Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

by Clifton Fadiman

  11 Lincoln was called in as arbiter in many disputes, serious and frivolous. Two men who had been arguing for hours about the correct proportion of the length of a man’s legs to the size of his body called on Lincoln to settle the question. Lincoln listened gravely to the points on both sides, and then gave his summing up in full legal fashion. It seemed to him, he said, that this was a question of the utmost significance and one that had caused much bloodshed in the past and would doubtless do so again in the future, so it was not without much mental anguish and exertion that he reached his opinion. Nonetheless, he concluded, “It is my opinion, all side issues being swept aside, that a man’s lower limbs, in order to preserve harmony of proportion, should be at least long enough to reach from his body to the ground.”

  12 Holding the copy of his speech, his hat, and a cane, Lincoln arrived at the rostrum to be sworn in as President. He laid the cane down, but there was nowhere to put the hat. Senator Stephen A. Douglas quickly came forward and relieved him of it. As he sat down, he observed to one of Mrs. Lincoln’s cousins, “If I can’t be President, I can at least hold his hat.”

  13 After his election in 1861 Lincoln spoke to a crowd at Pennsylvania Station in Washington who were anxious to catch a glimpse of his wife, about whom they were very curious. Calling to her to make herself visible, the tall Lincoln said of his five-foot-three-inch Mary Todd, “Well, here’s the long and short of it.”

  14 A delegation of Southerners came to see him just before the outbreak of the war, and told him that the cause of the South would prevail, for God was on their side. Lincoln responded, “It is more important to know that we are on God’s side.”

  15 As Lincoln was walking down a corridor in the War Department building, an army officer in a hurry barged straight into him. When the man saw who it was, he offered “ten thousand pardons.”

  “One is quite enough,” said Lincoln, adding, “I wish the whole army would charge like that!”

  16 A delegation called on Lincoln to ask that the commissionership of the Sandwich Islands be given to a particular man. After setting out his qualifications they concluded by saying that their candidate was in poor health and the climate in the Sandwich Islands would be beneficial to him. “I am sorry to say, gentlemen,” said Lincoln, “that there are eight other applicants for the post, and they are all sicker than your man.”

  17 President Lincoln turned down an applicant for a job and gave as his reason: “I don’t like his face.” One of the members of his cabinet indicated that he did not think this was a sufficient and satisfactory explanation. Lincoln disagreed: “Every man over forty is responsible for his face.”

  18 Lincoln particularly enjoyed a story that circulated in Washington during the Civil War concerning him and the president of the Confederate States, Jefferson Davis. Two Quaker ladies were discussing the relative merits and prospects of the opposing leaders. “I think Jefferson will succeed because he is a praying man,” said one. “But so is Abraham a praying man,” said the other. “Yes,” rejoined the first lady, “but the Lord will think that Abraham is joking.”

  19 A woman once approached Lincoln, demanding a colonel’s commission for her son. “My grandfather fought at Lexington, my father fought at New Orleans, my husband was killed at Monterey. I ask the commission not as a favor, but as a right.”

  “I guess, madam,” answered Lincoln, “your family has done enough for the country. It’s time to give somebody else a chance.”

  20 When the Confederate forces were attacking Fort Stevens, Lincoln made a tour of inspection of the Union defenses. He was shown around by the general’s aide, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. As Holmes pointed out the enemy lines, Lincoln, wearing his customary tall hat, stood up to get a better view. At once there was a crackle of musketry fire from the opposing trenches. “Get down, you fool!” shouted Holmes, grabbing the President and hauling him under cover. An instant later he realized what he had said, and wondered what kind of disciplinary action would be taken against him. As Lincoln was leaving, he bade the young officer farewell with the words, “Good-bye, Captain Holmes. I’m glad to see you know how to talk to a civilian.”

  21 In a discussion on the manpower and resources in the Civil War someone asked Lincoln how many men the Confederates had in the field. “Twelve hundred thousand,” was the prompt and astonishing reply. Seeing the amazement and disbelief on the faces of those around him, Lincoln went on, “No doubt of it — twelve hundred thousand. You see, all our generals, every time they get whipped, they tell me that the enemy outnumbered them at least three to one, and I must believe them. We have four hundred thousand men in the field, and three times four equals twelve. Twelve hundred thousand men, no doubt about it.”

