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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
material. From this I gathered that it was not a geographical
but an economic struggle that was in his mind. Absit omen, but
great men are often pessimists, and the Duke of Wellington
was deeply convinced that Britain could not long survive his
death.
When Roosevelt was shot I sent him a cable to express that
sympathy which every Englishman felt. I have his answer before me, written only a day or so after the event:
MERCY HOSPITAL,
CHICAGO,
October 19, 1912.
DEAR MR. DOYLE, – Many thanks for your kind message
of sympathy. As you know, a bullet wound is rather a serious
thing, but all conditions seem to be favourable, and I hope in
a few days we will all be relieved from anxiety.
Sincerely yours,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
It is typewritten, but signed by his own hand. I do not
think that a more brave and detached letter was ever written
by a sufferer.
Roosevelt was a very loud hearty man, with a peculiar
wild-beast toothy grin, and an explosive habit of slapping
his hand down for emphasis. I jotted down a few of his obiter
dicta after our conversation. He had no good word for Henry James. “He is not a whole man. All that subtlety is really
decadence.” He was very virile, not to say heroic in his views.
“A man should guard particularly against being led from
his duty, especially a dangerous duty, by his women. I guess
a woman would have had a bad time if she had tried to lead
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Leonidas from the pass.” Of the German Emperor he said that
he was jealous of the King’s dog at the King’s funeral because
he attracted the more notice. Altogether he was one of the
raciest talkers I have ever met.
Among the occasional great ones of earth whom I have met
there is hardly anyone who stands out more clearly than Arthur Balfour, with his willowy fi gure, his gentle intellectual
face, and, as I read it, his soul of steel. I should think that of all
men of our day he was the last who would be turned from any
path which he had deliberately taken, but, on the other hand,
he was capable of standing a most unconscionable time at the
place where paths divide, for his mind was so subtle and active
that he would always see the two sides of every question and
waver between them. He could never have been a pioneer.
The occasion of our fi rst meeting was a most ridiculous one.
Old Lord Burnham, the fi rst of his line, had invited me down
to his country house at Beaconsfi eld – a wonderful house
which had been built originally by Waller, the Royalist poet.
Burke had lived close by, and the dagger which, in a melodramatic moment, he threw upon the fl oor of the house, in order to show the dangers of French Republican propaganda,
is still on exhibition. I can remember the party well, though
nearly all of them are now on the farther side. I see Lady Dorothy Nevill with her mittened hands and her prim pussy-cat
manner, retailing gossip about Disraeli’s fl irtations. Sir Henry
James walks under the trees with bended head, talking to the
rising barrister who is destined as Lord Reading to be Viceroy
of India. Lady Cleveland, mother of Lord Rosebery, is listening with her old face wreathed in smiles to Lady Dorothy’s
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
scandal. Young Harry Irving looks unutterably bored as Lord
Burnham explains golf to him, bending his head over to get
a glimpse of the ball round the curve of his goodly waistcoat.
Mr. Asquith stands smiling beside them. As one looks back
they seem all to have been shadows in a world of shadow.
Lord Burnham’s hobby was Turkish baths, and he had an
excellent one in the front of the house, the drying room being
the fi rst door on the right as one entered, and being a simple
sitting-room as far as appearance went. With his usual kind
hospitality Lord Burnham had urged me to try his bath, and
having done so I was placed, arrayed in a long towel, and with
another towel screwed round my head, in the drying room.
Presently the door opened, and entered Arthur Balfour, Prime
Minister of England. He knew nothing of the house or its ways,
and I can remember the amazement with which he gazed at
me. Lord Burnham following at his heels introduced me, and
I raised the towel on my head. There were no explanations,
and I felt that he went away with the impression that this was
my usual costume.
I did not see him after that week-end – he kept his room,
I remember, until midday on the Sunday – until some years
later when, after heavy domestic loss, I was endeavouring to
collect myself again in a little inn near Dunbar. He heard of my
presence, and in his kindness sent a car over from Whittingehame, only a few miles away, with a request that I should come
over for a couple of days. There was present his brother, Gerald
Balfour, a man with a beautifully refi ned face and manner, not
unlike that of Andrew Lang. His wife is the famous Lady Betty
Balfour, the daughter of Lord Lytton. When one thinks of that
313
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
group of inter-allied families – the Balfours, Cecils, Sedgwicks,
and Lyttons – it seems a sort of nerve ganglion of British life.
There was also Lady Frances Balfour, who was a daughter of the
Duke of Argyle, and not unlike him, as I can remember him.
Her husband was Arthur Balfour’s brother, an architect and
antiquary, while another brother was Colonel of the London
Scottish. Finally, there was Miss Alice Balfour, a very sweet and
gently intellectual person, who was my actual hostess.
