The Last Words Of Distinguished Men And Women Part 31

When a guest of Rome, lodged in the Vatican, waiting to be crowned with laurel--the first poet so honored since Petrarch--he sighed to flee away and be at rest. Growing very ill, he obtained permission to retire to the Monastery of Saint Onofrio. When the physician informed him that his last hour was near, he embraced him, expressed his grat.i.tude for so sweet an announcement, and then, lifting his eyes, thanked G.o.d that after so tempestuous a life he was now brought to a calm haven. The Pope having granted the dying poet a plenary indulgence, he said, "This is the chariot on which I hope to go crowned, not with laurel as a poet into the capital, but with glory as a saint into heaven."

_Alger's "Genius of Solitude."_

Just before his death he requested Cardinal Cynthia to collect his works and commit them to the flames, especially his "Jerusalem Delivered."

TAYLOR (Bayard, traveller, poet and lecturer; the translator of Goethe's "Faust"), 1825-1878. "_I want, oh, you know what I mean, the stuff of life._"

TAYLOR (Edward T., an American preacher known as "Father Taylor"), 1793-1871. "_Why, certainly, certainly!_" These words were spoken to a friend who asked him if Jesus was precious. He became a sailor, and was for many years the chaplain of the Seamen's Bethel, Boston.

TAYLOR (Jane, writer for the young), 1783-1823. "_Are we not children, all of us?_"

TAYLOR (Jeremy, distinguished bishop in the English Church, and author of "Holy Living and Dying." He has been called "The Shakspeare of Divines"), 1613-1667. "_My trust is in G.o.d._"

TAYLOR (John, "The Water Poet." He followed for a long time the occupation of waterman on the Thames, and later kept a public house in Phoenix Alley, Long Acre), 1580-1654. "_How sweet it is to rest!_"

TAYLOR (Rev. Dr. Rowland), --1555. He said as he was going to martyrdom, "I shall this day deceive the worms in Hadley churchyard."[46] And when he came within two miles of Hadley, "Now," said he, "lack I but two stiles; and I am even at my Father's house." His last words were, "_Lord, receive my spirit._"

[46] Being asked by the sheriff to explain these words, he said: "I am as you see, a man that hath a very great carca.s.s, which I thought should have been buried in Hadley churchyard, if I had died in my bed, as I well hoped I should have done. But herein I see I was deceived. And there are a great number of worms in Hadley churchyard, which should have had jolly feeding upon this carrion which they have looked for many a day. But now I know we be deceived, both I and they; for this carca.s.s must be burnt to ashes, and so shall they lose their bait and feeding that they looked to have had of it." Fox, the martyrologist, adds that, "when the sheriff and his company heard these words they were amazed, and looked at one another, marvelling at the man's constant mind, that thus without all fear made but a jest at the cruel torment and death now at hand prepared for him."

TAYLOR (Zachary, American general and twelfth President of the United States), 1784-1850. "_I am about to die. I expect the summons soon. I have endeavored to discharge all my official duties faithfully. I regret nothing, but am sorry that I am about to leave my friends._"

TENDERDEN (Lord), "_Gentlemen of the jury, you will now consider of your verdict._"

TENNENT (William, Pastor of Presbyterian Church in Freehold, N. J. His name has been rendered famous by his peculiar experience which at the time attracted the attention of the entire country. During an attack of fever, he fell into a trance which continued three days. He was supposed to be dead, and was prepared for burial; but suddenly he recovered, and gave a description of what he had seen in the Heavenly world. He never doubted to the last day of his life that he had seen the New Jerusalem during the three days of his trance. Elias Boudinot published a circ.u.mstantial account of the wonderful vision), 1705-1777. "_I am sensible of the violence of my disorder, and that it is accompanied with symptoms of approaching dissolution; but, blessed be G.o.d, I have no wish to live, if it should be His will to call me hence._"

TENNYSON (Alfred, Lord, Poet-laureate of England), 1809-1892. "_I have opened it._" These are the last words of the poet that have been made public; later he bade his family farewell, but what he said has never been published.

