that, had he embarked her with a good play, he would have brought her to public acceptance much earlier than he did. In Mrs. Carter’s performance of Kate Graydon there were moments in which she escaped the thraldom of solicitude and self-consciousness and clearly indicated possession of the faculty of vigorous dramatic expression. This was the original cast of “The Ugly Duckling”:

“If it had not been for the interest of Isaac Rich, of Boston,” Belasco told me, “whose friendship and good will I had gained through my work on Gillette’s dramatization of ’She,’ and who was kind enough to help me when it seemed as though most of the rest of the world was against me, I don’t believe we could have got a tour booked anywhere. However, we did manage to get a route—and lost a fair-sized fortune playing it! Mrs. Carter was made a target all along the line.”

MORE FAILURE, AND A LAWSUIT.

During this tour, though Mrs. Carter revealed fine talent and won some commendation, the business was uniformly bad until she appeared in Chicago; there, for the first time, the receipts exceeded the expenses, and it began to seem as though the tide had turned toward prosperity. But the venture had already cost more than $40,000, and Fairbank, becoming dissatisfied, suddenly withdrew his support. “On the strength of Mr. Fairbank’s promise,” Belasco declared, “I had given mine, to many creditors, and now, when they pressed for payment (as they did very quickly when it became known Fairbank had withdrawn), I was unable to keep it. I had no recourse but to bring suit against him to make good his promise and, most unwillingly, I prepared to do so.” Mrs. Carter’s first tour under Belasco’s direction and the life of “The Ugly Duckling” were both peremptorily brought to an end by Fairbank, acting through one of his attorneys, R. W. Morrison, in Kansas City, on March 14, 1891; the theatrical company which had been acting in association with Mrs. Carter was disbanded, and the perplexed manager and his dejected pupil returned to New York, where arrangements were presently made by Belasco to institute a lawsuit against Fairbank. Writing on this subject he has said:

Belasco’s suit against Fairbank,—which was to recover $65,000, as reimbursement of losses incurred in presenting “The Ugly Duckling,” payment for professional services as Mrs. Carter’s dramatic instructor (for which services Fairbank had agreed to pay), and other items,—remained in abeyance for several years. It was, however, finally brought to trial on June 3, 1896, before Justice Leonard Giegerich and a jury, in Part V. of the Supreme Court of New York. Belasco’s action was met by denial and a counter suit for $53,000 by Fairbank. The issues were acrimoniously contested at every point, but on June 23 the jury returned a compromise verdict (as one juryman described it) in favor of Belasco, awarding him $16,000 and 5 per cent. interest,—$20,000 in all. During that trial certain newspapers, manifesting singular partisan bias, went to scandalous extremes of exaggeration and ridicule in their reports of the testimony in effort to disparage Belasco and make him appear contemptible. One fiction then originated has persisted,—the fiction, namely, that Belasco instructed Mrs. Carter by “pounding and bumping” her and dragging her about a room by the hair. That tale was based on an allusion to rehearsal of the shocking Murder Scene in the revolting play of “Oliver Twist.”

Mrs. Carter’s acknowledgment of her debt to Belasco and her appreciation of his assistance and his forbearance toward her are significantly denoted in a letter written by her, June 3, 1890, to Charles L. Allen, one of Fairbank’s principal Chicago lawyers, from which the following words are quoted:

In his “Story” Belasco makes this kindly allusion to Fairbank, which indicates that the clash between them resulted from meddlesome interference of persons inimical to him and to his star:

A POVERTY-STRICKEN STRUGGLE.

When Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Dudley, her mother, returned to New York after the demise of “The Ugly Duckling,” in Kansas City (1891), they established their residence at No. 63 Clinton Place. Belasco lodged at No. 126 Waverley Place, and almost immediately he resumed his project of writing, unaided, a new play specially designed for the use of Mrs. Carter. Having no convenient place of his own in which to work, he obtained the use of a room in Mrs. Dudley’s apartment, in which to write his play, and there he completed the first draft of “The Heart of Maryland,” and incidentally continued his tuition of Mrs. Carter. I remember seeing them once at about that period at Delmonico’s old restaurant, Twenty-sixth Street, where I chanced to be dining with Augustin Daly and Ada Rehan, and years afterward, on one of the few occasions when I have personally met Mrs. Carter, she mentioned remembering the same incident, saying it was so unusual for them, in those days of trouble, to visit that pleasant place. They were, she added, celebrating some little favorable turn in their prospects; “I looked at Mr. Daly and Miss Rehan,” said Mrs. Carter, “and whispered to ’Mr. Dave,’ ’Shall we ever “get there” and be, like them, successful and accepted?’” To which, she said, Belasco confidently answered, “Of course we shall!”

Speaking to me lightly of that period of ordeal, which was, in fact, a bitterly afflicting one for him to endure, Belasco said: “But Delmonico’s was not for us in those days: my family were, fortunately for them, in San Francisco, and many a time,—habitually, in fact,—Mrs. Carter and her mother and I ’dined’ at a twenty-five cent table d’hôte on Fourth Avenue—and were lucky to dine anywhere. We had put all we had into launching and exploiting Mrs. Carter, and those two women were hard put to it to keep their Clinton Place apartment. As for me,—well, I had, of course, some income from my plays, and I gave private coaching to beginners and professionals, anybody who would employ me (among others, by the way, Georgia Cayvan, who always liked to have me rehearse her, even after I left the Lyceum), and I kept going, after a fashion; but I had expenses heavier than my resources would meet, and I was most of the time poorer than I like to remember—and all the time I was harassed with anxiety.”

Writing of that same period, he gives this glimpse of a poverty-stricken struggle:

Mrs. Carter, beyond demonstrating her possession of genuine though nascent histrionic ability, obviously had not made any “success,”—except in her approving preceptor’s mind. Indeed, the disastrous fate of “The Ugly Duckling,” impending legal contentions, and the general social oppugnancy to Mrs. Carter were strong, in fact seemingly insuperable, reasons for managerial hesitancy in making any venture vitally dependent upon her for its success. Belasco, though he adhered to his resolve that only Mrs. Carter should act the part of Maryland Calvert, which he had devised for her, felt himself almost nonplussed. He was heavily in debt; he had no employment; he felt himself to be the object of active journalistic animosity; he possessed no financial resources; he seemed, in short, to be on the verge of defeat. Charles Frohman chanced to meet him at that time and, mentioning to him “a play with music” which had then recently been presented in Paris, made a suggestion that led to their first partnership in theatrical management. “The piece seems to have made a sensation,” said Frohman: “the American rights are owned by Charles Wyndham. The leading characters are a Quaker father and his daughter. The daughter is the part. Can Mrs. Carter sing? Because, if she can and you want to produce it with me, I’ll get an option from Wyndham: you and Mrs. Carter go to Paris and see the piece—and, if you think she can play the part and that it will be a go in this country, we’ll do it together.” Belasco, although somewhat doubtful whether Mrs. Carter could successfully sustain the requirements of a singing part, felt that the proffered opportunity must not be neglected; after discussing the point with his pupil a decision to essay the venture was quickly made, and, on April 15, 1891, laying aside for the moment all other plans, Belasco, Mrs. Carter and her mother sailed for England on board the steamship City of New York, and from Southampton proceeded at once to France. “When we reached Paris,” writes Belasco, “we found the Bouffes Parisiennes ’selling out’ and ’Miss Helyett’ the talk of the town. It was so full of possibilities that I cabled ’C. F.’ to secure the rights before I saw the last act.” That recommendation was promptly heeded by Frohman. Writing of an interview with Edmond Audran, author of the music, which occurred soon after he had seen the play, Belasco records:

“MISS HELYETT” AND MRS. CARTER.

