Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

by Clifton Fadiman

  WHERE DO ANECDOTES COME FROM?

  With many exceptions, anecdotes seem to be dominantly urban. Our Mountain Men, our pioneers, produce yarns, not anecdotes; desert and peasant cultures are rarely anecdotal seminaries. The atmosphere of the court, the great house, the capital, favors the anecdote as do many institutions and vocations associated with the city: the club, the dinner party, the university, the theater, the studio and gallery, the law court, parliaments and senates. The anecdote is a social product; it does not flourish in isolation. One qualifies immediately: certain personalities, irrespective of their environment or calling, may be anecdotal naturals.

  Still, in these pages highly social beings are generally prominent. They tend to be associated in fair part with the arts and in consequence exhibit relatively unconventional temperaments: Tristan Bernard, Whistler, Sarah Bernhardt, George Kaufman. On the other hand, statesmen too may be loci of anecdote: Churchill (but he was also a painter); Lincoln (but he was also a great writer); Talleyrand. Money men are far less in evidence — though there is J. P. Morgan, of course, and one of our most profound and prescient anecdotes is about a banker (JAMES STILLMAN 1). Show business is replete with lively minds. It is fairly well represented in these pages. Children, as you must know from your own childhood, are naturally brighter than adults, and in theory should provide a mine of anecdotes. However, the rules of our game require that notable names be attached to them, which limits the field.

  The case of politicians is interesting, Many politicians, of course, have been vivid or witty personalities; but the general run are either by nature unamusing or are afraid to be thought amusing. That Adlai Stevenson was an interesting man with a quicksilver mind proved a political handicap. This is not true, of course, for the genuine greats, a Lincoln, a Disraeli, a Churchill. But the need to provide an image (or, as with Richard Nixon, a selection of images) tends to inhibit the kind of conduct that generates anecdotes. Still, look at Coolidge, who in some odd manner contrived to be both witty and dull.

  This collection is sadly deficient in anecdotes about women. The reason is apparent: the chronicle of humankind has been written by the winners — at least up to our own day. One would wager that the index of a compilation like this, but published a century hence, will contain the names of a vast number of women. Yet even our sparse representation suggests that when women are amusing or trenchant or intellectually provocative they are often far more so than are men. The four samples from Sophie Arnould reveal a subtler spirit than the twelve items associated with so renowned a wit as Sir Thomas Beecham.

  Finally, in trying to identify the loci of anecdotes, we must keep in mind that the collector can work only with what has been recorded. Because he was a great monarch much of what Louis XIV said and did in public, whether dull or interesting, was bound to show up in memoirs of the period. It is, however, quite possible that thousands of remarkable or funny stories by or about obscure figures have been recounted in forgotten conversations. Such oral anecdote is lost forever. In the space-time continuum, one imagines, there exists a whole library of such anecdotes. But it is unwritten.

  ANECDOTES AND NATIONALITY

  A woman once asked Dr. Johnson why his dictionary defined “pastern” as “the knee of a horse.” “Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance,” he replied. This book’s editors are equipped with plenty of pure ignorance. Worse still, they are not linguists. They handle adequately only three languages. Hence the anecdotes are mainly of British, American, French, and German origin.

  Nevertheless, admitting our ignorance and language limitations, we consider these pages not unduly parochial. A genius for or interest in anecdote is not universal. The national traits that give birth to these airy trifles seem less marked in other countries than in those mentioned above. Perhaps Scandinavians and Swiss and Poles are not so receptive to eccentricity. Or it may be that they have not chanced to evolve certain social or class institutions that tend to generate anecdotes.

  Even when the language is open to us our selections may be insufficiently representative. We are conditioned by an Anglo-American culture. Consequently what pleases us may not please those differently conditioned, and vice versa. For example, we include from the German many anecdotes we think entertaining or instructive. But we have also omitted many that make a special appeal to the Germanic temperament. Here is one:

  A lady suffering from headache consulted the famous Berlin physician Heim and, in some embarrassment, asked whether she could try a remedy that had been recommended to her as infallible: covering her head with sauerkraut. Heim replied: “Excellent — but don’t forget to mix a bratwurst with it!”

