The clubs and public buildings were illuminated in the evening, but I have not seen a single firework. They have invented an atrocity called the ‘Lady Teazer torpedo’. This is a leaden bottle, like an artist’s moist colour bottle, full of water. If you squeeze this a jet of water flies out and the great joke at night is to go along the street squirting at everybody’s face, male or female. Everyone is armed with these things, and nobody escapes them. I was simply drenched last night; it is astonishing the good humour with which everyone allows it. I saw ladies stepping out of carriages to parties drenched and seeming to enjoy it highly.
I am reading Trollope’s ‘American Senator’ aloud to Aunt Annette & ‘McCauley’s life and letters’ to myself. His letters are glorious, such swing and go in them, and many of them interlarded with rhymes.
I hope something may turn up for me; I am, you know, willing to do anything. Pray underrate my qualifications, rather than overrate them. Better lose the place than sail under false colours.
Generosity is not, I think, one of Richardson’s virtues. He made me pay my washing bill, & never allowed me a farthing for cab fares in my journey. I never told him I was going to London, for I was convinced that if I did he would refuse me the proper fare. He was the most uninteresting companion I ever met. He boasts that he has not opened a novel for ten years, nor seen a play in his life. McCauley says that judicious novel reading rubs off the roughnesses of a character & improves it more than an equal amount of heavier reading. I can quite believe it from what I have seen.
to Mary Doyle LONDON, MAY 29, 1878
I have written to Quin; isn’t it an extraordinary coincidence. He lives close to Richardson and I have often heard him mentioned.* I told him in my letter that I had been assistant to R for a short time. Of course it couldn’t possibly be concealed. I am afraid he will find me too young. Those Sheffielders would rather be poisoned by a man with a beard, than saved by a man without one. I believe since that the real reason of the Richardson rupture was that several of his patients said I looked too young; he said as much the morning I left.
I dined at Clifton Gardens yesterday and saw Uncle Henry. I spent the day at Westminster Aquarium. Today we go to the Royal Academy. I saw a splendid cricket match at Lords on Monday, in which an Australian eleven defeated the best club in England.
P.S. I wish you could send me a little book on medicine, explaining simply the symptoms & treatment of each disease.*
to Mary Doyle LONDON, JUNE 1878
I am sorry to have kept you in suspense, but yesterday was a bank holiday and the office was closed. I went today and found that our bait had caught 3 fish, Dr Bryan of Leicester, Dr Brady of Derby, & Dr White of Snodland, Kent. The last is the one I have chosen, as looking most promising. I enclose the letter which emanates evidently from Mrs White. I have just written an answer to it. Snodland is within 40 miles or so of London, so that if it should fall thro’ I won’t lose very much. You need not say much about it to friends till we see whether it will do.
Dr Quin was not a catholic, and as he lived within a stone throw of Richardson’s house, and knows him well, it would not do not to have mentioned my connection with Richardson. Grimesthorpe is the continuation of Spital Hill. ;
I have taken a great desire, mam, to go into the navy as a surgeon. I do not know whether it arises from seeing the drudgery of a rising medical practise in the case of Richardson, or from hearing of the experience of R’s brother who is in the navy, but so it is. Both Uncle James and Aunt Annette think well of the scheme.
to Mary Doyle LONDON, JUNE 18, 1878
I got the parcel yesterday all right, the trousers are very nice indeed. When I saw the book had no name I imagined you had left its disposal to me, and I wrote in it at once ‘To Aunt Annette for her kindness’ and gave it to her. I think it was a very small return for her hospitality, and they are always complaining of a dearth of books in the visitor’s room. Of course I would not have done it if I had known.
There is, as you say, plenty of time to consider, but at present I feel very much inclined towards the navy. The life is a glorious one, & think of being discharged on half pay at 31 and drawing £150 per annum for the rest of your life. I could, I fancy, in the navy contribute fully £120 a year towards Duff. They are raising the status very much, I hear.
I was over at Hanwell on Saturday and saw the whole set of them, Robinsons and Dickensons. What a fine old lady Mrs Williams is! She said she had seen 3 generations of Doyles. I said she might see a fourth yet, which seemed to tickle her.
I am sadly in need of active exercise, and will grow quite stout if this continues; I must play football in the winter.
I went to one of Halle’s recitals to hear Norman-Neruda play the violin. The Princess of Wales was there and a very distinguished company, and I enjoyed it very much. Went also to hear Major Butler lecture and saw his wife, Miss Thompson, the artist.* Went also to the Royal Academy. Saw the first picture of the son of Browning the poet, who is a rising painter. It seemed to me very good indeed.
‘Why shouldn’t we use a little art jargon. There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it. And now for lunch, and then for Norman-Neruda. Her attack and her bowing are splendid. What’s that little thing of Chopin’s she plays so magnificently: Tra-la-la-lira-lira-lay.’
—A Study in Scarlet
to Connie and Lottie Doyle LONDON, JUNE 1878
Dearest Conny and Lotts
I swear that you are an idle and lazy pair, never to send a note to amuse a brother who’s longing & yearning for news. By the way tell Judy, but don’t let mama know, that ‘the wife’s name’s Baptista, the Duke’s name’s Gonzago’.* Break the news gently, console her, beware, of telling her more than her small heart can bear.
And now I suppose you both are keen, to hear what I’ve done and what I have seen. Well I’ve seen the Prince of Whales, not a fairy one, but one alive in the London Aquarium, and I’ve seen them feed him on codfish and eels, and by Jove, how his highness waltzed into his meals. And I’ve been to museums and been to the ‘Zoo’, and been to the concerts & theatre too, and seen Irving act in a part that is new, and now, my darlings, I’ll wish you adieu. Hoping that soon you’ll be able to see
your affectionate brother
Arthur C. D.
His next assistantship was with a Dr Henry Francis Elliot of Cliffe House, Ruyton-XI-Towns, a Shropshire village off the beaten track from Shrewsbury. It was a country practice that, Arthur joked to Lottie, required some adjustment on his part:
They are such funny people, when I came first I couldn’t understand it. A big farmer would come up to the surgery, and say to me ‘I wants a subscription, Zurr, to take to the seaside with me, the same subscription as t’other doctor gave me,’ and then I would speak to him like a father, lifting up my voice and saying ‘Get away, you hulking ruffian, it doesn’t matter