Edwin Forrest — What Makes a Man's Life Large or Small?

The Drama between Cheapness & Grandeur Affects History Too

At the same time that his domestic life was in turmoil, Forrest was making choices in his professional life that, I believe, were in behalf of smallness.

The famous Astor Place Riot of 1849 concerned the rivalry between Forrest and the noted English actor William Macready, close friend of Charles Dickens. Unfortunately, along with something culturally large in both of these men, each had the cheap thing that can make for what goes on between two men in any office today. Writes Ellen Reiss in The Right Of:

Contempt in people hates the idea that anything or anyone should be bigger than oneself. Contempt says..."The way for me to be big is to feel someone else is small. If I can see you as less than I am...that makes me big. But if I have to see you as having largeness, if I have to look up to you, then I'm small—I'm nothing!

In London, Forrest was one of the early American actors to be highly praised by the critics, including for his Shakespearean roles. Moody writes that Macready was "enraged" and that he "squirmed when Forrest was praised." But Macready also criticized himself, writing once in his diary that he knew he condemned Forrest "from a feeling of envy," and that this was "very narrow and poor and bad."

Still, Macready's resentment grew. Then, Forrest felt Macready undermined his performances by having people hiss him from the audience, and he went on the attack. In Edinburgh, he secretly attended a performance by Macready as Hamlet, and during the play, suddenly from the audience came a loud hiss. Forrest never apologized, and later, when Macready came to America, Forrest dogged him in every city, booking himself in rival theatres to play the same roles.

Theatrical managers saw "profits in the rivalry," and the press licked its chops at the good copy it made for, publishing story after story.

In an issue of The Right Of, in which Mr. Siegel's lecture "People Have Objected in American History" appears, Mr. Siegel speaks about the Astor Place riot, calling it "one of the strangest uprising." And saying that "the warfare between Forrest and Macready is part of theatrical history," Mr. Siegel quotes an account which tells:

Macready appeared in New York in 1849...[Anger at the insult to Forrest,] coupled with the natural antagonism of Irish-born Americans who had see their country destroyed economically by the English, prompted a demonstration against Macready so violent that the Governor of New York called out troops to protect him...The crowd [was]... extremely abusive, and a stupid...officer gave the command to fire...Many were killed.

After this and his contentious divorce, Forrest lived for another 21 years. But he never had the same expansive joie de vivre. Still, he acted as frequently as possible, and in fact seemed driven to do so right until the end—because, I believe, that is where he felt the largest thing in him could thrive. Wrote one critic who saw him as Lear in the last year of his life:

I went last night to see Forrest. I saw Lear himself; and never can I forget him, the poor, discrowned, wandering king, whose every look and tone went to the heart...I could not suppress my tears in the last scene. The tones of the heart-broken father linger in my ear like the echo of a distant strain of sad, sweet music, inexpressibly mournful yet sublime. The whole picture will stay in my memory so long as soul and body hang together.

Studying Edwin Forrest's life and work makes me immeasurably grateful for Aesthetic Realism and the largeness, integrity and happiness it can give to a man's life. I believe Eli Siegel himself had the most beautiful largeness—his mind was the most comprehensive and wide-ranging, and he always had the biggest, most admirable purpose with people—to bring out their strength. To study Aesthetic Realism is to become larger—and this is the happy privilege of any man's lifetime!

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