‘Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues
We write in water.’
“Much to their ignominy, the assailants of Forrest have never given him credit for those high-minded and disinterested acts of generosity which those who know him best can never recall without admiration, and which, when his history is written, will leave little comfort to his maligners, professional or otherwise. We wish for him a delighted welcome back to the stage, and a complete deliverance from the toils in which his enemies have sought to destroy him.”
The house was packed to its extremest capacity, and hundreds clamored in the streets. An inscription was hung across the parquet, “This is the people’s verdict!” As he entered on his ever favorite roll of Damon, the audience rose en masse, and greeted him with waving hats, handkerchiefs, and scarfs, and long, deafening plaudits, which shook the building from dome to foundation. In matchless solidity of port he stood before the frenzied tempest of humanity, and bowed his acknowledgments slowly, as when Zeus nods and all Olympus shakes. A shower of bouquets entwined with small American flags fell at his feet. He addressed the assembly thus, constantly interrupted with cheers:
“Ladies and Gentlemen,—After the unparalleled verdict which you have rendered me here to-night, you will not doubt that I consider this the proudest moment of my life. And yet it is a moment not unmingled with sadness. Instinctively I ask myself the question, Why is this vast assemblage here to-night, composed as it is of the intelligent, the high-minded, the right-minded, and last, though not least, the beautiful of the Empire City? Is it because a favorite actor appears in a favorite character? No, the actor and the performances are as familiar to you as household words. Why, then, this unusual ferment? It is because you have come to express your irrepressible sympathy for one whom you know to be a deeply-injured man. Nay, more, you are here with a higher and a holier purpose,—to vindicate the principle of even-handed justice. I do not propose to examine the proceedings of the late unhappy trial; those proceedings are now before you, and before the world, and you can judge as rightly of them as I can. I have no desire to instruct you in the verdict you shall render. The issue of that trial will yet be before the court, and I shall patiently await the judgment of that court, be it what it may. In the mean while I submit my cause to you; my cause, did I say?—no, not ‘my’ cause alone, but yours, the cause of every man in this community, the cause of every human being, the cause of every honest wife, the cause of every virtuous woman, the cause of every one who cherishes a home and the pure spirit which should abide there. Ladies and gentlemen, I submit my cause to a tribunal uncorrupt and incorruptible; I submit it to the sober second-thought of the people. A little while since, and I thought my pathway of life was filled with thorns; you have this night strewed it with roses (looking at the bouquets at his feet). Their perfume is gratifying to the senses, and I am grateful for your beautiful and fragrant offering.”
The success of the entire engagement was unprecedentedly brilliant. Called before the curtain at the close of the final performance, he said,—
“Ladies and Gentlemen,—This is the sixty-ninth night of an engagement which, take it all in all, has, I believe, no parallel in the history of the stage. It is without parallel in its duration, it is without parallel in the amount of its labors, and it is without parallel in its success. For sixty-nine almost successive nights, in despite of a season more inclement than any I ever remember, the tide of popular favor has flowed, like the Pontic Sea, without feeling a retiring ebb. For sixty-nine nights I have been called, by your acclamations, to the spot where I now stand to receive the generous plaudits of your hands, and I may say hands with hearts in them. No popular assembly, in my opinion, utters the public voice with more freedom and with more truth than the assembly usually convened within the walls of a theatre. If this be so, I have reason to be greatly proud of the demonstration which for twelve successive weeks has greeted me here. Such a demonstration any man ought to be proud of. Such a demonstration eloquently vindicates the thought of the great poet:
‘Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, though ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.’