to the stage effect. Thus, I doubt not, but that in the _Eumenides_
the spectators were twice addressed as an assembled people; first, as the
Greeks invited by the Pythoness to consult the oracle; and a second time
as the Athenian multitude, when Pallas, by the herald, commands silence
during the trial about to commence. So too the frequent appeals to heaven
were undoubtedly addressed to the real heaven; and when Electra on her
first appearance exclaims: "O holy light, and thou air co-expansive with
earth!" she probably turned towards the actual sun ascending in the
heavens. The whole of this procedure is highly deserving of praise; and
though modern critics have censured the mixture of reality and imitation,
as destructive of theatrical illusion, this only proves that they have
misunderstood the essence of the illusion which a work of art aims at
producing. If we are to be truly deceived by a picture, that is, if we are
to believe in the reality of the object which we see, we must not perceive
its limits, but look at it through an opening; the frame at once declares
it for a picture. Now in stage-scenery we cannot avoid the use of
architectural contrivances, productive of the same effect on dramatic
representation as frames on pictures. It is consequently much better not
to attempt to disguise this fact, but leaving this kind of illusion for
those cases where it can be advantageously employed, to take it as a
permitted licence occasionally to step out of the limits of mere scenic
decoration. It was, generally speaking, a principle of the Greeks, with
respect to stage imitation, either to require a perfect representation,
and where this could not be accomplished, to be satisfied with merely
symbolical allusions.

The machinery for the descent of gods through the air, or the withdrawing
of men from the earth, was placed aloft behind the walls of the two sides
of the scene, and consequently removed from the sight of the spectators.
Even in the time of Aeschylus, great use was already made of it, as in the