ces permit me to nominate
your son."

In his letter received this morning he says--

"I have great pleasure in telling you that I have been
enabled to recommend your son for a Studentship this
Christmas. It must be so much more satisfactory to you that
he should be nominated thus, in consequence of the
recommendation of the College. One of the Censors brought me
to-day five names; but in their minds it was plain that they
thought your son on the whole the most eligible for the
College. It has been very satisfactory to hear of your son's
uniform steady and good conduct."

The last clause is a parallel to your own report, and I am
glad that you should have had so soon an evidence so
substantial of the truth of what I have so often inculcated,
that it is the "steady, painstaking, likely-to-do-good" man,
who in the long run wins the race against those who now and
then give a brilliant flash and, as Shakespeare says,
"straight are cold again."

[Illustration: Archdeacon Dodgson.]

In 1853 Archdeacon Dodgson was collated and installed as one of the
Canons of Ripon Cathedral. This appointment necessitated a residence
of three months in every year at Ripon, where Dr. Erskine was then
Dean. A certain Miss Anderson, who used to stay at the Deanery, had
very remarkable "clairvoyant" powers; she was able--it was averred--by
merely holding in her hand a folded paper containing some words
written by a person unknown to her, to describe his or her character.
In this way, at what precise date is uncertain, she dictated the
following description of Lewis Carroll: "Very clever head; a great
deal of number; a great deal of imitation; he would make a good actor;
diffident; rather shy in general society; comes out in the home
circle; rather obstinate; very clever; a great deal of concentration;
very affectionate; a great deal of wit and humour; not much
eventuality (or memory of events); fond of deep reading; imaginative,
fond, of reading poetry; _may_ compose." Those who knew him well
will agree that this was, at any rate, a remarkable coincidence.

Longley, afterwards Primate, was then Bishop of Ripon. His charming
character endeared him to the Archdeacon and his family, as to every
one else who saw much of him. He was one of the few men whose faces
can truly be called _beautiful_; it was a veil through which a
soul, all gentleness and truth