"These sentiments are embraced in a brief but comprehensive toast, which I will ask leave to offer,—
"The Stage and its Master."
Amid loud and long applause, Forrest rose, bowed his acknowledgments, and replied,—
"Mr. President and Gentlemen,—I feel too deeply the honor this day rendered me to be able to express myself in terms of adequate meaning. There are times when the tongue is at best but a poor interpreter of the heart. The strongest emotions do not always clothe themselves in the strongest language. The words which rise to my lips seem too cold and vapid to denote truly the sentiments which prompt them. They lack that terseness and energy which the occasion deserves.
"The actor usually comes before the public in a 'fiction, in a dream of passion,' and his aim is to suit his utterance and the ''havior of the visage' to the unreal situation. But the resources of my art do not avail me here. This is no pageant of the stage, to be forgotten with the hour, nor this an audience drawn to view its mimic scenes.
"I stand amidst a numerous throng of the chiefest denizens of my native city, convened to do me honor; and this costly banquet they present to me, a munificent token of public regard. I feel, indeed, that I am no actor here. My bosom throbs with undissembled agitation, and in the grateful tumult of my thoughts I cannot 'beget a temperance to give smoothness' to my acknowledgments for so proud a tribute. In the simplest form of speech, then, let me assure you from my inmost heart, I thank you.
"I have but recently returned from England, after performing many nights on those boards where the master-spirits of the stage achieved their noblest triumphs. You have heard from other sources with what kindness I was received, and with what bounteous applause my efforts were rewarded. Throughout my sojourn abroad I experienced only the most candid and liberal treatment from the public, and the most elegant and cordial hospitality in private. But I rejoice that the time has come round which brings me again to the point from which I started; which places me among those friends whose partial kindness discovered the first unfoldings of my mind, and watched it with assiduous care through all the stages of its subsequent development. The applause of foreign audiences was soothing to my pride, but that which I received at home had aroused a deeper sentiment. The people of England bestowed their approbation on the results of long practice and severe study, but my countrymen gave me theirs in generous anticipation of those results.
"They looked with indulgence on the completed statue; you marked with interest from day to day the progress of the work till the rough block, by gradual change, assumed its present form. Let me hope that it may yet be sculptured to greater symmetry and smoothness, and better deserve your lavish regard.
"The sounds and sights which greet me here are linked with thrilling associations. Among the voices which welcome me to-night I distinguish some which were raised in kind approval of my earliest efforts. Among the faces which surround this board I trace lineaments deeply stamped on my memory in that expression of benevolent encouragement with which they regarded my juvenile attempts, and cheered me onward in the outset of my career. I look on your features, sir" (said Mr. F., addressing himself to the Mayor of the city, who occupied a seat by his right), "and my mind glides over a long interval of time, to a scene I can never forget. Four lustres are now nearly completed since the event occurred to which I allude.
"A crowd was gathered one evening in the Tivoli Garden, to behold the curious varieties of delirium men exhibit on inhaling nitrous oxide. Several years had then elapsed since the great chemist of England had made known the singular properties of exhilarating gas; and strange antics performed under its influence by distinguished philosophers, poets, and statesmen of Europe were then on record. It was yet, however, a novelty with us, and the public experiments drew throngs to witness them. Among those to whom the intoxicating agent was administered (on the occasion referred to) there chanced to be a little unfriended boy, who, in the instant ecstasy which the subtle fluid inspired, threw himself into a tragic attitude and commenced declaiming a passage from one of Shakspeare's plays. 'What, ho!' he cried, 'young Richmond, ho! 'tis Richard calls; I hate thee, Harry, for thy blood of Lancaster.' But the effect of the aerial draught was brief as it was sudden and irresistible. The boy, awaking as from a dream, was surprised to find himself the centre of attraction,—'the observed of all observers.' Abashed at his novel and awkward position, he shrunk timidly from the glances of the spectators, and would have stolen in haste away. But a stranger stepped from the crowd, and, taking him kindly by the hand, pronounced words which thrilled through him with a spell-like influence. 'This lad,' said he, 'has the germ of tragic greatness in him. The exhilarating gas has given him no new power. It has only revealed one which lay dormant in him before. It needs only to be cherished and cultivated to bring forth goodly fruit.'