| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: The ancient philosophies were of two kinds, -- _exoteric_, those that
the philosophers themselves could partly understand, and _esoteric_,
those that nobody could understand. It is the latter that have most
profoundly affected modern thought and found greatest acceptance in
our time.
ETHNOLOGY, n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man,
as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and
ethnologists.
EUCHARIST, n. A sacred feast of the religious sect of Theophagi.
A dispute once unhappily arose among the members of this sect as
to what it was that they ate. In this controversy some five hundred
The Devil's Dictionary |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: don't cost nothing; letting on ain't no trouble; and if
it's any object, I don't mind letting on we was at it a
hundred and fifty year. It wouldn't strain me none,
after I got my hand in. So I'll mosey along now, and
smouch a couple of case-knives."
"Smouch three," he says; "we want one to make
a saw out of."
"Tom, if it ain't unregular and irreligious to sejest
it," I says, "there's an old rusty saw-blade around
yonder sticking under the weather-boarding behind the
smoke-house."
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
