W. H. D. Rouse
speaker
2,788 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 8 Aug
W. H. D. Rouse’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Imagine hell with the addition of electric light, and you have it.
And upstairs, far above all the surface of the water, confectioners were making fancy cakes, and the elevator boy was doing his work.
Yes, the inferno was the most thrilling part of the ship, and no other part of the ship could hold a candle to it.
And I remained of this conviction even when I sat in the captain's own room, smoking his august cigars and turning over his books.
I no longer thought every revolution of the propellers brings me nearer to the shore.
I thought every shovel flung unto those white hot mouths brings me nearer.
It is an absolute fact that four hours before we could hope to disembark, ladies in mantles and shore hats, seeming fantastic and enormous after the sobriety of ship attire, and gentlemen in shore hats and dark overcoats were standing in attitudes of expectancy in the saloon hall, holding wraps and small bags, some of their faces
Faces had never been seen till then in the public resorts of the ship.
Excitement will indeed take strange forms.
For myself, although I was on the threshold of the greatest adventure of my life, I was unaware of being excited.
I had not even smelled land, to say nothing of having seen it, until, when it was quite dark, I described a queerly arranged group of
of different colored lights in the distance, yellow, red, green, and whatnot.
My thoughts ran instantly to Coney Island.
I knew that Coney was an island, and that it was a place where people had to be attracted and distracted somehow, and I decided that these illuminations were a device of the pleasure mongers of Coney.
and when the ship began to salute these illuminations with answering flares, I thought the captain was a rather good natured man to consent thus to amuse the populace.
But when we slowed, our propellers covering the calm sea with acres of foam, and the whole entire illuminations began to approach us in a body, I perceived that Myconey Island was merely another craft, but a very important and official craft.
An extremely small boat soon detached itself from this pyrotechnical craft, and came with a most extraordinary
ordinary leisureness towards a white square of light that had somehow broken forth in the blackness of our side.
And looking down from the topmost deck, I saw, far below, the tiny boat manoeuvre on the glinting wave into the reflection of our electricity, and three mysterious men climb up from her and disappear into us.
Then it was that I grew really excited, uncomfortably excited, the United States had stretched out a tentacle.
Showing 621–640 of 2,788 · page 32 of 140
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