He settled early on his vocation as a writer; writing suited his solitary outlook and gave him a sense of control that he seemed to lack in ordinary life. He also had the good fortune to find a mentor in critic and journalist James Ashcroft Noble, to whom he was introduced in 1894 by a Unitarian minister sympathetic to the young man's literary gifts. Noble encouraged Thomas to draw on his love of nature and outdoor rambles to produce essays based on immediate experience. Noble's support no doubt provided Thomas with a mature alternative to his father. Philip Thomas insisted that his son attend St. Paul's, a public school in Hammersmith for which he was not entirely prepared, and that he study for civil-service examinations, for which he had no inclination.
By the time he was eighteen years old, Edward Thomas was already a published writer, making some eighty pounds a year. In addition to Noble, Thomas was much influenced by the nature writer and noted eccentric Richard Jefferies, author of works such as The Amateur Poacher (1879) and After London (1885). Jefferies's writings not only conveyed an almost mystical appreciation of nature, they also offered a sense of bucolic freedom to a young man chafing under the autocratic rule of his father.
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