Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

by Clifton Fadiman

  3 Mrs. Jack, received by Chicago’s “queen of the White City,” Berthe Honore (Mrs. Potter) Palmer, in her battlemented castle, summed up her feelings about Midwest splendor and contemporary social art when shown the pantry. Mrs. Palmer’s eighteen-year-old son exhibited gold and silver plates and endless towers of porcelain dishes. “Mother has fifty of everything,” said he. “What does she do,” asked Mrs. Gardner, “when she has a really big party?”

  GARFIELD, James Abram (1831–81), 20th President of the United States (1881).

  1 When President Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, Garfield was staying in New York. There was an excited crowd in the street and Garfield was implored to address them. When he had won their attention, he said simply, “My fellow citizens, the President is dead, but the Government lives and God Omnipotent reigns.”

  GARLAND, Judy [Frances Gumm] (1922–69), US singer and film actress.

  1 Comedian Alan King once took Judy Garland to Chinatown in New York for dinner. King ordered as a first course stir-fried chicken, lobster, and Chinese vegetables. The magnificent dish arrived. On top was a big, black, round thing. Judy asked what it was. “That’s a very rare and exotic Chinese mushroom,” King told her. “It’s such a delicacy they only use one to a portion, just as a French chef uses a slice of truffle.” As he spoke, the exotic mushroom began to move, off the plate, across the table, and up the wall. Judy began to scream, tears rolling down her cheeks. The alarmed King was sure she was hysterical and slapped her. She stopped, then slapped him back. “What the hell’s the matter with you, you idiot? I’m not hysterical. I’m laughing.”

  GARRICK, David (1717–79), British actor and theater manager.

  1 The actor and wit Samuel Foote kept a small bust of Garrick on his bureau. “You may wonder,” he said, “that I allow him so near my gold, but see — he has no hands.”

  2 A nobleman tried to persuade Garrick to put himself forward as a candidate for election to Parliament. Garrick declined, saying, “I had rather play the part of a great man on stage than the part of a fool in Parliament.”

  GARRISON, William Lloyd (1805–79), US abolitionist.

  1 At antislavery meetings Garrison was well used to handling insults and dodging missiles from the crowd. The British Anti-Slavery Society gave a banquet in his honor and presented him with a gold watch. “Well, gentlemen,” said Garrison, “if this had been a rotten egg I should have known what to do with it, but as it is a gold watch, I am at a loss for words.”

  GARROD, Heathcote William (1878–1960), British classical scholar.

  1 During World War I, Garrod, already a distinguished scholar, worked at the Ministry of Munitions in London. The practice of handing white feathers to able-bodied men who were not in uniform was in full swing. Gar-rod was handed one by a woman in a London street with the withering comment, “I am surprised that you are not fighting to defend civilization.” Garrod replied, “Madam, I am the civilization they are fighting to defend.”

  GARTH, Sir Samuel (1672–1719), British physician and poet.

  1 At a convivial meeting of the Kit-Kat Club Garth announced early on in the proceedings that he would have to leave shortly to attend to his practice. However, under the influence of absorbing conversation and excellent wine, he stayed on until Sir Richard Steele thought to remind him of his waiting patients. At that, Garth pulled from his pocket a list containing fifteen names. Said he, “It is no great matter whether I see them tonight or not, for nine of them have such bad conditions that all the physicians in the world can’t save them, and the other six have such good constitutions that all the physicians in the world can’t kill them.”

  GARVEY, Steve (1948–), US baseball player.

  1 The first baseman for the Dodgers and the Padres, Garvey was handsome and extremely popular with fans and the media. After winning the National League championship over the Padres in 1984, Garvey was flying from San Diego to Detroit for the upcoming World Series. The movie shown on the flight was The Natural, and during the scene when Robert Redford hit his crucial home run, fans on the flight stood, chanting, “Gar-vey! Gar-vey!”

  GATES, John Warne (1855–1911), US industrialist, speculator, and gambler.

