[lit-ideas] Re: Reflections On Famous Last Words
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 12:22:44 +0000 (GMT)
Many of these are doubtful, some because of reasons alluded to:-
> Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said
> something.
> ~~ Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary, d. 1923
Hence the pre-formulated:-
> Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.
> ~~ Oscar Wilde, writer, d. November 30, 1900
Take:
> Adieu, mes amis. Je vais la gloire.
> (Farewell, my friends! I go to glory!)
> ~~ Isadora Duncan, dancer, d. 1927
Now from Wiki:-
"Before getting into the car, she said to a friend, Mary Desti (mother of
1940's Hollywood writer-director Preston Sturges), and some companions, "Adieu,
mes amis. Je vais à la gloire!" ("Goodbye, my friends, I am off to glory!");
however, according to the diaries of the American novelist Glenway Wescott, who
was in Nice at the time and visited Duncan's body in the morgue (his diaries
are in the collection of the Beinecke Library at Yale University), Desti
admitted that she had lied about Duncan's last words. Instead, she told
Wescott, the dancer actually said, "Je vais à l'amour" ("I am off to love"),
which Desti considered too embarrassing to go down in history as the legend's
final utterance, especially since it suggested that Duncan hoped that she and
Falchetto were going to her hotel for a sexual assignation."
Others are misattributed.
> Ah, that tastes nice. Thank you.
> ~~ Johannes Brahms, composer, d. April 3, 1897
Socrates surely?
Others are massive simplifications of what was said.
> I am about to -- or I am going to -- die: either
> expression is correct.
> ~~ Dominique Bouhours, French grammarian, d. 1702
JLS must know Dom would likely have said something quite a bit more involved
than this, and CB know that few of those gathered were listening that closely
after the first line or two. Hence a 'precis'.
> My God. What's happened?
> ~~ Diana (Spencer), Princess of Wales, d. August 31,
> 1997
Apocryphal. She would have said "Gosh" and "Jalopy totalled, ya?" (see: 'Tragic
Princess Died As She Lived - In Incredible Plushness" - The Onion).
> Let us cross over the river and sit in the shade of
> the trees.
> Killed in error by his own troops at the battle of
> Chancellorsville during
> the US Civil War.
> ~~ General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, d. 1863
His troops thought this sounded better than "YOU F******G IDIOTS!".
> Is it the Fourth?
> ~~ Thomas Jefferson, US President, d. July 4, 1826
Substituted for "Hope by now I've outlived that toss-bucket Adams."
Some have key words missing.
> Does nobody understand?
> ~~ James Joyce, writer, d. 1941
"...anything of mine after _Dubliners_", he mumbled.
Dnl
ldn
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