THROUGH THE MAGIC DOOR
BY ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
I.
I care not how humble your bookshelf may be, nor how lowly the room
which it adorns. Close the door of that room behind you, shut off
with it all the cares of the outer world, plunge back into the
soothing company of the great dead, and then you are through the
magic portal into that fair land whither worry and vexation can
follow you no more. You have left all that is vulgar and all that is
sordid behind you. There stand your noble, silent comrades, waiting
in their ranks. Pass your eye down their files. Choose your man.
And then you have but to hold up your hand to him and away you go
together into dreamland. Surely there would be something eerie about
a line of books were it not that familiarity has deadened our sense
of it. Each is a mummified soul embalmed in cere-cloth and natron
of leather and printer's ink. Each cover of a true book enfolds the
concentrated essence of a man. The personalities of the writers have
faded into the thinnest shadows, as their bodies into impalpable
dust, yet here are their very spirits at your command.
It is our familiarity also which has lessened our perception of the
miraculous good fortune which we enjoy. Let us suppose that we were
suddenly to learn that Shakespeare had returned to earth, and that
he would favour any of us with an hour of his wit and his fancy. How
eagerly we would seek him out! And yet we have him--the very best of
him--at our elbows from week to week, and hardly trouble ourselves
to put out our hands to beckon him down. No matter what mood a man
may be in, when once he has passed through the magic door he can
summon the world's greatest to sympathize with him in it. If he be
thoughtful, here are the kings of thought. If he be dreamy, here
are the masters of fancy. Or is it amusement that he lacks? He can
signal to any one of the world's great story-tellers, and out comes
the dead man and holds him enthralled by the hour. The dead are such
good company that one may come to think too little of the living.
It is a real and a pressing danger with many of us, that we should
never find our own thoughts and our own souls, but be ever obsessed
by the dead. Yet second-hand romance and second-hand emotion are
surely better than the dull, soul-killing monotony which life brings
to most of the human race. But best of all when the dead man's
wisdom and strength in the living of our own strenuous days.
Come through the magic door with me, and sit here on the green
settee, where you can see the old oak case with its untidy lines of
volumes. Smoking is not forbidden. Would you care to hear me talk of
them? Well, I ask nothing better, for there is no volume there which
is not a dear, personal friend, and what can a man talk of more
pleasantly than that? The other books are over yonder, but these are
my own favourites--the ones I care to re-read and to have near my
elbow. There is not a tattered cover which does not bring its mellow
memories to me.
Some of them represent those little sacrifices which make a
possession dearer. You see the line of old, brown volumes at the
bottom? Every one of those represents a lunch. They were bought in
my student days, when times were not too affluent. Threepence was
my modest allowance for my midday sandwich and glass of beer; but,
as luck would have it, my way to the classes led past the most
fascinating bookshop in the world. Outside the door of it stood a
large tub filled with an ever-changing litter of tattered books,
with a card above which announced that any volume therein could be
purchased for the identical sum which I carried in my pocket. As I
approached it a combat ever raged betwixt the hunger of a youthful
body and that of an inquiring and omnivorous mind. Five times out of
six the animal won. But when the mental prevailed, then there was an
entrancing five minutes' digging among out-of-date almanacs, volumes
of Scotch theology, and tables of logarithms, until one found
something which made it all worth while. If you will look over these
titles, you will see that I did not do so very badly. Four volumes
of Gordon's "Tacitus" (life is too short to read originals, so
long as there are good translations), Sir William Temple's Essays,
Addison's works, Swift's "Tale of a Tub," Clarendon's "History,"
"Gil Blas," Buckingham's Poems, Churchill's Poems, "Life of
Bacon"--not so bad for the old threepenny tub.
They were not always in such plebeian company. Look at the thickness
of the rich leather, and the richness of the dim gold lettering.
Once they adorned the shelves of some noble library, and even among
the odd almanacs and the sermons they bore the traces of their
former greatness, like the faded silk dress of the reduced
gentlewoman, a present pathos but a glory of the past.
