Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters

Conan Doyle did win the bursary competition, but then was informed that it was open only to arts students—and that the money for the next one had already been given out. In the end he received a ‘solatium’ of only £7—his first experience of the College of Hard Knocks he saw in Edinburgh University. ‘It was a bitter disappointment,’ he wrote. ‘I had a legal case, but what can a penniless student do, and what sort of college career would he have if he began it by suing his University for money? I was advised to accept the situation, and there seemed no prospect of accepting anything else.’

Nor did his subsequent medical study and practice make him more sentimental about Edinburgh University. The Romance of Medicine addressed what he felt was the short-sightedness of its professors and students alike in his day. ‘I was educated in a materialistic age,’ he told the rising generation of medical students in 1910.

We looked upon mind and spirit as secretions from the brain in the same way as bile was a secretion of the liver. Brain centres explained everything, and if you could find and stimulate the centre of holiness you would produce a saint—but if your electrode slipped, and you got on to the centre of brutality, you would evolve a Bill Sikes.* (#ulink_1645063f-1c16-5a92-bbaa-715aed0f8b9d) That was, roughly, the point of view of the more advanced spirits among us. I can clearly see now as I look back that this frame of mind was largely a protest and a reaction against transcendental dogmas which had no likelihood either in reason or in science. Swinging away from dogma, we lost all grip upon spirituality, confusing two things which have little connection with each other—indeed, my experience is that the less the dogma the greater the spirituality. We talked about laws, and how all things were done by immutable law, and thought that was profound and final.

Medicine was also going through great and stormy change. Anaesthesia was still relatively new; and Dr Joseph Lister of Edinburgh was revolutionizing surgery anew with a new antiseptic system not yet fully accepted by his peers, as Conan Doyle later recalled:

[T]he wards of the infirmary were divided between the antiseptic people and the cold-water school, the latter regarding the whole germ theory as an enormous fad. One sardonic professor of the old school used to say, as he was operating, ‘Please shut that door, or the germs will be getting in.’ On the other hand, the Listerians seem to have been almost unnecessarily scrupulous in keeping the germs out. Every operation was conducted amid clouds of carbolic steam, which often made the details invisible to the spectator. We should have been very much surprised to learn that the Puffing Billy could be done away with, and yet that complete antisepsis could be maintained.

It’s Lister’s antiseptic spray, you know, and Archer’s one of the carbolic-acid men. Hayes is the leader of the cleanliness-and-cold-water school, and they all hate each other like poison.

—‘His First Operation’

The debate could not be settled simply by judging the cleanliness-and-cold-water school silly or backward. Its adherents often achieved better patient survival rates in the face of infection than Listerians did, and one of Lister’s bitterest critics, an Edinburgh-educated surgeon named Lawson Tait, was revolutionizing abdominal surgery, which few others dared even attempt in the 1870s.

He made it harder for himself, too, because of the family’s financial condition. ‘It was clearly very needful that I should help financially as quickly as possible, even if my help only took the humble form of providing for my own keep,’ he said in Memories and Adventures. ‘Therefore I endeavoured almost from the first to compress the classes for a year into half a year, and so to have some months in which to earn a little money as a medical assistant, who would dispense and do odd jobs for a doctor.’

Before his second year began Conan Doyle, now eighteen years old, took several weeks’ holiday on the island of Arran (‘Scotland in miniature’) with his eleven-year-old sister Lottie and his Stonyhurst friend Jimmy Ryan, who was about to start medical school himself. His letters introduce their landlady, Miss Fullerton, first of several such women merging one day as Mrs Hudson, Sherlock Holmes’s landlady at Baker Street. They also give us another look at Charles Doyle, when Conan Doyle urges his father to join them, and subsequently reports his father’s sudden fluttery flight back to Edinburgh.

