I would amuse myself by watching the glass jars which the boys used to
lower into the Vivonne, to catch minnows, and which, filled by the current
of the stream, in which they themselves also were enclosed, at once
'containers' whose transparent sides were like solidified water and
'contents' plunged into a still larger container of liquid, flowing
crystal, suggested an image of coolness more delicious and more provoking
than the same water in the same jars would have done, standing upon a
table laid for dinner, by shewing it as perpetually in flight between the
impalpable water, in which my hands could not arrest it, and the insoluble
glass, in which my palate could not enjoy it. I decided that I would come
there again with a line and catch fish; I begged for and obtained a morsel
of bread from our luncheon basket; and threw into the Vivonne pellets
which had the power, it seemed, to bring about a chemical precipitation,
for the water at once grew solid round about them in oval clusters of
emaciated tadpoles, which until then it had, no doubt, been holding in
solution, invisible, but ready and alert to enter the stage of
crystallisation.
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