presents virtue effective and operative. It assimilates the
auxiliaries which surround it, and reflects the immanence proper to its
nature, the contemplation of its subject deeply seen, deeply felt. It
possesses them synthetically, fully, absolutely.

Artistic gesture is the expression of the physiognomy; it is
transluminous action; it is the mirror of lasting things.

Lacordaire, that spoiled child of the intellect, spoke magnificently. He
interested, he aroused admiration, but he did not persuade. His organism
was rebellious to gesture. He was the artist of language. Ravignan,
inferior intellectually, prepared his audience by his attitude, touched
them by the general expression of his face, fascinated them by his gaze.
He was the artist of gesture.

Thus, if we sing, let us not forget that the prelude, the refrain, is
the spiritual expression of the song; that we must take advantage of
this exordium to guide ourselves, to predispose our hearers in our
favor; that we must point out to them, must make them foresee by the
expression of our face the thought and the words which are to follow;
that, in fact, the ravished spectator may be dazzled by a song which he
has not yet heard, but which he divines or thinks that he divines.

_Definition of Gesture._ (Compare Delaumosne, page 43.)

Gesture is the direct agent of the heart. It is the fit manifestation of
feeling. It is the revealer of thought and the commentator upon speech.
It is the elliptical expression of language; it is the justification of
the additional meanings of speech. In a word, it is the spirit of which
speech is merely the letter. Gesture is parallel to the impression
received; it is, therefore, always anterior to speech, which is but a
reflected and subordinate expression.

Gesture is founded on three bases which give rise to three orders of
studies; that is, to three sciences, namely: The _static_, the _dynamic_
and the _semeiotic_.

What are these three sciences, and, first of all, what are they in
relation to gesture? The semeiotic is its mind; the dynamic is its soul;
the static is founded on the mutual equilibrium or equipoise of the
agents.

The dynamic presents the multiple action of three agents; that is to
say, of the constituent forces of the soul.

The semeiotic presents to our scrutiny a triple object for study. It
sets forth the cause of the acts produced by the dynamic and the static
harmonies. Moreover, it reveals the meanin