Does anyone know a supplier of quill pens?
By: David Blake
Tags: Handwriting, Letter Writing, Handwrittenletters, Writing, Letters

I am slowly reading through a book by the historian and television presenter Lucy Worsley about the life of Jane Austen. It is aptly called ‘Jane Austen at Home’ and most of the narrative concerns her home life.

Jane Austen was a writer and it seems that her life revolved around this passion. But not only did she write novels but she was also a consummate letter writer. Wherever she was to be found letter writing was very much part of her daily routine. We are told that her letters reveal what on the surface may seem trivial information, but in fact they add flesh to the bones which are so often considered important by the historians and social commentators. Yet in many cases we are only have a broad outline of what life was like in the latter part of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th.

According to an article by the Morgan Library and Museum of New York, it is conjectured that Jane Austen wrote over 3,000 letters, of which only 160 have survived.

How interesting it is, for example, to read of her comments about her pen nibs! Yes even something as mundane as her pen nibs were commented on in her letters. She complains at one time of how hard she found her pen nibs to be, with the result that her wrists were aching because the hard nibs made it more difficult to move her pen across the paper. One presumes she used quill pens, so could it be that different types of birds produced quills of varying quality? If so, which birds produced the best pens? We are told that most quills came from goose feathers. I wonder did the hardness of the quills, which Jane complains of, had any correlation with the quality of the meat these birds produced. Interesting thought but hardly relevant to today — unless of course you are a Luddite, goose meat eating novelist.

It is avenues of thought like this that I so much enjoy pursuing. Sometimes I am led up a blind ally and the thoughts hardly get time to develop. But at other times it seems as if I start out on a highway and then end up going down endless byways until I have almost forgotten what train of thought started me out on this journey.

Meandering musings.

But enough of Miss commitment pen nibs for the time being, let us return to her letters. Letter writing today has become a lost art. Business letters are printed out by templates with particular details inserted by a computer for some vast database of information. How refreshing it is when we receive an envelope that is addressed by hand and the letter in side has been written by a real person. I can’t think of the last time I had such a pleasure. Such individual works of art are just another fond memory of days gone by. Ah! Those were the days. Long balmy summers’ evening and crisp frosty mornings and frozen ponds.

The benefits of hand written letters are not only confined to the recipient. The time and effort taken by the writer has its benefits too — more on this in a while. This is a win-win situation but like so many things today technology has moved in and the ancient practice of writing a letter by hand has been evicted from our lives.

I have often thought what happiness or encouragement or solace I could bring someone by simply writing them a letter. Imagine the surprise they would get when picking up their post sitting in amongst the robot generated bills and circulars was and envelope with handwriting on it. Then the realisation that here were the written words of a real person who had taken the time and effort to speak to them. You could guarantee that this would be the first envelope they opened, if nothing more than to satisfy their curiosity.

So what is stopping us reviving the lost art of letter writing? Like so many other things the answer lies with each one of us as individuals. This is not some collective activity. It will require a personal commitment where individuals like you and me pick up a pen — quill pen if you are that way inclined — and transfer our thoughts to paper.

Now I grant you there are many reasons why we have lapsed into such a state. So let’s examine them and see how we can overcome them.

In no particular order, as they say, firstly we can use the old chestnut of not having enough time to indulge ourselves in sitting down to write a letter by hand. Let’s suppose you are going to write a two page letter on a sheet of A5 paper. Allowing for the address and date at the top of the letter and your signature at the bottom, you probably need to write no more than 300 words to fill the letter (unless of course you have minuscule handwriting). According to various articles I have read it can take anywhere between 20 minutes and 2 hours to set 300 words on paper. It depends on a number of factors such as experience in letter writing to the fluidity of our thoughts — in plain English, do I know what I am writing about. Obviously if I were to sit down to write a 300 page letter about brain surgery it would take me all of 2 hours and even longer. But if I am writing about some everyday experience or news of the family or the latest sports news then the words would flow much faster. I presume that none of us is contemplating writing a letter to someone about brain surgery in the near future! Coming back the Miss Austen for a moment, her letters contained some of the most mundane information and yet we read that they well received.

Are you lost for words when talking to someone about the weather? Do you find it difficult to talk about what you did over the weekend or that meal you enjoyed last Friday? There are a host of topics which we will readily talk about both to our acquaintances and those who we casually meet and strike up conversation. Therefore, if the content of your letter is primarily about something with which you are very familiar or have recently experienced, putting 300 or so words down on paper should not take more than 30 minutes topside. This hardly qualifies as a time consuming exercise. So that is our first excuse dealt with.

Next is that inner voice which says ‘you can’t just write a letter out of the blue — what will they think?’

There are two things to consider here. Firstly, you’ve got to start somewhere and once you’ve sent the first letter every other letter after that will seem quite normal. Indeed once you’ve started the person at the other end will start to look forward to your next letter and, of course, it may trigger them off to start writing to you. What are you waiting for — someone phoning you or texting you asking that you write them a letter? No. Go ahead and surprise them and put some light in their day, they’re hardly going to be offended.

But secondly under the excuse of not wanting to write ‘out one blue’ you may feel stuck as to where or how to begin. After all this is something you’ve never done before so the content of your first letter may be a barrier to actually starting. Well, how about opening your letter by explaining quite simply the reason as to why you are send them this letter, particularly a hand written letter. This will help them understand why you are doing it and lead to them to expect other letters to follow. Once you have broke the ice then the content of your later letters should be much easier. In fact once you have got into the habit you may well find that the 2 page letter you found so difficult to start with has turned in to many more pages and 300 words is just not enough to convey your thoughts. So don’t be worried about your first letter. The objections are all in your mind. You never know what joy and happiness you might bring into someone’s life when they receive your ‘out of the blue’ hand written letter.

Another thing that holds us all back is ‘who shall we write to?’ The answer to this will very much depend on our circle of family and friends and our relationships with them. For example, writing to someone we see frequently may not be the best person to choose. After all we’ve probably told them all or most of what we have to say and a letter may seem very strange to them. It would be much better to select someone who we have lost touch with or haven’t seen for a very long time. A letter would seem much more natural and of course it would enable us to renew our friendship, especially if because of distance and physical meeting was out of the question. They may be sitting in their house wondering how you are getting on and your letter would answer their thoughts. Make a list of family and friends who fall into this bracket and select one to start with. You can always add to your list once you’ve got into practice.

There is one group of people who would welcome such a letter more than anyone else. These are the many folk, especially the elderly, who are lonely and are in many cases housebound. They can go for days or even weeks hardly seeing anyone. What could be a better use of your time than to sit down and write a friendly letter to them. But who are these people and will they be suspicious if they receive a letter from out of the blue from a complete stranger.

What then is the future for handwritten letters? Is it to continue its inexorable decline until it is lost forever or can you or I do our little part to revive it and put some happiness into someone’s life? The answer depends on you and me.

‘Miss Austen — can you please recommend a good supplier of quill pens, please!’