"LEWIS CARROLL."*

THIS age may claim to have added nonsense to the accepted forms of literature. Nonsense has, of course, been talked and written from the beginning of talking and writing, but this is quite another thing from the true literary nonsense. What Rabelais wrote may look like it, but is really quite different. It has resemblances, but it is really satire com- mending itself to p opular taste by extravagance of form. Nursery rhymes, though it has been argued that these also are carefully concealed satires, may be said to be the rude beginnings of the new art. Its first exponent in modern times was Mr. Lear, who popularised a form of jingle for it ; but its classic author is unquestionably " Lewis Carroll," and its classic work Alice in Wonderland. There have been hundreds of imitations, but the masterpiece remains unap- p roached.

C. L. Dodgson came of a North-Country stock. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were clergymen,—a con- tradiction, by the way, of the scandalous theory that three generations of parsons end in a fooL The boy early showed some indications of his special gift. The keeping of odd and unlikely animals as pets is not very uncommon, but it certainly was curious that he should try to "encourage civilised warfare among earthworms by supplying them with small pieces of pipe with which they might fight if so dis- posed." Constructing a troop of marionettes, and writing plays for them to act, showed an early turn for literature, and the tracing of a curiously intricate maze in the snow the mathematical tastes which afterwards developed into the serious occupation of his life. All this was before his twelfth year. Richmond (Yorkshire), which had been raised to fame by Dr. Tate, was his first school, Rugby his second. He did well at Rugby, but was distinctly unhappy there ; this period of his life makes the only blank in the diary which he kept from early boyhood down to within a short time of his death. At home he was carrying on a magazine called The Rectory Umbrella, from which Mr. Collingwood quotes a very clever parody of " Horatins," and reproduces a drawing of a young hippopotamus which is very sug- gestive of what was to come. In January, 1851, C. L. Dodgson went into residence at Christ Church, Oxford; on December 24th in the same year he was nominated to a Studentship by Dr. Pusey. It was the custom in those days for the Dean and Canons to nominate in turn, and it was the habit of Dr. Pusey, not perhaps of all his colleagues, to con- sider merit. The young man justified the promotion. In classical " Greats;" indeed, he obtained only a " third," in spite of, possibly in consequence of, his having worked thirteen hours a day for the last three weeks before the examination. But in the Final Mathematical School he was put in the first class, and seems to have been the best man of the time. (The marks of the five first-class men are given in a private letter, which Mr. Collingwood should not, we think, have quoted. Such things are often handed about at the time, but are not meant to be preserved, for they contradict the whole idea of the class system.) In 1856 he was made College Lecturer in Mathematics, a post which be held for a quarter of a century.

• The Life an3 Letterx of 'Attie Cemroll (Rev. C. L. Dudgeon). By Stuart Dodgson Collingwood. London: T. Fisher Unwin. [7e. 6d.)

About the same time (a succession of marginal dates would have been a convenience ; the biographer sometimes leaves us in doubt) we find a genuinely characteristic poem. The last stanza runs :-

" She has the bear's ethereal grace, The bland hyena's laugh,

The footsteps of the elephant, The neck of the giraffe ; I love her still, believe me, Though my heart its passion hides,

She is all my fancy painted me,' But, oh ! how much besides."

This was originally contributed to College Rhymes, a Christ Church paper, and was republished in Phantasmagoria. Mr. Dodgeon was always anxious to make the clearest distinction between the humonrist and the mathematician in himself.

