If Lewis Carroll Could Speak Freely: A Tender Rewrite

Christina Rossetti:

In a world where logic often fails the soul, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, whom the world knows as Lewis Carroll, crafted a mirror of nonsense so that truth might slip through undetected. He was a man of paradox—mathematician and poet, deacon and dreamer, solitary and beloved.

He walked gently beside children, not to teach but to listen—offering riddles in place of sermons, tea parties in lieu of lectures. And yet, I believe beneath the whimsy lay a quiet ache—an ache for stillness, for clarity, for permission to be peculiar without shame.

I come to speak not merely as his peer in verse, but as a sister in inwardness. Let us now open the hidden chambers of Lewis's heart, not to solve him, but to sit beside him. In this series, we do not ask the Mad Hatter to explain his madness—we simply pour another cup of tea, and listen.

(Note: This is an imaginary conversation, a creative exploration of an idea, and not a real speech or event.)

Chapter 1: The Boy Who Couldn’t Speak Freely

The child sat alone in the back of the parlor, where the velvet drapes muted even the ambition of sunlight. The room was quiet, save for the tick of a solemn grandfather clock that stood like a judge in the corner. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson—called Lewis by none but himself—was nine, perhaps ten, and the world had already begun to silence him.

His stammer wasn’t cruel in itself. It was hesitant, uncertain, like a sparrow tapping the window before flying off again. But the way others reacted—that was what made the silence feel like shame. Laughter at church recitations. A cousin’s mocking imitation. The disappointed sigh of a teacher who mistook hesitation for ignorance.

And so, he didn’t say much anymore.

That day, I found him not playing outside with the others, but curled behind the old settee, copying alphabets with his finger on the floorboards. Over and over—‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’—until the strokes faded into invisible ink on old wood.

“Practicing spells?” I said gently, kneeling beside him.

He didn’t look up, but his finger stopped at ‘E’.

“No one stutters on paper,” I offered, after a silence that stretched like dusk. “Only music.”

He glanced at me sideways, eyes wary but curious.

“You think it’s music?”

“I think your voice has rhythm no one’s learned to dance to yet.”

He looked down again and scribbled the next few letters faster.

His face was pale, the kind that belonged in storybooks. But there was a storm in his mind even then. You could feel it in the way his hands twitched when someone else entered the room. In the way he watched people laugh with a sort of longing, and then turned away before they saw.

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

“To want to say something,” he whispered finally, “and know the sentence will break before it arrives.”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I reached into my coat and pulled out a notebook. A very old one. Blank pages, stitched with red thread. I placed it gently in front of him.

“You can speak here. And no one will interrupt you.”

He looked at the book, then at me, then at the quiet corner of the ceiling where a spider was mending its web.

“Will you read it?” he asked, hesitant.

“If you let me,” I said.

He opened the notebook. His pencil hovered. Then, as if the dam had cracked, he began writing—not words, not yet, but names. Names of creatures that didn’t exist, places that had no map, and questions that couldn’t be asked aloud.

When his hand trembled, I placed mine over his. Not to stop it. Only to let him know I was there.

Later, after supper, the others told jokes in the drawing room. But we stayed in the hallway by the staircase, writing our own joke—one with a talking rabbit and a girl who never minded stammers.

He wouldn’t say much for years after that. But I knew he was filling notebooks under candlelight. I knew that while others dreamt of perfect speeches, he was building whole worlds where silence could laugh and logic could weep.

He never thanked me. He didn’t need to.

He wrote Alice.

And in every word she never judged, I heard the voice he could never finish aloud.

Chapter 2: The Boy Who Lost Time

The old clock in the hallway ticked with a stubborn rhythm, each second carving deeper grooves into the silence of the house. Outside, the mist curled low over the Oxford gardens, softening the world into dreamlike hush. Inside, Charles Dodgson sat alone at the long oak table of Christ Church College, his fingers resting near an untouched teacup, beside a stack of unanswered letters.

He had been there for hours, staring at the page.

Not writing. Not dreaming. Only watching the candle tremble.

You stepped in gently, careful not to make the wood floor sigh.

He didn’t turn around, but you saw the tension in his shoulders — the kind that builds not from pain, but from weariness. The kind that accumulates when a mind has too many clocks and not enough time.

