Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

by Clifton Fadiman

  CHAMBERLAIN, Joseph (1836–1914), British politician.

  1 Chamberlain was once guest of honor at an important civic dinner. The main part of the meal over, the mayor whispered to Chamberlain as the coffee was being served, “Shall we let the people enjoy themselves a little longer, or had we better have our speech now?”

  CHAMBERLAIN, Sir [Joseph] Austen (1863–1937), British statesman.

  1 Offered the post of chancellor of the exchequer in 1919, Austen complained that the prime minister, David Lloyd George, had not sent for him with the customary formality, but had simply thrown the office at him — like a bone to a dog. “Stop a minute, Austen,” said Lloyd George to him, “there is a good deal of meat on that bone.”

  2 Chamberlain and his wife were dining one evening with the well-known London hostess Mrs. Ronnie Greville. The excellent food and wine were marred only by the fact that the butler had obviously been drinking.

  Rather than make a scene in front of her guests, Mrs. Greville surreptitiously scribbled a note and handed it to him. The message read: “You are drunk — leave the room at once.” The butler dutifully laid the slip of paper on a silver salver, tottered around to the other side of the table, and presented it to Austen Chamberlain.

  CHAMBERLAIN, Wilt (1936–99), US basketball star.

  1 Despite his personal successes, Chamberlain was criticized for not taking his team to titles. Then in 1967, when his Philadelphia team finally won a championship, someone asked Chamberlain if he thought that everybody would get behind him now. “No way,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Nobody roots for Goliath,” was the answer.

  CHANDLER, Raymond (1888–1959), US crime-story writer, creator of the immortal Philip Marlowe, private investigator.

  1 Chandler wrote the screenplay for his novel The Big Sleep, which was being made into a movie by Howard Hawks. During the filming Hawks wrote to Chandler, asking him to clarify who in the movie killed the chauffeur Owen Taylor, who ended up in the Stern-wood family limousine under ten feet of water at the movie’s end. Chandler reread his novel, reread his script, then wired back, “I don’t know.”

  CHANEL, Coco [Gabrielle Chanel] (1883–1971), French fashion designer.

  1 When Cocteau’s Antigone was produced in Paris in 1924 the playwright specified that Mlle Chanel was to make the gowns worn by the princesses in the play. “She is our leading couturière,” he said, “and I cannot imagine Oedipus’s daughters promoting a ‘little dressmaker.’”

  2 When the mini-skirt came into fashion in the mid-1960s, Chanel was asked whether she approved of girls’ exposing their knees and thighs in this way. “Thighs — of course,” she replied. “But knees — never!”

  3 Chanel never married, although many men fell desperately in love with her. Upon a proposal of marriage by the Duke of Westminster, Chanel replied, “There have been several Duchesses of Westminster — but there is only one Chanel!”

  CHANNING, Carol (1921–), US actress and singer.

  1 As part of a nightclub act, Carol Channing sometimes encouraged the members of the audience to ask her personal questions. “Do you remember the most embarrassing moment you ever had?” asked one man. “Yes, I do,” replied Miss Channing. “Next question?”

  CHAPLIN, Charlie (1889–1977), British-born film actor.

  1 In 1931 Chaplin invited Albert Einstein, who was visiting Hollywood, to a private screening of his new film City Lights. As the two men drove into town together, passersby waved and cheered. Chaplin turned to his guest and explained: “The people are applauding you because none of them understands you and applauding me because everybody understands me.”

  2 Charlie Chaplin entered a Charlie Chaplin look-alike competition in Monte Carlo. He came in third.

  3 (The playwright Charles MacArthur had been brought to Hollywood to do a screenplay, but was finding it difficult to write visual jokes.)

  “ ‘What’s the problem?’ asked Chaplin.

  “ ‘How, for example, could I make a fat lady, walking down Fifth Avenue, slip on a banana peel and still get a laugh. It’s been done a million times,’ said MacArthur. ‘What’s the best way to get the laugh? Do I show first the banana peel, then the fat lady approaching: then she slips? Or do I show the fat lady first, then the banana peel, and then she slips?’

