In addition to the satisfaction yielded by his professional triumphs, the growth of his fortune, the enjoyment of his health and strength, his taste for literature, his delight in nature, his love of country, and the tributes of his fame, there was another element in the life of Forrest which was of eminent importance, the source of a great deal of comfort and not a little pain,—his friendships. Some sketch of this portion and aspect of his experience must be essayed, though it will perforce be a brief and poor one because these delicate concerns of the heart are shy and elusive, leaving few records of themselves as they glide secretly to oblivion enriching only the responsive places which they bless and hallow as they pass. There are many histories which no historian writes, and the inmost trials and joys of the soul are mostly of them.

Friendship, in our times, is more thought about and longed for than it is talked of, and more talked of than experienced. Yet the experience itself of men differs vastly according to their characters, situations, and companions. To some, in their relations with humanity, the world is made up of strangers; they have neither acquaintances, enemies, nor friends. To some it consists of enemies alone. To a few it holds only friends. But to most men it is divided into four groups,—a wilderness of strangers, a throng of acquaintances, a snarl of enemies, and a knot of friends. Among the members of this larger class the chief distinctions lie in the comparative number and fervor of their lovers and of their haters, and in the comparative space they themselves assign to their experience respectively of sympathy and of antipathy. Some men pursued by virulent foes have the gracious faculty and habit of ignoring their existence, giving predominant attention to congenial persons, and forgetting annoyances in the charm of diviner employment. Others are continually infested by persecutions and resentments as by a species of diabolical vermin which tarnish the brightness of every prize, destroy the worth of every boon, and foster a chronic irritation in consciousness. To hate enemies with barbaric pertinacity of unforgivingness tends to this latter result, while to love friends with frank and joyous surrender tends to the former. Both the sinister and the benign experience were well illustrated in the life of Forrest, who had sympathetic companionship richly and enjoyed it deeply, although he was pestered by a mob of parasites, censors, and assailants whom he religiously abhorred and loathed. Hostility filled a large, dark, sad, cold place in his history, friendship a prominent, bright, warm, and happy place. The two facts have their equal lesson,—one of warning, one of example. Blessed is the fortunate man who cherishes his friends with loving enthusiasm, but never has a single grudge or fear or sneer for a foe.

The universal interest felt in the subject of friendship—the strange fascination the story of any ardent and noble instance of it has for all readers,—the intense longing for such an experience which exists explicit or latent in the centre of every heart in spite of all the corrupting and hardening influences of the world—is a pathetic signal of the mystery of our nature and a profound prophecy of our destiny. It means that no man is sufficient unto himself, but must find a complement in another. It means that man was not made to be alone, but must supplement himself with his fellows. The final significance of friendship—whereof love itself is but a specialized and intensified variety—is an almost unfathomable deep, but it would appear to be this. Every man in the structure and forces of his physical organism is an epitome of all Nature, a living mirror of the material universe; and in the faculties and desires of his soul he is a revelation of the Creator, a conscious image of God. As the ancients said, man is a little universe in the great universe,—microcosmos in macrocosmo. But every one of these divine microcosms has a central indestructible originality differencing it from all the rest. This is the eternal essence or monad of its personality, which reflects in its own peculiar forms and colors the substances and lights and shades of the whole. Thence arises that inexhaustible charm of idiosyncrasy, that everlasting play and shimmer of individual qualities, which constitutes the lure for all pursuit, the zest wherewith all life antidotes the monotonous bane of sameness and death. Now the secret of friendship becomes clear in the light of these statements. First, it is the destiny of every man eternally to epitomize in his own being the universe of matter and mind,—in other words, to be an intelligent focal point in the surrounding infinitude of nature and the interior infinitude of God. Secondly, he is to recognize such an epitome embodied and endlessly varied in the endless variety of other men, all of whom are perfectly distinguishable from one another by unnumbered peculiarities, every shape and tinge of their experience determined by their personal moulds and tints. Thirdly, the entire life of every person consists, in the last analysis, of a mutual communication between his selfhood and that surrounding Whole made up of everything which is not himself,—an interchange of action and reaction between his infinitely concentrated soul and his infinitely expanded environment. Fourthly, when two men, two of these intellectual and sentient microcosms, meet, so adjusted as mutually to reflect each other with all their contents and possibilities in sympathetic communion, their life is perfected, their destiny is fulfilled, since the infinite Unity of Being is revealed in each made piquant with the bewitching relish of foreign individuality, and nothing more is required, save immortality of career in boundless theatre of space, to round in the drama with sempiternal adventures and surprises, as, beneath the sleepless eye of the One, the Many hide and peep beneath their incarnate masks in life after life and world beyond world. Thus the highest idea of the experience of friendship is that it is God glimmering in and out of the souls of the friends in revelation of their destiny,—as Plato would say, the perpetually varied perception of the Same under the provocative and delightful disguise of the Other. And every lower idea of it which has any truth is in connection with this and points up to it,—from the revellers who entwine their cups and attune their glee, the soldiers who stand side by side in battle, and the politicians who vote the same ballot, to the thinkers who see the same truths and the martyrs who die in allegiance to the same sentiment. Everywhere, on all its ranges, friendship means communion of lives, sharing of thought and feeling, co-operative fellowship of personalities, the reflection of one consciousness in another. Those who meet only at the bottom of the scale in sensual mirth should be able sometimes, at least by the aid of a literary telescope, to see those who commingle at its top in immortal faith and aspiration.

