THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY Ambrose Bierce - Sunny Hills High School

That nothing from his hand can slip.
Well‐buttered eels you may o'erwhelm
In tubs of liquid slippery‐elm
In vain‐‐from his detaining pinch
They cannot struggle half an inch!
'Tis lucky that he so is planned
That breath he draws not with his hand,
For if he did, so great his greed
He'd draw his last with eager speed.
Nay, that were well, you say. Not so
He'd draw but never let it go!
Ambrose Bierce The Devil’s Dictionary
THEOSOPHY, n. An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion
and all the mystery of science. The modern Theosophist holds, with
the Buddhists, that we live an incalculable number of times on this
earth, in as many several bodies, because one life is not long enough
for our complete spiritual development; that is, a single lifetime
does not suffice for us to become as wise and good as we choose to
wish to become. To be absolutely wise and good‐‐that is perfection;
and the Theosophist is so keen‐sighted as to have observed that
everything desirous of improvement eventually attains perfection.
Less competent observers are disposed to except cats, which seem
neither wiser nor better than they were last year. The greatest and
fattest of recent Theosophists was the late Madame Blavatsky, who had
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