the rhyme will secure the only really
important word.

Now suppose you wish to remember the date of the discovery
of America, which is 1492; the "1" may be left out as
obvious; all we need is "492."

Write it thus:--

4 9 2
f n d
q g w

and try to find a word that contains "f" or "q," "n" or "g,"
"d" or "w." A word soon suggests itself--"found."

The poetic faculty must now be brought into play, and the
following couplet will soon be evolved:--

"Columbus sailed the world around,
Until America was F O U N D."

If possible, invent the couplets for yourself; you will
remember them better than any others.

_June_, 1888.

The inventor found this "Memoria Technica" very useful in helping him
to remember the dates of the different Colleges. He often, of course,
had to show his friends the sights of Oxford, and the easy way in
which, asked or unasked, he could embellish his descriptions with
dates used to surprise those who did not know how the thing was done.
The couplet for St. John's College ran as follows:--

"They must have a bevel
To keep them so LEVEL."

The allusion is to the beautiful lawns, for which St. John's is
famous.

In his power of remembering anecdotes, and bringing them out just at
the right moment, Mr. Dodgson was unsurpassed. A guest brought into
Christ Church Common Room was usually handed over to him to be amused.
He was not a good man to tell a story to--he had always heard it
before; but as a _raconteur_ I never met his equal. And the best
of it was that his stories never grew--except in number.

One would have expected that a mind so clear and logical and definite
would have fought shy of the feminine intellect, which is generally
supposed to be deficient in those qualities; and so it is somewhat
surprising to find that by far the greater number of his friends were
ladies. He was quite prepared to correct them, however, when they were
guilty of what seemed to him unreasoning conduct, as is shown by the
following extract from a letter of his to a young lady who had asked
him to try and find a place for a governess, without giving the
latter's address:--

Some of my friends are business-men, and it is pleasant to
see how methodical and careful they are in transacting any
business-matter. If, for instance, one of them were to write
to me, asking me to look out for a place for a