one morning, early in august, 1825, a young man of fine figure and stately bearing, with bright dark-brown eyes, raven hair, and a clear, firm complexion like veined marble, approached the door of a modest house in cedar street, philadelphia. without knocking, he entered quickly. "mother! henrietta!" he cried, springing towards them with open arms. "gracious heaven, edwin!" they exclaimed, "is it possible that this is you, changed so much and grown so tall?" "yes, mother," he said, "heaven has indeed been gracious to me; and here i am once more with you, after three years of strolling and struggling among strangers. here i am, with a light pocket but a stout heart. i shall be something yet, mother; and then the first thing i am resolved to do is to make you and the girls independent, so far as the goods of this world go."
he had firm grounds for his confidence, as the sequel showed, though many dark days of hope deferred were yet to put his mettle to the proof. he was in his twentieth year, and his reputation had not reached much beyond the local centres where he had gained it. but it was plainly beginning to spread. even his friendliest admirers had not the prescience to discern the signs of that vast success which was to make him a continental celebrity; but he knew better than they the fervor of his ambition and the strength of the motives that fed it, and he felt the consciousness of a latent power which justified him in sanguine dreams for the future. his intuitive perception had interpreted better than the critics or his friends the revelation and prophecy contained in the effects he had already often produced on his audiences. he knew very well himself that which it needed fame to make the public consciously recognize. that fame he not only expected, but was resolved to win.
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in the autumn he succeeded in securing an engagement on moderate terms at the theatre in albany, then under the management of a shrewd, capable, but eccentric dutchman, charles gilfert. he was to play leading parts in the stock company, and second parts to stars. albany, as the capital of the state of new york, during the theatrical season was thronged with cultivated and distinguished people, and was an excellent place for a dramatic aspirant to achieve and extend a reputation. forrest began with good heart and zeal, and, without any sudden or brilliant success, received sufficient encouragement to increase his confidence and keep him progressing. he took great pains to perfect his physical development, exercising his voice in declamation, practising gestures, and every night and morning taking a thorough sponge-bath, followed by vigorous friction with coarse towels. immediately after his morning ablutions he always devoted a half-hour to gymnastics,—using dumb-bells, springing, attitudinizing, and walking two or three times about the room on his hands. one of the most distinguished philosophical writers of our country, who was a native of albany and at that time a particular friend of forrest, has recently been heard to describe with great animation the pleasure he used to take in visiting the actor at this early hour of the morning to see him go through his gymnastic performances. the metaphysician said he admired the enormous strength displayed by the player, and applauded his fidelity to the conditions for preserving and increasing it, though for his own part he never could bring himself to do anything of the kind.
nothing occurred through the winter out of the ordinary routine, except his happy and most profitable intercourse with edmund kean, during the last engagement filled in albany by that illustrious actor and unfortunate man. this encounter was of so much consequence to forrest that we must pause a little over it. it will be recollected that he had, several years before, seen kean perform a few nights in philadelphia, and that he was filled with enthusiasm about him. but now the discipline and experience of five added years fitted him far more worthily to appreciate the genius and to profit from the startling methods and points of the tragedian whom many judges declare to have been the most original and electrifying actor that has ever stepped before the foot-lights.
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edmund kean, born under the ban of society, treated as a dog, beaten, starved, while yet an infant flung for a livelihood on his wits and tricks as a public performer, associating mostly with vagrants and adventurers, but occasionally with the best and highest, early became a wonder both in the elastic strength of his small body and in the penetrative power of his flashing mind. with sensibilities of extreme delicacy and passions of terrific energy he combined a natural and sedulously-cultivated ability of giving to the outer signs of inner states their utmost possible distinctness and intensity. perhaps there never was, within his range, a greater master of the physiological language of the soul, one who set facial expression in more vivid relief. as a student of his art he went to no traditional school of posture, no frigid school of elocution, but to the original school of nature in the burning depths of his own mind and heart.
