This week I finally got hold of a copy of Susan Rice's wonderful publication "A Compound of Excelsior". This small book was published in 1991 by Gasogene Press (before it was taken on as part of Wessex Press). The book has several essays by Rice (who I dearly wish I'd had a chance to meet) on bee-related topics in the canon. I'm so glad to finally have the chance to read this book. It's one of those unavailable books that really deserves a second edition so that more can read it.
As I reflected on Sherlock and beekeeping, I found myself doing what I often do: checking the National Library of Australia digitized newspapers site (trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper) to see what I could unearth on the topic of Sherlock and bees. This is a habit I've been forming because I've been slowly trying to read and transcribe every article on Sherlock Holmes published in Australian papers in the 1800s. Hopefully I can published a curated set of articles that shows how Sherlock was received in the Australian colonies.
Sure enough, I've found a wonderful vignette in an article published in the Bulletin magazine on 30 Dec 1959, written by journalist Alex Chisholm on his experience meeting Conan Doyle during his Australian tour in 1920/21:
'Once, for example, we found ourselves visiting an apiary on the outskirts of the city, and there, to my astonishment, Doyle revealed that he was having his first experience of beehives —this, if you please, from the man who had retired Sherlock Holmes to a bee-farm!'
Amazing! Who knew that ACD had never road-tested Sherlock's retirement plans? A photograph of the event was included in the article, and I couldn't help but be reminded of the Jeremy Brett / Edward Hardwicke photos of beekeeping that never made it into the Granada series.
Well, with that diversion aside, I thought I'd transcribe the Bulletin article. Alexander Hugh (Alec) Chisholm (1890–1977) was a journalist, ornithologist and encyclopaedist, and earned an entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Chisholm spent two weeks accompanying Doyle, and he earned a mention in ACD's Wanderings of a Spiritualist:
'We had a pleasant Sunday among the birds of Queensland. Mr. Chisholm, an enthusiastic bird-lover, took us round to see two very large aviaries, since the haunt of the wild birds was beyond our reach.'
Like Thomas Bellchambers, Doyle made a connection over birds and naturalism. At some point I'll be writing a biography of Chisholm (when I get to him!) for my series on people ACD mentioned in Wanderings.
Meantime, Chisholm's two-page article is lively, and reflects on events almost forty years earlier.
Conan Doyle in Australia
By ALEC H. CHISHOLM
"AUSTRALIANS,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle declared in 1921, “are really a very good-natured people.”
Accepting that statement as sincere (and possibly more-or-less accurate), it seems desirable in this centenary year of Conan Doyle’s birth that some Australian should reciprocate his sentiments — should proclaim that we in this country found the famous Englishman to be thoroughly good-natured, uncommonly tolerant, and in general a very decent bloke.
It is scarcely necessary to add, in the light of Doyle's record as a resolute fighter for any cause he believed in, that he was not amiable to the point of tolerating a hit below the belt. Thus, in Melbourne, he swung a hefty punch at the “Argus,” which had treated him in shabby fashion ; in New Zealand he did the same thing with another paper that behaved badly; and in Brisbane he became very annoyed with a couple of boors who asked him vulgar personal questions at a public meeting.
I’m reminded of the Queensland episodes by an inscription which the author of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes wrote for me in a copy of that book. Here it is:
With all pleasant remembrances of Brisbane—in spite of the mosquitoes (one or two of which were human). A. Conan Doyle.
In passing, I should confess that Doyle did not give me the Holmes book ; I presented it to myself. The fact was that, as a writer on the staff of the old Brisbane “Daily Mail,” I had been associated with the visiting lecturer for a couple of weeks, and at the end, anticipating that he would give me one of his books as a memento, and that it would be a volume on Spiritualism, I went along to his hotel with the Sherlock Holmes book in a pocket.
Sure enough, Sir Arthur handed over an inscribed copy of The New Revelation, whereupon (after acknowledging that gift) I produced the Holmes item and suggested that he. might autograph it as well.
“Certainly,” he said, with an indulgent grin, and promptly scribbled that tribute to Brisbane, with a side-swipe at the local mosquitoes - human ones included.
I first met Conan Doyle and his lady in a train. They had come to Queensland from Sydney by the old Darling Downs route, and, as was the journalistic custom at the time of their visit (1920-21), I went to Ipswich in order to talk to them during the last lap of their journey.
The contact having proved agreeable, my editor asked me to cover the whole of the Doyle activities in Queensland, and so I not only reported the public meetings but accompanied the pair on sundry outings.
