FRIENDSHIPS.—THEIR ESSENTIAL NATURE AND DIFFERENT LEVELS.—THEIR LOSS AND
GAIN, GRIEF AND JOY.
In addition to the satisfaction yielded by his professional triumphs,
the growth of his fortune, the enjoyment of his health and strength, his
taste for literature, his delight in nature, his love of country, and
the tributes of his fame, there was another element in the life of
Forrest which was of eminent importance, the source of a great deal of
comfort and not a little pain,—his friendships. Some sketch of this
portion and aspect of his experience must be essayed, though it will
perforce be a brief and poor one because these delicate concerns of the
heart are shy and elusive, leaving few records of themselves as they
glide secretly to oblivion enriching only the responsive places which
they bless and hallow as they pass. There are many histories which no
historian writes, and the inmost trials and joys of the soul are mostly
of them.
Friendship, in our times, is more thought about and longed for than it
is talked of, and more talked of than experienced. Yet the experience
itself of men differs vastly according to their characters, situations,
and companions. To some, in their relations with humanity, the world is
made up of strangers; they have neither acquaintances, enemies, nor
friends. To some it consists of enemies alone. To a few it holds only
friends. But to most men it is divided into four groups,—a wilderness of
strangers, a throng of acquaintances, a snarl of enemies, and a knot of
friends. Among the members of this larger class the chief distinctions
lie in the comparative number and fervor of their lovers and of their
haters, and in the comparative space they themselves assign to their
experience respectively of sympathy and of antipathy. Some men pursued
by virulent foes have the gracious faculty and habit of ignoring their
existence, giving predominant attention to congenial persons, and
forgetting annoyances in the charm of diviner employment. Others are
continually infested by persecutions and resentments as by a species of
diabolical vermin which tarnish the brightness of every prize, destroy
the worth of every boon, and foster a chronic irritation in
consciousness. To hate enemies with barbaric pertinacity of
unforgivingness tends to this latter result, while to love friends with
frank and joyous surrender tends to the former. Both the sinister and
the benign experience were well illustrated in the life of Forrest, who
had sympathetic companionship richly and enjoyed it deeply, although he
was pestered by a mob of parasites, censors, and assailants whom he
religiously abhorred and loathed. Hostility filled a large, dark, sad,
cold place in his history, friendship a prominent, bright, warm, and
happy place. The two facts have their equal lesson,—one of warning, one
of example. Blessed is the fortunate man who cherishes his friends with
loving enthusiasm, but never has a single grudge or fear or sneer for a
foe.
The universal interest felt in the subject of friendship—the strange
fascination the story of any ardent and noble instance of it has for all
readers,—the intense longing for such an experience which exists
explicit or latent in the centre of every heart in spite of all the
corrupting and hardening influences of the world—is a pathetic signal of
the mystery of our nature and a profound prophecy of our destiny. It
means that no man is sufficient unto himself, but must find a complement
in another. It means that man was not made to be alone, but must
supplement himself with his fellows. The final significance of
friendship—whereof love itself is but a specialized and intensified
variety—is an almost unfathomable deep, but it would appear to be this.
Every man in the structure and forces of his physical organism is an
epitome of all Nature, a living mirror of the material universe; and in
the faculties and desires of his soul he is a revelation of the Creator,
a conscious image of God. As the ancients said, man is a little universe
in the great universe,—_microcosmos in macrocosmo_. But every one of
these divine microcosms has a central indestructible originality
differencing it from all the rest. This is the eternal essence or monad
of its personality, which reflects in its own peculiar forms and colors
the substances and lights and shades of the whole. Thence arises that
inexhaustible charm of idiosyncrasy, that everlasting play and shimmer
of individual qualities, which constitutes the lure for all pursuit, the
zest wherewith all life antidotes the monotonous bane of sameness and
death. Now the secret of friendship becomes clear in the light of these
statements. First, it is the destiny of every man eternally to epitomize
in his own being the universe of matter and mind,—in other words, to be
an intelligent focal point in the surrounding infinitude of nature and
the interior infinitude of God. Secondly, he is to recognize such an
epitome embodied and endlessly varied in the endless variety of other
men, all of whom are perfectly distinguishable from one another by
unnumbered peculiarities, every shape and tinge of their experience
determined by their personal moulds and tints. Thirdly, the entire life
of every person consists, in the last analysis, of a mutual
communication between his selfhood and that surrounding Whole made up of
everything which is not himself,—an interchange of action and reaction
between his infinitely concentrated soul and his infinitely expanded
environment. Fourthly, when two men, two of these intellectual and
sentient microcosms, meet, so adjusted as mutually to reflect each other
with all their contents and possibilities in sympathetic communion,
their life is perfected, their destiny is fulfilled, since the infinite
Unity of Being is revealed in each made piquant with the bewitching
relish of foreign individuality, and nothing more is required, save
immortality of career in boundless theatre of space, to round in the
drama with sempiternal adventures and surprises, as, beneath the
sleepless eye of the One, the Many hide and peep beneath their incarnate
masks in life after life and world beyond world. Thus the highest idea
of the experience of friendship is that it is God glimmering in and out
of the souls of the friends in revelation of their destiny,—as Plato
would say, the perpetually varied perception of the SAME under the
provocative and delightful disguise of the OTHER. And every lower idea
of it which has any truth is in connection with this and points up to
it,—from the revellers who entwine their cups and attune their glee, the
soldiers who stand side by side in battle, and the politicians who vote
the same ballot, to the thinkers who see the same truths and the martyrs
who die in allegiance to the same sentiment. Everywhere, on all its
ranges, friendship means communion of lives, sharing of thought and
feeling, co-operative fellowship of personalities, the reflection of one
consciousness in another. Those who meet only at the bottom of the scale
in sensual mirth should be able sometimes, at least by the aid of a
literary telescope, to see those who commingle at its top in immortal
faith and aspiration.
Forrest possessed in a marked degree many of the qualities of a good
friend; although, of course, it is not pretended that he had the mental
disinterestedness, the refined spirituality, or the profound philosophic
and religious insight which calls one to the most exalted style and
height of friendship as it is celebrated for perpetual remembrance in
the In Memoriam of Tennyson. He was affectionate, quick of perception,
full of spontaneous sympathy and a deep and wide humanity, strictly
truthful, in the highest degree just in his principles and purposes
though often badly warped by prejudice, prompt in attention, retentive
in memory, and inflexibly faithful to his pledge. If he was proud, it
was not an arrogant and cruel pride, but a lofty self-assertion bottomed
on a sense of worth. And even in regard to his irascible temper, the
inflammability and explosiveness were on the surface of his mind, while
tenderness, justice, and magnanimity were in its depths, excepting where
some supposed meanness or wrong had caused hate to percolate there. The
keenness and tenacity of his feelings took effect alike in his
attractions and repulsions, so that he was as slow to forget a comrade
as he was to forgive a foe. In London he saw two carriage-dogs who had
been mates for years running along together, when one of them was
crushed by a wheel and killed. The other just glanced at him, and,
without deigning so much as to stop and smell of him, trotted on. From
the sight of this Forrest caught such a contempt for the whole breed of
carriage-dogs that he could never afterwards look at one without
disgust. It was hardly fair perhaps to spread over an entire race what
was the fault of one, but the impulse was generous. So long as any man
with whom he had once been friends behaved properly and treated him
justly he remained as true as steel to his fellowship. But open
dereliction from duty, or clear degradation of character, or, in
particular, any instance of baseness, cowardice, or treachery, moved his
scorn and anger and fatally alienated him. It will be remembered that
while yet a mere youth he played very successfully at Albany with Edmund
Kean, whose genius he idolized. After the play a man whom he had always
liked said to him, “Your Iago was better than Kean’s Othello.” Forrest
says, “I never spoke to that man again!”
