Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

by Clifton Fadiman

13 On the night of February 24, 1809, the House of Commons was suddenly illuminated by a blaze of light. It was learned that the Drury Lane Theatre, of which Sheridan was the manager at that time, was on fire. A motion was made to adjourn the House, but Sheridan, who was in the chamber, said calmly, “Whatsoever might be the extent of the private calamity, I hope it will not interfere with the public business of the country.” He then left the House and walked to Drury Lane, where he watched the blazing theater with apparent calm. While he was sitting in the nearby Piazza coffeehouse, a friend approached him and remarked on the philosophic calmness with which he bore his misfortune. Sheridan answered, “A man may surely be allowed to take a glass of wine by his own fireside.”

  14 Sheridan was sufficiently intimate with the future George IV to make gentle fun of his idiosyncrasies, such as his habit of taking the credit for anything good that happened in England. After an unusually fine summer one year, Sheridan remarked, “What His Royal Highness most particularly prides himself upon is the excellent harvest.”

  SHERMAN, Roger (1721–93), US revolutionary patriot, signer of the Declaration of Independence.

  1 As a young politician he was asked to give a speech on the opening of a new bridge in Connecticut. He walked out onto the bridge, walked back, and gave his entire speech: “I don’t see but that it stands steady.”

  SHERMAN, William Tecumseh (1820–91), US general.

  1 After the Mexican War, Sherman was sent by President Zachary Taylor to survey the newly acquired lands of New Mexico, Arizona, and California. On his return, Taylor asked Sherman: “Well, Captain, will our new possessions pay for the blood and treasure spent in the war?” Recalling the arid lands he had just explored, Sherman replied, “Between you and me, General, I feel that we’ll have to go to war again.” Taylor was aghast. “What for?” he asked. “To make ’em take the darn country back!” said Sherman.

  2 During one of his many engagements in Georgia in 1864, Sherman was having difficulty breaking through the enemy front. He decided to send General Cox’s division to attack the opposing left. Sherman positioned himself on a high hill to watch the operations and gave Cox his final orders for the circuitous march: “See here, Cox, burn a few barns occasionally as you go along. I can’t understand those signal flags, but I know what smoke means.”

  3 Receiving a telegram from the Republican convention asking him to be the presidential candidate in 1884, Sherman wired back: “I will not accepted if nominated, and will not serve if elected.”

  SHI HUANGDI (late 3d century BC), first emperor of China.

  1 Shi Huangdi died while on a journey to seek the elixir of life. Two of his confidants, Zhao Gao and Li Si, feared that the crown prince, who objected to his father’s harsh regime, would dismiss and perhaps even execute them if he became emperor. They therefore hatched a plan to place another of Shi Huangdi’s sons on the throne. The first part of this plan involved concealing the old emperor’s death from the world. Enclosing the body in his traveling carriage, they gave orders to return to the capital. The weather was warm and the corpse soon began to putrefy. Zhao Gao and Li Si therefore arranged for the imperial carriage to be closely followed by a cart laden with rotting fish. The stench of fish was so overpowering that not even the emperor’s bodyguard detected the smell of the putrefying body, and the conspirators succeeded in reaching the capital without the emperor’s death being discovered. There they used the emperor’s seal to sign a decree commanding the crown prince to commit suicide, whereupon they established their own candidate on the throne of China.

  SHUTER, Edward (1728–76), British comic actor.

  1 Chided for having holes in his stocking, Shuter replied that he would rather have twenty holes than one darn. “A hole is the accident of a day, while a darn is premeditated poverty.”

  SIBELIUS, Jean (1865–1957), Finnish composer.

  1 Sibelius was hosting a party at which many of those invited were businessmen. “Why businessmen?” asked one of his other guests. “What do you talk about with them?” “About music, of course,” replied the composer. “I can’t talk about music with musicians. All they talk about is money.”

  SIDDONS, Sarah (1755–1831), British tragic actress, sister of John and Charles Kemble and aunt of Fanny Kemble.