to Mary Doyle EAST KNOWE, BRODICK, ARRAN, AUGUST 30, 1877

We have fallen on our feet with a vengeance. When we arrived here at 6 last night, we found the Nicholl’s engaged, and every house in Brodick crammed. However after half an hour’s hunting we came upon a darling little cottage up among the hills, such a delicious place, kept by a certain buxom motherly dame called Mrs Fullerton. She fell in love with us directly, & especially Lottie, and gave us a glorious tea, and comfortable bed. She has let us a glorious parlour with a big bed, and a sofa for Lottie, awfully comfortable and splendidly furnished for fourteen shillings a week. She said she would charge us nothing for the little girl, but that we might give anything we thought fit. I think it would be nicest to present her with a shawl or something now or at the end of our stay, for the room is worth 30/ a week as Arran prices go, and she is desperately kind.

So we have left 7 shillings, of which I have given 2/ to Mrs Fullerton to pay the carriage of the hamper, which I hope is on its way up to the house.

It is a delightful place, I never saw anything so pretty, we are all enchanted. We go up Goatfell whenever the grub arrives.

to Mary Doyle ARRAN, SEPTEMBER 6, 1877

That Miss Fullerton is an awful brick; we have just been settling with her for our last week’s grub, and she would only take 6/ for a loaf of bread every day, potatoes at dinner, cream, two pots of jam and numerous other little treats. So we paid her £1 in all for last weeks food and next weeks lodging; I never knew such polite nice people as the real Arran aborigines. For example we took a boat the other day, and got for 6d an hour not only the boat but also the use of two deep sea fishing lines. While out we managed to lose the hooks and weights from each of the lines, but the owner would not hear of taking any recompense, and only laughed at our disaster.

Miss Fullerton rejoices in the use of nervous energetic English; she was in here this morning to confide to us some ill deeds of her servant girl. Her oration began ‘Och, that gal, that gal, the divil tak’ her skin!’ The Arran dialect is more akin to the Irish than Scotch. She informed us yesterday that her lodger, in the front, who is a beastly cad, got as ‘fre’ as the Baltic’.

I hope this may reach you in good time before Cony starts. I think after all we need a little butter, as the non-appearance of the store jam made us rather heavy on it. Also I think you could not do better than send a dozen or so of saveloys. They would be grand for excursions. Also some coffee. We need something in the meat line. We make a tin last us two days, which is, I think, a very moderate allowance. We have a tin of Australian and a tin of corned beef left.

[P.S.] Though the house is very clean the sandy beach is a desperate place for fleas. We have occasion to sing with Watts of pious memory

How doth the little busy flea, / Improve each shining hour.* (#ulink_e82cae45-c35b-597a-a1a2-16d8be727e75)

While his mother stayed home with the youngest children, Conan Doyle cheerfully took on the care of not only Lottie but the even younger Connie, during his stay on Arran. It was a pattern of looking out for his younger siblings that would continue his entire life.

to Charles Doyle ARRAN, SEPTEMBER 1877

Dear Papa

We have just returned from the ascent of Goatfell (3000 feet), and are, as you may imagine a little stiff and sore in consequence, so I am devoting the day to letter writing.

Jimmy Ryan goes on Thursday morning, so if the spirit moves you to pay us a visit we can put you up nicely. You really should, it would do you a world of good. It is a most lovely place, multa in parvo, sea, mountain and moorland all tumbled up together.

Then our landlady too is a curious character. She is ‘full of strange oaths and bearded like a Pard’ like Shakespeare’s soldier, and can be quite as truculent as that worthy when she likes.

You have capital streams for trout all round, and may indulge in deep sea fishing in the bay with scarcely any expense. In fact there is no limit to the means of killing time.

I saw, for the first time, yesterday, the real red deer in a state of freedom. How disappointing the calf-like original is, after you have admired Landseer’s leviathans.

to Mary Doyle ARRAN, SEPTEMBER 18, 1877

I suppose papa is with you by this time; I think his short sojourn in the country did him good, but he was in a fright about his ticket, which some stupid official said would not do for the return unless he went soon. Of course I advised him to have the ticket sent to you, and wait here while you inquired at headquarters about its validity, but he would not hear of it. So he departed yesterday. I had no warning or I would have written to tell you he was going.

