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There are three Zones in which gestures are made: The Upper, Middle and Lower. To the first, located about the head and above it, belong such thoughts as are joyous, highly intellectual, spiritual, imaginative and exalted; to the second, at the middle of the body, belong the unemotional, narrative, didactic and conversational; and to the third, below the middle of the body, belong such thoughts as are emphatic, determined and forceful.
There are four principal directions in which gestures move: Front, Oblique, Side and Back. The front position denotes future, propinquity, and objects of direct address; the oblique position is used for general and indefinite statements; the side for distance and breadth; the back for that which is remote, past or hidden.
In the following exercises, nine examples are arranged under each heading. The first three are to be made to the front of the speaker, the next three in an oblique direction, and the last three to the side. The gesture should be given precisely on the first word in italics.
EXAMPLES OF GESTURE
The supine hand , palm upward, is used to express good-humor, frankness and generalization.
ONE HAND SUPINE-MIDDLE ZONE
• Do you confess the bond?
• What trade art thou?
• That is your exclusive province to determine.
• Character is better than reputation.
• My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported.
• Truth, honor, justice were his motives.
• I must fly, but follow quick.
• The father saw,-and his fury fled.
• Whatever impedes his progress shall be removed.
BOTH HANDS SUPINE-MIDDLE ZONE
• Forward! through blood and toil, and cloud and fire!
• I appeal to you by the unity of our race.
• Do you not know me?
• Romans, countrymen and lovers!
• I hold my hands to you to show they still are free!
• Now let there be the merry sound of music and the dance!
• Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness.
• Proclaim the tidings to all people.
• On a sudden open fly the infernal gates.
ONE HAND SUPINE-ASCENDING
• The star of hope lures on.
• Aspire to the highest and noblest attainments.
• Yon gentle hills, robed in a garment of untrodden snow.
• Up with your ladders! Quick! 'tis but a chance!
• Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows.
• Fix your eye upon excellence.
• Away, oh away, soars the fearless and free.
• Heaving higher and higher their accordant notes.
• Takes shape like bubble tossing in the wind.
BOTH HANDS SUPINE-ASCENDING
• Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are!
• Give your children food, 0 Father!
• Hear my last prayer! -I ask no mortal wreath.
• Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again.
• The sun bursts through the battle-smoke.
• Too low they build who build beneath the stars.
• Rouse, ye Romans! rouse ye slaves!
• All the vaulted arches rang with music.
• Joy, joy forever! my task is done!
ONE HAND SUPINE-DESCENDING
• I protest against such a measure.
• I cast in the whirlpool a goblet of gold.
• Great men, too, lie where they fall.
• Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.
• The first test of a truly great man is his humility.
• I ne'er will ask for quarter, and I ne'er will be your slave!
• Oh judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts.
• He has become too vile for association.
• Who steals my purse, steals trash.
BOTH HANDS SUPINE-DESCENDING
• Here I devote your senate.
• I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
• Down, down into the fathomless sea.
• The huge pile sank down at once into the opening earth.
• We have no concessions to make, my lord.
• Here will we sit down and let the sound of music creep in our ears.
• Gentlemen may cry "Peace! Peace!" but there is no peace!
• Nature hears the shock and hurls her fabric to the dust.
• Be ready, Gods! With all your thunderbolts dash him to pieces!
The prone hand , palm downward, shows superposition, or the resting of one thing upon another.
ONE HAND PRONE-MIDDLE ZONE
• Blaze, with your serried columns! I will not bend the knee.
• Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!
• Strode on and thundered at the palace gate.
• Go, get thee from me, Cromwell.
• I charge j 7 ou all, restrain such propensities.
• On stream and wood the moonbeams rest.
• Along the silent room he stalks.
• If ye are men, follow me!
• "Traitor" I go; but I return.
BOTH HANDS PRONE-MIDDLE ZONE
• Lie lightly on him earth.
• That his bones may have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on 'em!
• With our hands upon the altar, we swear eternal fealty.
• I'll swim the sea of slaughter till I sink beneath the wave!
• Look down on what? A fathomless abyss.
• One dead silence reigned o'er the spot.
• Bound me the smoke and shout of battle roll!
• Deep stillness fell upon them all.
• Spread wild destruction everywhere.
ONE HAND PRONE-ASCENDING
• Ye gods, withhold your vengeance.
• Justice cries: Forbear!
