Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

by Clifton Fadiman

  PACKER, Alfred (1842–1907), US gold prospector.

  1 In 1873, in Utah, Alfred Packer and some friends went on a gold prospecting trip. The weather proved too difficult, and most of the party went home. Packer and six men continued on into the mountains. But it was Packer alone who returned, insisting he had been deserted by his friends, of whom there was no trace. He claimed he had subsisted on roots and small game, but he looked rosy and flush indeed. It was not long before the half-eaten bodies of his companions were found, and Packer confessed that in a dispute he had killed and consumed them all. As he was sentenced to death, the judge said to him, “Alfred Packer, you depraved Republican cannibal — there were only six Democrats in Hinsdale County and, by God, you’ve et five of them!”

  PADEREWSKI, Ignace Jan (1860–1941), Polish pianist, composer, and statesman.

  1 When Paderewski played before Queen Victoria, he won her enthusiastic approval. “Mr. Paderewski,” she exclaimed, “you are a genius.” Paderewski, who liked to allude to the number of hours he spent practicing every day, shook his head. “Perhaps, Your Majesty, but before that I was a drudge.”

  2 Paderewski’s enormous reputation was not taken as seriously by fellow pianists as by the adoring public. Moriz Rosenthal went to hear Paderewski play in London and is reported to have said after the concert, “He plays well, I suppose, but he’s no Paderewski.”

  3 A young American student visiting the Beethoven museum in Bonn was fascinated by the piano on which Beethoven had composed some of his greatest works. She asked the museum guard if she could play a few bars on it; she accompanied the request with a lavish tip, and the man agreed. The girl sat down at the piano and tinkled out the opening of the Moonlight Sonata. As she was leaving, she said to the guard, “I suppose all the great pianists who come here want to play on that piano.” The guard shook his head; “Well, Paderewski was here a few years ago and he said he wasn’t worthy to touch it.”

  4 Paderewski had been asked to play for the dinner guests of a certain English duchess. Somewhat taken aback by the size of the fee demanded by the pianist, the duchess decided not to invite him for the meal itself and wrote: “Dear Maestro, accept my regrets for not inviting you to dinner. As a professional artist you will be more at ease in a nice room where you can rest before the concert.” Paderewski promptly replied: “Dear Duchess, thank you for your letter. As you so kindly informed me that I am not obliged to be present at your dinner, I shall be satisfied with half of my fee.”

  5 Paderewski attended the 1919 Paris Peace Conference as the new premier of Poland. The French premier, Georges Clemenceau, was introduced to the great musician. “Are you a cousin of the famous pianist Paderewski?” he asked mischievously. “I am the famous pianist,” replied Paderewski. “And you have become prime minister?” exclaimed Clemenceau. “What a comedown!”

  PAIGE, Leroy Robert [“Satchel”] (1904–82), US baseball player.

  1 “Paige worked briefly as a coach for the now-defunct Tulsa Oilers in 1976 and every night youngsters trooped to him for autographs. He gave them a small, white business card and said, ‘Look on the back. That’s where my secret is.’ The little leaguers turned over the card and read Satchel Paige’s ‘Six Rules for a Happy Life’:

  “‘1. Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood.

  “‘2. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.

  “‘3. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.

  “‘4. Go very light on vices such as carrying on in society. The social ramble ain’t restful.

  “‘5. Avoid running at all times.

  “‘6. Don’t look back. Something may be gaining on you.’ ”

  2 One night Paige was pitching for the Kansas City Monarchs against the Lynn Frasers. At one point in the game he asked his outfielders to leave the field, upon which he casually struck out all three batters to finish the inning.

  “Sir William Perry, 17th-century English political economist, had a boy (that is, a young servant) that whistled incomparably well. He after wayted on a Lady, a widowe, of good fortune. Every night this boy was to whistle his Lady asleepe. At last she could hold out no longer, but bids her chamber-mayd withdraw: bids him come to bed, setts him to worke, and marries him the next day.”

  — Aubrey’s Brief Lives

  PAINE, Thomas (1737–1809), British political theorist and writer.

