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''Sir Arthur, the Mystic Knight, Reviews his Reviewers'' is an article written by Horace Green published in [[The New-York Times]] on 6 may 1923.

Review of [[Arthur Conan Doyle]]'s [[Our American Adventure]].


== Sir Arthur, the Mystic Knight, Reviews his Reviewers ==
[[File:the-new-york-times-1923-05-06-part3-p3-sir-arthur-mystic-knight.jpg|thumb|300px|right|[[The Times]] (6 may 1923, p. 3)]]
[[File:the-new-york-times-1923-05-06-part3-p25-sir-arthur-mystic-knight.jpg|thumb|150px|right|[[The Times]] (6 may 1923, p. 25)]]

''Our American Adventure: A personal record of America's response. By Arthur Conan Doyle. 190 pp. New York: George H. Doran Company. $1.50.''

It is sometimes said that to pass judgment on another is to reveal one's self.

The other day — quite by chance — a few men of diverse calling were gathered around a club table. where the conversation, after exhausting the sugar tariff, Harding's attitude on the World Court and  marathon dancing turned toward psychic experiments. The first man to express an opinion was a son of wealth who tells a good story, whose wardrobe would nettle the Prince of Wales, and whose activities often grace the social columns.

He said that if there were any doubt in his mind about the truth of that "spirit stuff," it would be removed by the type of persons who usually acted as professional medium. "Not one of them," he concluded. "is a person with whom one would care to associate."

The second speaker had a deep interest in the stage, many acquaintances among producers, artists and the like, and was himself a critic of no mean ability. This gentleman thought that Sir Arthur's talk about the possibility that the spiritualistic faith should become the Church of America (similar to the old Church of England and the Church of Rome) was a typical flag-waving stage trick. He felt, moreover, that the woman who screamed in the Carnegie Hall audience when the picture of the British war dead was thrown on the screen on the opening night had- probably been placed there by the management. "Conan Doyle," was his dictum, "is a typical showman. I know the breed."

The third speaker was one of the Boston intelligentsia, well versed in books, the able editor of a literary magazine, the type whom one admires for a brow considered lofty. "Look at that head," said he, "and you can tell that Conan Doyle is a typical low-brow."

The next speaker. the most successful business man of the group, though not much interested in the conversation, Injected himself long enough to wonder "whether Doyle makes a big turnover On this lecture business."

The fifth, and last, observation revealed an obnoxious person who had accumulated all sorts of knowledge on a variety of ordinary and extraordinary things and didn't mind admitting it. It is not worth while repeating here, for it was the writer's.

America during the past few weeks having freely expressed its opinion of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his spiritualistic mission — for the most part liking the one and doubting the other — it is now Sir Arthur's turn to become critic.

"Our American Adventure" is ostensibly an amplification of his now well-known spiritualistic views and the manner in which they were received in 1922 — fairly by the press, he states again and again, and better than he could possibly have hoped for by the public at large. An opening wedge was all he desired in order to rivet attention on the subject. The scientific aspects, he admits, leave him cold, or else impatient.

The greater part of the volume is, naturally, devoted to a serious description of converts, to America's whole-hearted response, and to seances with American mediums, such as Miss Ada Besinnet of Ohio; Mr. Wiggins and Mr. Nicholson of Boston; the young Italian, Peccoraro; Mr. Ticknor of New York, and another pair of New York mediums, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, who, he is convinced, are frauds. Students will do well to read these passages.

But Sir Arthur's views are rather well known to the public. and for our present purpose are, therefore, of less interest than his engaging sidelights on American-life. Peer the diary is singularly revealing, not only of the writer, but of the way his message has been received. It is at the same time knowing and naive. 