There was a strong feeling of kindness and admiration between him and
Silas Wright, the celebrated Democratic Senator from New York. The day
was once fixed for an important debate between Silas Wright and Daniel
Webster. Early in the morning a man who had seen Wright drinking deeply
and somewhat overcharged went to Webster and said, “You will have an
easy task to-day in overthrowing your adversary; he already reels.”
Indignant at the meanness of the remark, the great man frowned darkly
and answered in his sternest tones, “Sir, no man has an easy victory
over Silas Wright, drunk or sober,” and stalked away. Forrest used to
tell this anecdote with characteristic relish of the rebuke pride gave
impertinence. He could well appreciate traits of character and modes of
conduct which he did not profess to practise but openly repudiated for
himself. For instance, though he preferred truth to charity when they
were opposed, he often quoted with the warmest admiration the sentiment
uttered by some one on the death of Robert Burns: “Let his faults be
like swans’ feet, hid beneath the stream.” And he also once said, “The
finest eulogy I ever heard spoken of General Grant was, as uttered by an
old acquaintance of his, ‘He never forgot a friend nor remembered an
enemy.’ Ah, is not that beautiful? If it be justly said, as I am sorry
to say I very much doubt, it sets a grace around his head which he
himself could never set there.” It is certainly a very curious—though
not at all an extraordinary—illustration of human nature to set against
the above utterance of Forrest the following quotation from a letter of
his dated Syracuse, October 5, 1868: “I saw by the telegraphic news in
the paper this morning that George W. Jamieson was killed last night by
a railroad train at Yonkers. God is great; and justice, though slow, is
sure. Another scoundrel has gone to hell—I trust forever!”
Of the very large number of friends Forrest had, his intimacy continued
to the end of life with but comparatively few. Fatal barriers and chill
spaces of separation came between him and a great many of them, caused
sometimes by mere lapse of time and pressure of occupation or removal of
residence and change of personal tastes, sometimes by alienating
disagreements and collisions of temper. These estrangements were so
numerous that he acquired the reputation of being a quarrelsome man and
hard to get along with, which was not altogether the fact.
One class of his earlier friends were in many cases converted into
enemies on this wise. Boon companions are easy to have, but cheap,
superficial, fickle. Genuine friendship, on the other hand, generous
community of life and aspiration, co-operative pursuit and enjoyment of
the worthiest ends, is a rare and costly prize, requiring virtues and
imposing tasks. Multitudes therefore are tempted to put up with jovial
fellowship in the pleasures of the table and let the desire for an
ennobling intercourse of souls die out. The parasitic and treacherous
nature of most pot-fellowship is proverbial. How well Shakspeare paints
it in his version of Timon! When the eyes of the generous Athenian were
opened to the selfishness of his pretended friends he became so rankling
a misanthrope that the Greek Anthology gives us this as the epitaph
sculptured on his sepulchre:
“Dost hate the earth or Hades worse! Speak clear!
Hades, O fool! There are more of us here.”
Forrest was not many years in learning how shallow, how selfish, how
untrustworthy such comrades were. He had too much ambition, too much
earnestness and dignity to be satisfied with a worthless substitute for
a sacred reality. He would not let an ungirt indulgence of the senses in
conviviality take the place of a consentient action of congenial souls
in the enjoyment of excellence and the pursuit of glory. More and more,
therefore, he withdrew from these scenes of banqueting, story-telling,
and singing, and found his contentment more and more in books, in the
repose and reflection of solitude, and in the society of a select few.
The most of those whom he thus left to themselves resented his defection
from their ways, and repaid his former favor and bounty with personal
dislike and invidious speech.
Another class of his quondam friends he broke with not on the ground of
their general principles and social habits but in consequence of some
particular individual offence in their individual character and conduct.
His standard for a friend—his standard of honesty, sincerity, and manly
fairness—was an exacting one, and he brooked no gross deviation from it.
When he believed, either correctly or incorrectly, that any associate of
his had wilfully violated that standard, he at once openly repudiated
his friendship and walked with him no more. In this way dark gaps were
made in the ranks of his temporary friends by the expulsion thence of
the satellites who preyed on his money, the actors who pirated his
plays, the debauchees who dishonored themselves, the companions who
betrayed his confidence and slandered his name. And thus the crowd of
his revengeful assailants was again swelled. A single example in
illustration of his conduct under such circumstances is marked by such
racy vigor that it must be here adduced. A man of great smartness and of
considerable distinction, with whom he had been especially intimate, but
whom, having discovered his unworthiness, he had discarded, sought to
reingratiate himself. Forrest wrote him this remarkable specimen of
terse English:
“NEW YORK, January 14, 1859.
“I hope the motives which led you to address me a note under date of
13th inst. will never induce you to do so again. Attempts upon
either my credulity or my purse will be found alike in vain. No
person however malicious, as you assume to believe, could change my
opinion of you. Your intention to write a book is a matter which
rests entirely with yourself. May I, however, take the liberty of
suggesting that at this late day such a thing is not really needed,
to illustrate your character, to alter public opinion, nor to prove
to the world how great a dust can be raised by an ass out of place
in either diplomacy or literature? There is already enough known of
your career to prove that your task of becoming the apologist for a
prostitution which has girdled the globe is one congenial to your
tastes, fitted to your peculiar abilities, and coincident with your
antecedents even from your birth to the present day.
“EDWIN FORREST.”
Furthermore, an important circle of his most honored friends fell away
from Forrest under circumstances peculiarly trying to his feelings. All
those who in the time of his domestic unhappiness and the consequent
lawsuits sympathized with the lady and supported her cause against him
he regarded as having committed an unpardonable offence. He would never
again speak with one of them. It was a heavy defection. It inflicted
much suffering on him and bred a bitter sense of hostility towards them,
with a sad feeling of impoverishment. For the places they had occupied
in his heart and memory were thenceforth as so many closed and sealed
chambers of funereal gloom.
But, after all the foregoing failures have been allowed for, there
remain in the life we are contemplating a goodly number of friendships
full of hearty sincerity and wholesome human helpfulness and joy,—
friendships unstained by vice, unbroken by quarrels, undestroyed by
years. Several of these have already been alluded to; especially the
supreme example in his opening manhood, his relations with the eloquent,
heroic, and generous William Leggett. Some account also has been given
of his endeared intimacy with James Lawson, who first greeted him on the
night of his first appearance in New York, and whose faithful attachment
to his person and interests grew closer and stronger to the day of his
death, never for an instant having seen the prospect of a breach or
known the shadow of a passing cloud. “My friend Lawson,” said Forrest,
when near his end, “is a gentleman on whom, as Duncan remarked of the
thane of Cawdor, I have always built an absolute trust. He has, in our
long communion of nigh fifty years, never failed me in a single point
nor deceived me by so much as a look, but has been as good and kind to
me as man can be to man.” Here is one of his letters:
“PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 1, 1869.
“DEAR LAWSON,—I am glad you like the notice of _Spartacus_. It was
written by our friend Forney, in his hearty and friendly spirit.
“My dear friend Lawson, it is not money that I play for now, but the
excitement of the stage keeps me from rusting physically and
mentally. It drives away the canker care, and averts the progress of
decay. It is wholesome to be employed in ‘the labor we delight in.’
What prolonged the life of Izaak Walton, but his useful employments,
which gave vigor to his mind and body, until mildly drew on the slow
necessity of death? I hope to take you by the hand when you are
ninety, and tell some merry tales of times long past. Day after to-
morrow I leave home for Cincinnati, and shall be absent in the West
for several months, and return with the birds and the buds, to see
you once more, I hope, in your usual enjoyment of health and
happiness. God bless you.
“Your sincere friend,
“EDWIN FORREST.”
