"This must be some one of your own race, for
you would not think of sparing me, you shepherds and you dogs."
Here is an interjective conjunction. Suppress the complaint after for, and there is no more effect. The conjunction is the soul of the discourse.
In the exclamation in "Joseph Sold by his Brethren," we again find an interjective conjunction.
"Alas.......... and
The ingrates who would sell me!"
Here the conjunction and yields little to the interjection alas. It has fully as much value.
The Interjection in Relation to its Degree of Value.
The interjection has 9 degrees; this is admirably suited to the interjection, an elliptical term which comprises the three terms of a proposition. In summing up the value of a simple proposition, we have (a noteworthy thing) the figure 9. This gives the accord of 9. The subject 1, the verb 2, and 6 upon the attribute, equal 9. Thus the equation is perfect.
Gesture is the rendering of the ellipse. Gesture is the elliptical language given to man to express what speech is powerless to say.
We have spoken of additional figures. Each of these figures supposes a gesture. There is a gesture, an imitative expression wherever there is an additional figure. An ellipse in a word, such as is met with in the conjunction and the interjection, demands a gesture.
9 is a neutral term which must be sustained by gesture and inflection. Gesture would be the inflection of the deaf, inflection the gesture of the blind. The orator should, in fact, address himself to the deaf as well as to the blind. Gesture and inflection should supplement physical and mental infirmities, and God in truth has given man this double means of expression. There is also a triple expression, which is double in view of this same modification of speech. Let us suppose this proposition: