Reading Speech By The Eye

1895

An Art In Which Surprising Advances Have Been Made.

In the paper "The Subtle Art of Speech Reading," by Mrs. Alexander Graham Bell, in The Atlantic, she speaks of its essentially intellectual character:

If I needed a proof that speech reading is essentially an intellectual exercise, demanding good vernacular knowledge of language, I should find it in my experience with German. For six months I lived in a German boarding school, with only one friend with whom to talk English. Before the end of that time I could read German speech by eye nearly as readily as English, and it was but rarely that any one had to write off a German sentence for me. This was many years ago. Since then my opportunities for talking and listening to German have been very few. I find now, when I meet a German friend and try to carry on a conversation in German, I cannot do it readily at first. I can put together a few German phrases to express my own ideas, but I cannot decipher the movements of the speaker's lips. Why? Because the German vocabulary at my command is too small to allow me to select from it words that may be those that my friend is using. I find myself consciously and painfully running over my small stock of possible words, much as a miser counts his store of coin, and the chances are infinitely against my finding the right one. This would be disheartening if I had not found by experience that by reading German books for awhile, steeping my brain in German, as it were, so that I think in German and see in German, it becomes comparatively easy to catch the German words on my friend's lips.

Many people have the notion that, in order to be understood by a speech reader, they must speak more slowly and open their mouths more widely. Up to a certain point, and with some people, not all, I find it true that slower and more distinct articulation is an advantage, but beyond that point slowness of utterance is a distinct hindrance to comprehension, while the unnatural opening of the mouth is almost prohibitive of conversation. In the first case the speech reader's mind, accustomed to run rapidly, is apt to assume either that there must be more words in each slow movement of the mouth than appears and be thrown off the track, or, forced to linger over and study each word, forgets the previous ones, and, confused by a mass of details, fails to grasp the full meaning. In the second case the widely opened mouth, showing parts of words not usually perceived, so changes their accustomed appearance as to render them unintelligible.

There are no two faces in the world exactly alike, and every person has his own peculiar way of speaking. In some the peculiarity is greater than in others, and the difficulty of comprehension is so much increased that at first it may seem utterly impossible to make head or tail of what is said. I am, however, inclined to believe that there is no speech so indistinct that a good speech reader cannot master it after awhile.

A Voice From The Tomb

1901

More of Marie Bashkirtseff's Interesting Confessions Printed.

Once more Marie Bashkirtseff and her "confessions" are leading topics of interest in the literary world. The last of the "confessions" have just been issued in book form, and they are attracting almost if not quite as much attention as those which preceded them several years ago.

Readers familiar with the literary ideas of 12 or 15 years ago scarcely need be told who Marie Bashkirtseff was. To younger readers the name of the brilliant, erratic young Russian artist, scholar and authoress is not, however, very well known. Although she left no permanent impress on the world of art or letters, her diary, which reveals with fidelity the workings of her heart and mind, will always possess an interest for the student of human nature.

Marie Bashkirtseff was born in Russia in 1860 and died in Paris on Oct. 31, 1884. She was well born and well educated, possessing a knowledge of Greek and Latin as well as of the more important modern tongues. She was a talented painter and in 1878 went to Paris to study. In 1880 she exhibited a picture at the Salon, and from then until her untimely death she worked eagerly at her art. One of her pictures was purchased by the French government.

During her brief career in Paris Marie Bashkirtseff mingled with the brilliant life of that period and numbered among her acquaintances many famous people. She frequently wrote anonymous letters to famous literary men, and the charm and brilliance of the epistles induced those to whom she wrote to sustain the correspondence. The letters which passed between her and Guy de Maupassant, the brilliant romancer, form the most interesting phase of the last "confessions."

Marie Bashkirtseff was a genius in many ways, a painter, a musician, a writer and, above all, a woman of the most intense emotion. It may well be held, as it is by some, that the world lost much by her premature death.

A Glimpse of Longfellow

1896

In "A Glimpse of Longfellow," published in one of the magazines, Rev. Minot J. Savage calls him "the most widely read poet of the English-speaking world." This is approximately true, observes the New York World, and the cause for it is found in the poet's universal sympathy with the literature of all times and countries.

He is the most widely read poet of America because of all American poets he read most widely. The extent of his studies is astonishing. In his youth he went deep into the early literature of England, and added to the usual college acquaintance with the classics a knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon language and literature which did much to insure his success. He went from Saxon to the Scandinavian languages and to old Norse; then to old High German and from that to Italian, making a translation of Dante, which if lacking in the high poetic art of the original verse will always be respectable.

