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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
was translated into all European languages, had also, I hope,
some infl uence towards that end.
In the early summer of 1912 I had a telegram from Lord
Northcliffe which let me in for about as much trouble as any
communication which I have ever received. It was to the effect
that Britain must regain her place among the athletic nations
which had been temporarily eclipsed by the Olympic Games at
Stockholm, and that I was the one man in Great Britain who
could rally round me the various discordant forces which had
to be united and used. This was very complimentary, but it was
Lord Northcliffe’s sole contribution to the matter for a very
long time, and I was left to my own devices entirely in carrying
out a complex task. So badly co-ordinated were Northcliffe’s
papers that I had some of them actually attacking me while
I was working on their chief’s suggestion.
When I examined I found chaos. On the one hand was
the British Olympic Committee, a most sound and respectable body, under Lord Desborough. In some way they had lost
touch with press and public and were generally in disfavour,
though really they had done their best. On the other hand was
“The Times,” which had worked itself into a fury about the
misdeeds of the Committee, and had set a tone which poisoned
the whole press against them. Lord Northcliffe would have
nothing to do with anything which emanated from the Committee; the Committee defi ed Lord Northcliffe. It was clear
that this had to be cleared up as a preliminary, and the matter
took enough diplomacy to have settled the Balkan question.
I called upon the Committee and suggested that an independent body be formed on which they could be represented. To
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
this they agreed. I then called on “The Times” and said: “You
are no longer dealing with the old Olympic Committee, but
with a new body. Do you agree to this?” Yes, that was all in
order. I may have omitted the trifl ing fact that the new body
did not yet exist. I then asked Mr. Studd, the famous cricketer
of old and head of the Polytechnic to help me to form the new
body. We soon had a very effective one, including several leading athletes and Lord Forster, now Governor-General of Australia. I served, of course, on the Committee, and soon we were
in touch with every one and all promised to go smoothly.
But presently a huge mistake was made. I don’t wish to represent myself as the fount of all wisdom, and no doubt I make
as many slips as my fellows, but that particular one would
never have been made had I been present, but I was called
away and was out of the country at that crucial Committee
meeting. It had been already determined that an appeal to the
public over all our names should be issued. The amount had
not been discussed, but in my own mind I had thought that
£10,000 would suffi ce. I was horrifi ed, therefore, when I returned from my holiday to fi nd that they had appealed for
£100,000. The sum was absurd, and at once brought upon us
from all sides the charge of developing professionalism. My
position was very diffi cult. If I protested now it would go far
to ruin the appeal. After all it might succeed. I could only fall
into line with the others and do my best for the sake of the
cause to defend a policy which I looked upon as mistaken. We
actually collected about £7,000, and fi nally, as we found that
the general feeling was either hostile or apathetic, we handed
over this sum to the Olympic Committee. Then came the war,
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
and so in any case our labour was in vain, for the Games were
to be in Berlin in 1916. We were all playing another game by
then. This matter was spread over a year of my life and was the
most barren thing that I ever touched, for nothing came of
it, and I cannot trace that I ever received one word of thanks
from any human being. I was on my guard against Northcliffe
telegrams after that.
I remember one curious episode about that time. I was staying in a Northumberland Avenue Hotel, and I walked out at
night in pensive mood, strolling down the Embankment and
watching the great dark river with the gleam of the lights
upon it. Suddenly a man passed me, walking very rapidly and
muttering in an incoherent way. He gave me an impression of
desperation and I quickened my pace and followed him. With
a rush he sprang up on the parapet and seemed to be about
to throw himself into the river. I was just in time to catch his
knees and to pull him down. He struggled hard to get up, but
I put my arm through his and led him across the road. There
I reasoned with him and examined into the cause of his troubles. He had had some domestic quarrel, I believe, but his main
worry was his business, which was that of a baker. He seemed
a respectable man and the case seemed genuine, so I calmed
him down, gave him such immediate help as I could, and made
him promise to return home and to keep in touch with me
afterwards.
When the excitement of the incident was over, I had grave
doubts as to whether I had not been the victim of a clever
swindler. I was considerably relieved, therefore, to get a letter
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
a few days later, giving name and address, and obviously genuine. I lost sight of the case after that.
