The Last Words Of Distinguished Men And Women Part 30

"Even people who lived in the same house with him never suspected how rapidly death was approaching. He had come down, as he generally did in the evening, and talked for a long time with his companions about the sermons which they had just heard. That evening he went to bed earlier than usual. The next day, February 23, 1677, he came once more downstairs, before church-time to speak with his friends. In the meantime Dr. Ludwig Meyer, of Amsterdam, to whom Spinoza had written, arrived. He gave his suffering friend such medical a.s.sistance as he could; and, amongst other orders, desired the landlady to kill a chicken, that Spinoza might have some soup for dinner. This was done, and Spinoza ate the soup with a good appet.i.te. When Van der Spyck and his wife returned from the afternoon service, they heard that Spinoza had died about three o'clock. n.o.body was with him in his last hours except the doctor from Amsterdam, who went away again the same evening."

_Kuno Fisher's Lecture on "The Life and Character of Spinoza."_

STAeL-HOLSTEIN (Anna Louise Germaine Necker, Baroness de), 1766-1817.

"_I have loved G.o.d, my father and liberty._"

STAFFORD (William Howard, Viscount of), 1612-1680. "_This block will be my pillow, and I shall repose there well, without pain, grief or fear._"

He was accused by t.i.tus Oates of complicity in the Popish Plot, and was convicted of treason. He was probably innocent. His last words were spoken at the place of execution, and show how n.o.ble and calm was his spirit in the presence of death.

Stafford's brother accompanied him to the place of execution, weeping.

"Brother," said he, "why do you grieve thus; do you see anything in my life or death which can cause you to feel any shame? Do I tremble like a criminal or boast like an Atheist? Come, be firm, and think only that this is my third marriage, that you are my bridesman."

_Lamartine's Cromwell._

STAMBULOFF (Stefan N., ex-Prime Minister of Bulgaria, called "The Bismarck of Bulgaria"), 1853-1895. "_G.o.d protect Bulgaria._"

STANLEY (Arthur Penrhyn, Dean of Westminster, and the leader of the "Broad Church" party), 1815-1881. "_So far as I have understood what the duties of my office were supposed to be, in spite of every incompetence, I am yet humbly trustful that I have sustained before the mind of the nation the extraordinary value of the Abbey as a religious, national and liberal inst.i.tution._" Later he said: "_The end has come in the way in which I most desired it should come. I could not have controlled it better. After preaching one of my sermons on the beat.i.tudes, I had a most violent fit of sickness, took to my bed, and said immediately that I wished to die at Westminster. I am perfectly happy, perfectly satisfied; I have no misgivings._" His last recorded words were: "_I wish Vaughan to preach my funeral sermon, because he has known me longest._"

STEELE (Miss Anne, the author of many beautiful and familiar hymns), 1716-1778: "_I know that my Redeemer liveth._" The following lines are inscribed on her tomb:

Silent the lyre, and dumb the tuneful tongue, That sung on earth her dear Redeemer's praise; But now in heaven she joins the angelic song, In more harmonious, more exalted lays.

STEPHEN (first Christian martyr), "_Lord, lay not this sin to their charge._"--_Acts vii: 60._

STEVENS (Thaddeus, American statesman and opponent of slavery; a man of great ability and n.o.bleness of spirit), 1793-1868.

Two colored clergymen called and asked leave to see Stevens and pray with him. He ordered them to be admitted; and when they had come to his bedside, he turned and held out his hand to one of them. They sang a hymn and prayed. During the prayer he responded twice, but could not be understood. Soon afterward the Sisters of Charity prayed, and he seemed deeply affected. The doctor told him that he was dying. He made a motion with his head, but no other reply. One of the sisters asked leave to baptize him, and it was granted, but whether by Stevens or his nephew is not clear. She performed the ceremony with a gla.s.s of water, a portion of which was poured upon his forehead. The end came before the beginning of the next day. He lay motionless for a few moments, then opened his eyes, took one look, placidly closed them, and, without a struggle, the great commoner had ceased to breathe.

