He drew forth the animosity and injurious influence of a third set of opponents from among the least noble and successful members of his own profession, with whom, from dissimilarities of tastes and habits and preference for the opportunities of higher intercourse opened to him, he did not intimately associate as an equal. He had an ample supply of friends and comrades endowed with distinguished talents and proud aspirations, scholars, poets, jurists, statesmen, whose fellowship strengthened his ambition, nourished his mind, refined his fancy, gratified his affections, and led him into the ideal world of books and art. Courted by such gentlemen, with his rising fame and fortune he naturally chose their society, to the neglect of that of his fellow-actors whose haunts were low, whose habits loose, and whose professional status a dull and hopeless mediocrity. It is not customary for the distinguished leaders and masters in any profession to associate in close intimacy with the rank and file of workmen in their departments. It _is_ customary, however, for the rank and file to resent the neglect and take their revenge in flouting. Giotto, Lionardo, Raphael, Titian, did not hob-nob and lounge with the ordinary painters of their day. The friends of artists are not artisans, but other artists, their peers, noble patrons, celebrated persons, and inspiring coadjutors. The blame so bitterly and often cast on Forrest in this respect was unjust. The vindictive personal censures which his sometimes absorbed and distant bearing elicited from injured self-love were ignoble. The stock is no doubt often provoked to sneer at the Star; but the action is not beautiful or worthy of deferential attention. If the ordinary members of a profession, instead of looking askance at the extraordinary ones and indulging in detraction, would cultivate admiring sympathy, aspiring intelligence, and nobleness, they would soon bridge the chasm that separates them. It is the absence of generous sensibility and self-respecting application that at once keeps them inferiors and prevents their superiors from becoming their intimates. In the last twenty-five years of his life Forrest had, as a consequence of what he had been through, an explosive irritability of temperament, and not infrequently in moving among theatrical companies betrayed an imperious sense of power. But he was profoundly just, ready instantly to make princely amends when convinced of an error or wrong; and under his harsh and volcanic exterior there always, even to the very last, slept a deep spring of tenderness pure enough to reflect the eyes of angels. It was perfectly natural that he should be misjudged. Not one in a thousand could be expected to have the generous insight, the detachment and gentleness, needed to read him aright. Consequently, a swarm of false accusations and angry remarks pursued him like a buzz of wasps enveloping his head.