| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: 'Yes,'was the reply, 'I'm steady enough now, but I'm a queer
kind of a first officer.'
'Shucks!' cried the captain. 'You've only got to mind the
ship's course, and keep your slate to half a point. A babby could
do that, let alone a college graduate like you. There ain't
nothing TO sailoring, when you come to look it in the face. And
now we'll go and put her about. Bring the slate; we'll have to
start our dead reckoning right away.'
The distance run since the departure was read off the log by
the binnacle light and entered on the slate.
'Ready about,' said the captain. 'Give me the wheel, White
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: of his posterity. It could not have been for his glory, because
the experience was simply that of an abominable fright - terror he
calls it. You would have guessed that the relation alluded to in
the very first lines was in writing.
This writing constitutes the Find declared in the sub-title. The
title itself is my own contrivance, (can't call it invention), and
has the merit of veracity. We will be concerned with an inn here.
As to the witches that's merely a conventional expression, and we
must take our man's word for it that it fits the case.
The Find was made in a box of books bought in London, in a street
which no longer exists, from a second-hand bookseller in the last
Within the Tides |