Forrest possessed in a marked degree many of the qualities of a good friend; although, of course, it is not pretended that he had the mental disinterestedness, the refined spirituality, or the profound philosophic and religious insight which calls one to the most exalted style and height of friendship as it is celebrated for perpetual remembrance in the In Memoriam of Tennyson. He was affectionate, quick of perception, full of spontaneous sympathy and a deep and wide humanity, strictly truthful, in the highest degree just in his principles and purposes though often badly warped by prejudice, prompt in attention, retentive in memory, and inflexibly faithful to his pledge. If he was proud, it was not an arrogant and cruel pride, but a lofty self-assertion bottomed on a sense of worth. And even in regard to his irascible temper, the inflammability and explosiveness were on the surface of his mind, while tenderness, justice, and magnanimity were in its depths, excepting where some supposed meanness or wrong had caused hate to percolate there. The keenness and tenacity of his feelings took effect alike in his attractions and repulsions, so that he was as slow to forget a comrade as he was to forgive a foe. In London he saw two carriage-dogs who had been mates for years running along together, when one of them was crushed by a wheel and killed. The other just glanced at him, and, without deigning so much as to stop and smell of him, trotted on. From the sight of this Forrest caught such a contempt for the whole breed of carriage-dogs that he could never afterwards look at one without disgust. It was hardly fair perhaps to spread over an entire race what was the fault of one, but the impulse was generous. So long as any man with whom he had once been friends behaved properly and treated him justly he remained as true as steel to his fellowship. But open dereliction from duty, or clear degradation of character, or, in particular, any instance of baseness, cowardice, or treachery, moved his scorn and anger and fatally alienated him. It will be remembered that while yet a mere youth he played very successfully at Albany with Edmund Kean, whose genius he idolized. After the play a man whom he had always liked said to him, “Your Iago was better than Kean’s Othello.” Forrest says, “I never spoke to that man again!”

There was a strong feeling of kindness and admiration between him and Silas Wright, the celebrated Democratic Senator from New York. The day was once fixed for an important debate between Silas Wright and Daniel Webster. Early in the morning a man who had seen Wright drinking deeply and somewhat overcharged went to Webster and said, “You will have an easy task to-day in overthrowing your adversary; he already reels.” Indignant at the meanness of the remark, the great man frowned darkly and answered in his sternest tones, “Sir, no man has an easy victory over Silas Wright, drunk or sober,” and stalked away. Forrest used to tell this anecdote with characteristic relish of the rebuke pride gave impertinence. He could well appreciate traits of character and modes of conduct which he did not profess to practise but openly repudiated for himself. For instance, though he preferred truth to charity when they were opposed, he often quoted with the warmest admiration the sentiment uttered by some one on the death of Robert Burns: “Let his faults be like swans’ feet, hid beneath the stream.” And he also once said, “The finest eulogy I ever heard spoken of General Grant was, as uttered by an old acquaintance of his, ‘He never forgot a friend nor remembered an enemy.’ Ah, is not that beautiful? If it be justly said, as I am sorry to say I very much doubt, it sets a grace around his head which he himself could never set there.” It is certainly a very curious—though not at all an extraordinary—illustration of human nature to set against the above utterance of Forrest the following quotation from a letter of his dated Syracuse, October 5, 1868: “I saw by the telegraphic news in the paper this morning that George W. Jamieson was killed last night by a railroad train at Yonkers. God is great; and justice, though slow, is sure. Another scoundrel has gone to hell—I trust forever!”

Of the very large number of friends Forrest had, his intimacy continued to the end of life with but comparatively few. Fatal barriers and chill spaces of separation came between him and a great many of them, caused sometimes by mere lapse of time and pressure of occupation or removal of residence and change of personal tastes, sometimes by alienating disagreements and collisions of temper. These estrangements were so numerous that he acquired the reputation of being a quarrelsome man and hard to get along with, which was not altogether the fact.