As a result of wide literary sympathies, he was able to appeal to the universal human nature. If he had something of natural provincialism in his youth, his maturity knew no boundary of section or country. His works have been translated into all the principal languages of Europe because by long labor he learned to understand the common humanity that underlies all differences of Nationality.

The central fact of his career was his great capacity for work. It made him the greatest of New England poets and one of the most useful men of his century.

Queen Victoria Spoke Hindustani Fluently

1900

An Aged Student

Monarchs can never afford to leave off learning, whatever their subjects may do. A striking instance in point is furnished by an article in Pearson's Magazine, an article the proof-sheets of which were corrected by Queen Victoria herself.

From this article it appears that in spite of all her duties and responsibilities, in spite of the fact that she has devoted so much time to the study of politics as to have become one of the greatest living authorities on the practical politics of Europe, Queen Victoria has within the later years of her reign, acquired an intimate acquaintance with a difficult language spoken by a large number of her subjects.

She makes it a custom, we are assured, to note in Hindustani the daily events of her life, keeping a diary for this special purpose. She speaks the language fluently, having devoted a part of every day for the last ten years to instruction in it, and to acquiring a knowledge of the intellectual treasures of the East.

The queen has surprised many of her Indian visitors by making unexpected observations in good Hindustani. As everybody knows, she is always attended, when at home, by one or more of her picturesque Indian servants. It is not, however, so generally known that she always speaks to them in their own tongue. However small the remark, or however serious the command, it comes to them in Hindustani.

Universal admiration has been expressed at the determination of the queen at an advanced age, not only to learn to speak Hindustani, but also to take an interest in the literature of India, and to acquaint herself with the ideas and aspirations of her Oriental subjects. — Youth's Companion.

Gossip About Women – "The New Woman"

Feb. 1896

Ella Wheeler Wilcox believes in reincarnation.

A training school for waitresses is a new Philadelphia institution.

Miss Helen Culver, of Chicago, has presented the University of Chicago with $1,000,000.

Mrs. Livermore has explained that when she called newspaper reporters a "pestiferous set" she spoke in a Pickwickian sense.

Victoria Morosini-Schilling, who started the fashion of eloping with coachmen, is now in St. Joseph's Convent, in Rutland, Vt.

Twenty-one sculptors competed for the statue of Sarah Siddons to be erected in London. The model chosen is by a Frenchman, Chevalier.

Mrs. Anna R. Aspinwall, a millionaire recluse of Pittsburg, Penn., has just died in Edinburgh. Her property is estimated at $4,000,000.

Annie Besant was a religious enthusiast in her early years and was inclined to become a nun, but compromised by marrying a clergyman.

Girls of sixteen are called "under buds" in fashionable designation, and have occasional social relaxations the way of a dance or a matinee theatre party.

E. W. Clark, of Nevada, Mo., tried to make Mrs. Caroline Stewart pay him $50,000 for declining to marry him, but the jury decided that he was undamaged.

The Society of the Daughters of the Holland Dames, Descendant of Ancient and Honorable Families of the State of New York, has been incorporated at Albany.

Two contemporary miniatures Joan of Arc, now in a private collection at Isenheim, in Alsace, are said be portraits of the Maid of Orleans, taken from life.

Miss Clara Barton is going to Armenia herself, to head the work of the Red Cross Society in relieving the distress of the Armenians. Five million dollars are asked for.

For several years a woman has driven the stage between Mancelona and Bellaire, Mich. She handles the reins as well as any man in that region, and has never been troubled with stage robbers.

It is reported that the Home Secretary of the British Government has consented to reopen the Maybrick case, and the friends of the unfortunate woman have high hopes of her at last gaining her liberty.

Mme. Dandet, wife of the French novelist, has a beautiful voice and thinks that this fact has caused the rumor that she was an actress before her marriage. She has never sung outside of her own salon.

The new woman is very much in evidence in Marcellus, Mich. The Town Council is composed of women, the local barber is a woman, the undertaker is a woman and many of the business houses are run by women.

Miss Melvina M. Bennett, a graduate of Boston University, has been appointed to the chair of Public Speaking and Vocal Interpretation in that institution. Miss Bennett is the first woman to gain a professorship in the university.

Girl ushers have just been appointed in the Arkansas City (Kan.) Opera House in place of men hitherto employed, There are six of them, and they are alleged to have been chosen from among "the handsomest young ladies in the city."

