ELMAN, Mischa (1891–1967), US violinist.
1 As a child of seven, Elman was asked to give a violin recital for friends of the family. He embarked on Beethoven’s Kreutzer sonata, which he played with ease and great virtuosity. During one of the many long rests in the piece, one of his listeners, a kindly old lady, tapped him on the shoulder and whispered confidentially, “Play something you know, dear.”
“Henry Erskine, Lord Advocate of Scotland toward the close of the eighteenth century, had a tutor who was very absent-minded. So much so that Erskine, who thought a great deal of the old man, was one day flabbergasted to hear him say: ‘I was very sorry, my dear boy, you have had the fever in your family; was it you or your brother who died of it?’ ‘It was I,’ Erksine replied. ‘Ah, dear me, I thought so — very sorry for it — very sorry for it.’ And the old man walked away.”
— HERBERT V. PROCHNOW,
The Public Speaker’s Treasure Chest
EMERSON, Ralph Waldo (1803–82), US writer, Transcendentalist philosopher, and exponent of individualism, known as “the Sage of Concord.”
1 When he moved to his house in Concord, Emerson was particularly delighted with the orchard. He spent an hour each morning tending the trees; he did his writing in the orchard when possible, and received his friends there. He sent some of his pears to the local cattle show, and was pleased when he received a visit from the committee of the horticultural society who asked whether they might examine his pear trees. Emerson received them with modest pride, and then discovered that they had not come to congratulate him — they had come to look at the soil that had produced such poor specimens of such a fine species.
2 Among the sages whom Emerson sought out on his visit to Europe was the notoriously reticent and difficult Thomas Carlyle. He called on Carlyle one evening and was given a pipe, while his host took one himself. They sat together smoking in perfect silence until bedtime, and on parting shook hands most cordially, congratulating each other on the fruitful time they had enjoyed together.
3 Emerson was asked to speak on the occasion of the two-hundredth anniversary of the founding of Concord, which was also the sixtieth anniversary of the famous battle. He considered this a great honor and, determined to do his very best, decided to produce a fresh literary version of the encounter. He began by questioning the surviving veterans, and in the course of his researches came across a barefooted farmer who was driving his oxen in Concord. Emerson asked him whether all the people thereabouts went without shoes and stockings, and the farmer replied, “Wal, some on ’em doos, and the rest on ’em minds their own business.”
4 While at Harvard, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., wrote a fifteen-page critical essay on Plato and showed it to Emerson for his comments. Emerson returned it with the observation: “When you shoot at a king, you must kill him.” Holmes destroyed his essay.
5 John Greenleaf Whittier once asked Emerson what he prayed for. “When I first open my eyes upon the morning meadows and look out upon the beautiful world,” replied Emerson, “I thank God I am alive and that I live so near Boston.”
6 A lady once asked a scrubwoman who regularly attended Emerson’s lectures at Concord if she understood Mr. Emerson. “Not a word,” was the reply, “but I like to go and see him stand up there and look as though he thought everyone was as good as he.”
7 Warned by a member of a religious cult that the world was going to end in ten days’ time, Emerson calmly replied, “Well, no doubt we will get on very well without it.”
8 On the publication of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Emerson sent Whitman the now-famous letter that included the line, “I greet you at the beginning of a great career.” When the next edition was ready, Whitman sent a copy to Emerson, who saw to his dismay that his name and comment — which he had considered part of a private communication — were emblazoned in gold across the front cover. Emerson gave the copy to a friend, saying that the inside of the book was worthy of attention even though it came from a person capable of so misusing the cover.
9 In Emerson’s later years his memory began increasingly to fail. He used to refer to it as his “naughty memory” when it let him down. He would forget the names of things, and have to refer to them in a circumlocutory way, saying, for instance, “the implement that cultivates the soil” for plow. Worse, he could not remember people’s names. At Longfellow’s funeral, he remarked to a friend, “That gentleman has a sweet, beautiful soul, but I have entirely forgotten his name.” Perhaps most touching was his term for umbrella — “the thing that strangers take away.”
