Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (264 page)

How many things were to come out of that cupboard in later days!
He himself did not know what was hidden there.
It reminded one of a chest which only a special key could open, and he did not even know there
was
a key, until on a certain “golden afternoon” he found it floating on the surface of the river.
He grasped it, thrust it into the rusty lock, and lo!—but dear me, we are going too far ahead, for that is quite another chapter, and we have left Charles Dodgson lying under a tree, watching the lizards and snails and ants at their work or play, weaving his quaint fancies, dreaming perhaps, or chatting with some little sister or other who chanced to be with him.
There was always a sister to chat with, which in part accounted for his liking for girls.

So, through a long vista of years, we have the picture of our Boy, between eighteen and nineteen, when he was about to put boyhood by forever and enter the stately ranks of the Oxford undergraduates.
As he stands before us now, young, ardent, hopeful, and inexperienced, we can see no glimmer of the fairy wand which turned him into a wizard.

We see only a boy, somewhat old for his years, very manly in his ways, with a well-formed head, on which the clustering dark hair grew thick; a sensitive mouth and deep blue eyes, full of expression.
He was clever, imitative, and consequently a good actor in the little plays he wrote and dramatized; he was very shy, but at his best in the home circle.
He enjoyed nothing so much as an argument, always holding his ground with great obstinacy; a fine student, frank and affectionate, brimful of wit and humor, fond of reading, with a quiet determination to excel in whatever he undertook.
With such weapons he was well equipped to “storm the citadel” at Oxford.

On May 23, 1850, he went up to matriculate—that is, to register his name and go through some examinations and the formality of becoming a student.
Christ Church was to be his college, as it had been his father’s before him.
Archdeacon Dodgson was much gratified by the many letters he received congratulating him on the fact that he had a son worthy to succeed him, for he was well remembered in the college, where he had left a brilliant record behind him.

It certainly sounds a little queer to have the name of a church attached to one of the colleges of a university, but our colleges in America are comparatively so new that we cannot grasp the vastness and the antiquity of the great English universities.
Under the shelter of Oxford, and covering an area of at least five miles, twenty colleges or more were grouped, each one a community in itself, and all under the rule of the Chancellor of Oxford.
Christ Church received as students those most interested in the divinity courses, though in other respects the undergraduates could take up whatever studies they pleased, and Charles Dodgson put most of his energy into mathematics and the necessary study of the classics.

Seven months intervened between his matriculation and his real entrance into Oxford; these seven months we have just reviewed, full of study and pleasant family associations, with youthful experiments in literature, full of promise for the future—and something deeper still—which must have touched him just here, “where the brook and river meet.”

Into all our lives at some time or other comes a solemn silence; it may spring from many causes, from a joy which cannot be spoken, or from a sorrow too deep for utterance, but it comes, and we cover it gently and hide it away, as something too sacred for the common light of every day.

This was the silence which came to Lewis Carroll on the threshold of his career; but lusty youth was with him as he stood before the portal of a brilliant future, and there was courage and high hope in his heart as he knocked for entrance.

CHAPTER IV.

OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP AND HONORS.

On January 24, 1851, just three days before his nineteenth birthday, Charles Dodgson took up his residence at Christ Church, and from that time to the day of his death his name was always associated with the fine old building which was his
Alma Mater
.
The men of Christ Church called it the “House,” and were very proud of their college, as well they might be, for Oxford could not boast of a more imposing structure.
There is a great difference between a university and a college.
A university is great enough to shelter many colleges, and its chancellor is ruler over all.
When we reflect that Christ Church College, alone, included as many important buildings as are to be found in some of our modern American universities, we may have some idea of the extent of Oxford University, within whose boundaries twenty such colleges could be counted.

Their names were all familiar to the young fellow, and many a time, in those early days, he could be found in his boat upon the river, floating gently down stream, the whole panorama of Oxford spread out before him.

“Now rising o’er the level plain,

’Mid academic groves enshrined.

The Gothic tower, the Grecian fane,

Ascend in solemn state combined.”

The spire of St.
Aldates (pronounced St.
Olds); Sir Christopher Wren’s domed tower over the entrance to Christ Church; the spires of the Cathedral of St.
Mary; the tower of All Saints; the twin towers of All Souls; the dome of Radcliffe Library; the massive tower of Merton, and the beautiful pinnacles of Magdalen, all passed before him, “rising o’er the level plain” as the verse puts it, backed by dense foliage, and sharply outlined against the blue horizon.

