In many drawing-rooms of fashion, in brilliant restaurants and hotels, where the élite congregate; in sensuously decorated studios, Devils also wait day and night, knowing that they will be entertained, if not welcomed, by some of the self-indulgent frequenters of these places.
Many are the devices employed by the Devils of earth to bring about the desired results.
Drinks, drugs, avarice, money mania, jealousy, love of power, desire to outshine neighbors, lust, sensuality, gross appetites, gourmandism, love of praise, personal conceit and egotism, selfishness in every form—all these are webs which the Devils spin about humanity.
Even beautiful, romantic sentiment, memory and imagination, become aids of the Devil, at times, when coarser and more common methods fail in the snaring of a refined soul.
Many a good wife, who shrinks with horror at the thought of a vulgar amour, or of any act which could pain or anger her husband, has been led into the Devil's net by indulging in retrospective dreams of a vanished romance and through the stirring of old ashes to see if one little spark remained.
Letter writing is a favorite pastime of almost all Devils. Once they get a romantic man or woman, with a pen in hand and an unoccupied chamber in the heart, and the breed of Devils who hang about the domestic hearth, hoping to find rooms to let, chuckle in glee.
Wives who have believed themselves happy and satisfied, husbands who have been unconscious of any lack in their lives, have fallen by the wayside through an interesting correspondence with some sympathetic "affinity," who was Devil-instructed to lead them into trouble.
After a man or woman falls into the Devil's snare they both call it Fate, and proclaim their inability to combat the powerful influence of "destiny."
But destiny is man himself.
The Angel dwells always within him, ready to say, "Get thee behind me, Satan," if the man really wants it said.