A man cannot always expect to think of a
natty thing to say under such circumstances, and so it is pure egotistic
ostentation to put it off. There is hardly a case on record where a man
came to his last moment unprepared and said a good thing hardly a case
where a man trusted to that last moment and did not make a solemn botch
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 something neat when the time came. And how did
it turn out? Why, his will had to be fixed over; and then all the
relations came; and first one thing and then another interfered, till at
last he only had a chance to say, "I still live," and up he went.
Of course he didn't still live, because he died--and so he might as well
have kept his last words to himself as to have gone and made such a
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 a credit to himself and a comfort to his family for
generations to come.
And there was John Quincy Adams. Relying on his splendid abilities and
his coolness 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 observed, casually, "This is the last of
earth.
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