Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) (1832 – 1898)
British author, mathematician, Anglican clergyman, logician, and amateur photographer, more famous under the pen name Lewis Carroll.
The White Knight must not have whiskers; he must not be made to look old.
God has given to Man an absolute right to take the lives of other animals, for any reasonable cause, such as the supply of food; but He has not given to Man the right to inflict pain, unless where necessary.
My beloved friend - one of the most unique and charming personalities of our time.
If doubtful whether to end with “yours faithfully”, or “yours truly”, or “your most truly”, &c. (there are at least a dozen varieties, before you reach “yours affectionately”), refer to your correspondent’s last letter, and make your winding-up at least as friendly as his: in fact, even if a shade more friendly, it will do no harm!
He had a curiously womanish face, and, in direct contradiction to his real character, there seemed to be little strength in it.
I mark this day with a white stone.
There is an insect that people avoid
(Whence is derived the verb 'to flee').
Where have you been by it most annoyed?
In lodgings by the Sea.
How did it happen that the Reverend Charles Dodgson, thirty years of age, lecturer on geometry at Christ Church, Oxford, hitherto remarkable chiefly for his precision, on a single July afternoon, while rowing up the Isis with a brother don and three little girls, parthenogenetically gave birth to one of the most famous stories of all time?
To Her, whose children's smiles fed the narrator's fancy and were his rich reward: from the Author.
Yet what are all such gaieties to me
Whose thoughs are full of indices and surds?
x2+7x+53
=11/3.
Say, whence is the voice that, when anger is burning,
Bids the whirl of the tempest to cease?
That stirs the vexed soul with an aching — a yearning
For the brotherly hand-grip of peace ?
Everything that he did must be done in the most perfect manner possible; and the same care and attention would be given to other people's affairs, if in any way he could assist or give them pleasure.
No one who was not by nature a lover of logic, and an extreme precisian in the use of words and phrases, could have written the two "Alice" books.
"What may I do?" at length I cried,
Tired of the painful task.
The fairy quietly replied,
And said "You must not ask."
Sometimes our friend’s face looked, when in repose, very sad and worn, and very different from the fun-lit face, with its charming eyes, that we saw when he was telling us those magic tales – tales which seem to have been woven right into the fabric of my life, and to have coloured it always with a tinge of his dreams.
He thought he saw an Elephant,
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
'At length I realise,' he said,
'The bitterness of Life!'
With all his humour he took a serious view of life, and had a very grave vein running through his mind. The simplicity of his faith, his deep reverence, and his child-like faith in the goodness of God were striking.
Fading, with the Night, the memory of a dead love, and the withered leaves of a blighted hope, and the sickly repinings and moody regrets that numb the best energies of the soul: and rising, broadening, rolling upward like a living flood, the manly resolve, and the dauntless will, and the heavenward gaze of faith — the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen!
"Look Eastward! Aye, look Eastward!"
Put the date in full. It is another aggravating thing, when you wish, years afterwards, to arrange a series of letters, to find them dated "Feb. 17", "Aug. 2", without any year to guide you as to which comes first. And never, never, dear Madam (N.B. this remark is addressed to ladies only: no man would ever do such a thing), put "Wednesday", simply, as the date!
Ye golden hours of Life's young spring,
Of innocence, of love and truth!
Bright, beyond all imagining,
Thou fairy-dream of youth!