Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters
Page 20
About the crests I am longing for it. Don’t you think having both on might look a little ostentatious? Is it commonly done? They would do the practise a great deal of good?
Business still fairly brisk. Am thinking of writing a book on political economy.
Mrs S is doing well—cleaning scrubbing & good to us. We take our meals in the kitchen with her.
to Charlotte Drummond SOUTHSEA
The practise is still looking up as no doubt the mother will tell you. There is no sign at all of any falling off. Its increase is never brilliant but always steady. I hope this year to make well over 200 from medicine, which with a little help from publishers will be quite a swagger income, as John Whittingdale would say—not bad under the circumstances anyway.
I do wish there were any chance of your coming down here. Isn’t it a horrid long way—from Edinburgh’s icy mountains to Southsea’s barren strand! I know you would revel in the place, and so would Jessie. If you don’t come down I must come up for I have fully made up my mind to see you. I have become a most awful Bohemian from knowing so few ladies here (I always was inclined that way). Our circle is a bachelor one—and a pretty gay and festive one at that.
The boy is doing splendidly. Has a new gun with a bayonet with which he sinks shafts into me periodically. He is at school and is doing well.
I see a taxgatherer coming down the road, so must conclude before crawling under the table. All kind remembrances to everyone in the clan and best love to you.
to Mary Doyle SOUTHSEA
I really did not mean to be ungracious about the carpet, darling. What I said was entirely without arriere pensée. It is too kind of you, but I really think until this one is paid for we need not get another for this looks very well. Let us bide a wee until this little financial crisis is over. I have curtains (white) in the front room now and the house looks awfully nice from outside. If you do send curtains send white in preference to cretonne I think. How kind of you to send a box! Bret Harte for choice—or Hood’s poems if you should see them—or Poe’s Poems. If you have any little brackets, ornaments or knick knacks which you think will not be much use in the country stick them into the box. The same applies forcibly to mats. Could you send the falcon? I am so glad about the picture—it will be jolly. I wonder if the crested paper will be in time. A couple of shirts for Innes would be a good investment. He is wonderfully jolly and well. I read little now except Political Economy which has taken my fancy awfully. I am writing spasmodically. Have come to no arrangement with Hogg. He only owes me for ‘My friend’—that is the only thing of mine he has published & I suppose he takes it as an equivalent for ‘3 eyes’. He has the Ghosts now but it is not published yet. Clothes cleaning ended up by my insulting the tradesman—swearing frightfully & hurling his money at him. It is rather funny. If any one presumes to send me a bill I go into a frenzy of indignation which is only exceeded by my paroxysm of passion when anyone dares to object to my insisting on ready payment. They were well done but a dreadful overcharge. 8/6.
What a lucky thing that I have chummed with the Gresham men. Garrington a Doctor here sent up a furious epistle last week to London saying that he had examined for 20 years & his father before him and he would be glad to know how he had forfeited the confidence &c.&c.since a young stranger had been allowed &c.&c. A scratch of a pen would have taken £60 off my income—but knowing me they sent down Newson the head man for the South—whom I took to my house and made very drunk and played billiards with—on which he pronounced Garrington to be a skunk and all is going to end well. Barnden stuck to me like a man.
At the University of Lausanne is a scrapbook of Conan Doyle’s containing a newpaper advertisement for the Gresham Life Assurance Society (head offices in Poultry Street, in the City of London), and its Portsmouth agent, George Barnden. Its presence there, and these letters, make the case for the poem appearing in that ad being Conan Doyle’s anonymous effort as a copywriter. This is its first publication:
THE LAY OF THE GRASSHOPPER
When pestilence comes from the pest-ridden South, And no quarter of safety the searcher can find,
When one is afraid e’en to open one’s mouth, For the germs of infection are borne on the wind.
When fruit it is cheap, and when coffins are dear; Ah then, my dear friends, ‘tis a comfort to know
That whatever betide, we have by our side, A policy good for a thousand or so.
When the winter comes down with its escort of ills, Lumbago and pleurisy, toothache and cold;
When the Doctor can scarce with his potions and pills Keep the life in the young, or death from the old;
When rheumatic winds from each cranny and chink Seize hold of our joints in their fingers of snow;
Still whatever betide, we retain by our side That policy good for a thousand or so.
When the thunder is loud and the lightning is bright, When the rash skater fears that the ice means to go;
When the red flag of danger is waved in your sight, And the railway train rocks and the loud whistles blow,
When the little boat scuds on the wings of the gale, And the mad waters rage as they wash to and fro;
Ah, those are the days when the careless one prays For a policy good for a thousand or so.