EMPEDOCLES (5th century BC), Greek philosopher and scientist.
1 Various accounts of Empedocles’ death are given in ancient sources. His enemies said that his desire to be thought a god led him to throw himself into the crater of Mount Etna so that he might vanish from the world completely and thus lead men to believe he had achieved apotheosis. Unfortunately the volcano defeated his design by throwing out one of the philosopher’s sandals.
ENESCO, Georges (1881–1955), Rumanian violinist and conductor.
1 Enesco, wishing to help a young friend making his debut at Carnegie Hall, offered to accompany him on the piano. The idea diverted the pianist Walter Gieseking, who said he would turn the pages. A review next morning read: “The man who should have been playing the piano was turning the pages, and the man who should have been turning the pages was playing the violin.”
ENGELS, Friedrich (1820–95), German socialist leader and political philosopher.
1 Friedrich Engels was the son of a prosperous manufacturer of textiles. The father, to familiarize the six-year-old Friedrich with his eventual inheritance, once showed him through the factory. The little boy was profoundly shocked by the miserable working conditions under which children hardly older than himself had to labor. Before his stern father he disguised his feeling, but on his return home in great agitation he asked his beloved mother, “Must I too go to work soon in the factory?”
“No, my dear, thank God you won’t have to. You can be glad that the factory belongs to us.”
“And how about the children? Are they glad?”
“No, Friedrich, not like you. But it’s better for you not to trouble your little head about it. No one can change things, even you.”
The boy slept little that night. In the morning his mother awakened him. He looked at her. “Mother, suppose I want to change things — then what…?”
EPSTEIN, Sir Jacob (1880–1959), British sculptor, born in New York of Russo-Polish descent.
1 On a visit to Epstein’s studio, George Bernard Shaw noticed a huge block of stone standing in one corner and asked what it was for. “I don’t know yet,” said the sculptor. “I’m still making plans.” Shaw was astounded. “You mean you plan your work? Why, I change my mind several times a day!” he exclaimed. “That’s all very well with a four-ounce manuscript,” replied Epstein, “but not with a four-ton block.”
ERASMUS, Desiderius (1466–1536), Dutch humanist scholar and writer.
1 Reproached for not observing the Lenten fast, Erasmus replied, “I have a Catholic soul, but a Lutheran stomach.”
ERIC the Red (late 10th century AD), Norwegian navigator.
1 The terrain of Greenland is covered mainly with glaciers and barren rock, with only a few patches of tundra and habitable land. Eric named it Greenland on the principle that colonists would be keen to go there if the country bore an attractive name.
ERSKINE, Thomas, 1st Baron (1750–1823), British politician who became lord chancellor (1806–07).
1 Lord Erskine had a standard practice for dealing with letters soliciting his subscription to various causes. “Sir, I feel much honored by your application to me, and I beg to subscribe” — here the reader had to turn over the notepaper — “myself your very obedient servant.”
2 Erskine, who was fond of puns, was told that such word-play was the lowest form of wit. “That’s very true,” he replied, “and therefore it is the foundation
of all wit.”
ERVING, Julius (1950–), US basketball player.
1 The University of Massachusetts wonder, Nets star and future Hall-of-Famer, “DR. J,” as he was known, was born Julius Winfield Erving II on Washington Irving’s birthday in 1950. His mother was urged to call him Washington as well — Washington Erving — but reason prevailed.
ESTE, Borso d’ (1413–71), Duke of Modena and Reggio and Duke of Ferrara.
1 Duke Borso sent a letter in Latin to the mayor of an outlying village asking him to catch a sparrowhawk (accipitrem) and send it to Ferrara trussed up in a sack to prevent its escape. When the letter was delivered, it caused great consternation; the villagers read it as a demand for the surrender of their archpriest (arciprete). Although they knew of no reason for the duke’s apparent displeasure with the popular priest, they thought they had better obey his command. The luckless cleric, protesting his innocence, was duly popped into a sack and taken to Ferrara. At the ducal palace, the official to whom the package was delivered was totally perplexed. “Have you a letter?” he asked. The letter, of course, made all things clear. Duke Borso, to save the villagers’ face, solemnly sent back a message saying that he had changed his mind and they could set their victim free. After that he took care to write to his rustic subjects in the vernacular.