• Boys flying kites haul in their white-winged birds.
• Stay! Speak, speak, I charge thee, speak!
• They little knew the danger impending o'er their city.
• The flames went leaping higher, higher, higher!
• Away, delusive phantom.
• As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form.
• A midnight gloom reigned over the farthest height.
BOTH HANDS PRONE-ASCENDING
• Crown his temples with the silver locks of seventy years.
• Sink, 0 Night, among the mountains.
• Bless the Lord, O my soul.
• Now stretches forth her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.
• Hung be the heavens with black.
• And you, ye storms, howl out his greatness.
• Rise! rise! ye wild tempests and cover his flight!
• Around him rose the bare discolored walls.
• They cried aloud: "Huzza! we are saved!"
ONE HAND PRONE-DESCENDING
• To thy knees and beg for pardon.
• Pray you tread softly.
• Maintaining she was false to him.
• And he fell upon their decks and he died.
• He shall be likened unto a foolish man who built his house upon the sand.
• Thou, coward, crawl like a worm.
• Away with such follies!
• Thou art too base for man to tread upon.
• It is a great temptation, but push it aside!
BOTH HANDS PRONE-DESCENDING
• Down, down, down to death!
• We are in Thy sight, worms of the dust.
• I saw the bleeding body of my father flung amid the blazing rafters of our dwelling.
• He shall go down to the vile dust, from whence he sprung.
• They shall be blotted out from the records of Freedom.
• Sons of dust, in reverence bow!
• Till pride and worse ambition threw me down!
• The people will sweep you from your places with their indignation.
• I disown them all!
The vertical hand , palm outward, is used in warding off, putting from, and in repugnant and disagreeable thought.
ONE HAND VERTICAL-MIDDLE ZONE
• Pause, pause! In heaven's name, pause!
• Do not presume too much upon my love!
• All that I ask is simply fair play!
• He groped towards the door, but it was locked!
• Now for the fight!
• Be that word our sign of parting!
• Away with an idea so absurd.
• Begone! We will not look upon you more.
• His arm warded of the blow.
BOTH HANDS VERTICAL-MIDDLE ZONE
• Gone to be married! Gone to swear a peace!
• With united hearts let us drive back the invaders.
• She stood as if paralyzed with fear!
• Here I fling hatred and full defiance in your face!
• Their separation was final.
• Back, back to thy punishment!
• Avaunt, and quit my sight!
• The gates of death in sunder break.
• Put away such idle dreams!
ONE HAND VERTICAL-ASCENDING
• We pray Thee, turn away Thy displeasure.
• Oh, forbid it, Heaven!
• An appeal to arms, and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!
• And he said: "Fight on! Fight on!"
• Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come.
• The wild cataract leaps in glory.
• Blow on! This is the land of Liberty !
• Get thee back into the tempest and the night's Plutonian shore!
• Unreal mockery, hence!
BOTH HANDS VERTICAL-ASCENDING
• Advance, then, ye future generations!
• O ye loud waves! and 0 ye forests high!
• Avert, 0 God, the awful calamity!
• Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!
• 0 horror, horror, horror!
• And the battle-thunder broke from them all!
• Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds.
• Burst are the prison bars.
• Victory! Victory! Victory! is the shout!
MISCELLANEOUS EXERCISES
• I defy him! let him come!
• For Heaven's sake, Hubert, let me not be bound!
• By this time to-morrow thou shalt have France, or I, thy head!
• My happy heart with rapture swells.
• Sail forth into the sea, 0 ship!
• Ah! Distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
• I see the silent ocean of the past.
Hurrah! Hurrah! a single field hath turned the chance of war,
Hurrah! Hurrah! for Ivry and King Henry of Navarre
• King Robert crossed both hands upon his breast And meekly answered him: "Thou knowest best."
• I feel to-day, as if I would give all, provided I through fifty years might reach and kill and bury that half-minute speech.
• I care not how high his station, how low his character, how contemptible his speech; whether a privy councillor or a parasite, - my answer would be a blow!
• Read this declaration at the head of the army, - every sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered to maintain it, or to perish on the bed of honor!
When a wind from the lands they had ruin'd awoke from sleep, And the water began to heave and the weather to moan, And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew, And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earthquake grew, Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their masts and their flags, And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter'd navy of Spain, And the little Revenge herself went down by the island crags, To be lost evermore in the main. |
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