1907]' Thompson's Last Visit 187 



lives the life of a rich city man. Several parties of Canadians and 

 Americans arrived from London to spend the afternoon, and talk 

 business with him. Rivers has become emphatically a beau vicillard, 

 well dressed, well cared for, alert and pleasant to all. He has what 

 after all is the chief consolation of old age, the sense of having suc- 

 ceeded in life, though he did not succeed in Egypt. 



" 28//1 Sept. — Thompson remains on at Rascall's Corner, somewhat 

 better in health, but intellectually defunct. His whole interest in the 

 last few days has been his wasp bite, which has been made worse by 

 the ammonia. He has managed, I believe, at last to finish his article for 

 the ' Athenaeum.' [It was on Sir Thomas Browne.] 



" yd Oct. — I am much interested in two long letters Father Tyrrell 

 has published in the ' Times,' a reply to the Pope's Encyclical, which 

 will probably bring on him a formal excommunication. I have written 

 to him to express my sympathy, and to tell him that if there had been 

 any exponent of views like his forty-five years ago, it might have made 

 all the difference to me in my spiritual life. 



" My niece, Mary Wentworth, has been staying here. 



" 16th Oct. — Thompson paid me his farewell visit to-day, Everard 

 Meynell having arrived in the morning to fetch him back to London. 

 We had become alarmed about him latterly, as since the weather began 

 to break up he has remained entirely indoors, shut in David's cottage 

 with a big fire and doors and windows carefully closed, a bottle of 

 laudanum, David tells me, beside him, and ill with diarrhoea. It has 

 reduced him to a skeleton. Meynell has sent a priest to see him, and I 

 felt that any day he might go suddenly. He needs some one with him 

 who can exercise control over him, but I doubt his living over Christ- 

 mas. As an intellectual force he is already dead, and his poor body is 

 dying, too." 



My account of Francis Thompson's visit to Newbuildings needs 

 supplementing on some points. During the first week he lived with 

 Everard Meynell at Gosbrook, a cottage which I had lent to them for 

 the purpose, and they came daily to us for luncheon, and to spend the 

 afternoon at Newbuildings. This was from 24th August until the 

 end of the month. Thompson at that time could walk the distance, a 

 mile there and a mile back, and he spent his afternoons with us as 

 already described out of doors in the Jubilee Garden, and each day, 

 when we had finished luncheon, he would retire to the New Room, 

 carrying with him a glass of wine with which he mixed some white 

 powder, and lying down on the long Madeira sofa, the same which had 

 been my brother's in his last illness, there remained half asleep during 

 the rest of the afternoon, going back to Gosbrook with Everard in the 

 evening. After Eveitard's return to London he moved to David 

 Robert's cottage, where he was well looked after by David and his wife. 



