Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

by Clifton Fadiman

  2 Once while King Leopold was in consultation with his ministers, a breeze blew a pile of documents from his desk onto the floor. “You pick them up,” said the king, pointing to his nephew, the heir apparent, Prince Albert. “Leave him alone,” he went on, addressing the ministers, who were clearly embarrassed to see their future monarch groveling on the floor. “A constitutional king must learn to stoop.”

  LESCHETIZKY, Theodor (1830–1915), Polish pianist.

  1 Leschetizky considered that there were three essentials for pianistic greatness. He used to ask prospective pupils three questions: “Were you a child prodigy? Are you of Slavic descent? Are you a Jew?” If the answer to all three was “Yes,” Leschetizky was delighted and would undertake the young player’s tuition.

  LESSING, Gotthold Ephraim (1729–81), German dramatist, historian, and theologian.

  1 Many stories are told of Lessing’s absent-mindedness. One evening, returning home after dark without his key, he knocked on the front door of his house. A servant looked out of a window and, not recognizing his master in the gloom, called out, “The professor is not at home.”

  “Oh, very well,” said Lessing, turning away. “No matter. Tell him I’ll call another time.”

  LEVANT, Oscar (1906–72), US pianist, writer, and wit.

  1 During World War II Oscar Levant appeared before the draft-board examiner. “Do you think you can kill?” the official asked. “I don’t know about strangers,” replied Oscar, “but friends, yes.”

  2 Levant was playing a virtuoso passage at a college concert when a telephone began ringing offstage. The pianist carried on, but the ringing continued and soon the audience became restless. Levant, without pausing in his playing, glanced at the audience and said, “If that’s for me, tell them I’m busy.”

  3 The model for the face on the Liberty Head dime was Mrs. Wallace Stevens, wife of the famous poet. Introduced once to Stevens, Oscar Levant’s first words were: “Why shouldn’t you be a great poet? I’d be inspired too if my wife had little wings where her ears should be.”

  4 As a houseguest in the Kaufman household, Levant rather overstayed his welcome. At the end of one of his prolonged visits, Mrs. Kaufman hinted, “The servants always expect a little something, and I know you haven’t any money, so I tipped them each three dollars and told them it was from you.” Levant was outraged. “You should have given them five!” he exclaimed. “Now they’ll think I’m stingy.”

  5 (Oscar Levant describes his reprisals against a woman who arrived late for one of his recitals and distracted the audience as she walked down the center aisle.)

  “I stopped my performance of a Poulenc piece and began choreographing her walk by playing in time with her steps. She hesitated and slowed down — I slowed down. She stopped — I stopped. She hurried — I hurried. By the time she reached her seat, the audience was in hysterics and the matron in a state of wild confusion.”

  LÉVIS, Duc Guston Pierre Marc de (?1764–1830), French aristocrat.

  1 The de Lévis family considered itself to be the oldest in Christendom. Their château was reputed to contain two paintings to prove it: one of Noah going into the Ark with a box full of the Lévis papers under his arm; the other of the Virgin Mary addressing the founder of the house as mon cousin and begging him to put his hat back on.

  LEWIS, C[live] S[taples] (1898–1963), British writer and scholar of medieval and renaissance history, author of theological works.

  1 An important part of the selection procedure for Oxford fellowships — and one much dreaded by shy candidates — was dinner at the high table with the assembled dons, who would put aspirants through their social paces. When C. S. Lewis was a candidate for a fellowship in English at Magdalen College, Oxford, he was placed next to the elderly and formidable Sir Herbert Warren, president of the college. Throughout the first two courses the president did not speak a word. Then, as the meat course was served, Warren spoke: “Do you like poetry, Mr. Lewis?” Lewis replied, “Yes, President, I do.” As there seemed to be no further reaction from his eminent neighbor, he added, “I also like prose.” That was the whole extent of their conversation. Lewis was awarded his fellowship.

  2 The medievalist Nevill Coghill once encountered C. S. Lewis walking in the grounds of Magdalen College. Lewis was wearing a happy smile. Coghill greeted him with, “You’re looking very pleased with yourself. What is it?”

  “I believe,” Lewis replied modestly but triumphantly, “I have proved that the Renaissance never happened in England.” Coghill was about to interrupt in astonishment, but Lewis checked him and went on: “Alternatively, that if it did it had no importance.”

