The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll. Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
assured that I shall always feel a peculiar interest in the gentle, intelligent, and well-conducted boy who is now leaving us.”
ARCHBISHOP TAIT.
Although his father had been a Westminster boy, Charles was, for some reason or other, sent to Rugby. The great Arnold, who had, one might almost say, created Rugby School, and who certainly had done more for it than all his predecessors put together, had gone to his rest, and for four years the reins of government had been in the firm hands of Dr. Tait, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. He was Headmaster during the whole of the time Charles was at Rugby, except the last year, during which Dr. Goulburn held that office. Charles went up in February, 1846, and he must have found his new life a great change from his quiet experiences at Richmond. Football was in full swing, and one can imagine that to a new boy “Big-side” was not an unalloyed delight. Whether he distinguished himself as a “dropper,” or ever beat the record time in the “Crick” run, I do not know. Probably not; his abilities did not lie much in the field of athletics. But he got on capitally with his work, and seldom returned home without one or more prizes. Moreover, he conducted himself so well that he never had to enter that dreaded chamber, well known to some Rugbeians, which is approached by a staircase that winds up a little turret, and wherein are enacted scenes better imagined than described.
A schoolboy’s letter home is not, usually, remarkable for the intelligence displayed in it; as a rule it merely leads up with more or less ingenuity to the inevitable request for money contained in the postscript. Some of Charles’s letters were of a different sort, as the following example shows:
Yesterday evening I was walking out with a friend of mine who attends as mathematical pupil Mr. Smythies the second mathematical master; we went up to Mr. Smythies’ house, as he wanted to speak to him, and he asked us to stop and have a glass of wine and some figs. He seems as devoted to his duty as Mr. Mayor, and asked me with a smile of delight, “Well Dodgson I suppose you’re getting well on with your mathematics?” He is very clever at them, though not equal to Mr. Mayor, as indeed few men are, Papa excepted…. I have read the first number of Dickens’ new tale, “Davy Copperfield.” It purports to be his life, and begins with his birth and childhood; it seems a poor plot, but some of the characters and scenes are good. One of the persons that amused me was a Mrs. Gummidge, a wretched melancholy person, who is always crying, happen what will, and whenever the fire smokes, or other trifling accident occurs, makes the remark with great bitterness, and many tears, that she is a “lone lorn creetur, and everything goes contrairy with her.” I have not yet been able to get the second volume Macaulay’s “England” to read. I have seen it however and one passage struck me when seven bishops had signed the invitation to the pretender, and King James sent for Bishop Compton (who was one of the seven) and asked him “whether he or any of his ecclesiastical brethren had anything to do with it?” He replied, after a moment’s thought “I am fully persuaded your majesty, that there is not one of my brethren who is not as innocent in the matter as myself.” This was certainly no actual lie, but certainly, as Macaulay says, it was very little different from one.
The Mr. Mayor who is mentioned in this letter formed a very high opinion of his pupil’s ability, for in 1848 he wrote to Archdeacon Dodgson: “I have not had a more promising boy at his age since I came to Rugby.”
Dr. Tait speaks no less warmly:—
My dear Sir,—I must not allow your son to leave school without expressing to you the very high opinion I entertain of him. I fully coincide in Mr. Cotton’s estimate both of his abilities and upright conduct. His mathematical knowledge is great for his age, and I doubt not he will do himself credit in classics. As I believe I mentioned to you before, his examination for the Divinity prize was one of the most creditable exhibitions I have ever seen.
During the whole time of his being in my house, his conduct has been excellent.
Believe me to be, My dear Sir,
Yours very faithfully,
A.C. TAIT.
Public school life then was not what it is now; the atrocious system then in vogue of setting hundreds of lines for the most trifling offences made every day a weariness and a hopeless waste of time, while the bad discipline which was maintained in the dormitories made even the nights intolerable—especially for the small boys, whose beds in winter were denuded of blankets that the bigger ones might not feel cold.
Charles kept no diary during his time at Rugby; but, looking back upon it, he writes in 1855:—
During my stay I made I suppose some progress in learning of various kinds, but none of it was done con amore, and I spent an incalculable time in writing out impositions—this last I consider one of the chief faults of Rugby School. I made some friends there, the most intimate being Henry Leigh Bennett (as college acquaintances we find fewer common sympathies, and are consequently less intimate)—but I cannot say that I look back upon my life at a Public School with any sensations of pleasure, or that any earthly considerations would induce me to go through my three years again.
When, some years afterwards, he visited Radley School, he was much struck by the cubicle system which prevails in the dormitories there, and wrote in his Diary, “I can say that if I had been thus secure from annoyance at night, the hardships of the daily life would have been comparative trifles to bear.”
The picture on page 32 was, I believe, drawn by Charles while he was at Rugby in illustration of a letter received from one of his sisters. Halnaby, as I have said before, was an outlying district of Croft parish.
During his holidays he used to amuse himself by editing local magazines. Indeed, they might be called very local magazines, as their circulation was confined to the inmates of Croft Rectory. The first of these, Useful and Instructive Poetry, was written about 1845. It came to an untimely end after a six months’ run, and was followed at varying intervals by several other periodicals, equally short-lived.
In 1849 or 1850, The Rectory Umbrella began to appear. As the editor was by this time seventeen or eighteen years old, it was naturally of a more ambitious character than any of its precursors. It contained a serial story of the most thrilling interest, entitled, “The Walking-Stick of Destiny,” some meritorious poetry, a few humorous essays, and several caricatures of pictures in the Vernon Gallery. Three reproductions of these pictures follow, with extracts from the Umbrella descriptive of them.
THE VERNON GALLERY.
As our readers will have seen by the preceding page, we have commenced engraving the above series of pictures. “The Age of Innocence,” by Sir J. Reynolds, representing a young Hippopotamus seated under a shady tree, presents to the contemplative mind a charming union of youth and innocence.
EDITOR.