Mark Twain's Works - Europe and Elsewhere

In all these years the American fountain pen has hardly got a start in Europe. There is no market for it. It is too handy, too inspiring, too capable, too much of a time saver. The dismal steel pen and the compass-jawed quill are preferred. And semiliquid mud is preferred to ink, apparently, everywhere in Europe. This in face of the fact that there is ink to be had in America-and at club rates, too.

Mark Twain