Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. Daniel Stashower
the second of three Stonyhurst masters singled out in young Arthur’s letters home. Splaine catered to some of the schoolboy tastes influencing Conan Doyle’s literary directions in adulthood, but his personality—timorous and prone to outbreaks of tears—proved not very empathetic with the vigorous athletic youngster, and in a later letter, Conan Doyle sounds greatly relieved when his next form-master, Father Reginald Colley (then a young man still in his twenties), arrived on the scene.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST
A Merry Xmas and happy new year to you both and many more of them. I only hope you got a goose like mine it was truly delicious. I suppose Papa has been to the pantomime and that you have had a nice rest, Mama! The babies made a large breach in the ‘Plum Pudding’. I got your letter on Friday, I think, how nicely Tottie writes. I am glad she is doing well in schools. I hope she is enjoying herself. she wrote me a very pretty note in French a few days ago. many thanks for the Box everything was jolly. only one of the jam pots broke, but it did not do any damage. I obeyed Papa’s injunctions to the letter and had considerable success in sucking the chocolates.
I have pinned my Xmas and did not starve.* We 4 fellows had as provisions for a week and 4 days 2 turkeys, one very large goose 2 chickens one large ham and 2 pieces [sic] of ham. 2 large sausages. 7 boxes of sardines. 1 of lobster. a plate full of tarts and 7 pots of jam. in the way of drink we had 5 of sherry 5 of port 1 of claret & 2 of raspberry vinegar we had also 2 bottles of Pickles.
The festivities were as follows 1st night we had a concert with several very good comic songs. 2nd night we had ‘the road to ruin’ a comedy in 5 acts and an extract from a French play, and also ‘Waiting for an omnibus’ a farce in one act.
3rd night we had ‘the Courier of Lyons’ or ‘The Attack on the Mail’ a melodrama and a jolly play (5 murders)
4th night we had the same repeated
5th night we had ‘McBeth’ It was jolly. There was none left out. The best scene was the banquet when the ghost of Banquo appears. when the Witches dance round the cauldron when McBeth comes to consult the witches.
Next night we had the same.
Next night we had another concert.
Next night we had two farces ‘The wags of Windsor’ and ‘A Day at Boulougne’. yesterday we had the same.
The vacation ended this morning, all my goods are finished except Bella’s cake—for which please thank her. I have given Ann the shawl—she was very profuse in her gratitude and said I would be the finest man in England when I was big & that I would have a spirit like yours.
I will try to be very tidy and will study hard.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, APRIL 11, 1871
As I have a little spare time, I take up my pen, which is a shockingly bad one, to write to you.
I have been requested to ask you, Ma, if I may get another suit of clothes. I can get them very cheap & good here as the Rector has a private tailor, & if I get a suit they can do for my Sunday suit for the rest of this year & then for my ordinary suit next year. But I am not allowed to get them without leave from you. A great many boys are getting new suits now for the procession at Corpus Christi.
I am improving in my lessons & am 13th instead of 19th in a school of 37 fellows.
PS write soon please
At the time above he was some six weeks short of his twelfth birthday. According to Stonyhurst records he was significantly younger than most of the other boys in his ‘school’ (grade, or form)—as much as three years younger. It is not clear why this was; by his account he was not considered advanced for his age at his earlier school in Edinburgh, nor by Stonyhurst for a long time. (The oldest boys in his form may have been held back.) But it limited his opportunities for friendship to be that much younger than most of his classmates, and only one of his lifelong friends came from his Stonyhurst days.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST
you would have heard from me some time ago, only I lately got my finger hurt so that it rendered it very painful for me to write, it was the last football match this year, and everyone was playing very hard. I was rushing after the ball, when suddenly I tripped up, and fell with outstretched hands. before I could get up someone, not being able to stop himself, stood on my hand, with such violence that for every nail in his shoe, there was left a little hole in my hand, my forefinger also was hurt and the nail came off. I have however had a lot of remedies applied to my hand and it is much better now.*
I send you a playbill, you will see my name at the bottom. I used up several burnt corks to make my face dirty enough. I got cheered greatly, not because I did well, but because the main point in my part was to look foolish, and I feel that I did that to perfection. both plays were relished extremely by the rest of the college. we had the good supper a week afterwards, and it fully justified it’s epithet. songs were sung as usual, I sang mine, everyone declared it was capital and that they must have another. I declared I did not know one, a master however brought me ‘the best of wives’ which I sang with the same success.
The other day Mr Splaine read us a jolly story, translated from the German, perhaps you have read it, it was called ‘The Avenger’ about a lot of horrible murders.
My lessons are getting on in first straight stile. I am much higher in my class now than last term.
Excuse the blot at the beginning
With stories like ‘The Avenger’, and plays like Macbeth and The Attack on the Mail, Conan Doyle was developing a robust taste for ‘jolly’ murder tales. The world of theatre, too, proved to be an enduring interest, and the youngster’s insistence on getting his face ‘dirty enough’ through the use of burnt corks showed a passion for realism.*
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST
I am getting on with my latin verse & am now learning 5 latin or Greek authors, namely Ovid, Cicero, Caesar, (all latin) Xenophon (Greek) & Telemachus (french) besides this we have Ovid & Cicero & English by Heart, Latin Syntax, Greek Grammar, Rules for verse, Catechism & Geography & Greek History. altogether I have to work like anything to get a prize, my marks last term were 765 and as there are 4 terms in the year if I get 765 each time I will have at the end of the year 3060 while I only require to get 2666 to get a prize, so in that case I will get one, but it all depends if I can do as well during the remaining terms as I did last.
today is a half holiday. Football is finished now & there is no more this year but Hockey & Rounders have come in which are just as good. the Dominoes you sent me at Xmas are a great source of Amusement.
I am so glad I read most of the books we have at home, because the English theme of last term for which 100 marks is given was taken from 1 of them called Blackwood Tales, the name of the story was the Iron Shroud.
The Iron Shroud, William Mudford’s gothic tale published in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in 1830, featured a terrified prisoner held in a dungeon, the walls of which slowly close in to crush him to death:
That is to be my fate! Yon roof will descend!—these walls will hem me round—and, slowly, slowly, crush me in their iron arms!
The story may have lingered in Conan Doyle’s mind in 1891 as he wrote a Sherlock Holmes story in which the villain traps his victim in a hydraulic press:
I saw that the black ceiling was