[Illustration]
English--it has been remarked a thousand and odd times--is one of the few
languages which is unaccompanied with gesticulation. Your veritable
Englishman, in his discourse, is as chary as your genuine Frenchman is
prodigal, of action. The one speaks like an oracle, the other like a
telegraph.
Mr. Brown narrates the death of a poor widower from starvation, with his
hands fast locked in his breeches' pocket, and his features as calm as a
horse-pond. M. le Brun tells of the _debut_ of the new _danseuse_, with
several kisses on the tips of his fingers, a variety of taps on the left
side of his satin waistcoat, and his head engulfed between his two
shoulders, like a cock-boat in a trough of the sea.
The cause of this natural diversity is not very apparent. The deficiency
of gesture on our parts may be a necessary result of that prudence which
is so marked a feature of the English character. Mr. Brown, perhaps,
objects to using two means to attain his end when one is sufficient, and
consequently looks upon all gesticulation during conversation as a wicked
waste of physical labour, which that most sublime and congenial science of
Pol.
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