[lit-ideas] Re: From Cleanliness to Literature
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 21:18:58 -0800
My father, who is visiting, confirms that Barrie invented the name "Wendy."
What further evidence could a person want?
He explains, having visited the site of Barrie's pre-success hovel, that
Barrie composed in a wash house. Which is to say that the "Wendy house" I
remembered from the postcard, and that children used (possibly still do) to
imitate in their small playhouses in England (Americans won't know what I'm
talking about--Wendy houses are perhaps the female equivalent of forts or
tree houses), was a small hut in which, perhaps to escape the noise of
family life, Barrie would be charged with the fire underneath the boiler and
thus the process of doing laundry. While tending the fire, he was inspired
to write of pan et peter.
Irony: I was describing one of my paintings to students today. I said that
I had gone from, early in my ambitions, hoping to "do" all of Scottish
history in one painting, to considering as suitable subject my father, my
brother, some laundry on a line and the Derbyshire hills. Except I called
the laundry "washing," and they hadn't a clue what I was talking about!
David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
