Edith Wharton's pen

On a trip to Taos in 2002, I splurged and spent two nights at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House sipping coffee in the well appointed dining room, gazing through the trees at the mountains and sleeping in the Willa Cather Room.

Willa Cather is an author I admire. Not only had she written My Antonia, but I later learned of her book about New Mexico, Death Comes for the Archbishop. Four years later, I read and followed the Archbishop's route searching for a peaceful retreat.

If memory serves me, my thinking back then was perhaps if I slept in Cather's bedroom, and drank coffee in a room where D.H. Lawrence and Georgia O'Keefe supped I might become so inspired that I'd come away with fodder for a good tale.

A life-long symbolist, I cherish the notion that a bed can become a novel, and that perhaps a fountain pen can be transformed into an essay.

So, with this in mind I thought, "What about a Conklin."

Not only did Edith Wharton of Ethan Frome fame use one, but it appears none other than Mark Twain did as well. Wharton's Age of Innocence won the Pulitizer.

However, like so many offerings on the 'bay, the watch and snatch guys have outbid me on this pen. I could add another dollar or two in the remaining hour but I won't and can't justify it.

I'm trying hard to hang fast to the less is more even with this offing and reserve my funds for the three Vinnys I outlined earlier: a Pelikan 100, Waterman 12 eyedropper and a lovely Soennecken piston.

A Soennecken came up on pentrace yesterday but something about another black pen stood in my way of purchasing it and I let her go.