The Written Word

Did you know that in Victorian times, mail (the only means of communication besides personal messenger) ran six times a day? This idea dazzled me as I read the back of the box containing my new quill pen. I bought it in the gift shop of the Tybee Island Lighthouse, as the helpful teen-aged clerk told me its particulars. "Do these things really write?" I asked him as I turned the pen over and over in my hands. He answered, "The feather pens do much better than the glass ones...they can hold a lot more ink." He went on to explain that he attended a private school that actually sent him to a class on how to write with them. It was an "outreach" class for the smart kids, for which he was taken out of gym. "Which is really too bad," he said. "I really like gym."


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The back of the box of "A Poet's Pen" reads:

"Cherished letters, elaborate calligraphy, hand written documents. Who can resist the chance to read, admire, reflect? To imagine the hand that wrote those flowing lines in dated but appealing prose? It makes one want to take a journal and write one's dearest thoughts, memories, and happenings. And create a link to future generations.

Daily correspondence was the rule in Victorian times. Lovers exchanged perfumed notes. Authors, scientists, and merchants corresponded daily. Royal mail steamships crossed the oceans. Mail coaches and mail trains carried mail everywhere. The Victorian postman delivered at least six times a day..."