I found Arthur Balfour in great spirits because he had just
won a golf medal at North Berwick. He seemed as pleased as
any schoolboy, and his sister told me that no political success
ever gave him the keen pleasure which he had from his golf
victory. He was an average player, orthodox in style, and about
10 or 12 in handicap. He proved to be a charming host, for he
was a good listener, seeming to be really eager to hear your
opinion, laughed heartily at small provocation, and talked always very frankly and modestly of himself. After my long solitude I was more loquacious, I remember, than is my way, but
he bore it with good humour.
Every night – or at least on the Sunday night – the whole
staff of the large rambling establishment, maids and grooms,
some twenty in all, came in for prayers, which were read by
the head of the house. It was fi ne to hear groom and statesman
praying humbly together that they be forgiven the sins of the
day, and merging all earthly distinctions in the presence of
that which is above us all.
He was very interesting when he spoke of the outrage
which the Russian fl eet had committed when, on their way
to Japan, they opened fi re at the British trawlers on the Dog-
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
ger Bank. It was curious to hear his gentle voice and to note
his listless impersonal manner while he spoke in this fashion:
“I was very angry, really very angry about that affair. If our fl eet
had been at home I should have been inclined to have stopped
them in the Straits. Of course, one would not do that unless
one had overpowering force, so as to avoid bloodshed and save
the Russian face. Their Ambassador called that morning and
gave complete assurances, or really I should have had to do
something. He got himself into trouble with his own Government, who felt that he had given away their case.”
I asked him how Cabinet Councils were worked. He said
that they voted upon points and went by majorities, unless it
was a vital thing, when of course the dissenters must resign.
I observed in his character a very great horror of cowardice.
Nothing seemed to arouse such scorn in him. He grew quite
red, I remember, as he spoke of Lord George Sackville, and recalled that though he had been broken and should have been
shot at the Battle of Minden in 1759, he was none the less
Minister of War during the American campaign. He was also,
as I reminded him, a most debauched man; and the murder of
his mistress, Miss Reay, the actress, by her true lover, the clergyman Hackman, was one of the causes célèbres of that century.
I shall always carry away the memory of that visit –
a bright gleam in a dark passage of life. I see very clearly the
old house, the huge broken tree outside, inside which a State
conspiracy was once hatched, the fi ne library with its wealth
of French memoirs, and above all the remarkable man who
stood for so much in the life of the country. I was not at that
time so convinced of the primary importance of psychic things
315
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
as I became later, and I regret it, as this would have been my
one opportunity to explore a knowledge which at that time
was certainly greater than my own. Years later, when the fi ght
was heavy upon me, and when I was almost alone in the polemical arena, I wrote to Mr. Balfour, and charged him with
sharing all my convictions and yet leaving me to defend them
single-handed. His answer was: “Surely my opinions upon this
subject are already suffi ciently well known,” which is surely an
admission that I was right in my description of them, and yet
was not much of a prop to me in my time of need.
I cast my mind back to other statesmen whom I have
known, and Mr. Asquith’s kindly personality comes into my
memory. I remember playing a round of golf with him once –
and a very bad player he was – but his conversation as we
went round was plus four. He was a naturally sweet-natured
man, but under that gentleness there lay judgment and fi rmness, as was shown at the great crisis of history. He never said
too much, but what he did say he lived up to. In conducting
us safely through those fi rst two years of war he did that for
which he has never had suffi cient credit, and the more light we
have had since, the more clear it has been that Lord Kitchener
and he were really doing all that men could do, in munition
work and all other ways. Because he had the solid Yorkshire
stolidity, more nervous and excitable people thought that he
did not take the war suffi ciently seriously, while the constant
lies about the pro-German tendencies of his wife increased
the evil impression. We owe him a reparation which is second
only to that which is due to Lord Haldane.
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
And that is indeed a heavy one. If one man could be named
who was absolutely indispensable to victory it was Haldane. He
it was who built up the whole splendid weapon which fl ashed
so swiftly from its sheath, and which Germany was so amazed
to fi nd directed at its breast as it rushed forward upon its furious course. He could not work miracles; he could not introduce conscription when a candidate with such a programme
would have been chased from the hustings; he could not prepare the public mind in some dramatic way which would have
precipitated the very crash which there was still some chance
of avoiding. But all we had he gave us – the eight divisions
which saved France, the Territorials who carried on the good
work until the new armies were ready, and the Offi cers’ Training Corps, which strengthened us where we should have been
fatally weak. There has never been so foolish and ungrateful a clamour as that which has been raised against Haldane.
I remember that when he took the chair for me in the fi rst
war lecture which I gave in London there were cries of “Traitor!” from people, chiefl y women, among the audience. I had
never seen Haldane before, and have never seen him since, so
I have no personal bias in the matter, but I am proud that it
was in my fi rst volume of the “History of the War,” published
in 1915, that I fi rst put forward the unpopular view which will
now be more fully accepted.
