Pricing up some new/olde books for the shop the other day, my attention was diverted from my task by three volumes in separate deliveries. I put them aside to delve into later.
The first caught my eye as you know I love to read anything by Anne Thackeray-Ritchie. This was a volume of Thackeray's works with a Biographical introduction by his daughter.
When I started to read 'The Roundabout Papers' (which were produced in 1861 when Thackeray was not content simply to be the Editor of the magazine,) something Carrollian seemed to be about.
Reading Anne's biography I found that these papers were autiobiographical- and had already read and remembered a journey that Anne had written about in her childhood to Oxford.
It appears from the text, and Dodgson's diary at the time- that Thackeray is referring to the reception at Oxford for him in 1857. Is the Polymath he is referring to- our Dodgson?
A little later he ascribes two similar characters as 'Tweedledumski, and Tweedlestein'.
Here they are-
First, Stuart Collingwood - The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll;
A note in Mr. Dodgson's Journal, May 9, 1857, describes his introduction to Thackeray:—
I breakfasted this morning with Fowler of Lincoln to meet Thackeray (the author), who delivered his lecture on George III. in Oxford last night. I was much pleased with what I saw of him; his manner is simple and unaffected; he shows no anxiety to shine in conversation, though full of fun and anecdote when drawn out. He seemed delighted with the reception he had met with last night: the undergraduates seem to have behaved with most unusual moderation.
And second;
SMALL-BEER CHRONICLE.
‘Not long since, at a certain banquet, I had the good fortune to sit by Doctor Polymathesis, who knows everything, and who, about the time when the claret made its appearance, mentioned that old dictum of the grumbling Oxford Don, that "ALL CLARET would be port if it could!" Imbibing a bumper of one or the other not ungratefully, I thought to myself, "Here surely, Mr. Roundabout, is a good text for one of your reverence's sermons." Let us apply to the human race, dear brethren, what is here said of the vintages of Portugal and Gascony, and we shall have no difficulty in perceiving how many clarets aspire to be ports in their way; how most men and women of our acquaintance, how we ourselves, are Aquitanians giving ourselves Lusitanian airs; how we wish to have credit for being stronger, braver, more beautiful, more worthy than we really are.’
........
‘Ask Tweedledumski his opinion of Tweedledeestein's performance. "A quack, my tear sir! an ignoramus, I geef you my vort? He gombose an opera! He is not fit to make dance a bear!" Ask Paddington and Buckminster, those two "swells" of fashion, what they think of each other? They are notorious ordinaire. You and I remember when they passed for very small wine, and now how high and mighty they have become.’
The Roundabout Papers ( Cornhill Magazine from 1860/61 published 1863)
So, dear Em, could Mr Thackeray- as Mr Roundabout- be having a parody-pop at our Dodgson's personality bent for social-climbing? If so, it would not have escaped our wide-reading Don.
If so, would he have recognised the slight? Most probably, I think.
This example at the least, brings to our attention, the fashion for having a go at peers in print was the thing in the mid-Victorian social scene.
Dodgson's legacy is a children's masterpiece that has never been out of print. Something his parodying peers have not equalled.
Game, set and match to Carroll.
We like that idea, don't we Em!
See you soon,
your ever-loving Grandmother, GiGi xxx
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