Famous Authors as They Died

1916

Literary men as a rule die nobly. They seem to meet death with philosophical quietude, as did the great Victor Hugo. Rousseau, it is said, when dying ordered his attendants to place him before the window that he might once more behold the setting sun and take his farewell of earth. Petrarch was found dead in his library with his head upon a book. Barthelemy was reading Horace, we are informed, when, his hand becoming cold, he dropped the book, his head inclined to one side, and he seemed only to sleep. His nephew, however, discovered that he was dead. Bayle expired while correcting the proof sheets of his dictionary. Waller died repeating some lines of Virgil. Although taken away in the "midst of life," Keats' end did not come so suddenly. When near death he was asked by a friend how he felt. "Better, my friend," said he. "I feel the daisies growing over me!"