And now some examples of less conspicuous but true and valued
friendships, selected from among many, claim brief place in this
narrative. William D. Gallagher, a Quaker by persuasion, a man of
literary tastes and a most quiet and blameless spirit, cherished from
boyhood a fervid admiration and love for Forrest ever gratefully
appreciated by him. He took extreme pains to collect materials for the
biography of his friend, materials which have been often used in the
earlier pages of this volume. Forrest desired his biographer, if he
could find appropriate place in his work, to record an acknowledging and
tributary word in memory of this affectionate and unobtrusive friend.
The fittest words for that purpose will be the following citation from a
letter of Forrest himself. “I deeply regret to inform you of the death
of William D. Gallagher, who on his recent visit to Boston was so much
pleased in forming your acquaintance and hearing your discourses. He was
a man to be honored and loved for his genuine worth. He was quite free
from every vice of the world. He carried the spirit of a child all
through his life. He was as pure and gentle, I believe, as an angel.
Though he cut no figure in society, I was proud to know that so good a
man was my friend. I used to feel that I had rather at any time clasp
his hand than that of the heir apparent to the throne of England.”
In the chief cities which Forrest every year visited professionally he
formed many delightful acquaintances, many of which, constantly renewed
and heightened by every fresh communion of heart and life, ripened into
precious friendships. Of these, John C. Breckinridge, of Lexington,
Kentucky, and John G. Stockly, of Cleveland, Ohio, and Charles G.
Greene, of Boston, Massachusetts, may be named. But more particular
mention should be made of James V. Wagner, of Baltimore. A Baltimore
correspondent of the “National Intelligencer,” in one of his
communications, says, “We learn that the distinguished American
tragedian during his recent sojourn in this city has presented a
splendid carriage and pair of horses to his long-tried and faithful
friend, our fellow-citizen James V. Wagner. When the celebrated actor
was but a stripling and at the beginning of his career, Mr. Wagner took
him warmly by the hand, and has been his ardent admirer and friend from
that time to the present. The gift is a magnificent one, and reflects
credit on bestower and receiver. It is an establishment altogether fit
for a duke or a prince.” In 1874 a son of Mr. Wagner gives this pleasing
reminiscence of the frequent and ever-charming visits of Forrest at his
father’s house: “Often in childhood have I sat upon his knee, and, as I
then felt, listened to the words of Metamora, Jack Cade, and Lear in
broadcloth. Often did he stroke my little black locks and ask me if I
would become a carpenter, a lawyer, a minister, or a merchant. I can
testify to his fondness for young children, consequently his goodness of
heart.”
Judge Conrad, the eloquent author of Jack Cade, the high-souled,
brilliant man, was a very dear and close friend of Forrest. The
impulsive and generous writer gave the appreciative and steadfast player
much pleasure and inspiration by his intercourse, and received a cordial
esteem and many important favors in return. On Forrest’s arrival from
Europe with his wife in 1846 he was greeted with this hearty letter by
Conrad:
“MY DEAR MR. AND MRS. FORREST,—A thousand warm and hearty welcomes
home! I had hoped to greet you in person, but my engagements
preclude me that pleasure. You doubtless find that the creaking and
crazy world has been grating upon its axis after the rough old
fashion since you left us; that there are fresh mounds in the grave-
yard, and fresh troubles in the way to it; but I am sure that you
find the hearts of old as true as ever. Your wandering way has had
anxious eyes watching over it; and your return is, in this city,
hailed with general rejoicing. Absence embalms friendships: friends
seldom change when so separated that they cannot offend. And to one
who has a circle such as you have, I should think it almost worth
while to go abroad for the luxury of returning home. Thank God that
you are back and in health!
“Mrs. Conrad and our girls unite with me in bidding you welcome. The
news of your arrival made a jubilee with the children. We all look
forward anxiously for the privilege of taking you by the hand.
“Very truly your friend,
“R. T. CONRAD.”
One brief interruption to this friendship there was. It originated in
some misunderstanding which provoked anger and pain. Forrest wrote at
once, not unkindly, and asked an explanation. He was rejoiced by the
immediate receipt of the following letter, which he endorsed with the
single word “Reconciliation,” and they were again united:
“PHILADELPHIA, June 25th, 1849.
“MY DEAR FORREST,—Your letter throws the duty of apology upon me,
and, from my heart, I ask your pardon, and will tear to tatters all
record of what has passed. But there is no madness Coleridge tells
us, that so works upon the brain as unkindness in those we love.
“Forget what has passed,—but not until you have forgiven one whose
pulses beat sometimes too hotly, but will always beat for you. This
single cloud in our past—a past all bright to me—has been absorbed
by the nobler and purer atmosphere of your nature. Surely it cannot
now cast a shadow.
“Before the receipt of your note I had written a letter under my own
signature, replying to a brutal attack upon you in the Boston
‘Aurora Borealis’ in relation to your course towards dramatic
authors. It will appear in McMakin’s ‘Courier,’ and I have seized
the occasion to make some editorial remarks upon the subject that
will not dissatisfy you; and, as the circulation of the ‘Courier’ is
nearly wide as that of the wind, I think it will do good.
“Let me sign this hasty note as most truly and heartily
“Your friend,
“R. T. CONRAD.
“E. FORREST, ESQ.”
The friendship with James Taylor, described in a previous chapter of
this biography, which was so pleasant and valuable to Forrest at the
time, never died, but was kept fresh and strong to the last. This will
appear from the interesting letters that follow:
“FIRE ISLAND, N.Y., July 14th, 1870.
“EDWIN FORREST, ESQ.:
“MY DEAR FRIEND,—When you were last at my house I promised you a
copy of my portrait of George F. Cooke. I could not until now
procure such a copy as I thought worthy to be sent you. It was first
photographed and then painted, and is an exact counterfeit of the
original. It is not full size. Several attempts were made to get a
good photograph copy, or _negative_, and in the present size it was
the most perfect. The history of this picture (I mean the one in my
possession) is as follows: A young gentleman by the name of Jouitt
studied portrait-painting with Sully in 1816, and on his leaving for
his native State, Kentucky, Sully presented him with this picture of
Cooke, being a copy of his _original picture of the great
tragedian_. Jouitt presented the picture to Captain John Fowler, of
Lexington, Ky., in 1818, and he on his death-bed in 1840 gave it to
me. He was an old pioneer, and came to Kentucky with my mother in
1783. Now, my old and much-admired friend, please accept this
portrait as a testimony of my high regard for you as a gentleman and
a man of genius. I often have a vivid recollection of the old times
when we were together,—the night you slept with me at Kean’s Hotel,
and the New Year’s dinner at Ayer’s Hotel with Clay, Merceir, and
others. We were young then, full of life, hope, and enthusiasm; and
I do not feel old yet. These days, my friend, I look back on with
pleasure. I was not then vexed or troubled with the cares of life.
If we should never meet again, I wish you much happiness and length
of days. I am here enjoying the breezes of ‘Neptune’s salt wash,’
fishing, and sailing. I shall return to New York in a week or ten
days. Please write to me at the St. Nicholas, as I desire to know
whether the picture reached you uninjured.
“Yours very sincerely,
“JAMES TAYLOR.”
“FIRE ISLAND, August 1st, 1870.
“EDWIN FORREST:
“MY DEAR FRIEND,—Yours of the 21st of July was forwarded to me from
New York at the close of last week, and I regret that it was out of
my power to comply with your request to meet you at your home in
Philadelphia. I have been here now over three weeks,—a most
delightful cool place,—and I only regret that I have to leave it in
the midst of the hot season to return to Kentucky, where business
calls me. I am gratified that you liked the portrait; it is in fact
a true copy of the original. Dear Ned, I often think of our young
days in Lexington with our friends Lewis, Turpin, Clay, and others,
and how happy we were amidst those scenes. But they are gone, and we
are almost old men. I hope we shall gracefully go down to death,
having courageously fought the battle of life. You will leave a name
and a fame behind you as one of the great masters of the dramatic
art. Should you again visit the West, you know where to find your
friend,
“JAMES TAYLOR.”
Another letter, much longer and more important, was addressed by Mr.
