“CH. Ch. Oxford,
“Ap. 14, 1890.
“My own Darling,
It’s all very well for you and Nellie and Emsie to write in millions of hugs and kisses, but please consider the time it would occupy your poor old very busy Uncle! Try hugging and kissing Emsie for a minute by the watch, and I don’t think you’ll manage it more than 20 times a minute. ‘Millions’ must mean 2 millions at least.
20)2,000,000 hugs and kisses
60)100,000 minutes
12)1,666 hours
6)138 days (at twelve hours a day)
23 weeks.
“I couldn’t go on hugging and kissing more than 12 hours a day: and I wouldn’t like to spend Sundays that way. So you see it would take 23 weeks of hard work. Really, my dear child, I cannot spare the time.
“Why haven’t I written since my last letter? Why, how could I, you silly silly child? How could I have written since the last time I did write? Now, you just try it with kissing. Go and kiss Nellie, from me, several times, and take care to manage it so as to have kissed her since the last time you did kiss her. Now go back to your place, and I’ll question you.
“‘Have you kissed her several times?’
“‘Yes, darling Uncle.’
“‘What o’clock was it when you gave her the last kiss?’
“‘5 minutes past 10, Uncle.’
“‘Very well, now, have you kissed her since?’
“‘Well—I—ahem! ahem! ahem! (excuse me, Uncle, I’ve got a bad cough). I—think—that—I—that is, you, know, I——’
“‘Yes, I see! “Isa” begins with “I,” and it seems to me as if she was going to end with “I,” this time!’
“Anyhow, my not writing hasn’t been because I was ill, but because I was a horrid lazy old thing, who kept putting it off from day to day, till at last I said to myself, ‘WHO ROAR! There’s no time to write now, because they sail on the 1st of April.’ In fact, I shouldn’t have been a bit surprised if this letter had been from Fulham, instead of Louisville. Well, I suppose you will be there by about the middle of May. But mind you don’t write to me from there! Please, please, no more horrid letters from you! I do hate them so! And as for kissing them when I get them, why, I’d just as soon kiss—kiss—kiss you, you tiresome thing! So there now!
“Thank you very much for those 2 photographs—I liked them—hum—pretty well. I can’t honestly say I thought them the very best I had ever seen.
“Please give my kindest regards to your mother, and ½ of a kiss to Nellie, and 1⁄200 a kiss to Emsie, and 1⁄2,000,000 a kiss to yourself. So, with fondest love, I am, my darling, your loving Uncle,
“C. L. Dodgson.”
And now, in the postscript, comes one of the rare instances in which Lewis Carroll showed his deep religious feeling. It runs—
“P.S.—I’ve thought about that little prayer you asked me to write for Nellie and Emsie. But I would like, first, to have the words of the one I wrote for you, and the words of what they now say, if they say any. And then I will pray to our Heavenly Father to help me to write a prayer that will be really fit for them to use.”
Again, I had ended one of my letters with “all join me in lufs and kisses.” It was a letter written when I was away from home and alone, and I had put the usual ending thoughtlessly and in haste, for there was no one that I knew in all that town who could have joined me in my messages to him. He answered me as follows:—
“7 Lushington Road, Eastbourne,
“Aug. 30, 90.
“Oh, you naughty, naughty, bad wicked little girl! You forgot to put a stamp on your letter, and your poor old uncle had to pay TWOPENCE! His last Twopence! Think of that. I shall punish you severely for this when once I get you here. So tremble! Do you hear? Be good enough to tremble!
“I’ve only time for one question to-day. Who in the world are the ‘all’ that join you in ‘Lufs and kisses.’ Weren’t you fancying you were at home, and sending messages (as people constantly do) from Nellie and Emsie without their having given any? It isn’t a good plan that sending messages people haven’t given. I don’t mean it’s in the least untruthful, because everybody knows how commonly they are sent without having been given; but it lessens the pleasure of receiving the messages. My sisters write to me ‘with best love from all.’ I know it isn’t true; so I don’t value it much. The other day, the husband of one of my ‘child-friends’ (who always writes ‘your loving’) wrote to me and ended with ‘Ethel joins me in kindest regards.’ In my answer I said (of course in fun)—‘I am not going to send Ethel kindest regards, so I won’t send her any message at all.’ Then she wrote to say she didn’t even know he was writing! ‘Of course I would have sent best love,’ and she added that she had given her husband a piece of her mind! Poor husband!
“Your always loving uncle,
“C. L. D.”
These letters are written in Lewis Carroll’s ordinary handwriting, not a particularly legible one. When, however, he was writing for the press no characters could have been more clearly and distinctly formed than his. Throughout his life he always made it his care to give as little trouble as possible to other people. “Why should the printers have to work overtime because my letters are ill-formed and my words run into each other?” he once said, when a friend remonstrated with him because he took such pains with the writing of his “copy.” As a specimen of his careful penmanship the diary that he wrote for me, which is reproduced in this book in facsimile, is an admirable example.
They were happy days, those days in Oxford, spent with the most fascinating companion that a child could have. In our walks about the old town, in our visits to cathedral or chapel or hall, in our visits to his friends he was an ideal companion, but I think I was almost happiest when we came back to his rooms and had tea alone; when the fire-glow (it was always winter when I stayed in Oxford) threw fantastic shadows about the quaint room, and the thoughts of the prosiest of people must have wandered a little into fancy-land. The shifting firelight seemed to almost ætherealise that kindly face, and as the wonderful stories fell from his lips, and his eyes lighted on me with the sweetest smile that ever a man wore, I was conscious of a love and reverence for Charles Dodgson that became nearly an adoration.
It was almost pain when the lights were turned up and we came back to everyday life and tea.
He was very particular about his tea, which he always made himself, and in order that it should draw properly he would walk about the room swinging the tea-pot from side to side for exactly ten minutes. The idea of the grave professor promenading his book-lined study and carefully waving a tea-pot to and fro may seem ridiculous, but all the minutiæ of life received an extreme attention at his hands, and after the first surprise one came quickly to realise the convenience that his carefulness ensured.