The Death of Edward Lear
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The death of Edward Lear took pla a Sunday m in May 1888. Invitations were sent out well in advahe invitations read:Mr. Edward LEAR
Nonsense Writer and Landscape Painter
Requests the Honor of Your Presence
On the Occasion of His DEMISE.
San Remo 2:20 a.m.
The 29th of May Please reply
One imagihe feelings of the recipients. Our dear friend! is preparing to depart! and such-like. Mr. Lear! who has given us so much pleasure! and such-like. Oher hand, his years were sidered. Mr. Lear! who must be, now let me see. . . And there was a good deal of, I remember the first time I (dipped into) (was seized by). . . But on the whole, Mr. Lears acquaintances approached the occasion with a mixture of solemnity and practiess, perhaps remembering the words of <dfn>..</dfn>Lears great friend, Tennyson:
Old men must die,
or the world would grow mouldy
and:
For men may e and men may go,
But I go on forever.
People prepared to attend the death of Edward Lear as they might have for a day in the try. Piic baskets were packed (for it would be wrong to expeur. Lears hospitality, uhe circumstances); bottles of wine were ed in white napkins. Toys were chosen for the children. There were debates as to whether the dog ought to be taken or left behind. (Some of the dogs actually present at the death of Edward Lear could not restrain themselves; they frolicked about the dying mans chamber, tugged at the bedclothes, and made suuisances of themselves that they had to be removed from the room.)
Most of Mr. Lears friends decided that the appropriate time to arrive at the Villa would be midnight, or in that neighborhood, in order to allow the old gentleman time to make whatever remarks he might have in mind, or do whatever he wao do, before the event. Everyone uood what the time specified in the invitatio. And so, the visitors found themselves being handed down from the<var>?9９ｌｉb.</var>ir carriages (by Lears servant Giuseppe Orsini) in almost total darkness. Pausing to greet people they knew, or to corral straying children, they were at length ushered into a large room on the first floor, where the artist had been aced to exhibit his watercolors, and thence by a fortably wide staircase to a similar room on the sed floor, where Mr. Lear himself waited, in bed, wearing an old velvet smoking jacket and his familiar silver spectacles with tiny oval lenses. Several dozen straight-backed chairs had been arranged in a rough semicircle around the bed; these were soon filled, and later arrivals stood along the walls.
Mr. Lears first words were: "Ive no money!" As eaew group of guests ehe room, he repeated, "Ive no money! No money!" He looked extremely tired, yet calm. His ample beard, gray yet retaining patches of black, had evidently not been trimmed in some days. He seemed nervous and immediately began to discourse, as if to prevent anyone else from doing so.
He began by thanking all those present for attending and expressing the hope that he had not put them to too great an invenience, aowledging that the hour was "an unusual one for visits!" He said that he could not find words suffit to disclose his pleasure in seeing so many of his friends gathered together at his side. He then delivered a pretty little lecture, of some twelve minutes duration, on the produ of his various writings, of whio one has been able to recall the substance, although everyone agreed that it was charming, graceful, and wise.
He then startled his guests with a question, uttered in a kind of shriek: "Should I get married? Get married? Should I marry?"
Mr. Lear offered a short homily on the subject Friendship. Friendship, he said, is the most golden of the affes. It is also, he said, oftero of human ties, surviving strains and tempests fatal to less sublime relations. He hat his own many friendships stituted the richest memory of a long life.
A disquisition on Cats followed.
When Mr. Lear reached the topic Children, a certailessness was observed among his guests. (He had not ceased to shout at intervals, "Should I get married?" and "Ive no money!") He then displayed copies of his books, but as everybody had already read them, not more than a polite i was geed. he held up, one by one, a sele of hi<bdi></bdi>s watercolors, views of various antiquities and picturesque spots. These, too, were familiar; they were the same watercolors the old gentleman had been for sale, at ￡5 and ￡10, for the past forty years.
Mr. Lear now sang a text of Tennysons in a setting of his own, apanying himself on a mandolin. Although his voice was thin and cracked frequently, the soed vigorous applause.
Finally he caused to be hauled into the room by servants an enormous oil, at least seve by teing Mount Athos. There was a murmur of appreciation, but it did not seem to satisfy the painter, for he assumed a very black look.
At 2:15 Mr. Lear performed a series of as the meaning of which was obscure to the spectators.
At 2:20 he reached over to the bedside table, picked up an old-fashioned pen which lay there, and died. A death mask was immediately taken. The guests, weeping uedly, moved in a long line back to the carriages.
People who had attehe death of Edward Lear agreed that, all in all, it had been a somewhat tedious performance. Why had he seen fit to read the same old verses, sing again the familiar songs, show the well-known pictures, run through his repertoire once more? Why invitations? Then something was uood: that Mr. Lear had been doing what he had always done and therefore, not doing anythiraordinary. Mr. Lear had transformed the extraor<mark></mark>dinary into its opposite. He had, in point of fact, created a gentle, genial misuanding.
Thus the guests began, as time passed, tard the affair in an historical light. They told their friends about it, reenacted parts of<big>?</big> it for their children and grandchildren. They would reproduce the way the old man had piped "Ive no money!" in a ical voice, and quote his odd remarks about marrying. The death of Edward Lear became so popular, as time passed, that revivals were staged in every part of the try, with siderable success. The death of Edward Lear still be seen, in the smaller cities, in versions enriched by learned interpretatioual emendation, and ging fashion. One modification is curious; no one knows how it came about. The supp pany plays iraditional way, but Lear himself appears shouting, shaking, vibrant with rage.
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