The Art of the Story-Teller Part 2

I have often heard objections raised to this theory by teachers dealing with children whose knowledge of objects outside their own circle is so scanty that words we use without a suspicion that they are unfamiliar are really foreign expressions to them. Such words as sea, woods, fields, mountains, would mean nothing to them, unless some explanation were offered. To these objections I have replied that where we are dealing with objects that can actually be seen with the bodily eyes, then it is quite legitimate to show pictures before you begin the story, so that the distraction between the actual and mental presentation may not cause confusion; but, as the foregoing example shows, we should endeavor to accustom the children to seeing much more than mere objects themselves, and in dealing with abstract qualities we must rely solely on the power and choice of words and dramatic qualities of presentation, and we need not feel anxious if the response is not immediate, nor even if it is not quick and eager.[7]

7. _The danger of obscuring the point of the story with too many details_ is not peculiar to teachers, nor is it shown only in the narrative form. I have often heard really brilliant after-dinner stories marred by this defect. One remembers the attempt made by Sancho Panza to tell a story to Don Quixote. I have always felt a keen sympathy with the latter in his impatience over the recital.

"In a village of Estramadura there was a shepherd--no, I mean a goatherd--which shepherd or goatherd as my story says, was called Lope Ruiz--and this Lope Ruiz was in love with a shepherdess called Torralva, who was daughter to a rich herdsman, and this rich herdsman---"

"If this be thy story, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "thou wilt not have done these two days. Tell it concisely, like a man of sense, or else say no more."

"I tell it in the manner they tell all stories in my country,"

answered Sancho, "and I cannot tell it otherwise, nor ought your Worship to require me to make new customs."

"Tell it as thou wilt, then," said Don Quixote, "since it is the will of fate that I should here it, go on."

Sancho continued:

"He looked about him until he espied a fisherman with a boat near him, but so small that it could only hold one person and one goat. The fisherman got into the boat and carried over on goat; he returned and carried another; he came back again and carried another. Pray, sir, keep an account of the goats which the fisherman is carrying over, for if you lose count of a single one, the story ends, and it will be impossible to tell a word more. . . . I go on, then. . . . He returned for another goat, and another, and another and another---"

"_Suppose_ them all carried over," said Don Quixote, "or thou wilt not have finished carrying them this twelve months!"

"Tell me, how many have pa.s.sed already?" said Sancho.

"How should I know?" answered Don Quixote.

"See there, now! Did I not tell thee to keep an exact account? There is an end of the story. I can go no further."

"How can this be?" said Don Quixote. "Is it so essential to the story to know the exact number of goats that pa.s.sed over, that if one error be made the story can proceed no further?"

"Even so," said Sancho Panza.

8. _The danger of overexplanation_ is fatal to the artistic success of any story, but it is even more serious in connection with stories told from an educational point of view, because it hampers the imagination of the listener, and since the development of that faculty is one of our chief aims in telling these stories, we must leave free play, we must not test the effect, as I have said before, by the material method of asking questions. My own experience is that the fewer explanations you offer, provided you have been careful with the choice of your material and artistic in the presentation, the more the child will supplement by his own thinking power what is necessary for the understanding of the story.

Queyrat says: "A child has no need of seizing on the exact meaning of words; on the contrary, a certain lack of precision seems to stimulate his imagination only the more vigorously, since it gives him a broader liberty and firmer independence."[8]

9. _The danger of lowering the standard_ of the story in order to appeal to the undeveloped taste of the child is a special one. I am alluding here only to the story which is presented from the educational point of view. There are moments of relaxation in a child's life, as in that of an adult, when a lighter taste can be gratified. I allude now to the standard of story for school purposes.