his direct observations of other men, and his reflex researches on himself in his impassioned probationary assumptions of characters, struck to the automatic centres of his being, the seats of those intuitions which are historic humanity epitomized in the individual, or the spirit of nature itself inspiring man. and when he acted there was something so unitary and elemental in the unconscious depths from which his revelations seemed to break in spontaneous thunderbolts that sensitive auditors were filled with awe, utterly overwhelmed and carried away from themselves. coleridge said that seeing him act macbeth was like reading the play by flashes of lightning. in his most impassioned moods his voice suggested, by the tense intermittent vibration of his whole resonant frame revealed in it, the frenzied energy of a tiger. he spoke then in a stammering staccato of spasmodic outbursts which shook others because they threatened to shatter him. after years of maddening scorn, poverty, drudgery, neglect, he vaulted at one bound, with his first appearance as shylock on the stage of drury lane, into an almost fabulous popularity, courted and fêted by the proudest in the land, and reaping an income of over fifty thousand dollars a year. no wonder he grew wild, reeling with all sorts of intoxication between the throne of the scenic king and the den of the ungirt debauchee.
the essential peculiarity of kean's greatness in his greatest
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effects was that his acting was then no effort of will, no trick or art of calculation, but nature itself uncovered and set free in its deepest intensity of power, just on the edge, sometimes quite over the verge, of madness. he penetrated and incorporated himself with the characters he represented until he possessed them so completely that they possessed him, and their performance was not simulation but revelation. he brought the truth and simplicity of nature to the stage, but nature in her most intensified degrees. his playing was a manifestation of the inspired intuitions, infallibly true and irresistibly sensational. it came not from the surfaces of his brain, but from the very centres of his nervous system, and suggested something portentous, preternatural, supernal, that blinded and stunned the beholders, appalled their imagination, and chilled their blood. this same curdling automatic touch lucius junius brutus booth also had; but it is asserted that he was first led to it by imitating kean.
at the time of his engagement in albany, kean was much marred and broken from his best estate by his bad habits. the intoxication of fame, the intoxication of love, and the dismal intoxication of stimulants snatched to keep his jaded faculties at their height, had done their sad work on him. still, the habitudes of his genius lingered fascinatingly with him, and he delivered his climacteric points with almost undiminished power, between the cloudy intervals of his weariness striking lightning and eliciting universal shocks.
nothing could have been more fortunate for forrest, just at that time, than to watch such an actor in his greatest parts and come into confidential contact with him. in playing iago to his othello, titus to his brutus, richmond to his richard, the best chance was afforded for this. about noon of the day they were to act together, as kean did not come to the rehearsal, forrest called at his hotel and asked to see him. he told the messenger to say to mr. kean that the young man who was to play iago wished a brief interview with him, to receive any directions he might like to give for the performance in the evening. "show him up," said the actor, graciously. as forrest entered, with a beating heart, kean rose and welcomed him with great kindness of manner. in answer to a question as to the business of the play, he said, "my boy, i do not care how you come on or go
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off, if while we are on the stage you always keep in front of me and let not your attention wander from me." he had not yet breakfasted, late as it was, but was in a loose dressing-gown, with the marks of excessive indulgence in dissipation and sleepless hours too plainly revealed in his whole appearance. a rosewood piano was covered with spilth and sticky rings from the glasses used in the debauch of the night. "have you ever heard me sing?" asked kean. "oh, yes, in tom tug the waterman." "did you see my tom tug?" responded the actor, in a pleased tone of caressing eagerness. "i learned those songs purely by imitation of my old friend incledon; and i approached him so closely that it was said no one could tell the singing of one of us from that of the other. but now you shall hear me sing my favorite piece." he sat down at the piano, struck a few notes, and sang the well-known song of moore, "farewell, but whenever you welcome the hour." his face was very pale, and wore an expression of unutterable pathos and melancholy; his hair was floating in confused masses, and his eyes looked like two great inland seas. both he and his auditor wept as he sang with matchless depth of feeling and a most mournful sweetness,—
"let fate do her worst, there are relics of joy,
bright dreams of the past, which she cannot destroy,
which come in the night-time of sorrow and care
and bring back the features that joy used to wear.