One class of his earlier friends were in many cases converted into enemies on this wise. Boon companions are easy to have, but cheap, superficial, fickle. Genuine friendship, on the other hand, generous community of life and aspiration, co-operative pursuit and enjoyment of the worthiest ends, is a rare and costly prize, requiring virtues and imposing tasks. Multitudes therefore are tempted to put up with jovial fellowship in the pleasures of the table and let the desire for an ennobling intercourse of souls die out. The parasitic and treacherous nature of most pot-fellowship is proverbial. How well Shakspeare paints it in his version of Timon! When the eyes of the generous Athenian were opened to the selfishness of his pretended friends he became so rankling a misanthrope that the Greek Anthology gives us this as the epitaph sculptured on his sepulchre:

Forrest was not many years in learning how shallow, how selfish, how untrustworthy such comrades were. He had too much ambition, too much earnestness and dignity to be satisfied with a worthless substitute for a sacred reality. He would not let an ungirt indulgence of the senses in conviviality take the place of a consentient action of congenial souls in the enjoyment of excellence and the pursuit of glory. More and more, therefore, he withdrew from these scenes of banqueting, story-telling, and singing, and found his contentment more and more in books, in the repose and reflection of solitude, and in the society of a select few. The most of those whom he thus left to themselves resented his defection from their ways, and repaid his former favor and bounty with personal dislike and invidious speech.

Another class of his quondam friends he broke with not on the ground of their general principles and social habits but in consequence of some particular individual offence in their individual character and conduct. His standard for a friend—his standard of honesty, sincerity, and manly fairness—was an exacting one, and he brooked no gross deviation from it. When he believed, either correctly or incorrectly, that any associate of his had wilfully violated that standard, he at once openly repudiated his friendship and walked with him no more. In this way dark gaps were made in the ranks of his temporary friends by the expulsion thence of the satellites who preyed on his money, the actors who pirated his plays, the debauchees who dishonored themselves, the companions who betrayed his confidence and slandered his name. And thus the crowd of his revengeful assailants was again swelled. A single example in illustration of his conduct under such circumstances is marked by such racy vigor that it must be here adduced. A man of great smartness and of considerable distinction, with whom he had been especially intimate, but whom, having discovered his unworthiness, he had discarded, sought to reingratiate himself. Forrest wrote him this remarkable specimen of terse English:

“I hope the motives which led you to address me a note under date of 13th inst. will never induce you to do so again. Attempts upon either my credulity or my purse will be found alike in vain. No person however malicious, as you assume to believe, could change my opinion of you. Your intention to write a book is a matter which rests entirely with yourself. May I, however, take the liberty of suggesting that at this late day such a thing is not really needed, to illustrate your character, to alter public opinion, nor to prove to the world how great a dust can be raised by an ass out of place in either diplomacy or literature? There is already enough known of your career to prove that your task of becoming the apologist for a prostitution which has girdled the globe is one congenial to your tastes, fitted to your peculiar abilities, and coincident with your antecedents even from your birth to the present day.

Furthermore, an important circle of his most honored friends fell away from Forrest under circumstances peculiarly trying to his feelings. All those who in the time of his domestic unhappiness and the consequent lawsuits sympathized with the lady and supported her cause against him he regarded as having committed an unpardonable offence. He would never again speak with one of them. It was a heavy defection. It inflicted much suffering on him and bred a bitter sense of hostility towards them, with a sad feeling of impoverishment. For the places they had occupied in his heart and memory were thenceforth as so many closed and sealed chambers of funereal gloom.

But, after all the foregoing failures have been allowed for, there remain in the life we are contemplating a goodly number of friendships full of hearty sincerity and wholesome human helpfulness and joy,—friendships unstained by vice, unbroken by quarrels, undestroyed by years. Several of these have already been alluded to; especially the supreme example in his opening manhood, his relations with the eloquent, heroic, and generous William Leggett. Some account also has been given of his endeared intimacy with James Lawson, who first greeted him on the night of his first appearance in New York, and whose faithful attachment to his person and interests grew closer and stronger to the day of his death, never for an instant having seen the prospect of a breach or known the shadow of a passing cloud. “My friend Lawson,” said Forrest, when near his end, “is a gentleman on whom, as Duncan remarked of the thane of Cawdor, I have always built an absolute trust. He has, in our long communion of nigh fifty years, never failed me in a single point nor deceived me by so much as a look, but has been as good and kind to me as man can be to man.” Here is one of his letters:

“Dear Lawson,—I am glad you like the notice of Spartacus. It was written by our friend Forney, in his hearty and friendly spirit.

