Let the word come after the gesture and there will be no
pleonasm.
Priority of gesture may be thus explained: First a movement responds to
the sensation; then a gesture, which depicts the emotion, responds to
the imagination which colors the sensation. Then comes the judgment
which approves. Finally, we consider the audience, and this view of the
audience suggests the appropriate expression for that which has already
been expressed by gesture.
The basis of this art is to make the auditors divine what we would have
them feel.
Every speaker may choose his own stand-point, but the essential law is
to anticipate, to justify speech by gesture. Speech is the verifier of
the fact expressed. The thing may be expressed before announcing its
name. Sometimes we let the auditors divine rather than anticipate,
gazing at them in order to rivet their attention. Eloquence is composed
of many things which are not named, but must be named by slight
gestures. In this eloquence consists. Thus a smack of the tongue, a blow
upon the hand, an utterance of the vowel _u_ as if one would remove a
stain from his coat. The writer cannot do all this. The mere rendition
of the written discourse is nothing for the orator; his talent consists
in taking advantage of a great number of little nameless sounds.
A written discourse must contain forced epithets and adjectives to
illustrate the subject. In a spoken discourse a great number of
adjectives are worse than useless.
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