Give Me Breakfast!

In “Footnotes to History” (February) Edward Sorel reports that Enrico Caruso was in the St. Francis Hotel when the 1906 earthquake struck, and portrays his “Give me Vesuvius!” remark as occurring just before the tenor checked out. Most accounts indicate that Caruso was in the Palace Hotel when the quake struck and that his cry rang out there. He then went on to the St. Francis for breakfast. While Caruso may have lost his affection for San Francisco in the earthquake, he didn’t lose his ample appetite. Ironically, Caruso died fifteen years later in the Vesuvio Hotel in Naples, Italy.