Miss Moberly had then the independent attitude towards learning which is possessed by the natural scholar who has chosen for himself the intellectual pastures in which he will browse; yet she was well aware of the meaning of scholastic discipline. Her father had been Head Master of Winchester, and his years there must have made a considerable impress on his character. He bequeathed to all his family a touch of the schoolmaster. Miss Moberly had it, and she seemed at once to be a decisive head, and a docile subordinate. She ruled her own college, but she was all the time rather frightened of Miss Wordsworth, of a body which sounded to me like the ‘ Heptagonal Council’, and of the kind and pernickety dons who had accepted us as pupils. She constantly warned us of the pitfalls surrounding our paths, as we trod delicately on the stepping-stones she laid down to guide us among the fads and prejudices of these fastidious autocrats.
Miss Moberly alone made St. Hugh’s worth while. She was a very exciting head of a college. Music had been her first love, and at St. Hugh’s she liked nothing better than to collect a string band or a chorus from among the students, and to work away at some rather difficult music. She was a very good conductor, and also never minded the drudgery of teaching. Unforgettable too are her Sunday evening lectures on the ‘ Book of the Revelation’. She had high spiritual insight, and she also was saturated with Hebrew symbolism, and knew a good deal of medieval history. All of this was blended in those lectures.
At St. Hugh’s I gained Miss Moberly as a friend to the end of her life, and she allowed me to write the introduction to the final edition of ‘An Adventure’, the little book in which she related her amazing experience at the Trianon. It was this ‘adventure’ which made her known to a far wider circle than would otherwise have heard of her; and, oddly enough, for years she objected to the subject’s being mentioned in her presence. The clairvoyante and the schoolmaster in her did not agree, and she disliked ‘spiritualistic’ experiences. The book for years had a sort of pseudo-anonymity, and was talked of as the ‘Ghost Story of those two Governesses’— which—for anyone who knew her—did not suggest Miss Moberly at all. When she at last consented to admit that she had been the writer, she was unexpectedly pleased with the renewed appreciation which the book received now it was learnt that its writer was so responsible a person.
When I was at Oxford, Lewis Carroll was still living in the rooms in Tom Quad which he had occupied when my father was at Christ Church. He sometimes invited me to dinner. His position in Oxford was such that in his case alone, our rigid rule of chaperonage was waived. If our authorities were sticklers for chaperons, he was equally a stickler for none.
‘I only like a tête-à-tête dinner,’ he said. ‘And if you don’t come alone, you shan’t come at all.’
Miss Moberly gave in, saying with her gay smile: ‘Once more, we must make a virtue of necessity.’
Mr. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll’s real name) had instituted a fixed technique for his dinner parties. Dinner was at seven, and at half-past six, he always appeared at St. Hugh’s to walk with me to Christ Church. The walk took exactly half an hour, and at the end of the evening, my host timed our return to St. Hugh’s to synchronize with the ringing of the ten-thirty bell in the passages. He left me at the door precisely at that moment, to show his sincere respect for college rules so long as he approved of what they laid down. He used to say that those walks were the best part of his dinner parties. The food was always the same. Only two courses—first, some very well-cooked mutton chops, and then, meringues. A glass or two of port followed, and, an hour after dinner, we had tea. Mr. Dodgson never spoke of Alice in Wonderland; but there were three other things in his life of which he seemed really proud. He spoke of them every time we had dinner together. They were his kettle, his logic, and his photographs.
At eight-forty-five in the evening, he always set about boiling the water for our tea, and Lewis Carroll was very like other old people, in that the same thing always reminded him of the same story. He now told the story of his invention. It appeared that he had noticed that most people either burnt their hands on kettles, or used kettle-holders, which were always dirty, and often lost. He had got a blacksmith to attach to his own kettle a long handle like that on a saucepan, and with this he always lifted his kettle off the fire, and filled the teapot. He boasted about this in a most ingenuous manner. Then he was always in the middle of an argument with the university
