The Fiends Delight

Fiend's Delight, The

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Title: The Fiend's Delight
Author: Dod Grile
Release Date: December, 2003 [EBook #4793] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 22,
2002]
Edition: 10
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FIEND'S DELIGHT ***

Edited by Charles Aldarondo ([email protected])

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; he felt angry and misanthropic. Instead of rising to his feet, he
sat doggedly up and began chafing his abraded shin. The desperate
woman raised her white arms heavenward for the final plunge, and the

voice of the gale seemed like the dread roaring of the waters in her ears,
as down, down, she went--in imagination--to a black death among the
spectral piles. She backed a few paces to secure an impetus, cast a last
look upon the stony officer, with a wild shriek sprang to the awful
verge and came near losing her balance. Recovering herself with an
effort, she turned her face again to the officer, who was clawing about
for his missing club. Having secured it, he started to leave.
In a cosy, vine-embowered cottage near the sounding sea, lives and
suffers a blighted female. Nothing being known of her past history, she
is treated by her neighbours with marked respect. She never speaks of
the past, but it has been remarked that whenever