While at Richmond, and again subsequently at New Orleans, Forrest had the felicity of seeing La Fayette, also of playing before him and winning his applause. The triumphal progress through America of this beloved hero of two hemispheres was a proud recollection to all who shared in it. It was a thrilling poem in action instead of words. The enthusiasm was something which we in our more broken and cynical times can hardly conceive. From town to town, from city to city, from State to State, whole populations turned out to meet him, with bells, guns, popular songs, garlands of flowers in the hands of school-children; and he moved on beneath a canopy of banners amidst swelling music, accompanied by the prayers and tears of the grateful people whom he had befriended in the midnight of their struggle, and who idolized him now that he had come back to bask in the noonday of their glory. It was one of the most charming episodes in history, and one which no American heart can afford to forget. Yet in this mixed world the sublime and the ridiculous are usually near together. It was so in this case in an incident which came under the personal observation of Forrest. He stood near to La Fayette on one occasion when a long series of citizens were introduced to him. Of course it became a wearisome formality to the illustrious guest, who bore it with smiling fortitude by dint of converting it into an automatic performance. As he shook hands first with one, then with another, he would say, "Are you married?" If the reply was "Yes," he would add, "Happy man!" If the reply was "No," still he would add, as before, "Happy man!" Caldwell re-opened at the American Theatre January 3d, 1825, in The Soldier's Daughter, Forrest taking the rôle of Malfort Junior. During the month he played, among other parts, Adrian in the comedy of Adrian and Orilla, Master of Ceremonies in Tom and Jerry, Joseph Surface in the School for Scandal. The "Louisiana Advertiser" says, in a notice of The Falls of Clyde, "Nothing could be more to our taste than the wild music and dramatized legends of Scotland. Mr. E. Forrest never appeared to so much advantage. Every person applauded him." Some weeks later the same paper remarks, "Mr. Forrest's Almanza is well conceived, and displays great genius."