Taylor to S. S. Smith, a common friend to the two persons,—a friend of
whom Forrest once wrote to Oakes, “If my old friend S. S. Smith does not
go to heaven when he dies, the office of door-keeper there is a sinecure
and the place might as well be shut up. He is one of the most honest,
kind-hearted, trustworthy men I have ever known. I have always cherished
the warmest esteem for him.” This letter was written after the death of
Forrest, and contains a most interesting and touching tribute to him. It
belongs in the closing chapter rather than here.
Among the long- and well-cherished friends of Forrest, of a later date
than Taylor, were the two distinguished New York counsellors John Graham
and James T. Brady. The sudden death of the latter at the zenith of his
manhood called from him a strong expression of feeling in a letter to
one of their common friends: “The death of Brady shocked me very much.
He was a genial, noble man, and an eloquent and honest lawyer,—every way
so unlike the pettifogging peddlers of iniquity and the corrupt and
ermined ruffians of the bench whom we have known. I feel honored in
saying that I was his friend and that he was mine. His place will not
easily be supplied with any of those who knew him, and could not know
him without loving him. What an interesting figure he was, and how he
drew all eyes where he came, with his beating heart, his bright frank
face, his large and warm presence! He was a contrast indeed to those
commonplace creatures concerning whom nobody cares anything, and never
asks who they are, or what they do, or whence they come, or where they
go. I regret that he should have died and not have made friends with
John Graham. How I should like to have been instrumental with you in
bringing about a reconciliation between them!”
And now we come to the central, crowning, supreme friendship which most
of all alleviated the life and blessed the heart of Forrest alike when
he was young and when he was old,—the glowing bond of cordiality that
knit his soul with the soul of James Oakes. One of the two partners in
this happy league of unselfish love and faithful service has passed
through nature to eternity, while one still lives. To do justice to the
relation on the side of the former it is necessary to know something of
the character of the man who sustained the other side of it. And though
it is a delicate office, and one somewhat offensive to fashion, to speak
frankly of the traits of the living, except indeed in assault and
censure, yet, since truth is truth, and moral lessons have the same
import whether drawn from those who are alive or from those who are
dead, one who is called to tell the story of a departed Damon may
perhaps venture honestly and with modesty to depict his lingering
Pythias.
Oakes is a man of positive nature, downright and forthright, as blunt
and strong in act and word as Forrest himself, and, so far, fitted to
meet and mate him. He has made a host of foes by his bluff truth of
speech and deed, his sturdy standing to his opinion, his straight march
to his purpose. These foes, no matter who they were, high or low, he has
always scorned and defied with unfaltering and unrepentant vigor. He has
likewise made a host of friends, by his sound judgment always at their
service, his genially affectionate spirit, and his unwearied devotion to
gentle works of humanity in befriending the unfortunate and ministering
to the distressed, the sick, and the dying. To these friends, rich and
poor alike, and whether basking in popular favor or crushed under
obloquy, he has always been steadfastly true. No fickle misliker or mere
sunshine friend he, but, like Forrest, tenacious both in antipathies and
sympathies. His nature has ever been wax to receive, steel to retain,
the memory of injuries and of benefits, hostility and love. His
sensitive openness to the beauty of nature, to the charm of poetry, to
the voice of eloquence, to the touch of fine sentiment, is extreme.
Anything pathetic, noble, or grand makes his tears spring quicker than a
woman’s, and his blood burns with instant indignation and his heart
beats fast and loud against injustice, cruelty, or meanness. And yet he
is not what is called a society man, a careful observer of the sleek
proprieties of the polite world of conventional appearances. On the
contrary, in many things his aboriginal love of free sincerity has
shocked these. And he has been a strong lover of horses, of dogs, of
sporting life, and of the rough, warm, honest ways of fearless and
spontaneous sporting men. A soft heart, a true tongue, a clear head,
self-asserting character and life, pity for suffering, defiance to
pretension, contempt for fashion when opposed to nature, have been his
passports to men and theirs to him. From his boyhood he has taken
delight in doing kind deeds to the needy, carrying wines, fruits,
flowers, and other delicacies to the sick, being a champion for the weak
and injured, whether man or woman or child or quadruped or bird.
Hundreds of times has he been seen in drifting snow-storms, undeterred
by the pelting elements, in his wide-rimmed hat, shaggy overcoat, and
long boots up to his thighs, loaded with good things, on his way to the
bedside of some disabled friend or some poor sufferer forgotten by
others. His enemies no doubt may justly bring many accusations against
him. His friends certainly will confess his defects and faults. He
himself would blush at the thought of claiming immunity from a full
share of the weaknesses and sins of men. But no one who knows him,
whether friend or foe, can question his extreme tenderness, tenacity,
and fidelity of nature, his rare sensibility of hate for detestable
forms of character and action, his heroic adhesion and indefatigable
attentiveness to all whom he admires and loves.
His moral portrait is limned by the hand of one who had known him most
thoroughly on his favorable side as a friend for nearly all his
lifetime, in this private epistle:
“NEW YORK, Sunday morning, May 24, 1874.
“MY DEAR OAKES,—Your letter of the 22d reached me yesterday morning,
and was read and re-read with pleasure. When you tell me you foot up
sixty-seven, I find it difficult to believe you, and if you refer me
to the record I shall still exclaim with Beau Shatterly (do you
remember how poor Finn used to play it?), ‘D—n parish registers!
They’re all impudent impositions and no authority!’
“There are a few exceptional men in the world who project their
youth far forward into their lives, and this not so much from force
of constitution as from the size of their hearts. You are one of
these few phenomenal men. That you may long continue to flourish in
perennial spring is my sincerest prayer. You have been just and
generous (except to yourself),—to what extent you forget. I think
the recording angel must sometimes curse your good deeds, you have
given him or her or it (there is no sex to angels) so many to record
in that huge log-book which is kept up aloft for future reference.
In the race for salvation, while the saints (professional) are
plying steel and whipcord, jostling each other and riding foul, you
will distance them and go into the gate at an easy canter under no
pull at all. As for me, it is different. I stood near the pyramid of
Caius Sextius at Rome, at the grave of Keats, and read his epitaph
by himself, ‘Here lies one whose name was writ in water,’ and said,
That ought to be mine. However, I went up the steps of the Santa
Scala on my knees, invested fifty francs or so in indulgences, and
left the Eternal City whiter than snow,—but perhaps only as a whited
sepulchre is sometimes whiter than snow.
“Excuse my levity. You will read between the lines and find plenty
of sad and serious thoughts there. If I did not valiantly fight
against bitter memories, I should cave.
“Yours entirely,
“F. A. D.”
Oakes had many friends besides Forrest, some of whom he had known
earlier and most of whom were friends in common to them both. Among the
chief of these may be named—and they were men of extraordinary talent,
force, racy originality of character, and depth of human passion—George
W. Kendall and A. M. Holbrook, editors of the New Orleans “Picayune,”
William T. Porter, editor of the “Spirit of the Times,” Dr. Charles M.
Windship, of Roxbury, the romantic and tragic William Henry Herbert,—
better known as Frank Forrester, a sort of modern Bertrand du Guesclin,
who, when the woman he loved deceived him, resolutely severed every tie
joining him with humanity and the world, requested that no epitaph
should be written on him save “The Most Unhappy,” and quieted his
convulsed brain with a bullet,—Sargent S. Prentiss, of Mississippi,
Thomas F. Marshall, of Kentucky, George W. Prentice, Albert Pike,
Colonel Powell T. Wyman, and Francis A. Durivage. The inner lives of
such characters as these, and others whose names are not given, fully
revealed, show in human experience gulfs of delight and woe, degrees of
intensity and wonder, little dreamed of by the peaceful and feeble
superficialists who fancy in their innocence that the life of the
nineteenth century is tame and dull, wholly wanting in the extremities
of spiritual adventure and social excitement that marked the times of
old. The knowledge of the sincere life of society to day—the real
unconventional life behind the scenes—as it was uncovered and made
familiar to Forrest and Oakes, when it is suddenly appreciated by a
thoughtful scholar, an inexperienced recluse, gives him a shock of
amazement, a mingled sorrow and wonder which make him cry, “What a sad,
bitter, strange, beautiful, terrible world it is! O God! who knows or
can even faintly guess from afar the meaning of it all? These fathomless
passions of men and women, giving a bliss and a pain which make every
other heaven or hell utterly superfluous,—these temptations and crimes
which horrify the soul and curdle the blood,—these betrayals and
disappointments that break our hearts, unhinge our reason, and
precipitate us into self-sought graves, mad to pluck the secret of
eternity,—who shall ever read the infinite riddle and tell us what it
all is for?”
