Such were the typical men in that half-barbaric and reckless civilization. And it was by his intimacy with them at the most plastic period of his life that Forrest so completely absorbed and stood for the most distinctive Americanism of half a century ago. Graham was fond of the drama, and was drawn warmly to Forrest from his first appearance in Jaffier. He used to come to the theatre sometimes with a throng of fifty or even a hundred boatmen in his train. And whenever the actor indulged in his most carnivorous rages then their delight and their applause were the most unbounded. It will be seen that the young tragedian was at that time in a poor school for guiding to artistic delicacy, but in a capital school for developing natural truth and power.
The last of the five friends who were most constantly with Forrest and in one way or another exerted the strongest influences on him was Push-ma-ta-ha, chief of the Choctaw tribe of Indians, who had a liking for the white men and some of their arts and was in the custom of paying long visits to New Orleans. Push-ma-ta-ha was indeed a striking figure and an interesting character. He was in the bloom of opening manhood, erect as
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a column, graceful and sinewy as a stag, with eyes of piercing brilliancy, a voice of guttural music like gurgling waters, the motions of his limbs as easy and darting as those of a squirrel. His muscular tissue in its tremulous quickness seemed made of woven lightnings. His hair was long, fine, and thick, and of the glossiest blackness; his skin, mantled with blood, was of the color of ruddy gold, and his form one of faultless proportions. A genuine friendship grew up between this chief and Forrest, not without some touch of simple romance, and leading, as we shall see, to lasting results in the life of the latter.
Push-ma-ta-ha was a natural orator of a high order. He inherited this gift from his father, for whom he had a superstitious veneration, claiming that the Great Spirit had created him without human intervention. Whether this idea had been implanted in him in his childhood by some medicine-man, or was a poetic pretence of his own, Forrest could not tell. The elder chief died in Washington, where he was tarrying with a deputation. His dying words to his comrades are a fine specimen of his eloquence; "I shall die, but you will return to our brethren. As you go along the paths, you will see the flowers and hear the birds sing, but Push-ma-ta-ha will see them and hear them no more. When you shall come to your home, they will ask you, Where is Push-ma-ta-ha? And you will say to them, He is no more. They will hear the tidings like the sound of the fall of a mighty oak in the stillness of the woods."
The North American Indian seen from afar is a picturesque object. When we contemplate him in the vista of history, retreating, dwindling, soon to vanish before the encroachments of our stronger race, he is not without mystery and pathos. But studied more nearly, inspected critically in the detail of his character and habits, the charm for the most part disappears and is replaced with repulsion. The freedom of savages from the diseased vices of a luxurious society, the proud beauty of their free bearing, the relish of their wild liberty with nature, exempt from the artificial burdens and trammels of our complicated and stifling civilization, appeal to the imagination. Poetical writers accordingly have idealized the Indian and set him off in a romantic light, forgetting that savage life has its own vices, degradations, and hardships. Cooper, the novelist, paints Indian life as a series
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of attractive scenes and adventures, full of royal traits. Palfrey, the historian, describes it as cheap, tawdry, nasty, and horrid. There is truth, no doubt, in both aspects of the case; but the artist naturally selects the favorable point of view, and the dramatist impersonating a barbaric chieftain very properly tries to emphasize his virtues and grandeur, leaving his meanness and squalor in shadow. It is truth of history that the American Indian had noble and great qualities. His local attachment, tribal patriotism, and sensitiveness to public opinion, were as deep and strong, and produced as high examples of bravery and self-sacrifice, as were ever shown in Greece or Rome, Switzerland or Scotland. Nothing of the kind ever surpassed his haughty taciturnity and indomitable fortitude. And if his spirit of revenge was infernal in the level of its quality, it was certainly sublime in the intensity and volume of its power. Although in richness of mental equipment and experience there can be no comparison between them, yet if we had the data for a series of complete parallels and portraits; it would be extremely instructive to confront Philip of Pokanoket with Philip of Macedon, Push-ma-ta-ha with Alcibiades, Tecumseh with Attila, and Osceola with Spartacus. In kinds of passion, in modes of thought, in styles of natural and social scenery, in varieties of pleasure and pain, what correspondences and what contrasts there would be!