  As one moves eastward, the divergence of taste becomes more radical. We would have liked to find some anecdotic reflection of the magnificent cultures of India, China, and Japan. This book presents a faint reflection of that reflection. But after admittedly superficial research, one is led to conclude that anecdotically East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet. Oriental “anecdotes” tend either to be moral parables — bits and pieces of wisdom literature — or longish historical episodes. Rarely do they seem to be the bubbles that form and break on the surface of social intercourse. The East, whether Near, Middle, or Far, is not attuned to our kind of anecdote, just as it does not appear to produce our kind of light verse. (Search these pages carefully enough, however, and you may find one or two Ottomanecdotes.)

  With respect to our subject, it is not true to say that Americans and British are separated by a common language. The American anecdotal tone differs slightly and interestingly from the British, but no vast gulf separates our mutual appreciation. However, again we must qualify. We have included a few cricket stories that will baffle many Americans. To be fair, we have included enough baseball stories to infuriate our British cousins.

  AUTHENTICITY

  Leslie Stephen in his life of Milton remarks that no good story is quite true. A sobering thought.

  Anecdotes are the thistledown of biography. To establish authenticity in all cases is impossible. We have done our best. Where we strongly suspect an anecdote to be apocryphal, we have so stated. We do not, however, claim to have identified every possible case and we welcome corrections from our readers.

  We have tried to keep in mind the words of the venerable president of Magdalen, Oxford, Martin Joseph Routh (1755–1854). Approaching the century mark, he was once asked by a disciple what single wisdom-crammed axiom or precept he could abstract from his long life’s experience. The president reflected, then, after a long pause, said, “I think, sir, since you come for the advice of an old man, sir, you will find it a very good practice always to verify your references!”

  Well said. But difficulties abound. There is, for example, the self-effacing anecdotalist (more often simply a jokesmith) who, in the interest of wider circulation, prefers to hide his own light under another’s bushel. Samuel Johnson once described the process: “Pointed axioms and acute replies fly loose about the world, and are assigned successively to those whom it may be the fashion to celebrate.” Thus in the nineteenth century a bon mot turning on the contrast between wealth and poverty might naturally be credited to a Rothschild.

  The philosopher Immanuel Kant, listening to a string of anecdotes about a famous personality of the time, remarked, “It seems to me I recall similar anecdotes about other great figures. But that is to be expected. Great men are like high church towers: around both there is apt to be a great deal of wind.” In this century Churchill, Dorothy Parker, and Samuel Goldwyn became high church towers.

  Long before them came Talleyrand. He worked overtime; it was said that he never fashioned so many brilliant mots during his life as he did after his death. It requires great wit to utter post-mordancies. On the other hand (the authority is his brother, who may have suffered from sibling jealousy), Talleyrand is said to have abstracted many of his good things from L’Improvisateur français, a compilation of anecdotes in twenty-one duodecimo volumes.

&n
bsp; We know of one interesting case in which Talleyrand created an anecdote by fiat. It has to do with the Bourbon Restoration. On the evening of the day on which the Comte d’Ar-tois, later to become King Charles X, entered Paris, Talleyrand asked a group assembled in his drawing room what the Bourbon prince had said. “Nothing at all” was the answer. Talleyrand, not satisfied, ordered a well-known political writer to leave the room and compose an appropriately memorable remark. The writer made three tries, all inadequate. Finally he returned with the words: “Nothing is changed in France; there is only one Frenchman more.” Talleyrand applauded; the Duke of Artois had been assigned his mot; and another famous anecdote was added to “history.”

  It is probable that at least five percent of the items in this book consisted originally of confected or current jokes that were then fathered on notables.

