CHAPTER XVI. PROFESSIONAL CHARACTER.--RELATIONS WITH OTHER PLAYERS.--THE FUTURE OF THE DRAMA.

One of the most striking traits in the character of Forrest was a profound respect for his profession and a scrupulous observance of the duties it imposed. His conscientiousness in studying his parts, in being punctual in rehearsal and at performance, in holding all considerations of convenience or pleasure sternly subordinate to the conditions for the best fulfilment of his rÔle, were worthy of exact imitation. Before beginning a season he went into training, carefully regulating his habits in diet and in hours of exercise and sleep; and during an engagement he always exerted a good deal of self-denial in the nursing and husbanding of his powers. He strove also to improve in his renderings not only by an earnest, direct study of the part, and by a careful attention to critical suggestions from every quarter, but likewise by keeping his faculties alert during his own performances to catch every hint of inspiration from nature or accident, to seize on the causes of each failure or success, and to utilize the experience for the future.

These same habits of punctuality and critical self-observation belonged to Mrs. Siddons, and were one of the secrets of her astonishing rise, just as they were of that of Forrest. The first time that Mrs. Siddons played the part of Lady Macbeth, she says, “So little did I know of my part when it came night that my shame and confusion cured me, for the remainder of my life, of procrastinating my business.” After this first performance of Lady Macbeth, Mrs. Siddons recalled in her dressing-room what she had done, and practised various improvements. Trying to get the right look and tone for the words, “Here’s the smell of the blood still,” she did it so naturally that her maid exclaimed, “Dear me, ma’am, how hysterical you are! I vow, ma’am, it’s not blood, but rose-paint and water!”

Perhaps the just sense which Forrest had of the dignity of his profession, and likewise his sense of manly behavior, will be shown most forcibly by an anecdote. An old schoolmate of his, who had become a clergyman, met him one day and asked the favor of a ticket to his performance of Lear that evening, but added that he wished his seat to be in a private box where he could see without being seen. “No, sir,” was the reply with which the player rebuked the preacher; “when I look at my audience I should feel ashamed to see there one who is ashamed to be seen. Permit me to say, sir, that our acquaintance ends here.” Had he remembered the lines of Richard Perkins to the old dramatic author Thomas Heywood, their quotation would have been apt and pungent:

In no element or domain of his life was Forrest more misunderstood and belied than in regard to his general and particular relations with the other members of his profession. Justice to his memory requires that the truth be shown; and, besides, the subject has a strong interest.

The exercise of the dramatic faculty by itself is productive of tenderness, largeness, flexibility, and generosity of mind and heart. It is based on a rich, free intelligence and sensibility, and serves directly to quicken and invigorate the imagination and the sympathies. In fact, so far as its offices are fulfilled it delivers one from the hard, narrow limits of his own selfhood, familiarizes him with the conception and feeling of other grades and styles of character, conduct, and experience, through his passing assumptions of their parts and identification with their varieties develops the whole range of his nature, and makes him, while sensitive to differences, tolerant of them and full of charity. The true moral genius of the drama, supremely exemplified in Shakspeare, is the same genial gentleness and forbearing magnanimity towards every form of humanity as is shown by the God whose earth sustains and sky overarches and rain and sun and harvest visit and bless alike the coward and the hero, the saint and the scoundrel. For the moral essence of the drama consists in the recognition and appreciation of character and manners, not in asserting the will of self nor in assailing the wills of others. But there is a sharp contradiction between this natural tendency of the dramatic art by itself and the ordinary influence exerted by the professional practice of the art as a means of gaining celebrity and a livelihood. If the former would develop a generous emulation to see who can best reproduce in sympathetic imagination every height and depth of human nature and life, the latter instinctively stimulates a hostile rivalry to see who can secure the best parts and win the most pay and praise. Thus the members of the histrionic profession are drawn to one another in kindly sentiment by the intrinsic qualities of their art, but thrown into a hostile relation by those accidental conditions of their trade which make them selfish competitors for precedence. The breadth of the intrinsic tendency of the art is seen in the unparalleled mutual interest and kindness of actors and actresses, as a class standing by one another in all times of adversity with a generosity no other class exhibits; the aggravating power of the accidental influence of the profession is exposed in the notorious jealousy and irritability of these hunters after popularity. Accordingly, among the votaries of the stage a great many friendships are fostered and a great many rankling animosities are bred.

Forrest had all his life too profound an interest in his art, too exalted an estimate of the mission of the stage, too dignified and just a mind, too deep and ready a sympathy, to be capable of the contempt and dislike for his theatrical compeers and associates of which he was often accused. He was an irascible and imperious man. He was not a suspicious, an envious, or an unkind man. And the high spirit of affection and munificence breathing in his beautiful bequest of all his fortune to soothe the declining years of aged or disabled actors and to elevate their favorite art, will awaken a late remorse for the great wrong done his heart.

Others have suffered the same wrongs. Mrs. Siddons was accused of “pride, insolence, and savage insensibility to the distresses of her theatrical associates.” She was satirized in the daily papers for her parsimony and avaricious inhospitality. The charges were cruelly unjust. The truth simply was that she was engrossed in labor, study, and the fulfilment of her duties to her family, while the meaner part of the profession and of the public wished her to give herself to their convivialities. Lawyers are not expected to plead cases for one another gratuitously, nor doctors to transfer a fee to a rival. Why should an actor alone be held bound to give his time and earnings to his associates whenever they ask? The practice of calling up and representing together the noblest sentiments of human nature is expected to create in them more friendship, more genial feeling, than is cultivated in others. This is a compliment to the profession. But any actor of high rank who protects his individuality and asks no favor beyond justice and good will, dignifies his profession and serves the true interests of its members.