Another matter which preoccupied me much in the years
before the war, and preoccupies me still, is the Reform of
our Divorce Laws. I was president of the Reform Union for
ten years and have only just vacated the position in order to
make room for a far more effi cient successor in Lord Birkenhead. I am quite alive to all the arguments of our opponents,
and quite understand that laxity in the marriage tie is an evil,
but I cannot understand why England should lag behind every other Protestant country in the world, and even behind
Scotland, so that unions which are obviously disgusting and
degrading are maintained in this country while they can be
dissolved in our Colonies or abroad. As to morality I cannot,
I fear, admit that our morality here is in the least better than
in Scandinavia, Holland or Germany, where they have more
rational laws. I think that in some States in America they have
pushed Divorce to an extreme, but even in America I should
say that married happiness and morality generally are quite
as high as with us. The House of Lords has shown itself to be
more liberal in this matter than the Commons, possibly because the latter have a fear of organized Church infl uence in
their constituencies. It is one of several questions which makes
me not sorry to see Labour, with its larger outlook, in power
for a time in this country. Our marriage laws, our land laws,
the cheapening of justice and many other things have long
called out for reform, and if the old parties will not do it then
we must seek some new one which will.
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
During these long and happy years, when the smooth current of our national life was quietly sliding toward Niagara,
I did not lose my interest in psychic matters, but I cannot say
that I increased my grasp of the religious or spiritual side of the
subject. I read, however, and investigated whenever the chance
arose. A gentleman had arranged a series of physical séances in
a large studio in North London, and I attended them, the mediums being Cecil Husk and Craddock. They left a very mixed
impression upon my mind, for in some cases, I was fi lled with
suspicion and in others I was quite sure that the result was
genuine. The possibility that a genuine medium may be unscrupulous and that when these very elusive forces fail to act
he may simulate them is one which greatly complicates the
whole subject, but one can only concentrate upon what one
is sure is true and try to draw conclusions from that. I remember that many sheeted ghosts walked about in the dim light
of a red lamp on these occasions, and that some of them came
close to me, within a foot of my face, and illuminated their features by the light of a phosphorescent slate held below them.
One splendid Arab, whom the medium called Abdullah, came
in this fashion. He had a face like an idealized W. G. Grace,
swarthy, black-bearded and dignifi ed, rather larger than human. I was looking hard at this strange being, its nose a few
inches from my own, and was wondering whether it could be
some very clever bust of wax, when in an instant the mouth
opened and a terrifi c yell was emitted. I nearly jumped out of
my chair. I saw clearly the gleaming teeth and the red tongue.
It certainly seemed that he had read my thought and had taken this very effective way of answering it.
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Some of the excitements of my life during these and the
subsequent years were due to fi nancial entanglements which
arose from a certain speculative element in my own nature,
depending rather upon the love of adventure than upon any
hope of gain. If when I earned money I had dug a hole in the
garden and buried it there I should be a much richer man today. I can hardly blame the punter on the racecourse when
I remember the outside chances which I have taken in the past
in every possible form of speculation. But I have the advantage
over the mere gambler in this, that every pound of my money
went to develop something or other and lined the pocket of
the working man, who, by the way, when he grumbles over
the profi ts of the Capitalist never even alludes to his losses. If
a balance sheet were struck it would be interesting to see what,
if any, is the exact margin of profi t.
It is true that sometimes I have indulged in a pure gamble
but never for any sum which would hurt me. I have painful
memories of a guano island off South Africa on which our
treasure seekers were not even allowed to land, though every bird’s nest was rumoured to contain a diamond. The Spanish galleon in the bay of Tobermory also took treasure rather
than gave it, and the return for my shares was a lump of glass
and a rusted bar. That was more than ever I had from certain
spots in KalgurlI and Coolgardie and other alleged goldbearers, which have nearly all been gold consumers so far as I am
concerned. I fear some of those mines were like that legendary
one where the manager, getting a cable which ordered him
to start crushing, replied, “I have nothing to crush until you
return samples.”
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
I have played my involuntary part also in the development
of the Rand and Rhodesia, from those early and unsophisticated days when I misread the quotation and meaning to invest
£60 was faced next morning with a bill for £900. Occasionally
it is true that I backed a winner, but as a rule I must confess
that I was not judicious in my selections.