There is one development of story-telling which seems to have been very little considered, either in America or in our own country, namely, the telling of stories to _old_ people, and that not only in inst.i.tutions or in quiet country villages, but in the heart of the busy cities and in the homes of these old people. How often, when the young people are able to enjoy outside amus.e.m.e.nts, the old people, necessarily confined to the chimney-corner and many unable to read much for themselves, might return to the joy of their childhood by hearing some of the old stories told them in dramatic form. Here is a delightful occupation for those of the leisured cla.s.s who have the gift, and a much more effective way of reading aloud.

Lady Gregory, in talking to the workhouse folk in Ireland, was moved by the strange contrast between the poverty of the tellers and the splendors of the tale. She says:

"The stories they love are of quite visionary things; of swans that turn into kings' daughters, and of castles with crowns over the doors, and of lovers' flights on the backs of eagles, and music-loving witches, and journeys to the other world, and sleeps that last for seven hundred years."

I fear it is only the Celtic imagination that will glory in such romantic material; but I am sure the men and women of the poorhouse are much more interested than we are apt to think in stories outside the small circle of their lives.

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 teacher with a group of children, not the spontaneous (and most rare) power of telling stories such as Beranger gives us in his poem, "Souvenirs du Peuple":

Mes enfants, dans ce village, Suivi de rois, il pa.s.sa; Voila; bien longtemps de cela!

Je venais d'entrer en menage, A pied grimpant le coteau, Ou pour voir je m'tais mise.

Il avait pet.i.t chapeau et redingote grise.

Il me dit: Bon jour, ma chere.

Il vous a parle, grand mere?

Il vous a parle?

I am skeptical enough to think that it is not the spontaneity of the grandmother but the art of Beranger which enhances the effect of the story told in the poem.

This intimate form of narration, which is delightful in its special surroundings, would fail to _reach_, much less _hold_, a large audience, not because of its simplicity, but often because of the want of skill in arranging material and of the artistic sense of selection which brings the interest to a focus and arranges the side lights. In short, the simplicity we need for the ordinary purpose is that which comes from ease and produces a sense of being able to let ourselves go, because we have thought out our effects. It is when we translate our instinct into art that the story becomes finished and complete.

I find it necessary to emphasize this point because people are apt to confuse simplicity of delivery with carelessness of utterance, loose stringing of sentences of which the only connections seem to be the ever-recurring use of "and" and "so," and "er . . .," this latter inarticulate sound having done more to ruin a story and distract the audience than many more glaring errors of dramatic form.

Real simplicity holds the audience because the lack of apparent effort in the artist has the most comforting effect upon the listener. It is like turning from the whirring machinery of process to the finished article, which bears no traces of the making except the harmony and beauty of the whole, which make one realize that the individual parts have received all proper attention. What really brings about this apparent simplicity which insures the success of the story? It has been admirably expressed in a pa.s.sage from Henry James' lecture on Balzac:

"The fault in the artist which amounts most completely to a failure of dignity is the absence of _saturation with his idea_. When saturation fails, no other real presence avails, as when, on the other hand, it operates, no failure of method fatally interferes."

I now offer two ill.u.s.trations of the effect of this saturation, one to show that the failure of method does not prevent successful effect, the other to show that when it is combined with the necessary secondary qualities the perfection of the art is reached.

In ill.u.s.tration of the first point, I recall an experience in the north of England when the head mistress of an elementary school asked me to hear a young inexperienced girl tell a story to a group of very small children.

When she began, I felt somewhat hopeless, because of the complete failure of method. She seemed to have all the faults most damaging to the success of a speaker. Her voice was harsh, her gestures awkward, her manner was restless and melodramatic; but, as she went on I soon began to discount all these faults and, in truth, I soon forgot about them, for so absorbed was she in her story, so saturated with her subject, that she quickly communicated her own interest to her audience, and the children were absolutely spellbound.

