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244 from the penalties of old age. She herself had supplanted Mrs. Crawford, and not very gently. The transition point—the last in her life—had been reached, the chapter of active professional life was closed for ever, yet she could not resign herself to accept the decrepitude and inactivity of old age. "I feel as if I were mounting the first steps of a ladder conducting me to another world," she sighed. Moore mentions meeting her at the house of Rogers:

"Mrs. Siddons came in the evening; had a good deal of conversation with her, and was, for the first time in my life, interested by her off the stage. She talked of the loss of friends, and mentioned herself as having lost twenty-six friends in the course of the last six years. It is something to have had so many. Among other reasons for her regret at leaving the stage was, that she always found in it a vent for her private sorrows, which enabled her to bear them better; and often she has got credit for the truth and feeling of her acting when she was doing nothing more than relieving her own heart of its grief."

She took her professional farewell of the stage on the 29th of June 1812. As early as three o'clock in the afternoon people began to assemble about the pit and gallery doors, and at half-past four the mob was so great, that those who had come early, in the hope of getting a good place, were carried away by the rush of the increasing crowd under the arches. So great was the concourse of people, that not more than twenty of the weaker sex obtained places in the pit, and the house was crammed in every part. The play was Lady Macbeth. When the great actress made her appearance, she was received with thunders of applause; for a moment emotion overcame her, but, collecting herself, she went