All ye that labour, unto me—
Ye heavy-laden, come to me—
And I will give you rest."
One cannot read this little volume without feeling that the shadow of some disappointment lay over Lewis Carroll's life. Such I believe to have been the case, and it was this that gave him his wonderful sympathy with all who suffered. But those who loved him would not wish to lift the veil from these dead sanctities, nor would any purpose be served by so doing. The proper use of sympathy is not to weep over sorrows that are over, and whose very memory is perhaps obliterated for him in the first joy of possessing new and higher faculties.
Before leaving the subject of this book, I should like to draw attention to a few lines on "woman's mission," lines full of the noblest chivalry, reminding one of Tennyson's "Idylls of the King":—
In the darkest path of man's despair,
Where War and Terror shake the troubled earth,
Lies woman's mission; with unblenching brow
To pass through scenes of horror and affright
Where men grow sick and tremble: unto her