Reading is made too easy nowadays, with cheap paper editions and
free libraries. A man does not appreciate at its full worth the
thing that comes to him without effort. Who now ever gets the thrill
which Carlyle felt when he hurried home with the six volumes of
Gibbon's "History" under his arm, his mind just starving for want
of food, to devour them at the rate of one a day? A book should be
your very own before you can really get the taste of it, and unless
you have worked for it, you will never have the true inward pride
of possession.
If I had to choose the one book out of all that line from which I
have had most pleasure and most profit, I should point to yonder
stained copy of Macaulay's "Essays." It seems entwined into my whole
life as I look backwards. It was my comrade in my student days, it
has been with me on the sweltering Gold Coast, and it formed part
of my humble kit when I went a-whaling in the Arctic. Honest Scotch
harpooners have addled their brains over it, and you may still see
the grease stains where the second engineer grappled with Frederick
the Great. Tattered and dirty and worn, no gilt-edged morocco-bound
volume could ever take its place for me.
What a noble gateway this book forms through which one may approach
the study either of letters or of history! Milton, Machiavelli,
Hallam, Southey, Bunyan, Byron, Johnson, Pitt, Hampden, Clive,
Hastings, Chatham--what nuclei for thought! With a good grip of each
how pleasant and easy to fill in all that lies between! The short,
vivid sentences, the broad sweep of allusion, the exact detail, they
all throw a glamour round the subject and should make the least
studious of readers desire to go further. If Macaulay's hand cannot
lead a man upon those pleasant paths, then, indeed, he may give up
all hope of ever finding them.
When I was a senior schoolboy this book--not this very volume, for
it had an even more tattered predecessor--opened up a new world to
me. History had been a lesson and abhorrent. Suddenly the task and
the drudgery became an incursion into an enchanted land, a land of
colour and beauty, with a kind, wise guide to point the path. In
that great style of his I loved even the faults--indeed, now that
I come to think of it, it was the faults which I loved best. No
sentence could be too stiff with rich embroidery, and no antithesis
too flowery. It pleased me to read that "a universal shout of
laughter from the Tagus to the Vistula informed the Pope that the
days of the crusades were past," and I was delighted to learn that
"Lady Jerningham kept a vase in which people placed foolish verses,
and Mr. Dash wrote verses which were fit to be placed in Lady
Jerningham's vase." Those were the kind of sentences which used to
fill me with a vague but enduring pleasure, like chords which linger
in the musician's ear. A man likes a plainer literary diet as he
grows older, but still as I glance over the Essays I am filled with
admiration and wonder at the alternate power of handling a great
subject, and of adorning it by delightful detail--just a bold sweep
of the brush, and then the most delicate stippling. As he leads you
down the path, he for ever indicates the alluring side-tracks which
branch away from it. An admirable, if somewhat old-fashioned,
literary and historical education night be effected by working
through every book which is alluded to in the Essays. I should be
curious, however, to know the exact age of the youth when he came
to the end of his studies.
I wish Macaulay had written a historical novel. I am convinced that
it would have been a great one. I do not know if he had the power
of drawing an imaginary character, but he certainly had the gift
of reconstructing a dead celebrity to a remarkable degree. Look
at the simple half-paragraph in which he gives us Johnson and his
atmosphere. Was ever a more definite picture given in a shorter
space--
"As we close it, the club-room is before us, and the table
on which stand the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons for
Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live for ever
on the canvas of Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke,
and the tall thin form of Langton, the courtly sneer of
Beauclerk and the beaming smile of Garrick, Gibbon tapping
his snuff-box, and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in his ear.
