s about the only place where they can meet on common ground,
at least in large bodies, and then, as we have already intimated, the
theatre is something more than a place of amusement in their eyes.
Their forefathers liked such plays, and they believe that the spirits
of the dead are in a certain sense present to share in the enjoyments
of men in the body.

Only men and boys act on the Chinese stage. There are no women, though
the female sex is personated. This has its advantages. Woman is kept
out of harm; she is not subject to the indignities and temptations
which beset her among other peoples who employ her services. Of course
there are good and virtuous women on the stage--very many, I trust!
But it will be admitted that the life of an actress is one of trial.
She must of necessity be brought into intercourse with an element
whose moral ideals are not the loftiest, and she must have unusual
strength of character to preserve her integrity. She can do it! I
believe that men and women can resist temptation in all spheres, in
all vocations of life; I have great faith in humanity, especially when
sustained by divine helps; but we must not subject the bow to too much
tension lest it break. The personating of characters which have in
them a spice of wickedness, the taking of the part in a play which
represents the downfall of a virtuous person, the setting forth of the
passions of love and hatred, must in time produce a powerful effect on
the mind of a young woman, and there is danger that the neophyte on
the stage will be contaminated with the base things of life before
strength of character is developed. The Chinese are to be commended in
this respect, whatever their motive in excluding their women from the
stage. The reproduction of Greek plays, in some of our universities,
where only men take the parts, shows what could be done among us on
the stage, and successfully.

The Chinese actors whom I saw, exhibited a great deal of human nature
in their acting. There was the full display of the human passions; and
they entered into their work with zest as if it were real life. Some
of the men in the audience were smoking cigars, others cigarettes. The
Asiatic has a fondness for cigarettes. You see the men of the East
smoking everywhere, whether in Syria, or Egypt, or Nubia, or Arabia.
And is it not true that men are much the same the world over, in their
pastimes and pursuits, their loves and their pleasures?

CHAPTER