What Others Thought.

Otago Witness, Issue 2456, 10 April 1901, Page 69

What Others Thought.

Lewis Carroll,- whose "Alice in Wonderland" is woild renowned, u s eJ to tell with keen relish of a rebuff given him by a little girl who knew him only as a learned mathematician.

"Have you ever read ' Through the Looking Glads'?" he asked her, expecting an outburst of delight. "Oh, dear, yes!" she replied. "It is even more stupid than ' Alice m Wonderland ' J Don't "you think aol"-

William Wordsworth, th^ poet, could not ' conceal his chagnn v lion !>c Ivmicl that H-s neighbour*, tic farmer::. cV'er.'ied him as ".icbft, ldh body, vvl><> v.cnt mooning about lh^ hills, arc! kid not \. it cnoi'.iju to la.-o a field ot oaK " But a remark which Henry Clay, the famous American statesman, ovci heard was a still more candid criticism of himself.

While making the journey to Washington, lust after hi* nomination as candidate for the Presidency, he was travelling one stormy night, w lapped up in a huge cloak, on the back scat of a stage coach with two pas-en-gns. They were Kentuckuans like himseli. lie fell asleep, and when he awoke found them discussing his chances in tho coming campaign. "What did Clay go into politics for" c aid one. "He had p good bit of land ; he had a keen eye for stocV. If ho had stuck to stocVraisirg, hr'd have been wcith his fifty thousand. But now he doesn't own a dollnr."

"And," the great Kcntuckian used to add, "tho worst of it wn«, every word of it was true !"

It was characteristic of the man that at the next stopping place he hurried away and took anothrr coach, lest his critics Viculcl recognise him and be mortified at then unintentional rudenes*.