Blue is one of the seven colours into which the rays of light divide themselves when refracted through a glassprism, seen in nature in the clear expanse of the heavens; the term is also applied to a dye or pigment of this hue.
The substances used as blue pigments are of very different natures, and derived from various sources; they are all compound bodies, some being natural and others artificial. They are derived almost entirely from the vegetable and mineral kingdoms. The principal blues used in painting are ultramarine, which was originally prepared from lapis-lazuli or azure-stone - a mineral found in China and other oriental countries - but, as now prepared, it is an artificial compound of china-clay, carbonate of soda, sulphur, and charcoal; Prussian or Berlin blue, which is a compound of cyanogen and iron; blue bice, prepared from carbonate of copper; indigo blue, from the indigo plant. Besides these, there are numerous other blues used in art, as blue-verditer, smalt- and cobalt-blue, from cobalt, lacmus or litmus, etc.
Before the discovery of aniline or coal-tar colours dyers chiefly depended for their blues on woad, archil, indigo, and Prussian blue, but now a series of brilliant blues are obtained from coal-tar, possessing great tinctorial power and various degrees of durability.
Blue as a colour ranges from green-blue (turquoise) through to purple-blue (indigo).
Alice blue - A very light greenish-blue colour.
Aquamarine - A bluish-green colour.
Azure - A deep blue colour reminiscent of the sky.
Aquamarine - A pale greenish-blue colour.
Bice blue - A medium blue colour
Cambridge blue - A light blue colour.
Cobalt blue - A deep blue colour with a greenish-tint. The colour of old blue glass.
The term 'grinning like a Cheshire cat' is coined to describe a wide cheesy smile. The term originates from olden times when cheese was made in the form of cats in Cheshire, and hence the term provides the allusion to a cheesy grin. The phrase was popularised in the book 'Alice in Wonderland' where the character of the Cheshire cat, a cat with a persistent wide smile, occurs. Research Cheshire Cat
You Must Be The Husband was a British situation comedy about a husband ('Tom') and his wife ('Alice') who writes a blockbuster novel and suddenly becomes the main source of income for the family. You Must Be The Husband was produced by the BBC and ran from 1988 to 1990. Research You Must Be The Husband
Princess Alice Maud Mary was the second daughter of Queen Victoria, Duchess of Saxony, and Grand-duchess of Hesse-Darmstadt. She was born in 1843 and died in 1878. In 1862 she married FrederickWilliamLouis of Hesse, nephew of the grand-duke, whom he succeeded in 1877. She showed exemplary devotion to her father Prince Albert during his fatal illness and to the Prince of Wales during his attack of fever in 1871. During the Franco-German war she did noble nursing service to both French and Germans. She died from diphtheria caught while nursing her husband and children. Research Alice
Lewis Carroll was the pen-name of the reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He was an English mathematician and writer of poetry and children's books. He was born in 1833 and died in 1898.
He received his academical education at Christ Church, Oxford, where he had a distinguished career. He took orders in 1861, and held a mathematical lecturership at his college for more than twenty years, ending in 1881. His earliest publications were A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry published in 1860, Formulae of Plane Trigonometry (1861), and A Guide to the Mathematical Student (1864). He did not, however, become known to the public at large until 1865, when he leapt into fame as the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a book which, though written for the young, has found not less appreciation among those of older years, and has been translated into many languages. Equally delightful is the continuation of Alice's Adventures narrated in Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871), both books admirably illustrated by Tenniel. The Hunting of the Snark: an Agony in Eight Fits (1876), a fantastic narrative in verse, had, however, by no means an equal popularity. Among his other works are An Elementary Treatise on Determinants, Phantasmagoria and other Poems, Euclid and his Modern Rivals, Rhyme? and Reason?, A Tangled Tale, The Game of Logic, Curiosa Mathematica, Sylvie and Bruno, and Symbolic Logic (1896). Research Lewis Carroll
Sir Richard Blackmore was an English physician and writer in verse and prose. He was born about 1650 and died in 1729. The son of an attorney in the county of Wiltshire he entered the University of Oxford in 1668; became a schoolmaster; then travelled on the Continent, took the degree of MD at Padua, and was admitted Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1687. In 1695 he published his heroic poem Prince Arthur, and two years later was knighted and appointed physician to William III. A ponderously worthy man, though very middling poet, he became the common butt of the day, no amount of ridicule, however, being sufficient to restrain his desire for literary distinction. His Paraphrases on Job published in 1700 was followed by Eliza, an Epic in Ten Books published in 1705 and by the Nature of Man published in 1711.
His poem the Creation published in 1712 received the praise of Addison and Johnson; but his Redemption, in six books published in 1722, and his Alfred, in twelve published in 1723, reverted to the unrelieved monotony of his earlier style. He left several prose works on theology and medicine.
Richard Doddridge Blackmore was an English novelist. He was born in 1825 at Longworth, Berkshire and died in 1900. Educated at Blundell's School, Tiverton and Exeter College, Oxford, he was called to the bar in 1852 but soon afterwards ceased practising and after a few years teaching at school retired to live upon a legacy left to him. He is best known for his 1869 book 'Lorna Doone'.
Other novels by him are: Clara Vaughan (1864); Cradock Nowell, a Tale of the New Forest (1866); The Maid of Sker (1872); AliceLorraine, a Tale of the South Downs (1875); Cripps the Carrier (1876); Erema (1877); Mary Anerley (1880); Christowell (1882); Tommy Upmore (1884); Springhaven, (1887) ; Perlycross (1894), etc. He also published a translation of Virgil's Georgics (1862 and 1871). Research Richard Blackmore
Alice Evans is an English actress. She was born in 1971 at Bristol. She became famous playing the role of 'Chloe Simon' in the 2000 film '102 Dalmations'. Research Alice Evans
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