In
the dark alleys of Bleak House’s plot ink abounds. Dickens’ labyrinth Chancery
Court case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce which permeates the plot of Bleak House is itself laid out in interminable ink
markings. Legal proceedings, love letters, communications, missives, wills and
testaments, all in ink - ink stored in stoneware pots, in ink wells, at the tip
of goose quills. Clerks are dipping their quills in ink as does the scheming
lawyer Tulkinghorn, Caddy Jellyby is covered in it, and it is Nemo’s skilful
way with quill and ink that sets the wheels of revelation in motion.
Mr Tulkinghorn’s quill
"Here,
in a large house, formerly a house of state, lives Mr Tulkinghorn. …
He has some manuscript near him, but is not
referring to it.With the round top of an inkstand and two broken bits of
sealing-wax, he is silently and slowly working out whatever train of indecision
is in his mind.
Now, tbe inkstand top is in the middle: now, the red
bit of sealing-wax, now the black bit. That’s not it. Mr Tulkinghorn must
gather them all up, and begin again."
Caddy Jellyby’s quill.
"But what principally struck us was a jaded and
unhealthy-looking, though by no means plain girl, at the writing-table, who sat
biting the feather of her pen, and staring at us. I suppose nobody ever was in
such a state of ink. ... She would not sit
down, but stood by the fire, dipping her inky middle finger in the egg-cup,
which contained vinegar, and smearing it over the ink stains on her face,
frowning the whole time and looking very gloomy."
Nemo's ink
"It
is a small room, nearly black with soot, and grease, and dirt. In the rusty
skeleton of a grate, pinched at the middle as if Poverty had gripped it, a red
coke fire burns low. In the corner by the chimney, stand a deal table and a
broken desk: a wilderness marked with a rain of ink. "
Nemo's handwriting
"Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Snagsby.”
“Yes, sir.” Mr Snagsby turns up the gas, and coughs behind his
hand, modestly anticipating profit. Mr Snagsby, as a timid man, is accustomed
to cough with a variety of expressions, and so to save words.
“You copied some affidavits in that cause for me lately.”
“Yes, sir, we did.”
“There was one of them,” says Mr Tulkinghorn, carelessly feeling
— tight, unopenable Oyster of the old school! — in the wrong coat-pocket, “the
handwriting of which is peculiar, and I rather like.
Mr Snagsby's ink
Mr
Snagsby has dealt in all
sorts of blank forms of legal process; in skins and rolls of parchments; in
paper - foolscap, brief, draft, brown, white, whitey-brown, and blotting; in
stamps; in office-quills, pens, ink, India rubber, pounce, pins, pencils,
sealing-wax, and wafers.
Stephens Blue Black Writing Fluid
Hello and thank you for a most fascinating blog... I feel a meeting if the minds! I'm happy to have stumbled upon your blog and will follow from now on! I am artist and bookbinder, collector of all things related to writing... Perhaps you'd like to see my work: parvumopus.com.
ReplyDeleteWith gratitude and best regards from your new fan,
Erika Stefanutti
Thank you Erika for your comments. Your site looks delicious!
ReplyDeletePalimpsest, you have the eyes of a hawk. Nice post. Jack/USA
ReplyDeleteHello again, Palimpsest, I was just marveling at your comments re: Baudrillard and the life of objects... I'm looking at all of my collections with new eyes! I'm wondering if there are other texts you'd recommend that treat this subject as beautifully as the one you quoted. I'm reminded of the science writing--poetry, really, of Donald Culross Peatie's "Almanac for Moderns." Best regards, Erika
ReplyDeleteWhat spring to mind is Sonja Neef's "Imprint and Trace, Handwriting in the age of technology". It doesn't deal with objects though. Its main theme is handwriting and how it has changed as technology changed; writing technology; the relationship between the physical and the technical - the trace and the imprint.
ReplyDeleteThis is fascinating, Palimpsest. I like the mention of broken bits of sealing wax, it always breaks into pieces and people must have been used to using fragments rather than whole sticks.
ReplyDeleteNemo's handwriting is not bad; what often strikes me in these period dramas is that if you see someone writing with a quill or dip pen they are obviously not used to it and if you see the writing itself it is often amateurish, or not the product of the pen you just saw.
Alan, it looks like the writing is not done by the actor. I guess they've used a calligrapher for the job. Also note he's using a steel pen, not a quill.
ReplyDelete