Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated)

by SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  Never before have I experienced such direct visible intervention as occurred during my first photographic lecture at Adelaide. I had shown a slide the effect of which depended upon a single spirit face appearing amid a crowd of others. The slide was damp, and as photos under these circumstances always clear from the edges when placed in the lantern, the whole centre was so thickly fogged that I was compelled to admit that I could not myself see the spirit face. Suddenly, as I turned away, rather abashed by my failure, I heard cries of “ There it is,” and looking up again I saw this single face shining out from the general darkness with so bright and vivid an effect that I never doubted for a moment that the operator was throwing a spot light upon it, my wife sharing my impression. I thought how extraordinarily clever it was that he should pick it out so accur­ately at the distance. So the matter passed, but next morning Mr. Thomas, the operator, who is not a Spiritualist, came in great excitement to say that “a palpable miracle had been wrought, and that in his great experience of thirty years he had never known a photo dry from the centre, nor, as I understood him, become illuminated in such a fashion. Both my wife and I were surprised to learn that he had thrown no ray upon it. Mr. Thomas told us that several experts among the audience had commented upon the strangeness of the incident. I, therefore, asked Mr. Thomas if he would give me a note as to his own impression, so as to furnish an independant account. This is what he wrote : —

  “ Hindmarsh Square, Adelaide.

  “ In Adelaide, on September 28th, I projected a lantern slide containing a group of ladies and gentlemen, and in the centre of the picture, when the slide was reversed, appeared a human face. On the appearance of the picture showing the group the fog incidental to a damp or new slide gradually appeared covering the whole slide, and only after some minutes cleared, and then quite contrary to usual practice did so from a central point just over the face that appeared in the centre, and refused even after that to clear right off to the edge. The general experience is for a slide to clear from the outside edges to a common centre. Your slide cleared only suffi­ciently in the centre to show the face, and did not, while the slide was on view, clear any more than sufficient to show that face. Thinking that perhaps there might be a scientific explanation to this phenomenon, I hesitated before writing you, and in the meantime I have made several experiments but have not in any one particular experiment obtained the same result. I am ‘very much interested — as are hundreds of others who personally witnessed the phenomenon.”

  Mr. Thomas, in his account, has missed the self- illuminated appearance of the face, but otherwise he brings out the points. I never gave occasion for the repetition of the phenomenon, for in every case I was careful that the slides were carefully dried beforehand.

  So much for the lectures at Adelaide, which were five in all, and left, as I heard from all sides, a deep impression upon the town. Of course, the usual abusive messages poured in, including one which wound up with the hearty words : “ May you be struck dead before you leave this Common­wealth.” From Melbourne I had news that before our arrival in Australia at a public prayer meeting at the Assembly Hall, Collins Street, a Presbyterian prayed that we might never reach Australia’s shores. As we were on the high seas at the time this was clearly a murderous petition, nor could I have believed it if a friend of mine had not actually been present and heard it. On the other hand, we received many letters of sympathy and thanks, which amply atoned. “ I feel sure that many mothers, who have lost their sons in the war, will, wherever you go, bless you, as I do, for the help you have given.” As this was the object of our journey it could not be denied that we had attained our end. When I say “ we,” I mean that such letters with inquiries came continually to my wife as well as myself, though she answered them with far greater fullness and clearness than I had time to do.

  Hotel life began to tell upon the children, who are like horses with a profusion of oats and no exercise. On the whole they were wonderfully good. When some domestic crisis was passed the small voice of Malcolm, once “ Dimples,” was heard from the darkness of his bed, saying, “ Well, if I am to be good I must have a proper start. Please mammie, say one, two, three, and away! “ When this ceremony had been performed a still smaller voice of Baby asked the same favour, so once more there was a formal start. The result was intermittent, and it is as well. I don’t believe in angelic children.

