Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

by Clifton Fadiman

  QUEENSBERRY, William Douglas, 4th Duke of (1724–1810), British nobleman.

  1 Old Q was entertaining at his villa in Richmond, which had a magnificent view of the Thames River. Guest after guest admired the panorama until the duke burst out, “What is there to make so much of in the Thames? I am quite tired of it. Flow, flow, flow, always the same.”

  2 With advancing years Old Q became very infirm and spent much of his time at the porch or bow window of his London house, overlooking Piccadilly. In those days great households included a class of retainer called a “running footman,” whose job was to run messages and errands and to clear a way through crowds for their employers. Applicants for the post of running footman in Old Q’s establishment had to run a kind of trial up Piccadilly, dressed in full ducal livery, while Old Q himself watched from his vantage point.

  One particular candidate ran so speedily that Old Q shouted down in delight, “You’ll do very well for me.”

  “And your lordship’s livery will do very well for me,” replied the man, taking off at top speed, never to be seen again.

  QUESNAY, François (1694–1774), French economist and physician.

  1 Louis XV once asked Quesnay, who was originally the king’s physician, what he would do if he were king. “Nothing,” replied Quesnay. “But then, who would govern?” asked Louis. “The laws,” was the response.

  QUIN, James (1693–1766), British actor.

  1 William Warburton, bishop of Gloucester, was holding forth about royal prerogative, of which he was an ardent supporter. Quin tried to shut him up by asking him to spare his feelings, as he was a republican. “Perhaps I even think that the execution of Charles I might have been justified,” he added. “Oh? By what law?” demanded Warburton. “By all the laws that he had left to the country,” retorted Quin. The bishop replied that Charles would have been spared in a proper court of law, and in any case all the regicides had come to violent ends. “I would not advise your lordship to make use of that inference,” said Quin, “for, if I am not mistaken, that was the case of the twelve apostles.”

  QUISENBERRY, Dan (1953–98), US baseball player.

  1 The closer for the Royals had only one pitch in his repertory when he first began playing baseball: the sinker. After a game his catcher would say, “Way to mix ’em up.” Quisen-berry would reply, “Way to call ’em.”

  2 When his pitching was at the top of its form, Quisenberry was given a contract for a great deal of money. But eventually he began to lose power, and the Royals used him less and less. Once he asked the director of the Players’ Association, Donald Fehr, what recourse he had if the Royals chose not to use him again. “Well,” said Fehr, “you could always buy them.”

  R

  RABELAIS, François (?1494–1553), French friar, monk, physician, and writer.

  1 On the way to Paris one day, Rabelais found himself stranded at a small country inn with no money to pay his bill or to continue his journey. So he made up three small packets, labeled them “Poison for the King,” “Poison for Monsieur,” and “Poison for the Dauphin” and left them where the landlord of the inn was sure to find them. That patriotic citizen informed the police, who promptly arrested Rabelais and hauled him off to Paris. When the packets were examined and found to be empty, Rabelais explained his subterfuge and was set free, having accomplished his journey at no expense to himself.

  2 A short time before Rabelais died, he put on a domino (cloak and mask) and was seen sitting by his bed in this unusual garb. Reproached for being so frivolous at this dark and serious hour, he quipped in Latin, “Beati qui in Domino moriuntur” (Blessed are they who die in the Lord — or — in a domino).

  RACHEL (1820–58), French actress.

  1 One of Rachel’s numerous lovers was François d’Orléans, Prince de Joinville, third son of Louis-Philippe. He sent her his visiting card on which he had written: “Où? — quand? — combien?” (Where? — when? — how much?) Rachel, equally businesslike, scrawled: “Chez toi — ce soir — pour rien” (Your place — tonight — free of charge) and sent the card back. Their affair lasted for seven or eight years.

  2 Because of her itinerant upbringing Rachel was virtually uneducated, and to the end of her life her letters remained full of errors in spelling and grammar. Rachel was quite aware of her failings. When an admirer begged her for “un bel autographe” (a nice autograph), she replied, “Un bel autographe avec ou sans orthographe?” (A nice autograph — with or without proper spelling?)

