The Last Words (Real and Traditional) of Distinguished Men and WomenMarvin, Frederic Rowland
History
The Last Words (Real and Traditional) of Distinguished Men and Women
Marvin, Frederic Rowland
Last words
The historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, who was in the army of Julian,
states that when he was wounded his admirers compared the scene that
followed in his tent to that which Plato has drawn in the prison of
Socrates; not without the confession that it was an affected imitation.
This testimony is preferable to the imaginary pictures of Christian
orators of the apostate clutching the sand and crying, "O Galilean, thou
hast conquered!" The real triumph of Christianity needs no such
melodramatic inventions conceived in the spirit of an age of ornate
rhetoric.--_Smith's "Universal History, iii, 717."_
KALAKAUA (David, King of the Hawaiian Islands), 1836-1892. The monarch
was unconscious of what was going on around him, and seemed to be
dreaming of his early days. Colonel Baker heard him murmur something
and leaning over the bedside could make out that he was speaking to
himself in his native tongue of the oceans and mountains and natural
scenery of Hawaii.
He died at San Francisco, Cal., while on a visit to the United States.
KANT (Immanuel, one of the greatest of German metaphysicians, founder of
the Critical or Transcendental school of philosophy), 1724-1804. "_Est
ist gut_," said as he declined a refreshing draught, offered him by one
who thought he was suffering from thirst.
KEATS (John), 1796-1821. "_I feel the flowers growing over me._" Some
say his last words were: "I die of a broken heart."
The severity of an article written by Gifford in review of "Endymion" in
the Quarterly Review affected the young poet very deeply, and is even
said to have occasioned the consumption from which he died at Rome where
he had but just completed his twenty-fourth year.
Over the grave of Keats in the Old Protestant cemetery at Rome is the
inscription: "This grave contains all that was mortal of a young English
poet, who, on his death-bed, in the bitterness of his heart at the
malicious power of his enemies, desired these words to be engraved on
his tombstone: 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water.' February
24, 1821."
In the "Letters and Memorials of Archbishop Trench," occurs the
following distressing letter on the last days of Keats, addressed to
Trench by a friend in Rome:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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