successful in creating atmosphere and in procuring unity of cooperation
from his staff. No one, unless it be Winthrop Ames, gives more personal
care to a production than David Belasco. Considering that he was reared in
the commercial theatre, his position is unique and distinctive.

In the years to come, when students enter the Columbia University Dramatic
Museum, founded by Professor Brander Matthews, they will be able to judge,
from the model of the stage set for "Peter Grimm," exactly how far David
Belasco's much-talked-of realism went; they will rightly regard it as the
high point in accomplishment before the advent of the "new" scenery, whose
philosophy Belasco understands, but whose artistic spirit he cannot
accept. Maybe, by that time, there will be preserved for close examination
the manuscripts of Belasco's plays--models of thoroughness, of managerial
foresight. The present Editor had occasion once to go through these
typewritten copies; and there remains impressed on the memory the detailed
exposition in "The Darling of the Gods." Here was not only indicated every
shade of lighting, but the minute stage business for acting, revealing how
wholly the manager gave himself over to the creation of atmosphere. I
examined a mass of data--"boot plots," "light plots," "costume designs."
Were the play ever published in this form, while it might confuse the
general reader, it would enlighten the specialist. It would be a key to
realistic stage management, in which Belasco excels. Whether it be his own
play, or that of some outsider, with whom, in the final product, Belasco
always collaborates, the manuscripts, constituting his producing library,
are evidence of his instinctive eye for stage effect.

The details in the career of David Belasco are easily accessible. It is
most unfortunate that the stupendous record of his life's accomplishment
thus far, which, in two voluminous books, constituted the final labour of
the late William Winter, is not more truly reflective of the man and his