Once, for example, we found ourselves visiting an apiary on the outskirts of the city, and there, to my astonishment, Doyle revealed that he was having his first experience of beehives —this, if you please, from the man who had retired Sherlock Holmes to a bee-farm!
One of the paddocks on the apiarist's property carried a number of semi-tame wallabies. Well - fed, graceful, alert, they sat up and looked us over doubtfully.
“I wish,” said Doyle, “that I could go and stroke one of those creatures. “But” —and his tone was genuinely sad —“my fondness for animals isn’t usually reciprocated. Why this should be I don’t know, but I never seem to be able to win their confidence in the way my wife does. She ‘gets’ them every time.”
Thus acclaimed, Lady Doyle went into action — to the accompaniment of soothing noises she approached one of the wallabies. Alas, though, that wallaby let the lady down ; when she drew near he turned smartly and hopped off into the middle-distance.
Doubtless Lady Doyle did in fact possess a “way with animals” — lots of women and some men have this happy asset and, personally, I rather regretted that she failed to establish good-neighbor relations with her first wallaby.
Sir Arthur, too, tried himself out with an original Australian, in this case a white cockatoo, when we looked over the aviaries of Maurice Baldwin (then secretary of the Queensland Turf Club) in a Brisbane suburb.
“A man in London once told me,” he said, “that any smart bird will respond cordially to a certain ‘magic’ word. That word isn’t found in the dictionaries. It is ‘koopa-ku’.”
“Well,” I suggested, leading him to the cocky’s cage, “what about experimenting with this fellow? He’s probably as well-informed as any other bird.”
“Koopa-ku, Cocky,” said Doyle.
Cocky twisted his head slightly. He also raised his crest.
The big man, putting his face closer to the cage, said more emphatically, “Koopa-ku, Cocky ; koopa-ku.”
“Grrrrrr!” screeched Cocky —and on that indefinite note the experiment ended.
I don’t imagine Conan Doyle took that episode at all seriously. In fact, although he was interested in the aviary-birds and the semi-tame wallabies, he was more impressed by the local fauna in its free state. Thus, when describing his experiences on Agar Wynne’s station, Nerrin-Nerrin (western Victoria), he waxed lyrical concerning the scenery and the innumerable waterfowl of the area, and he added, “That, to us, will always be the real Australia.”
Agar Wynne, it may be noted, added to his pastoral and political activities a keen interest in racing, yet he did not succeed in persuading his visitor to attend the Melbourne Cup. “We managed,” Doyle says, “to get out of that, and thereby found the St. Kilda beach deserted for once.”
What an odd fellow was this —a grown man who did not consider the Melbourne Cup gathering to represent “the real Australia”!
These quotations of published comments by Doyle are taken from his book dealing with the Australia-New Zealand tour, The Wanderings of a Spiritualist (1921). I read this narrative when it appeared, lost the run of it, and have only recently acquired a secondhand copy. And, rather curiously, the copy came from the library of the late W. Farmer Whyte, who, as editor of Brisbane “Daily Mail” in the relevant period, caused me to become attached to Doyle.
In all its aspects The Wanderings of a Spiritualist is an informative and readable book. It ranges widely, from the beauty of Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens to the Australian code of football (“the best of all systems”), cricket, tennis, and the price of a ferry-trip from Sydney Cove to Manly then 5d. and now 2s.
Additional to numerous remarks on Australia’s furred and feathered inhabitants (slightly quoted above), there are frequent references to the local human fauna, not only in the mass but individually. In Queensland, for example, Doyle was impressed by the strong character of the Governor of the day, Sir Matthew Nathan, and by the alertness of the youthful Acting-Premier, the clever but ill-starred Jack Fihelly (“Fihilly” in the book), who is described as “an Irish Labor leader with a remarkable resemblance to Dan O’Connell in his younger days.”
Among writers and artists, Farmer Whyte and I score matey references, and, more notably, there are tributes to Henry Lawson (“whose works I have greatly admired”), Norman Lindsay (“whom I look upon as one of the greatest artists of our time”), and Leon Gellert (“a very young poet, who promises to be the rising man in Australia in this, the supreme branch of literature”).
Now, here is a sobering side-issue:
Just after copying Doyle’s allusion to our “very young poet” I paused to glance at a Sydney Sunday paper, and there, in an article by the same Leon Gellert - now merely one of us humble prose-writers! — I came upon this reference to a certain incident : “It all happened 20 years ago when I was just a foolish youngster of 50.” Alas, Leon, it becomes very clear that Time still ambles, trots, and gallops, even as it did in Shakspeare’s day!
