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The fiend's delight

Bierce, Ambrose (1842-1914?)
  
[half-title]
  
[title page]
  
[dedication]
  
PREFACE.

collapse section1. 
SOME FICTION.
 1. 
“One More Unfortunate.”
 2. 
The Strong Young Man of Colusa.
 3. 
The Glad New Year.
 4. 
The Late Dowling, Senior.
 5. 
“Love's Labour Lost.”
 6. 
A Comforter.
 7. 
Little Isaac.
 8. 
The Heels of Her.
 9. 
A Tale of Two Feet.
 10. 
The Scolliver Pig.
 11. 
Mr. Hunker's Mourner.
 12. 
A Bit of Chivalry.
 13. 
The Head of the Family.
 14. 
Deathbed Repentance.
 15. 
The New Church that was not Built.
 16. 
A Tale of the Great Quake.
 17. 
Johnny.
 18. 
The Child's Provider.
 19. 
Boys who Began Wrong.
 20. 
A Kansas Incident.
 21. 
Mr. Grile's Girl.
 22. 
His Railway.
 23. 
Mr. Gish Makes a Present.
 24. 
A Cow-County Pleasantry.
 25. 
The Optimist, and What He Died Of.
 26. 
The Root of Education.
 27. 
Retribution.
 28. 
The Faithful Wife.
 29. 
Margaret the Childless.
 30. 
The Discomfited Demon.
 31. 
The Mistake of a Life.
 32. 
L. S.
 33. 
The Baffled Asian.
collapse section2. 
TALL TALK.
 1. 
A Call to Dinner.
 2. 
On Death and Immortality.
 3. 
Music—Muscular and Mechanical.
 4. 
The Good Young Man.
 5. 
The Average Parson.
 6. 
Did We Eat One Another?
 7. 
Your Friend's Friend.
 8. 
Le Diable est aux Vaches.
 9. 
Angels and Angles.
 10. 
A Wingless Insect.
 11. 
Pork on the Hoof.
 12. 
The Young Person.
 13. 
A Certain Popular Fallacy.
 14. 
Pastoral Journalism.
 15. 
Mendicity's Mistake.
 16. 
Insects.
 17. 
Picnicking considered as a Mistake.
 18. 
Thanksgiving Day.
 19. 
Flogging.
 20. 
Reflections upon the Beneficent Influence of the Press.
 21. 
Charity.
 22. 
The Study of Human Nature.
collapse section23. 
Additional Talk—Done in the Country.
  
I.
  
II.
  
III.
  
IV.
  
V.
  
VI.
  
VII.
  
VIII.
  
IX.
 3. 
CURRENT JOURNALINGS.
collapse section4. 
OBITUARY NOTICES.
 1. 
CHRISTIANS.
 2. 
PAGANS.
collapse section5. 
MUSINGS, PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL.
 1. 
I.
 2. 
II.
 3. 
III.
 4. 
IV.
 5. 
V.
 6. 
VI.
 7. 
VII.
 8. 
VIII.
 9. 
IX.
 10. 
X.
 11. 
XI.
 12. 
XII.
 13. 
XIII.
 14. 
XIV.
 15. 
XV.
 16. 
XVI.
 17. 
XVII.
 18. 
XVIII.
 19. 
XIX.
 20. 
XX.
 21. 
XXI.
 22. 
XXII.
 23. 
XXIII.
 24. 
XXIV.
 25. 
XXV.
 26. 
XXVI.
 27. 
XXVII.
 28. 
XXVIII.
 29. 
XXIX.
 30. 
XXX.
 31. 
XXXI.
 32. 
XXXII.
 33. 
XXXIII.
 34. 
XXXIV.
 35. 
[chapter]
 6. 
LAUGHORISMS.
 7. 
“ITEMS” FROM THE PRESS OF INTERIOR CALIFORNIA.
collapse section8. 
POESY.
 1. 
Ye Idyll of Ye Hippopopotamus.
 2. 
Epitaph on George Francis Train.
 3. 
Jerusalem, Old and New.
 4. 
Communing with Nature.
 5. 
Conservatism and Progress.
 6. 
Inter Arma Silent Leges.
 7. 
Quintessence.
 8. 
Resurgam.

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Quintessence.

“To produce these spicy paragraphs, which have been
unsuccessfully imitated by every newspaper in the State,
requires the combined efforts of five able-bodied persons
associated on the editorial staff of this journal.”

—New York Herald.


Sir Muscle speaks, and nations bend the ear:
“Hark ye these Notes—our wit quintuple hear;
Five able-bodied editors combine
Their strength prodigious in each laboured line!”
O wondrous vintner! hopeless seemed the task
To bung these drainings in a single cask;
The riddle's read—five leathern skins contain
The working juice, and scarcely feel the strain.
196

Page 196
Saviours of Rome! will wonders never cease?
A ballad cackled by five tuneful geese!
Upon one Rosinante five stout knights
Ride fiercely into visionary fights!
A cap and bells five sturdy fools adorn,
Five porkers battle for a grain of corn,
Five donkeys squeeze into a narrow stall,
Five tumble-bugs propel a single ball!
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