Hence the adoption about this time of a pseudonym, " Lewis Carroll," known, we may be sure, to millions of readers who had never heard of Mr. Dodgeon. (It was almost an offence, at least in a stranger or mere acquaintance, to identify them.) The year 1862 saw the beginning of the world-famous Alice. He told the story to Dean Liddell's three daughters. "Alice " herself, the second of the three (now Mrs. Reginald

Hargreaves), thus tells the story

1 believe the beginning of 'Alice' was told one summer after- noon when the sun was so burning that we had landed in the meadows down the river, deserting the boat to take refuge in the only bit of shade to be found, which was under a new-made hay- rick. Here from all three came the old petition of Tell us a story,' and so began the ever-delightful tale. Sometimes to tease us—and perhaps being really tired—Mr. Dodgson would stop suddenly and say, And that's all till next time.' Ah, but it is next time,' would be the exclamation from all three ; and after some persuasion the story would start afresh. Another day, per- haps, the story would begin in the boat, and Mr. Dodgson, in the midst of telling a thrilling adventure, would pretend to fall fast asleep, to our great dismay."

The first title thought of was Aliee's Adventures Under- ground ; the next, Alice's Hour in Elfland ; Alice's Adven- tures in Wonderland was invented two years afterwards.

At first the writer had no definite idea of publication. Dr. George Macdonald must have the credit of seeing the book's superlative merit. It was published by Messrs. Macmillan, apparently at the author's risk, for we are told that he

"anticipated a great loss." It had, indeed, a bad start, for the first edition of two thousand copies (printed in Oxford)

was condemned on account of the pictures coming out badly. Its success was soon assured. (It would have been interesting to have the figures of the circulation. A facsimile of the original manuscript of Alice's Adventures Underground, with

the author's illustrations, is in its fourth thousand.) French

and German translations appeared in 1869, and an Italian version in 1872. In 1871 Through the Looking Glass appeared, and in 1876 The Hunting of the Snark. None of these have equalled, at least in celebrity, the first of the series, but any one of them would have made the reputation of another writer.

All this time Mr. Dodgson was busy with work as dif- ferent as possible from that which occupied the pen of " Lewis Carroll." He took a lively interest in his own subject of mathematics, and he afterwards added that of logic. In mathematics he was a conservative, regarding, for instance, the movement to dethrone Euclid, if the phrase may be used, with much dislike. In 1879 be issued a volume entitled Euclid and his Modern Rivals. This book

may fairly be styled the most humorous book ever written on any subject within the whole province of mathematics. Perhaps this is not saying mach; but it is a. fact that a non-

mathematical reader, with a certain power of judicious skip- ping, will find no little amusement in it. Professor Henrici, for instance, had said : "A point in changing its position on a curve, passes in moving from one position to another, through all intermediate positions. It does not move by jumps." "They never jump ? Do you think that arises," asks Minos, who is judging between the rival schools, "from their having

positions which might be compromised by such conduct ? "

This was the most important of a number of books, pamphlets, &c., which alone must have kept the writer pretty constantly employed.

Mr. Dodgson took an active part in academical discus- sions. Here, as in the matter of Euclid, he was a staunch conservative. One method often employed in party warfare at Oxford is to send round to the College couimon-roonzs leaf-

lets dealing with the subject under debate. In one of these Mr. Dodgson laid down three postulates for the conduct of a debate in Congregation. One of them was :—" Let it be granted that any one may speak at any length on any subject at any distance from that subject." His contributions to controversy always increased the gaiety of Oxford.

There are two delightful chapters on "Lewis Carroll's" " Child-Friends," but it would be a wrong to quote this or that passage from that. They must be read in their entirety. The very last words which he published—the preface to a tale by Mrs. Molesworth—is a plea that the little ones should be con- sidered in the matter of church going, or rather staying in church during the sermons. Here is a pretty little picture from it :—" I took a little girl of six to church one day. They had told me she could hardly read at all, but she made me find all the places for her ! And afterwards, I said to her elder sister : ' What made you say Barbara couldn't read ? Why I heard her joining in all through the hymns ! ' And the little sister gravely replied : She knows tunes, but not the words "; as Virgil has it, numeros memini, si verba tenerem. In theology " Lewis Carroll " was a liberal. This did not prevent —to think that one should be obliged to say it!—his having a very strong feeling of personal religion.