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 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 their 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.