Details
DODGSON, CHARLES LUTWIDGE. Autograph letter signed ("C.L. Dodgson") to Mrs. Kitchin, with an 8 line poem. Oxford, 24 February 1856. 2 pages, 8vo, folded for mailing. [With]: COHEN, MORTON N., editor. Lewis Carroll and the Kitchins. Containing Twenty-five Letters not Previously Published and Nineteen of his Photographs. New York: Argosy, 1980. 4to, original quarter calf; slipcase. LIMITED EDITION, number III of XXIV copies with an autograph letter laid in, of an total edition of 793 copies.
"IN THE STRICTEST CONFIDENCE!"
"Dear Mrs. Kitchin, Usually, if I write a charade on a young lady's name, I give a copy to the subject thereof -- or to her mother. In the present case (having some theoretical notions as to the effects of dynamite and gun-cotton) I dare not. So I make you my sole confidante. I met Mr. O., and Atty, on my staircase a day or two ago, and shook hands with her and interchanged a remark on the weather with him. A sort of 'armed peace,' I take it. Sincerely yours, C.L. Dodgson."
He adds at the end the following verse:
"T.O.:
My First heads all atrocity heartrending: My Next to finish it is ever tending: My third in Town its merry life is spending: My Fourth is the beginning of an ending. / My Whole is one of those perplexing misses, Where looks of Youth encourage friendly kisses, And yet where Age is sober fact, and this is Destruction to such transitory blisses!"
"IN THE STRICTEST CONFIDENCE!"
"Dear Mrs. Kitchin, Usually, if I write a charade on a young lady's name, I give a copy to the subject thereof -- or to her mother. In the present case (having some theoretical notions as to the effects of dynamite and gun-cotton) I dare not. So I make you my sole confidante. I met Mr. O., and Atty, on my staircase a day or two ago, and shook hands with her and interchanged a remark on the weather with him. A sort of 'armed peace,' I take it. Sincerely yours, C.L. Dodgson."
He adds at the end the following verse:
"T.O.:
My First heads all atrocity heartrending: My Next to finish it is ever tending: My third in Town its merry life is spending: My Fourth is the beginning of an ending. / My Whole is one of those perplexing misses, Where looks of Youth encourage friendly kisses, And yet where Age is sober fact, and this is Destruction to such transitory blisses!"