long, long be my heart with such memories filled!
like the vase in which roses have once been distilled,—
you may break, you may ruin the vase, if you will,
but the scent of the roses will hang round it still."
while he thus sang, he was, to the fancy of his moved and admiring listener, himself the vase broken and ruined, and his genius, still blooming over the ruins of the man, distilled its holy perfume around him.
the othello of kean was his unapproachable masterpiece, crowded with electric effects in detail and crowned with a masterly originality as a whole. it left its general stamp ineffaceably on the young actor who that night confronted it with his iago in such a manner as to win not only the vehement applause of the house but likewise the warm approval of the othello himself. forrest had carefully studied the character of iago in the inde
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pendent light of what he knew of human nature. and he conceived the part in what was then quite an original reading of it. the current iago of the stage was a sullen and sombre villain, as full of gloom as of hate, and with such sinister manners and malignant bearing as made his diabolical spirit and purposes perfectly obvious. one must be a simpleton to be deceived by such a style of man. a man like othello, accustomed to command, moving for many years among all sorts of men in peace and war, could be so played on only by a most accomplished master of the arts of hypocrisy. forrest accordingly represented iago as a gay and dashing fellow on the outside, hiding his malice and treachery under the signs of a careless honesty and jovial good humor. one point, strictly original, he made which powerfully affected kean. iago, while working insidiously on the suspicions of othello, says to him,—
"look to your wife; observe her well with cassio;
wear your eye thus, not jealous,—nor secure."
all these words, except the last two, forrest uttered in a frank and easy fashion; but suddenly, as if the intensity of his under-knowledge of evil had automatically broken through the good-natured part he was playing on the surface and betrayed his secret in spite of his will, he spoke the words nor secure in a husky tone, sliding down from a high pitch and ending in a whispered horror. the fearful suggestiveness of this produced from kean a reaction so truly artistic and tremendous that the whole house was electrified. as they met in the dressing-room, kean said, excitedly, "in the name of god, boy, where did you get that?" forrest replied, "it is something of my own." "well," said he, while his auditor trembled with pleasure, "everybody who speaks the part hereafter must do it just so."
there must, from all accounts, have been something supernaturally sweet and sorrowful, an unearthly intensity of plaintive and majestic pathos, in the manner in which kean delivered the farewell of othello. the critics, hazlitt, procter, lamb, and the rest, all agree in this. they say, "the mournful melody of his voice came over the spirit like the desolate moaning of the blast that precedes the thunder-storm." it was like "the hollow and musical murmur of the midnight sea when the tempest has raved
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itself to rest." his "tones sunk into the soul like the sighing of the breeze among the strings of an æolian harp or through the branches of a cypress grove." his voice "struck on the heart like the swelling of some divine music laden with the sound of years of departed happiness." the retrospect of triumphant exultation, the lingering sense of delight, the big shocks of sudden agony, and the slow blank despair, breathed in a voice elastic and tremulous with vital passion and set off with a by-play of exquisitely artistic realism, made up a whole of melancholy beauty and overwhelming power perhaps never equalled. it was at once an anthem, a charge, and a dirge. forrest was inexpressibly delighted and thrilled by it, and he did not fail to his dying day to speak of it with rapturous admiration.
kean, both as a man and as an actor, made a fascinating impression on the imagination and heart as well as on the memory of his youthful supporter in the albany theatre. what he had himself experienced under the influence of this marvellous player, in the profound stirring of his wonder and affection, remained to exalt his estimate of the rank of his professional art and to stimulate still further his personal ambition. this is the way the sensitive soul of genius grows, by assimilating something from every superior ideal exhibited to it. kean himself, at a public dinner given him in philadelphia on his return thither from albany, generously said that he had met one actor in this country, a young man named edwin forrest, who gave proofs of a decided genius for his profession, and who would, as he believed, rise to great eminence. this kind act on the part of the veteran was reported to the novice, and sank gratefully into his heart. to be praised by one we admire is such a delight to the affections and such a spur to endeavor that it is a pity the successful are not more ready to give it to the aspiring. ah, what a heaven this world would be if all the men and women in it were only what in our better hours we dream and wish!
