The Evansville journal., 1869-09-22
JOURNAL
F#H LAST WORDS OF GREAT MEN.

Marshal Neil's last words were:
L'Grmee traacaiseF (The French
army. y Exchange.
What a sad thing it is to see man
close a grand career with plagiar-
ism In his mouth. Napoleon's last
words were, "Tste d 'arnlee." (Head
of the army. Neither Of those re-
marks amount to anything as ''Iast
words, and reflect little credit upon
the utterers. A distinguished man
should be as particular about his
last words as he is about his last
breath. He should write them out
on . slip Of paper and take the judg-
ment Of his friends on them. lie
should never leave such things to
the last hour Of his life, and trust to
an intellectual squirt at the last mo
ment to enable him TO say something
smart with his latest gasp, and launch
into eternity with grandeur. No-a
man IS apt to be too much tagged and
exhausted. both in body and mind,
at such a time, to be reliable; and
NAV be the very thing he wants to say,
he cannot think of to save him; and
besides, there are his weeping friends
botherlng around and worse than all,
as likely as not he may have to deliv-
er his last gasp " hen he is,not expect
ing to. a man cannot always expect
30 think of natty thing to say under
such circumstances, and so it is pure
egotistjc ostentation to put il off.
There is hardly a case on record
where a man came to his last moment
unpre pared and said good thing
hardly a case where a man trusted to
that last moment and did not make a
solemn hotch of it and go out of the
world feeling absurd.
Now there was Daniel Webster.
Nobody could tell him anything. He
was not afraid. He could do some
thing neat when the time came. And
how did it turn out? Why his will
had to be fixed over; and then all
his relations came; and first one thing
and then another inteTfered, TIL at
last he only had chance to say Il
still live" andup be went. Of course,
he didn't live, because he died-and
so he might as well have kept his
last words to himself as to have gone
and made such failure of it as that.
a week before that, fifteen minutes of
calm reflection would have enabled
that man to cOntrive some last words
that would have been credit to him
self and a comfort to his family for
generations to come.
And there was ohm Quincy Adams.
Relying on bis splendid abilities and
his GOODNESS In emergencies, he trusted
to a happy hit at the last moment to
carry him through, and what was the
result? Death smote him In the
House of Representatives, and he OBJ
served causually, This is the last of
earth. The last of earth Why the
last of earth" when there was so
muck more left? If he had said it
Waz the last rose of summer, or the
last gun Of shad, it would have had
just az much point to it. What he
meant to say, was, Adam was the
first, and Adams is the last of earth. I"
bnt he put it off a trife too long, and
so he had to go with that unmeaning
observation on his lips.
And there we have Napoleon, " Tete
ddrmee." That don't mean anything.
Taken by itself, Head of the army
is no more important than Head of
The police" And yet that was a man
who could have said good thing if
he had barred out the doctor and
studied over it a while And this
Marshal Neil, with half century at
his disposal, could not dash off any
thing better, in his last moments,
than a poor plagiarism of another
mans last words which were not
worth plagiariziug in the first place
The French armyl Perfectly IT.
relevant-perfeetly fat-utterly point
less. But if he had closed one eye
Significantly and said, The sub
srcibar has made it liUely for the
French army" and then thrown a
little OF the comic into his last gasp, it
would have been a thing to remember
witil satisfaction all the rest of his
life. | DO wish our great men would
quit saying these fiat thing just at the
moment they die. Let US have their
next-to -their-last word for a while
and see five cannot patch up some
thing from them that will be little
more satisfactory. The public does
not wish to be outraged in this way
all the time.
But when we come to call to mind
the last words of parties who took
the trouble to make proper proper
alton for the occasion, we Immediately
notice a happy difference in the
result
There was Chesterfield. Lore
Chesterfield had labored all his lif,
to build up the most shining reputa
ton for affability and elegance O
speech and manners the world hat
ever seen. And could you suppos
he failed to appreciate the efhcienc.
of characteristic last words" In th
matter of seizing the successful
driven nail Of such a reputation an,
clinchingit on the other side forever
Not he He prepared himself. i'll
kept his eye on the clock and hi
finger on his pulse. He awaited hi
chance. And at last, when he knew
his time was come, he pretended tt
thiEa new visitor had entered, ant
so, with the rattle IN his throat EN-
pEasized for dramatic effect, he sal,
to the servant, Shin around, ohm
and get the gentleman a chair
Aad then he died, amid thunders 0
applause.
Next we have Benjamin Franklin
Franklin the auther of Poor Rich
ards sayings; Franklin, the immorta
axiom builder, who used TO sit III
nights reducing the rankest ola
threadbare platitudes to crisp an
snappy maxims that had a nice, val
nished, original look In their ne1
regimentals; who said Virtue is il
own reward !" who said "Procrastina
ton is the thief of time;" who sal
Time aud tide wait for no man,
and Necessity is the mother of il
vention;" good old Franklin, Ii
Josh Billings of the eighteenth eel
tury-thougb, sooth to say, the latte
transcends him in proyerbial origina
ity as much as he falls short of him
correctness of orthography. Wha