| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: gets the skins of more foxes than asses."
CUPID, n. The so-called god of love. This bastard creation of a
barbarous fancy was no doubt inflicted upon mythology for the sins of
its deities. Of all unbeautiful and inappropriate conceptions this is
the most reasonless and offensive. The notion of symbolizing sexual
love by a semisexless babe, and comparing the pains of passion to the
wounds of an arrow -- of introducing this pudgy homunculus into art
grossly to materialize the subtle spirit and suggestion of the work --
this is eminently worthy of the age that, giving it birth, laid it on
the doorstep of prosperity.
CURIOSITY, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The
The Devil's Dictionary |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: hawkweed, too, which nobody wants.
Why?
Because they are a sign that I am not a good farmer enough, and
have not quite turned my Wild into Field.
What do you mean?
Look outside the boundary fence, at the moors and woods; they are
forest, Wild--"Wald," as the Germans would call it. Inside the
fence is Field--"Feld," as the Germans would call it. Guess why?
Is it because the trees inside have been felled?
Well, some say so, who know more than I. But now go over the
fence, and see how many of these plants you can find on the moor.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: That was his highest practical conception: the foundation of a new
society: not the regeneration of society as it existed.
That work was left for the Christian schools; and up to a certain point
they performed it. They made men good. This was the test, which of the
schools was in the right: this was the test, which of the two had hold
of the eternal roots of metaphysic. Cicero says, that he had learnt
more philosophy from the Laws of the Twelve Tables than from all the
Greeks. Clement and his school might have said the same of the Hebrew
Ten Commandments and Jewish Law, which are so marvellously analogous to
the old Roman laws, founded, as they are, on the belief in a Supreme
Being, a Jupiter--literally a Heavenly Father--who is the source and the
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