e
idea of the Devil will be observed. The nineteenth century Demon is an
improvement on his _confrere_ of the thirteenth. He differs from his
older brother as a cultivated flower from a wild blossom. The Devil as
a human projection is bound to partake in the progress of human
thought. Says Mephistopheles:

"Culture, which the whole world licks,
Also unto the Devil sticks."

The Devil advances with the progress of civilization, because he is
what men make him. He has benefited by the modern levelling tendency
in characterization. Nowadays supernatural personages, like their
human creators, are no longer painted either as wholly white or as
wholly black, but in various shades of grey. The Devil, as Renan has
aptly remarked, has chiefly benefited by this relativist point of
view. The Spirit of Evil is better than he was, because evil is no
longer so bad as it was. Satan, even in the popular mind, is no longer
a villain of the deepest dye. At his worst he is the general
mischief-maker of the universe, who loves to stir up the earth with
his pitch-fork. In modern literature the Devil's chief function is
that of a satirist. This fine critic directs the shafts of his sarcasm
against all the faults and foibles of men. He spares no human
institution. In religion, art, society, marriage--everywhere his
searching eye can detect the weak spots. The latest demonstration of
the Devil's ability as a satirist of men and morals is furnished by
Mark Twain in his posthumous romance _The Mysterious Stranger_.

The Devil Lore Series, which opens with this book of Devil Stories, is
to serve as documentary evidence of man's abiding interest in the
Devil. It will be a sort of portrait-gallery of the literary
delineations of Satan. The Anthologies of Diabolical Literature may be
considered, I trust, without any risk of offence to any theological or
philosophical prepossession. To those alike who accept and who reject
the belief in the Devil's spiritual entity apart from man's, there
must be profit and pleasure in the contemplation of his literary
incarnations. As regards the Devil's fitness as a literary character,
all intelligent men and women, believers and unbelievers, may be
assumed to have but one opinion.

This Series is wholly devoted to the Christian Devil with the total
disregard of his cousins in the other faiths. There will, however, be
found a strong Jewish element in Christian demonology. It must be
borne in mind that