Pioneering professional nurse Florence Nightingale {wiki} was already 70 years old when she recorded this snippet for Thomas Edison and posterity in 1890. This recording has been redubbed to different formats and speed-corrected at least once, so the legibility after 119 years is due to Nightingale’s slow and overdramatic delivery. -via the Presurfer
Raymond
It’s amazing how much Florence Nightingale sounded like Margaret Dumont on that recording. You know…Margaret Dumont from all those Marx Brothers movies…you know…Groucho and Harpo…never mind, I’ll just take my walker and leave now.
Miss Cellania
I always loved watching Margaret Dumont! She was a fabulous but underappreciated character actress.
PacRim Jim
The funny thing about Maggie Dumont was, according to Groucho, that she never understood the Marx Brothers’ humor. She just said her lines and then awaited her next lines.
Raymond
I had heard that before, and I’ve always wondered if she “understood” it just fine, but just didn’t find it funny…maybe she was a Charlie Chaplin kind of gal.
pwscott
I’m sure Margaret and Florence were reared by proper Victorian parents. Nice find. :p
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