Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

by Clifton Fadiman

  Pocketing the tip, that man said, “You see, we have an almanac in the house called Partridge’s almanac, and the fellow is such a notorious liar that whenever he promises fine weather we can be sure it will rain. Now today he had put down ‘settled weather, fine; no rain,’ so when I looked that up before I saddled your horse I was able to put you on your guard.”

  PASCAL, Blaise (1623–62), French mathematician and writer on religion.

  1 Pascal’s father began his son’s education with a course of reading in ancient languages. When the nine-year-old Pascal inquired as to the nature of geometry, he was told that it was the study of shapes and forms. The boy immediately proceeded to discover for himself the first thirty-two theorems of Euclid — in the correct order. The elder Pascal saw that it was no use attempting to steer his son away from mathematics and allowed him to pursue his studies as he wished.

  PATER, Walter (1839–94), British writer and critic.

  1 Pater’s lectures at Oxford were notoriously inaudible, in fact virtually whispered. Max Beerbohm once asked Wilde if he had heard Pater lecture and got the response: “I overheard him.”

  PATTI, Adelina (1843–1919), Italian operatic soprano.

  1 Patti’s successful tour of Europe brought her great acclaim from all operagoers, including royalty. “Which crowned head do you like best?” she was once asked by a critic. Patti thought for a moment. “The Czar Alexander gives the best jewelry,” she replied.

  PATTON, George S[mith], Jr. (1885–1945), US general, nicknamed “Old Blood-and-Guts.”

  1 In August 1943, when Patton was commanding American forces in Italy, he visited the hospital at Sant’Agata. While being shown around by the colonel in charge, he spied a man who did not seem to be wounded at all. He snapped at the colonel, “I want you to get that man out of bed right away. Get him back to the front. I won’t have these men who really are wounded see that man babied so.” When the soldier himself did not immediately respond, Patton struck him. It turned out that he was seriously shell-shocked. When the incident became known three months later, there was an outcry, and Patton was forced to make a public apology.

  2 On August 26, 1944, one of Patton’s units crossed the Seine at Melun, outflanking Paris. Patton sent Eisenhower a formal military report of the operation with the postscript: “Dear Ike, Today I pissed in the Seine.”

  3 Psychologists have often noted that in their final moments men often speak not of their mothers but their fathers. Patton’s last word was “Papa?”

  The classic children’s book Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey has a real-life analogue.

  One of the events in the 1928 Olympics was single-scull rowing. Henry Pearce, representing Australia, was in the lead when a family of ducks passed in front of him single file. Courteously, he pulled in his oars.

  Yes, he won.

  — DAVID WALLECHINSKY, The Complete Book of the Olympics

  PEALE, Norman Vincent (1898–1993), US clergyman and inspirational writer.

  1 Peale arrived to speak at a bankers’ association annual dinner, and began chatting with one of the attendees in the elevator. The man was dismayed that “some preacher from New York” was the keynote speaker. “I’m telling you,” he said, “it won’t be any good.” Replied Peale, “Brother, I know it won’t be any good.” After the dinner Peale gave his speech, at the conclusion of which the banker from the elevator came up to him and shook his hand. “Buddy,” said the man, “we were both right, weren’t we?”

  PEARD, John Whitehead (1811–80), British country squire and soldier.

  1 Dumas fils, also in Garibaldi’s entourage, gave a colorful account of Peard’s first meeting with the Italian leader. Peard was introduced to Garibaldi on the field of battle, during a lull. They exchanged brief preliminary greetings. Then a movement in the Austrian lines attracted Peard’s attention. “Pardon me, there’s a devil of an Austrian over there who’s catching my eye.” So saying, he raised his gun and fired. The group around Garibaldi trained their field glasses on the obtrusive Austrian, who staggered forward a couple of paces and then pitched face downward and lay still. Peard nodded with satisfaction, and held out his hand to Garibaldi: “Good day, general. I hope I see you well.”

  PEARY, Robert Edwin (1856–1920), US Arctic explorer.

