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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
the powers of the man, nor the quickness of his brain. These
things depend upon the time and the fashion, and go fl at in
the telling, but I remember how, when I showed him the record of some one who claimed to have done 100 yards under
ten seconds, he said: “It is a sprinter’s error.” Golf he could
not abide, for he said it was “unsportsmanlike to hit a sitting
ball.” His criticism upon my Sherlock Holmes was: “Though
he might be more humble, there is no police like Holmes.”
I think I may claim that his famous character Raffl es was
a kind of inversion of Sherlock Holmes, Bunny playing Watson. He admits as much in his kindly dedication. I think there
are few fi ner examples of short-story writing in our language
than these, though I confess I think they are rather dangerous
in their suggestion. I told him so before he put pen to paper,
and the result has, I fear, borne me out. You must not make
the criminal a hero.
Jerome, too, is an old friend. He is an adventurous soul,
and at one time started a four-in-hand. I remember sitting on
the top of it, and when one of the leaders turned right round
and took a good look at the driver I thought it was time to get
down. Maxwell also is an old friend. He is, of course, the son
of Miss Braddon, who married a publisher of that name. I respect him for doing a man’s work in the war when, though he
was fi fty years of age, and had led a sedentary life, he volunteered for a fi ghting battalion, a credit which he shares with
A. E. W. Mason. Maxwell’s work has always greatly appealed to
me, and I have long looked upon him as the greatest novelist
that we possess.
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
I never met Robert Louis Stevenson in the fl esh, though
I owe so much to him in the literary spirit. Never can I forget
the delight with which I read those early stories of his in the
“Cornhill,” before I knew the name of the author. I still think
that “The Pavilion on the Links” is one of the great short stories of the world, though there were alterations in the fi nal
form which were all for the worse, and showed prudery upon
the part of the publishers. Stevenson’s last year at Edinburgh
University must have just about coincided with my fi rst one,
and Barrie must also have been in that grey old nest of learning
about the year 1876. Strange to think that I probably brushed
elbows with both of them in the crowded portal.
From his far-away home in Samoa he seemed to keep
a quick eye upon literary matters in England, and I had most
encouraging letters from him in 1893 and 1894. “O frolic fellow-spookist” was his curious term of personal salutation in
one of these, which showed that he shared my interest in psychic research but did not take it very seriously. I cannot guess
how at that time he had detected it, though I was aware that
he had himself in early days acted as secretary to a psychic research or rather to a spiritualist society in Edinburgh, which
studied the remarkable mediumship of Duguid. His letters to
me consisted of kind appreciation of my work. “I have a great
talent for compliment,” he said, “accompanied by a hateful,
even a diabolic, frankness.” He had been retailing some of my
Sherlock Holmes yarns to his native servants – I should not
have thought that he needed to draw upon anyone else – and
he complained to me in a comical letter of the diffi culty of
telling a story when you had to halt every moment to explain
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
what a railway was, what an engineer was, and so forth. He
got the story across in spite of all diffi culties, and, said he, “If
you could have seen the bright feverish eyes of Simite you
would have tasted glory.” But he explained that the natives
took everything literally, and that there was no such thing as
an imaginary story for them. “I, who write this, have had the
indiscretion to perpetaate a trifl ing piece of fi ction, ‘The Bottle
Imp. Parties who come up to visit my mansion, after having
admired the ceiling by Vanderputty and the tapestry by Gobbling, manifest towards the end a certain uneasiness which
proves them to be fellows of an infi nite delicacy. They may be
seen to shrug a brown shoulder, to roll up a speaking eye, and
at last the secret bursts from them: ‘Where is the bottle?’ “In
another letter he said that as I had written of my fi rst book in
the “Idler” he also would do so. “I could not hold back where
the white plume of Conan Doyle waved in front of me.” So,
at least, I may boast that it is to me that the world owes the
little personal sketch about “Treasure Island” which appeared
in that year. I cannot forget the shock that it was to me when
driving down the Strand in a hansom cab in 1896 I saw upon
a yellow evening poster “Death of Stevenson.” Some-thing
seemed to have passed out of my world.
I was asked by his executors to fi nish the novel “St. Ives,”
which he had left three-quarters completed, but I did not feel
equal to the task. It was done, however, and, I understand, very
well done, by Quiller-Couch. It is a desperately diffi cult thing
to carry on another man’s story, and must be a more or less
mechanical effort. I had one experience of it when my neighbour at Hindhead, Grant Allen, was on his death-bed. He was
333
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
much worried because there were two numbers of his serial,
“Hilda Wade,” which was running in “The Strand” magazine,
still uncompleted. It was a pleasure for me to do them for him,
and so relieve his mind, but it was diffi cult collar work, and
I expect they were pretty bad. Some time afterwards a stranger,
who evidently confused Allen and me, wrote to say that his
wife had given him a baby girl, and that in honour of me he
was calling her Hilda Wade. He was really nearer the truth
than appeared at fi rst sight.