  The Adelaide doctors entertained me to dinner, and I was pleased to meet more than one who had been of my time at Edinburgh. They seemed to be a very prosperous body of men. There was much interesting conversation, especially from one elderly professor named Watson, who had known Bully Hayes and other South Sea cele­brities in the semi-piratical, black-birding days. He told me one pretty story. They landed upon some outlying island in Carpentaria, peopled by real primitive blacks, who were rounded up by the ships crew on one of the peninsulas which formed the end of the island. These creatures, the lowest of the human race, huddled together in consterna-

  tion while the white men trained a large camera upon them. Suddenly three males advanced and made a speech in their own tongue which, when interpreted, proved to be an offer that those three should die in exchange for the lives of the tribe. What could the very highest do more than this, and yet it came from the lowest savages. Truly, we all have something of the divine, and it is the very part which will grow and spread until it has burned out all the rest. “ Be a Christ! “ said brave old Stead. At the end of countless seons we may all reach that point which not only Stead but St. Paul also has foreshadowed.

  I refreshed myself between lectures by going out to Nature and to Bellchambers. As it was twenty-five miles out in the bush, inaccessible by rail, and only to be approached by motor roads which were in parts like the bed of a torrent, I could not take my wife, though the boys, after the nature of boys, enjoy a journey the more for its roughness. It was a day to remember. I saw lovely South Australia in the full beauty of the spring, the budding girlhood of the year, with all her winsome growing graces upon her. The brilliant yellow wattle was just fading upon the trees, but the sward was covered with star-shaped purple flowers of the knot-grass, and with familiar home flowers, each subtly altered by their trans­portation. It was wild bush for part of the way, but mostly of the second growth on account of forest fires as much as the woodman’s axe. Bell- chambers came in to guide us, for there is no one to ask upon these desolate tracks, and it is easy to get bushed. Mr. Waite, the very capable zoologist of the museum, joined the party, and with two such men the conversation soon got to that high nature talk which represents the really permanent things of material life — more lasting than thrones and dynasties. I learned of the strange storks, the “ native companions” who meet, 500 at a time, for their stately balls, where in the hush of the bush they advance, retreat, and pirouette in their dignified minuets. I heard of the bower birds, who decorate their homes with devices of glass and pebbles. There was talk, too, of the little red beetles who have such cunning ways that they can fertilise the insectivorous plants without being eaten, and of the great ants who get through galvanised iron by the aid of some acid-squirting insect which they bring with them to the scene of their assault. I heard also of the shark’s egg which Mr. Waite had raped from sixty feet deep in Sydney Harbour, descend­ing for the purpose in a diver’s suit, for which I raised my hat to him. Deep things came also from Bellchambers’ store of knowledge and little glimpses of beautiful humanity from this true gentleman.

  “ Yes,” he said, “ I am mostly vegetarian. You see, I know the beasts too well to bring myself to pick their bones. Yes, I’m friends with most of them. Birds have more sense than animals to my mind. They understand you like. They know what you mean. Snakes have least of any. They don’t get friendly-like in the same way. But Nature helps the snakes in queer ways.

  Photo: V. G. Smith, Adelaide. See page 81.

  BELLCHAMBERS AND THE MALLEE FOWL. “ GET ALONG WITH YOU, DO! “

  Some of them hatch their own eg
gs, and when they do Nature raises the temperature of their bodies. That’s queer.”

  I carried away a mixed memory of the things I had seen. A blue-headed wren, an eagle soaring in the distance; a hideous lizard with a huge open mouth; a laughing jackass which refused to laugh; many more or less tame wallabies and kangaroos; a dear little ‘possum which got under the back of my coat, and would not come out; noisy mynah birds which fly ahead and warn the game against the hunter. Good little noisy mynah! All my sympathies are with you! I would do the same if I could. This senseless lust for killing is a disgrace to the race. We, of England, cannot preach, for a pheasant battue is about the worst example of it. But do let the creatures alone unless they are surely noxious! When Mr. Bellchambers told us how he had trained two ibises — the old religious variety — and how both had been picked off by some unknown local “ sportsman “ it made one sad.

