[Henry] remembered a scene when Alice must have been sixteen. It was one of those long dinners with one or two guests, he remembered, and someone was talking about life after death, and meeting members of their family after death, or hoping to, or believing they might. Then one of the guests, or Aunt Kate, had suggested praying to meet the loved ones in the next life, when suddenly Alice's voice rose above all the others and everyone stopped and looked at her.
"One need pray for nothing," she said. "Reference to those whom we should meet again makes me shiver. It is an invasion of their sanctity. it is the sort of personal claim to which I am deeply opposed." [p. 49, Scribner edition, 2004]
Friday, December 1, 2006
Alice James on meeting family members after death
Alice James was the invalid sister of the American philosopher William James and the "Anglo-American" writer Henry James. Apropos my post on the belief that we might be reunited with our relatives in the sweet by and by, Alice is represented in Colm Tóibín's novel about Henry, The Master, as having reservations about such a reunion:
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I would have gotten along famously with Alice.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean, and I think that you, too, might find the Tóibín novel choice. I'm enjoying it a good deal more than I imagined I would. Sort of the reverse of my reaction to Henry James's novels themselves, which I start to read with excited anticipation, only to be disappointed. I still want to read them, though...should I live long enough.
ReplyDeleteAlice has a point. I shudder to think who might pray to be with me, when I can't get far enough away from them in this life. The very idea that someone could stalk me right into the afterlife freaks me out.
ReplyDeleteHa, stalking! I hadn't thought of it like that, but I think you're right. Makes the whole thing seem even more absurd than it already seemed.
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