Letters of Lewis Carroll

"The greatest blow that has ever fallen on my life was the death, nearly thirty years ago, of my own dear father; so, in offering you my sincere sympathy, I write as a fellow-sufferer. And I rejoice to know that we are not only fellow-sufferers, but also fellow-believers in the blessed hope of the resurrection from the dead, which makes such a parting holy and beautiful, instead of being merely a blank despair."

"That text is consecrated for me by the memory of one of the greatest sorrows I have known — the death of my dear father. In those solemn days, when we used to steal, one by one, into the darkened room, to take yet another look at the dear calm face, and to pray for strength, the one feature in the room that I remember was a framed text, illuminated by one of my sisters, "Then are they glad, because they are at rest ; and so he bringeth them into the haven where they would be!" That text will always have, for me, a sadness and a sweetness of its own. Thank you again for sending it me. Please don't mention this when we meet. I can't talk about it."

"My dear Ada, - (Isn't that your short name? "Adelaide" is all very well, but you see when one's dreadfully busy one hasn't time to write such long words - particularly when it takes one half an hour to remember how to spell it - and even then one has to go and get a dictionary to see if one has spelt it right, and of course the dictionary is in another room, at the top of a high bookcase - where it has been for months and months, and has got all covered with dust - so one has to get a duster first of all, and nearly choke oneself in dusting it - and when one has made out at last which is dictionary and which is dust, even then there's the job of remembering which end of the alphabet "A" comes - for one feels pretty certain it isn't in the middle - then one has to go and wash one's hands before turning over the leaves - for they've got so thick with dust one hardly knows them by sight - and, as likely as not, the soap is lost, and the jug is empty, and there's no towel, and one has to spend hours and hours in finding things - and perhaps after all one has to go off to the shop to buy a new cake of soap -so, with all this bother, I hope you won't mind my writing it short and saying, "My dear Ada")."

"I am writing this to wish you many and many a happy return of your birthday to-morrow. I will drink your health, if only I can remember, and if you don't mind - but perhaps you object? You see, if I were to sit by you at breakfast, and to drink your tea, you wouldn't like that, would you? You would say "Boo! hoo! Here's Mr. Dodgson's drunk all my tea, and I haven't got any left!" So I am very much afraid, next time Sybil looks for you, she'll find you sitting by the sad sea-wave, and crying "Boo! hoo! Here's Mr. Dodgson has drunk my health, and I haven't got any left!" And how it will puzzle Dr. Maund, when he is sent for to see you! "My dear Madam, I'm very sorry to say your little girl has got no health at all! I never saw such a thing in my life!" "Oh, I can easily explain it!" your mother will say. "You see she would go and make friends with a strange gentleman, and yesterday he drank her health!" "Well, Mrs. Chataway," he will say, "the only way to cure her is to wait till his next birthday, and then for her to drink his health."And then we shall have changed healths. I wonder how you'll like mine! Oh, Gertrude, I wish you wouldn't talk such nonsense!"

"This really will not do, you know, sending one more kiss every time by post: the parcel gets so heavy it is quite expensive. When the postman brought in the last letter, he looked quite grave. "Two pounds to pay, sir!" he said. "Extra weight, sir!" (I think he cheats a little, by the way. He often makes me pay two pounds, when I think it should be pence). "Oh, if you please, Mr. Postman!" I said, going down gracefully on one knee (I wish you could see me go down on one knee to a postman - it's a very pretty sight), "do excuse me just this once! It's only from a little girl!""Only from a little girl!" he growled. "What are little girls made of?" "Sugar and spice," I began to say, "and all that's ni-" but he interrupted me. "No! I don't mean that. I mean, what's the good of little girls, when they send such heavy letters?" "Well, they're not much good, certainly," I said, rather sadly."Mind you don't get any more such letters," he said, "at least, not from that particular little girl. I know her well, and she's a regular bad one!" That's not true, is it? I don't believe he ever saw you, and you're not a bad one, are you? However, I promised him we would send each other very few more letters - "Only two thousand four hundred and seventy, or so," I said. "Oh!" he said, "a little number like that doesn't signify. What I meant is, you mustn't send many."So you see we must keep count now, and when we get to two thousand four hundred and seventy, we mustn't write any more, unless the postman gives us leave."