“My dear friend Lawson, it is not money that I play for now, but the excitement of the stage keeps me from rusting physically and mentally. It drives away the canker care, and averts the progress of decay. It is wholesome to be employed in ‘the labor we delight in.’ What prolonged the life of Izaak Walton, but his useful employments, which gave vigor to his mind and body, until mildly drew on the slow necessity of death? I hope to take you by the hand when you are ninety, and tell some merry tales of times long past. Day after to-morrow I leave home for Cincinnati, and shall be absent in the West for several months, and return with the birds and the buds, to see you once more, I hope, in your usual enjoyment of health and happiness. God bless you.

And now some examples of less conspicuous but true and valued friendships, selected from among many, claim brief place in this narrative. William D. Gallagher, a Quaker by persuasion, a man of literary tastes and a most quiet and blameless spirit, cherished from boyhood a fervid admiration and love for Forrest ever gratefully appreciated by him. He took extreme pains to collect materials for the biography of his friend, materials which have been often used in the earlier pages of this volume. Forrest desired his biographer, if he could find appropriate place in his work, to record an acknowledging and tributary word in memory of this affectionate and unobtrusive friend. The fittest words for that purpose will be the following citation from a letter of Forrest himself. “I deeply regret to inform you of the death of William D. Gallagher, who on his recent visit to Boston was so much pleased in forming your acquaintance and hearing your discourses. He was a man to be honored and loved for his genuine worth. He was quite free from every vice of the world. He carried the spirit of a child all through his life. He was as pure and gentle, I believe, as an angel. Though he cut no figure in society, I was proud to know that so good a man was my friend. I used to feel that I had rather at any time clasp his hand than that of the heir apparent to the throne of England.”

In the chief cities which Forrest every year visited professionally he formed many delightful acquaintances, many of which, constantly renewed and heightened by every fresh communion of heart and life, ripened into precious friendships. Of these, John C. Breckinridge, of Lexington, Kentucky, and John G. Stockly, of Cleveland, Ohio, and Charles G. Greene, of Boston, Massachusetts, may be named. But more particular mention should be made of James V. Wagner, of Baltimore. A Baltimore correspondent of the “National Intelligencer,” in one of his communications, says, “We learn that the distinguished American tragedian during his recent sojourn in this city has presented a splendid carriage and pair of horses to his long-tried and faithful friend, our fellow-citizen James V. Wagner. When the celebrated actor was but a stripling and at the beginning of his career, Mr. Wagner took him warmly by the hand, and has been his ardent admirer and friend from that time to the present. The gift is a magnificent one, and reflects credit on bestower and receiver. It is an establishment altogether fit for a duke or a prince.” In 1874 a son of Mr. Wagner gives this pleasing reminiscence of the frequent and ever-charming visits of Forrest at his father’s house: “Often in childhood have I sat upon his knee, and, as I then felt, listened to the words of Metamora, Jack Cade, and Lear in broadcloth. Often did he stroke my little black locks and ask me if I would become a carpenter, a lawyer, a minister, or a merchant. I can testify to his fondness for young children, consequently his goodness of heart.”

Judge Conrad, the eloquent author of Jack Cade, the high-souled, brilliant man, was a very dear and close friend of Forrest. The impulsive and generous writer gave the appreciative and steadfast player much pleasure and inspiration by his intercourse, and received a cordial esteem and many important favors in return. On Forrest’s arrival from Europe with his wife in 1846 he was greeted with this hearty letter by Conrad:

“My dear Mr. and Mrs. Forrest,—A thousand warm and hearty welcomes home! I had hoped to greet you in person, but my engagements preclude me that pleasure. You doubtless find that the creaking and crazy world has been grating upon its axis after the rough old fashion since you left us; that there are fresh mounds in the grave-yard, and fresh troubles in the way to it; but I am sure that you find the hearts of old as true as ever. Your wandering way has had anxious eyes watching over it; and your return is, in this city, hailed with general rejoicing. Absence embalms friendships: friends seldom change when so separated that they cannot offend. And to one who has a circle such as you have, I should think it almost worth while to go abroad for the luxury of returning home. Thank God that you are back and in health!

“Mrs. Conrad and our girls unite with me in bidding you welcome. The news of your arrival made a jubilee with the children. We all look forward anxiously for the privilege of taking you by the hand.

