Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/125

eyes and ears on a sensational pageant, in which to them the actor is king. They do not bestow a thought on the power behind the throne, chained there by ignorance and convention. Plays are sometimes published, but their sale is insignificant. The aristocracy, both of birth and intellect, hold too much aloof from a plebeian amusement, which under higher conditions might become a fruitful and immortal art. When I think of Mr. Fukuchi, fettered by public taste, that stupidest of Jupiters, to the Caucasus of picturesque melodrama, while vulturine actors peck at his brains, I wish that a chorus of Oceanides, winged ideas and ideals from Paris, from London, and Christiania—could cross the seas to Tōkyō and liberate Prometheus.