  22 In the later months of 1863 Lincoln was angered by General George B. McClellan’s inactivity, despite his superiority in numbers over the Confederate forces. In the end he wrote McClellan a single-sentence letter: “If you don’t want to use the army, I should like to borrow it for a while. Yours respectfully, A. Lincoln.”

  23 When General Joseph Hooker, nicknamed “Fighting Joe,” was appointed commander in chief of the Union army, he was anxious to dispel the impression of incompetence and inaction left by his predecessors in the post, though, as it turned out, he was temperamentally unsuited to supreme command. On one occasion he reported his energetic activities to Lincoln in a dispatch datelined “Headquarters in the saddle.” Lincoln received it and sighed: “The trouble with Hooker is that he has got his headquarters where his hindquarters ought to be.”

  24 In September 1862 Lincoln called a special session of his closest advisers. When they arrived, he was reading a book. At first he paid little attention to their entrance, then started to read aloud to them a piece by the humorist Artemus Ward entitled, “A High-Handed Outrage at Utica,” which Lincoln found very funny. At the end he laughed heartily but no one joined in; the cabinet members sat in stony disapproval of the President’s frivolity. Lincoln rebuked them: “Why don’t you laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die, and you need this medicine as much as I do.” Then turning to business, he told them that he had privately prepared “a little paper of much significance.” It was the draft of the Emancipation Proclamation.

  25 The Emancipation Proclamation was laid before Lincoln for his signature at noon on January 1, 1863. Lincoln twice picked up the pen and twice laid it down. To the secretary of state he said, “I have been shaking hands since nine o’clock this morning, and my right arm is almost paralyzed. If my name ever goes into history, it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles when I sign the Proclamation, all who examine the document hereafter will say, ‘He hesitated.’” He then picked up the pen and slowly and firmly wrote his signature.

  26 Lincoln was much plagued by people seeking offices or favors. He was unwell one day and not feeling inclined to listen to such requests. One petitioner, however, managed to get into his office. Just as the man was settling down for a lengthy interview, Lincoln’s physician entered. Holding out his hands to him, Lincoln asked what the blotches on them were. The doctor instantly diagnosed varioloid, a mild form of smallpox. “It’s contagious, I believe?” asked Lincoln. “Very contagious,” was the answer. The visitor got to his feet at this point. “Well, I can’t stop now, Mr. Lincoln, I just called to see how you were,” he said. “Oh, don’t be in a hurry,” said Lincoln affably. “Thank you, sir, I’ll call again,” said the visitor, heading speedily for the door. As it closed behind him, Lincoln observed, “A good thing about this is that I now have something that I can give to everybody.”

  27 Lincoln’s secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, had some trouble with a major general who accused him, in abusive terms, of favoritism. Stanton complained to Lincoln, who suggested that he write the officer a sharp letter. Stanton did so, and showed the strongly worded missive to the President, who applauded its powerful language: “What are you going to do with it?” he asked. S
urprised at the question, Stanton said, “Send it.” Lincoln shook his head. “You don’t want to send that letter,” he said. “Put it in the stove. That’s what I do when I have written a letter while I am angry. It’s a good letter and you had a good time writing it and feel better. Now, burn it, and write another.”

  28 A Prussian nobleman, who had been involved in revolutionary activities in his own country, came to the United States seeking a commission in the Union army. In an audience with the President, he expatiated on the high and ancient nobility of his family. Lincoln eventually broke in, saying, “That need not trouble you. It will not stand in your way if you behave yourself as a soldier.”

  29 Lincoln’s mail one day contained a letter from a lady requesting not only his autograph but also a “sentiment” with his signature. Irritated by this demand at a time of national crisis, the president responded: “Dear Madam: When you ask from a stranger that which is of interest only to yourself, always enclose a stamp. There’s your sentiment, and here’s my autograph. A. Lincoln.”