one incident occurred during this season at albany showing extraordinary character in so young a man. the fearful power of the passion for gaming has been well known in all ages. it has prevailed with equal violence and evil among the rudest savages and in the most luxurious phases of civilization. every year, at the present time, in the capital centres of christendom it
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explodes in forgeries, murder, and suicides. and we read in the mahabharata, the great sanscrit epic written we know not how many centuries before the christian era, that king yudishthira was so desperately addicted to gambling that on one occasion he staked his empire, and lost it; then his wife, and lost; finally, his own body, lost that, and became the slave of the winner. in new orleans forrest had felt something of the horrid fascination of this passion. he had not, however, indulged much in it, although his friend gazonac, who stood at the head of the profession, had initiated him pretty thoroughly into the secret tricks of the art.
the company of actors and actresses used often to stay after the play was over and engage in games of chance. forrest joined them several times. he then steadily refused to do so any more; for he felt that the gambling spirit was getting hold of him. but on a certain evening they urged him so strongly that he consented,—determined to give them a lesson. he said it was a base business, full of dishonest arts by which all but the sharpest adepts could be cheated. they maintained that there were among them neither decoys nor dupes, and they challenged fraud. they played all night, and forrest at last had won every cent they had with them. he then rose to his feet, and denounced the habit of gaming for profit as utterly pernicious. he recited some examples of the horrors he had known to result from it. he said it demoralized the characters of those who practised it, and, producing nothing, was a robbery, stealing the time, thought, and feeling which might so much better be devoted to something useful. with these words he swept the implements of play into the fire, strewed the money he had won on the floor, left the room, and went home in the gray light of the morning,—and never gambled again from that hour unto the day of his death.
may 16th, 1826, forrest made his first re-appearance on the stage of his native city. it was on the occasion of a benefit given to his old friend charles s. porter, manager of the theatre, it will be remembered, in which he made his début as rosalia de borgia. he took the part of jaffier in venice preserved. his success was flattering and complete. the leading journal of the city said, "he left us a boy, and has returned a man. the talents he then exhibited, improved by attention and study, now display
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themselves in the excellence of his delineation. he is by no means what he was when he left us. his delivery, attitudes, and gesture are similar to those of conway; and he could not have chosen a better model. just in his conception of his part, clear and correct in his utterance, graceful in his action, he never offends us by unmeaning rant. when one so young relies more on his own judgment than on the flattery of partial friends, we cannot expect too much from him. we doubt if any aspirant at the same age has ever equalled him. no performer, perhaps, ever was received and continued to play with so much applause. on the dropping of the curtain at the end of the fourth act, he was rewarded with nine rounds of cheers."
his unmistakable triumph was crowned by such loud and general calls for an engagement that the manager came forward and announced that he had secured the services of mr. forrest for two nights, and that he would appear, on the evening after the next, in the character of rolla. this, on the whole, was the most signal and important victory he had ever achieved. it consoled him and it spurred him. he slept sweetly that night under his mother's roof, and in his dreams saw himself decked with wreath and crown, time after time, through a long vista of brightening successes.
the bowery theatre, in new york, now nearly finished, was to be opened in the autumn, and its proprietors were on the watch to secure the best talent for the company. they had heard favorable reports of the acting of forrest in albany. prosper m. wetmore and another of the directors of the new theatre made a journey to that city on purpose to see a specimen of his performance and decide whether or not it would be expedient to engage him. they were so much pleased with his playing that they earnestly urged gilfert, who was already engaged as manager, to close with him at once. he did so, bargaining with him to play leading parts for the first season at a salary of twenty-eight dollars a week. wetmore, who was a cultivated gentleman of literary habits, afterwards navy agent at new york, became a fast friend of forrest for life, and half a century later was fond of recalling the incidents of this journey, so interesting in the adventure and so pleasant in the results.
