Chapter XV (3)

In the comparison of a soul with a shadow there is a reminiscence of Adalbert von Chamisso, whose _Peter Schlemihl_ (1814) sells his shadow to the devil. In his story _The Fisherman and His Soul_ Oscar Wilde considers the shadow of the body as the body of the soul.

That the devils in hell eat the damned consigned there for punishment is also in accord with mediaeval tradition. This idea probably is of Oriental origin. The seven Assyrian evil spirits have a predilection for human flesh and blood. Ghouls and vampires belong to this class of demons.

The devil's pitchfork is not the forked sceptre of Pluto supplemented by another tine, as is commonly assumed. It is the ancient sign of fertility, which is still used as a fertility charm by the Hindus in India and the Zuñi and Aztec Indians of North America and Mexico. A related symbol is the trident of Poseidon or Neptune. This symbol was recently carried in a children's May Day parade through Central Park in New York.

THE PRINTER'S DEVIL

The term "Printer's Devil" is usually accounted for by the fact that Aldus Manutius, the great Venetian printer, employed in his printing shop (about 1485) a black slave, who was popularly thought to be an imp of Satan. This expression may have a deeper significance. It may owe its origin to the fact that Fust, the inventor of the printing press, was believed to have connections with the Evil One. It will be remembered that during the Middle Ages and, in Catholic countries, even for a long time afterwards every discovery of science, every invention of material benefit to man, was believed to have been secured by a compact with the devil. Our ancestors deemed the human mind incapable, without the aid of the Evil One, of producing anything beyond their own comprehension. The red letters which Fust used at the close of his earliest printed volumes to give his name, with the place and date of publication, were interpreted in Paris as indications of the diabolical origin of the works so easily produced by him. (M. D. Conway, _Demonology and Devil-Lore_.) Sacred days, as is well known, are printed in the Catholic calendar with red letters, and the devil has also employed them in books of magic. This is but another instance of the mimicry by "God's Ape" of the sanctities of the Church.

In the infernal economy, where a strict division of labour prevails, the printer's devil is the librarian of hell. The books over which he has charge must be as numerous as the sands on the sea-shore. For nearly every book written without priestly command was associated in the good old days with the devil. The assertion that Satan hates nothing so much as writing or printer's ink apparently is a very great calumny. He has often even been accused of stealing manuscripts in order to prevent their publication. The prince of darkness naturally rather shuns than courts inquiry. On one occasion Joseph Görres, the defender of Catholicism, complained that the devil, provoked by his interference in Satanic affairs (he is the author of _Die christliche Mystik_, which is a rich source for diabolism, diabolical possession and exorcism), had stolen one of his manuscripts; it was, however, found some time afterwards in his bookcase, and the devil was completely exonerated.

The concluding paragraph of this story is especially interesting in the light of the present agitation for unbound books and a eulogy of the old Franklin Square Library.

THE DEVIL'S MOTHER-IN-LAW

BY FERNÁN CABALLERO

Fernán Caballero is the pseudonym of Mrs. Cecilia Böhl von Faber, Marchioness de Arco-Hermoso, who was a Swiss by birth, daughter of the literary historian Johann Böhl von Faber, the Johannes of Campe's _Robinson_ (1779). Her father initiated her early into Spanish literature, which he interpreted for her in the spirit of the Romantic movement of those early days. The interest in mediaeval traditions, which she owes to this early training, increased when, later, she went to Catholic Spain. The charm of her popular Andalusian tales consists in the fact that she fully shares with the Catholic peasants of that province an implicit faith in the truth of these mediaeval legends. In her stories we find perhaps the purest expression of mediaevalism in modern times. Fernán Caballero gradually drifted to the extreme Right in all questions of religion, art and life. She hated every liberal expression in matters of faith or art with the fanaticism of a Torquemada. This author not only shared the somewhat general Catholic view that all Protestants were eternally damned, but she naïvely believed that every son of Israel had a tail (Julian Schmidt).

The story of woman's triumph over the Devil is well characteristic of the Land of the Blessed Lady, as Andalusia is commonly called.

The legend of a devil imprisoned in a phial is also found in the work of the Spaniard Luis Velez de Guevara called _El Diablo cojuelo_ (1641), from whom Alain Le Sage borrowed both title and plot for his novel _Le Diable boiteux_ (1707). Asmodeus, liberated from a bottle, into which he had been confined by a magician, entertains his deliverer with the secret sights of a big city at midnight, by unroofing the houses of the Spanish capital and showing him the life that was going on in them. The legend was introduced into Spain from the East by the Moors and finally acclimated to find a place in local traditions. From that country it spread over the whole of Europe. The Asiatics believed that by abstinence and special prayers evil spirits could be reduced into obedience and confined in black bottles. The tradition forms a part of the Solomonic lore, and is frequently told in esoteric works. In the cabalistic book _Vinculum Spirituum_, which is of Eastern origin, it is said that Solomon discovered, by means of a certain learned book, the valuable secret of inclosing in a bottle of black glass three millions of infernal spirits, with seventy-two of their kings, of whom Beleh was the chief, Beliar (_alias_ Belial) the second, and Asmodeus the third. Solomon afterwards cast this bottle into a deep well near Babylon. Fortunately for the contents, the Babylonians, hoping to find a treasure in the well, descended into it, broke the bottle, and freed the demons (cf. also _The Little Key of Rabbi Solomon, containing the Names, Seals and Characters of the 72 Spirits with whom he held converse, also the Art Almadel of Rabbi Solomon, carefully copied by "Raphael,"_ London, 1879). This legend is also found in the tale of the Fisherman and the Djinn in the _Arabian Nights_, which was also treated by the German poet Klopstock in his poem "Wintermärchen" (1776).

