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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
which were completely negative. And yet I remember his assuring me that prayer was a very necessary thing, and that one
should never abandon prayer. “Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is granted,” says the Aphorist in “Richard
Feverel.” How far these positions can be harmonized I do not
know. I suppose that one may say that God is unknown, and
yet rear a mental temple to the unknown God.
Rudyard Kipling I know far less than I should, considering
how deeply I admire his writings, and that we live in the same
county; but we are both absorbed in work, and both much
away from home, which may explain it. I can well remember
how eagerly I bought his fi rst book, “Plain Tales,” in the old
Southsea days, when buying a book was a rare strain upon my
exchequer. I read it with delight, and realized not only that
a new force had arisen in literature, but that a new method of
story writing had appeared which was very different from my
own adherence to the careful plot artfully developed. This was
go-as-you-please take-it-or-leave-it work, which glowed suddenly up into an incandescent phrase or paragraph, which was
the more effective for its sudden advent. In form his stories
were crude, and yet in effect – which, after all, is everything –
they were superb. It showed me that methods could not be
stereotyped, and that there was a more excellent way, even if
it were beyond my reach. I loved the “Barrack Room Ballads”
also, and such poems as “The Bolivar,” “East and West,” and
above all the badly named “Envoi” became part of my very self.
I always read the last one aloud to my little circle before we
start on any fresh expedition, because it contains the very essence of travel, romance, and high adventure.
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
I saw Kipling most nearly in his very early days when he
lived at Brattleboro’, a little village in Vermont, in a chivalrous
desire to keep his newly married wife in touch with her own
circle. In 1894, as I have recorded, there was a good deal of tailtwisting going on in the States, and Kipling pulled a few feathers out of the Eagle’s tail in retaliation, which caused many
screams of protest, for the American was far more sensitive
to such things than the case-hardened Briton. I say “was,” for
I think as a nation with an increased assurance of their own
worth and strength they are now more careless of criticism.
The result at the time was to add oil to fl ames, and I, as a passionate believer in Anglo-American union, wrote to Kipling to
remonstrate. He received my protest very good-humouredly,
and it led to my visit to his country home. As a matter of fact,
the concern shown in America, when the poet lay at death’s
door a few years later, showed that the rancour was not very
deep. Perhaps he was better known at that time in America than in England, for I remember sitting beside a busman in
London, who bowed his red face to my ear and said: “Beg your
pardon, sir, but ‘oo is this ‘ere Kilpin?”
I had two great days in Vermont, and have a grateful remembrance of Mrs. Kipling’s hospitality. The poet read me
“McAndrew’s Hymn,” which he had just done, and surprised
me by his dramatic power which enabled him to sustain the
Glasgow accent throughout, so that the angular Scottish
greaser simply walked the room. I had brought up my golf
clubs and gave him lessons in a fi eld while the New England rustics watched us from afar, wondering what on earth
we were at, for golf was unknown in America at that time.
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
We parted good friends, and the visit was an oasis in my rather dreary pilgrimage as a lecturer.
My glimpses of Kipling since then have been few and scattered, but I had the pleasure several times of meeting his old
father, a most delightful and lovable person, who told a story
quite as well as his famous son. As the mother was also a very
remarkable woman, it is no wonder that he carried such a cargo.
James Barrie is one of my oldest literary friends, and I knew
him within a year or two of the time when we both came to
London. He had just written his “Window in Thrums,” and
I, like all the world, acclaimed it. When I was lecturing in
Scotland in 1893 he invited me to Kirriemuir, when I stayed
some days with his family – splendid types of the folk who
have made Scotland great. His father was a fi ne fellow, but his
mother was wonderful with a head and a heart – rare combinations – which made me class her with my own mother. Kirriemuir could by no means understand Barrie’s success, and
looked upon their great son as an inexplicable phenomenon.
They were acutely aware, however, that tourists were arriving
from all parts to see the place on account of Barrie’s books.
“I suppose you have read them,” I said to the wife of the local
hotel man. “Aye, I’ve read them, and steep, steep, weary work
it was,” said she. She had some theory that it was a four-horse
coach which her good man was running, and not the books at
all which accounted for the boom.
Great as are Barrie’s plays – and some of them I think are
very great – I wish he had never written a line for the theatre. The glamour of it and the – to him – easy success have
diverted from literature the man with the purest style of his
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
age. Plays are always ephemeral, however good, and are limited to a few, but Barrie’s unborn books might have been an
eternal and a universal asset of British literature. He has the
chaste clarity which is the great style, which has been debased
by a generation of wretched critics who have always confused
what is clear with what is shallow, and what is turbid with
what is profound. If a man’s thought is precise, his rendering
of it is precise, and muddy thoughts make obscure paragraphs.
If I had to make my choice among modern stylists, I should
pick Barrie for the lighter forms of expression and our British
Winston Churchill for the more classical.