So heed ye, ye heedless! Bestir ye, ye wise! Take this warning, or else be for ever to blame;
Hie away to an office—in Poultry it lies, And the GRESHAM, I trow, is that Office’s name—
From that moment, my friends, you may laugh at all fates, As the shield of Assurance you hold to the foe;
For whatever betide, you will have by your side A policy good for a thousand or so.
to Mary Doyle SOUTHSEA
I am just going off to bully the income tax commissioners for endeavouring to make me pay anything.* Do I understand you to say that the girls will be here on June 2nd. I shall be more than pleased to see them. I shall get the rug before they come—10/ one way or the other will not harm us and the symmetry of the room would be spoilt without one. We live hard here & economise in all ways. I owe at present about £30, including the June rent, and am owed about £60 so financially we stand well—but money comes in slowly & fitfully, and when it comes I spread it out at once to the best advantage. I have not been paid by Temple Bar yet. I have written 130 pages of the novel, but have laid it aside pro tem in favour of a short story which may do for Cornhill. I wrote 8 pages of it yesterday and so far it is very good.
to Mary Doyle SOUTHSEA, JUNE 15, 1883
I hope you saw the little shindy which I kicked up in the D.T. Such a lot of letters from private people I have had since, and pamphlets galore—most of them complimentary and a few the reverse. There is a leader on me in the ‘Medical Press’ of Wednesday and I have no doubt the Lancet & British Medical will allude to it, so I have had a stir up all round. It has got my name known locally anyhow—I enclose a sample of my correspondence. It was a happy thought of mine, wasn’t it?
I have sent my ‘Statement of J Habakuk Jephson M.D.’ to Cornhill—May luck go with it! I could not try Temple Bar as it is cast too much in the same lines as the Polestar for me to have any chance.
There has just come a lull in the practise all the patients being cured simultaneously before a new crop had sprung up. Never mind, we are doing very well, and improving the status as well as the numbers of our clientele. I took a skiff yesterday morning and with Innes as steersman I rowed round a Russian frigate which was lying about 4 miles out. That was an 8 miles pull, so there is life in the old dog yet. Weren’t the Russians astonished to see us too.
If you want an interesting gossippy book—at least I find it so—try ‘Reminiscences of an old Bohemian’—it is splendidly written.* Mrs S is still a treasure. Our expenses are a little heavier than of yore it is true, but then we live like fighting cocks, and have the place wonderfully nice.
to Mary Doyle SOUTHSEA
So glad you have got through the bother of moving. Take things easy and do not worry yours
elf. You will be glad to see the enclosed received this morning from Smith of Smith & Elder—the same who took up Charlotte Bronte. My story must have made an impression.
The Gresham owe me over £12 for next month. Isn’t that good, but en revanche I owe two or three pounds advanced. My rent I paid & have written offering to take a lease if the house is thoroughly done over and the rent reduced to £36. Reg talks of coming down in a few days says he wants to ‘have a long talk with me re the Elms’—Does he want me to return there I wonder.* It would take an uncommonly good offer to make me go back now when I have my legs so well under me. Have just added up my first years take—amounts to £156.2.4—of this about £30 came from you—about £42 from literature & the rest from medicine. The boy is in splendid health & spirits. I am busy getting out my midsummer bills. Mrs S still does well by us.
[P.S.] Am I to go in full dress to this dinner. If so how am I to do it. I have written to accept.
Acceptance of ‘J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement’ by The Cornhill was Conan Doyle’s first big break in literature. It was Britain’s foremost literary magazine, published by the great George Smith of Smith, Elder & Co. (founder also of the Pall Mall Gazette and the Dictionary of National Biography), and edited by a hero of Conan Doyle’s, the redoubtable James Payn. By June 21st, Conan Doyle was responding to editorial guidance from Payn:
I am pleased that my story should have met with your approval—there is no one whose literary opinion I value more highly. I have condensed the beginning, as you suggest, have made a few alterations in dates and details, and have laid more stress upon Dr Jephson’s reasons for not making his statement sooner. I have omitted the death of Martha the old black woman, as it has no direct bearing on the story and distracts attention from the sequence of events. Thank you for your encouraging letter.
‘I remain, Yrs very sincerely, A. Conan Doyle MB CM,’ he signed it, and in fact he did remain Payn’s devoted admirer until the latter’s death in 1898.
