In the evening, a group of people were eating dinner at the table in the presence of the Master when He told this joke:
“Though I am not hungry, I sit here at the dinner table only for the sake of Lady Blomfield. She insists and she compels! Two despotic kings in the East were powerless to dictate over me or subdue me. The women of America and Europe, however, rule over me because they are free!"
- 'Abdu'l-Baha (Words of ‘Abdu’l-Baha, 24 December 1912, London, England, recorded by Mahmud Zarqani, His secretary and chronicler during His travels in the West; ‘Mahmud’s Diary’, vol. 2: ‘Abdu’l-Baha in Europe 1912-1913)