The other ill.u.s.tration is connected with a memorable peep behind the stage, when the late M. Coquelin had invited me to see him in the greenroom between the first and second acts of "L'abbe Constantin," one of the plays given during his last season in London, the year before his death. The last time I had met M. Coquelin was at a dinner party, where I had been dazzled by the brilliant conversation of this great artist in the role of a man of the world. But on this occasion I met the simple, kindly priest, so absorbed in his role that he inspired me with the wish to offer a donation for his poor, and, on taking leave, to ask for his blessing for myself. While talking to him, I had felt puzzled. It was only when I had left him that I realized what had happened, namely, that he was too thoroughly saturated with his subject to be able to drop his role during the interval, in order to a.s.sume the more ordinary one of host and man of the world.

Now, it is this spirit I would wish to inculcate into the would-be story-tellers. If they would apply themselves in this manner to their work, it would bring about a revolution in the art of presentation, that is, in the art of teaching. The difficulty of the practical application of this theory is the constant plea, on the part of teachers, that there is not the time to work for such a standard in an art which is so apparently simple that the work expended on it would never be appreciated.

My answer to this objection is that, though the counsel of perfection would be to devote a great deal of time to the story, so as to prepare the atmosphere quite as much as the mere action of the little drama (just as photographers use time exposure to obtain sky effects, as well as the more definite objects in the picture), yet it is not so much a question of time as concentration on the subject, which is one of the chief factors in the preparation of the story.

So many story-tellers are satisfied with cheap results, and most audiences are not critical enough to encourage a high standard.[9]

The method of "showing the machinery" has more immediate results, and it is easy to become discouraged over the drudgery which is not necessary to secure the approbation of the largest number. But, since I am dealing with the essentials of really good story-telling, I may be pardoned for suggesting the highest standard and the means for reaching it.

Therefore, I maintain that capacity for work, and even drudgery, is among the essentials of story-telling. Personally, I know of nothing more interesting than watching the story grow gradually from mere outline into a dramatic whole. It is the same pleasure, I imagine, which is felt over the gradual development of a beautiful design on a loom. I do not mean machine-made work, which has to be done under adverse conditions in a certain time and which is similar to thousands of other pieces of work; but that work, upon which we can bestow unlimited time and concentrated thought.

The special joy in the slowly-prepared story comes in the exciting moment when the persons, or even the inanimate objects, become alive and move as of themselves. I remember spending two or three discouraging weeks with Andersen's story of the "Adventures of a Beetle." I pa.s.sed through times of great depression, because all the little creatures, beetles, ear-wigs, frogs, etc., behaved in such a conventional way, instead of displaying the strong individuality which Andersen had bestowed upon them that I began to despair of presenting a live company at all.

But one day, the _Beetle_, so to speak, "took the stage," and at once there was life and animation among the minor characters. Then the main work was done, and there remained only the comparatively easy task of guiding the movement of the little drama, suggesting side issues and polishing the details, always keeping a careful eye on the Beetle, that he might "gang his ain gait" and preserve to the full his own individuality.

There is a tendency in preparing stories to begin with detail work, often a gesture or side issue which one has remembered from hearing a story told, but if this is done before the contemplative period, only sc.r.a.ppy, jerky and ineffective results are obtained, on which one cannot count for dramatic effects. This kind of preparation reminds one of a young peasant woman who was taken to see a performance of "Wilhelm Tell," and when questioned as to the plot could only sum it up saying, "I know some fruit was shot at."[10]

I realize the extreme difficulty teachers have to devote the necessary time to perfecting the stories they tell in school, because this is only one of the subjects they have to teach in an already over-crowded curriculum. To them I would offer this practical advice: Do not be afraid to repeat your stories.[11] If you do not undertake more than seven stories a year, chosen with infinite care, and if you repeated these stories six times during the year of forty-two weeks, you would be able to do artistic and, therefore, lasting work; you would also be able to avoid the direct moral application, for each time a child hears a story artistically told, a little more of the meaning underlying the simple story will come to him without any explanation on your part. The habit of doing one's best instead of one's second- best means, in the long run, that one has no interest except in the preparation of the best, and the stories, few in number, polished and finished in style, will have an effect of which one can scarcely overstate the importance.

In the story of the "Swineherd," Hans Andersen says: