C. L. Dodgson.

    The Chestnuts, Guildford, April 19, 1878.

My dear Gertrude,—­I’m afraid it’s “no go”—­I’ve had such a bad cold all the week that I’ve hardly been out for some days, and I don’t think it would be wise to try the expedition this time, and I leave here on Tuesday.  But after all, what does it signify?  Perhaps there are ten or twenty gentlemen, all living within a few miles of Rotherwick, and any one of them would do just as well!  When a little girl is hoping to take a plum off a dish, and finds that she can’t have that one, because it’s bad or unripe, what does she do?  Is she sorry, or disappointed?  Not a bit!  She just takes another instead, and grins from one little ear to the other as she puts it to her lips!  This is a little fable to do you good; the little girl means you—­the bad plum means me—­the other plum means some other friend—­and all that about the little girl putting plums to her lips means—­well, it means—­but you know you can’t expect every bit of a fable to mean something!  And the little girl grinning means that dear little smile of yours, that just reaches from the tip of one ear to the tip of the other!

    Your loving friend,

    C.L.  Dodgson.

    I send you 4-3/4 kisses.

The next letter is a good example of the dainty little notes Lewis Carroll used to scribble off on any scrap of paper that lay to his hand:—­

    Chestnuts, Guildford, January 15, 1886.

    Yes, my child, if all be well, I shall hope, and you may
    fear, that the train reaching Hook at two eleven, will
    contain

    Your loving friend,

    C.L.  Dodgson.

Only a few years ago, illness prevented him from fulfilling his usual custom of spending Christmas with his sisters at Guildford.  This is the allusion in the following letter:—­

My dear old Friend,—­(The friendship is old, though the child is young.) I wish a very happy New Year, and many of them, to you and yours; but specially to you, because I know you best and love you most.  And I pray God to bless you, dear child, in this bright New Year, and many a year to come. ...  I write all this from my sofa, where I have been confined a prisoner for six weeks, and as I dreaded the railway journey, my doctor and I agreed that I had better not go to spend Christmas with my sisters at Guildford.  So I had my Christmas dinner all alone, in my room here, and (pity me, Gertrude!) it wasn’t a Christmas dinner at all—­I suppose the cook thought I should not care for roast beef or plum pudding, so he sent me (he has general orders to send either fish and meat, or meat and pudding) some fried sole and some roast mutton!  Never, never have I dined before, on Christmas Day, without plum pudding.  Wasn’t it sad?  Now I think you must be content; this is a longer letter than most will get.  Love to Olive.