Lewis Carroll in Wonderland and at Home. Belle Moses
it down untarnished to this latest Charles, in the parish church at Daresbury.
The Dodgsons could doubtless trace their descent much further back than a great-great-grandfather, being a race of gentlemen and scholars, but the Rev. Christopher Dodgson, who lived quite a century before Baby Charles saw the light, is the earliest ancestor we hear of, and he held a living in Yorkshire. In those days, a clergyman was dependent upon some noble patron for his living, a living meaning the parish of which he had charge and the salary he received for his work, and so when the Rev. Christopher’s eldest son Charles also took holy orders, he had for his patron the Duke of Northumberland, who gave him the living of Elsden in Northumberland, a cold, bleak, barren country. The Rev. Charles took what fell to his lot with much philosophy and a saving sense of humor.
He suffered terribly from the cold despite the fact that he snuggled down between two feather beds in the big parlor, which was no doubt the best room in a most uncomfortable house. It was all he could do to keep from freezing, for the doors were rarely closed against the winds that howled around them. The good clergyman was firmly convinced that the end of the world would come by frost instead of fire. Even when safely in bed, he never felt quite comfortable unless his head was wrapped in three nightcaps, while he twisted a pair of stockings, like a cravat, around his suffering throat. He generally wore two shirts at a time, as washing was cheap, and rarely took off his coat and his boots.
This uncomplaining, jovial clergyman finally received his reward. King George III bestowed upon him the See of Elphin, which means that he was made bishop, and had no more hardships to bear. This gentleman, who was the great-grandfather of our Charles, had four children; Elizabeth Anne, the only daughter, married a certain Charles Lutwidge of Holmrook in Cumberland. There were two sons who died quite young, and Charles, the eldest, entered the army and rose to the rank of captain in the 4th Dragoon Guards. He lost his life in the performance of a perilous duty, leaving behind him two sons; Charles, the elder, turned back into the ways of his ancestors and became a clergyman, and Hassard, who studied law, had a brilliant career.
This last Charles, in 1830, married his cousin, Frances Jane Lutwidge, and in 1832 we find him baptizing another little Charles, in the parish church at Daresbury, his eldest son, and consequently his pride and hope.
The living at Daresbury was the beginning of a long life of service to the Church. The father of our Charles rose to be one of the foremost clergymen of his time, a man of wide learning, of deep piety, and of great charity, beloved by rich and poor. Though of somewhat sober nature, in moments of recreation he could throw off his cares like a boy, delighting his friends by his wit and humor, and the rare gift of telling anecdotes, a gift his son inherited in full measure, long before he took the name of “Lewis Carroll,” some twenty years after he was received into the fold of the parish church at Daresbury.
Little Charles headed the list of eleven young Dodgsons, and the mother of this infant brigade was a woman in a thousand. We all know what mothers are; then we can imagine this one, so kind and gentle that never a harsh word was known to pass her lips, and may be able to trace her quiet, helpful influence on the character of our Boy, just as we see her delicate features reproduced in many of his later pictures.
A boy must be a poor specimen, indeed, if such a father and mother could not bring out the best in him. Saddled as he was, with the responsibility of being the oldest of eleven, and consequently an example held up to younger brothers and sisters, Charles was grave and serious beyond his years. Only an eldest child can appreciate what a responsibility this really is. You mustn’t do “so and so” for fear one of the younger ones might do likewise! If his parents had not been very remarkable people, this same Charles might have developed into a virtuous little prig. “Good Brother Charles who never does wrong” might have grown into a terrible bugbear to the other small Dodgsons, had he not been brimful of fun and humor himself. As it was he soon became their leader in all their games and plays, and the quiet parsonage on the glebe farm, full a mile and a half from even the small traffic of the village, rang at least with the echoes of laughter and chatter from these youngsters with strong healthy lungs.
We cannot be quite sure whether they were good children or bad children, for time somehow throws a halo around childhood, but let us hope they were “jes’ middlin’.” We cannot bear to think of all those prim little saints, with ramrods down their backs, sitting sedately of a Sunday in the family pew—perhaps it took two family pews to hold them—with folded hands and pious expressions. We can’t believe these Dodgsons were so silly; they were reverent little souls doubtless, and probably were not bad in church, but oh! let us hope they got into mischief sometimes. There was plenty of room for it in the big farm parsonage.
“An island farm ’mid seas of corn,
Swayed by the wand’ring breath of morn.
The happy spot where I was born,”
wrote Lewis Carroll many years after, when “Alice in Wonderland” had made him famous.
Glebe farms were very common in England; they consisted of large tracts of land surrounding the parsonage, which the pastor was at liberty to cultivate for his own use, or to eke out his often scanty income, and as the parsonage at Daresbury was comparatively small, and the glebe or farm lands fairly large, we can be sure these boys and girls loved to be out of doors, and little Charlie at a very early age began to number some queer companions among his intimate friends. His small hands burrowing in the soft, damp earth, brought up squirming, wriggling things—earthworms, snails, and the like. He made pets of them, studying their habits in his “small boy” way, and having long, serious talks with them, lying on the ground beside them as they crawled around him. An ant-hill was to him a tiny town, and many a long hour the child must have spent busying himself in their small affairs, settling imaginary disputes, helping the workers, supplying provisions in the way of crumbs, and thus early beginning to understand the ways of the woodland things about which he loved to write in after years. He had, for boon companions, certain toads, with whom he held animated conversations, and it is said that he really taught earthworms the art of warfare by supplying them with small pieces of pipe with which to fight.
He did not, like Hiawatha in the legend, “Learn of ev’ry bird its language,” but he invented a language of his own, in which no doubt he discoursed wisely to the toads and snails who had time to listen; he learned to speak this language quite fluently, so that in later years when eager children clustered about him, and with wide eyes and peals of laughter listened to his nonsense verses, full of the queerest words they ever heard, they could still understand from the very tones of his voice exactly what he meant. Indeed, when little Charles Lutwidge Dodgson grew up to be Lewis Carroll, he worked this funny language of his by equally funny rules, so that, as he said, “a perfectly balanced mind could understand it.”
Of course, there were other companions for the Dodgson children—cats and dogs, and horses and cows, and in the village of Warrington, seven miles away, there were children to be found of their own size and age, but Daresbury itself was very lonely. A canal ran through the far end of the parish, and here bargemen used to ply to and fro, carrying produce and fodder to the near-by towns. Mr. Dodgson took a keen interest in these men who seemed to have no settled place of worship.
In a quiet, persuasive way he suggested to Sir Francis Egerton, a large landholder of the country, that it would be nice to turn one of the barges into a chapel, describing how it could be done for a hundred pounds, well knowing, clever man, that he was talking to a most interested listener; for a few weeks later he received a letter from Sir Francis telling him that the chapel was ready. In this odd little church, the first of its kind, Mr. Dodgson preached every Sunday evening.
But at Daresbury itself life was very monotonous; even the passing of a cart was a great event, and going away was a great adventure. There was one never-to-be-forgotten occasion when the family went off on a holiday jaunt to Beaumaris. Railroads were then very rare things, so they made the journey in three days by coach, allowing also three days for the return trip.
It was great fun traveling in one of those old-time coaches with all the luggage strapped behind, and all the bright young faces atop, and four fast-trotting horses dashing over the ground, and a nice long holiday with fine summer weather