A Point of Contact: Letters to ACD (ACD Journal vol. 9)
A Point of Contact: Letters to ACD [Vol. 9] is an article published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 9, 1999).
This article is a letters page collecting reader correspondence and replies on Conan Doyle-related debates, including Spiritualism, racial language in The Three Gables, and the restoration of 12 Tennison Road, Norwood.
Article
From Mr Peter Cannon, London:
I wish to thank Mr Thomas R. Tietze for his courteous and considered reply to my letter in ACD8 and for further explaining where he stands on the issue of Conan Doyle's Spiritualism and ESP. I likewise am moved to reiterate my position. Contrary to his charge that I and other sceptics assume ESP is nonexistent and then devise arguments to prove it (the way, for example, creation scientists assume God created the earth a few thousand years ago and then select 'evidence' to fit this assumption), I merely claim that the evidence for its existence so far hasn't met scientific standards. I hope that when Mr Tietze laments the lack of interest in examining past evidence for the paranormal he is talking of data collected in research laboratories, not that produced in the darkened séance rooms of seventy-five or a hundred years ago which so impressed Conan Doyle.
I admit I believe it unlikely anyone will ever prove the existence of ESP. Furthermore, like the science writer Martin Gardner, I'm against ESP on philosophical grounds (see the relevant chapter in Gardner's The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener, 'Why I'm Not a Paranormalist'). I like to think, however, that should responsible researchers confirm, say, that Uri Geller has psychic powers, just as geneticists have recently shown that Thomas Jefferson possibly did father a son by his slave Sally Hemmings, I will accept such proof with as good grace as those conservative historians who have altered their stance on Jefferson in the light of this new evidence.
The best evidence for ESP, though, remains statistical. To my knowledge no parapsychologist has yet formulated the mathematical equations that must necessarily accompany any theory accounting for the forces behind ESP. Again, should stronger evidence emerge, then I suspect ESP will make headlines in the respectable press, notwithstanding Mr Tietze's pessimism. If so, Conan Doyle's critics will have a harder time dismissing his Spiritualist beliefs as total rubbish.
I suppose it is only natural, even appropriate, that contributors to this journal should try to put Conan Doyle's belief in the paranormal in the best possible light. But such efforts can lead to some dubious conclusions, as evidenced by Michael W. Homer's review of the charming film FairyTale: A True Story in ACD8.
Mr Homer spends much of his review pointing out where the film makers have taken liberties in dramatizing the story of the Cottingley fairy photographs. In essence they have improved on reality by, for example, compressing historical time and including Conan Doyle's friend and sometime foe, Harry Houdini, when in fact the magician and sceptic was not a participant in the controversy. Almost in passing Mr Homer mentions the movie's biggest departure from the truth-the fairies appear not just in photos. Through the magic of computer animation, pretty little fairies fly through the air like so many brilliant insects. There is no ambiguity, no suggestion that they might be illusions or the product of the collective imagination of the two little girls who took the pictures. (To have confined the fairies to photographic images would have made for a more complex story, leaving it up to the audience to assess the quality of the evidence.)
Since the fairies are 'real', FairyTale stacks the deck in favour of credulity. Harry Houdini may well have felt the Cottingley photographs were beneath his notice. His movie counterpart speaks of the innocence of children and says he sees no fraud. At the very least the real Houdini would be rolling in his grave or, if he could, sending a message through the aether loudly protesting this insult to his memory.
Far from placing Conan Doyle's beliefs in a very non-judgmental context', to use Mr Homer's phrase, this sweet, sentimental movie vindicates those beliefs. In their acknowledgment, if not approval, of the human desire to believe in spirits and fairies, the film makers have chosen to ignore the unpopular lesson that gullible adults can easily be deceived by the young and seemingly innocent.
Last year I happened to catch a television news report about the sale of some of the original Cottingley fairy photographs in London. The segment ended with a nice old lady at the sale stating that she thought one of the less obviously faked photos (it's blurrier than the rest) may show real fairies. An uplifting example of the human desire to believe in wonders? Or an embarrassing example of human naivete? I for one consider it dishonest for an otherwise admirable film like FairyTale: A True Story not to have given us a choice.
