mark lewis - Anton Shepelev:

> The most common contemporary belief requires you to toss a pinch
> of the spilt salt over your left shoulder, into the face of the
> Devil who lurks there.

There is a great short story about this devil by Clark Ashton
Smith, titled:

               The Demon, the Angel, and Beauty:

Of the Demon who standeth or walketh always with me at my left
hand, I asked: "Hast thou seen Beauty? Her that meseemeth was the
mistress of my soul in Eternity? Her that is now beyond question
set over me in Time; even though I behold her not, and, it may be,
have never beheld, nor ever shall; her of whose aspect I am
ignorant as noon is concerning any star: her of whom as witness and
testimony, I have found only the hem of her shadow, or at most, her
reflection in a dim and troubled water. Answer, if thou canst, and
tell me, is she like pearls, or like stars? Does she resemble most
the sunlight that is transparent and unbroken, or the sunlight
divided into splendour and iris? Is she the heart of the day, or
the soul of the night?"

To which the Demon answered, after, as I thought, a brief space of
meditation:

"Concerning this Beauty, I can tell thee but little beyond that
which thou knowest. Albeit, in those orbs to which the demons of my
rank have admission, there be greater adumbrations of some
transcendent Mystery than here, yet have I never seen that Mystery
itself, and know not if it be male or female. Aeons ago, when I was
young and incautious, when the world was new and bright, and there
were more stars than now, I, too, was attracted by this Mystery,
and sought after it in all accessible spheres. But failing to find
the thing itself, I soon grew wear of embracing its shadows, and
took to the pursuit of illusions less insubstantial. Now I am
become grey and ashen without and red like old fire within, who was
fiery and flame-coloured all through, back in the star-thronged
aeons of which I speak: Heed me, for I am as wise, and wary and
ancient as the far--travelled and comet--scarred sun; and I am
become of the opinion that the thing Beauty itself does not exist,
Doubtless the semblance thereof is but a web of shadow and
delusion, woven by the crafty hand of God, that He may snare demons
and men therewith, for His mirth, and the laughter of His
archangels."

The Demon ceased, and took to watching me as usual-obliquely, and
with one eye-an eye that is more red than Aldebaran, and
inscrutable as the gulfs beyond the Hyades.

Then of the Angel, who walketh or standeth always with me at my
right hand, I asked, "Hast thou seen Beauty? Or hast thou heard any
assured rumour concerning Beauty?"

To which the Angel answered, after, as I thought, a moment of
hesitation:

"As to this Beauty, I can tell thee but little beyond that which
thou knowest, Albeit in all the heavens, this Mystery is a topic of
the most frequent and sublime speculation among the archangels, and
a perennial theme for the more inspired singers and harpists of the
cherubim-yea, despite all this, we are greatly ignorant as to its
true nature, and substance, and attributes. But sometimes there are
mighty adumbrations which cover even the superior seraphim from
above the wing-tips, and make unfamiliar twilight in heaven. And
sometimes there is an echo which fills the empyrean, and hushes the
archangelic harps in the midst of their praising of God. This is
often, and these visitations of echo and shadow spread an awe over
the assembled Thrones and Splendours and Dominations, which at
other times accompanies only the emanence or appearance of God
Himself. Thus are we assured as to the reality of this Beauty. And
because it remains a mystery to us, to whom naught else is
mysterious except God, we conjecture that it is the thing upon
which God meditateth, self-obscured and centred, and because of
which He hath held Himself immanifest to us for so many aeons: that
this is the secret which God keepeth even from the seraphim."

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