[miss marmelstein]

Their mother died very young so we don’t know much about her. Their father was very intelligent, if eccentric, but I don’t think he had much artistic interest. He was shocked when his daughters published books. So, I suppose, they came out of nowhere.

[Dr. Sivana]

Their father was very intelligent, if eccentric, but I don’t think he had much artistic interest.

The story is better than that. Their father was an hilariously BAD writer.

I cannot resist the temptation of telling Mr. D. B. Wyndham, and all lovers of bad poetry, one poet to whom I know they would not refuse the laurel. He was so famous a person as Rev. Patrick Bronte, the father of the great Bronte sisters; and his verse are actually printed along with theirs at the end of one edition of their works. He has often been called harsh and inhuman; but he deserves a place in literature since he invented a metre that is an instrument of torture.

From G.K. Chesterton in the essay "On Bad Poetry".