Museum! loveliest building of the plain
        Where Cherwell winds towards the distant main;
        How often have I loitered o’er thy green,
        Where humble happiness endeared the scene! 
        How often have I paused on every charm,—­
        The rustic couple walking arm in arm,
        The groups of trees, with seats beneath the shade
        For prattling babes and whisp’ring lovers made,
        The never-failing brawl, the busy mill,
        Where tiny urchins vied in fistic skill. 
        (Two phrases only have that dusky race
        Caught from the learned influence of the place;
        Phrases in their simplicity sublime,
        “Scramble a copper!” “Please, sir, what’s the time?”)
        These round thy walks their cheerful influence shed;
        These were thy charms—­but all these charms are fled,
          Amidst thy bowers the tyrant’s hand is seen,
        And rude pavilions sadden all thy green;
        One selfish pastime grasps the whole domain,
        And half a faction swallows up the plain;
        Adown thy glades, all sacrificed to cricket,
        The hollow-sounding bat now guards the wicket;
        Sunk are thy mounds in shapeless level all,
        Lest aught impede the swiftly rolling ball;
        And trembling, shrinking from the fatal blow,
        Far, far away thy hapless children go. 
        Ill fares the place, to luxury a prey,
        Where wealth accumulates, and minds decay: 
        Athletic sports may flourish or may fade,
        Fashion may make them, even as it has made;
        But the broad Parks, the city’s joy and pride,
        When once destroyed can never be supplied!

Readers of “Sylvie and Bruno” will remember the way in which the invisible fairy-children save the drunkard from his evil life, and I have always felt that Mr. Dodgson meant Sylvie to be something more than a fairy—­a sort of guardian angel.  That such an idea would not have been inconsistent with his way of looking at things is shown by the following letter: 

    Ch.  Ch., July, 1879.

My dear Ethel,—­I have been long intending to answer your letter of April 11th, chiefly as to your question in reference to Mrs. N—­’s letter about the little S—­s [whose mother had recently died].  You say you don’t see “how they can be guided aright by their dead mother, or how light can come from her.”  Many people believe that our friends in the other world can and do influence us in some way, and perhaps even “guide” us and give us light to show us our duty.  My own feeling is, it may be so:  but nothing has been revealed about it.  That the angels do so is revealed, and we may feel sure of that; and there is a beautiful fancy (for I don’t think one can call it more) that “a mother who has died leaving a child behind her in this world, is allowed to be a sort of guardian angel to that child.”  Perhaps Mrs. N—­ believes that.

Here are two other entries in the Diary:—­