Un-blotting Conan Doyle

For very random reasons I was looking through Arthur Conan Doyle manuscript holdings at the wonderful Public Library of Toronto. They have digital scans of many of the manuscripts available, and I was look at an item labeled 'Arthur Conan Doyle notebook' that really has almost nothing in it at all! The object number is 37131055102206D and you can look at it here.

The detailed description states: "Notebook (lined paper) with three lines of text in French on top cover and only four lines of text in English on 1st page. Fragment of blotting paper inside."

There are only two lines of writing inside the whole notebook:

Transcript:

One of the most odious things upon earth is to receive a kindess from one whom we heartily dislike

The landscape was blurred as if it were slightly out of focus

The importance of these two statements is not clear ; neither appears in text searches of on-line books, and they may have been thoughts or ideas jotted down in a moment, with the idea they may have been useful lines used in some future story.

As I looked at this scanty item, I noticed the piece of blotting paper tucked inside the exercise book:

If you look closely you can see words clearly that have been blotted, but the catch is that the writing is mirrored - because it blotted the original writing and created an impression. So let's flip the image and see what was blotted by Doyle;

Transcript:

1. Small bronze (written/blotted multiple times)

... wife of Tiberius

2. Bronze (written/blotted multiple times, with other numbering also)

What does this mean? What writing was being blotted? It doesn't appear within the notebook, but there is another in the Toronto Public Library collection titled 'Coins and history.' with a description as follows 'Notebook listing, in chronological order, Roman emperors and coins in A. C. Doyle's own collection . Accompanied by a Roman coin "Clodius 68" (catalogued separately)'.

Looking inside the book, we can see some examples of the writing.

So Doyle used the blotting paper for his book of Roman Emperors and Coins. Perhaps the blotting paper was switched between the two books later, or perhaps Doyle carried both exercise books at the same time.

It's nice to make a tiny connection between two items.