Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/22

xvi been wishing for them, &c.") I heard made by the great Poet-Laureate, whose loss the whole reading-world has so lately had to deplore.

II. p. 163. Bruno's speech, on the subject of the age of 'Mein Herr,' embodies the reply of a little girl to the question "Is your grandmother an old lady?" "I don't know if she's an old lady," said this cautious young person; "she's eighty-three"

II. p. 203. The speech about 'Obstruction' is no mere creature of my imagination! It is copied verbatim from the columns of the Standard, and was spoken by Sir William Harcourt, who was, at the time, a member of the 'Opposition,' at the 'National Liberal Club,' on July the 16th, 1890.

II. p. 329. The Professor's remark, about a dog's tail, that "it doesn't bite at that end," was actually made by a child, when warned of the danger he was incurring by pulling the dog's tail.

II. p. 374. The dialogue between Sylvie and Bruno, which occupies lines 6 to 15, is a verbatim report (merely substituting "cake" for "penny") of a dialogue overheard between two children.

One story in this Volume 'Bruno's Picnic'  I can vouch for as suitable for telling to children, having tested it again and again; and, whether my audience has been a dozen little girls in a village-school, or some thirty or forty in a London drawing-room, or a hundred in a High School, I have always found them earnestly attentive, and keenly appreciative of such fun as the story supplied.