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This is a collection of Fountain Pen Articles, Fountain Pen Histories and Fountain Pen Essays that have been published either online or in obscure books or jorunals. Things that I found while doing research on other pen topics and I thought were too good to be lost to obscurity and should be put online where a Google search could unearth them easily for the fountain pen enthusiast and fountain pen researcher.. If you know of an article that should be placed here, please let me know.
Feel free to use this information as you like, but I would appreciate a mention for the Kamakura pens site if you publish an article, or book with information gathered here. Recently, I have seen people publish pen articles exclusively from my archive with out any mention at all and that always breaks my heart.
Any Comments? Please send an e-mail to: rd@kamakurapens.com |
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Found in the Van Wert Republican | 1888-05-03
Wanted—An Endurable/ Pen.
As for pens, will mankind ever invent
an endurable pen? The quill
makes a dreadful noise, as Dora found,
when she tried to keep accounts in the
presence of David Coppertield. Indeed,
the adventures of Dora with her pens
are only those of less feather-headed
scribes." The quill splutters a small
shower of ink, a murky drizzle over the
fingers, as over the lace ruffles that
Buffon wore when he wrote. The descending
drizzle dots i's where no
i should be, nor indeed is, and per.
plexes printers. Meanwhile the steel
pen begins as badly ns a lame cabhorse,
and rusts readily. After an
hour's work the wretched instrument
needs to be taken twice over every
stroke, otherwise it does not mark at
all. One of its legs becomes shorter
than the other.
Paper is the only thing that has made
an advance on birch bark, sheets of
lead, potsherds and parchment; nor
can paper bear comparison with the
vellum of the past. A kind of "pad,"
otherwise useful, has become hairy,
and the hairs cling to the pen. No
fountain pen has yet proved successful.
You have to blow down them, to thump
them, to humor them in a dozen ways,
and they explode in your pocket and
flood you with ink. The wonder is that
when writing is so difficult so much is
written. Nature may wisely desire to
handicap authors. But it is the business
of science to thwart nature and to
invent and perfect tout ce qu*l faut
pour ecrire.— Saturday Review.