  “ ‘Neither,’ said Chaplin without a moment’s hesitation. ‘You show the fat lady approaching; then you show the banana peel; then you show the fat lady and the banana peel together; then she steps over the banana peel and disappears down a manhole.’”

  4 Chaplin was entertaining guests at a Hollywood dinner party with his impressions of famous figures. He concluded his performance with an excellent rendering of an operatic aria. “Why, I never knew you could sing so beautifully!” exclaimed one of his guests. “I can’t sing at all,” replied Chaplin. “I was only imitating Caruso.”

  5 A child named Jackie Vernon sent a steady stream of letters to his idol, Charlie Chaplin. But he never received a response. Many years later Vernon had the opportunity to meet his great hero. When he heard his name, Chaplin immediately said, “Tell me, why did you stop writing?”

  CHAPMAN, John (1774–1845), US frontiersman who earned the nickname “Johnny Apple-seed” for his work seeding and pruning apple trees across the Ohio River countryside.

  1 Johnny Appleseed once entered a house in Washington Territory, Ohio, barefoot, and introduced himself to the occupants. The man of the house asked why he was wearing no shoes. Johnny Appleseed, who had recently trodden on a snake, held out one of his feet and said, “Sir, this foot had been guilty of offense in treading unmercifully upon one of God’s creatures, and as a corresponding punishment I am now exposing it to the inclemency of the weather.”

  2 Johnny Appleseed carried his reverence for other forms of life to what other people would consider extremes. It is said that once when he had been bitten by a rattlesnake, someone asked him what had become of it. “The poor thing!” replied Johnny Appleseed, his eyes filling with tears. “Hardly had it touched me than I, overcome by godless passion, cut off its head with my sickle. The poor, poor innocent thing!”

  CHAPMAN, John Jay (1862–1933), US dramatist, critic, and political reformer.

  1 After a high-spirited dinner at Harvard’s Porcellian Club in 1887, Chapman horsewhipped a classmate who he thought had made insulting remarks about his fiancée. Sobering up, Chapman was so ashamed of his behavior that he went to the open fireplace and held his left hand in the flames. It was so badly burned that it had to be amputated.

  CHARLEMAGNE (?742-814), king of the Franks (768-814) and Holy Roman Emperor (800-814).

  1 The great French white wine Corton-Charlemagne owes its existence, according to local legend, not to the emperor but to his wife. The red wines of Corton stained his white beard so messily that she persuaded him to plant vines that would produce white wines. Charlemagne ordered white grapes to be planted. Thus Corton-Charlemagne.

  CHARLES, Prince of Wales (1948–), eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and heir apparent to the throne of the United Kingdom.

  1 Actress Susan Hampshire, wearing an extremely low-cut dress, was presented to Prince Charles at a show-business function. Without a trace of embarrassment, the prince greeted Miss Hampshire with the words: “Father told me that if I ever met a lady in a dress like yours, I must look her straight in the eyes.”

  2 Charles briefly attended a school in Australia. One Sunday, the rector of the local parish church was surprised to see the prince at his morning service. There was only a scanty congregation that day, for which the rector apologized as his royal visitor left the church. “Being bank holiday weekend,” he explained, “most of the parishioners are away.”

  “Not another bank holiday!” said the prince. “What’s this one in aid of?”

  “Well,” replied the rector, a little embarrassed, “over here we call it the queen’s birthday.”

  CHARLES II (1630–85), king of England, Scot
land, and Ireland (1660–85).

  1 Charles’s attempt to recover the throne by force ended in his defeat at Worcester in 1651. Despite the reward offered for his capture and the extreme penalties threatened to any who concealed or aided him, Charles eventually made his escape to the continent. An early part of his journey was accomplished with the aid of some brothers, one of whom lent him the horse from his mill. Charles, accustomed to more sprightly steeds, complained after a while of the heavy, lumbering pace of his mount. The miller at once defended his horse with the words: “No wonder, sire, that the horse goes so heavily, as it bears the weight of three kingdoms on its back.”

