Lecture at the Lotos Club dinner

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia
Original Lotos Club menu signed by Arthur Conan Doyle.

On 17 november 1894, a dinner was given at the Lotos Club (New York) in honor of Arthur Conan Doyle during his lecture tour in USA.



Attendees

  • President of the Club : Frank R. Lawrence
  • Speakers :
    • Dr. A. Conan Doyle
    • Chester S. Lord
    • Harrison P. Wallice
    • S. C. James
    • Edward Patterson
    • Abram S. Hewitt
    • William H. McElroy
    • Bartow S. Weeks
    • J. Seaver Page
    • Seth Low
    • Bourke Cockran
    • David Christie Murray
    • Lieutenant Hay Doyle (Conan Doyle's brother)
  • Presents:
    • E. B. Harper
    • O. G. Smith
    • George T. Foster
    • Julius Chambers
    • Frederick Pennington
    • Randolph Guggenheimer
    • R. S. Ramson
    • J. W. Vrooman
    • Jerome E. Morse
    • A. S. Goodwin
    • George H. Wooster
    • Dr. W. W. Walker
    • Dr. C. I. Pardee
    • R. M. Phillips
    • L. L. Seaman
    • Horace See
    • J. H. Sprague
    • J. H. Cowperthwait


Conan Doyle speech

Report from The Times

"You are hedged in with romance on every side," he said. "I can take a morning train in this city of New-York, I can pass up the historic and beautiful Hudson, and I can dine at Schenectady, where the Huron and Canadian did such bloody work. I feel keenly the romance of Europe; I love the memory of the shattered castle and the crumbling abbey; but to me the romance of the red-skin and trapper be more vivid, as being more recent.

"It is so piquant also" the doctor added, "to stay in a comfortable inn, where you can have your hair dressed by a barber at the same place where a century ago you might have been left with no hair to dress."

He spoke of the romance of the city, and said that a man who could look upon it and return over the seas with only a sneer for its wonders and charms was either hard-hearted or soft-headed.


Full Report