Next to what conversing
with an angel _might_ be--for it is hard to imagine
it--comes, I think, the privilege of having a real child's
thoughts uttered to one. I have known some few _real_
children (you have too, I am sure), and their friendship is
a blessing and a help in life.

[Illustration: Alice Liddell. _From a photograph by Lewis
Carroll._]

It is interesting to note how in "Sylvie and Bruno" his idea of the
thoughts of a child has become deeper and more spiritual. Yet in the
earlier tale, told "all in a golden afternoon," to the plash of oars
and the swish of a boat through the waters of Cherwell or Thames, the
ideal child is strangely beautiful; she has all Sylvie's genuineness
and honesty, all her keen appreciation of the interest of life; only
there lacks that mysterious charm of deep insight into the hidden
forces of nature, the gentle power that makes the sky "such a darling
blue," which almost links Sylvie with the angels.

Another of Lewis Carroll's early favourites was Miss Alexandra (Xie)
Kitchin, daughter of the Dean of Durham. Her father was for fifteen
years the Censor of the unattached members of the University of
Oxford, so that Mr. Dodgson had plenty of opportunities of
photographing his little friend, and it is only fair to him to say
that he did not neglect them.

It would be futile to attempt even a bare list of the children whom he
loved, and who loved him; during forty years of his life he was
constantly adding to their number. Some remained friends for life, but
in a large proportion of cases the friendship ended with the end of
childhood. To one of those few, whose affection for him had not waned
with increasing years, he wrote:--

I always feel specially grateful to friends who, like you,
have given me a child-friendship and a woman-friendship.
About nine out of ten, I think, of my child-friendships get
ship-wrecked at the critical point, "where the stream and
river meet," and the child-friends, once so affectionate,
become uninteresting acquaintances, whom I have no wish to
set eyes on again.

[Illustration: Xie Kitchin. _From a photograph by Lewis
Carroll._]

These friendships usually began all very much in the same way. A
chance meeting on the sea-shore, in the street, at some friend's
house, led to conversation; then followed a call on the parents, and
after that all sorts of kindnesses on Lewis Carroll's part, presents
of boo