Is Surgeon and Novelist
Is Surgeon and Novelist is an article published in The Chicago Tribune on 3 may 1902.
Surgeon and Novelist
A CONAN DOYLE AND HIS ACHIEVEMENTS.
Busy and Useful Career of the Creator of Sherlock Holmes — where he found the original of the celebrated Detective — Dr. Bell first suggested the sleuth to the Writer — his literary productions and his patriotic labors in South Africa.
For a quarter of a century the motto of Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle has been "Fear Not, and Put It In Print." He adopted it when he ran a short-lived students' paper in a German university where he was studying. It appeared to be his guiding motive in writing his powerful book on the Boer war which so stirred the British War office.
Twenty years ago he was a medical student studying under Dr. Joseph Bell in Edinburgh, a man who was to be utilized as the model for one of the unique characters in English fiction. It was young Doyle's study Dr. Bell's psychological methods which led him to elaborate the doctor's theories into the life mission of Sherlock Holmes.
The doctor — a man with sharp, piercing gray eyes, eagle nose, and striking features — sat in his chair with fingers together, and "just worked at the men or women before him," diagnosing not merely their maladies but their lives. "Gentlemen," he would say to the students standing around. "I am not quite sure whether this man is a cork-cutter or a slater. I observe a slight callous, or hardening, on one side of his forefinger, and a little thickening on the outside of his thumb, and that is a sure sign he is either one or the other." His great faculty of deduction was at times highly dramatic. "Ah!" he would say to another man, "you are a soldier, a non-commissioned officer, and you have served in Bermuda. Now, how did I know that, gentlemen? He came into the room without taking his hat off, as he would go into an orderly-room. He was a soldier. A slight authoritative air, combined with his age, shows he was a non-commissioned officer. A slight rash on the forehead tells me hi was in Bermuda and subject to a certain rash known only there."
And today the eagle eyes of Sherlock Holmes, the "literary embodiment" of Dr. Conan Doyle's memory of the Edinburg professor, glare down from every hoarding, searching the heart and life of the man in the street, while men even forsake their discussions of "clean slates," "tabernacles," and "lonely furrows" in order to offer their solution of the latest Sherlock Holmes mystery — "The Hound of the Baskervilles."
Arthur Conan Doyle was born at Edinburg on May 22, 1859. He comes of an artistic family. His grandfather, John Doyle, was the political caricaturist, recognized as Gilray's rightful successor, whose pictorial skits appeared for more than thirty years under the initials "H. B." without the disclosure of his identity. John Doyle's four sons were likewise artists, the author's father, Charles Doyle, holding also an appointment in the civil service. At the age of 17 he entered the Edinburg University as a medical student, and got his diploma five years later. In 1878 a story of his was published in Chambers' Journal. For seven months of 1880 he was surgeon on the whaler Hope it the Arctic seas, an experience he enjoyed immensely. A story based on it, "The Captain of the Pole Star," he printed in Temple Bar.
Returning to Edinburg he resumed his medical researches and met Dr. Bell. For two years he tried his hand at literature and medicine alternately with varying success in each. "Fifty little cylinders of manuscript," he writes, "did I send out during eight years, which described irregular orbits among publishers, and usually came back like paper boomerangs to the place that they had started from." Slowly, by dint of untiring perseverance, he won his way into such magazines as the Cornhill, Temple Bar, and Belgravia, but as his contributions to these journals — some fifty or sixty stories in all — were anonymous, he remained as unknown as though he had never penned a line. He has left it on record that, though he worked hard for ten years, he never in any one year earned £50 by his pen.
He lost a long story in the mails, but at last made an opening for himself with "A Study in Scarlet," for which he got £5. In this book he introduced Sherlock Holmes to the public. Then he became interested in the historical novel and wrote "Micah Clarke." It was rejected by a score of houses until Andrew Lang fell across it, and it is still a seller after twelve years. In 1899 there came out "The Sign of the Four," which pushed Doyle and Holmes further along towards success. The author had always been fascinated with the period of Edward III., and this resulted in "The White Company," one of the best stories of the kind ever written.
About this time Dr. Doyle came to London is an eye specialist. He studied in Paris and Vienna, and in the latter city wrote "The Doings of Raffleshaw." [1] He returned to London, but found practice hard to get, whereupon he took up his pen and did "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." Of the success of this book it is hardly necessary to write at the present time. Holmes and his marvelous adventures have found literally millions of readers.
He next tried his hand at something quite different — "The Refugees," with its striking pictures of the French court, its brilliant coloring with masterstrokes on a large canvas. He always inclined to historical romance and his favorite authors include Scott and Dumas. His chief delight is "The Cloister and the Hearth." Next to this is "Ivanhoe," and then probably "Esmond." Never to his mind was an historical novel written by a man who knew his period so thoroughly. But vital as he holds these virtues, they are not to him the sole essential qualities. The most compelling characteristic of all he sums up in the one word "interest." In his judgment this is not equally sustained throughout the whole of "Esmond"; to him long passages, appear to be heavy reading. His law asserts that, to attain, preeminence, a novel must advance always, never mark time. "Ivanhoe" marches onwards without halt, and on this fact he bases its superiority over "Esmond" as a novel, though as literature he allows the latter is more perfect. But were three votes accorded him, "he would plump them all" for "The Cloister and the Hearth," as being the greatest English historical novel, and, indeed our greatest novel of any kind.
"The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard," in 1896 — a clash of arms and boisterous movement — was followed in the same year by "Rodney Stone," a realistic depiction of various sporting phases of life and character in England at the commencement of the century, for which the author spared efforts in gathering together reliable information on the subject of the ring; while, in 1898, some thirty short poems by Dr. Doyle were collected under the expressive title of "Songs of Action."
At the time of the Soudan campaign. Dr. Doyle, who happened to be in Egypt, wrote a series of letters to the Westminster Gazette. His newspaper work at this period excited comment in the nature of a prophecy. "What a war correspondent he may make," declared an acute observer, "some day when there is real war." Even beneath the shadow of the pyramids his reputation of detective-story writer had grown to vaster proportions than he himself had ever contemplated. In Egypt he first was made aware that "Sherlock Holmes" had been translated into Arabic, and issued to the local police in the form of a reliable and handy text-book!
Of Dr. Conan Doyle's later novels it is hardly necessary to make mention, for they at well known to readers of THE TRIBUNE. "Round the Red Lamp" (1894) and "The Stark Munro Letters" (1895) are the outcome of his medical experiences, the latter being, with the exception of one chapter close autobiography, with the literary side omitted. "Uncle Bernac" (1897), a delightful sketch of Napoleonic days, and "The Tragedy of the Korosko" are two novels of exciting adventure; while "A Duet with an Occasional Chorus" is in quieter vein.
The outbreak of the war in south Africa roused Dr. Conan Doyle to feverish activity. His medical and military knowledge were freely placed at the service of the country. Early in March, 1900, he set sail for south Africa on board the Oriental as honorary senior physician of the Langman Field Hospital — the hospital founded by John L. Langman, "who devoted his fortune, and that which was more valuable to him than his fortune, to the service of his country and to the relief of suffering." The direct literary outcome of this trip was "The Great Boer War," but the British soldier will remember him as a good surgeon and a good friend. He nursed the wounded; he wrote letters for the soldiers, and he worked night and day.
Returning to London he wrote his pamphlet on the causes and conduct of the war, of which 460,000 copies have been sold. The proceeds were devoted to supporting British widows and orphans made by the war.
Illustration:
GREAT DETECTIVE STORY WRITER.
Conan Doyle.
- ↑ Correct spelling is : The Doings of Raffles Haw
