FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146  
147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   >>   >|  
thrilling adventure, would pretend to fall fast asleep, to our great dismay." ... "Many of Lewis Carroll's friendships with children began in a railway carriage. Once when he was traveling, a lady, whose little daughter had been reading _Alice_, startled him by exclaiming: 'Isn't it sad about poor Mr. Lewis Carroll? He's gone mad, you know.... I have it on the best authority.'" Lewis Carroll, or rather Mr. Dodgson, did not wish his acquaintances to speak of him as the author of _Alice_. In his every-day work he wanted to be known as the serious mathematician. He was conservative in his ideas and did not look with favor upon the movement to overthrow Euclid. In 1870 he published a book entitled _Euclid and his Modern Rivals_. The London _Spectator_ speaks of this as probably the most humorous contribution ever devoted to the subject of mathematics. In an academical discussion held at Oxford he once published three rules to be followed in debate. This is one of the three: "Let it be granted that any one may speak at any length on a subject at any distance from that subject." XLII ABOUT DARWIN When a prominent literary journal at the close of the last century asked a number of distinguished Americans and Englishmen to name the ten most influential books of the century, it was interesting to note that Darwin's _Origin of Species_ received more frequent mention than any other book. Five years after Charles Darwin had been buried (he was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey in 1882), his son published the _Life and Letters of Darwin_, which included an autobiographical chapter. From this work we can gather enough to show some aspects of this remarkable man. Men of genius are often in childhood very imaginative. It is sometimes pretty difficult to distinguish between playful imagination and lying. Let us give Darwin the benefit of the doubt in this instance: "One little event during this year (1817) has fixed itself very firmly in my mind, and I hope that it has done so from my conscience having been afterwards sorely troubled by it; it is curious as showing that apparently I was interested at this early age in the variability of plants! I told another little boy (I believe it was Leighton, who afterwards became a well-known lichenologist and botanist), that I could produce variously colored polyanthuses and primroses by watering them with certain colored fluids, which was of course a monstrous fable, an
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146  
147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Darwin
 

published

 

subject

 
Carroll
 
colored
 
Euclid
 

century

 

Westminster

 

genius

 

childhood


pretty
 
Charles
 

imaginative

 

buried

 

chapter

 

frequent

 

gather

 

mention

 

difficult

 

remarkable


Letters
 

autobiographical

 

included

 
aspects
 

Leighton

 
interested
 
variability
 

plants

 

lichenologist

 

botanist


fluids

 

monstrous

 
watering
 
produce
 

variously

 
polyanthuses
 

primroses

 

apparently

 

showing

 

instance


benefit

 

playful

 
imagination
 

received

 
conscience
 
sorely
 

troubled

 

curious

 
firmly
 

distinguish