  30 On the night of December 23, 1863, Lincoln dreamed that he was in a party of undistinguished, unattractive people; when they found out who he was, they commented on his appearance. One of them said, “He’s a very common-looking man.” Lincoln retorted, “The Lord prefers common-looking people; that’s the reason that he makes so many of them.”

  31 A guest at a reception told Lincoln that in his home state people said that the welfare of the nation depended on God and Abraham Lincoln. “You are half right,” said Lincoln.

  32 During the Civil War Lincoln had occasion at an official reception to refer to the Southerners rather as erring human beings than as foes to be exterminated. An elderly lady, a fiery patriot, rebuked him for speaking kindly of his enemies when he ought to be thinking of destroying them. “Why, madam,” said Lincoln, “do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

  33 A delegation of businessmen from Wilmington, Delaware, came to see Lincoln to give him their views on winning the war. Their spokesman announced pompously that they represented the “weighty men” of Delaware. “So you’re the weighty men of Delaware,” said Lincoln when he had heard them out. “All from New Castle County?”

  “Yes, all from the same city.”

  “Did it ever occur to you gentlemen,” asked the President, “that there was danger of your little state tipping up in your absence?”

  34 When a gentleman called on the President, asking for a pass to allow him to visit Richmond (the Confederate capital), the President replied, “I would be very happy to oblige you if my passes were respected; but the fact is, sir, I have, within the last two years, given passes to two hundred and fifty thousand men to go to Richmond, and not one has got there yet.”

  35 Just a week before he was assassinated Lincoln had a dream that he discussed with several people. It seemed that he was walking through the silent White House toward the sound of sobbing. When he entered the East Room he was confronted by the sight of a catafalque covered in black. He asked the guard on duty there who was dead. “The President,” said the soldier.

  36 On April 13, 1865, the Civil War being over, orders were given to end the draft of soldiers. The following day Lincoln made his fatal visit to the theater to see Our American Cousin. At one point in the play the heroine, reclining on a garden seat, calls for a shawl to protect her from the draft. The actor Edward Southern, to whom the request was addressed, replied on this occasion with the impromptu line: “You are mistaken, Miss Mary, the draft has already been stopped by order of the President!” Lincoln joined in the audience’s appreciation of this remark with what was to be his last laugh.

  LINCOLN, Robert Todd (1843–1926), US diplomat and businessman, son of Abraham Lincoln.

  1 Robert Todd Lincoln was home from Harvard on a visit at the time that his father was assassinated. After the shooting he sat by his father’s bedside until he died. He had no political ambitions, preferring the life of a lawyer. But President James Garfield called him away from his practice to occupy the post of secretary of war in 1881. He reluctantly accepted. Later that same year Robert Lincoln arrived at the Washington railroad station just in time to see Garfield shot. Twenty years later, as president of the Pullman Company, Robert Lincoln was invited to bring his family to meet President William McKinley. As they arrived they heard the news: the President had just been shot. Robert Lincoln observed, “There is a certain fatality about presidential functions when I am present.”

  LIND, Jenny (1820–87), Swedish operatic soprano known as “the Swedish Nightingale.”

  1 A group of American tourists knocked on Jenny Lind’s door. The star asked them what they wanted. The spokesman said that they merely wanted to have a look at her. “This is my face,” she said, and then turned around: “This is my back. Now you can go home and say you have seen me.” With that she shut the door.

  LINDBERGH, Charles Augustus (1902–74), US aviator.

  1 Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic, in 1925, had made him a hero of gigantic proportions. His reception in England, where he went after landing in Paris, was tumultuous. The crowd was so huge that the planned welcome had to be cancelled; instead, Lindbergh was driven to Buckingham Palace to meet the king. At the palace Lindbergh was told the king had a very private question for him and was shown into the royal study, where George V awaited. As soon as he entered, the king asked quietly, “Tell me, how do you pee?”