gilfert had lost money at albany, and, when he closed, his
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company were dismissed unpaid, some of them utterly destitute. forrest himself was forced to leave his wardrobe with his hostess as security for arrearages. he took passage down the hudson to new york, and, securing lodgings at a tavern in cortlandt street, began as best he could to fill the time until the opening of the bowery. he was a stranger in the city. he was without money, without friends, his wardrobe in pawn, with no stated employment to occupy his attention and pass the hours. naturally, life seemed dull and the days grew heavy. first he felt homesick, then he felt sick of himself and sick of the world. his faculties turned in on themselves, and made him so morbidly melancholy that he thought of ending his existence. he actually went to an apothecary and got some arsenic on pretence that he wanted to kill rats. this revulsive and dismal state of feeling, however, did not last long. an event occurred which brought him relief and caused him to fling away the poison and resume his natural tone of cheerful fortitude and readiness for enjoyment.
the propitious event referred to was this. an actor at the park theatre, by the name of woodhull, was about having a benefit, and experienced much difficulty in deciding on something attractive for the occasion. walking in the street with charles durang, of philadelphia, who had recently seen forrest act in that city, and expressing his anxiety to him, durang replied, "if i were you, i would try and get forrest to act for me. and there he is now, sitting under the awning in front of the hotel. i will introduce you." the deed suited the word, and in a moment woodhull had made his request. at first forrest somewhat moodily declined, saying that he was penniless, friendless, spiritless, and could do nothing. "but," the poor actor urged, "i have a large family dependent on me, and this benefit is my chief reliance." "is that so?" asked forrest. "it is, indeed," was the reply. "then," said the generous tragedian, mounting out of his unhappiness, "i will play othello for you, and do my best." the new acquaintances parted with hearty greetings, woodhull to finish the arrangements for his benefit, forrest to prepare for his arduous task. for he felt that this his first appearance in the chief metropolitan theatre of the country was an ordeal that might make him or undo him quite.
he shut himself up in his room with his shakspeare. he
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studied the part with all the earnestness of his soul, over and over, with every light he could bring to bear upon it, carefully perfected himself in it according to his best ideal, and impatiently awaited the evening. it came, and found a house poor in numbers, which disheartened him not a whit. durang was there, and has described the scene. the audience, though neither fashionable nor large, was eager and susceptible. as the actor came on, his careful costume, superb form, and reposeful bearing made a strong sensation on the expectant auditory. and when the sweet, resonant tones of his deep, rich voice broke forth in the eloquence of an unaffected manliness, the charm was obviously deepened. his remarkable self-possession and deliberate way of doing just what he intended to do were very impressive, and, combined with his terrible earnestness growing with the thickening plot, took hold of the sympathies of the house more and more powerfully. in the middle of the pit sat gilfert, energetically plying his snuff-box and inspecting alternately the player and the spectators. and when, in the fourth act, as the pent flood of passion in the breast of the tortured othello burst in fearful explosion on iago in one resplendent climax of attitude, look, voice and gesture, and the whole audience rose to their feet and gave vent to their unprecedented excitement in round after round of cheering, the little dutchman let his snuff-box mechanically slip through his fingers, and cried, "by heaven, he has made a hit!" the popular verdict was one of unqualified enthusiasm, and the directors and manager of the bowery felt that they had underrated their prize. gilfert hurried behind the scenes, lavishing congratulations on his protégé, and promising the next day to pay his debts and supply him with some pocket-money. in doing a kind thing for a needy fellow-actor, forrest found that he had also done an exceedingly good thing for himself.
