Benjamin Harrison Forrest

“ Forrest's personal appearance, one would with difficulty imagine him capable of looking the old man, fourscore and upwards, all the attributes of age and feebleness, the palsied head and tottering walk, are admirably assumed, and are never lost sight of throughout the performance. ”

“ Most of us are but as collections of fragments pieced together, so full of strictures and contractions that no vibratory impact or undulation can circulate freely in us. But Forrest had this open and poised unity in such a degree that when at ease he swayed on his centre like a mountain on a pivot, and when volition put rigidity into his muscles the centre was solidaire with the periphery. ”

“ They felt that he was a genuine piece of the country, and, in presence of his oak-ribbed strength of person and understanding, acknowledged that he belonged to the land he came from. Mr. Forrest is another of these; quite as good in his way; struck out of the very heart of the soil, and vindicating himself too clearly to be misunderstood, as a creature of its institutions, habits, and daily life. His biography is a chapter in the life of the country ”

“ Her native delicacy of mind and refinement of manners enchanted those who hoped for some such influence to be exerted in softening the rough vigor and democratic downrightness of the man. Domestic discord came too soon, however, and in an evil hour for himself, in an evil hour for his art and for the struggling drama in America, Edwin Forrest threw open the doors of his home to the scrutiny of the world, and appealed to the courts to remove the skeleton which was hidden in his closet. ”

“ Ballin rose.
"I'm not feeling well," he said simply; "when the young people have finished with you, Forrest, you will find me in the Signer's room." He left the table and the room, very pale and shaky, for by this time the full meaning of Forrest's incontestable claim had clarified in his brain. He saw himself as if struck down by sudden poverty—of too long leisure and too advanced Forrest finished as abruptly as he had begun and rose from the piano. But for a few charged moments even the twins were silent. ”

“ He saw his country expand from seventeen States to thirty-seven, and from a population of six millions to one of forty millions, with its flag floating in every wind under heaven. Washington, indeed, and Franklin, were dead when the life of Forrest began; but Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Marshall, and a throng of the Revolutionary worthies were still on the stage. When he died, every one of the second great cluster of illustrious Americans, grouped in the national memory, with Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Irving, Cooper, and Channing in the centre, was gone ”

“ However wild and questionable in a moral point of view were some of Forrest's closest friends in New Orleans, and freely as he himself indulged in pleasure, he shed the worst influences exerted on him, was never recklessly abandoned to any vice whatever, but held a strong curb over his passions, and was uniformly faithful and punctual in the extreme to all his professional duties, steadily working in every way he knew to improve and to rise. ”

“ Forrest had been keeping sharp watch on the hall entrance, and the moment that he saw the two Bells arrive and make their way toward the staircase, he watched for a chance to get a word in the ears of his family. A lull in the arrivals gave him his opportunity.
"Olive," he said coolly to his sister in an undertone, "I took the liberty of sending Jane and Peter Bell an invitation--and they 're here. I want you to brace up and give them just as nice a welcome as you 're giving the rest. Hold on! If you 're angry at anybody, it's at me, and you 've no right to take it out of them for that. ”

“ We trust that this young gentleman will find the patronage to which his extraordinary ripeness of faculty and his modest deportment entitle him."
It is certainly interesting to find in this, the first criticism of the first regular appearance of Forrest, in the fifteenth year of his age, a distinct indication of his most prominent characteristics throughout his whole histrionic career, namely, his earnest realism, his noble voice, his accurate elocution, and his steady poise. ”

“ Besides, he was a man of extraordinary strength and originality of character, an imperious, self-defending personality, living steadfastly at first hand from his own impulses, perceptions, and purposes, not shiftily in faded reflections of the opinions and wishes of other people at the second or third remove. He was a standing refutation of the common prejudice against actors, that simulating so many fictitious traits they gradually cease to have genuine ones of their own, and become mere lay figures ready for every chance dress. If any man ever was true to his own fixed type, Forrest was. ”

“ Her lips quivered painfully as she answered:
"No, I know nothing, except that my birth was my mother's shame, and the cause of her death."
"Poor soul!" sighed William Kelso, compassionately, then he added: "Yes, he was the younger son of a noble English family. His eldest brother was heir to the title and estates, the second brother was in the army, and John Forrest, the third and last, was designed for the church. He was young and wild, and revolted against the restraints of a clerical life, and ran away to America."
Flower sat up, listening eagerly. ”

“ Forrest saw the design and inwardly resented it, though he said nothing. He followed the wise course of trying to make the best he could of the part assigned him. He made a careful study of the peculiarities of age, in feature, in gait, in voice. He would often sit in places of public resort and critically watch every old man who came in or went out. Many a time when he had chanced to discover some striking example of power and dignity or of weakness and decrepitude in an old man he would follow him in the street and mentally imitate him, reproducing and fixing what he saw. ”

“ But at the sound of Forrest's step he turned an alert, close-cropped, gray head and stepped out of the embrasure.
"Mr. Ballin?" said Forrest.
"I am Mr. Ballin." His eyes perused the stranger with astonishing speed and deftness, without seeming to do so.
"It was the toss of a coin that decided me to come," said Forrest. "I have asked your butler to lay a place for me at luncheon."
So much assumption on the part of a stranger has a cheeky look in the printing. Yet Forrest's tone and manner far more resembled those of old friendship and intimacy than impertinence. ”

