The method of "showing the machinery" has more immediate results, and
it is easy to become discouraged over the drudgery which is not
necessary to secure the approbation of the largest number. But, since
I am dealing with the essentials of really good story-telling, I may
be pardoned for suggesting the highest standard and the means for
reaching it.

Therefore, I maintain that capacity for work, and even drudgery, is
among the essentials of story-telling. Personally, I know of nothing
more interesting than watching the story grow gradually from mere
outline into a dramatic whole. It is the same pleasure, I imagine,
which is felt over the gradual development of a beautiful design on a
loom. I do not mean machine-made work, which has to be done under
adverse conditions in a certain time and which is similar to thousands
of other pieces of work; but that work, upon which we can bestow
unlimited time and concentrated thought.

The special joy in the slowly-prepared story comes in the exciting
moment when the persons, or even the inanimate objects, become alive
and move as of themselves. I remember spending two or three
discouraging weeks with Andersen's story of the "Adventures of a
Beetle." I passed through times of great depression, because all the
little creatures, beetles, ear-wigs, frogs, etc., behaved in such a
conventional way, instead of displaying the strong individuality which
Andersen had bestowed upon them that I began to despair of presenting
a live company at all.

But one day, the _Beetle_, so to speak, "took the stage," and at once
there was life and animation among the minor characters. Then the main
work was done, and there remained only the comparatively easy task of