On Lending a Pen.
Probably everyone has observed that the owners of fountain pens are loath to lend them. They do not care to lend them even for a signature, and when the request is for a longer period, it is with fear and foreboding that they let their darlings pass out of their hands.
This is not pure selfishness, either. A fountain pen becomes in a very real way a part of its owner. It grows fitted to his hand. Does he write backhand? Is he a devotee of the vertical system? Is his penmanship a fine Italian script? Does he emulate John Hancock in the vigor of his chirography? Whatever his style of writing may be, his pen soon learns it. The sympathetic instrument "gets on to his curves," as the baseball slang is. It accommodates itself to the favorite position of his hand. The nib, as it wears, forms itself at right angles to the slant of his writing. In its owner's hand, it runs smoothly, responsively, almost like a thing of life.
But in another hand,—ugh! The nib is at cross purposes with the new position, and scratches and splutters. Lucky if it does not catch in the paper and break off. There is no sympathy, no ease, no responsiveness, nothing but unwillingness and antagonism. The pen is like a snarling cat in the arms of a strange visitor, and its owner listens with dismay to its protestations. If, by chance, the instrument returns unharmed, its temper is ruffled, and some time is required to smooth its fur again.
Every man to his own tools! That is a good rule of thought and action. Whatever the tool may be, wit, argument, pleasantry, invective, science, philosophy, pleading, the matter-of-fact wisdom of practical life, let each man use the tool to which he is accustomed, and not try to do his own work with another's instrument. Be yourself, and you will be your best possible. Build upon your own past, and you will build as high as you can hope to go. Use your own pen, and you will turn out the best penmanship.