  3 Lewis had been on a walking tour. As he boarded the train for his return journey, his unkempt appearance startled an old lady in the first-class compartment. “Have you a first-class ticket?” she asked. “Yes, madam,” replied Lewis, “but I’m afraid I’ll be needing it for myself.”

  LEWIS, Matthew Gregory (1775–1818), British novelist and poet.

  1 The immensely successful Monk brought its author the adulation of high society, an attention he greatly enjoyed. Byron records seeing Lewis with red eyes and air “sentimental” and asking him what was the matter. “I am so deeply affected by kindness,” said the author, “and just now the Duchess of York said something so kind to me —” Here he broke off as his tears began to flow again. “Never mind, Lewis,” said a colonel who was standing nearby, “never mind, don’t cry. She couldn’t mean it.”

  LEWIS, Sinclair (1885–1951), US novelist, awarded the 1930 Nobel Prize for Literature, the first American author to receive the award.

  1 Sinclair Lewis met journalist Dorothy Thompson a few days after her divorce had come through and immediately proposed marriage to her. She hesitated, saying that she knew him only as a public figure, not as a private person. He replied that he would continue to ask her in public and private to marry him until she consented. Shortly afterward, called upon at a dinner party to make a speech, he stood up, said, “Dorothy, will you marry me?” and sat down again.

  2 In 1927, when he began his courtship of Dorothy Thompson, Sinclair Lewis followed her across Europe, all the way to Moscow. At Moscow airport, says John Jakes in Great Women Reporters, the press was waiting to greet him. “What brought you to Russia?” Lewis was asked.

  “Dorothy,” he said.

  “We mean, what’s your business here?” the press persisted.

  “Dorothy,” said Lewis.

  “You misunderstand. What do you plan to see in Russia?”

  “Dorothy,” said Lewis.

  3 Booked to give a lecture at Columbia University on the writer’s craft, Sinclair Lewis began by asking, “How many of you here are really serious about being writers?” A forest of hands shot up. “Well, why the hell aren’t you all home writing?” said Lewis, and sat down.

  4 After Lewis’s death in Rome from alcoholism, his body was cremated and the urn containing his ashes sent to the US embassy for safekeeping until their final disposal. A caller was surprised to find one of the consular officials on her knees, busy with a broom and pan, an overturned funerary urn beside her. “Whatever are you doing?” he said. “Sweeping up Sinclair Lewis,” was the response.

  LIBERACE, Wladziu Valentino [“Liberace”] (1919–1987), US pianist renowned for his se-quined suits and flamboyant lifestyle as much as for his piano playing.

  1 Liberace’s concert in Madison Square Garden, New York, in June 1954 was vastly successful with his fans, but the critics loathed him. Sometime later Liberace observed to the latter, “What you said hurt me very much. I cried all the way to the bank.”

  LI BO (701–762), Chinese poet, considered one of China’s greatest men of letters.

  1 A lover of beauty and wine, Li Bo met his death appropriately. According to popular tradition, he was out in a boat one evening. Trying to embrace the reflection of the moon, which shone full on the water, he fell in and drowned.

  LICHTENBERG, Georg Christoph (1742–9
9), German physicist and satirist.

  1 One day a person not noted for his tact made a slighting remark to Lichtenberg about his notably large ears. Lichtenberg replied: “Well, just think of it — with my ears and your brains we’d make a perfectly splendid ass, wouldn’t we?”

  LIEBERMANN, Max (1847–1935), German painter and etcher.

  1 Despite the growing anti-Semitism in Germany in the early 1930s, President Paul von Hindenburg sent emissaries to Liebermann, asking him to make a portrait of Hindenburg, but specifying that it must be done within a very short space of time. Liebermann promptly showed Hindenburg’s agents the door. As he flung it open, he pointed to the snow that lay deep outside and said, “If I were to piss on that snow, I could do a very good likeness of Hindenburg.”

  LIEBLING, Abbott Joseph (1904–63), US journalist noted for his work in The New Yorker.

  1 (Brendan Gill describes how he and Liebling were trying to cross the street when they got caught up in one of the numerous “ethnic” parades that periodically snarl up the New York streets.)

