By this term I do not mean anything against the gospel of simplicity
which I am so constantly preaching, but, for want of a better term, I
use the word "artifice" to express the mechanical devices by which we
endeavor to attract and hold the attention of the audience. The art
of telling stories is, in truth, much more difficult than acting a
part on the stage: First, because the narrator is responsible for the
whole drama and the whole atmosphere which surrounds it. He has to
live the life of each character and understand the relation which each
bears to the whole. Secondly, because the stage is a miniature one,
gestures and movements must all be so adjusted as not to destroy the
sense of proportion. I have often noticed that actors, accustomed to
the more roomy public stage, are apt to be too broad in their gestures
and movements when they tell a story. The special training for the
story-teller should consist not only in the training of the voice and
in choice of language, but above all in power of delicate suggestion,
which cannot always be used on the stage because this is hampered by
the presence of actual things. The story-teller has to present
these things to the more delicate organism of the "inward eye."
So deeply convinced am I of the miniature character of the story-
telling art that I believe one never gets a perfectly artistic
presentation of this kind in a very large hall or before a very
large audience.
I have made experiments along this line, having twice told a story to
an audience in America[12] exceeding five thousand, but on both
occasions, though the dramatic reaction upon oneself from the response
of so large an audience was both gratifying and stimulating, I was
forced to sacrifice the delicacy of the story and to take from its
artistic value by the necessity of emphasis, in order to be heard by
all present.
Emphasis is the bane of all story-telling, for it destroys the
delicacy, and the whole performance suggests a struggle in conveying
the message. The indecision of the victory leaves the audience
restless and unsatisfied.
Then, again, as compared with acting on the stage, in telling a story
one misses the help of effective entrances and exits, the footlights,
the costume, the facial expression of your fellow-actor which interprets
so much of what you yourself say without further elaboration on your
part; for, in the story, in case of a dialogue which necessitates great
subtlety and quickness in facial expression and gesture, one has to be
both speaker and listener.
Now, of what artifices can we make use to take the place of all the
extraneous help offered to actors on the stage? First and foremost,
as a means of suddenly pulling up the attention of the audience, is
the judicious art of pausing. For those who have not actually had
experience in the matter, this advice will seem trite and unnecessary,
but those who have even a little experience will realize with me the
extraordinary efficacy of this very simple means. It is really what
Coquelin spoke of as a "high light," where the interest is focused, as
it were, to a point.
I have tried this simple art of _pausing_ with every kind of audience,
and I have rarely know it to fail. It is very difficult to offer a
concrete example of this, unless one is giving a "live" representation,
but I shall make an attempt, and at least I shall hope to make myself
understood by those who have heard me tell stories.
In Hans Andersen's "Princess and the Pea," the King goes down to open
the door himself. Now, one may make this point in two ways. One may
either say: "And then the King went to the door, and at the door there
stood a real Princess," or, "And then the King went to the door, and
at the door there stood--(pause)--a real Princess."
It is difficult to exaggerate the difference of effect produced by so
slight a pause.[13] With children it means an unconscious curiosity
which expresses itself in a sudden muscular tension. There is just time
during that instant's pause to _feel_, though not to _formulate, the
question: "What is standing at the door?" By this means, half your work
of holding the attention is accomplished. It is not necessary for me to
enter into the psychological reason of this, but I strongly recommend
those who are interested in the question to read the chapter in Ribot's
work on this subject, "Essai sur L'Imagination Creatrice," as well as
Mr. Keatinge's work on "Suggestion."
I would advise all teachers to revise their stories with a view to
introducing the judicious pause, and to vary its use according to the
age, the number, and, above all, the mood of the audience. Experience
alone can insure success in this matter. It has taken me many years
to realize the importance of this artifice.
Among other means for holding the attention of the audience and
helping to bring out the points of the story is the use of gesture. I
consider, however, that it must be a sparing use, and not of a broad
or definite character. We shall never improve on the advice given by
Hamlet to the actors on this subject: "See that ye o'erstep not the
modesty of Nature."
