well-stocked story-teller. You are, perhaps, tired out physically. You
have told a certain story till it seems as if a repetition of it must
produce bodily effects dire to contemplate, yet that happens to be the
very story you must tell. What can you do? I answer, "Make believe." The
device seems incongruous with the repeated warnings against pretence; but
it is necessary, and it is wise. Pretend as hard as ever you can to be
interested. And the result will be--before you know it--that you will _be_
interested. That is the chief cause of the recommendation; it brings about
the result it simulates. Make believe, as well as you know how, and the
probability is that you will not even know when the transition from
pretended to real interest comes.

And fortunately, the children never know the difference. They have not
that psychological infallibility which is often attributed to them. They
might, indeed, detect a pretence which continued through a whole tale; but
that is so seldom necessary that it needs little consideration.

So then: enjoy your story; be interested in it,--if you possibly can; and
if you cannot, pretend to be, till the very pretence brings about the
virtue you have assumed.

There is much else which might be said and urged regarding the method of
story-telling, even without encroaching on the domain of personal
variations. A whole chapter might, for example, be devoted to voice and
enunciation, and then leave the subject fertile. But voice and
enunciation are after all merely single manifestations of degree and
quality of culture, of taste, and of natural gift. No set rules can bring
charm of voice and speech to a person whose feeling and habitual point of
view are fundamentally wrong; the person whose habitual feeling and mental
attitude are fundamentally right needs few or no rules. As the whole