The devil, as it is said in this story, has a mortal hatred of the sound of bells. The origin of ringing the church bells was, according to Sir James Frazer, to drive away devils and witches. The devil in Poe's story "The Devil in the Belfry" (1839) was, indeed, very courageous in invading the belfry.

The concluding part of the story is identical with the Machiavellian tale of Belphagor.

This tale of the Devil's mother-in-law first appeared in the volume _Cuentos y poesias populares Andaluces_ (Seville, 1859), which was translated the same year into French by Germond de Lavigne under the title _Nouvelles andalouses_. An English translation under the title _Spanish Fairy Tales_ appeared in 1881. This particular story was rendered again into English two years later and included in _Tales from Twelve Tongues_, translated by a British Museum Librarian [Richard Garnett?], London, 1883.

THE GENEROUS GAMBLER

BY CHARLES PIERRE BAUDELAIRE

This worshipper and singer of Satan shared his American _confrère's_ predilection for the devil. He found his models in the diabolical scenes of Edgar Allan Poe, whom he interpreted to the Latin world. "Baudelaire," said Théophile Gautier, his master and friend, "had a singular prepossession for the devil as a tempter, in whom he saw a dragon who hurried him into sin, infamy, crime, and perversity." To Baudelaire, the trier of men's souls, the Tempter, was as real a person as he was to Job. He believed that the devil had a great deal to do with the direction of human destinies. "C'est le Diable qui tient les fils qui nous remuent!" Men are mere puppets in the hands of the devil. "Baudelaire's motto," as Mr. James Huneker has well remarked, "might be the reverse of Browning's lines: The Devil is in his heaven. All's wrong with the world."

Baudelaire's devil is a dandy and a boulevardier with wings. Each author, it has been said, creates the devil in his own image.

The greatest boon which Satan could offer Baudelaire was to free him from that great modern monster, _Ennui_, which selects as its prey the most highly gifted natures. The boredom of life--this was, indeed, as this unhappy poet admits, the source of all his maladies and of all his miseries. He called it the "foulest of vices" and hoped to escape from it "by dreaming of the superlative emotional adventure, by indulging in infinite, indeterminate desire" (Irving Babbit). His preface to the _Flowers of Evil_, in which he addresses the reader, ends with the following statement in regard to the nature of this modern beast of prey: "Among the jackals, the panthers, the hounds, the apes, the scorpions, the vultures, the serpents--the yelling, howling, growling, grovelling monsters which form the foul menagerie of our vices--there is one which is the most foul, the most wicked, the most unclean of all. This vice, although it uses neither extravagant gestures nor makes a great outcry, would willingly make a ruin of the earth, and swallow up all the world in a yawn. This is _Ennui!_ who, with his eye moistened by an involuntary tear, dreams of scaffolds while smoking his hookah. Thou knowest him, this delicate monster, hypocritical reader, my like, my brother!"

In Gorky's story "The Devil" the devil himself suffers from _ennui_.

But Baudelaire believed he had good reason to doubt Satan's word, and, therefore, prayed to the Lord to make the devil keep his promise to him. He had little faith in the father of lies. In his book called _Artificial Paradises_ (1860) Baudelaire expressed the thought that the devil would say to the eaters of hashish, the smokers of opium, as he did in the olden days to our first parents, "If you taste of the fruit, you will be as the gods," and that the devil no more kept his word with them than he did with Adam and Eve, for the next day, the god, tempted, weakened, enervated, descended even lower than the beast.

The representation of the devil in the shape of a he-goat goes back to far antiquity. Goat-formed deities and spirits of the woods existed in the religions of India, Assyria, Greece and Egypt. The Assyrian god was often associated with the goat, which was supposed to possess the qualities for which he was worshipped. The he-goat was also the sacred beast of Donar or Thor, who was brought to Scandinavia by the Phoenicians. (On the relation of satyrs to goats see also James G. Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, vol. VIII, pp. 1 _sqq._) At the revels on the Blocksberg Satan always appeared as a black buck.

_Le bon diable_, which is a favourite phrase in France, points to his simplicity of mind rather than generosity of spirit. It generally expresses the half-contemptuous pity with which the giants, these huge beings with weak minds, were regarded.

The idea that Satan would gamble for a human soul is of mediaeval origin and may have been taken by Baudelaire from Gérard de Nerval, who in his mystery play _Le Prince des Sots_ (1830) has the devil play at dice with an angel, with human souls as stakes. As a dice-player Satan resembles Wuotan. Mr. H. G. Wells in _The Undying Fire_ (1919) has Diabolus play chess with the Deity in Heaven.

The devil in this story falls back into speaking Hebrew when the days of his ancient celestial glory are brought back to his mind. In Louis Ménard's _Le Diable au café_ the devil calls Hebrew a dead language, and as a modern prefers to be called by the French equivalent of his original Hebrew name. In the Middle Ages the devil's favourite language was Latin. Marlowe's Mephistopheles also speaks this language. Satan is known to be a linguist. "It is the Devil by his several languages," said Ben Jonson.

According to popular belief the devil is a learned scholar and a profound thinker. He has all science, philosophy, and theology at his tongue's end.

