I am obliged to you for promising to write to me, but don’t give yourself the trouble of writing to this place, for ’tis almost impossible to receive ’em, without sending a messenger 16 miles to fetch ’em.

    ’Tis impossible to describe the oddity of my situation at
    present, which, however, is not void of some pleasant
    circumstances.

    A clogmaker combs out my wig upon my curate’s head, by way
    of a block, and his wife powders it with a dredging-box.

The vestibule of the castle (used as a temporary parsonage) is a low stable; above it the kitchen, in which are two little beds joining to each other.  The curate and his wife lay in one, and Margery the maid in the other.  I lay in the parlour between two beds to keep me from being frozen to death, for as we keep open house the winds enter from every quarter, and are apt to sweep into bed to me.

Elsdon was once a market town as some say, and a city according to others; but as the annals of the parish were lost several centuries ago, it is impossible to determine what age it was either the one or the other.

    There are not the least traces of the former grandeur to be
    found, whence some antiquaries are apt to believe that it
    lost both its trade and charter at the Deluge.

     ...  There is a very good understanding between the parties
    [he is speaking of the Churchmen and Presbyterians who lived
    in the parish], for they not only intermarry with one
    another, but frequently do penance together in a white
    sheet, with a white wand, barefoot, and in the coldest
    season of the year.  I have not finished the description for
    fear of bringing on a fit of the ague.  Indeed, the ideas of
    sensation are sufficient to starve a man to death, without
    having recourse to those of reflection.

If I was not assured by the best authority on earth that the world is to be destroyed by fire, I should conclude that the day of destruction is at hand, but brought on by means of an agent very opposite to that of heat.

I have lost the use of everything but my reason, though my head is entrenched in three night-caps, and my throat, which is very bad, is fortified by a pair of stockings twisted in the form of a cravat.

As washing is very cheap, I wear two shirts at a time, and, for want of a wardrobe, I hang my great coat upon my own back, and generally keep on my boots in imitation of my namesake of Sweden.  Indeed, since the snow became two feet deep (as I wanted a ‘chaappin of Yale’ from the public-house), I made an offer of them to Margery the maid, but her legs are too thick to make use of them, and I am told that the greater part of my parishioners are not less substantial, and notwithstanding this they are remarkable for agility.

In course of time this Mr. Dodgson became Bishop of Ossory and Ferns, and he was subsequently translated to the see of Elphin.  He was warmly congratulated on this change in his fortunes by George III., who said that he ought indeed to be thankful to have got away from a palace where the stabling was so bad.