2 A journalist once called at Frost’s house for an interview. “Do you have one of those machines — those tape recorders?” asked the poet suspiciously as he opened the door. “No, sir,” replied the journalist. Frost’s manner changed instantly. “Well, come on in!” he cried. “Those people who take down every word never get anything right.”
3 Frost had just recited one of his poems, and was asked to explain it. “What do you want me to do?” he replied. “Say it over again in worser English?”
FUGGER, Johann (late 11th century), German bishop.
1 In the year 1110 Bishop Fugger set out from his German diocese for Rome to attend the coronation of Emperor Henry V. He sent his majordomo ahead to sample the fare provided by the taverns along the proposed route and to write “Est” (it is) over the doors of all those that served good wine. When the man reached the little hill town of Montefiascone in Lazio, just north of Rome, he was so enthusiastic about the local wine that he wrote, “Est! Est! Est!” over the inn door. His master agreed with the recommendation; during the remainder of his life he drank the Montefiascone vintage and was buried in the town. Under the terms of the bishop’s will, a barrel of wine was to be poured over his grave once a year, but this wasteful stipulation was later altered and the barrel of Est! Est! Est!, as the wine is still called, was diverted to the local seminary where it could be enjoyed by trainee priests.
FULLER, Margaret, Marchioness d’Ossoli (1810–50), US writer and philosopher.
1 Margaret Fuller cried out enthusiastically, “I accept the universe.” Hearing of this, Thomas Carlyle, the Scottish historian, snarled, “By God, she’d better!”
2 Meeting her by chance in the street one day, Mrs. Horace Greeley noticed that Miss Fuller was wearing kid gloves. “Skin of a beast!” she said, shuddering with distaste.
“Why, what do you wear?” asked Margaret.
“Silk,” replied Mrs. Greeley.
Miss Fuller wrinkled her nose with equal distaste. “Entrails of a worm!” she said.
FULLER, Melville Weston (1833–1910), US lawyer; Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court (1888–1910).
1 Chief Justice Fuller was chairing a church conference at which one of the speakers launched into a tirade against the pernicious influence of higher education, thanking God that his own mind had never been polluted by contact with a university. “Are we to understand that the speaker is thanking God for ignorance?” broke in Fuller. “Well, yes, I suppose you could put it like that,” was the reply. “In that case,” said Fuller, “the speaker has a very great deal to thank God for.”
FULLER, Richard Buckminster (1895–1983), US architect and engineer.
1 A student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology once asked Fuller whether he took aesthetic factors into account when tackling a technical problem. “No,” replied Fuller. “When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only of how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”
FULTON, Robert (1765–1815), US inventor.
1 Fulton constructed a submarine for the French to use against the British. In 1801 it was tested in Brest harbor. After the trial the inventor was withered by a French admiral who snorted, “Thank God, sir, France still fights her battles above the waves, not beneath them.”
FURTWÄNGLER, Wilhelm (1886–1954), German conductor.
1 Gregor Piatigorsky was present at a rehearsal in which Furtwängler pulled the orchestra up over a certain phrase. “Gentlemen, this phrase must be — it must be — it must — you know what I mean — please try it again.” Afterward, Furtwängler remarked to Piatigorsky complacently, “You see how important it is for a conductor to convey his wishes clearly?”
FUSELI, Henry [Johann Heinrich Füssli] (1741–1825), British painter.
1 Following the death of Reynolds, the Royal Academy in London met in 1794 to elect a new president. There was one vote for the American John Singleton Copley, one for the royal coach-painter Catton, and one for the Swiss painter Mary Moser. But most of the votes went to the previously nominated Benjamin West, the renowned historical painter. The vote for Mary Moser came from Fuseli — not because he had any particular esteem for her, but out of sheer animosity toward West. Asked why he had cast his vote for one whose sex obviously (in those days) made her unelectable, he replied, “Because I thought one old woman might be as good as another.”
