GESTURE.

Gesture may be defined as muscular expression, also as visible expression. Gesture is the interpreter of the emotions; it is the language of the soul. Gesture appeals to the innermost soul of the beholder. Gesture is an elliptical language given to man to express what speech is powerless to say. There is something marvelous in the language of gesture. "A gesture, like a ray of light, can reflect all there is in the soul. " It has relations with another sphere. It is the world of grace. "Gesture is carving in the air. " Gesture is magnetic. Gesture is soul communicating with soul. It is even more than music, or any other form of expression, a universal language. Gesture is the ancestor of the word and goes before it to foretell its coming.

Of the three modes of manifesting thought.- word, voice, gesture gesture stands the highest. It is the language of our highest nature. It makes appeal to the highest by way of the finest of the senses, the eye. Some may not at first see the way clear to accept the statement concerning the rank of gesture as compared with voice and the spoken word but study will convince one of the importance of this subtle language. Culture of the muscles and how to speak through them require special study and exercise, for skill can no more be attained, without effort, than skill of a pianist can be acquired through the study of mere theory. In this, one becomes by doing. The gesture language is not so much with many a "dead language "9 as a dormant

language.

"The body needs educating as well as the mind. A person without this physical education, even though he may have the mental, should not presume to set himself up as an authority being guided by his own blind fancy, a case of

Photographed from experiments with the voice in the laboratory of of Prof. John B. DeMotte, A. M., M. D., Ph. D. and reproduced here by his permission.

the blind leading the blind, an invasion not to be tolerated in any other department of study. A thorough knowledge of this muscular language requires careful investigation as that of anatomy by the student of medicine before he can secure his M. D. The medical student must dissect and examine the muscles themselves, while the student of expression must study the action of the muscles under the influence of endless emotions playing upon them. He also must study this subject in a twofold manneras self expression and as the impression the gesture makes on the listener or beholder.

Gesture is important in that it reveals the noble emotions of the soul. As we manifest our noble emotions through the muscles we also cultivate and refine the feelings while we cultivate the muscles. Gesture makes its appeal to the highest of the five senses, the eye. That which offends the eye cannot be tolerated. But what charms the eye will allow other defects to pass. "If the gesture is good, the most wretched speaker is tolerated. "

By gesture we do not mean gesticulating with some part of the body- the hand and arm, for instance, with the rest of the body dead still. Such action is a spasm rather than gesture.

One definition of the word muscle is <6 a little mouse. The ancients compared the action of the muscles to mice under the skin. We may use this ancient idea to illustrate a principle of value in gesture. Suppose one mouse became frightened and bristled with fear; we can readily see what the result would be should there be more than two hundred of them instead of one expressing the same thing. Should there be a single one in the number that kept itself inactive while all the others were wild with action, we could but think it stupid or asleep or dead. With the person whose muscles have not been awakened it happens that

the two hundred or more are asleep with one awake and active to respond to the feeling. This is an imperfect expression. We may sum up the whole matter into a Law

The highest expression results when the greatest number of muscles unite in harmonious action.

There would be a decided lack of harmony, if some of the muscles were inactive, others stiffened with chronic pride or anxiety. Any effort to secure a harmony of action has its reward in feelings of poise and self possession.

We may simplify this complicated study of gesture by dividing it up under headings- the culture of the muscles- a knowledge of Expression. A knowledge of expression would include self expression and the ability to interpret in others. We should also be able to know something of the kind of impression an expression is likely to make or does make on the listener or beholder. The first named, the culture of the muscles is treated under the chapter on Physical Culture. The second, the study of Expression has an almost limitless field. We may say, wherever we find life we find some kind of expression worthy of our attention; and all the Arts, especially music, painting and sculpture. Of great importance is the study of human expression from life on the streets, in public or private, anywhere. Children, animals and even birds offer a rich field. It is well to keep a note book for this purpose also a scrap book for reproductions of paintings and artistic pictures and photographs from life. Studies of statuary and works of the masters help one to form correct ideals; then with a free body, natural expression should result, after the laws of expression and the ideals are established in the subjective mind. A careful study of laws of expression can not be over estimated. We should so prize the truth as to be willing to accept it though it may not be of some favorite system. Delsarte's Nine Laws of Gesture contain much