a friend to whom he had sent a copy], and
made right all that disappointed me in the first part. I
have not only to thank you for writing an interesting book,
but for writing a helpful one too. I am sure that "Sylvie
and Bruno" has given me many thoughts that will help me all
life through. One cannot know "Sylvie" without being the
better for it. You may say that "Mister Sir" is not
consciously meant to be yourself, but I cannot help feeling
that he is. As "Mister Sir" talks, I hear your voice in
every word. I think, perhaps, that is why I like the book so
much.

I have received an interesting letter from Mr. Furniss, bearing upon
the subject of "Sylvie and Bruno," and Lewis Carroll's methods of
work. The letter runs as follows:--

I have illustrated stories of most of our leading authors,
and I can safely say that Lewis Carroll was the only one who
cared to understand the illustrations to his own book. He
was the W. S. Gilbert for children, and, like Gilbert
producing one of his operas, Lewis Carroll took infinite
pains to study every detail in producing his extraordinary
and delightful books. Mr. Gilbert, as every one knows, has a
model of the stage; he puts up the scenery, draws every
figure, moves them about just as he wishes the real actors
to move about. Lewis Carroll was precisely the same. This,
of course, led to a great deal of work and trouble, and made
the illustrating of his books more a matter of artistic
interest than of professional profit. I was _seven years_
illustrating his last work, and during that time I had the
pleasure of many an interesting meeting with the fascinating
author, and I was quite repaid for the trouble I took, not
only by his generous appreciation of my efforts, but by the
liberal remuneration he gave for the work, and also by the
charm of having intercourse with the interesting, if
somewhat erratic genius.

A book very different in character from "Sylvie and Bruno," but under
the same well-known pseudonym, appeared about the same time. I refer
to "Pillow Problems," the second part of the series entitled "Curiosa
Mathematica."

"Pillow Problems thought out during wakeful hours" is a collection of
mathematical problems, which Mr. Dodgson solved while lying awake at
night. A few there are to which the title is not strictly applicable,
but all alike were worked