The production of the mongrel play with music, called in our Theatre “Miss Helyett,”—a fabric which commingles comic opera with the farrago known as “farce-comedy,”—was a minor incident in Belasco’s struggle for advancement. Audran’s music, though not in his best vein, is generally tuneful, gay, and spirited. The text was “rewritten from the French of Maxime Boucheron by David Belasco,” and the play was first produced in America, November 3, 1891, at the Star Theatre, New York, Mrs. Carter then making her only appearance in a musical composition, and that being also Belasco’s only association with comic opera, after he left the Theatre of San Francisco. The scene is laid at the Hotel del Norte, in the Spanish Pyrenees Mountains. The story, which is indelicate, relates to a ludicrous accident to a young Quakeress, of demure appearance and frolicsome disposition, whose hypocritical father is conducting her through Europe in search of an advantageous marriage. This female, known as Miss Helyett, falls over a precipice and is caught, buttock-end uppermost, in a convenient tree, from which predicament she is rescued by a strolling painter. She manages to conceal her face from her deliverer, and she parts from him without ascertaining his identity or disclosing her own. Later she determines to discover and to marry the man who is already so familiarly acquainted with her “secret symmetry” (as Byron calls it), and that purpose she ultimately accomplishes. Her search for the unknown and her discovery and conquest of him constitute the substance of this operatic farce.

Mrs. Carter’s personation of Miss Helyett, while not deficient of piquancy, was insignificant. As a singer she was in no way unusual. Belasco relates that, while in Paris with her, to see the French original, he requested Audran to hear Mrs. Carter sing and, if he thought well of her as a singer, to teach her the songs in “Miss Helyett.” “Audran was charmed with her ability,” he says, “and gave her a number of rehearsals. Then he recommended an instructor and even wrote an extra musical number for her,”—which indicates that Audran, as a musician, was easily pleased. His operetta was highly successful in Paris, and hardly less so in London, where Charles Wyndham brought it out, at the Criterion Theatre, under the name of “Miss Decima.” It was generally, and justly, though without rancor, condemned by the press of New York. Nevertheless it had a considerable though not very remunerative career in the metropolis: it was acted at the Star Theatre till January 10, 1892, and on January 11 was transferred to the Standard Theatre, where it maintained itself till February 13,—the 100th performance occurring there on January 29. Belasco seems to have set some store by it at one time, but that was long ago. Wyndham’s London presentation of the composition was made July 23, 1891. This was the original cast of “Miss Helyett” in New York:

After its New York engagement “Miss Helyett” was taken on a tour of principal cities of the country and was performed until the close of the theatrical season of 1891-’92. Notwithstanding its intrinsic paltriness and vulgarity, that play was practically useful to Belasco and Mrs. Carter, providing a temporary source of subsistence for both of them; yielding the actress some useful experience of the stage; permitting the dramatist some leisure for meditation and for rectification of his then immatured Civil War play, and leading, indirectly, to the writing and production of one of the best dramas with which his name is associated.

ORIGIN OF THE EMPIRE THEATRE.

project to that person. In a concoction of records, errors, and idle praise which has been put forth as a “Life” of Charles Frohman the following account is printed of the conversation which ensued between them:

