I also put together a little book on Tennyson, which has, I
believe, the merit of containing all the most interesting anecdotes
about him, and I also wrote the Rossetti in the Men of Letters
Series, a painstaking book, rather rhetorical; though the truth
about Rossetti cannot be told, even if it could be known.
All this work was done in the middle of hard professional work,
with a boarding-house and many pupils. I will dare to say that I
was an active and diligent schoolmaster, and writing was only a
recreation. I could only get a few hours a week at it, and it never
interfered with my main work.
My father died in 1896, and I wrote his life in two big volumes, a
very solid piece of work; but it was after that, I think, that my
real writing began. I believe it was in 1899 that I slowly composed
The House of Quiet, but I could not satisfy myself about the
ending, and it was laid aside.
Then I was offered the task of editing Queen Victoria's letters. I
resigned my mastership with a mixture of sorrow and relief. The
work was interesting and absorbing, but I did not like our system
of education, nor did I believe in it. But I put my beliefs into a
little book called The Schoolmaster, which made its way.
I left my work as a teacher in 1903, when I was forty-one. The
House of Quiet appeared in that year anonymously, and began to
sell. I lived on at Eton with an old friend; went daily up to
Windsor Castle, and toiled through volumes of papers.
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