2 At the Royal Academy Fuseli showed the great portrait painter George Romney a sketch he had made, which he called The First Kiss. It was notable for the distorted, almost acrobatic pose of the two figures. Romney examined the sketch attentively, then said “Looks to me more like The Kiss of the Laocoön Family.”
G
GABIN, Jean (1904–76), French film actor.
1 Arriving in New York during World War II, Gabin was asked by a reporter about the French attitude toward the British. “We are both pro-British and anti-British,” Gabin replied. “Those who are pro-British say every night in their prayers, ‘Dear God, let the gallant British win quickly,’ and those who are anti-British pray, ‘Dear God, let the filthy British win very soon.’ ”
GABOR, Zsa Zsa (1919–), Hungarian-born US film and television actress.
1 Zsa Zsa was asked if she was not embarrassed to have had so many marriages — seven at the last count. She replied, “Why should I be, dah-link? Other women have many more affairs. They are the ones who should be embarrassed. At least I marry my affairs.”
2 Asked how many husbands she had had, Miss Gabor looked puzzled. “You mean apart from my own?” she inquired.
3 A women’s magazine once printed the replies of a number of famous women to the question: “What is the first thing you notice about a woman?”
“Her way of speaking,” was Agatha Christie’s answer.
“Her hands,” said Maria Callas.
“Her husband,” replied Zsa Zsa.
GAINSBOROUGH, Thomas (1727–88), British portraitist and landscape painter.
1 Gainsborough, who found actors difficult subjects, experienced some problems with his portrait of Sarah Siddons. At one sitting he finally burst out in exasperation, “Damn your nose, madame; there’s no end to it!”
2 Having discovered a malignant tumor on his neck, Gainsborough began with courage and composure to prepare himself for death. He had not been on good terms with Sir Joshua Reynolds, his rival for royal favor, but he sent for him and the two artists were reconciled. Turning to Sir Joshua with a contented smile, Gainsborough said, “We are all going to heaven and Van Dyck is of the company.”
“Jack Good, after a period of top secret work for the British Navy and a Fellowship at Oxford, zoomed off to the USA and is now a Distinguished Professor of Statistics at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. His impeccable scientific credentials — he has a list of about a thousand published scientific papers, reportsand notes in his curriculum vitae — do not prevent his enjoying an idiosyncratic approach to life. His keen interest in palindromes (phrases like ABLE WAS I ERE I SAW ELBA) led him on one occasion to write to Her Majesty the Queen suggesting that she appoint him a peer of the realm. His reason for making his request was that when people saw him approaching they would certainly remark, “Good Lord, here comes Lord Good.’ ”
— CHRISTOPHER EVANS,
The Micro Millennium
GAISFORD, Thomas (1779–1855), British classical scholar, dean of Oxford’s Christ Church (1831–55).
1 Gaisford once ended a sermon with the following advice: “Nor can I do better, in conclusion, than impress upon you the study of Greek literature, which not only elevates above the vulgar herd, but leads not infrequently to positions of considerable emolument.”
GALBRAITH, John Kenneth (1908–), Canadian-born US economist and diplomat.
1 On the morning that The New York Times published a profile of Galbraith, he was having breakfast with President Kennedy. When Kennedy asked him what he thought of the article, Galbrait
h said it was all right but he could not understand why they had to call him arrogant. “I don’t see why not,” said the President, “everybody else does.”
GALEN (c. AD 129–199), Greek physician who practiced in Rome.
1 Galen was called to attend the wife of a Roman aristocrat. Her doctor had been treating her for an organic complaint, but she had not improved. Galen, while taking her pulse, mentioned the name of an actor with whom her name was linked in the gossip of the town. Her pulse immediately bounded. Then Galen leaned down and whispered something in her ear that made her laugh. That laugh began her cure and is one of the earliest instances of a psychiatric treatment for psychosomatic illness.
GALIANI, Ferdinando (1728–87), Italian writer, economist, wit, and friend of the Ency-clopédistes.
