Читать книгу The Complete Works of Algernon Blackwood. Novels, Short Stories, Horror Classics, Occult & Supernatural Tales, Plays онлайн

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'Listen, Nixie, you fairy-child, and I'll tell you something,' he said gently, 'something you will like very much'; and, while she waited and held her breath, he whispered softly in her ear:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The soul that rises in us, our life's star

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God who is our home:

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And snatches of thee everywhere Make little heavens throughout a day.

ALICE MEYNELL.

'That's very pretty, I think,' she said politely, staring at him, with a little smile, half puzzled. The music of the words had touched her, but she evidently did not grasp why he should have said it. She waited a minute to see if he had really finished, and then went on again with her own vein of thought.

'Then please tell me, Uncle,' she asked gravely, with deep earnestness, 'what is it people lose when they grow up?'

And he answered her with equal gravity, speaking seriously as though the little body at his side were habited by an old, discriminating soul.