w. h. auden, lewis carroll (forewords and afterwords, 6)

7/28/2019 W. H. Auden, Lewis Carroll (Forewords and Afterwords, 6)

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W.H. AUDENother, eithe r positively or negatively : "In tenscly frightened,James s tood motionless, etc." A Frenchman: "A lfred beganto tremble. A deathly pallor covcred bis handsome face. Hewithdrcw, but with dignity." The Ru ssian writer would prefer to express himsclf thus: "My hero , like a blackguard ,got cold feet and trudged off home ." Pcrhaps even better:"dashed off hone."A first-rate critic, as distinct from a run-of-the-mill one, always

shows respect for the author he is considering, evcn in attack .When his author docs something he disapproves of. he tries toput himself in the author's place and asks, "What were his reasonsfor doing this?" So, after objccting to Tolstoy's tendency to "noscpck," Leontiev is wlling to concede that, much as he dislikes it,To lstoy. given the nature of h s readers, was probably justified:

The Russ ian reader of our time (especially the readerwho occupies a middle position in soc icty) ... [has been]educatcd . . . in such a way that a wart will make him believc more strongly in nobility, a snort wi ll makc him feel!ove more intensely, and so on; and if someone "with anervous gesture pours ou t a glass of vodka" and then, instcad of smling, "smirks," his confidence will be complete! . . .Tolstoy . . . has rendered his readers a patr io tic serviceby al! this slight, externa! humiliation of life.I hope very much that someone will soon publish an Englishtranslation of Leontiev's collected critical essays.

LEWIS CARROLL

. J 1 862 the Reverend Charles Lut-ln the evening of Fntlay, u Y 4, J , . .widge Dodgson, lecturer and tutor in mathematlCS at Chnst Church,Oxford, wrote in bis diary:

Atkinson brought. over to my rooms some fri.ends of his,a Mrs and Miss Petcrs, of whom I took photographs, andwho afterward looked ovcr my album and stayed to lunch .They then went off to the Muscum and Duck:vorth and Imadc an expedition up the rivcr to God stow the t h r e ~Liddells: wc had tea on the bank there, and dld not reaeChrist Church again till quarter past 8, w ~ e n we took thcmon to my rooms to see my c o l l e c of m ~ e r ~ - p h o t o g r a p hand restored them to the Deanery JUSt befote 9"The three Liddells" were the daughters of the Dean of Christ

Cburch, one of the authors of famous Liddc_ll & Scott < ? r ~ e klexi.con. Their names were Lonna Charlotte, Altee, and Edltnicknamed Matilda. Alice was ten years old_. . .This was by no means thei r first expedltlon together. For ~ o m evears they had been secing a Jot of one another. In tbe w m t ~ r ,

y would go to Dodgson's o ~ m s si: thc so a b e ~ dwhile he told them storics, which he Illustrated by penc!l or mkdrawings as he went along. Four or fivc times in the summer term283

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W.H. AUDENhe would. take them out on thc river, bringing with him a Jargcbasket of cakes and a kettle. On such occasions, Dodgson ex changed his clerical suit for white fiarm e) trousers and bis blacktop . hat ,;or . a hard white straw hat. He always carricd himselfupnght as rf he had swallowed a poker."

Outwardly therc was no thi.ng to distinguish thc Godstow exe d i t i o n from any othcr. And nobody today would remcmber that

rt ever took place but for what scems almost a pure accidcnt. Hehad the ~ h i l d r e n many stories beforc, to which they had Jisw1th delrght, anc l they hegged hirn to tell thern another. This

t l ~ 1 perhaps, he was in better storytelling form than usual, forhrs fncnd Mr . Duckworth was ev idently impresscd:1 rowed stroke and he rowed bow . .. the story wasactually composcd ancl spoken over my shoulder for thebenctit of Al ice ~ i d d who was acting as "co x" of our gig.1 remcmber turnrng round and saying "Dodgson, is this anromance of yours'!" And he rcplicd : "Yes, I'mmveutrng as wc go along."

