Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. Daniel Stashower
afford it without a subscription?’ and then it would turn out that the poor man only wanted a prescription after all. ‘I doan’t know wot medicine it were, but it were brown-like, wi’ a nasty taste,’ and then they expect you to make up a few hundred known medicines with nasty tastes, and let them taste away until they expire or hit on the right one.
The young man got on better with Dr Elliot, but not entirely successfully either, and from Conan Doyle’s letters one would not guess Elliot was only in his mid-thirties at the time. In Memories and Adventures, recalling ‘a very quiet existence’ there, he said he could ‘trace some mental progress to that period, for I read and thought without interruption’.
to Mary Doyle RUYTON-XI-TOWNS, JULY 1878
Just a line to tell you that my recent silence has not been caused by an attack of small pox or an unrequited affection, or anything else unpleasant, but simply from laziness. Besides I wrote to Mrs R and Uncle James in the interim. By the way I want a pair of cloth slippers at once, in the early part of the week if possible. I have long wanted them in the abstract, but now I want them at once—I will tell you why afterwards. Send me a card before sending them, as they charge a shilling for bringing things from Baschurch. You might put a few cigars in them.
How is Gerald now? I wrote a long letter to amuse & console them. I think I am a better letter writer than a conversationalist. I suffer from a certain mauvaise honte in talking unless I am really excited, while I am all right with a pen. Elliot is a man whom you would take to be a perfect gentleman by his letters, but he is a very coarse ill-tempered fellow, although good hearted enough. He has not got a single original idea in his head, and if you propose one you can’t conceive the passion he flies into. I said yesterday that I thought capital punishment should be abolished (a trite enough remark), but he went into a fury, said that he wouldn’t have such a thing said in his house; I said I would express my opinions when and where I liked & we had a fine row. All right now.
to Mary Doyle RUYTON-XI-TOWNS, JULY OR AUGUST 1878
I am a very bad essay writer, but it will be an amusement to me to try. I suffer very much from want of facts, and books treating on the subject. Any amount of knowledge of an individual case will not do in an essay which should treat on generalities. When was the Maine liquor law passed and why did it fail. I will suppose liquor was smuggled in from all surrounding states to any extent. Many thanks to the doctor for his masterly epitome. I agree with him in everything except in the effect of climate. I have heard that there are far more European drunkards in India than anywhere in England. Compare also the Red Indians and Equimeaux or Icelanders, New Orleans and Montreal. However that is an unimportant heading. He has given me many useful hints. Played for Ruyton on Saturday, got 7 wickets for 11 runs. Tell J.R. that. Written to Bell.
to Mary Doyle RUYTON-XI-TOWNS, AUGUST 23, 1878
I am very glad you like the essay, I have done my best with it. I think by coupling De Quincy & Co with Burns & Co I have shown that I consider opium eating as a vice analogous to, but worse than drunkenness. I think it is all right, just look it over again and see. Then about the ‘mistress of the seas’ &c, I think my meaning is plain. ‘Love of Excitement’ leads Englishmen to court danger, which is always exciting, and men who court danger for danger’s sake are the stuff that Nelsons & Rodneys are made of. This same love of excitement I have tried to prove makes Englishmen drink. Hence the same curse has made us a great maritime and a very drunken nation. I have written the 1st page over again as it was dirty with travelling. Yes, I want you to sew it up, perhaps some cover could be got for it also. I don’t understand what you mean about writing a note &c. The essay is strictly anonymous, mottos used instead of names. Write my motto outside a sealed envelope and my card inside, that is all. Everything is decided before the envelopes are opened so that there is no necessity for making an impression. That is always the way. Get Papa to write my motto neatly on the back of the envelope, put my address under my name on the card, seal it, and send it in with the essay to the Rev. W. Ritchie D.D. of Dunse.* He’ll look me up quick enough, if I’m successful, and decide my eligibility. You will be surprized to get it back so soon, but the fact is that now that the excitement of composing is over, and after all the copying out, I hate the very sight of it. I told Elliot I wouldn’t sell my chance for £5. He said I had the bump of self-esteem very largely developed but that he didn’t like men who hadn’t.
to Mary Doyle RUYTON-XI-TOWNS, OCTOBER 10, 1878
About coming home on the 25th—it was Elliot’s proposal, not mine. However if his man disappoints him I will stay a few days, though I do not want to be plunged from one course of work into another without a breathing space. We must try and cut down the Winter Classes as much as possible. I really don’t see that I need take anatomy again. It is merely the fashion to take it twice, and costs 3 guineas.
I am glad you approved of the paternal correspondence. Indeed I am rather proud of it myself, and the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
I struck a deeper stratum of thought than usual the other day, and after sifting it in my mental washing pan, I found something left, either silver or only mica. I enclose it, whatever it is, and want your opinion, Mrs D.
By the way I had a small triumph over you the other day. Elliot told me that the reason he preferred me to the other candidates, was not in account of my testimonials, they all had those, but on account of my clean legible fist. (Not this one, you know, but your aversion, the characterless one.)
But his final letter to his mother from Ruyton, complaining bitterly about an assistant’s lot, reveals his loneliness at the time.
to Mary Doyle RUYTON-XI-TOWNS, OCTOBER 19, 1878
This may be the last letter you receive from R, so make the most of it. There would be a nice train for me leaving Shrewsbury at 10 and getting in at 6, but alas there is no train from Baschurch to meet it. If Elliot was an obliging fellow I would ask a loan of one of his 3 horses and gigs, but he isn’t, so I must content myself with the 11:30 train, which gets in at 8.
The fare won’t be as much as I thought, but I have had to pay 4/ for having my [illegible] mended, and I owe my washer woman 5p.
By the way I boldly asked E last night whether he didn’t intend to allow me my fare back, but he didn’t seem to see it. According to him the law stands thus, that if an assistant has a salary he is then a recognized person, and can claim his expenses, but if he has no salary, he becomes as it were a gentleman travelling for his own improvement, and he gets nothing. A decidedly unfair regulation, I say, which pays the way of the man who has money already, and leaves the penniless one to shift for himself. However of course there is no redress except grumbling. I vow and declare (as the janitor says in the song) that the medical assistant is the most ill used, underpaid, hard worked fellow in the world. He does as a rule the work of a footman, for the wages of a cook, (that is the best of them do), and tho’ not acknowledged as gentlemen, or treated as one, he must keep up the appearance of one under pain of instant dismissal. Many men, you must remember, remain assistants all their lives. Good Heavens! What a life! I am very glad that I got this post, but the life is very different to what you or I expected. I have half a mind to write a letter to the Lancet to ‘disillusion’ young fellows who may have formed such notions of it as I did. I am not a hothouse plant, nor do I mind answering rings, or opening doors, but its the loneliness that I have felt most. You must know that the assistant is not supposed to consort at all or see the family except at meals. I didn’t know this at first, and since I was lonely I used to go into the drawing room, and chat to Mrs E or the baby, but I was informed that this was not the custom, the assistant must keep himself to himself. So now I sit in my room working and answering rings & concocting drugs all day, and haven’t had a talk with anyone for 3 months, except after supper sometimes, when I am permitted to come in & have my smoke.