"Most things, you know, ought to be studied: even a trunk is studded with nails."

"How far is it from Winckfield to Rotherwick? Now do not deceive me, you wretched child! If it is more than a hundred miles, I can't come to see you, and there is no use to talk about it. If it is less, the next question is, How much less? These are serious questions, and you must be as serious as a judge in answering them. There mustn't be a smile in your pen, or a wink in your ink (perhaps you'll say, "There can't be a wink in ink: but there may be ink in a wink" - but this is trifling; you mustn't make jokes like that when I tell you to be serious) while you write to Guildford and answer these two questions. You might as well tell me at the same time whether you are still living at Rotherwick - and whether you are at home - and whether you get my letter - and whether you're still a child, or a grown-up person--and whether you're going to the seaside next summer - and anything else (except the alphabet and the multiplication table) that you happen to know."

"I have been awfully busy, and I've had to write heaps of letters - wheelbarrows full, almost. And it tires me so that generally I go to bed again the next minute after I get up; and sometimes I go to bed again a minute before I get up! Did you ever hear of any one being so tired as that?"

"My one pupil has begun his work with me, and I will give you a description how the lecture is conducted. It is the most important point, you know, that the tutor should be dignified and at a distance from the pupil, and that the pupil should be as much as possible degraded. Otherwise, you know, they are not humble enough. So I sit at the further end of the room; outside the door (which is shut) sits the scout; outside the outer door (also shut) sits the sub-scout: half-way downstairs sits the sub-sub-scout; and down in the yard sits the pupil. The questions are shouted from one to the other, and the answers come back in the same way - it is rather confusing till you are well used to it. The lecture goes on something like this:Tutor. What is twice three? Scout. What's a rice tree? Sub-Scout. When is ice free? Sub-sub-Scout. What's a nice fee? Pupil (timidly). Half a guinea! Sub-sub-Scout. Can't forge any! Sub-Scout. Ho for Jinny! Scout. Don't be a ninny!Tutor (looks offended, but tries another question). Divide a hundred by twelve! Scout. Provide wonderful bells! Sub-Scout. Go ride under it yourself! Sub-sub-Scout. Deride the dunder-headed elf! Pupil (surprised). Who do you mean? Sub-sub-Scout. Doings between! Sub-Scout. Blue is the screen! Scout. Soup-tureen!And so the lecture proceeds."

"Surely, if you go to morning parties in evening dress (which you do, you know), why not to evening parties in morning dress? ... doctors (not that I am a real one only an amateur) must always be in trim for an instant summons to a patient. And when you invite a doctor to dinner (say), do you not always add 'Morning Dress'? (I grant you it is done by initials in this case. And perhaps you will say you don't understand M.D. to stand for 'Morning Dress'? Then take a few lessons in elementary spelling.) Aye, and many and many a time have I received invitations to evening parties wherein the actual colours of the Morning Dress expected were stated! For instance, 'Red Scarf: Vest, Pink.' That is a very common form, though it is usually (I grant you) expressed by initials. ... You will say "What morning parties do I go to in evening dress?" I reply "Balls". You will say again, "What balls ever go on in the morning?" I reply "Most balls.""

"It's been so frightfully hot here that been almost too weak to hold a pen, and even if I had been able, there was no ink — it had all evaporated into a cloud of black steam, and in that state it has been floating about the room, inking the walls and ceiling; till they're hardly fit to be seen: to-day it is cooler, and a little has come back into the ink-bottle in the form of black snow."

"The only unlucky thing that happened to me was your writing to me. There!"

"They did things very simply in those days: if you had a lot of money, you just dug a hole under the hedge, and popped it in: then you said you had "put it in the bank""

"Do not suppose I didn't write, hundreds of times; the difficulty has been with the directing - I directed the letters so violently at first, that they went far beyond the mark - some of them were picked up at the other end of Russia."

