INTERESTING ANECDOTES

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 May 1934, Page 11

INTERESTING ANECDOTES

OF WELL-KNOWN PEOPLE “People Worth Talking About” by Cosmo Hamilton, is reviewed in the London “Daily Telegraph”, as follows: Necessarily brief, because they are really little wireless talks which the author gave over the New York radio, these thumbnail sketches of some three dozen notable men and women of to-day and yesterday are at the same time particularly crisp and easy because of the colloquial form their original purpose entailed. Such condensation does not allow of many trimmings, but there are some pleasant stories in this gallery of potted biography, such as of Mrs. Patrick Campbell’s retort to a fellow guest at a luncheon party who was talking of feminine lack of humour. “Do you know,” she asked, “why God definitely withheld a sense of humour from women?” He could not imagine why, and so, with a winning smile, this was her reply:— “So that we may love you instead of laughing at you,” upon which he returned to his soup.

And here is one told by Gertrude Atherton of Mr. Winston Churchill, whom she knew “when, as a short, round-faced good-looking youth, he was the youngest member of Parliament.” “There are two things I don’t like about you, Mr. Churchill,” said a certain young woman on her way downstairs, “your new politics and your new moustache.” “My dear madam,” he answered with a little smile, “don’t disturb yourself. You will never come in contact with either of ’em you know.” In the life of Arnold Bennett, says the author, there was a deep note of tragedy, especially because he loved success and the fruits of success and suffered from egomania to an extraordinary degree. At the zenith of his career, 1 am told, and at the time of his ripest age, he was faced by I he appalling knowledge that he was written out. It came upon him suddenly with a heartrending shock that, the well of his imagination.had run completely dry. Of P. G. Wodehouse we are told that he enjoys his work, and keeps as regular hours as a business manager. After being at his desk from 10.0 to 1.0, and again from 5.0 till . 7.0, he Hops into his bath and you may know what his results are from the noises he emits. A good dav brings a song, though it is horribly out of tune. A day which has had its nasty snags, its torn-up pages and moments of despair is indicated by a vicious attack on the sponge.

A JOKE FOR P. G. WODEHOUSE Of his own personal acquaintance with ‘‘young Wodehouse,” then engaged in turning out a daily column of humour for an evening paper, the author recalls that “almost the first thing he asked me, with a frantic note in his voice, was, “Can you give me a joke?” I suggested a title for a book by a doctor who specialised in those acids which undermine strong men. “What,” he asked without optimism, “do you think it would be?” I said, “Uric, or Little by Little” —and we’ve been friends evei - since. 'l'here is a Garrick Club anecdote of Sir J. M. Barrie going across to the luncheon table of George Bernard Shaw, who was in high spirits and “wearing those bilious garments which he might have made himself, in pattern vegetarian, like the food on which he browsed.” “Oh. tell me, Shaw,” he said, pointing to the plate, “have ye eaten I that or are ye going to?” !( Noel Coward, “the leading juvenile, G K Chesterton —“a rare man, a reincarnation of one of the mighty penmen who tapped (he posts in FleetI street in Samuel Johnson’s days and hy I JjOckc, “the one living English, novelist who could be read by bishops, school-masters, and inveterate ladies o r culture and tradition with a sense of perfect safety,” are other of the figures in this very enjoyable collection of miniatures.