"If, therefore, you have any idea of giving me a situation in a respectable line, juvenile business, you will hear farther from me by addressing a line to 77 Cedar Street, Philadelphia.
"Your most obedient servant,
"(In haste.) Edwin Forrest.
"P.S.—I should be pleased to learn your resolve as early as possible, so that in case you decline my services I may be enabled elsewhere to make arrangements."
This letter, like the one he had two years before addressed to Caldwell, was fruitless. But his mind was firmly made up that he would persevere until his efforts were successful. And, a few days later, the opportunity he sought presented itself, and he left home to enter in earnest on a regular apprenticeship to the vocation he had chosen.
Here, for a little space, we drop the thread of personal narrative for the purpose of introducing a sketch of the origin and significance of the dramatic art. As the subject of this biography is to be an actor, his character to be shaped by the peculiar influences of the theatrical profession, his career and fame to be permanently associated with the history of that profession in America, an exposition of the origin and nature of the drama, of its different forms and applications, and of its personal uses, will bring the reader to the succeeding chapters with a fuller appreciation of their various topics, and give him some data for estimating the place which the art of acting has held, now holds, and is destined hereafter to hold, in the experience of mankind.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN, VARIETY, AND PERSONAL USES OF
THE DRAMATIC ART.