George Eliot's Pencil

The pencil is conscious of a delightful facility in drawing a griffin—the longer the claws, and the larger the wings, the better; but that marvellous facility which we mistook for genius is apt to forsake us when we want to draw a real unexaggerated lion. Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings—much harder than to say something fine about them which is not the exact truth.

George Eliot, Adam Bede (1859)

George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Anne Evans (1819-1880), English novelist and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She used a male pen name because she wanted to be taken seriously and avoid being stereotyped as female writer of lighthearted romances.

Toni Morrison's Invisible Ink

Invisible ink is what lies under, between, outside the lines, hidden until the right reader discovers it. By right reader, I’m suggesting that certain books are not for every reader ... Even a reader who loves the book may not be the best or right lover. The reader who has made the book is the one attuned to ... discover the invisible ink. ~ Toni Morison

 Toni Morison 1993 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and professor emeritus in the Council of Humanities, Princeton University, spoke of the relationship between readers and text ~ read more here.

George Eliot's ink

George Eliot by Samuel Laurence ca. 1860

With a single drop  of ink for a mirror, the Egyptian sorcerer undertakes to reveal to any chance comer far-reaching visions of the past. This is what I undertake to do for you, reader. With this drop of ink at the end of my pen, I will show you the roomy workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder, in the village of Hayslope, as it appeared on the eighteenth of June, in the year of our Lord 1799.

George Eliot, Adam Bede (1859)

George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Anne Evans (1819-1880), English novelist and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She used a male pen name because she wanted to be taken seriously and avoid being stereotyped as female writer of lighthearted romances.

Check out George Eliot's blotting paper displayed in the George Eliot Gallery, Nuneaton Museum, Warwickshire. 

Pencil Spotting in the Design Museum Copenhagen

The Design Museum in Copenhagen - Designmuseum Danmark - was founded in 1890 and was housed in its current location - one of Copenhagen's rococo buildings - in 1926. The museum is a haven for 20th-century Danish applied arts and industrial design enthusiasts - there are plenty of chairs to be seen and admired -  but also includes furniture from the olden days too. Writing instrument fiends will be pleased to known that a Staedtler Noris pencil has been spotted among the modern exhibits while in the historical section there is a fine collection of writing desks.