Belgium

Abstract

A modern critic of Emily Brontë, anxious to show that the Brontës were not all that cut off from the world around them, has tried to dispel the legend that Haworth was a remote place by pointing out the number of times the sisters visited such industrial towns as Keighley, Bradford and Leeds.¹ The evidence of Mrs Gaskell, Charlotte and Branwell suggests that there is some truth behind the myth of Haworth’s remoteness, and Charlotte’s visits to the world outside were not all that frequent.² Many of these visits took place between the years 1841 and 1843, but in 1839, at the same time as she was recounting and rebuffing the proposals of Mr Pryce, Charlotte shows the difficulty she had in travelling.