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THE
LAST WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED
MEN AND WOMEN




  THE LAST WORDS
  (REAL AND TRADITIONAL)
  OF DISTINGUISHED
  MEN AND WOMEN

  COLLECTED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES
  BY
  FREDERIC ROWLAND MARVIN


                      The tongues of dying men
  Enforce attention like deep harmony;
  Where words are scarce they're seldom spent in vain,
  For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.
                                                  --_Shakspeare_


  NEW YORK    CHICAGO    TORONTO
  FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
  1901


  Copyright 1901
  by
  FREDERIC ROWLAND MARVIN
  (June)


  To my Wife
  this Book is most Lovingly
  Dedicated


  Neither is there anything of which I am so inquisitive, and delight
  to inform myself, as the manner of men's deaths, their words, looks,
  and bearing; nor any places in history I am so intent upon; and it
  is manifest enough, by my crowding in examples of this kind, that I
  have a particular fancy for that subject. If I were a writer of
  books, I would compile a register, with a comment, of the various
  deaths of men: he who should teach men to die, would at the same
  time teach them to live.--MONTAIGNE.




Last Words of Distinguished Men and Women.


ADAM (Alexander, Dr., headmaster at the High School in Edinburgh, and
the author of "Roman Antiquities"), 1741-1809. "_It grows dark, boys.
You may go._"

    "It grows dark, boys. You may go."
      (Thus the master gently said,
    Just before, in accents low,
      Circling friends moaned, "He is dead.")

    Unto him, a setting sun
      Tells the school's dismissal hour,
    Deeming not that he alone
      Deals with evening's dark'ning power.

    All his thought is with the boys,
      Taught by him in light to grow;
    Light withdrawn, and hushed the noise,
      Fall the passwords, "You may go."

    Go, boys, go, and take your rest;
      Weary is the book-worn brain:
    Day sinks idly in the west,
      Tired of glory, tired of gain.

    Careless are the shades that creep
      O'er the twilight, to and fro;
    Dusk is lost in shadows deep:
      _It grows dark, boys. You may go._
                              _Mary B. Dodge._


ABD-ER-RAHMAN III. (surnamed An-Nasir-Lideen-Illah or Lidinillah, that
is to say, "the defender of the religion of God," eighth Sultan and
first Caliph of Cordova. Under Abd-er-Rahman III. the Mohammedan empire
in Spain attained the height of its glory), 886-961. "_Fifty years have
passed since I became Caliph. Riches, honors, pleasures--I have enjoyed
all. In this long time of seeming happiness I have numbered the days on
which I have been happy. Fourteen._" Though these sad words correctly
express the spirit of the man who is reported to have spoken them, they
are purely traditional.


ADAMS (John, second President of the United States), 1735-1826.
"_Independence forever!_"

He died on the Fourth of July, the anniversary of the Declaration of
Independence; and it is thought that his last words were suggested by
the noise of the celebration. Some say his last words were, "Jefferson
survives;" if so, he was mistaken, for Jefferson passed away at an
earlier hour the same day.


ADAMS (John Quincy, sixth President of the United States), 1767-1848.
"_It is the last of earth! I am content!_" On the twenty-first of
February, 1848, while in his seat in the Capitol, he was struck with
paralysis, and died two days later.


ADDISON (Joseph, poet and essayist), 1672-1719. "_See in what peace a
Christian can die!_" These words were addressed to Lord Warwick, an
accomplished but dissolute youth, to whom Addison was nearly related.


ADRIAN or HADRIAN (Publius AElius, the Roman Emperor), 76-138. "_O my
poor soul, whither art thou going?_"

Adrian wrote both in Greek and Latin. Among his Latin poems (preserved
by Spartianus, who wrote his life), are these lines addressed to his own
soul:

              Animula vagula blandula,
              Hospes comesque corporis,
              Quae nunc abibis in loca?
              Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
              Nec, ut soles, dabis jocos.

    Soul of me! floating and flitting, and fond!
    Thou and this body were house-mates together;
    Wilt thou begone now, and whither?
    Pallid, and naked, and cold;
    Not to laugh, nor be glad, as of old.

Adrian is known in history as one of the greatest of the Roman Emperors.
It is hardly too much to say that, by his progress through all the
provinces and his policy of peace, he was the consolidater of the empire
founded a century and a half before by Augustus. He was the author of
the Roman Wall between England and Scotland; he beautified the city of
Athens; he founded the modern Adrianople; he built for his own mausoleum
what is now the Castle of St. Anglo at Rome. He was also a patron of
the fine arts and of literature.

Of the famous lines, "The Dying Adrian's Address to His Soul," no fewer
than one hundred and sixteen translations into English have been
collected, the translators including Pope, Prior, Byron, Dean Merivale,
and the late Earl of Carnarvon. It should be added that Pope's familiar
version, beginning "Vital spark of heav'nly flame," is a paraphrase
rather than a translation. I quote Prior's version:

    "Poor little, quivering, fluttering thing,
      Must we no longer live together?
    And dost thou prune thy trembling wing,
      To take thy flight thou know'st not whither?

    "Thy humorous vein, thy pleasing folly
      Lie all neglected, all forgot:
    And pensive, wavering, melancholy,
      Thou dread'st and hop'st thou know'st not what."

This is the only certain composition of Adrian that has been preserved,
though he is reported to have attempted many forms of literature. The
authenticity of a letter ascribed to him with a reference to the
Christians, is open to grave doubt. But now the sands of Egypt, which
are daily yielding up so many secrets of antiquity, have given us what
purports to be a private letter addressed by the Emperor Adrian to his
successor, Antoninus Pius, and--what is more interesting--it is written,
like the address to his soul, in view of his approaching death.
Unfortunately the papyrus is very fragmentary, but its general meaning
seems clear. We have evidently only the commencement of an elaborate
epistle. After the assertion that his death is neither unexpected, nor
lamentable, nor unreasonable, he says that he is prepared to die, though
he misses his correspondent's presence and loving care. He goes on:

"I do not intend to give the conventional reasons of philosophy for this
attitude, but to make a plain statement of facts.... My father by birth
died at the age of forty, a private person, so that I have lived more
than half as long again as my father, and have reached about the same
age as that of my mother when she died."

All this accords with the known facts about Adrian. He died at the age
of sixty-two, after a long illness, during which he was assiduously
tended by Antoninus. Just before the end he withdrew to Baiae, leaving
Antoninus in charge at Rome. His father had died when his son was ten
years old; of his mother we know nothing. _Prima facie_, there is no
improbability that letters of Adrian should be in circulation in Egypt,
which he visited at least once. His freedman Phlegon is reported to have
published a collection of them after his death.

On the other hand, it should be frankly admitted that some suspicious
circumstances attach to the letter. Of the antiquity of the papyrus
there is no doubt, for the handwriting cannot be later than the end of
the second century A. D., bringing it within sixty years (at farthest)
from Adrian's death. But it is written as a school exercise on the back
of a taxing-list, which naturally gives rise to the suspicion that it
may be merely the composition of the schoolmaster. The actual form of
