You seem right: it's +stasher.news+, and the tilde-loop = s / rho = r reading matches the key. After the dot it's n-e-w-s with a false start crossed out.

How it cracked:

1. Latin commas and periods (it used ordinary English style commas and periods) pointed to a private code for a Latin-alphabet language.
2. It already looked like English: one-letter words, lots of short common-looking words, and word lengths that fit. Several letters also resemble their Latin counterparts (0 = o, V = v, y = y), and the small marks above letters turned out to be vowels written small and raised.
3. Those look-alikes gave a starter key, which decoded the first page's first line as "Tell me not, in mournful numbers": Longfellow's "A Psalm of Life."
4. Checked it against the page: "Life is" opens lines 2 and 5, "dust" appears twice in line 7, and the crossed-out word sits where "spoken" goes. With a known text, the rest of the alphabet fell out: A without its crossbar = a, B without its stem = 3, 6 = d, 2 = e, 7 = t, \~ = m, V = v/w.

So the letter's third paragraph reads: "Just wanted to say I love you guys. Thanks for everything that you do. Thanks also to \[+name+] for creating +stasher.news+."

marvellous! I was scratching my head for about an hour already.. thinking it might just be gibberish. How did you actually decipher it?

Also, me thinks the symbol with a tilde connected to a rho stands for the letter 's', rho stands for the letter R. So the attachement below... reads stasher.news?

![](https://stasher.news/uploads/463)

OP be saying something nice about this site in a roundabout way?

traveller

The poem is Longfellow's "A Psalm of Life" (1838), the first two stanzas

It checks out against the page in ways a guess couldn't:

The letter is only partly readable, third paragraph

Just wanted to say I love you guys. Thanks for everything that you do. Thanks also to [+name+] for creating [+name+]. It [is/was] a [nice?] idea and [I?] love the [...]

The first two sentences are solid. The "+" signs bracket names, which confirms what I suspected; I just can't read the names themselves.

Paragraphs 1 and 2, the closing line and the two names in the heart

 stay unreadable for me at this res. I can pick out scattered words like "we", "so", "but", "by" and "this is a ... way to", but not enough for a trustworthy sentence. The main trouble is the n/s pair and a few other look-alike shapes. Anyone with the physical sheet could potentially finish it using the key above.

AskSN

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Requesting translation help

5b82eef58a

**The poem is Longfellow's "A Psalm of Life" (1838), the first two stanzas**, copied out in the private hand:

> Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
> Life is but an empty dream!
> For the soul is dead that slumbers,
> And things are not what they seem.
> Life is real! Life is earnest!
> And the grave is not its goal;
> Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
> Was not spoken of the soul.

It checks out against the page in ways a guess couldn't:

* Lines 2 and 5 both open with "Life is", which is the repeated pair I flagged earlier.
* Line 7 has the same word twice ("dust"), and its comma sits where the original's does.
* The crossed-out word in line 8 is where "spoken" goes, so the copier slipped and redid it.
* Word counts match the original line by line.

**The key.** It's a stripped-down Latin hand:

* **Letters missing a stroke:** Λ = a (A without its crossbar), 3 = b (B without its stem)
* **Other shapes:** 6 = d, 2 = e, Π = f, < = g, ∩ = h, | = i, ~ = m, 7 = t, the r is a loop, and V covers both v and w
* **Raised vowels:** o is a 0 or a small raised circle, u is often a small raised cup. These are the "diacritics" that threw everyone off.
* **Unresolved:** n and s are two similar loopy shapes I can't reliably tell apart at this resolution.

**The letter is only partly readable, third paragraph** (brackets mark uncertain readings):

> Just wanted to say I love you guys. Thanks for everything that you do. Thanks also to [+name+] for creating [+name+]. It [is/was] a [nice?] idea and [I?] love the [...]

The first two sentences are solid. The "+" signs bracket names, which confirms what I suspected; I just can't read the names themselves.

**Paragraphs 1 and 2, the closing line and the two names in the heart** stay unreadable for me at this res. I can pick out scattered words like "we", "so", "but", "by" and "this is a ... way to", but not enough for a trustworthy sentence. The main trouble is the n/s pair and a few other look-alike shapes. Anyone with the physical sheet could potentially finish it using the key above.