Part 32 (1/2)

My dear E--, How often you o into a shop, and you say to the est penny bun you can let me have for a halfpenny” And perhaps the man looks stupid, and doesn't quite understand what you mean Then how convenient it is to have a pin ready to stick into the back of his hand, while you say, ”Now then! Look sharp, stupid!” and even when you don't happen to want a pin, how often you think to yourself, ”They say Interlacken is a very pretty place I wonder what it looks like!” (That is the place that is painted on this pincushi+on)

When you don't happen to want either a pin or pictures, it may just remind you of a friend who sometimes thinks of his dear little friend E--, and who is just now thinking of the day he met her on the parade, the first time she had been allowed to come out alone to look for hih rushi+ng, rapid rivers roar between us (if you refer to the land, I think you'll find that to be correct), we still remember each other, and feel a sort of shi+very affection for each other

_March_ 31, 1890

I _do_ sy shy with children when you have to entertain them! Sometiirls I can now and then get on with, when they're few enough They easily become ”de trop”

But with little _boys_ I'ether I sent ”Sylvie and Bruno” to an Oxford friend, and, in writing his thanks, he added, ”I think Imy little boy to see you” So I wrote to say ”_don't_,”

or words to that effect: and he wrote again that he could hardly believe his eyes when he got ht I doted on _all_ children But I' I pick and choose

You are a lucky girl, and I a the leisure to read Dante--_I_ have never read a page of hirandest books in the world--though I a of it would _raise_ one's life and give it a nobler purpose, or siinning to be able to answer: I doubt if _I_ shall ever (at least in this life) have the opportunity of reading it;the host of things I want to do! It seems hard to settle what to do _first One_ piece of work, at any rate, I aht to be done this year, and it will take months of hard work: I mean the second volume of ”Sylvie and Bruno” I fully _ it out then When one is close on sixty years old, it seems presumptuous to count on years and years of work yet to be done

She is rather the exception ahtened my life Usually the child becorows into a woe too: and _that_ it usually does by gliding down fro intimacy into an acquaintance that merely consists of a smile and a boe meet!

_January_ 1, 1895

You are quite correct in saying it is a long time since you have heard from me: in fact, I find that I have not written to you since the 13th of last November But what of that? You have access to the daily papers Surely you can find out negatively, that I ah the list of bankruptcies; then run your eye down the police cases; and, if you fail to find my name anywhere, you can say to your oing on _well_”

CHAPTER XI

(THE SAME--_continued_)

Books for children--”The Lost Plum-Cake”--”An Unexpected Guest”--Miss Isa Bowman--Interviews--”Matilda Jane”--Miss Edith Rix--Miss Kathleen Eschwege

Lewis Carroll's own position as an author did not prevent hireat interest in children's books and their writers He had very strong ideas on as or was not suitable in such books, but, when once his so taste was satisfied, he was never tired of recoerton Allen, who has herself written several char letter which she received froie,--_Many_ thanks The book was at Ch Ch

I've done an unusual thing, in thanking for a book, nah_!

In fact, I found it very refreshi+ng, when jaded without at Xmas, I hope) to lie down on the sofa and read a chapter of ”Evie” I like it veryit out It would have been a real loss to the children of England, if you had burned the MS, as you once thought of doing

[Illustration: Xie Kitchin as a Chinaraph by Lewis Carroll_]

The very last words of his that appeared in print took the form of a preface to one of Mrs Allen's tales, ”The Lost Plum-Cake,” (Macmillan & Co, 1898) So far as I know, this was the only occasion on which he wrote a preface for another author's book, and his re his last service to the children who fro one earnest word to the mothers in whose hands this little booktheir children to church with them However well and reverently those dear little ones have been taught to behave, there is no doubt that so long a period of enforced quietude is a severe tax on their patience The hymns, perhaps, tax it least: and what a pathetic beauty there is in the sweet fresh voices of the children, and how earnestly they sing! I took a little girl of six to church with me one day: they had told me she could hardly read at all--but she made me find all the places for her! And afterwards I said to her elder sister ”Whatin, all through the hyravely replied, ”She knows the _tunes_, but not the _words_” Well, to return to my subject--children in church The lessons, and the prayers, are not wholly beyond thee of their soes to one's heart to see, as I so often do, little darlings of five or six years old, forced to sit still through a weary half-hour, with nothing to do, and not one word of the sermon that they can understand Most heartily can I syirl who is said to have written to soo to church no h to last me all my life!” But need it be so? Would it be so _very_ irreverent to let your child have a story-book to read during the sermon, to while away that tedious half-hour, and to ht and happy o to church no more”? I think not For my part, I should love to see the experiment tried I am quite sure it would be a success My advice would be to _keep_ some books for that special purpose I would call such books ”Sunday-treats”--and your little boy or girl would soon learn to look forith eager hope to that half-hour, once so tedious If I were the preacher, dealing with some subject too hard for the little ones, I should love to see the their picture-books And if _this_ little book should ever come to be used as a ”Sunday-treat”

for some sweet baby reader, I don't think it could serve a better purpose

Lewis Carroll