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Abstract
The home of Helen Burns was placed at Deepden “in Northumberland.” Often during the lessons in class said Helen Burns—“I fall into a sort of dream. Sometimes I think I am in Northumberland, and that the noises I hear round me are the bubbling of a little brook which runs through Deepden, near our house;—then when it comes to my turn to reply, I have to be awakened; and, having heard nothing of what was read for listening to the visionary brook, I have no answer ready.” (p. 62). We have no guide to the exact circumstances which suggested this passage to Charlotte Brontë, but the day dreaming was most probably an actual habit of her sister, Maria Brontë,the model for Helen Burns. One can imagine the lonely little creature dreaming fondly of the bubbling of the brook and the waterfall on the moors the sisters loved so well behind their own home at Haworth. There is a Deepden in Surrey, but not in Northumberland.