Records of Later Life

by Fanny Kemble

Involuntarily, we certainly hope for better things, for respite, for rest, for enfranchisement from the thraldom of some of our passions and affections, the goods and bonds that spur us through this life and fasten us to it. We—perhaps I ought to say I—involuntarily connect the idea of death with that of peace and repose; delivery, at any rate, from some subjugation to sin, and from some subjection to "the ills we know" (though it may be none of this), so that my first feeling about it is generally that it is a happy rather than a deplorable event for the principals concerned; but then comes the loss of the living, and I perceive very well how my heart would bleed if those I love were taken from me. I see my own desolation and agony in that case, but still feel as if I could rejoice for them; for, after all, life is a heavy burden on a weary way, and I never saw the human being whose existence was what I should call happy. I have seen some whose lives were so good that they justified their own existence, and one could conceive both why they lived and that they found it good to live.

Of course, this is instinctive feeling; reflection compels one to acknowledge the infinite value of existence, for the purposes of spiritual progress and improvement; the education of the soul; but my nature, impatient of restraint and pain and trial (and therefore most in need of the discipline of life), always rejoices at the first aspect of death, as at that of the Deliverer. Sudden death I certainly pray for, rather than against, and I think my father and sister were horrified and indignant at my saying that I could not conceive a better way of dying than being smashed, as we were all together, on that railway, dashed to pieces in a moment, like those eight men who perished there the other day.... This drew forth a suggestion that, if such were my sentiments, we had better hire a carriage on the Brighton railroad, and keep incessantly running up and down the line, by which means there would be every probability of my dying in the way I thought most desirable.

I wish you would just step over from Ireland and spend the evening with me; Adelaide and my father will be at the theatre....

God bless you, dearest Harriet.

Ever yours,

Fanny.

THEATRICAL SUPERNUMERARIES. [Some years after writing this letter, having returned to the stage, I was fulfilling an engagement at the Hull theatre, and as I stood at the side scene, waiting to go on, two poor young girls were standing near me, of that miserable class from which the temporarily employed supernumeraries of country theatres are recruited. One of them, who looked as if she was dying of consumption, and coughed incessantly, said to her companion, who remarked upon it, "Yes, I go on so pretty much all the time, and I have a mind sometimes to kill myself." "That's running away from school, my child," said I. "Don't do it, for you can't tell whether you mayn't be put to just as hard or even a harder life to finish your lesson in another world." "O Lord, ma'am!" said the girl, "I never thought of that." "But I have very often," said I to her, as I went on the stage to finish my mumming.

The strange ignorance of all the conditions of life (except their own most wretched ones), even those but a few degrees removed from their own, of these poor creatures, betrayed itself in their awestruck admiration of my stage ornaments, which they took for real jewels. "Oh, but," said I, as they gazed at them with wonder, "if they were real jewels, you know, I should sell them to live, and not come to the theatre to act for my bread every night." "Oh, wouldn't you, ma'am?" exclaimed they, amazed that so blissful an occupation as that of a stage star, radiant with "such diamonds," should not be all that heart of woman could desire. Poor things—all of us!]

Harley Street, January 1st, 1842.

It is New Year's Day, my dearest Harriet. May God bless you. You will, I hope, receive to-day my account of my journey home from Bowood. Any anxiety you might have felt about us was certain to be dispelled by the note I despatched to you after our arrival, and as to the accident which took place on the railroad, I have nothing to tell you about it more than you would see in the newspapers, and it did not occur to me to mention it.