The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll Part 9

Consilia interdum stet.i.t egnia[021] mente revolvens: At gravis in densa fronde susuffrus[022] erat, Spiculaque[023] ex oculis jacientis flammea, tulscam Per silvam venit burbur?[024] Iabrochii!

Vorpali, semel atque iterum collectus in ictum, Persnicuit gladio persnacuitque puer: Deinde galumphatus, spernens informe cadaver, Horrendum monstri rettulit ipse caput.

Victor Iabrochii, spoliis insignis opimis, Rursus in amplexus, o radiose, meos!

O frabiose dies! CALLO clamateque CALLA!

Vix potuit laetus chorticulare pater.

Coesper erat: tunc lubriciles ultravia circ.u.m Urgebant gyros gimbiculosque tophi; Moestenui visae borogovides ire meatu; Et profugi gemitus exgrabuere rathae.

A.A.V.

JABBERWOCKY.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogroves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that scratch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Banders.n.a.t.c.h!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought-- So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"

He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogroves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

The story, as originally written, contained thirteen chapters, but the published book consisted of twelve only. The omitted chapter introduced a wasp, in the character of a judge or barrister, I suppose, since Mr. Tenniel wrote that "a _wasp_ in a _wig_ is altogether beyond the appliances of art." Apart from difficulties of ill.u.s.tration, the "wasp" chapter was not considered to be up to the level of the rest of the book, and this was probably the princ.i.p.al reason of its being left out.

"It is a curious fact," wrote Mr. Tenniel some years later, when replying to a request of Lewis Carroll's that he would ill.u.s.trate another of his books, "that with 'Through the Looking-Gla.s.s' the faculty of making drawings for book ill.u.s.tration departed from me, and, notwithstanding all sorts of tempting inducements, I have done nothing in that direction since."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Facsimile of a letter from Sir John Tenniel to Lewis Carroll, June_ 1, 1870.]

"Through the Looking Gla.s.s" has recently appeared in a solemn judgment of the House of Lords. In _Eastman Photographic Materials Company v.

Comptroller General of Patents, Designs, and Trademarks_ (1898), the question for decision was, What const.i.tutes an invented word? A trademark that consists of or contains an invented word or words is capable of registration. "Solio" was the word in issue in the case.

Lord Macnaghten in his judgment said, when alluding to the distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristics of an invented word:

I do not think that it is necessary that it should be wholly meaningless. To give an ill.u.s.tration: your lords.h.i.+ps may remember that in a book of striking humour and fancy, which was in everybody's hands when it was first published, there is a collection of strange words where "there are" (to use the language of the author) "two meanings packed up into one word." No one would say that those were not invented words.

Still they contain a meaning--a meaning is wrapped up in them if you can only find it out.

Before I leave the subject of the "Looking-Gla.s.s," I should like to mention one or two circ.u.mstances in connection with it which ill.u.s.trate his reverence for sacred things. In his original ma.n.u.script the bad-tempered flower (pp. 28-33) was the pa.s.sion-flower; the sacred origin of the name never struck him, until it was pointed out to him by a friend, when he at once changed it into the tiger-lily. Another friend asked him if the final scene was based upon the triumphal conclusion of "Pilgrim's Progress." He repudiated the idea, saying that he would consider such trespa.s.sing on holy ground as highly irreverent.

He seemed never to be satisfied with the amount of work he had on hand, and in 1872 he determined to add to his other labours by studying anatomy and physiology. Professor Barclay Thompson supplied him with a set of bones, and, having purchased the needful books, he set to work in good earnest. His mind was first turned to acquiring medical knowledge by his happening to be at hand when a man was seized with an epileptic fit. He had prevented the poor creature from falling, but was utterly at a loss what to do next. To be better prepared on any future occasion, he bought a little manual called "What to do in Emergencies." In later years he was constantly buying medical and surgical works, and by the end of his life he had a library of which no doctor need have been ashamed. There were only two special bequests in his will, one of some small keepsakes to his landlady at Eastbourne, Mrs. Dyer, and the other of his medical books to my brother.