Smith, Elder & Co.’s full-dress dinner, the fledgling writer’s first foray into literary society, was held at a famous Greenwich tavern, The Ship. ‘I remember the reverence with which I approached James Payn, who was to me the warden of the sacred gate,’ Conan Doyle said in his memoirs. ‘I was among the first arrivals, and was greeted by Mr Smith, the head of the firm, who introduced me to Mr Payn. I loved much of his work and waited in awe for the first weighty remark which should fall from his lips. It was that there was a crack in the window and he wondered how the devil it had got there. Let me add, however, that my future experience was to show that there was no wittier or more delightful companion in the world. I sat next to Anstey that night, who had just made a most deserved hit with his Vice Versa, so that I came back walking on air.’*
to Mary Doyle SOUTHSEA
I am sure you are curious to know about my dinner. Well all passed off most excellently. I got down to Greenwich without a hitch, changed my clothes and was duly presented in the reception room to Mr Smith—other men dropped in to the number of 25 or so, and we all filed in to a magnificently laid dinner. Everybody was very charming and we all got along most famously. Everyone seemed to be a great & shining light except poor me. There was James Payn, a shrewd rather mercantile looking man to the right, next men Allen Grant the botanist, opposite was Du Maurier the artist—by him was a bluff jolly looking chap, Fred Boyle author of Camp Notes &c. A palsy young man beside him with spectacles was the man who has just made a great hit with a novel called ‘Vice Versa’. My immediate neighbours were two artists Harry Furniss and Overend.* There were other men of light and leading but I forget them. The whole thing was most enjoyable. I slept with W.K.B. and got back to Southsea next day by 1 o’clock. Payn drew me aside and complimented me on my story telling me that it came out last month and that it was given to their best artist to illustrate.
This is simply a special message from your own correspondent. I shall give you a proper epistle on things in general in a few days.
to Mary Doyle SOUTHSEA
Very much thanks for the fiver with which I paid the bill and the balance tided me over a difficult corner. I have hopes of insuring the life of Bewley (Innes’ master) which would bring back one guinea. All goes well with us. The boy returned to school today. I am glad to have so good an account of Masongill from him. As long as you are happy all is right.†
The Hoares have not appeared yet though they were to have come on the 13th. They are to find food, and I accommodation—but these joint stock things never come off pleasantly—do they? Reading Froude’s life of Carlyle—a stiff backed, swine headed and altogether unlovable sort of a man—to drop for a moment into his own style—also Sims’ Dagonet Ballads—very very clever.
Am still plodding along with my story which will, I think, be good— but who knows till it is finished. It consists of four chapters (Concerning the face that was seen at a window—Concerning the strange visitor that came to the island of Uffa—Concerning what we saw from the Combera cliff—Concerning the devil which came into my father’s heart). No news about the Heiress yet—but I hear that the Boys Own Paper are going to publish something of mine. I must hurry on and write something larger & more ambitious. I want some three figure cheques and shall have them too. Why should I not have a future before me in letters. Surely no one ever went through a more successful novitiate. It is seldom indeed that my yarns have come to grief. James Payn had 20 refused in a year—I hardly ever have one now. I am conscious too of a well marked style of my own which should single me out among the crowd for good or evil, could I only get my head above water & cry quack! quack! to the public.
Adios—Carlyle has started a fermentation in my soul & made me contentious.
[Holmes’s] ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done.
—A Study in Scarlet
‘How sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo. Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank. It shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of nature! Are you well up in your Jean Paul?’
‘Fairly so. I worked back to him through Carlyle.’
‘That was like following the brook to the parent lake. He makes one curious but profound remark. It is that the chief proof of man’s real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness. It argues, you see, a power of comparison and of appreciation which is in itself a proof of nobility. There is much food for thought in Richter. You have not a pistol, have you?’
—The Sign of the Four
to Charlotte Drummond SOUTHSEA
You are altogether too good and kind. You have quite provisioned us for the winter with jam and we don’t know how to thank you. Innes likewise brought down great store of country produce so that we are victualled for a siege. The jam (as far as we have tried it) is splendid.
The boy is in great form. He looks wonderfully well and sunburned—rides shoots and is quite the sportsman. He is surprised at the change in the house since the painters have left. We really are awfully swell. You know you must come again, dear, for the place was uncomfortable last time, and besides the sad occasion for your journey must have haunted you all the time.* Next time, please the pigs, we will have a real good time. I went to a dance the other night but alas I have forgotten all Jessie’s instruction and could not waltz a little bit—however I have joined the ‘Masonic at home parties’ for the winter, the ticket of which informs me that I have two balls, two other nights till 3 AM and once a fortnight till 12 right through the winter for the moderate sum of 12/6.
I am glad to hear that Jack likes his work. He ought to do well. What a long dreary grind it is though! I wou
ldn’t go through it again for a good deal. Willie Burton writes me a pleasing item. He was at supper yesterday with Henry Greenwood propietor of the Photographic news & several other photographic swells. The conversation turned upon me and he very imprudently launched out into some reminiscences of our sayings and doings together which tickled the company so much that H.G. then & there announced his intention of coming down to Southsea expressly to see me, and the company in a body volunteered to go with him. So I have the pleasant prospect of a roomful of photographers clamouring to see my negatives & my wonderful unipod stand—which has been described so often tho’ mortal eye has never seen it.*
to Mary Doyle SOUTHSEA
I am going to read a lecture this winter before the literary & scientific society—I think on the American Humourists but have not quite made up my mind. Should I be at all flush at the time I shall insist upon standing you a return ticket and having you down for the occasion if only for a week.