Forrest had too profound and assured a sense of his own place and rank and worth to be restlessly inquisitive and sensitive as to what his associates thought or felt about him, or to feel any mean twinge of jealousy at any attention they could draw. He did not, as Macready and so many other renowned players did, desire to monopolize everything to himself when before an audience. On the contrary, nothing so much pleased him as to see another actor or actress studious, aspiring, and successful. Then the more applause they secured the better he liked it. But one point there was in his conduct which gave much offence to many and was not forgiven by them. He shrank from all familiar association with those of his profession who were not gentlemen and ladies in their personal self-respect and professional conduct. He had a horror for carelessness, sloth, unpunctuality, untruthfulness, drunkenness, or other common neglect of duty and thrift, whether arising from a slipshod good nature or from depravity. And it is notorious that the dramatic profession, although the freest of all professions from the darker crimes, is much addicted to indulgence in the vices associated with conviviality and a relaxed sternness of social conscience. The temptations to these snares of soul and body Forrest had felt and resisted. The opposite traits he had made a second nature. He liked men and women who kept their word, did their duty, saved their money, and aspired to do more excellent work and win a better position. It was because so many of those with whom he came in contact on the stage were not studious, prompt, careful, self-respectful, but idle, loose, negligent, reckless, that he stood socially aloof from them, censured them, and drew their hostility. But the more faithful and honorable body of the profession always cherished a warm appreciation of his sterling qualities of character and stood in the most friendly personal relations with him. Repeatedly, in different periods of his career, in Great Britain and in America, the whole company of a theatre, at the close of one of his engagements, united in bestowing some gift, with an address, in testimony of their sense of his courtesy, their admiration for his genius, and their gratitude for his professional example. John McCullough, who for five years played second parts to him and was his intimate comrade on and off the stage, speaks of him thus: “He was exact to a moment in every appointment; and the tardiness of any one delaying a rehearsal stirred his mightiest anger. He would sternly say to the offender, ‘You have stolen from these ladies and gentlemen ten minutes of their time,—ten minutes that even God cannot restore.’ But to those whom he saw attentive and industrious he was the kindest of men. No matter how incapable they might be, he aided them to the full extent of his power, often at rehearsal playing the most unimportant parts to teach an actor, and encouraging him by kind words and treatment. He never recognized the existence of weaknesses so long as they did not interfere with business. An actor might be what he pleased in private life until he carried the effects into moments of duty, and then he knew no mercy. On the stage he was the best and easiest of men. It was a pleasure to act with him. He would in every way assist those around him, aid them in every possible fashion, and do all to strengthen their faith in him and in themselves. Particularly was this so in the case of subordinates; while to equals who showed the slightest carelessness or injustice he was unrelenting.” And in this connection the following letter written by Forrest to Thomas Barry, manager of the old Tremont Theatre and of the later Boston Theatre, is very characteristic:

“My dear Mr. Barry,—From an expression which you used to me while I had the pleasure to be with you last in Boston, I inferred that you could not justify my conduct towards Mr. —— in refusing him permission to act with me during my late engagement there. When I briefly replied to your expression, I supposed I had answered your objections. But, thinking over the matter since, I am not so certain that I had convinced you of my undeniable right to pursue the course I then adopted. So I will now more fully state my views of the question.

“It is an axiom that a man in a state of liberty may choose his own associates, and if he find one to be treacherous and unworthy he may discard him. Therefore I discard Mr. ——. Again, I never believed in the hypocrisy which tells us to love our enemies. My religion is to love the good and to eschew the evil. Therefore I eschew Mr. ——. Physical cowardice may be forgiven, but I never forgave a moral coward; and therefore I forgive not Mr. ——. He who insists upon associating, professionally or otherwise, with another known to despise him, is a wretch unworthy of the name of man. Consequently Mr. —— is unworthy of the name of man. But, sir, besides all this, I have an indisputable right to choose from the company such actors as I consider will render me the most agreeable as well as the most efficient support.

“In my rejection of Mr. —— I took the earliest care not to jeopardize any of the interests of your theatre. For I advised you in ample time of my resolution, warning you of my intentions, and giving my reasons therefor, so that you might choose between the services of Mr. —— and my own. For, while I claim the right in these matters to choose for myself, I unhesitatingly concede the same right to another.

“And now if, after this expression of my views relative to this thing, you still hold to the opinion that my conduct was unjustifiable, you cannot with the slightest propriety ask me to fulfil another engagement so long as Mr. —— remains in your company. For I pledge you my word as a man that he shall never, under any circumstances, act with me again.

Two incidents of a different kind will illustrate other qualities in the character of Forrest. A boy of sixteen or seventeen had a few lines to recite. At rehearsal his delivery was incorrect and annoying. Forrest repeated the lines, and asked to have them read in that manner. Each attempt failed more badly than the preceding. At last, quite irritated and out of patience, Forrest said, “Not so, not so. Read the passage as I do.” The boy looked up with an injured but not immodest air, and replied, “Mr. Forrest, if I could read the lines as you do, I should not be occupying the low position I do in this company.” Forrest felt that his petulance had been unjust. His chin sank upon his breast as he paused a moment in reflection. Then he said, “I am properly rebuked, and I ask your pardon.” At the close of the rehearsal he went to the manager and inquired, “How much do you give that boy a week?” “Eight dollars.” “Well, during my engagement pay him sixteen, and charge the extra amount to me.”

