The editor was very desirous of securing something for his magazine that
would delight children, and he hit upon the idea of trying to induce
Lewis Carroll to write another Alice in Wonderland series. He was told
by English friends that this would be difficult, since the author led a
secluded life at Oxford and hardly ever admitted any one into his
confidence. But Bok wanted to beard the lion in his den, and an Oxford
graduate volunteered to introduce him to an Oxford don through whom, if
it were at all possible, he could reach the author. The journey to
Oxford was made, and Bok was introduced to the don, who turned out to be
no less a person than the original possessor of the highly colored
vocabulary of the "White Rabbit" of the Alice stories.
"Impossible," immediately declared the don. "You couldn't persuade
Dodgson to consider it." Bok, however, persisted, and it so happened
that the don liked what he called "American perseverance."
"Well, come along," he said. "We'll beard the lion in his den, as you
say, and see what happens. You know, of course, that it is the Reverend
Charles L. Dodgson that we are going to see, and I must introduce you to
that person, not to Lewis Carroll. He is a tutor in mathematics here, as
you doubtless know; lives a rigidly secluded life; dislikes strangers;
makes no friends; and yet withal is one of the most delightful men in
the world if he wants to be."
But as it happened upon this special occasion when Bok was introduced to
him in his chambers in Tom Quad, Mr.
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