by Неизвестный
I have been so much taken up by amusements that I have but little time for writing. I have been to the Theatre twice with Uncle James, being presented with private boxes by Mr Tom Taylor a play-writer and friend of Uncle Dick. The first time was to the Lyceum where we saw Hamlet. Hamlet was acted by Henry Irving who is supposed to be the best tragic actor in England. The play has continued three months, yet every night the house is crammed to suffocation by people wishing to see Irving act. I enjoyed it very much indeed. Irving is very young and slim, with black piercing eyes, and acted magnificently. The rest of the Lyceum company seemed to me very poor.
Last Thursday we went to Haymarket and saw Sothern again. Though I had seen him before I enjoyed it just as much. Buckstone acted as Ana Trenchard but I do not think him half as good an actor as our Edinborough Pillars [sic].
I have been visiting a Stonyhurst boy, and great friend of mine. We went to the zoo together yesterday, which I enjoyed very much. We saw the animals being fed and the seals kissing their keeper. We was [sic] at Luncheon also at Clifton Gardens on Saturday, and next Thursday we are going to the theatre together.
I have been living just as much at Clifton Gardens as at Finborough Road lately. I spent nearly all last week there. I like Aunt Jane very much indeed. She has had a very bad cold but is recovering.
I have been also to Madam Tussaud’s, and was delighted with the room of Horrors, and the images of the murderers.
Uncle Henry is coming over to see me ere I depart, and we are going to the Crystal palace together. Uncle Dick has just returned from the country and tomorrow he goes off again. Today he is going to take me to Henglers circus.
Henry Irving, in 1894 the first actor to be knighted, was still rising as the first man of the British theatre—and the one for whom, in the early 1890s, Conan Doyle would write his first theatrical hit, a one-act play about an aged Guards veteran who had fought for the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo. Conan Doyle, as he watched Our American Cousin from the box of its author, Tom Taylor, was presumably aware that Abraham Lincoln had been watching the same play the night of his assassination.
In the 1920s, hearing an American physician, Gray Chandler Briggs of St Louis, explain how he had succeeded in identifying Sherlock Holmes’s 221B address in Baker Street from clues in the story The Empty House, Conan Doyle stopped the conversation cold by remarking that he didn’t think he had ever been in Baker Street in his life. But Madame Tussaud’s wax museum was in Baker Street when he visited it in 1874; and it is no surprise that the Chamber of Horrors made the greatest impression upon him. Back at school in January, he was still bubbling over with enthusiasm for his trip to London.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST
You must excuse me for my negligence in writing to you, but I have had to write two letters to London, one to Aunt Annette and the other to Aunt Jane to wish her goodbye. I have also begun my letter to Uncle Conan. I am hard at work again, and am, I think getting up the subjects I am backward in very successfully.
I enjoyed my 3 weeks in London immensely. I saw everything and went everywhere. In one walk I thoroughly saw St Pauls, Westminster Abbey and bridge, houses of parliament—The Tower—Temple Bar, the Guild Hall and other places of interest.*
I was especially interested in the Tower—where we saw in the armoury 67,000 Henry-Martini rifles, and an enormous number of swords and bayonets. Also thumbscrews and racks and other instruments of torture
I like Aunt Jane very much indeed, she is very kind and considerate. I slept as often at their house as at Finborough Road, and I enjoyed myself very much there. I spent a day with Mrs Robertson and saw Louis. I also saw Mr Williams, and I think he is the jolliest old fellow I ever met.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST
It was very kind indeed of Tottie to send me the scraps, and McFairsham. I am going to have a good supper in a few days, for doing well at the lessons, and I will sing McFairsham in honour of Scotland. They always want me to sing a Scotch song. And I always have to tell them I don’t know any, so I will satisfy them for once.
You must excuse my brevity, as I wish the letter to go this mail, and I have to write to Uncle Conan, to acknowledge the receipt of a little book he sent me. ‘McCauley’s lays of Rome’.
