Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters

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  to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW, SEPTEMBER 1899

  Lotties preparations are now complete and she goes next week. How strange it seems. But I am well convinced that it is the wisest and best thing.*

  I am very busy with my collected edition. I want to see sixteen volumes all bound alike and issued by the same publisher. Then people will begin to recognise how much I have written and how far the average of it is high. Appleton will do it in America and I hope Smith Elder in England. But it will take some arranging.

  I am putting prefaces to all, appendices to many, and a general essay in front of the whole edition.

  Adieu, dearest. I am partly of your mind about the Transvaal and yet they have been very stupid & irritating and to some extent deserve their misfortunes. There is no body of opinion in England which desires to annex them, and yet annexed they will be for want of a little pliability upon their part. You cannot at this age of the worlds history exclude half the population of a country from all hope of the franchise. How fatally Gladstone’s well meant policy of Surrender has turned out. I hope when the first shot does sound that all division among us shall cease until the war is quickly and efficiently carried through. Then let us argue again.

  [P.S.] More irritating to me are the absurd English hysterics about Dreyfus.†

  Tensions between Britons and Boers in South Africa were growing, and the prospect of war was on people’s minds at home, with British public opinion divided over the rights and wrongs of the matter. Conan Doyle’s mother was sympathetic toward the Boer settlers there, and suspicious of the motives of British authorities in Africa. She had already insisted, on July 23rd, that her son not volunteer for service if war came: ‘Think of the desolation you would leave behind,’ she pleaded, ‘Innes perhaps obliged to go—killed also—his duty, but not to my mind yours. You are a Son—Husband—Father—a support to many and a solace and cheerer of thousands, too good to be made chair à canon [cannon fodder].’

  Suspecting the worst of those pressing the Boers for political concessions, she wrote again, on September 13th, that ‘We in the Boers place would not give in as much as they have offered to do,’ and insisting that: ‘[t]o me, there seems a want of magnanimity in pushing that small band of men into an impossible position and then proceeding to endeavour to thrash them for being there. It is not worthy of a great nation but no doubt the same money that started the [Jameson] Raid and kept up this agitation, is now being used to bring it to a head.’

  Conan Doyle did not welcome war, but he saw little chance of avoiding it after negotiations between Sir Alfred Milner and the Transvaal President Paul Kruger broke off. In September, with additional British troops on their way to the Cape Colony, Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain sent the Transvaal an ultimatum requiring full political rights for British residents.

  ‘Before this reaches you it will be peace or war, I suppose,’ Conan Doyle wrote to Innes on September 25th. ‘It is a horrid war and yet they are a most stiff necked race to deal with and seem to do nothing save under compulsion, and damned little then.’

  No one, supporter or opponent, disagreed at any rate about President Kruger’s stubbornness. ‘[T]he day I say war,’ he had warned, ‘it will be war to the bitter end.’ On October 8th, he sent London a counterultimatum demanding it take certain specific steps to disengage militarily from South Africa, within the subsequent three days.

  to Mary Doyle OCTOBER 11, 1899

  So it is war after all. I am tempted to take the Transvaal en route for India if Sherlock Holmes justifies me. I cant understand the delay in the production.

  Touie has been coughing a little so I have left her at home this time. The change in the weather is bound to try her a little. I expect to see Connie & Willie to lunch also today.

  Well, goodbye, dearest—We shall have exciting times now. What is old Kruger trying to do. He must be fey. He was so anxious to preserve the independence of his country that he has taken the only steps which could possibly imperil it. I do think that during the last two months he has set us increasingly in the right.

  Conan Doyle’s view of the situation was cinched the following day when Transvaal and Orange Free State troops invaded Britain’s Cape and Natal Colonies.

  Few in Britain expected a major conflict, let alone a long war: the Boers were farmers facing trained British soldiers, after all. Conan Doyle’s own thoughts were on William Gillette’s Sherlock Holmes, which opened in Buffalo, New York, on October 23rd.

  to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW, OCTOBER 1899

  I got home very tired late last night. Today I shall take it very easy. Here are my remarks, which have excited some comment.

  Holmes was only produced provincially, as a trial in America, it seems. He did excellently—and great hopes are entertained for his final production in New York next week or the week after.

  to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW, NOVEMBER 8, 1899

  I had the following wire from my theatrical agent yesterday night.

  ‘Splendid success with press and public New York last night. Herald acclaims it as dramatic triumph. Gillette scored success of his career.’

  This seems all right. If it is as stated it should mean a good deal.

  I took the chair at the Wolseley banquet on Monday. It went wonderfully well. My song also went very well at the Ballad concert so that the sun seems to have been shining of late.

  I must write to Lottie and Innes about Sherlock Holmes. They were so very interested in the result. Indeed it may alter all our plans a good deal.

  I send you a Daily News with my speech—or a condensation of it. You will observe what Wolseley says of it. I am also ordering you a book with a very pretty dedication to me. I shall certainly get a swollen head.

  I am thinking of fighting Dr Clarke the Boer [supporter], MP for the Caithness Burghs. He may under pressure resign his seat and it would be a triumph for the patriotic party to knock him out. I should have a good try.