Michael W. Homer responds to Mr Cannon:
Mr Cannon need not worry. FairyTale: A True Story is not a threatening piece of propaganda aimed at converting the world to fairy belief, and it is not intended to convince anyone that Conan Doyle was really on to something when he published The Coming of the Fairies. Instead, the movie is a 'fairy tale' and, as such, it would have been difficult to tell the story in the Spielberg/Lucas era without the inclusion of an army of computer-animated fairies. The fact that there are fairies in the movie (which were observed by only a few people) does not demonstrate that the makers of the movie intended to 'vindicate' a belief in fairies. The characters of Houdini, the Kodak lab techs, Edward Gardner, and even Conan Doyle, did not see fairies in the movie. In fact, I predict that the movie will not convert a single person to the cause of fairy belief, or that any movie goer will walk away convinced that Conan Doyle's belief in fairies was supported by the facts.
With respect to Mr Cannon's belief that contributors to ACD attempt to put 'Conan Doyle's belief in the paranormal in the best possible light, I would only observe that even the most devoted admirers of Conan Doyle admit that he was, at times, naïve, credulous, misguided, ignored more obvious explanations, and that his, writings concerning fairies and Spiritualism demonstrate that he often went overboard in his religious convictions. Nevertheless, I am convinced that he was sincere. Thus, the movie's success-in my judgment-of placing Conan Doyle's belief in a sympathetic context should not be surprising. All fairy tales stack the deck in favour of credulity. Otherwise, there would not be fairy tales. Mr Cannon's suggestion that the movie failed to provide a choice-whether the Cottingley fairy episode is an 'uplifting example of the human desire to believe in wonders' or an 'embarrassing example of human naivete'-is like suggesting that Houdini's audiences should not have been asked to 'suspend reality' for fear that they would 'believe an illusion'.
Finally, even if Conan Doyle were credulous, I think he was correct when he wrote particularly in the context of Spiritualism-that belief in the supernatural is no more naïve than belief in the dogmas of most main-stream religions. It is ironic that many of those who have been the severest critics of Conan Doyle are themselves 'true believers' in the miracles advanced by their own religious organizations; miracles which are no more provable than the miracles believed by Conan Doyle.
Thomas R. Tietze responds to Mr Cannon:
Without exhausting the patience of the readers of ACD, I want to make one final effort to clarify the ideas I've been suggesting with regard to Conan Doyle's belief in the paranormal. I agree with Mr Cannon that we'd like to have better data-and more of it-supporting the existence of psychical phenomena than we do have. Still, for those of us interested in the intellectual life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, any effort on our part to study the dusty archives of scientific research into this field will pay off in two major ways:
1. We will learn about the kind of men and women who, in the decades surrounding the turn of the century, for the first time in human history confronted a world in which faith had largely been replaced by empiricism. Among the mainstream psychical researchers we find, not cranks droolingly hopeful of a fantastic illusion, but rather some of the toughest-minded and honestly objective inquirers to be found in any branch of science at the time. Indeed, many of the leading figures in the British Society for Psychical Research had established reputations in other fields, reputations that guaranteed their intelligence, their capability, and their rigour. A glance at the list of former Presidents of the SPR, for example, reveals the names of people who were leaders in philosophy, science, and politics-world-class intellectuals who thought that such investigations might yield new and surprising truths. It was this very high (and perhaps dry) rationalistic standard, in fact, that so chafed ACD's patience and resulted in his. resignation from the SPR. In short, we will learn of the variety of ways in which people responded to the allegedly paranormal data before them; the SPR sought rational evidence, while Conan Doyle sought religious conviction based on that rationalistic foundation. ACD frequently claimed that his convictions were based on knowledge and not on faith. There is depth, nobility, daring, and poignancy in this that only an acquaintance with the history of parapsychology can reveal, and a more complete understanding of this field will almost certainly remove the tone of snickering condescension that seems to accompany much of the discussion of Conan Doyle's religious beliefs.
