At another rehearsal the company had been waiting some time for the arrival of a subordinate player who was usually very prompt and faithful. When the delinquent entered, Forrest broke out testily, “Well, sir, you see how long you have detained us all.” The poor man, pale, and struggling with emotion, answered, humbly, “I am very sorry. I came as soon as I could. I have suffered a great misfortune. My boy died last night.” A thrill of sympathy went through the company. Forrest stepped forward and took the man respectfully by the hand, and said, “Excuse me, my friend, and go back to your home at once. You ought not to be here to-day, and we will get along in some way without you.” Then, giving him a fifty-dollar bill, he added, “And accept this with my sincere apology.”
The tremendous strength of Forrest, and the downright earnestness with which he used it on those unhappy men whose business it was to be seized, shaken, and hurled about, gave rise to scores of apocryphal stories concerning his violence in acting and the terrible sufferings of his subordinates. In many of these stories, under their exaggeration, something characteristic can be discerned. On a certain occasion when he impersonated a Roman hero attacked by six minions of a tyrant, he complained that the aforesaid minions were too tame; they did not come upon him as if it were a real struggle. After his storming against their inefficiency, the supernumeraries sulked and consulted. Their captain said, “If you want this to be a bully fight, Mr. Forrest, you have only to say so.” “I do,” he replied. When the scene came on, the hero was standing in the middle of the stage. The minions entered and deployed in rapid skirmishing. One struck energetically at his face, a second levelled a strenuous kick at his paunch, and the remainder made ready to rush for a decisive tussle. For one instant he stood astounded, his chest heaving, his eyes flashing, his legs planted like columns of rock. Then came two minutes of powerful acting, at the end of which one supernumerary was seen sticking head foremost in the bass-drum of the orchestra, four were having their wounds dressed in the greenroom, and one, finding himself in the flies, rushed on the roof of the theatre shouting “fire!” Forrest, called before the curtain, panted his thanks to the audience, who, taking it as a legitimate part of the performance, protested that they had never before seen him act so splendidly. The story is questionable, yet through its grotesque dilatation undoubtedly one lower and lesser phase of the actor and of his public may be seen.
During the earlier years of his own pecuniary prosperity, Forrest lent at various times sums of money ranging from one dollar to five hundred dollars to a large number of his more improvident theatrical associates. In very few instances were these sums repaid. In most cases the obligation was suffered to go by default, and in many the favor of the loans, so far from being felt as a claim for gratitude, proved a source of uneasiness and alienation. To a man of his just, careful, straightforward character and habits this multiplied experience of dishonesty, often coupled with treachery and slander, was extremely trying. It nettled him, it embittered him, it tended strongly to close his originally over-free hand against applications to borrow, and made him sometimes suspicious that friendly attentions were designed, as they not unfrequently were, as means to get at his purse. The rich man is much exposed to this experience, with its hardening and souring influence on character, especially the rich man in a profession like the dramatic abounding with impecunious and unthrifty members. Under these circumstances it was certain that many unsuccessful applicants for pecuniary favors, persons whom he refused because he thought them unworthy, would slander him. But throughout his life his heart and hand were generously open to the appeals of all distressed actors or actresses on whom he believed assistance would not be thrown away. In many an instance of destitution and suffering among his unfortunate brethren and sisters sick, deserted, dying, did his bounty come to relieve and console. Among his papers a score or more of letters were found, with widely-separated dates, from well-known members of the profession, containing requests of this sort or thanks for his prompt responses. For example, there was one from the estimable gentleman and veteran actor George Holland gratefully acknowledging a gift of two hundred dollars. The kind deeds of Forrest were not blazoned, but carefully concealed. Yet the few friends who had his inmost confidence, who were themselves the frequent channels of his secret beneficence, knew how free and full his charities were, especially to worthy and unfortunate members of the dramatic profession. In the course of his career he gave over fifty benefits for needy associates, dramatic authors, and public charities,—from Porter, Woodhull, Devese, and Stone, to John Howard Payne and J. W. Wallack and the Dramatic Fund Association,—the proceeds of which were upwards of twenty-five thousand dollars. And when, in consequence of the thickening requests for such favors and the invidiousness of a selection, he made a rule not to play for the benefit of any one, unless in some exceptional case, he would still often give towards the object his price for a single performance, two hundred dollars. Yet, such is the unreasonableness of censorious minds, he was severely blamed for showing an avaricious and unsympathizing spirit towards his theatrical contemporaries. The accusation frequently appeared in print and stung him, though he could never brook to answer it.
Many a time on the last night of his engagement at a theatre he would send for the treasurer and make him his almoner for the distribution of sums varying from five to fifteen dollars to the humbler laborers, the scene-shifters, gasman, watchman, and others whose incomes were hardly enough to keep the wolf from their doors. During one of his engagements at Niblo’s Garden the actors and actresses for some reason did not receive their regular salary. Learning the fact, he refused to take his share of the proceeds until they had been paid; and, going still further, he advanced a sum from his own pocket to make up what was due them.
More interesting and important, however, than his pecuniary attitude towards his fellow-players is his moral relation. And this in one aspect was eminently sweet and noble. If he avoided unworthy actors with contempt, he yielded to no one in the admiration, gratitude, and love he cherished for the gifted and faithful, the lustre of whose genius gilded the theatre, and the merit of whose character lifted and adorned the profession.
The earliest strong and distinct feeling of love, in the usual sense of the word, ever awakened in him, he said, was by a young and fascinating actress in the part of Juliet, whom he saw in a Philadelphia theatre when he was in his thirteenth year. What her name was he knew not, nor what became of her, nor could he remember who played Romeo to her; but the emotions she awakened in him by her representation of the sweet girl of Verona, the picture of her face and form and moving, remained as fair and bright and delicious as ever to the end of his days. Recounting the story to his biographer one evening in the summer of 1869 as he sat in his library, the moonlight streaming through the trees in at the open window and across the floor, he said, “A thousand times have I wondered at the intensity of the impression she made on my boyish soul, and longed to know what her after-fate was. She was a vision of enchantment, and, shutting my eyes, I seem to see her now. Years ago I came across the following lines, which so well corresponded to my remembrance of her that I committed them to memory:
“‘’Twas the embodying of a lovely thought,
A living picture exquisitely wrought
With hues we think, but never hope to see
In all their beautiful reality,