The defect corresponding to this excess was lack of souplesse, physical and spiritual mobility. He was unquestionably deficient, when tried by a severe standard, in bright, alert, expectant, rich freedom of play in nerves and faculties. His disposition was comparatively obstinate in its pertinacity, and his body adhesive in its heaviness. This gave him the ponderous weight of unity, the antique port of the gods, but it robbed him in a degree of that supreme grace which is the ability to compass the largest effects of impression with the smallest expenditure of energy. It cannot be denied that he needed exactly what Garrick had in such perfection, namely, that detached personality, that quicksilver liberty and rapidity of motion, which made the great Eng
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lish actor such a memorable paragon of variety and charm. Yet, when these abatements are all allowed, enough remains amply to justify his large historic claim in the honest massiveness and glow of his delineations, set off alike by the imposing physique fit to take the club and pose for a Farnesian Hercules, by a studious and manly art unmarred with any insincere trickery, and by a powerful mellow voice of vast compass and flexible intonation, whose declamation, modelled on nature, and without theatrical affectation, ever did full justice to noble thoughts and beautiful words.
Cibber said, in allusion to Betterton, "Pity it is that the momentary beauties from an harmonious elocution cannot be their own record, that the animated graces of the player can live no longer than the instant breath and motion that presents them, or at best but faintly glimmer through the memory or imperfect attestation of a few surviving spectators." Could the author of this biography paint in their true forms and colors and with full completeness the once vivid and vigorous achievements of the buried master, had he with sufficient knowledge and memory command of some notation whereby he could record every light and shade of each great rôle so that they might be revived from the dead symbols in all the lustre of their original reality, even as a musician translates from the dormant score into living music an overture of Mozart or a symphony of Beethoven, then were there a deathless Forrest breathing in these pages who should stir the souls of generations of readers to rise and mutiny against the depreciating estimates of his forgotten foes and the encroachments of literary oblivion. But, alas! to such a task the pen that essays the tribute is unequal, and the writer must be content with the pale presentments he can but imperfectly produce, sighing to think how true is the refrain of regret taken up in every age by those who have mourned a departed actor, and never better worded, perhaps, than in the famous lines by Garrick:
"The painter dead, yet still he charms the eye;
While taste survives, his fame can never die.
But he who struts his hour upon the stage
Can scarce extend his fame for half an age.
Nor pen nor pencil can the actor save,—
The art and artist share one common grave."
CHAPTER X.
TWO YEARS OF RECREATION AND STUDY IN THE OLD WORLD.
The parting cheers died into silence, the ship began to speed through the spray, the forms of his friends receded and vanished, the roofs and spires of the city lowered and faded, the sun sank in the west, the hills of Neversink subsided below the horizon, and only the gliding vessel and her foamy wake broke the expanse of ocean and sky, when the outward-bound Forrest for the first night sought his berth, relieving the sadness of his farewell to America with thoughts of what awaited him in Europe and Asia.
Life spread before him an alluring prospect, and nothing which he could ask to encourage and stimulate his aspirations seemed to be wanting. When he looked back, he could not fail to be grateful. Beginning the struggle under such depressing circumstances,—poor, friendless, uneducated,—he had won a handsome fortune, a national fame, a host of admiring friends, and no inconsiderable amount of cultivation and miscellaneous knowledge. And now, at twenty-eight, with two long years of freedom from all responsibility and care before him, blessed with superabundant health and strength and hope, he was on his way to the enchanted scenes of the Old World,—the famous cities, battle-fields, monuments, art-galleries, and pleasure-gardens,—of which he had read and dreamed so much. He was going with an earnest purpose to improve himself as well as to enjoy himself. This spirit, with a well-filled purse, and the fluent knowledge of the French language which he had acquired in New Orleans, were important conditions for the realization of his aim. And thus, with alternate recollections of those left behind, observations of the scenery and experiences of marine life, mapping out the series of places he meant to visit, and thinking over what he would do, the days wore by. He spread his cloak sometimes on the deck in the
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very prow of the vessel, and lying on it upon his back, so that he could see nothing but the sky and clouds, continued there for hours, allowing the scene and the strong sensations it awoke to sink into his soul, feeling himself a little speck floating on a larger speck between two infinities. He said he often, years afterwards, associated the remembrance of this experience with speeches of Lear and Hamlet when representing those characters on the stage.
