The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-11-29
i IS a personal voice. a gift. a stroke

j. is personal voice. a gift a stroke
Of genius.
attended a white house reception and
l learned one Of the secrets Of Mrs.
SleVeland's charm She has a voice.
90 not tElnk she siugs-or the general
public has net heard OF it, 81 she does
put her speech is "A continual song with
OF words. More than that. this woman
who has never talked too much. in spite
Of her official career as the first lady of
tne land, talks just enough TO be fn>
ished diplomat.
4 heard Mrs. Cleveland say: I am glad
to meet you, 'HesT' Thank you and
Pardon me. and in her tones, modula-
ions and shades of accents, in repeti-
lions of the greetings and common phra-
80 there was power or expression
ana personal magnetism that impressed
every person in the long line of visitors.
Mrs. Palmer has the diplomatic voice,
also, TO an extraordinary degree.
If you Will consider the most success
ful and charming women of society You
VIII ind that they possess this peculiar
ana desirable quality Of voice What /
attempt and accomplish is to develop
what ever voice the woman possesses,
to train her IL its use, to teach her where
IN lie her defects Of accent and to remedy
these defects. l VIII illustrate. and here
l Will use name, because she is a pro-
Iessional woman and there can be no
possible objection to speaking Of her pub
when Miss Clara Morris. a woman
OF undoubted talent and an actress of
y
went, on the stage she had a voice that
the critics declared was a compromise
between a buZz,saw and a western cy-
clone. They declared that when she
played emotional parts her audiences
went home with the earache. Miss Nor
MS is charming woman and took all
this criticism gOod-naturedly. She prof
tied by it.
she purchased a photograph and sup
plemented her vocal exercises by talking
her parts into lthe- instrument. These
she reeled out again and again, hearing
the defects and the faults of her voice
as her critics had heard them. Some
time she would repeat a single speech
dozens of times into the instrument until
she had found the timber and emphasis
and expression of voice necessary to the
sentiment of the speech. 1t was pains
taking work, but il paid her, and her
voice took on new and sWeeter tones
and Interpretation of her roles became
more artistic as her emotions were eX-
plotted naturally.
Not long ago among my pupils was
little sOutherner. She persisted in say
All for T. slurred her words and spoke
eXecrable English. She was a soubrette
in a New York company, and did really
clever work of a sort, but the manager
had declared that if she did not learn
TO speak English as ii is spoken above
Mason and DiXon's line she would have
to leave the company. Her accent was
only congruous with a war drama.
''She tossed her head over the first crit
icismS and considered the southern ac-
cent one of her charms like the dimples
in her cheeks, but when it became an
obstacle to earning her salary she came
to me and took her lessons very humbly.
Il have now a western girl who will
be considerably in evidence this winter
i'm New York society, whose 'twang' 1
am correcting. Americans point to the
cOrruptiOnS of the language in England
because the English of Lancashire and
the English of London are different dia-
lects, and there are hamlets in the south
of England where the English of the
north would be incomprehensible. But
in America the same is true in only a less
er degree.
This western girl is of good family.
an heiress and spent some time at school
in a French convent, but she brings
prairie and the voice which is like that
curious musical instrument common
among American farmers, the horse
fiddle She speaks an entirely different
language from the patois of the New
Yorker and what work 1 have had to
weed out the French phrases she
thought SO charming interspersed in her
prairie dialect
My only specimen of the New Eng
lander is a New Hampshire girl who is
visiting relatives in New York-a bright
pretty girl who talks "a hove her palate
and sends her voice through her nose.
II is a distressing voice. but have be-
gun by teaching her now TO breathe.
When she realizes that she has a reser-
Voir of sound in her body she. will cease
to speak entirely with her head, and ner
lungs will begin to- expand that narrow
Il have a 16-year-old. girl with what
her mother desisnates the 'giggles. a
sort of voice hysteria that we often hear
developed into the tiresome affected tit
ter of the middIe-aged woman because
the habit is not corrected in youth.
There is, however, some excuse for the
inharmonious voice of the American wo-
man. America is the noisiest country in
the world. A foreigner cannot hear him
self think, but the American woman goes
serenely on talking at the top of her voice
to be heard above the clamor of the crowd.
1t is this talking against street noises that
ruins the American woman's voice.
For many years the chief phrase that
has been hurled in derision against the ad-
Vanced woman has been to call her a
member of the shrielSing sisterhood! 1t is
true that public speaking and the liberties
of the new woman, in America more than
anywhere else, have tended TO increase the
'shrieking sisterhood.' because the Amer
lean woman seems to assert herself in hel
voice.
"As it is the hour for Miss Minnehaha
sol must beg you to excuse me for my
laughing lesson
Laughing lesson?"
The voice specialist laughed. As she die
so brooks dubbed and swallows sung
Such a beautiful laugh it wasi
Certainly" she said, II also give les
sons in laughter. 1t has been said that Wo
men have no sense of hunor. 1 know al
least that few of them know how to laugh
musically. / have made a special study
little girl with voice hysteria, whom I an
teaching a genuine, pleasant, wholesome
laugh as a substitute for the unfortunate
school girl giggle."
Oscar S. Straus, who was United