"ALICE IN WONDERLAND."
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] connexion with the notice of " Alice ' with New Illustrations " in last week's Spectator, perhaps you will allow me to supply a personal incident. It was, I think, in 1864, the year before the publication of "Alice in Wonderland," that I happened to be taking a walk with the afterwards distinguished author. Our conversation turned upon art, and Dodgson, I remember, said that if I would come back with him to his rooms be would show me some sketches by Tenniel. On our return he produced some small squares of paper with some strange designs thereon. They were in pencil, and were the originals of the illustrations in the inimitable story. He then confided to me that he was writing a book. Not long after, like another genius, he woke one morning to find himself famous. Perhaps I may be allowed to add that I had the advau- tage of a rather prolonged acquaintance with this gifted man, having been associated in the same " mess " with him in Hall. Members of " the House " whose memories will carry them back to the period will call to mind the batches of half-a-dozen commoners who dined together at one or other of the tables, and the slovenly way in which the dinner at that. time was served. In Dodgson's "mesa" was young Philip Piney, whose crippled frame enshrined a pure soul and a cultivated intellect, with others less known to fame. The features of one of our number are immortalised in "The Hatter " who figures in " The Mad Tea-Party." We all, however, I may safely say, sat out all our terms without discerning (perhaps from our own want of it) the peculiar humour that possessed our eminent contemporary. We looked upon him as a pro- mising mathematician and nothing more. He seldom spoke, and the slight impediment in his speech was not conducive to conversation. Dodgson was an unaffectedly religious man, as witness his " Easter Greeting," with its now pathetic reference to his "hope to look back upon" what he had written, "without shame and sorrow when my turn comes to walk through the valley of shadows." Igy subsequent interviews with him, our lots being cast in different countries, were "few and far between "; but in occasional visits to Oxford he always showed the same friendliness. I recall ope of these occasions on which he asked me to come to his rooms after Hall, and on ascertaining I had an invalid daughter of the age of Alice, he sent hera beautiful copy of the book with her name inscribed in it with his own hand, though generally chary of his autograph. The last conversation I had with him was on the occasion of the last " Gaudy " before his death. I sat by him during the customary speech in the Chapter-house, and I remember his telling me that it fell to him on a similar occasion to make a speech on " Hakluyt's Voyages," Haklnyt having been a student of the House. He dined with us that day in Hall, but I saw him no more, having to leave the same night, little thinking how soon he was to be taken from the society he had helped to sweeten. There were no signs of senility about him. The wine of his fancy ran clear to the last. Quando ullum invenient parem ?
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