Page:Collingwood - Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll.djvu/379

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LEWIS CARROLL
355

were drawn by Miss E. G. Thomson. Though they are entirely unconnected with the text, they are so thoroughly in accordance with the author's delicate refinement, and so beautiful in themselves, that they do not strike one as inappropriate.

Some of the verses are strangely in keeping with the time at which they are published.

I could not see, for blinding tears,
The glories of the west:
A heavenly music filled my ears,
A heavenly peace my breast.
"Come unto me, come unto me—
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