The Shavian devil in contradistinction to the Baudelairian fiend does bitterly complain that he is so little appreciated on earth. Walter Scott's devil (in "Wandering Willie's Tale," 1824) also complains that he has been "sair miscaa'd in the world."

The preacher to whom our author refers is the Jesuit Ravignan, who declared that the disbelief in the devil was one of the most cunning devices of the great enemy himself. (La plus grande force du diable, c'est d'être parvenu à se faire nier.) Baudelaire's disciple J. K. Huysmans similarly expresses in his novel _Là-Bas_ (1891) the view that "the greatest power of Satan lies in the fact that he gets men to deny him." (Cf. the present writer's essay "The Satanism of Huysmans" in _The Open Court_ for April, 1920.) The devil mocks at this theological dictum in Pierre Veber's story "L'Homme qui vendit son âme au Diable" (1918). In Perkins's story "The Devil-Puzzlers" the devil expresses his satisfaction over his success in this regard.

The story "The Generous Gambler" first appeared in the _Figaro_ of February, 1864, was reprinted under the title of "Le Diable" in the _Revue du Dix-Neuvième Siècle_ of June, 1866, and was finally included in _Poèmes en Prose_. This story has also been translated into English by Joseph T. Shipley.

THE THREE LOW MASSES

A CHRISTMAS STORY

BY ALPHONSE DAUDET

Daudet and Maupassant furnish the best proof of the assertion made in the Introduction to this book that even the Naturalists who, as a rule, disdained the phantastic plots of the Romanticists, whose imagination was rigorously earth-bound, felt themselves nevertheless attracted by devil-lore. Although most of Daudet's subjects are chosen from contemporary French life, this short-story treats a devil-legend of the seventeenth century. This story as "The Pope's Mule" and "The Elixir of the Reverend Père Gaucher" obviously has no other object but to poke fun at the Catholic Church. It belongs to the literary type known as the Satirical Supernatural.

This story is characteristic of Daudet's art, containing as it does all of his delicacy and daintiness of pathos, of raillery, of humour. It originally appeared in that delightful group of stories _Lettres de Mon Moulin_ (1869).

The horns and tail of his Satanic majesty peep out as vividly in this book as the disguised devils in Ingoldsby's _Legend of the North Countrie_.

Although hating all men, the devil has a special hatred for the priests, and he delights in bringing them to fall. Satan loathes the priests, because, as Anatole France says, they teach that "God takes delight in seeing His creatures languish in penitence and abstain from His most precious gifts" (_Les Dieux ont soif_, p. 278).

It is evident from this story that the popular belief that the devil avoids holy edifices is not based on facts. Here the devil not only enters the church, but even performs the duties of a sacristan at the foot of the altar. According to mediaeval tradition the devil has his agents even in the churches. In the administration of hell where the tasks are carefully parcelled out among the thousands of imps, the church has been assigned to the fiend with the poetic name of Tutevillus. It is his duty to attend all services in order to listen to the gossips and to write down every word they say. After death these women are entertained in hell with their own speeches, which this diabolical church clerk has carefully noted down. Tradition has it that one fine Sunday this demon was sitting in a church on a beam, on which he held himself fast by his feet and his tail, right over two village gossips, who chattered so much during the Blessed Mass that he soon filled every corner of the parchment on both sides. Poor Tutevillus worked so hard that the sweat ran in great drops down his brow, and he was ready to sink with exhaustion. But the gossips ceased not to sin with their tongues, and he had no fair parchment left whereon to record their foul words. So having considered for a little while, he grasped one end of the roll with his teeth and seized the other end with his claws and pulled so hard as to stretch the parchment. He tugged and tugged with all his strength, jerking back his head mightily at each tug, and at last giving such a fierce jerk that he suddenly lost his balance and fell head over heels from the beam to the floor of the church. (From "The Vision of Saint Simon of Blewberry" in F. O. Mann's collection of mediaeval tales.)

DEVIL-PUZZLERS

BY FREDERICK BEECHER PERKINS

Through Asmodeus the devil became associated with humour and gallantry. Asmodeus sharpened his wits in his conversations with the wisest of kings. It will be recalled that this demon was the familiar spirit of Solomon, whose throne, according to Jewish legend, he occupied for three years. Perhaps it was not Solomon after all but this diabolical usurper who gathered around himself a thousand wives. It is said that Asmodeus is as dangerous to women as Lilith is to men. He loves to decoy young girls in the shape of a handsome young man. His love for the beautiful Sarah is too well known to need any comment. He is a fastidious devil, and will not have the object of his passion subject to the embrace of any other mortal or immortal.

Reference is made by the author to Albert Réville's epitome of Georg Roskoff's _Geschichte des Teufels_ (Leipzig, 1869), a standard work on the history of the devil. The review by this French Protestant first appeared in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ for 1870, and was translated into English the following year. A second edition appeared six years later. Roskoff's book, on the other hand, has never appeared in translation.

It is not easy to grasp the scholastic subtleties of mediaeval schoolmen. Dr. Ethel Brewster suggests the following interpretations: _An chimoera bombinans in vacuo devorat secundas intentiones_. Whether a demon buzzing in the air devours our good intentions. This will correspond to our saying that hell is paved with good intentions. _An averia carrucae capta in vetito nomio sint irreplegibilia._ Whether the carriers of a [bishop's] carriage caught in a forbidden district should be punished. We can well understand how even the devil might be puzzled by such questions.