  We had a touch of comedy, however, when Mr. Bellchambers attempted to expose the egg of the Mallee fowl, which is covered a foot deep in mould. He scraped into the mound with his hands. The cock watched him with an expression which clearly said : “ Confound the fellow! What is he up to now? “ He then got on the mound, and as quickly as Bellchambers shovelled the earth out he kicked it back again, Bellchambers in his good-humoured way crying “ Get along with you, do! “ A good husband is the Mallee 8x f cock, and looks after the family interests. But what we humans would think if we were born deep underground and had to begin our career by digging our way to the surface, is beyond imagination.

  There are quite a clan of Bellchambers living in or near the little pioneer’s hut built in a clearing of the bush. Mrs. Bellchambers is of Sussex, as is her husband, and when they heard that we were fresh from Sussex also it was wonderful to see the eager look that came upon their faces, while the bush-born children could scarce understand what it was that shook the solid old folk to their marrow. On the walls were old prints of the Devil’s Dyke and Firle Beacon. How strange that old Sussex should be wearing out its very life in its care for the fauna of young Australia. This remarkable man is unpaid with only his scanty holding upon which to depend, and many dumb mouths de­pendent upon him. I shall rejoice if my efforts in the local press serve to put his affairs upon a more worthy foundation, and to make South Australia realise what a valuable instrument lies to her hand.

  Before I left Adelaide I learned many pleasing things about the lectures, which did away with any shadow cast by those numerous corre­spondents who seemed to think that we were still living under the Mosaic dispensation, and who were so absent-minded that they usually forgot to sign their names. It is a curious difference between the Christian letters of abuse and those of materialists, that the former are usually anonymous and the latter signed. I heard of one man, a lame stockman, who had come 300 miles from the other side of Streaky Bay to attend the whole course, and who declared that he could listen all night. inother seized my hand and cried, “ You will never know the good you have done in this town.” Well, I hope it was so, but I only regard myself as the plough. Others must follow with the seed. Knowledge, perseverance, sanity, judgment, courage — we ask some qualities from our disciples if they are to do real good. Talking of moral courage I would say that the Governor of South Australia, Sir Archibald Weigall with Lady Weigall, had no hesitation in coming to support me with their presence. By the end of September this most successful mission in Adelaide was accomplished, and early in October we were on our way to Melbourne, which meant a long night in the train and a few hours of the next morning during which we saw the surface diggings of Ballarat on every side of the railway line, the sandy soil pitted in every direction with the shallow claims of the miners.

  CHAPTER IV

  Speculations on Paul and his Master. — Arrival at Melbourne. — Attack in the Argus. — Partial press boycott. — Strength of the movement. — The Prince of Wales. — Victorian football. — Rescue Circle in Melbourne. — Burke and Wills’ statue. — Success of the lectures. — Reception at the Auditorium. — Luncheon of the British Empire League. — Mr. Ryan’s experience. — The Federal Government. — Mr. Hughes’ personality. — The mediumship of Charles Bailey. — His alleged exposure. — His remarkable record. — A second sitting. — The Indian nest. — A remarkable lecture. Arrival of Lord Forster. — The future of the Empire. — Kindness of Australians. — Prohibition. — Horse-racing. — Roman Catholic policy.

