A Pen’s Personality

I first discovered the pleasure of a good pen my freshman year at Bob Jones University. The manager of the bookstore, a short, round, balding man who always carried at least 5 fountain pens in his shirt pocket, decided to share his love of writing instruments. He installed three large glass cases filled with fountain pens of varying prices. I’m not sure why—it doesn’t make much sense to offer pens costing anywhere from $30-$500 to college students. I suppose he couldn’t help himself. I’m glad he did, anyway. I would go and stare for a half hour at a time, examining the varying styles, their finish and polish, asking to look at some of them, and trying them out. Some were hand painted with designs and patterns; some were made of colorful woods; some were titanium. Some looked stately, others homely. They were all heavy and solid. I began saving bits of my meager paycheck so I could buy one. Shortly thereafter, the bookstore decided to put on a “pen fair” to showcase its products to the public and inform it that not all pens cost a few cents. He invited vendors of fine writing instruments from the surrounding area—one even brought a $10,000 pen made from hand-carved mammoth ivory.

My friends couldn’t understand my fascination with pens—how could anyone like them enough to pay the price of a video game, or more, for one? I suppose my attraction to quality pens goes back to my love of writing. For most of human history, writers have used pens. They have varied in shape and kind—anything from a wooden stylus used to write in clay, to a feather—but they were all pens. It is only in the last 50 or so years that keyboards have pushed pens out of the picture. There is a sense of history, of tradition, that accompanies writing with a good pen.

But beyond that, I like them for the same reason I like old houses with crown moldings, wood floors, and leaded glass; for the same reason I like old cars that are made of real metal; for the same reason I love musty books and leather journals—I like fine pens because they have character. Now, you may ask, what is character? That’s a difficult thing to answer. Character is an intangible quality that separates something from other things of its kind. It’s what makes things unique. But it’s more than that—I suppose it’s akin to personality. Things with character live for generations—they weather many storms and get better with age. Things with character are what give antique stores their ethos. You don’t throw away something with character—you preserve it. Or at least you should.

Character has value. In an era and mass production, most things are cheap, fast, and sterile. They are made to work and to wear out. They are made to attract the eye, but not to keep its attention. Their attractiveness is skin-deep. When they are gone, they will be forgotten. I believe the loss of quality in everything from houses, to cars, to, yes, even pens, says something important about our culture. It tells me we have lost our soul as a civilization, and we are more concerned with the moment than with the past or the future. We will buy anything, as long as it looks good now. But will anyone in the distant future look back and admire what we’ve done? Will anything we’ve produced last that long?

If we’re honest, we will admit we desire something more. The love of character goes back to the desire, rooted deep in the human heart, for the unique, the beautiful, the lasting. Now no one thing can satisfy that desire, (a pen certainly can’t), but things with character—even small things—are pieces of the puzzle. There is a certain pleasure in permanence, and we endeavor to create a sense of it. We surround ourselves with things that are familiar and unique—things that reflect something about our own nature. Our culture has lost that, to some degree. We have traded the lasting for the exciting, and we have been looking for a substitute ever since.

Take the example of the cheap plastic pen. It doesn’t help you write, it doesn’t encourage you—it fights you. You have to scribble roughly on paper to get the ink to even begin flowing, and once it does, you have to press hard to get it to continue. You can’t write with one for very long before your hand starts to cramp and you give up. No wonder keyboards are preferred.
But take a quality pen in hand and touch it to the paper—immediately the ink begins to flow, and if you’re not careful, it might create an unsightly splotch. When you begin to write, the pen glides across the paper effortlessly. The weight of the pen presses down for you, and you feel as if you could write for hours. All the while, you are aware that a craftsman made this pen, and, even though it may be similar to others, it is unique. It will survive for posterity. The difference between a cheap pen and a pen with character is the difference between a Geo Metro and an original Ford GT 40. It’s a world of difference—and it’s worth paying for.

Thy Decay Shall Bloom Again: An Exposition

The following essay is an exposition of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem, “The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo.” Please take the time to read this poem before you read the essay, or the essay will be nonsensical!

“Entrust Truth, whatsoever thou hast from Truth, and thou shalt lose nothing” said St. Augustine, and in so saying, he articulated the theme of Gerard Manley Hopkins musical poem, “The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo.” In this poem, Hopkins explores the nature of beauty and life, and man’s unceasing quest to preserve both. Instead of simply telling the reader his conclusions, however, he shows the reader the problem and the solution in the form of a parable, leaving the reader to decide which course to take.

Understanding the significance of the poem’s subtitle is helpful in comprehending the meaning of the poem. First, the subtitle tells the reader that the poem is discussing maidens, young girls, who are singing at a well called St. Winifred’s. Second, the subtitle gives the setting of the poem, St. Winifred’s well, which tells the reader what the maidens are seeking. St. Winifred’s well is a Catholic sacred site in Holywell, Wales, a site which is purported to have miraculous healing powers. According to legend, the well sprung up at the site where St. Winifred was beheaded by her attempted rapist. Winifred was restored to life, however, at the prayers of her uncle, Beuno, and consequently spent the rest of her life as a nun. Winifred’s well is significant to this poem for two reasons: as the setting, it indicates that the the maidens are seeking healing; and second, the dedication of St. Winifred is set forth as an example and a cure to the despairing maidens.

