The hand may properly be called a second tongue. As such it should be treated, and, to continue the simile, should not be allowed to stammer behind or chatter meaninglessly before the reciter.
The hands and arms are capable of a vast amount of expression when properly used.
Gesture may be divided into three classes:—
1. The epic radius, or mental zone, is the movement above the head and horizontal with the shoulder ([Fig. 3]). These are sweeping and graceful, not jerky movements, indicating such sentiments as honor, conscience, awe, veneration, &c., and may be used with advantage in such lines as—
“Great ocean! strongest of Creation’s sons,
Unconquerable, unreposed, untired,
That roll’d the wild, profound eternal bass
In Nature’s anthem, and made music such
As pleased the ear of God! original,
Unmarr’d, unfaded work of Deity.
From age to age enduring and unchanged,
Majestical! inimitable! vast!
Uttering loud satire day and night on each
Succeeding race, and little pompous work
Of man!—unfallen, religious, holy sea.”
In Shakespearean recitals and other blank verse, this epic zone may be used, as, for instance, in such pieces as the choruses of Henry V.
Fig. 4.—Rhetorical radius or moral zone.
2. The rhetorical radius, or moral zone, includes the movements of the arm from breast to shoulder and from the region of the heart ([Fig. 4]), and may be used to appeal, implore, beseech, express love, hate, fear, contempt, &c., as in Queen Katherine’s speech in Shakespeare’s “King Henry VIII.,” Act ii. Scene 4:—
“Sir, I desire you do me right and justice,
And to bestow your pity on me.”