|
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 |
|
Found in the Stevens Point Daily Journal Sept 27, 1917
PENS OF THE PAST.
The Old Time Quill and the Art of
Putting a Point on It.
Quill pens are no longer used except
In rare old fashioned instances, but
people still use "penknives"—you can
see the name any day in the cutlery
store windows—but they do not use
them to make or mend pens. In fact,
where is there a. man or woman who
knows how to put a point on a quill?
It was once an art which every man
had to master, though women were
generally bad at It. as they are now at
sharpening pencils.
In the old days the first question
asked of a schoolmaster was the one
whether he was skillful in pointing
quills, for he had to sharpen the pens
of his whole school and incidentally Instruct
his pupils in the art. Alas!
There Is no modern pen of steel or gold
that is so smooth, so swift, so alluring
as a good quill pen. The writer is very
sure of that, for his father used to tell
him so.
The art of handwriting has certainly
declined since the quill pen went out of
Tiae. The old fellows could really write.
We still pay them an unconscious tribute
by ciiUIug a writer a "quill
driver" and picturing the pen. whenever
we have to make an abstract representation
of it, as a quill.—New
York Mail.