Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. Daniel Stashower

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СКАЧАТЬ I am Head of a match in cricket and am considered the best player of my size in the Lower Line.

      My love to everybody yourself included. since you neglected the Pancakes at Shrovetide I hope you will not forget the hot X buns.

      After the close of the school year Conan Doyle found the situation at home increasingly shaky, but his mother determined that he should continue at Stonyhurst. ‘Early in my career there, an offer had been made to my mother that my school fees would be remitted if I were dedicated to the Church,’ he recalled. ‘She refused this, so both the church and I had an escape. When I think, however, of her small income and great struggle to keep up appearances and make both ends meet, it was a fine example of her independence of character, for it meant some £50 a year which might have been avoided by a word of assent.’ Both she and he had also begun to fall away from the Roman Catholicism in which they were raised. In time she left the church to become an Anglican, while Conan Doyle privately renounced Catholicism before leaving school. It was the beginning of a pilgrimage that would end, forty-five years later, in his public commitment to Spiritualism.

      Charles Doyle’s decline continued, meanwhile. At one point during the summer his father, who loved the outdoors, went off on an excursion with the head of the Office of Works, Robert Matheson, with Mary Doyle clearly welcoming the effect upon her husband’s increasingly fragile nerves.

      to Charles Doyle SCIENNES HILL PLACE, EDINBURGH, AUGUST 30, 1871

      Dearest Pa,

I hope you are enjoying yourself very much. bring the Snipe home and shoot some more. Cony was very sick this morning, but is better now. I spent Sunday and Monday at Mrs Smith’s. yesterday Ma and I were invited to a grand Picnic by Mrs Burton.* I started from Granton, she from here. She got in time but I was late so I had to walk home again and as I had no key I got in from the next people’s window. on last Saturday Ma sent me to Granton to get a package from the Ostrich Steamboat, the Mate of which did me the honour of calling me ‘a lazy lubber’. I have got a real palm tree seed from the Botanical gardens, for my museum. and now GoodbyeŸ FROM MARY DOYLE My dearest, I do beg that you will try and get all the enjoyment you can out of your little trip. The only thing I regret is that you did not take more changes of clothes with you. You must be uncomfortable on that score, I fear. Just a line and I will send you shirts, socks, collars, hanks by the train. I am very pleased that you are getting the change and do not come home an hour sooner than you can help. Seldom enough you get away, without us the least you may get is a little peace. I hope Mr Matheson will also benefit by his trip. I am making all my preparations for the great event, but I am wonderfully well & as you wd say ‘jolly’.

      Ever yr loving M

      Conan Doyle returned to Stonyhurst the autumn of 1871 determined to excel. Although parting from his family was always difficult, he looked forward to his school friends, including his travelling companions the Guibara brothers and Jimmy Ryan.

      to Mary Doyle STONYHURST

      I will tell you now all my adventures. I went as far as Carstairs with a nice lady who was going to Chester. an awful shock announced the arrival of the Glasgow train. I looked everywhere for Guibara, but could not see him on account of a bend of the line when suddenly in ran a guard to know if I was going to Stonyhurst. I answered yes, so he bundled me out of that carriage into another where I found the 2 Guibaras and Ryan. they had lots of grub and we had a jolly tuckout, and so we travelled until we got within a short distance of Preston without ever changing at all when suddenly Guibara’s [hat] blew out of the window luckily he had another in his trunk which was in the carriage. At last we arrived at Preston and were just going to hire a cab when suddenly one of the Fathers came up and told us there was no use getting a cab for there were 40 boys at the Red Lion Inn who were going in two large busses that night he then took us off to the Red lion and gave us a good dinner. we were then informed that the luggage could not be sent yet, but would be sent by the next Coal carts so we went off in the busses without paying a penny and got here by 6.

      I am quite a Stonyhurst boy again and am quite at home.

      to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, OCTOBER 10, 1871

As next Thursday is a holiday I will just show you the order of the day. 6 rise, from 6 to ¹/₂ past, ‘wash’, from ¹/₂ past 6 to ¹/₄ past 7 Mass & prayers from ¹/₄ past 7 to ¹/₄ past 8 Studies, from ¹/₄ past 8 till ¹/₄ to 9 breakfast, from ¹/₄ to 9 till ¹/₂ past 10 we play games from ¹/₂ past 10 till 12 we play a grand football match from 12 till ¹/₂ past 12 ‘wash’ from ¹/₂ past 12 till 1 dinner from 1 till ¹/₂ past 5 we go out for walks or do what we like from ¹/₂ past 5 till ¹/₂ past 7 we have something in the theatre. Pepper’s Ghosts or something of that sort.* From ¹/₂ past 7 till 8 we have supper from 8 till 9 we have playing cards or chess or any inside game and then we go to bed. so you see I am to be envied rather than pitied

      to Charles Doyle STONYHURST, OCTOBER 1871

      Dearest Papa

      You remember that little picture of St Michaels Mount with Sir Kennelworth on it which you drew in my little red book. Well! The Fathers say it is a most wonderful work of art and have taken it from me they are so delighted with it.

      Stonyhurst, you must know is divided into 2 parts. The higher line for the big boys and the lower line for the little boys. In the lower line there are 5 classes and I don’t mean by little small in the way of age for there are many over 6 feet in the lower line but small in lessons. In the Higher line there are 8 schools. Now I am in the highest of the five lower line schools and I am about the smallest boy in the class (with regard to size). So next year I will be quite a man being in the higher line.

      Our School has to provide some person to read during supper to the fathers and I am proud to say that I am nearly almost chosen.

      to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, OCTOBER 31, 1871

      You have not written to me for a very long time. I am awfully uneasy. Tell me if anything is wrong and don’t conceal it. I have been to the Master for a letter every day for a fortnight. I hope you will write soon.

      I am getting on famously, am in the extraordinary and I don’t know what all. Those boys who do the ordinary lessons very well are called ‘the extraordinary’.

      Old Father Christmas is again come in sight and is rapidly approaching with his escort of Plum Pudding, Roast Goose, etc, etc.

      My love to Papa, Lottie, Cony and Jeannie. I am writing a long piece of Poetry on the subject of the war.

      Agreat deal of war-related poetry lay in Conan Doyle’s future, ranging from ‘The Song of the Bow’, an idealistic tribute to the English long-bowmen of the fourteenth century, to the ascerbic ‘H.M.S. Foudroyant: Being a humble address to Her Majesty’s Naval advisers, who sold Nelson’s old flagship to the Germans for a thousand pounds.’ First published in the London Daily Chronicle in September 1892, it began:

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