When Whitefield acted an old blind man advancing by slow steps toward the edge

of the precipice, Lord Chesterfield started up and cried: "Good God, he is

gone!"

 

--NATHAN SHEPPARD, _Before an Audience_.

 

Gesture is really a simple matter that requires observation and common sense

rather than a book of rules. Gesture is an outward expression of an inward

condition. It is merely an effect--the effect of a mental or an emotional

impulse struggling for expression through physical avenues.

 

You must not, however, begin at the wrong end: if you are troubled by your

gestures, or a lack of gestures, attend to the cause, not the effect. It will

not in the least help matters to tack on to your delivery a few mechanical

movements. If the tree in your front yard is not growing to suit you, fertilize

and water the soil and let the tree have sunshine. Obviously it will not help

your tree to nail on a few branches. If your cistern is dry, wait until it

rains; or bore a well. Why plunge a pump into a dry hole?

 

The speaker whose thoughts and emotions are welling within him like a mountain

spring will not have much trouble to make gestures; it will be merely a question

of properly directing them. If his enthusiasm for his subject is not such as to

give him a natural impulse for dramatic action, it will avail nothing to furnish

him with a long list of rules. He may tack on some movements, but they will look

like the wilted branches nailed to a tree to simulate life. Gestures must be