Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

by Clifton Fadiman

  “Without any payment?” exclaimed Talleyrand. “Your Majesty, that would cost us too much!”

  3 During the French Revolution, Talleyrand spent some time in exile in America. On his return to France he said of the United States, “I found there a country with thirty-two religions and only one sauce.”

  4 Talleyrand was sitting between Mme de Staël and the famous beauty Mme Récamier, his attention very much engaged with the latter. Mme de Staël made a bid to get into the conversation. “Monsieur Talleyrand, if you and I and Madame Récamier were shipwrecked together and you could save only one of us, which would you save?” Talleyrand replied with his deepest bow, “Madame, you know everything, so clearly you know how to swim.”

  5 Claude Rulhières, author of a celebrated work on the Polish Revolution, Histoire de l’anarchie de Pologne (1807), complained in Talleyrand’s hearing that people said that he was mischievous, “although I have done only one mischievous thing in my whole life.”

  “And when will that end?” inquired Talleyrand.

  6 During Napoleon’s reign the military were at their most arrogant, referring contemptuously to civilians as pequins (weaklings). Talleyrand asked a certain general for an explanation of the derogatory term. “Nous appelons pequin tout ce qui n’est pas militaire [We call weakling anybody who is not military],” he replied. “Ah, oui,” said Talleyrand, “comme nous autres appelons militaires tous ceux qui ne sont pas civiles” (Ah, yes, we call military all those who are not civil).

  7 Talleyrand made no secret of his opposition to Napoleon’s invasion of Spain and Portugal. This led to the notorious scene of January 28, 1809, when Napoleon abused Talleyrand in the grossest language in front of his other ministers, ending by shouting, “Tenez, vous êtes de la merde dans un bas desoie” (You’re shit in a silk stocking). Talleyrand said nothing under this attack, only remarking as he left the council chamber, “What a pity such a great man should be so ill bred!”

  8 At the Congress of Vienna Alexander I of Russia inveighed against those who, like King Frederick Augustus of Saxony, had “betrayed the cause of Europe” in not joining the alliance against Napoleon. Talleyrand, mindful of the czar’s own former conciliatory attitude toward the erstwhile French emperor, observed, “But that, sire, is merely a question of dates.”

  9 A rationalist colleague complained to Talleyrand about the difficulty of converting the French peasants. “What can one do to impress these people?” he asked. “Well,” replied Talleyrand, “you might try getting crucified and rising again on the third day.”

  10 Talleyrand once reprimanded a visitor for swallowing a glass of expensive brandy in a single gulp. “The first thing you should do,” explained Talleyrand, “is take your glass in the palms of your hands and warm it. Then shake it gently, with a circular movement, so that the liquid’s perfume is released. Then, raise the glass to the nose and breathe deeply.” His visitor was fascinated. “And then, my lord?” he asked. “And then, sir,” continued Talleyrand, “you replace the glass on the table and talk about it.”

  11 The role played by Talleyrand behind the scenes in the July Revolution of 1830, which brought Louis Philippe to the throne, remains as obscure now as it was to his contemporaries. A widely told story relates how the elderly statesman, sitting in his house in Paris during the three days of riots, heard the pealing of the bells and remarked, “Ah, the tocsin! We’re winning.”

  “Who’s we, mon prince?”

  Talleyrand gestured for silence: “Not a word. I’ll tell you who we are tomorrow.”

  12 The veteran statesman was unimpressed by Louis Philippe’s handling of the many crises that beset his reign. “How do you think this government will end?” someone once asked.

  “Accidentally,” said Talleyrand.

  TALMADGE, Norma (1895–1957), US silent movie actress.

  1 Some years into her retirement, after making over fifty movies and reigning as a queen of Hollywood for years, she was besieged by a crowd of admirers when she was spotted leaving a restaurant in Los Angeles. As she drove away, she called out to her fans, “Go away! I don’t need you anymore.”

  TAMAGNO, Francesco (1851–1905), Italian tenor.

