[Illustration:  Grave of Archdeacon and Mrs. Dodgson in Croft Churchyard.]

My dear Friend, I hear and see so little and so few persons, that I had not heard of your sorrow until your to-day’s letter; and now I but guess what it was:  only your language is that of the very deepest.  I have often thought, since I had to think of this, how, in all adversity, what God takes away He may give us back with increase.  One cannot think that any holy earthly love will cease, when we shall “be like the Angels of God in Heaven.”  Love here must shadow our love there, deeper because spiritual, without any alloy from our sinful nature, and in the fulness of the love of God.  But as we grow here by God’s grace will be our capacity for endless love.  So, then, if by our very sufferings we are purified, and our hearts enlarged, we shall, in that endless bliss, love more those whom we loved here, than if we had never had that sorrow, never been parted....

Lewis Carroll was summoned home to attend the funeral—­a sad interlude amidst the novel experiences of a first term at College.  The Oxford of 1851 was in many ways quite unlike the Oxford of 1898.  The position of the undergraduates was much more similar to that of schoolboys than is now the case; they were subject to the same penalties—­corporal punishment, even, had only just gone out of vogue!—­and were expected to work, and to work hard.

Early rising then was strictly enforced, as the following extract from one of his letters will show:—­

I am not so anxious as usual to begin my personal history, as the first thing I have to record is a very sad incident, namely, my missing morning chapel; before, however, you condemn me, you must hear how accidental it was.  For some days now I have been in the habit of, I will not say getting up, but of being called at a quarter past six, and generally managing to be down soon after seven.  In the present instance I had been up the night before till about half-past twelve, and consequently when I was called I fell asleep again, and was thunderstruck to find on waking that it was ten minutes past eight.  I have had no imposition, nor heard anything about it.  It is rather vexatious to have happened so soon, as I had intended never to be late.

[Illustration:  Lewis Carroll, aged 23.]

It was therefore obviously his custom to have his breakfast before going to chapel.  I wonder how many undergraduates of the present generation follow the same hardy rule!  But then no “impositions” threaten the modern sluggard, even if he neglects chapel altogether.

During the Long Vacation he visited the Great Exhibition, and wrote his sister Elizabeth a long account of what he had seen:—­