Macaulay’s work greatly influenced Conan Doyle. ‘It seems entwined into my whole life as I look backwards,’ he wrote decades later. ‘The short, vivid sentences, the broad sweep of allusion, the exact detail, they all throw a glamour round the subject and should make the least studious of readers desire to go further. If Macaulay’s hand cannot lead a man upon those pleasant paths, then, indeed, he may give up all hope of ever finding them.’
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, MAY 14, 1875
The Examen begins on the 28th of June, and continues for nearly a fortnight. The Trial Examens begin on the 5th, and they are very important for no one who is plucked in them is allowed to go up for the real examination. We will all be very much excited for a fortnight or so before the Examens, for this year they are trying a new system in the Examens, so that we do not know what is in store for us. The most exciting time of all however is on the next Sunday morning when the results are read out. I hope it [will] be a morning of pleasure to us all.
I was astonished to hear of Annette’s departure; when is she going to come back? I was very pleased to hear of her success.
I have suffered much lately from neuralgia, and I have it still, though it is getting much better. I got it from sitting near an open window in the schoolroom, the draught acting upon the nerves of the face.
Can Geoffy speak well? What does dear little Ida look like? I am very curious to hear all about the little ones.
The birth of another sister in March 1875—Jane Adelaide Rose, called Ida—coincided with Annette Conan Doyle’s departure for Portugal to be a governess. The two events combined in his mind to place even greater emphasis on his need to help support the family as his graduation from Stonyhurst approached.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST
I wrote a letter to Aunt Annette acknowledging the receipt of the History, and thanking Uncle Dick for it. It will, I imagine be very useful to me in the Matriculation. I am unusually pressed with work now, because Father rector’s feast is coming on, and I have been selected to write a poem for him, to be read on the Feast. We have trial examinations on every Friday in the different subjects for Matriculation. Today we have one in English History down to the Norman Conquest, and in Roman and Greek history.
I am in the first class in German, and getting on very well. We have 2 hours in the week for German, which is all that could be spared. The Father, whose name is Father Baumgarten, talks to us in German always, while teaching us. I like it very much.
to an unidentified recipient (fragment) STONYHURST
Its such fun—whenever I am hard up for a quotation I invent a few lines of doggerel, and prefix it by ‘as the poet sings’, or something of that sort. The lines are bad of course but I am not responsible for that, that’s the poets publisher’s look out. Thus the last lines of my essay are
‘It is said that a mother ever loves best the most distorted and deformed in her children, but I trust the saying does not apply to the feelings of an author towards his literary child, otherwise it bodes ill for this poor foundling. I cannot however conclude better than in quoting those cheering lines of the poet (?)
‘Fail or succeed, the man is blessed, ‘who when his task is o’er
‘Can say that he has done his best, ‘angels can do no more’
Tell Lottie to write at once; she ought never to put off till tomorrow what she can possibly put off till the day after. Many examples have been known, Lottie, of little boys who have driven into London tired and weary, with not more than a check [sic] for a few thousands in their pockets, and by steady work, and sticking consistently to that proverb, they have been able in a few years to leave London as fine prosperous beggars. So there is a chance for you yet, my dear.
Finally the day approac
hed for him and other Stonyhurst boys in their final year to travel to London for a week of comprehensive University of London matriculation exams, ones which would play an important role in their being admitted to universities. It was a tense time for Conan Doyle, now sixteen years old, for much depended upon the outcome if he was to finish his education, join a profession, and support the family as he wished.
‘My noble sister Annette, who died just as the sunshine of better days came into our lives,’ he wrote in Memories and Adventures, ‘went out at a very early age as a governess to Portugal and sent all her salary home. My younger sisters, Lottie and Connie, both did the same thing; and I helped as I could. But it was still my dear mother who bore the long, sordid strain. Often I said to her, ‘When you are old, Mammie, you shall have a velvet dress and gold glasses and sit in comfort by the fire.’ Thank God, it so came to pass.’
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, JUNE 1875
I was very successful in the trial examens, passing first class. I only hope I do as well in the real thing. You must offer up a communion for me on Sunday, I will go myself on that day and so get a blessing on my examens. Mr Colley, poor man, is very anxious lest anyone should be plucked, and so is the rector and all the community. The subject I got most marks for in the trial was French, I got 268 out of 300 for it. The other subjects I did well in were Greek, Latin, and Natural Philosophy. My weakest paper was chemistry, but I have studied it up since.