At another rehearsal the company had been waiting some time for the arrival of a subordinate player who was usually very prompt and faithful. When the delinquent entered, Forrest broke out testily, “Well, sir, you see how long you have detained us all.” The poor man, pale, and struggling with emotion, answered, humbly, “I am very sorry. I came as soon as I could. I have suffered a great misfortune. My boy died last night.” A thrill of sympathy went through the company. Forrest stepped forward and took the man respectfully by the hand, and said, “Excuse me, my friend, and go back to your home at once. You ought not to be here to-day, and we will get along in some way without you.” Then, giving him a fifty-dollar bill, he added, “And accept this with my sincere apology.”

The tremendous strength of Forrest, and the downright earnestness with which he used it on those unhappy men whose business it was to be seized, shaken, and hurled about, gave rise to scores of apocryphal stories concerning his violence in acting and the terrible sufferings of his subordinates. In many of these stories, under their exaggeration, something characteristic can be discerned. On a certain occasion when he impersonated a Roman hero attacked by six minions of a tyrant, he complained that the aforesaid minions were too tame; they did not come upon him as if it were a real struggle. After his storming against their inefficiency, the supernumeraries sulked and consulted. Their captain said, “If you want this to be a bully fight, Mr. Forrest, you have only to say so.” “I do,” he replied. When the scene came on, the hero was standing in the middle of the stage. The minions entered and deployed in rapid skirmishing. One struck energetically at his face, a second levelled a strenuous kick at his paunch, and the remainder made ready to rush for a decisive tussle. For one instant he stood astounded, his chest heaving, his eyes flashing, his legs planted like columns of rock. Then came two minutes of powerful acting, at the end of which one supernumerary was seen sticking head foremost in the bass-drum of the orchestra, four were having their wounds dressed in the greenroom, and one, finding himself in the flies, rushed on the roof of the theatre shouting “fire!” Forrest, called before the curtain, panted his thanks to the audience, who, taking it as a legitimate part of the performance, protested that they had never before seen him act so splendidly. The story is questionable, yet through its grotesque dilatation undoubtedly one lower and lesser phase of the actor and of his public may be seen.

During the earlier years of his own pecuniary prosperity, Forrest lent at various times sums of money ranging from one dollar to five hundred dollars to a large number of his more improvident theatrical associates. In very few instances were these sums repaid. In most cases the obligation was suffered to go by default, and in many the favor of the loans, so far from being felt as a claim for gratitude, proved a source of uneasiness and alienation. To a man of his just, careful, straightforward character and habits this multiplied experience of dishonesty, often coupled with treachery and slander, was extremely trying. It nettled him, it embittered him, it tended strongly to close his originally over-free hand against applications to borrow, and made him sometimes suspicious that friendly attentions were designed, as they not unfrequently were, as means to get at his purse. The rich man is much exposed to this experience, with its hardening and souring influence on character, especially the rich man in a profession like the dramatic abounding with impecunious and unthrifty members. Under these circumstances it was certain that many unsuccessful applicants for pecuniary favors, persons whom he refused because he thought them unworthy, would slander him. But throughout his life his heart and hand were generously open to the appeals of all distressed actors or actresses on whom he believed assistance would not be thrown away. In many an instance of destitution and suffering among his unfortunate brethren and sisters sick, deserted, dying, did his bounty come to relieve and console. Among his papers a score or more of letters were found, with widely-separated dates, from well-known members of the profession, containing requests of this sort or thanks for his prompt responses. For example, there was one from the estimable gentleman and veteran actor George Holland gratefully acknowledging a gift of two hundred dollars. The kind deeds of Forrest were not blazoned, but carefully concealed. Yet the few friends who had his inmost confidence, who were themselves the frequent channels of his secret beneficence, knew how free and full his charities were, especially to worthy and unfortunate members of the dramatic profession. In the course of his career he gave over fifty benefits for needy associates, dramatic authors, and public charities,—from Porter, Woodhull, Devese, and Stone, to John Howard Payne and J. W. Wallack and the Dramatic Fund Association,—the proceeds of which were upwards of twenty-five thousand dollars. And when, in consequence of the thickening requests for such favors and the invidiousness of a selection, he made a rule not to play for the benefit of any one, unless in some exceptional case, he would still often give towards the object his price for a single performance, two hundred dollars. Yet, such is the unreasonableness of censorious minds, he was severely blamed for showing an avaricious and unsympathizing spirit towards his theatrical contemporaries. The accusation frequently appeared in print and stung him, though he could never brook to answer it.

Many a time on the last night of his engagement at a theatre he would send for the treasurer and make him his almoner for the distribution of sums varying from five to fifteen dollars to the humbler laborers, the scene-shifters, gasman, watchman, and others whose incomes were hardly enough to keep the wolf from their doors. During one of his engagements at Niblo’s Garden the actors and actresses for some reason did not receive their regular salary. Learning the fact, he refused to take his share of the proceeds until they had been paid; and, going still further, he advanced a sum from his own pocket to make up what was due them.

More interesting and important, however, than his pecuniary attitude towards his fellow-players is his moral relation. And this in one aspect was eminently sweet and noble. If he avoided unworthy actors with contempt, he yielded to no one in the admiration, gratitude, and love he cherished for the gifted and faithful, the lustre of whose genius gilded the theatre, and the merit of whose character lifted and adorned the profession.

