308 SIGN LANGUAGE AMONG NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
USE BY MODERN ACTORS AND ORATORS. 
Less of practical value can be learned of sign language, considered as 
a system, from the study of gestures of actors and orators than would 
appear without reflection. The pantomimist who uses no words what- 
ever is obliged to avail himself of every natural or imagined connection 
between thought and gesture, and, depending wholly on the latter, 
makes himself intelligible. On the stage and the rostrum words are 
the main reliance, and gestures generally serve for rythmic movement 
and to display personal grace. At the most they give the appropriate 
representation of the general idea expressed by the words, but do not 
attempt to indicate the idea itself. An instance is recorded of the ad- 
dition of significance to gesture when it is employed by the gesturer, 
himself silent, to accompany words used by another. Livius Andro- 
nicus, being hoarse, obtained permission to have his part sung by 
another actor while he continued to make the gestures, and he did so 
with much greater effect than before, as Livy, the historian, explains, 
because he was not impeded by the exertion of the voice; but the cor- 
rect explanation probably is, because his attention was directed to ideas, 
not mere words. 
GESTURES OF ACTORS. 
To look at the performance of a play through thick glass or with closed 
ears has much the same absurd effect that is produced by also stopping 
the ears while at a ball and watching the apparently objectless caper- 
ing of the dancers, without the aid of musical accompaniment. Diderot, 
in his Lettre sur les sourds muets, gives his experience as follows: 
“T used frequently to attend the theater and I knew by heart most 
of our good plays. Whenever I wished to criticise the movements and 
gestures of the actors I went to the third tier of boxes, for the farther 
I was from them the better I was situated for this purpose. As soon 
as the curtain rose, and the moment came when the other spectators 
disposed themselves to listen, I put my fingers into my ears, not with- 
out causing some surprise among those who surrounded me, who, not 
understanding, almost regarded me as a crazy man who had come to 
the play only not to hear it. Iwas very little embarrassed by their 
comments, however, and obstinately kept my ears closed as long as the 
action and gestures of the players seemed to me to accord with the dis- 
course which I recollected. I listened only when I failed to see the 
appropriateness of the gestures. * * * There are few actors capa- 
ble of sustaining such a test, and the details into which I could enter 
would be mortifying to most of them.” 
It will be noticed that Diderot made this test with regard to the ap- 
propriate gestural representation of plays that he knew by heart, but if 
he had been entirely without any knowledge of the plot, the difficulty in 
his comprehending it from gestures alone would have been enormously . 
increased. When many admirers of Ristori, who were wholly unac- 
