MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
[Illustration: ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
_Nelson Evans, Los Angeles._
_Taken in America, 1923._]
MEMORIES AND
ADVENTURES
BY
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration]
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1924
_Copyright, 1924_,
BY ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
_All rights reserved_
Published September, 1924
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I EARLY RECOLLECTIONS 1
Extraction--“H.B.”--Four Remarkable Brothers
--My Mother’s Family Tree--An Unrecognized
Genius--My First Knockout--Thackeray--The
Fenians--Early Reading--My First Story.
II UNDER THE JESUITS 8
The Preparatory School--The Mistakes of Education
--Spartan Schooling--Corporal Punishment--
Well-known School Fellows--Gloomy Forecasts--
Poetry--London Matriculation--German School--A
Happy Year--The Jesuits--Strange Arrival in Paris.
III RECOLLECTIONS OF A STUDENT 17
Edinburgh University--A Sad Disappointment--
Original of Professor Challenger--Of Sherlock
Holmes--Deductions--Sheffield--Ruyton--Birmingham
--Literary Aspirations--First Accepted Story--
My Father’s Death--Mental Position--Spiritual
Yearnings--An Awkward Business.
IV WHALING IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN 29
The _Hope_--John Gray--Boxing--The Terrible
Mate--Our Criminal--First Sight of a Woman--A
Hurricane--Dangers of the Fishing--Three
Dips in the Arctic--The Idlers’ Boat--Whale
Taking--Glamour of the Arctic--Effect of Voyage.
V THE VOYAGE TO WEST AFRICA 42
The _Mayumba_--Fearful Weather--An Escape
--Hanno’s Voyage--Atlantis--A Land of Death--
Blackwater Fever--Missionaries--Strange
Fish--Danger of Luxury--A Foolish Swim--The
Ship on Fire--England Once More.
VI MY FIRST EXPERIENCES IN PRACTICE 52
A Strange Character--His Honeymoon--His Bristol
Practice--Telegram from Plymouth--Six
Amusing Weeks--A Deep Plot--My Southsea Venture
--Furnishing on the Cheap--The Plot Explodes.
VII MY START AT SOUTHSEA 59
A Strange Life--Arrival of My Brother--I Buy Up
a Shop--Cheap Servants--Queer Patients--Dangers
of Medical Practice--Income Tax Joke--My
Marriage--Tragedy in My House--A New Phase.
VIII MY FIRST LITERARY SUCCESS 67
New Outlook--James Payn--Genesis of Holmes--“A
Study in Scarlet”--“Micah Clarke”--Disappointments
--Andrew Lang--Cornhill Dinner--Oscar Wilde--
His Criticism of Himself--“The White Company.”
IX PULLING UP THE ANCHOR 77
Psychic Studies--Experiments in Telepathy--My
First Séances--A Curious Test--General Drayson
--Opinion on Theosophy--A. P. Sinnett--W. T.
Stead--Journey to Berlin--Koch’s Treatment
--Brutality of Bergmann--Malcolm Morris--
Literary Society--Political Work--Arthur
Balfour--Our Departure.
X THE GREAT BREAK 88
Vienna--A Specialist in Wimpole Street--The
Great Decision--Norwood--“The Refugees”
--Reported Death of Holmes.
XI SIDELIGHTS ON SHERLOCK HOLMES 96
“The Speckled Band”--Barrie’s Parody on Holmes
--Holmes on the Films--Methods of Construction
--Problems--Curious Letters--Some Personal
Cases--Strange Happenings.
XII NORWOOD AND SWITZERLAND 111
Psychic Research Society--Psychic Leanings
--Literary Circles in London--Young Writers
--Henry Irving--A Great Blow--Davos--“Brigadier
Gerard”--Major Pond--American Lecturing
in 1894--First Lecture--Anti-British
Wave--Answer to Prayer.
XIII EGYPT IN 1896 121
Life in Egypt--Accident--The Men Who Made
Egypt--Up the Nile--The Salt Lakes--Adventure
in the Desert--The Coptic Monastery--Colonel
Lewis--A Surprise.
XIV ON THE EDGE OF A STORM 130
The Storm Centre--To the Frontier--Assouan
--Excited Officers--With the Press Men--A
Long Camel Ride--Night Marches--Halfa--Gwynne
of the “Morning Post”--Anley--A Sudden
Voyage--Apricots and Rousseau.
