“Shelter Island, Long Island, “New York, July 10, 1904. “My dear Charles:-- “Act Second is now in the hands of Miss Edith. As you say you have shipped the Third Act to me I am expecting it any hour. I shall have Act One typed as soon as possible and fire it off to you. I hope you will like the things I have done to it. I am so anxious that your play shall be a sensational hit _that I am giving fifteen hours a day to it_. Whatever I do I think will help the cause,--and after all we are working for a big success. There is too much at stake for us all not to take off our coats and work for life. You have been bully, my dear Charles, from start to finish, and now with good health and with God on our side you shall reap the benefit of your patience and hard work.--I shall drop the acts along to you as they leave Miss Edith, and as I said before, I hope the work I have done on them will please you. “Faithfully “DAVID BELASCO.” CONCERNING WARFIELD, JEFFERSON, THE ELDER SOTHERN, AND THE “ONE-PART” CUSTOM.--AN AMAZING RECORD. In commenting on Warfield’s great, indeed phenomenal, success and popularity in “The Music Master,” Belasco writes: “I have no doubt that he could become _a one-part actor_ and appear as _von Barwig_ perennially, just as Jefferson played _Rip Van Winkle_ and Sothern _Lord Dundreary_. However, neither he nor I approve of this plan.” It is singular, indeed, what a strange, delusive, ineradicable effect the parrot-like repetition of words sometimes creates. Belasco,--like the majority of other persons who mention the subject,--has got it firmly established in his mind that Jefferson and Sothern were what he designates as “one-part actors” (actors who, as he expressly states, follow a professional course of which he does not approve), and he will, I suppose, go to his grave serene in the conviction that such was the case and unconscious of the injustice he does both those great actors. Yet Sothern gave hundreds of performances in “Sam,” “David Garrick,” “The Crushed Tragedian,” “Home,” and “An English Gentleman” after his great success in “Lord Dundreary”; while Jefferson’s repertory embraced well over 100 parts; for every five performances he gave of _Rip_ he gave about three of _Bob Acres_, in “The Rivals,” and,--to the delight of audiences throughout our country,--he acted, hundreds of times, as _Dr. Pangloss_, in “The Heir-at-Law”; _Caleb Plummer_, in “The Cricket on the Hearth”; _Mr. Golightly_, in “Lend Me Five Shillings” (which, by the way, was the last part he ever played); _Dr. Ollapod_, in “The Poor Gentleman”; _Hugh de Brass_, in “A Regular Fix,” and _Mr. Woodcock_, in “Woodcock’s Little Game.” _Every_ exceptionally successful actor is _more_ popular in some one part than he is in any other, and as it was with Jefferson in _Rip Van Winkle_ and Sothern in _Dundreary_ so also is it with Warfield in _von Barwig_. Yet Warfield certainly is not a