  1 A young lady had been questioning Peary for some time on various matters relating to his polar expeditions. “But how does anyone know when he has reached the North Pole?” she asked with a puzzled frown. “Nothing easier,” replied Peary. “One step beyond the pole, you see, and the north wind becomes a south one.”

  PECK, Gregory (1916–), US film actor.

  1 Entering a crowded restaurant with a companion, Gregory Peck found no table available. “Tell them who you are,” murmured the friend. “If you have to tell them who you are, you aren’t anybody,” said Peck.

  PECKINPAH, Sam (1925–84), US movie director.

  1 Peckinpah was hired to direct a movie that was to star Paul Newman and Robert Red-ford, but the actual story was still vague. Many conversations with the writer produced no clear direction until Peckinpah said he wanted a western. “Jesus, Sam,” exploded the writer, “it’s about two cops in New York City.” Replied the director, “Every story is a western.”

  PEMBROKE, Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of (1656–1733), British military commander.

  1 Strict with his servants, Lord Pembroke would dismiss on the spot any that were found drunk. He generally turned a blind eye, however, to the misdeeds of a trusty old footman called John. But on one occasion this proved impossible, for John had appeared in full view of his master almost too drunk to stand, and the incident had been witnessed by other members of the household. Unperturbed, Lord Pembroke went straight up to the tottering footman, felt his pulse, and exclaimed, “God bless us, he is in a raging fever! Get him to bed directly and send for the apothecary.” The apothecary was ordered to bleed the patient copiously and give him a strong dose of medicine every twenty-four hours, with the result that after a few days John staggered out looking weaker and paler than the most severe illness could have left him. “I am truly glad to see thee alive,” cried the earl, “though you have had a wonderful escape, and ought to be thankful. Why, if I had not passed by at that time and spied the condition you were in, you would have been dead before now. But John,” he added emphatically, “no more of these fevers!”

  PENICK, Harvey (1905–95), US golfing amateur and author.

  1 Penick’s Little Red Book remains the best-selling book ever published about the game of golf. It was written with a collaborator, Bud Shrake, whose agent negotiated the sale to a large New York publisher. When told his share of the money would be $85,000, Penick, who had never written a book before, panicked. “Bud,” he said worriedly to his co-author, “I don’t think I can raise that kind of money.”

  PERELMAN, S[idney] J[oseph] (1904–79), US humorist and screenwriter.

  1 On a visit to Taipei, Perelman, accosted by a group of prostitutes, had some difficulty in escaping from their importunities. Having at last shaken them off he headed back to his hotel, remarking, “A case of the tail dogging the wag.”

  PERICLES (c. 495–429 BC), Athenian statesman and orator.

  1 During the Peloponnesian War an eclipse occurred when Pericles was about to set out to sea. As the pilot was too terrified to perform his duties, Pericles stepped forward and covered the man’s head with his cloak. “Does this frighten you?” he asked. “No,” said the pilot. “Then what difference is there between the two events,” inquired Pericles, “except that the sun is covered by a larger object than my cloak?”

  PERLMAN, Itzhak (1945–), Israeli violinist.

  1 In 1980 Mike Wallace interviewed the great violinist on the television program 60 Minutes. Wallace recalled the names of masters of the instrument — Jascha Heifetz, Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern, Perlman himself — and then asked why so many great violinists were Jewish. Holding up his fingers and twiddling them, Perlman r
eplied: “You see, our fingers are circumcised, which gives it a very good dexterity, you know, particularly in the pinky.”

  PERÓN, Eva Duarte de (1919–52), Argentinian actress who became the second wife of President Juan Perón.

  1 Eva rose from the obscurity of a poor working-class background through a combination of talent, beauty, and unscrupulousness. She had a series of increasingly influential lovers whom she used to further her career and then discarded. As the wife of President Juan Perón, she was sent on a tour to win friends for Argentina among the European powers. Her reception was somewhat mixed. As she drove through the streets of Milan, accompanied by a retired admiral, the crowd shouted “Whore.” Angrily Eva turned to her escort, “They are calling me a whore!”