  The question of authenticity arises perhaps most particularly in the case of Lincoln stories. Here the source-hunters have been busy and conscientious. Yet questions remain. We may never be able to say of certain Lincoln anecdotes, “Yes, this is authentic,” but we have tried to avoid the inclusion of too many doubtful items. Those die-hards who prefer a scholarly tracking down of Lincoln stories are referred to Abe Lincoln Laughing: Humorous Anecdotes from Original Sources by and about Abraham Lincoln, edited by P. M. Zall (University of California Press, 1982). This is a first-rate job of scholarship.

  Sometimes an anecdote may be credited to two or more different persons, though it is obvious only one can be responsible. The famous quip “And if you were my wife, I’d drink it” (WINSTON CHURCHILL 7) is (almost) surely the great man’s. Yet it has also been ascribed to Senator Robert Taft, who could not have said it had the presidency come with it. The dress designer Edith Head, who knew Grace Kelly in Hollywood, was, at the time of Miss Kelly’s marriage, asked for anecdotes about the princess. Said Miss Head, “Grace doesn’t allow anecdotes to happen to her.” Neither did Taft.

  The retort “That will depend on whether I embrace your lordship’s mistress or your lordship’s principles” is assigned to various personages, of whom we have chosen John Wilkes as the most credible. Many such putdown retorts, in our time often attributed to Dorothy Parker or Groucho Marx, or others, were probably never actually said to anyone at all.

  There are legacy-anecdotes, whose birth lies in the obscure past, but are rediscovered, refurbished, and with each passing generation assigned new paternities. It was Donatus who uttered the classical curse: Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt! (A plague on those who said our good things before we did!) Doubtless some of these good things, truly of ancient lineage, have turned up in this book dressed in modern clothes.

  WHAT DO ANECDOTES DO?

  Chiefly, they entertain. They form a minor genre, even a trivial one; they are not history and biography but the decoration on history and biography. Yet, when more than just good jokes, they may on occasion perform nontrivial functions.

  We moderns look for the ping of the unexpected, the glint of heterodoxy. True enough, the Old and New Testaments contain some of the greatest stories ever told. Yet in one sense they are not anecdotes, and in this collection the Bible is represented only by SOLOMON 1. The ancient Hebraic temper and the anecdotal temper do not have much in common. The same appears to be more or less true with respect to early religious leaders of other faiths.

  Classical figures prized their anecdotes as narrative condensations of generally acknowledged truths. That the paths of glory lead but to the grave was pointed out by Thomas Gray in 1751. But the sobering truism was more vividly expressed by Diogenes in explaining to Alexander the Great why he was examining a heap of human bones: “I am searching for the bones of your father, but I cannot distinguish them from those of his slaves.” No great wit here, certainly no shock of surprise, yet a telling early statement of a universal insight.

  It is by such light that we must consider the anecdotes of the ancients, some of whose bearded quips are herein collected. Besides, it is instructive to discover what amused or titillated our forefathers. You may even find some of the hoary items diverting. One man’s chestnut is another man’s marron glacé.

  From its beginnings the anecdote has acted as a leveling device. It humanizes, democratizes, acts as a counterweight to encomium. Perhaps that is why it flourishes best in countries that, like Britain and the United States, enjoy a strong democratic tradition. It may bring home to our hearts social and political ideals that, expressed by politicians, elicit yawns. It may do this through phrasing of great elegance (EDWARD EVERETT 1) or of casual, bitter irony (JACKIE ROBINSON 1).

  Men of high philosophic mind have valued the anecdote less for its capacity to divert, more for its power to reveal character. This value was first classically formulated by Plutarch, quoted by Boswell: “Nor is it always in the most distinguished achievements that men’s virtues or vices may be best discerned; but very often an action of small note, a short saying, or a jest, shall distinguish a person’s real character more than the greatest sieges, or the most important battles.”

