Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Women and Men

“ [169] she had her English sister's voice and enunciation, she would be perfect, but these she has not.” ¹ I am, I trust, almost as ardent an American as my friend Mr. Carnegie, although he thinks that only adopted citizens have this emotion in full force. Certainly I have little more liking than he for royal families and hereditary nobles, nor does it seem to me that even the manners of the community are benefited by their presence. The difference in voice is not a social difference between the two countries, but mainly, no doubt, a partial modification of organs in a new environment. In other words, it is something for attention and education; we have to work out our own salvation in this respect.

It is altogether probable that there is to be a new voice developed in America, as there is already a new temperament. It used to be thought that we could never be so strong or healthy as the English, because we were thinner; but it is now pretty well proved that we needed only to become acclimated and adapt ourselves to the new ways of living. So with the American voice; it will probably never be a chest voice, like the English, but it will come more from the head, and when well trained will be an instrument capable of finer modulation and greater expression. As the very best American manners — such