I well remember that death-bed of Grant Allen’s. He was
an agnostic of a type which came very near atheism, though
in his private life an amiable and benevolent man. Believing
what he did, the approach of death must have offered rather
a bleak prospect, and as he had paroxysms of extreme pain the
poor fellow seemed very miserable. I had often argued the case
with him, I from a Theistic and he from a negative point of
view, but I did not intrude my opinions or disturb his mind at
that solemn moment. Death-bed changes, though some clergy
may rejoice in them, are really vain things. His brain, however, was as clear as ever, and his mind was occupied with all
manner of strange knowledge, which he imparted in the intervals of his pain, in the curious high nasal voice which was
characteristic. I can see him now, his knees drawn up to ease
internal pain, and his long thin nose and reddish-grey goatee protruding over the sheet, while he creaked out: “Byzantine art, my dear Doyle, was of three periods, the middle one
roughly coinciding with the actual fall of the Roman Empire.
The characteristics of the fi rst period –» and so on, until he
would give a cry, clasp his hands across his stomach, and wait
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
till the pain passed before resuming his lecture. His dear little
wife nursed him devotedly, and mitigated the gloom of those
moments which can be made the very happiest in life if one
understands what lies before one. One thinks, as a contrast,
of Dr. Hodgson’s impatient cry, “I can hardly wait for death!”
Grant Allen’s strong opinions in print, and a certain pleasure he took in defending outside positions, gave quite a false
view of his character, which was gentle and benignant. I remember his coming to a fancy dress ball which we gave in
the character of a Cardinal, and in that guise all the quiet
dignity of the man seemed to come out and you realized how
much our commonplace modern dress disguises the real man.
He used to tell with great amusement how a couple, who afterwards became close friends, came fi rst to call, and how as
they waited on the doorstep the wife said to the husband: “Remember, John, if he openly blasphemes, I leave the room.” He
had, I remember, very human relations with the maids who
took a keen interest in their employer’s scientifi c experiments.
On one occasion these were connected with spiders, and the
maid rushed into the drawing-room and cried: “Oh, sir, Araminta has got a wasp.” Araminta was the name given to the big
spider which he was observing at the time.
Grant Allen had no actual call to write fi ction, but his
brain was agile enough to make some sort of job of anything
to which it turned. On the other hand, as a popular scientist
he stood alone, or shared the honour with Samuel Laing. His
only real success in fi ction was the excellent short story John
Creedy, where he combined science with fi ction, with remarkable results.
335
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
At the time when I and so many others turned to letters
there was certainly a wonderful vacancy for the new-comer.
The giants of old had all departed. Thackeray, Dickens, Charles
Reade and Trollope were memories. There was no great fi gure
remaining save Hardy rising. The novelist was Mrs. Humphrey
Ward, who was just beginning her career with “Robert Elsmere,” the fi rst of that series of novels which will illuminate
the later Victorian era more clearly than any historian ever
can do. I think it was Hodgkin who said, when he read “Count
Robert of Paris “: “Here have I been studying Byzantium all my
life, and I never understood it until this blessed Scotch lawyer
came along.” That is the special prerogative of imagination.
Trollope and Mrs. Ward have the whole Victorian civilization
dissected and preserved.
Then there were Meredith, unintelligible to most, and
Walter Besant. There was Wilkie Collins, too, with his fi ne
stories of mystery, and fi nally there was James Payn.
Payn was much greater than his books. The latter were
usually rather mechanical, but to get at the real man one has
to read such articles as his “Literary Reminiscences,” and especially his “Backwater of Life.”
He had all that humorous view which Nature seems to
give as a compensation to those whose strength is weak. Had
Payn written only essays he would have rivalled Charles Lamb.
I knew him best in his latter days, when he was crippled with
illness, and his poor fi ngers so twisted with rheumatic arthritis that they seemed hardly human. He was intensely pessimistic as to his own fate. “Don’t make any mistake, Doyle,
death is a horrible thing – horrible! I suffer the agonies of the
336
MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
damned!” But fi ve minutes later he would have his audience
roaring with laughter, and his own high treble laugh would
be the loudest of all.
His own ailments were frequently a source of mirth. I remember how he described the breaking of a blood-vessel in
Bournemouth and how they carried him home on a litter.
He was dimly conscious of the fi r-woods through which he
passed. “I thought it was my funeral, and that they had done
me well in the matter of plumes.” When he told a story he was
so carried away by his sense of humour that he could hardly
get the end out, and he fi nished up in a kind of scream. An
American had called upon him at some late hour and had discoursed upon Assyrian tablets. “I thought they were something
to eat,” he screamed. He was an excellent whist player, and
the Baldwin Club used to send three members to his house on
certain days so that the old fellow should not go without his
game. This game was very scientifi c. He would tell with delight
how he asked some novice: “Do you play the penultimate?”
