I am quite a Stonyhurst boy again and am quite at home.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, OCTOBER 10, 1871
As next Thursday is a holiday I will just show you the order of the day. 6 rise, from 6 to 1/2 past, ‘wash’, from 1/2 past 6 to 1/4 past 7 Mass & prayers from 1/4 past 7 to 1/4 past 8 Studies, from 1/4 past 8 till 1/4 to 9 breakfast, from 1/4 to 9 till 1/2 past 10 we play games from 1/2 past 10 till 12 we play a grand football match from 12 till 1/2 past 12 ‘wash’ from 1/2 past 12 till 1 dinner from 1 till 1/2 past 5 we go out for walks or do what we like from 1/2 past 5 till 1/2 past 7 we have something in the theatre. Pepper’s Ghosts or something of that sort.* From 1/2 past 7 till 8 we have supper from 8 till 9 we have playing cards or chess or any inside game and then we go to bed. so you see I am to be envied rather than pitied
to Charles Doyle STONYHURST, OCTOBER 1871
Dearest Papa
You remember that little picture of St Michaels Mount with Sir Kennelworth on it which you drew in my little red book. Well! The Fathers say it is a most wonderful work of art and have taken it from me they are so delighted with it.
Stonyhurst, you must know is divided into 2 parts. The higher line for the big boys and the lower line for the little boys. In the lower line there are 5 classes and I don’t mean by little small in the way of age for there are many over 6 feet in the lower line but small in lessons. In the Higher line there are 8 schools. Now I am in the highest of the five lower line schools and I am about the smallest boy in the class (with regard to size). So next year I will be quite a man being in the higher line.
Our School has to provide some person to read during supper to the fathers and I am proud to say that I am nearly almost chosen.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST, OCTOBER 31, 1871
You have not written to me for a very long time. I am awfully uneasy. Tell me if anything is wrong and don’t conceal it. I have been to the Master for a letter every day for a fortnight. I hope you will write soon.
I am getting on famously, am in the extraordinary and I don’t know what all. Those boys who do the ordinary lessons very well are called ‘the extraordinary’.
Old Father Christmas is again come in sight and is rapidly approaching with his escort of Plum Pudding, Roast Goose, etc, etc.
My love to Papa, Lottie, Cony and Jeannie. I am writing a long piece of Poetry on the subject of the war.
Agreat deal of war-related poetry lay in Conan Doyle’s future, ranging from ‘The Song of the Bow’, an idealistic tribute to the English long-bowmen of the fourteenth century, to the ascerbic ‘H.M.S. Foudroyant: Being a humble address to Her Majesty’s Naval advisers, who sold Nelson’s old flagship to the Germans for a thousand pounds.’ First published in the London Daily Chronicle in September 1892, it began:
Who says the Nation’s purse is lean,
Who fears for claim or bond or debt,
When all the glories that have been
Are scheduled as a cash asset?
If times are bleak and trade is slack,
If coal and cotton fail at last,
We’ve something left to barter yet—
Our glorious past.
Conan Doyle also turned his imaginative gifts to his aunt Catherine’s recent travels, wistfully conjuring up a domestic scene at home in Edinburgh—and the contents of his next Christmas food package at school.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST
I was so glad to learn that Aunt Kate was safe and happy. I hope she will continue to be so and will send me lots of Stamps and Postmarks. she must have pinned her voyage immensely. I wish I had been on the ship when the jib boom blew away. you must have been awfully surprised when the letter came. I can fancy the scene. You rushing for a carving knife to cut the letter open.
Papa endeavouring to support the tottering cups of tea.
Lottie hanging on by your dress.
and Cony eating the sugar.
I hope Lottie is getting on well in her reading. I am glad that Papa’s picture is progressing.
I like to see Tottie’s letters very much, Ma, and would be very glad if you sent some.
With regard to my box. I do not intend you to send all the things I mention, but merely to pick and choose out of them. You must impress upon your memory that the box ought to be at Preston by the evening of the 23d, and that all the meat in it must be cooked.
Secondly, you had better not send any books. not because I am less a bookworm than I was before, but because there is a large lybrary under my nose.
and remember, Ma, that the meat you send has to last me Breakfast and Dinner for a fortnight and when it is finished I shall have to depend on Charity.
Don’t scruple to tuck into my 10 shillings.
well 1st I want A goose. A Piece of Ham. a German Sausage. And a box of sardines for Friday.
Secondly, a Bottle of Raspberry Vinegar and one of those you keep at the bottom of your press in the Bedroom.
Thirdly, a dozen oranges & a dozen apples & half a dozen pears. then any fruit which you may happen to have. then a Plum Cake and a Shortbread Cake and some tea rolls. then some Chocolate sticks a packet of Butter Scotch a packet of Jujubees or any other sweets.
then, some paper, pens, envelopes and pencils and any sort of a box of chalks, to replenish my old set which are still in existence, many of them unbroken. then send some rock and anything you know I like—not forgetting my pots of Jam.
And then there is my Xmas 5 shillings, by the bye. I hope Mrs Smith will remember her promise—and Ma don’t forget any sort of tough six-penny pen knife—I often have need of one for some thing or other which would break the blade of that little sheath knife.
I hope my box won’t ruin us though it has formidable dimensions.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST
We are having our first term examinations during the last few weeks, I have done very well in them I think. We had the compositions also in which I did a good English verse theme, the subject was ‘the plague of London’, I also wrote a piece for our academies, on the martyrdom of St Catherine, the patron saint of Rhetoric, which proved a success. Yesterday was our academy day and in the evening, we had, as is the custom, a good supper. We had a capital spread, turkey and sausages, apple tarts, fruit and cakes, together with port, sherry and claret. Songs were sung by everybody, I sung Mrs Brown.
I hope you effected your change without any serious inconvenience, and that you have affable neighbours.
to Mary Doyle STONYHURST
We have had skating—glorious skating—I pinned it immensely. We had it the whole of the Immaculate conception, and on the next two days, but then one night it began to rain and now the