EUCLID (fl. 300 BC), Greek mathematician who lived and worked in Alexandria, Egypt.
1 Euclid was employed as tutor of mathematics in the royal household. King Ptolemy I complained about the difficulty of the theorems that Euclid expected him to grasp, wondering whether there was not an easier way to approach the subject. Euclid gently rebuked him: “Sire, there is no royal road to geometry.”
2 A student who had just begun his studies asked Euclid, after he had learned the first theorem, what would be his reward. Euclid called his slave and said to him, “Give him three obols, since he must make gain out of what he learns.”
EUGÉNIE (1826–1920), empress of France (1853–70), wife of Napoleon III.
1 The empress and her lady-in-waiting, Mme de Pourtalès, were playing patience in a remote corner of the palace garden at Saint-Cloud when a masked man appeared brandishing a gun. He demanded their jewels, which they duly handed over. He then told them to undress. They had begun to do so when Mme de Pourtalès suddenly recognized the intruder. “It’s Poché!” she exclaimed, naming a young courtier who was known for his pranks. As they scolded him, the sound of running feet was heard — the imperial security guards alerted by the women’s raised voices. Realizing that even Poché might find it difficult to explain his mask and gun, Eugénie said, “Quick, hide under my crinoline!” So, until the guards had withdrawn, there he remained.
2 The day after an attempt by Felice Orsini and two accomplices to assassinate the imperial couple, Napoleon was implacably resolved to seek the death penalty for the conspirators, a step Eugénie implored him not to take. The argument grew heated. Eugénie, seeking an ally, burst from their private apartments, wearing nothing but a transparent peignoir, and ran into the adjacent library where her private secretary, a plain, rather stolid man, was working. She begged him to help her make her case to the emperor. He was deeply embarrassed by the virtually naked empress and scarcely knew where to look. “Your Majesty seems to forget that there is a man under the secretary,” he mumbled in painful confusion. Eugénie, her nerves on edge, glanced at the solid secretaire in the corner. “What? A man hidden in here under the furniture?” she shrieked.
EULER, Leonhard (1707–83), Swiss mathematician.
1 (Says E. T. Bell:)
“After having amused himself one afternoon calculating the laws of ascent of balloons — on his slate, as usual — [Euler] dined with Lexell [a mathematical colleague] and his family. ‘Herschel’s Planet’ (Uranus) was a recent discovery. Euler outlined the calculation of its orbit. A little later he asked that his grandson be brought in. While playing with the child and drinking tea he suffered a stroke. The pipe dropped from his hand, and with the words, ‘I die,’ Euler ceased to live and calculate.”
EURIPIDES (c. 480–406 BC), Greek tragic playwright. He wrote some ninety plays, of which fewer than twenty survive, among them Medea and The Trojan Women.
1 Euripides once confessed that it had taken him three days to write three verses. His astonished interlocutor, a poet of inferior abilities, exclaimed, “I could have written a hundred in that time!”
“I believe it,” replied Euripides, “but they would have lived only three days.”
EVANS, Sir Arthur [John] (1851–1941), British archaeologist.
1 “[Evans] kept his powers into extreme old age and on his ninetieth birthday on 8 July 1941 welcomed a party of friends who went to pay honour to him. He seemed remarkably spry and talked about a new Roman road which he had discovered. Very soon afterwards a man in the Intelligence Corps, with Greece as his special province, who liked to be a bit of a ‘know-all,’ told him that the Germans had destroyed Knossos. Evans was stricken to the heart, believing that his life’s work had been ruined. He died three days later, and the tragic irony was that, so far from destroying Knossos, the Germans had taken pains to see that nothing was damaged.”
