W. H. D. Rouse
speaker
684 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Aug 2026
last heard 1 Aug
W. H. D. Rouse’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
by five o'clock the little girl knew just what each and every santa claus was going to say to her and what was coming next and that one at least of the three remaining santas would want to kiss her she had been kissed almost to death as it was and that was beginning to bore her too
it occurred to alice who was a shrewd little girl and not one of your bleating lambs that santa claus despite his profusion or because of it might be something of an old fraud after all she was entirely certain that not one of him resembled the jolly old saint of her mental picture the cottony fellow at one of cooper's was not a bit red and chubby nor very jovial either
and she hoped that the others at the emporium and the bargain-store and the bon-mocher would agree more sympathetically as to corpulence with the merry and very dear old gentleman of her favourite poem she repeated the first lines softly under her breath twas the night before christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse
well that was not surprising obviously all the creatures who might otherwise have been stirring about the house on the night before christmas were crowding and jostling each other in department stores buying useless presents for people they didn't like alice thought it odd that this hadn't occurred to her before it made the beginning of the poem quite clear
the santa claus at the emporium was entirely surrounded by children entirely surrounded why not the schoolroom definition of an island is authority for it an island is a body of land entirely surrounded by water
sticklers for accuracy will have it that the entirely is extraneous if they say if he or it that is santa claus or the island is surrounded by anything whether water or children he or it is surrounded and that is all there is to it not entirely surrounded just surrounded
happily alice knew nothing of this as for us we are nothing if not independent and care nothing for grammarians nothing at all the santa claus at the emporium was entirely surrounded by children just like all his duplicates and in the midst of an alarming racket was writing long lists of juvenile wants in a big bookkeeper's ledger
the big bookkeeper was nowhere about and so the old fellow went right ahead just as if it had been his own ledger and filled as many columns as a child wished in the most amiable manner in the world he was the nicest santa claus alice had yet seen
he did not immediately notice alice who was neither larger nor smaller than most of the other children shouting around him but when he did notice her he liked her right away he liked the old-fashioned way of her and her last century clothes and from the way she looked at him he was sure that she at least believed in him and wasn't dropping in just to see how much she could get out of him
and then he hurried so that he could finish quickly with the others and get around to alice it wasn't very long until there she was right up beside him
with his dear old whiskers tickling her shell-like ears one of them anyway and his pen poised over a perfectly blank page ready to write down anything that alice asked him to and his voice too was very pleasant now said this kindly old saint adjusting his eyebrows with some care for they were slightly moth-eaten and appeared to be falling off and no wonder either for some hundreds of boys and girls
had been leaning against them all day now said this nice old man what do you wish me to bring you for christmas little golden heir there was something charming about the way he emphasized the you that put alice at ease immediately so she told him all about the lovely doll and the darling kitten and the sweet bird she wanted and had been wanting for a long time and all about the books she needed with which to catch up on the world
for she had been locked away for so long that she felt a bit out of date and such phrases as league of nations and maple-nut sunday simply meant nothing to her while they were the common property of every other girl and boy in the land
the good-natured old soul wrote them all down very carefully and then kissed alice just as she had expected he would he promised faithfully to deliver every one of her order in person and warned her about seeing that the hearth fire was extinguished before midnight because promptly at midnight he said i shall come down the chimney alice giggled at that
you mean the chimney don't you she asked chimney indeed snorted santa claus after all these years don't you think i know the difference between a chimney and a chimley
no sir i come down a chimney every time i'll leave it to every one here and turning to the crowd of boys and girls around him he asked how do i get into the house children down the chimney roared the chorus you see said santa claus alice did see and felt very much ashamed of her display of ignorance
never mind said santa claus kindly but i think he added you had better go with my assistant and be quite sure we have all these things in stock he'll be glad to show you around it's all free you know just look around as long as you like and if you see anything else you want come right back and tell me about it
there was a little boy standing beside santa claus with a metal tag on his collar and the generous old gentleman turned to him and told him to go and fetch his that is santa claus's assistant while alice was waiting a lot of other children pushed forward and alice was pretty nearly forgotten but after a while she heard some one say oh he's coming now he'll be here in just a minute now
and at the same moment she saw santa claus's assistant coming toward her he was a sprightly little fellow and alice decided to like him he came up in a sort of blue-green light which danced all around him and without the slightest hesitation alice took his hand and walked away with him
the little man's fingers were so cold and hard though that alice was surprised and when she was sure he wasn't looking she looked him over earnestly after she had done that she almost screamed used as she was to odd things in wonderland for the little man was made of wood everything was wood
Showing 441–460 of 684 · page 23 of 35
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