“ He held that there were good grounds in historic truth for this view; and, at all events, it was the only view of the character which his sympathies could embrace and shape to his purpose of producing a play at once suited to the personality of Forrest as an actor and constituting an impassioned argument for democracy. The tragedy is all on fire with democratic conviction and passion. It breathes throughout the most intense feeling of the wrongs and claims of the oppressed common people. ”

“ Forrest had an aversion to society, a passion for individuals, and an intense ambition to excel in his art, which he loved for itself. It was quite natural that the friendship of men so unlike, to say nothing of their great disparity in years, should be streaked with coolnesses and gradually cease. ”

“ By his fidelity in varied physical drill, Forrest had become a prodigy of strength and endurance. With vivid passions, enormous vitality, an ingenuous and sympathetic soul, a most attractive person, in the unconventional habits of the freest of the professions, few men were ever more beset within and without by the temptations to a dissipated and spendthrift course. ”

“ Forrest has certainly improved, especially in the less showy passages of the play; and we admire him most in the quiet asides, the quick and clear directions as to the disposition of his troops, and any other portions of the dialogue that do not demand great emotion. In these he is natural and truthful. As before, when he comes to the delineation of the deeper passions of our nature, it is by energetic muscular action, and by the fierce shoutings or hoarse raving of his voice, that he conveys the idea,—not by any of the nicer touches of mental discrimination and expression. ”

“ The first cause of the endless flings, aspersions, and belittling valuations of which Forrest was the subject is to be found in the mere fact of his success itself. Every one familiar with the workings of unregenerate human nature must confess the truth of this assertion, dark and sad as it is. ”

“ Not they who happened to be born here, but they who have the spirit of America, are true Americans.
The father and mother of Edwin Forrest were thoroughly Americanized, and taught him none of the special peculiarities of his Scottish or German ancestry. So far as his conscious training was concerned, in language, religion, social habits, he grew up the same as if his parentage had for repeated generations been American. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then, consulting his watch, he said to Josephine: “Mrs. Forrest, don’t you think we should have that game of croquet before the day gets hotter? You see they are beginning to occupy the grounds already,” and he nodded toward the opposite side of the park, where a group of young ladies and gentlemen were knocking about the balls preparatory to a game. “To-morrow we shall ask you to join us,” he said to Rossie, “but as a physician, I advise you to rest to-day after your long journey. Coming suddenly into this climate is apt to debilitate if one is not careful. ”

“ Our incessant reading, our excessive brain-work, cloys the memory, impoverishes the heart, wearies the soul, and destroys the capacity [Pg 162] for relishing simple natural enjoyments. This is one of the morals which the biography of Forrest ought to emphasize by the brilliant contrast it exhibits. For he at thirty, the period when laborious Americans begin to give out, had developed an organism of extraordinary power, with cleanly-freed joints and firmly-knit fibres and a copiously-stocked reservoir of vitality. ”

“ If ever they have been united, the combination has not produced such a pleasing whole as Arthur Forrest, who, in spite of the knowledge of this world on which he prided himself, was above all things young and confiding. ”

“ During my residence in England, I found among the English people the most unbounded hospitality, and the warmest affection for my beloved country and her institutions. With this impression, I have resolved to present to them an American tragedy, supported by the humble efforts of the individual who stands before you. If I fail—I fail. But, whatever may be the result, the approbation of that public which first stamped the native dramatist and actor will ever be my proudest recollection."
Of all the friends to whom Forrest bade adieu, not one beside was so dear to him as Leggett. ”

“ Forrest made his first appearance in New Orleans, at the American Theatre, as Jaffier in Venice Preserved, February 4th, 1824, Caldwell sustaining the part of Pierre. His individuality and his acting immediately made a strong impression on the general audience, and drew towards him the fervent personal interest of those particular individuals, both men and women, whose qualities of character caused them to feel a vivid curiosity and sympathy for highly-marked and expressive specimens of human nature. ”

“ It is no painted shadow you see in Forrest; no piece of costume; no sword or buckler moving along the line of light as in a procession; but a man, there to do his four hours' work; it may be sturdily, and with great outlay of muscular power, but with a big heart ”

“ The excess was too much display of physical and spiritual force in the expression of contemptuous or revengeful and destructive passion. There was a basis for this charge, though the accusation was grossly exaggerated. The muscular and passional strength and intensity of Forrest, both by constitution and by culture, were so much beyond those of ordinary men that a manifestation of them which was entirely natural and within the bounds to him often seemed to them a huge extravagance, a wilful overdoing for the sake of making a sensation. ”

“ For generations the name of Forsyth has been associated with distinction in the records of southern history. The original member of the family, Robert Forsyth, came from England to America before the revolution, and was a member of the military family of Washington. His son, John Forsyth, was at various times attorney general and governor of Georgia, a member of congress for a period of fifteen years from that state, minister to Spain, and was instrumental in procuring the cession of Florida. ”