For most of our gestures are conventional. Nearly all peoples understand what the European means when he shakes his head and when he nods it; nevertheless, there are races which use these movements in an exactly opposite sense. The offer to rub noses as a sign of welcome employed by some tribes was misunderstood by early explorers, and when, in friendly spirit, certain tribes stroked the waistcoat of the missionary, he guessed that they were cannibals.
Kissing (in one aspect a matter of gesture) is unused by whole nations, and so, too, is handshaking. It has been said by a traveller that the vulgar operation described by Barham in the line "Put his thumb unto his nose and spread his fingers out" is a mark of courtesy and esteem in one remote nation; nor is putting out the tongue a sign of contempt everywhere. Certain of the gestures of ballet still strictly conventional in England are employed outside the theatre in France. Gesture and facial expression, except so far as mechanically due to emotion, are entirely conventional, though some of the conventions are so old as to have become second nature.
Most people are unaware how largely they adopt the conventions; this unconscious adoption in the end has turned the conventional into the natural. It is the study of this conventional-natural which enables the mime to accomplish remarkable feats; combining it with simple descriptive movements, and a few of the gestures still purely conventional in England, Signor Rossi, in A Pierrot's Life, was able to delight our audiences by his dumb-show narration of the complicated tale of the two pigeons, and Signora Litini in the same piece showed with subtlety a whole gamut of emotions. Miss Genée, at the Empire, without uttering a sound, used to be more eloquent than many of our players with whole lengths of dialogue. To a great extent Duse fascinates most playgoers by her plastic art, since they do not understand her speech.
Now, to employ to its full extent the art of the mime in conjunction with spoken speech would be absurd. The light and shade in the speech of the most "natural" actor—say, Mr Charles Hawtrey—is violently exaggerated on account of the peculiar acoustics of the theatre; amongst other things, the player has to address those far off in the galleries as well as those close to in the stalls, and therefore his work requires a series of compromises like that of a piano-tuner anxious to avoid "wolves" or a politician eager to win votes. Moreover, on account of the lack of speech the plastic art of the mime involves great exaggeration in the conventional-natural gestures and also in the movements and facial expression intended to represent those mechanically caused by emotion.
It is therefore necessary for the actor to mime in a modified and restrained fashion, abandoning, of course, all the still purely conventional and showing much moderation in the rest. When he nicely combines expression by the voice with expression by face, gesture and pose the result is very valuable. Few can do this, and the failure is nearly always in respect of gesture, which is misused or insufficiently employed. A study of the great statues and pictures, and such works as those of Sir Charles Bell, Lavater, Duchesne, Gratiolet and Darwin has enabled the mime to collect a series of rules for the expression of emotions. How rash of the player to trust entirely to his own ideas, and not avail himself of the knowledge of others! Some may regard such conduct as exhibiting originality: it is, however, a sad waste of time to try to find out for oneself what others are willing and able to teach, and there is a great risk of error.
Moreover, the mime teaches grace of movement and pose, and enables the player to employ usefully the limbs which as a rule seem an encumbrance to him. The poor ladies have not even trouser-pockets wherein to hide the hands, the existence of which embarrasses them, but they can conceal the legs, which so often are troublesome to the actor.
The restlessness of English acting—one of its worst faults—is, I believe, due to the player feeling half-consciously that he does not know what to do when he is not speaking. In a conversation scene, during which two finely trained artists would not leave their seats, our players generally appear to be having a game of musical chairs; and actors could be named who take their "constitutionals" on the stage. Moreover, one very rarely sees a player listening effectively, yet I have watched an actor who, though silent during a long speech, has by means of finely studied poses and nicely calculated gestures greatly increased the force of the speech to which he was supposed to be listening. No doubt all actors and actresses seek the aid of pose and gesture and get advice from stage-managers: very often the case is one of the blind leading the blind.
It will be objected that a study of such a system may tend to make the player mechanical, and also to cause all the members of a company to resemble one another too greatly: there is some truth in the objection. Still, this is an abuse not inseparable from the use. The intelligent mime fully recognizes the fact that the gestures proper to the members of one class of people are not necessarily suitable to those of another, and that there are individual differences as well. He distinguishes between the sober, and therefore striking, gesture of the Englishman and the unimpressive gesticulation of the meridional; between the poses of the king and attitudes of the peasant, and so on.
The highly trained artist knows how, upon rare occasions, to produce a great effect by conscious breach of a rule. To argue against a use from a needless abuse is not legitimate, a proposition dear to Jeremy Bentham. There is also a grave fallacy in the idea that gesture is less important in presenting an Englishman than a member of a gesticulative race, for vehement gesture is impressive in direct proportion to its rarity, and effects have been produced by the fine, slight movement of one of our actresses at a critical moment which surpassed in force anything possible if she had been lavish in gesture throughout. Need it be added that the training of the body insisted upon by the mime would cause some of our players to move more gracefully on the stage? Several of our popular players walk as if they had hired their limbs and not had time to become accustomed to them.