You are a lucky girl, and I am rather inclined to envy you, in having the leisure to read Dante--_I_ have never read a page of him; yet I am sure the "Divina Commedia" is one of the grandest books in the world--though I am _not_ sure whether the reading of it would _raise_ one's life and give it a nobler purpose, or simply be a grand poetical treat. That is a question you are beginning to be able to answer: I doubt if _I_ shall ever (at least in this life) have the opportunity of reading it; my life seems to be all torn into little bits among the host of things I want to do! It seems hard to settle what to do _first. One_ piece of work, at any rate, I am clear ought to be done this year, and it will take months of hard work: I mean the second volume of "Sylvie and Bruno." I fully _mean_, if I have life and health till Xmas next, to bring it out then. When one is close on sixty years old, it seems presumptuous to count on years and years of work yet to be done....
She is rather the exception among the hundred or so of child-friends who have brightened my life. Usually the child becomes so entirely a different being as she grows into a woman, that our friendship has to change too: and _that_ it usually does by gliding down from a loving intimacy into an acquaintance that merely consists of a smile and a bow when we meet!...
... You are quite correct in saying it is a long time since you have heard from me: in fact, I find that I have not written to you since the 13th of last November. But what of that? You have access to the daily papers. Surely you can find out negatively, that I am all right! Go carefully through the list of bankruptcies; then run your eye down the police cases; and, if you fail to find my name anywhere, you can say to your mother in a tone of calm satisfaction, "Mr. Dodgson is going on _well_."
Books for children--"The Lost Plum-Cake"--"An Unexpected Guest"--Miss Isa Bowman--Interviews--"Matilda Jane"--Miss Edith Rix--Miss Kathleen Eschwege.
Lewis Carroll's own position as an author did not prevent him from taking a great interest in children's books and their writers. He had very strong ideas on what was or was not suitable in such books, but, when once his somewhat exacting taste was satisfied, he was never tired of recommending a story to his friends. His cousin, Mrs. Egerton Allen, who has herself written several charming tales for young readers, has sent me the following letter which she received from him some years ago:--