The earliest strong and distinct feeling of love, in the usual sense of the word, ever awakened in him, he said, was by a young and fascinating actress in the part of Juliet, whom he saw in a Philadelphia theatre when he was in his thirteenth year. What her name was he knew not, nor what became of her, nor could he remember who played Romeo to her; but the emotions she awakened in him by her representation of the sweet girl of Verona, the picture of her face and form and moving, remained as fair and bright and delicious as ever to the end of his days. Recounting the story to his biographer one evening in the summer of 1869 as he sat in his library, the moonlight streaming through the trees in at the open window and across the floor, he said, “A thousand times have I wondered at the intensity of the impression she made on my boyish soul, and longed to know what her after-fate was. She was a vision of enchantment, and, shutting my eyes, I seem to see her now. Years ago I came across the following lines, which so well corresponded to my remembrance of her that I committed them to memory:

An actor named James Fennell, endowed with a superb figure and a noble elocution, and a great favorite with play-goers in the boyhood of Forrest, made an indelible impression on him. The finished actor, however, was an unhappy man, thriftless in his affairs, and an inveterate drunkard. When he had become an old man his intemperance grew so gross, and his indebtedness to his landlady was so great, that she would keep him no longer. Driven away, he roamed about for some time in despair. Finally, on a bitter winter’s night, amidst a pelting snow-storm, he came back and knocked at the door. The landlady opened the window and looked out. Fennell, a picture of woebegone wretchedness, struck an attitude and recited the lines,—

with such powerful pathos that the heart of the woman relented, and she took him in and cared for him till, a little later, he died. The piteous case of this actor, whose infirmity destroyed the fruits of his genius, taught the youthful Forrest a lesson which he never forgot.

Instead of looking to artificial stimulants to prop up forces flagging under the strain of the irregular exertions and late hours of a player, he learned to depend on a sufficient supply of plain, wholesome food, carefully and slowly taken, and a scrupulous observance of full hours of sleep. Had they followed this wise course, how many—like the brilliant and wayward Kean, whose conduct disgraced the profession his genius glorified, and poor Mrs. George Barrett, whose beauty of person and motion intoxicated the beholder—would have been kept from their untimely and unhonored graves!

The first actor of really strong original power and commanding art under whose influence Forrest came in his early youth was Thomas A. Cooper. From him the boyish aspirant caught much that was valuable. He always retained a grateful recollection of his debt, and spoke warmly of his benefactor. In the destitute age of the veteran, Forrest was one of the first movers in securing a benefit for him. Unable himself to act on the occasion in New York, he got up another benefit at New Orleans, in which he acted the chief part, and raised a handsome sum for his old instructor. Cooper warmly acknowledged the kindness of his young friend in a published card. On another occasion also the same spirit was shown. One of the daughters of Cooper was to make her dÉbÛt in the character of Virginia, the performance to be for the benefit of Cooper. Forrest agreed to give his services and play the part of Virginius. As soon as he heard that Miss Cooper would feel more confidence if her father played that part, Forrest consented to undertake the part of Dentatus. One of the daily journals remarked, “This is another instance of that generous kindness on the part of Mr. Forrest which has bought him golden opinions from all sorts of people. The public will award him the meed which such an act merits.”

Another actor of consummate merit, both as artist and as man, there was in Philadelphia, in whose public performances and personal intercourse the boy Forrest took the keenest delight,—Joseph Jefferson, the incomparable comedian, great-grandfather of the present Joseph Jefferson the exquisite perfection and unrivalled popularity of whose Rip Van Winkle have filled the English-speaking world with his fame. The elder Jefferson was a man universally beloved for his charming qualities of character and universally admired for his inimitable art. Forrest’s memory of him was singularly clear and strong and sweet. Whenever touching on this theme his tongue was full of eloquent music and his heart seemed steeped in tender reverence and love. He said the Theatre had produced some saints as well as the Church, and Jefferson was one of the most benignant and faultless. For thirty-five years he was the soul and life of the Philadelphia stage, the pre-eminent favorite of all, delighting every one who saw him with the quiet felicities and irresistible strokes of an art that was as nature itself. He played the characters of fools,—Launcelot Gobbo, Dogberry, Malvolio, the fool in Lear,—Forrest said, in a manner that made them actually sublime, suggesting something supernatural, through their mirth and simpleness insinuating into the audience astounding and overpowering meanings. In his age Jefferson risked his little fortune, the modest earnings of an industrious life, in an enterprise of his friend Warren, the theatrical manager. It was all lost. Once more he appealed to the patrons who had always smiled on him. The summer birds had flown, and his benefit-night showed him an empty house. The blow actually killed him. He left the city and went to Harrisburg, where he soon afterwards died among strangers. Hearing of his poverty and loneliness at Harrisburg, Forrest, who was then in his high tide of success, wrote to him that he would get up a benefit for him at the Arch Street Theatre and play Othello for him. But the heart-broken player replied that he would never be a suppliant for patronage in that city again. While he lay in his room very sick, the doctor called and found him reading Lalla Rookh. “I can assure you of a cure,” said the physician. Jefferson replied, in a sad but firm voice, “My children are all grown up. I am of no further use to them; and I am weary of life. I care not to get well. I think it is better to be elsewhere.” And so he died. Chief-Justice Gibson placed a marble slab over his dust, with a happy inscription which some nameless but gifted friend of the actor has appended to his own tributary verses.

The love and reverence which Forrest cherished for this exquisite actor and good man were in the eyes of the numerous friends who often heard him express them in fond lingering reminiscences, a touching proof of the goodness of his own heart despite all the scars it had suffered.