Not only spiritism, but so-called prohibition, the British-American debt, anecdotes of well-known Americans, press ethics, hotel prices, Wilson, Morgan, Hoover and immigration, to pick random topics, come within range of Sir Arthur's active and by no means humorless pen. Whether for diplomatic reasons or not, he seems ready to say a kindly word about everything and to believe the heart of everybody — especially, of course, of mediums. But if he is, as some think, off centre on certain subjects, he shows flashes of penetration on others. It is obvious that he is not blind to the usual criticisms hurled at him. Any one in doubt as to his motives should read a few passages from the first chapter, including one passage which might have been used as a preface:

At my age I am in a position where I have nothing either to fear or to hope for from any worldly source. I desire nothing further that the world can give me, I dread nothing which it can either do to me or say of me. Therefore. my one desire is to say exactly what I believe to he true, and there I have indeed a fear, for it would shock me greatly if ever I thought that others had been misled by me. But I examine carefully and I weigh my words, and if ever I have erred, that erring. for which I mourn, must surely count as a small thing compared to the amount of truth which I can vouch for front my own experience, confirmed by the testimony of many who are wiser and more learned than I. Therefore, it is that I spend the span of life which is left to me in helping a cause which cannot fail — since truth can never ultimately fail — to influence deeply the future of mankind.

One can picture our burly-bodied mentor of the spirit world with his legs crossed on the vessel's deck, jotting down that passage in his diary — for he writes letters, books, and everything in conscientious longhand while his secretary, when he has one, acts as social buffer, or course, one is entitled to one's own interpretation of the apologia; but I should mistrust the man who takes it lightly. Indeed, it does seem a key to the superb freedom that sends Sir Arthur galloping ahead in spite of nasty knocks (and exposures of some of his medium friends) which should he enough to take the confidence out of pine men out of ten. Discard the negatives, stick to the positives, is the rule that gives Sir Arthur courage, if even one honest spirit photographer has been discovered, it doesn't matter if all the rest are frauds. If even so much as a grain of sand has in the world's history ever been moved by a force beyond the grave, and he believes he can prove it, then the battle's won. In the next breath. the builder of Sherlock is in the midst of his jovial bout with the ship news reporters; and when he has done with them — and they with him — he analyzes the American press and public as well, perhaps. as the press and public have ever analyzed him:

They have a keen sense of humor, these Americans, and no subject can be more easily made humorous than this. (Spiritualism). They are intensely practical. and this would appear to them visionary. They are immersed in worldly pursuits, and this cute right across the path of their lives. Above all, they are swayed by the press, and if the press takes a flippant attitude I have no means of getting behind it.

And then next moment they were at close grips with me. A dozen rather unkempt, keen-faced, alert young or middle-aged men, slouch-hatted, overcoated, rough and ready, had hoarded our ship at the Narrows. as soon as quarantine was granted. They pinned me in a corner and were showering questions upon me. These eager men are not intruders. A private individual may resent their presence,' but a man on public business has no right to do so. They are not there for their own pleasure. Of course, they are human and they are out for copy. If they see a chink in your armor. they will thrust for it. If you are perfectly frank, you are safe; but they are not men whom I would care to bamboozle.

So much for the reporters it was only for the type of editors who wrote such heads as "Do Spooks Marry?" that he had little use.

And the suggestion of senility cheerfully put forward by one or two antagonists who had not met me did not seem to cut much ice either. I have always been ready to box a friendly round with those who needed assurance on that point.

Sir Arthur proceeds with his definite, but always courteous. comment. Prohibition is a noble effort, but he enjoys a glass of wine in season and doesn't like being forced into fr virtue. Although he eschews drink as a rule, he feels about it as Barrie felt about the dictionary — that "even if he did not use it he liked to feet that it was there." Babe Ruth and baseball are better than cricket, and he would like to see the game taken up in the old country; the police force (in New York), which used to be fat and corrupt, is clean-cut and athletic; you are thrown to the top of the Woolworth Building in something half way between a lift and a Big Bertha; better immigration laws and permanent Magistrates who are non-political appointees would lower our unenviable crime statistics: Americans, in spite of popular belief to the contrary. don't have as much snap as Londoners; Lady Doyle says that feminine requisites, especially hats, are better and cheaper in New York than in London; the hotel prices here are positively beyond the pale, not to mention the pocket.