EDWIN FORREST.
ÆT 21
A fortnight of monotony and nausea, sprinkled with a few excitements, passed, and the transatlantic shore hove in view, as welcome a vision as his eyes had ever seen. Landing at Havre, he bade adieu to Captain Forbes and the good ship Sully, made his way at once to Paris, and, taking apartments, settled down to that delightful course of mingled recreation and study to which he had long been looking forward.
A voyage across the ocean and a two years' residence in Europe for a young American full of eager curiosity and ambition, cut loose from the routine and precedents of home and friends, cannot but constitute an epoch of extreme importance in his life. This must be true in its effects on the development of his personal character, detaching him and bringing out his manhood; and, if he is the votary of any liberal art, true also in its influence on his professional culture. In 1834 such an enterprise was a greater event than it is now. The number of American travellers in Europe was nothing like what it has grown to be since. Furthermore, the multiplication of books and descriptive letters, giving the most minute and vivid accounts of all that is most interesting in a journey or residence in the different countries then visited by Forrest, has been so great, that any prolonged presentation of his adventures and observations there would now seem so out of date and out of place as to be an impertinence. It will suffice for all the legitimate ends of a biography if a few characteristic specimens of what befell him and what he saw and did are furnished from his letters, his diary, and his subsequent conversation. These will indicate the spirit of the man at that time, and show something of the advantages, personal and professional, which he gained from the social and artistic sources of instruction opened to him while abroad. It will be seen that, however strong the attractions of pleasure were to him, he did
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not neglect the opportunities for substantial profit, but, keeping his faculties alert to observe new phases of human nature and fresh varieties of social life, he was especially careful to drink in the beauties of natural scenery and to study the expressive possibilities of the human form, as illustrated in the works of the greatest artists of ancient and modern time.
The following letter was written shortly after his arrival in Paris:
"To say that I am pleased with what I have thus far seen of Paris would be a phrase of very inadequate meaning: I am surprised and delighted. I have been to the Louvre, the Tuileries, Place Vendôme, St. Cloud,—here, there, and everywhere,—and I have not yet seen a twentieth part of the objects which claim a stranger's attention. One cannot go into the streets for a moment, indeed, but something new attracts his curiosity; and it seems to me that my senses, which I have heretofore considered adequate to the usual purposes of life, ought now to be enlarged and quickened for the full enjoyment of the objects which surround me. I have, of course, visited some of the theatres, of which there are upwards of twenty now open. A number of the best actors, however, are absent from the city, fulfilling provincial engagements, and may not be expected back for a month or more. I went to the Théâtre Porte St. Martin the other night, to see Mademoiselle Georges, now, on the French stage, the queen of tragedy. I saw her perform the part of Lucrece Borgia, in Victor Hugo's drama of that name. Her personation was truly beautiful,—nay, that is too cold a word; it was grand, and even terrible! Though a woman more than fifty years old, never can I forget the dignity of her manner, the flexible and expressive character of her yet fine face, and the rich, full, stirring, and well-modulated tones of her voice. How different is her and nature's style from the sickly abortions of the present English school of acting, lately introduced upon the American stage!—the snakelike writhing and contortion of body, the rolling and straining of the eyeballs till they squint, the shuffling gait, and the whining monotone,—how different, I say, from all this is the natural and easy style of Mademoiselle Georges! In her you trace no servile imitations of a bad model; but you behold that sort of excellence which makes you forget you are in a theatre,—that
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perfection of art by which art is wholly concealed,—the lofty and the thrilling, the subdued and the graceful, harmoniously mingling, the spirit being caught from living nature. I had been led to believe that, in France, the highest order of tragic excellence had died with Talma. It is not so. I consider Mademoiselle Georges the very incarnation of the tragic muse.
