Records of Later Life

by Fanny Kemble

I am not sure that I succeeded in making him understand that that was only because I had been as frightened as I was capable of being, and, having touched the extremest point of terror, I had subsided into a sort of [ecstacy] of imbecility, in which I had found my "singing voice."

LONDON SOCIETY IN 1836. I returned to my home and family, and stayed with them in London all the time of my visit to England, which, from unforeseen circumstances, was prolonged far beyond what had originally been intended.

I returned to the intercourse of all my former friends and acquaintance, and to the London society of the day, which was full of delightful interest for me, after the solitary and completely unsocial life I had been leading for the two previous years.

My friend, Miss S——, was still abroad, and her absence was the only drawback to the pleasure and happiness of my return to my own country.

My father resided then in Park Place, St. James's, in a house which has since become part of the Park Hotel; we have always had a tending towards that particular street, which undoubtedly is one of the best situated in London: quiet in itself, not being a thoroughfare, shut in by the pleasant houses that look into the Green Park below Arlington Street, and yet close to St. James's Street, and all the gay busyness of the West End, Pall Mall, and Piccadilly.

While we were living at No. 10 Park Place, my cousin, Horace Twiss, was our opposite neighbor, at No. 5, which became my own residence some years afterwards; and, since then, my sister had her London abode for several years at No. 9. The street seems always a sort of home to me, full of images and memories of members of my family and their intimates who visited us there.

My return to London society at this time gave me the privilege of an acquaintance with some of its most remarkable members, many of whom became, and remained, intimate and kind friends of mine for many years. The Miss Berrys, Lady Charlotte Lindsay, Lady Morley, Lord and Lady [Lansdowne], Lord and Lady Ellesmere, Lord and Lady Dacre, Sydney Smith, Rogers, were among the persons with whom I then most frequently associated; and in naming these members of the London world of that day, I mention only a small portion of a brilliant society, full of every element of wit, wisdom, experience, refined taste, high culture, good breeding, good sense, and distinction of every sort that can make human intercourse valuable and delightful.

I was one of the youngest members of that pleasant society, and have seen almost all its brilliant lights go out. Eheu! of what has succeeded to them in the London of the present day, I know nothing.]

Park Place, St. James's, December 28th, 1836.

Nevertheless, and in spite of all your doubts, and notwithstanding all the improbabilities and all the impossibilities, here I am, dearest H——, in very deed in England, and in London, once again. And shall it be that I have crossed that terrible sea, and am to pass some time here, and to return without seeing you? I cannot well fancy that. Surely, now that the Atlantic is no longer between us, though the Alps may be, we shall meet once more before I go back to my dwelling-place beyond the uttermost parts of the sea. The absolute impossibility of taking the baby to the South determined the arrangements that were made; and as I was at any rate to be alone all the winter, I obtained leave to pass it in England, whither I am come, alone with my chick, through tempestuous turbulence of winds and waves, and where I expect to remain peaceably with my own people, until such time as I am fetched away. When this may be, however, neither I nor any one else can tell, as it depends upon the meeting and sitting of a certain Convention, summoned for the revising of the constitution of the State of Pennsylvania; and there is at present an uncertainty as to the time of its opening. It was at first appointed to convene on the 1st of May, and it was then resolved that I should return early in March, so as to be in America by that time; but my last news is that the meeting of the Convention may take place in February, and my stay in England will probably be prolonged for several months in consequence....