"My room is very easy to find when you get here, and as for distance, you know - why, Oxford is as near to London as London is to Oxford. If your geography-book doesn't tell you that, it must be a wretched affair."

"The book has got a moral - so I need hardly say it is not by Lewis Carroll."

"As to your all having grown so old that I no longer care for you, a difficulty occurs to me: can you leave off caring for people before you have begun?"

"What is "F" before "Dymphna"? Is it Fatima, Fenella or Feodora? or is it (I hardly dare hope for so beautiful a name) Foscofornia?"

"I found out that she was called "Maggie" and lived in a Crescent! Of course I declared "After that" (the language I used doesn't matter), "I will not address her, that's flat! So do not expect me to flatter!""

"No carte has yet been done of me that does real justice to my smile; and so I hardly like, you see, to send you one - however, I'll Consider if I will or not - meanwhile I send a little thing to give you an idea of what I look like when I'm lecturing. The merest sketch, you will allow - yet I still think there's something grand in the expression of the brow and in the action of the hand."

"My best love to yourself - to your mother my kindest regards - to your small, fat, impertinent, ignorant brother my hatred."

"I hope to come and see you for about half an hour on the 3rd of July 1872."

"Some children have a most disagreeable way of getting grown-up: I hope you won't do anything of that sort before we meet again."

"Don't talk to me of going quick," said Fox, "you howling Hound! My feet are done with patent glue, that sticks them to the ground."

"You say you "hope you will soon see me." That depends on yourself: if when I come, you look carefully the other way and never turn your head round, it wil probably be a long time before you see me."

"A friend of mine, called Mr. Lewis Carroll, tells me he means to send you a book. He is a very dear friend of mine. I have known him all my life (we are the same age) and have never left him. Of course he was with me in the Gardens, not a yard off—even while I was drawing those puzzles for you. I wonder if you saw him?"

"I did make an explanation once for "uffish thought" - It seems to suggest a state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish."

"Some of my friends are business-men, and it is pleasant to see how methodical and careful they are in transacting any business matter. If, for instance, one of them were to write to me, asking me to look out for a place for a French governess in whom he was interested, I should be sure to admire the care with which he would give me her name in full (in extra-legible writing if it were an unusual name) as well as her address.Some of my friends are not men of business."

"He thought you might be "thirty" not "thirteen." "No child of thirteen ever wrote such a hand as that" he cried. However I told him you certainly were a child, and that you had been to a very good school at the bottom of the sea."

"The great question is, do you generally think right or wrong? I should say (judging by the experience of many years) wrong, almost always."

""Why can't you make up your mind?" that's a riddle I've just invented. "Because you haven't got one to make up" - that's the answer to it, only you'd never have guessed it."

"It is a great shock to my sensitive feelings to find that young ladies (of a certain age, and engaged) persist in signing themselves "very affectionately": it shows a grievous disregard of the very rudiments of conventionalism; but how can I help it? Against such mighty forces, what avail the feeble efforts of Man?"

"My name is spelt with a "G," that is to say "Dodgson." Any one who spells it the same as that wretch (I mean of course the Chairman of Committees in the House of Commons) offends me deeply, and for ever! It is a thing I can forget, but never can forgive!"

"As to dancing, my dear, I never dance, unless I am allowed to do it in my own peculiar way. There is no use trying to describe it: it has to be seen to be believed. The last house I tried it in, the floor broke through. But then it was a poor sort of floor — the beams were only six inches thick, hardly worth calling beams at all: stone arches are much more sensible, when any dancing, of my peculiar kind, is to be done. Did you ever see the Rhinoceros, and the Hippopotamus, at the Zoological Gardens, trying to dance a minuet together? It is a touching sight.Give any message from me to Amy that you think will be most likely to surprise her."

"What an awful proposition! To drink tea from 4 to 6 would tax the constitution even of a hardened tea-drinker. For me, who hardly ever touch it, it would probably be fatal."

