She is rather the exception among the hundred or so of child-friends who have brightened my life.  Usually the child becomes so entirely a different being as she grows into a woman, that our friendship has to change too:  and that it usually does by gliding down from a loving intimacy into an acquaintance that merely consists of a smile and a bow when we 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 am all right!  Go carefully through 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 mother in a tone of calm satisfaction, “Mr. Dodgson is going 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 him from taking a great interest in children’s books and their writers.  He had very strong ideas on what was or was not suitable in such books, but, when once his somewhat exacting taste was satisfied, he was never tired of recommending a story to his friends.  His cousin, Mrs. Egerton Allen, who has herself written several charming tales for young readers, has sent me the following letter which she received from him some years ago:—­

Dear Georgie,—­Many thanks.  The book was at Ch.  Ch.  I’ve done an unusual thing, in thanking for a book, namely, waited to read it.  I’ve read it right through!  In fact, I found it very refreshing, when jaded with my own work at “Sylvie and Bruno” (coming out at Xmas, I hope) to lie down on the sofa and read a chapter of “Evie.”  I like it very much:  and am so glad to have helped to bring it 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 Chinaman. From a photograph 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 remarks are doubly interesting as being his last service to the children whom he loved.  No apology, then, is needed for quoting from them here:—­