Lottie and Conny have performed such a feat! They are the talk of all Brodick. They set out with me on Monday for Loch Ranza, which by the guidebook is 14, but by the united testimony of all the aborigines more than 15 miles away. We started at 9 o’clock, got there about 2, and were in Brodick again by 8. So that the youngsters did between 28 and 30 miles. An amusing adventure befell us on the way; Conny was slightly tired on the way there once; just about this time we passed a peat cutting wherein lay an old wheelbarrow, and as I knew that the owner must come from Loch Ranza, I did not scruple to clap the young woman in, and wheel her along for about quarter of a mile. Then we left the vehicle on a conspicuous place near the road. When returning I entered into conversation with a countryman, and as we passed the cutting I told him as a joke what we had done, and said ‘That’s the barrow, which that old woman has over there.’ To my horror he answered with a broad grin ‘Oh aye, th’ auld wuman is just my wife, and the barry’s my barry.’ He was very good natured and laughed at the way I had insulted his wife & his ‘barry’.

I am not sure if I told you that I am bringing an interesting family of 10 young vipers home with me. A pretty plaything for old Duff. I need, I think, scarcely bring my old football boots home. They are a sight for ‘men to wonder at, not to see’. The soles are off, the uppers broken, and all in rags.

I met no less a person than Dr Joseph Bell in Brodick yesterday.* (#ulink_18868e0d-3096-57b5-b6ca-422c840aa1a2) I wonder what he is doing here.

[P.S.] We all went out fishing last night in the brook, with a very original & primitive apparatus. However I managed to catch two fine trout, which we ate for supper. I suppose if we leave on Saturday it will be soon enough. I have paid her for our rent for this week, up to Thursday; the grub is the only thing I need to pay for, then 4s for the two extra nights. However one more pound will pay all that and take us home into the bargain. Did you notice in the ‘Scotsman’ that the sea serpent had been seen close to Brodick here, off the Sannox rock?* (#ulink_7bb236f7-8144-50de-bc18-0f62cf1f2db6)

In the spring of 1878, Arthur undertook his first assistantship, with a Dr Charles Sidney Richardson of Nelson Terrace, 80 Spital Hill, Sheffield. ‘When I first set forth to do this,’ Conan Doyle said in Memories and Adventures, ‘my services were so obviously worth nothing that I had to put that valuation upon them.’ This policy he would come to regret, though he also allowed, ‘Even then it might have been a hard bargain for the doctor, for I might have proved like the youth in Pickwick who had a rooted idea that oxalic acid was Epsom salts. However, I had horse sense enough to save myself and my employer from any absolute catastrophe.’

His first outing as an assistant ended unhappily nonetheless. He was young and had too few medical or apothecary skills to be a good assistant to Dr Richardson. ‘I did my best, and I dare say he was patient,’ Conan Doyle acknowledged, ‘but at the end of three weeks we parted by mutual consent.’

He then went to London, staying with his aunts and uncles. ‘I fear that I was too Bohemian for them and they too conventional for me. However, they were kind to me, and I roamed about London for some time with pockets so empty that there was little chance of idleness breeding its usual mischief.’ This visit included a glimpse of a British war hero, later Field Marshal Wolseley, in whose honour a banquet would be chaired one day by the famous author A. Conan Doyle; another play with Henry Irving; a concert by a brilliant violinist; and a report to Lottie and Connie that could have been written by Dr Seuss.

to Mary Doyle FINBOROUGH ROAD, LONDON, MAY 26, 1878

I was surprised at not getting a letter on my birthday, however that is all right now. I am enjoying myself very well, working in the mornings and walking out after dinner. Both uncle [Richard] and aunt [Annette] are very kind. I arrived on the Saturday evening and dined at Clifton Gardens on the Sunday. Uncle [James] looks very weary with his work and grey. Aunt Jane looks uncommonly well, ‘Time writes no wrinkles on her azure brow.’* (#ulink_ec83d02c-542a-5c13-93b5-ffa2797631fc) I fancy I made a favourable impression there.

