Hence, if we desire that a thing shall be always remembered, we must not say it in words; we must let it be divined, revealed by gesture.  Wherever an ellipse is supposable in a discourse, gesture must intervene to explain this ellipse.

3. Gesture is an Elliptical Language.—­We call ellipse a hidden meaning whose revelation belongs to gesture.  A gesture must correspond to every ellipse.  For example:  “This medley of glory and gain vexes me.”  If we attribute something ignominious or abject to the word medley, there is an ellipse in the phrase, because the ignominy is implied rather than expressed.  Gesture is then necessary here to express the value of the implied adjective, ignominious.

Suppress this ellipse, and the gesture must also be suppressed, for gesture is not the accompaniment of speech.  It must express the idea better and in another way, else it will be only a pleonasm, an after conception of bad taste, a hindrance rather than an aid to intelligible expression.

Division of Gesture.

Every act, gesture and movement has its rule, its execution and its raison d’etre.  The imitative is also divided into three parts:  the static, the dynamic and the semeiotic.  The static is the base, the dynamic is the centre, and the semeiotic the summit.  The static is the equiponderation of the powers or agents; it corresponds to life.

The dynamic is the form of movements.  The dynamic is melodic, harmonic and rhythmic.  Gesture is melodic by its forms or its inflections.  To understand gesture one must study melody.  There is great affinity between the inflections of the voice and gesture.  All the inflections of the voice are common to gesture.  The inflections of gesture are oblique for the life, direct for the soul and circular for the mind.  These three terms, oblique, direct and circular, correspond to the eccentric, normal and concentric states.  The movements of flection are direct, those of rotation, circular, those of abduction, oblique.

Gesture is harmonic through the multiplicity of the agents which act in the same manner.  This harmony is founded upon the convergence or opposition of the movements.  Thus the perfect accord is the consonance of the three agents,—­head, torso and limbs.  Dissonance arises from the divergence of one of these agents.

Finally, gesture is rhythmic because its movements are subordinated to a given measure.  The dynamic corresponds to the soul.

The semeiotic gives the reason of movements, and has for its object the careful examination of inflections, attitudes and types.

Under our first head, we treat of the static and of gesture in general; under our second, of the dynamic, and of gesture in particular; and finally, under our third head, of the semeiotic, with an exposition of the laws of gesture.

Chapter III.