Institutio Oratoria

Further, we sometimes clench the hand and press it to our breast when we are expressing regret or anger, an occasion when it is not unbecoming even to force the voice through the teeth in phrases such as

What shall I do now?

What would you do?

Motion is generally divided into six kinds, but circular motion must be regarded as a seventh. The latter alone is faulty when applied to gesture. The remaining motions— that is, forward, to right or left and up or down—all have their significance, but the gesture is never directed to what lies behind us, though we do at

The best effect is produced by letting the motion of the hand start from the left and end on the right, but this must be done gently, the hand sinking to rest and avoiding all appearance of giving a blow, although at the end of a sentence it may sometimes be allowed to drop, but must quickly be raised again: or it may occasionally, when we desire to express wonder or dissent, spring back with a rapid motion. In this connexion the earlier instructors in the art of gesture rightly added that the movement of the hand should begin: and end with the thought that is expressed. Otherwise the gesture will anticipate or lag behind the voice, both of which produce an unpleasing effect.

Some, through excess of subtlety, have erroneously prescribed that there should be an interval of three words between each movement; but this rule is never observed, nor can it be. These persons, however, were desirous that there should be some standard of speed or slowness (a most rational desire), with a view to avoid prolonged inactivity on the part of the hands as well as the opposite fault, into which so many fall, of breaking up the natural flow of their delivery by continual motion.

There is another still more common error, which is less easy of detection. Language possesses certain imperceptible stresses, indeed we might almost call them feet, to which the gesture of most speakers conforms. Thus there will he one movement at novum crimen, another at Giai Caesar, a third at et ante diem, a fourth at non auditum, a fifth at propinquus meus, a sixth at ad te and others at Quintus Tubero and detulit. [*](pro Lig. i. 1. It is a new charge, Gaius Caesar, a chartgo hitherto, unheard of, that my kinsman, Quintus Tubero, has brought to your notice. )

From this springs a further error, namely, that young men, when writing out their speeches,