  1 The daughter of the theatrical manager Roger Kemble, Sarah was brought up in the stage environment. Her father nonetheless strictly forbade his beautiful and talented daughter to marry an actor. Despite this prohibition, she bestowed her affections on William Siddons, a lowly constituent of her father’s company. The exasperated Roger Kemble lectured Sarah on her choice, concluding with the statement that not only was William Siddons a member of a dubious profession but also the worst one in the troupe. “Exactly,” said Sarah sweetly. “No one can call him an actor.”

  2 When Sir Joshua Reynolds painted his famous portrait of Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Music, he added his name by working it into the border of her robe. Mrs. Siddons examined the picture minutely and smiled. Reynolds said, “I could not lose this opportunity of sending my name to posterity on the hem of your garment.”

  3 (In 1783 Sarah Siddons paid a call on Dr. Johnson, then in his seventies.)

  “When Mrs. Siddons came into the room, there happened to be no chair ready for her, which he observing, said with a smile, ‘Madam, you who so often occasion a want of seats to other people, will the more easily excuse the want of one yourself.’ ”

  4 Sarah Siddons’s high dramatic style tended to spill over into her everyday life. (As Sydney Smith observed of her at the dinner table, “It was never without awe that one saw her stab the potatoes.”) In Bath to play some of her favorite tragic roles, she visited a draper’s shop to buy some fabric. Picking up a piece of muslin, she looked with great intensity at the shopman and said with the utmost solemnity and dramatic effect, “Did you say, sir, that this would wash?” The draper suspected that he had a lunatic in his shop. Mrs. Siddons recollected herself at the sight of his surprise, apologized, and repeated the question in a more normal tone of voice.

  5 During a tour of the north of England, Mrs. Siddons was playing the role of a tragic queen who commits suicide by taking poison. At one performance, as she raised the cup of poison to her lips, the spellbound silence of the audience was shattered by a shout of encouragement from the gallery: “That’s reet, Molly. Soop it oop, ma lass, soop it oop.”

  SIDNEY, Sir Philip (1554–86), British writer, soldier, and courtier, whose talents and charm. made him the model of Elizabethan behavior.

  1 At Zutphen Sidney was wounded in the thigh. As he was being carried along to have the wound dressed, he suffered greatly from thirst, owing to loss of blood. A water bottle was found and brought to him. Putting it to his lips, he caught sight of another wounded man, a humble soldier, looking longingly at the water. Sidney at once passed the bottle to him with the words, “Thy need is yet greater than mine.”

  SIEYÈS, Emmanuel-Joseph, Abbé de (1748–1836), French cleric and statesman.

  1 After the Terror, a friend inquired of the abbé what he had done during those terrible years. “J’ai vécu [I survived],” he said.

  SIGISMUND (1368–1437), Holy Roman Emperor (1414–37).

  1 The emperor was once asked his recipe for lasting happiness in this world. “Only do always in health what you have often promised to do when you are sick,” he replied.

  SILVERMAN, Fred (1937–), US broadcaster and television executive.

  1 A few days before Yom Kippur Fred Silverman was asked by a friend if he would be going home for the holiday. Silverman asked on what day the event fell. “Wednesday,” the friend informed him. “Wednesday?” cried Silverman. “You mean they’ve scheduled Yom Kippur opposite Charlie’s Angels?”

  SIMENON, Georges (1903–89), Belgian novelist, creator of the character Inspector Maigret.

  1 One of the reasons for Simenon’s prolific output was the speed at which he was able to produce a novel. Director Alfred Hitchcock happened to t
elephone him from the United States while he was working on his 158th novel. Madame Simenon took the call. “I’m sorry,” she said, “Georges is writing and I would rather not disturb him.”

  “Let him finish his book,” replied Hitchcock. “I’ll hang on.”

  2 Strolling down a Parisian boulevard with the playwright Marcel Pagnol one afternoon, Simenon suddenly exclaimed, “Goodness, she must be very pretty!” Looking ahead, Pagnol could see only a couple of young men walking in their direction. “Who? Where?” he asked. “She’s behind us,” replied Simenon. “Then how can you see her?” asked Pagnol. “I can’t,” said Simenon. “But I can see the look in the eyes of the approaching men.”

  SIMON, Richard Leo (1889–1960), US publisher. In 1924, with Max L. Schuster (1897– 1971), he founded the publishing company Simon and Schuster.

