Literature Network » Anna Sewell

I PREFER TO MAKE MY POINT WITH A PENCIL

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From: The Sunday Telegraph London
Date: 20080330
Author:Sandi Toksvig

IT'S A CURIOUS THING THAT I KNOW

a quote from Stan Laurel, a man perhaps more noted for his silence than his pronouncements. It's not brilliant but it probably got a laugh in his day when he declared 'A horse may be coaxed to drink, but a pencil must be lead.' I like pencils. The ratio of pencil to rubber suggests an optimistic tool and yet one that allows for the possibility of error.

I spend a great deal of time in the British Library, where pens are banned and pencils reign supreme. They were the instrument of choice of so many writers. Hemingway wrote only in lead, as did Anna Sewell, ...

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