We have had almost continuous rain for three weeks. It is really very depressing and makes the mind so languid that it is hard to keep your attention on your work. I am looking forward to the Examen week. We are quite separated from the boys, having meals apart, and many privileges such as going to bed when we like, rising when we like and going out rowing on the ponds.
Goodbye Ma, the next letter I write will be after the examens and I will be able to tell you approximately how I have done, though I will not know for certain until a week after the examen. You know you must not expect long letters now, but I promise you a big fellow after the Examen.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, JULY 1875
The Examens are over at last, thank goodness, and I think we have all got on very well, though some of the examens were unusually hard. On Monday we had the Latin author, and latin grammar paper. I got through the first very well, and the second very fairly. On Tuesday we had Greek author, and French. I think I did them well also. On Wednesday we had Mathematics & geometry. I did better in the mathematics than in any other subject I think. The geometry I did not do so well but I think I did well enough to pass easily. On Thursday we had English History & Language, both of which I did well. On Friday we had natural philosophy (a very hard paper) and chemistry. I scrambled through them both very satisfactorily I think. During the examens we sat in a large room, each at his own little table, and the London examiner sat at his desk in front of us in order to see that all played fair. During the week I studied always from 7 in the evening to half past eleven, and from 5 in the morning to half past eight. I did not feel a bit sleepy during the examens, but I feel it now when all the excitement is over.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, JULY 1875
Hurray! I have passed all right. The post from London came late today, and the excitement among the boys to hear the news was fearful. At quarter to ten the post came, and the packet was taken to the rector as is the custom. For nearly quarter an hour [sic], which seemed to us poor fellows an age, the rector was perusing the news in his room. We could stand it no longer and pulling open the door of the playroom, regardless of the howls of the prefects, we dashed along the gallery up the stairs, and along the corridor to the door of the rector’s room. There were between forty and fifty of us, not all candidates, but many whose brothers or relations had gone up. There we crowded round the door all pushing and yelling. The door opened and the rector was seen inside waving the packet over his head. Immediately a tremendous cheer rung along the gallery, and dozens of handkerchiefs were tossed in the air, for we knew the news must be good. When the uproar had a little subsided, the old grey haired prefect of studies, more than sixty years old, got up on a chair and announced that of fourteen who had gone up thirteen had passed, the most that has ever passed since Stonyhurst was Stonyhurst. When Fr Kingdon tried to lead off another cheer his poor cracked voice failed him, but we soon drowned his hideous squeaks by tremendous cheers. I have shaken hands with every fellow in the house almost. I am now Arthur C. Doyle u.g. Somebody remarked I ought to add LY and then I would be UGLY.
The places are not given until next Sunday. Those who do unusually well are said to be in Honours. Those who do very well are in the first class, and those who do well are in the second class. My ambition is to get in the First Class.
Arthur Doyle undergraduate of the Royal London University
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, JULY 1875
The classified list was read out this morning. Imagine my delight and surprise on finding myself in honours. The very highest class which can be attained, and in order to get which you must get 3/4 of the total of marks in each examen. I never in my life got such a surprise, and everybody else was equally as astonished. I nearly got a hole worn in the back of my coat by being clapped on it, and some enthusiasts carried me round the playground. There were 541 candidates went up; of these about sixty were in honours, and several Stonyhurst boys among them; Indeed it is the greatest triumph recorded in the whole annals of Stonyhurst.
Arthur Doyle u.g.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST
I fear that we will come in so late that you will not be able to meet me conveniently. The train starts at four and comes in about ten I think. I am sorry to leave the old place after such a long residence, but I will be glad to get home again and see you all and Ida. Seven years continued routine becomes very monotonous eventually.
Tell Lottie and Cony I have a present for them. It is a lot of numbers of Cassell’s illustrated history of the war. The pictures ought to amuse them.
I wish Tottie was at home to see me, however I suppose she will come back before very long.
I get a prize for passing in Honours, which I will bring home carefully.