VARIOUS other reflections on the Australian scene, from the mind that created Sherlock Holmes, carry peculiar interest at this day (nearly 40 years after they were written), and not the least arresting are remarks concerning the need for population.
“Australians do not take a big enough view of their own destiny,” Doyle says. “They fear immigration lest it induce competition and pull down prices. It is a natural attitude. And yet that little fringe of people on the edge of that huge island can never adequately handle it.”
Sympathising with Australians’ desire to “keep the British stock as pure as possible,” he suggests that much useful human material might be gained from the United States, since the American “likes a big gamble and a broad life with plenty of elbow-room.” And, as a life-long advocate of Anglo-American friendship, “leading in the fullness of time to some loose form of Anglo-American Union,” he urges that nothing be allowed to disrupt relations between any of the English-speaking peoples.
Viewed in the light of later events —the Australian-American alliance in World War II and the tide of immigration that has since swept over this country —those remarks become, if not prophetic, at least distinctly sagacious.
Naturally, much of Doyle's Australian book is concerned with Spiritualism, and in this regard special interest attaches (for me, at any rate) to his comments on two mediums who functioned in Australia during the 1920’s, namely Charles Bailey and Susanna Harris.
Bailey, being known as an apport medium, and allegedly under control of a scholarly spirit, made a speciality of producing (in a darkened room) what were claimed to be Babylonian tablets, Asiatic birds’-nests, etc., meanwhile delivering learned addresses. Doyle knew that charges of fraud had been made against Bailey, and so put him through rigid tests; and, although puzzled by certain aspects of the case, he reached the conclusion that Bailey was, “upon occasion, a true medium, with a very remarkable gift for apports.”
With Susanna Harris, an American voice-medium, Doyle had four sittings in Melbourne, and, while bearing in mind that she had no success when tested by a research-committee in Europe, he declared that he had not the faintest doubt that in each of his four sessions he got “true psychic results.”
I too, “sat” with both Bailey and Mrs. Harris (in Brisbane), as observer for a newspaper, and in each case I was even more puzzled than Doyle, and maybe rather more sceptical.
Bailey, a commonplace type of fellow, certainly delivered a striking address, and in addition he produced some intriguing objects ; but —well, the feature of the occasion I remember most clearly is an argument which “Gossip” McMillan, a tough old Brisbane journalist, had with the manager of the performance.
Finally, after failing to get answers to various critical questions, “Gossip” gave judgment: “If that’s the kind of heaven you are promising us,” he said, “I much prefer the good, old-fashioned hell!”
“Well,” the manager snapped, “that’s where you’d better go!”
As for Susanna Harris, she was, as Doyle notes, “a very large lady,” with “a dash of the mystic Red Indian blood,” and she rather rocked me, when an introduction was made at the reception-room, by gazing down and saying, “I’m scared of noospaper-men.”
“You’ll pardon me, Madam,” I replied, “if I say that you look as though you would never be scared by any man.”
Like Doyle, I found certain achievements by Mrs. Harris to be distinctly remarkable, but, on the other hand, some of the “results” struck me as being plain silly. Perhaps by chance, as “Mr. Newspaper-man”, I got more than a fair share of attention from “the Other Side” during the sitting, and, willy-nilly, I fell into a trifle of disputation with an airy voice figuring as “Harmony,” our differences of opinion including, of all things, the meaning of a certain word.
Maybe it was somewhat indiscreet to argue with a “spirit”? Anyway, I didn’t get a chance to resume relations with the puckish “Harmony,’’ for I was placed on the organisers’ black - list through writing a critical article regarding the performance, including reference to the fact that the admittance-fees amounted to a healthy sum.
These observations on “mediums” are, however, more-or-less by the way, and are given here only because experiences with the same practitioners are recounted in The Wanderings of a Spiritualist.
What I set out to do, by way of a centenary gesture, was to record personal appreciation of Arthur Conan Doyle — a big man both mentally and physically — and to mention, as well, his cordial attitude towards Australia and its people. On the whole, we measured up pretty well when subjected to the lens of Sherlock Holmes!
As indicated at the outset, Doyle regarded Australians generally as being “very good-natured,” but I suspect that, occasionally, he anticipated the view of a later writer and murmured to himself, “They’re a weird mob!”
