The 16-Day Chesterton Celebration ends today. Nick Milne saved his best for last: The Death of the Man Who Lived. Great prose; great pictures; great links for further reading. Excerpt:
There are many stories about these final hours, and all of them are touching. Fr. Vincent kissed Gilbert's writing pen, which lay on a nearby table, never to inscribe again. He also intoned the Dominican Salve Regina over Gilbert's prostrate form, an act that Maisie Ward calls a fitting tribute to "the biographer of St. Thomas."
Reports on Gilbert's last words vary, and I confess that I can find no definitive answer as to what they were. The two competing traditions are both of things that were certainly said by him in those final hours, but I do not know which came first, or which came after. The most likely candidate is his light awakening from his final lapse, turning to Frances and saying, "hello, my darling," and turning to his secretary, Dorothy Collins - for whom both he and Frances felt an almost parental affection - and saying, "hello, my dear."
Maisie Ward's biography suggests, alternatively, that the last from those lips was almost a warning: "The issue is quite clear now. It is between light and darkness and every one must choose his side."