Since then I have seen a good deal of London. On my birthday I went to see Irving in his latest success ‘Louis XI’. A most ghastly sight it was, and has made quite an impression on me. Louis may have been a very bad man, but this I fancy must be an exaggeration of history. The death scene is an awful bit of dramatic art, no vulgar horror about it, but the general effect none the less thrilling for that. Yesterday during the Queen’s birthday I went to see the guards parade. There was a very distinguished staff, including the crown prince of Germany, Sir Garnet Wolseley, the Duke of Cambridge, ; (#ulink_039cba2b-7c2f-5031-bf33-39a6e02ef0fc) and many other men I was curious to see. The crown prince is a splendid looking man, and had a very picturesque uniform, snow white with one blue sash, and his plumed helmet. I dare say he is sorry that Hoedel did not polish off the old boy the other day. ; (#ulink_a0b761a9-79ab-5fc8-9c13-78de02de677f)

The clubs and public buildings were illuminated in the evening, but I have not seen a single firework. They have invented an atrocity called the ‘Lady Teazer torpedo’. This is a leaden bottle, like an artist’s moist colour bottle, full of water. If you squeeze this a jet of water flies out and the great joke at night is to go along the street squirting at everybody’s face, male or female. Everyone is armed with these things, and nobody escapes them. I was simply drenched last night; it is astonishing the good humour with which everyone allows it. I saw ladies stepping out of carriages to parties drenched and seeming to enjoy it highly.

I am reading Trollope’s ‘American Senator’ aloud to Aunt Annette & ‘McCauley’s life and letters’ to myself. His letters are glorious, such swing and go in them, and many of them interlarded with rhymes.

I hope something may turn up for me; I am, you know, willing to do anything. Pray underrate my qualifications, rather than overrate them. Better lose the place than sail under false colours.

Generosity is not, I think, one of Richardson’s virtues. He made me pay my washing bill, & never allowed me a farthing for cab fares in my journey. I never told him I was going to London, for I was convinced that if I did he would refuse me the proper fare. He was the most uninteresting companion I ever met. He boasts that he has not opened a novel for ten years, nor seen a play in his life. McCauley says that judicious novel reading rubs off the roughnesses of a character & improves it more than an equal amount of heavier reading. I can quite believe it from what I have seen.

to Mary Doyle LONDON, MAY 29, 1878

I have written to Quin; isn’t it an extraordinary coincidence. He lives close to Richardson and I have often heard him mentioned.* (#ulink_7a0846e8-b00e-59d9-821f-f33c7ef93ec1) I told him in my letter that I had been assistant to R for a short time. Of course it couldn’t possibly be concealed. I am afraid he will find me too young. Those Sheffielders would rather be poisoned by a man with a beard, than saved by a man without one. I believe since that the real reason of the Richardson rupture was that several of his patients said I looked too young; he said as much the morning I left.

I dined at Clifton Gardens yesterday and saw Uncle Henry. I spent the day at Westminster Aquarium. Today we go to the Royal Academy. I saw a splendid cricket match at Lords on Monday, in which an Australian eleven defeated the best club in England.

P.S. I wish you could send me a little book on medicine, explaining simply the symptoms & treatment of each disease.* (#ulink_b3dbb7d5-1cfe-5cb2-8339-ffa7b8da375b)

to Mary Doyle LONDON, JUNE 1878

I am sorry to have kept you in suspense, but yesterday was a bank holiday and the office was closed. I went today and found that our bait had caught 3 fish, Dr Bryan of Leicester, Dr Brady of Derby, & Dr White of Snodland, Kent. The last is the one I have chosen, as looking most promising. I enclose the letter which emanates evidently from Mrs White. I have just written an answer to it. Snodland is within 40 miles or so of London, so that if it should fall thro’ I won’t lose very much. You need not say much about it to friends till we see whether it will do.