One brief interruption to this friendship there was. It originated in some misunderstanding which provoked anger and pain. Forrest wrote at once, not unkindly, and asked an explanation. He was rejoiced by the immediate receipt of the following letter, which he endorsed with the single word “Reconciliation,” and they were again united:

“My dear Forrest,—Your letter throws the duty of apology upon me, and, from my heart, I ask your pardon, and will tear to tatters all record of what has passed. But there is no madness Coleridge tells us, that so works upon the brain as unkindness in those we love.

“Forget what has passed,—but not until you have forgiven one whose pulses beat sometimes too hotly, but will always beat for you. This single cloud in our past—a past all bright to me—has been absorbed by the nobler and purer atmosphere of your nature. Surely it cannot now cast a shadow.

“Before the receipt of your note I had written a letter under my own signature, replying to a brutal attack upon you in the Boston ‘Aurora Borealis’ in relation to your course towards dramatic authors. It will appear in McMakin’s ‘Courier,’ and I have seized the occasion to make some editorial remarks upon the subject that will not dissatisfy you; and, as the circulation of the ‘Courier’ is nearly wide as that of the wind, I think it will do good.

“Let me sign this hasty note as most truly and heartily

“E. Forrest, Esq.”

The friendship with James Taylor, described in a previous chapter of this biography, which was so pleasant and valuable to Forrest at the time, never died, but was kept fresh and strong to the last. This will appear from the interesting letters that follow:

“My dear Friend,—When you were last at my house I promised you a copy of my portrait of George F. Cooke. I could not until now procure such a copy as I thought worthy to be sent you. It was first photographed and then painted, and is an exact counterfeit of the original. It is not full size. Several attempts were made to get a good photograph copy, or negative, and in the present size it was the most perfect. The history of this picture (I mean the one in my possession) is as follows: A young gentleman by the name of Jouitt studied portrait-painting with Sully in 1816, and on his leaving for his native State, Kentucky, Sully presented him with this picture of Cooke, being a copy of his original picture of the great tragedian. Jouitt presented the picture to Captain John Fowler, of Lexington, Ky., in 1818, and he on his death-bed in 1840 gave it to me. He was an old pioneer, and came to Kentucky with my mother in 1783. Now, my old and much-admired friend, please accept this portrait as a testimony of my high regard for you as a gentleman and a man of genius. I often have a vivid recollection of the old times when we were together,—the night you slept with me at Kean’s Hotel, and the New Year’s dinner at Ayer’s Hotel with Clay, Merceir, and others. We were young then, full of life, hope, and enthusiasm; and I do not feel old yet. These days, my friend, I look back on with pleasure. I was not then vexed or troubled with the cares of life. If we should never meet again, I wish you much happiness and length of days. I am here enjoying the breezes of ‘Neptune’s salt wash,’ fishing, and sailing. I shall return to New York in a week or ten days. Please write to me at the St. Nicholas, as I desire to know whether the picture reached you uninjured.

“My dear Friend,—Yours of the 21st of July was forwarded to me from New York at the close of last week, and I regret that it was out of my power to comply with your request to meet you at your home in Philadelphia. I have been here now over three weeks,—a most delightful cool place,—and I only regret that I have to leave it in the midst of the hot season to return to Kentucky, where business calls me. I am gratified that you liked the portrait; it is in fact a true copy of the original. Dear Ned, I often think of our young days in Lexington with our friends Lewis, Turpin, Clay, and others, and how happy we were amidst those scenes. But they are gone, and we are almost old men. I hope we shall gracefully go down to death, having courageously fought the battle of life. You will leave a name and a fame behind you as one of the great masters of the dramatic art. Should you again visit the West, you know where to find your friend,

Another letter, much longer and more important, was addressed by Mr. Taylor to S. S. Smith, a common friend to the two persons,—a friend of whom Forrest once wrote to Oakes, “If my old friend S. S. Smith does not go to heaven when he dies, the office of door-keeper there is a sinecure and the place might as well be shut up. He is one of the most honest, kind-hearted, trustworthy men I have ever known. I have always cherished the warmest esteem for him.” This letter was written after the death of Forrest, and contains a most interesting and touching tribute to him. It belongs in the closing chapter rather than here.

Among the long- and well-cherished friends of Forrest, of a later date than Taylor, were the two distinguished New York counsellors John Graham and James T. Brady. The sudden death of the latter at the zenith of his manhood called from him a strong expression of feeling in a letter to one of their common friends: “The death of Brady shocked me very much. He was a genial, noble man, and an eloquent and honest lawyer,—every way so unlike the pettifogging peddlers of iniquity and the corrupt and ermined ruffians of the bench whom we have known. I feel honored in saying that I was his friend and that he was mine. His place will not easily be supplied with any of those who knew him, and could not know him without loving him. What an interesting figure he was, and how he drew all eyes where he came, with his beating heart, his bright frank face, his large and warm presence! He was a contrast indeed to those commonplace creatures concerning whom nobody cares anything, and never asks who they are, or what they do, or whence they come, or where they go. I regret that he should have died and not have made friends with John Graham. How I should like to have been instrumental with you in bringing about a reconciliation between them!”

