Excerpt from “The Life of Charlotte
Bronte,” (the writer of "Jane Eyre,") by Elizabeth Gaskell.
(In regard
to Branwell Bronte’s hopeless addiction. Having founded and overseen an addictions group for two years, though never having been personally addicted to substances, I can relate)
“For the
last three years of Branwell’s life, he took opium habitually, by way of
stunning conscience; he drank moreover, whenever he could get the opportunity.
The reader may say that I have mentioned his tendency to intemperance long
before. It is true, but it did not become habitual, as far as I can learn,
until after he was dismissed from his tutorship. He took opium, because it made
him forget for a time more effectually than drink; and, besides, it was more
portable.
In procuring
it he showed all the cunning of an opium-eater. He would steal out while the
family was at church-to which he had professed himself too ill to go-and manage
to cajole the village druggist out of a lump; or, it may be the carrier had
unsuspiciously brought him some in a packet from a distance.
For some
time before his death he had attacks of delirium tremens of the most frightful
character. He slept in his father’s room, and he would sometimes declare that
either he or his father should be dead before the morning. The trembling
sisters, sick with fright, would implore their father not to expose himself to
this danger, but Mr. Bronte is no timid man, and perhaps he felt that he could
possibly influence his son to some self-restraint more by showing trust in him,
than by showing fear.
The sisters
often listened for the report of a pistol in the dead of the night, till
watchful eye and hearkening ear grew heavy and dull with the perpetual strain
upon their nerves. In the mornings young Bronte would saunter out, saying, with
a drunkard’s incontinence of speech,
“The poor
old man and I have had a terrible night of it. He does his best-the poor old
man! But It’s all over with me.”
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