Whenever a new idea presented itself to his mind he used to make a note of it; he even invented a system by which he could take notes in the dark, if some happy thought or ingenious problem suggested itself to him during a sleepless night. Like most men who systematically overtax their brains, he was a poor sleeper. He would sometimes go through a whole book of Euclid in bed; he was so familiar with the bookwork that he could actually see the figures before him in the dark, and did not confuse the letters, which is perhaps even more remarkable.

Most of his ideas were ingenious, though many were entirely useless from a practical point of view. For instance, he has an entry in his Diary on November 8, 1872: "I wrote to Calverley, suggesting an idea (which I think occurred to me yesterday) of guessing well-known poems as acrostics, and making a collection of them to hoax the public."

Calverley's reply to this letter was as follows:--

My dear Sir,--I have been laid up (or laid down) for the last few days by acute lumbago, or I would have written before. It is rather absurd that I was on the point of propounding to you this identical idea. I realised, and I regret to add revealed to two girls, a fortnight ago, the truth that all existing poems were in fact acrostics; and I offered a small pecuniary reward to whichever would find out Gray's "Elegy" within half an hour! But it never occurred to me to utilise the discovery, as it did to you. I see that it might be utilised, now you mention it--and I shall instruct these two young women not to publish the notion among their friends.

This is the way Mr. Calverley treated Kirke White's poem "To an early Primrose." "The t.i.tle," writes C.S.C. "might either be ignored or omitted. Possibly carpers might say that a primrose was not a rose."

Mild offspring of a dark and sullen sire!

Whose modest form, so delicately fine, Wild Was nursed in whistling storms Rose And cradled in the winds!

Thee, when young Spring first questioned Winter's sway, And dared the st.u.r.dy bl.u.s.terer to the fight, W a R Thee on this bank he threw To mark his victory.

In this low vale, the promise of the year, Serene thou openest to the nipping gale, Unnoticed and alone I ncognit O Thy tender elegance.

So Virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms Of chill adversity, in some lone walk Of life she rears her head L owlines S Obscure and un.o.bserved.

While every bleaching breeze that on her blows Chastens her spotless purity of breast, And hardens her to bear D isciplin E Serene the ills of life.

In the course of their correspondence Mr. Calverley wrote a Shakespearian sonnet, the initial letters of which form the name of William Herbert; and a parody ent.i.tled "The New Hat." I reproduce them both.

When o'er the world Night spreads her mantle dun, In dreams, my love, I see those stars, thine eyes, Lighting the dark: but when the royal sun Looks o'er the pines and fires the orient skies, I bask no longer in thy beauty's ray, And lo! my world is bankrupt of delight.

Murk night seemed lately fair-complexioned day; Hope-bringing day now seems most doleful night.

End, weary day, that art no day to me!

Return, fair night, to me the best of days!

But O my rose, whom in my dreams I see, Enkindle with like bliss my waking gaze!

Replete with thee, e'en hideous night grows fair: Then what would sweet morn be, if thou wert there?

THE NEW HAT.

My boots had been wash'd, well wash'd, by a shower; But little I car'd about that: What I felt was the havoc a single half-hour Had made with my beautiful Hat.

For the Boot, tho' its l.u.s.tre be dimm'd, shall a.s.sume New comeliness after a while; But no art may restore its original bloom, When once it hath fled, to the Tile.

I clomb to my perch, and the horses (a bay And a brown) trotted off with a clatter; The driver look'd round in his humorous way, And said huskily, "Who is your hatter?"

I was pleased that he'd noticed its shape and its s.h.i.+ne; And, as soon as we reached the "Old Druid,"

I begged him to drink to its welfare and mine In a gla.s.s of my favourite fluid.

A gratified smile sat, I own, on my lips When the barmaid exclaimed to the master, (He was standing inside with his hands on his hips), "Just look at that gentleman's castor."

I laughed, when an organman paus'd in mid-air-- ('Twas an air that I happened to know, By a great foreign _maestro_)--expressly to stare At ze gent wiz _ze joli chapeau_.

Yet how swift is the transit from laughter to tears!

How rife with results is a day!