Algernon Blackwood

“ And they understood these patterns while they breathed them in. They read them. Patterns in Nature, of course, are fairy script. Here lay all their secrets sweetly explained in golden writing, all mysteries made clear. The three understood beyond their years; and inside-sight, instead of glimmering, shone. For, somehow or other, the needs of other people blazed everywhere, obliterating their own. It was most singular.
Monkey ceased from somersaulting and stared at Jimbo.
'You've got two stars in your face instead of eyes. They'll never set!' she whispered. ”

“ Designs, moreover, like crystals floated on the crest of every wave.
'That's the best quality,' he told them, as their faces shone a moment in its glory. 'The person who deserves it must live entirely for others. That he keeps only for the sad and lonely. The rest, the common stuff, is good enough for Fraulein or for baby, or for mother, or any other----' The words rose in him like flowers that he knew.
'Look out, mon vieux! 'It was Monkey's voice. They just had time to stand aside as a figure shot past them and disappeared into the darkness above the trees. ”

“ Each lost the least desire to gather for himself; the needs of others drove them, filled them, made them eager and energetic.
'Riquette would like a bit,' cried Jimbo, almost balancing on his head in his efforts to get it all at once, while Monkey's shining fingers stuffed her blouse and skirts with sheaves of golden gossamer that later she meant to spread in a sheet upon the pillow of Mademoiselle Lemaire. ”

“ Their cousin gathered up the threads from Monkey's hair and Jimbo's eyes, and held them in one hand like reins. He sang to them a moment while they recovered their breath and forces:--
The stars in their courses Are runaway horses That gallop with Thoughts from the Earth; They collect them, and race Back through wireless space, Bringing word of the tiniest birth; Past old Saturn and Mars, And the hosts of big stars, Who strain at their leashes for joy. ”

“ But human beings were obviously what most attracted it. Sympathy must find an outlet; thoughts are bound to settle somewhere.
And the gatherers all sang softly--'Collect for others, never mind yourself!'
Some of it, too, shot out by secret ways in the enormous roof. The children recognised the exit of the separate brilliant stream they had encountered in the sky--the one especially that went to the room of pain and sickness in La Citadelle. Again they understood. That unselfish thinker of golden thoughts knew special sources of supply. ”

“ But, of course, lost things are ever dim, and those worth looking for dare not be too easily found.
A million tiny lines of light, they saw, wove living, moving patterns, very intricate and very exquisite. These lines and patterns the three drew in with their very breath. They swallowed light--the tenderest light the world can know. ”

“ The rays started, indeed, from separate points, but all met later in the sky to weave this enormous fairy network in which the currents and cross-currents and criss-cross-currents were so utterly bewildering. Alone, the children certainly must have got lost in the first five minutes. ”

“ An inexhaustible stream poured in through the narrow opening, and scattered itself at once in all directions as though driven by a wind. How could the world let so much escape it, when it was what the world most needed every day. It ran naturally into patterns, patterns that could be folded and rolled up like silken tablecloths. In silence, too. There was no sound of drops falling. Sparks fly on noiseless feet. Sympathy makes no bustle.
'Even on the thickest nights it falls,' a voice issued from a robust patch of light beside them that stooped with huge brown hands all knotted into muscles ”

“ It is little wonder that with the process of growing-up there comes a coarsening that congeals the fluid passages of exit, and finally seals the memory centres too. Only in a few can this delicate adjustment be preserved, and the sources of inspiration known to children be kept available and sweet--in the poets, dreamers, and artists of this practical, steel-girdled age. ”