The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll Part 16

"Rhyme? and Reason?" appeared at Christmas; the dedicatory verses, inscribed "To a dear child: in memory of golden summer hours and whispers of a summer sea," were addressed to a little friend of the author's, Miss Gertrude Chataway. One of the most popular poems in the book is "Hiawatha's Photographing," a delicious parody of Longfellow's "Hiawatha." "In an age of imitation," says Lewis Carroll, in a note at the head, "I can claim no special merit for this slight attempt at doing what is known to be so easy." It is not every one who has read this note who has observed that it is really in the same metre as the poem below it.

Another excellent parody, "Atalanta in Camden-Town," exactly hit off the style of that poet who stands alone and unapproached among the poets of the day, and whom Mr. Dodgson used to call "the greatest living master of language."

"Fame's Penny Trumpet," affectionately dedicated to all "original researchers" who pant for "endowment," was an attack upon the Vivisectionists,

Who preach of Justice--plead with tears That Love and Mercy should abound-- While marking with complacent ears The moaning of some tortured hound.

Lewis Carroll thus addresses them:--

Fill all the air with hungry wails-- "Reward us, ere we think or write!

Without your gold mere knowledge fails To sate the swinish appet.i.te!"

And, where great Plato paced serene, Or Newton paused with wistful eye, Rush to the chase with hoofs unclean And Babel-clamour of the stye!

Be yours the pay: be theirs the praise: We will not rob them of their due, Nor vex the ghosts of other days By naming them along with you.

They sought and found undying fame: They toiled not for reward nor thanks: Their cheeks are hot with honest shame For you, the modern mountebanks!

"For auld lang syne" the author sent a copy of his book to Mrs.

Hargreaves (Miss Alice Liddell), accompanied by a short note.

Christ Church, _December_ 21, 1883.

Dear Mrs. Hargreaves,--Perhaps the shortest day in the year is not _quite_ the most appropriate time for recalling the long dreamy summer afternoons of ancient times; but anyhow if this book gives you half as much pleasure to receive as it does me to send, it will be a success indeed.

Wis.h.i.+ng you all happiness at this happy season, I am,

Sincerely yours,

C. L. Dodgson.

The beginning of 1884 was chiefly occupied in Common Room business.

The Curators.h.i.+p seems to have been anything but a sinecure. Besides weightier responsibilities, it involved the care of the Common Room Cat! In this case the "care" ultimately killed the cat--but not until it had pa.s.sed the span of life usually allotted to those animals, and beyond which their further existence is equally a nuisance to themselves and to every one else. As to the best way of "terminating its sublunary existence," Mr. Dodgson consulted two surgeons, one of whom was Sir James Paget. I do not know what method was finally adopted, but I am sure it was one that gave no pain to p.u.s.s.y's nerves, and as little as possible to her feelings.

On March 11th there was a debate in Congregation on the proposed admission of women to some of the Honour Schools at Oxford. This was one of the many subjects on which Mr. Dodgson wrote a pamphlet. During the debate he made one of his few speeches, and argued strongly against the proposal, on the score of the injury to health which it would inflict upon the girl-undergraduates.

Later in the month he and the Rev. E.F. Sampson, Tutor of Christ Church, paid a visit to Jersey, seeing various friends, notably the Rev. F.H. Atkinson, an old College friend of Mr. Dodgson's, who had helped him when he was editor of _College Rhymes_. I quote a few lines from a letter of his to Mr. Atkinson, as showing his views on matrimony:--

So you have been for twelve years a married man, while I am still a lonely old bachelor! And mean to keep so, for the matter of that. College life is by no means unmixed misery, though married life has no doubt many charms to which I am a stranger.

A note in his Diary on May 5th shows one of the changes in his way of life which advancing years forced him to make:--

Wrote to -- (who had invited me to dine) to beg off, on the ground that, in my old age, I find dinner parties more and more fatiguing. This is quite a new departure. I much grudge giving an evening (even if it were not tiring) to bandying small-talk with dull people.

The next extract I give does not look much like old age!

I called on Mrs. M--. She was out; and only one maid in, who, having come to the gate to answer the bell, found the door blown shut on her return. The poor thing seemed really alarmed and distressed. However, I got a man to come from a neighbouring yard with a ladder, and got in at the drawing-room window--a novel way of entering a friend's house!

Oddly enough, almost exactly the same thing happened to him in 1888: "The door blew shut, with the maid outside, and no one in the house. I got the cook of the next house to let me go through their premises, and with the help of a pair of steps got over the wall between the two back-yards."

