Evening star., 1932-02-08
Author of ''Alice" HOnOred
AS Birth Centenary Planned

Observance of the Tooth anniversary
of the birth Of the author of Alice
In Wonderland" which is to take place
in this country, is preceded by tributes
to the dual personality of Charles Lut-
widge Dodgson, who adopted the pen
name of Lewis Carroll. This oxford
student sought fame as profound
mathematician but achieved it in the
realm of imagination. The approach
ing American observance at Columbia
University is to be made notable by
the attendance of the original Alice,
now Mrs. Reginald Hargreaves, daugh-
ter of an oxford dean.
Alice is the immortal queen of utter
nonsense" says the Columbia IS. o.
State, and that gives her a finer and
more unshakable title to Immortality
and the throne than any possessed by
the other queens that have held Scep-
tiers in any realms of gold or in our
hearts" The State also offers COM
parisons indicating the place of author
and character in the world Of imagina-
ticn: Lewis Carroll is as deathleSs
as Shakespeare, and will always be
more beloved, and Alice is already
sCrer of her crown than Cordelia or
Juliet. Life has become so serious that
only nonsense can make any appeal TO
us. Why all the silly toff about finance
and high politics and the 'quantum'
and the vapid speculationS about
atomies and ergs and elektrons and
the misty future? 1t is to laugh. For
us, We would rather have been the
author of the 'Walrus and the Car
penter' than of any other poem " &" >
save, perhaps, 'Lycidas' and that,
when you deeply ponder it, has almost
as much nonsense in it as. anything
the either side of the looking glass.
The EinSteinS and MillikanS and Ed
dingtons and Plancks will change their
theories of the future a Thousand times
before we are done with the present.
But for us who delight in the quiet
and tender devotion to Alice and
nonsense we are in the midst of an
eternal present-'al in the golden
afternoon
1.-THE child that turks in the mind
and heart of adult man and woman
hood still halls with delight the quaint
utterances and fantasies created by
Lewis Carroll, inspired by little Alice
Liddell," declares the Schenectady Ga
zette, with recollectionS of the story of
the creation of an immortal character
although written primarily for chill
dren, Alice In Wonderland is equally
enjoyed 5y adults and is included in
literature courses of advanced educa-
tional institutions. The characters Gre
ated by its author have their places in
literature, as firmly fixed as those Gre
fnI
Both Alice in Wonderland and his
later book, Through the Looking Glass
were dramatized in London, the first
production occurring the day after
Christmas, 1866, at the Prince of
Wales Theater. The real inspiration
for the books was received one summer
day when Dodgson took Alice and her
two sisters for picnic up the river.
He was clever with pen and pencil
drawings and one Of his ideals of
heaven was place where he might
draw as we'll as see beautiful things.
1t was his whimsical writing for chill
dren, rather than his learned mathe-
matical treatiSes, that gave Dodgson,
or Carroll, his literary standing and his
friends among literary men and
women"
England thanks God for imagina-
ton and laughter quotes the New
Orleans Tribune, giving attention to
British tributes to the author of
Alice" and to Edward Lear, author Of
the Nonsense Books" The Tribune
joins in appreciation of the writer's with
the statement: Imagination and
laughter somehow does not quite seem
to cover the service which Carroll and
Lear performed for serious-minded
mortals Gilbert Chesterton does bet
ter when he says that Carroll, ir par
tieular, showed his countrymen how to
take a vacation from their minds. He
didn't so much imagine Alice and her