A nyway, this time A lice did what shc had ncver done beforeshe asked him to write !he story down. At fi rst he said he wouldthink a b o ~ t it, bu.t she continucd to pester hirn until, cventually,he gave llJS promrsc to do so. In hi s diary for Novemhcr I 3, henotes: "Began writing the fa iry-tale for Alice- J hope to finish itby Christmas.". In f.act, the tcxt was fin ishecl on February 1o, 1863. Tenniel'sIllustratwns werc not compJetcd until September, 1864, and A [ice1/7. W d . e r / a n d was publishcd by Macmillan in 1865 (which isalso, mctdentally, the year of th e first performance of anothermasterp iece, Wagncr's Tristan und 1solde).

These events are memorable bccause they rcveal a kind ofbeing who I believe, extremely rare- a man of geniuswho, m regard t? lus genrus, is wi thout cgotsm. In othcr respects,Dodgson was nerthcr selfless nor without vanity. As a mcmber of

S e r ~ i ~ r Common R oom, he was a difficult colleaguc, forcver complarmng abo ut sorne minor negligcncc or inconvenience. He heldand conservative views upon almost every question affectmg the College or the University, and the savagery of his polemical

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LEWJS CARRO LLpamphlets, likc ''The Ncw Belfry of Christ Church" or "TwelveMonths in a Curato rship,' ' cannot have cnd eared h im to his opponents .

He was proud of his photography, and justly so, for he wasone of the best por trait pho tographers of the century . He had greathopes for his theory of Symbolic Logic, which is, I undcrstand,more highly regarded today than it was at the time. As his diariesshow, he also thought well of his little inventions-and he wasalways inventing so mething: a memoria technica for the logarithmsof all primes under 100; a gamc of ari thmc tical croquct ; a ru le forfinding the day of thc weck for any date of the mont h, a substitutcfo r glue; a system of proportional reprcscntation; a method ofcontroll ing thc carriage traffic at Covcnt Gardcn; an apparatus formaking notes in thc dark; an improved stccring gear for a tricycle;and he always sought publication for his light verse. Bu t \Vhen itcarne to thc one thiog which he did superb ly well, where he waswithout any rival - n amely, telling stories to children- the thoughtof himself, of publicat ion and immortal fame, ncver seems to havcentered his head.The two Alice books wcre no freak achievemcnts. The re arepassages in letters to children where the writing is just as good. Forexample:

It's so frightfully hot herc that I've been almost tooweak to hold a pcn, and cven if 1 had been able, there wasno ink- it had aH evaporated into a cloud of black steam,and in that sta te it has been floating about the room, inkingthe walls and cciling till they're hardly fit to be secn: today, it is cooler, and a little has come back into the inkbottle in the form of black snow.He went on telling impromptu stor ies to child ren all his Ji fe,which were never wlitten down and, for all we kn ow, may havesurpassed the ones that were.Though no human character can be explained away in termsof his upbringing or environment, it is legitimate to look for influencing factors. In Dodgson's case, one such factor may havebeen his position as the oldest boy-the son of a clergyman-in alarge family: he had seven sisters and threc brothers. By the time

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W .H. AUDENhe was eleven he had macle himself thc family entertainer. He constructed a train, built out of a wheelbarrow, a barrel, and a smalltruck, which conveyed passcngers from one station in the rectorygarden to another, and in the rules he drew up for this game, theLewis Canoll imagination is already evident:

All passengers when upset are req ucstcd to 1 c still untilpicked up- as it is requisite that at least three trains shouldgo ovcr them, to cntitle them to the attention of the doctorand assistants.Whcn a passengcr has no money and still wants to goby train , he must stop at whatever sta tion he happcns tobe at , and carn moncy- making tea for thc stationmaster(who drinks it at al! hours of thc day and night) and grinding sa nd for the company (what use they make of it theyare not bound to exp1ain).Two years later, he bccame the editor and chief contributor fora succession of family magazincs, thc last of which, The Rectory