Professor Brander Matthews aptly calls this story "diabolically philosophical."

THE DEVIL'S ROUND

A TALE OF FLEMISH GOLF

BY CHARLES DEULIN

The modern devil is an accomplished gentleman. He is the most all-round being in creation. Mynheer van Belzébuth, as he is called in this story, is indeed the greatest gambler that there is upon or under the earth. On the golf-field as at the roulette-table he is hard to beat. It was the devil who invented cards, and they are, therefore, called the Devil's Bible, and it was also he who taught the Roman soldiers how to cast lots for the raiment of Christ (John xix, 24). Dice are also called the devil's bones.

The devil carries the souls in a sack on his back also in the legend of St. Medard. It is told that this saint, while promenading one day on the shore of the Red Sea in Egypt, saw Satan carrying a bag full of damned souls on his back. The heart of this saint was filled with compassion for the poor souls and he quickly slit the devil's bag open, whereupon the souls scrambled for liberty:

"Away went the Quaker--away went the Baker,
Away went the Friar--that fine fat Ghost,
Whose marrow Old Nick Had intended to pick
Dressed like a Woodcock, and served on toast!

"Away went the nice little Cardinal's Niece
And the pretty Grisettes, and the Dons from Spain,
And the Corsair's crew, And the coin-cliping Jew,
And they scamper'd, like lamplighters, over the plain!"

The Witches' Sabbath is the annual reunion of Satan and his worshippers on earth. The witches, mounted on goats and broomsticks, flock to desolate heaths and hills to hold high revel with their devil.

Beelzebub swears in this story by the horns of his grandfather. While the devil is known to have a grandmother, there has never been found a trace of his grandfather. Satan has probably been adopted by the grandmother of Grendel, the Anglo-Saxon evil demon. The horns have been inherited by Satan from Dionysos. This Greek god had bull-feet and bull's horns.

The reader, who is interested in the origin of the European Carnival (Shrove Tuesday) customs, is referred to the editor's monograph _The Origin of the German Carnival Comedy_ (New York: G. E. Stechert & Co., 1920).

THE LEGEND OF MONT ST.-MICHEL

BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT

No greater proof of the permanence and persistence of the devil as a character in literature can be adduced than the fact that this writer, in whom we find the purest expression of Naturalism, for whom the visible world was absolutely all that there is, was attracted by a devil-legend. But on this point he had a good example in his god-father and master Gustave Flaubert, who, though a realist of realists, showed deep interest in the Tempter of St. Anthony.

This legend of the fraudulent bargain between a sprite and a farmer as to alternate upper- and under-ground crops, with which "the great vision of the guarded mount" is here connected, is of Northern origin, but has travelled South as far as Arabia. It will be found in Grimm's _Fairy Tales_ (No. 189); Thiele's _Danish Legends_ (No. 122), and T. Sternberg's _The Dialect and Folk-Lore of Northampshire_ (p. 140). Rabelais used it as a French legend, and in its Oriental form it served as a subject for a poem by the German Friedrich Rückert ("Der betrogene Teufel"). In all these versions the agreement is entered into between the devil (in the Northampshire form it is a bogie or some other field spirit) and a peasant. It was reserved for Maupassant to make St. Michael get the better of Satan on earth as in heaven.

According to this legend the devil broke his leg when, in his flight from St. Michael, he jumped off the roof of the castle into which he had been lured by the saint. The traditional explanation for the devil's broken leg is his fall from heaven. "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven" (Luke x, 18). All rebellious deities, who were universally supposed to have fallen from heaven, have crooked or crippled legs. Hephaestos, Vulcan, Loki and Wieland, each has a broken leg. This idea has probably been derived from the crooked lightning flashes. The devil's mother in the mediaeval German mystery-plays walks on crutches. Asmodeus, the Persian demon Aeshma daeva, also had a lame foot. In Le Sage's book _Le Diable boiteux_ Asmodeus appears as a limping gentleman, who uses two sticks as crutches. According to rabbinical tradition this demon broke his leg when he hurried to meet King Solomon. In addition to his broken leg the devil inherited the goat-foot from Pan, the bull-foot from Dionysius and the horse-foot from Loki. The Ethiopic devil's right foot is a claw, and his left a hoof.

The devil is erroneously represented in this story as very lazy. Industry, it has been said, is the great Satanic virtue. "If we were all as diligent and as conscientious as the devil," observed an old Scotch woman to her minister, "it wad be muckle better for us."

The highest peak of a mountain is always consecrated to St. Michael. The Mont St.-Michel on the Norman Coast played a conspicuous part in the wars of the sons of William the Conqueror. Maupassant uses it as the background for several of the chapters of his novel _Notre Coeur_ (1890). The mountain also figures in his story "Le Horla" (1886).

THE DEMON POPE

BY RICHARD GARNETT

The following two stories by Richard Garnett have been taken from his book _The Twilight of the Gods_, which was first published anonymously in 1888, and in a "new and augmented edition," with the author's name, in 1902. The title recalls Richard Wagner's opera _Götterdämmerung_, but may have been directly suggested by Elémir Bourges, whose novel _Le Crépuscule des dieux_ appeared four years earlier than Garnett's collection of stories. In his book Richard Garnett plays havoc with all religions. The demons, naturally enough, fare worse at his hands than the gods. _The Twilight of the Gods_ is a panorama of human folly and farce. Franz Cumont has said that human folly is a more interesting study than ancient wisdom. The author finds a great joy in pointing out all the mysterious cobwebs which have collected on the ceiling of man's brain in the course of the ages. Mr. Arthur Symons rightly calls this book "a Punch and Judy show of the comedy of civilization."

