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:
“Still when I come to plays, I love to sit,
That all may see me, in a public place,
Even in the stage’s front, and not to get
Into a nook and hoodwink there my face.
This is the difference: Some would have me deem
Them what they are not: I am what I seem!”
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:
“BALTIMORE, December 17th, 1854.
“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.
“Yours truly,
“EDWIN FORREST.
“THOS. BARRY, ESQ.”
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:
“‘’Twas the embodying of a lovely thought,
A living picture exquisitely wrought
With hues we think, but never hope to see
In all their beautiful reality,
With something more than fancy can create,
So full of life, so warm, so passionate.
Young beauty, sweetly didst thou paint the deep
Intense affection woman’s heart will keep
More tenderly than life! I see thee now,
With thy white-wreathed arms, thy pensive brow,
Standing so lovely in thy sorrowing.
I’ve sometimes read, and closed the page divine,
Dreaming what that Italian girl might be,
Yet ne’er imagined look or tone more sweet than thine.’”
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,—
“Pity the sorrows of a poor old man,
Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door;
His days are dwindled to the shortest span:
Oh, give relief, and heaven will bless your store;—”
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.
For thee, poor Player, who hast seen the day
When stern neglect has bent thee to her state,
With fond remembrance let the poet pay
One tribute to thy melancholy fate.
Haply some aged man may yet exclaim,
“Him I remember in his youthful pride,
When sober age ran riot at his name,
And roaring laughter held his bursting side.”
There at his home, the father, husband kind,
Oft have I noted his calm noon of life;
With humor chastened, and with wit refined,
Enjoy the social board with comforts rife.
Him have I seen when age crept on apace,
Portraying to the life some earlier part,
The soul of mirth reflected from his face,
While bitter pangs disturbed his throbbing heart.
One night we missed him from his ancient chair,
Placed by our host beside the blazing hearth;
Another passed, yet still he was not there,
Gone was the spirit of our former mirth!
The future came, and with it came the tale,
How Time had cured the wounds the world had given;
How Death had wrapt him in his sable veil
And gently borne him to the gates of heaven.
Beneath the shadow of a sacred dome
The pride and honor of our stage reclines;
There stranger hands conveyed him to his home,
And graced his memory with these sculptured lines:
Beneath this marble
_Are deposited the ashes of_
JOSEPH JEFFERSON,
_An actor whose unrivalled powers_
Took in the whole extent of Comic Character,
From Pathos to heart-shaking Mirth.
His coloring was that of nature, warm, fresh,
And enriched with the finest conceptions of Genius.
He was a member of the Chestnut Street Theatre,
Philadelphia,
In its most high and palmy days,
_and the compeer_
OF COOPER, WOOD, WARREN, FRANCIS,
_and a host of worthies_
Who,
like himself,
_Are remembered with admiration and praise._
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,—
“Till that Bellona’s bridegroom, lapped in proof,
Confronted him with self-comparisons,”
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 sibyl, that had numbered in the world
The sun to course two hundred compasses,
In her prophetic fury sewed the work;
The worms were hallowed that did breed the silk;
And it was dyed in mummy, which the skilful
Conserved of maidens’ hearts.”
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:
“While viewing each remembered scene, before my gaze appears
Each famed depictor of Sir Giles for almost fifty years;
The elder Kean and mighty Booth have held all hearts in thrall,
But, without overreaching truth, you overreach them all!”
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:
“PHILADELPHIA, June 13th, 1871.
“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.
“Faithfully yours,
“J. JEFFERSON.
“TO EDWIN FORREST.”
“PHILADELPHIA, June 15th, 1871.
“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,
“EDWIN FORREST.
“J. JEFFERSON, ESQ.”
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;—
“The world will grow a less distracting scene,
And life, less busy, wear a gentler mien.”
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.