Miseries of Life: Writing

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Loretta reports:

My post title refers not my personal writing miseries, but those of the perennial sufferers Timothy Testy and Samuel Sensitive, in James Beresford's extremely popular The Miseries of Human Life.  I've excerpted from this book before* and will again, because it shows how human miseries have and haven't changed since the early 19th century. The perils of writing, for instance.  Mending pens is a skill few of us can boast. These days, our trials and tribulations tend to be keyboard and touchscreen related.  Even when we do take up pencil or pen, our frustrations are not the same.  And yet I can relate to the caricature of the bad pens.  I'm still looking for The Perfect Pen.

In the meantime, we can decide whether we do or do not prefer the writing miseries of Jane Austen's time.

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—The Miseries of Human Life; or The Groans of Timothy Testy, and Samuel Sensitive [by J. Beresford].  James Beresford 1806.  Courtesy Internet Archive.

* Here, here, here, and here.