Nearly every movement that a man makes in speaking should have some
fitting relation to what he is at the moment saying. These movements
will then be varied. When certain repeated actions, without this proper
relation, are acquired, they are called mannerisms. They have no
meaning, and are obtrusive and annoying. Repeated jerking or bobbing of
the head, for a supposed emphasis; regularly turning the head from side
to side, for addressing all the audience; nervous shaking of the head,
as of one greatly in earnest; repeated, meaningless punching or
pounding of the air, always in the same way; shifting of one foot
regularly backward and forward; rising on the toes with each emphatic
word,--although single movements similar to these often have
appropriate place, none of these or others should be allowed to become
fixed mannerisms, habitually recurring movements, without a purpose. We
are sometimes told that certain manneristic ways are often a speaker's
strength. Probably this is at least half true. But eccentricities
should not be cultivated or indulged. They will come. We should have as
few as possible, or they won't count. One thing, however, should here
be said. Positive strength, with positive faults, is much better than
spiritless inoffensiveness. One should not give all his attention to
the avoiding of faults.

In the application of gesture to the expression of ideas, one is
helped, as has been said, by constantly heeding the general principle
of suiting the form of the gesture to the nature of the thought, or of
suiting the action to the word. Inasmuch as gesture so generally takes
the form of objects or actions, it is undoubtedly easier to begin with
the more concrete in language, or with the discussion of tangible
objects, and work from these to the more abstract and remotely
imaginary--from the more, to the less, familiar. Let the student
indicate the location, or the height, or the width, or the form of an