Page:Collingwood - Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll.djvu/133

109 called "Bruno's Revenge", the charming little idyll out of which "Sylvie and Bruno" grew. The creation of Bruno was the only act of homage Lewis Carroll ever paid to boy-nature, for which, as a rule, he professed an aversion almost amounting to terror. Nevertheless, on the few occasions on which I have seen him in the company of boys, he seemed to be thoroughly at his ease, telling them stories and showing them puzzles.

I give an extract from Mrs. Gatty's letter, acknowledging the receipt of "Bruno's Revenge" for her magazine:—

I need hardly tell you that the story is delicious. It is beautiful and fantastic and childlike, and I cannot sufficiently thank you. I am so proud for Aunt Judy that you have honoured her by sending it here, rather than to the Cornhill, or one of the grander Magazines.

To-morrow I shall send the Manuscript to London probably; to-day I keep it to enjoy a little further, and that the young ladies may do so too. One word more. Make this one of a series. You may have great mathematical abilities, but so have hundreds of others. This talent is peculiarly your own, and as an Englishman you are almost unique in possessing it. If you covet fame, therefore, it will be (I think) gained by this. Some of the touches are so exquisite, one would have thought nothing short of intercourse with fairies could have put them into your head.

Somewhere about this time he was invited to