_Samuel W. McCall: "Life of Stevens."_

On his monument reared over his grave are inscribed by his direction, these words: "I repose in this quiet and secluded spot, not from any natural preference for solitude, but finding other cemeteries limited as to race by charter rules, I have chosen this, that I might ill.u.s.trate in my death the principles which I advocated through a long life, (the) equality of Man before his Creator."

STEVENSON (Robert Louis, English author), 1850-1894. "_What is that?_"

He felt a sudden pain in his head, and, clasping his forehead with both hands, he exclaimed, "What is that?" and soon after ceased to breathe.[43]

The Academy tells this of Stevenson: "An old friend had set his beautiful lines to music:

Under the wide and starry sky Dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live, and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill.

"He said one evening at his happy home in Merton Abbey, before he started on his last journey, that, when out in the Sudan, he crooned himself to sleep night after night with those lines which had been set to music by his friend. It is fitting that he should lie at rest out there in the s.p.a.cious country, under the wide and starry sky."

[43] According to a writer in the Chicago "Open Court," the main cause of the death of Robert Louis Stevenson was probably his consumption of tobacco. Two years before his death he confessed that his bill for cigars amounted to $450 a year; and during the last six months of his life he smoked an average of forty cigarettes per day, and often as many as eighty in twenty-four hours. Can any one wonder that this frightful habit induced chronic insomnia, to cure or lessen which he smoked all night, till narcosis of the brain brought on stupefaction and temporary loss of consciousness--for weeks his nearest approach to refres.h.i.+ng slumber. His physician warned him in vain that he was burning life's candle at both ends, for he tried to write in spite of his misery; but he stuck to nicotine as the only specific for his nervousness, with the result that was inevitable,--his death a year afterwards.-- _Mathews: "Nugae Litterariae."_

STONEHOUSE (Sir James, English physician and clergyman), 1716-1795.

"_Precious salvation!_"

STROZZI (Filippo, Florentine statesman), 1488-1538. He committed suicide while imprisoned by Cosmo de' Medici, the first Great Duke of Tuscany.

As he was dying he cut with the point of his sword upon the mantel-piece, this line from Virgil: "_Exariare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor._"

SUMNER (Charles, distinguished United States Senator and opponent of slavery. He was a man of great learning in history, political science and polite literature; and, notwithstanding the rare culture of his mind and tastes, he was always the defender of the poor and enslaved), 1811-1874. "_Sit down_," to his friend, Hon. Samuel Hooper. As he uttered these words his heart ruptured, a terrible convulsion shook his frame, and death came at once.[44]

A few hours before Sumner died Judge h.o.a.r gave him a message from Ralph Waldo Emerson, to which Sumner replied with some difficulty, "Tell Emerson that I love and revere him." Over and over again he said to Judge h.o.a.r, "Do not let the Civil Rights bill fail!" To the last his mind was engaged upon the great problems of national interest that had occupied him during all the stormy days of the Civil War.

[44] Rupture of the heart, it is believed, was first described by Harvey; but since his day several cases have been observed. Morgagni has recorded a few examples: Amongst them that of George II., who died suddenly, of this disease in 1760; and, what is very curious, Morgagni himself fell a victim to the same malady. Dr. Elliotson, in his Lumleyan Lecture on Diseases of the Heart, in 1839, stated that he had only seen one instance; but in the Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine, Dr. Townsend gives a table of twenty-five cases, collected from various authors. Generally this accident is consequent upon some organic disease, such as fatty degeneration; but it may arise from violent muscular exertion, or strong mental emotions.--_Welby: "Mysteries of Life, Death and Futurity."_

Dr. William Stroud endeavors to prove, in his "The Physical Cause of the Death of Christ," that our Saviour died upon the cross from rupture of the heart, produced by agony of mind. He says: "In the garden of Gethsemane Christ endured mental agony so intense that, had it not been limited by divine interposition, it would probably have destroyed his life without the aid of any other sufferings; but having been thus mitigated, its effects were confined to violent palpitation of the heart, accompanied with b.l.o.o.d.y sweat. On the cross this agony was renewed, in conjunction with the ordinary sufferings incidental to that mode of punishment; and having at this time been allowed to proceed to its utmost extremity without restraint, occasioned sudden death by rupture of the heart, intimated by a discharge of blood and water from his side, when it was afterward pierced with a spear."

