pause in story-telling is one of the subtlest and most important elements that contribute to the final effect.  The proper placing of the pause will follow unconsciously as a consequence when the structure of the story is realized in distinct episodes and the proper emphasis given mentally to the most important details of action, while less emphasis in thought is given to subordinate parts.  Therefore, the study of the pause must be made, not artificially and externally, but internally through the elements of the story which produce the pause.  Tone-color, which is to ordinary speech what melody is to music—­those varied effects of intonation, inflection, and modulation—­is to be sought, not as a result from an isolated study of technique, but from attention to those elements in association with the complete realization of the life of the story.  Genuine feeling is worth more than mere isolated exercises to secure modulation, and complete realization eliminates the necessity of “pretending to be.”  The study of the fairy tale as literature, as has been indicated in the chapter on “Principles of Selection,” will therefore be fundamental to the presentation of the tale.  Entering into the motives of the story gives action, entering into the thought gives form, and entering into the feeling gives tone-color to the voice.  The sincere desire to share the thought will be the best aid to bring expression.

(3) A knowledge of gesture.  The teacher must understand the laws of gesture.  The body is one means of the mind’s expression.  There is the eloquence of gesture and of pose.  The simplest laws of gesture may be stated:—­

(a) All gesture precedes speech in proportion to the
intense realization of emotion.

(b) All expression begins in the face and passes to some
other agent of the body in proportion to the quality
Of the emotion.  The eye leads in pointing.

(c) Hands and arms remain close to the body in gesture
when intensity of emotion is controlled.

In regard to gesture, a Children’s Library pamphlet, dealing with the purpose of story-telling, has said, “The object of the story-teller is to present the story, not in the way advocated usually in the schools, but to present it with as little dramatic excitement and foreign gesture as possible, keeping one’s personality in the background and giving all prominence to the story itself, relying for interest in the story alone.”  The schools have perhaps been misinterpreted.  It is clear that only that personality is allowable which interprets truly the story’s life.  The listening child must be interested in the life of the story, not in the story-teller; and therefore gesture, tone, or sentiment that is individual variation and addition to the story itself, detracts from the story, is foreign to its thought, and occupies a wrong place of prominence.  It is possible to tell a story, however, just as the author tells it, and yet give it naturally by realizing it imaginatively and by using the voice and the body artistically, as means of expression.