  Lord Wolseley, introduced by Conan Doyle to the Authors Club on the 6th, had acknowledged the initial setbacks that Britain was suffering in South Africa. The Boers, he admitted, had turned out to be much better soldiers than Britain had expected. They were surprisingly well equipped and trained for warfare, including superior artillery, and they had brought a number of British towns under siege. No matter, he promised: ‘[T]he English-speaking people of the world have put their foot down, and intend to carry this thing through, no matter what may be the consequences.’ The Daily News reported nineteen interruptions for cheers and laughter.

  But Britain’s situation failed to improve in subsequent weeks, and Conan Doyle finally broached his desire to volunteer to serve in some capacity. His letter to the Mam has not survived; she may have torn it to shreds and stamped upon the pieces. Her impassioned reply did survive:

  from Mary Doyle MASONGILL COTTAGE, NOVEMBER 22, 1899

  My own Dearest and very Naughty Son

  How dare you—what do you mean by it? Why your very height and breadth would make you a simple & sure target & is not your life to say the very least, of more value even to your country at home? Think of the pleasure and solace your writings afford to thousands, many sick & suffering among them, those very soldiers themselves—mind what the man at Gibraltar said to me—But I hope in God that Gentlemen Volunteers will not be recognised. My own most firm conviction though I venture to say so only on an extreme occasion like this & that privately, is that in the beginning the war was got up, forced on by the South African Millionaires that they (Rhodes foremost—how many times since the Raid has he been home) did everything for that end—I feel so sure that they bought (I don’t mean bribed of course) certain papers—for one the ‘Morning Post’ which all at once lost its pretty ways and keep on urging war for months ‘The people of Johannesburg see no other way out of it.’ The people (a rabble of German Jews & ne’er do wells) saw their own way & rush off to the coast & safety the moment the train they and their leaders had laid, became ignited! Would you have the Boers who w
ith infinite pains & toil made a home for themselves up there in the wilderness smilingly hand it over to Rhodes & Co? Their poor veldts are as dear to them as our country to us—& bred as they are, they come of our own kin. Sons of the men who kept the ‘Saxon shore’ & alone could drive back the Scandinavian hordes—Blood of the men who fought & died & conquered in the midst of fiery torments—against the might of Spain & Austria combined, the Cruel Alba, the ferocious Inquisition, the unceasing attacks of the all devouring sea—

  Full of faults & most narrow they may be, but I cannot doubt (& I have tried hard to go with the side) I cannot doubt that they had justice on their side—‘If God is with us—‘Is it not a Marvel what they have done alone untutored & with no experience in any kind of warfare—going out there means certain death to a man of your height.

  Poor dear Touie cannot I am sure take that in—But that is the simple fact—Never yet did a tall soldier fail to be killed—Sooner or later, & oh my love how well I know with you it would be sooner.

  Do not go Arthur, that is my first & last word—you can do much at home—As you say any day they may order the Boy there, that is quite enough—God knows my heart seems to crack with anguish when I think of it. If those politicians & journalists who so lightly drift into war—had to go right away to the fronts themselves they would be a great deal more careful—They pushed the country (that then did not want it) into this horrible war—& now you shall not be their victim if I can help it—It would be like suicide & for no good noble example—but no government would be foolish enough to let you go—I say thank dear Touie for the Turkey, our kind Station Master carried it 3 1/2 miles on Sunday morning so we might get it fresh.

  But I must send this or it will be too late—I had to take Minnie in to be shod—Do write plainly to me about this idea of yours—I am not able to say anything but of course we must hope for victory.

  Still it seems to me a case of Naboth’s vineyard—& who was the poor captive British king, led in triumph behind his conqueror’s car of Triumph through the glories of Rome, who cried ‘How can a people possessed of all these glories at home envy me my poor cottage in Britain!’—Look at the map how much of the world is England’s now—& what do we want with our neighbour’s poor spot—Only that awful gold is really at the root of the matter & the noble hearted Lions of England must pull the chestnuts out of the fire, that the apes of greed may devour them!

  For a time, Conan Doyle appears to have decided not to argue; his next several letters were concerned with the death on October 17th of his Aunt Annette, to whom he had turned for advice about Jean Leckie, and everyday topics of a writer’s life in the country.

  to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW

  I enclose £4. I would spend anything for Annette. I am very conscious of her presence and help—especially in that which has been the most difficult passage of my life.

  to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW, NOVEMBER 1899

  It will please your economical soul to see that I send you a bit of blotted paper. Such remains of my upbringing do I still show.

  Connie and Lottie got £200 each from A A’s will. I know no further particulars of any kind—except that I got a violin bow without the violin. I suppose I must buy a violin. Poor dear Auntie, how tragedy & comedy are mixed in life.

  There seems to be no doubt that Sherlock Holmes is going to be a great success. The enclosed is the kind of review which all the papers have.* I should not be surprised if it were not the most money making theatrical concern of modern times. Its capacity for provincial companies is unlimited. We must not be too sanguine but I think 10,000 pounds will be within the mark of our profits. And they begin at once and come in week by week which is always very pleasant.

