A Ream of Paper

Evening Star, Issue 23379, 23 September 1939, Page 3

A Ream of Paper

Five shillings, though it does not buy as much now as in the days when [Victoria's strong chinless, profile was stamped on coins, is still a tidy sum. As the equivalent of two art union tickets it means all, or, more probably, nothing. In terms of mid-loin chops or oranges it means distressingly less than it once meant; but it still has the power to purchase something intoxicating far beyond the unemotional calculated communism of a lottery ticket, something sustaining far beyond the strength ot mutton or fruit. For five shillings one may buy one ream of quarto paper, ruled feint (why not faint?), with margin. • Physically, a ream of paper is very attractive. In its neat package, with its straight-forward yet. tantalising smell, it has the charm of everything that is fresh and untouched. Opened, it is cold and smooth to the hand, and white as winter ere the sun was low. or our lawn before the milkman crossed the first day of the unforgettable snowfall. It is like an ice-covered pond before the 'first skater has left the bank. It resembles the lovely shining strand) before .anyone has marred it with footprints, footprints that perhaps another. ... It is a field from which either wheat or tares may spring up. In fact, to contemplate a ream of paper is to feel an embarrassment of similes such as overwhelmed Shelley when he heard his skylark. This paper, smooth and blank and . old now, has had a past. Ido not know whether this ream has evolved _ from wood-pulp or from rag-bag, but if the doctrine of transmigration of souls could be extended to-inanimate things it : would help to explain why poetry springs up in unexpected places. A pencil, idly scribbling in somebody’s hand, touches a place where in some long dead spring leaves once burst from a bough; and there to-day is a lyric. If the opinions of Pythagoras could touch the contents of the rag-bag, less regretfully should we. cast out to the rag and bottle man a threadbare bo l**ed garment; for the rightness of that garment would not disappear in the paper mill, but would leap up on the biank page to assist a candidate groping in the examination room for the style that was eluding him. Such a belief would explain the inexplicable feeling of recognition experienced when vm meet in a novel a character that is ♦finely reminiscent of one of our friends. Of course, written on paper raacle out of his old overcoat. . To. unwrap the ream of foolscap is to . feql that touch of Nature that makes the whole world kin. The paper lies uadbr the hand, firm yet springy, just like the turf as preferred by golfers. To smooth those unsullied sheets is to . know the thrill of the potter when he feels beneath his thumb the wet clay, and to sympathise with the sculptor when, he gazes on the block of stone that stalwart workmen have hoisted up the step of his studio. The beautiful i thing apout new paper is that it does not expect to he distorted into shapes

Written by PANACHE, for the ‘ Evening Star.’

of caps or ships, or to be torn into spills, but only to be written on. But, with misgivings, a phrase strikes the ear —“ respect for material.” The Greeks showed such respect for beautiful material that they would not cut into it to make their garments, but draped and folded it whole. This paper, held up to the light, is revealed as superfine ivory. How much respect is due to superfine ivory? Do not waste it, admonish the careful : do not hoard it, implore the .scribblers. Some parents shower on the children in prodigal fashion whole new sheets, and the grateful children repay them by being very quiet for a time. It is so lonely, when one is young, and so unexpected, not to be exhorted to use both sides; but it is rare, such wanton understanding extravagance in parents. Paper hoarders who themselves preserve the half sheets of notepaper removed from invitations and acknowledgments, are so unsympathetic as to remark that the Bronte sisters made do with ordinary exercise books, while war novels written in the trenches were scribbled on the insides of papers removed from tins of condensed milk.

Superfine ivory, so smooth and inviting, has its perils and may prove treacherous. The eye, dazzled by the relentless whiteness of those twenty quires, those 480 sheets, retreats behind smoked glasses. The little finger, trailing over the cold surface, develops a chilblain. On the side of the hand the sharp edge of the paper makes fine cuts, and so misleads palmists into reading into the hand an extra child or so. The’faint pleasant smell of new paper is overladen with the grosser smell of old ink. Double meanings are read into, simple statements, and innocent words are alleged to be libellous. Considering all the trouble that a man takes for a ream of paper, the superfine ivory is brutishly _ unresponsive. He buys it, pays for it, carries it carefully home, not allowing it to rub against his other parcel, the fish for lunch. He puts it on’his best bookcase, pats it, smoothes it, cajoles it. preserves it from germs by puffing at it the best Virginian tobacco mingled with the aroma of expensive China tea. He endows it with distinguished ancestors, poking about in woodpulp fqr a lissom dryad, hosing into rag bags for some elegant if shabby gown. He assures it its perfume is enchanting, its promise infinite. Ho woos it with his life-long fountain pen or his newest tasselled silver pencil. He grumbles at it in a friendly fashion, as one man to another. And what docs it do for him in return? Nothing, nothing whatever. Let it remember, let this ream of superfine ivory take note, what Linden resembled when another sun rose, what our lawn looked like when the thaw had finished with it, what any shining strand looks like after a popular picnic. And let it reflect how little credit may bq claimed by an intoxicant the morning after.