he stage appeared so natural that one was surprised to find when near
him that he was really speaking in a very loud key. There is a great
actor in your own country to whose elocution one always listens with
the utmost enjoyment--I mean Edwin Booth. He has inherited this gift,
I believe, from his famous father, of whom I have heard it said, that
he always insisted on a thorough use of the "instruments"--by which he
meant the teeth--in the formation of words.

An imperfect elocution is apt to degenerate into a monotonous
uniformity of tone. Some wholesome advice on this point we find in the
_Life of Betterton_.

"This stiff uniformity of voice is not only displeasing to the ear,
but disappoints the effect of the discourse on the hearers; first, by
an equal way of speaking, when the pronunciation has everywhere, in
every word and every syllable, the same sound, it must inevitably
render all parts of speech equal, and so put them on a very unjust
level. So that the power of the reasoning part, the lustre and
ornament of the figures, the heart, warmth, and vigor of the
passionate part being expressed all in the same tone, is flat and
insipid, and lost in a supine, or at least unmusical pronunciation. So
that, in short, that which ought to strike and stir up the affections,
because it is spoken all alike, without any distinction or variety,
moves them not at all."

Now, on the question of pronunciation there is something to be said,
which, I think, in ordinary teaching is not sufficiently considered.
Pronunciation on the stage should be simple and unaffected, but not
always fashioned rigidly according to a dictionary standard. No less
an authority than Cicero points out that pronunciation must vary
widely according to the emotions to be expressed; that it may be
broken or cut, with a varying or direct sound, and that it serves for
the actor the purpose of color to the painter, from which to draw his
variations. Take the simplest illustration, the formal pronunciation
of "A-h" is "Ah," of "O-h" "Oh;" but you cannot stereotype the
expression of emotion like this. These exclamations are words of one
syllable, but the speaker who is sounding the gamut of human feeling
will not be restricted in his pronunciation by the dictionary rule.
It is said of Edmund Kean that he never spoke such ejaculations,
but always sighed or groaned them. Fancy an actor saying thus, "My
Desdemona! Oh, [)o]h, [)o]h!" Words are intended to express fe