  1 Benjamin Franklin said to Paine, “Where liberty is, there is my country.” Paine answered, “Where liberty is not, there is mine.”

  2 When Paine was traveling through Baltimore, he was accosted by a Swedenborgian minister who had recognized him as the author of The Age of Reason. The deistic thesis expounded by that book had led to a large number of answers from divines of various persuasions, and the minister was clearly anxious to present the Swedenborgian viewpoint. Having introduced himself, he began, “I am minister of the New Jerusalem Church here, and we explain the true meaning of the Scripture. The key had been lost above four thousand years, but we have found it.” “It must have been very rusty,” said Paine coolly.

  3 During a serious illness Paine’s doctor, a man given to his dinner, noted that Paine’s stomach had diminished alarmingly. “And yours augments!” snapped Paine.

  4 One day Paine was unexpectedly visited by an old lady, who interrupted his afternoon nap, saying, “I came from Almighty God to tell you that if you do not repent of your sins and believe in the blessed Saviour, you will be damned.” “Poh! poh! It is not true,” Paine snapped back. “You were not sent on any such impertinent mission. God would not send such a foolish ugly old woman as you about with his messages!”

  PALEY, William (1743–1805), British clergyman.

  1 Appointed archdeacon of Carlisle, Paley made no secret of his feeling that his position entitled him to lord it over the lesser clergy. Feeling a draft on his back during a diocesan dinner, he summoned a footman and instructed him, “Close the window behind me and open one behind one of the curates.”

  PALMERSTON, Henry John Temple, 3d Viscount (1784–1865), British statesman; prime minister (1855–58, 1859–65).

  1 When Palmerston was a young man, the Duke of Wellington made an appointment with him for half past seven in the morning. Someone expressed doubt that Palmerston, who kept late hours, would be able to keep the appointment. “Of course I shall,” he retorted. “It’s perfectly easy: I shall keep it the last thing before I go to bed.”

  2 Standing with Palmerston at a military review on a particularly hot day, the queen watched a company of perspiring volunteers doubling past her. Their proximity caused her to put her handkerchief to her nose. She remarked to Palmerston, “Don’t you think there is rather a…? ”

  “Oh, that’s what we call esprit de corps, ma’am,” he replied.

  3 A certain Frenchman, eager to flatter the patriotic Lord Palmerston, once remarked, “If I were not a Frenchman, I should wish to be an Englishman.” Palmerston was unimpressed. “If I were not an Englishman,” he replied, “I should wish to be an Englishman.”

  4 Palmerston’s physician broke the news to the elderly statesman that he was going to die. “Die, my dear doctor?” Palmerston is said to have exclaimed. “That’s the last thing I shall do!”

  PAQUIN, Anna (1982–), New Zealand actress, born in Canada.

  1 The nine-year-old Paquin had never acted professionally before auditioning for a role in Jane Campion’s film The Piano. And she only tried out because her older sister was trying out as well. Her acting led to an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. When she was asked if she was similar to the character she played, Paquin said, “A wee bit. Actually, she tells more lies than I do.”

  PARK, Mungo (1771–1806), Scottish explorer of Africa.

  1 While exploring a particularly wild and uncultivated region of Africa, Park unexpectedly came across a gibbet. “The sight of it,” he later remarked, “gave me infinite pleasure, as it proved that I was in a civilized so
ciety.”

  PARKER, Dorothy (1893–1967), US short-story writer, theater critic, doyenne of light verse, and wit.

  1 While a book reviewer for The New Yorker, Dorothy Parker went on her honeymoon. Her editor, Harold Ross, began pressuring her for her belated copy. She replied, “Too fucking busy, and vice versa.”

  2 At one time Dorothy Parker had a small, dingy cubbyhole of an office in the Metropolitan Opera House building in New York. As no one ever came to see her, she became depressed and lonely. When the signwriter came to paint her name on the office door, she got him to write instead the word “GENTLEMEN.”

