Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (260 page)

Your affectionate friend,

Lewis Carroll.

ARTHUR HUGHES

AND HIS DAUGHTER AGNES.

From a photograph

by Lewis Carroll.

My dear Amy,—How are you getting on, I wonder, with guessing those puzzles from "Wonderland"?
If you think you've found out any of the answers, you may send them to me; and if they're wrong, I won't tell you they're right!

You asked me after those three cats.
Ah!
The dear creatures!
Do you know, ever since that night they first came, they have
never left me?
Isn't it kind of them?
Tell Agnes this.
She will be interested to hear it.
And they
are
so kind and thoughtful!
Do you know, when I had gone out for a walk the other day, they got
all
my books out of the bookcase, and opened them on the floor, to be ready for me to read.
They opened them all at page 50, because they thought that would be a nice useful page to begin at.
It was rather unfortunate, though: because they took my bottle of gum, and tried to gum pictures upon the ceiling (which they thought would please me), and by accident they spilt a quantity of it all over the books.
So when they were shut up and put by, the leaves all stuck together, and I can never read page 50 again in any of them!

However, they meant it very kindly, so I wasn't angry.
I gave them each a spoonful of ink as a treat; but they were ungrateful for that, and made dreadful faces.
But, of course, as it was given them as a treat, they had to drink it.
One of them has turned black since: it was a white cat to begin with.

Give my love to any children you happen to meet.
Also I send two kisses and a half, for you to divide with Agnes, Emily, and Godfrey.
Mind you divide them fairly.

Yours affectionately,

C.L.
Dodgson.

The intelligent reader will make a discovery about the first of the two following letters, which Miss Maggie Cunningham, the "child-friend" to whom both were addressed, perhaps did not hit upon at once.
Mr.
Dodgson wrote these two letters in 1868:—

Dear Maggie,—I found that
the friend,
that the little girl asked me to write to, lived at Ripon, and not at Land's End—a nice sort of place to invite to!
It looked rather suspicious to me—and soon after, by dint of incessant inquiries, I found out that
she
was called Maggie, and lived in a Crescent!
Of course I declared, "After that" (the language I used doesn't matter), "I will
not
address her, that's flat!
So do not expect me to flatter."

Well, I hope you will soon see your beloved Pa come back—for consider, should you be quite content with only Jack?
Just suppose they made a blunder!
(Such things happen now and then.) Really, now, I shouldn't wonder if your "John" came home again, and your father stayed at school!
A most awkward thing, no doubt.
How would you receive him?
You'll say, perhaps, "you'd turn him out."
That would answer well, so far as concerns the boy, you know—but consider your Papa, learning lessons in a row of great inky schoolboys!
This (though unlikely) might occur: "Haly" would be grieved to miss him (don't mention it to
her
).

No
carte
has yet been done of me, that does real justice to my
smile
; and so I hardly like, you see, to send you one.
However, I'll consider if I will or not—meanwhile, I send a little thing to give you an idea of what I look like when I'm lecturing.
The merest sketch, you will allow—yet still I think there's something grand in the expression of the brow and in the action of the hand.

Have you read my fairy tale in
Aunt Judy's Magazine?
If you have you will not fail to discover what I mean when I say "Bruno yesterday came to remind me that
he
was my god-son!"—on the ground that I "gave him a name"!

Your affectionate friend,

C.L.
Dodgson.

P.S.—I would send, if I were not too shy, the same message to "Haly" that she (though I do not deserve it, not I!) has sent through her sister to me.
My best love to yourself—to your Mother my kindest regards—to your small, fat, impertinent, ignorant brother my hatred.
I think that is all.

WHAT I LOOK LIKE

WHEN I'M LECTURING.

From a drawing

by Lewis Carroll.

My dear Maggie,—I am a very bad correspondent, I fear, but I hope you won't leave off writing to me on that account.
I got the little book safe, and will do my best about putting my name in, if I can only manage to remember what day my birthday is—but one forgets these things so easily.