with the means he had wrung from the delinquent and doubtful but now sanguine gilfert, he proceeded to albany and redeemed his wardrobe. he then went to washington, and played rolla for the benefit of his brother william. he next fulfilled an engagement as a star for six nights in baltimore, and then paid a visit to his home in philadelphia. he was able from the remnant of his earnings to carry four hundred dollars to his mother. and when he gave it to her, sitting happy at her feet, and told her of
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his trials, and of his struggles against them, as he felt her hand on his head and saw her fond eyes looking approval, the sweetness of the satisfaction seemed to sink into his very bones. so he himself said, and added, "the applause i had won before the foot-lights? yes, it was most welcome and precious to me; but, compared with this, it was nothing, less than nothing!"
the bowery was opened with great display and success the last week in october. on the following monday forrest made his first appearance there. othello was the play. the house was thronged in all parts, everything was fresh and new, eager expectation filled the air, and he came forward encouraged by the memory of his decisive triumph at the benefit of woodhull, and nerved with determination now to outdo it. yet, in spite of all the favoring conditions, so much depended on the result of his performance this night, and his sensitiveness was still so little hardened by custom, that his nervousness and trepidation were quite apparent to critical eyes. but as the play progressed this wore off, and his acting became so sincere, so varied and vigorous, he set his best points in such clean-cut relief, and his elocution was so full of natural passion, that he carried the sympathies of the audience with him ascendingly to the close. the ovation he then received left no doubt as to the place he was thenceforth to hold in the theatrical world of new york and the country. by unanimous consent, admitting errors and faults both positive and negative, he had shown an extraordinary breadth and raciness of original individuality, and an extraordinary power of painting the character he had pictured in his imagination so vividly that it should also live in the imaginations of the beholders and kindle their sensibilities. this is the one test of the true actor, that he can transmit his thoughts and passions into others, causing his ideal so to move before them that they recognize it and react on it with the play of their souls accordant with his. this given, all defects are pardoned; this denied, all merits are ineffectual. forrest had this from first to last, whenever appeal was made from dialect cliques to the great vernacular of human nature.
at the close of the performance forrest was personally congratulated by the stockholders of the theatre in the committee-room. their chairman said to him, "we are all very much
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more than gratified. you have made a great hit; but, if you are willing, we would like to cancel our engagement with you at twenty-eight dollars a week, and——" here forrest interrupted him by saying, "certainly, gentlemen; just as you please; for i am confident i can readily command those terms almost anywhere i feel disposed to play." "we have no doubt of it," replied the chairman; "but we propose to cancel the engagement made with you at twenty-eight dollars a week, and to draw an agreement giving you forty dollars a week instead." this of course was very agreeable to him, and accordingly it was so arranged.
with this night his histrionic probation was at an end, and fame and fortune were secure. it was now that he made the acquaintance of james lawson, who was so enraptured with his playing that he sought an introduction on the spot, and then went home and wrote for one of the morning papers a glowing eulogium on the performance. lawson remained through life one of his most trusted and useful friends, especially in his business concerns, never wavering in his loyalty to him for one moment in all the succeeding years, and surviving to be one of the trustees of his estate. here, also, at the same time, and under the identical circumstances, began his friendship with leggett, one of the most important and valued attachments he ever formed. leggett, at that time associated with bryant in the editorship of the new york "evening post," was a man of a high-strung, chivalrous nature, possessed of uncommon talents and of immense force of character. among his fine tastes was a sincere passion for the drama. he was the elder by four years, and had enjoyed far superior educational advantages. he loved forrest devotedly as soon as he knew him, and his affection was as ardently returned. in their manly truth and generous sympathy, which knew no taint of affectation or mean design, they were a great comfort to each other. in the fourteen years that passed before death came between them they rendered invaluable services to each other in many ways.
the following letter is interesting in several respects. it shows his great devotion to his mother, betrays his tendency to occasional depression of spirit, and reveals even so early in his life that irregular violence in the currents of his blood from the
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effects of which he finally died. it bears date a little less than a month after his début at the bowery.
"new york, dec. 3d, 1826.