  3 William Randolph Hearst lived with his movie-star mistress Marion Davies in his spectacular castle, San Simeon. Hollywood personalities were frequent guests. Hearst always insisted upon the observation of certain rules. Despite his own irregular association with Marion Davies, one of these rules was that there should be no lovemaking between unmarried couples. Dorothy Parker broke the rule and received a note from her host asking her to leave. In the San Simeon visitors’ book she left these lines:

  Upon my honor,

  I saw a Madonna

  Standing in a niche,

  Above the door

  Of the famous whore

  Of a prominent son of a bitch.

  4 After some years apart Dorothy Parker and her second husband, Alan Campbell, were remarried. At the reception following the ceremony she remarked, “People who haven’t talked to each other for years are on speaking terms again today — including the bride and groom.”

  5 Dorothy Parker wrote a report on a Yale prom at which the number and beauty of the girls present had obviously made a deep impression on her. “If all those sweet young things were laid end to end,” she announced, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

  6 She was asked to use the word horticulture in a sentence. “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think,” said Dorothy Parker promptly.

  7 Looking at a worn-out toothbrush in their hostess’s bathroom, a fellow guest said to Dorothy Parker, “Whatever do you think she does with that?”

  “I think she rides it on Halloween,” was the reply.

  8 Attending the dress rehearsal of her play Close Harmony, Dorothy Parker was discouraged by the performance. The leading lady was amply endowed. At one point the producer, sitting with Dorothy, whispered, “Don’t you think she ought to wear a brassiere in this scene?”

  “God, no,” said Dorothy. “You’ve got to have something in the show that moves.”

  9 Gossiping about an acquaintance, Dorothy Parker murmured in bogus admiration, “You know, she speaks eighteen languages. And she can’t say ‘No’ in any of them.”

  10 In the hospital Dorothy Parker was visited by her secretary, to whom she wished to dictate some letters. Pressing the button marked NURSE, Dorothy observed, “That should assure us of at least forty-five minutes of undisturbed privacy.”

  11 Leaving her place at the Round Table one day, Dorothy said, “Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom.” She paused, then went on, “I really have to telephone, but I’m too embarrassed to say so.”

  12 Coming to pay her last respects to Scott Fitzgerald as he lay in an undertaker’s parlor in Los Angeles, Dorothy Parker used the words spoken by the anonymous mourner at the funeral of Jay Gatsby in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: “The poor son-of-a-bitch!”

  13 Dorothy Parker once attended a party with Somerset Maugham where the guests challenged each other to complete nursery rhymes. Somerset Maugham presented Mrs. Parker with the lines: “Higgledy piggledy, my white hen / She lays eggs for gentlemen.” Dorothy Parker added the following couplet: “You cannot persuade her with gun or lariat / To come across for the proletariat.”

  14 (Lillian Hellman records an incident that took place as the body of Alan Campbell was being carried from the house where he had died.)

  “Among the friends who stood with Dot-tie on those California steps was Mrs. Jones, a woman who had liked Alan, pretended to like Dottie, and who had always loved all forms of meddling in other people’s troubles. Mrs. Jones said, ‘Dottie, tell me, dear, what I can do for you.’

  “Dottie said, ‘Get me a new husband.’

  “There was a silence, but before those who would have laughed could laugh, Mrs. Jones said, ‘I think that is the most callous and disgusting remark I ever heard in my life.’

  “Dottie turned to look at her, sighed, and said gently, ‘So sorry. Then run down to the corner and get me a ham and cheese on rye and tell them to hold the mayo.’ ”

  15 Dorothy Parker once collided with Clare Boothe Luce in a narrow doorway. “Age before beauty,” said Mrs. Luce, stepping aside. “Pearls before swine,” said Dorothy Parker, gliding through.

  16 At a Halloween party she saw a group of people standing around a tub of water and asked what they were doing. When she was told they were ducking for apples, she noted sadly, “There, but for a typographical error, is the story of my life.”

  17 During her later years Dorothy Parker increasingly found refuge in alcohol. Admitted to a sanatorium, she approved the room but told the doctor she would have to go out every hour or so for a drink. He solemnly warned her that she must stop drinking or she would be dead within a month. “Promises, promises,” she said with a sigh.

  PARKER, Henry Taylor (1867–1934), US music critic.

