Furniss to
Lewis Carroll, August 23, 1886_.]

[Illustration: Sylvie and Bruno. _From a drawing by Henry
Holiday_.]

* * * * *

CHAPTER VII

(1888-1891)

A systematic life--"Memoria Technica"--Mr. Dodgson's
shyness--"A Lesson in Latin"--The "Wonderland"
Stamp-Case--"Wise Words about Letter-Writing"--Princess
Alice--"Sylvie and Bruno"--"The night cometh"--"The Nursery
'Alice'"--Coventry Patmore--Telepathy--Resignation of Dr.
Liddell--A letter about Logic.

An old bachelor is generally very precise and exact in his habits. He
has no one but himself to look after, nothing to distract his
attention from his own affairs; and Mr. Dodgson was the most precise
and exact of old bachelors. He made a precis of every letter he wrote
or received from the 1st of January, 1861, to the 8th of the same
month, 1898. These precis were all numbered and entered in
reference-books, and by an ingenious system of cross-numbering he was
able to trace a whole correspondence, which might extend through
several volumes. The last number entered in his book is 98,721.

He had scores of green cardboard boxes, all neatly labelled, in which
he kept his various papers. These boxes formed quite a feature of his
study at Oxford, a large number of them being arranged upon a
revolving bookstand. The lists, of various sorts, which he kept were
innumerable; one of them, that of unanswered correspondents,
generally held seventy or eighty names at a time, exclusive of
autograph-hunters, whom he did not answer on principle. He seemed to
delight in being arithmetically accurate about every detail of life.

He always rose at the same early hour, and, if he was in residence at
Christ Church, attended College Service. He spent the day according to
a prescribed routine, which usually included a long walk into the
country, very often alone, but sometimes with another Don, or perhaps,
if the walk was not to be as long as usual, with some little
girl-friend at his side. When he had a companion with him, he would
talk the whole time, telling delightful stories, or explaining some
new logical problem; if he was alone, he used to think out his books,
as probably many another author has done and will do, in the course of
a lonely walk. The only irregularity noticeable in his mode of life
was the hour of retiring, which varied from 11 p.m. to four o'clock in
the morning, according to the amount of w