And yet, perhaps it is not necessary to warn story-tellers against
abuse of gesture. It is more helpful to encourage them in the use of
it, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries, where we are fearful of
expressing ourselves in this way, and when we do the gesture often
lacks subtlety. The Anglo-Saxon, when he does move at all, moves in
solid blocks--a whole arm, a whole leg, the whole body but if one
watches a Frenchman or an Italian in conversation, one suddenly
realizes how varied and subtle are the things which can be suggested
by the mere turn of the wrist or the movement of a finger. The power
of the hand has been so wonderfully summed up in a passage from
Quintillian that I am justified in offering it to all those who wish
to realize what can be done by a gesture:
"As to the hands, without the aid of which all delivery would be
deficient and weak, it can scarcely be told of what a variety of
motions they are susceptible, since they almost equal in expression
the power of language itself. For other parts of the body assist the
speaker, but these, I may almost say, speak themselves. With our
hands we ask, promise, call persons to us and send them away,
threaten, supplicate, intimate dislike or fear; with out hands we
signify joy, grief, doubt, acknowledgement, penitence, and indicate
measure, quantity, number and time. Have not our hands the power of
inciting, of restraining, or beseeching, of testifying approbation?
. . . So that amidst the great diversity of tongues pervading all
nations and people, the language of the hands appears to be a language
common to all men."[14]
One of the most effective of artifices in telling stories to young
children is the use of mimicry--the imitation of animals' voices and
sound in general is of never-ending joy to the listeners. However,
I should wish to introduce a note of grave warning in connection with
this subject. This special artifice can only be used by such narrators
as have special aptitude and gifts in this direction. There are many
people with good imaginative power but who are wholly lacking in
the power of mimicry, and their efforts in this direction, however
painstaking, remain grotesque and therefore ineffective. When listening
to such performances, of which children are strangely critical, one is
reminded of the French story in which the amateur animal painter is
showing her picture to an undiscriminating friend:
"Ah!" says the friend, "this is surely meant for a lion?"
"No," says the artist (?), with some slight show of temper, "it is my
little lap-dog."
Another artifice which is particularly successful with very small
children is to insure their attention by inviting their cooperation
before one actually begins the story. The following has proved quite
effective as a short introduction to my stories when I was addressing
large audiences of children:
"Do you know that last night I had a very strange dream, which I am
going to tell you before I begin the stories? I dreamed that I was
walking along the streets of---[here would follow the town in which I
happened to be speaking], with a large bundle on my shoulders, and this
bundle was full of stories which I had been collecting all over the
world in different countries; and I was shouting at the top of my voice:
'Stories! Stories! Stories! Who will listen to my stories?' And the
children came flocking round me in my dream, saying: 'Tell _us_ your
stories. _We_ will listen to your stories.' So I pulled out a story
from my big bundle and I began in a most excited way, "Once upon a time
there lived a King and a Queen who had no children, and they---' Here
a little boy, _very_ much like that little boy I see sitting in the
front row, stopped me, saying: 'Oh, I know _that_ old story: it's
Sleeping Beauty.'
"So I pulled out a second story, and began: 'Once upon a time there
was a little girl who was sent by her mother to visit her grandmother
---' Then a little girl, _so_ much like the one sitting at the end of
the second row, said: 'Oh! everybody knows that story! It's---'"
Here I would like to make a judicious pause, and then the children in
the audience would shout in chorus, with joyful superiority: "Little
Red Riding-Hood!" before I had time to explain that the children in my
dream had done the same.
This method I repeated two or three times, being careful to choose
very well-known stories. By this time the children were all encouraged
and stimulated. I usually finished with congratulations on the number
of stories they knew, expressing a hope that some of those I was going
to tell that afternoon would be new to them. I have rarely found this
plan to fail to establish a friendly relation between oneself and the
juvenile audience. It is often a matter of great difficulty, not to
_win_ the attention of an audience but to _keep_ it, and one of the most
subtle artifices is to let the audience down (without their perceiving
it) after a dramatic situation, so that the reaction may prepare them
for the interest of the next situation.
