Reply to the Toast to Literature (speech)

On 6 december 1901, Arthur Conan Doyle attended and spoke at the 8th Annual Dinner of the Edinburgh Sir Walter Scott Club, held at the Royal Hotel, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.

Attendees

President/Chairman

John Campbell Hamilton-Gordon, Earl of Anderdeen.

Speakers

John Campbell Hamilton-Gordon ("Royal" toasts)
Sheriff Jameson ("The Imperial Forces" toast)
Colonel Jerrard
John Campbell Hamilton-Gordon ("The Memory of Scott" toast)
F. Faithfull Begg ("Literature" toast)
Arthur Conan Doyle (reply to the "Literature" toast)
Sir George Douglas ("The City of Edinburgh" toast)
Treasurer Cranston (reply to Edinburgh toast)
Sheriff Salvesen ("Chairman" toast)

Attendees

Sir George Douglas, Bart.
Dr Arthur Conan Doyle
Colonel Jerrard
Sheriff Jameson
Sheriff Salvesen
Treasurer Cranston
Councillor Lockhart
Councillor Chesser
Councillor Dobie
Rev. Dr Williamson
Rev. A. Fiddes
Rev. John Kerr
Rev. James Ferguson, Corstorphine
Professor Mounsey
Dr D. F. Lowe
Dr John Kerr
Dr Turnbull Smith
Hippolyte J. Blanc, R.S.A.
R. Gemmell Hutchison, A.R.S.A.
T. Marjoribanks Hay, R.S.W.
J. Bruce, W.S.
John Milligan, W.S.
J. A. Trail, W.S.
W. Thomson, W.S.
Andrew Wishart, W.S.
H. E. Richardson, W.S.
W. B. Wilson, W.S.
A. W. Macgregor, W.S.
J. P. Taylor, W.S.
T. S. Paterson, W.S.
F. P. Milligan, W.S.
Charles Ritchie, S.S.C.
James Watson, S.S.C.
George Scott, S.S.C.
J. M. Rusk, S.S.C.
Wm. Considine, S.S.C.
Joseph Dobbie, S.S.C.
J. B. Sutherland, S.S.C.
G. W. Ralston, Advocate
Provost Laidlaw, Jedburgh
Richard Lees
D. G. Stalker, Galashiels
Arthur Dickson, Montrose
T. Ryrie Orr, Greenock
H. N. Ballantyne, Innerleithen
Dr Keith Campbell, Prestonkirk
Dr Jamieson
Dr Stuart
Charles Carlow
Thos. Aitken
John Wilson
W. Y. King;
A. Gilmour;
W. L. Carrie
R. D. Graham
R. N. Ramsay
W. Sanderson
James Pringle
A. Darling, J.P.
Alex. Bogie
Hugo Knoblauch
George E. Watson, C.A.
A. Davidson Smith, C.A.
David Paulin, C.A.
J. Campbell Dewar, C.A.
P. C. Robertson, C.A.
David Campbell
David P. Laird
W. Burn Murdoch
W. Allaway
John Donaldson
George A. Harrison
Jas. B. Dunn
Jas. Anderson
A. W. Usher
Jas. W. Thomson
R. S. Waugh
D. S. Calderwood
T. N. Hepburn
Kenneth Sanderson, W.S., Hon. Secretary
Elliot R. Smail, Hon. Treasurer

Croupiers

F. Grant Ogilvie
T. A. C. Mortimer
David Deuchar

Music

Mr. Dambmann (orchestra)
Robert Burnett (songs)

Menu Card

James hay

Conan Doyle speech

Mr F. Faithfull Begg proposed the toast of "Literature." In doing so, he said it was an especial honour to have the opportunity of associating the toast with a writer like Dr Conan Doyle, who had adorned their literature with his writings, and who was well known wherever the English speaking race was found. Dr Conan Doyle appeared to have sprung at a bound in to the full tide of the civic life of the country. He had become as ubiquitous in his appearances and as catholic in his pronouncements, as, in a wider orbit, Lord Rosebery himself. (Laughter.) In fact, no gathering of any kind in Edinburgh seemed to be complete unless Dr Conan Doyle was present, and no audience seemed to be satisfied unless he favoured them with a speech. (Laughter.) To his (the speaker's) sorrow, however, Dr Conan Doyle had wandered from the flowery path of literature, and had engaged himself in the thorny by-ways of the political jungle. (Laughter.) In his humble judgment, Dr Conan Doyle would find more real satisfaction in one day spent in the courts of the muses than in a whole lifetime, if that were possible, devoted to marching through the lobbies at Westminster to the sound of the division bell. (Laughter and applause.) He would find more satisfaction in the creation or in the recreation of one great mythical personage than in finding himself the author of a wilderness of Bills for the amelioration of the condition of the people. (Renewed laughter.)

