Evening star., 1925-04-26
IDA GILBERT MYERS.
MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES.

MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Boston,:
Little, Brown & Co.
Twenty years ago the name Conan
| Doyle was to the average reader of
| fiction merely another way of say
| ing Sherlock Holmes. Within this
large reading class there was, how
ever, a smaller one, whose members
had way of looking bit beyond
the passing satisfaction of the good
novel. This lesser group. while iden-
| tifying these two up to certain
point, nevertheless granted a wide
Doyle margin outside the sHolmes
area of occupation. Yet, despite this
literary gift of Conan Doyle, 1t is, in
ldisputably, upon the creation of
Sherlock Holmes that the good fame
of this writer of romance rests.
Within more recent years still
another group of onlookers and stu
dents has been trying TO link up
Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock
Holmes, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
earnest investigator and ardent
apostle of spiritualism. And not so
far apart as on the surface they may
appear, these two Doyles. Both are.
at heart, on the trail Of mystery.
| One, to be sure, is the supreme
mystery of death in its possible
sequence of a continuing personal
| ity. The other is the mystery Of
human behavior in response to GER
tain abnormal stimuli to the pursuit
of an unlawful end. 1t Is neither
difficult nor absurd to conceive that
| the habit of mind acquired by Conan
| Doyle in the development Of his most
| famous literary character became, in
turn, the active agent of research un-
! derlying his ultimate belief in the
| substance and significance OF spirit
ualism. In both quests there is the
apprehension and seizure of true
clues as distinct from a multitude of
| irrelevant details: there is. in both,
-, the following of these through many
| changing forms and growing COM
plexities. Though so unequal in inn
portance. both have been subjected
to the same intensive scrutiny, TO
the same elimination of utilities, to
| the same inductive mode of reaching
the general conclusion through a
coherent series Of contributing par
ticulars.
1t was back in university DAYS that
Conan Doyle found Sherlock Holmes.
Surgeon at that time in the Edin-
Jul = II lilliIIndTN was JOnn Bell, 10
whom the young medical student be
came assistant. John Bell. in both
mind and body. was calculated to cap
ture the imagination of the students
around him. To Conan Doyle his
chief WAS a marvel of efficiency and
skill. A wonder of clear and in
elusive observation, of invulnerab BILE
deduction. No least thing concerning
patient was able to elude him.
And along with this special power
went. also. that of relating each OBJ
servation back to it's particular origin
and forward to it's logical effect. AS
| young men do, Doyle set himself
deliberately to the imitation of this
fine pattern. Then, naturally. he be-
| gan TO grow on his own account in
this direction. Finally. the power
that John Bell used in the business
of surgery conan Doyle transferred
| to the field of creative writing, en-
| bodying in our old friend Sherlock
Holmes that which he himself had
gained from the study of an in
spring example.
* X kS*
Then Conan Doyle became world
adventurer Seven years a-whaling
| in the Arctic. Eoyaging to West
Africa. Travelling for further study
! on the continent. To Africa again
| for the Boer War. On the British
| front in the World War. Meanwhile,
there was a single sally into politics.
| A single, and permanent, excursion,
also, into the domain of romance and
! matrimony The meeting of innum-
erable people of the sort that com