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On Today’s Menu:
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** Share some treacle tarts for the birthday of a beloved author of literary inanity.
** Linger to smile over a few of my childhood-into-girlhood diary entries.
** Savor a last ½ cup wondering over an invention for writing in the dark.
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STT-04
First Sip:
“The time has come,”
the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes – and ships –
and sealing wax –
Of cabbages and kings –
Of why the sea is boiling hot –
And whether pigs have wings.”
– Lewis Carroll
.
Slice of Cake:
Charles Dodgson was a mathematician and an Anglican deacon;
He taught at Christ Church, Oxford;
And he was a photographer.
But most famously, Dodgson was a writer.
Lewis Carroll in 1857
an albumen print photo by Lewis Carroll 1
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!
— from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
by Lewis Carroll 2
Under the pen name Lewis Carroll,
he wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865
(which includes the song Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat).
And he wrote Through the Looking Glass in 1871,
(which includes the poem Jabberwocky).
Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
the frumious Bandersnatch!
— from Through the Looking Glass
by Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll was also a prolific diarist.
He kept a diary throughout his life.
Starting at age 10.
His early diaries are lost. But nine later volumes still exist.
These cover over 40 years—starting when Lewis Carroll was 23 years old,
and continuing until a few weeks before he died.
I was particularly interested in his 12th (and penultimate) notebook—
the journal he kept when he was in his 50s and 60s.
As the Lewis Carroll Society tells it, this was a time of
intense creative activity for him:
He invented many puzzles and games—
including an early version of Scrabble. (!)
by Michelle Canepa
During this time, Lewis Carroll had a big idea:
He wanted to make Alice into a musical for the stage.
Although an early attempt failed—
he approached Gilbert & Sullivan to produce his musical,
but Arthur Sullivan turned him down—
Carroll ultimately succeeded with what he called
his “musical dream play.”
Alice in Wonderland, the Musical opened
on London’s West End in 1886.
It got rave reviews and became a popular and frequent production—
as well as a Christmas tradition—for the next 40 years.
.
Happy 187th Birthday
** Lewis Carroll **
– born on January 27, 1832
in Cheshire, England
.
Linger Awhile:
It is all right to wallow in one’s journal;
it is a way of getting rid of self-pity
and self-indulgence and self-centeredness.
What we work out in our journals
we don’t take out on family and friends.
– Madeleine L’Engle
in her introduction to
A Grief Observed by C.S.Lewis
I’ve been thinking this week about diaries—
and why we keep them.
Like Lewis Carroll, I have kept journals throughout my life.
Like Lewis Carroll, I usually prefer plain notebooks. And…
Like Lewis Carroll, I started early.
My first three diaries are from: Grade School, High School, and my gap year before starting college.
Here are just a few entries from each—misspellings and all!
GRADE SCHOOL
I was given a diary for my 9th birthday and starting writing in it that day.
I kept it up—more off than on—for the next 3 years.
(There are maybe two dozen entries total.)
October 14, 1970
It’s my birthday today.
I got this diary, some stationary, a cup of flowers, a necklace, and two pictures.
I wore my necklace to school and Julie put it on and when I asked for it I don’t know
if she gave it to me or not. My mom said if she has them to go get them.
But Julie went for shots.
I thought I might have a surprise party, but I didn’t.
Everyone at school was trying to spank me.
My mom gave me a treat at lunch.
She gave me white bread on my sandwich, cookies,
a ho-ho, and a napkin that says, “Happy Birthday, Kelly.”
October 15, 1970
My necklace was on Julie’s chair.
She said that she gave it to me but I put it down because
Jon started to spank me and I had to run. So I set it down on her desk and
it fell on her chair, because our desks are slanted.
Yesterday I got a tea set with two plates, two sausers, two cups, two spoons, and a tea pot.
I went over to Lisa’s house with Mary. But Lisa acted as if I wasn’t there.
And it started to rain so I left
(I wouldn’t have had the nerve to go if it hadn’t of started).
