"Here, mother, I must break off awhile; for Mr. Fisher, a Quaker preacher, has just stepped in to see me. He was one of my fellow-passengers hither in the stage-coach; and as he is a very agreeable man, possessing much mind, I have a disposition to treat him with deference and respect.
"Evening, 11 o'clock.
"I have just returned from performing William Tell. The house was crowded, and the applause generous. I am charmed with the Boston people. They are both liberal and refined. In this place I shall add much to my reputation, as well as enlarge my purse, and at present this latter is as necessary and will be as acceptable as the former.
"Why does not brother William write me oftener than he does? Did you receive the $100 I sent you?
"All court, every attention, is paid me here by the young men of first respectability. These truly flattering attentions make me hold you, beloved mother, dearer than ever before. I trust I shall not live in vain, but hold my course a little longer, that I may restore you to peace and competency and reflect a mellow light upon the evening of your declining day.
"With sincerest love for sisters and brother, I am yours till death.
"Edwin Forrest."
It was on the opening night of this engagement, February 5th, 1827, in the old Federal Street Theatre, in the character of Damon, that Forrest was seen for the first time by James Oakes, who was destined to be his most intimate and devoted friend from that hour unto the close of earth. After the play Oakes went behind the scenes and obtained an introduction, his heart yet shaking from his eyes the watery signals of the profound emotion awakened in him by the performance. The new acquaintance was cemented by a long and happy conversation in the room of the actor, though neither of them could then have dreamed how momentous a part it was to bear henceforth in the lives of both. They flowed harmoniously together as if they had been foreordained for each other by being set to the same rhythm. Forrest was a little less than twenty-one, Oakes a little less than twenty years old at that time. They were as alert and sinewy, as free and pleasureful, as a couple of bounding stags, and the world lay all before them in roselight. Ah, what a tinge of pensive wonder, what a shade of mournful omen, would have dropped on the bright sentiment of that exuberant season if they could have foreseen all to the end,—the tragic sorrows and deaths of so many of their friends, leaving these two to journey on, clinging the closer the more others fell away!
A little over four months after his brilliant success in Boston, he appeared, under circumstances less auspicious, in the capital of Rhode Island, and had a short but ominous illness, which he described in a letter to his mother.
"Providence, 20th June, 1827.