The story of "The Demon Pope" is based upon a legend of a compact between a Pope and the devil. It is believed that Gerbert, who later became Pope Silvester II, sold his soul to Satan in order to acquire a knowledge of physics, arithmetic and music. The fullest account of this legend will be found in J. J. Dollinger's _Fables Respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages_ (Engl. Translation, 1871). _The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil_ by Paul Carus (1900) contains the following passages on this legend:

"An English Benedictine monk, William of Malmesbury, says of
Pope Sylvester II., who was born in France, his secular name
being Gerbert, that he entered the cloister when still a
boy. Full of ambition, he flew to Spain where he studied
astrology and magic among the Saracens. There he stole a
magic-book from a Saracen philosopher, and returned flying
through the air to France. Now he opened a school and
acquired great fame, so that the king himself became one of
his disciples. Then he became Bishop of Rheims, where he had
a magnificent clock and an organ constructed. Having raised
the treasure of Emperor Octavian which lay hidden in a
subterrenean vault at Rome, he became Pope. As Pope he
manufactured a magic head which replied to all his
questions. This head told him that he would not die until he
had read Mass in Jerusalem. So the Pope decided never to
visit the Holy Land. But once he fell sick, and, asking his
magic head, was informed that the church's name in which he
had read Mass the other day was 'The Holy Cross of
Jerusalem.' The Pope knew at once that he had to die. He
gathered all the cardinals around his bed, confessed his
crime, and, as a penance, ordered his body to be cut up
alive, and the pieces to be thrown out of the church as
unclean.

"Sigabert tells the story of the Pope's death in a different
way. There is no penance on the part of the Pope, and the
Devil takes his soul to hell. Others tell us that the Devil
constantly accompanied the Pope in the shape of a black dog,
and this dog gave him the equivocal prophecy.

"The historical truth of the story is that Gerbert was
unusually gifted and well educated. He was familiar with the
wisdom of the Saracens, for Borell, Duke of Hither Spain,
carried him as a youth to his country where he studied
mathematics and astronomy. He came early in contact with the
most influential men of his time, and became Pope in 999. He
was liberal enough to denounce some of his unworthy
predecessors as 'monsters of more than human iniquity,' and
as 'Antichrist, sitting in the temple of God and playing the
part of the Devil' (the text inadvertently reads: and
playing the part of God); but at the same time he pursued an
independent and vigorous papal policy, foreshadowing in his
aims both the pretensions of Gregory the Great and the
Crusades."

MADAM LUCIFER

BY RICHARD GARNETT

Perhaps the most fascinating--and the most dangerous--character in the infernal world is this _Mater tenebrarum_--Our Lady of Darkness. "A lady devil," says Daniel Defoe, "is about as dangerous a creature as one could meet." When Lucifer fails to bring a man to his fall, he hands the case over to his better half, and it is said that no man has ever escaped the siren seductions of this Diabo-Lady. A poem, _The Diabo-Lady, or a Match in Hell_, appeared in London in 1777.

According to Teutonic mythology, this diabolical Madonna is the mother or the grandmother of Satan. The mother or grandmother of Grendel, the Anglo-Saxon evil demon, became Satan's mother or grandmother by adoption. A mother was a necessary part of the devil's equipment. Having set his mind to equal Christ in every detail of his life, Satan had to get a mother somehow. In his story "The Vision Malefic" (1920) Mr. Huneker tells of the appearance of this counterfeit Madonna on a Christmas Eve to the organist of a Roman Catholic church in New York. Partly out of devotion to her and partly also because he could not obtain the sacramental blessing of the Church, Satan was forced to remain single. In the story "Devil-Puzzlers" by Fred B. Perkins the demon Apollyon appears as an old bachelor. "I have a mother, but no wife," he tells the charming Mrs. Hicok. The synagogue was more lenient towards the devil. The rabbis did not hesitate to perform the marriage ceremony for the diabolical pair. According to Jewish tradition the chief of the fallen angels married Lilith, Adam's first wife. She is said to have been in her younger days a woman of great beauty, but with a heart of ice. Now, of course, she is a regular hell-hag. If we can trust Rossetti, who painted her Majesty's portrait, she still is a type of beauty whose fascination is fatal. This woman was created by the Lord to be the help-meet of Adam, but mere man had no attraction for this superwoman. She is said to have started the fight for woman's emancipation from man, and contested Adam's right to be the head of the family. Their married life was very brief. Their incompatibility of character was too great. One fine morning Adam found that his erstwhile angelical wife had deserted him and run away with Lucifer, whom she had formerly known in heaven.

The King-Devil apparently always succeeded somehow or other in breaking the chains with which, according to legend, he had repeatedly been bound and sealed in the lowest depths of hell. From antediluvian times the demons appear to have been attracted by the daughters of men and to have come frequently up to earth to pay court to them. The only devil who must always remain in hell is the stoker, Brendli by name. The fires of hell must not be allowed to go out.

The anatomically melancholic Burton also tells of a devil who was in love with a mortal maiden. Jacques Cazotte tells the story of Beelzebub as a woman in love with an earth-born man.

