The San Francisco call., 1909-11-27
Stories About Celebrities

Prince Bismarck once told story or
the battlefield of Koniggratz- The old
emperor. then king of Prussia. had ex-
posed himself and his staff to the enc
my's fire in very reckless fashion, and
would not hear of retreating to safe
distance. At last Prince Bismarck rode
up to him, saying, "As a responsible
minister, 1 must insist upon your
majesty's retreat to a safe distance. IL
your majesty were to be killed the vic
tory would be of no use TO us The
king saw the force of this and slowly
retreated, but in his zeal returned
again and again to the front. When
L noticed it, Prince Bismarck went on,
Il only rose in my saddle and looked at
him. He understood it perfectly. and
called out, rather angrily, Yes, l am
coming But we did not get on fast
enough. and at last / rode close up to
the king. took my foot out of the right
stirrup, and secretly gave his horse
energetic kick Such a thing had never
before happened to the fat mare: but
the move was successful, for she shot
off in fine canter.
Young and diffident orators will take
fresh heart when they learn, if they do
not know it already, that so accom-
plished and self-possessed a speaker as
George William Curtis suffered greatly
from stage fright, on the occasion of
his first lecture and began by saying:
Ladies and Gentlemen: The pittom-
less bott," with soiemnity which was
changed to confusion when he per-
ceived his error. OF course. he meant
to make an alIusion TO the bottomless
pit
Lord wolseley. the famous English
general. tells this story about the &c
centric and unfortunate General Cor
don, who was. killed by FL Mahdi, the
false prophet some years ago: when
Gordon left Brussels for the Sudan, on
the expedition from which he never
returned. he was penniless, and bor
rowed s125 from the king to pay his
board bill with" Wolseley. having
elected this fact, promised Gordon to
raise some money for him. 'I went
round to the various clubs" con-
tinued the narrator. and got s1,500 in
gold. l gave the money to Colonel
Stewart. who went with him. Gordon
wasn't to be trusted with it. A week
or so passed by, when | had a letter
from Stewart. He said. You remember
that f306 you gave me- When we ar
rived at Port Said a great crowd came
out TO cheer Gordon. Among them was
an old sheik, to wnom Gordon was
UutIi dlldStCuy anu WIN itdu OCtOilC
poor and blind Gordon got the money
and gave the whole of it to him
Remarkable stories are told of the
gift which many public characters have
for remembering the names and faces
of comparatively unimportant persons
1t may be consoling to people who lack
this pleasant faculty to know that they
have distinguished company Joseph
Jefferson, the famous actor, was a con-
spicuous example. and here is a story
he told about himself: L was coming
down in the elevator of the Stock ex-
change building, and. at one of the in
termediate floors, man whose face
knew as well as / know yours got in.
He greeted me very warmly at once,
said it was number of years since he
had met me, and was very gracious
and friendly. But / couldn't place
him for the life of me. j asked him, as
a sort of fee1er, how he happened to
be in New York. and he answered with
a touch of surprise that he had lived
there for several yeays. Finally told
him, in an apologetic way. that
couldn't recall his name. He looked at
me for moment, and then said. very
quietly, that his name was U. S. Grant"
What did you do, Joe?" his friend
asked. "Do?" he replied. with char
actertistic smile. why, I got out at
the next floor, for fear / should be fool
enough to ask him il he had ever been
in the war.