An excellent instance of this is to be found in Rudyard Kipling's
story of "The Cat That Walked . . ." where the repetition of words
acts as a sort of sedative until one realizes the beginning of a
fresh situation.
The great point is never to let the audience quite down, that is, in
stories which depend on dramatic situations. It is just a question of
shade and color in the language. If you are telling a story in
sections, and one spread over two or three occasions, you should
always stop at an exciting moment. It encourages speculation in the
children's minds, which increases their interest when the story is
taken up again.
Another very necessary quality in the mere artifice of story-telling
is to watch your audience, so as to be able to know whether its mood
is for action or reaction, and to alter your story accordingly. The
moods of reaction are rarer, and you must use them for presenting a
different kind of material. Here is your opportunity for introducing
a piece of poetic description, given in beautiful language, to which
the children cannot listen when they are eager for action and dramatic
excitement.
Perhaps one of the greatest artifices is to take a quick hold of your
audience by a striking beginning which will enlist their attention
from the start. You can then relax somewhat, but you must be careful
also of the end because that is what remains most vivid to the children.
If you question them as to which story they like best in a program, you
will constantly find it to be the last one you have told, which has for
the moment blurred out the others.
Here are a few specimens of beginnings which seldom fail to arrest the
attention of the child:
"There was once a giant ogre, and he lived in a cave by himself."
From "The Giant and Jack-straws," David Starr Jordan.
"There were once twenty-five tin soldiers, who were all brothers, for
they had been made out of the same old tin spoon." From "The Tin
Soldier," Hans Christian Andersen.
"There was once an Emperor who had a horse shod with gold." From
"The Beetle," Hans Christian Andersen.
"There was once a merchant who was so rich that he could have paved
the whole street with gold, and even then he would have had enough for
a small alley." From the "The Flying Trunk," Hans Christian Andersen.
"There was once a shilling which came forth from the mint springing
and shouting, 'Hurrah! Now I am going out into the wide world.'"
From "The Silver Shilling," Hans Christian Andersen.
"In the High and Far Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had
no trunk." From "The Elephant's Child": "Just So Stories,"
Rudyard Kipling.
"Not always was the Kangaroo as now we behold him, but a Different
Animal with four short legs." From "Old Man Kangaroo": "Just So
Stories," Rudyard Kipling.
"Whichever way I turn," said the weather-cock on a high steeple, "no
one is satisfied." From "Fire-side Fables," Edwin Barrow.
"A set of chessmen, left standing on their board, resolved to alter
the rules of the game." From the same source.
"The Pink Parasol had tender whalebone ribs and a slender stick of
cherry-wood." From "Very Short Stories," Mrs. W. K. Clifford.
"There was once a poor little Donkey on Wheels: it had never wagged
its tail, or tossed its head, or said 'Hee-haw,' or tasted a tender
thistle." From the same source.
Now, some of these beginnings are, of course, for very young children,
but they all have the same advantage, that of plunging _in medias res_,
and, therefore, arrest attention at once, contrary to the stories which
open on a leisurely note of description.
In the same way we must be careful about the endings of stories. They
must impress themselves either in a very dramatic climax to which the
whole story has worked up, as in the following:
"Then he goes out the Wet Wild Woods, or up the Wet Wild Trees, or on
the Wet Wild Roofs, waving his Wild Tail, and walking by his Wild Lone."
From "Just So Stories," Rudyard Kipling.
Or by an anti-climax for effect:
"We have all this straight from the alderman's newspaper, but it is not
to be depended on." From "Jack the Dullard," Hans Christian Andersen.
Or by evading the point:
"Whoever does not believe this must buy shares in the Tanner's yard."
From "A Great Grief," Hans Christian Andersen.
Or by some striking general comment:
"He has never caught up with the three days he missed at the beginning
of the world, and he has never learnt how to behave." From "How the
Camel got his Hump": "Just So Stories," Rudyard Kipling.
I have only suggested in this chapter a few of the artifices which I
have found useful in my own experience, but I am sure that many more
might be added.