Page:Collingwood - Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll.djvu/69

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CHAPTER II

(1850-1860.)

Matriculation at Christ Church—Death of Mrs. Dodgson—The Great Exhibition—University and College Honours—A wonderful year—A theatrical treat—Misch-MaschThe TrainCollege Rhymes—His nom de plume—"Dotheboys Hall"—Alfred Tennyson—Ordination—Sermons—A visit to Farringford—"Where does the day begin?"—The Queen visits Oxford.

WE have traced in the boyhood of Lewis Carroll the beginnings of those characteristic traits which afterwards, more fully developed, gave him so distinguished a position among his contemporaries. We now come to a period of his life which is in some respects necessarily less interesting. We all have to pass through that painful era of self-consciousness which prefaces manhood, that time when we feel so deeply, and are so utterly unable to express to others, or even to define clearly to ourselves, what it is we do feel. The natural

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