Toast: The Arthur Conan Doyle Society
Toast: 'The Arthur Conan Doyle Society' is an article written by Michael Doyle published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 5, 1994).
Toast: 'The Arthur Conan Doyle Society'
FIVE YEARS AGO, on 21 May, Christopher Roden spoke to a crowded room: Thank you for coming', he said, 'and thank you for your time. The Arthur Conan Doyle Society is officially launched.
He then set us four objectives and expressed two hopes:
'Bringing together those sharing an interest in Sir Arthur and his works', 'encouraging new work and investigations', 'publishing the resulting discussions and research', and 'encouraging a 'social side' with visits, lectures, discussions and an annual dinner' are all clearly being achieved. Our growing membership, our superb Journal and Parish Magazine, this splendid Convention, and tonight's gala dinner all tell us so. In 'Promoting Sir Arthur's works to a wider audience' we are also succeeding: the short stories are now to be found, as Mycroft would say, 'everywhere'. Thanks to the generosity of others, even original manuscripts are now available. Our Society has even, itself, published Sir Arthur's works. Western Wanderings, presented yesterday, and the outstanding 'The Wild Geese' in our current Journal are but two examples.
We can be, and are, very proud of these accomplishments.
But it is in the two hopes expressed by Christopher five years ago that the most startling progress has been made. The first was 'That we may come to understand Sir Arthur's total commitment to the Spiritualist movement.' As Sir Arthur's daughter Dame Jean put it, 'I hope the biographer will not allow any personal opinion to colour the coverage of my father's belief in Spiritualism, but will research that subject as objectively and deeply as other aspects of my father's life and literary works'.
Our Society has, from the issue of its very first Journal, published many (no less than thirteen in the first seven editions) first-class, in-depth articles doing precisely what Dame Jean hoped for. We have learned of Sir Arthur's moral courage as he gathered his evidence. We have learned of the outstanding and courageous people who worked with him: Flammarion, Richet, Schrenk-Notzing, Dr Hamilton (of Winnipeg), Sir Oliver Lodge, future British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour, and of course Lady Jean Conan Doyle herself. We have learned that of the seven basic tenets of Spiritualism, five are orthodox Christianity and the other two, ('the power of communication with the dead', and the notion of 'eternal progression') at least arguably so. We have learned, too, that the vast amount of evidence Sir Arthur accumulated may one day possibly prove to have been more valuable than even his writings and his life.
Christopher's second hope was 'That the Conan Doyle family papers would be made available to researchers, and to our Society'. The Conan Doyle family, two of whom are happily with us tonight, has been immensely helpful and generous. The legacies and gifts they have made speak for themselves. Nevertheless, much valuable material is still unavailable. As Jon Lellenberg put it, 'ACD is a fascinating, unsolved puzzle. The true nature of the man and his life still elude us'. 'I look forward to the day,' said Dame Jean, 'when a definitive biography will be written about the man whom it was my great fortune to have for a father'. She commented particularly on his letters to his mother and continued, 'When would-be biographers approach me, I urge them to wait until our family papers are available to researchers. Then they will have new material to work with.'
How we long for the day she mentions, and for answers to the questions so relevant to establishing the proper place in history of the man we all admire so much. Many of these questions would be imprudent were they asked about a mere writer. But Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is not a mere writer! The whole of his life is every bit as important as his literary achievements. What are some of our questions?
- To what extent was a fascination with the supernatural, the occult and a Celtic belief in fairies, endemic to the Doyle family?
- We have biographical information about ACD's delightful and talented uncle Richard Dicky-Doyle, but where can we learn more about his uncles Henry and James, and about his grandfather, John Doyle-HB? As Dr Kittle has pointed out, these three Doyle generations were all famous and recognised. But where is hard information to be found?
- What part did Dr Bryan Charles Waller play in the life of ACD and his family? Did he ever treat ACD's sister unfairly? Why did ACD's mother live so much of her life at Masongill? Who committed Charles Doyle to Fourdoun House and Montrose Royal? Was it Waller? If so, how did ACD react? Did he perhaps feel that Waller had replaced or even deposed-his own father?
- Why was Sir Arthur so reluctant, even in his autobiography, to provide details of himself? When he said 'If I have ever sounded petulant or argumentative, it is all nerves of which I possess more than most people know', what was he trying to tell us?
- Why did he refer to himself so often as a Bohemian, when he clearly was no such thing?
- Did he, like so many of us, tend to believe what he wished to be true? Why did he start his 1922 and 1923 visits to North America with a visit to Hydesville, NY, the very fount of the Spiritualist movement, when Margaret Fox had confessed in 1888, thirty-five years earlier, that her 1848 wall-tapping had been contrived?
- Above all, as Thomas Tietze asked in our fourth Journal, Why did Sir Arthur want to write these stories of monsters and ghosts and madness... in which all that was modern would be threatened—and perhaps overthrown by all that was primal, dark and savage; in which sanity and reason would break down under the pressure of madness and the unknown... What were his aims-his conscious aims-as a writer?
There is so much we do not know!
We have, happily, yet another reason for greeting the next five years. Just as Monseigneur Ronald Knox of Oxford University, with his 'Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes', created a whole new world, the 'game' of Holmes and Watson, so has Professor David Anderson, Professor of English at Texas A & M University, suggested to us a whole new world: the 'game' of Arthur Conan Doyle. Conan Doyle kept his story alive on three levels', explains Professor Anderson, the literal, the ironic and the mythic. Literally, we are told a story. Ironically, we imagine the characters from their reactions to events and to each other. Mythically, we feel the continual tension between the forces of light and the forces of dark as they struggle for supremacy'.
The Conan Doyle 'game' then is to discover what the literal stories really mean: is it just a story about a snake, or is it really a powerful Gothic horror story of a demon lover, of madness, incest and terror? Professor Anderson has given us a new challenge: not only to enjoy but to understand the life, and works, of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Thus our young society is making astonishing progress in achieving its objectives and in realising its hopes. It is bringing back to us the life and works of a great man and a great writer; perhaps the greatest story writer who ever lived.
- So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see
- So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
A toast then to those who make all this possible: our founder Christopher Roden; his wife Barbara; our honorary members and advisors; our retiring President, Julian Symons; and ourselves, the members. For all these blessings let us be truly thankful! Please raise your glasses to the next five years of: THE ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE SOCIETY.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