2. We might learn that the early research helps to establish a prima facie case for the possibility that some parapsychological phenomena do exist, and that further research is consequently warranted-hence vindicating to some degree at least a part of Conan Doyle's faith. It seems to me to be fair to say that, insofar as modern scientific parapsychology has established the possibility that we humans are organisms which are capable of transcending (or bypassing) the ordinarily recognized sensory modalities, this field has therefore depicted a human who might more easily be imagined to be able to exist after bodily death. In other words, if ESP occurs, it affords us evidence of an individual's capacity (however limited) to gather information at a distance from the spatial location of his physical body. Though it is a major leap, and far from an easy one to make, it might be argued that survival is merely the next step in the independence of mind and body. If such speculation fails to persuade-as I confess it fails with me-at least it seems to me to be preferable to dogmatic bombast based on the interpretation of ancient texts. To be sure, the laboratory evidence gathered by modern parapsychologists seems more reliable to us today than the old-fashioned data of the last century, but we ought not to be contemptuous of the 'qualitative" evidence ACD had at hand in his own time. Intriguing material worthy of analysis and discussion did emerge during the period before investigators moved from the séance-room into the laboratory. For example, virtually the only evidence relating to the question of individual survival of bodily death was gathered in the 'pre-statistical' era, roughly from 1882 to 1937-a period which brackets the years of ACD's inquiries. During the time in which Conan Doyle was trying to come to some stable understanding of this issue, almost everything he would have seen would have suggested to him that there was a respectable likelihood that survival really occurred. If today we are less likely to think this way, it is probably because we have forgotten (or never learned of) the thousands of pages of reports, investigations, and analyses that swell the shelves of any good library of parapsychology; or it might be because the researchers who entered the field in the generations after Conan Doyle's lifetime chose to place the topic of survival on a back burner until more could be learned about the main characteristics of 'ordinary' ESP; or it might be because, since the 1930s, fewer and fewer people with demonstrable psi abilities have emerged and submitted themselves for study; or, finally, it might be because as I've gloomily suggested elsewhere in these pages-we've stopped being interested in the topic itself, at least insofar as it might be considered an empirical question.
I share with Mr Cannon a willingness to accept further persuasive evidence for the paranormal should it be presented to us. My main difference with him is that, while he enjoys a comparatively complacent wait-and-see attitude, I actually feel rather guilty about it. I haven't the character or the courage to put my financial well-being or my personal reputation on the line in order to take on a career in parapsychology. I blush to think of it, but I'm sure that Conan Doyle would not have adopted a 'leave-it-to-the-other-fellow' stance were he alive today, during the parapsychological doldrums. I'd also like to say that I'm sorry if some of my readers suspect me of some sort of special pleading in this approach to the examination of ACD's thinking-that I have Jesuitically manipulated the facts, motivated by a desperate urgency to retrieve Conan Doyle's reputation at any cost. What I meant to do was to suggest with absolute sincerity that we today are so woefully ignorant of the root causes for ACD's final convictions that it is natural for us to suppose, on what (in our ignorant condition) seem to be purely a priori grounds, that such convictions must be 'total rubbish'. After having spent the last three and a half decades pursuing some degree of familiarity with the annals of psychical research, I really do think that Conan Doyle had at least some basis for belief, though of course he went farther with his belief than the available evidence warranted. In my original article on The Land of Mist, I suggested that his trouble really began when he appealed to empiricism for support, rather than faith. Had he instead held forth any standard by unprovable mainstream Christian notion-say, the belief in Transubstantiation — perhaps today he'd be accorded the respect extended to the reputation of G. K. Chesterton. On the contrary, he refused to vouch for something which had to be believed without logic or evidence, and in taking this stance, he at least believed he was calling for a religion based on demonstrable facts. Am I wrong to think that that impulse deserves more respect and understanding than it has been accorded? In our Society's efforts to study the manifold aspects of ACD's long and varied career, we are trying to examine what an important literary figure thought and to learn why he thought in that way; in order to do so with any measure of success requires us to understand more fully the factors that led Arthur Conan Doyle to the beliefs he came to hold. In this case, I hope I have demonstrated that we ought to examine without prejudice or presupposition the data of psychical research.