"most beloved mother,—the reason i have not answered your letter is a serious indisposition under which i have been laboring for some time. but, thanks be to the eternal (only for your sake and my dear sisters'), i am now convalescent. you will ask, no doubt, why it is only for your sake that i thank the eternal. because were you separated forever from me existence would have no longer an attraction. again, you will wonder what has made me tired of life, especially now that i am on the full tide of prosperity. alas! i know not how soon sickness may render me incapable of the labors of my profession; and then penury, perchance the poor-house, may ensue. i shudder to think of it. yet the terrible reflection haunts me in spite of myself; and were it not for you and the girls i should not shrink to try the unsearchable depths of eternity. but no more of this gloomy subject.
"dining last sunday with major moses, when the cloth was removed, as i was preparing to take a glass of wine, i felt a pain in my right breast, which rapidly increased to such a degree that i told the major, who sat next to me, of the singular sensation. i had no sooner spoken than the pain shot to my heart and i fell upon the floor. for the space of fifteen minutes i lay perfectly speechless. when, through the kind attentions of the family (which i can never forget), i had in a measure recovered, the pain was still very violent. a physician was summoned, who bled me copiously, and this relieved my sufferings. in consequence of my weakened and distressed condition, i was persuaded to stay there all night. the next morning i returned to my lodgings, and remained in-doors all day, though feeling perfectly recovered. but the following evening, very injudiciously, i performed damon. the exertion in this arduous part caused a relapse, which, however, was not seriously felt until thursday evening, when i was performing william tell. then, indeed, it was agony. all that i had suffered before was but the shadow of a shade to what i then felt,—pains in all my limbs, and my head nigh to bursting. with the unavoidable use of brandy, ether, and hartshorn, i got wildly through the character. since that time i have had
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medical attendance and every attention that kindness can show. in a few days, without doubt, i shall be on the boards again.
"i received a few days ago a letter from william, which remains unanswered. please inform him of the cause. i shall take my benefit shortly, and am led to believe that it will be all that i can desire. do not think i shall then forget those who heretofore may sometimes have had cause to upbraid me. farewell, dear mother.
"tell henrietta to write, and quickly, too.
"yours most affectionately,
"edwin forrest."
his illness proved, as he thought it would, brief. his success knew no abatement. he drew such crowds nightly and excited them to such a pitch that the whole city became alive and agog about him. of the many tributes then paid him, these lines may serve as a specimen:
"see how the stormy passions of the soul
are edwin forrest's, and at his control:
how he can drive the curdling blood along
its choking channels—how his face and tongue
can check the current as it seeks the brain,
arrest its course, and bring it back again;
freeze it when circling round the glowing heart,
or thaw it thence, and bid it, melting, part;
rouse up revenge for tell's unmeasured wrongs
until it echoes from a thousand tongues;
or melt the soul of friendship quite away
when damon claims his pythias' dying day."
from this auspicious beginning he went steadily on gaining power and public favor until his popularity was so conspicuous that one of the managers of the rival establishment came to him with an offer of three times the amount he was then receiving. he replied, "i cannot listen to you, as i am engaged to gilfert for the season." "you are not bound by a legal paper, and therefore are free," expostulated the wily bargainer. "sir," was his characteristic answer, "my word is as strong as any written contract." during this first winter, so rapidly did his fame spread that gilfert actually lent him repeatedly to other theatres at two hundred dollars a night, he still paying him only his forty
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dollars a week. certain disinterested persons who learned this fact commented on it to gilfert himself with much severity. and at the end of the engagement he said to the young man, "i want to engage you for the next season, but i suppose our terms must be somewhat different. what do you expect?" forrest quietly looked at him, and replied, "you have yourself fixed my value. you have found me to be worth two hundred dollars a night." he was at once engaged at that rate for eighty nights. and it is to be remembered that sixteen thousand dollars then was equivalent to thirty thousand now. he had just passed his twenty-first birthday. thus in six short months the youthful artist who came to the metropolis poor, scarcely known, little heralded, had acquired an imposing fame, was surrounded by a brilliant host of friends, and entered on his summer vacation prospective master of a sumptuous income.