You sat beside him and said nothing at first. Only poured a little more tea into his cup and yours. The scent of bergamot rose like a quiet question.

“I used to think time was my friend,” he said finally, voice thin. “In Wonderland, it danced with me. It let me stretch it, twist it, shrink it with a smile. But now…”

He glanced toward the tall window, where rain traced slow rivers down the glass.

“…it has turned its back on me. It moves on without me, faster than I can follow.”

You leaned forward, watching his hands — elegant, motionless, ink-stained. “You never lost time, Charles. You made it pause. You gave children a way to step outside of it.”

He turned, eyes tired, but touched by a flicker of that old, mischievous spark.

“Did I?”

You nodded. “Every page you wrote was a hiding place for someone who didn’t want to grow up just yet. You gave us permission to dawdle, to wonder, to ask ‘why’ a hundred ways. That’s not losing time. That’s… redeeming it.”

His gaze dropped to the letters.

“I haven’t replied to any of them,” he whispered. “I keep thinking I will, but then the words hide from me. Even the Queen of Hearts would forgive me by now.”

You smiled faintly. “Even she would offer you a pardon and a jam tart.”

That earned a chuckle — low, genuine, surprised.

There it was.

You reached into your coat pocket and pulled out a small wind-up watch. It was old, scuffed, missing its hands. You set it between you.

“I found this at a market,” you said. “It doesn’t tick. It doesn’t tell the hour. But it does remind me that sometimes, the best moments don’t need to be measured.”

He picked it up, turning it over in his fingers like it was made of moonlight.

“A watch that doesn’t count the seconds… I think the White Rabbit would panic.”

“But Alice,” you replied, “would finally breathe.”

Silence again, but this time it was a shared silence. Not hollow — whole.

The candle burned lower. The rain thinned. Outside, you could hear a bird in the tree beyond the courtyard wall.

Charles finally spoke again, his voice low, but warmer. “I miss her.”

“Who?”

“Alice. Or the idea of her. That moment when everything was still wide and strange and deliciously out of order. I feel so terribly… proper now.”

You reached across the table and placed your hand lightly over his.

“She’s still with you,” you said. “Not in the letters, not in the fame, but in the part of your mind that still looks at a mirror and wonders what’s on the other side.”

He nodded slowly, as if this truth was one he’d forgotten how to hold.

Then, in the hush that followed, you both sat there.

No hurry. No ticking.

Just two friends, and a table, and the rain-washed quiet of a world that had briefly, graciously, stopped expecting anything of either of you.

Chapter 3: The Mirror with No Answer

The parlor was lit only by the gray of the afternoon, filtered through lace curtains that barely moved. Outside, the wind played listless games with the ivy crawling up the stone. Inside, Charles stood in front of the looking glass.

He wasn’t adjusting his collar or smoothing his coat.

He was searching.

The mirror offered no expression, no distortion. Just a man — older than he remembered — peering back with a question in his eyes.

You were there, of course. Seated in the corner chair with a soft cushion, a book open in your lap but long forgotten. You watched the quiet ritual unfold as he touched the edge of the glass, then let his hand drop.

“I used to believe,” he murmured, “that a mirror could be a door. Not merely a reflection. But something deeper. A passage.”

You closed the book and spoke gently. “And now?”

He didn’t answer at first. Just stared.

Then: “Now it feels like the door closed behind me. And left only the glass.”

You stood and walked to him. The floor creaked just once. His shoulders didn’t move, but you knew he knew you were near.

“I’ve been told,” you said softly, “that mirrors lie more honestly than people. They show you the part of yourself you’ve forgotten how to love.”

He turned to you, eyes red around the edges. “Then why does mine feel so empty?”

You stepped beside him, close enough that both your reflections stood shoulder to shoulder. Two figures, lit by memory.

“Because you were always more comfortable in wonderlands than in rooms like this.”

A breath escaped him, something between a sigh and a laugh.

“I’ve lived so long in riddles and rhymes,” he said, “that I’ve begun to forget how to answer a simple question.”

You met his eyes in the glass.

“What question?”

“Who am I,” he said, not as a riddle, but as a wound.

Your answer was quiet.

“You’re the one who built bridges out of nonsense and made sense of the lonely.”