This theatre was built as an investment by Al. Hayman, William Harris, and Frank Sanger. The corner-stone was laid in May, 1892, and the house, leased by Charles Frohman and Messrs. Rich & Harris, was opened under the direction of Frohman eight months later. That enterprising speculator in public amusement, who had long been eager to establish himself in the metropolis, in a fine theatre under his direct control, keenly appreciated Belasco’s abilities, and at the time when the new house was projected was associated with him in the presentment of Mrs. Carter in “Miss Helyett.” Frohman’s main interest, however, was centred in the Empire, and, though aware that Belasco was preoccupied with work on “The Heart of Maryland,” he urgently requested him to write a new play with which to open that theatre. At first Belasco demurred to the undertaking, deeming it essential to restrict himself to the work he had already begun, and to devote all his strength to the establishment of Mrs. Carter. That actress, however, hearing of Frohman’s proposal and appreciating the possible advantage that might accrue to Belasco from his acceptance of it, insisted that he should provide the play for the opening of the Empire, even at the sacrifice of an early appearance for herself. The upshot of the negotiation was Belasco’s agreement to write the desired play, in collaboration with his friend Franklyn Fyles (1847-1911),—then dramatic reviewer for “The New York Sun.” “All through the storm of malicious lies that Mrs. Carter and I had to weather,” said Belasco, “Fyles had been sympathetic and kind to us; writing under the pen-name of ’Clara Belle,’ he had given Mrs. Carter many a lift and helped us a lot. I was grateful and I wanted to help him, if I could; and he was an experienced, good writer, and I was glad to have him to help me, for I wanted ’Charlie’s’ venture to succeed, and I felt the responsibility.”

“THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME.”

“After I had agreed to write the opening play for Frohman,” Belasco has told me, “I said nothing of my subject, because I had made up my mind to try to bring on the American Stage a phase of American life, on our Western frontiers, involving the American Indian, in a new way; I didn’t want discussion and I dreaded discouragement.” That, surely, was discreet, because it is immeasurably wiser, where works of art are concerned, to execute them rather than to talk about them. Belasco’s interest in the Indian and Indian affairs began in his childhood: one of his stepping-stones into the Theatre was his performance of an Indian Chief, in Hager’s “The Great Republic”: and his determination to undertake depiction, at once dramatic and veritable, of an aspect of actual yet romantic life on our frontiers displayed sound artistic taste in selection of a theme and shrewd judgment in opening a fresh field, thitherto practically untouched.

At that time, early in 1892, the Indian troubles in the West were much in the public mind. The fierce insurrections of 1876, under the leadership of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Spotted Tail, and others, and the lamentable slaughter of the gallant Custer and his intrepid followers in the terrible battle at the Little Bighorn (June 25, that year), had not been forgotten. Indeed, they could not be: the rising under Sitting Bull, in 1890, after his return from Canada; the death of that wily old Medicine Man, who was shot, December 15, that year, with 300 braves, when he sought to escape, during the fight at Wounded Knee; the resistance to disarmament and the frightful massacre at the Pine Ridge Agency, two weeks later; the vigilant and finally successful movements of United States troops under General Nelson A. Miles, against the Indians, especially the Sioux, incident to the “Ghost Dance” furor, which was inspired by Sitting Bull and which extended through 1890-’91; and the massacre at the Rosebud Agency,—all those events made the subject unusually prominent in the public mind. Belasco and Fyles labored zealously at their task and it was duly completed; Frohman enthusiastically expressed himself satisfied; and, on January 25, 1893, the Empire Theatre (thereafter, till the day of his death, that manager’s headquarters) was auspiciously dedicated with a performance of one of the most deservedly popular plays ever produced under his management: it had been acted for a week, beginning January 16, at the New National Theatre, Washington, D. C., in preparation for the New York presentment.

EXCELLENCE OF THAT INDIAN DRAMA.

The play of “The Girl I Left Behind Me” is among the best with which Belasco has been concerned and likewise one of the best that have been contributed to American dramatic literature. Its superiority to all the problematic, polemic, didactic, sociologic disquisitions, pretending to be plays, which have, of late years, so cluttered our Stage, is very great. The story is clear, direct, animated, sympathetic, and thrilling. The persons introduced are various, natural, interesting, discriminated, and finely drawn. The greater part of the dialogue is terse and characteristic. The scene is laid in the country of the Blackfoot Sioux, in Montana, chiefly at a remote and lonely outlying United States Army Post; otherwise at Fort Assiniboine. The chief characters are Scar-Brow, an Indian Chief, who has been educated in civilization and bears the name of John Ledru, but whom education has only made more bitter and revengeful, and who has rejoined his malignant tribe; General Kennion, a veteran of the United States Army, in command of the district in which he is stationed; Lieutenant Edgar Hawksworth, Lieutenant Morton Parlow, and Kate Kennion, the General’s daughter. Hawksworth is a gentleman and a gallant soldier. Parlow is a specious rascal, as yet undetected. Kate Kennion, though she loves Hawksworth, has promised to marry Parlow,—this being an inscrutable incongruity of the plot. Parlow has, much earlier, seduced and abandoned the wife of a brother officer, Major Burleigh by name,—under whose command he is now enrolled,—but who has long vainly sought to ascertain the identity of his wronger.

