In the man of distinction, on
the contrary, motion is of slight extent and reaection is enormous.
Reaection is both slow and rapid.
Gesture.
The artist should have three objects: To _move_, to _interest_, to
_persuade_. He interests by _language_; he moves by _thought_; he moves,
interests and persuades by _gesture_.
Language is the weakest of the three agents. In a matter of the feelings
language proves nothing. It has no real value, save that which is given
to it by the preparation of gesture.
Gesture corresponds to the soul, to the heart; language to the life, to
the thought, to the mind. The life and the mind being subordinate to the
heart, to the soul, gesture is the chief organic agent. So it has its
appropriate character which is persuasion, and it borrows from the other
two agents interest and emotion. It prepares the way, in fact, for
language and thought; it goes before them and foretells their coming; it
accentuates them.
By its silent eloquence it predisposes, it guides the listener. It makes
him a witness to the secret labor performed by the immanences which are
about to burst forth. It flatters him by leading him to feel that he
partakes in this preparation by the initiation to which it admits him.
It condenses into a single word the powers of the three agents. It
represents virtue effective and operative. It assimilates the
auxiliaries which surround it, and reflects the immanence proper to its
nature, the contemplation of its subject deeply seen, deeply felt.
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