Page 1 of 75 PREFACE. - The Fiend's Delight

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Fiend's Delight, by Ambrose Bierce

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Edited by Charles Aldarondo (aldarondo@yahoo.com)

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.

		Always do what you are afraid to do. Ralph Waldo Emerson