Umbrella, was still appcaring after he had bccomc an Oxford donand first printcd thc opening quatrain of "Jabberwocky."Tbus , at the bcginning of bis carecr as a writer, he was writingdirectly for an audicnce with which he was intimate and in whichhe had no litcrary rival. Th e average writer, at least today, has avery different cxperience. When he begins writing, he has no audicnce except himself; his flrst audience is likcly to be one of rival,as yet unpubli shcd, authors, and his only chance of acquiring anaudicncc of bis own is to gct published, in little magazines orpopular ones; and this audiencc consists of readers whom he doesnot know personally.

I t seems clear that what, as an imaginative creator, Dodgsonvalued most was the immediate and intimatc response of his audience, and i s un divided attention ( hence, perhaps, his pass ion forthe theater). Bis writings for adults, no less than his children'ssto ries, are for the "family"-Oxford to him was anothcr andlarger rectory. Even in the only company with whom he felt socompletely at home that his starnrncr disappearcd, the company oflittle girls, he preferred to se e them singly. As he wrote to onemother:

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LEWlS CARROLLWould you kindly tell me if I may rcckon your girls asinvitable to tea, or dinner, singly. I know of c ~ s e s ~ h e r ethcy are invitable in sets only (likc the c i r c u l a t i n g ~ J b r a r y

noveis) , and such friendships I don 't thin.k worth g ~ m g onwith . 1 don't think anyone knows what g 1 r l - ~ a t u r e 1s , whohas only scen them in thc prcscnce of the1r mothers orsisters.Many guesscs, plausible and implausiblc, have be.en made .asto the hi storical origins of the characters and events m the A [ce

books, but one may be sure that many allusions which were apparent to the Liddell childrcn are now irrecoverable. When he tolda story, it was always for a particular child. One of them, notAl ice, rccords:

One thing that made his stories particularly charming toa child was that he often took his cuc from her ~ c m a : k s -a question would set him off on quite a new traJl of Ideas,so that onc felt one had somehow helped to make the story,and it seemed a personal possession.Very few writcrs, l believe, howcver much they desi.rc fame for

their books, enjoy being a pub lic figure who JS recogmzed on thestreet by strangcrs, bu t Doclgson hated publicity mo re t h , ~ n m ~ s t .He refuscd to allow any picture of himself to appear- Nothmgwould be more unpleasant for me than to have my face known tostrangers"-and be gave orders that any lettcrs addressed to L.Carroll. Christ Church, Oxford, were to be returned to the senderwith the endorsement "not known."But tbanks to Alice Liddcll's importunity, and Juckily for us,the intimate narrator became a world-famous author. As usuallyhappens with a masterpiece, the initial critica] reception of Alicein Wonderland was mixed. The lllustrated London News and thePall Mall Gazette liked it; the Spectator, though generally approving, condemned the Mad Hatter's tea-party; the n a e ~ m t h o u g ~ tit a "stiff, overwrought story," and tbe 1/lustrated T1mes, whtleconceding that thc author possessed a fertile imagination, declarcdthat Alice's adventures "are too extravagantly absurd to producemore diversion than disappointment and irritation."When, seven years later, Through the Looking-Glass appeared,

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W.H. AUDENthe k new, from the eno rmous public success of its predecess.or , that 1t be good- th ough l can think of no more unlikelyIItera ry companson than that of H enry Kingslcy, wh o wrote: "Thisis the fincst thing we have had since Mar tn Chuzz fewit. "

An d thc b.ook's famc has co ntinu cd to grow. T ha ve alwaysthought o.ne nught lcarn much about thc cultural histo ry of a country by gomg through thc speechcs ma de by its public mcn ovc r accrta in pcriod, in lcgislat urcs, in law courts, an d at official banqu cts, and making a list of thc books quotcd from without at tribu tion. So far as Grcat Bri ta in is conccrncd , 1 strongly suspectthat, f ~ ~ the past fi fty years, the two A lice books and Th e Huntingof the Snark havc hcadcd it .

