Llewelyn Powys, Final Words of Advice

Llewelyn Powys' last words (on his deathbed) : "Love life! Love every moment of life that you experience without pain."

It may have been Philip Larkin who put the last two words into italics (his introduction to Powys' "Earth Memories", 1983 edition). Earlier edition here (Google Books)

In his essay, "Natural Happiness", Llewelyn Powys writes:

"No human being should ever wake without looking at the sun with grateful recognition of the liberty of another day; nor give himself to sleep without casting his mind, like a merlin, into the gulfs between the furthest stars."

Sound Dorset wisdom! "Natural Happiness".

See my posting and photograph: Llewelyn Powys, Memorial Stone

Llewelyn Powys, from “Death” in “Ebony and Ivory”: “The unspeakable privilege of merely being above ground”.

"Is it not absurd that we cannot be happy in our little life that is so soon over? Yet who can regulate the lone cry of the curlew or the cry of the eagle in the clouds!" Llewelyn Powys, Letter to H. Rivers Pollock, 1930.

On Llewelyn Powys

Strange that some of the most lyrical essays ever written came from the pens of two men who suffered for much of their lives from tuberculosis: Llewelyn Powys and Albert Camus. Others include Alan Sillitoe, George Johnston and the Brontes

List of TB sufferers

Jimmie Rodgers, Whippin' that Old TB

TB Blues