I have tamed that savage stenographic mystery. I make a respectable income of it. I am in high repute for my accomplishment in all pertaining to the art, and am joined with eleven others in reporting the debates in Parliament for a Morning Newspaper. Night after night, I record predictions that never come to pass, professions that are never fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to mystify. I wallow in words. Britannia, that unfortunate female, is always before me, like a trussed fowl: skewered through and through with office pens, and bound hand and foot with red tape. I am sufficiently behind the scenes to know the worth of political life. I am quite an Infidel about it, and shall never be converted.[1]
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850)
[1] Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 626 (See Chapter XLIII).