Barrie’s great play – one of the fi nest in the language – is
of course “The Admirable Crichton.” I shall always hope that
I had a hand in the fashioning of it. I say this not in complaint
but in satisfaction, for we all drop seeds into each other, and
seldom know whence they come. We were walking together on
the Heath at Kirriemuir when I said: “I had a quaint thought
in the night, Barrie. It was that a king was visiting India and
was wrecked on the way on some island far from the track of
ships. Only he and one rather handy sailor were saved. They
settled down to spend their lives together. Of course the result
would be that the sailor would become the king and the king
the subject.” We chuckled over the idea, and when Crichton
appeared, I seemed to see the fi ne plant which had grown from
the tiny seed.
Barrie and I had one unfortunate venture together, in
which I may say that the misfortune was chiefl y mine, since
I had really nothing to do with the matter, and yet shared all
the trouble. However, I should have shared the honour and
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
profi t in case of success, so that I have no right to grumble. The
facts were that Barrie had promised Mr. D’Oyley Carte that he
would provide the libretto of a light opera for the Savoy. This
was in the Gilbert days, when such a libretto was judged by
a very high standard. It was an extraordinary commission for
him to accept, and I have never yet been able to understand
why he did so, unless, like Alexander, he wanted fresh worlds
to conquer. On this occasion, however, he met with a disastrous
repulse, and the opera, “Jane Annie,” to which I alluded in an
early chapter, was one of the few failures in his brilliant career.
I was brought into the matter because Barrie’s health failed
on account of some family bereavement. I had an urgent telegram from him at Aldburgh, and going there I found him very
worried because he had bound himself by this contract, and
he felt in his present state unable to go forward with it. There
were to be two acts, and he had written the fi rst one, and had
the rough scenario of the second, with the complete sequence
of events – if one may call it a sequence. Would I come in with
him and help him to complete it as part author? Of course
I was very happy to serve him in any way. My heart sank, however, when, after giving the promise, I examined the work. The
only literary gift which Barrie has not got is the sense of poetic rhythm, and the instinct for what is permissible in verse.
Ideas and wit were there in abundance. But the plot itself was
not strong, though the dialogue and the situations also were
occasionally excellent. I did my best and wrote the lyrics for
the second act, and much of the dialogue, but it had to take
the predestined shape. The result was not good. However, the
actual comradeship of production was very amusing and inter-
325
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
esting, and our failure was mainly painful to us because it let
down the producer and the cast. We were well abused by the
critics, but Barrie took it all in the bravest spirit.
I fi nd, in looking over my papers, a belated statement of
account from Barrie which is good reading.
IN ACCOUNT WITH J. M. BARRIE
Why. Cause of delay. Remarks.
A £1 Lent
at Station.
B £12 Jane Annie
on Tour.
C £30 6s. 4d,
Heaven knows.
Our association was never so closely renewed, but through
all my changing life I have had a respect and affection for Barrie which were, I hope, mutual. How I collaborated with him at
cricket as well as at work is told in my chapter on Sport.
Henry Irving is one of the other great men whom I have met
at close quarters, for his acting of Gregory Brewster brought
us in contact. When he was producing “Coriolanus” he came
down to Hindhead and used to drop in of an evening. He was
fond of a glass of port – indeed, he was one of the four great
men who were stated (probably untruly) by the Hon. G. Russell to drink a bottle each night – being the only trait which
these great men had in common. The others, I remember, were
Tennyson, Gladstone and Moses Montefi ori, and the last I believe was really true. Like all bad habits, it overtook the sinner
at last, and he was cut off at the age of 116.
Object moving too
fast.
Moving or swaying
of Kodak.
Failure to pull
cord.
Doyle says he
lent it.
Better late than
never.
Doyle gets 2/5
of a penny beyond
his share.
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
Irving had a curious dry wit which was occasionally sardonic and ill-natured. I can well believe that his rehearsals
were often the occasion for heart-burnings among the men
and tears among the ladies. The unexpectedness of his remarks
took one aback. I remember when my friend Hamilton sat up
with me into the “wee sma’ hours” with the famous man, he
became rather didactic on the subject of the Deity or the Universe or some other tremendous topic, which he treated very
solemnly, and at great length. Irving sat with his intense eyes
riveted upon the speaker’s face, which encouraged Hamilton
to go on and on. When at last he had fi nished, Irving remarked:
“What a low comedian you would have made!” He wound up
his visit by giving me his copy of “Coriolanus” with all his
notes and stage directions – a very precious relic.
