2 When he played in trios with pianist Artur Rubinstein and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, Heifetz complained that Rubinstein always got first billing. “If the Almighty himself played the violin,” he once said, “the credits would still read, ‘Rubinstein, God, and Piatigorsky,” in that order.”
3 In New York for a Carnegie Hall recital, Heifetz was still practicing in his hotel room at midnight on the eve of the concert. An irate fellow guest phoned to complain about the noise. “But I’m Jascha Heifetz,” said the violinist. “I don’t care if you’re Lawrence Welk,” retorted the female voice at the other end of the line. “I want to get some sleep.”
4 Shortly after his appointment as professor of music at the University of California, Los Angeles, Heifetz was asked what had prompted this change of direction in his career. “Violin-playing is a perishable art,” said Heifetz solemnly. “It must be passed on as a personal skill; otherwise it is lost.” Then, with a smile, he continued: “I remember my old violin professor in Russia. He said that someday I would be good enough to teach.”
HEINE, Heinrich (1797–1856), German poet.
1 In 1841 Heine married Eugénie Mirat, a saleswoman in a Parisian boot shop. She was uneducated, foolish, and vain. Heine’s affection for her did not preclude an awareness of her shortcomings. At his death he left her his whole estate on condition that she marry again, “because then there will be at least one man who will regret my death.”
2 In 1845 Heine first showed the symptoms of the crippling spinal disease that condemned him to a “mattress grave” for many years before his end. He viewed the approach of death calmly, refusing to be drawn into a display of religious zeal. “God will pardon me,” he said. “It’s his profession.” It was with less equanimity, however, that he viewed the possibility of leaving things unsaid. His last words were, “Write… write… pencil… paper.”
3 Heine died in poverty, deserted by his friends. The sole person to attend his deathbed in his squalid Parisian garret was the composer Berlioz. “I always thought you were an original, Berlioz,” observed the dying man.
HELD, Woodie (1932–), US baseball player.
1 An undistinguished major league player, Held served on various teams without ever achieving distinction. But his well-meant advice to fellow players has survived: “Don’t forget to swing hard, in case you hit the ball.”
HELLMAN, Lillian (1905–84), US dramatist
1 Harper’s Magazine once sent out a questionnaire to a selected number of prominent men. One question was: “During what activity, situation, moment, or series of moments do you feel most masculine?” Having processed the replies, the editor felt it might be interesting to send the questionnaire to a similar group of celebrated women. Lillian Hellman was among the chosen number. She replied: “It makes me feel masculine to tell you that I do not answer questions like this without being paid for answering them.”
“Most of the rich have liked partying, and since the less rich like being the admiring guests of their financial betters, there is a never-ending stream of party fodder. Though perhaps not always with the happiest of results — as the slightly down-market guests of the Emperor Heliogabalus discovered when one of them remarked how pleasant it would be to be smothered in the scent of roses that adorned the imperial table, and the rest agreed. Taking them at their word, the next time the same guests came to dinner the emperor had several tons of petals dumped over the dinner table. The guests’ reaction on this occasion passed unrecorded. They had suffocated.”
— DAVID FROST AND MICHAEL DEAKIN,
David Frost’s Book of Millionaires, Multimillionaires, and Really Rich People
HELMSLEY, Leona (1921–), US real estate entrepreneur.
1 After she and her husband and business partner, Harry Helmsley, were convicted of tax evasion, the multimillionaire and real estate baroness snapped at reporters, “Only the little people pay taxes.”
HEMINGWAY, Ernest (1899–1961), US novelist and short-story writer.
1 The threat of starvation can bring unusual foods to the table, as Hemingway discovered during the course of a particularly hard Paris winter. In order to feed his family, which he was unable to do by selling stories, he resorted to catching pigeons in the Luxembourg Gardens when the gendarme on duty went into a café for a glass of wine. Having lured the pigeons with a handful of corn, Hemingway dispatched the luckless creatures with an expert twist of the neck. He then concealed the bodies under the blanket in his son Bumby’s carriage in order to take them home to be cooked and eaten.
