and the horrible howl of their war-cry shall spread over the land at morning, at noontide and night; but that they shall have their annual feast over the bones of the dead, and shall yearly rejoice with the joy of victors.  I think, sir, that the horrible wickedness of this needs no remark, and therefore I haste to subscribe myself, &c.

   “July 14, 1829.”

It is not unlikely that the foregoing letter may have had some allegorical or political reference, invisible to our eyes, but very clear to the bright little minds for whom it was intended.  Politics were evidently their grand interest; the Duke of Wellington their demi-god.  All that related to him belonged to the heroic age.  Did Charlotte want a knight-errant, or a devoted lover, the Marquis of Douro, or Lord Charles Wellesley, came ready to her hand.  There is hardly one of her prose-writings at this time in which they are not the principal personages, and in which their “august father” does not appear as a sort of Jupiter Tonans, or Deus ex Machina.

As one evidence how Wellesley haunted her imagination, I copy out a few of the titles to her papers in the various magazines.

“Liffey Castle,” a Tale by Lord C. Wellesley.

“Lines to the River Aragua,” by the Marquis of Douro.

“An Extraordinary Dream,” by Lord C. Wellesley.

“The Green Dwarf, a Tale of the Perfect Tense,” by the Lord Charles Albert Florian Wellesley.

“Strange Events,” by Lord C. A. F. Wellesley.

Life in an isolated village, or a lonely country-house, presents many little occurrences which sink into the mind of childhood, there to be brooded over.  No other event may have happened, or be likely to happen, for days, to push one of these aside, before it has assumed a vague and mysterious importance.  Thus, children leading a secluded life are often thoughtful and dreamy:  the impressions made upon them by the world without—­the unusual sights of earth and sky—­the accidental meetings with strange faces and figures (rare occurrences in those out-of-the-way places)—­are sometimes magnified by them into things so deeply significant as to be almost supernatural.  This peculiarity I perceive very strongly in Charlotte’s writings at this time.  Indeed, under the circumstances, it is no peculiarity.  It has been common to all, from the Chaldean shepherds—­“the lonely herdsman stretched on the soft grass through half a summer’s day”—­the solitary monk—­to all whose impressions from without have had time to grow and vivify in the imagination, till they have been received as actual personifications, or supernatural visions, to doubt which would be blasphemy.