I'm still busy with other things. But I was thinking that standard, straightforward biographies of Carroll tend to recycle the same old stuff without looking behind the surface at the kind of man he actually was. I am trying the whole time to imagine what he must have been like. What would I have felt if I already knew him and he walked into the room? Would my spirits rise, fall or stay the same?

He saw life so differently from most people that those who had the chance to creep behind his stiff exterior seem to have been delighted to have the chance of his company. I imagine that he would have frozen me out though - probably because I'd want to know so much about him. These reflections can become rather circular....