As the heaping decades of years rolled by, Oakes had to part with many
of his dearest friends at the edge of that shadow which no mortal, only
immortals, can penetrate. But, unlike what happens with most men, his
friendly offices ceased not with the breath of the departed. For one and
another and another and another of his old comrades, whom he had
assiduously nursed in their last hours, when all was ended, with his own
hands he tenderly closed the eyes, washed the body, put on the burial-
garments, and reverently laid the humanized clay in the earth with
farewell tears. To so many of his closest comrades had he paid this last
service that at length in his twilight meditations he began to feel a
chilly solitude spreading around. It was in such a mood that he wrote a
letter to one of the surviving and central figures of that group of
strong, brave, fiery-passioned men, who knew the full height and depth
of the romance and tragedy of human experience, and had nearly all gone,
most of them untimely, and several by their own hands. It was to Albert
Pike that he wrote. What he wrote moved Pike to compose an essay, “Of
Leaves and their Falling,” in which this touching, tributary passage
occurs. Having alluded to the dead of their circle,—Porter, Elliot,
Lewis and Willis Gaylord Clark, Herbert, Wyman, Forrest, and others,—he
proceeds: “James Oakes, of the old Salt-Store, 49 Long Wharf, Boston,—
‘Acorn’ of the old ‘Spirit of the Times,’—lives yet, as generous and
genial as ever. He loved Porter like a brother, and, in a letter
received by me yesterday, says, ‘This is my birthday! 67 is marked on
the milestone of my life just passed. Among the few old friends of my
early days who are left on this side the river, none is dearer to me
than yourself. As I creep down the western slope towards the last
sunset, my old heart turns with irresistible longings to those early
friends, my love for whom grew with my growth and strengthened with my
strength. Alas, how few are left! As I look back upon the long line of
grave-stones by the wayside that remind me of my early associates, a
feeling of inexpressible sadness possesses me, and my heart yearns
towards the few old friends left, to whom I cling with hooks of steel.’
And so he thanks me for a poem sent him, and tells me how he has worked
for the estate of Forrest, and sincerely and affectionately wishes that
God may bless me and keep me in health for many years to come.
“Ah, dear old friend! the cold November days of life have come for both
of us, and the dull bars of cloud scowl on the barren stubble-fields,
the wind blows inhospitably, and the hills in the distance are bleak and
gray and bare, and the winter comes, when we must drop from the tree,
and be remembered a little while, and then forgotten almost as soon as
the dead leaves.
“Well, what does it matter to us if we are to be forgotten before the
spring showers fall a second time on our graves, as Porter was, except
by two or three friends? What is it to the leaf that falls, killed by an
untimely frost, whether it is remembered or forgotten by its fellows
that still cling to the tree, to fall a little later in the season? Men
are seldom remembered after death for anything that you or I would care
to be remembered for.
“Porter would not have cared to be remembered by many, nor by any one,
unless with affection for his unbounded goodness of heart and
generosity. Nor am I covetous of large remembrance among men. If I
should die before him, I should wish, if I cared for anything here after
death more than a dead leaf does, to have Oakes come to my grave, as I
wish that he and I could go to that of Porter, and there repeat, in the
language to which no translation can do justice, this exquisite threnody
of Catullus:
INFERIÆ AD FRATRIS TUMULUM.
Multas per gentes et multa per æquora vectus,
Advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
Ut te postremo donarem munere mortis,
Et mutum nequicquam alloquerer cinerem,
Quandoquidem Fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum,
Heu miser indigne frater ademte mihi
Nunc tamen interea hæc prisco quæ more parentum
Tradita sunt tristes munera ad inferias,
Accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu,
Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.
“Discontented with the translations whereof by Lamb, Elton, and Hodgson,
I have endeavored this more literal one:
“Through many nations, over many seas,
Brother, to this sad sacrifice I come
To pay to thee Death’s final offices,
And, though in vain, invoke thine ashes dumb,
Since Fate’s fell swoop has torn thyself from me,—
Alas, poor brother, from me severed ruthlessly!
“Therefore, meanwhile, these offices of sorrow,
Which, by old custom of our fathers’ years
To the last sacrifice assigned, I borrow,
Flowing with torrents of fraternal tears,
Accept, though only half my grief they tell,—
And so, forever, brother, bless thee, and farewell!”
Such as he has been above described was the man who for forty-three
years best loved Edwin Forrest and whom in return Edwin Forrest best
loved. How much this means, the narrative of their friendship that
follows will show.
At the time of their first meeting, which took place at the close of the
actor’s debut in Boston in the play of Damon and Pythias, Forrest was
within a few weeks of twenty-one and Oakes a little less than twenty.
They had so many traits and tastes in common that their souls chimed at
once. When absent they corresponded by letter, and, seizing every
opportunity for renewed personal fellowship, their mutual interest
quickly ripened into a fervent attachment. Oakes had a passion for the
theatre and the drama. He earnestly studied the principal plays
produced, and soon began scribbling criticisms. These paragraphs he
often gave to the regular reporters and dramatic critics of the
newspapers, and sometimes sent them directly in his own name to the
editors. Afterwards, over the signature of “Acorn,” he acquired good
reputation as a stated contributor to several leading journals in the
East and the South. Both he and Forrest were great sticklers for a
vigorous daily bath and scrub, and very fond of athletic exercises,
which they especially enjoyed together, an example which might be copied
with immense advantage by many daintily cultured people who fancy
themselves above it. They were about equally matched with the gloves and
the foils, if anything Forrest being the better boxer, Oakes the better
fencer, as his motions were the more nimble.
As time passed and their mutual knowledge and confidence increased, the
sympathies of the friends were more closely interlocked and spread over
all their business interests and affectional experiences, and their
constantly crossing letters were transcripts of their inner states and
their daily outer lives. They scarcely held any secret back from each
other. Forrest almost invariably consulted Oakes and carefully weighed
his advice before taking any important step. Oakes made it his study to
do everything in his power to aid and further his honored friend alike
in his personal status and in his professional glory. For this end he
wrote and moved others to write hundreds and hundreds of newspaper
notices, working up every conceivable kind of item calculated to keep
the name and personality of the actor freshly before the eyes of the
public. His letters, with the alert instinct of love, were varied to
meet and minister to the trials and condition of him to whom they were
addressed, congratulating him in his triumph, counselling him in his
perplexity, soothing him in his anger, consoling him in his sorrow. In
the innumerable letters, transmitted for nearly fifty years at the rate
of from two to seven a week, Oakes used to enclose slips snipped from
the newspapers, and extracts from magazines and books, containing
everything he found which he thought would interest, amuse, or edify his
correspondent. Thus was he ever what a friend should be,—a mirror
glassing the soul and fortunes of the counterpart friend; but a mirror
which at the same time that it reflects what exists also reveals the
supply of what is needed.
One of the charms of the correspondence of Oakes and Forrest is the
ingenuous freedom with which their feelings are expressed. A shamefaced
or frigid reticence on all matters of sentiment or personal affection
between men seems to be the conspicuous characteristic of the Anglo-
Saxon race. The most that the average well-to-do Englishman or American
can say on meeting his dearest friend is, Well, old fellow, how goes it?