1 Even after Sophie Arnould, the famous eighteenth-century opera singer, was no longer in full control of her voice, she continued to charm audiences with the appeal of her stage presence and the allure of her figure. After one concert, the Abbé Galiani, noted as a connoisseur of music, was asked his opinion of her performance. He replied: “It’s the most beautiful asthma I have heard in my whole lifetime.”
GALILEO [Galileo Galilei] (1564–1642), Italian astronomer and physicist.
1 In 1632, after years of silence on the Coper-nican issue, Galileo published his Dialogo dei due massimi sistemi del mondo (Dialogue on Two Chief World Systems). The Inquisition summoned the aged author to Rome, where he was examined and threatened with torture. Galileo recanted and was sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life. As he rose from his knees after making a solemn renunciation of the Copernican doctrine, he was heard to mutter, “Eppur si muove” (But still it moves).
GALLI-CURCI, Amelita (1889–1963), Italian opera soprano.
1 Relaxing in her dressing room after a concert one evening, Galli-Curci heard a knock at the door. Quite accustomed to receiving visits from aspiring young singers seeking free advice and encouragement, she sighed wearily and opened the door. There stood a rather timid young girl clutching a small bunch of roses. Galli-Curci invited her in, taking the flowers from her admirer’s trembling hand. “Do you sing?” she asked. “Oh, no!” exclaimed the girl, a little taken aback by the question. “Well then, do you play?” asked the soprano, gesturing toward the piano. “No,” replied her visitor, adding somewhat apologetically, “I just listen.” Galli-Curci smiled and impulsively embraced the girl. “I had quite forgotten,” she said, “that there were people left who only listen.”
GALLUP, George Horace (1901–84), US statistician, founder of the American Institute of Public Opinion.
1 The Gallup poll conducted before the presidential election of 1948 wrongly predicted a win for Thomas E. Dewey. Shortly after the announcement of Harry Truman’s victory, Gallup was stopped by a policeman for driving down a one-way street in the wrong direction. On reading the name on Gallup’s driving license, the policeman grinned broadly and exclaimed, “Wrong again!”
GALOIS, Évariste (1811–32), French mathematician.
1 At the hospital to which Galois, fatally wounded, was taken, his younger brother sat weeping at his bedside. Galois tried to comfort him. “Don’t cry,” he told him, “I need all my courage to die at twenty.”
GALVANI, Luigi (1737–98), Italian anatomist and physiologist, for whom the galvanometer is named.
1 (Wilder Penfield tells this story:)
“One evening in the late eighteenth century an Italian woman stood in her kitchen watching the frogs’ legs which she was preparing for the evening meal. ‘Look at those muscles moving.…They always seem to come alive when I hang them on the copper wire.’
“Her husband [Luigi Galvani] looked.…The cut end of the frog’s nerve was in contact with the copper wire, and electric current produced by the contact was passing along the nerve to the muscle. As a result, the muscle was twitching and contracting.…
“He had discovered the key to electricity, and to nerve conduction, and to muscle action. Here was the basis of all animal movement, reflex and voluntary, in frog and man.”
GANDHI, Mohandas Karamchand [Mahatma] (1869–1948), Indian statesman and spiritual leader.
1 Even after becoming an internationally recognized statesman, Gandhi persisted in following an extremely spartan lifestyle. He wore the simple clothes of the poor, traveled on foot whenever possible, preferred staying in the slum areas of cities, and always used the cheapest class of railway travel. In view of the danger to which such behavior exposed Gandhi, Lord Louis Mountbatten, the British viceroy, expressed surprise to an eminent member of Gandhi’s party on one occasion at a railroad station. He was told that all the Untouchables in the carriage had been carefully selected and checked by the security services: “You have no idea what it costs to keep that old man in poverty!”
2 Gandhi gave a lecture to a select gathering of maharajahs, exhorting them to give up their money and possessions and embrace a life of poverty and simplicity. One by one his distinguished audience slid out until there was nobody left except (as Gandhi afterward said) “God, the chairman, and myself.” After another few minutes the chairman himself melted away. “Poor fellow,” observed Gandhi, “he must have been very uncomfortable in that strange company.”
