Sydney Smith Part 2 Version B

Sydney Smith Part 2 Version B

notebook

Arthur P. Stone

Charles Dickens

deciphered shorthand

Sydney Smith

The second page of a shorthand dictation exercise titled 'Sydney Smith' by a practiced shorthand writer. The exercise is dictated from ‘Lecture IX: On the Conduct of the Understanding’ by the philosopher Sydney Smith.

Stone, Arthur P.

Dickens, Charles

Free Library of Philadelphia

1859-1860

Courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia. Please seek further permission from the Free Library to reuse this image.

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Brachygraphy shorthand

SydneySmith.2.versionB

Working transcription: has lost so much time in consulting first cousins and particular friends, that he has no more time left to follow their advice. There is such little time for over-squeamishness at present the opportunity so easily slips away, the very period of life at which a man chooses to venture, if ever, is so confined, that it is no bad rule to preach up the necessity, in such instances, of a little violence done to the feelings, and of efforts made in defiance of strict and sober calculation. With respect to that fastidiousness which disturbs the right conduct of the understanding it must be observed that there are two modes of judging of anything: one, by the test of what has actually been done in the same way before; the other, by what we can conceive may be done in that way. Now this latter method of mere imaginary excellence can hardly be a just criterion, because it may be in fact impossible to reduce practice what it is perfectly easy to conceive: no man, before he has tried, can tell how