"None the less," observes Jurgen [a pawnbroker speaking to a monk], "it does not behoove God-fearing persons to speak with disrespect of the divinely appointed Prince of Darkness. To your further confusion, consider this monarch's industry! Day and night you may detect him toiling at the task Heaven set him. That is a thing that can be said of few communicants and of no monks. Think, too, of his fine artistry, as evidenced in all the perilous and lovely snares of this world, which it is your business to combat, and mine to lend money upon! Why, but for him we would both be vocationless! Then, too, consider his philanthropy, and deliberate how insufferable would be our case if you and I, and all our fellow parishioners, were to-day hobnobbing with other beasts in the Garden which we pretend to desiderate on Sundays! To arise with swine and lie down with the hyena?--Oh, intolerable!"
--from Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice, by James Branch Cabell.
I notice that in "devil to dinner" Old Scratch is smoking a pipe, and in "keeping warm" the man is carrying a Tyrolean. Where did these pictures come from?
ReplyDeleteI wish I could tell you, but my bone-pile of images is so disordered and haphazard I couldn't say with any certainty. I want to say they're either from Frank T. Zumbach's Mysterious World or Geisterseher, but searching these sites again has proved inconclusive.
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