Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
Again, if its top joint is lightly gripped on either side, with the two outer fingers slightly curved, the little finger rather less than the third, we shall have a gesture well suited for argument. But for this purpose the same gesture is rendered more emphatic by holding the middle joint of the finger and contracting the last two fingers still further to match the lower position of the middle finger and thumb.
The following gesture is admirably adapted to accompany modest language: the thumb and the next three fingers are gently converged to a point and the hand is carried to the neighbourhood of the month or chest, then relaxed palm downwards and slightly advanced.
It was with this gesture that I believe Demosthenes to have commenced the timid and subdued exordium of his speech in defence of Ctesiphon, and it was, I think, in such a position that Cicero [*](pro Arch. i. 1. ) held his land, when he said,
If I have any talent, though I am conscious how little it is.Slightly greater freedom may be given to the gesture by pointing the fingers down and drawing the hand in towards the body and then opening it somewhat more rapidly in the opposite direction, so that it seems as though it were delivering our words to the audience.
Sometimes, again, the third and little finger may be pressed in to the palm near the base of the thumb, which in its turn is pressed against the middle joints of the first and middle fingers; at others the little finger is sometimes drooped obliquely, or the four fingers may be relaxed rather than extended and the thumb slanted inwards: this last gesture is well adapted to pointing to one side or marking the different points which we are making, the had being carried palmupwards to the left and swept back to the right face-downwards.
The following short gestures are also employed: the hand may be slightly hollowed as it is when persons are making a vow, and then moved slightly to and fro, the shoulders swaying gently in unison: this is adapted to passages where we speak with restraint and almost with timidity. Wonder is best expressed as follows: the hand turns slightly upwards and the fingers are brought in to the palm, one after the other, beginning with the little finger; the hand is then opened and turned round by a reversal of this motion.
There are various methods of expressing interrogation; but, as a rule, we do so by a turn of the hand, the arrangement of the fingers being indifferent. If the first finger touch the middle of the right-hand edge of the thumb-nail with its extremity, the other fingers being relaxed, we shall have a graceful gesture well suited to express approval or to accompany statements of facts, and to mark the distinction between our different points.