Page:Collingwood - Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll.djvu/85

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LEWIS CARROLL
61

marvellously as they came. Then the profound silence of the audience burst at once into a rapture of applause; but even that scarcely marred the effect of the beautiful sad waking words of the Queen, "Spirits of peace, where are ye?" I never enjoyed anything so much in my life before; and never felt so inclined to shed tears at anything fictitious, save perhaps at that poetical gem of Dickens, the death of little Paul.

On August 21st he received a long letter from his father, full of excellent advice on the importance to a young man of saving money:—

I will just sketch for you [writes the Archdeacon] a supposed case, applicable to your own circumstances, of a young man of twenty-three, making up his mind to work for ten years, and living to do it, on an Income enabling him to save £150 a year—supposing him to appropriate it thus:—

£ s. d.
Invested at 4 per cent. 100 0 0
Life Insurance of £1,500 29 15 0
Books, besides those bought in ordinary course 20 5 0
£150 0 0

Suppose him at the end of the ten years to get a Living enabling him to settle, what will be the result of his savings:—

1. A nest egg of £1,220 ready money, for furnishing and other expenses.

2. A sum of £1,500 secured at his death on payment of a very much smaller annual Premium than if he had then begun to insure it.

3. A very useful Library, worth more than £200, besides the books bought out of his current Income during the period. . . .