The Art of Public Speaking by Dale Carnegie and J. Berg Esenwein online

XV THE TRUTH ABOUT GESTURE

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What is true of gesture is true of all life. If the people on the street turn around and watch your walk, your walk is more important than you are--change it. If the attention of your audience is called to your gestures, they are not convincing, because they _appear_ to be--what they have a doubtful right to be in reality--studied. Have you ever seen a speaker use such grotesque gesticulations that you were fascinated by their frenzy of oddity, but could not follow his thought? Do not smother ideas with gymnastics. Savonarola would rush down from the high pulpit among the congregation in the _duomo_ at Florence and carry the fire of conviction to his hearers; Billy Sunday slides to base on the platform carpet in dramatizing one of his baseball illustrations. Yet in both instances the message has somehow stood out bigger than the gesture--it is chiefly in calm afterthought that men have remembered the _form_ of dramatic expression. When Sir Henry Irving made his famous exit as "Shylock" the last thing the audience saw was his pallid, avaricious hand extended skinny and claw-like against the background. At the time, every one was overwhelmed by the tremendous typical quality of this gesture; now, we have time to think of its art, and discuss its realistic power.

Only when gesture is subordinated to the absorbing importance of the idea--a spontaneous, living expression of living truth--is it justifiable at all; and when it is remembered for itself--as a piece of unusual physical energy or as a poem of grace--it is a dead failure as dramatic expression. There is a place for a unique style of walking--it is the circus or the cake-walk; there is a place for surprisingly rhythmical evolutions of arms and legs--it is on the dance floor or the stage. Don't let your agility and grace put your thoughts out of business.

One of the present writers took his first lessons in gesture from a certain college president who knew far more about what had happened at the Diet of Worms than he did about how to express himself in action. His instructions were to start the movement on a certain word, continue it on a precise curve, and unfold the fingers at the conclusion, ending with the forefinger--just so. Plenty, and more than plenty, has been published on this subject, giving just such silly directions. Gesture is a thing of mentality and feeling--not a matter of geometry. Remember, whenever a pair of shoes, a method of pronunciation, or a gesture calls attention to itself, it is bad. When you have made really good gestures in a good speech your hearers will not go away saying, "What beautiful gestures he made!" but they will say, "I'll vote for that measure." "He is right--I believe in that."

_Gestures Should Be Born of the Moment_

The best actors and public speakers rarely know in advance what gestures they are going to make. They make one gesture on certain words tonight, and none at all tomorrow night at the same point--their various moods and interpretations govern their gestures. It is all a matter of impulse and intelligent feeling with them--don't overlook that word _intelligent_. Nature does not always provide the same kind of sunsets or snow flakes, and the movements of a good speaker vary almost as much as the creations of nature.

Now all this is not to say that you must not take some thought for your gestures. If that were meant, why this chapter? When the sergeant despairingly besought the recruit in the awkward squad to step out and look at himself, he gave splendid advice--and worthy of personal application. Particularly while you are in the learning days of public speaking you must learn to criticise your own gestures. Recall them--see where they were useless, crude, awkward, what not, and do better next time. There is a vast deal of difference between being conscious of self and being self-conscious.

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