"Now, Mr. F., what I want is to knock the B.P. with Christmas. The story
is all blood and murder, but don't mind that--you must supply the
antidote; put in the holly and mistletoe, plenty of snow and
plum-pudding (the story was a seaside one in summer time). I like John
Tenniel's work--give us a bit of him, with a dash of Du Maurier and a
sprinkling of Leech here and there; but none of your Rembrandt
effects--they are too dark, and don't print up well. Never mind what the
author says; he hasn't made it Christmas, so you must!"

It is equally difficult to comply with an editorial request such as
this: "The story I send you is as dull as ditch-water; do please read it
over and illustrate it with lively pictures."

But some authors are their own publishers, and they are then generally
more careful of the illustrations. Perhaps the most exacting of all
authors was "Lewis Carroll."

[Illustration: T]

The name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is practically unknown outside of
Oxford University, where he was mathematical lecturer of Christ Church;
but the name and fame of "Lewis Carroll," author of those inimitable
books for children, both young and old, "Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-glass and what Alice found there,"
are known and beloved all over the world. His first book for children,
"Alice's Adventures," was published at a time exactly to suit me. I was
just eleven--_the_ age to be first impressed by the pen of Carroll and
the pencil of Tenniel.

When I, a little, a very little boy in knickerbockers, first enjoyed the
adventures of Alice and worshipped the pen and the pencil which recorded
them, I little thought I would some day work hand in hand with the
author, and when that day did arrive I regretted that I had not been
born twenty-two years before I had, for for me to follow Tenniel was
quite as difficult and unsatisfactory a task as for Carroll to follow
Carroll. The worst of it was that I was conscious of this, and Lewis
Carroll was not. Fortunately for me Sylvie was not like her prototype
Alice; the illustrations for Sylvie would not have suited Tenniel as
Alice did. I therefore did not fear comparison, but what I did fear was
that Carroll would not be Carroll, and Carroll wasn't--he was Dodgson. I
wish I had illustrated him when he was Carroll; that he was not the
Carroll of "Alice" is plainly indicated in his life in the following
passage:[1] "The publication of 'Sylvie and Bruno'