Jr. Horatio Alger

“ The Damon of Forrest was in every respect grandly conceived and grandly embodied. His noble form carried proudly aloft in weighty ease, clad in Grecian garb, with long robe and sandals, corresponded with the justice and dignity of his soul. He was in no sense a sentimentalist or fanatic, but a man with intellect and heart balanced in conscience,—equally a patriot, a philosopher, and a friend,—his sentiments set in the great virtues of human nature loyal to the gods, his convictions and love not mere instincts but embedded in his reason and his honor. ”

“ Forrest's Othello is a burlesque of the elder Kean's mannerisms, his air of depressed solemnity, prolonged pauses, and startling outbursts, with occasional imitations of Vandenhoff's deep-voiced utterance, varied by the Yankee nasal twang. His presence is not commanding, nor his deportment dignified; for the assumption of grandeur is not sustained by an imaginative feeling of nobleness. His passion is a violent effort of physical vehemence. He bullies Iago, and treats Desdemona with brutal ferocity. Even his tenderness is affected, and his smile is like the grin of a wolf showing his fangs. ”

“ What can be more genuinely sensational than Niagara, Mont Blanc, the earthquake, the tempest, the forked flash of the lightning, the crashing roll of the thunder, the crouch of the tiger, the dart of the anaconda, the shriek of the swooping eagle, the prance of the war-horse in his proud pomp? And the attributes of all these belong to man, with additions of nameless grandeur, terror, and beauty beside, making him an incarnate representative of God on the earth. To see Forrest in Lear, or Salvini in Saul, is to feel this. ”

“ The pit rose in mass, and long and loud was the applause, clapping of hands, thumping of canes, waving of hats and handkerchiefs, ending with nine cheers for Edwin Forrest, given with heart and soul. The recipient evidently felt it all. Long may this relation between actor and people be unbroken! It is for the good of both that it should exist. As a man, Mr. Forrest is worthy of this confidence; as the representative of Lear and the greatest nobleness of Shakspeare, and the loftiest minds of the drama, he is trebly worthy of it, for he stands the representative of an heroic truth and dignity. ”

“ Right glad are we that we have seen this picture of Forrest, for it has an eloquent breath for our common humanity. It has given us a glimpse of his nature which long ago we should have rejoiced to see revealed, but whose richness we dreamed not was there. What a volume is a man's life! The heart's story,—always going on, always deepening the great drama of our being as it progresses to the mortal act,—this story, in a strong inveterate nature, writes in the public bearing and in all the features that falsehood as to his sensibilities which the dreadful pen of pride alone engraves. ”

“ Here he drew her still closer, and placed her head on his bosom, and, with the long knife in his hand, pointed upwards, and with an alluring, indescribably sweet and aerial falsetto tone, painted a picture that seemed to take form and color in the very atmosphere. There was a weird dreaminess in his voice and a visionary abstractness in his gaze, as with the words "long path in the thin air," he indicated the heavenward journey of his dead child, that seemed actually to dissolve the whole scene, theatre, actor, spectators, and all, into a passing vapor, an ethereal enchantment. ”

“ No one among all our distinguished countrymen has been more thoroughly American than Edwin Forrest. From the beginning to the end of his career he was intensely American in his sympathies, his prejudices, his training, his enthusiasm for the flag and name of his country, his proud admiration for the democratic genius of its institutions, his faith in its political mission, his interest in its historic men, his fervent love of its national scenery and its national literature. ”

“ Its ancient and lofty halls will ring with the old and well-known voices, and its gorgeous and grotesque creations pass before him like things of life and substance, rather than the airy nothings of the imagination. If such be its ordinary magic, how potent is the spell when the vision becomes half real; when the leaves of the drama, like the written responses of the ancient oracles, flutter with supernatural life; when the figures start from the lifeless canvas and live and move and have their being in the mighty art of a Forrest! ”

“ I wish Shakspeare, with all his divine attributes, had only had a little of that ennobling love of equal human liberty which is now animating the hearts of true patriots all over the world, and is destined, ere long, to effect a great and glorious change in the condition of mankind. What a vast and godlike influence he might have exerted in moulding the public mind and guiding the upward progress of nations, if his great genius had not been dazzled by the false glitter of aristocratic institutions, and blinded to the equal rights of the great family of man! ”

“ For forty years James Oakes had been the sworn bosom friend of Edwin Forrest. He regarded him with an admiration and love romantic if not idolatrous. He had, as he said, known him as youth, as man, in all hours, all fortunes; had summered him and wintered him, and for nigh half a century held him locked in the core of his heart, which he opened every day to look in on him there. He resembled him in physical development, in bearing, in unconscious tricks of manner, in tastes and habits. ”