  3 Despite her lack of education, Rachel excelled at the interpretation of the classical French heroines in the tragedies of Racine and Corneille, restoring their plays to the repertoire of the Comédie-Française. Someone once pompously congratulated her on saving the French language. She answered, “Clever of me, isn’t it, seeing that I never learned it.”

  4 Rachel was notorious for her avarice and for her guile at persuading people to give her presents. Dining at the Comte Duchâtel’s, she pointedly admired the great silver centerpiece on the table. The count, completely under her spell, said he would be happy to give it to her. Rachel accepted eagerly, but was a little nervous that the count might change his mind. She mentioned that she had come to the dinner in a cab. The count offered her his carriage to take her home. “Indeed,” said Rachel, “that will suit me very well, as there will then be no danger of my being robbed of your gift, which I had better take with me.” The count bowed. “With pleasure,” he said, “but you will send my carriage back, won’t you?”

  5 Boasted Rachel after a successful opening night: “Mon dieu! When I came out on the stage the audience simply sat there open-mouthed.”

  “Nonsense!” snapped a fellow actress. “They never all yawn at once.”

  RACHMANINOFF, Sergei (1873–1943), Russian composer, pianist, and conductor.

  1 Artur Rubinstein gave a dinner party in honor of Rachmaninoff, in the course of which the composer mentioned that he thought the Grieg piano concerto the greatest ever written. Rubinstein said that he had just recorded it. Rachmaninoff insisted on hearing the recording then and there. During coffee, Rubinstein put on the proofs of the record and Rachmaninoff, closing his eyes, settled down to listen. He listened right through without saying a word. At the end of the concerto he opened his eyes and said, “Piano out of tune.”

  2 Rachmaninoff, taken ill in the middle of a concert tour, was admitted to a hospital in Los Angeles, where cancer was diagnosed. Knowing he was dying, the pianist looked at his hands and murmured, “My dear hands. Farewell, my poor hands.”

  RACINE, Jean (1639–99), French dramatist.

  1 The actress Marie Champmêlé once asked Racine from what source he had drawn his religious drama Athalie. “From the Old Testament,” he replied. “Really?” said the actress. “From the Old Testament? I always thought there was a new one.”

  RAFT, George (1895–1980), US film actor.

  1 George Raft acquired and disposed of about $10 million in the course of his career. “Part of the loot went for gambling,” he later explained, “part for horses, and part for women. The rest I spent foolishly.”

  RAGLAN, FitzRoy James Henry Somerset, 1st Baron (1788–1855), British field marshal.

  1 At the close of the battle of Waterloo Raglan was standing beside Wellington when a bullet shattered his right elbow. The arm had to be amputated, an operation Raglan bore without a murmur, but as the limb was being taken away for disposal he cried out, “Don’t carry away that arm till I have taken off my ring.” The arm was brought back, and Raglan retrieved a ring that his wife had given him.

  RAINIER III [Rainier Louis Henri Maxence Bertrand de Grimaldi] (1923–), prince of Monaco (1949–).

  1 On a tour of the Astrodome, a huge sports stadium covering some nine acres of land in Houston, Texas, Prince Rainier was asked, “How would you like to have the Astrodome in Monaco?”

  “Marvelous,” he replied. “Then we could be the world’s only indoor country.”

  RALEIGH, Sir Walter (
?1552–1618), British soldier, explorer, and writer.

  1 Although primarily a man of action, the courtly Raleigh exemplified the ideal of the Renaissance gentleman. There is an old tradition that he first caught the attention of Queen Elizabeth sometime in 1581 when she was walking along a muddy path. As she hesitated in front of a particularly large puddle, Raleigh sprang forward and, taking off his new plush cloak, laid it on the ground for his sovereign to step upon.

  2 At the outset of his career as courtier Raleigh scratched with a diamond the following words on a window of the royal palace: “Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.” The queen, as he had intended, read the line. She completed the couplet: “If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all.”

