Page:Collingwood - Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll.djvu/95

71 I took the opportunity [he goes on to say] of asking the meaning of two passages in his poems, which have always puzzled me: one in "Maud"—

He said it referred to Maud, and to the two fathers arranging a match between himself and her.

The other was of the poet—

He said that he was quite willing it should bear any meaning the words would fairly bear; to the best of his recollection his meaning when he wrote it was the hate of the quality hate, &c.," but he thought the meaning of "the quintessence of hatred" finer. He said there had never been a poem so misunderstood by the "ninnies of critics" as "Maud."

During an evening spent at Tent Lodge Tennyson remarked, on the similarity of the monkey's skull to the human, that a young monkey's skull is quite human in shape, and gradually alters—the analogy being borne out by the human skull being at first more like the statues of the gods, and gradually degenerating into human; and then, turning to Mrs. Tennyson, "There, that's the second original remark I've made this evening!" Mr. Dodgson saw a