ich I think is the very perfection of the manner
authors ought to adopt in talking about their books."

XLI

THE AUTHOR OF "ALICE IN WONDERLAND"

It is said that when Victoria, late queen of England, had read _Alice
in Wonderland_ she was so pleased that she asked for more of the
author's books. They brought her a treatise on logarithms by the Rev.
C.L. Dodgson. Lewis Carroll and the Rev. C.L. Dodgson were one and the
same person, although they were two dissimilar characters. The one was
a popular author of nonsense that delighted children by the hundreds
of thousands and the other was a scholarly mathematician.

C.L. Dodgson came of good Northern-England stock. His father,
grandfather, and great-grandfather were clergymen--a contradiction,
says his biographer, Mr. Collingwood, of the scandalous theory that
three generations of parsons end in a fool. As a boy he kept all sorts
of odd and unlikely pets. From Rugby he entered Oxford. In 1856 he was
made college lecturer in mathematics, a position which he filled for a
quarter of a century. That he had thoughts of lighter material than
mathematics is evidenced by a short poem that appeared about this time
in a college paper called _College Rhymes_. Two of the stanzas run
like this:

She has the bear's ethereal grace
The bland hyena's laugh,
The footsteps of the elephant,
The neck of the giraffe;

I love her still, believe me,
Though my heart its passion hides,
She is all my fancy painted her,
But oh! how much besides.

The year 1862 saw the beginning of the world-famous _Alice_. He told
the story to Dean Liddell's three daughters. "Alice," the second of
the three (now Mrs. Reginald Hargreaves) thus tells the story:

"I believe the beginning of _Alice_ was told one summer afternoon when
the sun was so burning that we had landed in the meadows down the
river, deserting the boat to take refuge in the only bit of shade to
be found, and which was under a new-made hay-rick. Here from all three
came the old petition of 'Tell us a story,' and so began the ever
delightful tale. Sometimes to tease us--and perhaps being really
tired--Mr. Dodgson would stop suddenly and say, 'And that's all till
next time.' 'Oh! but it is next time,' would be the exclamation from
all three; and after some persuasion the story would start afresh.
Another day perhaps the story would begin in the boat, and Mr.
Dodgson, in the midst of telling a