Chesterfield, in his letters to his son, said, "Manner is of as much importance as matter"; and that this has been the opinion of all great orators may be gathered from the vast labor expended by them on the cultivation of expression and delivery. How much stress was laid upon this by the greatest of all orators, Demosthenes, appears from a noted saying of his related by both Cicero and Quintilian, when, being asked what was the first point in oratory, he answered, action; and being asked what was the second, he answered, action; and afterward what was the third, he still answered, action. And Plutarch said of him that "he thought it a small matter to premeditate and compose, tho with the utmost care, if the pronunciation and propriety of gesture were not attended to." Esteeming delivery of such vast importance to the orator, there is no wonder that he should have labored for months together in his subterranean study to form his action and improve his voice.
To the superficial thinker, the study of gesture and of the management of the voice may appear to be but "vanity of vanities"--gaudy tinselry and worthless decoration; but the experience of all time has proved that they are powerful to persuade and strong to convince. We all know how much meaning--how much expression--how much power there may be in a look, in a tone of the voice, or in a motion. The impression they make on others is frequently much stronger than any that words can make. They are the language of nature, and are understood by all far better than words, which are only the arbitrary conventional symbols of ideas. The speaker who should use bare words, without aiding their meaning by proper tones and accents, would make but a feeble impression, and leave but a misty and indistinct conception of what he had delivered.
It is surprizing, indeed, to see how perfectly persons practised in the art of gestures can communicate even complicated trains of thought and long series of facts without the aid of words. This fact was known and appreciated by the ancient Greeks and Romans, who made the subject a study far more than have subsequent nations. Cicero informs us that it was a matter of dispute between the actor Roscius and himself whether the former could express a sentiment in a greater variety of ways by gestures, or the latter by words. During the reign of Augustus, both tragedies and comedies were acted by pantomime alone. It was perfectly understood by the people, who wept and laughed, and were excited in every way as much as if the words had been employed. It seems, indeed, to have worked upon their sympathies more powerfully than words; for it became necessary, at a subsequent period, to enact a law restraining members of the Senate from studying the art of pantomime--a practise to which, it seems, they had resorted in order to give more effect to their speeches before that body.