The situation, at the opening of the play, is one of unrest, discontent, and impending danger. The Indians, commanded by Scar-Brow, are sullen, hostile, and on the verge of revolt, and they are about to participate in one of their religious ceremonials called “The Sun Dance,”—of which purpose the military authorities in Montana disapprove. A vague sense of coming calamity broods over all the region and whispers of peril are borne on every breeze. A formal conference is held, between General Kennion and his officers and Scar-Brow and his savage warriors, at which the General commands that the “Sun Dance” shall not take place, and from which the Indian Chieftain then angrily and defiantly withdraws. The time is the Fourth of July, and appropriate arrangement has been made for a patriotic festival and ball, at the Post. Kate Kennion has come from the Fort and joined the ladies, to enjoy the festival. There, in the lonely outpost of civilization in Montana, even as in populous and brilliant Brussels, on the night before Waterloo, the ball begins, even while the menace of danger and death draws ever nearer. Scar-Brow has desired, more than anything else, occasion for an outbreak. After the angry parting from General Kennion a small detachment of troopers from the Post is treacherously and through the cowardice of Parlow overwhelmed in an ambuscade, and while the guests of the Post are dancing and frolicking in one room General Kennion, in another, is receiving dispatch after dispatch by telegraph from Fort Assiniboine apprising him of a spreading insurrection among the Indians; of messengers murdered, troops embattled against overwhelming odds, intercepted appeals for help, and the swiftly approaching peril of an Indian besiegement of the Post. Then, suddenly, telegraphic communication ceases and the yells of the savages denote that the investment of the stockade has begun. One hope—and but one—remains: that of apprising the Fort, by messenger, of the desperate situation of the Post. Lieutenant Hawksworth, every chance against him, undertakes to attempt the passage of the cordon of Indians surrounding the beleaguered garrison, and he goes forth, to almost certain death. The poor remains of white men, with the women and children, are left to face hundreds of savages, wrought to frenzy and capable of demoniac cruelty almost equal to that of the educated, civilized Germans of the present day.

Then comes one of the most effective acts of the kind that I have ever seen. The place is within the stockade of logs surrounding the Post. There has been an all-night vigil, with fierce, intermittent fighting. The time is just before daybreak. The first faint gray of light is beginning to steal into the sky; there is a reflected glow of distant fires, and, far off, yet clear and indescribably horrible, are heard the “blip-blip” of the Indian war-drums and the shrill, hideous cries of the savage warriors, working themselves to frenzy for the last murderous rush to storm and overwhelm the defenders of the Post. A parley has been sought with Scar-Brow, and he rides up, heard but unseen, in the slowly growing light, contemptuously secure and safe under protection of the white man’s flag of truce. At the same time his daughter, a gentle girl, friendly to the whites, making her way into the fortress to bring water for the garrison, has been mistaken for a foe, has been fired on and hit by a sentry but has stoically persevered and made her way in. General Kennion speaks from the stockade to Scar-Brow, warns him of the punishment sure to follow his rebellion, and appeals to him to restrain and withdraw his rebellious warriors. The savage is bitterly contemptuous in his answer; the men within the Post shall die,—those that die fighting the fortunate ones; the women, in particular the General’s daughter, shall not be killed! Kennion cries out to the ruffian, warning him that his daughter, little Fawn Afraid, is at that moment in the Post and that she is hostage for the safety of the women and the garrison. There is a pause: in the reptile nature of Scar-Brow there is a strong affection for his daughter; then he speaks: “Show her to me—let me see her,” he demands; and as, standing unseen outside the stockade among the sage-brush, he makes this demand, his daughter, within, reels and falls and the doctor, tending her, whispers to the General “She’s dead, sir!” It is a situation of terrible significance. The Indian leader waits for a moment, then he denounces the General as a liar,—and the next instant the wild hoof-beats of his horse are heard as he gallops away.