Skipping front New York to Washington, Sir Arthur, in addition to lecturing. had a busy psychic day at the capital. He tells of the famous Cushman spirit photograph and of others of a similar nature. In these photographs, as his audiences know, the supposed face of the dead relative appears on the plate beside the mourning father, or husband, or mother, as the case may be Sir Arthur explains that the ectoplasm forms slowly in the neighborhood of the medium and in the midst of this ectoplasm there comes into being the spirit form. But the thought occurs that if this is true, and if the photographs are not fraudulently produced. why could not the process be photographed in moving pictures as well as in "stills," as they are technically known? Why does the medium require a special type of camera, and why must the medium himself or herself take the picture?

Sir Arthur gives an interesting ac-count of Abraham Lincoln's conversion to spiritualism at the hands of the Civil War medium. Miss Nettie Colborn. Sir Arthur's illustration perhaps lacks conviction because he does not cite authorities. That the great emancipator had a mystic tendency all Lincoln students will, of course, admit. A better, because the more authentic, treatment of this Lincolnian phase is given by the accurate historian John T. Morse Jr. in the American Statesmen series. Morse says that a curious incident illustrating the " superstitious element " in Lincoln's character was narrated by Lincoln as follows:

It was just after my election in 1860, when the news had been coming thick and fast all day. and there had been a great "hurrah boys!" so that I was well tired out and went home to rest. throwing myself upon a lounge in my chamber. Opposite to where I lay was a bureau with a swinging glass upon it: and, in looking in that glass. I saw myself reflected nearly at full length; but my face, I noticed, had two separate and distinct images, the tip of the nose of one being about , three inches from the tip of the other. I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass; but the Illusion vanished. On lying down again I saw it a second time, plainer, if possible, than before; and then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler — say five shades — than the other. I got up and the thing melted away; and I went off, and in the excitement of the hour forgot all about it — nearly. but not quite, for the thing would once in a while come up and give me a little pang, as though something uncomfortable had happened. When I went home, I told my wife about it; and a few days after I tried the experiment again, when, sure enough. the thing came back again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost hack after that, though I once tried very industriously to show it to my wife, who was worried about it somewhat. She thought it was "a sign" that I was to be elected to a second term of office, and that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen that I should not see life through the last term.

Reverting to mundane matters, this is the solution offered for the now solved British-American debt problem. The British feel, says Sir Arthur, that the money is honestly owing and must he honestly paid, and yet they would feel it a monstrous injustice if they were to pay the £1,000,000,100 they owe and have to write off as a bad debt the £3,500,000,000 which they are owed. At the same time, Britain is too proud to accept humiliating favors, and any remission of debt must be part of a world-scheme of readjustment.

How about the cession by France and Great Britain  of all of their West Indian possessions as one asset which they hold and which America might desire? It is a delicate question, and yet I think that after the first natural recoil there is much to commend it. These Wands are of no particular use in our huge Empire, and they are of very great use to America, for they are the natural fortresses of the Caribbean Sea, and the advanced sentinels of that great canal which was built by American energy and capital.

Their lo es would be sentimental — and that is, I agree, a very great loss — but the crisis is a vital one, and those of us who believe in the future federation of English-speaking States on term — of equality can console ourselves by the thought that these beautiful islands are not lest to us forever.

There is no doubt that the Americans eagerly desire them, as they showed when they gave Denmark £5,000,000 for the single tiny island of St. Thomas. The crucial point is how far would the islands themselves sanction the arrangement, for we could not possibly do it against strong opposition on their part. 

The future of the world depends upon the Anglo-Celtic nations getting together, and this is of such importance that everything may well be subordinated to it. These islands have always been a thorn in the side of America. At the present instant they see their laws flouted by the ease with which liquor can be run into their territory from these British bases.

Speaking of debts and wealth, Sir Arthur had a talk with J. P. Morgan, whose paintings and libraries he enjoyed keenly, but whom, personally, he dismisses with the gentle remark that he is "less melancholy than most millionaires I have met." One pauses involuntarily over that artist touch. Think of it — to raise a smile. to describe without malice a man whose power in dollars in many respects symbolizes America, to reveal a philosophy of life and to preach a sermon — all in eight short words! Later, penning his diary in a moment of weariness, as if by inadvertent contrast, the old crusader describes himself — his real wish to make people the happier for believing his message and then to be left alone "surrounded by comfortable books and the flowers in his Sussex garden." 









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