Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

by Clifton Fadiman

  2 “What’s going on, Jerrold?” asked a talkative bore, stopping Jerrold one day in the street. “I am,” said Jerrold firmly, and did.

  3 A certain member of Jerrold’s acquaintance was notorious for his demands upon his friends’ purses. Finding himself once again short of money, he sent an intermediary to Jerrold to ask him to subscribe. Jerrold viewed the go-between with disfavor as he made his case. “How much does he want this time?” he asked. “Just a four and two noughts will put him straight,” said the man uneasily. “Put me down for one of the noughts,” Jerrold replied.

  JESSEL, George (1898–1981), US entertainer.

  1 Jessel arrived at the Stork Club one day with the beautiful and talented Lena Horne. Sherman Billingsley, the owner of the Stork Club, and his headwaiters were not fervent believers in racial equality, but Jessel was a regular customer. The headwaiter stalled, paging through his reservation book, pretending that all the tables were filled. Finally, the headwaiter said to Jessel, “Mr. Jessel, who made the reservation?” And Jessel answered, “Abraham Lincoln.” Billingsley signaled the headwaiter from across the room, and Mr. Jessel and Miss Horne were seated.

  JOHN, Augustus [Edwin] (1878–1961), British painter.

  1 Augustus John had a reputation for exaggeration. One of his favorite stories featured a meeting he claimed to have had with Abdul Hamid II, sultan of Turkey, before the latter was deposed in 1909. The sultan was known to be a ruthless man and several of his wives had disappeared in mysterious circumstances. John was asked to paint the beheading of John the Baptist. All went well until the two men began to argue over the appearance of a severed neck after decapitation. Before the artist had time to protest the sultan had sent for one of his wives and had her beheaded on the spot. “See how right I was?” said the sultan calmly.

  JOHN XXIII [Angelo Roncalli] (1881–1963), pope (1958–63).

  1 As papal nuncio to France, the future pope was once invited to a banquet. His dinner partner wore an extremely low-cut dress, which the prelate affected not to notice during the course of the meal. When dessert was served, however, he selected a rosy apple and offered it to the lady. She politely refused. “Please do take it, madam,” he urged. “It was only after Eve ate the apple that she became aware of how little she had on.”

  2 While serving as papal nuncio in Paris, Pope John, then Monsignor Roncalli, was created a cardinal. At a reception given in his honor the new cardinal was asked if he had any family connections with the Marquis of Roncalli. Roncalli, a farmer’s son, smiled. “Up to now we did not belong to the same family,” he replied, “but I think that starting from this moment we will become more and more related.”

  3 Photographer Yousuf Karsh had been commissioned to take an official portrait of the pope. He was accompanied to the Vatican by Bishop Fulton Sheen. Pope John watched uneasily as Karsh set up his equipment. Turning to Sheen, he remarked with a sigh, “God knew seventy-seven years ago that someday I would be pope. Why couldn’t he have made me a little more photogenic!”

  4 Pope John reported that frequently when he was drowsing off some important thought would come into his mind and he would make a mental note, “I must speak to the pope about that.” “Then,” he went on, “I would be wide awake and remember that I am pope.”

  5 Pope John had some confidential advice for an ambitious young priest who was trying rather too hard to impress the Vatican dignitaries. “My dear son,” he said, “stop worrying so much. You may rest assured that on the day of judgment Jesus is not going to ask you, ‘And how did you get along with the Holy Office?’”

  6 Pope John once received a courtesy visit from the Anglican bishop of Gibraltar, whose see covers the whole Mediterranean region. Stepping forward to greet his guest, the pope cried heartily, “Ah, good day, Bishop. I believe I’m in your diocese?”

  JOHN III SOBIESKI (1624–96), king of Poland (1674–96).

  1 In 1683 John Sobieski drove the Turks back from the walls of Vienna. He announced his victory to the pope with a paraphrase of Caesar: “I came; I saw; God conquered.”