His last food was taken at a quarter of four, and he tried to read, but could not. He exclaimed, "I have opened it." Whether this referred to the Shakspeare, opened by him at

Hang there like fruit, my soul, Till the tree die,

which he always called among the tenderest lines in Shakspeare, or whether one of his last poems, of which he was fond, was running through his head I cannot tell:

Fear not, thou, the hidden purpose of that Power Which alone is great, Nor the myriad world, his shadow, nor the silent Opener of the Gate.

He then spoke his last words, a farewell blessing to my mother and myself.

For the next hours the full moon flooded the room and the great landscape outside with light; and we watched in solemn stillness. His patience and quiet strength had power upon those who were nearest and dearest to him; we felt thankful for the love and the utter peace of it all; and his own lines of comfort from "_In Memoriam_" were strongly borne in upon us. He was quite restful, holding my wife's hand, and, as he was pa.s.sing away, I spoke over him his own prayer, "G.o.d accept him!

Christ receive him!" because I knew that he would have wished it.

_Alfred, Lord Tennyson, a Memoir by his son._

TERCHOUT (Adele--"La Comete"). The gay and thoughtless life of this beautiful young woman ended in sad regrets and bitter remembrances, and yet there is some slight hope that there was with her at last a thought real, if not deep, of better things.

Does any one remember a beautiful girl who went by the nickname of "La Comete," and flashed through the Parisian world during the last year of the Second Empire? She was called "Comet" on account of the exceeding length and loveliness of her golden hair. Theophile Gautier wrote a sonnet to her, Cabanel painted her portrait. Worth dressed her, and Leon Cugnot took her as the model of his statue, "La Baigneuse." Her real name was Adele Terchout, and just before the Franco-German war broke out she declined an offer of marriage from an elderly duke, with a very ancient escutcheon. At that time she owned one of the finest mansions in the Champs Elysees, had twelve horses in her stables and a bushel of diamonds in her dressing-case. Last week this dazzling creature died in a Parisian hospital absolutely dest.i.tute, and the disease which carried her off was the most hideous that could befall a pretty woman--a lupus vorax, or cancer in the face, which totally disfigured her. Like Zola's "Nana," the only vestige left of her beauty when she died was her matchless hair, which measured nearly five feet.

_London Truth._

THEOPHRASTUS (eminent Greek philosopher. He was a favorite pupil of Aristotle whom he succeeded as President of the Lyceum B. C. 322), about B. C. 374-286. This philosopher's last words are not recorded, but on his death-bed he accused Nature of cruelty. He charged her with having-given a long life to stags and crows, and only a short one to men and women who are so much better able to use for their own good and that of others length of days. He declared that human beings needed long life for the perfection of art. He complained that as soon as he had begun to perceive the beauty of the world he was called upon to die.[47]

[47] Thus also did Themistocles, the most renowned of Grecian generals, grieve that when he had acquired the wisdom necessary for a useful life, it was time to die.

THERESA or TERESA ("Saint," Spanish nun, author of a number of devotional books, a visionary of whom many wonderful miracles are related. She was canonized by Pope Gregory XV.), 1515-1582. "_Over my spirit flash and float in divine radiancy the bright and glorious visions of the world to which I go._" The claim of celestial illumination was made by her throughout her entire life and in the hour of death, but just what were her last words is very uncertain.

At her death-bed the bystanders beheld her already in glory; to one she appeared in the midst of angels, another saw floating over her head a heavenly light that descended and hovered about her,[48] another discovered spiritual beings clothed in white entering her cell, another saw a white dove fly from her mouth up to heaven, while at the same time a dead tree near the sacred spot suddenly burst into the fullness of bloom.[49]

After her death she appeared to a nun and said that she had not died of disease, but of the intolerable fire of divine love.

