The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1885-12-10
How He Learned 1t.

The famous novelist started in life
as reporter. He learned shorthand
by the old clumsy methods that were
the fashion in his time. 1t was rs SER
ious business as learning Greek and
committing 10 memory the whole of
the '1liad." But Dickens worked at
it and stuck TO it through thick and
thin, till finally he mastered it In.
later years he became very wealthy, !
and the most renowned story writer of
his time. But he never would have
done it if he had not worked Just as
hard at writing as he did at learning
shorthand Have some of our boys
and girls thought that they would like
to become stenographers? Here is
how Charles Dickens learned it. He
says:
81 bought an approved scheme of
the noble art and mystery of stenog-,
raphy (Which cost me ten-and-six-
pence), and plunged into a sea of
perplexity that brought me in few
weeks to the confines of distraction.
1.-The changes that were rung upon
dots, which in one position meant one
thing, and in another position some
thing else; the wonderful vagaries that
were played by circles; the unaccount-
able consequences that resulted frc.n
marks like hy's legs; the tre;-,ndous
effect from curve in a wrong place,
not only troubled my waking hours,
but reappeared before me in my sleep.
when 1 had CROPPED my way
biindly through these difficulties and
had mastered the alphabet which
was an Egyptian temple itself, then
there appeared a procession of new
horrors called arbitrary characters
the most despotic characters / have
ever known-which insisted, for in
stance, that the thing like the begin
ming of a cobweb meant expectation
and that pen-aud-ink sky rocket
meant 'disadvantageous.'
"When | had fixed these wretches in
my mind, found that they had driven
everything else out of it. Then, be-
ginning again, forgot them. Then,
while was picking them up, drop
ped the other fragments of the system.
In short, it was almost heartbreak-
ing"
He was very young at this time to be
so. persevering. He was a mere boy re-
porter when at last he got the thing
learned. He continues:
81 went into the gallery of the house
of commons as a parliamentary re-
porter when l was boy not eighteen,
and left i'll can hardly believe the
inexorable truth-nigh thirty years
ago; and L have pursued the calling of
a reporter under circumstances of
which many of my brethren here, and
my brethren's SUCCESSORS, can form no
adequate conception.
81 have often transcribed for the
printer from my shorthand notes i'm
portant public speeches in which the
strictest accuracy was required, and a
mistake in which would have been to a
young man severely compromising,
writing on the palm of my hand bY
the light of dark lantern, in a post
chaise and four, galloping through a
wild country through the dead of
night, at the then surprising rate of
fifteen miles an hour.
1.-The very last time / was at Exeter
strOiled into the castle-yard there to
identify, for the amusement of friend,
the spot on which took an election
speech of my noble friend, Lord Rus
sci. 1t was in the midst of a lively
fight kept up by all the vagabonds in
the vicinity, and under such pelting
rain that l remember two good-natured
colleagues, who chanced to be at leis-
ure, held a pocket handkerchief over
my notebook, after the manner of a
state canopy in an ecclesiastical pro-
cession.
Il have worn my knees by writing
on them on the old back row of the
house of commons, and 1 have worn
my feet by standing to write in
preposterous pen in the old house of
lords, where we used to be huddled
like so many sheep"