When Forrest was playing at Louisville in his youth, during a rehearsal of Macbeth he came to the lines,—

when Drake, the manager of the theatre, who happened to be on the stage, said to him, “Boy, who was Bellona? And who was her bridegroom?” The stripling tragedian was forced to answer, “I do not know.” “Then,” exclaimed Drake, “get a classical dictionary and study the thing out. Never go on spouting words ignorant of their meaning.” “Thank you, sir, for so good a piece of advice,” replied young Forrest, with a little mortification in his air. “I have had that lesson before, but see that I have failed to practise it as I ought to have done.” A long time after, in another city, when Drake had become a venerable white-haired gentleman, Forrest was rehearsing Othello in his presence. These lines were spoken relating to the magic handkerchief:

A citizen who was standing by Drake asked him if he could explain these strange words. He said he could not. Forrest immediately gave, with great rapidity of utterance, an elegant and lucid exposition of the classical superstitions on which the passage is based. He did it with such grace and force that the whole company broke into applause. He turned to Drake with a low bow and said, “My dear sir, I owe this to you. Do you remember the lesson you taught me at Louisville, fifteen years ago, about Bellona and her bridegroom? Allow me now to thank you.” As he took him by the hand the tears were rolling down the cheeks both of the old man and of the young man.

Forrest ever remembered with gratitude the kindness shown him by Mr. Jones, one of the managers under whom he made his first journey to the West and served his practical apprenticeship on the stage. And when the player had become a mature man, crowned with prosperity, living in his great mansion on Broad Street, in Philadelphia, and the manager was destitute and forsaken, bowed by misfortune and old age, he gave his early benefactor a home, taking him into his own house, treating him with kind consideration, comforting his last days, and following his dust to the grave with affectionate respect.

The relations of Forrest with the ladies who acted principal parts with him were almost uniformly of the most satisfactory character, marked by the greatest courtesy, justice, and delicacy. There were two or three instances of strong dislike on both sides. But in all the other examples, from his first assistants, Mrs. Riddle and Miss Placide, to his latest protÉgÉes, Miss Kellogg and Miss Lillie, there was nothing but the highest esteem and the most cordial good-will between the parties, their kind sentiments towards him ever sincere, his grateful recollections of them unalloyed. To that estimable woman and gifted actress, Mrs. Riddle, he especially felt himself indebted. In a letter to his biographer he says of her, “To her most kind and unselfish friendship, her motherly care, her wise counsels, the valuable instructions her artistic genius and experience enabled her to give me during two of the most critical years of my young life, I owe more of acknowledgment and affection than I can easily express or ever forget.”

But the most beautiful of all his relations with women of the dramatic profession was the long and sacred friendship subsisting between him and Mrs. Sarah Wheatley. This honored lady, distinguished even more for the rare strength and beauty of her character than for her extraordinary histrionic talent, was a great favorite with the theatrical public of New York. She was one of the few examples that charm and uplift all who feel their influence, of a perfectly balanced womanhood, commanding the whole range of feminine virtues, from modest gentleness and self-denial to august dignity and authority, fitted to sweeten, adorn, or aggrandize any station. She first went upon the stage, without any preparatory training, to relieve and support her family, and, as it were by instinctive fitness, was instantly at home and a mistress there. And after withdrawing from the public, she lived amidst the worship of her children and her children’s children to an extreme old age, full of exalted worth and serenity, the admiration and delight of the widest circle of friends, who felt that the atmosphere of her presence and manner more than repaid every attention they could lavish on her. Mrs. Wheatley saw the Othello of Forrest on the memorable night he played for the benefit of poor Woodhull. She felt his power, foresaw what he might become, and, with a generous impulse, went to him from behind the scenes and spoke kindly to him words of warm appreciation. The poor, unfriended youth was deeply touched. This was the beginning of an acquaintance which was never interrupted or shadowed by the faintest cloud, but grew stronger and holier to the end. She never noticed his foibles, for he never had them in her presence; and he thought of her with a loving veneration second only to that he felt for his mother. Her son, Mr. William Wheatley,—widely known to the dramatic profession as actor and manager, and esteemed by all for his talent, integrity, and refinement,—speaking of the beauty of this friendship after the death of the great tragedian, whom he had known long and most intimately, said, “If there was one sentiment deeper and keener than any other in the soul of Forrest, it was his reverence for a pure and good woman: and I know that his esteem for my mother approached idolatry, and that she regarded him with maternal fondness.”

On a certain occasion when his friend James Oakes was with Forrest in his room at a hotel in New York, something had occurred which had greatly enraged him. He was pacing up and down the floor in a fury, tearing and swearing with the greatest violence. A servant knocked at the door, and announced that Mrs. Wheatley was in waiting. “The change that came over my friend at the announcement of this name,” said Oakes, “was like a work of magic. The wrinkles left his brow, a smile was on his mouth, and his angered voice grew calm and musical.” “Mrs. Wheatley?” he said. “Ask her if she will do me the honor to come to my parlor.” Then, turning to his silent friend, he exclaimed, “Oakes, if you want to see a woman fit to be worshipped by every good man, a model of grace and dignity, a living embodiment of wisdom and goodness, you shall now have that grand satisfaction.” As she entered he lifted his head illuminated with joy, threw open his arms, and cried, “Why, Mother Wheatley, how long it is since I saw you last,—more than a year!” “It is a long time,” she answered, with a sweet and grave fervor; “it is a long time; and how has it been with you all the while, my boy?” Oakes adds, “It was a picture as charming to behold as anything I ever saw. It stands in my memory holy to this day.” When such experiences are found in the life of one whose biography is to be written, they should be recorded, and not, as is usually done, be carefully omitted; for these sacred passages are just what is most wholesome and needful in a world gone insane with selfish struggles, hatred, and indifference.

