it might have been correct (since the nature of the poison which kills _Hamlet_ is unknown the question is wholly assumptive), was never affecting. I recollect the death of _Camille_, when that pulmonary courtesan was impersonated by Matilda Heron: it was protracted, vulgar, obnoxious, merely distressful, not the least pathetic, whereas the death of _Camille_ when Modjeska played the part or when Sarah Bernhardt played it was attended by no spasms, no convulsions, no gurgitations, was almost instantaneous, and was inexpressibly touching. Belasco is not the only actor, by many, who has studied madness in lunatic asylums, or observed the phenomena of death in hospitals, or sounded the depths of human depravity in slums and bagnios, or looked at human nature and human life through a microscope. The biographies of Garrick, Kemble, Cooke, Kean, Macready, Forrest, and Booth, for example, teem with evidence to the contrary. It is indisputably necessary that the authentic actor should _know_, but it is equally essential that when he comes to practise his art he should possess the _judgment to select_ and the skill to use his selected knowledge in such a way as to accomplish his purpose--not mar or defeat it. Another of Belasco’s completely mistaken and indeed comically errant notions is set forth in the following paragraph from his “Story”: “Coming to New York as a stranger, I knew I had a task before me _to introduce_ the _new style_ of acting which I felt was destined to take the place of the melodramatic method.... For a long time I had promised myself to give the public _a new style of acting and playwriting, all my own_.... New York audiences had been trained in _a school of exaggerated stage declamation, accompanied by a stage strut, and large, classic, sweeping gestures_, so, when _I introduced_ the _quiet acting_, we were laughed to scorn, and the papers criticised our ’milk and water’ methods. _It was all new_, and those who saw went away stunned and puzzled. We were considered extremists at the Madison Square Theatre, but we persisted, with the result that _our method_ prevails to-day.” [The italics are mine.--W. W.]