XV AN INTERLUDE OF PEACE 140
Hindhead--“A Duet”--A Haunted House--A
Curious Society--Preternatural Powers--The
Little Doctor--The Shadow of Africa.
XVI THE START FOR SOUTH AFRICA 148
The Black Week--Volunteering--The Langman
Hospital--The Voyage--Bloemfontein--Sir
Claude de Crespigny--The Epidemic--Advance
to the Water Works.
XVII DAYS WITH THE ARMY 160
Pole-Carew--Tucker--Snipers--The Looted Farm--
Taking of Brandfort--Artillery Engagement--
Advance of the Guards--The Wounded Scout--The
Dead Australian--Return.
XVIII FINAL EXPERIENCES IN SOUTH AFRICA 174
Military Jealousies--Football--Cracked Ribs--
A Mutiny--De Wet--A Historian under Difficulties
--Pretoria--Lord Roberts--With the Boers--
Memorable Operation--Altercation.
XIX AN APPEAL TO THE WORLD’S OPINION 184
Misrepresentation--A Sudden Resolve--Reginald
Smith--A Week’s Hard Work--“The Cause
and Conduct of the War”--Translations--German
Letter--Complete Success--Surplus.
XX MY POLITICAL ADVENTURES 195
Central Edinburgh--A Knock-out--The Border
Burghs--Tariff Reform--Heckling--Interpolations
--Defeat--Reflections.
XXI THE YEARS BETWEEN THE WARS 204
“History of the War”--Sir Oliver Lodge--
Military Arguments--“Sir Nigel”--The Edalji
Case--Crowborough--The Oscar Slater Case.
XXII THE YEARS BETWEEN THE WARS 222
Constantinople--The Night of Power--A Strange
Creature--Dorando--Dramatic Adventures--The
Congo Agitation--Olympic Games--Divorce
Reform--Psychic Experience--Speculation.
XXIII SOME NOTABLE PEOPLE 236
President Roosevelt--Lord Balfour--Mr. Asquith
--Lord Haldane--George Meredith--Rudyard
Kipling--James Barrie--Henry Irving--Bernard
Shaw--R. L. S.--Grant Allen--James
Payn--Henry Thompson--Royalty.
XXIV SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF SPORT 262
Racing--Shooting--A Fish Story--Boxing--Past
and Present--Carpentier and France--The Reno
Fight--Football--Golf with the Sirdar--Billiards
--Cricket--W. G. Grace--Queer Experiences
--Tragic Matches--Humiliation--Success
in Holland--Barrie’s Team--A Precedent--Motor
Accidents--Prince Henry Tour--Aviation--The
Balloon and the Aeroplane--Ski--Over
a Precipice--Rifle Shooting.
XXV TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS IN 1914 287
Baseball--Parkman--Ticonderoga--Prairie Towns
--Procession of Ceres--Relics of the Past--A
Moose--Prospects for Emigrants--Jasper Park--
The Great Divide--Algonquin Park.
XXVI THE EVE OF WAR 304
The Prologue of Armageddon--The “Prince Henry”
Race--Bernhardi--“England and the Next
War”--“Danger”--General Sir H. Wilson--The
Channel Tunnel--Naval Defects--Rubber
Collars--Mines--Willie Redmond.
XXVII A REMEMBRANCE OF THE DARK YEARS 323
Nightmares of the Morning--The Civilian Reserve
--The Volunteers--Domestic Life in War Time--
German Prisoners--Cipher to Our Prisoners--Sir
John French--Empress Eugenie--Miracle
Town--Armour--Our Tragedy.
XXVIII EXPERIENCES ON THE BRITISH FRONT 335
Lord Newton--How I Got Out--Sir W. Robertson--The
Destroyer--First Experience of Trenches--Ceremony
at Bethune--Mother--The Ypres
Salient--Ypres--The Hull Territorial--General
Sir Douglas Haig--Artillery Duel--Kingsley--Major
Wood--Paris.
XXIX EXPERIENCES ON THE ITALIAN FRONT 353
The Polite Front--Udine--Under Fire--Carnic
Alps--Italia Irredenta--Trentino--The Voice
of the Holy Roman Empire.