  1 The leading tenor of an American opera company, rehearsing Tamagno’s famous role in Otello, was puzzled by a request from the stage director. During a brief rest in the tenor part he was to walk upstage, pause, then return downstage and continue singing. The action seemed pointless and difficult to execute in the time allowed. “But it is the tradition of the role,” insisted the director. “Tamagno did it.” The tenor submitted with reluctance. In Italy the following year, he visited Tamagno and asked him to explain this strange “tradition.” The old man’s face lit up. “It is very simple,” he said. “Note that in the final passage Otello must sing a high B-flat. So while the chorus was singing I went upstage to spit.”

  TARANTINO, Quentin (1963–), US film director.

  1 The graphic violence of Tarantino’s movies had caused both widespread criticism and acclaim by the time he was awarded the Cannes Film Festival grand prize for Pulp Fiction. Onstage to accept his award, he was booed by some members of the audience, to whom he responded with an obscene gesture. “I don’t make movies that bring people together,” he barked. “I make movies that split people apart.”

  TAYLOR, Elizabeth (1932–), US film actress.

  1 Miss Taylor’s fabulous diamond ring drew the notice of Princess Margaret, who remarked, “That’s a bit vulgar.” Miss Taylor persuaded the princess to try on the ring. “There, it’s not so vulgar now, is it?” she said.

  TAYLOR, John (1703–72), British oculist.

  1 At dinner in Edinburgh, Taylor was holding forth with much impudence, boasting among other things that he could read anybody’s thoughts by looking at their eyes. His hostess, the Countess of Dumfries, angered by his behavior, contemptuously inquired whether he knew what she was thinking. Taylor confidently asserted that he did. “Then,” said the countess, “it’s very safe, for I am sure you will not repeat it.”

  TAYLOR, Laurette (1884–1946), US actress.

  1 At a party after a poorly attended performance one evening, Miss Taylor was engaged in amiable conversation with one of her fellow guests, a complete stranger. After some time, he politely took his leave and walked over to a group of people at the opposite side of the room. Miss Taylor’s smile suddenly disappeared and she turned angrily to her hostess. “That man walked out on me tonight at the theater!” she cried. “Are you sure?” asked the hostess. “Of course I’m sure. I sometimes forget a face, but I never forget a back!”

  TAYLOR, Paul (1930–), US dancer and choreographer.

  1 During a modern-dance program, Paul Taylor contributed a solo in which he simply stood motionless onstage for four minutes. The reviewer for Dance Observer magazine responded in kind: his review consisted of just four inches of white space.

  TECUMSEH (c. 1768–1813), chief of the American Shawnee Indians, who organized an Indian confederacy to resist white encroachments.

  1 In 1810 Harrison, then governor of Indiana Territory, was negotiating with Tecumseh in order to try to prevent open hostilities. He ordered a chair to be brought for the Indian chief. The man who brought it said, “Your father, General Harrison, offers you a seat.”

  “My father!” Tecumseh exclaimed. “The sun is my father and the earth is my mother, and on her breast will I lie.” Ignoring the chair, he stretched himself out on the ground.

  TELFORD, Thomas (1757–1834), British engineer.

  1 In his later years Telford was something of a celebrity, as well as being delightful company. In London he stayed at the Ship Inn in Charing Cross, which was always crowded with his friends. A new landlord purchased the inn without knowing that Telford was about to move into a house of his own in Abingdon Street. When he found out, he was utterly dismayed. “Not leaving!” he exclaimed. “I have just paid seven hundred and fifty pounds for you.”

  TEMPLE, Frederick (1821–19
02), British clergyman.

  1 Archbishop Temple had a reputation for intimidating his clergy, and ordinands particularly dreaded their pre-ordination interview with him. To one man he said, “I will lie down on that couch and pretend to be ill. You leave the room, come in again, and ‘sick-visit’ me.” The ordinand did as he was told. Coming up to the archiepiscopal couch, he gazed intently at the recumbent figure and then said reprovingly, “Why, Freddie, you’re on the drink again!”

  TENG SHIH (6th century BC), Chinese philosopher and administrator.