“ For then the theatre, in its splendid public examples and in its innumerable domestic reduplications, will be regarded as the unrivalled educational mirror of humanity.
Of no American actor has there yet been written a biography worthy of the name; though scarcely any other sphere of life is so crowded with adventure, with romance, with every kind of affecting incident, and with striking moral lessons. The theatre is a concentrated nation in itself. It is a moving and illuminated epitome of mankind. It is a condensed and living picture of the ideal world within the real world. ”

“ Did we not desire to be strong rather than weak, to be handsome rather than ugly, to be admired rather than scorned, all aspiration would cease, and the human race stagnate and end. To be capable of such astounding outbursts of power and passion as to electrify all who behold, curdle their very marrow, and cause them ever after to remember you with wondering interest and fruitful imitation, is a glorious endowment, worthy of our envy. ”

“ From every part of the State the gentlemen planters loved to congregate in New Orleans, perfect masters of their limbs, their faculties, their weapons, and their horses, not knowing fear or embarrassment, living their thoughts and passions spontaneously out, their tall forms aflush with bold sensibility, the rich strength and grace of the thoroughbred pointing their elastic motions. And in the parlor, the ball-room, at fashionable resorts, on the promenades, the women were the peers of the men in their intensity of being, their fondness of adventure, their courage, brilliance, and piquancy. ”

“ His beloved Alonzo and Cora are discerned playing with their child in front of a wood. They talk of Rolla, of his sacrifice for them, and of his noble qualities. Shouts arise, when Alonzo says, "It is Rolla setting the guard. He comes." At that instant the sonorous tones of his voice are heard from outside the stage, like the martial clang of a trumpet, uttering the words, "Place them on the hill fronting the Spanish camp." Every eye is fixed, the whole audience lean forward as he enters, and in a flash the magnetic spell is on them, and they breathe and feel as one man. ”

“ And as for Ireland, I need scarcely tell you that in the land of the warm-hearted Irishman an American is always at home. There, from the humblest as from the most exalted man he finds a smile of welcome and a friendly grasp. How could it be otherwise among a people so full of sensibility and impulse, of unselfishness and magnanimity,—a people in whom misrule and tyranny have failed to quench one spark of generous spirit, or to curdle one drop of the milk of human kindness in their hearts? ”

“ It is the love of the father for his boy, compared to which his coffers of gold become as dross in his sight,—always peeping with the eyes of a dove from the ark of the old man's heart, waiting for the deluge of evil passions to subside in his child, that the olive-branch may be wafted to him,—it is this love, sublime in forgiveness, ample for protection, and which at last breaks his heart, that is so painted here by the player as to make a dramatic movement of which Shakspeare might have been the author. ”

“ In the distinguishing peculiarities of his structure and strain Edwin Forrest was one of those extraordinary men who seem to spring up rarely here and there, as if without ancestors, direct from some original mould of nature, and constitute a breed apart by themselves. Alexander, Cæsar, Demosthenes, Mirabeau, Chatham, Napoleon, draw their volitions from such an unsounded reservoir of power, have such latent resources of intuition, can strike such all-staggering blows, that common men, appalled before their mysteriousness, instinctively revere and obey. ”

“ For the fair appreciation of a piece of acting, assuredly this latter point of view is preferable to the former; for tragedy is a form of poetry, and has as one of its purest functions the revelation of the moral ingredients of man, lifted, enlarged, and glorified in its mirror of art.
Rolla is depicted as simple, grand, a nobleman of nature, frank, ardent, impulsive, magnanimous,—his own truth and heroism investing him with an invisible robe and crown of royalty. It was a rôle precisely adapted to the young tragedian whose own soul it so well reflected. ”

“ Its genius is contemptuous of titular claims or extrinsic conditions in comparison with intrinsic truth and merit. Its glance pierces through all pompous circumstances and pretences, to the personal reality of the man. If that be royal and divine, it is ready to worship; if not, it pays no false or hollow tribute, no matter what outward prestige of attraction there may be or what clamor of threats. That is the proper temper and historic ideal of our republic; and that was Forrest in the very centre of his soul, both as a man and as an actor. ”