And now we come to the central, crowning, supreme friendship which most of all alleviated the life and blessed the heart of Forrest alike when he was young and when he was old,—the glowing bond of cordiality that knit his soul with the soul of James Oakes. One of the two partners in this happy league of unselfish love and faithful service has passed through nature to eternity, while one still lives. To do justice to the relation on the side of the former it is necessary to know something of the character of the man who sustained the other side of it. And though it is a delicate office, and one somewhat offensive to fashion, to speak frankly of the traits of the living, except indeed in assault and censure, yet, since truth is truth, and moral lessons have the same import whether drawn from those who are alive or from those who are dead, one who is called to tell the story of a departed Damon may perhaps venture honestly and with modesty to depict his lingering Pythias.

Oakes is a man of positive nature, downright and forthright, as blunt and strong in act and word as Forrest himself, and, so far, fitted to meet and mate him. He has made a host of foes by his bluff truth of speech and deed, his sturdy standing to his opinion, his straight march to his purpose. These foes, no matter who they were, high or low, he has always scorned and defied with unfaltering and unrepentant vigor. He has likewise made a host of friends, by his sound judgment always at their service, his genially affectionate spirit, and his unwearied devotion to gentle works of humanity in befriending the unfortunate and ministering to the distressed, the sick, and the dying. To these friends, rich and poor alike, and whether basking in popular favor or crushed under obloquy, he has always been steadfastly true. No fickle misliker or mere sunshine friend he, but, like Forrest, tenacious both in antipathies and sympathies. His nature has ever been wax to receive, steel to retain, the memory of injuries and of benefits, hostility and love. His sensitive openness to the beauty of nature, to the charm of poetry, to the voice of eloquence, to the touch of fine sentiment, is extreme. Anything pathetic, noble, or grand makes his tears spring quicker than a woman’s, and his blood burns with instant indignation and his heart beats fast and loud against injustice, cruelty, or meanness. And yet he is not what is called a society man, a careful observer of the sleek proprieties of the polite world of conventional appearances. On the contrary, in many things his aboriginal love of free sincerity has shocked these. And he has been a strong lover of horses, of dogs, of sporting life, and of the rough, warm, honest ways of fearless and spontaneous sporting men. A soft heart, a true tongue, a clear head, self-asserting character and life, pity for suffering, defiance to pretension, contempt for fashion when opposed to nature, have been his passports to men and theirs to him. From his boyhood he has taken delight in doing kind deeds to the needy, carrying wines, fruits, flowers, and other delicacies to the sick, being a champion for the weak and injured, whether man or woman or child or quadruped or bird. Hundreds of times has he been seen in drifting snow-storms, undeterred by the pelting elements, in his wide-rimmed hat, shaggy overcoat, and long boots up to his thighs, loaded with good things, on his way to the bedside of some disabled friend or some poor sufferer forgotten by others. His enemies no doubt may justly bring many accusations against him. His friends certainly will confess his defects and faults. He himself would blush at the thought of claiming immunity from a full share of the weaknesses and sins of men. But no one who knows him, whether friend or foe, can question his extreme tenderness, tenacity, and fidelity of nature, his rare sensibility of hate for detestable forms of character and action, his heroic adhesion and indefatigable attentiveness to all whom he admires and loves.

His moral portrait is limned by the hand of one who had known him most thoroughly on his favorable side as a friend for nearly all his lifetime, in this private epistle:

“My dear Oakes,—Your letter of the 22d reached me yesterday morning, and was read and re-read with pleasure. When you tell me you foot up sixty-seven, I find it difficult to believe you, and if you refer me to the record I shall still exclaim with Beau Shatterly (do you remember how poor Finn used to play it?), ‘D—n parish registers! They’re all impudent impositions and no authority!’

“There are a few exceptional men in the world who project their youth far forward into their lives, and this not so much from force of constitution as from the size of their hearts. You are one of these few phenomenal men. That you may long continue to flourish in perennial spring is my sincerest prayer. You have been just and generous (except to yourself),—to what extent you forget. I think the recording angel must sometimes curse your good deeds, you have given him or her or it (there is no sex to angels) so many to record in that huge log-book which is kept up aloft for future reference. In the race for salvation, while the saints (professional) are plying steel and whipcord, jostling each other and riding foul, you will distance them and go into the gate at an easy canter under no pull at all. As for me, it is different. I stood near the pyramid of Caius Sextius at Rome, at the grave of Keats, and read his epitaph by himself, ‘Here lies one whose name was writ in water,’ and said, That ought to be mine. However, I went up the steps of the Santa Scala on my knees, invested fifty francs or so in indulgences, and left the Eternal City whiter than snow,—but perhaps only as a whited sepulchre is sometimes whiter than snow.