  Tomorrow I go up to dine at one of Sir Henry Thompson’s octave dinners,† on Friday I dine with Nugent Robinson a well known New Yorker, on Monday we entertain the Bishop of London at the Authors Club, on Thursday I dine with the Royal Society. There is, you see, no immediate prospect of my dying of hunger.

  I have the Stevenson Letters—a presentation copy. Four of them are to me.*

  [P.S.] Read Zola’s ‘Fécondité’—a terrible book, but not quite so sultry as my Mammie’s ‘Une Vie’. Bless her!

  For the British Army in South Africa, December 10-17, 1899, was ‘Black Week’, losing three major battles to the Boers. It was, Conan Doyle rued, ‘the blackest [week] during our generation, and the most disastrous for British arms during the century.’ When Wolseley had ‘declared that we could send two divisions to Africa’, Conan Doyle said in Memories and Adventures,

  the papers next day were all much exercised as to whether such a force was either possible to collect or necessary to send. What would they have thought had they been told that a quarter of a million men, a large proportion of them cavalry, would be needed before victory could be won. The early Boer wars surprised no one who knew something of South African history, and they made it clear to every man in England that it was not a wine glass but a rifle which one must grasp if the health of the Empire was to be honoured.

  It was clear to Conan Doyle, anyway. Seeing the British Army defeated by armed civilians recommended to him a different approach—mobilizing civilians to military service, the way Colonel Theodore Roosevelt had with his Rough Riders in America’s recent war with Spain. On December 18, 1899, he wrote to The Times:

  The suggestion comes from many quarters that more colonials should be sent to the seat of war. But how can we in honour permit our colonial fellow-civilians to fill the gap when none of our own civilians have gone to the front? Great Britain is full of men who can ride and shoot. Might I suggest that lists should at least be opened and the names of those taken who are ready to go if required—preference might be given to those men who can find their own horses? There are thousands of men riding after foxes or shooting pheasants who would gladly be useful to their country if it were made possible for them. This war has at least taught the lesson that it only needs a brave man and a modern rifle to make a soldier.

  to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW, DECEMBER 1899

  Couldn’t you come down & spend your Xmas with us here? So glad if you could. Your old room awaits you. All Xs of course are paid.

  I have written to the Times today about enrolling a Corps for South Africa. We must be prepared with reserves & other reserves behind them, and there’s where we shall win.

  [P.S.] I expect every day to see that the Horse Gunners are ordered from India.

  from Mary Doyle MASONGILL COTTAGE, DECEMBER 25, 1899

  Mind you are not to go unless already bound in honour—your first duty is to your own family of which you are the one staff, prop, support, pride & glory.

  Everyone says the same—Yes everyone even the most anxious & patriotic. You are in the zenith of your powers, well-prosperous, leading a good & wholesome life affording interest & amusement to many thousands—Even poor Mrs Warwick who ran after me out of Church said it was your duty not to go—as much as it is Innes’s most clear duty to go if sent. Why even Roberts or Kitchener did not go till they were told to—If the votes of the men already out or going out could be taken, do you not know that every voice, unless perhaps some unsuccessful novelists! would be raised in begging for you to stay at home.

  There are hundreds of thousands who can fight for one who can make a Sherlock Holmes or a Waterloo! & you must think you could save one life or a drop of blood—& you would suffer, my own dear one—as I do—all the more because you are keen of imagination & tender of heart. No living soul would be one bit the better & thousands be for all time sadder & duller, for your loss—your family would be ruined, your Mother heart-broken—your children left without a father to bring them up, the greatest woe a child can have. You owe it to us all to care for your life as a great treasure. But it is just a fever you have dear one—the old fighting blood, Percy & Pack Doyle & Conan all struggling to push you on to what noble as it looks, would be if stripped to the core—a real crime & a great & most useless folly. For God sake
s listen to me, even at your age I am God’s representative to you—you may have other relations of every kind, but only one Mother. One son I have given—but not you—your duty is at home & with good pure leaven to raise the tone of the popular taste & feeling! I am coming down if you leave me in uncertainty. This is altogether too dreadful.

  Conan Doyle had already volunteered—and was annoyed to find that the Army was far from convinced about the value of mobilizing civilians, especially middle-aged ones like him. Still, he was determined to serve, by returning to his medical training if necessary.

  to Mary Doyle UNDERSHAW

  That was a sweet letter of yours, dearie. I was afraid that you would be angry with me for volunteering. But I rather felt it was a duty. I wrote a letter to the Times advising the Government to call upon the riding shooting men—They did so—and of course I was honour-bound as I had suggested it, to be the first to volunteer. I learned patriotism from my mother—so you must not blame me.

  What I feel is that I have perhaps the strongest influence over young men, especially young athletic sporting men, of anyone in England (bar Kipling). That being so it is really important that I should give them a lead. It is not merely my 40-year-old self—though I am as fit as ever I was, but it is the influence I have over these youngsters.

  As to the merits of the quarrel from the day they invaded Natal that becomes merely academic. But surely it is obvious that they have prepared for years and that we have not, which does not look as if we had any deep & sinister designs. I had grave doubts before war broke out, but ever since I have been sure that it was a righteous war & worth sacrifices.