  JOHNSON, Andrew (1808–75), US politician; 17th President of the United States (1865–69).

  1 Johnson fiercely denounced secession and as senator from Tennessee courageously did his best to keep his state in the Union. This made him exceedingly unpopular in the southern states and for a period his life was in danger from mobs. In one incident at Lynchburg, Virginia, the mob actually succeeded in dragging him out of the train in which he was traveling to his home town of Greenville, Tennessee, assaulted him, and was about to hang him, when an old man in the crowd shouted, “His neighbors at Greenville have made arrangements to hang their senator on his arrival. Virginians have no right to deprive them of that privilege.” Swayed by this argument, the mob released its victim and he resumed his journey.

  JOHNSON, Lyndon Baines (1908–73), US statesman; 36th President of the United States (1963–69).

  1 Appointed director of the National Youth Administration for Texas at the age of twenty-six, LBJ sometimes seemed to his staff to deliver cutting remarks for their own sake. Passing a colleague whose desk was piled high with papers, he commented in a voice intended to be heard by others in the room, “I hope your mind’s not as messy as that desk.” By tremendous exertion the man managed to deal with the papers and clear the desk before Johnson made his next round of the office. Viewing the vacant surface, the boss remarked, “I hope your mind’s not as empty as that desk.”

  2 (David Halberstam tells this story:)

  “Early in 1961, Russell Baker, then covering Capitol Hill for the New York Times, was coming out of the Senate when he ran into Vice President Johnson. Johnson grabbed him, cried, ‘You, I’ve been looking for you,’ pulled him into his office, and began a long harangue about how important he was to the Kennedy administration and what an insider he really was. While talking, he scribbled something on a piece of paper and rang the buzzer. His secretary came in, took the paper, and left the room; she returned a few minutes later and handed the paper back to him. Still talking, LBJ glanced at the paper, crumpled it up, threw it away, and finally finished his monologue. Later Baker learned that Johnson had written on the paper: ‘Who is this I’m talking to?’”

  3 The Senate worked hard and late when Johnson was majority leader. One weary senator complained to a colleague, “What’s all the hurry? Rome wasn’t built in a day.” “No, but Lyndon Johnson wasn’t foreman on that job,” said the other.

  4 At one stage Johnson looked for a way to get rid of the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, but the difficulties appeared insuperable. Philosophically accepting Hoover’s continuance in office, he observed, “It’s probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in.”

  5 Johnson tried to persuade his secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, to let a certain Pentagon speechwriter move over to the White House. McNamara was anxious not to lose the young man, but he could not give the President a straight refusal. Instead, he implied that the speechwriter’s work was not up to the high standards of the White House. Some weeks later, Johnson repeated his request, taking McNamara by surprise. “But I can’t spare him,” he protested. “Why, you told me yourself he wasn’t any good at all,” replied Johnson triumphantly. “I just want to take him off your hands.” McNamara admitted defeat, and the speechwriter was transferred.

  6 One of Johnson’s daughters was once asked by an inquisitive journalist to describe her relationship with her famous father. After no more than a moment’s hesitation, she replied: “Blood.”

  7 Bill Moyers, Johnson’s press secretary, was saying grace at lunch one day. “Speak up, Bill,” shouted Johnson, “I can’t hear a damn thing.” “I wasn’t addressing you, Mr. President,” replied Moyers quietly.

  8 Johnson often liked to talk about speeches, singling out two kinds for especial notice: “The Mother Hubbard speech, which, like the garment, covers everything but touches nothing; and the French bathing suit speech, which co
vers only the essential points.”

  9 Hubert Humphrey liked to tell of his initial meeting with Johnson, after he had been selected to be Johnson’s running mate in 1964. The President looked at Humphrey and asked him, “Do you think you can keep your mouth shut for the next four years?” Humphrey immediately assented, “Yes, Mr. President.” “There you go interrupting me again,” Johnson barked.