It was over, and he had done better than expected; certainly better than some of his schoolmasters had expected. Now he was done at Stonyhurst, with the good education for which Jesuits were famous, as Michael Conan had recommended. But he was never very sentimental about his school. ‘I don’t, looking back, consider the Stonyhurst system a good one,’ he later told Margaret Ryan, mother of his friend Jimmy Ryan, ‘nor would I send a son of mine there if I had one. They try to rule too much by fear—too little by love and reason.’
In his letters home Conan Doyle never touched upon one of the most important effects of his Jesuit education: his loss of faith in the Roman Catholic Church to which the Doyles were devoted. ‘Nothing can exceed the uncompromising bigotry of the Jesuit theology,’ he said in Memories and Adventures. ‘I remember that when, as a grown lad, I heard Father Murphy, a great fierce Irish priest, declare that there was sure damnation for everyone outside the Church, I looked upon him with horror, and to that moment I trace the first rift which has grown into such a chasm between me and those who were my guides.’
He did not write home about it. His mother might be someone whose advice (as he put it in his 1895 autobiographical novel The Stark Munro Letters) was ‘Wear flannel next your skin, my boy, and never believe in eternal punishment,’ but his father, said Conan Doyle in his memoir, ‘lived and died a fervent son of the Roman Catholic faith.’
Returning home, he found that the family’s circumstances had undergone more change. ‘My mother had adopted the device of sharing a large house,’ he said, ‘which may have eased her in some ways, but was disastrous in others.’ This comment, made nearly half a century later, was probably an oblique reference to one lodger in particular, Dr Bryan Charles Waller, who had already come to assume a powerful influence in the Doyle household. Only six years older than Conan Doyle, W
aller would soon take over paying the family’s rent, usurping the role of the increasingly infirm Charles Doyle. Initially, young Conan Doyle warmed to Waller, who not only a notable physician but a published poet. But later his feelings would darken, perhaps over Waller playing a role that Conan Doyle would have liked to play instead. (And yet when he married in 1885, Waller acted as best man. Considerable speculation has been expended on Dr Waller’s relationship with the family, but too little data is available to reach firm conclusions.)
‘Perhaps it was good for me that the times were hard,’ he said. ‘[T]he situation called for energy and application, so that one was bound to try to meet it. My mother had been so splendid that we could not fail her.’ Edinburgh University had one of the best medical schools in the world, and that Dr Waller had trained there, and could help Conan Doyle prepare for the entry examinations, must also have had some bearing on the decision that he should study medicine too.
But Conan Doyle was still young for university at age sixteen. ‘I was dispatched, therefore, to Feldkirch, which is a Jesuit school in the Vorarlberg province of Austria, to which many better-class German boys are sent. Here the conditions were much more humane and I met with far more human kindness than at Stonyhurst, with the immediate result that I ceased to be a resentful young rebel and became a pillar of law and order.’
to Mary Doyle FELDKIRCH, AUSTRIA, SEPTEMBER 1875
You must be astonished at not having heard from me before, but I will begin my adventures from the beginning. I had a very pleasant journey down to Liverpool where I found we did not pass through the Exchange Station, so I got a cab from Lime Street Station and then got a train to Berkdale, which bye the bye is eighteen miles from Liverpool. I arrived at Berkdale and there at the station I saw a hoary headed old chap who proved to be Mr Rockliffe. He was a jolly old man, and took me up to his house where I was introduced to his two daughters and three sons. They were very kind hospitable people, and gave me a jolly dinner and a warm bed. Sunday passed in smoking, hearing mass, reading, walking, and playing billiards, and on Monday we were to set off. But in the middle of the night the greatest hurricane since 1839 arose. Nearly the whole top of the house was carried off like a feather, tiles and chimney pots were flying about and in the midst of the turmoil a messenger arrived from Mr Rockliffes brother, who was to take us, saying that he would not risk our lives by going in such weather. The result was that we stayed at Berkdale until the Wednesday morning when we set off. We went to London, then to Newhaven, Dieppe and Paris. I got into Paris late one night and we started early next morning, so I could not visit Uncle. I was so disappointed. I have only five minutes more time to write in so I must be quick and give you a full account of the journey in my next letter. The Alps are beautiful and the place is jolly I think.