Ernest’s Commonplace Book
By Jacob A. Stein
In looking through Ernest Cuneo’s papers, I discovered a notebook
titled My Commonplace Book. The big Oxford defines a commonplace
book as a book that contains passages, usually under general heads,
“hence a book in which one records passages or matters to be especially
remembered or referred to, with or without arrangement.”
It was said of Ernest (1905–1988) what Sherlock Holmes said of
his brother Mycroft: “Other men have one specialty, but his specialty
is omniscience.” Ernest had a long, interesting career as a lawyer,
soldier, adventurer, and writer. That explains the diversity of his
selections, recorded in his own hand.
Ernest wrote out a few of his favorite passages from Shakespeare that
he recited whenever he saw an opening:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Julius Caesar, Act 4, Scene 3
Man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep.
Measure for Measure, Act 2, Scene 3
There are two Robert Boothby entries. Boothby was a British politician
of the second rank. He was often called upon to deliver eulogies, as
Ernest was:
Another eulogistic entry is ascribed to the eulogist who spoke at Marcel
Proust’s father’s funeral:
Do these selections tell you what he was like? Ernest played big-time
college football at Columbia College. While at law school, he played
professional football, both for the Brooklyn Dodgers and the East Orange
Tornados, when the pay was unpredictable and always in cash.
He graduated from St. John’s University School of Law and became
legal assistant to Congressman Fiorello LaGuardia. Ernest later wrote
a biography of LaGuardia.
Ernest took up the practice of law in New York City. He became the
personal attorney to Walter Winchell when Winchell was as honorable
as a gossip columnist could be. Through the Winchell connection, he
developed a glittering show-business clientele.
When the Second World War commenced, Ernest worked with British spy
Sir William Stephenson, who had set up his office in New York City.
Ernest worked with the OSS and the British secret service. During that
time he met Ian Fleming. They became good friends.
After the war Ernest practiced law here in Washington. He also wrote
a regular weekly column distributed to the major newspapers.
Conversations with Ernest brought in personalities dead and alive,
from Machiavelli to Toscanini. He would talk poetry; discuss the arts,
sciences, politics, and the gossip of the moment. He would quote from
his own books and outline the books he was thinking of writing.
The man who introduced me to Ernest was a talkative economist who had
something to say on every subject. When the two were engaged in conversation,
each fought for the right to finish a sentence. Ernest had memorized
The World Almanac. He used this resource to temporarily subdue
his adversary.
Every Sunday after reading the New York Times Book Review, Ernest
got on the phone with a friend and reviewed each book review. He did
this up to the day of his death in 1988.
Jacob A. Stein can be reached by e-mail at jstein@steinmitchell.com.
