ely distributed. I suppose it is its very assertiveness that
makes one forget the very sweet voices that also exist in America. The
Southern voice is very low in tone and soothing, like the "darkey"
voice. It is as different from Yankee as the Yorkshire burr is from the
Cockney accent.

This question of accent is a very funny one. I had not been in America
long when a friend said to me:

"We like your voice. You have so little English accent!"

This struck me as rather cool. Surely English should be spoken with an
_English_ accent, not with a French, German, or double-dutch one! Then I
found that what they meant by an English accent was an English
affectation of speech--a drawl with a tendency to "aw" and "ah"
everything. They thought that every one in England who did not miss out
aspirates where they should be, and put them in where they should not
be, talked of "the rivah," "ma brothar," and so on. Their conclusion
was, after all, quite as well founded as ours about _their_ accent. The
American intonation, with its freedom from violent emphasis, is, I
think, rather pretty when the quality of the voice is sweet.

Of course the Americans would have their jokes about Henry's method of
speech. Ristori followed us once in New York, and a newspaper man said
he was not sure whether she or Mr. Irving was the more difficult for an
American to understand.

"He pronounces the English tongue as it is pronounced by no other man,
woman or child," wrote the critic, and proceeded to give a phonetically
spelled version of Irving's delivery of Shylock's speech of Antonio.

"Wa thane, ett no eperes
Ah! um! yo ned m'clp
Ough! ough! Gaw too thane! Ha! um!
Yo com'n say
Ah! Shilok, um! ouch! we wode hev moanies!"

I wonder if the clever American reporter stopped to think how _his_
delivery of the same speech would look in print! As for the
ejaculations, the interjections and grunts with which Henry interlarded
the text, they often helped to reveal the meaning of Shakespeare to his
audience--a meaning which many a perfect elocutionist has left perfectly
obscure. The use of "m'" or "me" for "my" has often been hurled in my
face as a reproach, but I never contracted "my" without good reason. I
had a line in Olivia which I began by delivering as--

"My sorrows and my shame are my own."

Then I saw that the "mys" sounded ridiculous, and abbreviated the two
first ones into "me's."

There were of course people