Once when he was filling an engagement in Boston, Oakes told him a story of a humble mechanic whose landlord had compelled him to pay a debt twice over, under circumstances of cruelty which had brought out proofs of a most heroic honesty and refined sensibility in the poor man. Forrest listened to the narrative with rapt attention. At its close he exclaimed, “That landlord is a stony-hearted brute, and this mechanic is a man of a royal soul! I must go and see him and his family before I leave Boston.” Thanksgiving Day came that week. A friend of Oakes had sent him for his Thanksgiving dinner an enormous wild turkey, weighing with the feathers on twenty-seven and a half pounds. He showed this to Forrest on Wednesday and told him they were to feast on it the next day. “No, old chap,” replied Forrest; “you and I will dine on a beefsteak, and take the wild turkey to the noble fellow who paid Shylock his money twice.” Immediately after breakfast on Thanksgiving Day a barouche was ordered, the big black turkey, looking nearly as large as a Newfoundland dog, placed on the front seat, and Forrest and Oakes took the back seat. They drove to the theatre. Forrest accosted the box-keeper: “Mr. Fenno, I want for to-night’s performance six of the best seats in the house, for an emperor and his family who are to honor me by their presence.” Fenno gave him the tickets and declined to take pay for them. He insisted on paying for them, saying, “They are my guests, sir.” They then rode over to East Boston to the house of the honest man, found him, announced their names, explained the cause and object of their visit, and were invited in by him and introduced to his wife and four children. Forrest kissed each one of the children. He brought in the huge turkey and laid it on the table. Then, turning to the wife, he said, “We have brought a turkey for your Thanksgiving dinner; and if you and your noble husband and children enjoy as much in eating it as my friend and myself do in offering it you will be very happy. And I am sure you deserve great happiness, and I have faith that God will give it to you all.” He then presented the tickets for the play of Metamora, saying, “I shall look to see if you are all in the seats before I begin to act.” Not one of them had ever been inside of a theatre. The sensations that were awaiting them may be imagined. When the curtain rose and Metamora appeared on the stage amidst that tumultuous applause which in those times never failed to greet his entrance, he walked deliberately to the front, fixed his eyes on the little family, bowed, and then proceeded. Throughout the play he acted for and at that group, who seemed far happier than any titular royalty could have been. Though this happened twenty years before his death, he never forgot when in Boston to inquire after the American emperor! The honest man is still living, and should this little story ever meet his eye he will vouch for its entire truth.
A few extracts taken almost at random from the letters of these friends will clearly indicate the substantial earnestness and warmth of their relation. Letters when honest and free reveal the likeness of the writer, photographing the features of the soul, a feat which usually baffles artistic skill and always defies chemical action.
“You will doubtless receive this note to-morrow,—my birthday,—when, you say, you will think of me. Tell me the day, my dear friend, when you do not think of me! God bless you! Last night I acted at Washington in Damon and Pythias. The sound of weeping was actually audible all over the house as the noble Pythagorean rushed breathlessly back to save his friend and then to die. What a grand moral is told in that play! What sermon was ever half so impressive in its teaching! Had Shakspeare written on the subject he had ‘drowned the stage with tears.’”
“I cannot let this day pass without sending to you a renewed expression of the esteem and high regard with which through so many years my heart has unceasingly honored you. A merry Christmas to you, my glorious friend, and a happy New Year, early in which I hope again to take you by the hand.”
“As the years go by us, my noble Spartacus, many things slip away never to return, and many things that stay lose their charm. But one thing seems to grow ever more fresh and precious,—the joy of an honest friendship and trust in manly worth. May this, dear Forrest, never fail for you or for me, however long we live.”
“God bless you, Oakes, for your kindly greeting on the New Year’s day! Though I was too busy to write, my soul went out to you on that day with renewed messages of love, and with thanks to Almighty God that he has quickened at least two hearts with an unselfish and unwavering devotion to each other, and that those two hearts are yours and mine.”
“You are almost the only intimate friend I have had who never asked of me a pecuniary favor, and to whom I am indebted for as many personal kindnesses as I ever received from any. I will send you my portrait to hang in your parlor, with my autograph, and with such words as I have not written, and will never write, upon another.”
“It gives me great pleasure, my much-loved friend, to know that in a few days more I shall see you again, and reach that haven of rest, the presence of a true friend, where the storms of trouble cease to prevail.”
“And now, my friend, permit me to thank you for all the delicate attentions you so considerately showed me during my late visit, and for your noble manly sympathy for me in the wound I received from the legal assassins of the Court of Appeals, who by their recent decision have trampled upon law, precedent, justice, and the instinctive honor of the human heart.”
On the eve of his professional trip to California, Forrest wrote to Oakes, “My dear friend, how much I should like, if your business matters would permit, to have you accompany me to California! I would right willingly pay all your expenses for the entire journey, and I am sure you would enjoy the trip beyond expression. Is it not possible for you to arrange your affairs and go with me? It would make me the happiest man in the world.”