Books: White-Stone Days

(2 of 3)

As he grew older, Dodgson learned the art of finding or creating "spirits of peace" that alleviated earthly wretchedness. Alice in Wonderland is the bright vision by which he is known, but it is a mere fragment of the whole—a solitary chip off the imagination of a man who built wonderlands in every spare moment. First in his fancy came the new and magic world of photography, and only the large shadow thrown by Lewis Carroll has prevented the Rev. Mr. Dodgson from being famed as one of the greatest of early photographers. He was also fascinated by anagrams, cipher writing, riddles, word games, puns, fantastic figures and puzzles. He loved to stir up disagreement among mathematicians with such fanciful posers as his "Problem of the

Monkey and the Weight."-And his practical inventions included a plan for simplifying money orders, "a new and better rule for Lawn Tennis," a new form of backgammon, a folder for postage stamps. He was delighted to sit up "till 4 a.m., over a tempting problem sent me from New York, 'to find three equal rational-sided right-angled triangles' ... I found two . . . but could not find three."

Such activities gave him many happy days: When he was simply too happy for words, he would do as the Romans did and write in his diary: "I mark this day with a white stone, "t In so far as these Diaries cover his life (they have been shortened, and several volumes are lost), they show that Bachelor Dodgson was unspeakably happy on exactly 27 days. On 23 of these he had spent part or most of the day among the little girls to whom "Lewis Carroll" was dedicated.

Psychologists have had a lot to say about this Dodgsonian kink. What the Diaries make clear is that immature girls were, to Dodgson, the nearest thing on earth to angelic "spirits of peace." It is easy to imagine his indignation when, on taking a great fancy to little Alice Liddell and her sisters (daughters of the dean of his own college, Christ Church), he was accused by gossips of chasing "the governess. Miss Prickett."

Bachelor's Bliss. Dodgson cultivated little girls as methodically as he worked out mathematical puzzles. Sometimes he met them in the homes of friends, often he picked them up in parks and on beaches. If he liked them, he went straight to their mothers, bowed politely and asked permission to take them for walks or to pantomimes. Then he began "taming" them, i.e., drawing them into intimate friendship. His Diaries record the "taming" of scores of little girls, a few of whom created the rare "whitestone" days in the life of the visionary mathematician. But he seems to have preferred quantity to quality. In 1877 he records and cites by name and nickname a record haul—35 tamed or half-tamed little girls in the course of one short summer holiday. He also records the most shocking blunder of his life—chastely kissing little "Atty" Owen, a "child" who turned out to be 17. "Mrs. Owen treats the matter quite seriously! She adds, 'We shall take care it does not recur.' "