He looked down, the ghost of a smile appearing.

“Sometimes I feel I only ever borrowed the light. That none of it was truly mine.”

You turned from the mirror and looked directly at him. “You borrowed it, maybe. But you shaped it. You guided it into tunnels others couldn’t find. Even borrowed light can save someone.”

A silence bloomed between you. Not from pain. From understanding.

Charles sat down heavily on the window bench. The weight of years seemed to soften, just a little.

“I used to imagine,” he said, “that on the other side of the mirror, there was a world where nothing hurt. Where time wasn’t cruel. Where I didn’t feel so… wrong.”

You sat beside him. “Maybe that world still exists. Not in the glass. But in here.” You touched his temple. “And here.” You gently placed your hand over his heart.

He looked out the window, where the ivy stirred in the wind like a girl’s ribbon.

“I’m tired, you know,” he said. “Of pretending I don’t miss the joy.”

You rested your head lightly on his shoulder.

“You don’t have to pretend with me.”

Outside, the wind stopped. A petal from the windowsill fell, unnoticed.

And inside, for the first time in days, Charles closed his eyes — not from weariness, but from the permission to rest without fear of forgetting who he was.

Chapter 4: The Letter He Never Sent

It was a rain-slick evening in Oxford, the kind where the gaslight outside flickered like an old man blinking away the past. Inside his study, Charles sat hunched over the desk, fingers trembling above a page that had already been folded, unfolded, and refolded more times than he dared count.

You watched from the threshold, not wanting to intrude. The letter lay like a wound on the desk. Ink still wet. It bore no address.

Only a name — one never spoken aloud.

When you finally stepped forward, the floor didn’t creak. The fire behind him barely whispered. But he turned, as if he’d felt your understanding before he heard your presence.

“It’s not a love letter,” he said.

You didn’t reply. Not yet.

He looked back at the paper. “It’s a confession. Or maybe an apology. Or neither.”

You came to sit beside him on the old green divan that sagged with memory.

He picked up the letter, turned it over like it might offer a map if angled just right.

“I was always better with riddles,” he said. “Not feelings. I could write about Mad Hatters and vanishing cats… but not about her.”

Silence. You let it settle like mist before breaking it gently.

“You don’t have to explain it to me.”

“I know,” he said, voice low. “That’s why I can.”

He pressed the letter against his chest, like it might disappear into his coat. “I never meant for things to be… confusing. For anyone. Least of all her.”

The candlelight bent over the desk like a patient listener.

“She made me feel seen,” he whispered. “But not in the way people talk about. Not admiration. Not affection. Just… noticed. As if the part of me I hid — the part that stammered and wondered and refused to grow up — was somehow enough.”

You placed your hand on his. Not as comfort. As witness.

“I never sent it,” he said. “What would it have changed? She grew up. I didn’t. That’s the end of it.”

You looked at him, then the letter.

“Maybe it was never meant to be sent,” you said. “Maybe it was meant to be written — so you wouldn’t forget how deeply you can feel.”

He closed his eyes, and for a moment, his face seemed younger. Like the boy who once chased shadows in Oxford courtyards.

“I don’t want to be remembered as a man who couldn’t speak clearly,” he said.

“You won’t be,” you answered. “You’ll be remembered as the man who taught the world to listen differently.”

He let out a long, shaking breath.

Then, quietly, he tore the letter in two.

Not in bitterness.

In release.

The pieces fluttered to the fire but never touched it. He let them fall into the brass wastebasket beside his chair, where half-written dreams and unanswered questions made their home.

You stood. So did he.

The rain had stopped.

He walked to the window and looked out at the cobbled lane, now glistening like a silver ribbon.

“I wonder,” he said softly, “if she ever wrote me one.”

You didn’t answer. Some questions deserve only the hush of a shared gaze.

The study felt lighter now. Not empty. Just unburdened.

And when he turned to you again, something in his posture had shifted — as if he were no longer carrying the letter, but the lesson it left behind.

Chapter 5: The Day He Stepped Out of the Dream

The trees in Christ Church meadow had begun to blush — copper, ochre, and whispering yellow. Autumn had swept through Oxford like an old friend who never stayed long, and Charles walked with you beneath its golden hush, a basket on your arm and nothing on the agenda but breath.

