Our September #SolveItDickens explored the second part of a shorthand dictation exercise titled ‘Travelling’. In part I, the text muses on the fact that travel can only ‘open a man’s mind’ if the traveller is capable of ‘reflection and abstraction from self’. In part II, the author includes an example: for some, Niagara Falls (‘Niagara’ written in longhand) are ‘but so many thousand million gallons of water’. Others, in contemplating this spectacle, will consider how, ‘in the course of ages’, the rocks over which this water flows will wear away and ‘change the whole face of the country thereabouts’. Problematically, the text goes on to suggest that the ‘savage’ has a ‘very small’ appreciation of the ‘wonders and beauties’ of Nature distinct from ‘his wants and appetites’. This page of the exercise finishes mid-sentence; we will have to see how it continues in ‘Travelling’ part III.
As always, the Dickens Decoders have done an amazing job in deciphering the shorthand text, producing a complete transcript and decoding 46 words for the first time in the process. You can find out more about their achievements by checking out the Roll of Honour.