2 Hemingway left his wife, Hadley, and their small son in 1926 and moved to 2 bis rue Feron, Paris, where Pauline Pfeiffer, whom he would later marry, awaited him. He was asked why he had left Hadley. In his best Hemingway prose the novelist answered, “Because I am a bastard.”
3 Hemingway’s contract with his publishers, Scribner’s, contained a clause prohibiting the publishers from changing a single word in his manuscripts. Maxwell Perkins, then an editor with Scribner’s, was reading Death in the Afternoon when he came across the word “fuck.” He decided to apply to the highest authority to get a ruling on whether to delete it. He read the passage to the elderly Charles Scribner, head of the firm, who was just about to leave the office and did not feel capable of reaching an immediate decision. “We will have to discuss this fully when I come back from lunch,” said the distinguished publisher, and on his notepad headed “What To Do Today” jotted down the one word: “Fuck.”
4 F. Scott Fitzgerald remarked to Hemingway that the rich “are not as we are.” “No,” replied Hemingway, unimpressed. “They have more money.”
5 In 1918, toward the end of World War I, Hemingway was wounded at Fossalta di Pi-ave on the Austro-Italian front. Some thirty years later, passing the same spot on his way to Venice, he got out of his car and buried a 1,000-lira note in the ground. With this gesture, he reasoned, he had now contributed both blood and money to Italian soil.
6 Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. Five years earlier it had been awarded to another American novelist, William Faulkner. The two writers did not have a very high opinion of each other. Faulkner said of Hemingway that he had no courage, that “he had never been known to use a word that might send the reader to the dictionary.” When Hemingway heard this, he said, “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.”
7 Hemingway’s son Patrick asked his father to edit a story he had written. Hemingway went through the manuscript carefully, then returned it to his son. “But, Papa,” cried Patrick in dismay, “you’ve only changed one word.”
“If it’s the right word,” said Hemingway, “that’s a lot.”
8 (Yousuf Karsh tells of preparing to photograph Hemingway.)
“I had gone the evening before to La Floridita, Hemingway’s favorite bar [in Havana] to do my ‘homework’ and sample his favorite concoction, the daiquiri. But one can be overprepared! When, at nine the next morning, Hemingway called from the kitchen, ‘What will you have to drink?’ my reply was, I thought, letter-perfect: ‘Daiquiri, sir.’ ‘Good God, Karsh,’ Hemingway remonstrated, ‘at this hour of the day?’”
9 In a Sun Valley restaurant a stranger asked Hemingway for his autograph. “Thanks, Mr. Hemingway,” the pleased visitor said cheerily when he got the signature. He passed the table again and said, “Hello, Mr. Hemingway.” Intoxicated by being so near the great man, the stranger permitted himself another walk past, this time calling out, “Hi, Ernest!” Further giddied by Hemingway’s acknowledging nod, the man made one final pass, this time calling, “Hello, Papa!” Hemingway lowered his beard and raised his arms. “Hellooo!” he roared. “And good-byyyyye!”
HENRI IV (1553–1610), king of France.
1 One of the turning points in Henri’s struggle to assert his claim to the throne of France was at Arques in Septemb
er 1589, when his force of seven thousand men defeated the twenty-three-thousand-strong army of the Duke of Mayenne. Henri announced his victory to an absent comrade-at-arms with the famous message: “Pends-toi, brave Crillon; nous avons combattu à Arques, et tu n’y étais pas” (Hang yourself, brave Crillon; we fought at Arques, and you were not there).
2 Paris was one of the centers that held out most stubbornly against the Protestant forces. Henri, who had made a feigned abjuration of his faith to escape the massacre of the Protestants in 1572, decided once again that a lasting peace between the warring religious groups was more important than his personal religious inclinations. In July 1593 he solemnly converted to Roman Catholicism. All opposition collapsed and Paris opened its gates to him. As he rode into his capital city, he is said to have remarked, “Paris is well worth a mass.”
