Page:The art of story-telling, with nearly half a hundred stories, y Julia Darrow Cowles .. (IA artofstorytellin00cowl).pdf/120

 as a duty, unlightened and unbrightened by a genuine love of the story and an eagerness for the joy it is to bring to the listeners, can never prove a success.

The story-teller must enter with all her heart and all her enthusiasm into the life and beauty of the story she is telling, in order to achieve the best results. Without this she cannot win the response of her hearers, nor reap the reward which should be her own.

It is in the story hour that the true storyteller 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