In the long summer
evenings of northern climes the air sometimes smells of words that are half-forgotten.
This smell is warm and faintly fragrant and is underlined by a subtle breeze.
The old floorboards creak in sing-song. The leaves are fat and heavy and
tormenting the ripe branches. The words linger in the dusk and they don’t know
if they want to be recalled or left in half-oblivion. If only they could be
captured in ink we could see them and remember. But the bottle is empty.
It is a Field’s
Rainbow Range of Coloured Inks bottle that takes Palimpsest’s fancy this
evening - a substantial glass bottle with an arrow-shaped paper label - green chequered
border, a rainbow, a devilish ink-blot boy revelling in the ink droplets
dripping from the quill. It was produced sometime in the 1920s by Caribonum
Ltd, a carbon paper, typewriter ribbons and ink manufacturer, which set up
business in Leyton, London, in 1908. A paper strip around the bottle neck
informs of the ink’s colour: 334D Green.
And so in this late
summer evening when the old words are floating in the breeze, the old dried ink
is stirred and slowly dissolves and receives the steel pen, after many years
and is resurrected. It touches the paper, it dries. It is a watered, fossilized
green. But an instant before it dries the eye can catch a glimpse of its old
forgotten brilliance. Of the time when it shone and the world was open to
possibilities.
More Field's inks in 1001 ink bottles. And Inklinks' ink section.
It has a great shading. I wonder which green ink can perform like that today?
ReplyDeleteGoulet Pens has posted numerous ink swabs on its Web site the last I checked. May be worth a look. Jack/USA
ReplyDelete