Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/534

518 being necessary for a clever actor. But let me quote Gall himself. Speaking of a man with a peculiar prominence of this region, he says:

"He imitated in so striking a manner the gait, the gestures, the sound of the voice, etc., that the person was immediately recognized. I hastened to the institution for the deaf and dumb to examine the head of the pupil Casteigner, who had been received into the establishment six weeks previous, and who, from the first, had fixed our attention by his prodigious talent for imitation.



On Shrove-Tuesday, when a little theatrical piece is usually represented in the establishment, he had imitated so perfectly the gesture, the gait, etc., of the directors, inspector, physician, and surgeon of the institute, and especially of some women, that it was impossible to mistake; a scene which amused the more, as nothing like it was expected from a boy whose education had been absolutely neglected."

He goes on to explain that many men have a natural talent for the stage or pantomime, and that the history of the lives of great actors shows that the majority of them had received little education and were intended for some other profession, but their innate disposition drove them to the stage. The faculty of imitation is exercised sometimes even in idiots and madmen. Pinel says: