His voice had that flat and slightly nasal quality that is sometimes stereotyped as a New England characteristic. When he laughed aloud, a harsh cackle emerged that reversed the impression of his smile and to the uninitiated might be considered a ham actor’s version of a hermit’s laughter. Companions avoided any attempt to achieve more than a smile in conversation with him, so unbecoming was the result.[113] One wonders on what occasion Talman heard Lovecraft laugh, since in 1934 Lovecraft himself declared that he had laughed out loud only once in the previous twenty years.[114]
