AND ANOTHER THING
I've said my Last Words, so switch off the life-support, nurse
PAUL JOHNSON
Once you get past 65, certain matters begin to demand attention. A Will? I have done that. Moral improvement? I'm work- ing on it. The other day a friend suggested a third. 'Have you thought up your Famous Last Words yet?' I admitted I had not, and began to ponder furiously.
Needless to say, the very best exit lines are unpremeditated. My friend Simon Fras- er, who died exactly a year ago from a heart attack, sitting upright on his horse while leading out the local hunt, hit the perfect note for a passionate sportsman: 'Where are the hounds?' The slight ambiguity is a neat touch: heaven has its hounds, as well as earth. So is the note of interrogation, which reminds me of the perfect farewell, from Henry James of course: 'So here it is at last — the grey, distinguished Thing?'
It is fair to assume that most appropriate last words are premeditated or embroi- dered or even invented by pious death-bed witnesses, or completely apocryphal. I don't believe for a minute that Renan went off with his neat bit of atheist triumphalism: `We perish. We disappear. But the March of Time goes on for ever!' — which sounds even more bombastic in French. Nor do I believe that the last words of John Adams, second President of the United States, were `Independence for ever!' Julian the Apos- tate's so-called farewell: 'Thou has con- quered me, 0 Galilean!' was surely minted by a Christian propagandist. And another such, John Foxe, the great 16th-century Protestant spin-doctor, has St Lawrence, broiled on a gridiron in 258 AD, saying to his torturers:
This side enough is toasted, so turn me, tyrant, eat, And see whether raw or roasted I make the better meat!
Those who attended Disraeli's deathbed say that his last words, carefully whispered, were in Hebrew. It is just possible that the old fox, who certainly betrayed no knowl- edge of Hebrew in his lifetime, had careful- ly planned his departure. Again, I think I believe that Napoleon Bonaparte's last words were 'Tete d'armee!' — they are too unselfconsciously neat to be considered invention. I also accept that poor Hazlitt expired with: 'Oh well, I've had a happy life!' He had so obviously had a spectacu- larly unhappy life, and his sense of irony was so strong, that the saying fits.
Many famous last words have the ring of truth because they were entirely accidental and have nothing directly to do with death or summing up a lifetime. I don't know what Winston Churchill's official last words were — his biographer Martin Gilbert records none, and his final 14 days were spent in a speechless coma — but James Cameron had dinner with him not long before he died. The old lion said nothing at all. Then, as James was leaving, he nervous- ly shook hands with Sir Winston a little too vigorously. Churchill suddenly came to angry life, his eyes blazing, and said, 'Damn you!'
Tennyson died after asking for a Collect- ed Shakespeare. It was handed to him and his last words were: 'I have opened it.' Dickens said mysteriously, 'Yes, on the ground.' For Goethe it was 'Light, more light!' For Grotius it was 'Be serious!' Henry VIII went down with: 'Monks, monks monks!' (though this too could be papist invention). Louis I said, 'Out, out!' Oliver Goldsmith was piously asked if his mind was at ease, and snapped, 'No, it is not!' and died. Most actual last words, I suspect, have been simple expressions of weariness, like Macaulay's 'I am very tired' or Byron's 'Now I must sleep'. Or, for those dying violently or unexpectedly, mere ejac- ulations or shouts. Marat: 'Help, help!' Gustavus Adolphus: 'My God!' Richard III: `Treason!' Gibbon (speaking in French, a bit affected to the last): 'Mon dieu!'
Minister! I bet you say that to all the secretaries, research assistants, kitchen staff, cleaners ...' Richard Brinsley Sheridan said, 'I am abso- lutely undone!' — which I suppose is how a theatrical type ought to put it.
A third group of credible last sayings come from those famous men wearied by sympathetic ministrations. Thus John Locke had had enough of Lady Masham, who was reading him the Psalms, and snapped, 'Cease now!' Voltaire: 'Please let me die in peace!' Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince Regent, who was being desperately dosed with brandy by her incompetent doctor: 'You are making me drunk — please leave me quiet!' Many angry last protests concern the dying men's desire to have priests, monks, friars etc. leave the room.
Personally, I would like to go out in the company of those who left with a jest, whether premeditated or no. One old hang- ing judge, Lord Chief Justice Tenterden, suddenly sat bolt upright, announced, `Gentlemen of the Jury, you may retire' then expired. Another judge, Lord Thur- low, explained, 'I'll be shot if I don't believe I'm dying.' Another version of this joke is Palmerston's finale: 'Die, my dear doctor, that's the last thing I shall do.' Robert Burns requested, 'Don't let the awkward squad fire over my grave' — a meaty little saying, ben trovato if not entirely authentic. I am thinking of something of the genre for my exit, though if I hit upon a happy for- mula I shall keep it to myself. Lots of writ- ers are keen to sign off with a good one- liner, and death-bed plagiarism is, by its nature, unpunished.
The reality, however, is likely to be more dismal. Increasingly, the only deathbed sound is the click of the life-support system being switched off. Washington's last words were: 'I die hard but I am not afraid to go.' Nowadays, with all the terror-miracles of modern science, the dead not only die hard but very old indeed, and most are only too anxious to go, if they are still compos. An edifying death or even a simple bona mors is hard to pull off when you are in your nineties or hundreds, and have long since lost your marbles. Nurses in geriatric wards tell you that the old die speechless or mum- bling incoherently. If you can identify a word it is most likely to be an expletive or an obscenity. So if you want to die memo- rably, get your last words ready now, and make sure the press-release containing them is prepared, like your Will, well in advance.
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