SVETCHINE, or SWETCHINE (Sophia Soymonof, a Russian lady and writer), 1782-1857. Madame Svetchine's last words were, "_It will soon be time for ma.s.s. They must raise me._" She was a most devoted Roman Catholic.

SWARTZ (Frederick Christian, Missionary in India), 1726-1798. "_Had it pleased my Lord to spare me longer I should have been glad. I should then have been able to speak yet a word to the sick and poor; but His will be done! May He, in mercy, but receive me! Into Thy hands I commend my spirit; Thou hast redeemed me, O Thou faithful G.o.d._" After this his Malabar helpers sang a portion of a hymn and he endeavored to sing with them, but his strength failing, he soon expired in the arms of a native Christian.

SWEDENBORG (Emanuel, Swedish seer, philosopher and theologian), 1688-1772. "_It is well; I thank you; G.o.d bless you._" He told the Shearsmiths on what day he should die; and the servant remarked: "He was as pleased as I should have been if I was to have a holiday, or was going to some merry-making."

His faculties were clear to the last. On Sunday afternoon, the 29th day of March, 1772, hearing the clock strike, he asked his landlady and her maid, who were both sitting at his bed-side, what o'clock it was; and upon being answered it was five o'clock, he said--"It is well; I thank you; G.o.d bless you;" and a little after, he gently departed.[45]

_White's "Life and Writings of Swedenborg."_

[45] Swedenborg was buried in the vault of the Swedish Church in Prince's Square, on April 5, 1772. In 1790, in order to determine a question raised in debate, viz., whether Swedenborg was really dead and buried, his wooden coffin was opened, and the leaden one was sawn across the breast. A few days after, a party of Swedenborgians visited the vault. "Various relics" (says White: "_Life of Swedenborg_," 2nd ed., 1868, p. 675) "were carried off: Dr. Spurgin told me he possessed the cartilage of an ear. Exposed to the air, the flesh quickly fell to dust, and a skeleton was all that remained for subsequent visitors.... At a funeral in 1817, Granholm, an officer in the Swedish Navy, seeing the lid of Swedenborg's coffin loose, abstracted the skull, and hawked it about amongst London Swedenborgians, but none would buy. Dr. Wahlin, pastor of the Swedish Church, recovered what he supposed to be the stolen skull, had a cast of it taken, and placed it in the coffin in 1819. The cast which is sometimes seen in phrenological collections is obviously not Swedenborg's: it is thought to be that of a small female skull."

SWIFT (Jonathan, Dean of Saint Patrick's, Dublin, and author of "The Tale of a Tub," and "Travels of Lemuel Gulliver"), 1667-1745. "_It is folly; they had better leave it alone_," to his house-keeper who informed him that the usual bonfires and illuminations were preparing to do honor to his birthday. Some say his last words were, "_Ah, a German!

a prodigy, admit him!_" spoken as Handel was announced.

TALLEYRAND-PERIGORD (Charles Maurice, celebrated French diplomatist), 1754-1838, "_I am suffering, sire, the pangs of the d.a.m.ned._" Said to the king, Louis Phillippe, who enquired his condition.

Louis Blanc (_Histoire de Dix Ans. v. 290_) says that when Louis Philippe called upon Talleyrand during that prince's last hours, he enquired if he suffered: "_Yes, comme un d.a.m.ne_," answered Talleyrand; at which the king said under his breath, "What, already?" (Quoi, deja?)

TALMA (Francois Joseph, "The Garrick of the French Stage"), 1770-1826.

"_The worst is I can not see._"

He was interred, according to his own directions, in the cemetery of Pere-la-Chaise, Paris, without any religious ceremony, but funeral orations by Jouy and Arnault were delivered at the grave. To change, it is alleged, his resolution on this score, the Archbishop of Paris had sought an interview, but in vain. Talma's conduct, it is supposed, proceeded from his resentment at the excommunication p.r.o.nounced by the Roman Catholic Church against actors.

Ta.s.sO (Torquato), 1544-1595. "_Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit._"