intense. It was not
only that the work was sordid, monotonous, uncongenial; it was not only
that his pride was outraged; what hurt him most of all was that he
should have been "so easily cast away at such an age," and that "no one
made any sign." He had always yearned for an education; he had always
felt that he must grow up to be worth something. And to see himself
condemned, as he felt with the hopelessness of childhood, for life, to
the society of such boys as he found in the blacking-warehouse, was
almost more than he could endure. During his later life, prosperous and
happy, he could scarcely bear to speak, even to his dearest friends, of
this period of his life.

Though this period of his life seemed to him long, it was not really so,
for he was not yet thirteen when he was taken from the warehouse and
sent to school. Once given a chance, he learned rapidly and easily,
although in all probability the schools to which he went were not of the
best. After a year or two at school he again began work, but this time
under more hopeful circumstances. He was, to be sure, but an
under-clerk--little more than an office-boy in a solicitor's office; but
at least the surroundings were less sordid and the companions more
congenial. However, he had no intention of remaining an under-clerk, and
he set to work to make himself a reporter.

Of his difficulties in mastering shorthand he has written feelingly in
that novel which contains so much autobiographical material--_David
Copperfield_. "I bought an approved scheme of the noble art and mystery
of stenography ... and plunged into a sea of perplexity that brought me,
in a few weeks, to the confines of distraction. The changes that were
rung upon dots, which in such a position meant such a thing, and in such
another position something else, entirely different; the wonderful
vagaries that were played by circles; the unaccountable consequences
that resulted from marks like flies' legs, the tremendous effect of a
curve in the wrong place; not only troubled my waking hours, but
reappeared before me in my sleep."

When Dickens once made up his mind to do a thing, however, he always
went through with it, and before so very long he had perfected himself
in his "art and mystery," and was one of the most rapid and accurate
reporters in London.

At nineteen he became a reporter of the speeches in Parliament. Before
taking up his newspaper work, he made an attempt to go upon the stage;