  “That’s all right,” said the admiral soothingly. “I haven’t been to sea for fifteen years, yet they still call me admiral.”

  PEROT, H. Ross (1930–), US business executive and Independent candidate for President (1992 and 1996).

  1 “Looking around for a suitable way of serving the community, Mr. Perot decided that he would give a Christmas present to every American prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. Accordingly, thousands of parcels were wrapped and packed, and a fleet of Boeing 707s was chartered to deliver them to Hanoi. Then the message came from the government of Vietnam — no such gesture could be considered during the course of the bloody war, which was then at its height. Perot argued. The Vietnamese replied that any charity was impossible while American B-52s were devastating Vietnamese villages.

  “ ‘No problem,’ Perot replied. He would hire an expert American construction company in order to rebuild anything the Americans had knocked down.

  “The puzzled Vietnamese declined to continue this dialogue. Christmas drew closer, the parcels remained undelivered. Finally in despair Perot took off in his chartered fleet and flew to Moscow where his aides posted the parcels, one at a time, at the Moscow Central post office. They were delivered intact.”

  PERRY, Oliver Hazard (1785–1819), US naval commander.

  1 During the battle of Lake Erie in 1813, Perry’s flagship, the Lawrence, was so badly damaged that he was obliged to abandon it and row to the Niagara. After finally forcing the British fleet to surrender, Perry made no reference to the exigencies of the battle in the dispatch announcing his victory. It read simply, “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.”

  PERUGINO, Pietro [Pietro di Cristoforo Van-nucci] (1446–1523), Italian painter.

  1 Perugino was commissioned to paint frescoes (now lost) in a convent in Florence. The niggardly prior stood over the artist while he worked, holding the little bag that contained the expensive ultramarine pigment and allowing Perugino only tiny quantities at a time. Every now and then he would wail, “How much blue that wall is eating!” Perugino said nothing, but worked steadily, occasionally cleaning his brush in a bowl of water. When he had completed his day’s work, he drained the bowl and handed it back to the prior with its sediment of pure ultramarine at the bottom. “Here you are, Father. And please learn to trust an honest man.”

  2 On his deathbed, Perugino refused to send for the priest. His last words were: “I am curious to see what happens in the next world to one who dies unshriven.”

  PÉTAIN, [Henri] Philippe (1856–1951), French general and statesman.

  1 From February to December 1916, one of the fiercest battles of World War I was fought at Verdun-sur-Meuse in northeast France. Marshal Pétain was in command of the Allied troops; Crown Prince Frederick William commanded the Germans. At the beginning of the battle a determined Pétain said of the German troops, “They shall not pass.” The resolution was upheld and the Allies ultimately triumphed, but only after one million lives had been lost.

  2 In June 1940 Charles de Gaulle returned to France from England to bring Marshal Pétain an offer from Winston Churchill of “union” between the two countries to resist German onslaught. Pétain, knowing that France’s capitulation was only hours away and believing that England was doomed too, rejected the offer, saying, “What use is fusion with a corpse?”

  PETER I [Peter the Great] (1672–1725), czar (1682–1721) and later emperor (1721–25) of Russia.

  1 In the Russian army there was a secret society whose members gained promotion by their ability to withstand torture and who practiced inuring themselves against greater and greater degrees of pain. One of these officers was involved in a plot against Peter, and although tortured four times refused to confess. Peter, realizing that pain would not break him, went up to him and kissed him. “I know full well that you were party to the plot against me, but you have been punished enough. Now, confess freely to me on account of the love you owe to your czar, and I swear that I will grant you a complete pardon. Not only that, but as a special sign of my mercy I will make you a colonel.” The man was so unnerved by Peter’s tactics that he embraced him and made a full confession. Peter kept his side of the bargain and made him a colonel.

