If you gesture toward yourself when expressing your thoughts, you do not suggest to the other man that he take in your ideas.  Instead you concentrate his attention on your selfishness and your individual opinion.  The characteristic gestures of the typical old peddler are displeasing because they are made in the wrong direction.  He holds his arms close to his body and gesticulates toward himself.  He makes the impression that he does not have your interest at heart in the least, but only his own.

[Sidenote:  Affirmation And Denial]

An up-and-down movement suggests something standing.  It has the associated significance of vitality or life.  Conversely, a side-to-side gesture suggests similarity to things lying down, lack of vitality, or the death of ideas.  By holding yourself erect you make a very different impression of your energy than would be made were you to lean to one side.  You can affirm a statement by an up-and-down movement of your hand or by a nod of your head.  You deny suggestively with a horizontal gesture or by shaking your head from side to side.

[Sidenote:  Levels of Action]

The significance of action on different planes or levels is seldom appreciated.  The level of eye action is of especial importance in suggesting particular ideas.

When you look another person in the eye, you convey to him the idea of direct mental energy.  You suggest the straight action of your mind in team-work with his.  Your eye action on the same level indicates to him that you are thinking on the practical plane.

[Sidenote:  Lifting Prospect’s Thoughts]

But if your eyes repeatedly focus above the level of the other man’s eyes, you make the impression that you are an idealist rather than a practical person.  What you say will not seem to him to apply directly to his case.  He will not feel the personal, or man-to-man contact of your thoughts.  Sometimes, however, it is important to lift your eyes when talking to a prospect, in order to suggest that he lift his thoughts from the level of mere selfishness.  By your suggestive eye action on the upper plane you may stimulate in him a higher vision of possibilities or an insight into the future, if he seems inclined to take a strictly practical view of his present needs only.

When you look below the eye level of the other man, you indicate (1) modesty, if the movement is directly down; (2) shame, if the movement is a little to one side and downward; (3) disgust, if your eyes look far down and far to the side.

[Sidenote:  Tensity and Laxness]