In no element or domain of his life was Forrest more misunderstood and belied than in regard to his general and particular relations with the other members of his profession. Justice to his memory requires that the truth be shown; and, besides, the subject has a strong interest. The exercise of the dramatic faculty by itself is productive of tenderness, largeness, flexibility, and generosity of mind and heart. It is based on a rich, free intelligence and sensibility, and serves directly to quicken and invigorate the imagination and the sympathies. In fact, so far as its offices are fulfilled it delivers one from the hard, narrow limits of his own selfhood, familiarizes him with the conception and feeling of other grades and styles of character, conduct, and experience, through his passing assumptions of their parts and identification with their varieties develops the whole range of his nature, and makes him, while sensitive to differences, tolerant of them and full of charity. The true moral genius of the drama, supremely exemplified in Shakspeare, is the same genial gentleness and forbearing magnanimity towards every form of humanity as is shown by the God whose earth sustains and sky overarches and rain and sun and harvest visit and bless alike the coward and the hero, the saint and the scoundrel. For the moral essence of the drama consists in the recognition and appreciation of character and manners, not in asserting the will of self nor in assailing the wills of others. But there is a sharp contradiction between this natural tendency of the dramatic art by itself and the ordinary influence exerted by the professional practice of the art as a means of gaining celebrity and a livelihood. If the former would develop a generous emulation to see who can best reproduce in sympathetic imagination every height and depth of human nature and life, the latter instinctively stimulates a hostile rivalry to see who can secure the best parts and win the most pay and praise. Thus the members of the histrionic profession are drawn to one another in kindly sentiment by the intrinsic qualities of their art, but thrown into a hostile relation by those accidental conditions of their trade which make them selfish competitors for precedence. The breadth of the intrinsic tendency of the art is seen in the unparalleled mutual interest and kindness of actors and actresses, as a class standing by one another in all times of adversity with a generosity no other class exhibits; the aggravating power of the accidental influence of the profession is exposed in the notorious jealousy and irritability of these hunters after popularity. Accordingly, among the votaries of the stage a great many friendships are fostered and a great many rankling animosities are bred.