Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters

I have never known a year pass so quickly as the last one, it seems not a month ago since I left you, and I can remember all the minutest articles of furniture in the house, even to the stains on the wall. I suppose I will have to perform for Frank the office I have so often performed for Lottie and Cony, namely, that of rocking her to sleep. I suppose he is out of his long clothes now.

We are going to have bathing during schools this evening, which is a nice prospect. This is the Golden Time of one’s life at Stonyhurst, the end of the year.

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, SEPTEMBER 1873

My things have been taken out of my box, a little of the jam was spilt but no harm done. Ryan has come, and brought the brush with him. the masters all call him ‘gunpowder’ on account of his accident.* (#ulink_e16fe345-bfec-5cef-9f4a-00a15f7d3e2f)

We have a jolly little school of only 12 fellows, so, with so few, I expect to make great progress. I have taken ‘honours’, that is to say, the ordinary work is considered too short for me, and I have to do an extra hundred lines a day. at the end of the year there is an examination and the best in that gets £5, while any others who do well get prizes. there are seven in our school in honours, while in the next school, 33 in number, there are only four, which shows that we are a clever school. I have quite fallen into the routine of the college, even of being awoken by a policeman’s rattle at 6 o’clock.

My hair is in capital order, that lime cream is very good indeed.

‘He is a man who leads a sedentary life, goes out little, is out of training entirely, is middle-aged, has grizzled hair which he has had cut within the last few days, and which he anoints with lime-cream. These are the more patent facts which are to be deduced from his hat.’

—‘The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle’

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, OCTOBER 1873

I was a little frightened at not receiving any letter from you for so long. but your note today calmed my fears.

I got a jolly letter from Uncle James the other day, he gave me 3 pages of sermon and one of fun.

do you know how I signalized my entrance into the higher line? why: I have got up a monthly journal, The Stonyhurst Figaro, to come out monthly I and a fellow called Roscell are the joint editors and correspondents, we make up little poems and essays to put in it. we have finished writing the November one, and nearly all the higher line have seen it. here are the contents of vol 1—which filled a large 2 penny themebook.

The Figaro’s Prospects (poem) by Arthur Roskell

Some wicked Jokes by A. Doyle

The students dream (poem) by A. Roskell.

The Abbot By A. Doyle. (poem)

Music of the day & music of the past (essay) by Roskell

Bluestocking court (essay) By Roskell

After the Battle (poem) By A. C. Doyle

‘It was incumbent to write poetry (so called) on any theme given,’ he recalled in Memories and Adventures. ‘This was done as a dreary unnatural task by most boys. Very comical their wooings of the muses used to be. For one saturated as I was with affection for verse, it was a labour of love, and I produced verses which were poor enough in themselves but seemed miracles to those who had no urge in that direction.’

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, OCTOBER 1873

We have had a great commotion here lately, from the fact that our third prefect has gone stark staring mad. I expected it all along, he always seemed to have the most singular antipathy to me, and I am called among the boys ‘Mr Chrea’s friend’. Ironically, of course. The first signs of madness were at Vespers the other day. I was near him & I saw him, just as the Laudate Dominum began, pull out his handkerchief and begin waving it over his head. Two of the community took him and at once led him out. They say that in his delirium he mentioned my name several times. A story is going about that before entering the society he fell in love with a maiden, but the maiden absconded with an individual named Doyle, and Mr Chrea in his despair entered the society, and the name of Doyle has ever since had an irritating effect on him. I can’t however answer for the truth of this. We are having the most detestable weather possible over here. Rain, rain, rain and nothing but rain. I shall soon at this rate die of ennui, my great comfort however is the thought of seeing you all again at Xmas.

One longs to know Mr Chrea’s fate. The deranged Prefect being led away with Conan Doyle’s name on his lips presents a vivid picture; though seemingly not disconcerting enough to lift the young student out of his ennui. (Perhaps feigned, as he hurried to send his version of the incident home before the school could dispatch its own report.)

Any ennui he felt was soon dispelled when one of England’s famous travelling menageries came to a nearby town:

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST

Wombwells menagerie has done us the honour to come to Hurstgreen, we all went to see it. I was in hopes of seeing that hybrid, half hyena half bear which we saw mentioned in the paper once but it was not there. I saw King Theodore’s favourite charger ‘Hammel’. There was a baby camel only three days old there, it was already as big as a goat, but it is expected to die. There were 2 elephants 2 camels, several lions, panthers, jackals, leopards, hyenas, and tigers, a huge rhinoceros, a cage of monkeys, a sloth, and a whole host of other beasts. I also saw in a penny show outside the fattest boy ever seen, a frightful creature weighing 460 pounds, also the largest rat ever caught, it was found in the Liverpool docks, it was about the size of a small bulldog.