  1 During a symphony concert Parker had the misfortune to be seated near some persistent talkers. At last he rounded on the offenders: “Those people on the stage are making such a noise I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

  PARKER, Quannah (late 18th-early 19th centuries), North American Comanche Indian chief.

  1 “In his old age, after he quit the warpath, Quannah Parker…adopted many of the white man’s ways. But in one respect he clung to the custom of his fathers. He continued to be a polygamist. He was a friend and admirer of Theodore Roosevelt and on one occasion when Roosevelt was touring Oklahoma he drove out to Parker’s camp to see him. With pride Parker pointed out that he lived in a house like a white man, his children went to a white man’s school, and he himself dressed like a white man. Whereupon Roosevelt was moved to preach him a sermon on the subject of morality. ‘See here, chief, why don’t you set your people a better example? A white man has only one wife — he’s allowed only one at a time. Here you are living with five squaws. Why don’t you give up four of them and remain faithful to the fifth?’ Parker stood still a moment, considering the proposition. Then he answered, ‘You are my great white father, and I will do as you wish — on one condition.’ ‘What is the condition?’ asked Roosevelt. ‘You pick out the one I am to live with and then you go kill the other four,’ answered Parker.”

  PARR, Samuel (1747–1825), British author, schoolmaster, and clergyman.

  1 His contemporaries valued highly Parr’s talents as a composer of Latin epitaphs. Once he said to a friend, “My lord, should you die first, I mean to write your epitaph.” His friend replied, “It is a temptation to commit suicide.”

  2 On Easter Tuesday in 1800 Parr preached a famous sermon before the lord mayor of London. Asked his opinion, his worship replied that he heard only four things in it that he disliked — the four quarters of the hour struck by the church clock.

  3 Parr rated highly his own skill at whist. He was correspondingly intolerant of lack of skill in other players. One evening he was playing with a partner who committed blunder after blunder. A lady asked Parr how the game was going. “Pretty well, madam,” was the reply, “considering that I have three adversaries.”

  PARRISH, Maxfield (1870–1966), US illustrator, painter, and poster designer.

  1 Parrish specialized in painting beautiful nudes and was thus accustomed to having lovely young models in his studio. One morning, when a model arrived, Parrish suggested that they have a cup of coffee before getting down to work — a habit he had recently acquired to postpone confronting the blank canvas. They had hardly started to drink the coffee when the studi
o buzzer rang. Panic seized the artist. “Young lady,” he cried, “for God’s sake, take your clothes off — my wife’s coming up to check on me.”

  PARTRIDGE, John (1644–1715), British cobbler turned almanac maker.

  1 In 1707 Jonathan Swift decided to laugh the fraudulent Partridge out of business. As “Isaac Bickerstaff” he published a spoof, Predictions for the Year 1708. “Bickerstaff” professed his concern to rescue the noble art of astrology from the hands of the quacks. In particular he would make precise predictions in place of the vague prophecies put forth by the ordinary almanac makers. Thus his very first prediction: the death of John Partridge “upon 29 March next, about 11 at night, of a raging fever.”

  On the morning of March 30 the London booksellers did a brisk trade in another pamphlet, hot off the presses, announcing that Bickerstaff’s prediction had come true and Partridge had died the previous evening. It gave a detailed account of his deathbed, followed by an “Elegy on the Death of Mr. Partridge.” Partridge hurriedly printed and distributed a denial of his death, but by then no one believed him. Other writers joined in the fun with pamphlets urging Partridge to abandon his perverse insistence that he was still alive. The Stationers’ Company struck his name off their records. It was four years before Partridge recovered sufficiently from this onslaught to resume publication of his almanac, and by then “Isaac Bickerstaff” had become a household name.

  2 One day Partridge, journeying to a country town, paused to rest at an inn. As he was remounting his horse to resume his journey, the ostler said, “If you take my advice you’ll stay here, because if you go on you will certainly be overtaken by heavy rain.” “Nonsense!” exclaimed Partridge, and away he rode. After he had ridden a short distance, he was drenched by a heavy shower. Interested in the ostler’s accuracy of prediction, he returned to the inn, admitted that the man had been quite correct, and offered him a large tip if he would divulge his secret.