  One cannot help speculating about those great ones who first carried to the world the Christian revelation. What were their domestic ties! There is little said about them, but we should never have known that Peter had a wife were it not for a chance allusion to his mother-in-law, just as another chance allusion shows us that Jesus was one of a numerous family. One thing can safely be said of Paul, that he was either a bachelor or else was a domestic bully with a very submissive wife, or he would never have dared to express his well known views about women. As to his preaching, he had a genius for making a clear thing obscure, even as Jesus had a genius for making an obscure thing clear. Read the Sermon on the Mount and then a chapter of Paul as a con­trast in styles. Apart from his style one can reconstruct him as a preacher to the extent that he had a powerful voice — no one without one could speak from the historic rocky pulpit on the hill of Mars at Athens, as I ascertained for myself. The slope is downwards, sound ascends, and the whole conditions are abominable. He was cer­tainly long-winded and probably monotonous in his diction, or he could hardly have reduced one of his audience to such a deep sleep that he fell out of the window. We may add that he was a man of brisk courage in an emergency, that he was subject to such sudden trances that he was occa­sionally unaware himself whether he was normal or not, and that he was probably short-sighted, as he mistook the person who addressed him, and had his letters usually written for him. At least three languages were at his command, he had an intimate and practical knowledge of the occult, and was an authority upon Jewish law — a good array of accomplishments for one man.

  There are some points about Paul’s august Master which also help in a reconstruction of Himself and His surroundings. That His mother was opposed to His mission is, I think, very probable. Women are dubious about spiritual novelties, and one can well believe that her heart ached to see her noble elder son turn from the sure competence of His father’s business at Nazareth to the precarious existence of a wandering preacher. This domestic opposition clouded Him as one can see in the somewhat cold, harsh words which He used to her, and his mode of address which began simply as “ Woman.” His assertion to the dis­ciples that one who followed His path had to give up his family points to the same thing. No doubt Mary remained with the younger branches at Nazareth while Jesus pursued His ministry, though she came, as any mother would, to be near Him at the end.

  Of His own personality we know extraordinarily little, considering the supreme part that He played in the world. That He was a highly trained psychic, or as we should say, medium, is obvious to anyone who studies the miracles, and it is cer­tainly not derogatory to say that they were done along the line of God’s law rather than that they were inversions of it. I cannot doubt also that he chose his apostles for their psychic powers — if not, on what possible principle were they selected, since they were neither staunch nor learned? It is clear that Peter and James and John were the inner circle of psychics, since they were assembled both at the transfiguration and at the raising of Jairus’ daughter. It is from unlearned open-air men who are near Nature that the highest psychic powers are obtained. It has been argued that the Christ was an Essene, but this seems hard to believe, as the Essenes were not only secluded from the world, but were certainly vegetarians and total abstainers, while Jesus was neither. On the other hand baptism was not a Jewish rite, and his undergoing it — if He did, indeed, undergo it — marks Him as belonging to some dissenting sect. I say “ if He did “ because it is perfectly certain that there were forgeries and interpolations introduced into the Gospels in order to square their teaching with
the practice of the Church some centuries later. One would look for those forgeries not in the ordinary narra­tive, which in the adult years bears every mark of truth, but in the passages which support cere­monial or tributes to the Church — such as the allusions to baptism, “ Unless a man be born again,” to the sacrament, “ This is my body, etc.,” and the whole story of Ananias and Sapphira, the moral of which is that it is dangerous to hold anything back from the Church.

  Physically I picture the Christ as an extremely powerful man. I have known several famous healers and they were all men who looked as if they had redundant health and strength to give to others. His words to the sick woman, “Who has touched me? Much power” (dunamis is the word in the original Greek) “ has gone out of me,” show that His system depended upon His losing what He gave to others. Therefore He was a very strong man. The mere feat of carrying a wooden cross strong enough to bear a man from Jerusalem to Calvary, up a hill, is no light one. It is the details which convince me that the gospel narrative is correct and really represents an actual event. Take the incident during that sad journey of Simon of Cyrene having helped for a time with the cross. Why should anyone invent such a thing, putting an actual name to the person? It is touches of this kind which place the narrative beyond all suspicion of being a pure invention. Again and again in the New Testament one is confronted with incidents which a writer of fiction recognises as being beyond the reach of invention, because the inventor does not put in things which have no direct bearing upon the matter in hand. Take as an example how the maid, seeing Peter outside the door after his escape from prison, ran back to the guests and said that it was his angel (or etheric body) which was outside. Such an episode could only have been recorded because it actually occurred.