, and a basket full of _kittens_!' Then I understood what you were sending me. And just then Mrs. Dyer came to tell me a large sack and a basket had come. There was such a miawing in the house, as if all the cats in Eastbourne had come to see me! 'Oh, just open them please, Mrs. Dyer, and count the things in them!'

"So in a few minutes Mrs. Dyer came and said, '500 pairs of gloves in the sack and 250 kittens in the basket.'

"'Dear me! That makes 1000 gloves! four times as many gloves as kittens! It's very kind of Maggie, but why did she send so many gloves? for I haven't got 1000 _hands_, you know, Mrs. Dyer.'

"And Mrs. Dyer said, 'No, indeed, you're 998 hands short of that!'

"However the next day I made out what to do, and I took the basket with me and walked off to the parish school--the _girl's_ school, you know--and I said to the mistress, 'How many little girls are there at school to-day?'

"'Exactly 250, sir.'

"'And have they all been _very_ good all day?'

"'As good as gold, sir.'

"So I waited outside the door with my basket, and as each little girl came out, I just popped a soft little kitten into her hands! Oh, what joy there was! The little girls went all dancing home, nursing their kittens, and the whole air was full of purring! Then, the next morning, I went to the school, before it opened, to ask the little girls how the kittens had behaved in the night. And they all arrived sobbing and crying, and their faces and hands were all covered with scratches, and they had the kittens wrapped up in their pinafores to keep them from scratching any more. And they sobbed out, 'The kittens have been scratching us all night, all the night.'

"So then I said to myself, 'What a nice little girl Maggie is. _Now_ I see why she sent all those gloves, and why there are four times as many gloves as kittens!' and I said loud to the little girls, 'Never mind, my dear children, do your lessons _very_ nicely, and don't cry any more, and when school is over, you'll find me at the door, and you shall see what you shall see!'

"So, in the evening, when the little girls came running out, with the kittens still wrapped up in their pinafores, there was I, at the door, with a big sack! And, as each little girl came out, I just popped into her hand two pairs of gloves! And each little girl unrolled her pinafore and took out an angry little kitten, spitting and snarling, with its claws sticking out like a hedgehog. But it hadn't time to scratch, for, in one moment, it found all its four claws popped into nice soft warm gloves! And then the kittens got quite sweet-tempered and gentle, and began purring again!

"So the little girls went dancing home again, and the next morning they came dancing back to school. The scratches were all healed, and they told me 'The kittens _have_ been good!' And, when any kitten wants to catch a mouse, it just takes off _one_ of its gloves; and if it wants to catch _two_ mice, it takes off two gloves; and if it wants to catch _three_ mice, it takes off _three_ gloves; and if it wants to catch _four_ mice, it takes off all its gloves. But the moment they've caught the mice, they pop their gloves on again, because they know we can't love them without their gloves. For, you see 'gloves' have got 'love' _inside_ them--there's none _outside_!

"So all the little girls said, 'Please thank Maggie, and we send her 250 _loves_, and 1000 _kisses_ in return for her 250 kittens and her 1000 _loves_!!' And I told them in the wrong order! and they said they hadn't.

"Your loving old Uncle, "C. L. D.

"Love and kisses to Nellie and Emsie."

This letter takes up eight pages of close writing, and I should very much doubt if any child ever had a more charming one from anybody. The whimsical fancy in it, the absolute comprehension of a child's intellect, the quickness with which the writer employs the slightest incident or thing that would be likely to please a little girl, is simply wonderful. I shall never forget how the letter charmed and delighted my sister Maggie and myself. We called it "The glove and kitten letter," and as I look at the tremulous handwriting which is lying by my side, it all comes back to me very vividly--like the sound of forgotten fingers on the latch to some lonely fireside watcher, when the wind is wailing round the house with a wilder inner note than it has in the daytime.

At Eastbourne I was happier even with Lewis Carroll than I was at Oxford.

We seemed more free, and there was the air of holiday over it all. Every day of my stay at the house in Lus.h.i.+ngton Road was a perfect dream of delight.

There was one regular and fixed routine which hardly ever varied, and which I came to know by heart; and I will write an account of it here, and ask any little girl who reads it, if she ever had such a splendid time in her life.

To begin with, we used to get up very early indeed. Our bedroom doors faced each other at the top of the staircase. When I came out of mine I always knew if I might go into his room or not by his signal. If, when I came into the pa.s.sage, I found that a newspaper had been put under the door, then I knew I might go in at once; but if there was no newspaper, then I had to wait till it appeared. I used to sit down on the top stair as quiet as a mouse, watching for the paper to come under the door, when I would rush in almost before uncle had time to get out of the way. This was always the first pleasure and excitement of the day. Then we used to downstairs to breakfast, after which we always read a chapter out of the Bible. So that I should remember it, I always had to tell it to him afterwards as a story of my own.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "LEWIS CARROLL'S" HOUSE AT EASTBOURNE]

"Now then, Isa dearest," he would say, "tell me a story, and mind you begin with 'once upon a time.' A story which does not begin with 'once upon a time' can't possibly be a good story. It's _most_ important."

When I had told my story it was time to go out.

I was learning swimming at the Devons.h.i.+re Park baths, and we always had a bargain together. He would never allow me to go to the swimming-bath--which I revelled in--until I had promised him faithfully that I would go afterwards to the dentist's.