A situation even more poignant ensues. There is a ripple of shots—then a pause. Kate Kennion steals from the shadow of the stockade: she has heard the parley,—she knows her danger: on her knees she begs her loving father, brave, noble old man, when the last terrible storm of attack shall come, when there is no other alternative, that he will, with his own hand, shoot her dead. This the agonized father promises to do. Then, suddenly through the heavy silence, bursts the infernal din of the Indian war-cries—the increasing crackle of rifle shots—the devoted garrison answering, while ammunition lasts, shot for shot—and then the poor old father takes his daughter in his arms, kisses her farewell, causes her to kneel, bids her pray to God, and as, clasping his hand in both hers, she sinks upon her knees and begins the Lord’s Prayer, he slowly draws his revolver: “Our Father which art in heaven,” the poor child’s lips murmur—and in the breathing pause is heard the single sharp click of the pistol-hammer being raised—“hallowed be thy name: thy kingdom come”—and slowly the weapon begins to turn toward her—“thy will be done on earth”—and the barrel almost touches her temple—“as it is in heaven”—“WAIT!“—and frantically she thrusts the pistol from her: the father believes she is unnerved—wrenches his weapon free—is about to do his deed of dreadful mercy—his child seizes the pistol barrel—“Wait—wait!” she cries—and, faint, far-off, yet clear, unmistakable, thrilling, what she has heard before is now heard by the audience—the cavalry-bugle blowing “Charge!” Then follows the rapidly increasing beat of horses’ hoofs—the crackle of rifle fire, fiercer and fiercer—the wild cries of the savages—the increasing tumult of galloping steeds as, struck behind, they break and fly, and the successful Hawksworth and the relieving reinforcements sweep up, driving the enemy before them to save the garrison and “The Girl I Left Behind Me.”

