Part 3 (2/2)

During the Long Vacation he visited the Great Exhibition, and wrote his sister Elizabeth a long account of what he had seen:--

I think the first iet inside is one of bewilderment It looks like a sort of fairyland As far as you can look in any direction, you see nothing but pillars hung about with shawls, carpets, &c, with long avenues of statues, fountains, canopies, etc, etc, etc The first thing to be seen on entering is the Crystal Fountain, a uess, co down jets of water from basin to basin; this is in the middle of the centre nave, and from it you can look down to either end, and up both transepts The centre of the naveline of colossal statues, sonificent The one considered the finest, I believe, is the Aer has fastened on the neck of the horse in front You have to go to one side to see her face, and the other to see the horse's The horse's face is really wonderful, expressing terror and pain so exactly, that you alenious pieces of mechanis and hopping from branch to branch exactly like life The bird jumps across, turns round on the other branch, so as to face back again, settles its head and neck, and then in a fewat the foot of the tree trying to eat a beetle is rather a failure; it never succeeds in getting its head more than a quarter of an inch down, and that in uncoo to the Royal Academy, so must stop: as the subject is quite inexhaustible, there is no hope of ever coular finish

On November 1st he won a Boulter scholarshi+p, and at the end of the following year obtained First Class Honours in Mathematics and a Second in Classical Moderations On Christmas Eve he was made a Student on Dr Pusey's nomination, for at that time the Dean and Canons nominated to Studentshi+ps by turn The only conditions on which these old Studentshi+ps were held were that the Student should remain unmarried, and should proceed to Holy Orders No statute precisely defined as expected of theely left to their own discretion

The eight Students at the bottoht who had been no on weekly papers called ”the Bills,” the attendance at e this duty alected, they were all punished This long-defunct custom explains an entry in Lewis Carroll's Diary for October 15, 1853, ”Found I had got the prickbills two hundred lines apiece, by not pricking in in the ly at first

Another reference to College impositions occurs further on in his Diary, at a time when he was a Lecturer: ”Spoke to the Dean about F--, who has brought an i, after being expressly told to write it hi is an extract fro nominated for the Studentshi+p:--

My dearest Charles,--The feelings of thankfulness and delight hich I have read your letter just received, I must leave to _your conception_; for they are, I assure you, beyond _my expression_; and your affectionate heart will derive no s of the joy which you have occasioned to me, and to all the circle of your horateful as I am to my old friend Dr Pusey for what he has done, I cannot desire stronger evidence than his oords of the fact that you have _won_, and on, this honour for _yourself_, and that it is bestowed as a matter of _justice_ to _you_, and not of _kindness_ to _ extracts froo in answer to one from me, in which I distinctly told him that I neither asked nor expected that he should serve me in this matter, unless my son should fairly reach the standard of ulated In reply he says--

”I thank you for the way in which you put the application to iven a Studentshi+p to any friend of e I have passed by or declined the sons of those to whom I was personally indebted for kindness I can only say that I shall have _very great_ pleasure, if circumstances permit me to no he says--

”I have great pleasure in telling you that I have been enabled to recommend your son for a Studentshi+p this Christmas It must be so much more satisfactory to you that he should be nominated thus, in consequence of the recoht me to-day five naht your son on the whole the e It has been very satisfactory to hear of your son's uniforood conduct”

The last clause is a parallel to your own report, and I alad that you should have had so soon an evidence so substantial of the truth of what I have so often inculcated, that it is the ”steady, painstaking, likely-to-do-good” ainst those who now and then give a brilliant flash and, as Shakespeare says, ”straight are cold again”

[Illustration: Archdeacon Dodgson]

In 1853 Archdeacon Dodgson was collated and installed as one of the Canons of Ripon Cathedral This appointment necessitated a residence of three months in every year at Ripon, where Dr Erskine was then Dean A certain Miss Anderson, who used to stay at the Deanery, had very remarkable ”clairvoyant” powers; she was able--it was averred--bysome words written by a person unknown to her, to describe his or her character

In this way, at what precise date is uncertain, she dictated the following description of Lewis Carroll: ”Very clever head; a great deal of nuood actor; diffident; rather shy in general society; coreat deal of concentration; very affectionate; a great deal of wit and humour; not ; i poetry; _ree that this was, at any rate, a reley, afterwards Pri character endeared him to the Archdeacon and his family, as to every one else who saw much of him He was one of the few men whose faces can truly be called _beautiful_; it was a veil through which a soul, all gentleness and truth, shone brightly

In the early part of 1854 Mr Dodgson was reading hard for ”Greats”

For the last three weeks before the exa the whole night before the _viva voce_ over his books But philosophy and history were not very congenial subjects to him, and when the list was published his name was only in the third class

[Illustration: Archbishop Longley]

He spent the Long Vacation at Whitby, reading Matheood fruit, for in October he obtained First Class Honours in the Final Matheratulated on various subjects,” he writes; ”there seems to be no end of it If I had shot the Dean I could hardly have had more said about it”

In another letter dated December 13th, he says:

Enclosed you will find a list which I expect you to rejoice over considerably; it will take me more than a day to believe it, I expect--I feel at present very like a child with a new toy, but I daresay I shall be tired of it soon, and wish to be Pope of Rome next I have just been to Mr

Price to see how I did in the papers, and the result will I hope be gratifying to you The folloere the sums total for each in the First Class, as nearly as I can reson279 Bosanquet261 Cookson254 Fowler225 Ranken213