  10 Johnson was often frustrated by the violent differences within the Democratic party. He once asked a fellow politician, “Do you know what the difference between cannibals and liberals is? Cannibals eat only their enemies.”

  11 Johnson was well known for his machismo. At one point during a heated discussion of the course of the war in Vietman he began cursing Ho Chi Minh, asking how he had the nerve to push around America. He then unzipped his trousers and asked the staffers present, “Has Ho Chi Minh got anything like that?”

  JOHNSON, Nunnally (1897–1977), US screenwriter and film producer.

  1 When first asked how he would adjust to writing for the wide screen, Nunnally replied: “Very simple. I’ll just put the paper in sideways.”

  2 Johnson had arranged to have lunch with a lady friend, unaware that she was intending to use the occasion to air certain grievances concerning their relationship. He had ordered shad roe, his favorite dish, and was tucking in with a hearty appetite when the emotional scene was launched. Unable to abandon the roe, which was delicious, he attempted between mouthfuls to make the right noises of contrition and regret. The young lady was fully aware, however, that she was not receiving her lover’s undivided attention. “Look at you,” she cried, “our very lives are at the crossroads, and you sit there smacking your lips like a pig!” Johnson was genuinely distressed. “I’m so sorry,” he replied. “If I’d known it was going to be like this, I’d have ordered something I didn’t like.”

  JOHNSON, Samuel (1709–84), English journalist, critic, poet, and lexicographer.

  1 When Johnson was a very young child in petticoats and had just learned to read, his mother gave him the Book of Common Prayer, pointed to the collect for the day, and told him to learn it by heart. Leaving him with that task, she went upstairs, but by the time she reached the second story, she heard him following her. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “I can say it,” he replied, and repeated the collect from memory although he had not had time to read it more than twice.

  2 Johnson was explaining to his former tutor from Oxford how he would complete his dictionary in three years. The other objected, “But the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their dictionary.”

  “Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As is three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.”

  3 Andrew Millar, the bookseller who published Johnson’s Dictionary, had great difficulty in extracting the copy for this work from the author. At last a messenger was dispatched to Millar with the final page. Upon the messenger’s return Johnson asked, “Well, what did he say?”

  “Sir,” replied the messenger, “he said, ‘Thank God I have done with him.’ ”

  “I am glad,” said Johnson, “that he thanks God for anything.”

  4 Two ladies were complimenting Dr. Johnson on his Dictionary, then recently published. In particular they praised his omission of all naughty words. “What! My dears! Then you have been looking for them?” exclaimed Johnson. The ladies, deeply embarrassed, changed the subject.

  5 Dr. Johnson was taken to task by a lady who asked why he had defined “pastern” as “the knee of a horse” in his dictionary. She expected an elaborate defense. He replied, “Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.”

  6 Johnson once offered a lift in his coach to a poor woman who was trudging along in the rain with her baby, but only on condition that she refrain from indulging in baby talk, to which he had a strong aversion. At first the woman sat quietly in her corner and the baby slept, but after a while the motion of the coach awakened the infant. “The little dearie, is he going to open his eyesy-pysies then,” said the woman, forgetting her benefactor’s prohibition. “Stop the coach,” Johnson ordered, and promptly turned her and the child out onto the road.

  7 Johnson started work on a new edition of Shakespeare, and, to pay for the project, took subscriptions. A bookseller’s apprentice, calling with yet another subscription for him, was startled to see him pocket the money without making any note of the subscriber’s name or address. Diffidently he suggested that Johnson should take a note of this for the printed list of subscribers that should appear in the completed work. “I shall print no list of subscribers,” said Johnson emphatically and abruptly, and then, supposing that some explanation was required, he added, “Sir, I have two very cogent reasons for not printing any list of subscribers — one, that I have lost all the names, the other, that I have spent all the money.”

