Famous Last Words, 1

--French writer Bernard de Fontenelle (1757): "I feel nothing except a certain difficulty in continuing to exist.”
--Voltaire (1778), as bedside lamp flared up: “The flames already?”
--Franz Joseph Haydn (1809): “Cheer up, children, I’m all right.”
--Charles Willson Peale (1809) after his wife reported she could not feel his pulse: “I thought not.”
English writer Sydney Smith (1845), on being told he had swallowed ink instead of medicine by mistake: “Then bring me all the blotting paper there is in the house.”

Heinrich Heine (1856): “God will pardon me. It’s his profession.”
Modeste Mussorsky (1881): “It’s the end. Woe is me.”
Oscar Wilde (1900), drinking champagne: “I am dying beyond my means.”
Joel Chandler Harris (1908), asked how he felt: “I am about the extend of a gnat’s eyebrow better.”
Leo Tolstoy (1910): “I don’t understand what I am supposed to do.”

William S. Gilbert (1911) who saved a young woman from drowning, then had a heart attack: “Put your hands on my shoulders and don’t struggle.”
Charles Frohman (1915): “Why fear death? Death is only a beautiful adventure.”
E. W. Scripps (1926): “Too many cigars this evening, I guess.”
From “The Last Time When."