  1 A wealthy man from Teng’s state had drowned in the Wei River. The corpse was recovered by a man who refused to return it to the mourning family until he had received a large payment. The relatives of the drowned man sought Teng’s advice. He told them, “Wait, no other family will pay for the body.” Fortified by this counsel, they waited, and in due course the finder of the corpse grew worried and also consulted Teng. “Wait,” Teng advised, “for nowhere else can they obtain the body.”

  TENNYSON, Alfred, 1st Baron Tennyson (1809–92), British poet; poet laureate (1850– 92).

  1 The Duke of Argyll and his family, on holiday near the Tennysons, were invited for dinner. When the Argylls arrived, Tennyson apologized for not having changed: “I can’t dress for you, for I never dress for anyone. If I made an exception and dressed for a duke, my butler would set me down as a snob.”

  2 The great Shakespearean actor Henry Irving was staying with the Tennysons. One evening after dinner when they were having port, the butler filled Irving’s glass, then set the decanter down by Tennyson. Tennyson was talking and continued absentmindedly to fill his own glass, failing to notice when Irving’s was empty. The decanter emptied, he called for another bottle. Again the butler filled Irving’s glass and left Tennyson the decanter, which he finished as before. Next morning Irving found Tennyson standing solicitously at his bedside, inquiring how he felt. “Ah, but pray, Mr. Irving, do you always drink two bottles of port after dinner?”

  3 The critics’ reception of Tennyson’s Maud was predictably hostile, for the poem dealt with love, madness, murder, suicide, hysteria. One reviewer suggested that Maud had one vowel too many in the title, and that it would make sense no matter which was deleted.

  4 One of Tennyson’s admirers, a little girl called Elspeth Thompson, used to accompany the poet on his long walks around London. As he tramped through the streets, the child trotting beside him, the poet made a striking figure in his swirling Spanish cloak and great sombrero. Passersby would often turn to look at him. Tennyson grumbled to Elspeth, “Child, your mother should dress you less conspicuously; people are staring at us.”

  5 Tennyson was offered a baronetcy four times, as a mark of honor from the nation, and each time he declined. He came around to thinking that he had made a mistake in declining and wished to accept. Accordingly, a friend, acting as intermediary between him and Gladstone, the prime minister, conveyed Tennyson’s willingness. It was further suggested that Tennyson might be offered a peerage rather than a baronetcy, but Gladstone mused, “Ah! Could I be an accessory to introducing that hat into the House of Lords?”

  6 Tennyson was entertaining a Russian nobleman at his house on the Isle of Wight. One morning the Russian set off on a shooting expedition, returning later that day with the proud news that he had shot two peasants. Tennyson politely corrected his guest’s pronunciation: “You mean ‘two pheasants,’ ” he said. “No,” replied the Russian, “two peasants. They were insolent, so I shot them.”

  7 As a young man Tennyson was afflicted with a painful attack of piles. Accepting advice, he visited a young but well-known proctologist and was so successfully treated that for many years he had no further trouble. However, after he had become a famous poet and had been raised to the peerage, he suffered a further attack. Revisiting the proctologist, he expected to be recognized as the former patient who had become the great poet. The proctologist, however, gave no signs of recognition. It was only when the noble lord had bent over for examination that the proctologist exclaimed, “Ah, Tennyson!”

  8 On his first meeting with Lady Duff Gordon, who later became a very good friend, Tennyson lay full length on the carpet, then rolled over to her and said, “Will you please to put your foot on me for a stool.”

  9 Ambassador to the Court of Saint James’s and distinguished poet James Lowell was invited to dine at Tennyson’s with a group of writers. The meal began in silence and lasted in silence until Tennyson turned to Lowell and said, “Do you know anything about Lowell?” Mrs. Tennyson rescued the meal: “Why, my dear, this is Mr. Lowell.”

  10 When the great poet had but days left before his death, he was asked if he felt any better. “The doctor says I do,” he replied.

  TERESA of Ávila, Saint (1515–82), Spanish Carmelite nun.

  1 A young nun came to Saint Teresa with exaggerated tales of her spiritual trials and the fearful sins into which she had lapsed. After listening to her recitation, Saint Teresa said briskly, “We know, sister, that none of us is perfect. You must just be sure that your sins don’t turn into bad habits.”

