Some little while before the production of “Naughty Anthony” Belasco had received from a stranger a letter in which he was urged to read a story, called “Madame Butterfly,” by John Luther Long, with a view to making it into a play. When anxiously casting about for some means of providing required reinforcement for his farce he chanced to recollect that suggestion, procured a copy of Long’s book containing his tragic tale, read it and was so much impressed by the possibilities which he perceived of basing on it a striking theatrical novelty that he entered into communication with Long and arranged with him for the use of his story. This proved, in several ways, a most fortunate occurrence: it led to a valued and lasting friendship and, ultimately, to the writing of two other memorable dramas,--“The Darling of the Gods” and “Adrea,”--as well as to the composition of a beautiful and extraordinarily popular opera, and it resulted, directly, in the making and production, by Belasco, of one of the most effective short plays of the last twenty-five years,--the success of which did much to sustain him under the disappointment of failure and the burden of heavy loss. Belasco’s tragedy of “Madame Butterfly” is comprised in one act, of two scenes, which, connected by a pictorial intercalation, are presented without a break, and it implicates eight persons, besides its heroine, all of whom are merely incidental to depiction of her tragic fate. The substance of its story is contained in Goldsmith’s familiar lines about the sad consequences of lovely woman’s genuflexion to folly. A man commits the worst and meanest of all acts, the wronging of an innocent girl, and then deserts her. The case has often been stated--but it is not less pathetic because it is familiar. In this instance the girl is a Japanese, and in Japan, and thus the image of her joy, sorrow, desolation, and death are investable with opulent color and quaint accessories. Her name is _Cho-Cho-San_, and, by her lover, she is called “_Madame Butterfly_.” Her family is one of good position, but her father, a soldier of the emperor, having been defeated in battle, has killed himself, and her relatives, being poor, have induced _Cho-Cho-San_, in order that she may be able to provide maintenance for them, to enter into the relation of housekeeping prostitute with an officer of the United States Navy, _Lieutenant B. F. Pinkerton_ by name, who is stationed for a few months at Higashi, Japan, and who feels himself to be in need of female companionship and that “comfort other than pecuniary” specified by Patrick Henry. According to the enlightened and advanced customs of Japan (which various English-speaking exponents of progress and free-everything, including free-“love,” are laboring to establish in our benighted country) this relationship is not degrading and despicable but respectable and, in circumstances which are of frequent occurrence, to be desired. As _Butterfly_ expresses it, though