The Mouth of the Mime

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB.

ONE summer Sunday morning, a number of years ago, I dropped in at the French Protestant Church on Washington Square, New York. It was a little late and the preacher had begun his discourse. He was a man of commanding presence, and possessed of one of the most fortunate voices, for his calling, that I had ever listened to. I do not at all remember what he said, but I was curiously attracted by the way in which he said it, by the purity and flexibility of his enunciation, and by the subtle play of expression with which it was accompanied, and particularly by the art — delicate and unobtrusive and effective, but clearly the art — with which he used his lips. I was conscious of a haunting suggestion of some other mouth that I had seen betraying the like skill, employed with equal mastery, in quite different surroundings. It was only at the close of the service, when the preacher recited the Lord’s Prayer with peculiar fervor and solemnity, that I recognized that the suggested parallel was with Coquelin ainé, whom I had heard recently, and as I passed out I learned by inquiry that the accomplished orator to whom I had been listening was the then famous M. Loyson, the Père Hyacinthe whose eloquence had once enthralled the audiences of Notre Dame.

The incident set me upon one of those desultory studies which engage most of us more fascinatingly than our regular pursuits ; from time to time I seized every opportunity that presented itself to compare the mouths of orators and actors, and I came to think, with considerable reason, that I could recognize a man of either profession at sight by that sole indicium, especially, as not infrequently happened, if the case observed was that of a really successful practitioner of either. Naturally the comparison was easiest between the actors and the pulpit speakers, since in our land of many sects and scant ceremonial the latter are as numerous as the former. The analogy, however, was as evident among secular speakers, — Mr. Curtis, Colonel Ingersoll, Mr. Bryan, and Mr. Bourke Cockran, among political speakers ; while my memory ran back to Phillips and Sumner. One condition, it must be noted, was practically essential. The mouths of all my subjects of study were unhidden by beards, and it is worth noting that, while this is the rule in the Roman Catholic Church, and the pretty general practice in others, nearly all the most successful orators I have known have kept the lips shaven, as actors, almost of necessity, do. The distinguishing characteristics of the mouth common to the stage, the pulpit, and the platform are more easily recognized than described. It is generally large, larger than other mouths, and rather out of proportion to the rest of the features. Possibly this is an accompaniment of the temperament that leads to the callings noted. Possibly, also, the greater and more frequent use of the voice in circumstances requiring unusual effort may tend to the development of the lips. But the most marked characteristic of the mouth I am discussing is the impression it always conveys to me of a certain consciousness of it on the part of its owner. It is not artificiality ; that is a crude and offensive word by which to denote its peculiarity ; but one feels that such a mouth does not work, as the heart beats or the eyes wink, without much consciousness, and wholly without control from the possessor. With the actor there is a more or less definite training of the lips and an acquired art in using them. Is a like result attained in the other professions as the consequence of using the mouth in public, under the gaze of multitudes whom the speaker aims to move ? As the speaker inevitably asks himself how his speech affects his hearers, and how his voice sounds to them, does he, from the same natural impulse, question the effect produced by his countenance and by the mouth, perhaps the most expressive feature ? And does this faint habit of half - intended self - contemplation induce the corresponding habit of attempted control? If so, there is no harm in it. He who seeks to move his fellows by speech is entitled to employ all the resources of his nature to that end ; and if thereby he lose a little of the candid, the unforced, the revealing expression proper to the mouths of most other men and nearly all women, it may be that the loss is amply made up.