The Snark’s Significance by Henry Holiday 128 (Tan, 29, 1898. THE SNARK’S SIGNIFICANCE. I. Mvor fruitless speculation has been spent over supposed hidden meanings in Lewis Carroll’s Hunting of the Snark. Theinclina- tion to search for these wasstrictly natural, though the search was destined to fail. It is possible that the author was half- consciously laying a trap, so readily did he take to the inventing of puzzles and things enigmatic; but to those who knew the man, or who have divined him correctly through his writings, the explanation is fairly simple. Mr. Dodgson had a mathematical, a logical, and a philosophical mind ; and when these qualities are united to a love of the grotesque, the resultant fancies are sure to have a quite peculiar charm, a charm so much the greater because its source is subtle and eludes all attempts to grasp it. Some- times he seems to revel in ideas which are not merely illogical but anti-logical, as where the Bellman supplies his crew with charts of the ocean in which the land is omitted for the sake of simplicity, and “north poles and equators, tropics, zones and meridian lines”? are rejected because ‘“‘they are merely conventional signs.’”’ Or, as in the Barrister’s dream, where the Pig, being charged with deserting his sty, the Snark pleads an alibi in mitigation. At other times, when the nonsense seems most exuberant, we find an underlying order, a method in the madness, which makes us feel that even when he gives Fancy the rein the jade knows that the firm hand is there and there is no risk of a spill, such as seems to be the fate of so many nonsense- writers, if we may judge by the average burlesques of the day. Take ‘‘ Jabberwocky,” for instance. The very words are unknown to any language, ancient or modern; but they are so valuable that we have adopted |} them and translated them into most lan- Jan. 29, - 1898, ] __.THE ACADEMY. _ a ene ee nee eee 199 guages, ancient and modern. What should exactly fitted. Most peoplewill have noticed several games of ‘Go-bang’ on them aireudy. we do without “chortle,” ‘ uffish,” *‘ beam- this peculiarity of Lewis Carroll’s writings. (I need hardly remark that they serve just as ish,” “galumphing,” and the rest? ‘The In the thick of the great miners’ strike of well or that, or for draughts, as they do for page looks, when weopenit, likethe wander- 1893 I sent to the Westminster Gazette chess. ings of one insane; but as we read wefind @ quotation from Alice in Wonderland Now for another bit of designing, if you we have a work of creative genius, and that don’t mind undertaking it. Macmillan writes about a mine; not a coal-mine, it is true, me word that the gorgeous cover will cost our language is enriched as to its vocabulary. but amustard-mine. Alice having hazarded Whether the humour consists chiefly in ls 4d.acopy! Whereas we can’t really afford the suggestion that mustard is a mineral, more than dd. or 6d., as we must not charge the conscious defiance oflogic by a logical the Duchess tells her that she has a large more than 3s. for the book. Myidea is this, mind,or in the half-unconscious control by mustard-mine on her estate, and adds, “The to have @ simpler cover for the 3s. copies, that logical mind of its lively aud grotesque moral of that is—the more there is of mine which will, no doubt, be the ones usually sold, fancies, in either case the charm arises from the less there is of yours”; which goes to but to offer the gorgeous covers also at 4s., which the author’s well-ordered mind; and we the root of the whole system of commercial will be bought by the rich and these who wish need not be surprised if the feeling that competition, and,was marvellously apt when to give them as presents. Whut I want you this is so leads many to look for some to do is to take ‘ Alice’ as a guide, and landowners were struggling for their design covers requiring about the same amount hidden purpose in his writings. royalties, mine-owners for their profits, rail- The real origin of The Hunting of the of guld, or, better, a little less. As ‘ Alice’ way companies for cheap fuel, and miners and the ‘ Looking-Glass’ have both got Snark is very singular. Mr. Dodgson was for wages; each for ‘‘moum” against grotesque faces outside, I should like these to walking alone one evening, whenthe words, 66 tuum,”? ; be pretty, as a contrast, and I don’t think we ‘‘For the Snark was a Boojum, you see,” In our correspondence about the illustra- can do better than to take the head of ‘ Hope’ came spontaneously into his head, and the tions, the coherence