The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll/Chapter VIII

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The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll
by Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

Chapter VIII

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2646678The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll — Chapter VIIIStuart Dodgson Collingwood

CHAPTER VIII

(1892-1896)

Mr. Dodgson resigns the Curatorship—Bazaars—He lectures to children—A mechanical "Humpty Dumpty"—A logical controversy—Albert Chevalier—"Sylvie and Bruno Concluded"—"Pillow Problems"—Mr. Dodgson's generosity—College services—Religious difficulties—A village sermon—Plans for the future—Reverence—"Symbolic Logic."

Even Mr. Dodgson, with all his boasted health, was not absolutely proof against disease, for on February 12, 1895, he writes:—

Tenth day of a rather bad attack of influenza of the ague type. Last night the fever rose to a great height, partly caused by a succession of five visitors. One, however, was of my own seeking — Dean Paget, to whom I was thankful to be able to tell all I have had in my mind for a year or more, as to our Chapel services not being as helpful as they could be made. The chief fault is extreme rapidity. I long ago gave up the attempt to say the Confession at that pace; and now I say it, and the Lord's Prayer, close together, and never hear a word of the Absolution. Also many of the Lessons are quite unedifying.

On July nth he wrote to my brother on the subject of a paper about Eternal Punishment, which was to form the first of a series of essays on Religious Difficulties:— Page:Collingwood - Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll.djvu/351 Page:Collingwood - Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll.djvu/352 Page:Collingwood - Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll.djvu/353 Page:Collingwood - Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll.djvu/354 Page:Collingwood - Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll.djvu/355 In his "Game of Logic" Lewis Carroll introduced an original method of working logical problems by means of diagrams; this method he superseded in after years for a much simpler one the method of "Subscripts."

In "Symbolic Logic, Part i." (London: Macmillan, 1896) he employed both methods. The Introduction is specially addressed "to Learners," whom Lewis Carroll advises to read the book straight through, without dipping.

This Rule [he says] is very desirable with other kinds of books—such as novels, for instance, where you may easily spoil much of the enjoyment you would otherwise get from the story by dipping into it further on, so that what the author meant to be a pleasant surprise comes to you as a matter of course. Some people, I know, make a practice of looking into vol. iii. first, just to see how the story ends; and perhaps it is as well just to know that all ends happily—that the much-persecuted lovers do marry after all, that he is proved to be quite innocent of the murder, that the wicked cousin is completely foiled in his plot, and gets the punishment he deserves, and that the rich uncle in India {Qu. Why in India?⁠Ans. Because, somehow, uncles never can get rich anywhere else) dies at exactly the right moment—before taking the trouble to read vol i. This, I say, is just permissible with a novel, where vol. iii. has a meaning, even for those who have not read the earlier part of the story; but with a scientific book, it is sheer insanity. You will find the latter part hopelessly unintelligible, if you read it before reaching it in regular course.