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
country had ever awakened so eager and extended an interest. The
evidence and arguments were minutely reproduced in the press, sold by
wholesale in every corner of the land, and devoured by unnumbered
thousands with every sort of scandalous gossip and comment. The
completed report of the trial fills two enormous volumes of more than
twelve hundred pages each. The lady gained much for her cause by her
strict propriety of language, her elegant deportment, the unequalled
ability and passionate zeal of her counsel, and the exalted character of
her large circle of influential and unfaltering friends. The man lost as
much for his cause by the partisan prejudices against him, by the
imprudences of his more reckless friends, and especially by the
repelling violence and coarseness of expression and demeanor to which in
his exasperated state he was too often tempted. Abundant examples have
already been furnished in these pages of his scholarly taste,
intellectual dignity, moral refinement and strength. Justice to the
truth requires the frank admission that there was also in him a rude and
harsh element, a streak of uncivilized bluntness or barbaric honesty of
impulse, shocking to people of conventional politeness. These people did
him injustice by chiefly seeing this cruder feature in his character,
for it was quite a subordinate part of his genuine nature. But it is
only fair to give specimens of the level to which it not unfrequently
sank him in social appearance. In his eyes observance of external
seemings was nothing in comparison with sincerity to internal realities.
After his separation, but before his divorce, meeting his wife in the
street, she said he kept her there walking up and down for over two
hours in a pouring rain, hearing and replying to him, neither of them
having an umbrella. At this same period watching one night to see who
entered or left his house, in which his wife was still residing, though
alone, a man named Raymond came out. The following intelligible dialogue
immediately took place, as sworn to in court by Raymond himself. “Why
are you sneaking away like a guilty man?” “Edwin Forrest, you have
waylaid me by night with a bludgeon. You want a pretence for attacking
me, and I shall not give it you.” “Bludgeon! I don’t want a bludgeon to
kill you. Damn you, I can choke you to death with my hands. But you are
not the man I am after now. If I catch that damned villain I’ll rip his
liver out. I’ll cut his damned throat at the door. You may go this time,
damn you. But I have marked you, all of you, and I’ll have vengeance.”
This style of speech, as laughable as it is repulsive, and which really
marked not at all the extent but merely the limitation of his culture,
greatly injured him, alloying alike his worth, his peace, and his
success. In one instance alone, however, did his violence of temper
carry him beyond discourteous and furious speech to illegal action.
Meeting in Central Park Mr. N. P. Willis, whom he regarded as one of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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