  3 Raleigh brought back tobacco from the New World and introduced smoking to Britain. The novelty caused much comment and considerable discussion pro and con. Raleigh was once enjoying a pipe when his servant, seeing his master enveloped in clouds of smoke, thought that he must be on fire, and quickly emptied a bowl of water over Raleigh’s head.

  4 (John Aubrey recounts an incident that led to Raleigh’s temporary loss of favor with Queen Elizabeth.)

  “He loved a wench well; and one time getting one of the Maids of Honour up against a tree in a wood (’twas his first lady) who seemed at first boarding to be something fearful of her honour, and modest, she cried, ‘Sweet Sir Walter, what do you me ask? Will you undo me? Nay, sweet Sir Walter! Sweet Sir Walter! Sir Walter!’ At last, as the danger and the pleasure at the same time grew higher, she cried in the ecstasy, ‘Swisser Swatter, Swisser Swatter!’ She proved with child, and I doubt not but this hero took care of them both, as also that the product was more than an ordinary mortal.”

  5 Like his father, Raleigh’s eldest son and namesake was quick-tempered and a womanizer. At a dinner in great company young Walter, sitting next to his father, began to tell a discreditable anecdote, about how he had visited a whore and she had refused to lie with him because “your father lay with me but an hour ago.”

  Incensed and embarrassed, Raleigh hit young Walter across the face. The young man was wild, but not so wicked as to strike his father. So he turned to the man sitting on his other side and hit him, saying as he did so, “Box about; it will come to my father anon.”

  6 In his role as Elizabeth’s favorite Raleigh was quick to seek benefits and rewards. The queen once rebuked him mildly for his rapacity, saying, “When will you cease to be a beggar?”

  “When you cease to be a benefactress, ma’am,” replied Raleigh.

  7 The sentence of death on Raleigh was confirmed on October 28, 1618, with the execution set for the following morning. As Raleigh was led back to prison from the tribunal at Westminster, he spied an old acquaintance, Sir Hugh Beeston, whom he greeted cheerfully. “You will come tomorrow?” he asked Beeston. “But I do not know how you will manage to get a place. For my own part I am sure of one, but you will have to shift for yourself.”

  8 Raleigh’s courage and dignity on the scaffold were part of the legend that grew up around him as a martyr to the unpopular pro-Spanish policy of James I. He tested the ax’s edge, saying, “It is a sharp remedy, but a sure one for all ills.” As he laid his head on the block, someone protested that it should be placed so that his head should point toward the east. “What matter how the head lie, so the heart be right?” said Raleigh.

  RAMANUJAN, Srinivasa (1887–1920), Indian mathematician.

  1 (J. E. Littlewood, a mathematician who collaborated with Hardy, recounts a conversation with Ramanujan.)

  “I remember once going to see him when he was lying ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxicab number 1729, and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.’ ”

  RAMSEY, Alice Huyler (1886–1983).

  1 Ramsey was the first woman (though not the first person) to drive across the country, from San Francisco to New York. She did this in 1909, when good roads were all but unknown. “Good driving has nothing to do with sex,” she said. “It’s all above the collar.”

  RAPHAEL [Raffaello Sanzio] (1483–1520), Italian artist and architect.

  1 A couple of cardinals, watching Raphael at work on his Vatican frescoes, annoyed the artist by keeping up a stream of ill-informed criticism. “The face of the apostle Paul is far too red,” complained one. “He blushes to see into whose hands the church has fallen,” said Raphael.

  RATHER, Dan (1931–), US journalist.

  1 When Rather covered a summit meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev, he appeared on television wearing an open-necked shirt that showed his hairy chest. A gossip columnist quipped, “One good thing came out of the summit. We got to see that Dan Rather is definitely a he-man and no wimp.”

  RAYNAL, Abbé Guillaume Thomas François (1713–96), French historian.