  2 (John Aubrey tells a charming story:)

  “Arise Evans had a fungous nose, and said, it was revealed to him, that the king’s hand would cure him, and at the first coming of King Charles II into St. James’s Park, he kissed the king’s hand, and rubbed his nose with it; which disturbed the king, but cured him.”

  3 Charles II enjoyed talking and in particular telling anecdotes of his own life. His courtiers, who had all heard the stories many times, found them very tedious, and used to withdraw from the king’s presence if they could, leaving him with a much diminished audience. The Earl of Rochester said of this trait that he wondered that a man could so well remember every detail of a story yet not remember that he had told it to the same people only the day before.

  4 In contemporary satires Charles sometimes features under the name of “Old Rowley,” a stallion with a reputation for breeding fine foals. One of the king’s young ladies was sitting in her apartment singing the satirical ballad “Old Rowley the King,” when Charles II knocked at her door. She asked who was there. “Old Rowley himself, madam,” the king replied with his customary good humor.

  5 There are several versions of Charles’s encounter with the Quaker William Penn, whose creed enjoined him to refuse to remove his hat as a mark of respect to his social superiors. Seeing Penn’s hat remaining on his head, the king with a flourish removed his own. “Friend Charles, why dost thou uncover thyself?” asked the Quaker. “Friend Penn,” replied the king, “in this place it is the custom for only one man at a time to keep his hat on.”

  6 On his morning walk one day in London, Charles dismissed most of his attendants and strolled into Hyde Park with just two lords attending him. As he crossed the road, his brother, James, Duke of York, drove up in his carriage, attended by an armed guard. The duke stopped his coach, expressed surprise at seeing the king almost alone, and hinted that it was unwise to expose himself to danger in this way. “No danger,” said King Charles, “for no man in England would take away my life to make you king.”

  7 The king asked Edward Stillingfleet, bishop of Worcester and a popular preacher, why when Stillingfleet preached at court he always read his sermons. He had heard that when he preached elsewhere he always delivered his sermons extempore. Stillingfleet explained that awe of the king made him afraid of forgetting what he had to say, so he preferred to read when he had royalty in the audience. Emboldened by the king’s favorable reaction to this diplomatic reply, the bishop then asked if he might put a question of his own. Why, he asked Charles, did he always read his speeches to the House of Commons, when it could not be that he was in awe of his audience? Charles replied good-naturedly, “I have asked them so often, and for so much money, that I am ashamed to look them in the face.”

  8 The Earl of Rochester once wrote on the door of the king’s bedchamber: “Here lies our sovereign lord the king, / Whose promise none relies on; / He never said a foolish thing, / Nor ever did a wise one.” Charles skillfully replied to the insult with the observation: “This is very true, for my words are my own, and my actions are those of my ministers.”

  9 Seventeenth-century monarchs died as they lived, very much in the public eye. To the attendants and notables gathered around his deathbed Charles II said, “I have been a most unconscionable time a-dying; but I beg you to excuse it.”

  CHARLES V (1500–58), Holy Roman Emperor (1519–56) and king of Spain (1516–56).

  1 In 1521, when Charles renewed his struggle with the French king, Francis I, over the empire’s Italian lands, the emperor remarked, “My cousin Francis and I are in perfect accord — he wants Milan, and so do I.”

  2 When Hernando Cortéz, the celebrated explorer of the New World, returned to Spain and made a report of his findings to the king, one of his chief recommendations was that a passage to India be effected by digging a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. Charles considered this suggestion with his advisers and finally rejected it: “What God hath joined together let no man put asunder.”

  CHARLES X (1757–1836), king of France (1824–30).

  1 When Louis XVIII became king, the Comte d’Artois continued to treat his brother with easy familiarity, bordering on disrespect. Eventually this became so marked that M. de Maurepas was entrusted with the delicate task of dropping a hint to Charles that now that Louis was king, he should observe a more formal approach. Maurepas put his case to the count, concluding by saying that if he continued in his informal ways, the king might be offended. “Offended, eh?” said Charles. “Well, and what if he is? What can he do to me?”