Many visions of old times rise before my eyes as I write,
but my book would lose all proportion should I dwell upon
them. I see Henley, the formidable cripple, a red-bearded,
loud-voiced buccaneer of a man who could only crawl, for his
back appeared to be broken. He was a great poet and critic who
seemed to belong to the roaring days of Marlowe of the mighty
line and the pothouse fray. I see Haggard too, fi rst as the young
spruce diplomatist, later as the worn and bearded man with
strange vague tendencies to mysticism. Shaw, too, I see with
the pleasant silky voice and the biting phrase. It was strange
that all the mild vegetables which formed his diet made him
more pugnacious and, I must add, more uncharitable than
the carnivorous man, so that I have known no literary man
who was more ruthless to other people’s feelings. And yet to
meet him was always to like him. He could not resist a bitter
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
jest or the perverted pleasure of taking up an unpopular attitude. As an example I remember Henry Irving telling me that
when Shaw was invited to his father’s funeral he wrote in reply: “If I were at Westminster Henry Irving would turn in his
grave, just as Shakespeare would turn in his grave were Henry
Irving at Stratford.” I may not have it verbally exact, but that
was near enough. It was the kind of outrageous thing that he
would say. And yet one can forgive him all when one reads the
glorious dialogue of some of his plays. He seems subhuman in
emotion and superhuman in intellect.
Shaw was always a thorn in Irving’s side, and was usually
the one jarring note among the chorus of praise which greeted
each fresh production. At a fi rst night at the Lyceum – those
wonderful fi rst nights which have never been equalled – the
lanky Irishman with his greenish face, his red beard, and his
sardonic expression must have been like the death’s-head at
the banquet to Irving. Irving ascribed this animosity to Shaw’s
pique because his plays were not accepted, but in this I am
sure that he did an injustice. It was simply that contrary twist
in the man which makes him delight in opposing whatever
anyone else approved. There is nothing constructive in him,
and he is bound to be in perpetual opposition. No one for
example was stronger for peace and for non-militarism than
he, and I remember that when I took the chair at a meeting at
Hindhead to back up the Tsar’s peace proposals at The Hague,
I thought to myself as I spied Shaw in a corner of the room:
“Well, this time at any rate he must be in sympathy.” But far
from being so he sprang to his feet and put forward a number
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
of ingenious reasons why these proposals for peace would be
disastrous. Do what you could he was always against you.
Perhaps it is no bad thing to have the other point of view
continually stated, and the British stand that sort of thing better than other nations. Had Shaw said in America what he said
in England about the war whilst it was in progress he would
have been in personal danger. There were times, however,
when his queer contrary impulses became perfectly brutal
in their working. One was at the time of the Titanic disaster,
when he deliberately wrote a letter at a time when the wounds
were raw, overwhelming every one concerned with bitter
criticism. I was moved to write a remonstrance, and we had
a sharp debate in public, which did not in any way modify our
kindly personal relations. I can recall a smaller but even more
unjustifi able example of his sour nature when he was staying
at Hindhead. A garden-party had been got up for some charity, and it included the woodland scenes of “As You Like It,”
which were done by amateurs, and very well done too. Shaw
with no provocation wrote a whole column of abuse in the
local paper, spattering all the actors and their performance
with ridicule, and covering them with confusion, though indeed they had nothing to be ashamed of. One mentions these
things as characteristic of one side of the man, and as a proof,
I fear, that the adoption by the world of a vegetarian diet will
not bring unkind thoughts or actions to an end. But with it
all Shaw is a genial creature to meet, and I am pre-pared to
believe that there is a human kindly side to his nature though
it has not been presented to the public. It took a good man to
write “Saint Joan.”
329
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Wells, too, I have known long, and indeed I must have often entered the draper’s shop in which he was employed at
Southsea, for the proprietor was a patient of mine. Wells is one
of the great fruits which popular education has given us, since
he came, as he is proud to state, from the heart of the people. His democratic frankness and complete absence of class
feeling are occasionally embarrassing. I remember his asking
me once if I had played cricket at Liphook. I said that I had.
He said: “Did you notice an old fellow who acts as professional
and ground-keeper?” I said that I had. “That was my father,”
said Wells. I was too much surprised to answer, and could only
congratulate myself that I had made no unpleasant comments
before I knew the identity of the old man.
I have always had my doubts as to those elaborate forecasts
of the future in which Wells indulges. He has, it is true, made
a couple of good shots which have already materialized in the
tanks and in the machine which would deliver news in our
own houses. But he has never shown any perception of the
true meaning of the psychic, and for want of it his history of
the world, elaborate and remarkable as it was, seemed to me to
be a body without a soul. However, this also may be given him,
and it will make his equipment complete. I remember discussing the matter with him, when George Gissing, Hornung, he
and I foregathered in Rome early in this century, but apparently my words had no effect.
Willie Hornung, my brother-in-law, is another of my
vivid memories. He was a Dr. Johnson without the learning
but with a fi ner wit. No one could say a neater thing, and
his writings, good as they are, never adequately represented
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