Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

by Clifton Fadiman

  BURTON, Richard (1925–84), British stage and screen actor, married twice to actress Elizabeth Taylor.

  1 During the filming of The Assassination of Trotsky, Burton was playing a scene with French actor Alain Delon. Delon, as the nervous killer, was swinging an ice ax around; at one point the ax came dangerously close to Burton’s head. “You’d better be careful how you handle that ax,” cried Burton. “There are plenty of French actors around, but if you kill me, there goes one-sixth of all the Welsh actors in the world.”

  2 As a young actor Burton was famed for his Hamlet. At a theater in London, on the opening night of a run, he heard someone mumbling the lines along with him from the very first scene. The next time he was backstage he screamed, “Will someone throw that old codger who’s doing my lines with me — OUT!” Burton couldn’t see over the footlights, but a stagehand went to look and returned, saying, “Sorry, Mr. Burton, but it’s the prime minister, Mr. Churchill.”

  BURTON, Sir Richard (1821–90), British scholar and explorer, translator of The Arabian Nights.

  1 In Boulogne after his return from Sind, Burton was attracted by a young woman called Louisa, cousin of his future wife, Isabel Arundell. Unsavory rumors about Burton’s adventures in Sind had spread through the fashionable English colony in Boulogne, and Louisa’s mother summoned the young man to her presence, “because,” she said, “I think it my duty to ask what your intentions are with regard to my daughter.” Burton, who regarded his relationship with the lively young Louisa as little more than a pleasant flirtation, was amused and somewhat taken aback by the formality of the interview.

  “Your duty, madam?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Alas,” sighed Burton. “Strictly dishonorable.”

  2 Isabel Arundell always wanted to marry Richard Burton, and her joy was boundless when at last he proposed to her. Their engagement somewhat prolonged by Burton’s continued traveling, Isabel spent the time actively preparing for the marriage she so ardently desired. She learned to milk cows, groom horses, ride astride. She sought out a celebrated fencer and demanded he take her on as a pupil. “What for?” he asked. “So that I can defend Richard when he is attacked,” said she.

  Anthony Burgess was taking a bath in a Leningrad hotel when the floor concierge yelled that she had a cable for him. “Put it under the door,” he cried. “I can’t!” she shouted. “It’s on a tray.”

  — ANTHONY BURGESS, Preface, in Modern Irish Short Stories, ed. Ben Forkner

  BUSBY, Richard (1606–95), British teacher.

  1 As Dr. Busby was showing King Charles II around his school, it was noticed that, contrary to etiquette, the headmaster kept his hat on in the royal presence. Busby excused himself in these words: “It would not do for my boys to suppose that there existed in the world any greater man than Dr. Busby.”

  2 Dr. Busby was very short. One day in a crowded London coffeehouse he was addressed by an Irish baronet of huge stature: “May I pass to my seat, O giant?”

  “Certainly, O pygmy!” said the doctor, making way.

  The bulky baronet started a clumsy apology: “My expression alluded to the size of your intellect.”

  “And my expression to the size of yours,” retorted Busby.

  BUSCH, Fritz (1890–1951), German-born Swiss orchestra conductor.

  1 One of the favorite stories at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera concerned Busch’s very first orchestral rehearsal. He raised his baton and then quickly dropped his arms to his sides before anyone had played a note. Addressing the orchestra, he said in his thickly accented English, “Already is too loud.”

  BUSH, Barbara (1925–), wife of President George Bush (1989–93).

  1 Enormously popular with the public, Barbara Bush was known for her down-to-earth sense of humor and style. She often made fun of her appearance — her prematurely white hair, weight, and unfashionable clothing — which only helped her popularity. She once told a reporter, “There is a myth around I don’t dress well. I dress very well — I just don’t look so good.”

  2 On a foreign tour with her husband, then vice president, Mrs. Bush sat next to Japan’s Emperor Hirohito at a luncheon in Tokyo. Commenting on her surroundings, she praised the architecture and decor of the Imperial Palace but wondered at its seeming newness. Was the former palace so old it crumbled? “No,” replied the emperor stiffly, “I’m afraid that you bombed it.”

