“Mrs. Conrad and our girls unite with me in bidding you welcome. The news of your arrival made a jubilee with the children. We all look forward anxiously for the privilege of taking you by the hand.
“Very truly your friend,
“R. T. Conrad.”
One brief interruption to this friendship there was. It originated in some misunderstanding which provoked anger and pain. Forrest wrote at once, not unkindly, and asked an explanation. He was rejoiced by the immediate receipt of the following letter, which he endorsed with the single word “Reconciliation,” and they were again united:
“Philadelphia, June 25th, 1849.
“My dear Forrest,—Your letter throws the duty of apology upon me, and, from my heart, I ask your pardon, and will tear to tatters all record of what has passed. But there is no madness Coleridge tells us, that so works upon the brain as unkindness in those we love.
“Forget what has passed,—but not until you have forgiven one whose pulses beat sometimes too hotly, but will always beat for you. This single cloud in our past—a past all bright to me—has been absorbed by the nobler and purer atmosphere of your nature. Surely it cannot now cast a shadow.
“Before the receipt of your note I had written a letter under my own signature, replying to a brutal attack upon you in the Boston ‘Aurora Borealis’ in relation to your course towards dramatic authors. It will appear in McMakin’s ‘Courier,’ and I have seized the occasion to make some editorial remarks upon the subject that will not dissatisfy you; and, as the circulation of the ‘Courier’ is nearly wide as that of the wind, I think it will do good.
“Let me sign this hasty note as most truly and heartily
“Your friend,