XXX EXPERIENCES ON THE FRENCH FRONT 360
A Dreadful Reception--Robert Donald--Clemenceau
--Soissons Cathedral--The Commandant’s
Cane--The Extreme Outpost--Adonis--General
Henneque--Cyrano in the Argonne--Tir
Rapide--French Canadian--Wound Stripes.
XXXI BREAKING THE HINDENBURG LINE 373
Lloyd George--My Second Excursion--The Farthest
German Point--Sir Joseph Cook--Night
before the Day of Judgment--The Final Battle--
On a Tank--Horrible Sight--Speech to Australians
--The Magic Carpet.
XXXII THE PSYCHIC QUEST 387
ILLUSTRATIONS
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE _Frontispiece_
PAGE
MY MOTHER AT 17 12
STEAM-WHALER _Hope_ 36
STAFF OF THE LANGMAN HOSPITAL 156
LADY CONAN DOYLE 222
THE FAMILY IN THE WILDS OF CANADA 298
KINGSLEY CONAN DOYLE 350
ON THE FRENCH FRONT 364
CHAPTER I
EARLY RECOLLECTIONS
Extraction--“H. B.”--Four Remarkable Brothers--My Mother’s Family
Tree--An Unrecognized Genius--My First Knockout--Thackeray--The
Fenians--Early Reading--My First Story.
I was born on May 22, 1859, at Picardy Place, Edinburgh, so named
because in old days a colony of French Huguenots had settled there. At
the time of their coming it was a village outside the City walls, but
now it is at the end of Queen Street, abutting upon Leith Walk. When
last I visited it, it seemed to have degenerated, but at that time the
flats were of good repute.
My father was the youngest son of John Doyle, who under the _nom de
crayon_ of “H. B.” made a great reputation in London from about 1825 to
1850. He came from Dublin about the year 1815 and may be said to be the
father of polite caricature, for in the old days satire took the brutal
shape of making the object grotesque in features and figure. Gilray and
Rowlandson had no other idea. My grandfather was a gentleman, drawing
gentlemen for gentlemen, and the satire lay in the wit of the picture
and not in the misdrawing of faces. This was a new idea, but it has
been followed by most caricaturists since and so has become familiar.
There were no comic papers in those days, and the weekly cartoon of
“H. B.” was lithographed and distributed. He exerted, I am told, quite
an influence upon politics, and was on terms of intimacy with many of
the leading men of the day. I can remember him in his old age, a very
handsome and dignified man with features of the strong Anglo-Irish,
Duke of Wellington stamp. He died in 1868.
My grandfather was left a widower with a numerous family, of which
four boys and one girl survived. Each of the boys made a name for
himself, for all inherited the artistic powers of their father. The
elder, James Doyle, wrote “The Chronicles of England,” illustrated
with coloured pictures by himself--examples of colour-printing which
beat any subsequent work that I have ever seen. He also spent thirteen
years in doing “The Official Baronage of England,” a wonderful monument
of industry and learning. Another brother was Henry Doyle, a great
judge of old paintings, and in later years the manager of the National
Gallery in Dublin, where he earned his C.B. The third son was Richard
Doyle, whose whimsical humour made him famous in “Punch,” the cover of
which with its dancing elves is still so familiar an object. Finally
came Charles Doyle, my father.
The Doyle family seem to have been fairly well-to-do, thanks to my
grandfather’s talents. They lived in London in Cambridge Terrace. A
sketch of their family life is given in “Dicky Doyle’s Diary.” They
lived up to their income, however, and it became necessary to find
places for the boys. When my father was only nineteen a seat was
offered him in the Government Office of Works in Edinburgh, whither he
went. There he spent his working life, and thus it came about that I,
an Irishman by extraction, was born in the Scottish capital.
The Doyles, Anglo-Norman in origin, were strong Roman Catholics. The
original Doyle, or D’Oil, was a cadet-branch of the Staffordshire
Doyles, which has produced Sir Francis Hastings Doyle and many other
distinguished men. This cadet shared in the invasion of Ireland and
was granted estates in County Wexford, where a great clan rose of
dependants, illegitimate children and others, all taking the feudal
lord’s name, just as the de Burghs founded the clan of Burke. We can
only claim to be the main stem by virtue of community of character and
appearance with the English Doyles and the unbroken use of the same
crest and coat-of-arms.
