work. It fails to reproduce the flavour of the dramatic periods through
which Belasco passed, in his association with Dion Boucicault as private
secretary, in his work with James A. Herne at Baldwin's Theatre, in San
Francisco, in his pioneer realism at the old New York Madison Square
Theatre, when the Mallory Brothers were managers, Steele Mackaye was one
of the stock dramatists, Henry DeMille was getting ready for collaboration
with Belasco, Daniel Frohman was house-manager and Charles Frohman was out
on the road, trying his abilities as advance-man for Wallack and Madison
Square successes. Winter's life is orderly and matter-of-fact; Belasco's
real life has always been melodramatic and colourful.

His early struggles in San Francisco, his initial attempts at playwriting,
his intercourse with all the big actors of the golden period of the
'60's--Mr. Belasco has written about them in a series of magazine
reminiscences, which, if they are lacking in exact sequence, are measure
of his type of mind, of his vivid memory, of his personal opinions.

Belasco has reached his position through independence which, in the '90's,
brought down upon him the relentless antagonism of the Theatrical Trust--a
combine of managers that feared the advent of so individualistic a
playwright and manager. They feared his ability to do so many things well,
and they disliked the way the public supported him. This struggle,
tempestuous and prolonged, is in the records.

A man who has any supreme, absorbing interest at all is one who thrives on
vagaries. Whatever Belasco has touched since his days of apprenticeship in
San Francisco, he has succeeded in imposing upon it what is popularly
called "the Belasco atmosphere." Though he had done a staggering amount of
work before coming to New York, and though, when he went to the Lyceum
Theatre, he and Henry DeMille won reputation by collaborating in "The