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   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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