  TERRY, Dame Ellen (1847–1928), British actress.

  1 Ellen Terry was at the height of her career when the director of a production in which she was starring turned out to be a rather opinionated and fussy young man. He told her exactly how she should play a particular scene, down to the most minute details of action and delivery. The star listened patiently and did precisely as she was told. When she had finally gone through the scene to his satisfaction, she turned to him and said, “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll just do that little extra something for which I am paid my enormous fee.”

  2 At the turn of the century Ellen Terry was in her early fifties and, though still at the height of her powers as an actress, complained: “Now I am a grandmother, nobody will ever write a play for me.” When Bernard Shaw heard this remark, he immediately wrote Captain Brassbound’s Conversion for her. Consequently, in 1901 she enjoyed a great success in the role of Lady Cicely Waynflete. “He only did it,” Ellen Terry observed of Shaw, “out of a natural desire to contradict.”

  TETRAZZINI, Luisa (1871–1940), Italian soprano.

  1 Tetrazzini was concerned neither about her size nor about the amount she needed to eat. She shared her predilection for Neapolitan dishes with her friend Enrico Caruso. On one occasion after a late spaghetti lunch with Caruso she had to sing Violetta in La Traviata. When her co-star John McCormack attempted to raise the dying Violetta in his arms, it felt, as he said later, as if he were fondling a pair of Michelin tires. He did not know that she had consumed so much spaghetti that she had had to remove her corsets. The amazement that he could not conceal started her giggling, and to the audience’s astonishment both performers in this tragic death scene were soon convulsed with laughter.

  THACKERAY, William Makepeace (1811–63), British writer.

  1 On a lecturing tour of the United States Thackeray was invited to a feast of Massachusetts oysters by his publisher James T. Fields, who knew the author’s great desire to taste these delicacies. Thackeray, overcome at the sight of the six huge oysters set before him, asked in a tremulous voice how he should begin on them. Fields promptly gave a demonstration and swallowed his first oyster. Plucking up courage, Thackeray did likewise. Fields asked him how he felt. “As if I had swallowed a baby,” replied Thackeray.

  2 Thackeray blackballed a man named Hill, proposed for membership in London’s Gar-rick Club. This Mr. Hill was a self-made man with a strong cockney accent. “I blackballed him because he is a liar,” Thackeray explained. “He calls himself ‘ill’ when he isn’t.”

  3 At his club one day Thackeray was accosted by a pompous Guards officer who exclaimed, “Ha, Thackeray, old boy, I hear you’re having your portrait painted.” Disliking the man’s patronizing tone, Thackeray briefly assented. “Full length?” inquired the officer superciliously. “No, full-length portraits are for soldiers, so we can see their spurs,” replied Thackeray.
“With authors, the other end of the man is the principal thing.”

  THALBERG, Irving J. (1899–1936), US movie producer.

  1 Thalberg usually had his working hours double- or triple-booked with conferences on the many films currently in production. Important and self-important people might have to wait weeks for appointments, and when they arrived often found they had to cool their heels for hours in Thalberg’s anteroom. When the Marx brothers came to talk to Thalberg about A Night at the Opera, they were displeased to be told they would have to wait. Lighting up two cigars apiece, they stationed themselves around the door of his sanctum and busily puffed smoke through the crack. Eventually Thalberg emerged. “Is there a fire?” he asked. “No, there’s the Marx brothers,” Groucho, Chico, and Harpo told him.

  2 In 1936, shortly before Thalberg’s early death from pneumonia, his literary scout Al Lewin brought him the synopsis of a book about to be published. He was greatly excited about its potential as a film and as a vehicle for Clark Gable. The book’s title was Gone with the Wind. Thalberg agreed to read the synopsis, but kept putting it off. Lewin went on reminding him and asking him about it until at last Thalberg said that he had read it and he agreed with everything Lewin had said about it. “But,” he continued, “I have just made Mutiny on the Bounty and The Good Earth. And now you’re asking me to burn Atlanta. No, absolutely not! No more epics for me now. Just give me a little drawing-room drama. I’m just too tired.”

  THALES (?640–?546 BC), Greek philosopher.