This world would be a far different place if there were peace among pens. As it is, however, every pen wears a drop of ink on its shoulder.
Not even the tender ministrations of chamois cloth will soothe its savage heart. It is deaf to sweet reasonableness. Returning drunk from the inkwell, it will smutch the hand that fed it, cast blots upon the fairest names, and ravish virgin sheets of paper. And when you try to force it to a more civilized way of behaving, you discover it has its points crossed.
A pen thus divided against itself will not write. There must be freedom for the black fluid. There must be perfect harmony—two prongs with but a single point, two parts that meet as one. Disunion is a sign of weakness.
I had a pen once whose prongs became estranged. They were egoists: each followed his individual bent, and was determined to make his own mark in his own field. For the sake of appearances, they took their meals of ink together, but immediately afterward, when pressure was brought to bear upon them, they separated. Yet when one of them, striving too hard after originality, broke under the strain, his widow was left desolate.
More domestic in an old-fashioned way is that staunch, blunt family, the Stubbs. They are firm and substantial sort of pens. By people who dislike them they are called phlegmatic, stodgy, close, stiffnibbed; and it must be admitted, they do lack the sprightliness of the Sharps; but, after all, these unyielding puritans, with their heavy touch, are more trustworthy than their acute but volatile cousins. For temperament in a pen finds vent in sudden splutterings.
The difference in their natures is evidenced by the way they meet obstacles. The Stubbs, plodding along doggedly, overcome all hazards in the paper; whereas the Sharps, tripping nonchalantly, come to grief at the first bunker, and before they get started again, waste several strokes and gouge the course. And when the Sharps attempt to run the gauntlet of expensive linen stationery (the higher the price, the higher the ridges), they get held up at every cable crossing. But there is a kind of paper—smooth, slippery, insidious—that prompts both the Sharps and the Stubbs to evil ways. They know they are doing wrong, however; for they are ashamed, and conceal their tracks, rendering all tracing impossible.
It is a great pity that pens are not more consistent about their ink giving. One moment they are stingy, and the next lavish. Perhaps this may be due to absent-mindedness.
Beginning a letter to a crabbed old relative, you say to your pen, "Give me a little ink for 'Dear Uncle Jonathan.'"
It ignores the request. You urge again. Still it is thinking of something else. "Here, wake up, now!" (You shake it violently.) "Give me some ink!"