Somebody told me (a little bird, I suppose) that you had been having better photographs done of yourselves.
If so, I hope you will let me buy copies.
Fanny will pay you for them.
But, oh Maggie, how
can
you ask for a better one of me than the one I sent!
It is one of the best ever done!
Such grace, such dignity, such benevolence, such—as a great secret (please don't repeat it) the
Queen
sent to ask for a copy of it, but as it is against my rule to give in such a case, I was obliged to answer—

"Mr.
Dodgson presents his compliments to her Majesty, and regrets to say that his rule is never to give his photograph except to
young
ladies."
I am told she was annoyed about it, and said, "I'm not so old as all that comes to!"
and one doesn't like to annoy Queens; but really I couldn't help it, you know.

I will conclude this chapter with some reminiscences of Lewis Carroll, which have been kindly sent me by an old child-friend of his, Mrs.
Maitland, daughter of the late Rev.
E.A.
Litton, Rector of Naunton, and formerly Fellow of Oriel College and Vice—Principal of Saint Edmund's Hall:—

To my mind Oxford will be never quite the same again now that so many of the dear old friends of one's childhood have "gone over to the great majority."

Often, in the twilight, when the flickering firelight danced on the old wainscotted wall, have we—father and I—chatted over the old Oxford days and friends, and the merry times we all had together in Long Wall Street.
I was a nervous, thin, remarkably ugly child then, and for some years I was left almost entirely to the care of Mary Pearson, my own particular attendant.
I first remember Mr.
Dodgson when I was about seven years old, and from that time until we went to live in Gloucestershire he was one of my most delightful friends.

I shall never forget how Mr.
Dodgson and I sat once under a dear old tree in the Botanical Gardens, and how he told me, for the first time, Hans Andersen's story of the "Ugly Duckling."
I cannot explain the charm of Mr.
Dodgson's way of telling stories; as he spoke, the characters seemed to be real flesh and blood.
This particular story made a great impression upon me, and interested me greatly, as I was very sensitive about my ugly little self.
I remember his impressing upon me that it was better to be good and truthful and to try not to think of oneself than to be a pretty, selfish child, spoiled and disagreeable; and, after telling me this story, he gave me the name of "Ducky."
"Never mind, little Ducky," he used often to say, "perhaps some day you will turn out a swan."

I always attribute my love for animals to the teaching of Mr.
Dodgson: his stories about them, his knowledge of their lives and histories, his enthusiasm about birds and butterflies enlivened many a dull hour.
The monkeys in the Botanical Gardens were our special pets, and when we fed them with nuts and biscuits he seemed to enjoy the fun as much as I did.

Every day my nurse and I used to take a walk in Christ Church Meadows, and often we would sit down on the soft grass, with the dear old Broad Walk quite close, and, when we raised our eyes, Merton College, with its walls covered with Virginian creeper.
And how delighted we used to be to see the well-known figure in cap and gown coming, so swiftly, with his kind smile ready to welcome the "Ugly Duckling."
I knew, as he sat beside me, that a book of fairy tales was hidden in his pocket, or that he would have some new game or puzzle to show me—and he would gravely accept a tiny daisy-bouquet for his coat with as much courtesy as if it had been the finest hot-house
boutonnière
.

Two or three times I went fishing with him from the bank near the Old Mill, opposite Addison's Walk, and he quite entered into my happiness when a small fish came wriggling up at the end of my bent pin, just ready for the dinner of the little white kitten "Lily," which he had given me.

My hair was a great trouble to me, as a child, for it would tangle, and Mary was not too patient with me, as I twisted about while she was trying to dress it.
One day I received a long blue envelope addressed to myself, which contained a story-letter, full of drawings, from Mr.
Dodgson.
The first picture was of a little girl—with her hat off and her tumbled hair very much in evidence—asleep on a rustic bench under a big tree by the riverside, and two birds, holding what was evidently a very important conversation, above in the branches, their heads on one side, eyeing the sleeping child.
Then there was a picture of the birds flying up to the child with twigs and straw in their beaks, preparing to build their nest in her hair.
Next came the awakening, with the nest completed, and the mother-bird sitting on it; while the father-bird flew round the frightened child.
And then, lastly, hundreds of birds—the air thick with them—the child fleeing, small boys with tin trumpets raised to their lips to add to the confusion, and Mary, armed with a basket of brushes and combs, bringing up the rear!
After this, whenever I was restive while my hair was being arranged, Mary would show me the picture of the child with the nest on her head, and I at once became "as quiet as a lamb."