  2 On a flight to Mexico in 1927 Lindbergh encountered rainy, foggy weather. It soon became apparent that, once he had crossed over from Texas, he had lost his way. Railroad tracks on the ground provided a landmark of sorts, and he followed them, flying low until he saw a railroad station sign that read “Caballeros.” But he could not find Ca-balleros on his map. Onward he flew until he reached the next station sign: “Caballeros.” Only gradually did he realize that the signs he was reading indicated the entrance to the men’s bathrooms.

  LINDEMANN, Frederick Alexander, Viscount Cherwell (1886–1957), German-born British physicist.

  1 In 1931 Churchill was hit by a taxi on Fifth Avenue in New York and taken to a hospital. From there he sent a cable to Lindemann asking him to calculate the shock, to a stationary body weighing 200 pounds, of a car weighing 2,400 pounds traveling between 30 and 35 miles an hour. He also asked the professor to bear in mind that the brakes did not operate before he was hit by the car and that he had been “carried forward on the cowcatcher” until he dropped off, adding that the information “must be impressive.” Lindemann soon sent the following reply, “Collision equivalent falling thirty feet on pavement. Equal six thousand foot pounds energy. Equivalent stopping ten-pound brick dropped six hundred feet or two charges buckshot pointblank range. Rate inversely proportional thickness cushion surrounding skeleton and give of frame. If assume average one inch your body transferred during impact at rate eight thousand horsepower. Congratulations on preparing suitable cushion and skill in bump.”

  LIPPERT, Barbara, US advertising critic.

  1 As part of her job, Lippert watched a great deal of television. As a trend started toward shorter ads on TV, Lippert noted, “Watching fifteen seconds of nasal passages unblocking sure beats watching thirty seconds.”

  LISTER, Joseph, 1st Baron Lister (1827–1912), British surgeon.

  1 Lister was once summoned to attend a rich lord who had a fishbone stuck in his throat. Dextrously the great surgeon removed the bone. Overcome with gratitude, the patient asked Lister what was owned him. Lsiter replied, with a smile, “My lord, suppose we settle for half of what you would be willing to give me if the bone were still lodged in your throat.”

  LISZT, Franz (1811–86), Hungarian composer, acclaimed as the greatest virtuoso pianist of his time.

  1 (According to Samuel Butler:)

  “It is said, with what truth I know not, that Liszt got Verdi to give him a letter of introduction to Rossini and went to call on him. Rossini was exceedingly polite, asked him to play, and w
hen he had done inquired what the piece was. Liszt said, ‘It is a march I have written on the death of Meyerbeer; how do you like it, maestro?’ Rossini said he liked it very much, but presently added, ‘Do you not think it would have been better if it had been you who had died, and Meyerbeer who had written the music?’”

  2 It has been said of Liszt that Wagner was indebted to him for much besides money — including sympathy and a wife. The two men were friends, if somewhat tempestuously on Wagner’s part, and Wagner came to rely on Liszt as mentor and guide. Musically they influenced each other considerably. Wagner, by far the more popular composer, once wrote to Liszt to say that he had unconsciously used a theme of his. Liszt replied, “Now at least it will be heard.”

  3 Liszt was invited to take tea with a noblewoman, who then invited a number of her friends to come, hoping Liszt would play for them. To make her hint more evident she arranged her piano right in the middle of the room, where no one could miss it. When Liszt arrived he saw what was in store, and asked his hostess where the piano was. “Oh!” she said, “Would you really? Here it is.” “Ah, true,” said Liszt. “I wanted to put my hat on it.”

  LIVERMORE, Mary Ashton Rice (1821–1905), US suffragette and temperance reformer.

  1 (May Saxton tells this story:)

  “One of Mary Livermore’s favorite stories was about the time she and five other girls had gone to see President Josiah Quincy of Harvard about studying at the university. They demonstrated their learning for him and he said, ‘Very smart girls…unusually capable, but can you cook?’ They assured him they were expert domestics. ‘Highly important,’ he said. He continually diverted them from asking their questions until finally Mary burst out that they wanted to go to college with their brothers: ‘You say we are sufficiently prepared, is there anything to prevent our admission?’ He told them that the place for girls was at home. ‘Yes, but, Mr. Quincy, if we are prepared, we would not ask to recite but may we not attend the recitations and sit silent in the class?’