LUCIFER

BY ANATOLE FRANCE

This writer has a great sympathy for devil-lore, and many of his characters show the cloven hoof. An analyst of illusions, he has a profound interest in the greatest of illusions. An assailant of every form of superstition, he has a tender affection for the greatest of superstitions. An exponent of the radical and ironical spirit in French literature, he feels irresistibly drawn to the eternal Denier and Mocker.

The story of the Florentine painter Spinello Spinelli, to whom Lucifer appeared in a dream to ask him in what place he had beheld him under so brutish a form as he had painted him, is told in Giorgio Vasari's _Vite de' più eccellenti Pittori, Scultori, ed Architteti_ (1550), which is the basis of the history of Italian art. It was treated by Barrili in his novel _The Devil's Portrait_ (1882; Engl. tr. 1885), from whom Anatole France may have got the idea for his story. But there is also a mediaeval French legend about a monk (_Du moine qui contrefyt l'ymage du Diable, qui s'en corouça_), who was forced by the indignant devil to paint him in a less ugly manner.

The devil is very sensitive in regard to his appearance. On a number of occasions he expressed his bitter resentment at the efforts of a certain class of artists to represent him in a hideous form (cf. M. D. Conway, _Demonology and Devil-Lore_). Daniel Defoe has well remarked that the devil does not think that the people would be terrified half so much if they were to converse face to face with him. "Really," this biographer of Satan goes on to say, "it were enough to fright the devil himself to meet himself in the dark, dressed up in the several figures which imagination has formed for him in the minds of men." It makes us, indeed, wonder why the devil was always represented in a hideous and horrid form. Rationally conceived, the devil should by right be the most fascinating object in creation. One of his essential functions, temptation, is destroyed by his hideousness. To do the work of temptation a demon might be expected to approach his intended victim in the most fascinating form he could command. This fact is an additional proof that the devil was for the early Christians but the discarded pagan god, whom they wished to represent as ugly and as repulsive as they could.

The earliest known representation of the devil in human form is found on an ivory diptych of the time of Charles the Bald (9th century). Many artists have since then painted his Majesty's portrait. Schongauer, Dürer, Michelangelo, Titian, Raphael, Rubens, Poussin, Van Dyck, Breughel and other masters on canvas vied with each other to present us with a real likeness of Satan. None has, however, equalled the power of Gustave Doré in the portrayal of the Diabolical. This Frenchman was at his best as an artist of the infernal (Dante's "Great Dis" and Milton's "Satan at the gates of Hell").

Modern artists frequently represent the devil as a woman. Félicien Rops, Max Klinger, and Franz Stuck may be cited as illustrations. Apparently the devil has in modern times changed sex as well as custom and costume. Victor Hugo has said:

"Dieu s'est fait homme; soit.
Le diable s'est fait femme."

"Lucifer," as well as the other stories which form the volume _The Well of St. Claire_, is told by the abbé Jérôme Coignard on the edge of Santa Clara's well at Siena. The book was first published serially in the _Echo de Paris_ (1895). It has just been rendered into Spanish (_El Pozo de Santa Clara_).

THE DEVIL

BY MAXIM GORKY

This story shows reminiscences of Le Sage's _Le Diable boiteux_. It will be recalled that Asmodeus also lifts the roofs of the houses of Madrid and exhibits their interior to his benefactor.

The fate of a Russian author was, indeed, a very sad affair. "In all lands have the writers drunk of life's cup of bitterness, have they been bruised by life's sharp corners and torn by life's pointed thorns. Chill penury, public neglect, and ill health have been the lot of many an author in countries other than Russia. But in the land of the Czars men of letters had to face problems and perils which were peculiarly their own, and which have not been duplicated in any other country on the globe.... Every man of letters was under suspicion. The government of Russia treated every author as its natural enemy, and made him feel frequently the weight of its heavy hand. The wreath of laurels on the brow of almost every poet was turned by the tyrants of his country into a crown of thorns." (From the present writer's essay "The Gloom and Glory of Russian Literature" in _The Open Court_ for July, 1918.)

THE DEVIL AND THE OLD MAN

BY JOHN MASEFIELD

_POSTCRIPT_

For the benefit of the gentle reader, who is about to shed a tear or two over the demise of the devil, the following episode from Anatole France's _My Friend's Book_ is retold here:

Pierre Nozière (Anatole France) takes his baby-girl to a Punch and Judy show, the culmination point of which always consists of the duel to the death between Punch and the Devil. The terrible battle ends, of course, with the death of the Devil. The spectators applaud the heroic act of Punch, but Pierre Nozière is not happy over the result of the fight. He thinks that it is rather a pity that the Devil has been slain. Paying no heed to Suzanne sitting by his side, he goes on musing:

"The Devil being dead, good-bye to sin! Perhaps Beauty, the
Devil's ally, would have to go, too. Perhaps we should never
more behold the flowers that enchant us, and the eyes for
love of which we would lay down our lives. What, if that is
so, what in the world would become of us? Should we still be
able to practise virtue? I doubt it. Punch did not
sufficiently bear in mind that Evil is the necessary
counterpart of Good, as darkness is of light, that virtue
wholly consists of effort, and that if there is no more any
Devil to fight against, the Saints will remain as much out
of work as the Sinners. Life will be mortally dull. I tell
you that when he killed the Devil, Punch committed an act of
grave imprudence.

