Life of Edwin Forrest, the American Tragedian. Volume 2 (of 2)Alger, Horatio, Jr.
General
Life of Edwin Forrest, the American Tragedian. Volume 2 (of 2)
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
Forrest, Edwin, 1806-1872
Such is one of the prophecies drawn from the supremest examples of
combined mental and physical culture in the dramatic profession. Forrest
fell short of any such mark. His gymnastic was coarse and heavy, based
on bone and muscle rather than brain and nerve. The sense of musical
rhythm was not quick and fine in him. His blood was too densely charged
with amorous heat, and his tissues too much clogged with his weight of
over two hundred pounds, for the most ethereal delicacies of
spirituality and the inspired imagination. But within his limitations he
was a marked type of immense original and cultivated power. And his
sedulous fidelity in taking care of his bodily strength and health is
worthy of general imitation. He practised athletics daily, posturing
with dumb-bells or Indian clubs, taking walks and drives. He was
extremely attentive to ventilation, saying, “The first condition of
health is to breathe pure air plentifully.” He ever sought the sunshine,
worshipping the smile of the divine luminary with the ardor of a true
Parsee. “The weather has been pernicious,” he says in one of his
letters. “Oh for a day of pure sunshine! What a true worshipper of the
Sun I have always been! And how he has rewarded me, in the light of his
omnipotent and kindly eye, with health and joy and sweet content! How
reasonable and how sublime was the worship of Zoroaster! I had rather be
a beggar in a sunny climate than a Crœsus in a cloudy one.” He was
temperate in food and drink, shunning for the most part rich luxuries,
complex and highly-seasoned dishes, falling to with the greatest relish
on the simplest and wholesomest things, especially oatmeal, cracked
wheat, corn-meal mush, brown bread, Scotch bannocks, cream, buttermilk.
When fatigued, he turned from artificial stimulants and sought recovery
in rest and sleep. When hard-worked, he never omitted going regularly to
bed in the daytime to supplement the insufficient repose of the night.
He had great facility in catching a nap, and at such times his deep and
full respiration was as regular as clock-work. But above all the rest he
attributed the greatest importance to keeping his skin in a clean and
vigorous condition. Night and morning he gave himself a thorough
washing, followed by energetic scrubbing with coarse towels and a
percussing of his back and spine with elastic balls fastened to the ends
of two little clubs. His skin was always aglow with life, polished like
marble, a soft and sensitive yet firm and flowing mantle of protection
and avenue of influences between his interior world and the exterior
world. This extreme health and vigor of the skin relieved the tasks put
on the other excretory organs, and was most conducive to vital energy
and longevity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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