Question

For years, Arthur had kept the ledger of the shipping company in the same desk drawer, beneath the brass weights and the inkwells that had dried to crust decades ago. The harbor outside his window was a changing canvas; iron-hulled steamships now churned the gray water where wooden merchant ships once drifted, and the young clerks in the main office spoke of telegraphs and transoceanic cables with a casual, dizzying familiarity. Arthur, however, worked only by the light of the tall window, dipping his steel nib with a rhythmic, scratching cadence that seemed to anchor him to the floorboards. Today, his nephew had brought him a modern typewriter, its black enameled frame gleaming with progress, urging him to abandon the ledger. Arthur stared at the machine’s keys, which resembled small, blank faces waiting to speak. He touched one, feeling the cold, coiled spring beneath it, then gently pushed the machine to the corner of his desk. He opened his ledger, smoothed the clean, cream-colored page with the palm of his hand, and began to write the date in his customary, ornate copperplate. The modern world could roar at the gates, but within this small square of oak, the ink remained wet, and the columns remained balanced, just as they had when his father first handed him the pen.

In the passage, the description of Arthur's interaction with the typewriter and his subsequent return to the ledger primarily serves to convey which of the following?