When at work my father was almost always alone, so that, with rare exceptions, save as we could see the effect of the adventures of his characters upon him in his daily moods, we knew but little of his manner of work.  Absolute quiet under these circumstances was essential, the slightest sound making an interruption fatal to the success of his labors¹, although, oddly enough, in his leisure hours the bustle³ and noise of a great city seemed necessary to him.  He writes, after an enforced idleness of two years, spent in a quiet place; “The difficulty of going at what I call a rapid pace is p. 47prodigious; indeed, it is almost an impossibility.  I suppose this is partly the effect of two years’ ease, and partly the absence of streets, and numbers of figures.  I cannot express how much I want these.  It seems as if they supplied something to my brain which, when busy, it cannot bear to lose.  For a week or fortnight I can write prodigiously⁴ in a retired⁵ place, a day in London setting and starting me up again.  But the toil⁶ and labor² of writing day after day without that magic lantern is immense!”

 

As I have said, he was usually alone when at work, though there were, of course, some occasional exceptions, and I myself constituted such an exception.  During our life at Tavistock House, I had a long and serious illness, with an almost equally long convalescence⁷.  During the latter, my father suggested that I should be carried every day into his study to remain with him, and, although I was fearful of disturbing him, he assured me that he desired to have me p. 48with him.  On one of these mornings, I was lying on the sofa endeavouring to keep

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