Gesture, by a simple
movement, reveals all this, and says it far better than speech, which
would know how to render it only by many successive words and phrases. A
gesture, then, like a ray of light, can reflect all that passes in the
soul.
Hence, if we desire that a thing shall be always remembered, we must not
say it in words; we must let it be divined, revealed by gesture.
Wherever an ellipse is supposable in a discourse, gesture must intervene
to explain this ellipse.
3. _Gesture is an Elliptical Language._--We call ellipse a hidden
meaning whose revelation belongs to gesture. A gesture must correspond
to every ellipse. For example: "This medley of glory and gain vexes me."
If we attribute something ignominious or abject to the word _medley_,
there is an ellipse in the phrase, because the ignominy is implied
rather than expressed. Gesture is then necessary here to express the
value of the implied adjective, _ignominious_.
Suppress this ellipse, and the gesture must also be suppressed, for
gesture is not the accompaniment of speech. It must express the idea
better and in another way, else it will be only a pleonasm, an after
conception of bad taste, a hindrance rather than an aid to intelligible
expression.
_Division of Gesture._
Every act, gesture and movement has its rule, its execution and its
_raison d'etre_. The imitative is also divided into three parts: the
static, the dynamic and the semeiotic.
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