While he was enacting the part of Iago to the Othello of Edmund Kean in Albany one night, a stalwart canal-boatman was seated in the pit, so near the stage that he rested his elbow on it close to the footlights. Iago, in the scene where he had wrought so fearfully on the jealousy of the Moor, crossed the stage near the boatman, and, as he passed, the man looked savagely at him and hissed through his teeth while grinding them together, “You damned lying scoundrel, I would like to get hold of you after this show is over and wring your infernal neck!” When they met in the dressing-room, Kean generously said to Forrest, “Young man, if my acting to-night had received as high a compliment as that brawny fellow in the pit bestowed on yours I should feel very proud. You made the mimic show real to him, and I will tell you your acting merited the criticism.”
Mr. Rees recalls among his interesting reminiscences an incident of which he was a witness in New Orleans. Forrest was delivering the curse in Lear with his wonted fierce and overwhelming vehemence. Mr. Rees heard a strange sound proceeding from some one beside him, and, turning, found, to his alarm, an elderly gentleman with his eyes fixed, his mouth open, and a deathly paleness overspreading his face. Seizing him by the shoulders and giving him a sudden jerk, he caused a reaction of the blood. The gentleman gasped, heaved a deep sigh, and gazed around like one awaking from a troubled sleep. The awful curse so awfully uttered, which had taken away his breath, seemed still ringing in his ears. “One moment more and I should have been a dead man,” he said. And, looking towards the vacant stage, he asked, “Is that terrible old man gone?”
Hazlitt tells the traditional story that once when Garrick was acting Lear the crown of straw which he wore was discomposed or fell off, which happening to any common actor would have caused a burst of laughter; but with him not the slightest notice was taken of the accident, but the attention of the audience remained riveted. The same thing actually befell Forrest, and gave the most astonishing proof of his absorbed earnestness and magnetizing power. It was in the old Broadway Theatre, near Anthony Street. He was performing Lear, with Barry, Davidge, Conway, Whiting, Madame Ponisi, Mrs. Abbott, and other favorites in the cast. In the last scene of the second act, when depicting the frenzy of the aged monarch, whose brain, maddened by injuries, was reeling on its throne, in the excitement of the moment Forrest tore the wig of whitened hair from his head and hurled it some twenty feet towards the footlights. The wig thus removed, there was revealed to the audience a head of glossy raven locks, forming a singular contrast to the hoary beard still fastened by a white cord to the actor’s chin. Not the least embarrassment resulted either to actor or to spectators. Amidst the vast assembly not a titter was heard, scarce a smile discerned. Enchained, entranced by the power of the player, two thousand breathless spectators gazed with bedimmed eyes on the mimic scene. Nor made he any pause or hesitation. Still did that superb voice, so rich and grand in melody and compass, speak forth in anguish and wrath the indignant denunciation of the outraged king and father, making every heart tremble with his tones. One of the actors on the stage at the time, in describing the event more than twenty years afterwards, said that as he recalled the effect produced by Forrest in that scene on the house, and on the players about him, it seemed something superhuman.
In the tragedy of Cleopatra, by Marmontel, an asp had been made so natural that it seemed alive. As it approached the queen its eyes sparkled like fire, and it began to hiss. At the close of the scene one asked a critic who sat by him how he liked the play. He replied, “I am of the same opinion as the asp.” This is the case with the average sort of critic, whose commonplace inferiority of soul seeks to revenge itself, whose vanity or complacency seeks to exalt itself, by a demeaning estimate of every artist of whom he writes. But, fortunately, there are numerous instances of a nobler style, men equally just and generous, who in all their judgments hold individual prejudices in abeyance, and, actuated solely by public spirit and love of truth and of art, follow the guidance not of whim or interest, but of general principles, as exemplified in the great fixed types of character and modified in their dialect variations. One writer of this kind has admirably said,—
“Every actor has some particular excellence, which stamps his style in everything he does. This in Forrest is the ever visible manliness of spirit, and love of equality and liberty, which place his Damon, Spartacus, Brutus, and all characters of a like nature so far above the reach of other actors. He is always the true man, casting defiance in the face of tyranny; his hand always open to the grasp of a friend, resolute, generous, and faithful. This spirit is something which every true heart, be its owner rich or poor, learned or unlearned, will always acknowledge and worship as the noblest attribute of man; and here is the real secret of Forrest’s success. The unlettered cannot but admire him for this feature, while to those who can appreciate artistic finish and detail, his acting must be an inexhaustible source of pleasure. After he has gone the stage will feel his worth. Who has not wept over the last act of Brutus? Who has not felt his ‘seated heart knock at his ribs’ while listening to the tragedian’s astonishing delivery in the third act of Damon and Pythias? Who that has ever heard him exclaim in the last act of the Gladiator, ‘There are no gods in heaven!’ can accuse him of being coarse or vulgar? Indeed, it may be said of his acting in many characters (as a Shaksperian commentator has said of Lear), ‘The genius of antiquity bows before it, and moderns gaze upon it with awe.’”