_Salazar: "Anamuesis Sanctorum Hispanorum."_

[48] The luminous faces and bodies of martyrs and saints are common enough in the chronicles of mediaeval miracles. Some modern physicians think there were physiological causes for the strange and, at the time, startling phenomena.

Bartholin, in his treatise "De Luce Hominum et Brutorum" (1647), gives an account of an Italian lady whom he designates as "mulier splendens," whose body shone with phosphoric radiations when gently rubbed with dry linen; and Dr. Kane, in his last voyage to the polar regions, witnessed almost as remarkable a case of phosph.o.r.escence. A few cases are recorded by Sir H. Marsh, Professor Donovan and other undoubted authorities, in which the human body, shortly before death, has presented a pale, luminous appearance.

On the eve of St. Alcuin's death (May 19th, 804), the entire monastery was enveloped in a mysterious light, so that many thought the building was on fire. The soul of the saint was seen to ascend in the form of a dove, and the spectators heard celestial music in the air.--_Early Superst.i.tions._

The soul of St. Engelbert while going up to heaven was so bright that St. Hermann mistook it for the moon.

Andrew Jackson Davis (the "Poughkeepsie Seer") records that while in the clairvoyant condition he saw the entire process of the soul's disengagement from the body.--"_The Great Harmonia_," _vol._ I, _p._ 163.

[49] It was commonly believed that the immortal soul escaped from the dead body through the mouth. Sometimes it pa.s.sed out under the form of a bird, and sometimes it seemed to be a vapor. The appearance of the departing soul is mentioned as a known fact, by the celebrated mystic, Jacob Bohmen, in his curious book. "_The Three Principles_," where it is described as that of "a blue vapor going forth out of the mouth of a dying man, which maketh a strong smell all over the chamber."

Th.o.r.eAU (Henry David, American author and naturalist), 1817-1862. "_I leave this world without a regret._"

He was bred to no profession; and it is said that he never went to church, never voted, and never paid a tax to the state though he was imprisoned for not doing so. He ate no flesh, drank no wine, never knew the use of tobacco, and never (though a naturalist) used either trap or gun.--_Emerson._

He lived in the simplest manner; he sometimes practised the business of land-surveyor. In 1845 he built a small frame house on the sh.o.r.e of Walden Pond, near Concord, where he lived two years as a hermit, in studious retirement. He published an account of this portion of his life, in a small book ent.i.tled "Walden."--_Lippincott._

Th.o.r.eau was a kind and good man, but a mult.i.tude of eccentricities separated him from the average life of man and removed him from the common sympathy of his race. His little house on the sh.o.r.e of Walden Pond he constructed with his own hands, because he thought that men should be able to do as much as the birds who build their own nests. The entire house cost him less than thirty dollars; and in it he lived at an expense of about twenty-seven cents a week. The house had neither lock nor curtain, and was unprotected day and night. The door was seldom closed, and the window was often wide-open in the midst of a winter storm. "I am no more lonely," he wrote, "than Walden Pond itself. What company has that, I pray? And yet it has not the blue devils, but blue angels in it, in the azure tint of its waters." It is said that he could tell the day of each month by the trees and flowers.

THURLOW (Edward, Lord Chancellor in the reign of George III.), 1732-1806. "_I'll be shot if I don't believe I'm dying._"

TIBERIUS (Claudius Nero, Roman Emperor), B. C. 42--A. D. 37. Finding himself dying, he took his signet ring off his finger, and held it awhile, as if he would deliver it to somebody; but put it again on his finger, and lay for some time, with his left hand clenched, and without stirring; when suddenly summoning his attendants, and no one answering the call, he rose; but his strength failing him, he fell down at a short distance from his bed.--_Seneca._

He died without appointing his successor, but the people cared little for that. They rejoiced at his death, and ran through the streets of Rome crying, "Away with Tiberius to the Tiber."