In doing so, Twain created a personal connection by implementing the first person in the piece, used oxymoronic adjectives to demonstrate disorder, and consistently contrasted geometric destruction with the "living" city. Contrary to London's essay, Twain used the first person, especially when describing the early stages of the earthquake. This perspective allowed Twain to reference the distraught nature of others in the city by comparing it to his own state. In the opening line of his piece, Twain wrote, “When I was in San Francisco…” and provides other examples as well, although they are found in the first paragraph. Because he has used this tactic, he criticizes the vulnerability of others in his same situation. In itself, Twain created a comparison with his own state of mind and that of others. Another syntactic anomaly in his piece was the consistent use of oxymoronic adjectives. For example, "I enjoyed my first earthquake" and "Of the wonders created by the 'great earthquake'" both demonstrate Twain using adjectives that would generally be considered poorly descriptive of the situation. Similar to the examples of the fashion designer running naked down the street, or the priest fleeing the church fearing for his life, these cases show a parallel to the general idea of