When the Kentuckian describes a man as a "high-toned gentleman" he means
exactly the same that a Bostonian means when, he says that a man is a
"very good fellow," only the men described have a different culture, a
different personal flavor; and it is fortunate that the Kentuckian is not
like the Bostonian, for each has a quality that makes intercourse with
him pleasant. In the South many people think they have said a severe
thing when they say that a person or manner is thoroughly Yankee; and
many New Englanders intend to express a considerable lack in what is
essential when they say of men and women that they are very Southern.
When the Yankee is produced he may turn out a cosmopolitan person of the
most interesting and agreeable sort; and the Southerner may have traits
and peculiarities, growing out of climate and social life unlike the New
England, which are altogether charming. We talked once with a Western man
of considerable age and experience who had the placid mind that is
sometimes, and may more and more become, the characteristic of those who
live in flat countries of illimitable horizons, who said that New
Yorkers, State and city, all had an assertive sort of smartness that was
very disagreeable to him. And a lady of New York (a city whose dialect
the novelists are beginning to satirize) was much disturbed by the
flatness of speech prevailing in Chicago, and thought something should be
done in the public schools to correct the pronunciation of English. There
doubtless should be a common standard of distinct, rounded, melodious
pronunciation, as there is of good breeding, and it is quite as important
to cultivate the voice in speaking as in singing, but the people of the
United States let themselves be immensely irritated by local differences
and want of toleration of sectional peculiarities. The truth is that the
agreeable people are pretty evenly distributed over the country, and
one's enjoyment of them is heightened not only by their differences of
manner, but by the different, ways in which they look at life, unless he
insists upon applying everywhere the yardstick of his own locality. If