Gesture Is Easier Both To Make And To
Understand Than Speech Is.
Speech is a late acquisition, and in
critical moments is commonly discarded in favour of gesture, which
is older and more habitual.
I once saw an Italian explaining something to another and tapping
his nose a great deal. He became more and more confidential, and
the more confidential he became, the more he tapped, till his
finger seemed to become glued to, and almost grow into his nose.
At last the supreme moment came. He drew the finger down, pressing
it closely against his lower lip, so as to drag it all down and
show his gums and the roots of his teeth. "There," he seemed to
say, "you now know all: consider me as turned inside out: my
mucous membrane is before you."
At Fucine, and indeed in all the valleys hereabout, spinning-wheels
are not uncommon. I also saw a woman sitting in her room with the
door opening on to the street, weaving linen at a hand-loom. The
woman and the hand-loom were both very old and rickety. The first
and the last specimens of anything, whether animal or vegetable
organism, or machine, or institution, are seldom quite
satisfactory. Some five or six years ago I saw an old gentleman
sitting outside the St. Lawrence Hall at Montreal, in Canada, and
wearing a pigtail, but it was not a good pigtail; and when the
Scotch baron killed the last wolf in Scotland, it was probably a
weak, mangy old thing, capable of little further mischief.
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