indeed.

Wishing you all happiness at this happy season, I am,

Sincerely yours,

C. L. Dodgson.

The beginning of 1884 was chiefly occupied in Common Room business.
The Curatorship seems to have been anything but a sinecure. Besides
weightier responsibilities, it involved the care of the Common Room
Cat! In this case the "care" ultimately killed the cat--but not until
it had passed the span of life usually allotted to those animals, and
beyond which their further existence is equally a nuisance to
themselves and to every one else. As to the best way of "terminating
its sublunary existence," Mr. Dodgson consulted two surgeons, one of
whom was Sir James Paget. I do not know what method was finally
adopted, but I am sure it was one that gave no pain to pussy's nerves,
and as little as possible to her feelings.

On March 11th there was a debate in Congregation on the proposed
admission of women to some of the Honour Schools at Oxford. This was
one of the many subjects on which Mr. Dodgson wrote a pamphlet. During
the debate he made one of his few speeches, and argued strongly
against the proposal, on the score of the injury to health which it
would inflict upon the girl-undergraduates.

Later in the month he and the Rev. E.F. Sampson, Tutor of Christ
Church, paid a visit to Jersey, seeing various friends, notably the
Rev. F.H. Atkinson, an old College friend of Mr. Dodgson's, who had
helped him when he was editor of _College Rhymes_. I quote a few
lines from a letter of his to Mr. Atkinson, as showing his views on
matrimony:--

So you have been for twelve years a married man, while I am
still a lonely old bachelor! And mean to keep so, for the
matter of that. College life is by no means unmixed misery,
though married life has no doubt many charms to which I am a
stranger.

A note in his Diary on May 5th shows one of the changes in his way of
life which advancing years forced him to make:--

Wrote to -- (who had invited me to dine) to beg off, on the
ground that, in my old age, I find dinner parties more and
more fatiguing. This is quite a new departure. I much grudge
giving an evening (even if it were not tiring) to bandying
small-talk with dull people.

The next extract I give does not look much like old age!

I called on Mrs. M--. She was out; and only one maid in,
who, having come to the gate to answer the bell, found the
door blown shut on