much indeed'"?

I wonder if you will ever get as far as Jersey? If not, how
_are_ we to meet?

Your affectionate friend,

C.L. Dodgson.

From the second letter, to Miss Florence Jackson, I take the following
extract:--

I have two reasons for sending you this fable; one is, that
in a letter you wrote me you said something about my being
"clever"; and the other is that, when you wrote again you
said it again! And _each_ time I thought, "Really, I
_must_ write and ask her _not_ to say such things;
it is not wholesome reading for me."

The fable is this. The cold, frosty, bracing air is the
treatment one gets from the world generally--such as
contempt, or blame, or neglect; all those are very
wholesome. And the hot dry air, that you breathe when you
rush to the fire, is the praise that one gets from one's
young, happy, rosy, I may even say _florid_ friends!
And that's very bad for me, and gives pride--fever, and
conceit--cough, and such-like diseases. Now I'm sure you
don't want me to be laid up with all these diseases; so
please don't praise me _any_ more!

The verses to "Matilda Jane" certainly deserve a place in this
chapter. To make their meaning clear, I must state that Lewis Carroll
wrote them for a little cousin of his, and that Matilda Jane was the
somewhat prosaic name of her doll. The poem expresses finely the
blind, unreasoning devotion which the infant mind professes for
inanimate objects:--

Matilda Jane, you never look
At any toy or picture-book;
I show you pretty things in vain,
You must be blind, Matilda Jane!

I ask you riddles, tell you tales,
But all our conversation fails;
You never answer me again,
I fear you're dumb, Matilda Jane!

Matilda, darling, when I call
You never seem to hear at all;
I shout with all my might and main,
But you're _so_ deaf, Matilda Jane!

Matilda Jane, you needn't mind,
For though you're deaf, and dumb, and blind,
There's some one loves you, it is plain,
And that is _me_, Matilda Jane!

In an earlier chapter I gave some of Mr. Dodgson's letters to Miss
Edith Rix; the two which follow, being largely about children, seem
more appropriate here:--

My dear Edith,--Would you tell your mother I was aghast at
seeing the address of her letter to