Part 16 (1/2)

”Rhyme? and Reason?” appeared at Christmas; the dedicatory verses, inscribed ”To a dear child: in olden summer hours and whispers of a summer sea,” were addressed to a little friend of the author's, Miss Gertrude Chataway One of the ,” a delicious parody of Longfellow's ”Hiawatha” ”In an age of imitation,” says Lewis Carroll, in a note at the head, ”I can clai what is known to be so easy” It is not every one who has read this note who has observed that it is really in the same metre as the poem below it

Another excellent parody, ”Atalanta in Camden-Town,” exactly hit off the style of that poet who stands alone and unapproached ason used to call ”the greatest living e”

”Fainal researchers” who pant for ”endowment,” was an attack upon the Vivisectionists,

Who preach of Justice--plead with tears That Love and Mercy should abound-- Whileof some tortured hound

Lewis Carroll thus addresses thery wails-- ”Reward us, ere we think or write!

Without your gold e fails To sate the swinish appetite!”

And, where great Plato paced serene, Or Newton paused istful eye, Rush to the chase with hoofs unclean And Babel-clamour of the stye!

Be yours the pay: be theirs the praise: We will not rob the the fame: They toiled not for reward nor thanks: Their cheeks are hot with honest sha syne” the author sent a copy of his book to Mrs

Hargreaves (Miss Alice Liddell), accompanied by a short note

Christ Church, _Decereaves,--Perhaps the shortest day in the year is not _quite_ thedreamy suives you half as much pleasure to receive as it doesyou all happiness at this happy season, I ainning of 1884 was chiefly occupied in Common Room business

The Curatorshi+p seehtier responsibilities, it involved the care of the Common Room Cat! In this case the ”care” ultimately killed the cat--but not until it had passed the span of life usually allotted to those animals, and beyond which their further existence is equally a nuisance to themselves and to every one else As to the best way of ”terson consulted two surgeons, one of as Sir Jaet I do not knohat ave no pain to pussy's nerves, and as little as possible to her feelings

On March 11th there was a debate in Congregation on the proposed admission of women to some of the Honour Schools at Oxford This was one of thethe debate he ainst the proposal, on the score of the injury to health which it would inflict upon the girl-undergraduates

Later in the month he and the Rev EF Sa various friends, notably the Rev FH Atkinson, an old College friend of Mr Dodgson's, who had helped hie Rhymes_ I quote a few lines fro his views on matrimony:--

So you have been for twelve years a married man, while I am still a lonely old bachelor! And e life is by no h er

A note in his Diary on May 5th shows one of the changes in his way of life which advancing years forced him tooff, on the ground that, inThis is quite a new departure I ) to bandying sive does not look e!

I called on Mrs M-- She was out; and only one ate to answer the bell, found the door blown shut on her return The poor thing seeot a ot in at the drawing-roo a friend's house!

Oddly enough, al happened to him in 1888: ”The door blew shut, with the ot the cook of the next house to let h their preot over the wall between the two back-yards”

In July there appeared an article in the _St James's Gazette_ on the subject of ”Parliason It was a subject in which he was much interested, and a few years before he had contributed a long letter on the ”Purity of Elections” to the saive both in full; as things are, a summary and a few extracts are all I dare attereat nureat nu side, and whose votes are chiefly influenced by that consideration The ballot-box has made it practically i to be the winning side, but after the first few days of a general election, one side or the other has generally got a e, and a weak-kneed constituency is sorely tempted to swell the tide of victory

But this is not all The evil extends further than to the single constituency; nay, it extends further than to a single general election; it constitutes a feature in our national history; it is darkly oeneral elections are conducted as at present we shall be liable to oscillations of political power, like those of 1874 and 1880, but of ever-increasing violence--one Parliament wholly at the mercy of one political party, the next wholly at the mercy of the other--while the Govern to undo all that its predecessors have done, ield a majority so immense that the fate of every question will be foredoomed, and debate will be a farce; in one word, we shall be a nation living from hand to mouth, and with no settled principle--an arht about face!”