My forbears, like most old Irish families in the south, kept to the
old faith at the Reformation and fell victims to the penal laws in
consequence. These became so crushing upon landed gentry that my
great-grandfather was driven from his estate and became a silk-mercer
in Dublin, where “H. B.” was born. This family record was curiously
confirmed by Monsignor Barry Doyle, destined, I think, for the highest
honours of the Roman Church, who traces back to the younger brother of
my great-grandfather.
I trust the reader will indulge me in my excursion into these family
matters, which are of vital interest to the family, but must be tedious
to the outsider. As I am on the subject, I wish to say a word upon my
mother’s family, the more so as she was great on archaeology, and had,
with the help of Sir Arthur Vicars, Ulster King of Arms, and himself a
relative, worked out her descent for more than five hundred years, and
so composed a family tree which lies before me as I write and on which
many of the great ones of the earth have roosted.
Her father was a young doctor of Trinity College, William Foley, who
died young and left his family in comparative poverty. He had married
one Katherine Pack, whose death-bed--or rather the white waxen thing
which lay upon that bed--is the very earliest recollection of my life.
Her near relative--uncle, I think--was Sir Denis Pack, who led the
Scottish brigade at Waterloo. The Packs were a fighting family, as was
but right since they were descended in a straight line from a major in
Cromwell’s army who settled in Ireland. One of them, Anthony Pack, had
part of his head carried off at the same battle, so I fear it is part
of our family tradition that we lose our heads in action. His brain was
covered over by a silver plate and he lived for many years, subject
only to very bad fits of temper, which some of us have had with less
excuse.
But the real romance of the family lies in the fact that about the
middle of the seventeenth century the Reverend Richard Pack, who was
head of Kilkenny College, married Mary Percy, who was heir to the Irish
branch of the Percys of Northumberland. By this alliance we all connect
up (and I have every generation by name, as marked out by my dear
mother) with that illustrious line up to three separate marriages with
the Plantagenets. One has, therefore, some strange strains in one’s
blood which are noble in origin and, one can but hope, are noble in
tendency.
But all this romance of ancestry did not interfere with the fact that
when Katherine Pack, the Irish gentlewoman, came in her widowhood
to Edinburgh, she was very poor. I have never been clear why it was
Edinburgh for which she made. Having taken a flat she let it be known
that a paying-guest would be welcome. Just at this time, 1850 or
thereabouts, Charles Doyle was sent from London with a recommendation
to the priests that they should guard his young morals and budding
faith. How could they do this better than by finding him quarters with
a well-born and orthodox widow? Thus it came about that two separate
lines of Irish wanderers came together under one roof.
I have a little bundle of my father’s letters written in those
days, full of appreciation of the kindness which he met with and
full, also, of interesting observations on that Scottish society,
rough, hard-drinking and kindly, into which he had been precipitated
at a dangerously early age, especially for one with his artistic
temperament. He had some fine religious instincts, but his environment
was a difficult one. In the household was a bright-eyed, very
intelligent younger daughter, Mary, who presently went off to France
and returned as a very cultivated young woman. The romance is easily
understood, and so Charles Doyle in the year 1855 married Mary Foley,
my mother, the young couple still residing with my grandmother.
Their means were limited, for his salary as a Civil Servant was not
more than about £240. This he supplemented by his drawings. Thus
matters remained for practically all his life, for he was quite
unambitious and no great promotion ever came his way. His painting was
done spasmodically and the family did not always reap the benefit,
for Edinburgh is full of water-colours which he had given away. It is
one of my unfulfilled schemes to collect as many as possible and to
have a Charles Doyle exhibition in London, for the critics would be
surprised to find what a great and original artist he was--far the
greatest, in my opinion, of the family. His brush was concerned not
only with fairies and delicate themes of the kind, but with wild and
fearsome subjects, so that his work had a very peculiar style of its
own, mitigated by great natural humour. He was more terrible than Blake
and less morbid than Wiertz. His originality is best shown by the fact
that one hardly knows with whom to compare him. In prosaic Scotland,
however, he excited wonder rather than admiration, and he was only
known in the larger world of London by pen and ink book-illustrations
which were not his best mode of expression. The prosaic outcome was
that including all his earnings my mother could never have averaged
more than £300 a year on which to educate a large family. We lived in
the hardy and bracing atmosphere of poverty and we each in turn did our
best to help those who were younger than ourselves. My noble sister
Annette, who died just as the sunshine of better days came into our
lives, went out at a very early age as a governess to Portugal and
sent all her salary home. My younger sisters, Lottie and Connie, both
did the same thing; and I helped as I could. But it was still my dear
mother who bore the long, sordid strain. Often I said to her, “When you
are old, Mammie, you shall have a velvet dress and gold glasses and sit
in comfort by the fire.” Thank God, it so came to pass. My father, I
fear, was of little help to her, for his thoughts were always in the
clouds and he had no appreciation of the realities of life. The world,
not the family, gets the fruits of genius.
