The Project Gutenberg EBook of Records of Later Life, by Frances Ann Kemble

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Records of Later Life

Author: Frances Ann Kemble

Release Date: December 6, 2009 [EBook #30612]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECORDS OF LATER LIFE ***

Produced by Suzanne Shell, Louise Pryor and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

{Transcriber's note:

The author's spelling and hyphenation are inconsistent, and have not been
changed except in the case of obvious typographical errors, which are
listed at the end of this e-text. Spellings and accents in foreign
languages are particularly eccentric.}

RECORDS OF LATER LIFE

BY

FRANCES ANN KEMBLE

NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1882.

COPYRIGHT, 1882,
BY
HENRY HOLT & CO.

RECORDS OF LATER LIFE.

PHILADELPHIA, October 26th, 1834.
DEAREST MRS. JAMESON,

However stoutly your incredulity may have held out hitherto against the
various "authentic" reports of my marriage, I beg you will, upon receipt
of this, immediately believe that I was married on the 7th of June last,
and have now been a wife nearly five mortal months. You know that in
leaving the stage I left nothing that I regretted; but the utter
separation from my family consequent upon settling in this country, is a
serious source of pain to me....

With regard to what you say, about the first year of one's marriage not
being as happy as the second, I know not how that may be. I had pictured
to myself no fairyland of enchantments within the mysterious precincts
of matrimony; I expected from it rest, quiet, leisure to study, to
think, and to work, and legitimate channels for the affections of my
nature....

In the closest and dearest friendship, shades of character, and the
precise depth and power of the various qualities of mind and heart,
never approximate to such a degree, as to preclude all possibility of
occasional misunderstandings.

"Not e'en the nearest heart, and most our own,
Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh."

It is