BARBIE AND CARLYLE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18689, 21 April 1924, Page 3

BARBIE AND CARLYLE.

JOVE DOWN FOR A STRULL. [FROM OUR CWN CORRESPONDENT.] LONDON, MM. 3. Sir James Barrie has a . niece who, for many years, has been headmistress of the Wallasey High School for Girls (Cheshire), and it was at a prize-distri-bution in connection with this school that he made one of his too rare appearances in public. Sir James told the girls that when his niece, Miss L. K. Barrie, was only a year old he introduced her to a great man—Carlyle. "I remember particularly one when she was about a year old. I think she was dressed heroine was dressed in one of those white things that were so fashionable that year, and she wore such a pretty bonnet. The scene was a pleasant Scottish town and a very great man was passing at the end of our road. So I whipped up our heroine in my aims and ran with her to the gate, in order that she might be able to say in after years that she had once seen Thomas Carlyle.

"In my school days I had often seen him'myself, in his great shovel hat and cloak and thunderous staff—Jove came down for a stroll in his favourite county — and scores of times I had doffed my hat to him, but, alas, with no response. Someone, to boast of having been spoken to by Carlyle, once asked him on that road how far it was to Lockerbie, but he just pointed with his staff to a milestone and' stalked on. "I hoped he would bless your Miss Barrie that day, and perhaps he di'd, but it didn't sound like that. In any case, it is interesting to us to know that those two once met. When Miss Barrie's biography comes to be written —perhaps by one of you girls (for. whatever else becomes of you, you will all write) —don't forget to say that this was the turningpoint of her life, and that from that moment she put away frivolous things, including the bonnet. _ and plucked triangles instead of daisies. I expecthat Carlyle had pointed with his staff to Wallasey."