The acquaintance of Forrest with Push-ma-ta-ha was the first cause of his deep interest in the subject of the American Aborigines, of his subsequent extensive researches into their history, and finally of his offering a prize for a play which should embody a representative idea of their genius and their fate.
However wild and questionable in a moral point of view were some of Forrest's closest friends in New Orleans, and freely as he himself indulged in pleasure, he shed the worst influences exerted on him, was never recklessly abandoned to any vice whatever, but held a strong curb over his passions, and was uniformly faithful and punctual in the extreme to all his professional duties, steadily working in every way he knew to improve and to rise. And he owed in several respects an immense debt to these friends. For, stimulated by the sight of their superb poise, courage, and exuberant fulness of animal life and passion, he took them as models, and labored with unflagging patience by a care
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ful hygiene and gymnastic and critical self-control to fortify his weak places and lift his constitutional vitality and confidence to the highest point. He was temperate in food and drink, scrupulous as to rest and sleep, abundant in bathing, manipulation, and athletics. His development was steady, and he became in a certain personal centrality of balance, an assured and massive authority of bearing, unquestionably one of the most pronounced and imposing men on the continent.
Nor, in that remote situation, in those tempted days, did he forget his distant home, with the humble and repulsive hardships pressing on the dear ones within it. He wrote to them affectionately, cheering them up, sending them such small remittances as he could afford, and promising larger ones in the future. With the very first money he received from Caldwell, after paying his landlady, he purchased and forwarded by ship to his mother a barrel of flour, a half-barrel of sugar, and a box of oranges. His youngest sister, in the last year of her life, described the scene in their home when these things arrived. She was out of the house on an errand when they came. Entering the door, there sat her mother weeping for joy, with an open letter in her hand. Caroline stood with her bonnet on, just starting to take a dish of oranges to one of their neighbors, and Henrietta rushed forward, crying, "Oh, Eleanora, here is something from our dear Edwin!"
One evening, near the close of the season, Forrest had made so great a sensation in the audience that they stamped, clapped, shouted, and insisted on his coming before the curtain to receive their plaudits. But he had left the theatre in haste to fulfil an appointment elsewhere, and knew not of the honor designed for him. The people, ignorant of his absence, were furious at what they chose to interpret as his want of respect for them. They vowed vengeance. His benefit was to come off a few nights later. It was whispered abroad that the audience would not suffer him to perform unless he offered a meek apology for his insolent disregard of their wishes. He determined that he would not apologize, and that he would act. His friends, already described, with a good number of trusty followers, each a match for ten untrained men in a fight, were on hand, resolved to protect him, and, as they phrased it, to put him through. As the curtain rose and the youthful actor stepped forward, he was greeted with
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a shower of hisses, mixed with cries of "Apology! Apology!" It was the first experience of the kind he had ever known, and he felt for an instant that horripilating chill called gooseflesh creep over some parts of his skin. But, nothing daunted, he at once, in the fixed attitude he had assumed, turned his level eyes on the noisy crowd, and said, in a calm, clear voice, "Gentlemen, not being guilty of any offence, I shall make no apology. When you called me, I was out of hearing. Is it just to punish me for a fault of which I am innocent?" A perfect hush followed, and in a moment the changed temper of the audience declared itself in a unanimous cheer, and the play went swimmingly on to the close.
Soon after the theatre had closed for the summer, about the middle of June, Forrest was attacked by the dreadful fever to which the city was periodically exposed. The low state of his finances caused him to dwell in a malarious quarter near the river, and to stay there at a time when the city was largely deserted by the better classes. It was the first severe and serious illness he had suffered. His best friends were away. He could not afford to hire special attendance. The disease raged terribly. His pain was extreme, and his depression worse. He thought he should die; and then bitterly he lamented that he had ever left his home, to perish in this awful way among strangers. "And yet," he said, "I meant it for the best; and what else could I do? Oh, my mother, where are you? How little you imagine the condition your poor boy is in now!" In his delirium he raved continually about his mother, and sometimes fancied she was with him, and lavished endearing epithets on her. So they told him after his recovery.
