I was never an orthodox pedagogue; very much the reverse. I aimed rather at making my pupils manly than at cramming their heads with book work, and, I think, I succeeded. There were exceptions, of course, but my pupils as a whole developed a fondness for games, both cricket and football, that bore subsequent fruit when they left me and went on the public schools. The out-of-door occupation that formed part of my life now was delightful, but the dry and dull monotony of the schoolroom, and the eternal interference of certain of the parents of my pupils, who wanted everything for nothing, for my fees were ridiculously small, took it out of me so much, that I simply longed to throw up the whole thing and get back to my dearly-beloved stage or writing.
It was while I was in Cornwall that I got my first book, “For Satan’s Sake,” taken. Mr. Ranger Gull, who was at that time reader for Mr. Arthur Greening’s publishing house, read the MS., and was so pleased with it, that he recommended it strongly for publication. It was accepted, but did not appear in print for fully a year.
“The Unknown Depths,” which I had written in St. James’ Road, Brixton, followed; then “Jennie Barlowe,” which I wrote between school hours in Cornwall in the Spring of 1906; then “Dinevah the Beautiful,” the last of my efforts in Brixton. The latter appeared in 1907.
In the winter of 1908 my wife was ill, and in the evenings, when my harassing duties in the schoolroom were over, I used to sit by her bedside evolving fresh plots. It was then that I first conceived the idea of writing a ghost book.
In my holidays, which I usually spent in London or the Midlands, never in Cornwall—I always flew away from the precincts of the schoolroom the moment we broke up—I had often gone ghost-hunting, and I now determined to make use of my experiences. Consequently, I mapped out a synopsis of a work on haunted houses, which was at once accepted by Mr. Eveleigh Nash, who commissioned me to write a book on those lines. I did this in the Summer of 1908, and the book, which appeared in the Autumn of that year and was entitled “Some Haunted Houses of England and Wales,” created something of a sensation. It was not only extensively reviewed by the London papers, but by many of the American and Colonial ones as well. From that time onward my pen has rarely been idle, and, apart from compiling some dozen or so works on the Superphysical, I have written innumerable short stories and articles. Indeed, so associated has my name become with everything appertaining to the psychic, that publishers are inclined to the idea that I cannot write upon any other subject. In this, however, I venture to think they are mistaken; for my two works, “The Reminiscences of Mrs. E. M. Ward” and “The Irish Abroad,” both published by Sir Isaac Pitman & Co., have been very favourably received by both the Press and public.
It was, however, the success of this first work of mine on ghostly phenomena that made me realise that what I had long hoped for had at last come within measurable distance of attainment. I could give up teaching and devote my time once again, wholly and solely to writing. Never shall I forget with what joy—with what unbounded and infinite joy—I hailed the prospect of leaving for ever behind me all those weary, dreary hours in the schoolroom, where I had been forced to display a patience I never had, and where I had been forced to assume a virtue I never really possessed, namely, a love of teaching.
I made public my intention of giving up the school in the summer of 1908, and the following winter saw me snugly ensconced in a little house in Upper Norwood, where I have been ever since.
Several writers, one of whom I had the pleasure of meeting in London quite recently (his brilliant character studies of young and charming girls figure monthly in certain of the popular magazines), have been credited with introducing to the public, none too favourably, this Cornish Colony amongst whom I lived. If they have done so, I can certainly endorse their sentiments. In no other town that I have been in have I ever met people who laid themselves open to such unfavourable criticism. I lived there nearly eight years, and during that time I received the bare minimum of hospitality. I found the greater number of the inhabitants bigoted and pharisaical and the townfolk and labouring people not only extremely ignorant, but very unforgiving and vindictive. That they were still—that is to say, at the time I am writing of—in a tribal state was proved by their puerile attitude of hostility to strangers, whom they used frequently to insult and annoy. I signed two petitions relative to the throwing of stones at visitors, which petitions were forwarded to the Home Secretary. The result was nil. The local authorities, in dealing with such cases, displayed the most woeful apathy, and apparently this state of affairs was irremediable, since the magistrates, with few exceptions, were related to half the people in the town.
With the Art Colony I had very little to do. The few artists I knew at all intimately I liked. I found them congenial and generally sympathetic, though displaying an avidity in criticising authors, which, considering their touchiness with regard to any criticism of their own work, was distinctly amusing; all the same, apart from this and one other harmless peculiarity, namely, an exaggerated and unblushing deference to titles, I found them very good fellows, and nearly all the hospitality I received in the town I received from them.
I think I am right in saying there was never a very friendly feeling between the townspeople and the artists. The townspeople looked upon the artists as intruders, “foreigners,” whose ways and habits were diametrically opposite to theirs, especially with regard to the treatment of the Sabbath; whilst the artists showed a none too well concealed contempt for the townspeople, whom they seemed to regard not only as hopelessly inartistic, but of an utterly inferior breed.