ith 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
labors, although, oddly enough, in his leisure hours the bustle 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 prodigious; 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 prodigiously in a retired place, a day in London
setting and starting me up again. But the toil and labor 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 convalescence. 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 with him. On one of these
mornings, I was lying on the sofa endeavouring to keep perfectly quiet,
while my father wrote busily and rapidly at his desk, when he suddenly
jumped from his chair and rushed to a mirror which hung near, and in
which I could see the reflection of some extraordinary facial contortions
which he was making. He returned rapidly to his desk, wrote furiously
for a few moments, and then went again to the mirror. The facial
pantomime was resumed, and then turning toward, but evidently not seeing,
me, he began talking rapidly in a low voice. Ceasing this soon, however,
he returned once more to his desk, where he remained silently writing
until luncheon time. It was a most curious experience for me, and one of
which, I did not until later years, fully appreciate the purport. Then I
knew that with his natural intensity he had thrown himself completely
into the character that he was creating, and that for the time be