Glad to see you! It is painful for a really rich and tender heart to
move about in this sterile wilderness of dumb and bashful sympathy or
frozen and petrified love. But these friends were wont to speak their
free hearts each to each without reserve or affectation. Early in their
acquaintance Oakes writes thus:
“MY DEAR FORREST,—I cannot tell you how much delight I had in your
visit to me. When you left, the sinking of my heart told me how dear
you had become. The more I see of you the more I find to honor and
to love. I set your image against the remembrance of all the scamps
I have known, and think more highly of the human race. How I long
for the day when you will visit Boston again or I shall come to you!
Command my services to the fullest extent in anything and in
everything. For I am, from top to bottom, inside and out, and all
through, forever yours,
“JAMES OAKES.”
And Forrest replies:
“MY DEAREST AND BEST OF FRIENDS,—Thanking you for your hearty
letter, which has given me a real pleasure, I assure you you could
not have enjoyed my visit more than I did. Your encouraging smiles
and delicate attentions gave a daily beauty to my life while I was
under the same roof with you. In my life I have had the fellowship
of many goodly men, brave and manly fellows who knew not what it was
to lie or to be afraid. I have never met one whose heart beat with a
nobler humanity than yours. I am proud to be your friend and to have
you for mine. God bless you, and keep us always worthy of one
another.
“EDWIN FORREST.”
Every summer for the last thirty years of his life Forrest made it a
rule to spend a week or a fortnight with Oakes, when they either
loitered about lovely Boston or went into the country or to the seaside
and gave themselves up to leisurely enjoyment, “fleeting the time
carelessly as they did in the golden world.” Then the days and nights
flew as if they were enchanted with speed. These visits were regularly
repaid at New York, at Fonthill, at Philadelphia. Whenever they met,
after a long separation, as soon as they were alone together they threw
their arms around each other in fond embrace with mutual kisses, after
the manner of lovers in our land or of friends in more tropical and
demonstrative climes.
A single forlorn tomato was the entire crop raised at Fonthill Castle in
the season of 1851. As the friends stood looking at it, Oakes suddenly
plucked, peeled, and swallowed it. The tragedian gazed for some time in
open-eyed astonishment. At length with affected rage he broke out,
“Well, if this is not the most outrageous piece of selfishness! an
impudent and barbarous robbery! That was the tomato which I had
cherished and depended on as the precious product of all the money and
pains I have spent here. And now you come, whip out your jack-knife,
and, at one fell swoop, gulp down my whole harvest. I swear, it is the
meanest thing I ever knew done.” They looked each other in the eyes a
moment, burst into a hearty laugh, and, locking arms, strolled down to
the bank of the river.
When Forrest engaged his friend S. S. Smith to oversee the laying out of
his estate of Forrest Hill, at Covington, opposite Cincinnati, he named
one of the principal streets Oakes Avenue. When he purchased and began
occasionally to occupy the Springbrook place he named the room opposite
his own Oakes’s Chamber. In his Broad Street Mansion, in Philadelphia,
there was a portrait of Oakes in the entry, a portrait of Oakes in the
dining-room, a portrait of Oakes in the picture-gallery, a portrait of
Oakes in the library, and a general seeming presence of Oakes all over
the house. Early one summer day, while visiting there, Oakes might have
been seen, wrapped in a silk morning-gown of George Frederick Cooke,
with a wig of John Philip Kemble on his head and a sword of Edmund Kean
by his side, tackled between the thills of a heavy stone roller, rolling
the garden walks to earn his breakfast. Forrest was behind him, urging
him forward. Henrietta and Eleanora Forrest gazed out of a window at the
scene in amazement until its amusing significance broke upon them, when
their frolicsome peals of laughter caused the busy pair of laborers
below to pause in their task and look up.
Oakes was fond of being with Forrest during his professional engagements
as well as in his vacations. And the hours they then spent together
yielded them a keen and solid enjoyment. This experience was most
characteristic of their friendship, and is worthy of description. Oakes
would go to the play and watch with the most vigilant attention every
point in the performance. Then he would go behind the scenes to the
dressing-room. There the excited and perspiring actor, blowing off
steam, stripped and put himself in the hands of his body-servant, who
sponged him, vigorously rubbed him dry, and helped him to dress. Locking
arms, and avoiding all hangers-on who might be in the way, the friends
proceeded to their room at the hotel. Forrest would then throw off his
coat and boots, and loosen his nether garments so as to be perfectly at
ease, and call for his supper. It was his custom, as he ate nothing
before playing, to refresh himself afterwards with some simple dish. His
usual food was a generous bowl of cold corn-meal mush and milk. This he
took with a wholesome relish, the abstinent Oakes sharing only in
sympathy. Then was the tragedian to be seen in his highest social glory;
for he threw every restraint to the wind and gave full course to the
impulses of his nature. “Now here we are, my friend,” he would say, “and
let the world wag as it will, what do we care? Is it not a luxury to
unbutton your heart once in a while and let it all out where you know
there can be no misunderstanding? Come, go to, now, and let us have a
good time!” And a good time they _did_ have. They recalled past
adventures. They planned future ones. They gave every faculty of wit,
humor, and affection free play, without heed of any law beyond that of
their own friendly souls. Then, if he happened to be in the vein,
Forrest would tell anecdotes of other players, and give imitations of
them. He would take off with remarkable felicity the peculiarities of
Irishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Englishmen, and, above all, of negroes.
Very few comic actors at their best on the stage appear better in
portraying ludicrous dialect characters or in telling funny stories than
Forrest did on these occasions when giving himself full swing with his
friend alone, thoroughly unbent from professional duty and social
stiffness. No one who then saw him sitting on the floor mimicking a
tailor at work, rolling on the bed in convulsions of laughter, or
representing the double part of two negro woodsawyers who undertook to
play Damon and Pythias, would dream that this was the man whom the world
thought so grim and sour and gloomy. He used to say, “It is often the
case that we solemn tragedians when off the stage are your jolliest
dogs, while your clowns and comedians are dyspeptic and melancholy in
private.” There was a genuine vein of humor in him very strong and
active. He was extremely fond of indulging it. He read “Darius Green and
his Flying Machine” with great effect. He said he would like very much
to recite it to the author, Mr. Trowbridge, and then recite to him the
“Idiot Boy,” that he might perceive the contrast of the humor in the one
and the pathos in the other as illustrated by a tragedian.
Another feature in the friendship of Forrest and Oakes was their
frequent co-operation in works of mercy to the suffering and of
championship for the weak and wronged. In reading over their voluminous
correspondence many cases have been brought to light in which they took
up the cause of a poor man, an orphan, or an unfortunate widow, against
cruel and rapacious oppressors. One instance of this was where a rich
man was endeavoring by legal technicalities to defraud a widow and her
children of all the little property they had. Forrest heard of it, and
his just wrath was stirred. He wrote to Oakes to stand in the breach and
defeat this iniquity, promising to furnish whatever money was needed to
secure justice. It was a difficult case, and the poor woman was in
despair. But Oakes stood by her with acute advice and sympathy and
courage that never failed. After a hard and long fight, and a good deal
of expense, the right was vindicated. Writing to Forrest an account of
the result, and thanking him for his check, Oakes said, “This act is in
such keeping with your magnificent soul, and joins so with a multitude
of kindred deeds in reflecting lustre on you, that if my heart did not
feel at least as much satisfaction for your sake as for my own I would
tear it out and fling it at your feet.”
The following extract is from another letter:
“Your letter enclosing a hundred and fifty dollars reaches me this
moment. In an hour it will be in the hands of the poor forlorn creature
who indeed has no claim but the claim of a common humanity on either of
us, but whose near death of disease ought not to be anticipated by a
death of neglect, starvation, and cold. Your charity will now prevent
that. Once this unhappy woman moved in a high circle, envied and admired
by all. Now everybody deserts her death-garret. The Day of Judgment, if
there ever is one, will uncover strange secrets. Among the shameful
secrets dragged to light there will be glorious ones too,—like this your
response to my appeal for a desolated, forgotten outcast.”
