p. 46: I spent some hours in the hut tonight, listening to our first gramophone concert; it was a delight to hear Caruso, Melba, and Tetrazzini, among other famous stars.
p. 50: Divine service was held this morning….It was really rather solemn to hear psalms here in the icy wastes.
p. 70, in the hut: We find some ten-year-old reading matter and bury our noses in it.
p. 73, March 26 [1911]: The weather has been good, but even so most of us have spent Sunday reading indoors. Incidentally, apart from reading some years-old magazines, our thoughts mainly turn on good…. I have been deep in a wild adventure story all day, and now I am going to bed to read with an ‘electric’ lamp on the ‘bedside table.’ Our stove is my ‘bedside table. This life is quite interesting despite its monotony. Time goes unbelievably fast and that is the main thing really.
p. 79: Melba recordings: You can almost weep at the sound of Melba’s voice.
p. 81: On the wall in Scott’s quarters hung a large portrait of King George [V].
p. 87: winter lectures, three a week.
p. 88: Scott reads and writes; he seems relaxed.
p. 92: Norwegian songs on gramophone.
p. 102, reading a French novel: I have just finished a novel, the end of which was so terribly sad that I really feel quite depressed. Everything had seemed so perfect and so promising, and then came death to shatter it all.
p. 103: publication of South Polar Times.
p. 108, 8 July: Most of us spent the time reading or playing chess.
p. 111: I intend to turn in early to read Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea, which Scott has lent me. Scott is an admirer of Ibsen.
p. 113, illustrated papers in Shackleton’s hut: This evening the whole hut have their heads in the magazines I brought from Cape Royds. Any pictures from the outside world are priceless in these parts.
p. 117: Shackleton’s toboggan and illustrated periodicals.
p. 118, Ponting lecture on India: his illustrations were of course first-class.
p. 122, 3 September: Ponting is reading an exciting love story, Oates is studying his great hero Napoleon […over his bunk his sole picture was a reproduction of the great French warrior—TG], Deb and Wilson are reading scientific works….
p. 141: [Gran slept in the bunk above, and as the result of some salmon and a recent perusal of Jules Verne’s ‘Mysterious Island’, suffered from nightmare.]—also see p. 148 for another reference to Verne.
p. 164: Gran writing a play, ‘Tangholmen’s Light.’
p. 195, and 203—on publication of South Polar Times.
p. 233, on board Terra Nova after being picked up: The gramophone is playing a wonderful tune—‘Eternal Waltz’. How I long to dance, dance, dance again after all these years. This waltz is the first breath of real life. Goodness, how good life seems tonight.
Taylor hasn’t forgotten his companions; he’s sent each of us a book.