EVANS, Dame Edith (1888–1976), British actress, celebrated for her Shakespearean performances.
1 When Edith Evans was playing the role of Miss Betsey Trotwood in a film adaptation of Dickens’s David Copperfield, she had to carry a cat in a basket on her arm during one scene. The cat was sedated but in the middle of a long speech it began making efforts to climb out of its prison. Scarcely pausing in her speech, Edith Evans shoved it back into the basket. “Don’t be such an ambitious pussy. You’re not in Dick Whittington,” she hissed in an aside.
2 (In 1966 Bryan Forbes directed Edith Evans, then seventy-eight, in the role of Mrs. Ross in the film The Whisperers.)
“We only had one meeting prior to shooting when we discussed the script. Edith asked if I would insert one additional line of dialogue for her. Although she greatly admired Eric Portman [her co-star] as an actor she was not…enamoured of his private personality. ‘Do you think,’ she said, ‘you could add a line to indicate that she married slightly beneath her?’ I promised to consider it. A few days later I met with Eric to discuss his reactions to the script. He admired Edith as an actress without qualification, but confessed, with more bluntness than Edith, that there were aspects of her offstage personality that grated on him. ‘Do you think, dear boy,’ he said, ‘you could somehow insert an extra line which would indicate she married a much younger man?’ I kept both confidences to myself, duly made the amendments and neither of them ever referred to it again.”
EVERETT, Edward (1794–1865), US statesman and orator.
1 While Everett was president of Harvard, a storm arose over the proposed admission of a Negro to the college. Everett replied, “If this boy passes the examination he will be admitted; and if the white students choose to withdraw, all the income of the college will be devoted to his education.”
F
FAGIUOLI, Giovanni Battista (1660–1742), Italian poet.
1 As court poet to Archduke Cosimo III of Tuscany, Fagiuoli was also a kind of court clown. One day he presented his master with a list of names. “What do these names stand for?” asked the archduke.
“They’re a list of all the fools of my acquaintance.”
“But,” exploded the archduke, “my name heads the list!”
“Your Highness, that’s because yesterday you commissioned that botanist in England to collect and bring you a collection of rare plants. But — you paid him in advance!”
“I see nothing foolish in that. Suppose he delivers them in accord with my instructions?”
“In that case I’ll erase your name and substitute his.”
FAIRBANKS, Douglas (1883–1939), US film actor.
1 As he was driving back to his mansion, Pick-fair, Fairbanks saw an Englishman of aristocratic mien and familiar face trudging along the road in the heat. He stopped to
offer him a ride, which the stranger accepted. Still unable to remember the man’s name, Fairbanks invited him for a drink, and in the course of conversation attempted to elicit some clues as to his visitor’s identity. The Englishman seemed to know many of Fairbanks’s friends and was evidently well acquainted with the estate, for he made approving comments on some recent changes. Eventually Fairbanks managed a whispered aside to his secretary, who had just entered the room. “Who’s this Englishman? I know he’s Lord Somebody, but I just can’t remember his name.”
“That,” replied the secretary, “is the English butler you fired last month for getting drunk.”
FALLIÈRES, [Clement] Armand (1841–1931), French statesman; eighth president of the Third Republic (1906–13).
1 Fallières, visiting sculptor Auguste Rodin’s studio, looked around him at the assemblage of unfinished work — hands, feet, heads, torsos. Then he remarked, “Well, I can see that the movers haven’t been particularly careful.”
FARADAY, Michael (1791–1867), British chemist and physicist.
1 Faraday’s interest in knowledge for its own sake sometimes baffled people with a more practical turn of mind. William Gladstone, watching Faraday at an experiment from which he could discern no practical result, asked, “Of what use is such a discovery?” Faraday retorted, “Why, you will soon be able to tax it.”
FAROUK I (1920–65), king of Egypt (1936–52).
1 After being driven from his throne in 1952, Farouk remarked bitterly, “One day there will be only five kings left: hearts, spades, diamonds, clubs, and England.”
Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes Page 36