The strong proclivity of professional artists to jealousy is as proverbial as the tendency of the critic to attack and belittle. Forrest suffered much from both. His imperious independence, not less than his great success, provoked it, and he was maligned, spattered, and backbitten sufficiently from the stage as well as from the office. If in this respect he was an exception, it was merely in degree. The mortified and envious actors of Drury Lane discussing Kean in the greenroom, one of them sneeringly remarked, “They say he is a good harlequin.” “Yes,” retorted honest Jack Bannister, “an extraordinary one; for he has leaped over all your heads.” But the other side of this view was also true, and Forrest numbered his most enthusiastic admirers in the dramatic profession itself in all its ranks. They paid him many tributes from first to last, on which he justly set the highest value. For when the player is intelligent and candid, his special experience makes him the most competent critic of a player. The extent to which the peculiar style of Forrest took effect in producing imitators, conscious and unconscious,—who often, it is true, unhappily, copied his least praiseworthy points,—was a vast and unquestionable testimonial to his original power. And in here leaving the subject of criticism, it is enough, passing over the recorded praises of his genius by many leading American actors, to set down the deliberate estimate of James E. Murdock, himself a player of uncommon merit, as well as a man of refined scholarly culture. Some one had made a degrading allusion to Forrest, when Murdock replied, “Never had I been able to find a fitting illustration of the massive and powerful acting of Forrest until, on a visit to Rome some years ago, I stood before the mighty works of Michael Angelo,—his Last Judgment, his gigantic Moses. Call it exaggerated if you will. But there it is, beautiful in symmetry, impressive in proportions, sublime in majesty. Such was Edwin Forrest when representing the chosen characters of Shakspeare.” The illustration was as exact as the spirit that prompted it was generous. It indicates precisely the central attribute of the subject. For the powerful and reposeful port, the elemental poise and swing of the colossal figures of Angelo, reveal just what the histrionic pose and bearing of Forrest revealed, namely, the preponderance in him of the universal over the individual, the working of the forces of nature rather than the straining of his will. This is what makes a personality memorable, for it is contagious on others, and so invisibly descends the ages.
CHAPTER XV.
PERSONAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE.—FONTHILL CASTLE.—JEALOUSY.—DIVORCE.—LAWSUITS.—TRAGEDIES OF LOVE IN HUMAN LIFE AND IN THE DRAMATIC ART.
Forrest was now in his forty-fourth year, as magnificent a specimen of manhood perhaps as there was on the continent. His strength, vitality, fulness of functional power, and confronting fearlessness of soul before the course of nature and the faces of men, were so complete as to give him a chronic sense of complacency and luxury in the mere feeling of existence endowed with so much ability to do whatever he wished to do.
Despite a few annoying drawbacks his cup of outward prosperity too was full. It is true his fancy had been somewhat disenchanted and his temper embittered by experiences of meanness, ingratitude, and worthlessness, the envy and rancor of rivals, the shallowness and malignity of the multitude, and especially by a lasting soreness created in his heart from his late English trip and its unhappy sequel. It is also true that this evil influence had been negatively increased by the loss of the wise and benign restraint and inspiration given him during their lives by the devoted friendship of Leggett and the guardian love of his mother. Still, he had an earnest, democratic sympathy with the masses of men and a deep pride in their admiration. His popularity was unbounded. His rank in his art was acknowledged on the part of his professional brethren by his election as the first President of the Dramatic Fund Association, a society to whose exchequer he contributed the proceeds of an annual benefit for many years. He had fought his way with strenuous vigor through many hardships of orphanage, poverty, defective education, and a fearful furnace of temptations. And his reputation in every respect was without stain or shadow. This was certified by all sorts of public testimonials, the offers of political office and honor, the studied eulogies of the most cultivated and eloquent civilians, the smiling favors of the loveliest women in the land, the shouts of the crowd, and the golden filling of his coffers. His large earnings were invested with rare sagacity, his sound financial judgment and skill always enabling him to reap a good harvest wherever he tilled his fortune. He was at this time already worth two or three hundred thousand dollars. And this, in an age of Mammon, is a pledge to society of high deserts and a hostage for good behavior.
But above all he was signally blessed in his married life, the point in a character like his by far the most central and vital of all. The first ten years of his state of wedlock had indeed been happy beyond the ordinary portion of mortals. It was a well-mated match, he a noble statue of strength, she a melting picture of beauty, mutually proud and fond of each other, his native honesty and imperious will met by her polished refinement and conciliatory sweetness. Beyond all doubt he deeply and passionately loved her. And well he might, for his nature was one greatly endowed in all points for impassioned love, and she was in person, disposition, and accomplishments equally adapted to awaken it. “She was perfection,” said one, in allusion to her bridal landing in America; “the most beautiful vision I ever saw.” After the death of Forrest she herself said, “The first ten years of our married life were a season of contentment and happiness, scarcely ruffled by so much as a summer flaw; then bickering began, followed by deeper misunderstanding, and the fatal result drew on, which I have always deplored.” Yet even in these halcyon years, too short and too few, there was one thing wanting to finished household felicity. This one want was children, the eternal charm of the passing ages of humanity. Of the four pathetic creatures born to them, but one lived, and that only for a few months. Abandoning the hope of heirs to his name and fortune, and foreseeing that his estate was destined to be a large one, Forrest, with the long anticipation characteristic of a reflective mind, bethought him what disposal he had best make of his acquisitions when he should be forced to relinquish them in death. He settled upon a purpose combining elements of romance, beneficence, and imposing permanence, which showed him possessed of qualities above the vulgar average of men.