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of religious miracle-plays. These were performed first by 
the clergy, but became still more popular when later the 
people took them into their own hands and they were en- 
acted by trading companies which were the representatives 
of particular trades. Each company had its own play and 
these plays were combined into one great pageant, giving 
the entire Bible history from Creation to the Judgment 
Day. ‘The originals of some of these plays are said to have 
come from France, many were taken directly from the 
Bible and from legends of the saints. 
The various trading-companies provided each its own 
stage in the form of a scaffold on four wheels. In these 
days we would call it a float. This scaffold had two rooms, 
an upper and a lower one. ‘The upper room, entirely open 
and without a roof, was used as a stage, the lower one for 
a dressing-room. As in our modern parades, these floats 
followed one another over a given route, but instead of 
moving steadily along, each float made a stop in each street 
of the town long enough to enact its play, and was then 
wheeled to the next stopping place, where it reproduced its 
performance. 
The first float gave the first play or chapter of the story 
exclusively and enacted it in every street. The second float 
followed the first and gave the second chapter, the third 
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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
The symbolic dance was introduced at intervals throughout the pageant 
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followed the second, and so on until 
the pageant was being played in every 
street and the audience at each stop- 
ping place saw the whole perform- 
ance from beginning to end. How 
many floats were required for the tell- 
ing of the story has not, been re- 
corded. 
Though most of the principal 
events were pictured on the movable 
stages the actors were not entirely 
confined to them, for at times, it is 
said, characters on horseback would 
ride up to the “scaffold” and others 
would “rage in the strete.” 
The costumes were mostly conven- 
tional. Divine personages were iden- 
tified by gilt hair and beards, the de- 
mons by hideous false heads, the souls 
by black or white coats, according to 
their condition, and the angels by 
gold skin and wings. In other early 
English pageants heroes of mythol- 
ogy and history and the abstract ideas 
of morality or patriotism were rep- 
resented in allegory by costumed fig- 
ures, and the city of London refused to allow even the great 
plays of Shakespeare to supplant these exhibitions, so dear 
were they to the hearts of the people. 
So far the American pageant has not been a free-to-all 
performance, nor has it trailed its splendors through the 
streets of a town; it has chosen, rather, to confine itself to 
a suitable place in the open where its audience can be seated, 
if not always with entire comfort, at least seated, and where 
the privilege of a seat and of viewing the pageant has each 
its own price. Our most ambitious effort in the past was 
the rendering several years ago of Jeanne d’Arc in the 
stadium at Boston with Maude Adams in the title role; what 
we may yet achieve in this line is beyond prophecy. 
While classical subjects find favor, the most popular and 
pleasing to the people in general are themes taken from our 
own history, and indeed for Americans this is a wise choice. 
It opens a new field for American dramatists also which 
doubtless will be ably and perhaps grandly filled, for, like 
some of the best of the old writers, they will not deem it 
beneath the dignity of their profession to contribute to the 
people’s drama, raise it to the highest standard and make 
it typically American. Though our history is not ancient it 
still has its myths and its legends, and state history, as well 
as national, abounds with incidents that can be picturesquely 
presented by pageantry. 
For the old pageants a general prologue was spoken by 
a herald, but the modern method of giving in the pro- 
gramme a synopsis of events and an explanation of the sym- 
bolical renderings is more satisfactory. From the stand- 
point of the audience of to-day the nearer the pageant ap- 
proaches the pantomime the better, for the story is more 
clearly understood when nothing is left to be explained by 
the dialogue or monologue, to which one seldom attempts 
to listen even if the untrained voices can, in the open air, 
make speech intelligible. 
When before one stretches the great, wide, beautiful out- 
of-door stage, perfect as nature is perfect, a picture in itself, 
often filled with restless, gaily caparisoned horses, strange 
vehicles, oddly dressed men, women and children, what does 
it matter that one or two of the actors would try to put the 
situation into words, and who gives them a thought unless, 
perhaps, to wish they would have done and allow history to 
move along without waiting for them to say their little 
pieces. The shouts of the multitude, an important procla- 
