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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.
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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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Resurgam.

Dawns dread and red the fateful morn—
Lo, Resurrection's Day is born!
The striding sea no longer strides,
No longer knows the trick of tides;
The land is breathless, winds relent,
All nature waits the dread event.
From wassail rising rather late,
Awarding Jove arrives in state;
O'er yawning graves looks many a league,
Then yawns himself from sheer fatigue.
Lifting its finger to the sky,
A marble shaft arrests his eye—
This epitaph, in pompous pride,
Engraven on its polished side:
197

Page 197
“Perfection of Creation's plan,
Here resteth Universal Man,
Who virtues, segregated wide,
Collated, classed, and codified,
Reduced to practice, taught, explained,
And strict morality maintained.
Anticipating death, his pelf
He lavished on this monolith;
Because he leaves nor kin nor kith
He rears this tribute to himself,
That Virtue's fame may never cease.
Hic jacet—let him rest in peace!”
With sober eye Jove scanned the shaft,
Then turned away and lightly laughed
“Poor Man! since I have careless been
In keeping books to note thy sin,
And thou hast left upon the earth
This faithful record of thy worth,
Thy final prayer shall now be heard:
Of life I'll not renew thy lease,
But take thee at thy carven word,
And let thee rest in solemn peace!”
THE END.
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