A servile fawning on the press, a cowardly fear of its censures, a tremulous sensitiveness to its comments, is one of the chief weaknesses of American society. Its unprincipled meddlesomeness, tyranny, and cruelty are thus pampered. A quiet ignoring of its impertinence or its slander is undoubtedly the course most conducive to comfort on the part of one assailed. But the man who has the independence and the courage publicly to call his wanton assailant to account and prosecute him, even though shielded by all the formidable immunities of an editorial chair, sets a good example and does a real service to the whole community. Every American who values his personal freedom should crown with his applause the American who seizes an insolent newspaper by the throat and brings it to its knees; for unkind and unprincipled criticism is the bane of the American people. The antidote for this bane is personal independence supported by personal conscience and honor in calm defiance of all prying and censorious espionage. This would produce individual distinction, raciness, and variety, resulting in an endless series of personal ranks, with perfect freedom of circulation among them all; whereas the two chief exposures of a democracy are individual envy and social cowardice, yielding the double evil of universal rivalry and universal truckling, and threatening to end in a dead level of conceited mediocrity. The envy towards superiors which De Tocqueville showed to be the cardinal vice of democracy finds its worst vent in the newspaper press, which assails almost every official in the country with the foulest accusations. Are these writers destitute of patriotism and of faith in humanity? Are they ignorant of the fact that if they convince the public that their superiors are all corrupt the irresistible reflex influence of the conviction will itself corrupt the whole public?

That American citizen who has original manhood and lives a fresh, honest life of his own, regardless of the dictation of King Caucus or Queen Average,—the most heartless and vulgar despots that ever reigned,—sets the bravest of examples and teaches the most needed of lessons. Fenimore Cooper did this, criticising the errors and defects of his fellow-citizens as an enthusiastic and conscientious patriot should who sets humanity and truth above even country and fashion, and in consequence he was misunderstood, lampooned, and insulted by the baser newspapers, and finally, after one or two hundred libel suits, hounded into his grave. If they ever come to their senses, his repentant countrymen will one day build him a monument. Forrest was much this sort of man. He asserted himself, resented and defied dictation, and wanted others to do the same. He secured at different times a verdict with damages against the proprietors of four newspapers, and threatened libel suits against three others, which he withdrew on receiving ample public apology. The apology given in one instance, where he had been professionally abused and personally accused of drunkenness, is of so exemplary a character that it ought to be preserved. And here it is:

“It will perhaps be remembered by most of our readers that Mr. Edwin Forrest brought a libel suit against the proprietors of this paper for articles which appeared in our issues of 10th, 17th, and 24th of November, 1867. The solicitations and representations of mutual friends have induced Mr. Forrest generously to consent to the withdrawal of the case. Under these circumstances it becomes our duty as it is our pleasure, to express our regret at the publication of the articles in question.

“The articles complained of were, we frankly admit, beyond the limits of dramatic criticism; and the present proprietors, who saw them for the first time when printed, were at the time and still are sincerely sorry they appeared. Though not personally acquainted with Mr. Forrest, we do know, what the world knows, that he has always been prompt and faithful in his professional engagements; and his bitterest enemies, if he have any, must admit that he is not only eminent in his profession but especially free from the vice of intemperance.”

The newspaper attack from which he suffered the most was so peculiar in some of its features as to demand mention. In 1855 a series of elaborate critiques on his chief rôles appeared in a leading metropolitan journal. They were so scholarly, careful, and strong in their analysis of the plays, and so cutting in their strictures on the player, that they attracted wide attention and did him much damage. Now, two hands were concerned in these articles. The learning, thought, and eloquence were furnished by a German of uncommon scholarship and talent, who deeply felt the power and merit of Forrest as an actor and considered him a man of accomplished dramatic genius. The articles, as he wrote them, were then padded with demeaning epithets and scurrilous estimates of Forrest by one who was filled with prejudices theoretical and personal. Could Forrest have totally disregarded the articles, fortified in a magnanimous serenity, it had been well. He could not do it. He took them home with extreme pain and with extreme wrath, intensely resenting their injustice and their unkindness. This is a specimen of what is inflicted and suffered in the battle of public life. It tempts one to say, Blessed is the man who escapes all publicity, and lives and loves and dies happily in private! No doubt, however, it is best to say, with the grand old Faliero,—

His long, crowded experience of unfairness and unkindness deposited in Forrest a burning grudge against the world, a fierce animosity towards his injurers, an angry recoil of self-esteem, and a morbid exaggeration of the real vices of society. In one of his letters to a friend he writes, “This human life is a wretched failure, and the sooner annihilation comes to it the better.” An old poet makes one of his characters who had been deeply wronged say,—