History springs up with every step one takes in Oxford.
The University can trace its origin to the time of Alfred the Great.
Beginning with only three colleges, each year this great center of learning became more important.
Henry I built the Palace of Beaumont at Oxford, because he wished frequent opportunities to talk with men of learning.
It was from the Castle of Oxford that the Empress Maud escaped at dead of night, in a white gown, over the snow and the frozen river, when Stephen usurped the throne.
It was in the Palace of Beaumont that Richard the Lion-Hearted was born, and so on, through the centuries, great deeds and great events could be traced to the very gates of Oxford.

But most of all, the young student’s affections centered around Christ Church, and indeed, for the first few years of his college life, he had little occasion to go outside of its broad boundaries unless for a row upon the river.

Christ Church really owes its foundation to the famous Cardinal Wolsey.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson had its history by heart; how the wicked old prelate, wishing to leave behind him a monument of lasting good to cover his many misdeeds, obtained the royal license to found the college as early as 1525; how, in 1529, as Shakespeare said, he bade “a long farewell to all his greatness,” and his possessions, including Cardinal College as it was then called, fell into the ruthless hands of Henry VIII; and how, after many ups and downs, the present foundation of Christ Church was created under “letters patent of Henry VIII dated November 4, 1546.”

Christ Church, with its imposing front of four hundred feet, is built around the Great Quadrangle, quite famous in the history of the college.
It includes in the embrace of its four sides the library and picture gallery, the Cathedral and the Chapter House, and the homes of the dean and his associates.
There was another smaller quadrangle called Peckwater Quadrangle, where young Dodgson had his rooms when he first entered college, but later when he became a tutor or a “don” as the instructors were usually called, he moved into the Great Quadrangle.
A beautiful meadow lies beyond the south gate, spreading out in a long and fertile stretch to the river’s edge.

The massive front gate has towers and turrets on either side, while just above it is the great “Tom Tower,” the present home of “Tom” the famous bell, measuring over seven feet in diameter and weighing over seven tons.
This bell was originally dedicated to St.
Thomas of Canterbury, and bore a Latin inscription in praise of the saint.
It was brought from the famous Abbey of Oseney, when that cloister was transferred to Oxford, and on the accession of Queen Mary, the ruling dean rechristened it Mary, out of compliment to her; but this was not a lasting change; “Tom” was indeed the favored name.
After “Bonnie Prince Charlie” came into his own, and Christopher Wren’s tower was completed, the great bell was moved to the new resting place, where it rang first on the anniversary of the Restoration, May 29, 1684, and since then has rung each morning and evening, at the opening and closing of the college gates.

“Tom Tower,” as it is called, overlooks that portion of the Great Quadrangle popularly known as “Tom Quad,” and it was in this corner of the Great Quadrangle that Lewis Carroll had his rooms.
He speaks of it often in his many reminiscences, as he also spoke of the new bell tower over the hall staircase in the southeast corner.
This new tower was built to hold the twelve bells which form the famous Christ Church peal, some twenty years after his entrance as an undergraduate.
This, and the new entrance to the cathedral from “Tom Quad,” were designed by the architect, George Bodley, and Lewis Carroll, who was then a very dignified and retiring “don,” ridiculed his work in a clever little booklet called “The Vision of the Three T’s.”

In it he calls the new tower the “Tea-chest,” the passage to the cathedral the “Trench,” the entrance itself the “Tunnel” (here we have the three T’s).
The architect, whose initials are G.
B., he thinly disguises as “Jeeby,” and his disapproval is expressed through “Our Willie,” meaning William E.
Gladstone, who gives vent to his rage in this fashion:

“For as I’m true knight, a fouler sight,

I’d never live to see.

Before I’d be the ruffian dark,

Who planned this ghastly show,

I’d serve as secretary’s clerk [pronounced
clark
]

To Ayrton or to Lowe.

Before I’d own the loathly thing,

That Christ Church Quad reveals,

I’d serve as shoeblack’s underling

To Odger and to Beales.”

But no thought of ridicule entered the earnest young scholar’s mind during those early days at Oxford.
Everything he saw in his surroundings was most impressive.
There was much about the college routine to remind him of the old Rugby days.
Indeed, it was not so very long before his time that the birch-rod was laid aside in Oxford; the rules were still very strict, and the student was forced to work hard to gain any standing whatever.

Young Dodgson went into his studies, as he did into everything else, with his whole soul.
He devoted a great deal of his time to mathematics, and quite as much to divinity, but just as he had settled down for months of serious work, the news of his mother’s sudden death sent him hurrying back to Croft Rectory to join the sorrowing household.
It was a terrible blow to them all; with this young family growing up around her, she could ill be spared, and the loss of her filled those first Oxford days with dark shadows for the boy—he was only a boy still for all his nineteen years—and we can imagine how deeply he mourned for his mother.

What we know of her is very faint and shadowy.
That her influence was keenly felt for many years, we can only glean from the love and reverence with which the memory of her was guarded; for this English home hid its grief in the depths of its heart, and only the privileged few might enter and console.

