Nevertheless, the end of one at least of these steady friends and men of genius was drawing near with sure and rapid strides. Both were present at the anniversary of the death of the founder of the Charterhouse, "good old Thomas Sutton," on the 12th of that same month of December, 1863. At the celebration of Divine service at four o'clock, Thackeray occupied his accustomed back seat in the quaint old chapel; from thence he went to the oration in the Governor's room; and as he walked up to the orator with his contribution, the great humourist, Mr. Theodore Taylor, tells us, was received "with such hearty applause as only Carthusians can give to one who has immortalized their school."[1] At the banquet which followed he sat by the side of John Leech, who was one of the stewards, and proposed the time-honoured toast, Floreat Æternum Carthusiana Domus, in a speech which was received with three times three and one cheer more. John Leech replied to the toast of the stewards. The day is memorable as the last "Founder's Day," which either of these men—so eminently distinguished in art and letters—was ever permitted to attend.
Three days afterwards Thackeray was present at the usual weekly Punch dinner on the 15th of December, for, although he had long ceased to be a regular contributor to the periodical, he not only continued to aid the staff with his suggestion and advice, but was a constant member of the council,[2] But ever since the time he was writing "Pendennis," a dozen years before, he had been visited periodically by attacks of sickness, attended with violent retching. One of these occurred on the morning of Wednesday, the 23rd of this same month of December, and he was in great suffering all day. About midnight of that day, his mother, Mrs. Carmichael Smith,[3] who slept in the room above his own, had heard him get up and walk about; but as this was his habit when visited by these fell visitations, she was not alarmed. The man,
- ↑ "Thackeray the Humourist and the Man of Letters," p. 12.
- ↑ MS. Diary of the late Shirley Brooks, 1st January, 1864.
- ↑ Died on the 18th of December, 1864, exactly within a year from the date of her son's death.
