My dear Gertrude,—­So many things have happened since we met last, really I don’t know which to begin talking about!  For instance, England has been conquered by William the Conqueror.  We haven’t met since that happened, you know.  How did you like it?  Were you frightened?

And one more thing has happened:  I have got your photograph.  Thank you very much for it.  I like it “awfully.”  Do they let you say “awfully”? or do they say, “No, my dear; little girls mustn’t say ‘awfully’; they should say ’very much indeed’”?

    I wonder if you will ever get as far as Jersey?  If not, how
    are we to meet?

    Your affectionate friend,

    C.L.  Dodgson.

From the second letter, to Miss Florence Jackson, I take the following extract:—­

I have two reasons for sending you this fable; one is, that in a letter you wrote me you said something about my being “clever”; and the other is that, when you wrote again you said it again!  And each time I thought, “Really, I must write and ask her not to say such things; it is not wholesome reading for me.”

The fable is this.  The cold, frosty, bracing air is the treatment one gets from the world generally—­such as contempt, or blame, or neglect; all those are very wholesome.  And the hot dry air, that you breathe when you rush to the fire, is the praise that one gets from one’s young, happy, rosy, I may even say florid friends!  And that’s very bad for me, and gives pride—­fever, and conceit—­cough, and such-like diseases.  Now I’m sure you don’t want me to be laid up with all these diseases; so please don’t praise me any more!

The verses to “Matilda Jane” certainly deserve a place in this chapter.  To make their meaning clear, I must state that Lewis Carroll wrote them for a little cousin of his, and that Matilda Jane was the somewhat prosaic name of her doll.  The poem expresses finely the blind, unreasoning devotion which the infant mind professes for inanimate objects:—­

        Matilda Jane, you never look
        At any toy or picture-book;
        I show you pretty things in vain,
        You must be blind, Matilda Jane!

        I ask you riddles, tell you tales,
        But all our conversation fails;
        You never answer me again,
        I fear you’re dumb, Matilda Jane!

        Matilda, darling, when I call
        You never seem to hear at all;
        I shout with all my might and main,
        But you’re so deaf, Matilda Jane!

        Matilda Jane, you needn’t mind,
        For though you’re deaf, and dumb, and blind,
        There’s some one loves you, it is plain,
        And that is me, Matilda Jane!

In an earlier chapter I gave some of Mr. Dodgson’s letters to Miss Edith Rix; the two which follow, being largely about children, seem more appropriate here:—­