Page:The art of story-telling, with nearly half a hundred stories, y Julia Darrow Cowles .. (IA artofstorytellin00cowl).pdf/56

 child wants to feel that the story is being told to him, and emphasizes the need of telling stories with a personal directness of appeal.

I have said that the story and the children should be the only things of which the story-teller takes note. A consciousness of one's own self as the actor upon the boards, spoils all.

This self-consciousness may be betrayed by a nervous twirling of a handkerchief, a twisting of rings or bracelet, by an arranging of the hair or the dress. It may be but a slight action in itself, but it betrays the fault which will be felt, though probably not defined.

Forget yourself. Become so interested in your story that you can think of nothing else—except the children who are drinking it in.

You may safely use as much dramatic action as springs spontaneously from a vivid telling of the story, but it must never be a conscious effort for dramatic effect. Give yourself perfect liberty. As you watch your audience, interpolate, enlarge, omit, explain briefly, as you see the need arise—but you can only do this if you know your story. The