To which the novice answered: “No – but my brother plays
the American organ.”
Many of my generation of authors had reason to love him,
for he was a human and kindly critic. His writing however,
was really dreadful. It was of him that the story was told than
an author handed one of his letters to a chemist for a test. The
chemist retired for a time and then returned with a bottle and
demanded half a crown. Better luck attended the man who received an illegible letter from a railway director. He used it as
a free pass upon the line. Payn used to joke about his own writing, but it was a very real trouble when one could not make
337
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
out whether he had accepted or rejected one’s story. There was
one letter in which I could only read the words “infringement
of copyright.” He was very funny when he described the work
of the robust younger school. “I have received a story from –»
he said, “5,000 words, mostly damns.”
I knew Sir Henry Thompson, the famous surgeon, very well,
and was frequently honoured by an invitation to his famous
octave dinners, at which eight carefully chosen male guests
were always the company. They always seemed to me to be the
most wonderful exhibitions of unselfi shness, for Thompson
was not allowed any alcohol, or anything save the most simple
viands. Possibly, however, like Meredith and the bottle of burgundy, he enjoyed some refl ex pleasure from-the enjoyment
of others. He had been a wonderful viveur and judge of what
was what, and I fear that I disappointed him, for I was much
more interested in the conversation than the food, and it used
to annoy me when some argument was interrupted in order
to tell us that it was not ordinary ham but a Westphalian wild
boar that we were eating and that it had been boiled in wine
for precisely the right time prescribed by the best authorities.
But it was part of his wonderful unselfi sh hospitality to make
his guests realize exactly what it was that was set before them.
I have never heard more interesting talk than at these male
gatherings, for it is notorious that though ladies greatly improve the appearance of a feast they usually detract from the
quality of the talk. Few men are ever absolutely natural when
there are women in the room.
There was one special dinner, I fancy it was the hundredth
of the series, which was particularly interest-ing as the Prince
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
of Wales, now George V, was one of the eight, and gave us
a most interesting account of the voyage round the world from
which he had just returned. Of the rest of the company I can
only recall Sir Henry Stanley, the traveller, and Sir Crichton
Browne. Twenty years later I met the King when he visited
a trade exhibition, and I attended as one of the directors of
Tuck’s famous postcard fi rm. He at once said: “Why, I have not
seen you since that pleasant dinner when you sat next to me
at Sir Henry Thompson’s.” It seemed to me to be a remarkable
example of the royal gift of memory.
I have not often occupied a chair among the seats of the
mighty. My life has been too busy and too preoccupied to allow me to stray far from my beaten path. The mention of the
Prince, however, reminds me of the one occasion when I was
privileged to entertain – or to attempt to entertain – the
present Queen. It was at a small dinner to which I was invited
by the courtesy of Lord Midleton whose charming wife, once
Madeleine Stanley daughter of Lady Helier, I could remember
since her girlhood. Upon this occasion the Prince and Princess came in after dinner, the latter sitting alone at one end of
the room with a second chair beside her own, which was occupied successively by the various gentlemen who were to be
introduced to her. I was led up in due course, made my bow,
and sat down at her request. I confess that I found it heavy
going at fi rst, for I had heard somewhere that Royalty has to
make the fi rst remark, and had it been the other way there
was such a gulf between us that I should not have known
where to begin. However she was very pleasant and gracious
and began asking me some questions about my works which
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
brought me on to very easy ground. Indeed, I became so interested in our talk that I was quite disappointed when Mr. John
Morley was led up, and I realized that it was time for me to
vacate the chair.
There was another amusing incident on that eventful evening. I had been asked to take in Lady Curzon, whose husband, then Viceroy of India, had been unable to attend. The
fi rst couple had passed in and there was a moment’s hesitation as to who should go next, but Lady Curzon and I were
nearest the door, so possibly with some little encouragement
from the lady we fi led through. I thought nothing of the incident but some great authority upon these matters came to
me afterwards in great excitement. “Do you know,” he said,
“that you have established a precedent and solved one of the
most diffi cult and debatable matters of etiquette that has ever
caused ill-feeling in British Society?” “The Lord Chancellor
and the College of Heralds should be much obliged to you, for
you have given them a defi nite lead. There has never been so
vexed a question as to whether a Vice-reine when she is away
from the country where she represents royalty shall take precedence over a Duchess. There was a Duchess in the room, but
you by your decided action have settled the matter for ever.”
So who shall say that I have done nothing in my life?
Of the distinguished lights of the law whom I have met from
time to time I think that Sir Henry Hawkins – then become
Lord Bampton – made the most defi nite impression. I met him
at a week-end gathering at Cliveden, when Mr. Astor was our
host. On the fi rst night at dinner, before the party had shaken
down into mutual acquaintance, the ex-judge, very old and as
340
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