In 1856 Forrest had a severe illness which, in connection with his
domestic sorrow and vexatious litigation, greatly depressed his spirit.
Oakes, ever watchful and thoughtful for him, held it to be essential
that he should take a prolonged respite from public life and labor. On
purpose to persuade him to this course, to which he was obstinately
averse, Oakes made a journey to Philadelphia. After their greetings he
said, bluntly, “Forrest, I have come to ask a great favor.” Forrest
broke in on his speech with these words: “Oakes, in all our long
acquaintance never once have you asked anything of me in a selfish
spirit; and often as I have followed your advice I have never yet made a
mistake when I have allowed myself to be guided by you. Whatever the
request is which you have to make, it is granted before you make it.”
Oakes was deeply moved, but, commanding himself, he said, “Your
professional life has been one of hard work. Your health is not good,
and you are no longer young. You have money enough. You are now at the
top notch of your fame. To keep your rank there you will have to make
great exertions. You ought to have a good long rest. Now I want you to
promise me that you will not act again for three years.” Forrest drew a
long breath and dropped his head forward on his breast. In a minute he
looked up and said, “Ah, my friend, you have tested me in my tenderest
point. But it shall be so.” Nearly four years passed before he again
confronted an audience from his theatrical throne and welcomed their
applause.
A group of the most ardent admirers of Forrest combined and subscribed a
handsome sum of money to secure a full-length marble statue of him in
one of his classic characters. But he shrank from the long and tedious
sittings, and refused to comply with their request. Oakes, who was
doubly desirous of securing this memorial, first as a tribute to his
illustrious friend, second as an important piece of patronage to a
gifted artist then just entering his career, now undertook the work of
persuasion. To his solicitation Forrest replied, “What troubles me is
the weary sittings I must undergo. But since you put this matter on
personal grounds, and ask me to endure the load for the sake of an old
unselfish friendship,—which cannot appeal in vain,—I yield with pleasure
to your request. Whenever Mr. Ball shall come to Philadelphia I will
submit myself with alacrity to the torture.”
The name of Thomas Ball has acquired celebrity in art since that day,
but this statue of Forrest in the character of Coriolanus will always
stand as a proud landmark in his sculptured path of fame. It was a true
work of love not less than of ambition. For in the long hours of their
fellowship in the preparatory studying and sketching and casting the
sitter and the artist grew friends. The sculptor took his model and
sailed for Florence, there to produce the work he had conceived. And
when a year and a half had gone by, the complete result, safely landed
in Boston and set up for view in an art-gallery, greeted the eyes of
Oakes and gladdened his heart. For it more than met his expectations, it
perfectly contented him. He wrote to Mr. Ball, “I am glad the statue
came unheralded to our shores, and am content to let the verdict of the
public rest on the merits of the work. I congratulate you on an
unequivocal and grand success. As a personal likeness of Forrest it is
most truthful, and as an illustration of the Shakspearean conception of
the Roman Consul it is sublime. For more than forty years I have known
this man with an intimacy not common among men. Indeed, our friendship
has been more like the devotion of a man to the woman he loves than the
relations usually subsisting between men. In all my intercourse with the
world I have never known a truer man or one with a nobler nature than
Edwin Forrest, whose real worth and greatness will not be acknowledged
by the world until he is dead. I rejoice that one of his own countrymen
has given to posterity this true and magnificent portrait of him in
immortal marble. The eloquence of this marble will outlive the
malevolence of all the enemies and of all the critics who have assailed
him.”
Forrest was indeed fortunate in the peaceful and time-enduring victory
achieved for him by the artist in this sculptured Coriolanus, whose
haughty beauty, and right foot insupportably advanced with the planted
weight of all imperious Rome, will speak his quality to generations yet
unborn. What a melancholy contrast is suggested by the words of Mrs.
Siddons after seeing the marble counterfeit of John Philip Kemble: “I
cannot help thinking of the statue of my poor brother. It is an absolute
libel on his noble person and air. I should like to pound it into dust
and scatter it to the winds.”
The Coriolanus is colossal, eight feet and a half in height and weighing
six tons. The forms and muscles of the neck, the right side of the
chest, the right arm, left forearm, feet, and lower portion of the left
leg, are delineated in perfection, the remaining parts being concealed
by the folds of the mantle which is drawn around the left shoulder,
while the head is slightly turned to the right. The face and head are
superbly finished and seem pregnant with vitality. The whole expression
is one of massive and imperious strength, adamantine self-sufficingness,
reposeful, yet animated and resolute. It represents him at that point in
the play where he repels the intercessions of his mother and wife, and
says,—
“Let the Volces
Plough Rome and harrow Italy, I’ll never
Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand
As if a man were author of himself
And knew no other kin.”
So much pleased was Forrest with the statue, as his lingering gaze
studied it and drank in its majestic significance reflected on him from
the superb and classic pomp of marble, that he begged the privilege of
purchasing it from the subscribers. And so it now stands in the Actors’
Home founded by his will. The enthusiastic and efficient zeal of Oakes
in securing this work drew his friend to him with an increased feeling
of obligation and of attachment, which he frankly expressed in an
eloquent letter of thanks.
Forrest and Oakes had from time to time many pleasing adventures
together. A specimen or two may be related. Strolling in a quiet square
in Baltimore, they came upon a company of boys who were playing marbles.
“My little fellows,” said the tragedian, with his deep voice of music,
“will you lend me a marble and let me play with you?” “Oh, yes,” said a
barefoot, smiling urchin, and held up a marble in his dirty paw. Forrest
took it, sank on one knee, and began his game. In less than half an hour
he had won every marble they had, and the discomfited and destitute gang
were gazing at him in astonishment. “Don’t you see,” he then said, “how
dangerous it is for you to play with a stranger, about whose skill or
whose character you are wholly ignorant? Boys, as you grow up and mix in
the fight of life it will always be useful to you to know in advance
what kind of a fellow he is with whom you are going to deal.” One of the
boys, who had been sharply eying him, whispered to another, “I guess he
is Mr. Forrest, the play-actor, you know, at the theatre.” The other
replied, “Well, I should like to go there and see if he can playact as
well as he plays marbles.” “Yes,” said Forrest, “come, all of you. I
want you to come. I will do my best to please you.” And he wrote an
order of admission for them, gave them back their marbles, and bade them
good-morning.
Once when he was filling an engagement in Boston, Oakes told him a story
of a humble mechanic whose landlord had compelled him to pay a debt
twice over, under circumstances of cruelty which had brought out proofs
of a most heroic honesty and refined sensibility in the poor man.
Forrest listened to the narrative with rapt attention. At its close he
exclaimed, “That landlord is a stony-hearted brute, and this mechanic is
a man of a royal soul! I must go and see him and his family before I
leave Boston.” Thanksgiving Day came that week. A friend of Oakes had
sent him for his Thanksgiving dinner an enormous wild turkey, weighing
with the feathers on twenty-seven and a half pounds. He showed this to
Forrest on Wednesday and told him they were to feast on it the next day.
“No, old chap,” replied Forrest; “you and I will dine on a beefsteak,
and take the wild turkey to the noble fellow who paid Shylock his money
twice.” Immediately after breakfast on Thanksgiving Day a barouche was
ordered, the big black turkey, looking nearly as large as a Newfoundland
dog, placed on the front seat, and Forrest and Oakes took the back seat.
They drove to the theatre. Forrest accosted the box-keeper: “Mr. Fenno,
I want for to-night’s performance six of the best seats in the house,
for an emperor and his family who are to honor me by their presence.”
