Saturday, Jul 05, 2014

Turns out there were six Bronte siblings. Two died in childhood, three became literary legends, and the sixth, Branwell, was perhaps the most talented of them all. He was an excellent painter (whose portraits of his sisters are bang-on perfect), an accomplished poet, and a most well-respected tutor. He was also an alcoholic, an addict, (his drug of choice laudanum, a highly popular opiate of the time), and rather a Don Juan, given to seducing the mothers of his pupils, one of whom was the local reverend’s wife, Lydia Robinson. (Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson.) In his late twenties –after getting fired from a number of jobs, drinking to excess, suffering the old DTs –Branwell had a serious meltdown. He then got tuberculosis, the disease of choice among the Brontes, and died at age 31. Apparently he left this world standing up, leaning against a mantelpiece, just to prove it could be done. And it was.