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When they had been together to hear a new opera, he, on his return home, would whistle correctly the greater portion of the music, having only heard it once." Personally, Mr. Gillott was rather short, and was of broad and sturdy build. He had a remarkably firm step, and there was a rhythmic regularity in his footfall. He was fond of light attire, and generally wore a white hat.
Neither of these two possesses the sensitiveness of those previously mentioned, but for work demanding more or less uniformity of line they will be found more satisfactory. The smaller points are liable to lead one into the quagmire of finicalness. When we get beyond the next in size, the "Gillott 404," there is nothing about the coarse steel points to especially commend them for artistic use.
Gillott as always being very cheery in manner, with a kind smile; and few words. He would stay for about half-an-hour or so, and then return with his friends down-stairs to smoke. I have heard papa, who, as you know, was no mean judge, say what a remarkably quick ear Mr. Gillott had for music.
There was not such a thing, I suppose, as a steel pen in the Province. Gillott and Perry had invented them in 1828; but they were sold at $36 a gross, and were too expensive to come into general use. Neither was there such a thing as a bit of india rubber, so very common now. Erasures had to be made with a knife.
Then, with an air of great mystery and care, he produced from his pocket the carefully-enveloped tooth, which he exhibited to his astonished friends as the identical tooth taken from his daughter's jaw the day before. It is well known that Mr. Gillott had accumulated a very large and fine collection of violins and other stringed musical instruments.
He soon came in penitence to Gillott, who again took him by the hand, and befriended him until his untimely death in 1845, at the age of 33. At the sale of Mr. Gillott's pictures after his decease, Müller's celebrated picture, "The Chess Players," fetched the enormous sum of £3,950. The story of Mr.
Gillott's introduction to the great landscape painter, Turner, has been variously told, but the basis of all the stories is pretty much the same. It seems that Gillott, long before Ruskin had dubbed Turner "the modern Claude," had detected the rare excellence of his works, and longed to possess some. He went to the dingy house in Queen Anne Street, and Turner himself opened the door.
From Brindley, the constructor of the earliest great canal, to Joseph Gillott, the inventor of the very steel pen with which this book is written; from Arkwright the barber who fashioned the first spinning-machine, to Crompton the weaver, whose mule gave rise to the mighty Manchester cotton trade; from Newcomen, who made the first rough attempt at a steam-engine, to Stephenson, who sent the iron horse from end to end of the land, the chief mechanical improvements in the country have almost all been due to the energy, intelligence, and skill of our labouring population.
Like everything that Mr. Gillott did, they bore the impress of original thought. After giving his name and address, and a few other particulars as to his wares, the advertisements went on to say something like this: "The number of pens produced in this factory in the year ending December 31st, 1836, was 250,000 grosses, or 3,000,000 dozens, or 36,000,000 pens."
Gillott raised himself to fame and fortune, but rather to describe the man himself, as he moved quietly and unobtrusively among his fellow men. One of his chief characteristics, it has always struck me, was his intense love of excellence in everything with which he had to do. It was a frequent jocular remark of his that "the best of everything was good enough for him."
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