A Literary Mosaic (ACD Journal vol. 1 No. 3)
A Literary Mosaic [Vol. 1 No. 3] is an article written by Christopher Roden published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 1 No. 3, september 1990).
This article reports concern over the threatened grave of E. W. Hornung at St Jean-de-Luz and traces the Arthur Conan Doyle Society's efforts to help secure its preservation. It also reflects on Hornung's literary importance, his relationship with Conan Doyle, and the lack of fuller biographical study devoted to him.
A Literary Mosaic
In mid-August, The Society received the following letter from M. Pierre Coustillas, Professor of English at The University of Lille, France, and Editor of The Gissing Newsletter:
- After reading, somewhat belatedly, your recent letter to the editor of the TLS (this letter concerned a possible confusion between Conan Doyle's Raffles Haw and E. W. Hornung's Raffles - Ed.), I venture to write to you on quite a different subject and for the simple reason that you mention E. W. Hornung. Hornung is not a name, I think, which is likely to leave the Arthur Conan Doyle Society indifferent. I heard a few weeks ago that many of the graves at the top of the cemetry at St. Jean-de-Luz, where Hornung's grave lies close to that of his acquaintance and correspondent George Gissing (to whom I have devoted much of my time in the last thirty years), are soon to be cleared away if no evidence is offered that anyone cares for them. Mr. Xavier Petremand, George Gissing's great-grandson, tells me that notices have been attached to each grave and that the threat is a very serious one. I am not sure that the cemetery authorities in St. Jean-de-Luz know anything of Hornung's literary celebrity or of his being related to Conan Doyle. They had some idea of Gissing's significance in the history of the English novel, but it is clear that his grave would not have been spared, had not Mr. Petremand recently taken steps to have it restored.
- Can anything be done regarding Hornung? I am not in a position to judge — only to inform anyone who may be interested in the posthumous fate of a man whose name is not likely to be forgotten in the foreseeable future. Perhaps I should write to the Mayor of St.Jean-de-Luz to let him know that I hope something is likely to be done so that Hornung's grave may no longer give the casual observer an impression of utter dereliction. But I think it may be better to wait till I have had a chance of hearing from you. As you may know, Hornung's wife and son are also commemorated on the gravestone.
In Memories and Adventures, A.C.D. wrote:
- Willie Hornung, my brother-in-law, is another of my vivid memories. He was a Dr. Johnson without the learning but with a finer wit. No one could say a neater thing, and his writings, good as they are, never adequately represented the powers of the man, nor the quickness of his brain. These things depend upon the time and fashion, and go flat in the telling, but I remember how, when I showed him the record of someone who claimed to have done 100 yards under ten seconds, he said: "It is a sprinter's error." Golf he could not abide, for he said it was "unsportsmanlike to hit a sitting ball." His criticism upon my Sherlock Holmes was: "Though he might be more humble, there is no police like Holmes." I think I may claim that his famous character Raffles was a kind of inversion of Sherlock Holmes, Bunny playing Watson. He admits as much in his kindly dedication. I think there are few finer examples of short-story writing in our language than these, though I confess I think they are rather dangerous in their suggestion. I told him so before he put pen to paper, and the result has, I fear, borne me out. You must not make the criminal a hero.
The relationship between Conan Doyle and E. W. Hornung was at times a turbulent one, and one which might best be explored in a lengthy article on the subject. However, in 1921, A.C.D. was returning from Australia and had stopped off in Paris where news of Hornung's illness reached him. He writes the following in The Wanderings of a Spiritualist:
- A tragic intermezzo here occurred in our Paris experience. I suddenly heard that my brother-in-law, E. W. Hornung, the author of Raffles and many another splendid story, was dying at St. Jean de Luz in the Pyrenees. I started off at once, but was only in time to be present at his funeral. Our little family group has been thinned down these last two years until we feel like a company under hot fire with half on the ground. We can but close our ranks tighter. Hornung lies within three paces of George Gissing, an author for whom both of us had an affection. It is good to think that one of his own race and calling keeps him company in his Pyrenean grave.
- Hornung, apart from his literary powers, was one of the wits of our time. I could brighten this dull chronicle if I could insert a page of his sayings. Like Charles Lamb, he could find humour in his own physical disabilities — disabilities which did not prevent him, when over fifty, from volunteering for such service as he could do in Flanders. When pressed to have a medical examination, his answer was, "My body is like a sausage. The less I know of its interior, the easier will be my mind." It was a characteristic mixture of wit and courage.
Sadly, our knowledge of Willie Hornung is restricted somewhat, as no detailed biography has yet been written; nor does E. W. H. have a Society dedicated to the study of his life and works.
On behalf of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society, I therefore contacted Mr. Stephen Hornung, a surviving relative, to advise him of the situation as I knew it. He has assured me of his concern and that he will do everything within his power to ensure that the grave is restored. The Society has also written to the Mayor at St. Jean-de-Luz, expressing concern and the hope that, knowing the regard of the French for English Victorian Literature, nothing will be done until Hornung's relatives have been given a chance to assess the situation.
I am pleased to report also that M. Coustillas and M. Pierre Nordon have written to the Mayor in eloquent French, expressing their concern. In Britain, the Society has been joined by Mr. Richard Lancelyn Green and also The Northern Musgraves in a general expression of concern over the proposed desecration.
If any of our members around the world, particularly those in France, feel disposed to join our protest to the Mayor, they should write to: M. le Maire, Hotel de Ville, 64500 St. Jean de Luz, France.
Any further developments will be reported.
C.R.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