  1 He once bet the wealthy John Drake, whose family founded Drake University, $11,000. The wager turned on whose bread, dunked in coffee, would attract the most flies. Gates won. He had not bothered to let young Drake know that he had put six spoonfuls of sugar in his own cup.

  GAUSS, Karl Friedrich (1777–1855), German mathematician.

  1 At school, Gauss showed little of his precocious talent until the age of nine, when he was admitted to the arithmetic class. The master had set what appeared to be a complicated problem involving the addition of a series of numbers in arithmetical progression. Although he had never been taught the simple formula for solving such problems, Gauss handed in his slate within seconds. For the next hour the boy sat idly while his classmates labored. At the end of the lesson there was a pile of slates on top of Gauss’s, all with incorrect answers. The master was stunned to find at the bottom the slate from the youngest member of the class bearing the single correct number. He was so impressed that he bought the best available arithmetic textbook for Gauss and thereafter did what he could to advance his progress.

  2 Someone hurrying to tell Gauss that his wife was dying found the great mathematician deep in an abstruse problem. The messenger blurted out the sad news. “Tell her to wait a minute until I’ve finished,” replied Gauss absently.

  GEHRIG, [Henry] Lou[is] (1903–41), US baseball player.

  1 Gehrig had been playing poorly when he asked his manager not to use him on a certain day in early May 1939. He said that he did not know why he was not playing well, but it would not be fair to his team or himself to go on. It was then discovered that he was suffering from a fatal illness; he was to die within twenty-five months. Before that he was given a “day” in his honor before a full house in New York’s Yankee Stadium. Hearing the cheers, Gehrig said, “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

  GELON (d. 478 BC), tyrant of Syracuse (485– 478).

  1 Gelon suffered from bad breath, but was unaware of it for a long time until one of his foreign mistresses mentioned the fact to him. Gelon went to Bilia, his wife, and scolded her for never telling him, when she was the person with the best opportunities for doing so. She replied that as she had never been at close quarters with any other man, she had assumed that all men had disagreeable breath.

  GEOFFRIN, Marie-Thérèse (1699–1777), French salonnière.

  1 Mme Geoffrin one day was overheard quarreling vigorously with one of her intimates, a man of letters who responded with equal warmth and vivacity. Baron d’Holbach, who had been listening for a while in silence, approached them, smiling, and inquired, “By any chance are you two secretly married?”

  GEORGE I (1660–1727), king of Great Britain and Ireland (1714–27).

  1 The collapse in 1720 of the South Sea Company, of which George I was governor, was a financial disaster that affected many people in Britain. The king was overheard to say, “We had very good luck, for we sold out last week.”

  GEORGE II (1683–1760), king of Great Britain and Ireland (1727–60).

  1 George II was invited to attend the first performance of Handel’s Messiah in London in 1743. The audience was extremely moved by the music, as was the king. When the words “And he shall reign for ever and ever” were sung in the “Hallelujah Chorus,” he leaped to his feet, believing, because of his poor command of English, that this was a personal tribute to him from his protégé. The audience, seeing the king on his feet but perhaps not understanding his motive, also rose to their feet. It is still the custom for the audience to stand during this part of the performance, although not everyone knows why.

  2 The keeper of a village inn at which King George stopped for a brief meal served him an egg, for which he charged a guinea. His Majesty smiled and commented, “Eggs must be very scar
ce around here.”

  “Oh, no, sire,” said the innkeeper, “it is kings that are scarce.”

  GEORGE III (1738–1820), king of Great Britain and Ireland (1760–1820).

  1 Greatly impressed by astronomer William Herschel’s forty-foot telescope, George invited the archbishop of Canterbury to view the magnificent new instrument. “Come, my lord bishop,” he urged. “I will show you the way to Heaven.”

  2 In the stables at Windsor George III met a boy and asked him what he did and what he was paid. “I help in the stable,” replied the lad, “but they give me only my food and clothes.”

  “Be content,” said the king, “I have no more.”

