e
stage. But we in our Western theatres need not trouble ourselves with
all this, for we frame our scenes in a vulgar gilt frame; we hem them in
and cut them off from the rest of the house. When we go to a theatre
here, we go to view a picture hung up on a wall, and generally a very
foolish inartistic picture it is too. And even taking our stage from the
point of view of a picture, it is wrong, for in a work of art the frame
should never have an independent value as an achievement, but be
subordinate to, and part of, the whole. All idea of framing the stage
must be done away with; else we are in danger of going to the other
extreme, as some artists have done, and cause our picture to overlap and
spread itself upon the frame. An artist in a realistic mood has been
known, when painting a picture of the seaside, to so crave after texture
as to sprinkle sand upon the foreground, and becoming more and more
enthusiastic he has at last ended in an exuberance of realism by
clapping some real shells on to the frame and gilding them over. Thus
the picture appeared to pour out on to its frame. This is all very
terrible and inartistic; yet it is but an instance of the kind of
mistake that we let ourselves in for by the ridiculous method of
stage-setting which we practise.

Now, built as the Japanese theatres are, with their flower-paths
leading from the stage, there is no fear of such a disaster; yet
Westerners, who have never been to Japan, on hearing of the construction
of a Japanese theatre, are rather inclined to conjure up to their
fancies visions of the low comedian who springs through trap-doors, and
of the clown who leaves the ring of the circus to seat himself between
two maiden ladies in the audience; but if these people were to go to
Japan and see a really fine production at a properly conducted theatre,
such an idea would never occur to them at all.

[Illustration: THE ROAD TO THE TEMPLE]

Here and there, however, the unthinking globe-trotter, with more or less
the vulgar mind, will be inclined to laugh as he sees a richly-clothed
actor sweep majestically through the audience to the stage; he will
point out the prompter who never attempts to conceal himself, and the
little black-robed supers who career about the stage arranging dresses,
slipping stools under actors, and bearing away any little article that
they don't happen to want. "How funny and elementary it all is!" they
will remark; but there is nothing elementa