From Matthew Demakos, New Jersey:
Michael Doyle reviewed Martin Booth's biography, The Doctor, The Detective and Arthur Conan Doyle for the last journal (Volume 8, pps. 102-5). The reviewer took issue with Booth's statement (quoting the review): [ ACD ] also displays his own racial prejudices in describing [Steve] Dixie as a savage and putting into Holmes's mouth [words of personal offence]... Conan Doyle has (the Negro prize fighter] address the detective as "Masser Holmes" (p. 339).'
The reviewer asks 'Can not Martin Booth grasp with his cerebral tentacle that the doll and its maker are never identical?' The sentence alludes to Doyle's response to Arthur Guitermann's observation that Doyle owes much to Poe yet had Sherlock call Dupin 'very inferior".
Though it may tell us Doyle's point of view, I don't believe he would have used this argument. Doyle obviously believed writers are responsible for the moral aspects of their tales: the justice received (one way or the other) in the Holmes tales; his dislike for the Raffles stories.
Early on Doyle gave Sherlock, his hero, a classical flaw, namely. cocaine. It is presented as a flaw through Watson who 'lacked the courage to protest'. Whenever Sherlock takes drugs, we have Watson to balance the story and to disapprove. Doyle would consider it immoral to present such a flaw otherwise. In 'The Three Gables', a story written thirty-six or so years after The Sign of the Four (Doyle only hints of drugs in A Study in Scarlet). there is no balancing of Sherlock's racial jokes. Watson only joins in and refers to the boxer's 'hideous mouth'. At this late stage, writing the last six Holmes stories, Doyle surely is not inventing another classical flaw for the beloved Sherlock Holmes. There is no sense that the author disapproves. Regrettably, it is presented as a matter of course. He would have been dismayed if Hornung had alluded to his poem in defence of the Raffles stories.
The reviewer continues with the statement: 'Booth compounds his error: the language he criticises was not pejorative at the time the story ("The Three Gables") was written.' The story was written in 1926 (not mentioned in the review). But Michael Doyle's example is a 1908 article in the Plymouth Western Morning News which uses the N-word with 'no hint of condescension or disapproval. A lot can happen in eighteen years. In matter of fact the New Fowler's Modern English Usage (p. 108, under 'black') states: 'Beginning in the mid-1920s, American people of ultimately African descent campaigned for the abandonment of the words Negro, Negress, and particularly [the N-word], in favour of black (or Black). This development. albeit American, demands a better example than a 1908 article. (Doyle does not date the story and logic would have it that it took place before 1908. Doyle, however, is not interested in historical accuracy in the Holmes tales. Even if he were, I would use the same argument above: he needs Watson to balance the issue.)
After the reviewer's reasoning that the word was not pejorative at the time, he writes: 'For Martin Booth to parlay a non-existent insult by the dolls to an accusation of racial prejudice by their maker is inexcusable." Non-existent insult? The insult of Sherlock's lip joke remains, regardless of any pejorative words. We also have the following words to deal with-savage, smell, flattened nose, woolly head-delivered with varying degrees of ridicule. Ridding this tale of that one word hardly save it from the accusations.
Lastly, Michael Doyle concludes, 'ACD's daughter, the late Dame Jean, has told us... that prejudice of this sort was not to be found in her family'. I intend no disrespect to Dame Jean, but being the daughter surely does not make for a strong argument. Even if she had damaging knowledge on this issue, I personally would, in this instance, find a lie noble.
I have not read Booth's book, and do not mean to support his ideas. If the reviewer believes Doyle innocent, then the author deserves a better argument. At this time, I remain open to further discussions on the issue.
Michael Doyle responds:
When disputing my statement that Sherlock Holmes's language in 'The Three Gables' was not pejorative at the time, and my quotation verbatim from the Plymouth Western Morning News's prejudice-free account of the Jack Johnson vs. Ben Taylor fight of 31 July 1908 to support that opinion, Matthew Demakos distinguishes between British and American usage. He is right to do so. Johnson defended his title in Reno, Nevada on 4 July 1910 against a white challenger, James J. Jeffries amidst intense racial tensions. A band played All crows look alike to me', Jack London started his Great White Hope campaign 'to wipe the golden smile from the nigger's face', post-fight race riots across America that night left dead two white and nine black victims, and considerably more injured, and no black man was allowed to fight for the heavyweight championship for the next twenty-seven years.