He had great ideas upon the importance of a regular and almost daily visit to the dentist. He himself went to a dentist as he would have gone to a hairdresser's, and he insisted that all the little girls he knew should go too. The precaution sounds strange, and one might be inclined to think that Lewis Carroll carried it to an unnecessary length; but I can only bear personal witness to the fact that I have firm strong teeth, and have never had a toothache in my life. I believe I owe this entirely to those daily visits to the Eastbourne dentist.

Soon after this it was time for lunch, and we both went back hand-in-hand to the rooms in Lus.h.i.+ngton Road. Lewis Carroll never had a proper lunch, a fact which always used to puzzle me tremendously.

I could not understand how a big grown-up man could live on a gla.s.s of sherry and a biscuit at dinner time. It seemed such a pity when there was lots of mutton and rice-pudding that he should not have any. I always used to ask him, "Aren't you hungry, uncle, even _to-day_?"

After lunch I used to have a lesson in backgammon, a game of which he was pa.s.sionately fond, and of which he could never have enough. Then came what to me was the great trial of the day. I am afraid I was a very lazy little girl in those days, and I know I hated walking far. The trial was, that we should walk to the top of Beachy Head every afternoon. I used to like it very much when I got there, but the walk was irksome. Lewis Carroll believed very much in a great amount of exercise, and said one should always go to bed physically wearied with the exercise of the day.

Accordingly there was no way out of it, and every afternoon I had to walk to the top of Beachy Head. He was very good and kind. He would invent all sorts of new games to beguile the tedium of the way. One very curious and strange trait in his character was shown on these walks. I used to be very fond of flowers and of animals also. A pretty dog or a hedge of honeysuckle were always pleasant events upon a walk to me. And yet he himself cared for neither flowers nor animals. Tender and kind as he was, simple and una.s.suming in all his tastes, yet he did not like flowers! I confess that even now I find it hard to understand. He knew children so thoroughly and well--perhaps better than any one else--that it is all the stranger that he did not care for things that generally attract them so much. However, be that as it may, the fact remained. When I was in raptures over a poppy or a dogrose, he would try hard to be as interested as I was, but even to my childish eyes it was an obvious effort, and he would always rather invent some new game for us to play at. Once, and once only, I remember him to have taken an interest in a flower, and that was because of the folk-lore that was attached to it, and not because of the beauty of the flower itself.

We used to walk into the country that stretched, in beautiful natural avenues of trees, inland from Eastbourne. One day while we sat under a great tree, and the hum of the myriad insect life rivalled the murmur of the far-away waves, he took a foxglove from the heap that lay in my lap and told me the story of how they came by their name; how, in the old days, when, all over England, there were great forests, like the forest of Arden that Shakespeare loved, the pixies, the "little folks," used to wander at night in the glades, like t.i.tania, and Oberon, and Puck, and because they took great pride in their dainty hands they made themselves gloves out of the flowers. So the particular flower that the "little folks" used came to be called "folks' gloves." Then, because the country people were rough and clumsy in their talk, the name was shortened into "Fox-gloves," the name that every one uses now.

When I got very tired we used to sit down upon the gra.s.s, and he used to show me the most wonderful things made out of his handkerchief. Every one when a child has, I suppose, seen the trick in which a handkerchief is rolled up to look like a mouse, and then made to jump about by a movement of the hand. He did this better than any one I ever saw, and the trick was a never-failing joy. By a sort of consent between us the handkerchief trick was kept especially for the walk to Beachy Head, when, about half-way, I was a little tired and wanted to rest. When we actually got to the Head there was tea waiting in the coastguard's cottage. He always said I ate far too much, and he would never allow me more than one rock cake and a cup of tea. This was an invariable rule, and much as I wished for it, I was never allowed to have more than one rock cake.

It was in the coastguard's house or on the gra.s.s outside that I heard most of his stories. Sometimes he would make excursions into the realms of pure romance, where there were scaly dragons and strange beasts that sat up and talked. In all these stories there was always an adventure in a forest, and the great scene of each tale always took place in a wood. The consummation of a story was always heralded by the phrase, "The children now came to a deep dark wood." When I heard that sentence, which was always spoken very slowly and with a solemn dropping of the voice, I always knew that the really exciting part was coming. I used to nestle a little nearer to him, and he used to hold me a little closer as he told of the final adventure.

He did not always tell me fairy tales, though I think I liked the fairy tale much the best. Sometimes he gave me accounts of adventures which had happened to him. There was one particularly thrilling story of how he was lost on Beachy Head in a sea fog, and had to find his way home by means of boulders. This was the more interesting because we were on the actual scene of the disaster, and to be there stimulated the imagination.

The summer afternoons on the great headland were very sweet and peaceful.

I have never met a man so sensible to the influences of Nature as Lewis Carroll. When the sunset was very beautiful he was often affected by the sight. The widespread wrinkled sea below, in the mellow melancholy light of the afternoon, seemed to fit in with his temperament. I have still a mental picture that I can recall of him on the cliff. Just as the sun was setting, and a cool breeze whispered round us, he would take off his hat and let the wind play with his hair, and he would look out to sea. Once I saw tears in his eyes, and when we turned to go he gripped my hand much tighter than usual.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MISS ISA BOWMAN AND MISS BESSIE HATTON AS THE LITTLE PRINCES IN THE TOWER]