{"product_id":"2940013740860","title":"Elf Trap","description":"IN THIS our well-advertised, modern world, crammed with engines,\u003cbr\u003edeath-dealing shells, life-dealing serums, and science, he who listens\u003cbr\u003eto \"old wives' tales\" is counted idle. He who believes them, a\u003cbr\u003esuperstitious fool. Yet there are some legends which have a strange,\u003cbr\u003edeathless habit of recrudescence in many languages and lands.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf one such I have a story to tell. It was related to me by a\u003cbr\u003ewell-known specialist in nervous diseases, not as an instance of the\u003cbr\u003epossible truth behind fable, but as a curious case in which--I quote\u003cbr\u003ehis words--\"the delusions of a diseased brain were reflected by a\u003cbr\u003esecond and otherwise sound mentality.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo doubt his view was the right one. And yet, at the finish, I had\u003cbr\u003ethe strangest flash of feeling. As if, somewhere, some time, I, like\u003cbr\u003eyoung Wharton, had stood and seen against blue sky--Elva, of the sky-\u003cbr\u003ehued scarf and the yellow honeysuckles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut my part is neither to feel nor surmise. I will tell the story\u003cbr\u003eas I heard it, save for substitution of fictitious names for the real\u003cbr\u003eones. My quotations from the red notebook are verbatim.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTheron Tademus, A.A.S., F.E.S., D.S., et cetera, occupied the\u003cbr\u003echair of biology in a not-unfamed university. He was the author of a\u003cbr\u003etreatise on cytology, since widely used as a textbook, and of several\u003cbr\u003eimportant brochures on the more obscure infusoria. As a boy he had\u003cbr\u003ebeen--in appearance--a romantically charming person. The age of\u003cbr\u003ethirty-seven found him still handsome in a cold, fine-drawn manner,\u003cbr\u003ebut almost inhumanly detached from any save scientific interests.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen, at the height of his career, he died. Having entered his\u003cbr\u003eclass-room with intent to deliver the first lecture of the fall term,\u003cbr\u003ehe walked to his desk, laid down a small, red note-book, turned,\u003cbr\u003eopened his mouth, went ghastly white and subsided. His assistant,\u003cbr\u003eyoung Wharton, was first to reach him and first to discover the\u003cbr\u003eshocking truth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTademus was unmarried, and his will bequeathed all he possessed to\u003cbr\u003ethe university.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe little red book was not at first regarded as important.\u003cbr\u003eSupposed to contain notes for his lecture, it was laid aside. On being\u003cbr\u003eat last read, however, by his assistant in course of arranging his\u003cbr\u003epapers, the book was found to contain not notes, but a diary covering\u003cbr\u003ethe summer just passed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBarring the circumstances of one peculiar incident, Wharton\u003cbr\u003ealready knew the main facts of that summer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTademus, at the insistence of his physician--the specialist\u003cbr\u003eaforesaid--had spent July and August in the Carolina Mountains not far\u003cbr\u003enorth from the famous resort, Asheville. Dr. Locke was friend as well\u003cbr\u003eas medical adviser, and he lent his patient the use of a bungalow he\u003cbr\u003eowned there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was situated in a beautiful, but lonely spot, to which the\u003cbr\u003enearest settlement was Carcassonne. In the valley below stood a tiny\u003cbr\u003erailroad station, but Carcassonne was not built up around this, nor\u003cbr\u003ewas it a town at all in the ordinary sense.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA certain landscape painter had once raised him a house on that\u003cbr\u003emountainside, at a place chosen for its magnificent view. Later, he\u003cbr\u003ewas wont to invite thither, for summer sketching, one or two of his\u003cbr\u003emore favored pupils. Later still, he increased this number. For their\u003cbr\u003eaccommodation other structures were raised near his mountain studio,\u003cbr\u003eand the Blue Ridge summer class became an established fact, with a\u003cbr\u003ename of its own and a rather large membership.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwo roads led thither from the valley. One, that most in use by\u003cbr\u003ethe artist colonists, was as good and broad as any Carolina mountain\u003cbr\u003eroad could hope to be. The other, a winding, narrow, yellow track,\u003cbr\u003epassed the lonely bungalow of Dr. Locke, and at last split into two\u003cbr\u003epaths, one of which led on to further heights, the second to\u003cbr\u003eCarcassonne.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe distance between colony and bungalow was considerable, and\u003cbr\u003eneither was visible to the other. Tademus was not interested in art,\u003cbr\u003eand, as disclosed by the red book, he was not even aware of\u003cbr\u003eCarcassonne's existence until some days after his arrival at the\u003cbr\u003ebungalow.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070308892912,"sku":"2940013740860","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013740860_p0.jpg?v=1763589618","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013740860","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}