Page:Collingwood - Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll.djvu/201

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CHAPTER V

(1877-1883)

Dramatic tastes—Miss Ellen Terry—"Natural Science at Oxford"—Mr. Dodgson as an artist—Miss E. G. Thomson—The drawing of children—A curious dream—"The Deserted Parks"—"Syzygies"—Circus children—Row-loving undergraduates—A letter to The Observer—Resignation of the Lectureship—He is elected Curator of the Common Room—Dream-music.

MR. DODGSON'S love of the drama was not, as I have shown, a taste which he acquired in later years. From early college days he never missed anything which he considered worth seeing at the London theatres. I believe he used to reproach himself—unfairly, I think—with spending too much time on such recreations. For a man who worked so hard and so incessantly as he did; for a man to whom vacations meant rather a variation of mental employment than absolute rest of mind,

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