Now it’s hailing!
I wrote about happy days, angry days, and days that
at least “started out regular.”
June 3, 1971
Today was a regular Saturday. At least it started out regular.
But I was full of pancakes. And I walked in our messy room.
It was then it hit me. What a mess!!!
I desided when I get married I’m going to live in a small airy cottage.
I’ll only have about two children. And I’m going to keep it clean!
September 10, 1972
I slept over Josie’s house last night. We we’re alittle late for church…
After dinner I didn’t want any pineapple with ice cream in it
cause I don’t like the ice cream
and everybody made a big thing about it and I got mad.
So I wasn’t in a good mood and Me, Mary, & Steve we’re playing frezbee
& I accidentaly made mary land on her hurt knee
and I understand her being mad and I said I was sorry
but then she hit me real hard on the back!
So I kiked her. Not hard but mom balled me out!
She only tell Mary not to do that. I Got Real Mad!
January 23, 1973
We got a dishwasher now. It’s a big help.
Starting 29th we have ½ of a hour less school time. We get out at 3:00.
We don’t have to be at Caticism till 3:30. Now I can go home first.
We are going up to Oregon Friday morning till Sunday.
YEAH!!!!
(Oregon meant visiting my baby nephew.)
The very last entry is on New Year’s Eve.
December 31, 1973
We are having a kinda party. My 1st New Years Party. Just family…
We are roasting marshmellows & popping corn tonight
HIGH SCHOOL
I started my high school diary when I was 15.
My main goal seemed to be self-improvement.
(Mainly through organizing.)
November 5, 1976
today I guess is the beginning of an organized life.
and hope for the future
November 8, 1976 (Monday)
• hand in book report & TV report
• be twenty minutes early in the morning
• check library for book
• check on desert for tomorrow
• straighten livingroom
handed in all reports.
hope I can make up the 20pts for turning the book report in late.
invited Marcie for dinner tomorrow
Tuesdays were my day to make dinner for my family.
(I assume that’s what the “desert” was for.)
January 3, 1977
• organize folders
• write history book report
• start macrame
I never did learn macramé.
May 26, 1977
• shopping (with list and money)
• go to Mom’s office (with chocolate)
• write up—and practice book report!
• take green pants to Kathy
• ask Lois about Biology
By the next Fall, I’d abandoned the to-do lists!
With a new school year starting, I was in a free-flow mode.
Now it was my feelings I was thinking of.
And they were a lot harder to organize!
I wrote of angst, of being grateful for my friends—
and quite a bit about boys—plus the thrill of getting
a part in the school play.
February 2, 1978
I guess when I asked for a boyfriend
it was not for love’s sake alone and certainly not because I was lonely
but because I was bored. Well I’m not bored any longer!
Getting this part is much more fun than having a boyfriend!!
I’m really glad Bobby’s playing my husband. I’ve always loved the kid
& I like being around him (good for the ego—but more than that).
It’s great to be working with Cullen again—this play will probably be
somewhat more of a success than the last we did together…
March 17, 1978
It could be just my lack of sleep that is
making me feel strange. Life has taken on a dream-like quality…
Between the CSF carnation things, and
being a treasurer for lit club and volleyball, I’m being run “amok.”
And then there’s this date thing…
April 5, 1978
If I’m supposed to be able to have
a crush on only one person at a time—I’m failing miserably.
And yet—I don’t want any more than one to turn into something special.
I just don’t care which one.
I guess I’m just putting different faces
on the same basic personality…
This diary ends at the end of high school—
with me moving away from my hometown.
June 24, 1979
It’s a good feeling to wrap up one phase of your life and begin a new one.
Today I’m thinking of how I’ll tie loose ends, gather the things that
I will carry over and continue to us and pack away or throw out the extra.
A few months later, though,
I came back to this book for one last entry.
November 20, 1979
…In this book as I read over it
…three years almost exactly. I could have written the introduction yesterday—
my goals, my interests are still quite similar.
