| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: chor, correctly by the chart, off the Brenzett Coast-
guard station. I remember before the night fell
looking out again at the outlines of her spars and
rigging that stood out dark and pointed on a back-
ground of ragged, slaty clouds like another and a
slighter spire to the left of the Brenzett church-
tower. In the evening the wind rose. At midnight
I could hear in my bed the terrific gusts and the
sounds of a driving deluge.
"About that time the Coastguardmen thought
they saw the lights of a steamer over the anchoring-
Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: rivers; and it is observed, that the farther they get from the sea, they be
both the fatter and better.
Next, I shall tell you, that though they make very hard shift to get out of
the fresh rivers into the sea yet they will make harder shift to get out of
the salt into the fresh rivers, to spawn, or possess the pleasures that they
have formerly found in them: to which end, they will force themselves
through floodgates, or over weirs, or hedges, or stops in the water, even
to a height beyond common belief. Gesner speaks of such places as are
known to be above eight feet high above water. And our Camden
mentions, in his Britannia, the like wonder to be in Pembrokeshire,
where the river Tivy falls into the sea; and that the fall is so downright,
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