ndling of historical
colour. The scene was that of a lord and his wife, the lord just setting
out for the wars and the wife seeking to detain him, holding on to his
armour. The armour is red and the clothes are indigo. These colours
being fixed historically, it was for the artist to arrange backgrounds
that should harmonise with these. In the lady alone were his artistic
tastes allowed to expand. He would have her dressed in white, with large
chrysanthemums in red, yellow, and purple tones.

These exquisitely clothed figures were to be placed before a screen,
having sea-rocks and an eagle painted on it with black ink. Yet again
another screen was to be of light brown, with glittering birds
delicately traced upon it, in order that they should not interfere with
the breadth of the whole.

"Now, Mr. Fukuchi," I said, "I can quite see that you are an artist, and
that your handling of a play from the decorative standpoint is quite
perfect. But now tell me something of your literary methods."

Then Fukuchi began by telling me that in writing a novel he wrote it as
a poem, and when writing a play he thought of it as a picture. But there
are periods in writing a novel when it in a way gets the better of him,
and develops unconsciously into a drama. Then he told me of one or two
stories he had recently published, one of which began as a novel and
ended as a play. He said he could not understand the habits of some
authors of taking down scraps of conversation, and using them for their
finished works. He himself spends his whole life listening to
conversations and studying the poses of people; but to take notes of
what they were saying would be hopeless; the notes could never be used
for fine artistic work. In planning a play he sees it as a whole, as a
series of pictures, before beginning to pen a line.

[Illustration: THE GIANT LANTERN]

I was talking to Fukuchi about realism on the stage, and he told me of
the horror they have in Japan of bringing live animals into a play; such
a thing has been attempted on one or two occasions, but always with
disastrous results. One enterprising actor, he told me, spent much time
in training a horse to take part in a very fine production at one of the
principal theatres. The horse was trained to perfection, and on the
first night that it appeared, being a novelty, it was loudly applauded;
but the lights and the confusion so terrified the poor animal that it
sat down on the stage and refu