Dr Arthur Conan Doyle, in rising to respond, was heartily applauded. He said — Gentlemen, the subject with which my name had been coupled is so vast that I am conscious of a want of proportion in standing up to represent it. For literature is the huge mirror of life, reflecting all things material and spiritual. I will not have the inhumanity to dilate upon so discursive a theme, but I will confine myself to saying a few words upon imaginative literature — that form of literature in which we are all as children sitting at the feet of that great man in whose memory we are met to-night. It is a very sacred and a very mystic gift, that gift of imagination — that power which defies analysis or almost description — which projects itself towards what is unseen and realises it in words so that others may realise it also. It is a mystery even to those who possess it — one of those mysteries with which we are so familiar that we accept them as if we understood them. It has no connection with learning. The wise Professor in his study may, in spite of his wisdom, have no trace of it, while the Celtic nurse up in the nursery may be able to draw the very souls out of his children by her words. (Applause.) How extraordinary was the power which Sir Walter possessed of reconstructing a past age and plunging one into it until one felt as if the wheel of time had really for one hour carried us backwards. Take "Count Robert of Paris," a book which has been criticised, but which I am myself inclined to put in the very forefront of his novels. There he reproduced the complex and artificial life of Byzantium in the thirteenth century, its etiquette, its jealousies, its degradation. It is an extraordinary reconstruction. An oriental and mediaeval scholar who had spent his life in studying the period cried out in despair when he read it, "Here have I been studying this matter all my life, and I could never realise it as a living thing," said he, "Then this confounded Scotch lawyer comes along, glances his eye over a few authorities, and is able to teach me what it was really like." (Laughter.) Now there is the difference between the man of imagination and the man of erudition. A good many critics have wondered why, amid the very great press of modern writers, especially modern writers of fiction, we have not produced a second Sir Walter. Well, it is true that there is a very great press — quite an uncomfortable press — but there is one place where there is plenty of room. That is at the top. (Laughter and applause.) Then there is all the room between our heads and the stars. When a new Sir Walter does arise he won’t inconvenience anyone else, but he will just take his place up there. (Laughter.) There have been many explanations given of his non-appearance. One of the favourite ones is that we write too fast. I am afraid that that will hardly do in the face of the fact that Sir Walter turned out two, and sometimes three novels a year, each of a length such as our degenerate powers could never sustain nor the pampered modern reader be induced to tolerate. Another explanation is that the modern writer writes for money. That won’t do either, since poor Sir Walter in his latter years was forced to write with no other end in view. Another is that modern writers write for the public and do not practise art for art's sake. Sir Walter was far too sensible a man to bother about abstract art, and he invariably wrote with the single-minded purpose of interesting his reader, which is what a novelist is for. You remember his quaint lament when he could not get the hero of "The Abbot" to his liking. "I've tried him on land," said he, "and I've flung him into a pond, but wet or dry the chiel is no use." (Laughter.) There was no finicky language of art for art’s sake there. (Laughter.) He wrote as we all do, or should do, to amuse his readers. On the whole, I don’t think any of these explanations will quite explain the absence of a modern Sir Walter. I fancy the simplest explanation is that there is nobody with Sir Walter’s brains. Such a fine flower does not bloom often. The old tree of British literature is still alive; it still breaks with every publishing season into luxuriant blossom — no doubt some day one of these blossoms will outgrow its fellows and one more great flower be added to the garland. (Applause.) But when you examine the life of Scott there is one great and pre-eminent advantage which I can perceive that he enjoyed which is wanting to most of the writers of fiction of this day, and that is that he was himself very deeply read and soaked in that historical and archaeological knowledge which he turned to such admirable account. To produce the literature of the future you should be familiar with that of the past, a truism which is too often neglected. Now, how did Scott acquire this advantage? It was that he did not begin to write novels until he was well past forty. He was born in 1771 and Waverley appeared in 1814 — that was how he was able to write always with a full pen from a full brain. You can’t put out what you never took in. For forty-three years he had soaked himself in the lore of the past, and now his reference library — or at least the index to it — was within his own brain. You will observe how many of the great novelists began to write late in life — I mean late as compared to men of other callings. Thackeray was forty, so was Charles Reade, so was George Eliot, while Richardson was fifty. The reason is that in order to draw life you have to know life, and that Time is the only master who can teach you that. (Applause.) There are in Ireland holy wells, and the man who is ailing is taken to them to be dipped and so regain his strength. The holy well of all writers should be the great literature of the past, and if we are wise we will dip our ailing brains into them from time to time. And I speak not only of writers, but of every man of literary tastes. Let him put away from time to time the short and scrappy literature of the present — the literature of short cuts and of snippets — the literature of St Vitus' Dance — (laughter) — and let him take refuge in the more restful literature of the past. It is not bromide nor chloral that the irritable brain needs, but it is the sonorous and yet serene pages of Gibbon, and the deliberate narratives of the older novelists. (Applause.) Get back in self-protection when we weary you — get back to those who lived in a more soothing age and reflect that age in the mirror of their polished prose. (Applause.) There is a Roman Catholic practice which is worthy of being adopted by all creeds. It is that of the retreat which means that a man should for some days in every year seclude himself, read religious books, and ponder over spiritual matters. I recommend to every man now and then a literary retreat — a time when he may get away from the rush of life, and steady his mind and sober his judgment by a course of the classics. A desert island, a hut for one — possibly for two — (laughter) — and a shelf of good old books, that is my panacea for all the troubles of mind and soul. (Loud applause.) I cannot sit down without referring to that last example of literature which has come our way — the admirable address of the Chairman. It is, indeed, a treat to hear Scott so spoken of and have his presentment brought before us — the kind heart, the noble spirit, the high-minded chivalrous gentleman. He is, I think, an example for the writers of all time, not only in his actual technical merits, but also in his grand unselfish and magnanimous character. (Applause.) Happy are we if each of us in our own small degree can look back as he did, and say at the last supreme moment that he had never sullied his page by one line that he would wish to withdraw. (Loud applause.)