3 Greatly taken by the beauty of one of the young ladies of his court, the king asked her to tell him how to reach her bedchamber. “Through the church, sire,” was the reply.
4 As the king passed through a small town, a deputation of burgesses was drawn up at the gates to receive him. Just as the leading dignitary began his speech of welcome, a donkey nearby started to bray. The king turned toward the noisy creature and said with great gravity, “Gentlemen, one at a time, please.”
5 On his way to dinner, Henri was accosted by a suppliant who began his address with “Sire, Agesilaus, king of Lacedaemon —” Alert to the danger signs of a bore, Henri interrupted, “I have heard of him — but he has dined, and I have not.”
6 Henri IV, who disliked long-windedness, happened to meet an ecclesiastic on the road one day. “Where do you come from? Where are you going? What is your purpose?” demanded the king. “From Bourges — to Paris — a benefice,” replied the priest. Delighted at this terse response, the king exclaimed, “You shall have it!”
HENRY, O. (1862–1910), US short-story master, born William Sidney Porter.
1 Characteristic of O. Henry are the words he is reputed to have uttered (quoting from a popular song of the day) just before his death: “Don’t turn down the light. I’m afraid to go home in the dark.”
2 Henry wrote to his publisher, Frank Munsey, requesting an advance of $50. Munsey replied that as Henry was already several stories in arrears, there would be “no advance unless I know what you want it for.” He received by return mail a sealed envelope containing a single long blonde hair. Henry got the advance.
HENRY II (1133–89), king of England (1154–89).
1 One of Henry’s advisers and friends in the early part of his reign was Thomas à Becket. He appointed Becket chancellor in 1154 and archbishop of Canterbury in 1162, hoping to bring the powers of church and state into harmony under his control. Becket, however, resigned the chancellorship and went into exile in France. After nearly seven years abroad, he and Henry were reconciled. Becket returned, only to defy the king again over his attempts to exert control over the church. Henry was spending Christmas near Bayeux, in France, when a deputation of bishops came to him to tell him of Becket’s continuing intransigence. “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest!” Henry raged. Four knights, members of his household, took him literally. They crossed the Channel, rode posthaste to Canterbury, and murdered Becket at the altar of Canterbury cathedral.
HENRY IV (1367–1413), king of England (1399–1413).
1 Henry’s cherished wish was to lead a crusade to the Holy Land and recapture Jerusalem from the infidel, as an expiation for his deposition of Richard. Since the threats to his throne from internal feuding made it seem impossible that he would realize this ambition, he was encouraged when a soothsayer told him he would die only in Jerusalem. Early in 1413 he suffered a stroke while praying in Westminster Abbey, and was carried into the abbot’s house. The name of the room in which he died was the Jerusalem Chamber.
HENRY VIII (1491–1547), king of England (1509–47).
1 Henry VIII designated a particular nobleman as his ambassador to King Francis I of France, at a time when relations between the two countries were at a very low ebb. The peer, listening to Henry’s aggressive message, begged to be excused because, he said, the hot-tempered French king might well have him executed if he delivered it. Henry reassured him by saying that if Francis killed him, there were a dozen Frenchmen in England whose heads Henry could strike off. “But of all these heads, there may not be one to fit my shoulders,” persisted the reluctant ambassador.
2 Henry’s powerful minister Thomas Cromwell, wishing to strengthen England’s links with Protestant Europe, arranged that Henry should marry the Flemish Anne of Cleves as his fourth wife. Hans Holbein painted a delightful portrait of the princess, which was sent to Henry and encouraged him to look forward to his new bride with joyful anticipation. When she finally arrived, the princess turned out to be much homelier than her portrait. “You have sent me a Flanders mare,” exclaimed the disappointed bridegroom in disgust.
