It is in the story hour that the true story-teller comes into her kingdom. Here she is free to give to the expectant hearers just the tale which they love to hear. She is not bound by rules or regulations, by systems or courses, but may follow the promptings of her intuition and sway her small auditors at her will.
Here the rig-ma-role story may find its proper place and delight by its whimsical nonsense; the tale of chivalry, the story of brave achievement, or of loyalty of purpose, may be made to stir her hearers; the dialect story—which the children seldom read but love to hear—may lend its quaint charm; or the nonsense tale may be used as the safety valve for bubbling emotions. Varied in character as the stories may be, each is permeated by the truest, purest joy in the telling—be it the classical story of the “Wooden Horse” and the “Fall of Troy,” or the nursery tale of the “Little Small Rid Hin” and the fall of “Reynard the Fox.”
Thus may we win the hearts and the confidence of the children, and having won these, we may lead them whithersoever we will. And so, with Kate Douglas Wiggin, I can truly say: “I would rather be the children’s story-teller than the queen’s favorite or the king’s counsellor.”
CHAPTER XII
Story-Telling as an Art
The artist in colors works out his conception of a picture upon canvas. It is finished, and he steps aside. Personally he has nothing further to do with the presentation of that picture. But if his own individuality has not entered into the work, if something of himself has not permeated it, it can never be a work of true art.
The story-teller also presents a picture—a word picture—and, like that of the artist of the brush, if her own individuality has not entered into it, if something of herself has not permeated it, it can not be true art. But, unlike the painter, her picture is never completed; she is never able to step aside and say, “It is finished.” And here the story-teller has the advantage of the painter, for each re-telling of her story is a new presentation, and in each re-telling her own personality may lend a deeper pathos, a rarer glint of humor, a more searching vision of truth.
The story itself is the picture; its theme forms the subject; its literary quality corresponds to canvas and color. Hence a story, to be artistically told, must be well chosen. In its inherent character it must awaken the imagination; it must satisfy the love of beauty; it must mirror truth; and it must appeal to both the intellect and the emotion.
Art’s chief charm lies in its power to awaken the imagination, to stir the fancy, to suggest something above and beyond the actual portrayal. The subject of artistic story-telling must always be beautiful, but there are many types of beauty, many forms and fancies which appeal to our aesthetic sense. Again, no story which is not painted against “a universal background of truth” can be artistic, for truth, not error, is beautiful. Finally, a story, to be great, must of necessity appeal to the intellect; but if its appeal be to the intellect alone, it is cold and formal. It must touch the emotions as well: it must have a human interest.