Of the appreciation Forrest had of the genius of the great comedian William E. Burton, he gave a striking expression in the last year of his life. He had been confined to his bed for several weeks in great agony. Oakes was sitting by him. Their talk turned upon the unrivalled gifts and charm of old Joseph Jefferson. Forrest poured out his heart warmly, as he always did, on this favorite theme. He then spoke of the wonderful pathos and instructiveness which might be thrown into the humblest comic characters, and added in close, “I would give twenty thousand dollars to have Burton alive again for ten years to go over the country and play the fools of Shakspeare!”

All who knew Forrest with any intimacy were well aware of his enthusiastic appreciation of the genius and affection for the memory of Kean. He never tired of expatiating on this subject. And he always felt a sharp pleasure in the recollection that when his friend Hackett, the incomparable American Falstaff, called on Kean in London, only a few days before his death, the first words of the dying tragedian were a kind inquiry after the welfare of Edwin Forrest. In his library one day, showing a friend a superb steel engraving of Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portrait of John Philip Kemble, he said earnestly and with a regretful tone, “I would give a thousand dollars in gold for a likeness of Kean as good as this is of Kemble.” He was familiar with the principal histories of the stage and biographies of players, and felt the keenest interest in their characters, their styles of acting, their personal fortunes. He also felt a pride in the fame and triumphs of his best contemporaries. He was always on kind terms with the elder Booth, to whom he assigned dramatic powers of a very extraordinary degree, although he believed that considerable of their effectiveness was caught from the contagious and electrifying example of Edmund Kean. In the last year of his life, when he was badly broken down in health and fortune, Booth said to Forrest one day, “I want to play the Devil.” “It seems to me,” said Forrest, “that you have done that pretty well all your life.” “Oh, I don’t mean that,” replied Booth; “I am referring to the drama of Lord Byron. I want to play Lucifer to your Cain. Would not that draw,—you cast in the character of Cain, I in that of Lucifer?” “I think it would,” remarked Forrest. “We must do it before we die,” replied Booth,—and went away, soon to pass into the impenetrable shadow, leaving this too with many another broken and unfulfilled dream.

Forrest assigned an exalted artistic rank to the very varied dramatic impersonations of Mr. E. L. Davenport, every one of whose rÔles is marked by firm drawing, distinct light and shade, fine consistency and finish. His Sir Giles Overreach was hardly surpassed by Kean or Booth, and has not been approached by anybody else. His quick, alert, springy tread full of fire and rapidity, the whole man in every step, fixed the attention and made every one feel that there was a terrific concentration of energy, an insane possession of the nerve-centres, portending something frightful soon to come. An old play-goer on witnessing this impersonation wrote the following impromptu:

It is a satisfaction to put on record this judgment of one artist concerning another whose merit transcends even his high reputation,—especially as a coolness separated the two men, Mr. Davenport having through a misapprehension of the fact of the publication of Jack Cade by Judge Conrad inferred that it had thus in some sense become the property of the public, and produced the play on the stage, while Forrest held it to be his own private property. He had been so annoyed by such proceedings on the part of other actors before, provoking him into angry suits at law, that his temper was sore. He wrote sharply to Mr. Davenport, who, even if he had made a mistake, had done no conscious wrong and meant no offence, and who replied in a calmer tone and with better taste. Here the matter closed, but left an alienation,—for Forrest when irritated was relentlessly tenacious of his point. Mr. Davenport is a man of gentle and generous character, respected and beloved by all his companions. He is also in all parts of his profession a highly accomplished artist and critic. Accordingly, when he expresses the conviction, as he repeatedly has both before and since the decease of his former friend and great compeer, that Forrest was beyond comparison the most original and the greatest actor America has produced, his words are weighty, and their spirit honors the speaker as much as it does the subject.

In a letter written to Forrest twenty-five years earlier, under date of October 10th, 1847, Mr. Davenport had said, “I have not words to express the gratification and pleasure I felt in witnessing your masterly performance. It was probably the last time I shall have an opportunity to see you for years; but I assure you, however long it may be, the remembrance will always live in my mind as vividly as now.”

The treatment also which Mr. John McCullough received from Forrest during his five years of constant service under him, the impression he made on his young coadjutor, and the permanent esteem and gratitude he secured from him, are all pleasant to contemplate. At the close of their business arrangement, Forrest said to McCullough, “I believe I have kept my agreement with you to the letter; but before we part I want to thank you for your strict fidelity to your professional duties at all times. And allow me to say that I have been most of all pleased to see you uniformly so studious and zealous in your efforts to improve. Continue in this course, firm against every temptation, and you will command a proud and happy future. Now, as a token of my esteem, I put in your hands the sum of five hundred dollars, which I want you to invest for your little boy, to accumulate until he is twenty-one years old, and then to be given to him.” McCullough says that with the exception of two or three unreasonable outbreaks, which he immediately forgave and forgot, Forrest was extremely kind and good to him, sparing no pains to encourage and further him. And in return the young man would at any time have gladly given his heart’s blood for his dear old imperious master, whom, in his enthusiasm, he held to be the most truthful and powerful actor that ever lived. Such an estimate by one of his talent and rank, making every allowance for the personal equation, is an abundant offset for the squeamish purists who have stigmatized Forrest as “a coarse ranter,” and the prejudiced critic who called him “a vast animal bewildered with a grain of genius.” It may well be believed that in the history of his country’s drama he will be seen by distant ages towering in statuesque originality above the pigmy herd of his imitators and detractors.

