ST. JOHN’S EVE (1830) 56 _From the Russian of Nikolái Vasilévich Gógol_ _Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood_ THE DEVIL’S WAGER (1833) 79 _By William Makepeace Thackeray_ THE PAINTER’S BARGAIN (1834) 93 _By William Makepeace Thackeray_ BON-BON (1835) 112 _By Edgar Allan Poe_ THE PRINTER’S DEVIL (1836) 136 _Anonymous_ THE DEVIL’S MOTHER-IN-LAW (1859) 149 _From the Spanish by Fernán Caballero_ _Translated by J. H. Ingram_ THE GENEROUS GAMBLER (1864) 162 _From the French of Charles Pierre Baudelaire_ _Translated by Arthur Symons_ THE THREE LOW MASSES (1869) 167 _A Christmas Story From the French of Alphonse Daudet_ _Translated by Robert Routeledge_ DEVIL-PUZZLERS (1871) 179 _By Frederick Beecher Perkins_ THE DEVIL’S ROUND (1874) 203 _A Tale of Flemish Golf From the French of Charles Deulin_ _Translated by Isabel Bruce_ _With an introductory note by Andrew Lang_ THE LEGEND OF MONT ST.-MICHEL (1888) 222 _From the French of Guy de Maupassant_ THE DEMON POPE (1888) 228 _By Richard Garnett_ MADAM LUCIFER (1888) 242 _By Richard Garnett_ LUCIFER (1895) 250 _From the French of Anatole France_ _Translated by Alfred Allinson_ THE DEVIL (1899) 257 _From the Russian of Maxím Gorky_ _Translated by Leo Wiener_ THE DEVIL AND THE OLD MAN (1905) 268 _By John Masefield_ NOTES 279 INDEX 325 INTRODUCTION Of all the myths which have come down to us from the East, and of all the creations of Western fancy and belief, the Personality of Evil has had the strongest attraction for the mind of man. The Devil is the greatest enigma that has ever confronted the human intelligence. So large a place has Satan taken in our imagination, and we might also say in our heart, that his expulsion therefrom, no matter what philosophy may teach us, must for ever remain an impossibility. As a character in imaginative literature Lucifer has not his equal in heaven above or on the earth beneath. In contrast to the idea of Good, which is the more exalted in proportion to its freedom from anthropomorphism, the idea of Evil owes to the presence of this element its chief value as a poetic theme. The discrowned archangel may have been inferior to St. Michael in military tactics, but he certainly is his superior in matters literary. The fair angels--all frankness and goodness--are beyond our comprehension, but the fallen angels, with all their faults and sufferings, are kin to us.