“ In the anxious hush of expectation, the old ladies, as if in melancholy consciousness of the decay of their natural charms, busied themselves in arranging their diamonds to the most dazzling effect of brilliancy, while the young demoiselles threw hurried glances at each other, scrutinizing their relative pretensions in the way of decorations and personal beauty. The varieties of human character found time to display themselves even in the brief and anxious period of suspense while waiting for the entrance of royalty. Pride, envy, jealousy, ambition, coquetry, were all at work. ”

“ He valued the goods of life highly, and labored to accumulate them. He had a vivid sensibility for the beauties of nature. He had an enthusiastic admiration of great men, and a ruling desire for the prizes of honor and fame. His soul thrilled at the recital of glorious deeds, and his tears started at a great thought or a sublime image or a tender sentiment. Friendship for man, love for woman, a kindling patriotism, a profound feeling of the domestic ties, a burning passion for liberty, and an unaffected reverence for God, were dominant chords in his nature. ”

“ It may lie dormant in us, as music lies in the strings of a silent harp, till a touch gives it life. Speaking more or less in all, it speaks most in those who cherish it most; and when it speaks it is felt by all,—red man and white man, barbarian and philosopher. The pathos of Metamora was not like that of Damon when he parted with his family to go to his execution, not like that of Brutus when he sentenced his son to death, not like that of Virginius when he slew his daughter. It was a pathos without tears or gesture. The Indian warrior never weeps. ”

“ He was, on the contrary, a wholesome realist, full of throbbing vitality and eagerness, embracing the natural goods of existence with a sharp relish, and putting a worshipful estimate on the ideal glories of humanity. Intellect, instinct, and affection in him were all alive,—free and teeming springs of personal power. This rich fulness of positive life and passion in himself both opened to him the elemental secrets of experience and enabled him to play effectively on the sympathies of other men. ”

“ While War and Work, with the rehearsing discipline they exact, occupy and ravage the fairest fields and promises of Human Life, and create Weariness, Crime, Lust, and Death, as the horrid Reapers who tread close in their steps, the Theatre—one bright home of Freedom, Art, and Beauty, planted in a paradisal place—is prophetic of the time to come when Love and Leisure shall have room to people the redeemed world with their fair and sweet offspring, Play and Joy. ”

“ Where are the foundations of private right more stable, or the limits of public order more inviolately observed? Where does labor go to his toil with an alerter step, or an erecter brow, effulgent with the heart-reflected light of conscious independence? Where does agriculture drive his team a-field with a more cheery spirit, in the certain assurance that the harvest is his own? Where does commerce launch more boldly her bark upon the deep, aware that she has to strive but with the tyranny of the elements, and not with the more appalling tyranny of man? ”

“ Still further, Forrest has a claim for posthumous justice as one who was wronged in important particulars of his life and misjudged in essential elements of his character. Outraged, as he conceived, in the sanctities of his manhood, he bore the obloquy for years with outward silence, but with an inner resentment that rankled to his very soul. Endowed with a tender and expansive heart, cultivated taste, and a scrupulous sense of justice, shrinking sensitively from any stain on his honor, he was in many circles considered a selfish despot addicted to the most unprincipled practices. ”

“ As an actor, Mr. Forrest is fervent, passionate, and active: there is no child's play in whatever he does; but in the most serious, as in the slightest development of feeling, he puts his whole heart into the matter, and carries us away with him in either the subtlety or the strength of his emotion. With powers evidently enabling him to outroar a whirlwind, he is never extravagant,—he is never of 'Ercles' vein; his passion is always from the heart, and never from the lungs. His last two scenes were splendidly acted, from the strength, the self-abandonment of the performer ”

“ How many myriads of happy people that had not wronged Rome, for they knew not Rome,—how many myriads of these were slain, like the beasts of the field, that Rome might fatten upon their blood, and become great? Look ye, Roman, there is not a palace upon these hills that cost not the lives of a thousand innocent men; there is no deed of greatness ye can boast, but it was achieved by the ruin of a nation; there is no joy ye can feel, but its ingredients are blood and tears. ”

“ Every one of us is essentially an actor, the setting of his performance furnished independently of his will wherever he goes, all his schemes included and borne on in a divine plan deeper than he dreams. Our own organism is the primary theatre, the proscenia of brain and heart teeming with dramas which link our being and destiny with those of all other actors from the beginning to the end of the world. ”

“ Forrest is the most promising tragedian that has appeared in our days. He has, evidently, rare intellectual endowments; a noble and commanding presence; a countenance full of varying expression; a voice mellow, flexible, and in its undertones exquisitely tender, and a discretion that never fails him. If any one can revive the half-extinct taste for the drama, he is the man. ”