In the foreground is that strange figure which is as familiar
to us as the figures of those among whom we have been brought
up--the gigantic body, the huge massy face, seamed with the
scars of disease, the brown coat, the black worsted stockings,
the grey wig with the scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the
nails bitten and pared to the quick. We see the eyes and mouth
moving with convulsive twitches; we see the heavy form rolling;
we hear it puffing, and then comes the 'Why, sir!' and the
'What then, sir?' and the 'No, sir!' and the 'You don't see
your way through the question, sir!'"
It is etched into your memory for ever.
I can remember that when I visited London at the age of sixteen the
first thing I did after housing my luggage was to make a pilgrimage
to Macaulay's grave, where he lies in Westminster Abbey, just under
the shadow of Addison, and amid the dust of the poets whom he had
loved so well. It was the one great object of interest which London
held for me. And so it might well be, when I think of all I owe
him. It is not merely the knowledge and the stimulation of fresh
interests, but it is the charming gentlemanly tone, the broad,
liberal outlook, the general absence of bigotry and of prejudice.
My judgment now confirms all that I felt for him then.
My four-volume edition of the History stands, as you see, to the
right of the Essays. Do you recollect the third chapter of that
work--the one which reconstructs the England of the seventeenth
century? It has always seemed to me the very high-water mark of
Macaulay's powers, with its marvellous mixture of precise fact
and romantic phrasing. The population of towns, the statistics of
commerce, the prosaic facts of life are all transmuted into wonder
and interest by the handling of the master. You feel that he could
have cast a glamour over the multiplication table had he set himself
to do so. Take a single concrete example of what I mean. The fact
that a Londoner in the country, or a countryman in London, felt
equally out of place in those days of difficult travel, would seem
to hardly require stating, and to afford no opportunity of leaving
a strong impression upon the reader's mind. See what Macaulay makes
of it, though it is no more than a hundred other paragraphs which
discuss a hundred various points--
"A cockney in a rural village was stared at as much as if he
had intruded into a kraal of Hottentots. On the other hand,
when the lord of a Lincolnshire or Shropshire manor appeared
in Fleet Street, he was as easily distinguished from the
resident population as a Turk or a Lascar. His dress, his gait,
his accent, the manner in which he gazed at the shops, stumbled
into gutters, ran against the porters, and stood under the
waterspouts, marked him out as an excellent subject for the
operations of swindlers and banterers. Bullies jostled him into
the kennel, Hackney coachmen splashed him from head to foot,
thieves explored with perfect security the huge pockets of his
horseman's coat, while he stood entranced by the splendour of
the Lord Mayor's Show. Money-droppers, sore from the cart's
tail, introduced themselves to him, and appeared to him the
most honest friendly gentlemen that he had ever seen. Painted
women, the refuse of Lewkner Lane and Whetstone Park, passed
themselves on him for countesses and maids of honour. If he
asked his way to St. James', his informants sent him to Mile
End. If he went into a shop, he was instantly discerned to be
a fit purchaser of everything that nobody else would buy, of
second-hand embroidery, copper rings, and watches that would
not go. If he rambled into any fashionable coffee-house, he
became a mark for the insolent derision of fops, and the grave
waggery of Templars. Enraged and mortified, he soon returned
to his mansion, and there, in the homage of his tenants and
the conversation of his boon companions, found consolation for
the vexations and humiliations which he had undergone. There
he was once more a great man, and saw nothing above himself
except when at the assizes he took his seat on the bench near
the Judge, or when at the muster of the militia he saluted the
Lord Lieutenant."
On the whole, I should put this detached chapter of description at
the very head of his Essays, though it happens to occur in another
volume. The History as a whole does not, as it seems to me, reach
the same level as the shorter articles. One cannot but feel that it
is a brilliant piece of special pleading from a fervid Whig, and
that there must be more to be said for the other side than is there
set forth. Some of the Essays are tinged also, no doubt, by his own
political and religious limitations. The best are those which get
right away into the broad fields of literature and philosophy.