"Well, Pulchinello came on and made his bow, the curtain
fell, and all the little boys and girls went home; but still
I sat on deep in meditation. Mam'zelle Suzanne, perceiving
my thoughtful mien, concluded that I was in trouble.... Very
gently and tenderly she takes hold of my hand and asks me
why I am unhappy. I confess that I am sorry that Punch has
slain the Devil. Then she puts her little arms round my
neck, and putting her lips to my ears, she whispers:

"'I tell you somefin: Punch, he killed the nigger, but he
has not killed him for good.'"

INDEX

[List of authors and titles contained in the Notes. Names are alphabeted after omission of _de_ or _von_, and titles are entered without their initial article. Each title is followed by the author's name in parentheses.]

_Ambrosio, or the Monk_ (Lewis), 296

_Anathema_ (Andréev), 286

_Anatomy of Melancholy_ (Burton), 318

Andréev, Leonid, 286

_Artificial Paradises_ (Baudelaire), 304

_Auswahl aus des Teufels Papieren_ (Richter), 286

_Autobiography of Satan_ (Beard), 286

Barham, Richard Harris (307)

Barrili, Anton Giulio, 319

Baudelaire, Charles Pierre, 279, 296, 303-06

Beard, J. R., 286

_Belphagor, or the Marriage of the Devil_ (Machiavelli), 281-83, 301

_Belphagor_ (an English play), 281

_Betrogener Teufel_ (Rückert), 313

_Bon-Bon_ (Poe), 295-97

Bourges, Elémir, 315

Brevio, Giovanni, 282

Browning, Robert, 280, 303

Burton, Richard, 318

Caballero, Fernán, 300-02

Caesarius of Heisterbach, 296-97

Campe, Joachim Heinrich, 300

Carus, Paul, 315

Cazotte, Jacques, 318

Chamisso, Adalbert, 297

Chappuys, Gabriel, 281

Chateaubriand, François Auguste René, 283

Chatterton, Thomas, 283

_Christliche Mystik_ (Görres), 299

Conway, Moncure Daniel, 298, 318

_Crépuscule des Dieux_ (Bourges), 315

Cumont, Franz, 315

Daborne, Robert, 281

_Daniel and the Devil_ (Field), 294

_Danish Legends_ (Thiele), 313

Dante Alighieri, 320

Daudet, Alphonse, 307-08

Defoe, Daniel, 317, 319

_Demon Pope_ (Garnett), 315-16

_Demonology and Devil-Lore_ (Conway), 298, 319

_Demonology and Witchcraft_ (W. Scott), 285, 296

Deulin, Charles, 311-12

_Devil_ (Gorky), 304, 321

_Devil; his Origin, Greatness and Decadence_ (Réville), 309

_Devil and his Dame_ (Houghton), 281

_Devil and the Old Man_ (Masefield), 322-23

_Devil and Tom Walker_ (Irving), 284-85

_Devil in a Nunnery_ (Mann), 279-80

_Devil in Germany_ (Freytag), 293

_Devil in the Belfry_ (Poe), 301

_Devil is an Ass_ (Jonson), 281

_Devil-Puzzlers_ (Perkins), 306, 309-10, 317

_Devil's Fiddle_, 279

_Devil's Mother-in-Law_ (Caballero), 300-02

_Devil's Portrait_ (Barrili), 319

_Devil's Round_ (Deulin), 311-12

_Devil's Violin_ (Webster), 279

_Devil's Wager_ (Thackeray), 290-91

_Diable_ (Baudelaire), 306

_Diable au café_ (Ménard), 305

_Diable boiteux_ (Le Sage), 300, 314, 321

_Diablo cojuelo_ (Guevara), 300

_Diabo-Lady, or a Match in Hell_, 317

_Dialect and Folk-Lore of Northampshire_ (Sternberg), 313

_Dialogus Miraculorum_ (Caesarius), 297

_Dieux ont soif_ (France), 307

Dollinger, J. J., 315

_Du moine qui countrefyt l'ymage du Diable_, 319

Dunlop, J. C., 282

_Elixir of the Reverend Père Gaucher_ (Daudet), 307

_En Route_ (Huysmans), 280

_Evangelium Nicodemi_, 283

_Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka_ (Gógol), 289

_Fables Respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages_ (Dollinger), 315

