Chapter VI.

Method.

Dictation Exercises.

A subject and text being given, notes may be written under the nine following heads: 

1.  Oratorical value of ideas.

2.  The ellipse.

3.  Vocal inflections.

4.  Inflective affinities, or relation to the preceding inflections.

5.  Gestures.

6.  Imitative affinities.

7.  The special rule for each gesture.

8.  The law whence this rule proceeds.

9.  Reflections upon the portrayal of personal character.

Chapter VII.

A Series of Gestures for Exercises.

Preliminary Reflections.

We know the words of Garrick: 

“I do not confide in myself, not I, in that inspiration for which idle mediocrity waits.”

Art, then, presents a solid basis to the artist, upon which he can rest and reproduce at will the history of the human heart as revealed by gesture.

This is true, and it is as an application of this truth that we are about to consider the series, which is an exposition of the passions that agitate man, an initiation into imitative language.  It is a poem, and at the same time it lays down rules through whose aid the self-possessed artist can regain the gesture which arises from sudden perturbation of the heart.  It is a grammar which must be studied incessantly, in order to understand the origin and value of imitative expressions.

The development of the series is based upon the static, the semeiotic and the dynamic.

The static is the life of gesture; it is the science of the equipoise of levers, it teaches the weight of the limbs and the extent of their development, in order to maintain the equilibrium of the body.  Its criterion should be a sort of balance.

The semeiotic is the spirit and rationale of gesture.  It is the science of signs.

The dynamic is the action of equiponderant forces through the static; it regulates the proportion of movements the soul would impress upon the body.  The foundation and criterion of the dynamic, is the law of the pendulum.

The series proceeds, resting upon these three powers.  The semeiotic has given the signs, it becomes aesthetic in applying them.  The semeiotic says:  “Such a gesture reveals such a passion;” and gesture replies:  “To such a passion I will apply such a sign.”  And without awaiting the aid of an inspiration often hazardous, deceitful and uncertain, it moulds the body to its will, and forces it to reproduce the passion the soul has conceived.  The semeiotic is a science, the aesthetic an act of genius.

The series divides its movements into periods of time, in accordance with the principle that the more time a movement has, the more its vitality and power; and so every articulation becomes the object of a time.