Part 15 (1/2)
CHAPTER X.
”HUNTING THE SNARK” AND OTHER POEMS.
There is no doubt that the second ”Alice” book was quite as successful as the first, but regarding its merit there is much difference of opinion. As a rule the ”grown-ups” prefer it. They like the clever situations and the quaint logic, no less than the very evident good writing; but this of course did not influence the children in the least. They liked ”Alice” and the pretty idea of her trip through the Looking-Gla.s.s, but for real delight ”Wonderland” was big enough for them, and to whisk down into a rabbit-hole on a summer's day was a much easier process than squeezing through a looking-gla.s.s at the close of a short winter's afternoon, not being _quite_ sure that one would not fall into the fire on the other side.
The very care that Lewis Carroll took in the writing of this book deprived it of a certain charm of originality which always clings to the pages of ”Wonderland.” Each chapter is so methodically planned and so well carried out that, while we never lose sight of the author and his cleverness, fairyland does not seem quite so real as in the book which was written with no plan at all, but the earnest desire to please three children. Then again there was a certain staidness in the prim little girl who pushed her way through the Looking-Gla.s.s. And there were no wonderful cakes marked ”eat me,” and bottles marked ”drink me,” which kept the Wonderland _Alice_ in a perpetual state of growing or shrinking; so the fact that nothing happened to _Alice_ at all during this second journey lessened its interest somewhat for the young ones to whom constant change is the spice of life. A very little girl, while she might enjoy the flower chapter, and might be tempted to build her own fanciful tales about the rest of the garden, would not be so attracted toward the insect chapter, which may possibly have been written with the praiseworthy idea of teaching children not to be afraid of these harmless buzzing things that are too busy with their own concerns to bother them.
There are, in truth, little ”cut and dried” speeches in the Looking-Gla.s.s ”Alice,” which we do not find in ”Wonderland.” A real hand is moving the Chessman over the giant board, and the _Red_ and the _White Queen_ often speak like automatic toys. We miss the savage ”off with his head” of the _Queen of Hearts_, who, for all her cardboard stiffness, seemed a thing of flesh and blood. But the poetry in the two ”Alices” is of very much the same quality.
In his prose ”nonsense” anyone might notice the difference of years between the two books, but Lewis Carroll's poetry never loses its youthful tone. It was as easy for him to write verses as to teach mathematics, and that was saying a good deal. It was as easy for him to write verses at sixty as at thirty, and that is saying even more. From the time he could hold a pencil he could make a rhyme, and his earlier editorial ventures, as we know, were full of his own work which in after years made its way to the public, either through the magazines or in collection of poems, such as ”Rhyme and Reason,” ”Phantasmagoria,” and ”The Three Sunsets.”
In _The Train_, that early English magazine before mentioned, are several poems written by him and signed by his newly borrowed name of Lewis Carroll, but they are very sentimental and high-flown, utterly unlike anything he wrote either before or after.
Between the publication of ”Through the Looking-Gla.s.s” and ”The Hunting of the Snark” was a period of five years, during which, according to his usual custom, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, in the seclusion of Christ Church, calmly pursued his scholarly way, smiling sedately over the literary antics of Lewis Carroll, for the Rev. Charles was a sober, over-serious bachelor, whose one aim and object at that time was the proper treatment of Euclid, for during those five years he wrote the following pamphlets: ”Symbols, etc., to be used in Euclid--Books I and II,” ”Number of Propositions in Euclid,” ”Enunciations--Euclid I-VI,” ”Euclid--Book V.
Proved Algebraically,” ”Preliminary Algebra and Euclid--Book V,” ”Examples in Arithmetic,” ”Euclid--Books I and II.”
He also wrote many other valuable pamphlets concerning the government of Oxford and of Christ Church in particular, for the retiring ”don” took a keen interest in the University life, and his influence was felt in many spicy articles and apt rhymes, usually brought forth as timely skits.
_Notes by an Oxford Chiel_, published at Oxford in 1874, included much of this material, where his clever verses, mostly satirical, generally hit the mark.
And all this while, Lewis Carroll was gathering in the harvest yielded by the two ”Alices,” and planning more books for his child-friends, who, we may be sure, were growing in numbers.
We find him at the Christmas celebration of 1874, at Hatfield, the home of Lord Salisbury, as usual, the central figure of a crowd of happy children.
On this occasion he told them the story of _Prince Uggug_, which was afterwards a part of ”Sylvie and Bruno.” Many of the chapters of this book had been published as separate stories in _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ and other periodicals, and, as such, they were very sweet and dainty as well as amusing. It was Lewis Carroll's own special charm in telling these stories which really lent them color and drew the children; they lost much in print, for they lacked the st.u.r.dy foundations of nonsense on which the ”Alices” were built.
On March 29, 1876, ”The Hunting of the Snark” was published, a new effort in ”nonsense” verse-making, which stands side by side with ”Jabberwocky”
in point of cleverness and interest.
The beauty of Lewis Carroll's ”nonsense” was that he never tried to be funny or ”smart.” The queer words and the still queerer ideas popped into his head in the simplest way. His command of language, including that important knowledge of how to make ”portmanteau” words, was his greatest aid, and the poem which he called ”An Agony in Eight Fits” depends entirely upon the person who reads it for the cleverness of its meaning.
To children it is one big fairy tale where the more ridiculous the situations, the more true to the rules of fairyland. The Snark, being a ”portmanteau” word, is a cross between a _snake_ and a _shark_, hence _Snark_, and the fact that he dedicated this wonderful bit of word-making to a little girl, goes far to prove that the poem was intended as much for children as for ”grown-ups.”
The little girl in this instance was Gertrude Chataway, and the verses are an acrostic on her name:
Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task, Eager she wields her spade: yet loves as well Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask The tale he loves to tell.
Rude spirit of the seething outer strife, Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright, Deem, if you list, such hours a waste of life, Empty of all delight!
Chat on, sweet maid, and rescue from annoy, Hearts that by wiser talk are unbeguiled; Ah, happy he who owns that tenderest joy, The heart-love of a child!
Away, fond thoughts, and vex my soul no more!
Work claims my wakeful nights, my busy days, Albeit bright memories of that sunlit sh.o.r.e Yet haunt my dreaming gaze!
There was scarcely a little girl who claimed friends.h.i.+p with Lewis Carroll who was not the proud possessor of an acrostic poem written by him--either on the t.i.tle-page of some book that he had given her, or as the dedication of some published book of his own.
”The Hunting of the Snark” owed its existence to a country walk, when the last verse came suddenly into the mind of our poet:
”In the midst of the word he was trying to say, In the midst of his laughter and glee, He had softly and suddenly vanished away-- For the Snark _was_ a Boojum, you see.”
In a very humorous preface to the book, Lewis Carroll attempted some sort of an explanation, which leaves us as much in the dark as ever. He writes:
”If--and the thing is wildly possible--the charge of writing nonsense was ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line: