For most of us, Alice first appeared simultaneously in Carroll’s words and Tenniel’s images. But of course that wasn’t the case for Carroll himself. He had before him, in life and in his own photographs, the real seven-year-old Alice Liddell, a serious-eyed girl with short dark hair and bangs; he also had, in his mind’s eye, his beloved “dream-Alice”:
How wert thou, dream-Alice, in thy loving foster-father’s eyes? How shall he picture thee? Loving, first, loving and gentle: loving as a dog (forgive the prosaic simile, but I know no earthly love so pure and perfect), and gentle as a fawn: then courteous—courteous to all, high or low, grand or grotesque, King or Caterpillar, even as though she were herself a King’s daughter, and her clothing of rough gold: then trustful, ready to accept the oddest impossibilities with all that utter trust that only dreamers know; and lastly, curious—wildly