“I felt a great sympathy for her, and she and I became almost like brother and sister. Never shall I forget those days and the long walks we used to take under skies that held all the warmth and splendor of southern Europe, along roads that wound their tree-embowered way through the hills to the little monastery nestling above. At night we could hear the ringing of far-away bells, and sometimes through the stilly air the sound of voices was wafted to us across the silence. In this atmosphere Mrs. Bates would sit and talk to me of the East, and I would dream dreams of things to be. There was a popular song of the time in San Francisco called ’Castles in the Air,’ and invariably our talks would end with a laugh and by my humming that tune.
“It was Mrs. Bates’ ambition to see Blanche doing literary work; for she did not want her to enter the theatrical profession, but later she said: ’I fear the child will go on the stage after all, and what is more, I feel that she is going to have a future. Perhaps, who knows, some day you may be able to do something for her,’ and I promised her that I would, if luck ever came my way.”
Writing to me about other actors of that far-off time, Belasco has mentioned: “I remember, with special pleasure and admiration, John E. Owens, though I don’t remember that I ever acted with him. He produced a play at the Bush Street Theatre [error: more probably at the California?], the name of which I have forgotten, but it was all about ’a barrel o’ apple sass’ [strange that Belasco should have forgotten the title,--“The People’s Lawyer,” sometimes billed as “Solon Shingle,”--because he several times acted in it, with Herne and others], and I was so impressed that I wrote a play for him, called ’The Yankee.’ Owens very kindly listened to my reading of it, but told me he had no intention of putting aside a long tried success. However, he liked some of the speeches in my piece and paid me $25 for them.”
“One of my most valued teachers,” he also writes, “was ’old man Thorne’ [Charles R. Thorne, Sr.]. I did much work for him as copyist, prompter, etc., and attended to all sorts of details,--hiring of wigs, arms, costumes, etc., for the minor parts and for supers in productions which he put on,--so that often he used to say to me, ’My dear Davie, I don’t know what I should do without you!’ Once, when Thorne produced ’King Richard III.,’ in a tent, in Howard Street, I took part and fought a sword combat with him on horseback. He was always very kind to me, taught me much and gave me pieces of wardrobe, feathers, belts, swords, &c. Another early favorite of mine was Mary Gladstane. I copied parts and scripts for her, at the Metropolitan and elsewhere, and whenever she played _Mary Warner_ in San Francisco I cried over her performance so much that she was delighted and gave me a copy of the prompt book. There were no streetcars in those days, and often I walked with her to and from the theatre.”