and consistency of the for thefirst side, and ‘Care’ for the second ; oem was written up to them. I have nonsense on its own nonsensical understand- and, as these are associated with ‘forks’ and heard it said that Wagner began ‘‘ The Ring ing often became prominent. One of the ‘thimbles’ in the poem, what do you think of the Nibelungs” by writing Siegfried’s of surrounding them, one with a border of first three I had to do was the disappearance interlaced forks, the other with a shower of ‘‘Funeral March,” which certainly contains of the Baker, and I not unnaturally invented thimbles? And what do youthink of putting the most important motives in the work, and a Boojum. Mr. Dodgson wrote that it was @ bell at each corner of the cover, instead of a that the rest of the trilogy, or tetralogy, a delightful monster, but that it was inad- single line? The only thing to secureis that the was developed out of it; but as this great missible. All his descriptions of the total amount of gold required shall be rather work, though finished after the publication Boojum were quite unimaginable, and he less than on the cover of ‘ Alice.’ All these are merely suggestions : you will be of Lhe Hunting of the Snark (1876), was wanted the creature to remain so. I assented, certainly begun beforeit, it is scarcely open a far better judge of the matter than I can be, of course, though reluctant to dismiss what and perhaps may think of some quite different, to me to maintain that the great German I am still confident is an accurate repre- master of musical drama plagiarised in his and better, design.—Yours ever truly, sentation. I hope that some future Darwin, L. Dopason, methods from our distinguished humorist. in a new Beagle, will find the beast, or The Chestnuts, Guildford, Jan. 15, 1876.” Starting in this way, our author wrote its remains; if he does, I know he will three stanzas of his poem (or “fits” of his confirm my drawing. “agony,” as he called them), and asked if When sent Mr. Dodgson the sketch of I I would design three illustrations to them, the hunting, in which I had personified IT. explaining that the composition would some Hope and Care— Human perversity has identified the Snark day be introduced in a book he was con- with everything possible and templating; but as this latter would ‘‘ They sought it with thimbles, they sought it impossible. certainly There exist people who, led away by not be ready for a considerable time, with care, the he They pursued it with forks and hope ”—— exquisite demonstration given to thought of printing the poem for the private Butcher by the Beaver, have seen in it circulation in the first instance. hile I he wrote that he admired the figures, but a treatise on pure mathematics. Others was making sketches for these illustrations, that they interfered with the point, which will have it that the Bellman he sent me a fourth “ fit,” asking for is only another consisted in the mixing up of two meanings an Arctic explorer and the Snark the drawing; shortly after came a fifth “fit,” of the word “with.” replied,‘ Precisely, with @ similar request, North Pole; while a few, basing their and this was followed and I intended to add a third—‘in com- conjecture on the fact that the Barrister by a sixth, seventh, and eighth. His mind pany with’—and so develop the point.” bears, in his portrait, not being occupied with any an extraordinary other book at This view he cordially accepted, and the resemblance to the late Dr. Kenealy, the time, this theme seemed continually to ladies were admitted. maintain be suggesting that the Snark is the Tichborne new developments; and having In the copy bound in vellum which he Claimant. extended the ‘“‘agony”’ In fact, each reader finds the thus far beyond his gave me the dedication runs: “ Presented Snark that he deserves. My own is Fortune, original intentions, Mr. Dodgson decided to to Henry Holiday, most patient of artists, publish it at once and I am always lost in astonishmentat the as an independent work, by Charles L. Dodgson, most exacting, but people who think it can be anything else. without waiting for Sylvie and Bruno, of not most ungrateful of authors, March 29, which it was to have formed a feature. Observe the things with which its capture 1876,” was attempted. Why, the mere mention of I rather regretted the extension, as it The above instance will show that though railway shares and soap is sufficient of itself seemed to me to involve a disproportion he justly desired to see his meanings pre- between the to establish my thesis.