Stuart Dodgson Collingwood on Lewis Carroll

“He made pets of the most odd and unlikely animals, and numbered certain snails and toads among his intimate friends. He tried also to encourage civilised warfare among earthworms, by supplying them with small pieces of pipe, with which they might fight if so disposed. His notions of charity at this early age were somewhat rudimentary; he used to peel rushes with the idea that the pith would afterwards "be given to the poor," though what possible use they could put it to he never attempted to explain.”

“One day, when Charles was a very small boy, he came up to his father and showed him a book of logarithms, with the request, "Please explain." Mr. Dodgson told him that he was much too young to understand anything about such a difficult subject. The child listened to what his father said, and appeared to think it irrelevant, for he still insisted, "But, please, explain!"”

“No one who was not by nature a lover of logic, and an extreme precisian in the use of words and phrases, could have written the two "Alice" books.”

“Lewis Carroll's humour is that of an educated man; it is fun indeed, but of the most refined and exotic. And that is why his books, popular as they are and as they deserve to be among children, can only be fully appreciated by grown-up readers.”