In July there appeared an article in the _St. James's Gazette_ on the subject of "Parliamentary Elections," written by Mr. Dodgson. It was a subject in which he was much interested, and a few years before he had contributed a long letter on the "Purity of Elections" to the same newspaper. I wish I had s.p.a.ce to give both in full; as things are, a summary and a few extracts are all I dare attempt. The writer held that there are a great number of voters, and _pari pa.s.su_ a great number of const.i.tuencies, that like to be on the winning side, and whose votes are chiefly influenced by that consideration. The ballot-box has made it practically impossible for the individual voter to know which is going to be the winning side, but after the first few days of a general election, one side or the other has generally got a more or less decided advantage, and a weak-kneed const.i.tuency is sorely tempted to swell the tide of victory.

But this is not all. The evil extends further than to the single const.i.tuency; nay, it extends further than to a single general election; it const.i.tutes a feature in our national history; it is darkly ominous for the future of England. So long as general elections are conducted as at present we shall be liable to oscillations of political power, like those of 1874 and 1880, but of ever-increasing violence--one Parliament wholly at the mercy of one political party, the next wholly at the mercy of the other--while the Government of the hour, joyfully hastening to undo all that its predecessors have done, will wield a majority so immense that the fate of every question will be foredoomed, and debate will be a farce; in one word, we shall be a nation living from hand to mouth, and with no settled principle--an army, whose only marching orders will be "Right about face!"

His remedy was that the result of each single election should be kept secret till the general election is over:--

It surely would involve no practical difficulty to provide that the boxes of voting papers should be sealed up by a Government official and placed in such custody as would make it impossible to tamper with them; and that when the last election had been held they should be opened, the votes counted, and the results announced.

The article on "Parliamentary Elections" proposed much more sweeping alterations. The opening paragraph will show its general purport:--

The question, how to arrange our const.i.tuencies and conduct our Parliamentary elections so as to make the House of Commons, as far as possible, a true index of the state of opinion in the nation it professes to represent, is surely equal in importance to any that the present generation has had to settle. And the leap in the dark, which we seem about to take in a sudden and vast extension of the franchise, would be robbed of half its terrors could we feel a.s.sured that each political party will be duly represented in the next Parliament, so that every side of a question will get a fair hearing.

The axioms on which his scheme was based were as follows:--

(1) That each Member of Parliament should represent approximately the same number of electors.

(2) That the minority of the two parties into which, broadly speaking, each district may be divided, should be adequately represented.

(3) That the waste of votes, caused by accidentally giving one candidate more than he needs and leaving another of the same party with less than he needs, should be, if possible, avoided.

(4) That the process of marking a ballot-paper should be reduced to the utmost possible simplicity, to meet the case of voters of the very narrowest mental calibre.

(5) That the process of counting votes should be as simple as possible.

Then came a precise proposal. I do not pause to compare it in detail with the suggestions of Mr. Hare, Mr. Courtney, and others:--

I proceed to give a summary of rules for the method I propose. Form districts which shall return three, four, or more Members, in proportion to their size. Let each elector vote for one candidate only. When the poll is closed, divide the total number of votes by the number of Members to be returned _plus_ one, and take the next greater integer as "quota." Let the returning officer publish the list of candidates, with the votes given for each, and declare as "returned" each that has obtained the quota. If there are still Members to return, let him name a time when all the candidates shall appear before him; and each returned Member may then formally a.s.sign his surplus votes to whomsoever of the other candidates he will, while the other candidates may in like manner a.s.sign their votes to one another.

This method would enable each of the two parties in a district to return as many Members as it could muster "quotas," no matter how the votes were distributed. If, for example, 10,000 were the quota, and the "reds" mustered 30,000 votes, they could return three Members; for, suppose they had four candidates, and that A had 22,000 votes, B 4,000, C 3,000, D 1,000, A would simply have to a.s.sign 6,000 votes to B and 6,000 to C; while D, being hopeless of success, would naturally let C have his 1,000 also. There would be no risk of a seat being left vacant through two candidates of the same party sharing a quota between them--an unwritten law would soon come to be recognised--that the one with fewest votes should give place to the other. And, with candidates of two opposite parties, this difficulty could not arise at all; one or the other could always be returned by the surplus votes of his party.

Some notes from the Diary for March, 1885, are worth reproducing here:--

_March_ 1_st_.--Sent off two letters of literary importance, one to Mrs. Hargreaves, to ask her consent to my publis.h.i.+ng the original MS. of "Alice" in facsimile (the idea occurred to me the other day); the other to Mr. H.

Furniss, a very clever ill.u.s.trator in _Punch_, asking if he is open to proposals to draw pictures for me.

The letter to Mrs. Hargreaves, which, it will be noticed, was earlier in date than the short note already quoted in this chapter, ran as follows:--

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 twelve, and had a walk with her--and now I can'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, Would you have any objection to the original MS. book of "Alice's Adventures" (which I suppose you still possess) 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 twenty years, so am by no means sure that the ill.u.s.trations 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 publis.h.i.+ng it. But I don't care for that in the least, knowing that I have no such 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.