“Excuse my levity. You will read between the lines and find plenty of sad and serious thoughts there. If I did not valiantly fight against bitter memories, I should cave.

Oakes had many friends besides Forrest, some of whom he had known earlier and most of whom were friends in common to them both. Among the chief of these may be named—and they were men of extraordinary talent, force, racy originality of character, and depth of human passion—George W. Kendall and A. M. Holbrook, editors of the New Orleans “Picayune,” William T. Porter, editor of the “Spirit of the Times,” Dr. Charles M. Windship, of Roxbury, the romantic and tragic William Henry Herbert,—better known as Frank Forrester, a sort of modern Bertrand du Guesclin, who, when the woman he loved deceived him, resolutely severed every tie joining him with humanity and the world, requested that no epitaph should be written on him save “The Most Unhappy,” and quieted his convulsed brain with a bullet,—Sargent S. Prentiss, of Mississippi, Thomas F. Marshall, of Kentucky, George W. Prentice, Albert Pike, Colonel Powell T. Wyman, and Francis A. Durivage. The inner lives of such characters as these, and others whose names are not given, fully revealed, show in human experience gulfs of delight and woe, degrees of intensity and wonder, little dreamed of by the peaceful and feeble superficialists who fancy in their innocence that the life of the nineteenth century is tame and dull, wholly wanting in the extremities of spiritual adventure and social excitement that marked the times of old. The knowledge of the sincere life of society to day—the real unconventional life behind the scenes—as it was uncovered and made familiar to Forrest and Oakes, when it is suddenly appreciated by a thoughtful scholar, an inexperienced recluse, gives him a shock of amazement, a mingled sorrow and wonder which make him cry, “What a sad, bitter, strange, beautiful, terrible world it is! O God! who knows or can even faintly guess from afar the meaning of it all? These fathomless passions of men and women, giving a bliss and a pain which make every other heaven or hell utterly superfluous,—these temptations and crimes which horrify the soul and curdle the blood,—these betrayals and disappointments that break our hearts, unhinge our reason, and precipitate us into self-sought graves, mad to pluck the secret of eternity,—who shall ever read the infinite riddle and tell us what it all is for?”

As the heaping decades of years rolled by, Oakes had to part with many of his dearest friends at the edge of that shadow which no mortal, only immortals, can penetrate. But, unlike what happens with most men, his friendly offices ceased not with the breath of the departed. For one and another and another and another of his old comrades, whom he had assiduously nursed in their last hours, when all was ended, with his own hands he tenderly closed the eyes, washed the body, put on the burial-garments, and reverently laid the humanized clay in the earth with farewell tears. To so many of his closest comrades had he paid this last service that at length in his twilight meditations he began to feel a chilly solitude spreading around. It was in such a mood that he wrote a letter to one of the surviving and central figures of that group of strong, brave, fiery-passioned men, who knew the full height and depth of the romance and tragedy of human experience, and had nearly all gone, most of them untimely, and several by their own hands. It was to Albert Pike that he wrote. What he wrote moved Pike to compose an essay, “Of Leaves and their Falling,” in which this touching, tributary passage occurs. Having alluded to the dead of their circle,—Porter, Elliot, Lewis and Willis Gaylord Clark, Herbert, Wyman, Forrest, and others,—he proceeds: “James Oakes, of the old Salt-Store, 49 Long Wharf, Boston,—‘Acorn’ of the old ‘Spirit of the Times,’—lives yet, as generous and genial as ever. He loved Porter like a brother, and, in a letter received by me yesterday, says, ‘This is my birthday! 67 is marked on the milestone of my life just passed. Among the few old friends of my early days who are left on this side the river, none is dearer to me than yourself. As I creep down the western slope towards the last sunset, my old heart turns with irresistible longings to those early friends, my love for whom grew with my growth and strengthened with my strength. Alas, how few are left! As I look back upon the long line of grave-stones by the wayside that remind me of my early associates, a feeling of inexpressible sadness possesses me, and my heart yearns towards the few old friends left, to whom I cling with hooks of steel.’ And so he thanks me for a poem sent him, and tells me how he has worked for the estate of Forrest, and sincerely and affectionately wishes that God may bless me and keep me in health for many years to come.