Looking back always makes me feel good.
…Funny that—in every low point in my life—the panic button
seems to be: ORGANIZE.
It’s survival.
I say: this can’t go on. From now on, every day I’ll…
GAP YEAR
For the year between high school and college,
I moved to San Francisco, then to Oregon.
I started a new journal in a blank book with a plaid cover.
Writing in it helped me think about the changes that
came with becoming an adult.
I was working toward my dream;
and my dream was college.
30 September 1979
And now I’m on a staircase—
I am no longer where I was nor yet where I will be:
both places demand my thoughts—but the stairway itself,
though steadily passing, is also worthy of thought.
This book is the journal of my passage on this staircase.
18 November 1979
There is an endless fascination in how daily things,
things you can see so clearly now, will become pieces of memory.
I can see many such once-daily things fading before my mind’s eye,
just as I know today’s have a similar fate.
And that dream, for me, came true.
10 September 1980
College college. I’m really going, it’s happening, it’s real.
.
“Half Cup More”
Reading one of Lewis Carrol’s later diaries,
I was very charmed by an invention that he came up with.
He called it a Nyctograph and it allows a person to write in the dark.
Here’s how Carroll explains his Nyctograph to The Lady magazine…
Any one who has tried, as I have often done,
the process of getting out of bed at 2 a.m. in a winter night,
lighting a candle, and recording some happy thought
which would probably be otherwise forgotten, will agree with me:
It entails much discomfort.
All I have now to do,
if I wake and think of something I wish to record,
is to draw from under the pillow… my Nyctograph,
Write a few lines, or even a few pages,
without even putting the hands outside the bed-clothes,
replace the book, and go to sleep again.
— Lewis Carroll in a letter
to The Lady magazine, 1891
.
Take-Away Box
Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!” said Alice.
And she told her sister, as well as she could remember them,
all these strange Adventures of hers…
Her sister kissed her, and said, “It was
a curious dream, dear, certainly,
but now run in to your tea, it’s getting late.”
So Alice got up and ran off,
thinking while she ran, as well she might,
what a wonderful dream it had been.
But her sister sat still just as she left her,
leaning her head on her hand, watching the setting sun,
and thinking of little Alice…
She pictured to herself how
this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time,
be herself a grown woman; and
how she would…gather about her other little children,
and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale.
– from the last pages of
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
by Lewis Carroll
.
Thank you for reading!
— Kelly J Hardesty
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leave me note in the comments box.
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Go ahead & scroll down to the end—where you can
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You Can Read More…
notes & footnotes
————————-
1.
Photo of Lewis Carroll by Lewis Carroll
albumen print, circa 1857
NPG P7(26) © National Portrait Gallery, London
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/use-this-image.php?mkey=mw01888
Although called a self-portrait,
it was probably taken by a fellow students named Reginald Southey,
who encouraged Carroll’s early interest in photography.
according to the National Portrait Gallery, London.
2.
This verse was sung by the Hatter
at the Mad Tea Party. And this is where I got
the name sky-t-try…
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea tray in the sky.
— from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
by Lewis Carroll
3.
Information about Lewis Carroll’s diary
is from U.K. Lewis Carroll Society,
who quote biographer Stuart Dodgson Colling.
https://lewiscarrollsociety.org.uk/
4.
Thank you to the blogger
Uncle John on Portable Press
for this photo & explanation of the Nyctograph
(which, as Uncle John notes:
“doesn’t sound like it’s simpler than finding a candle and a quill.”)
Lewis Carroll’s Nyctograph consisted of
two rows of eight boxes cut out of thick cardstock.
Then he developed and memorized a complicated code
compiled of dashes and dots to mimic the alphabet,
using the boxes as a guide.
– Uncle John
https://www.portablepress.com/blog/2016/08/3-gadgets-invented-famous-writers/
STT-04
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sky-t-tray.us
© Kelly J Hardesty 2026