H ow do American rcadcrs rca ct? Thoug h nearly alt the Americans I know loved Lewis Carroll as childrcn, they mayno t be n t a t t v e of Am erican taste in genera l. Certainly, incvcry Arn en can book reacl by children- f r om Huckfeberrv Finnto thc Oz books -w hich 1 havc come across, nothing c o ~ 1 l d bemore remoLe frorn their worlds th an thc world of A lice.

Th e Am erica n child-hero- a r e lhcre any American child-heroe s ? - a Noble Savage, an anarchi st, and, cven when he reflects,m m a n concerncd with movement a nd ac tion. He may do

almos.t anythmg except sit s till . 1-Iis heroic vir tuc-that is to say, hi ssu.per.JOnty to d ~ d t - in his fre edo m from convcntional ways ofthmkmg a nd ac tmg: al! social babits, from manncrs to cree ds , arerega rdcd fa lsc or hypocritical or both. AII cmperors are reaUynak ed . Ah ce, surcly, must come to the average American as a shock.

To begin with, shc is a "lady. " Whcn, pu zzled by the n ove ltyof Wondcrland , she asks hcr self if she could have changed intosome o ther ch ild, she is quite cer ta in what sort of child she doesnot want to be:

. ' 'I'm sure 1 can ' t be Mabel, for 1 know all sorts ofthmgs, ancl shc, oh, shc knows such a vc ry little .. . . 1must be M.ahcl after all, and I sh all h ave to go and Jive inthat poky ltttle housc , ancl ha vc nex t to no toys to play with. . . . No , J' vc made up my mind about it : if l' m Mabe l1'11 stay down here." 'Among grownups, she knows the difference between servantsand mis tresscs :

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LEWIS CARROL L"He took me for his house-maid ," she said to herself as

she ran . " How surprised he'll be wh cn h e finds out who 1am. " . . ." The govcrncss would neve r think of exc using my lessons for that. I f she couldn 't remcmbcr my na me, sh e'd callme ' Mi ss' as thc servants do."An d when the Red Queen ad viscs her : "Spcak in Fr ench when

you ca n' t th.ink of thc E nglish for a th ing-turn out your toes asyou wa lk- an cl remcmber who you arc !"-she k nows that th eanswer to thc qn cstion , " Who am J?" is rea l!y : " l am Al icc Lidde ll,daughtcr of the Dca n of Christ Church."

Wha t is most likely to bewildcr an America n child, howevcr, isnot Alicc' s class-cunsciousness, which is easy to miss, hu t thepeculiar relation of chi ldren an d grownups to law and social manners. l l is the child-heroinc Al ice who is inva riab ly rcasonable,self-controlled , and polite, while a ll th e other inhabitants, hum anor anim al, of Wonde rland and thc Looking-Glass are unsocial eccentrics - a t th e merey of their passions and extrcmely ba d-mannercd, like the Qucen of H earts, thc Duchess, the Hatter, anclHump ty Dumply, or gro tesqucly inc omp ctent, lik c the WhitcQuec n and the Whte Knight.

What Alice finds so cxtraordinary about thc peo plc and cventsin thcsc world s is the an arch y which she is forevcr trying to ma kesensc and order out of. In bo th books, gamcs play an importantrole. Th c whole st ructure of Through the L ooking-Giass is bsedon ch css, an d the Ouecn of H earts' favorite pastimc is croqu ctboth of them garnes which A tice knows how to play. T o play agame, it is essential that the playcrs know an d obey its ru les, an da re skillful enough to do the right or rcason able thing at least h alfLhe time. An archy and incomp etcnce are inco mpa tible with pl ay .

