The best actors and public speakers rarely know in advance what gestures they

are going to make. They make one gesture on certain words tonight, and none at

all tomorrow night at the same point--their various moods and interpretations

govern their gestures. It is all a matter of impulse and intelligent feeling

with them--don't overlook that word _intelligent_. Nature does not always

provide the same kind of sunsets or snow flakes, and the movements of a good

speaker vary almost as much as the creations of nature.

 

Now all this is not to say that you must not take some thought for your

gestures. If that were meant, why this chapter? When the sergeant despairingly

besought the recruit in the awkward squad to step out and look at himself, he

gave splendid advice--and worthy of personal application. Particularly while you

are in the learning days of public speaking you must learn to criticise your own

gestures. Recall them--see where they were useless, crude, awkward, what not,

and do better next time. There is a vast deal of difference between being

conscious of self and being self-conscious.

 

It will require your nice discrimination in order to cultivate spontaneous

gestures and yet give due attention to practise. While you depend upon the

moment it is vital to remember that only a dramatic genius can effectively

accomplish such feats as we have related of Whitefield, Savonarola, and others:

and doubtless the first time they were used they came in a burst of spontaneous

feeling, yet Whitefield declared that not until he had delivered a sermon forty

times was its delivery perfected. What spontaneity initiates let practise