  From anecdotes, thought Prosper Mérimée, one “can distinguish a true picture of the customs and characters of any given period.” Nietzsche was confident that “three anecdotes may suffice to paint a picture of a man.” Isaac D’Israeli, whose Dissertation on Anecdotes affords a perfect reflection of his time’s anecdotal preferences, thought anecdotes accurate indices to character: “Opinions are fallible, but not examples.” Says Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Ballads, bons mots, and anecdotes give us better insights into the depths of past centuries than grave and voluminous chronicles.” His contemporary William Ellery Channing agreed: “One anecdote of a man is worth a volume of biography.”

  Perhaps such claims are excessive. Like statistics, an anecdote, unless measured against the whole record of a life, may be a damned lie. But a reasonable number of them, drawn from different phases of a given career, may give us an imperfect yet authentic sense of character. Try reading the sections on, let us say, Henry James, Max Beerbohm, Pablo Picasso, Johannes Brahms, Pope John XXIII. You don’t get the whole man, but you do learn something valuable and generally easy to fix in the memory. The intimidating, downright character of the Iron Duke flashes out at once in WELLINGTON 16.

  Beyond these functions anecdotes may perform at least three others.

  The first is illustrated by such traditional stories as KING ALFRED 1. We include no more than a scattering of these quasi-legendary items, for we do not propose to compete with such massive compilations as Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. But there are enough here to suggest one of the book’s minor purposes. Our present educational system sees to it that Macaulay’s schoolboy should not exist in our country. The editors cannot create him, either, but at least we can dig a few hundred historical and biographical post-holes of traditional reference, familiar in other days to every, or at least Macaulay’s, schoolboy.

  An assiduous reading of anecdotes can, then, light up odd corners of the past that we should all recognize. But it can, far more valuably, shake us out of our quotidian rut, administer a slight and salutary shock of surprise or delight. At its finest, an anecdote signalizes the intervention of the unexpected. It mounts a small-scale assault on the banality of normal intercourse.

  Finally, if one were asked to name the kind of book that within one set of covers most adequately reflects the sheer multifariousness of human personality, it might well be a book of anecdotes. Ana would not do, for much ana is mere information not revelatory of character. A biographical dictionary would not do either, for its editors do not have the space or the desire to set down the quirks and oddities of their subjects. But a reasonably ample gathering of anecdotes, drawn from many times and climes, may reconcile us to our human nature by showing us that, for all its faults and stupidities, it can boast a diversity to which no other animal species can lay claim.

  Clifton Fadiman

  NOTE TO THE REVISED EDITION

  “PERHAPS FEW AUTHORS ARE
WHOLLY ORIGINAL AS FAR AS THEIR PLOTS ARE CONCERNED; INDEED SHAKESPEARE SEEMS TO HAVE INVENTED NOTHING, WHILE CHAUCER BORROWED FROM BOTH THE LIVING AND THE DEAD. And to come down to a somewhat different plane, the present writer is even more derivative, since for these books he has in general kept most doggedly to recorded actions, nourishing his fancy with logbooks, dispatches, letters, memoirs, and contemporary reports.” So writes Patrick O’Brian in the introduction to The Far Side of the World, the tenth volume in his incomparable Aubrey/Maturin series. His words might be applied to this volume, which collects the best, and occasionally the best-known, anecdotes about a wide range of people — scholars, politicians, crowned heads, sports figures, movie stars, scientists, and the occasional unknown — throughout human history. We have scoured many sources for the anecdotes included here, finding them in biographies, in newspaper accounts, in histories, and in general reference works, among other places. Some have surfaced in conversation, others in collections, and have been chosen as touchstones of the genre. Familiar or unfamiliar — and inevitably many of these anecdotes will be known to readers, as they should be — they aim to amuse and enlighten.

  This new edition is a revised version of The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, published in 1985. Some entries which proved of ephemeral interest, or those whose mots did not continue to sparkle in the intervening years, have been dropped from this volume. We have added many new people whose quips, situations, or dilemmas we feel are of sufficient interest to warrant inclusion, and we have also added anecdotes about well-known people of the past that have come to light more recently; Queen Victoria, for instance, or Mozart, or Yogi Berra.