Hopkins begins his parable by demonstrating the hopelessness of a life not given to God in the desperate plea of the maidens in “The Leaden Echo”. The maidens, who are the speakers in this stanza, are young and beautiful. They know, though, that their youth and beauty will not last, and some are already beginning to see the appearance of “sad and stealing messengers of grey”– indicators of the onset of aging. These indicators tell them that their beauty will soon be stolen by relentless time, so they seek a cure. The maidens have heard of St. Winifred’s well and its miraculous healing powers, and have come hoping to be healed from age. It is likely that they think the well is a fountain of youth. When they discover that the well cannot heal them, however, they ask, “Is there ány any, is there . . . nowhere known some, bow or / brooch or braid or brace, láce, latch or catch or key to keep / Back beauty, keep…beauty…from vanishing away?”(1-3).

The question of the maidens transcends just them, however, and their appeal is symbolic of mankind’s timeless quest to reverse the curse of the Fall through magic and science. The name of the poem and subsequently the stanzas are indicative of this as well, as the references to lead and gold refer to the ancient pseudo-science of alchemy. For centuries, alchemists sought a way by which to turn lead into gold, to turn the worthless into the priceless. Moreover, most alchemists also sought a mythical potion called the Elixir of Life, which was supposed to grant anyone who imbibed it immortality. It is transformation and immortality then, that mankind, symbolized by the maidens, seeks.

Hopkins continues his parable by showing the fruitlessness of seeking to preserve physical beauty through natural means in the reply that is echoed back to the maidens question. The leaden echo responds, saying that nothing exists to preserve youth and beauty, and harshly tells the maidens that, if they are wise, they will simply despair of keeping them: “No there ’s none, there ’s none, O no there ’s none, / Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair, / Do what you may do, what, do what you may, / And wisdom is early to despair” (6-9). The stanza closes poignantly, describing the “despair, despair, despair” (19) that the maidens experience when they realize that the beauty and youth they value so much cannot be preserved.

Hopkins has powerfully shown the plight of those who seek to preserve their beauty through physical means and so concludes with the cure to mankind’s great dilemma of transformation and immortality. In “The Golden Echo”, he presents how the leaden can be made golden, how the corruptible can be made incorruptible. While it is uncertain who the speaker in the second stanza is, it appears that it is St. Winifred herself, as the speaker makes mention of her own fleeting feminine beauty as a point of commonality with the maidens: “whatever’s prized and passes of us, everything that’s fresh and fast flying of us . . . ” (23). The fact that the setting is Winifred’s well strongly suggests this also.

She beings by comforting the maidens, telling them to “spare” their cries of grief. She fully gains their attention in saying that she knows of a cure, but that it is “not within seeing of the sun”– that is, it is not physical. All that is beautiful and feminine, she continues, can be preserved, but only in giving it away. Suddenly, her reply turns into a request, even a challenge, to the maidens to give their beauty “back . . . to God, beauty’s self and beauty’s giver” (35). She then points to herself as an example of God’s preserving care, saying, “see; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hair / Is, hair of the head, numbered” (36-37).

Unfortunately, the maidens do not understand and do not believe Winifred’s testimony, and therefore say that, if they give beauty and youth up so freely, it will certainly pass away and leave them with nothing: “Nay, what we had lighthanded left in surly the mere mould / Will have waked and have waxed and have walked with the wind what while we slept . . . ” (38-39). St. Winifred responds wearily that, if beauty must be given up either way, why not give it up to the One who can preserve it for us far better than we could preserve it for ourselves: “O then, weary then / Why when the thing we freely fórfeit is kept with fonder a care…than we could have kept it…(and we, we should have lost it)” (42-45). Still skeptical, the maidens ask, “Where kept? Do but tell us where kept, where” (46). St. Winifred, points simply to the sky and says, “Yonder” (47.) Finally, it begins to dawn on the maidens that Winifred is speaking of a spiritual, other worldly means of preserving vitality and beauty: “What high as that! We follow, now we follow” (47).

Hopkins has now concluded his parable and leaves the decision of the maidens uncertain. This inconclusive ending allows the reader to decide whether or not God, the author of beauty, is a good enough keeper of it. Hopkins’ own conclusion, however, is clear, and his poem’s theme echoes, quite literally, the words of Christ in Matthew 16:25, “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

Hopkins’ poem creatively and powerfully communicates an answer to a timeless question. More than an answer, though, this poem is really a plea, a plea to give youth and beauty to God, the source of both. Only in doing this can one be transformed into something incorruptible, eternal, and beautiful. St. Augustine said it best when he said, “Entrust Truth, whatsoever thou hast from Truth, and thou shalt lose nothing; and thy decay shall bloom again, and all thy diseases be healed, and they mortal parts be reformed and renewed, and bound around thee: nor shall they lay thee whither themselves descend; but they shall stand fast with thee, and abide for ever before God, who abideth and standeth fast for ever.” Indeed, the resurrection of the dead upon Christ’s return is the only means by which beauty can be restored and preserved eternally. The prerequisite to this resurrection, though, is a complete surrender to God and a presentation of the body “as a living sacrifice” to Him (Romans 12:1). Immortality, then, comes at a high price– the price of a life given to the service of its Creator. It is wisely, then, that Hopkins’ allows the reader, as Winifred allows the maidens, to count the cost.