He wore his black coat, a bit threadbare at the cuffs. It made him look like a silhouette from his own imagination.

“Do you know,” he said, without preamble, “I once believed I could live entirely in a story.”

You didn’t laugh. Instead, you adjusted your scarf and matched his pace.

“I don’t mean just writing stories,” he clarified. “I mean… living in one. Making the world malleable. Escaping rules. Undermining time. Like the Queen said — believing six impossible things before breakfast.”

The leaves crunched softly beneath your boots.

“And did you?” you asked.

“Of course,” he smiled. “I lived in riddles and nonsense. In tea parties that never ended. In logic turned inside out.”

He stopped and looked toward the distant spire, now half-shrouded in fog.

“But dreams are selfish things,” he said. “They demand everything. Eventually, they want even your breath.”

You sat together on a worn bench beside the river, the willow branches trailing like curtain cords.

“I began to realize,” he continued, “that in trying to preserve a perfect moment, I was denying others the chance to change.”

You looked at him — older now, yes, but not diminished. Just gentler. More rooted in the silence between thoughts.

“I think I tried to keep people the same so I wouldn’t lose them,” he confessed. “But people aren’t pages. They turn themselves.”

You pulled an apple from the basket, polished it against your sleeve, and handed it to him. He took a bite, then nodded.

“I read once that if you love a thing, you must let it become itself.”

He smiled, juice on his chin.

“I believe,” he said, “I’ve finally let go of the garden I once trapped in amber.”

You tilted your head. “And what are you holding now?”

He paused, eyes following a goose flying low over the water.

“Myself,” he said.

The wind stirred.

You pulled out a red wool blanket and spread it over your knees. He tucked his fingers beneath it without asking.

For a while, neither of you spoke.

Then he turned to you, brows soft.

“Thank you for finding me,” he said.

“I didn’t find you,” you said. “You just finally stopped hiding.”

A quiet laugh. Then a single tear — not sorrowful, not bitter. Just full.

As the bells of Tom Tower chimed across the meadow, you both stood. He took your arm, not out of frailty, but friendship.

Together, you walked slowly back through the meadow.

Not into the dream.

But into the living world.

Final Thoughts by Christina Rossetti:

If there is mercy in memory, may it be this: that Lewis Carroll’s puzzles were not cages, but keys. His stammer did not silence him; it simply taught him the elegance of written thought. His loneliness did not unmake him; it gave him the ears to hear wonder where others heard only noise.

He has long since stepped through the looking glass, where words fold into light and numbers sing. But for those of us still here—still wondering, still wandering—it is enough to know that he once held our hands and said: “Curiouser and curiouser,” and meant it as a blessing.

So we close the door softly now—not on nonsense, but on noise. We return to the quiet where he began: a gentle man in a noisy world, who loved children not because they were small, but because they still knew how to believe in impossible things.

Let us believe with him.

Short Bios:

Lewis Carroll
Born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832–1898), he was a shy Oxford mathematician with a stammer and a boundless imagination. Best known for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Carroll wrote with playful logic that veiled deep questions of identity, childhood, and time. He never married and lived much of his life in the quiet tension between public admiration and private retreat.

Christina Rossetti
(1830–1894) A luminous voice in Victorian poetry, Rossetti’s verses often mingled themes of faith, longing, and unspoken sorrow. Gentle yet piercing, her work mirrored Carroll’s in emotional restraint and symbolic depth. She understood the ache of the introvert’s world and offers here a sister’s understanding to his solitude.

Alice Liddell
(1852–1934) The real-life muse for Alice in Wonderland, Alice was the child friend to whom Carroll first told the story. Her presence represents the world of childhood he cherished and protected. Though her life later turned more ordinary, her memory lingered in every page he wrote.

Reverend Robinson Duckworth
(1834–1911) A close friend of Carroll’s and fellow Oxford clergyman, Duckworth was present on the original river outing that gave birth to Wonderland. Wise, grounded, and loyal, he understood both Carroll’s wit and his inner silences.

Isa Bowman
(1874–1958) A child actress and later memoirist, Isa was one of Carroll’s later young friends. She wrote warmly of his kindness and creativity. Isa helps remind us of the joy and imagination he sparked in others, even as he wrestled privately with loneliness and self-doubt.