The Project Gutenberg EBook of Betelguese, by Jean Louis de Esque

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Betelguese
A Trip Through Hell

Author: Jean Louis de Esque

Release Date: November 1, 2009 [EBook #30391]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETELGUESE ***

Produced by Meredith Bach, Stephanie Eason, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

BETELGUESE

_A TRIP THROUGH HELL_

By JEAN LOUIS De ESQUE

_Author of "The Flight of a Soul", etc._

JERSEY CITY
CONNOISSEUR'S PRESS
1908

Copyright, 1907 and 1908, by
_Jean Louis de Esque_
_Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, E. C._
_All Rights Reserved_

TO

Those that felt the wand of Muse--
Queen Posy's shaft of subtle art--
Seared to the distant heights of blue,
Past onyx lees that Sunsets dyed,
And put to Vellum Couplets' fuse,
Sped same to Fate with timid heart,
Then shed dim tears in Sorrow's pew,
This work's respectfully inscribed.

PREFACE

To the readers of this poem an apology is needed for affixing thereto a
praem. Some friends of mine have been plaguing me beyond the restrictive
line of Patience for the true cause of conceiving the accompanying
collection of words, balderdash or what you will, some even asseverating
with the eruditeness of an Aristole that it was a nebulous idea, an
embryonic form of thought hibernating within the cavities of my sinciput's
inner apex, the remnants of that wild phantasmagoric dream of "vicious,
vulpine labyrinths of hell," partly expounded in my "The Flight of a
Soul."

Now to satisfy everybody but my friends I throw my prejudices to the winds
and confess, to wit: That I, with the buckler of Will, wooed Oblivion on
September the sixth at exactly 5 P.M., having been up at my desk mauling
and drubbing the English language with a vengeance for thirty-six
consecutive hours, and that I awoke at 12.30 A.M. that selfsame night with
the entire contents of the accompanying----? (have as yet not decided in
what cate