speaker, while abiding by the general principles, should feel free to express his own personality in matters of detail.

The rules governing the technic of the art are fairly well established and should be essentially adhered to. Likewise, the general significations of the planes and forms of the hand have been largely determined by effective results throughout long usage. But beyond that the writer on gesture can only suggest or advise. The frequency of gesture, the exact time limit or height of preparation, the exact angle of the stroke, the amount of vigor to be employed, the choice of one or both hands, the places where gesture may be used to best advantage, all these and similar matters of detail are within the discretion of the speaker. Furthermore, it is to be observed that many passages may be equally well expressed in various ways, depending upon the purpose of the speaker or his particular interpretation in any given case.

My aim has been to set forth the technic of gesture, to indicate the chief positions and forms of the hand, and to suggest their scope with reference to types, classes, and degrees of expression, using specific passages only in an illus

G

trative capacity. In general, reasons have been given for the principles advanced. Their acceptance or rejection may be submitted to the judgment of the reader. But the effectiveness of the gestures themselves should be tried out before the courts of final appeal - real audiences.

CHAPTER V

SELECTIONS FOR ANALYSIS AND
DELIVERY

THE following selections are designed not merely to afford convenient matter for practice work, but, in general, to suggest to the student the wealth and variety of interesting speaking material which abounds in the familiar writings of standard authors. The selections in Part I may also be utilized for gesture practice. The excerpts herewith presented may be used entire or in part, and in this connection it may be stated that the student will often find it advantageous to give the audience a brief outline of the context when excerpts are employed.

NARRATIVE GROUP

RIP'S AWAKENING, FROM "RIP VAN WINKLE" On waking he found himself on the green knoll whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes- it was a

bright sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft and breasting the pure mountain-breeze. "Surely," thought Rip, "I have not slept here all night." He recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with a keg of liquor the mountain-ravine the wild retreat among the rocks -the woebegone party at nine-pins the flagon. "Oh, that flagon! that wicked flagon!" thought Rip-"What excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle?"

He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean, well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel encrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave roysterers of the mountain had put a trick upon him, and, having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him and shouted his name, but all in vain; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was to be seen.

He determined to revisit the scene of last evening's gambol, and if he met with any of

the party to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual activity. "These mountain-beds do not agree with me," thought Rip, "and if this frolic should lay me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall have a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." With some difficulty he got down into the glen: he found the gully up which he and his companion had ascended the preceding evening; but to his astonishment a mountain-stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock and filling the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up its sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of birch, sassafras, and witch-hazel, and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the wild grape-vines that twisted their coils or tendrils from tree to tree and spread a kind of network in his path.

At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs to the amphitheatre; but no traces of such opening remained. The rocks presented a high impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad, deep basin, black from the shadows of