What follows is a parody of an old text.

epilogue

1. There is no need to describe the aim of magic; sure, I could just enumerate some common uses, but this would be a self-serving endeavor — its purpose would not be to understand magic. Therefore, we would lose focus in the Arts themselves, by losing ourselves into a vague description, and perhaps even trick ourselves into thinking this leisurely activity can help us know them (the Arts) without putting in the required labor.

Such were the thoughts of a young man one evening, as he was ordering his notes and the skies churn and roared from beyond his window. His thesis consisted of his own original re-systematization of modern magic; it would develop many years later into a proper book, of which purpose seems to have been the baffling of scholars for many hundreds of years thereafter.

2. "If I could effectively explain my aims into an abstract, as I'm told I must do by my professors" he muttered to himself, "I would not write the thesis in the first place; for it would suffice to leave this introductory note." If he must write an introduction, he might as well use it to complain. Cognition must start somewhere, after all; might as well initiate it by laying down the problems, be them soaked in a certain amount of frustration.

3. "In the name of God, Mave, what are you on about?" said another youngster from behind him. The room was only lit by a lantern of the boy working on his thesis, the other side remaining almost completely dark. "I'm trying to fall asleep; besides the thunderstorm outside I must deal with your nonsense too?" he continued, calm despite the reprisal.

"Shut up Henry", was all the wizard Mave could manage in response.

"No, you shut up. I've had enough of this. Everyone writes abstracts all the time, why are you making such a big deal?"

"Because," he started with a certain amount of excitement, "and you should know this, it may well pass as a concern with the real issue when it fact it is..."

"Merely a device to avoid the thing itself. Yes, you are sure to repeat this every day at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Now shut up."

A wise man would recognize that at times he must take a loss with dignity instead of embarrassing himself further by desperately trying to fix what cannot be fixed. However, young men are not very wise, and Mave was by all accounts a young man:

"Stating an aim is a generalizati...

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