His first classification is as male or female actor, no women having been allowed to perform since the days of the Emperor Ch’ien Lung (A.D. 1736-1796), whose mother was an actress, just as in Shakespeare’s time the parts for women were always taken by young men or boys.  When once this is settled, it only remains to enrol him as tragedian, comedian, low-comedy actor, walking gentleman or lady, and similar parts, according to his capabilities.

It is not too much to say that women are very little missed on the Chinese stage.  The make-up of the actor is so perfect, and his imitation of the feminine voice and manner, down to the smallest detail, even to the small feet, is so exact in every point, that he would be a clever observer who could positively detect impersonation by a man.

Generally speaking, a Chinese actor has many more difficulties to face than his colleague in the West.  In addition to the expression of all shades of feeling, from mirth to melancholy, the former has to keep up a perpetual make-believe in another sense, which is further great strain upon his nerves.  There being no scenery, no furniture, and no appointments of any except the slenderest kind upon the stage, he has to create in the minds of his audience a belief that all these missing accessories are nevertheless before their eyes.  A general comes upon the scene, with a whip in his hand, and a studied movement not only suggests that he is dismounting from a horse, but outlines the animal itself.  In the same manner, he remounts and rides off again; while some other actor speaks from the top of a small table, which is forthwith transfigured, and becomes to all intents and purposes a castle.

Many of those who might be apt to smile at the simple Chinese mind which can tolerate such absurdities in the way of make-believe, require to be reminded that the stage in the days of Queen Elizabeth was worked on very much the same lines.  Sir Philip Sidney tells us that the scene of an imagined garden with imagined flowers had to do duty at one time for an imagined shipwreck, and at another for an imagined battlefield, the spectator in the latter case being helped out by two opposing soldiers armed with swords and bucklers.  Even Shakespeare, in the Prologue to his play of Henry V, speaks of imagining one man to be an army of a thousand, and says:—­

     Think, when we talk of horses that you see them
     Printing their proud hoofs i’ the receiving earth;
     For ’tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings.

Here, then, is good authority for the quaint system that still prevails in China.

Hundreds of Chinese pilgrims annually went their weary way to the top of Mount Omi in the province of Ssuch’uan, and gaze downward from a sheer and lofty precipice to view a huge circular belt of light, which is called the Glory of Buddha.  Some see it, some do not; the Chinese say that the whole thing is a question of faith.  In a somewhat similar sense, the dramatic enthusiast sees before him such beings of the mind as the genuine actor is able to call up.  The Philistine cannot reach this pitch; but he is sharp enough to see other things which to the eye of the sympathetic spectator are absolutely non-existent.  Some of the latter will be enumerated below.