THE LIFE OF DAVID BELASCO
Reading edition
BY WILLIAM WINTER (1836-1917) “He, being dead, yet speaketh.” VOLUME ONE New York MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 1918 Copyright, 1918, by JEFFERSON WINTER All Rights Reserved TO THE MEMORY OF REINA MARTIN BELASCO This Memoir of Her Son DAVID BELASCO Actor, Dramatist, and Manager, Whom She Dearly Loved And by Whom She Was Idolized, Is Reverently Dedicated By the Stranger Who Has Written It, Hoping Thereby to Honor and Commemorate Genius, Courage, Industry, Enterprise, and Energy, Exemplified in a Useful and Beneficent Life, In the Service of The Theatre
If Heaven to souls that dwell in bliss can show The fate of those they love and leave behind, She, in that Heaven, may be glad to know Her son was honored with his human kind.
“Each petty hand Can steer a ship becalm’d, but he that will Govern and carry her to her ends must know His tides, his currents, how to shift his sails, What she will bear in foul, what in fair, weathers, What her springs are, her leaks and how to stop ’em, What strands, what shelves, what rocks, do threaten her, The forces and the nature of all winds, Gusts, storms, and tempests, when her keel ploughs hell And deck knocks heaven, THEN to manage her Becomes the name and office of a Pilot!” —BEN JONSON, IN “CATILINE.”