“I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead.”
“A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She comes from the other world – from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I’d touch you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf! – but I’d as soon offer to take hold of a blue ignis fatuus light in a marsh.”
– Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre, Chapter 22. Jane meets up with Rochester after an absense of a month. During that time she was helping her cousins Georgiana and Eliza sort out affairs after their mother’s death. Rochester greets her cheerfully and teasingly, comparing to an other-worldly creature. Jane has indeed inhabited three very different worlds, Gateshead, Lowood and Thornfield. Ignis fatuus is a will-o-the-wisp, or a phosphorescent light that sometimes hovers over marshy ground.