Excerpt from The Catholic Educational Review, Vol. 9
There can be little doubt that the art of story-telling belongs primarily to the mothers of the race; that the mother is the ideal story-teller. Her training school is the fireside on winter evenings. Her audience, though small, is exceedingly critical and exacting. They know just what they want, and they demand it unflinchingly. If any of the essentials are lacking, plot, incident, character-drawing, suspense, technique, climax, the verdict is quick and decisive: We don't like that story. Then the story-teller sets her wits to theirs, and tries again. Experience brings success. Old skeletons of plots are brought out and clothed in flesh and blood, and the characters become actual, living forces. Then her public cries: Tell us another story; or, Tell us the one you told last night. The mother begins the task of satisfying the inherent love of a good story, and having performed her part well, the work is left to be developed, to be spoiled, or perfected by men and women of lesser genius.
Time was when the "novel" was looked upon with suspicion; such reading, it was said (and often very truly), was a waste of time, or worse. But people went on reading, and the supply increased with the demand.
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