A little domestic scene which occurred about this time may fitly be introduced here, as illustrating the character and influence of the mother, and also, as will appear in a subsequent chapter, the assimilating docility of the child. It was a Sunday afternoon, in the summer. The tired and careful mother sat at the open window, the sunshine streaming across the floor, gazing at the passers in the street, and musing, perhaps, on times long gone by. Edwin was turning the leaves of a large pictorial copy of the Bible. A sudden explosion of laughter was heard from him. "What are you laughing at, my boy? It seems unbecoming, with that book in your hands." "Why, mother, I cannot help it; it is so absurd. Here is a picture of the grapes of Eshcol; and the bunches of them are so big and heavy that it takes two men, with a pole across their shoulders, to carry them along! Is it not funny?" "Edwin, come to me," replied the mother, with calm seriousness. Taking his hand in hers, and looking steadily in his eyes, she said, "Do you not think it very presumptuous and conceited in you, so young, so ignorant, knowing only the climate and fruits of Pennsylvania, to set yourself up to pronounce judgment in this way on the artist who most likely had at his service the experience of travellers in all countries? It is more than probable that in those tropical climes where the Bible was written the vines might grow almost into trees, and bear clusters of grapes ten times larger than any you ever saw. Modesty is one of the best traits in a young person. I want you to remember never again to laugh at the fancied ignorance and absurdity of another, when perhaps the ignorance and absurdity are all your own." However often he may have failed to practise the lesson, yet when, fifty-five years afterwards, the old actor related the incident, the beating of his heart, the tenderness of his voice, and the moisture in his eyes, turned reverently towards the portrait of his mother on the wall, showed how profoundly the influence of that hour had sunk into his soul. When Master Forrest was in the first part of his fourteenth year, he chanced one evening to be in the audience of a lecturer, in the old Tivoli Garden Theatre, on Market Street, who was discoursing on the properties of nitrous oxide, or, as it is more commonly called, laughing-gas. The lecturer invited any of his auditors who desired to come forward and inhale the exhilarating aura. The chance was one just suited to the disposition of our hero. He stepped up and applied his mouth and nostrils to the bag. In a moment, as the air began to work, his ruling passion broke forth. Striking out right and left, to the no slight consternation of those nearest him, he advanced to the front of the stage, and declaimed a famous passage from the stage-copy of Shakspeare,-- "What ho! young Richmond, ho! 'tis Richard calls: I hate thee for thy blood of Lancaster,"--