  3 When Lord Eldon received the Great Seal of the office of lord chancellor from George III in 1801, the king was very affable. At the conclusion of the interview, he said, “Give my remembrance to Lady Eldon.” Lord Eldon thanked the king for his kindness and condescension. “Yes,” said the king, “I know how much I owe to Lady Eldon. You would have made yourself a country curate; she has made you my lord chancellor.”

  4 The acclaimed musician Johann Peter Salomon gave violin lessons to George III, but found the king neither an apt nor a diligent pupil. Torn between exasperation and the wish to encourage the royal fiddler, Salomon delivered the following pronouncement: “Your Majesty, fiddlers may be divided into three classes: the first, those who cannot play at all; the second, those who play badly; the third, those who play well. You, sire, have already attained the second class.”

  5 During a fit of madness George insisted on ending every sentence with the word “peacock.” This was a grave embarrassment to his ministers whenever he spoke in public until one of them thought of telling him that “peacock” was a particularly royal word and should therefore only be whispered when the king addressed his subjects. The suggestion helped.

  6 George’s equerry, Colonel Manners, brought him dinner one day only to find the king hidden under the sofa. Impeturbably Manners laid a place for the king on the carpet and left the food there. As he was quietly leaving, from under the sofa came the words, “That was very good…Manners.”

  7 The King hated his doctor, the Reverend Francis Willis. During one consultation he noticed Willis was wearing a black costume, and, referring to the doctor’s previous life in the clergy, asked if he preferred medicine to preaching. When Willis answered that he did, adding, “Sir, our Saviour Himself went about healing the sick,” George retorted, “Yes, yes, but He had not seven hundred pounds a year for it.”

  GEORGE IV (1762–1830), king of Great Britain and Ireland (1820–30).

  1 In the closing months of his life George IV kept almost entirely to his overheated apartments, where he consumed vast draughts of cherry brandy. He was troubled by delusions of riding a winning horse in a race and of commanding a battalion at the battle of Waterloo. His physician and confidant, the levelheaded Sir William Knighton, observed, “His Majesty has only to leave off cherry brandy, and, rest assured, he will gain no more victories.”

  2 Frequent repetition of his supposed feats at the battle of Waterloo reinforced the king’s belief that he had actually been there. After one such recital he turned to the Duke of Wellington and said, “Was it not so, duke?”

  “I have often heard Your Majesty say so,” replied Wellington.

  3 At a convivial dinner Wilkes, George III’s courtier, offered a toast to the aging monarch, “God save the King!” When the Prince of Wales sarcastically asked him how long he had been loyally offering such a toast, Wilkes replied, “Ever since I became acquainted with your Royal Highness.”

  GEORGE V (1865–1936), king of the United Kingdom. (1910–36).

  1 George V was an enthusiastic stamp collector. A private secretary once remarked to him, “I see in The Times today that some damn fool has given fourteen hundred pounds for a single stamp at a private sale.”

  “I am that damn fool,” said the king.

  2 During a dinner-table conversation with the US ambassador to Britain during World War I, George V asked, “How long a term is it that your American President serves?”

  “Four years.”

  “My God!” said the king. “If I could get through in four years, I’d never run again.”

  3 When Charles Lindbergh, first aviator to fly across the Atlantic Ocean alone, was presented to the king, George asked the usual questions including one that must have put the young aviator immediately at ease. “Now tell me,” said the king, “there is one thing I long to know. How did you manage?”

  4 The young Prince of Wales never got along with his father, a no-nonsense type, abrupt and cold with his children. Lord Derby once mildly suggested that the king might be a little more relaxed with Prince Edward. George replied, “My father was frightened of his mother; I was frightened of my father; and I am damned well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me.”

  5 In 1917 George V proclaimed that he was changing the surname of the royal family from the German Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to the solidly British Windsor. When his cousin and enemy, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, heard the news, he observed that he would look forward to the next performance of The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

  6 The great between-the-wars Cunard liner Queen Mary was originally to have been christened Queen Victoria. George V was told by a Cunard executive that the company wanted to name it after “the greatest of all English queens.” The delighted king exclaimed, “Oh, my wife will be pleased.”