Cr oqu ct played with hcdgehogs , flamingos, and sold iers insteadof the co nven tional ba lls, mallets, and hoops is conceivable, provided that thcy are willing to irnita te the bchavior of thesc inanimate objcc ts, but, in Wonderland , thcy behave as they choose andthe game is impossible to play

In thc Lo okin g-Glass world , thc prob lem is different. I t is no l,Iike Won derland, a place of complete anarchy where everybodysays and does whatcvcr comes in to his head, bu t a comple telydetermined wo rld without choice. Tweedledu m and Tweedledec,

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the Lion and the Unicorn, the Red Knight and the White, mustfight at regular in te rva ls, ir rcspcctive of thcir feelings. In WonderJand , Al ice ha s to adjust herself to a lifc without laws; in Lo okingGiass Land , to one governed by Jaws to which she is un acc ustomed.Shc has to lcarn, for exa mpl e, to walk away from a place in arderto reach it, or to ru n fast in order to rcmain where shc is. inWonderland, shc is the only person with se lf-control; in LookingGlass Land , thc only competent on e. Bu t for the way sh e plays apawn, o ne feels that the game of chess wou ld never be completed.

Tn both wo rlds , on e of the mos t important and powerful characters is not a pcrs on but the English language. Alicc, who hadhi therto supposcd that words were passive ob jec ts, discovers thatthe y havc a life and will of thcir own. When she tri es to rememberpoems shc has Jcarned, new lincs com e into her head ur.b idden,and, when shc tllinks she knows what a word means, it turns out tomean so mething elsc.

"A nd so these thrce little sisters-they were learning todraw, you know- ""What did they draw? " . . .

"Trcacle-from a treaclc we/1 . . ."' 'Bu t thev were in the well.""Of couise they wcre: well. in. " . . ."How o ld did you say you wcrc?"" Sevcn yea rs and six months.""Wrong! Y ou never said a word like it!" .. ."Y ou take sorne flo ur. "" Whcre do you pick thc flower? In a garden or in the

hedges?""Well, it isn 't pcked at al!: it's ground. ''"H.ow many acres of ground?"Nothing, su rely, could be mo re remate from the Ameri can

image of the pioneering, hunting, prepolitical hero than this preoccupation with language. 1t is the concern of the solitary th inker,for language is the mother of thought, an d of the politici an - inthe Greek scnsc--for speech is thc mcdium by which wc discloseourselves to others. The American hero is nei ther.

LEW IS CARROL LBoth of Alicc's "dreams" en d in a state of developing chaos

from which she wakcs just in time beforc they can become night-mares :

At this th e wh ole pack rose up in the air , and carneflying down upon her ; she gave a little sc ream, half of frightand h alf of anger, an d tricd to bea t them off, an d foun dhcrself lying on thc bank with her head in the lap of hcrsister . . .

Already severa] of the guests werc lying down in thedishes, and the soup lad k wa s walking up the table towardsAlice's ch air, a nd beckoning to her imp atiently to get ou t ofits way. . ."I can't stand thi s any longer!" she cncd , as shc umpedup and seized thc table-clo th with both hands : on e g ~ o dpull, and plates , dishes, guests and candles ca rne craslungdown togeth er in a heap on the floor.Wonderland an d Looking-G lass Land are fun to visi t bu t no

placcs to live in. Evcn when she is thcrc, Alice ask hcrsclf withsome no sta lgia "if anything would ever happ en 111 a natu ral wayagain," and by ''natural" shc means the oppos ite of what Ro usseauwould mean. Sbe mcans peaccful , civ ilized society.

Thcrc are good books which are only for aclu\ts, becausc theircomp rehension presupposcs adult expe riences, bu t thcre are nogood books which ar e only for child ren. A child wh o e ~ j o y s th eAlice books will continue to cnjoy thcm wben he or she 1s grownup , thou gh bis " reading" of what they m will probablyIn assessing their value, thcre are two quest tons one ca n ask: first ,what insight do they provide as to how the world appears to achi!d?; and , sccond , to what extent is the world really like that?