  3 During her commencement address at Wellesley College in 1990, she made headlines when she said, “Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps and preside over the White House as the President’s spouse. I wish him well.”

  BUSH, George (1924–), US politician; 41st President of the United States (1989–93).

  1 Bush was often teased for his stiff, correct manner, when he served as a fairly bland vice president under the most personable of modern presidents, Ronald Reagan. He noted that it was very important for a vice president not to upstage his boss, and then said, “You don’t know how hard it has been to keep my charisma in check these last few years.”

  2 The Bushes’ pet springer spaniel, Millie, gave birth in the White House to a fine litter of puppies. The President was delighted to tell reporters, “They’re sleeping on the Washington Post and the New York Times. It’s the first time in history these papers have been used to prevent leaks.”

  3 Bush scandalized the world when, overly fatigued by travel and suffering from a flu, he threw up in the lap of his host, Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, at a state dinner in Japan. Sometime later Bush invited the prime minister to attend the opening of the Bush Presidential Library, quipping, “This time the dinner’s on me.”

  4 Bush loved to play golf, though his game was not much better than that of his predecessor, Gerald Ford. After having returned to private life for a year or so, he noted, “It’s amazing how many people beat you in golf once you’re no longer President.”

  BUTLER, Benjamin Franklin (1818–93), US general and politician.

  1 As commander of the Union forces occupying New Orleans in 1862, Butler made himself thoroughly unpopular. After some women had abused Northern soldiers he issued the notorious proclamation that if any woman insulted or showed contempt for “any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and shall be held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation.” This provoked furious outcry; Butler was dubbed “Beast” Butler, and the enraged ladies all turned their backs on him whenever they met him. He remarked, “These women know which end of them looks best.”

  2 A Confederate soldier, brought before Butler to take the oath of allegiance at the end of the Civil War, impudently remarked, “We gave you hell at Chickamauga, General!” The furious Butler warned him that if he did not take the oath immediately he would be shot. With some reluctance, the rebel duly took the oath. Then he looked Butler in the eye and said, “General, I suppose I am a good Yankee and citizen of the United States now?” The general replied benignly, “I hope so.” “Well, General, the rebels did give us hell at Chickamauga, didn’t they?”

  BUTLER, Henry Montagu (1833–1918), British academic.

  1 Dr. Butler used to invite freshmen at Trinity to have breakfast with him. Finding a nervous group awaiting him one wintry day in the breakfast room, he glanced toward the window and remarked, “Well, we have a little sun this morning.” At this the shyest of the young men responded with “I hope Mrs. Butler is all right.”

  BUTLER, Samuel (1835–1902), British novelist.

  1 (Butler and his companion Henry Festing Jones visited the Palazzo Reale in Palermo.They were cheated by the custode at the entrance to the Capella Palatina, who gave Butler a bad lira in his change and refused to exchange it despite their remonstrances.)

  “When we came out we had recovered a little, and the custode … returned our umbrellas to us with an obsequiousness capable of but one interpretation. ‘I shall not give him anything,’ said Butler severely to me. ‘Oh yes
, I will though,’ he added, and his eyes twinkled as he fumbled in his pocket. Then, with a very fair approach to Sicilian politeness, he handed the bad lira back to the old gentleman. The custode’s face changed and changed again like a field of corn on a breezy morning. In spite of his archiepiscopal appearance he would have been contented with a few soldi; seeing a whole lira he beamed with delight; then, detecting its badness, his countenance fell and he began to object; almost immediately he identified it as his own coin and was on the point of bursting with rage, but suddenly realizing that he could have nothing to say, he laughed heartily, shook hands with both of us, and apologized for not being able to leave his post as he would so much have liked to drink a glass of wine with us.

  “‘There, now we have made another friend for life,’ said Butler as he drove away.”

