LAS'FWORDS.

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6601, 19 May 1925, Page 6

LAS'FWORDS.

! FAMOUS MEN AND WOMEN WHAT THEY SAID WHEN DEATH CAME SOME HISTORIC SAYINGS (By Lady Adams.) i The public have always been thirsty for the last words of the great; down through the ages they have rung, from Bible days on, and nowadays it is one of the penalties of the great that they may not even die unrecorded. Surely at least deathbeds should be sacred, surely -the last words of jour dear one should be our most precious possession, to be told, later, in whispers, to “the others” who were hot present, and for ever after to be jealously guarded, as a lovely and tender family secret. But those who surround the great appear to think differently, and deathbed scenes and last words form a “meaty” part of most biographies, while the things that some people cheerfully 'divulge about their relatives in autobiographies must be an abiding joy for weary reviewers in search of arresting extracts'! When that old Scotsman Lord Strathcona died, the newspapers told us that his last hours were soothed by the words of the paraphrase: “O! •God of Bethel, by Whose Hand Thy •People still are fed,” though there was considerable difference of opinion amongst the reporters as to whether he repeated thb verses - or had them repeated to him. Surely, surely the undemonstrative old Scot would have disliked the publicity-given to that item of news. If he whispered 'the words himself* :•there would be long pauses, I think, -and he would not: do it very well; if others repeated them into'his deafening ear, their voices were -at least husky. In any case, why should-we know of the intimate scene that took place in that quiet bedroom ? Goethe and Schiller both asked-for more light-—one would • long for the sun, the other for any kind of glowing, artificial radiance—and poor Heine consoled himself with the reflection that the good God would pardon him; ■•after all, he said, it is His business.

It seems to me such a pity that we know that Charlotte Bronte* as she lay dying, whispered to her husband, *‘Oh, I am not going to die, am 1? He will not separate us, we have been so happy.”

! Gentle Jane Austen wanted: “Nothing but death,” and J. S. Mill said simply, “My work is done.”

It was like Alexander Pope to say, “There is nothing meritorious, but virtue and friendship; and indeed friendship itself is but part of a virtue.” Like Lord Chesterfield too, to ask someone to “Give Dayrolles a chair,” and rather like Joseph Addison to desire others 4,0 “See how a Christian can die.”

I am always glad that Browning knew of the first success of Asolando. It was published in London the day Browning lay a-dying in Venice. Browning asked if any news had come of it. His son read a telegram from the publishers, telling of a great demand, and of favourite press notices. “How gratifying,” said the poet. r Charles Dickens had no last words, but what could be a better message than is conveyed in a letter he wrote on the day of his death tQ somebody who had objected to a passage in “Edwin Drood,” aB being irreverent. “I have always striven in my writings to express veneration for the life and lessons of our Saviour— because I feel it.”

It is pleasant to remember that a week before Thackeray's death the five years’ old estrangement between Dickens and him ended.

Like Dickens, Thackeray left no last words. Why should we? We have his works.

Do you remember what John Davidson did before he left home on that walk from which he knew he was not to return? He designed an ideal dinner; potato soup, boiled beef and rice pudding. The poor starving poet wanted this to be known; he certainly did not ask unduly much. Dear Keats* the wistful boy, murmured: “Thank God it has come,” but I like rather to remember that just before that, he said to Mr Severn, “I feel the flowers growing over me.”

Macaulay, the always fortunate, had no last words, but on the morning of the day he died, ha dedicated a letter to a poor curate, signed it, and enclosed £25.

- And there was Labouchere. He was being cared for by his daughter, and a nurse, and, the day before he died, watched an upset spirit lamp catch fire. v

“Flames? Not yet, I think,” said Labby. - The famous schoolmaster, Alexan-

der Adani, said: “It grows dark, boys, you may go.” And Humboldt said: “How lovely the stars are; they seem to be calling the earth to heaven.”