"The French, it must be allowed, understand and practise the art of living independently. They find you furnished apartments according to your own taste and means—comfortable, handsome, or gorgeous—in any part of the city or its environs. In your rooms you may either breakfast, dine, and sup, or take only your coffee there, and dine at a restaurant. This is to me, a bird of passage, and desirous of taking a bird's-eye view of things, a delightful mode of living. Paris is filled with restaurants and cafés of all sorts and sizes, where you may obtain your 'provant,' as Captain Dalgetty would style it, at what price you please, from the humble sum of a few sous up to the emptying of a well-lined purse. Ladies, gentlemen, and whole families may be seen at these places, enjoying their repast, and the utmost order and decorum prevail. Some of these cafés are magnificently furnished. I breakfasted in one yesterday the furniture and decorations of the salon of which cost eighty thousand francs. Another agreeable thing in Paris is, that you may one moment be in the midst of fashion, pomp, and all the hollowness of the flattering crowd, and the next buried in the sincere quiet of your own chamber, your very existence blotted from the memories of those with whom, the unsophisticated might have imagined, your society was of the utmost consequence. I say this is pleasant when properly understood and appreciated. All that is required of you is the superficial courtesy of life, which costs a well-bred man nothing; and in return you have a well-dissembled friendship, looking like truth, but which they would not have you to cherish as a reality for the world. The sentiments of the heart are quite too dull and too troublesome for their mercurial temperament; and hence you seldom hear of a Frenchman's having a false friend."
The professional bias which so strongly dominated among the associations in the mind of Forrest led him very early after his arrival in the French metropolis, to visit the tomb of Talma.
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Carrying a fresh laurel crown under his cloak, he sought out the consecrated place among the crowd of undistinguished graves, reverently laid his tribute there, and lingered long in meditation on the career, the genius, the renown of the greatest stage-actor of France, and the lessons to be learned from his life and character by ambitious successors in his art. Thus, like Byron at the grave of Churchill, did the player draw his profitable homily from "the glory," though, unlike the morbid bard, he did not think of "the nothing, of a name."
One incident occurred in the experience of Forrest in Paris which has much significance on several accounts. He had formed a very pleasant acquaintance with the manager of one of the theatres. This manager had a protégé of whose nascent talent as an actor he cherished a high estimate. The youth was to make his début, and the manager asked the American tragedian to attend the performance and give his opinion of the promise it indicated. At the close of the play, asked to state his candid impression without reserve, Forrest said to the manager, "He will never rise beyond a respectable mediocrity. It is a perfectly hopeless case. There are no deeps of latent passion in him, no lava-reservoirs. His sensibility is quick, but all superficial. But that Jewish-looking girl, that little bag of bones with the marble face and flaming eyes,—there is demoniacal power in her. If she lives, and does not burn out too soon, she will become something wonderful." That little bag of bones was the then unknown Rachel!
The next selection presented from his correspondence was written to Leggett several months later, and soon after Jackson's recommendation of reprisals if the American claims on France were not paid:
"You see I still date from the gay metropolis of France. The fascinations of Paris have held me longer than I intended; but I mean to break from them by the first of next month, and cross into Italy. I have read the President's admirable message: it breathes a spirit worthy of himself, worthy of the occasion, worthy of my country. I refer particularly, of course, to his views relative to France. His energetic and manly sentiments have had the effect here of once more Americanizing Americans, and revived within them that love of country which the pageantry
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and frivolity, the dreamy and debasing luxury of this metropolis serve materially to enervate. The Chamber of Deputies has not yet recovered from the shock occasioned by the unanticipated recommendations of the message. Opinion is divided as to the course which will be pursued; but from all I hear, and all I observe, I am strongly inclined to believe that when they have recovered from their bewilderment they will come to the conclusion that, in this instance at least, honesty is the best policy; and perhaps they may consider also that discretion is the better part of valor.
