oetic creation, for, to my mind, the ghosts she saw were
projections of herself into objective reality. The Hades she imagines is
based in fact, for it is one of souls, who, having neglected their
opportunities for better life, find themselves left forlorn, helpless,
seeking aid from beings still ignorant and prejudiced, perhaps much
below themselves in natural powers. Having forfeited their chance of
direct access to God, they seek mediation from the prayers of men. But
in the coloring and dress[3] of these ghosts, as also in their manner
and mode of speech, there is a great deal which seems merely
fanciful--local and peculiar.

[Footnote 3: The women ghosts all wear veils, put on the way admired
by the Italian poets, of whom, however, she could know
nothing.]

To me, these interviews represent only prophecies of her mind; yet,
considered in this way, they are, if not ghostly, spiritual facts of
high beauty, and which cast light on the state of the soul after its
separation from the body. Her gentle patience with them, her steady
reference to a higher cause, her pure joy, when they became white in the
light of happiness obtained through aspiration, are worthy of a more
than half enfranchised angel.

As to the stories of mental correspondence and visits to those still
engaged in this world, such as are told of her presentiment of her
father's death, and connexion with him in the last moments, these are
probably pure facts. Those who have sufficient strength of affection to
be easily disengaged from external impressions and habits, and who dare
trust their mental impulses are familiar with such.

Her invention of a language seems a simply natural motion of the mind
when left to itself. The language we habitually use is so broken, and so
hackneyed by ages of conventional use, that, in all deep states of
being, we crave one simple and primitive in its stead. Most persons make
one more or less clear from looks, tones, and symbols:--this woman, in
the long leisure of her loneliness, and a mind bent upon itself,
attempted to compose one of letters and words. I look upon it as no gift
from without, but a growth from her own mind.

Her invention of a machine, of which she made a drawing, her power of
drawing correctly her life-circle, and sun-circle, and the mathematical
feeling she had of her existence, in correspondent sections of the two,
are also valuable as mental facts. These fig