[9] In further illustration of this point see “When Burbage played” (Austin Dobson) and “In the Nursery” (Hans C. Andersen).
[10] From “Les Jeux des Enfants,” page 16.
CHAPTER II
The Essentials of the Story.
It would be a truism to suggest that dramatic instinct and dramatic power of expression are naturally the first essentials for success in the Art of Story-telling, and that, without these, no story-teller would go very far; but I maintain that, even with these gifts, no high standard of performance will be reached without certain other qualities—among the first of which I place apparent simplicity, which is really the art of concealing the art.
I am speaking here of the public story-teller, or of the teachers with a group of children—not the spontaneous (and most rare) power of telling stories at the fireside by some gifted village grandmother, such as Béranger gives us in his poem, Souvenirs du Peuple:
Mes enfants, dans ce village,