Читать книгу Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters - Daniel Stashower, Исмаил Шихлы - Страница 111

I am very glad you like the essay, I have done my best with it. I think by coupling De Quincy & Co with Burns & Co I have shown that I consider opium eating as a vice analogous to, but worse than drunkenness. I think it is all right, just look it over again and see. Then about the ‘mistress of the seas’ &c, I think my meaning is plain. ‘Love of Excitement’ leads Englishmen to court danger, which is always exciting, and men who court danger for danger’s sake are the stuff that Nelsons & Rodneys are made of. This same love of excitement I have tried to prove makes Englishmen drink. Hence the same curse has made us a great maritime and a very drunken nation. I have written the 1^st page over again as it was dirty with travelling. Yes, I want you to sew it up, perhaps some cover could be got for it also. I don’t understand what you mean about writing a note &c. The essay is strictly anonymous, mottos used instead of names. Write my motto outside a sealed envelope and my card inside, that is all. Everything is decided before the envelopes are opened so that there is no necessity for making an impression. That is always the way. Get Papa to write my motto neatly on the back of the envelope, put my address under my name on the card, seal it, and send it in with the essay to the Rev. W. Ritchie D.D. of Dunse.* He’ll look me up quick enough, if I’m successful, and decide my eligibility. You will be surprized to get it back so soon, but the fact is that now that the excitement of composing is over, and after all the copying out, I hate the very sight of it. I told Elliot I wouldn’t sell my chance for £5. He said I had the bump of self-esteem very largely developed but that he didn’t like men who hadn’t.