With George Meredith I had several interesting connections. I have the greatest possible admiration for him at his
best, while his worst is such a handicap that I think it will drag
four-fi fths of his work to oblivion. If his own generation fi nds
him hard to understand, what will our descendants make of
317
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
him? He will be a cult among a few – a precious few in every
sense. And yet I fully recognize that his was the most active
original brain and the most clever pen of any man, novelist
or otherwise, of my time. Knowing this well, it is strange that
I can see so limited a future for him. His subtle and intricate
mind seemed unable to realize the position of the plain outsiders who represent the world. He could not see how his
stained-glass might be less effective than the plain transparent
substance as a medium for vision. The fi rst requisite is to be
intelligible. The second is to be interesting. The third is to be
clever. Meredith enormously fi lled the third, but he was unequal upon the other two. Hence he will never, in spite of the
glories of “Richard Feverel” be on an equality with Dickens or
Thackeray, who fi lled all three. He had simply no idea how his
words would strike a less complex mind. I remember that once
in the presence of Barrie, Quiller-Couch and myself, he read
out a poem which he had inscribed “To the British WorkingMan” in the “Westminster Gazette.” I don’t know what the
British working-man made of it, but I am sure that we three
were greatly puzzled as to what it was about.
I had written some articles on his work, which had been
one of my youthful cults, and that led to his inviting me to see
him at his villa at Box Hill – the fi rst of several such visits.
There had been a good deal in the papers about his health, so
that I was surprised when, as I opened the garden gate, a slight
but robust gentleman in a grey suit and a red tie swung out of
the hall door and came singing loudly down the path. I suppose
he was getting on to seventy at the time but he looked younger,
and his artistic face was good to the eye. Greeting me he point-
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
ed to a long steep hill behind the house and said: “I have just
been up to the top for a walk.” I looked at the sharp slope and
said: “You must be in good trim to do it.” He looked angry and
said: “That would be a proper compliment to pay to an octogenarian.” I was a little nettled by his touchiness, so I answered:
“I understood that I was talking to an invalid.” It really seemed
as if my visit would terminate at the garden gate, but presently
he relented, and we soon became quite friendly.
He had in his youth been a judge of wine, and had still
a reverence for a good vintage, but unfortunately some nervous complaint from which he suffered had caused the doctors
to prohibit it absolutely. When lunch came round he asked
me with a very earnest air whether I could undertake to drink
a whole bottle of Burgundy. I answered that I saw no insuperable diffi culty. A dusty old bottle was tenderly carried up,
which I disposed of, Meredith taking a friendly interest in its
dispatch. “The fact is,” said he, “I love my wine, and my little
cellar was laid down with care and judgment, so that when
some guest comes and drinks a glass and wastes the rest of the
bottle it goes to my heart. It really did me good to see you enjoy that one.” I need not say that I intimated that I was always
prepared to oblige.
His conversation was extraordinarily vivid and dramatic,
uttered in a most vehement tone. It may have been artifi cial,
and it may have been acting, but it was very arresting and entertaining. The talk got upon Napoleon’s Marshals, and you
would have thought that he knew them intimately, and he did
Murat’s indignation at being told to charge au bout, as if he
ever charged any other way, in a fashion which would have
319
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
brought down the house. Every now and then he brought out
a Meredithian sentence which sounded comic when applied
to domestic matters. When the jelly swayed about as the maid
put it on the table he said: “The jelly, Mary, is as treacherous
as the Trojan Horse.” He laughed when I told him how my
groom, enlisted as a waiter for some special dinner, said, “Huddup, there,” to the jelly under similar circumstances.
After lunch we walked up a steep path to the little chalet
or summerhouse where he used to write. He wished to read me
a novel which he had begun twenty years before, but which he
had not had the heart to go on with. I liked it greatly – and
we roared with laughter at his description of an old sea-dog
who turned up the collar of his coat when he went into action
as if the bullets were rain. He said that my hearty enjoyment
encouraged him to go on with it, and it has since appeared as
the “Amazing Marriage,” but whether I really had anything to
do with it I do not know. I should be proud to think so.
The nervous complaint from which he suffered caused
him to fall down occasionally. As we walked up the narrow
path to the chalet I heard him fall behind me, but judged from
the sound that it was a mere slither and could not have hurt
him. Therefore I walked on as if I had heard nothing. He was
a fi ercely proud old man, and my instincts told me that his
humiliation in being helped up would be far greater than any
relief I could give him. It was certainly a nice point to decide.
George Meredith’s religious convictions were very diffi cult
to decide. He certainly had no glimmering so far as I could see
of any psychic element in life, and I should imagine that on
the whole he shared the opinions of his friend, John Morley,
320
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