“Ah, dear old friend! the cold November days of life have come for both of us, and the dull bars of cloud scowl on the barren stubble-fields, the wind blows inhospitably, and the hills in the distance are bleak and gray and bare, and the winter comes, when we must drop from the tree, and be remembered a little while, and then forgotten almost as soon as the dead leaves.

“Well, what does it matter to us if we are to be forgotten before the spring showers fall a second time on our graves, as Porter was, except by two or three friends? What is it to the leaf that falls, killed by an untimely frost, whether it is remembered or forgotten by its fellows that still cling to the tree, to fall a little later in the season? Men are seldom remembered after death for anything that you or I would care to be remembered for.

“Porter would not have cared to be remembered by many, nor by any one, unless with affection for his unbounded goodness of heart and generosity. Nor am I covetous of large remembrance among men. If I should die before him, I should wish, if I cared for anything here after death more than a dead leaf does, to have Oakes come to my grave, as I wish that he and I could go to that of Porter, and there repeat, in the language to which no translation can do justice, this exquisite threnody of Catullus:

“Discontented with the translations whereof by Lamb, Elton, and Hodgson, I have endeavored this more literal one:

Such as he has been above described was the man who for forty-three years best loved Edwin Forrest and whom in return Edwin Forrest best loved. How much this means, the narrative of their friendship that follows will show.

At the time of their first meeting, which took place at the close of the actor’s debut in Boston in the play of Damon and Pythias, Forrest was within a few weeks of twenty-one and Oakes a little less than twenty. They had so many traits and tastes in common that their souls chimed at once. When absent they corresponded by letter, and, seizing every opportunity for renewed personal fellowship, their mutual interest quickly ripened into a fervent attachment. Oakes had a passion for the theatre and the drama. He earnestly studied the principal plays produced, and soon began scribbling criticisms. These paragraphs he often gave to the regular reporters and dramatic critics of the newspapers, and sometimes sent them directly in his own name to the editors. Afterwards, over the signature of “Acorn,” he acquired good reputation as a stated contributor to several leading journals in the East and the South. Both he and Forrest were great sticklers for a vigorous daily bath and scrub, and very fond of athletic exercises, which they especially enjoyed together, an example which might be copied with immense advantage by many daintily cultured people who fancy themselves above it. They were about equally matched with the gloves and the foils, if anything Forrest being the better boxer, Oakes the better fencer, as his motions were the more nimble.

As time passed and their mutual knowledge and confidence increased, the sympathies of the friends were more closely interlocked and spread over all their business interests and affectional experiences, and their constantly crossing letters were transcripts of their inner states and their daily outer lives. They scarcely held any secret back from each other. Forrest almost invariably consulted Oakes and carefully weighed his advice before taking any important step. Oakes made it his study to do everything in his power to aid and further his honored friend alike in his personal status and in his professional glory. For this end he wrote and moved others to write hundreds and hundreds of newspaper notices, working up every conceivable kind of item calculated to keep the name and personality of the actor freshly before the eyes of the public. His letters, with the alert instinct of love, were varied to meet and minister to the trials and condition of him to whom they were addressed, congratulating him in his triumph, counselling him in his perplexity, soothing him in his anger, consoling him in his sorrow. In the innumerable letters, transmitted for nearly fifty years at the rate of from two to seven a week, Oakes used to enclose slips snipped from the newspapers, and extracts from magazines and books, containing everything he found which he thought would interest, amuse, or edify his correspondent. Thus was he ever what a friend should be,—a mirror glassing the soul and fortunes of the counterpart friend; but a mirror which at the same time that it reflects what exists also reveals the supply of what is needed.

One of the charms of the correspondence of Oakes and Forrest is the ingenuous freedom with which their feelings are expressed. A shamefaced or frigid reticence on all matters of sentiment or personal affection between men seems to be the conspicuous characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race. The most that the average well-to-do Englishman or American can say on meeting his dearest friend is, Well, old fellow, how goes it? Glad to see you! It is painful for a really rich and tender heart to move about in this sterile wilderness of dumb and bashful sympathy or frozen and petrified love. But these friends were wont to speak their free hearts each to each without reserve or affectation. Early in their acquaintance Oakes writes thus:

“My dear Forrest,—I cannot tell you how much delight I had in your visit to me. When you left, the sinking of my heart told me how dear you had become. The more I see of you the more I find to honor and to love. I set your image against the remembrance of all the scamps I have known, and think more highly of the human race. How I long for the day when you will visit Boston again or I shall come to you! Command my services to the fullest extent in anything and in everything. For I am, from top to bottom, inside and out, and all through, forever yours,