The Dowager Empress of China has been much affected by the Japanese war. She used to be a rather loud and violent person, who imagined that the whole world was created for her special benefit, but now she is quiet and humble and listens to advice from those who formerly dared not address her. She shows signs of aging rapidly.

Women in Hungary will henceforth be allowed to enter the Budapest University and become doctors and apothecaries, or study in the philosophical faculty. They must pass the same high school examinations as the men, however, and for that purpose the Government will provide them with opportunities to study Latin and Greek.

Meaning Changed in Translation

1899

It is difficult for those who understand but one language to realize that a translation of a work in an alien tongue is not equal to the original.

An odd experiment was made not long ago by an English writer, the result of which will be read with interest, and by many with surprise.

He wrote a four-line epigram, asked a friend to translate it into Latin, and sent the Latin to another friend with the request that he turn it back into English. This English version was turned by another into French. The process went on until the lines had passed through Greek, English, German, English, Persian, English. The first English version may be compared with the final translation:

I.
I heard that S. would write my "Life"
When I gave up my breath.
I felt that this indeed would add
A new delight to death. — G.S.L.

VI.
He — "Dear, in my song you still shall live,
Though under earth you lie!"
She — "Ah! had you now that grace to give
I should not need to die." — O.S.

—Youth's Companion.

'Frisco Has Child Linguist Prodigy

1910

SAN FRANCISCO. — Leland Stanford University is to acquire a child prodigy of whom quite as great things are expected as of Harvard's boy wonder, William James Sidis. In this case the prodigy is a girl, Winifred Sackville Stoner, better known to her familiars as Cherie. Her mother is a daughter of the late Lord Sackville West, ambassador from England in one of the Cleveland administrations, and her father is Col. J. B. Stoner of the Marine hospital service.

She is now aged eight years, and as a linguist is in a class by herself. Her knack for poetry enabled her to print a book of 52 pages called "Jingles" when she was five. At the age of four she was proficient enough in Esperanto to receive from the founder of that composite language a medal for proficiency. She had heard this tongue from infancy, as her mother is a recognized authority in it.

In addition she speaks and thinks in English, French, Spanish and Latin, and she can speak well enough for conversational purposes Japanese, Russian, German, Polish and Italian. While accumulating this varied vocabulary she has gone along at a precocious rate in other studies and has had her full share of outdoor romping. Dolls are still her companions when the weather keeps her in.

"Her advancement is simply due to the way she was educated," her mother said. "I began when she was three weeks of age by placing beautiful pictures on the walls of her nursery. From the first she was accustomed to the best literature. We did not recite silly nursery rhymes to her, but only the best. Instead of giving her the stories usually told to children I read to her from the Bible and from mythology. She had Latin from the cradle.

"At three months I read to Cherie from the Latin writers and recited for her from such poems as 'Crossing the Bar.' At eight months she began to talk. At the age of one year, she could scan from Virgil and she read before she was two. I was teaching her the language all the time.

"At three she could operate a typewriter. By its use she learned to spell and also to memorize what she was writing. It was by copying poems and articles on the machine that she learned much that she knows. When she was at this age Puck accepted and printed a little poem of hers. Afterward she became a regular contributor to St. Nicholas. She did not learn to write with the pen until she was four. We have always made play of her work. Games similar to 'Authors' were devised for history and mythology."

Note: The article at Wikipedia says she was born in 1902 and died in 1983. She had a "Jr." on her name, as her mother was also Winifred Sackville Stoner.

John Smith Everywhere

1912

The good old name of John Smith does not suggest in English any great degree of aristocracy, but transferred to other languages it seems to climb the ladder, so to speak.

Thus, in Latin it is Johannes Smithus, the Italian smoothes it off into Giovanni Smithi, the Spaniards render it Juan Smithus, the Dutchman adopts it as Hans Schmidt, the French flatten it out into Jean Smeet and the Russian says Jonloff Smittowski.

When John Smith gets into the tea trade in Canton he becomes Jovan Shimmit; if he clambers about Mount Hecla the Icelanders refer to him as Jahne Smithson; if he trades among the Tuscaroras he becomes Ton Qa Smittla; in Poland he is known as Ivan Schmittiwelski; should be wander among the Welsh mountains they talk of Jihon Schmidd; when he goes to Mexico he is called Jontli Smitti; if of classic turn he lingers among Greek ruins he turns to Ion Smikton, and in Turkey he is utterly disguised as Yoe Seef.