"
Gesture is the agent of the heart. Gesture must always precede speech.
"Make me feel in advance," he used to say; "if it is something
frightful, let me read it on your face before you tell me of it." To
illustrate the practice of gesture before speech, I will now recite the
fable of "The Cock, the Cat and the Mouse." [Here followed the
recitation of the fable.]
My father once held his whole audience under a spell, showing them,
through the medium of a little girl of eight, a hundred different ways
of saying, "That dog is pretty." I will show you one or two ways If I
really think the dog is pretty, I will say it in this tone, "That dog is
pretty." If the dog's coat is soiled, I will say in a different tone,
"That dog is pretty." And if the dog has rubbed against my dress, there
will be a vexed tone, "That dog is pretty!"
My father used to divide orators into "artists in words and artists in
gesture." Those who are simply artists in words are those who do not
move you. Lamartine said of my father, "He is art itself." Theophile
Gautier said of him that he "took possession" of his public.
In 1848 the National Guard was appointed to guard the public monuments.
My father, who was a member of the Guard, had his station near an
archbishopric. A poor fellow was arrested one day who looked suspicious;
he was searched and a chaplet was found on him. The cry arose
immediately that he should be drowned.
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