  “He can pardon you, sir,” replied Maurepas suavely.

  2 Charles X, oblivious of his brother’s flight on March 20, 1815, justified his absolutist policies to Talleyrand by saying that for the Bourbons “there is no middle course between the throne and the scaffold.”

  “Your Majesty is forgetting the post-chaise,” Talleyrand reminded him.

  CHARLES FRANCIS JOSEPH [Charles I of Austria] (1887–1992), Austrian emperor.

  1 Informed of the death of Francis Joseph, Charles, now elevated to the throne, was deeply moved. He seized his adjutant’s hand and in his emotion stammered, “What should I do? I think the best thing is to order a new stamp to be made with my face on it.”

  CHARLOTTE of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744–1818), wife of George III, king of Great Britain and Ireland (1760–1820).

  1 Queen Charlotte was never a beauty, being short, pale, and very thin at the time of her marriage. As she grew older, her appearance improved, inspiring her chamberlain to remark, “I really do think that the bloom of her ugliness is going off.”

  CHARONDAS (6th century BC), Greek legislator.

  1 One of Charondas’s laws forbade citizens to carry weapons into the public assembly. Forgetting this, he wore his sword into the public meeting one day. A fellow citizen reproached him for violating his own law. “By Zeus, I will confirm it,” said Charondas instantly, and, drawing his sword, killed himself.

  CHASE, Ilka (1903–78), US actress and playwright.

  1 A short while after her just-divorced husband, Louis Calhern, married Julia Hoyt, Miss Chase was going through some boxes and found a packet of visiting cards on which was engraved the name “Mrs. Louis Calhern.” Thinking it a pity to let them go to waste, she wrapped them up and mailed them to her successor with a note: “Dear Julia, I hope these reach you in time.”

  CHASE, Salmon Portland (1808–73), US statesman, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1864–73).

  1 Shortly after the Civil War, Chief Justice Chase was introduced to a striking beauty from Alabama. “I must warn you that I’m an unreconstructed rebel,” she archly informed him. “In your case, madam,” responded Chase gallantly, “reconstruction — even in the slightest degree — would be nothing short of sacrilege.”

  CHATEAUBRIAND, François René, Viscomte de (1768–1848), French author and statesman.

  1 Chateaubriand’s exalted opinion of himself drew some acerbic comments from his contemporaries, among them Napoleon, who gave him a post in the French legation in Rome in 1803. Chateaubriand soon became disaffected. Napoleon observed, “The difficulty lies not so much in buying Monsieur Chateaubriand, but in paying him the price he thinks he’s worth.”

  2 In his later years Chateaubriand suffered from deafness, an affliction that evoked a biting comment from his old enemy Talleyrand:
“He thinks he’s deaf now that he no longer hears himself talked about.”

  CHATTERTON, Thomas (1752–70), British poet.

  1 Walking with a friend in a London churchyard one day, engrossed in the melancholy pastime of reading the inscriptions on the gravestones, Chatterton stumbled and fell into a newly dug grave. His friend immediately came to his rescue, and in an attempt to make light of the matter, said he was glad to have been present at the resurrection of a genius. Chatterton took a more gloomy view of the accident: “I have been at war with the grave for some time, and I find it not so easy to vanquish it as I imagined. We can find an asylum to hide from every creditor but that.” Three days later he killed himself.

  CHEKHOV, Anton Pavlovich (1860–1904), Russian short-story writer and dramatist.

  1 In Chekhov’s story “The Malefactor,” a peasant removes the nuts from railroad ties to use as weights for his fishing lines, unaware that this comparatively trivial theft could endanger the lives of hundreds of railroad travelers. A lawyer asked Chekhov how he would have punished the peasant had he been judge at his trial. “I would have acquitted him,” said Chekhov. “I would have said to him: ‘You have not yet ripened into a deliberate criminal. Go — and ripen!’”

  2 Chekhov was walking with Tolstoy at Gaspra, in the Crimea, discussing the art of drama, when Tolstoy put his arm around Chekhov’s shoulders and said, “Shakespeare’s plays are bad enough, but yours are even worse.”