Thomas Jefferson Hogg, biographer of Percy Bysshe Shelley, once told the story of a Cambridge mathematician who, having never read Milton’s Paradise Lost, was finally prevailed upon to do so. “I have read your famous poem,” the mathematician is reported to have said. “I have read it attentively: but what does it prove? There is more instruction in half a page of Euclid! A man might read Milton’s poem a hundred, aye, a thousand times, and he would never learn that the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal!”
HENSON, Josiah (1789–1883), US leader in the early abolitionist movement.
1 Henson was introduced to the archbishop of Canterbury, who was so impressed by his bearing and speech that he inquired the name of the university at which he had studied. “The university of adversity,” replied Henson.
HENZE, Hans Werner (1926–), German composer.
1 The German composer was premiering his newest work, a pro-Marxist opera that found few fans. Critics disliked it, as did many of its cast members. And Henze himself was not popular. One night the tenor Robert Tear told his fellow musicians that the audience for that night’s performance would be let in for free, to boost attendance. After a pause he added, “But they are having to pay to get out.”
HEPBURN, Katharine (1907–), US actress, winner of four Academy Awards.
1 During the earlier part of her great career, Katharine Hepburn made a series of pictures she herself considered “boring.” In the trade she was put down as “Box Office Poison.” Reviews were not flattering. Just about this time, however, the writer Cleveland Amory noticed in a Hartford, Connecticut, paper a glowing pro-Hepburn notice. Amory, in conversation with Kate’s father, a Hartford urologist, commented on this pleasant shift in journalistic appreciation of Miss Hepburn. Dr. Hepburn fixed his gaze on Mr. Amory. “Do you know what I do?”
“No.”
“I specialize in what is known as the ‘Old Man’s Operation.’ I have operated on half of the newspaper publishers of this city and I confidently expect to operate on the other half.”
2 A reporter noticed that Miss Hepburn, during the filming of The Lion in Winter, was wearing sneakers under her twelfth-century robes. Asked why she had made such an odd choice of footwear, Miss Hepburn replied, “I play Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen of England — and also a practical woman who believed in comfort.”
3 Later in her life Hepburn dressed in very comfortable, if not glamorous, clothes. She was said to own twenty identical sets of slacks (beige), shirts (white), and sweaters (black) that she could don every day, thus avoiding having to choose an outfit. “Dressing up is a bore,” she said. “At a certain age, you decorate yourself to attract the opposite sex, and at a certain age, I did that. But I’m past that age.”
HERFORD, Oliver (1863–1935), US humorist, illustrator, and writer of light verse.
1 Herford was short of money in the early days of his career. The manager of his hotel, aware of his guest’s precarious financial situation, did not insist on immediate payment, but simply added any money owing at the end of a week to the bill
for the following week. One day, as the two men passed in the hotel foyer, the manager asked Herford if he had received his latest bill. Herford simply replied, “Yes.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“At the moment, yes,” said the humorist. “But if the bill gets any larger, I’ll have to ask you for a larger room.”
HERMAN, Floyd (1903–87), US baseball player.
1 “Babe” Herman, so-called because he used extra-weighty bats in an effort to out-hit his idol, Babe Ruth, played so well one year that Dodgers’ owner Charles Ebbets offered him a trip around the world. “Frankly,” said Herman, “I’d prefer someplace else.”
HERSCHEL, Sir William (1738–1822), British astronomer, discoverer of the planet Uranus.
1 As news of Herschel’s discoveries became known in the 1780s, what most caught the popular imagination was that the astronomer’s powerful new telescopes revealed stars to be circular objects instead of the rayed or spiky shapes that they appeared to the naked eye. At a dinner Herschel was placed next to the great physicist Henry Cavendish. Conversation between these two scientific giants did not flourish, no doubt mainly on account of Cavendish’s notorious awkwardness in public. At length Cavendish leaned forward. “Is it true, Dr. Herschel, that you see the stars round?” he asked, very slowly. “Round as a button,” replied Herschel. Cavendish lapsed into a silence that lasted until the end of the meal. Then he leaned forward again. “Round as a button?” he asked. “Round as a button,” affirmed Herschel. And that was the end of their conversation.
Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes Page 48