Gabriel Harrison was another actor on whom the personality and the playing of Forrest took the deepest effect. He was a long time on the stage, and, though he afterwards became an author, a teacher, and a painter, he never abated the intense fervor of his enthusiasm for the dramatic art. His “Life of John Howard Payne,” and his “Hundred Years of the Dramatic and Lyric Stage in Brooklyn,” show him to be a man of much more than common intelligence and culture. He knew Forrest well for many years, and cherished the warmest friendship for him as a man whose nature he found noble and whose intercourse charming. The last Thanksgiving Day that Forrest had on earth, Harrison, by invitation, spent with him alone in his Broad Street mansion, enjoying a day of frank and memorable reminiscences, delicious effusions of mind and heart and soul. Harrison, writing to the biographer of his friend in protest against the epithet melodramatic, records his estimate thus: “Are the wonderful figures of Michael Angelo melodramatic because they are so strongly outlined? Is Niagara unnatural and full of trick because it is mighty and thunders so in its fall? When I looked at it, its sublimity made me feel as if I were looking God in the face; and I have never thought that God was melodramatic. I have seen Forrest act more than four hundred times. I have sat at his feet as a pupil artist learning of a master artist. In all his chief rÔles I have studied him with the most earnest carefulness, from his tout ensemble to the minutest particulars of look, tone, posture, and motion. And I say that without doubt he was the most honest, finished, and powerful actor that ever lived. Whenever I saw him act I used to feel with exultation how perfectly grand God had made him. How grand a form! how grand a mind! how grand a heart! how grand a voice! how grand a flood of passion, sweeping all these to their mark in perfect unison! My memory of him is so worshipful and affectionate, and so full of regret that I can see him no more, that my tears are blotting the leaf on which I write.”

One further incident in the life of Forrest will also serve to illustrate his feeling towards the personnel of his profession. It is not without an element of romantic interest. It will fitly close the treatment of this part of the subject. At the end of the war he received a letter from a granddaughter of that Joseph Jefferson whose memory he had always cherished so tenderly. Residing in the South, the fortunes of war had reduced her to poverty, and she asked him to lend her a hundred dollars to meet her immediate necessities. With joyous alacrity he forwarded the amount, and deemed the ministration a great privilege. The sequel of the good deed will please every one who reads it. It need only be said that at the date of the ensuing correspondence Forrest had just been bereaved of his last sister, Eleonora:

“My dear Mr. Forrest,—I understand from my aunt, Mrs. Fisher, that during my absence from America, and when she had become destitute from the effects of the war, you were kind enough to let her have one hundred dollars.

“My being nearly related to the lady sufficiently explains why I enclose you the sum you so generously gave.

“Permit me to offer my condolence in your late sad loss, and to ask pardon for addressing you at such a time.

“Dear Mr. Jefferson,—I received your note of 13th inst., covering a check for one hundred dollars, in payment of a like sum loaned by me, some years since, to your relative, Mrs. Fisher.

“I have no claim whatever on you for the liquidation of this debt. Yet, as the motive is apparent which prompts you to the kindly act, I make no cavil in accepting its payment from you.

“With thanks for the touching sympathy you express in my late bereavement, I am sincerely yours,

When an actor vanquishes the jealous instinct of his tribe and really admires another, his professional training gives a distinct relish and certainty to his praise. When Garrick heard of the decease of Mrs. Theophilus Cibber, a sister of Arne the musician, he said, “Then Tragedy is dead on one side.” Also when seeing Carlin Bertinazzi in a piece where, having been beaten by his master, he threatened him with one hand while rubbing his wounded loins with the other, Garrick was so delighted with the truthfulness of the pantomime that he cried, “See, the back of Carlin has its expression and physiognomy.” Old Quin had a strong aversion to Mrs. Bellamy, and a conviction that she would fail. But at the close of the first act, as she came off the stage, he caught her in his arms, exclaiming, generously, “Thou art a divine creature, and the true spirit is in thee.” Within a year of the expulsion of Mrs. Siddons from Drury Lane as an uninteresting performer, Henderson declared that “she was an actress who had never had an equal and would never have a superior.” She remembered this with deep gratitude to her dying day; and when his death had left his family poor she played Belvidera in Covent Garden for their benefit.

Forrest was abundantly capable of this same liberal spirit. No admirer of Henry Placide in his best day could be more enthusiastic in his eulogy than Forrest was, declaring that in his line he had no living equal. He said the same also of the Jesse Rural and two or three other parts of William R. Blake. He had likewise a profound admiration for the romantic and electrifying Othello of Gustavus Vasa Brooke. And of the performance of Cassio in Othello and of Cabrero in the Broker of Bogota, by William Wheatley, he said, “They were two of the most perfect pieces of acting I ever saw. One night when he had performed the part of Cabrero better than he ever had done it before, producing a sensation intense enough in the applause it drew to gratify the pride of any player, he said to me, as he left the stage, ‘Never again will I play that part.’ And, surely enough, he never did. The reason why was a mystery I have not been able to this day to fathom.”

