PEOPLE TO REMEMBER

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 4, 26 March 1927, Page 23 (Supplement)

PEOPLE TO REMEMBER

MAN WHO LOVED CHILDREN The name of “Lewis Carroll’ is fami- ! liar to us all, and well we know his Alice, who had such curious adven- i tures in Wonderland; the Cheshire 1 Cat, that faded to a smile; and the : fussy White rabbit, who was always consulting his watch. The real name of Lewis Carroll was Charles Ludwig Dodgson, the son of a clergyman. He was born in Cheshire in 1532. He wrote several important works dealing with mathematics, but on the publication of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” issued under the penname of “Lewis Carroll,” he quickly found himself famous. It is very interesting to know how this story came to be written. “Lewis Carroll” was very fond of children. He was in the habit of taking three of his little girl friends for river trips near Oxford. One of these little girls was Alice, the daughter of Dean Liddell, and the “Alice” of his story. The others were her two sisters. On these trips he would beguile the time by telling the children stories, and one day he began to make up a tale about Alice in a strange place ! that he called “Wonderland.” The children listened with delight, and begged for more. On each trip he would have a different adventure, to tell them, and at last he wrote them all down, and made a book of them. That is how “Alice in Wonderland" came to be written. The book was an immediate success, and its quaint phantasies and irresistible fun soon made it a favourite with young and old alike. It has been translated into several languages, and is still one of the most popular tales for children ever written. The adventures of the child Alice were continued in a second book, “Through the Looking Glass,” which proved equally successful. Another charming book by the same author is “Sylvie and Bruno,” but it has never been so popular as the “Alice” stories, for which children of all ages and all times must ever be grateful. THE FIRST PICTURES T ONG before written history, when savage men were glad to take shelter in caves under overhanging cliffs, the art of picture-making commenced, for traces of roughly-drawn images may still be seen in the caves of central France. We can imagine how some of these prehistoric men spent long hours in scratching these pictures with rough stone implements on the walls of their retreats. In one cave is to be seen a rough sketch of a mammoth—one of the huge animals that trampled the earth in those days. Egyptians painted pictures on the walls of their monuments and buildings, and these pictures depicted scenes in their life as they lived in those days. Ancient Egyptian pictures, however, are very stiff and monotonous, all the figures being designed after one pattern, as anyone who has seen reproductions of the early Egyptian art will have noticed. The Greeks painted their pictures in what is known as "distemper”—that is, they ground their colours in water and used them with any kind of thin glue, or with white and yolk of egg mixed with vinegar. By far the highest specimens of ancient art are to be found in the wonderful fresco paintings of the Romans. This is the name given to the paintings they executed on the fresh plaster of the walls of their buildings. This art was developed and brought to perfection in later years. THE PEDLAR A pedlar came to our door one day, His step was light, though his locks were grey; “ Pray, little master, what do you lack f All sorts of things are in my sack. “ Shoes of fortune, a crock of gold From the rainbow's foot are in its hold; A cat) of darkness all dusted over With fernseed hr own, and a fourleaved clover 1 felt in my purse for the pence I was rich in, When Cook called out from the firelit kitchen , And frightened away the pedlar hoar — He's the kind that doesn't come twice to one door! LITTLE PIG A little pig with a curly tail, As soft as satin, and pinky pale. Is a very different thing by far From the cumbersome creatures big pigs are. JUMBLE TOWN A witch once told me of a town Where all the trees grow upside down, Where people wear old clothes for best, And sunrise happens in the west. And there the cats in kennels keep Long watch while people are asleep;

The dogs drink milk and wear soft fur And from the fireside will not stir. There people cannot stand to sit; They wear odd shoes that quite misfit, And have their breakfast with their tea— A witch once told the tale to me.