_Fairy Tales_ (Grimm), 313

_Faust_ (Goethe), 280

_Faust_ (Lenau), 279

_Faustus_ (Marlowe), 305

Field, Eugene, 294

_Fisherman and his Soul_ (Wilde), 297

Flaubert, Gustave, 313

_Flowers of Evil_ (Baudelaire), 303

France, Anatole, 307, 319-20, 322-23

Frazer, James George, 289, 301, 304

Freytag, Gustav, 293

_From the Memoirs of Satan_ (Hauff), 286-88

Fulwell, Ulpian, 281

Goethe, Wolfgang, 280, 284

Gógol, Nikolái Vasilévich, 289

_Golden Bough_ (Frazer), 289, 304

Gorky, Maxím, 304, 321

Görres, Joseph, 299

_Götterdämmerung_ (Wagner), 315

_Grim, the Collier of Croydon_ (Fulwell), 281

Grimm, Jacob, 296, 313

Guevara, Luis Velez, 300

Hauff, Wilhelm, 286-88

Heine, Heinrich, 290

Henslowe, Philip, 281

Herbert, George, 294

Hill, Rowland, 279

_History of Fiction_ (Dunlop), 282

_History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil_ (Carus), 315-16

_History of the French Novel_ (Saintsbury), 290-91, 292

Hoffmann, E. Th. A., 286

_Homme qui vendit son âme au Diable_ (Veber), 306

Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), 291

_Horla_ (Maupassant), 314

Houghton, P. M., 281

Hugo, Victor, 320

Huneker, James, 279, 303, 317

Huysmans, Joris Karl, 280, 306

_Ingoldsby Legends or Mirth and Marvels_ (Barham), 307

Irving, Washington, 284-85, 294

_Italian Novelists_ (Roscoe), 282

Jarintzow, Mme., 289

Jonson, Ben, 281, 305

Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb, 301

_Là-Bas_ (Huysmans), 306

La Fontaine, Jean, 281

Lavigne, Germond, 302

_Legend of Mont St.-Michel_ (Maupassant), 313-14

Lenau, Nikolaus, 279

Le Sage, Alain, 300, 314, 321

Lewis, ("Monk") Matthew, 296

_Lettres de mon Moulin_ (Daudet), 307

_Little Key of Rabbi Solomon_, 301

_Lucifer_ (France), 319-20

_Machiavel and the Devil_ (Daborne and Henslowe), 281

Machiavelli, Niccolò, 281-83, 301

_Madam Lucifer_ (Garnett), 317-18

_Man and Superman_ (Shaw), 305

Mann, Francis Oscar, 279-80, 308

Marlowe, Christopher, 305

Masefield, John, 322-23

Maupassant, Guy, 307, 313-14

_Mediaeval Mind_ (Taylor), 293

_Mémoires du Diable_ (Soulié), 286, 292

_Memoirs of Satan_ (Hauff), 286-88

Ménard, Louis, 305

Milton, John, 283, 320

_My Friend's Book_ (France), 322-23

Nerval [Labrunie], Gérard, 279, 305

_Notre Coeur_ (Maupassant), 314

_Nouvelles andalouses_ (Caballero), 301

_Origin of German Carnival Comedy_ (Rudwin), 283, 312

_Painter's Bargain_ (Thackeray), 290

_Paris Sketch Book_ (Thackeray), 290

_Parlement of Devils_, 283

_Parlement of Foules_, 283

Parliament of Sprites (Chatterton), 283

Peabody, Josephine Preston, 280

Perkins, Frederick Beecher, 306, 309-10, 317

_Peter Schlemihl_ (Chamisso), 297

_Pied Piper of Hamelin_ (Browning), 280

_Piper_ (Peabody), 280

Poe, Edgar Allan, 292, 295-97, 301, 303

_Poèmes en Prose_ (Baudelaire), 306

_Pope's Mule_ (Daudet), 307

_Pozo de Santa Clara_ (France), 320

_Prince des Sots_ (Nerval), 305

_Printer's Devil_, 289-99

Rabelais, François, 313

Réville, Albert, 309

Riche, Barnabe, 281

Richter, Jean Paul, 286

_Robinson der Jüngers_ (Campe), 300

Roscoe, Thomas, 282

Roskoff, Georg, 309

Rückert, Friedrich, 313

Rudwin, Maximilian J., 283, 306, 312, 321

_Russian Poets and Poems_ (Jarintzow), 289

Sachs, Hans, 281

_St. John's Eve_ (Gógol), 289

Saintsbury, George, 290, 292

Sansovino, Francesco, 281

_Satan's Diary_ (Andréev), 286

_Satanism of Huysmans_ (Rudwin), 306

_Satires_ (Horace), 291

Schmidt, Julian, 300

Scott, Walter, 285, 296, 305

_Selections from the Devil's Papers_ (Richter), 286

Shakespeare, William, 295

Shaw, George Bernard, 305

Shipley, Joseph T., 306

_Sonata del Diavolo_ (Tartini), 279

_Sonate du Diable_ (Nerval), 279

Soulié, Frédéric, 286, 292

_Spanish Fairy Tales_ (Caballero), 302

Staël, Madame, 284

Sternberg, T., 313

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 284

Straparola, Giovan-Francesco, 281

_Supreme Sin_ (Huneker), 279

Symons, Arthur, 315

_Tales from Twelve Tongues_ (Garnett?), 302

Tartini, Giuseppe, 279

Tasso, Torquato, 283

Taylor, H. D., 293

_Temptation of St. Anthony_ (Flaubert), 313

_Tentations ou Eros, Plutus et la Gloire_ (Baudelaire), 279, 296

_Teufel in Berlin_ (Hoffmann), 286

_Teufel mit der Geige_ (Gengenbach), 279

_Teutonic Mythology_ (Grimm), 296

Thackeray, William Makepeace, 290-94

Thiele, Just Mathias, 313

_Thrawn Janet_ (Stevenson), 284

_Three Low Masses_ (Daudet), 307-08

_Twilight of the Gods_ (Garnett), 315

_Undying Fire_ (Wells), 305

Vasari, Giorgio, 310

Veber, Pierre, 306

_Vinculum Spirituum_, 301

_Violon du Diable_, 279

_Vision Malefic_ (Huneker), 317

_Vision of Saint Simon of Blewberry_ (Mann), 308

_Vite de' più eccellenti Pittori, Scultori, ed Architteti_ (Vasari), 319

Wagner, Richard, 315

_Wandering Willie's Tale_ (Scott), 305

Webster, Benjamin, 279

_Well of St. Claire_ (France), 320

Wells, H. G., 305

Wilde, Oscar, 297

_Wintermärchen_ (Klopstock), 301

THE END