‘Matilda Briggs was not the name of a young woman, Watson,’ said Holmes in a reminiscent voice. ‘It was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.’

—‘The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire’

Travelling menageries, also known as Beast Shows, were itinerant exhibitions in which fairground showmen displayed exotic and apparently dangerous creatures. Wombwell’s shows, said to have begun with two snakes bought from a sailor, had toured widely for many years since the first one in 1805. When Conan Doyle saw it, it featured a ‘Royal Modern Musical Elephant’ playing popular songs and polkas on a variety of outsize instruments. Entertainments like these continued well into the twentieth century.

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST

I think I would certainly be the better for a necktie. I require nothing else. I am sorry to say I will not be able to get a bag. There is always a great rush to get bags, and the first school gets the preference. I asked for one about a fortnight ago, but I could not get one. My trunk will be very light however, and it would go against even a cabman’s conscience to charge much for it.

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST

Now at last I hope to be able to write you something like a letter, and not a mere note. I only learnt by chance that no one was allowed to send cloth here, so I wrote at once to you. The parcel you sent has arrived, but I have not yet seen my clothes. I suppose the rector has written back to you, he talked to me the other day about German, he said that all the classes were very advanced now and that I had better continue studying it privately with a grammar, so that I may make a good start next year.

I have been very successful this term. I am second on the distinction list for which I get a good breakfast, and I have done the best at extraordinary work, for which I get a good supper, so I am provisioned for some time to come.

I have a themebook here with a lot of original poems in it, which Tottie might care to have, I will send it to her if I can.

Whit monday will be a great day for me. The College, as you know, is divided into divisions or lines. Of course there is a certain amount of emulation between the two lines, and great interest is taken in the few annual matches which come off between them. Well on Whitmonday there is going to be a great match at cricket between the best eleven of the lower line and the second best eleven of the higher line. I am captain of the higher line eleven, so I will be a great lion for the day. The lower line think they will win, but I am glad to say that they won’t.

I wonder that Tottie never gives you an exhibition in chemistry. I think when I come home I will give you one. For sixpence I could buy chemicals enough to amuse the brats by my experiments for a week, besides giving them knowledge of chemistry. I am sure they would like to see water put on fire by potassium.

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, JUNE 1874

I am glad to hear that you are rusticating down at Joppa. I hope you all enjoy yourselves and have as fine weather as I have. On Shrove monday we played the match, and we won a glorious victory. They got 111 runs and we got 276, of which I contributed 51. When I reside at Edinburgh, I would like to enter some cricket club there. It is a jolly game, and does more to make a fellow strong and healthy than all the doctor’s prescription in the world. I think I could take a place in the eleven of any club in Edinburgh, for next year I will be in the Stonyhurst eleven, and it is stronger than any of Edinburgh.

What a wonderful swimmer Tottie is, I expect to find her some sort of a mermaid, when I come home. I wonder why it is that my progress is so much slower than hers, it is not for the want of a will, I am sure, for one of my greatest ambitions is to be a good swimmer.

I am getting very rich now, what with Papa’s and uncle’s liberality. You must thank them both from me. Perhaps since I have such abundance you will send me 2/, before June the 18

. For on that day we go to Preston to see a great cricket match played there, and we will have to find our own dinners I fear.

I don’t know whether I told you last letter about my success in schools, but I got second in schools this term, and did better in every respect than last term.

Conan Doyle may not have been the poorest boy at Stonyhurst, but he was surely in the bottom drawers, even if welcome little gifts of cash from his father and one of his uncles raised him temporarily from the ranks of the truly poverty-stricken. Lack of funds would haunt him for many more years, until success as a writer finally changed not only his own circumstances, but the rest of the family’s.

Returning to Stonyhurst for his final year, Conan Doyle, now fifteen years old, knew it was time to begin thinking of the future. Although his academic performance had been impressive the previous year, some of his teachers still regarded him as a willful and not especially promising prospect. ‘One master,’ he recalled, ‘when I told him that I thought of being a civil engineer, remarked, ‘Well, Doyle, you may be an engineer, but I don’t think you will ever be a civil one.’ Another assured me that I would never do any good in the world, and perhaps from his point of view his prophecy has been justified.’

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST

We had a very pleasant journey and very pleasant companions. We saw Melrose Abbey very well indeed. It is a high massive building, and stands out prominantly among the little houses with which it is surrounded.

We arrived at Preston about five o’clock. We went to the Red Lion, and there we got a big waggonette. The old coach proprietor is dead, and the new one made us pay 3/6 a head. There were 34 of us so he must have made a lot of money.

We have a new master, a jolly fellow much better than Mr Splaine. His name is Reginald Colley, and I think he will teach us very well.

to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, SEPTEMBER 1874