Who preach of Justice—plead with tears
That Love and Mercy should abound—
While marking with complacent ears
The moaning of some tortured hound.
Lewis Carroll thus addresses them:—
Fill all the air with hungry wails—
"Reward us, ere we think or write!
Without your gold mere knowledge fails
To sate the swinish appetite!"
And, where great Plato paced serene,
Or Newton paused with wistful eye,
Rush to the chase with hoofs unclean
And Babel-clamour of the stye!
Be yours the pay: be theirs the praise:
We will not rob them of their due,
Nor vex the ghosts of other days
By naming them along with you.
They sought and found undying fame:
They toiled not for reward nor thanks:
Their cheeks are hot with honest shame
For you, the modern mountebanks!
"For auld lang syne" the author sent a copy of his book to Mrs. Hargreaves (Miss Alice Liddell), accompanied by a short note.
Christ Church, December 21, 1883.
Dear Mrs. Hargreaves,—Perhaps the shortest day in the year is not quite the most appropriate time for recalling the long dreamy summer afternoons of ancient times; but anyhow if this book gives you half as much pleasure to receive as it does me to send, it will be a success indeed.
Wishing you all happiness at this happy season, I am,
Sincerely yours,
C. L. Dodgson.
The beginning of 1884 was chiefly occupied in Common Room business. The Curatorship seems to have been anything but a sinecure. Besides weightier responsibilities, it involved the care of the Common Room Cat! In this case the "care" ultimately killed the cat—but not until it had passed the span of life usually allotted to those animals, and beyond which their further existence is equally a nuisance to themselves and to every one else. As to the best way of "terminating its sublunary existence," Mr. Dodgson consulted two surgeons, one of whom was Sir James Paget. I do not know what method was finally adopted, but I am sure it was one that gave no pain to pussy's nerves, and as little as possible to her feelings.
On March 11th there was a debate in Congregation on the proposed admission of women to some of the Honour Schools at Oxford. This was one of the many subjects on which Mr. Dodgson wrote a pamphlet. During the debate he made one of his few speeches, and argued strongly against the proposal, on the score of the injury to health which it would inflict upon the girl-undergraduates.
Later in the month he and the Rev. E.F. Sampson, Tutor of Christ Church, paid a visit to Jersey, seeing various friends, notably the Rev. F.H. Atkinson, an old College friend of Mr. Dodgson's, who had helped him when he was editor of College Rhymes. I quote a few lines from a letter of his to Mr. Atkinson, as showing his views on matrimony:—
So you have been for twelve years a married man, while I am still a lonely old bachelor! And mean to keep so, for the matter of that. College life is by no means unmixed misery, though married life has no doubt many charms to which I am a stranger.
A note in his Diary on May 5th shows one of the changes in his way of life which advancing years forced him to make:—