Among the meanest and most stupid disparagements of Belasco which I have chanced to notice in recent years is one made by Mr. Albert Bigelow Paine, the adulatory biographer of Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain). In recording a conversation which he says he had with Clemens Mr. Paine writes: “‘I suppose,’ I said, ‘the literary man should have a collaborator with a genius for stage mechanism. John Luther Long’s _exquisite plays_ would hardly have been successful without David Belasco to stage them. _Belasco cannot write a play himself_, but in the matter of acting construction his genius is supreme.’” (The italics are mine.--W. W.) Remembering that Belasco is, among many other things, the author of “May Blossom,” “The Heart of Maryland,” “The Girl of the Golden West,” “Peter Grimm,” and “Van der Decken,” it seems to me that Mr. Paine has, in that sapient comment, provided for thoughtful persons a useful measure of his intelligence. Furthermore, his disparagement of Belasco as a writer of plays suggests that it is competent, in this Memoir, to inquire as to what, precisely, are the “exquisite plays” of John Luther Long, one of Belasco’s collaborators in authorship. Mr. Long is a fiction writer of talent, which has been widely and generously recognized. His name is associated with six plays and no more,--namely, “Madame Butterfly,” “The Darling of the Gods,” “Dolce,” “Adrea,” “The Dragon Fly,” and “Kassa.” “Madame Butterfly,” as a play, is, exclusively, the work of Belasco: it was written and produced before he and Long met. “Kassa” is a commonplace farrago of theatrical absurdity, rant, and miscellaneous trash, tangled into a mesh of sacerdotal trappings and fantastic, complex, and dubious Hungarian embellishments and is as devoid of literary merit as it is of dramatic vitality. It was produced by Mrs. Leslie Carter, in 1909, after she had ceased to act under the direction of Belasco, and it was a failure. “The Dragon Fly” was written by Long in association with Mr. E. C. Carpenter, was produced in Philadelphia, in 1905, and was a failure. “Dolce” has not been acted or published and I know nothing about it. As to “The Darling of the Gods” and “Adrea,”--not only did Belasco “stage” those plays (that is, produce them), but he is at least as much _their author_ as Mr. Long is; a fact which I venture to assume that Mr. Long would be the last to deny. “The Darling of the Gods” owes its existence wholly to Belasco. When he had leased the Republic Theatre and while he was preparing to undertake its renovation he also began to plan his managerial campaign there. In a letter he writes: (_David Belasco to William Winter._)