  1 Launching a new children’s book, Dr. Dan the Bandage Man, Simon decided to include a free gift of six Band-Aids with each copy. He cabled a friend at the manufacturers, Johnson and Johnson: “Please ship half million Band-Aids immediately.” Back came the reply: “Band-Aids on the way. What the hell happened to you?”

  SINATRA, Frank (1915–98), US singer and film actor.

  1 Having suffered a series of fainting fits, Sinatra consulted his doctor. “How much money do you earn, Mr. Sinatra?” asked the doctor. “Somewhere between four hundred thousand and a million dollars a year,” replied Sinatra carelessly. “In that case,” advised the doctor, “I suggest you go right out and buy yourself some red meat. You’re suffering from malnutrition.”

  2 Sinatra often traveled many miles out of his way to visit hospitalized friends and sing to them. It was said that the more serious the illness, the more punctilious he was in visiting. One friend, who was suffering from a minor complaint but was afraid the doctors were not telling him the truth, awoke suddenly in his hospital room to find Sinatra at his bedside. The singer had been in the neighborhood and had just called in. The patient was appalled. “I knew it!” he yelled. “They’ve been lying to me!”

  SINGER, Isaac Bashevis (1904–91), US writer, born in Poland, who was awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize for Literature.

  1 An interviewer asked Singer whether he was a vegetarian for religious reasons or because of his health. “It is out of consideration for the chicken,” he replied.

  2 Singer was asked whether he believed in free will or predestination. “We have to believe in free will,” he replied. “We’ve got no choice.”

  SITWELL, Dame Edith (1887–1964), British poet.

  1 (Osbert Sitwell tells about a guest at the Sitwells’ home, Renishaw Hall:)

  “A man whom we had never seen before was wished on us for luncheon one day. He was placed next to my sister, and took it into his head to enquire of her: ‘Do you remember this house being built, Miss Sitwell?’ Mrs. [Alice] Keppel overheard this, and said to him quickly: ‘My dear man, be careful! Not even the nicest girl in the world likes to be asked if she is four hundred years old.’”

  2 Edith Sitwell was accustomed to ferocious attacks on her poetry. At one gathering at which she had been reading some of her poems aloud, a woman came up to her and announced, “I just wanted to tell you, Miss Sitwell, that I quite enjoyed your last book of poems.” She paused and then seemed about to go on when Edith Sitwell interrupted her.

  “Now please don’t say any more,” she said. “You mustn’t spoil me. It isn’t good for me to be spoiled.”

  3 In 1954 Edith Sitwell was given the title Dame of the British Empire. On a visit to the United States an American came up to her and said rather aggressively, “Why do you call yourself ‘Dame’?”

  “I don’t,” she replied. “The queen does.”

  SITWELL, Sir George Reresby (1860–1943), British antiquarian and eccentric.

  1 Having in a fit of unsociability banished all visitors from his home, Renishaw Hall, Sir George was soon overcome by boredom. He confided to his son Osbert that he felt like taking a holiday and described the sort of hotel that he thought would suit him: a secluded country house with fine grounds, good views, and a few congenial fellow guests to whom he could talk. Osbert immediately recalled a newspaper advertisement he had seen that morning for what was clearly an expensive private institution for the mentally deranged. He described the “hotel” in glowing and inventive terms. Sir George agreed that it sounded exactly what he was looking for. Sir George’s secretary was told to book a room for the month of September, and the whole Sitwell family joined in extolling the virtues of the supposed hotel. The eagerly awaited confirmation of the booking arrived. Unfortunately, the asylum director had added a postscript: “Ought a strait-waistcoat to be sent for Sir George to wear during the journey, which will be made by van? Three strong and practised male nurses will, of course, be in attendance, and prepared to quell any disturbance on the way.”

  2 (Sir Osbert Sitwell recalls a narrowly averted contretemps at a tea party at which one of the guests was a certain Mrs. Brooke. Sir George had begun the conversation with a spirited attack on modern art and from there he moved on to modern poetry.)

