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

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And the other children understood it; there was no jealousy; it was not felt by them as favouritism. Natural and right it seemed, and was.

'You must ask Nixie,' Jonah would say in reply to any question concerning his uncle's welfare or habits. 'She's his little mother, you know.'

For, truth to tell, they were born, these two, in the same corner of the world of fantasy, bred under the same stars, and fathered by the same elemental forces. But for the trick of the years and the accident of blood, they seemed made for one another ideally, eternally.

Things he could speak of to no one else found in her a natural and easy listener. To grown-ups he had never been able to talk about his mystic longings; the very way they listened made such things instantly seem foolish. But Nixie understood in her child-way, not because she was sympathetic, but because she was in and of them. He was merely talking the language of her own world. He no longer felt ashamed to 'think aloud.' Most people were in pursuit of such stupid, clumsy things—fame, money, and other complicated and ugly things—but this child seemed to understand that he cared about Realities only; for, in her own simple way, this was what she cared about too.