When he had been confined twelve or fourteen days, left alone one afternoon, he managed to get on his clothes and crawl into the open air. He was a most forlorn and miserable wretch, emaciated, trembling, with a nauseous stomach and a reeling brain. The scene without was in full keeping with his feelings. The squares were empty and silent. The grass was growing in the deserted street. The air was thick, lurid, and quivering with a sickly heat, while to his distempered fancy, through the steamy haze above, the sun seemed to hang like a great yellow scab. At that moment a crocodile five or six feet long crept up in the
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gutter, and stared stupidly at him with its glazed and devilish eyes. Horrified, he shook his fist with a feeble cry at the ominous apparition, and the giant reptile waddled slowly away. He sat down on the curb-stone, faint and despairing, when who should come along but his good friend Captain Graham, just then landed at the wharf a few rods below! Gazing with astonishment at the haggard wreck before him, the captain exclaimed, "Why, good God, my boy, is that you?" "Yes," gasped the poor fellow, piteously, "this is all there is left of Edwin Forrest." The captain lifted him up and almost carried him to his boat, laid him on his own bed in the cabin, had him carefully sponged all over, first with warm water, finally with brandy, then gave him a heavy dose of raw whiskey. This acted as a benign emetic, and greatly relieved him. He fell asleep, and slept sweetly all night. The next day he returned to his lodgings convalescent. And in about three weeks he was well enough to start off with Caldwell and a part of his company on a theatrical tour through Virginia. The following letter tells us how he was then, and what he was doing:
"Petersburg, July 26th, 1824.
"Beloved Mother,—I must indeed beg ten thousand pardons for not writing to you earlier. Although we are separated, think not you are forgotten by me. Oh, no, dear mother, you are ever in my memory, and your happiness is my greatest wish. I hope, my dear mother, in the course of three or four weeks, to be with you on a visit of a fortnight or so, but must then return here to perform at Richmond and Norfolk. I sincerely desire that this vacation may occur. Then I shall see you; and I assure you such a meeting will be as great a happiness as I can possess in this world.
"I hope all the family have enjoyed full health since you last wrote. For myself, I have not altogether been myself since the severe attack of the fever which I had previous to leaving New Orleans. Well, well, I am in hopes I shall mend shortly and be myself again. The country I am now in is delightful, and the climate far more agreeable to me than that of the South. Please inform me of every little circumstance that has happened lately. How are my dear sisters? Also, where is my dear brother Lor
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man, of whom I have heard nothing for some time? Dear mother, it will relieve me much if you can give me any information concerning him.
"How does the old firm of John R. Baker, Son and—no, not clerk now! But is it still in existence? Should you see Max Stevenson, ask him whether he received my letter. Make my best regards to Sam Fisher, not forgetting the worthy Levan. Where are Joe Shipley, Charley Scriver, and Blighden Van Bann? I have not heard from them lately. Likewise give me all the information you can respecting the theatres.
"Have you seen Mrs. Page? Mother, she is indeed an excellent lady, one who merits every attention and regard; and I am sure your ever-friendly and social feelings towards her will not be lessened when you know that it will give infinite satisfaction to your wild but truly affectionate son,
"Edwin Forrest."
His anticipations of visiting home were doomed to disappointment. In a letter to his mother, dated at Fredericksburg, September 29th, we find him saying that he had been acting every night, except Sundays, and that there was no prospect of an intermission. He adds, "I performed Pythias for my opening here, and have succeeded to the delight of all the inhabitants. I had some difficulty with the manager again. He cast me, as an opening part, in Mortimer in the comedy of Laugh When You Can. I refused to play it, and left the theatre. However, in two days I saw my name in the bill for Pythias, and resumed my situation. All has gone on smoothly since, and I have triumphed over him as a tragedian in the opinions of those who recently esteemed him above praise or censure.
"As I passed through Washington on the way here, I had the satisfaction of seeing the worthy old Philadelphia manager, Warren. He expressed considerable surprise and pleasure when I introduced myself to him; for I had changed and grown entirely out of his memory."
