Originally posted by dbriski
One of my good clients is asking about fountain pens. He specificly asked "How are fountain pens for everyday use?"
To me, that questions is similar to asking "How are fresh flowers for the home once a week?"
Writing is writing in terms of putting color and line on paper. You can write with a crayon. In fact, most Americans use a ball point pen the same way they learned to use their crayons...grind it into the paper.
A fountain pen will not be ground into paper...at least not for long and not without damage.
A fountain pen requires the writer to think as he forms letters and because our minds think far faster than our hand can write, the author of a handwritten document often produces a better thought out product. If nothing else, he has thought about what he is writing and taken care to form letters that are not smeared or unrecognizable...for the most part (There are ALWAYS exceptions.)
With a ballpoint or rollerball pen, the line width is fairly static. Because of this, we resort to underlining, printing, capitalizing, inserting parentheses and other writing tricks to convey emotion. An experienced fountain pen user can change his emotion by varying the line widths and changing colors of inks.
Take a look at a copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Do you think the signatures, particularly John Hancock's, would have been as impressive if they were written with a one line fits all ballpoint? And if you have not received a letter from a lover who used jasmine scented tanzanite ink, you have missed one of the great joys of life.
So back to those fresh flowers every week...as the Russian proverb says, "Take time to smell the roses." And I will add, take time to write a beautiful, fountain pen written note to someone. They will appreciate it far more than an email.