This was the first and only break in the family for many years.
Charles went back to Oxford immediately after the funeral, and took up his studies again with redoubled zeal.

Thomas Gaisford was dean of Christ Church during the four years that Charles Dodgson was an undergraduate.
He was a most able man, well known as scholar, writer, and thinker, but he died, much lamented, in 1855, just as the young student was thinking seriously of a life devoted to his college.
George Henry Liddell came into residence as dean of Christ Church, an office which he held for nearly forty years, and as Dean Liddell stood for a great deal in the life of Charles Dodgson, we shall hear much of him from time to time, dating more especially from the comradeship of his three little daughters, who were the first “really truly” friends of Lewis Carroll.

But we are jumping over too many years at once, and must go back a few steps.
His hard study during the first year won him a Boulter scholarship; the next year he took First Class honors in mathematics, and a second in classical studies, and on Christmas Eve, 1852, he was made a Student of Christ Church College.

To become a Student of Christ Church was not only a great honor, conferred only on one altogether worthy of it, but it was a very serious step in life for a young man.
A Student remained unmarried and always took Holy Orders; he was of course compelled to be very regular at chapel service, and to be devoted, heart and soul, to the interests of Christ Church, all of which this special young Student had no difficulty in following to the letter.

From that time forth he ordered his life as he planned his mathematics, clearly and simply, and once his career was settled, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson dropped from his young shoulders—he was only twenty—the mantle of over-seriousness, and looked about for young companionship.
He found what he needed in the households of the masters and the tutors, whose homes looked out upon the Great Quadrangle.
Here on sunny days the nurses brought the children for an airing; chubby little boys in long trousers and “roundabouts,” dainty little girls, with corkscrew ringlets and long pantalets and muslin “frocks” and poke bonnets, in the depths of which were hidden the rosebud faces.
These were the favorites of the young Student, whose slim figure in cap and gown was often the center of an animated group of tiny girls; one on his lap, one perhaps on his shoulder, several at his knee, while he told them stories of the animals he knew, and drew funny little pictures on stray bits of paper.
The “roundabouts” went to the wall: they were only boys!

His coming was always hailed with delight.
Sometimes he would take them for a stroll, always full of wonder and interest to the children, for alone, with these chosen friends of his, his natural shyness left him, the sensitive mouth took smiling curves, the deep blue eyes were full of laughter, and he spun story after story for them in his quaint way, filling their little heads with odd fancies which would never have been there but for him.
The “bunnies” held animated conversations with these small maids; every chirp and twitter of the birds grew to mean something to them.
He took them across the meadow, and showed them the turtles swimming on the river bank; sometimes even—oh, treat of treats!—he took them in his boat, and pulling gently down the pretty rippling stream, told them stories of the shining fish they could see darting here and there in its depths, and of wonderful creatures they could
not
see, who would not show themselves while curious little girls were staring into the water.

These were hours of pure recreation for him.
The small girls could not know what genuine pleasure they gave; the young undergraduates could never understand his lack of sympathy with their many sports.
Athletics never appealed to him, even boating he enjoyed in his own mild way; a quiet pull up or down the river, a shady bank, an hour’s rest under the trees, a companion perhaps, generally some small girl, whose round-eyed interest inspired some remarkable tale—this was what he liked best.
On other days a tramp of miles gave just the exercise he needed.

His busy day began at a quarter past six, with breakfast at seven, and chapel at eight.
Then came the day’s lectures in Greek and Latin, mathematics, divinity, and the classics.

Meals were served to the undergraduates in the Hall.
The men were divided into “messes” just as in military posts; each “mess” consisted of about six men, who were served at a small table.
There were many such tables scattered over the Hall, a vast and ancient room, completed at the time of Wolsey’s fall, 1529, an interesting spot full of memorials of Henry VIII and Wolsey.
The great west window with its two rows of shields, some with a Cardinal’s hat, others with the royal arms of Henry VIII, is most interesting, while the wainscoting, decorated with shields also arranged in orderly fashion, is very attractive.
The Hall is filled with portraits of celebrities, from Henry VIII, Wolsey and Elizabeth to the many students, and famous deans, who have added luster to Christ Church.

In Charles Dodgson’s time, the meals were poorly served.
The Hall was lighted at night with candles in brass candlesticks made to hold three lights each.
The undergraduates were served on pewter plates, and the poor young fellows were in the hands of the cook and butler, and consequently were cheated up to their eyes.
They did not complain in Charles Dodgson’s time, but after he graduated and became a master himself he no doubt took part in what was known as the “Bread and Butter” campaign, when the undergraduates rose up in a body and settled the cook and butler for all time, appointing a steward who could overlook the doings of those below in the kitchen.