The Hotel Helicon, situated on the Lencadian promontory, far up the
height of Mt. Boab and overlooking the glorious valley of the Big
Mash River, amid the grandest scenery of the Cumberland Mountains,
where at their southern extremity they break into awful peaks,
chasms and escarpments, is now thrown open to a few favored guests
for the summer. The proprietor in a spirit of liberality (and for
the purpose of making this charming hotel known to a select public)
is issuing a few special invitations to distinguished people to come
and spend the summer free of charge. You are cordially and urgently
invited. The Hotel Helicon is a place to delight the artist and the
_litterateur_. It is high, airy, cool, surrounded by wild scenes,
good shooting and fishing at hand, incomparable mineral springs,
baths, grottos, dark ravines and indeed everything engaging to the
imagination. The proprietor will exhaust effort to make his chosen
guests happy. The rooms are new, sweet, beautifully furnished and
altogether comfortable, and the table will have every delicacy of
the season served in the best style. There will be no uninvited
guests, all will be chosen from the most exalted class. Come, and
for one season taste the sweets of the dews of Helicon, without
money and without price.
If you accept this earnest and cordial invitation, notify me at
once. Hotel Helicon is at your command.
Truly yours,
ISAIAH R. GASLUCKY.
It is needless to say that this letter was the product of a professional
advertising agent employed for the occasion by the proprietor of Hotel
Helicon. The reader will observe the earmarks of the creation and
readily recognize the source. Of course, when the letter was addressed
to a woman there was a change, not only in the gender of the terms, but
in the tone, which took on a more persuasive color. The attractions
of the place were described in more poetic phrasing and a cunningly
half-hidden thread of romance, about picturesque mountaineers and
retired and reformed bandits, was woven in.
Naturally enough, each individual who received this rather uncommon
letter, read it askance, at first, suspecting a trick, but the
newspapers soon cleared the matter up by announcing that Mr. Isaiah
Gaslucky, of Cincinnati, had "conceived the happy idea of making his
new and picturesque Hotel Helicon free this season to a small and
select company of distinguished guests. The hotel will not be open to
the public until next year."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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