"What remarkably wicked children you are! I don't think you would find in all history, even if you go back to the times of Nero and Heliogabalus, any instance of children so heartless and so entirely reckless about returning story-books. Now I think of it, neither Nero nor Heliogabalus ever failed to return any story-book they borrowed. That is certain, because they never borrowed any, and that again is certain because there were none printed in those days."

"At last I met a wheelbarrow that I thought would attend to me, but I couldn't make out what was in it. I saw some features at first, then I looked through a telescope, and found it was a countenance; then I looked through a microscope, and found it was a face! I thought it was rather like me, so I fetched a large looking-glass to make sure, and then to my great joy I found it was me. We shook hands, and were just beginning to talk, when myself came up and joined us, and we had quite a pleasant conversation."

"Of course you know what a Snark is? If you do, please tell me: for I haven't an idea what it is like."

"As are the feelings of the old lady who, after feeding her canary and going out for a walk, finds the cage entirely filled on her return, with a live turkey - or of the old gentleman who, after chaining up a small terrier overnight, finds a hippopotamus raging round the kennel in the morning - such are my feelings when, trying to recall the memory of a small child who went to wade in the sea at Sandown, I meet with the astonishing photograph of the same microcosm suddenly expanded into a tall young person, whom I should be too shy to look at, even with the telescope which would no doubt be necessary to get any distinct idea of her smile, or at any rate to satisfy oneself whether she had eyebrows or not!"

"I'm down here all alone, but as happy as a king - at least, as happy as some kings - at any rate I should think I'm about as happy as King Charles the First when he was in prison."

"Hateful Spider, (You are quite right. It doesn't matter a bit how one begins a letter, nor, for the matter of that, how one goes on with it, or even how one ends it - and it comes awfully easy, after a bit, to write coldly - easier, if possible, than to write warmly. For instance, I have been writing to the Dean, on College business, and began the letter "Obscure Animalcule," and he is foolish enough to pretend to be angry about it, and to say it wasn't a proper style, and that he will propose to the Vice-Chancellor to expel me from the University: and it is all your fault!)"

"I may as well just tell you a few of the things I like, and then, whenever you want to give me a birthday present (my birthday comes once every seven years, on the fifth Tuesday in April) you will know what to give me. Well, I like, very much indeed, a little mustard with a bit of beef spread thinly under it; and I like brown sugar - only it should have some apple pudding mixed with it to keep it from being too sweet; but perhaps what I like best of all is salt, with some soup poured over it. The use of the soup is to hinder the salt from being too dry; and it helps to melt it. Then there are other things I like; for instance, pins - only they should always have a cushion put round them to keep them warm. And I like two or three handfuls of hair; only they should always have a little girl’s head beneath them to grow on, or else whenever you open the door they get blown all over the room, and then they get lost, you know."

"I shall be very glad to hear from you whenever you feel inclined to write, and from Sally, too, if she likes to try her had at writing. If she can't write with her hand, let her try with her foot."

"I get about 2000 letters off, every year; but it isn't enough!"

"To say that I am quite well "goes without saying" with me. In fact my life is so strangely free from all trials & troubles, that I cannot doubt my own happiness is one of the "talents" entrusted to me to "occupy" with, till the Master shall return, by doing something to make "other" lives happy."

"Why she should die, Mr. Tennyson only knows! I suppose he would say, "It gives a roundness and finish to the thing." So it may; but a heroine who would poison herself for that must have an almost morbid fondness for roundness and finish."

"I have a good many friends among governesses - having a sort of sympathy with them, as a more or less down-trodden race."

"Do we decide questions, at all? We decide answers, no doubt; but surely the questions decide us?"

"I must find a few minutes to offer you the very sincere wishes of an old friend that your married life may be a bright and peaceful one, and that you and your chosen husband may love each other with a love second only to your love of God and far above your love of any other object. For that is, I believe, the only essential for a happily married life: All else is trivial compared with it."

"And will you then resign yourself to Fate and me, to be taken either to a Matinée or to the General Strike Meeting of the London Omnibus Company, whichever I find to be most expedient?"