THE AUTHOR OF ‘ALICE IN WONDERLAND.’

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XI, 31 August 1895, Page 259

THE AUTHOR OF ‘ALICE IN WONDERLAND.’

BY

ETHEL, MACKENZIE MCKENNA.

The author of ‘ Alice in Wonderland,’ charming, kindly gentleman that he is, has a horror of anything approaching to publicity which might almost be called morbid. So much does he dread a chance encounter with the everwily interviewer, and even the possibility of a betrayal by an acquaintance, that he avoids making friends. O.ily a very few of those who surround him are admitted to his intimacy and enjoy the charm of his quick sympathy, bright intelligence and wide learniug. To us who live in the world, and who are accustomed to have our thirst for information regarding all those whom we admire ministered to by the enterprising journalist, it seems difficult to understand how Mr Dodgson can believe that the individuality of Lewis Caroll is entirely hidden in that of the spare, gray-headed, austere-looking don of Christchurch, but so it is, and he even takes a joy in the thought that his family name is hardly known outside the University save to ardent lovers of mathematics. The Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson has spent the greater part of his life in college. He was elected a student —i.e., a Fellow of Christchurch in 1854, and from 1855 to iBBt he was mathematical tutor. His subject is mathematics and he has contributed a number of books to its literature. Curiously enough he hardly realises that his fame has come to him, not as the advanced mathematician but as the author of the most fascinating nonsense that ever was written. When in the first flush of her success ‘ Alice ’ was in every hand and her wonderland adventures were the delight of grown-up

Messrs John Ross, Gale, and McLennan, who took such an active part in collecting subscriptions to provide work for the Wellington unemployed in 1894 (resulting in the formation of the Queen’s Drive at an expenditure of over /'3,ooo), have again come to the front in the.interests of the unemployed, and in the course of a few days recently collected /'5OO. A similar sum was promptly voted by the City Council. The amount

people as well as of children, Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, sent a message to the author begging him to send her his next book. Like all her subjects she was anxious to hear more of the delightful child, whose prototype was the daughter of the dean of Christchurch. She was much astounded to receive soon after a copy of * An Elementary Treatise on Determinants.’ by C. L. Dodgson, for in those days he had managed to preserve his incognito, and Her Majesty, like the rest of the world, believed him a mere humorist.

Mr Dodgson is a clergyman in deacon’s orders ; he was never ordained a priest, owing, it is said, to a slight hesitancy of speech which prevents his speaking in public. This, however, he has in a measure overcome, and he now not infrequently reads the lessons and prayers at the college services in the Cathedral. He has even occasionally been known to preach at the special services for the college servants, but it is very rarely that he mounts the pulpit. He is a creature of habit and in term time is never absent from his own particular seat in St. Mary’s for the University sermon, always staying to matins afterward. During the last five-and-twenty years he has hardly ever been missed from his accustomed place. For years Mr Dodgson has been a keen amateur photographer, and he finds in the art one of his favourite relaxations. Long before the craze became at all general the Christchurch don was as enthusiastic and as indefatigable in pursuit of good negatives—or were they positives then?—as he is in everything that interests him. His rooms very soon included a shed for photography, and though his ardour has now slightly cooled he by no means neglects his camera. Children are, perhaps, his favourite subject, but then he a’ores children under every condition. He found one of his chief delights in the dramatic version of 1 Alice,’ so charmingly arranged

subscribed has been largely increased since, and as the money is handed over to the Benevolent Trustees every /’i carries with it a Government subsidy of £ 1 4s. A large number of men are now engaged on the relief works. Some who have seen the subscription list state the absence therefrom of the names of many who seek to pose as the working man’s friends, ami are continually preaching about Liberalism is very noticeable.

for the stage by the late Mr H. Savile Clarke, that it was played entirely by children. He took a great interest in the little actresses, and had several of the principal performers to stay with him at the seaside, where the fascinations of castle-building and paddling were diversified by instruction in mathematics by their host. He would also send presents to all the diminutive company, with the proviso, however, that they were only to be given to those children who deserved them. Of course, he is immensely popular among small folk, but their affection is mingled with a certain auiount of awe, for lie has a quaint way of talking to them about great and beautiful things in an elaborately mystifying way, which, while it somewhat confuses his juvenile listeners, delights the grown-ups. He is a great lover of mystery and mystification, and it is, no doubt, partly owing to this that he is so extremely sensitive on the subject of his name and his whereabouts.

Oxford is full of witty stories gleaned from the sayings of Mr Dodgson, and any old Oxonian will point out many of the characters who found their way into Lewis Caroll’s fascinating stories. * Alice ’ herself has long ago disappeared from University circles, but the ‘ White Rabbit ’ still roams about the precincts of New College in the person of a well known don, and the ‘Mad Hatter of whom Sir John lenniel’s picture was a perfect portrait—has only recently seceded from his business in the ‘ High,’ where for many years he was a prominent upholsterer.

Always ready with a repartee, it has been the delight of the bright-witted undergraduates to enter into wordy contest with theirtutor. Onoueoccasion a voting sporting member of the college drove out one of the Egyptian Prnices, who was also an ‘ undergrad ’ at the time, in a tandem, a frequent act of university insubordination. The result was a stupendous smash. On the subject the youthful Jehu had to stand a generous auiount of chaff. He was not to be beaten, however, and called upon MrDodgson next day and asked him to come out for a drive. The tutor merely looked up from his paper and replied to the invitation in the Biblical words, ‘ Wilt thou slay me as thou didst the Egyptian ye .terday !’

His chambers in the Tom Quad are, perhaps, the finest in Christchurch and he is particularly proud of them indeed, one of his favourite boasts is that he owns thirteen rooms, more than any one in college, though this large number is arrived at by his having put up partitions and made them, if more numerous, certainly smaller than those of his fellow Fellows. The asceticlooking figure of the Christchurch don may often be met trudging steadily along the roads several miles away from Oxford, for he has always been a great walker and he is not the man to give up any good habit. Most of his rhymes are composed while he is out walking. Quite recently when he was asked to do some elementary mathematical teaching in the absence of the regular tutor he replied, ‘Certainly,’ addingas an afterthought, ‘ I must take a lot of long walks to recover my Euclid, which I haven't touched for twenty years.’

As a rule, though, it is at night that he chiefly ponders over mathematics, and his half serious, half-humorous book, ‘Pillow Problems,’ really was what it professed to be, an exposition of the abstruse mathematics with which he amuses himself when lying awake at night. ‘ Alice’s Adventuresin Wonderland’ appeared in 1865 ; ‘Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Foumi There,’ in 1871 ; ‘The Hunting of the Snark ’ in 1876, and ‘ Sylvie and Bruno 'in 1894. But of them all ‘ Alice in Wonderland ’ and ‘ Alice Through the Looking Glass ’ remain the favourites.

There is something very pathetic in the figure of the old don living his secluded life in the Oxford College, while his pseudonym rings through the nurseries of the world and is dear to the children, whom, without knowing, he loves. A constant stream of young life is flowing past him, bringing gleams of youth into his life as it does into the building of the old college which is his home. He still retains his overpowering affection for children, though nowadays they come but little into his life, for he has almost ceased to make friends outside his college.

He is never seen in company except in that of the Common Room, and there he is ever at his best. The atmosphere seems to dispel the cloud of reserve which, as a rule, surrounds him, and there he is talkative ami genial, overflowing with kindliness and good fellowship to the young men seated around him who listen eagerly for the words which flow from his lips. His friendship is their most cherished gift, his companionship the most delightful privilege they enjoy.