  2 Peter, greatly interested in medicine, often assisted surgeons and dentists in their operations. One morning one of his valets appealed to the czar to help his wife; she was suffering dreadfully from a toothache, he said, but refused to have the offending tooth pulled and pretended to be in no pain when approached by a dentist. Peter collected his dental instruments and followed the valet to his apartments, where, ignoring the cries and protests of the struggling woman, he extracted the tooth. Some days later the czar discovered that the poor woman had never had a toothache; the painful extraction had been her husband’s revenge for a domestic quarrel.

  PETERBOROUGH, Charles Mordaunt, 3d Earl of (1658–1735), British diplomat, soldier, and admiral.

  1 In 1710, when the Duke of Marlborough was out of favor with the London populace, a mob attacked Peterborough in the street, mistaking him for the hated and ungenerous duke. He finally convinced them that he was not Marlborough by saying, “In the first place, I have only five guineas in my pocket; and in the second, they are very much at your service.”

  PETRONIUS, Gaius [“Petronius Arbiter”] (fl. AD 60), Roman writer, a favorite at the court of Emperor Nero. He is believed to have been the author of the Satyricon, a satirical romance.

  1 Petronius had received an invitation to a special banquet at Nero’s palace. The meal was to be followed by a “licentious entertainment” featuring a hundred naked virgins. Petronius refused the invitation. “Tell the emperor,” he instructed his messenger, “that one hundred naked virgins are not one hundred times as exciting as one naked virgin.”

  PHELPS, William Lyon (1865–1943), US scholar and critic.

  1 Marking an examination paper written shortly before Christmas, Phelps came across the note: “God only knows the answer to this question. Merry Christmas.” Phelps returned the paper with the annotation: “God gets an A. You get an F. Happy New Year.”

  PHILIP, John Woodward (1840–1900), US naval commander.

  1 During the Spanish-American War of 1898 Captain Philip was in command of the battleship Texas. The entire Spanish fleet, blockaded by the Americans in the bay of Santiago de Cuba, was destroyed when it emerged on July 3. As the Texas sailed past the burning Spanish cruiser Vizcaya in pursuit of another Spanish ship, Philip checked the natural jubilation of his crew with the words: “Don’t cheer, boys; the poor devils are dying.”

  PHILIP, Prince, Duke of Edinburgh (1921–), husband of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

  1 During a tour of Canada in the early years of their marriage, Prince Philip and Princess Elizabeth had a rather turbulent crossing to Vancouver Island on a Canadian destroyer. Tea was served in the royal suite by a young petty officer. As he entered with a large tray of cakes, the ship lurched violently and the cakes were thrown to the floor. To the officer’s amazement, Prince Philip immediately went down on his hands and knees and crawled around the floor, retrieving about half of the cakes. Returning to his seat, he smiled triumphantly at Elizabeth and said, “I’ve got mine — yours are down there.”


  2 Visiting an Australian university during a royal tour in 1954, Prince Philip was introduced to a “Mr. and Dr. Robinson.”

  “My wife is a doctor of philosophy,” explained Mr. Robinson. “She is much more important than I.”

  “Ah, yes,” replied Prince Philip sympathetically. “We have that trouble in our family, too.”

  3 Prince Philip was asked by a hostile questioner what kind of work he would say that he did. “I’m self-employed,” he replied.

  4 An official greeted Prince Philip as he stepped from an aircraft with the words: “And how was your flight, sir?”

  “Have you ever flown?” asked the prince.

  “Yes, sir, often.”

  “Well, it was like that.”

  5 During a royal visit to a small English town, Prince Philip stopped to talk to two very old ladies. “I’m a hundred and four,” boasted one of the women, “and my friend here is a hundred and one.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Philip, his eyes twinkling. “Ladies always take ten years off their age.”

  6 Prince Philip has developed a reputation for startlingly brusque comments made off the cuff. Sometimes he is answered in kind. Once, on a visit to the capital city of Brasilia, he asked a Brazilian admiral if the colorful array of medals he wore had been won on Brasilia’s artificial lake. The admiral suavely nodded. “Yes sir,” he said, “not by marriage.”