{"product_id":"2940016140742","title":"A Sortnight of Folly","description":"CONTENTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  A FORTNIGHT OF FOLLY.\u003cbr\u003e  THE TALE OF A SCULPTOR, by HUGH CONWAY\u003cbr\u003e  CARRISTON'S GIFT.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA FORTNIGHT OF FOLLY.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Hotel Helicon stood on a great rock promontory that jutted far out\u003cbr\u003einto a sea of air whose currents and eddies filled a wide, wild valley\u003cbr\u003ein the midst of our southern mountain region. It was a new hotel, built\u003cbr\u003eby a Cincinnati man who founded his fortune in natural gas speculations,\u003cbr\u003eand who had conceived the bright thought of making the house famous at\u003cbr\u003ethe start by a stroke of rare liberality.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eViewing the large building from any favorable point in the valley, it\u003cbr\u003elooked like a huge white bird sitting with outstretched wings on the\u003cbr\u003egray rock far up against the tender blue sky. All around it the forests\u003cbr\u003ewere thick and green, the ravines deep and gloomy and the rocks tumbled\u003cbr\u003einto fantastic heaps. When you reached it, which was after a whole day\u003cbr\u003eof hard zig-zag climbing, you found it a rather plain three-story house,\u003cbr\u003ewhose broad verandas were worried with a mass of jig-saw fancies and\u003cbr\u003ewhose windows glared at you between wide open green Venetian shutters.\u003cbr\u003eEverything look new, almost raw, from the stumps of fresh-cut trees on\u003cbr\u003ethe lawn and the rope swings and long benches, upon which the paint\u003cbr\u003ewas scarcely dry, to the resonant floor of the spacious halls and the\u003cbr\u003ecedar-fragrant hand-rail of the stairway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere were springs among the rocks. Here the water trickled out with a\u003cbr\u003ered gleam of iron oxide, there it sparkled with an excess of carbonic\u003cbr\u003eacid, and yonder it bubbled up all the more limpid and clear on account\u003cbr\u003eof the offensive sulphuretted hydrogen it was bringing forth. Masses\u003cbr\u003eof fern, great cushions of cool moss and tangles of blooming shrubs\u003cbr\u003eand vines fringed the sides of the little ravines down which the\u003cbr\u003espring-streams sang their way to the silver thread of a river in the\u003cbr\u003evalley.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was altogether a dizzy perch, a strange, inconvenient, out-of-the-way\u003cbr\u003espot for a summer hotel. You reached it all out of breath, confused as\u003cbr\u003eto the points of the compass and disappointed, in every sense of the\u003cbr\u003eword, with what at first glance struck you as a colossal pretense,\u003cbr\u003eempty, raw, vulgar, loud--a great trap into which you had been inveigled\u003cbr\u003eby an eloquent hand-bill! Hotel Helicon, as a name for the place, was\u003cbr\u003econsidered a happy one. It had come to the proprietor, as if in a dream,\u003cbr\u003eone day as he sat smoking. He slapped his thigh with his hand and sprang\u003cbr\u003eto his feet. The word that went so smoothly with hotel, as he fancied,\u003cbr\u003ehad no special meaning in his mind, for the gas man had never been\u003cbr\u003eguilty of classical lore-study, but it furnished a taking alliteration.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Hotel Helicon, Hotel Helicon,\" he repeated; \"that's just a dandy name.\u003cbr\u003eHotel Helicon on Mount Boab, open for the season! If that doesn't get\u003cbr\u003e'em I'll back down.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis plans matured themselves very rapidly in his mind. One brilliant\u003cbr\u003eidea followed another in swift succession, until at last he fell upon\u003cbr\u003ethe scheme of making Hotel Helicon free for the initial season to a\u003cbr\u003eselect company of authors chosen from among the most brilliant and\u003cbr\u003efamous in our country.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Zounds!\" he exclaimed, all to himself, \"but won't that be a darling old\u003cbr\u003eadvertisement! I'll have a few sprightly newspaper people along with\u003cbr\u003e'em, too, to do the interviewing and puffing. By jacks, it's just the\u003cbr\u003ewrinkle to a dot!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMr. Gaslucky was of the opinion that, like Napoleon, he was in the hands\u003cbr\u003eof irresistible destiny which would ensure the success of whatever he\u003cbr\u003emight undertake; still he was also a realist and depended largely upon\u003cbr\u003etricks for his results. He had felt the great value of what he liked to\u003cbr\u003eterm legitimate advertising, and he was fond of saying to himself that\u003cbr\u003eany scheme would succeed if properly set before the world. He regarded\u003cbr\u003eit a maxim that anything which can be clearly described is a fact. His\u003cbr\u003erealism was the gospel of success, he declared, and needed but to be\u003cbr\u003estated to be adopted by all the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the first he saw how his hotel was to be an intellectual focus;\u003cbr\u003emoreover he designed to have it radiate its own glory like a star set\u003cbr\u003eupon Mt. Boab.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe difficulties inherent in this project were from the first quite\u003cbr\u003eapparent to Mr. Gaslucky, but he was full of expedients and cunning.\u003cbr\u003eHe had come out of the lowest stratum of life, fighting his way up to\u003cbr\u003esuccess, and his knowledge of human nature was accurate if not very\u003cbr\u003ebroad.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEarly in the summer, about the first days of June, in fact, certain\u003cbr\u003ewell-known and somewhat distinguished American authors received by\u003cbr\u003edue course of mail an autograph letter from Mr. Gaslucky, which was\u003cbr\u003esubstantially as follows:","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47071204212976,"sku":"2940016140742","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940016140742","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}