  1 The Abbé Raynal and the Abbé Galiani were both incessant talkers. A friend decided to amuse himself by inviting them together to a gathering at his house. Abbé Galiani seized the first opening and took over the conversation so completely that no one, not even the Abbé Raynal, could get a word in edgewise. After listening in growing frustration, Raynal turned to his host and muttered, “S’il crache, il est perdu” (If he spits, he’s lost).

  Fanny Ronalds was a nineteenth-century society beauty and singer. Leonard Jerome, a Wall Street magnate, was one of her most ardent admirers, financing her performance as a singer and being frequently seen out driving with her. At a ball she came unexpectedly face to face with Jerome’s wife, Clara. As Mrs. Ronalds held out her hand, the spectators held their breath, wondering how Mrs. Jerome would react to meeting the lady with whom her husband’s name was so publicly linked. Mrs. Jerome took her rival’s hand and said, “I don’t blame you. I know how irresistible he is.”

  — ANITA LESLIE,

  The Remarkable Mr. Jerome

  REAGAN, Nancy (1921–), wife of Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States (1981–89).

  1 The 1980 presidential elections were thought to be a very close call; no one would predict whether Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan would be the winner. On the evening of the election both of the Reagans had taken baths and were standing wrapped in towels when they heard the news that Carter was conceding the election — well in advance of the polls’ closing in California. Nancy recalled that moment, as the couple stood staring at each other, dripping wet. “Is this really the way it is supposed to be?” she exclaimed to her husband.

  2 As she visited a school, she was asked how she liked being married to the President of the United States. “Fine,” was her reply, “as long as the president is Ronald Reagan.”

  3 Nancy worried a great deal during the time her husband was recuperating in the hospital from John Hinckley’s assassination attempt. When unthinking friends asked about her method for losing weight, assuming she was trying a new diet, she said, “Just have your husband go into politics.”

  4 The great pianist Vladimir Horowitz gave a performance at the White House, after which Ronald Reagan rose to thank him. Somehow Nancy’s chair slipped off the dais, and she fell into a row of decorative flowers. When she called out that she was fine and joked that she just wanted to liven up the affair, her husband quipped, “Honey, I told you to do it only if I didn’t get any applause.”

  5 Despite the constant criticism of her style, Nancy had a sense of humor about her reputation as a lover of high style. When she saw a picture of herself that had been circulating showing her as Queen Nancy, she said, “Now that’s silly, I’d never wear a crown — it musses up your hair.”

  REAGAN, Ronald (1911–), US film actor and politician; 40th President of the United States (1981–89).

  1 As a young radio announcer in Des Moines, Iowa, Reagan once interviewed the famed evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who spoke with passion about her need to find adequate financia
l support for her revival meetings. The interview ended early, and Reagan had four minutes to fill. He asked that appropriate music be played, expecting a hymn or a stirring choral piece. Instead, and Reagan claimed it was completely by accident, the station played the then-wildly popular song “Minnie the Moocher.”

  2 During a student demonstration in the 1960s Reagan’s limousine was hemmed in by a crowd of chanting demonstrators waving placards. The demonstrators were chanting, “We are the future.” Reagan scribbled on a piece of paper and held it up to the window so they could read the words: “I’ll sell my bonds.”

  3 Reagan loved to discuss politics, but when he finally decided to run for governor of California, producer Jack Warner, who had worked with him in many movies, was incredulous. “No, no, no!” he cried. “Jimmy Stewart for governor — Reagan for best friend.”

  4 In the early 1970s, Reagan was already a fiscal conservative, a theme he would evoke over and over throughout the eight years of his presidency. In one of his speeches he said, “Do you remember back in the days when you thought that nothing could replace the dollar? Today, it practically has.”

  5 Reagan often joked about his age. At a party honoring the bicentennial of the U.S.S. Constitution, he joked, “History is no easy subject. Even in my day it wasn’t, and we had so much less to learn then.”

  6 Just before Reagan gave his speech at the Republican national convention accepting the 1980 presidential nomination, a nomination he had sought with fervor for years, Reagan quipped, “My first thrill tonight was to find myself, for the first time in a long time, in a movie in prime time.”