This closeup is from Ernst Lubitsch’s 1931 comedy The Smiling Lieutenant, starring Maurice Chevalier, Charlie Ruggles, and Claudette Colbert. This little note is attached to a tailor’s bill, a tailor irritated at non-payment.
What is so funny about this shot, and so Lubitsch-ish, is that Shakespeare did not say this. This is not in any way, shape, or form, a quote from Shakespeare. It sounds more Poor Richard’s Almanac than Shakespeare, although I’d say a poor man’s Poor Richard’s Almanac.
It’s such a funny little moment, and helpful reminder that the irritating GLUT of people sharing obviously bogus quotes from famous people, and then hashtagging the “author”, to give an intellectual patina to their mundane social media feeds, is not just pinned to our current moment, but goes back, way back.
I think Stendhal was lampooning this annoying human tendency when he sprinkled the pages of The Red and the Black with fake quotes attributed to real people, an inside joke which caused a century of confusion as scholars tried to track down where on earth Moliere or Shakespeare said such and such. Of course the quotes couldn’t be tracked down because Moliere or Shakespeare never said those things at all, Stendhal just made it up.
This reminds me of T. S. Eliot’s notes to “The Waste Land” which he eventually regretted including because, as he put it, they “sent so many enquirers on a wild goose chase after Tarot cards and the Holy Grail.”
lol
Joyce joked that Ulysses would keep scholars busy for centuries. The thought gave him pleasure. Very mischievous and fun.