  7 Pedestrian crossings marked by black-and-white poles surmounted by an orange globe (called “Belisha beacons” for the minister of transport, Leslie Hore-Belisha) were introduced toward the end of George’s reign. Driving through London with Queen Mary one day, the king, eager to test one of the new crossings, ordered the chauffeur to stop the car and let him out. He returned a few minutes later, chuckling with delight. “One of my devoted subjects,” he declared, “has just called me a doddering old idiot.”

  8 A courtier once approached the king wearing pants with cuffs, as was the new fashion. George looked at them and said, “I was not aware that my palace is damp.”

  9 His doctor assured the dying George V that he would soon be convalescent and able to go to his favorite seaside resort of Bognor Regis on the south coast of England. “Bugger Bognor,” said the monarch and expired.

  “Two gangsters, James Gallo and Joe Conigliaro, set about to murder a stool pigeon, Vinny Ensulo, alias Vinnie Ba Ba, alias Vincent Ennisie.

  “On November 1, 1973, they jumped him on Columbia Street, Brooklyn, and took him for a ride. Gallo pointed a gun at his head from the right, and Conigliaro covered him from the left. The car swerved violently. The two gangsters shot each other.

  “The New York Daily News described the sequel: ‘Conigliaro, hit in the spine, was paralyzed. Every year after that Vinny Ensulo sent wheelchair batteries to Conigliaro. A small card with the batteries always said, “Keep rolling, from your best pal, Vinny Ba Ba.”’”

  — JOHN TRAIN,

  True Remarkable Occurrences

  GEORGE VI (1895–1952), king of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1936–52).

  1 Although George VI was distinguished in several fields, he could not claim to be well versed in modern art. Looking at the paintings of the modernist John Piper, who specialized in storm scenes, all the monarch could think of to say was, “Pity you had such bloody awful weather.”

  2 In 1939 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, on a tour of the United States, were entertained at cocktails, mixed by their host, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The President’s mother looked on with disapproval. “My mother,” Roosevelt explained, “thinks you should have a cup of tea. She doesn’t approve of cocktails.” The king accepted the drink gratefully. “Neither does my mother,” he said.

  GEORGE-BROWN, Baron (b. 1914), British statesman, born George Alfred Brown.

  1 Lord George-Brown, at one stage of his career, was known to be a heavy drinker. At a certain diplomatic function when the
orchestra struck up, he felt that as the senior British minister present he should start the dancing. Spying a gorgeously robed figure, he said, “Beautiful lady in scarlet, will you do me the honor of waltzing with me?” “Certainly not,” was the sharp response. “In the first place you are drunk; in the second this is not actually a waltz but the Venezuelan national anthem; and, thirdly, I am not a beautiful lady in scarlet, I am, in fact, the papal nuncio.”

  GERARD, James Watson (1867–1951), US lawyer and diplomat.

  1 In 1916 Arthur Zimmerman became German foreign minister. Gerard once described him as “just and friendly toward America.” But relations between the two countries deteriorated. Zimmerman, whose intelligence service was unreliable, once remarked to the ambassador that if the United States entered the war, “there are half a million trained Germans in America who will join the Irish and start a revolution.” Gerard replied, “In that case there are half a million lampposts to hang them on.”

  GERSHWIN, George (1898–1937), US composer and songwriter.

  1 The pianist and wit Oscar Levant, Gershwin’s close friend, once asked the composer confidentially, “Tell me, George, if you had to do it all over, would you fall in love with yourself again?”

  2 When Gershwin started psychoanalysis, Oscar Levant, who used to scoff at it, asked him, “Does it help your constipation, George?” Gershwin replied, “No, but now I understand why I have it.”

  3 Oscar Levant complained to Gershwin that when they traveled together on trains he always had to take the upper berth while Gershwin had the lower. “That’s the difference between talent and genius,” said Gershwin.