Forrest once said, “An intelligent, sympathetic actor, who resists the social temptations of his profession and keeps dignity of character and high purpose, ought to be the most charming of companions. In a great many cases this is the fact. With their insight into character, their power of interpreting even the most unpurposed signals, the secrets of society are more open to them than to others, and they have more adventures. This naturally makes them interesting.” He gave two examples in illustration. When he was playing in England, he and James Sheridan Knowles became warm friends. Knowles had often seen Mrs. Siddons act. Forrest asked him what was the mysterious effect she produced in her celebrated sleep-walking scene of Lady Macbeth. He said, “I have read all the high-flown descriptions of the critics, and they fall short. I want you to tell me in plain blunt phrase just what impression she produced on you.” Knowles replied, with a sort of shudder, as if the mere remembrance terrified him still, “Well, sir, I smelt blood! I swear that I smelt blood!” Forrest added that the whole life of that amazing actress by Campbell was not worth so much to him as this one Hogarthean stroke by Knowles.

The other anecdote related to an incident which happened to John McCullough, who for several years had been playing second parts to Forrest. He was staying in Washington. Two or three nights before the assassination of President Lincoln he was awakened by tears falling on his face from the eyes of some one standing over him. Looking up, he saw Wilkes Booth, and exclaimed, “Why, what is the matter?” “My God,” replied the unhappy man, already burdened with his monstrous crime, and speaking in a tone of long-drawn melancholy indescribably pathetic, “My God, how peacefully you were sleeping! I cannot sleep.”

Another element of strong interest in actors, giving them an imaginative attraction, is the obvious but profound symbolism of their art, the analogies of scenic life and human life. Harley, while playing Bottom in Midsummer Night’s Dream, was stricken with apoplexy. Carried home, the last words he ever spoke were the words in his part, “I feel an exposition to sleep coming over me.” Immediately it was so, and he slept forever. The aged Macklin attended the funeral of Barry. Looking into the grave, he murmured, “Poor Spranger!” One would have led him away, but the old man said, mournfully, “Sir, I am at my rehearsal; do not disturb my reverie.” The elements of the art of acting are the applied elements of the science of human nature. They are the same on the stage as in life, save that there they are systematized and pronounced, set in relief, and consequently excite a more vivid interest. How rich it would have been to share in the fellowship of Lekain and Garrick when in the Champs ElysÉes they practised the representation of drunkenness! “How is that?” said Lekain. “Very well,” replied Garrick. “You are all drunk except your left leg.”

Such works as Colley Cibber’s Apology, the several lives of Garrick, Boaden’s Life of Kemble, Macklin’s Memoirs, Campbell’s Life of Mrs. Siddons, Galt’s Lives of the Players, Proctor’s Life of Kean, Collier’s Annals of the Stage, Doran’s His Majesty’s Servants, were familiar to Forrest. His memory was well stored with their contents. He had reflected carefully and much on the general topics of which they treat, and he conversed on them with eloquence and with wisdom. He cherished an eager interest in everything pertaining to his profession viewed in its most comprehensive aspect. His intelligent and profound enthusiasm for the theatre gave him an entire faith that the drama is destined to flourish as long as human nature shall be embodied in men. Its seeming eclipse by cheaper and coarser attractions he held to be but temporary. Its perversion and degradation in meaningless spectacles and prurient dances will pass by, and its restoration to its own high mission, the exhibition of the grandest elements of the soul in the noblest situations, the teaching of the most beautiful and sublime lessons by direct exemplification in breathing life, will give it, ere many generations pass, a glory and a popular charm it has never yet known. Then we may expect to see a great purification and enrichment of the subject-matter presented on the stage. The mere animal affections will cease to have an exaggerated and morbid attention paid to them. Justice will be done to the generic moral sentiments of man, and to his noblest historic and ideal types. The passions of love of truth and spiritual aspiration will dilate in treatment, those of individual jealousy and social ambition dwindle. Instructive and inspiring plays will be constructed out of the veracious materials furnished by characters and careers like those of Columbus and Galileo.

Certainly the realization of such a vision is a great desideratum; because the theatre is a sort of universal Church of Humanity, where good and evil are shown in their true colors without formalism or cant. Its influence—unlike that of sectarian enclosures—is to draw all its attendants together in common sympathies towards the good and fair, and in common antipathies for the foul and cruel. Men are more open and generous in their pleasures than in their pains. Places of public amusement are the first to vibrate to the notes of public joy or grief, defeat or triumph. Telegrams announcing victories or calamities are read from the stage. Theatres are sure to be decked on great festival or pageant days, the popular pulse beating strongest there.

The taste for dramatic representations is native and ineradicable in man. It is a fixed passion with man to love to see the passions of men exhibited in plot and action, and to watch the mutual workings of characters on one another through their different manners of behavior. Just now, it is true, the great, complex, terribly exciting and exacting drama of real life, revealed to us in the newspaper and the novel and the telegraph, so fastens and drains our sympathies that we lack the ideal freedom and restful leisure to enjoy the stage drama so eagerly as it was enjoyed at an earlier and simpler time. But this will not always be so;—

Forrest looked for a revival, at no remote date, in America and Europe, of the ancient Greek pride and joy in athletic exercises and the development of nude strength and beauty. The reflex influence from such a revival, he imagined, would flood the stage with a new lustre, making it a resplendent and exalted centre for the inspiring exposure to the public of the perfected models of every form of human excellence. Then the gymnasium, the circus, the race-course, dance, music, song, and the intellectual emulations of the academy may all be grouped around the theatre and find their dazzling climax in the scenic drama, made religious once more as it was in the palmiest day of Greece.