If we wish to express many attractive things, we make many spheroidal gestures.

What is called the culminating point of the gesture, must not be forgotten.  This is a ring in the form of the last stroke of the German letter D, which is made by a quick, electric movement of the wrist.

We refer the student to the close of the volume, for a model of exercises comprising a series of gestures which express the most eloquent sentiments of the human heart.

This exercise in gesture has two advantages:  it presents all the interest of the most fascinating drama, and is the best means of gaining suppleness by accustoming ourselves to the laws of gesture.

[Illustration:  Criterion of Chorography.]

[Illustration:  Inflective Medallion.]

The vertical line 1 expresses affirmation.  The horizontal line 2 expresses negation.  The oblique line 3 rejects despicable things.  The oblique line 4 rejects things which oppress us, of which we would be freed.

5.  The quarter-circle, whose form recalls that of the hammock, expresses well-being, happiness, confidence.

6.  The curvilinear eccentric quarter-circle expresses secrecy, silence, possession, domination, stability, imposition, inclusion.

7.  The curvilinear outside quarter-circle expresses things slender, delicate (in two ways); the downward movement expresses moral and intellectual delicacy.

8.  The outside quarter-circle expresses exuberance, plenitude, amplitude, generosity.

9.  The circle which surrounds and embraces, characterizes glorification and exaltation.

Part Third.

Articulate Language.

Chapter I.

Origin and Organic Apparatus of Language.

Man reveals his life through more than four millions of inflections ere he can speak or gesticulate.  When he begins to reason, to make abstractions, the vocal apparatus and gesture are insufficient; he must speak, he must give his thought an outside form so that it may be appreciated and transmitted through the senses.  There are things which can be expressed neither by sound nor gesture.  For instance, how shall we say at the same time of a plant:  “It is beautiful, but it has no smell.”  Thought must then be revealed by conventional signs, which are articulation.  Therefore, God has endowed man with the rich gift of speech.

Speech is the sense of the intelligence; sound the sense of the life, and gesture that of the heart.

Soul communicates with soul only through the senses.  The senses are the condition of man as a pilgrim on this earth.  Man is obliged to materialize all:  the sensations through the voice, the sentiments through gesture, the ideas through speech.  The means of transmission are always material.  This is why the church has sacraments, an exterior worship, chants, ceremonies.  All its institutions arise from a principle eminently philosophical.