Charlotte Bronté is a slight, brown-haired girl, with an eye full of clairvoyant power. With her father, sisters, and poor reprobate of a brother, all united like a cluster-diamond, she lives in a home which they have selected, remarkable for its wild and picturesque beauty.
As a family they are like the ancient Scots, clannish—not in a vulgar acceptation of the term, but for the reason that they are kindred souls. The torch of genius flames in every member of that family, but Charlotte is the mover, the inspirer of them all. She possesses a greater degree of concentration and energy, and is more chivalrous and venturesome. She is exceedingly interested in woman, and devotes daily a portion of her time to visiting earth and suggesting ideas and thoughts to those whom she can influence.
In her new home she draws around her a circle of chosen spirits, among whom may be mentioned Thackeray (who esteems her as about the finest specimen of womanhood he has seen), Prince Albert, Scott, Hawthorne, the German Goethe, De Quincy, and others.
Few writers of romance have done more than she towards raising her sex above the frivolities of dress and fortune, and placing them where they shine conspicuous for their intellect and noble affections.
Bold and unsparing in analyzing woman’s heart in its uncontaminated simplicity as well as in its subtlety, she lighted a torch in behalf of her sex which flamed throughout the literary world, startling and dazzling the beholder—a light which will never be quenched.
Charlotte Bronté was on earth what is now known as a medium. Her belief in the supernatural she evinced in her works. If she had not indicated so much intellect, the critics would have termed her superstitious. They have inferred that it was the loneliness and sadness of her life which caused her to imagine she saw her beloved dead and heard unearthly voices calling her. But she has since told me that those mysterious influences were not morbid fancies, but realities. Being thus endowed clairvoyantly, and not only receptive but able to impart that which she receives, she exerts at the present moment an influence in the world of letters little dreamed of on earth.
I may here, without infringing on the requirements of good taste, allude to the tale she has dictated through this medium. That it is a story of powerful interest, all who read it will confess.
To many minds it will prove that her power is unabated, but every reader will perceive the characteristics of the Bronté family in the tale—characteristics which cannot be imitated—which are individualized in that family, and breathe of the lone moor on which they spent their earth ife, one of sad struggle of genius against circumstance and destiny.
PROFESSOR OLMSTEAD.
_THE LOCALITY OF THE SPIRIT WORLD, AND ITS MAGNETIC RELATIONS TO THIS_.
How near is the spirit world to earth? is a question often put by the inquiring mind. Some suppose it lies contiguous, just in the suburbs; others imagine the spirit world to be within the atmosphere of this earth; others again set it afar off in a given locality.