  “He was just saying: ‘Then there was that young man who died in the Dardanelles — I forget his name — they try to make out he was a genius, but no good, no good, I can assure you,’ when with a startling suddenness I realized why Mrs. Brooke’s face was so familiar — from photographs in the Press of Rupert Brooke: the resemblance was very marked; she must be his mother. I gave my father a good kick under the tea-table, but he did not even pause; only the as yet undreamtof H-bomb could have stopped him. He went on: ‘His poems were grossly over-praised in the Press.’ … I could hardly believe my ears. Could it be true that this was really happening, or was it just a nightmare instalment of an instant in hell? Before, however, his memory could supply the missing name, the crowning horror was skilfully averted…. ‘Sir George,’ our hostess bravely intervened, ‘you are sitting next to Mrs. Brooke, the mother of that wonderful young poet, Rupert Brooke. I must tell you, because,’ she proceeded, drawing on her imagination, ‘before tea you were just saying to me — but we were interrupted — how much you admired his work,’ and continued, ‘how different it is from the work of that other young poet — I, too, forget his name for the moment — of whom you were speaking.’

  My father looked puzzled but said no more.”

  SKELTON, John (?1460–1529), English poet at the court of Henry VIII.

  1 Enjoying the position of a licensed jester at Henry VIII’s court, Skelton could satirize the great and powerful with virtual impunity. At last, however, with Why Come Ye Not to Courte? he went too far in his attack on Cardinal Wolsey, and the cardinal threw him into prison. In the Merie Tales, which contain a number of (probably fictional) anecdotes about Skelton, he is shown as kneeling before Wolsey to ask for pardon. The cardinal ranted at him for some time. At last Skelton said, “I pray Your Grace to let me lie down and wallow, for I can kneel no longer.”

  SKINNER, Cornelia Otis (1901–79), US actress and writer.

  1 Cornelia Otis Skinner was playing the title role in a revival of George Bernard Shaw’s Candida. Shaw cabled her: “Excellent. Greatest.” The actress cabled back: “Undeserving such praise.” Shaw sent another cable: “I meant the play.” Miss Skinner replied: “So did I.”

  SKINNER, Otis (1858–1942), US stage actor, father of Cornelia Otis Skinner.

  1 At the rehearsal for his daughter’s wedding, Skinner asked the minister what he was supposed to say in reply to the question: “Who giveth this woman …”

  “You don’t say a thing, Mr. Skinner,” replied the minister. “You just hand your daughter over.”

  “Nonsense,” said Skinner, “I’ve never played a walk-on part in my life.”

  SLEZAK, Leo (1873–1946), Czechoslovak tenor.

  1 At the end of Wagner’s opera Lohengrin a magic swan appears, drawing a boat to take the hero back to rejoin the fellowship of the Knights of the Holy Grail. On one occasion when Slezak was singing Lohengrin, the
apparatus failed to function properly and sailed off back into the wings, leaving the tenor stranded on the stage. Amid consternation among performers and stage hands Slezak muttered, “When does the next swan leave?”

  2 Slezak had just left his residence in Vienna for a performance in Zurich when his valet discovered that the singer had left behind an important part of his costume — a magnificent crown studded with artificial jewels. He wrapped it up in a sheet of newspaper and rushed off to the station, where he just had time to thrust the package into his employer’s hands as the train moved away. During the long overnight journey, a customs officer boarded the train. “Anything to declare?” he asked as he passed through Slezak’s compartment. “No, nothing,” replied the singer, who had been trying to catch a few hours’ sleep. The customs officer glanced around the compartment. “Open that!” he snapped, pointing at the hastily wrapped package. With ill-disguised irritation, Slezak tore off the newspaper and uncovered the crown. The customs officer gasped. Then, standing to attention, he exclaimed, “Oh! Incognito! Please excuse me, Your Majesty.”

  SMITH, Adam (1723–90), Scottish economist and philosopher.

  1 Smith was known for his absentmindedness. One Sunday morning he wandered into his garden wearing only a nightgown and soon became engrossed in philosophical contemplation. Totally absorbed in his train of thought, he went out into the street and began walking in the direction of Dunfermline. He had covered the twelve miles to the town before the ringing of the church bells aroused him from his reverie. Regular churchgoers arriving for the morning service were astonished to find the eminent philosopher in their midst, still clad only in his nightgown.