  2 As a result of his studies in Homer, Butler became convinced that the Odyssey was written by a woman. In 1897 he published The Authoress of the Odyssey. Shortly after this work appeared, Anne Thackeray Ritchie, Thackeray’s intelligent and witty daughter, asked him what he was working on now, and was told a book of Shakespeare’s sonnets. “Oh, Mr. Butler,” she said playfully, “do you know my theory about the sonnets? They were written by Anne Hathaway.” Butler never understood that she was mocking him and told the story everywhere against her: “Poor lady, that was a silly thing to say!”

  3 (An admirer asked Samuel Butler to write her “a rule of life.” Butler thought that her own common sense ought to be a better guide than any precepts he might deliver, and wrote back in a lighthearted tone.)

  “‘Get as many nice people about you as you can, more particularly Jones and myself. Snub snobs. Stick to the Ten Commandments — they never forbid swearing — and really I do not know what else there is!’ She said she did not find my letter as comforting as she hoped it would be.”

  4 “The first time that Dr. Creighton asked me to come down to Peterborough before he became Bishop of London, I was a little doubtful whether or not to go. As usual I consulted Alfred [his servant and confidant], who said: ‘Let me have a look at his letter, sir.’”

  “I gave him the letter, and he said: ‘I see, sir, there is a crumb of tobacco in it; I think you may go.’ I went and enjoyed myself very much.”

  5 (Samuel Butler’s notebooks reveal him as not the most comforting of deathbed companions.)

  “‘Promise me solemnly,’ I said to her as she lay on what I believed to be her deathbed, ‘if you find in the world beyond the grave that you can communicate with me — that there is some way in which you can make me aware of your continued existence — promise me solemnly that you will never, never avail yourself of it.’ She recovered and never, never forgave me.”

  BYNG, John (1704–57), British admiral, court-martialed and shot for failing to relieve the island of Minorca, then under French attack (1756). He was the subject of Voltaire’s witticism that in England “il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres” (it is thought desirable to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others).

  1 When Byng came to stand before the firing squad, some officers suggested that his face be concealed with a handkerchief lest the sight of him breed reluctance in his execution. Byng replied, “If it will frighten them, let it be done; they will not frighten me.”

  BYRD, William (1674–1744), US tobacco planter, diarist, and colonial official.

  1 (The entry for July 30, 1710, in The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover 1709–1712, reads:)

  “In the afternoon my wife and I had a little quarrel which I reconciled with a flourish. Then she read a sermon in Dr. Tillotson to me. It is to be observed that the flourish was performed on the billiard table.”

  BYRON, George Gordon, Lord (1788–1824), British Romantic poet.

  1 While he and Robert Peel were schoolmates at Harrow, one day Byron saw Peel being beaten unmercifully by a senior boy. Having no hope of fighting because of his clubfoot, Byron nevertheless approached the bully and bravely asked how many stripes he was intending to inflict upon his poor friend. “What’s that to you?” thundered the bully. “Because, if you please,” replied Byron, trembling with rage and fear, “I would take half.”

  2 (Byron was to meet Thomas Moore at the house of Samuel Rogers, although he did not know his host. Rogers describes the evening.)

  “When we sat down to dinner I asked Byron if he would take soup? ‘No, he never took soup.’ — ‘Would he take some fish?’ ‘No, he never took fish.’ Presently I asked if he would eat some mutton? ‘No, he never ate mutton.’ — I then asked if he would take a glass of wine? ‘No, he never tasted wine.’ It was now necessary to inquire what he did eat and drink; and the answer was, ‘Nothing but hard biscuits and soda water.’ Unfortunately neither hard biscuits nor soda water were at hand; and he dined upon potatoes bruised down on his plate and drenched with vinegar. — My guests stayed till very late discussing the merits of Walter Scott and Joanna Baillie. — Some days after, meeting [Byron’s friend John Cam] Hobhouse, I said to him, ‘How long will Lord Byron persevere in his present diet?’ He replied, ‘Just as long as you continue to notice it.’ I did not then know what I now know to be a fact — that Byron, after leaving my house, had gone to a club in St. James’s Street, and eaten a hearty meat supper.”

