Some last words will forever remain an enigma, their meaning gone to the grave along with their speakers. Henry David Thoreau’s "Moose, Indian," for instance, and the eerie last words of John Wilkes Booth as he emerged from a burning barn, fatally wounded, looked at his hands and muttered, "Useless, useless." In a similar vein, what to make of conductor Leonard Bernstein’s last words—"What’s this?"—or novelist Victor Hugo’s "I see black light"?

To me, the most genuine last words are those that arise naturally from the moment, such as Voltaire’s response to a request that he forswear Satan: "This is no time to make new enemies." Compare that to the stagy, obviously rehearsed "Now comes the mystery" (Henry Ward Beecher) or Ludwig van Beethoven’s "Friends, applaud. The comedy is over."

It may well be that planning your last words is no more profitable a pursuit than preparing your Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Who can say when the Grim Reaper will tap a bony finger on your shoulder? It is unlikely that poet Dylan Thomas thought "I’ve had 18 straight whiskeys. I think that’s the record" was going to be his swan song.

Could it be that "great last words" are a myth of the hale and hearty, and that the expiring understand that the deathbed is no place for 11th-hour philosophizing? Didn’t Christ himself sign off with the unpretentious "It is finished"? Besides, why should the mundane act of dying bring one any closer to the truth? Karl Marx may have had it right, for once, when he answered his housekeeper’s request for last words with: "Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough!"



Christopher Orlet is a freelance writer whose essays have appeared in Salon.com, Exquisite Corpse, and Pif. From The Vocabula Review (www.vocabula.com), a monthly Web publication dedicated to the proper and elegant use of the English language. Subscriptions: $4.95/yr. from www.vocabula.com