Mrs. Montagu wrote to John Philip Kemble under similar circumstances, “If you retire, from an opinion that mankind are insincere, ungrateful, and malignant, you will grow proud by reflecting that you are not like these Pharisees.” How such an opinion in Forrest marred his peace of mind and rankled in his general feelings—although much kindliness to men and much enjoyment of life still remained—was obvious enough in his later years, and is vividly expressed in many of his letters. “It would amaze and shock the honest, upright people of this country,” he writes, “could they but know as I do how these sage judges, these benign law-peddlers, are manipulated by outsiders to give any decree that malice and money may demand.” Again he writes, “I have all my life been cheated and preyed on by harpies, right and left. While they have enjoyed my money and maligned me I have toiled on for the next batch of swindlers. I have squandered more than a quarter of a million dollars on friends who, with a few noble exceptions, have returned my kindness not only with ingratitude but with obloquy.” And at another time he says still more at length, “Whatever my enemies may say of me—be it good or bad—matters but little. I would not buy their mercy at the price of one fair word. I claim no exemption from the infirmities of my temper, which are doubtless many. But I would not exchange the honest vices of my blood for the nefarious hypocrisies and assumed virtues of my malignant detractors. I am no canting religionist, and I cordially hate those who have wronged and backbitten me. I have—yes, let me own that I have—a religion of hate; not of revenge, for while I detest I would not injure. I have a hatred of oppression in whatever shape it may appear,—a hatred of hypocrisy, falsehood, and injustice,—a hatred of bad and wicked men and women,—and a hatred of my enemies, for whom I have no forgiveness excepting through their own repentance of the injuries they have done me. I have never flattered the blown-up fool above me nor crushed the wretch beneath me.

“As for those who misjudge and mislike me, I hate and defy them, and appeal for justice to Nature and God, confident that they will one day grant it.”

These expressions but too plainly reveal the sore places in his heart. Ah, could he but have attained a sweet and magnanimous self-sufficingness, frankly forgiven and forgotten his foes, and outgrown all those chronic contempts and resentments,—could he but have turned his thoughts away from brooding over the vices of men, and dwelt prevailingly on the other side of the picture of the world,—how much more peaceful and dignified and happy his age would have been! But this is hardly to be expected of one passionately struggling in the emulous arena, his veins swollen with hot blood in which still runs the barbaric tradition, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. To expurgate that old animal tradition and introduce in its place the saintly principle of forgiveness needs patient suffering and leisurely culture grafted on a fine spirit. When this result is secured, man rises superior to wrong, to enmity, to disgrace, is content to do his duty and fulfil his destiny in the love of truth and humanity, sure that every one will at last be rewarded after his deserts, and letting the cruel or ridiculous caprices of fortune and fame pass by him as unregarded as the idle wind.

It would not be fair to the truth of the case if this chapter left the impression that Forrest found on the whole the penalties of his fame bitterer to bear than its prizes were sweet to enjoy. The opposite was the fact. The annoyances attendant on his great reputation alloyed but destroyed not the comfort it yielded in its varied tributes and in its vast supporting sense of sympathetic life. Besides, the very vexations consequent on it were often accompanied by their own outweighing compensations. Sallying out of the Tremont House in Boston, one forenoon, arm in arm with his friend Oakes, and passing down Washington Street, his attention was caught by a hideous caricature of himself in a shop-window. A group of boys were gazing at it in great merriment. “Good heavens, Oakes,” he cried, “just look at that infernal thing! It is enough to make one curse the day he was born.” At that moment one of the boys recognized him, and exclaimed to the others, “Here he is!” Forrest whispered to his friend, “Boys are impartial; they have not the prejudices men have. I am going to ask them their opinion. Look here, boys, do I look like that?” One of them, a little older than the rest, answered, promptly, “Well, we knew that it was you; but then you see there is this difference,—this makes us laugh, and you make us cry.” “Thank you, my lad, thank you,” responded Forrest, “Come on, Oakes; I have got better than I bargained for. My enemy when he produced that beastly monstrosity little dreamed what a pleasure he was going to give me.” And, as they swung slowly along, he said, half musingly, “I wonder why they always degrade me by caricature and never exalt me by idealization.” The solution, which he left unattempted, is this. Caricature is the exaggeration of bad points, idealization is the heightening of good points. It is much easier to make the bad appear worse than it is to make the good appear better. Man intuitively likes to attempt what he feels he can succeed in, and dislikes to attempt what he feels he shall fail in. Therefore, when commonplace natures represent their superiors they lower them by travesty rather than raise them by improvement. And so in critical art caricature abounds over idealization.