Barbara Graham
Sidney’s memory and recall were legendary. He never repeated himself, and his repertoire was boundless. Two instances:
After a long day of University Library visiting committee sessions, he was descending the Widener Library front steps with me when our sitter came to meet me at the bottom with our six-year-old son; Sid almost immediately greeted him with a recitation of A.A. Milne’s “Now we are six” as though he had been waiting all day to give that performance.
On another occasion, after another long day of meetings regarding libraries, this time in London, I was in a London cab with Sid and Cynthia on the way to a performance of “Troilus and Cressida”, and Sid of course entertained us on the way with complete recitations of Ulysses’ speech on time and two other speeches from the play we were to see.