But it was at home that I expended myself most freely. I saw
the enormous possibilities of Kent coal, which even now are not
fully understood; but I did not suffi ciently weigh the impossibilities, which are that an enterprise can be successful which
is wildly fi nanced and extravagantly handled. I and many others lost our money sinking the shafts which may bring fortunes to our successors. I even descended 1,000 feet through
the chalk to see with my own eyes that the coal was in situ. It
seems to have had the appearance and every other quality of
coal save that it was incombustible, and when a dinner was
held by the shareholders which was to be cooked by local coal,
it was necessary to send out and buy something which would
burn. There were, however, lower strata which were more sensitive to heat. Besides Kent Coal I lost very heavily in running
a manufacturing plant in Birmingham, into which I was led
by those successive stages in which you are continually trying
to save what you have already invested until the situation becomes so serious that you drop it in terror. We turned from bicycles to munitions during the war, and actually worked hard
the whole four years, with a hundred artisans making needful
war material, without ever declaring a penny of dividend. This,
I should think, must be a record, and at least no one could call
us profi teers. The fi rm was eventually killed dead by the suc-
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
cessive strikes of the moulders and the miners. It is amazing
how one set of workmen will ruin another set without apparently any remonstrance from the sufferers. Another bad egg
was a sculpture machine for architectural work, which really
had great possibilities, but we could not get the orders. I was
chairman of this company, and it cost me two years of hard
work and anxiety, ending up by my paying the balance out of
my own pocket, so that we might wind up in an honourable
way. It was a dismal experience with many side adventures attached to it, which would make a sensational novel.
Such are some of the vicissitudes which cannot be disregarded in a retrospect of life, for they form a very integral
and absorbing part of it. I have had my ill luck and I have had
my good. Amid the latter I count the fact that I have been for
twenty-one years a director of Raphael Tuck & Co., without
the least cloud to darken the long and pleasant memory. I have
also been for many years chairman of Besson’s famous brass
instrument fi rm. I think a man should know all sides of life,
and he has missed a very essential side if he has not played his
part in commerce. In investments, too, I would not imply that
I have always been unfortunate. My speculative adventures are
over, and I can at least say that unless the British Empire goes
down I shall be able to retain enough for our modest needs.
CHAPTER XXIII
SOME NOTABLE PEOPLE
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.
WHEN I have chanced during my life to come in contact
with notable people, I have often made some short record at
the time of what they said and how they impressed me. It is diffi cult, however, to use these notes for publication when you
happen to have been a guest, and it can only be done, I think,
by using one’s judgment and never consciously harming one’s
host. If every one were altogether silent upon such occasions
the most pleasing side of great contemporaries would never be
chronicled, for the statesman in slippers is a very much more
human and lovable person than the politician on the platform.
Among the great men that I have known President Roosevelt occupied a prominent place. He was not a big, nor, so far
as one could see, a powerful man, but he had tremendous dynamic force and an iron will which may account for his reputation as an athlete. He had all the simplicity of real greatness,
speaking his mind with great frankness and in the clearest
possible English. He had in him a great deal of the boy, a mis-
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
chievous, adventurous, high-spirited boy, with a deep, strong,
thoughtful manhood in the background. We were present,
my wife and I, at the Guildhall when he made his memorable
speech about Egypt, in which he informed a gathering, which
contained the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, and many of
our Cabinet, that we should either rule more strictly or clear
out altogether. It was, of course, a most unwarrantable intrusion into our affairs, but it was a calculated indiscretion, and
very welcome, I believe, to those who were dealing with Egypt.
As he made his way through the dense crowd afterwards he
passed me and said with a grin: “I say, I let them have it that
time, didn’t I?” There was the mischievous boy coming out.
He had a quick blunt wit which showed itself often in his
metaphors. He spoke to me, I remember, of some one who had
a nine guinea-pig-power brain. One of his entourage told me
how the President had been awakened once to address some
prairie folk at a wayside station. “They have come sixty miles to
see you,” said his secretary. “They would have come a hundred
to see a cat with two heads,” said the ruffl ed President.
I met him once at a small luncheon party at the invitation of Lord Lee, who had soldiered with him in Cuba. He was
extremely talkative in fact, I can hardly remember anyone
else saying anything. Thinking it over afterwards I concluded
that two ideas were running through his mind, and every now
and then coming to the surface. They were formidable ideas,
and may have been some temporary wave of feeling, but they
were certainly in his thoughts. The one was that there would
be another civil war in the States. The second, that if you had
the farmer class on your side they presented the best military
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