“Dear William Winter, I [have] just read your letter. You are right, and I promise you and myself to do the plays as you suggest, counting upon your generous assistance, without which I could not do them. I shall come over as soon as I possibly can, to speak further of this. Thank you for your enthusiasm and your faith. God bless you!
“David Belasco.”
CONCERNING SARAH BERNHARDT.
[It was part of my father’s purpose in making this Memoir to devote a section in it to Belasco’s Contemporaries. The notes which he made on the subject were not extensive. For that reason and for others I have decided not to attempt to supply the section. Before making the decision, however, I addressed to Belasco some inquiries bearing on the subject and especially one concerning his “favorite player.” His reply to the latter embodies a notable tribute to a wonderful woman and is, I think, of exceptional interest. Among other things, it strikingly illustrates how radically doctors sometimes disagree. No person more admired the resolute courage shown by Sarah Bernhardt than Winter did, who wrote of her: “It is good to see upon the Stage—and everywhere else—indomitable endurance, the aspiring mind that nothing can daunt and the iron will that nothing can break.” And no writer more justly appreciated than he did her artistic faculties, her supremacy as “an histrionic executant.” His final estimate of her, however,—an estimate as exact as a chemist’s analysis and one which will survive all disparagement,—is, in some respects, in such sharp disagreement with Belasco’s that readers of the latter will find the former specially instructive. It is embodied, together with his studies of her acting, in his book entitled “The Wallet of Time.”—J. W.]
(David Belasco to Jefferson Winter.)
“The Belasco Theatre, New York,
“May 31, 1918.
“My dear Jefferson Winter:—
“You ask me to tell you who, of all the players I have ever seen, is my favorite. My, but that is a hard question to answer! In fact, I don’t think I can answer with just a name. I have so many favorites! It is a case of ‘Not that I love Cæsar less but Rome more!’ And then, too, I have seen and known so many players of so many different kinds—of all kinds—and our moods vary. As I look back into my memory and try to call up the actors and actresses of the Past it seems to me that John McCullough was the most lovable as a man and, in the great, heroic parts, the most satisfying as an actor. Barrett was the most ambitious; Booth was the most powerful and interesting; Owens was the funniest man I ever saw, and after him Raymond; Wallack was the most polished and courtly; Salvini was the most imposing; Irving the most intellectual and dominating; Mansfield the most erratic—and all of them were great actors and each of them, I think, was my special favorite! But if I could see only one more theatrical performance and had to choose which one of those actors I would see, I think I would choose Edwin Booth in King Richard the Third.
“Of the women—Adelaide Neilson was easily the most winsome and passionate. Modjeska was the most romantic. Mary Anderson was the stateliest, Ellen Terry the most pathetic, Ada Rehan the greatest comedienne, and Sarah Bernhardt—ah, what shall I say of the Divine Sarah!