Conan Doyle, invited to referee the fight, not only declined but refrained even from attending. The promoter ended up refereeing the fight himself.
Matthew Demakos also distinguishes between the British non-pejorative 'nigger' and 'savage, smell, flattened nose, woolly head-delivered with varying degrees of ridicule'. He is wrong in asserting that those words in 'The Three Gables' represent Conan Doyle's own beliefs. We have the words of his daughter, the late Dame Jean to refute him: ... to disparage anyone's looks, male or female, would have been considered poor taste in our family. Character, yes, physical defects, no.' (Lellenberg, Jon L. (ed.). The Quest for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987; Foreword, p. xi.)
I hope that seeing his letter, and the response, in print may encourage Matthew to take the bold step of actually reading Martin Booth's book, my review of which he so vehemently opposes.
From Catherine Cooke, Wimbledon, London
12 Tennison Road, Norwood
I am sure readers will recall that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lived at 12 Tennison Road, Norwood with his wife Louise from 1891 to 1894.
Readers may be aware that for several years the house was a privately run residential home. It is sad to relate that it was one of those which have become notorious in recent years in the U.K. for such low standards of care that the local Council, the London Borough of Croydon, closed it down some two and a half years ago.
The house was purchased by a relatively new company, Kingscrest, who have spent the past two years clearing it of several skips of rubbish and undertaking a major refurbishment. It was officially opened on 14 May this year, as a long-term residential care home for young adults with learning difficulties, by the Lord Mayor of Croydon. It is hoped that some of the residents will be able to move on to more independent accommodation in due course, but others may find at 12 Tennison Road a home for life. Having assisted Kingscrest in finding out some of the history of the house's association with Sir Arthur, I was fortunate enough to be invited to the ceremony and given a tour of the house.
Considering that a century has passed since the Conan Doyles lived in it. the house is relatively unchanged. It is one of a pair, the other remaining in private ownership. They are almost the only survivors, as much of the rest of the road has been rebuilt. The porch survives, though the front door has been moved forward almost to its front wall. It is a very large house with a somewhat odd internal layout, with half landings and corridors. It seems unlikely that there would not have been a couple of residential servants in a house that size.
As a residential care home, of course, most of the rooms have been turned into single bedrooms with private bathrooms. One is on the ground floor, occupying the room which, from the description given in Harry How's Strand article, was Sir Arthur's study, at the front of the house. The kitchen seems to have been divided to form a smaller kitchen and dining area, and much of the back garden was sold off some years ago as building land for a cul-de-sac. At some point the red brickwork has been painted a deep, brick red. Kingscrest attempted to remove this, but found it was impractical and would cause more harm than good. They have, however, uncovered what appear to be the remains of original tennis courts and much of the internal decorative coving. An intriguing find in the loft was an encyclopaedia of uncertain date, but with the air of being about one hundred years old, and quite an expensive tome for its day. The pages detailing poisons had been well used. It would be nice to think it belonged to Conan Doyle. Kingscrest plan to display it, just in case.
Kingscrest are very interested in the connection with Sir Arthur and display photographs of the house as it was, taken from How's Strand article. They hope to work with the young adult residents using this theme. Sherlock Holmes, and perhaps Beyond the City. Their brochure reproduces the entry. from the local directory, showing Sir Arthur as 'Doyle. Arthur Cowan [sic] at number 12, Augustus Charles Gifford' at number 18, and Arthur Jos. Croker at 156. All these houses were on the right side of the road as one walked from the main road. Opposite was 'House building' and 'Building land'. One can only hope the Conan Doyles were not too disturbed by the noise from the builders!
(1) Highly suggestive forenames, bearing in mind 'The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton'. One wonders, too, whether the Mr Croker at No. 156, was someone with whom Conan Doyle remained in contact in future years, since the character of course appears in 'The Abbey Grange — Ed.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
