When the lips retreat on each side of the mouth and open into an oval form, it denotes a subtle intelligence, tact and refinement of nature.
A sharp indentation immediately above the chin, between it and the lower lip, shows good understanding.
A pointed chin is a sign of craftiness, wisdom, discretion and intuitive perception.
A soft, fat, double chin shows epicurism and love of sensual pleasures of all sorts; it also indicates an indolent temperament. We never see such chins in persons of an energetic, restless nature. Charles James Fox, who was excessively indolent, had this chin even in youth.
A flat chin shows avarice and a cold, hard nature; a small chin indicates weakness, want of will-power and cowardice.
A retreating chin is a sign of silliness and, if the brow is shallow, of imbecility.
Where the space between the nose and the red part of the lip is short and very sharply cut, it indicates refinement and delicacy of perception, but not much power—no force of intellect; where this space is unusually short, it denotes silliness and weakness of purpose. A rather long but not flat upper lip, especially where the serpentine line of the middle of the mouth is much defined and the middle of the lip droops to the lower lip and is very flexible, denotes an eloquent person. We see this form of upper lip in the bust of Demosthenes, the greatest of Grecian orators; in Cicero, whose eloquence was unsurpassed in his age; in Fox, whose powers of oratory were great; in the demagogue Wilkes, in Edmund Burke, in Lord Palmerston and numerous other orators.
A very long upper lip, which is flat and which belongs to a straight and formless or too thick-lipped mouth, is a sign of a low and vicious type of character. Almost all the faces of great criminals have this defect, combined with massive jaws and high cheek-bones, which last defect is, both Lavater and Perneti (a great French writer on the subject of physiognomy) tell us, a sign of rapacity and egotism.
A round chin, with a dimple in it, denotes kindliness and benevolence, a tender and unselfish nature. In a very massive double chin the dimple increases the quality of love of sensual pleasures. A square and massive chin shows strong perseverance and determined will.
An old Italian writer says that "women with brown, hairy moles on the chin, especially if these excrescences are on the under part of the chin, are industrious, active and are good housewives"; they are also, he says, "very sanguine and given to love follies. They talk much and whilst they are easily excited to return a love which is offered them, they are not so readily prevailed upon to become indifferent. For this reason," he goes on, evidently speaking feelingly and probably therefore with personal experience of the matter, "they should be treated with circumspect, calm friendship and kept at a distance by a mildly cold dignity of demeanour." He gives no directions as to how this effective "demeanour" is to be arrived at, but at once passes on to another remark on the subject of moles, and tells us that "a mole upon the upper lip, especially if it is bristly, will be found in no person who is not defective in something essential." This is rather a wide way of putting the matter. Are people with this blemish morally, mentally, or physically deficient? Wanting in kissableness such a mouth might be and this, perhaps, where lips are concerned, is "something essential."