death. The last time I had met M. Coquelin was at a dinner party, where
I had been dazzled by the brilliant conversation of this great artist in
the role of a man of the world. But on this occasion I met the simple,
kindly priest, so absorbed in his role that he inspired me with the wish
to offer a donation for his poor, and, on taking leave, to ask for his
blessing for myself. While talking to him, I had felt puzzled. It was
only when I had left him that I realized what had happened, namely, that
he was too thoroughly saturated with his subject to be able to drop his
role during the interval, in order to assume the more ordinary one of
host and man of the world.

Now, it is this spirit I would wish to inculcate into the would-be
story-tellers. If they would apply themselves in this manner to their
work, it would bring about a revolution in the art of presentation,
that is, in the art of teaching. The difficulty of the practical
application of this theory is the constant plea, on the part of
teachers, that there is not the time to work for such a standard in an
art which is so apparently simple that the work expended on it would
never be appreciated.

My answer to this objection is that, though the counsel of perfection
would be to devote a great deal of time to the story, so as to prepare
the atmosphere quite as much as the mere action of the little drama
(just as photographers use time exposure to obtain sky effects, as
well as the more definite objects in the picture), yet it is not so
much a question of time as concentration on the subject, which is one
of the chief factors in the preparation of the story.

So many story-tellers are satisfied with cheap results, and most
audiences are not critical enough to encourage a high standard.[9]