  “We waited in vain on the curb as the band of Our Lady of Sorrows blocked every foot of space in front of us. ‘One of the great things about the Jews,’ I said to Liebling, ‘is that they’re the only large group in New York that doesn’t insist on a parade. Why should that be?’ Liebling thought and thought. ‘Their feet hurt,’ he said at last.”

  LIEVEN, Dariya Khristoforovna, Princess de (1784–1857), Russian aristocrat.

  1 The widowed Princess de Lieven was asked whether she would marry François Guizot, the utterly middle-class politician and historian with whom she had been living for several years, and with whom she continued to live until her death. “Oh! my dear,” she replied, “can you see me being announced as Mrs. Guizot?”

  Jean Cocteau, in his old age, related the following in conversation with William Fifield:

  “I will recount one thing. Then you must let me rest. You perhaps know the work of the painter Domergue? The long girls? Calendar art, I am afraid. He had a domestic in those days — a ‘housemaid’ — who would make the beds, fill the coal scuttles. We all gathered in those days at the Café Rotonde. And a little man with a bulging forehead and a black goatee would come there sometimes for a glass and to hear us talk. This was the ‘housemaid’ of Domergue, out of funds. We asked him once (he said nothing and merely listened) what he meant to do with himself. He said he meant to overthrow the government of Russia. We all laughed, because of course we did too. That is the kind of time it was. It was Lenin.”

  — WILLIAM FIFIELD, In Search of Genius

  LILIENCRON, Detlev von (1844–1909), German lyric poet and novelist.

  1 Dining one evening with a group of local noblemen, Liliencron listened while one of them boasted at length about his aristocratic ancestors who had fought in the Crusades, sailed with Columbus, and so forth. “You remind me of a potato,” Liliencron said at last.

  “How so?”

  “The best part is underground.”

  2 Liliencron was often in dire financial straits. One of his creditors stopped him in the street and demanded payment. “Sorry, but I have no money,” said Liliencron. “Please be patient.”

  “But that’s what you said four weeks ago.”

  “Well,” said Liliencron triumphantly, “haven’t I kept my word?”

  LILLIE, Beatrice (1898–1989), Canadian-born actress.

  1 Beatrice Lillie was dining at Buckingham Palace, wearing an exquisite model gown, when a waiter spilled a ladleful of soup down her dress. There was a horrified silence as he desperately mopped at the stain. Miss Lillie broke the hush by saying in ringing tones, “Never darken my Dior again.”

  2 Miss Lillie, in a Chicago beauty salon with several members of her company, overheard a conversation between the receptionist and a client who was annoyed at being kept waiting. “Oh, if I’d known all these theatrical people would be here today, I’d never have come,” said the woman in a loud and affected voice. Miss Lillie found out that she was Mrs. Armour, wife of the Chicago meatpacking tycoon. As Miss Lillie was leaving, she saw Mrs. Armour still in the reception area. Without looking at her, she said to the receptionist in her clear English tones, “You may tell the butcher’s wife that Lady Peel has finished.”

  3 (Clifton Daniel tells the following story.)

  “One bright day on Piccadilly I saw an unmistakable figure approaching — Bea on the arm of a man. She had been abroad entertaining the ‘troooops,’ as she called them, and I hadn’t seen her for a long time. As she came down the street I maneuvered myself so that she could not avoid running into me. When she did she threw open her arms and embraced me.

  “‘Darling,’ she cried, ‘how are you?’ Still holding me, she leaned back and examined my face. ‘And who are you?’ ”

  4 In Hollywood one day, Miss Lillie was absentmindedly driving on the left-hand side of the road when she suddenly noticed another car bearing down on her. She swerved to the left and crashed, wrecking the car but escaping with a few cuts and bruises. She staggered to the nearest house, which happened to be that of film star John Gilbert. “Why, Bea! What’s up?” cried Gilbert as he opened the door. “Heard there was a party,” gasped Miss Lillie. “Came.”

  LINCOLN, Abraham (1809–65), US statesman; 16th President of the United States (1861–65).

  1 As a young man Lincoln was captain of a militia company during the Black Hawk War of 1832. He was not well versed in military procedures. One day, as he was leading a squad of some twenty men across a field, the appropriate word of command for getting them into position for marching through a gate went right out of his mind. In desperation, he shouted, “This company is dismissed for two minutes, and will fall in again on the other side of the gate.”

