About Quills
About Quills is an article written by J. A. H. published in The Bystander on 23 august 1905.
The article includes the first strophe of the Arthur Conan Doyle's poem : The Song of the Bow (1891).
About Quills
A few days ago I saw a sight which struck me as unique and suggestive. I am sure not many of my readers have seen the like; myself, never before. A cart-load of quill pens, no less! Nothing sensational, you will note, yet it is often the odd but unsensational thing that means most. Clearly, there must be a vast number of quills still in use for one stationer to receive such a stock, and I shall venture to say that few people would imagine there is any considerable business in this ancient writing instrument. You would suppose the industry to be as dead as the making of those arrows so finely sung by Sir Conan Doyle in "The White Company":—
- What of the shaft ?
- The shaft was cut in England:
- A long shaft, a strong shaft,
- Barbed and trim and true;
- So we'll drink all together
- To the grey goose feather
- And the land where the grey goose flew.
But, you see, it is not so, and despite the commonness of fountain-pens and typewriters, there must be many who still prefer the goose-quill to all new-fangled inventions. At the British Museum, and in some of the public libraries, quills are still offered to those using the reading rooms, but you seldom see people making use of them. Why anyone should prefer to scrape along with a quill, when he may have a smooth-running fountainpen, is more than I can understand. I am no admirer of the Yankee, but I thank him sincerely for inventing the fountain-pen. Mr. George Meredith, as befits one of the old school, has remained faithful to the quill, and when on one occasion I had the pleasure of seeing through his quaint little study at Boxhill, I found such an abundance of quills in his inkstand that — I confess it boldly — I made no scruple of possessing myself of one, which I treasure as a "rich legacy," to be mentioned in my will!
J. A. H.