3 In 1931 Gandhi went to call on Mussolini, complete with the goat that he took around with him at the time. Mussolini’s children laughed at the incongruous figure, but Il Duce reproved them: “That man and his goat are shaking the British Empire.”
4 As Gandhi stepped aboard a train one day, one of his shoes slipped off and landed on the track. He was unable to retrieve it as the train was moving. To the amazement of his companions, Gandhi calmly took off his other shoe and threw it back along the track to land close to the first. Asked by a fellow passenger why he did so, Gandhi smiled. “The poor man who finds the shoe lying on the track,” he replied, “will now have a pair he can use.”
5 Mahatma Gandhi was once asked what he thought about Western civilization. “I think,” he replied, “that it would be a very good idea.”
GARBO, Greta [Greta Louisa Gustafsson] (1905–90), Swedish film actress.
1 After such films as The Torrent and Flesh and the Devil, Garbo decided to exploit her box-office power and asked Louis B. Mayer for a raise — from $350 to $5,000 a week. Mayer offered her $2,500. “I tank I go home,” said Garbo. She went back to her hotel and stayed there for a full seven months until Mayer finally gave way.
2 David Niven remembered a conversation with Greta Garbo one day in a rainstorm: “I often wondered if something of [vertigo] had overtaken Garbo at the pinnacle of her career, so seeing her before me, carefree and happy, munching away contentedly with the rain cascading off the table, I decided it might be a propitious moment to try and find out.
“‘Why did you give up the movies?’ I asked.
“She considered her answer so carefully that I wondered if she had decided to ignore my personal question. At last, almost to herself, she said, ‘I had made enough faces.’”
3 Long after she retired from moviemaking — which she did at the age of thirty-six — she was flattered about her genius. Gently she corrected her interviewer: “My talents fall within definite limitations. I am not as versatile an actress as some think.”
4 Some years after her retirement (at a very young age) from acting, Garbo visited Hollywood in the company of her good friend, designer and photographer Cecil Beaton. As they approached the city Garbo turned to her friend and said, “This is where I have wasted the best years of my life.”
GARDNER, Erle Stanley (1889–1970), US lawyer and writer of detective stories. His best-known character is lawyer-detective Perry Mason.
1 In the early days of his career, Gardner churned out stories for pulp magazines at the rate of two hundred thousand words a month. As he was paid by the word, the length of the story was more important to him than its quality, and he tended to draw the maximum potential from every incident. His villains, for example,
were always killed by the last bullet in the gun. Gardner’s editor once asked him why his heroes were always so careless with their first five shots. “At three cents a word,” replied Gardner, “every time I say bang in the story I get three cents. If you think I’m going to finish the gun battle while my hero has got fifteen cents’ worth of unexploded ammunition in his gun, you’re nuts.”
GARDNER, Isabella Stewart [“Mrs. Jack”] (1840–1942), US social leader and art collector.
1 New York-born Mrs. Jack Gardner, who once out of boredom walked a lion cub down Tremont Street, Boston, on a leash, never felt secure in Boston society. Once when she was visited by a grande dame who told her, “I am here to accept your donation to Boston’s Charitable Eye and Ear Association,” she replied: “Really? I didn’t know there was a charitable eye or ear in Boston.”
2 “Isabella Stewart of New York never thought much about ancestry until she married into the Gardner family of Boston. In Boston, she endured a good deal of fairly dull conversation on the subject, so, eventually, she had her Stewart descent traced directly back — all the way to King Fergus I of Scotland, a contemporary of Alexander the Great!…After having the Stewart lineage engrossed and illuminated in colors on a long scroll, Isabella Stewart Gardner was in a position to make one of her famous, much-quoted remarks. She had listened to a monologue by a Boston dowager concerning that lady’s American Revolutionary ancestry. ‘Ah yes,’ said Isabella. ‘They were much less careful about immigration in those days, I believe.’ ”
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