“_To my friend of many years, William Winter._” From a photograph not before published--by the Misses Selby. Author’s Collection. ] comprehended by anybody. We have glimpses of each other; but, practically, each individual is _alone_. In the most favorable circumstances, accordingly, no life can be more than approximately summarized until the record is complete--perhaps not even then. It was perception of this fact that caused the old grave-digger of Drumtochty to declare that there is no real comfort in a marriage because nobody knows how it will turn out; whereas there is no room for solicitude about a funeral, because, at all events, the play is over. David Belasco, although he begins to see the shadow of the Psalmist’s threescore years and ten, is still in the full vigor of life; he is, indeed, the most powerful, vital influence now [1917] operant in the English-speaking Theatre,--Herbert Beerbohm-Tree, in London, being his only competitor,--and (as I hope and believe) is approaching the highest achievements of his long, varied, and brilliant career, which there is reason to expect will continue for many years.... Actors, it has been noted, who are actors only, often are remarkably long-lived. Men who attain eminence in theatrical management,--whether they be also actors or not,--seldom are so: Sir William Davenant died at sixty-two; Garrick at sixty-one; John Kemble at sixty-six; Thomas S. Hamblin at fifty-one; Charles Kean at fifty-seven; Benedict De Bar at sixty-three; John McCollough at fifty-three; Lester Wallack at sixty-eight; Lawrence Barrett at fifty-two; Edwin Booth at sixty; John T. Ford at sixty-five; Augustin Daly at sixty-one; A. M. Palmer at sixty-seven. Garrick had been three years in retirement when he died; Kemble, six; Kean, nearly one; Booth, more than two; Palmer, five. Belasco’s career has already extended over a period of forty-six years and, excepting Wallack, he is now older than any of those men were when their professional labors ended,[7]--yet there is in him none of the dejection of age; none of the despondency of fatigue; no abatement of his ambitious purpose, resolute enterprise, and amazing energy; no sign of that forlorn loneliness which often settles on the mind as friends die, things alter and long familiar environment drifts away, the old order changing and giving place to new. On the contrary, his health is excellent, his mind virile, his courage high, his spirit cheerful, and in every way he shows as indeed “strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” It is, therefore, a specially difficult and dubious task to attempt to make at this time a summary of his character, life, and labor. But if another of the abrupt and lamentable bereavements of the Stage which it has so often been my task to chronicle and estimate should befall at this time; if, suddenly, now, while all around seems bright and full of life and hope, mortality’s