Accept. The hand signifies the mind's attitude of acceptance by extending itself towards the giver, palm up. (3a).

Please lend me your knife.

Ye call me chief-(the gesture says I accept that place). If there be three in all your number that dare face me on the bloody sands, let them come on.

Eager entreaty or prayer stretches both hands out ready to accept the expected gift. (3b).

My gracious lord, you will not kill my boy.

Protect. (10) This conception is expressed by the upraised arm and outstretched hand, palm down. The policeman at the dangerous street crossing uses this gesticulation to protect the people from being trampled by the horses. The minister uses it (sometimes both hands) to protect his people from evil by his blessing.

70.

He raises the aged arm and replaces it again over the wounds of the poniard [his hope is to "protect" the gash from observation.]

Antony. Be patient till the last. [The protection is against interruption.]

Woodman spare that tree.

Under its benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead.

Mark twenty gesticulations in Webster's speech, page

Mark eight gesticulations in his paragraph on page 76.

Most of the selections in this book furnish good examples for gesticulation, and several lessons can profitably be spent on this work.

You will frequently notice gesticulations that do not seem to be included in this list. After you have mastered these, however, you will probably be able to recognize any strange gesticulation as a combination of some of these. For înstance a speaker may give affirm (the down coming hand) combined with indicate (the pointing finger) because he wishes to call your attention to some particular aspect while he affirms. Or he may combine affirm with

the closed fist of assail as if he would hammer it into you. Not a very courteous gesture you see, though much used by lawyer politicians, who have acquired it from abusing juries. It is sometimes interesting, when you must listen to a dull speech to note the speaker's most frequent gestures and to gather therefrom his character, disposition, and habits of thinking.

LESSON XXIX

We have seen that thought or speech is naturally divided into four classes, according to the speaker's mood when it was uttered,—Presentation, Discrimination, Emotion, and Volition. We have learned to analyze a passage and identify the parts of it belonging to each of these moods. The next problem is how to express in speech these different moods so that our hearers also can identify and understand them.

The main thing in Presentation is Time. In the presentation of facts to the hearer you should speak no faster than he can take them in, or the result will be a blur. So in presenting thoughts that are new to the hearer you naturally speak rather slowly.

A certain man had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of substance that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.

John Maynard was well known in the lake district as a God-fearing, honest, and intelligent pilot. He was pilot on a steamboat from Detroit to Buffalo.

When facts and ideas are very important, even if they are not new to the hearer, you speak slowly in order to give your hearer a chance to take in fully all their significance.

I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view, the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union we reached, only by the discipline of our virtues, in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin, in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility, and its blessings; and although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its protection, or its benefits.

It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, and personal happiness.-Webster.、

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.

-Bailey's Festus.

Deep thoughts, or thoughts difficult to follow, must be uttered slowly for the same reason.

Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those material sources which are attractive to our moral nature in its purity and perfection. He who receives little pleasure from these sources, wants taste; he who receives pleasure from any other sources, has false or bad taste. -Ruskin.

Sad thoughts are uttered slowly because sorrow takes away one's vivacity.

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

Gentle and tender thoughts are spoken slowly because we linger upon what we love. Brutus says to his little page

If I do live, I will be good to thee.

On the other hand, since the mind can comprehend what is familiar more easily, and therefore more quickly, than it can take in something entirely new, thoughts already in mind, even although important in themselves, are spoken rather rapidly, simply because they are so familiar that the mind readily grasps them. These same thoughts when first presented to the hearer were doubtless spoken slowly because then they were new and unfamiliar. Take, for example a sentence from Wendell Phillips' oration on O'Connell:

And then, besides his unimpeachable character, he had what is half the power of a popular orator, a majestic presence.

Now, an unimpeachable character is a very important thing, more important than a majestic presence, but Wendell Phillips has already discussed that subject and is

turning away from it to the other topic. The first part of the sentence, therefore, he will speak faster (even though in itself it is more important than the rest) and as he approaches the new topic the rate becomes slower.

Things that have not been mentioned before may be so obvious and easy to grasp that they can be spoken rapidly; as the showman's second sentence below:

"Gentlemen and ladies," said the showman, "here you have a magnificent painting of Daniel in the Lion's Den. Daniel can easily be distinguished from the lions by the green cotton umbrella under his arm."

For the same reason trivial or unimportant matters are spoken more rapidly.

In excitement the rate is faster, and also in merriment or gladness.

Nonsense: you don't impose upon me; you can't be asleep with such a shower as that! Do you hear it, I say? Oh, you do hear it!-Well, that's a pretty flood, I think, to last for six weeks, and no stirring all the time out of the house. Pooh! don't think me a fool, Mr. Caudle; don't insult me! he return the umbrella! Anybody would think you were born yesterday. As if anybody ever did return an umbrella!

Old Fezzwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice: "Yo ho, there Ebenezer! Dick! Yo ho, my boys! No more work tonight. Christmas eve, Dick. Christmas Ebenezer!

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. If you write out the separate things you wish to present to your hearers in the first example, it will perhaps be something like this:

A man had two sons.

One of them made a request.
He was the younger of the two.
His request was about property.
He asked for his share of it.
The father gave it to him.