  2 When Lincoln was a lawyer, an out-of-town case required him to hire a horse from the local livery stables. Returning the animal, he asked the liveryman whether he kept the horse for funerals. “Certainly not,” said its owner indignantly. “I am glad to hear it,” said Lincoln, “because if you did, the corpse would not get there in time for the resurrection.”

  3 Lincoln’s friend and fellow-lawyer Ward La-mon was on circuit in Illinois. While waiting outside the courtroom, Lamon was challenged to a wrestling match and in the struggle tore the seat of his trousers. Immediately afterward he was summoned into court for a case. His short coat did not conceal the damaged condition of his trousers. One of the other lawyers facetiously started a subscription paper to buy him a new pair, and it was passed around the various members of the bar. When the paper reached Lincoln, he wrote his name and under the column for the amount the words: “I can contribute nothing to the end in view.”

  4 In his legal practice Lincoln was never greedy for fees and discouraged unnecessary litigation. A man came to him in a passion, asking him to bring a suit for $2.50 against an impoverished debtor. Lincoln tried to dissuade him, but the man was determined upon revenge. When he saw that the creditor was not to be put off, Lincoln asked for and got $10 as his legal fee. He gave half of this to the defendant, who thereupon willingly confessed to the debt and paid up the $2.50, thus settling the matter to the entire satisfaction of the irate plaintiff.

  5 (A clerk of the court relates the only occasion on which he was fined for contempt of court.)

  “David fined me five dollars. Mr. Lincoln had just come in, and leaning over my desk had told me a story so irresistibly funny that I broke out into a loud laugh. The judge called me to order, saying, ‘This must be stopped. Mr. Lincoln, you are constantly disturbing this court with your stories.’ Then to me: ‘You may fine yourself five dollars.’ I apologized, but told the judge the story was worth the money. In a few minutes the judge called me over to him. ‘What was that story Lincoln told you?’ he asked. I told him, and he laughed aloud in spite of himself. ‘Remit your fine,’ he ordered.”

  6 A New York firm wrote to Lincoln, then practicing law, requesting information about the financial circumstances of one of his
neighbors. The reply was as follows: “I am well acquainted with Mr. ——, and know his circumstances. First of all, he has a wife and baby; together, they ought to be worth $50,000 to any man. Secondly, he has an office in which there is a table worth $1.50, and three chairs, worth $1.00. Last of all, there is in one corner a large rat-hole which will bear looking into. Respectfully yours, A. Lincoln.”

  7 During his time as a lawyer in Springfield, Lincoln was walking into town one day when he was overtaken by a man driving in the same direction. Lincoln hailed him and asked, “Will you have the goodness to take my overcoat to town for me?”

  “With pleasure,” responded the stranger, “but how will you get it again?”

  “Oh, very easily; I intend to remain in it.”

  8 On hearing the anguished cries of children in the street, one of Lincoln’s neighbors in Springfield rushed out of his house in alarm. There he found Lincoln with two of his sons, both of whom were sobbing uncontrollably. “Whatever is the matter with the boys, Mr. Lincoln?” he asked. “Just what’s the matter with the whole world,” replied Lincoln resignedly. “I’ve got three walnuts, and each wants two.”

  9 In 1858 the Illinois legislature elected Stephen A. Douglas senator instead of Lincoln. A sympathetic friend asked Lincoln how he felt. “Like the boy who stubbed his toe; I am too big to cry and too badly hurt to laugh.”

  10 Stephen Douglas was attempting to discomfit Lincoln by making allusions to his lowly start in life. He told a gathering that the first time he had met Lincoln it had been across the counter of a general store in which Lincoln was serving. “And an excellent bartender he was too,” Douglas concluded. When the laughter had died away, Lincoln got up and said, “What Mr. Douglas says is quite true; I did keep a general store and sold cotton and candles and cigars and sometimes whiskey, and I particularly remember Mr. Douglas, as he was a very good customer. Many a time I have been on one side of the counter and sold whiskey to Mr. Douglas on the other side. But now there’s a difference between us: I’ve left my side of the counter, but he sticks to his as tenaciously as ever.”