According to Lewis Ca rra l!, what a child desires befare anything else is that the world in which he finds him self shouldsense. lt is no t the commands and prohibitions, as such, whJchadults imp ose tha t the child resents, but rather that he cannot perceive any law linking on e co mmand to another in a consistentpattern.Th c ch ild is told, for example, that h e mu st no t do sucb-a nd-such, and then sees ad ults doing p reciscly that. This occurs espe-

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W. H. AUDENcially often in thc rea lm of social manners. In well-bred society,peo ple trcat each othcr with courtesy but, in trying to teach theirchildren to be po1itc, their method of instruction is oftcn that ofa dril! sergeant. Without rca lizing it, ad ults ca n be rude to childrenin ways which, if they wcre dea ling with one of their own kind,would get them knocked down. How ma ny children, when they aresilenced with the command , "Speak whcn you're spoken to !" musthave longcd to retortas Alice docs:

"B ut if cvc rybody obcyed that rule, ami if yo u onlyspokc when you werc spoken to, an d the other person always wa itcd for you to begin, you sce that nobody wouldever say anything."lt would be an exaggcration to say that children sce adults as

thcy rcally are, but, lik e servants, they see them at moments whenthey are not concerned wi th making a favorable imprcssion.

As evcrybody knows, Do dgson's Muse was incarnated in as ucccssion of gi rl s hetwcc n thc ages of eight and eleven . Little boyshe fea red and dislikccl: they wcrc grubby and noisy and brokethings. Mos t adults he foun d inscnsitive. At the agc of twenty-four,he wro tc in bis diary:

1 think that thc character of most that I meet is mcrelyrefined animal. How f cw sccm to care for the only subjcctsof rea l interest in life !Naturally , mo st of his "child-fricnds" carne from middle- or

up per-middle class English homes. He mentions h aving met oneAmerican child and thc encounter was not a success :

Lily Alice Godfrey, from New York : aged 8; bu t talkedlikc a girl of 15 or r 6, an d dcclined to be kissed on wishinggood-b y, on the ground that she 'never kissed gentlemen'. . . . I fear it is true that there ar e no children inAmcrica.An d the childrcn he understood best were the quiet and imagi

native ones. Th us Irene Vanbr ugh, who must have bee n goingth rough a tomhoy phase when she mct him , says:

H e had a decp !ove for children, though I am inclinedto think not such a great understanding of them. ... His

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LEW IS CARROLLgreat d elight was to teach me his G am e of Lo gic. Dare I saythis made the cvening rathcr long, when ~ a n d was play.;ing outsidc on the parade, and the moon shmmg on the sea.Th e question for an adu lt rea dcr of Lcwis Carroll, l ~ o . w e v e r is

not the author's psychological peculiarities , but the validt ty of h1sheroinc. Is Alice , that is to say , an adcqu ate symbol for wh at evcryhuman being should try to be like?1 am inclined to answcr yes. A girl of eleven (o r a boy oftwelve) who comes from a good home-a home, that wh ercshc has known both !ove and discipline and whcrc the hfe of themincl is taken seriously bu t not solemnly- can be a most remarkable creature. No longe r a b aby , sile has learned acquired a sense of her idcn tity, and ca n think logically wlthoutceasing to be imaginative. She does not know , of course, that hersense of identity has been too easily won- the gift of her p a r e ~ t srather than her own doing-and that she is soon going to lose It,first in the Sturm und Drang of adolescencc and then, when shecnters the adult social world, in anxic tics over moncy and stat.us.

Bu t one cannot meet a girl or a boy of this kind withou t feelmgthat what she or he is-by luck and momentari ly - is ":hat,. aftcrmany years and countless follies and errors, on e would hke , m theend, to become.

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