Of my boyhood I need say little, save that it was Spartan at home
and more Spartan at the Edinburgh school where a tawse-brandishing
schoolmaster of the old type made our young lives miserable. From the
age of seven to nine I suffered under this pock-marked, one-eyed rascal
who might have stepped from the pages of Dickens. In the evenings home
and books were my sole consolation, save for week-end holidays. My
comrades were rough boys and I became a rough boy, too. If there is any
truth in the idea of reincarnation--a point on which my mind is still
open--I think some earlier experience of mine must have been as a stark
fighter, for it came out strongly in youth, when I rejoiced in battle.
We lived for some time in a _cul de sac_ street with a very vivid
life of its own and a fierce feud between the small boys who dwelt on
either side of it. Finally it was fought out between two champions, I
representing the poorer boys who lived in flats and my opponent the
richer boys who lived in the opposite villas. We fought in the garden
of one of the said villas and had an excellent contest of many rounds,
not being strong enough to weaken each other. When I got home after
the battle, my mother cried, “Oh, Arthur, what a dreadful eye you
have got!” To which I replied, “You just go across and look at Eddie
Tulloch’s eye!”
I met a well-deserved setback on one occasion when I stood forward to
fight a bootmaker’s boy, who had come into our preserve upon an errand.
He had a green baize bag in his hand which contained a heavy boot, and
this he swung against my skull with a force which knocked me pretty
well senseless. It was a useful lesson. I will say for myself, however,
that though I was pugnacious I was never so to those weaker than myself
and that some of my escapades were in the defence of such. As I will
show in my chapter on Sport, I carried on my tastes into a later period
of my life.
One or two little pictures stand out which may be worth recording.
When my grandfather’s grand London friends passed through Edinburgh
they used, to our occasional embarrassment, to call at the little flat
“to see how Charles is getting on.” In my earliest childhood such a
one came, tall, white-haired and affable. I was so young that it seems
like a faint dream, and yet it pleases me to think that I have sat on
Thackeray’s knee. He greatly admired my dear little mother with her
grey Irish eyes and her vivacious Celtic ways--indeed, no one met her
without being captivated by her.
Once, too, I got a glimpse of history. It was in 1866, if my dates are
right, that some well-to-do Irish relatives asked us over for a few
weeks, and we passed that time in a great house in King’s County. I
spent much of it with the horses and dogs, and became friendly with the
young groom. The stables opened on to a country road by an arched gate
with a loft over it. One morning, being in the yard, I saw the young
groom rush into the yard with every sign of fear and hastily shut and
bar the doors. He then climbed into the loft, beckoning to me to come
with him. From the loft window we saw a gang of rough men, twenty or
so, slouching along the road. When they came opposite to the gate they
stopped and looking up shook their fists and cursed at us. The groom
answered back most volubly. Afterwards I understood that these men
were a party of Fenians, and that I had had a glimpse of one of the
periodical troubles which poor old Ireland has endured. Perhaps now, at
last, they may be drawing to an end.
During these first ten years I was a rapid reader, so rapid that some
small library with which we dealt gave my mother notice that books
would not be changed more than twice a day. My tastes were boylike
enough, for Mayne Reid was my favourite author, and his “Scalp Hunters”
my favourite book. I wrote a little book and illustrated it myself in
early days. There was a man in it and there was a tiger who amalgamated
shortly after they met. I remarked to my mother with precocious wisdom
that it was easy to get people into scrapes, but not so easy to get
them out again, which is surely the experience of every writer of
adventures.