THE FIEND’S DELIGHT.

By Dod Grile.

“Count that day lost whose low descending sun Views from thy hand no worthy action done.”

New York: 

1873.

To
the immutable and infallible goddess,
good taste,
in gratitude for her condemnation of all superior authors,
and in the hope of PROPITIATING her creators
and EXPOUNDERS,
This Volume is reverentially Dedicated
by her devout worshipper,

The author.

PREFACE.

The atrocities constituting this “cold collation” of diabolisms are taken mainly from various Californian journals.  They are cast in the American language, and liberally enriched with unintelligibility.  If they shall prove incomprehensible on this side of the Atlantic, the reader can pass to the other side at a moderately extortionate charge.  In the pursuit of my design I think I have killed a good many people in one way and another; but the reader will please to observe that they were not people worth the trouble of leaving alive.  Besides, I had the interests of my collaborator to consult.  In writing, as in compiling, I have been ably assisted by my scholarly friend Mr. Satan; and to this worthy gentleman must be attributed most of the views herein set forth.  While the plan of the work is partly my own, its spirit is wholly his; and this illustrates the ascendancy of the creative over the merely imitative mind.  Palmam qui meruit ferat-I shall be content with the profit.

Dod Grile.

SOME FICTION.

“One More Unfortunate.”

It was midnight-a black, wet, midnight-in a great city by the sea.  The church clocks were booming the hour, in tones half-smothered by the marching rain, when an officer of the watch saw a female figure glide past him like a ghost in the gloom, and make directly toward a wharf.  The officer felt that some dreadful tragedy was about to be enacted, and started in pursuit.  Through the sleeping city sped those two dark figures like shadows athwart a tomb.  Out along the deserted wharf to its farther end fled the mysterious fugitive, the guardian of the night vainly endeavouring to overtake, and calling to her to stay.  Soon she stood upon the extreme end of the pier, in the scourging rain which lashed her fragile figure and blinded her eyes with other tears than those of grief.  The night wind tossed her tresses wildly in air, and beneath her bare feet the writhing billows struggled blackly upward for their prey.  At this fearful moment the panting officer stumbled and fell!  He was badly bruised;