That the situations, with one exception, are not new is known to all persons of experience, whether of life or art. The situation, invented by Belasco, of the death of Fawn Afraid, in the moment when General Kennion warns her father, Scar-Brow, that her life and safety depend upon those of the women and the garrison, is new; the others, in form, are old: the ball on the eve of battle has never been more imaginatively used than by Byron, in “Childe Harold”; the representation of the father who is to kill his daughter to save her from outrage is, in substance, Virginius and Virginia; the rescue of the beleagured garrison is the climax scene of Boucicault’s “Jessie Brown; or, The Relief of Lucknow” over again, with a difference. But what of it? The dramatic situations possible in human life are limited in number. In “The Girl I Left Behind Me” the treatment of the situations is fresh, vivid, vital. I have read that those situations are made to order and “merely theatrical.” That is untrue. There is not an essential situation in this play that is improbable, for there is not an essential situation or experience in it that might not happen, nor one that has not happened in the region and period designated. The play, of course, has faults, and they are as obvious as need be, to please even the most captious disciple of detraction. There is a story of a Mormon preacher who deemed it desirable to convince his auditors that “the Lord was but a man, as other men,” and who undertook to do so by citations from Holy Writ. “The Lord saw” he quoted—therefore the Lord had eyes; “the Lord heard“—therefore he had ears; “the Lord spake“—therefore he had a mouth and vocal organs; “the Lord sat“—therefore the Lord had hinder parts, and so following. That is very much the method of criticasters: they clamber and crawl about upon a work of art with a foot-rule and a plumb-bob of censure, and seem to find delight and to suppose they have fulfilled the duty of criticism when they have ascertained and enumerated the defects or faults of the work under consideration. The impartial critic, on the other hand, who studies “The Girl I Left Behind Me” will, I think, most strongly feel a mingled regret and wonder that, when a play of such exceptional merit had been created, the comparatively small and easy amount of additional labor required to relieve it of every considerable defect should have been withheld. The necessity of completing it in a definite time and Belasco’s anxious and harassed situation may, no doubt, explain the lack of needfully scrupulous revision, though they make it no less deplorable. The “comedy” elements, the passages between young Dr. Penwick and Wilber’s Ann, are juvenile, thin, and weak, and (the most serious fault in the play, which easily could have been obviated) there is no adequate reason provided why Kate Kennion, loving Lieutenant Hawksworth, to whom eventually she is united, Parlow being slain, should ever have engaged herself to wed that skulking traitor. But, set against it every objection that can be raised, “The Girl I Left Behind Me” remains a work of sterling merit and an honor to its authors. The atmosphere is pure. The characters are veritable. The events are credible. The sentiment is elemental and sincere. The action is definite and fluent. The dramatic effect, to the end of the Third Act, is cumulative and thrilling. The treatment of the different persons,—especially of Major Burleigh, General Kennion, Kate Kennion, and Scar-Brow,—is remarkably felicitous; and the influence is stimulative of manliness, gallantry, and heroism. The play was splendidly stage-managed and superbly acted,—the elements of illusion and thrilling suspense, in the Second and Third acts, being perfectly created and sustained. A remarkably artistic performance, instinct with authority, power, bitter pride, malevolence and cruelty, was given by Theodore Roberts, as Scar-Brow. The obnoxious character of Lieutenant Parlow—an exceedingly well dramatized scoundrel—is one that requires a fine order of histrionic talent for its adequate representation, and that requirement was entirely fulfilled by Nelson Wheatcroft, who personated him with minute precision, yet in such a way as to win pity for his weakness and miserable failure and death, as well as to inspire antipathy for his wickedness. Sydney Armstrong acted with inspiring vigor and feeling as Kate Kennion, and Frank Mordaunt with force, dignity, and reticence as the General. Not many persons, surely, could have gazed on the climax of the Third Act of this play without tear-dimmed eyes. W. H. Thompson, who played Major Burleigh, gave a picture of sturdy, simple manhood, suffering with fortitude, such as has seldom adorned our Stage. It has ever seemed to me that some of the extreme enthusiasm generally bestowed on “natural method” and “perfection of detail” as exemplified in the performances of foreign actors on our Stage might, more justly, have been bestowed on the original production of “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” There was, however, no lack of general appreciation. The play ran at the Empire till June 24, 1893, receiving 288 consecutive performances. This was the original cast:

After the first week Stella Teuton replaced Odette Tyler as Lucy Hawksworth; and on March 27, 28 and (matinée) 29 Emmett Corrigan replaced Wheatcroft as Lieutenant Parlow. On March 29, at night, the play was acted with the following cast:

The original company was conveyed to Chicago, and there, during the World’s Columbian Exposition in that city, it performed “The Girl I Left Behind Me” at the Schiller, now (1917) the Garrick, Theatre, for many weeks.

THE VALUE OF SUGGESTION IN ART.

In the stage history of this play there is a significant and important illustration of the vital principle in dramatic writing,—often recognized and expounded by Belasco, yet sometimes by him ignored,—of the value of suggestion instead of realism in creation of effect,—the device, that is, so well expressed by Wordsworth in the line “part seen, imagined part.” Writing with regard to what he learned from dramatization, at first literal, afterward suggestive, of an incident witnessed by him during his wild Virginia City days,—the funeral of a poor, misled girl who died in a vile resort,—Belasco says: