The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll. Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
at the bottom of the list that is to say, the eight who had been nominated last—had to mark, by pricking on weekly papers called “the Bills,” the attendance at morning and evening chapel. They were allowed to arrange this duty among themselves, and, if it was neglected, they were all punished. This long—defunct custom explains an entry in Lewis Carroll’s Diary for October 15, 1853, “Found I had got the prickbills two hundred lines apiece, by not pricking in in the morning,” which, I must confess, mystified me exceedingly at first. Another reference to College impositions occurs further on in his Diary, at a time when he was a Lecturer: “Spoke to the Dean about F—, who has brought an imposition which his tutor declares is not his own writing, after being expressly told to write it himself.”
The following is an extract from his father’s letter of congratulation, on his being nominated for the Studentship:—
My dearest Charles,—The feelings of thankfulness and delight with which I have read your letter just received, I must leave to your conception; for they are, I assure you, beyond my expression; and your affectionate heart will derive no small addition of joy from thinking of the joy which you have occasioned to me, and to all the circle of your home. I say “you have occasioned,” because, grateful as I am to my old friend Dr. Pusey for what he has done, I cannot desire stronger evidence than his own words of the fact that you have won, and well won, this honour for yourself, and that it is bestowed as a matter of justice to you, and not of kindness to me. You will be interested in reading extracts from his two letters to me—the first written three years ago in answer to one from me, in which I distinctly told him that I neither asked nor expected that he should serve me in this matter, unless my son should fairly reach the standard of merit by which these appointments were regulated. In reply he says— “I thank you for the way in which you put the application to me. I have now, for nearly twenty years, not given a Studentship to any friend of my own, unless there was no very eligible person in the College. I have passed by or declined the sons of those to whom I was personally indebted for kindness. I can only say that I shall have very great pleasure, if circumstances permit me to nominate your son.” In his letter received this morning he says—“I have great pleasure in telling you that I have been enabled to recommend your son for a Studentship this Christmas. It must be so much more satisfactory to you that he should be nominated thus, in consequence of the recommendation of the College. One of the Censors brought me to-day five names; but in their minds it was plain that they thought your son on the whole the most eligible for the College. It has been very satisfactory to hear of your son’s uniform steady and good conduct.”The last clause is a parallel to your own report, and I am glad that you should have had so soon an evidence so substantial of the truth of what I have so often inculcated, that it is the “steady, painstaking, likely-to-do-good” man, who in the long run wins the race against those who now and then give a brilliant flash and, as Shakespeare says, “straight are cold again.”
In 1853 Archdeacon Dodgson was collated and installed as one of the Canons of Ripon Cathedral. This appointment necessitated a residence of three months in every year at Ripon, where Dr. Erskine was then Dean. A certain Miss Anderson, who used to stay at the Deanery, had very remarkable “clairvoyant” powers; she was able—it was averred—by merely holding in her hand a folded paper containing some words written by a person unknown to her, to describe his or her character. In this way, at what precise date is uncertain, she dictated the following description of Lewis Carroll: “Very clever head; a great deal of number; a great deal of imitation; he would make a good actor; diffident; rather shy in general society; comes out in the home circle; rather obstinate; very clever; a great deal of concentration; very affectionate; a great deal of wit and humour; not much eventuality (or memory of events); fond of deep reading; imaginative, fond, of reading poetry; may compose.” Those who knew him well will agree that this was, at any rate, a remarkable coincidence.
Longley, afterwards Primate, was then Bishop of Ripon. His charming character endeared him to the Archdeacon and his family, as to every one else who saw much of him. He was one of the few men whose faces can truly be called beautiful; it was a veil through which a soul, all gentleness and truth, shone brightly.
In the early part of 1854 Mr. Dodgson was reading hard for “Greats.” For the last three weeks before the examination he worked thirteen hours a day, spending the whole night before the viva voce over his books. But philosophy and history were not very congenial subjects to him, and when the list was published his name was only in the third class.
He spent the Long Vacation at Whitby, reading Mathematics with Professor Price. His work bore good fruit, for in October he obtained First Class Honours in the Final Mathematical School. “I am getting quite tired of being congratulated on various subjects,” he writes; “there seems to be no end of it. If I had shot the Dean I could hardly have had more said about it.”
In another letter dated December 13th, he says:
Enclosed you will find a list which I expect you to rejoice over considerably; it will take me more than a day to believe it, I expect—I feel at present very like a child with a new toy, but I daresay I shall be tired of it soon, and wish to be Pope of Rome next…. I have just been to Mr. Price to see how I did in the papers, and the result will I hope be gratifying to you. The following were the sums total for each in the First Class, as nearly as I can remember:—
Dodgson … … … 279
Bosanquet … … … 261
Cookson … … … 254
Fowler … … … 225
Ranken … … … 213
On December 18th he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and on October 15, 1855, he was made a “Master of the House,” in honour of the appointment of the new Dean (Dr. Liddell) who succeeded Dean Gaisford. To be made Master of the House means that a man has all the privileges of a Master of Arts within the walls of Christ Church. But he must be of a certain number of terms’ standing, and be admitted in due form by the Vice-Chancellor, before he is a Master of Arts of the University. In this wider sense Mr. Dodgson did not take his Master’s degree until 1857.
This is anticipating events, and there is much to tell of the year 1855, which was a very eventful one for him. On February 15th he was made Sub-Librarian. “This will add £35 to my income,” he writes, “not much towards independence.” For he was most anxious to have a sufficient income to make him his own master, that he might enter on the literary and artistic career of which he was already dreaming. On May 14th he wrote in his Diary: “The Dean and Canons have been pleased to give me one of the Bostock scholarships, said to be worth £20 a year—this very nearly raises my income this year to independence. Courage!”
His college work, during 1855, was chiefly taking private pupils, but he had, in addition, about three and a half hours a day of lecturing during the last term of the year. He did not, however, work as one of the regular staff of lecturers until the next year. From that date his work rapidly increased, and he soon had to devote regularly as much as seven hours a day to delivering lectures, to say nothing of the time required for preparing them.
The following extract from his Journal, June 22, 1855, will serve to show his early love for the drama. The scene is laid at the Princess’ Theatre, then at the height of its glory:—
The evening began with a capital farce, “Away with Melancholy,” and then came the great play, “Henry VIII.,” the greatest theatrical treat I ever had or ever expect to have. I had no idea that anything so superb as the scenery