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
The average newspaper reader gathers that an extremely brilliant young man or woman has held converse with a very commonplace stranger, who, being confused in his or her presence, committed a number of absurdities which offered a strong and painful contrast to the cleverness and wisdom of the brilliant youth.
This result apparently satisfies the average newspaper reader, but it does not satisfy the expert.
Immediately after my first bout with interviewers, I was seated at a table in the dining saloon of the ship with my particular friend, and three or four friendly, quiet, modest, rather diffident human beings, whom I afterward discovered to be among the best and most experienced newspaper men in New York, not interviewers.
Said one of them not every interviewer in New York knows how to write, how to put a sentence together decently, and there are perhaps a few who don't accurately know the difference between impudence and wit.
A caustic remark, perhaps, but I have noticed that when the variety of interviewing upon which I have just animated becomes the topic, quiet, reasonable Americans are apt to drop into causticity.
Said another, I was a reporter for twelve years, but I was cured of personalities at an early stage, and by a nigger too.
I have been interviewing a nigger prize fighter, and I've made some remarks about the facial characteristics of niggers in general.
Some other nigger wrote me a long letter of protest, and it ended like this I've never seen you, but I've seen your portraits, and let me respectfully tell you that you're no Lilyian Russell.
Some mornings I, too, might have sat and written from visual observation, let me respectfully tell you that you're no Lilyian Russell, said a third among my companions, no importance whatever is attached to a certain kind of interview in the United States.
Which I found later was quite true in theory, but not in practice.
Whenever, in that kind of interview, I had been made to say something more acutely absurd and maladroit than usual.
My friends who watched over me, and to whom I owe so much that cannot be written, were a little agitated for about half an hour.
In about half an hour the matter had somehow passed from their minds.
Supposing I refuse to talk to that sort of interviewer, I asked, at the saloon table.
The interviews will appear all the same, was the reply.
My subsequent experience contradicted this.
On the rare occasions when I refused to be interviewed, what appeared was not an interview but invective.
Let me not be misunderstood.
I have been speaking of only one brand of American interviewer.
I encountered a couple of really admirable women interviewers, not too young, and a confraternity of men who did not disdain an elementary knowledge of their business.
Showing 681–700 of 2,788 · page 35 of 140
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