If you are at all in doubt as to what to do with
the (now) superfluous copy, let me suggest your giving
it to some poor sick child. I have been distributing
copies to all the hospitals and convalescent homes
I can hear of, where there are sick children capable
of reading them, and though, of course, one takes
some pleasure in the popularity of the books elsewhere,
it is not nearly so pleasant a thought to me as
that they may be a comfort and relief to children
in hours of pain and weariness. Still, no recipient
can be more appropriate than one who seems
to have been in fairyland herself, and to have
seen, like the ‘weary mariners’ of
old—
’Between
the green brink and the running foam
White
limbs unrobed in a crystal air,
Sweet
faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest
To
little harps of gold.’”
“Do you ever come to
London?” he asked in another letter;
“if so, will you allow
me to call upon you?”
Early in the summer I came up to study, and I sent him word that I was in town. One night, coming into my room, after a long day spent at the British Museum, in the half-light I saw a card lying on the table. “Rev. C. L. Dodgson.” Bitter, indeed, was my disappointment at having missed him, but just as I was laying it sadly down I spied a small T.O. in the corner. On the back I read that he couldn’t get up to my rooms early or late enough to find me, so would I arrange to meet him at some museum or gallery the day but one following? I fixed on South Kensington Museum, by the “Schliemann” collection, at twelve o’clock.
A little before twelve I was at the rendezvous, and then the humour of the situation suddenly struck me, that I had not the ghost of an idea what he was like, nor would he have any better chance of discovering me! The room was fairly full of all sorts and conditions, as usual, and I glanced at each masculine figure in turn, only to reject it as a possibility of the one I sought. Just as the big clock had clanged out twelve, I heard the high vivacious voices and laughter of children sounding down the corridor.
At that moment a gentleman entered, two little girls clinging to his hands, and as I caught sight of the tall slim figure, with the clean-shaven, delicate, refined face, I said to myself, “That’s Lewis Carroll.” He stood for a moment, head erect, glancing swiftly over the room, then, bending down, whispered something to one of the children; she, after a moment’s pause, pointed straight at me.
Dropping their hands he came forward, and with that winning smile of his that utterly banished the oppressive sense of the Oxford don, said simply, “I am Mr. Dodgson; I was to meet you, I think?” To which I as frankly smiled, and said, “How did you know me so soon?”
“My little friend found
you. I told her I had come to meet a
young lady who knew fairies,
and she fixed on you at once.
But I knew you before
she spoke.”