  8 Johnson had no great feeling for music and tended to be somewhat dismissive of it. When someone tried to impress upon him the virtuosity of a celebrated violinist’s performance, he replied, “Difficult, do you call it, sir? I wish it were impossible.”

  9 A lady who had just performed to perfection on the harpsichord in Johnson’s presence asked the philosopher if he was fond of music. “No, madam,” he replied frankly, “but of all the noises I think music is the least disagreeable.”

  10 Johnson maintained the superiority of England and the English at all times. Visiting North Wales with friends and viewing the local scenery, he inquired, “Has this brook e’er a name?” He was assured that it was the River Ustrad. “Let us jump over it directly,” he said to his companions, “and show them how an Englishman should treat a Welsh river.”

  11 After several attempts to meet Johnson, Boswell was finally introduced to him and, knowing how much Johnson disliked Scotland, begged the friend who was performing the introductions, “Don’t tell where I come from.”

  “From Scotland,” his friend announced immediately, and Boswell, anguished, cried, “Mr. Johnson, I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.”

  “That, sir, I find,” retorted Johnson, “is what a very many of your countrymen cannot help.”

  12 A Scot talking to Johnson unfortunately chose his native land as a topic of conversation. He claimed that Scotland had a great many noble wild prospects. “I believe, sir, you have a great many,” said Johnson. “Norway, too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble wild prospects. But, sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high-road that leads him to England.”

  13 On his tour of Scotland with Boswell, Johnson visited the island of Mull, which amply justified his prejudices about the bleakness of Scottish landscapes. While they were there, Johnson mislaid his stout oak staff. Boswell was hopeful that they might recover it, but Johnson immediately gave it up for lost. “It is not to be expected that any man in Mull who had got it will part with it. Consider, sir, the value of such a piece of timber here.”

  14 Boswell and Johnson on an excursion to Bristol were not at all pleased with the inn in which they stayed. Writing his journal, Boswell wondered out loud how he should describe it. “Describe it, sir?” said Johnson. “Why, it was so bad, that Boswell wished to be in Scotland!”

  15 At a party held in his honor during his tour of the Hebrides, Johnson found himself with a pretty little married girl of sixteen sitting on his knee. She had taken a bet to do this and to kiss him because some other girls had said that he was too ugly for any woman to kiss. So the girl put her arms round his neck and kissed his cheek. “Do it again,” he said, “and let us see who will tire first.”

  16 It was mentioned to Johnson that a certain female political writer, whose doctrines he disliked, had become very fond of her appearance and her clothes, and would spend many hours on them. “She is better employed at her toilet, than using her pen,” said Johnson. “It is better that she should be
reddening her own cheeks, than blackening other people’s characters.”

  17 Johnson and Boswell were discussing Bishop Berkeley’s theory of the nonexistence of matter, which held that all things in the universe exist solely in the mind as ideas. Boswell remarked that he found it impossible to refute this theory, although it was clearly untrue. Johnson promptly aimed a hefty kick at a large stone and, as his foot struck it, announced, “I refute it thus.”

  18 One Sunday morning Boswell went to a Quaker meeting, where he heard a woman preach. He hastened to tell Johnson about this singular experience. “Sir,” said Johnson, “a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

  19 The volume of poems allegedly written by the Highland bard Ossian and translated by James Macpherson attracted a large number of admirers. Johnson, however, was quick to see through its spurious antiquity, and denied that the poems (which were entirely the work of the “translator”) had any literary merit. In this he was in a minority and found himself arguing with one of Ossian’s admirers, who asked, “Do you think, sir, that any man of a modern age could have written such poems?”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Johnson, “many men, many women, and many children.”

  20 Dr. Johnson was once asked his opinion of Laurence Sterne’s Sermons of Mr. Yorick. He replied that he knew nothing about them, but was later heard censuring the work. On being reminded of his earlier assertion, he explained, “I did read them, but it was in a stagecoach. I should not have even deigned to have looked at them had I been at large.”