  3 After the well-publicized breakup of his marriage, Byron was cut by London society. At one social gathering, he was standing near a doorway through which a group of aristocratic ladies were passing, all of whom ostentatiously ignored him. The procession ended with a pert brunette who nodded to him and whispered, “You see, you should have married me, and then this wouldn’t have happened to you.”

  4 Byron gave his publisher, John Murray, a handsomely bound Bible with a flattering inscription. Murray was rather proud of this gift and used to leave it on a table where his guests might see it. One day a visitor who was admiring the book remarked that at John 18:40, in the sentence “Now Barabbas was a robber,” Byron had deleted the word “robber” and substituted “publisher.” After this discovery Byron’s present no longer appeared on Murray’s table.

  C

  CABELL, James Branch (1879–1958), US novelist.

  1 None of Cabell’s other works quite lived up to the success of Jurgen. In later years he was amused to receive a letter from a fan: “Dear Mr. Cabell, I have chosen you as my favorite author. Please write to me immediately and tell me why.”

  CADBURY, George (1839–1922), British Quaker and cocoa manufacturer.

  1 When King George V and Queen Mary visited the Cadbury works, George Cadbury led the way with the queen while his wife walked behind with the king. Cadbury had removed his hat as a mark of respect for royalty. It was, however, very cold, and Queen Mary was concerned lest the old man should get a chill. “Mr. Cadbury, please put on your hat,” she said. George Cadbury demurred. “Please, Mr. Cadbury — or I’ll ask the king to command you to do so!” Her host still hesitated. Then from behind them came the ringing tones of Elizabeth Cadbury: “George, put your hat on.” He did.

  CAEN, Herbert Eugene (1916–98), US journalist.

  1 (Herb Caen followed hard on the heels of the troops at the D day landings in Normandy. The writer Barnaby Conrad records the contents of a postcard that Caen sent describing an incident just after the landing.)

  “When we landed at Carentan it was so great — I was elated and excited and scared and I had to go to the bathroom desperately. I saw an old guy there who was too old-world-French to be true, with the smock and the white mustache and the beret, and I rushed up to him and said, ‘Monsieur, pardon, où est le lavabo?’ (Excuse me, sir, but where is the bathroom?) And he answered, tears of happiness streaming down his cheeks and gesturing around him expansively, ‘Mais, toute la belle France, mon ami, toute la belle France!’ ” (All of beautiful France, my friend, all of beautiful France!)

  CAESAR, Gaius Julius (100–44 BC), Roman general and statesman.

  1 A tall, fair man, Caesar
was conservative in all matters except his clothing. To his purple senatorial tunic he added wrist-length sleeves with long fringes, and he never fastened his belt. This nonconformity caused Sulla to warn members of the aristocratic party, “Beware of that boy with the loose clothes!”

  2 At one stage in Caesar’s early career political feelings were running so high against him that he thought it expedient to leave Rome for a while and go to Rhodes to take a course in rhetoric. En route the ship was attacked by pirates. Caesar was captured and held for a ransom of 12,000 gold pieces. His staff were sent away to arrange the ransom, and Caesar spent nearly forty days with his captors. During this time he would often jokingly say to the pirates that he would capture and crucify them, a threat they found greatly amusing. When the ransom was paid and Caesar was set at liberty, the first thing he did was to gather a fleet and go after the pirates. He caught them and crucified them to a man.

  3 In 61 BC Caesar’s second wife, Pompeia, was involved in a scandal concerning the religious rites known as the Feast of the Great Goddess. Only women were admitted to the rites, but on this occasion it was rumored that the notorious profligate Publius Clodius had attended them in female dress and had there committed adultery with Pompeia. Caesar divorced Pompeia. At the subsequent inquiry into the desecration various members of Caesar’s family gave evidence. Caesar himself declined to offer any testimony against Pompeia. The court therefore asked him why he had divorced her. “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion,” was the reply.