Fenno gave him the tickets and declined to take pay for them. He
insisted on paying for them, saying, “They are my guests, sir.” They
then rode over to East Boston to the house of the honest man, found him,
announced their names, explained the cause and object of their visit,
and were invited in by him and introduced to his wife and four children.
Forrest kissed each one of the children. He brought in the huge turkey
and laid it on the table. Then, turning to the wife, he said, “We have
brought a turkey for your Thanksgiving dinner; and if you and your noble
husband and children enjoy as much in eating it as my friend and myself
do in offering it you will be very happy. And I am sure you deserve
great happiness, and I have faith that God will give it to you all.” He
then presented the tickets for the play of Metamora, saying, “I shall
look to see if you are all in the seats before I begin to act.” Not one
of them had ever been inside of a theatre. The sensations that were
awaiting them may be imagined. When the curtain rose and Metamora
appeared on the stage amidst that tumultuous applause which in those
times never failed to greet his entrance, he walked deliberately to the
front, fixed his eyes on the little family, bowed, and then proceeded.
Throughout the play he acted for and at that group, who seemed far
happier than any titular royalty could have been. Though this happened
twenty years before his death, he never forgot when in Boston to inquire
after the _American emperor_! The honest man is still living, and should
this little story ever meet his eye he will vouch for its entire truth.
A few extracts taken almost at random from the letters of these friends
will clearly indicate the substantial earnestness and warmth of their
relation. Letters when honest and free reveal the likeness of the
writer, photographing the features of the soul, a feat which usually
baffles artistic skill and always defies chemical action.
“You will doubtless receive this note to-morrow,—my birthday,—when, you
say, you will _think_ of me. Tell me the day, my dear friend, when you
do _not_ think of me! God bless you! Last night I acted at Washington in
Damon and Pythias. The sound of weeping was actually audible all over
the house as the noble Pythagorean rushed breathlessly back to save his
friend and then to die. What a grand moral is told in that play! What
sermon was ever half so impressive in its teaching! Had Shakspeare
written on the subject he had ‘drowned the stage with tears.’”
“I cannot let this day pass without sending to you a renewed expression
of the esteem and high regard with which through so many years my heart
has unceasingly honored you. A merry Christmas to you, my glorious
friend, and a happy New Year, early in which I hope again to take you by
the hand.”
“As the years go by us, my noble Spartacus, many things slip away never
to return, and many things that stay lose their charm. But one thing
seems to grow ever more fresh and precious,—the joy of an honest
friendship and trust in manly worth. May this, dear Forrest, never fail
for you or for me, however long we live.”
“God bless you, Oakes, for your kindly greeting on the New Year’s day!
Though I was too busy to write, my soul went out to you on that day with
renewed messages of love, and with thanks to Almighty God that he has
quickened at least two hearts with an unselfish and unwavering devotion
to each other, and that those two hearts are yours and mine.”
“You are almost the only intimate friend I have had who never asked of
me a pecuniary favor, and to whom I am indebted for as many personal
kindnesses as I ever received from any. I will send you my portrait to
hang in your parlor, with my autograph, and with such words as I have
not written, and will never write, upon another.”
“It gives me great pleasure, my much-loved friend, to know that in a few
days more I shall see you again, and reach that haven of rest, the
presence of a true friend, where the storms of trouble cease to
prevail.”
“And now, my friend, permit me to thank you for all the delicate
attentions you so considerately showed me during my late visit, and for
your noble manly sympathy for me in the wound I received from the legal
assassins of the Court of Appeals, who by their recent decision have
trampled upon law, precedent, justice, and the instinctive honor of the
human heart.”
On the eve of his professional trip to California, Forrest wrote to
Oakes, “My dear friend, how much I should like, if your business matters
would permit, to have you accompany me to California! I would right
willingly pay all your expenses for the entire journey, and I am sure
you would enjoy the trip beyond expression. Is it not _possible_ for you
to arrange your affairs and go with me? It would make me the happiest
man in the world.”
The scheme could not be realized, and after his own return he wrote,
“Yes, in a few days I will come to you in Boston, my dear friend. We
will talk of scenes long gone, and renew the pleasant things of the past
in sweet reflections on their memory. We will hopefully trust in the
future that our friendship may grow brighter with our years, and cease,
if it must cease then, only with our lives.”
In 1864 he had written, “I think we both of us have vitality enough to
enjoy many happy years even in this vale of tears; but then we must
occupy it together. For
“‘When true hearts lie withered,
And fond ones are gone,
Oh, who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?’”
There was a partial change in his tone four years later, when he wrote,
“I think with you that we ought not to live so much asunder. Our time is
now dwindled to a span; and why should we not _together_ see the sinking
sun go brightly down on the evening of our day? What a blessed thing it
would be to realize that dream of Cuba I named to you when we last met!”
In 1870 Oakes determined to retire from business, and Forrest wrote to
him from Macon, Georgia,—
“I am glad to hear you are about to close your toils in the ‘Old Salt
House’ and give your much-worn mind and body the quiet repose they need.
In this way you will receive a new and happy lease of life, enlarge your
sphere of usefulness to your friends, and be a joy to yourself in giving
and taking kindnesses. I look forward with a loving impatience to the
end of my professional engagements this season, that I may repair to
Philadelphia, there to effect a settlement of such comforting means as
shall make the residue of your life glide on in ceaseless ease. Do not,
I beg you, let any pride or sensitiveness stand in the way of this my
purpose. It is a debt which I owe to you for the innumerable kindnesses
I have experienced at your hands, and for your unwearied fidelity to all
my interests.”
Oakes rejected the proposition, though keenly feeling how generous and
beautiful it was. Argument and persuasion from friendly lips, however,
at length overcame his repugnance, and the noble kindness—so uncommon
and exemplary among friends in our hard grasping time—was finally as
gratefully accepted as it was gladly bestowed. This gift was the most
effective stroke of _real_ acting that ever came from the genius of the
player. Taken in connection with his traits of generous sweetness and
his clouded passages of ferocious hate, it reveals a character like one
of those barbaric kings who loom gigantic on the screen of the past,
dusky and explosive with the ground passions of nature, but wearing a
coronet of royal virtues and blazing all over with the jewelry of
splendid deeds. It shows in him such a spirit in daily life as would
enable him to utter on the stage with no knocking rebuke of memory the
proud words of the noble Roman:—
“When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous
To lock his rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts,
Dash him to pieces.”
To anticipate here the sequel and earthly close of the friendship of
Forrest and Oakes would be to detract too much from the proper interest
of the last chapter of this biography. The story may well be left for
the present as it stands at this point, where a half-century of
unfaltering love and service was repaid not only by a heart full of
gratitude but also with a munificent material Philadelphia, there to
effect a settlement of such comforting means as shall make the residue
of your life glide on in ceaseless ease.
When the hand that wrote these tender words had been nigh four years
mouldering in the tomb the survivor was heard to say, “Every year, every
month, every day, I more and more appreciate his noble qualities and
miss more and more his precious companionship. And I would, were it in
my power, bring him back from the grave to be with me as long as I am to
stay.”
In ending this chapter of the friendships of Forrest, the justice of
history requires a few words more. For there are several names of
friends, who were long very dear to him and to whom he was very dear,
which should be added to those set down above. The reason why no account
of their relationship has been embodied here, is simply that the writer
had not knowledge of any incidents which he could so narrate as to make
them of public interest. Yet the friendships were of the most endeared
character, full of happiness, and never marred or clouded. The names of
the Rev. Elias L. Magoon, Colonel John W. Forney, and Mr. James Rees
should not be omitted in any list of the friends of Edwin Forrest. And
still more emphatic and conspicuous mention is due to that intimate,
affectionate, and sustained relation of trust and love with Daniel
Dougherty, on which the grateful actor and man set his unquestionable
seal in leaving him a bequest of five thousand dollars and making him
one of the executors of his will and one of the trustees of his estate.