Johnson, Walpole, Madame D'Arblay, Addison, and the two great Indian
ones, Clive and Warren Hastings, are my own favourites. Frederick
the Great, too, must surely stand in the first rank. Only one would
I wish to eliminate. It is the diabolically clever criticism upon
Montgomery. One would have wished to think that Macaulay's heart was
too kind, and his soul too gentle, to pen so bitter an attack. Bad
work will sink of its own weight. It is not necessary to souse the
author as well. One would think more highly of the man if he had not
done that savage bit of work.
I don't know why talking of Macaulay always makes me think of Scott,
whose books in a faded, olive-backed line, have a shelf, you see, of
their own. Perhaps it is that they both had so great an influence,
and woke such admiration in me. Or perhaps it is the real similarity
in the minds and characters of the two men. You don't see it, you
say? Well, just think of Scott's "Border Ballads," and then of
Macaulay's "Lays." The machines must be alike, when the products are
so similar. Each was the only man who could possibly have written
the poems of the other. What swing and dash in both of them! What
a love of all that is and noble and martial! So simple, and yet so
strong. But there are minds on which strength and simplicity are
thrown away. They think that unless a thing is obscure it must be
superficial, whereas it is often the shallow stream which is turbid,
and the deep which is clear. Do you remember the fatuous criticism
of Matthew Arnold upon the glorious "Lays," where he calls out "is
this poetry?" after quoting--
"And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the Temples of his Gods?"
In trying to show that Macaulay had not the poetic sense he was
really showing that he himself had not the dramatic sense. The
baldness of the idea and of the language had evidently offended him.
But this is exactly where the true merit lies. Macaulay is giving
the rough, blunt words with which a simple-minded soldier appeals
to two comrades to help him in a deed of valour. Any high-flown
sentiment would have been absolutely out of character. The lines
are, I think, taken with their context, admirable ballad poetry, and
have just the dramatic quality and sense which a ballad poet must
have. That opinion of Arnold's shook my faith in his judgment, and
yet I would forgive a good deal to the man who wrote--
"One more charge and then be dumb,
When the forts of Folly fall,
May the victors when they come
Find my body near the wall."
Not a bad verse that for one's life aspiration.
This is one of the things which human society has not yet
understood--the value of a noble, inspiriting text. When it does
we shall meet them everywhere engraved on appropriate places, and
our progress through the streets will be brightened and ennobled
by one continual series of beautiful mental impulses and images,
reflected into our souls from the printed thoughts which meet our
eyes. To think that we should walk with empty, listless minds while
all this splendid material is running to waste. I do not mean mere
Scriptural texts, for they do not bear the same meaning to all,
though what human creature can fail to be spurred onwards by "Work
while it is day, for the night cometh when no man can work." But I
mean those beautiful thoughts--who can say that they are uninspired
thoughts?--which may be gathered from a hundred authors to match a
hundred uses. A fine thought in fine language is a most precious
jewel, and should not be hid away, but be exposed for use and
ornament. To take the nearest example, there is a horse-trough across
the road from my house, a plain stone trough, and no man could pass
it with any feelings save vague discontent at its ugliness. But
suppose that on its front slab you print the verse of Coleridge--
"He prayeth best who loveth best
All things, both great and small
For the dear Lord who fashioned him
He knows and loveth all."
I fear I may misquote, for I have not "The Ancient Mariner" at my
elbow, but even as it stands does it not elevate the horse-trough?
We all do this, I suppose, in a small way for ourselves. There
are few men who have not some chosen quotations printed on their
study mantelpieces, or, better still, in their hearts. Carlyle's
transcription of "Rest! Rest! Shall I not have all Eternity to rest
in!" is a pretty good spur to a weary man. But what we need is a
more general application of the same thing for public and not for
private use, until people understand that a graven thought is as
beautiful an ornament as any graven image, striking through the eye
right deep down into the soul.
However, all this has nothing to do with Macaulay's glorious lays,
save that when you want some flowers of manliness and patriotism you
can pluck quite a bouquet out of those. I had the good fortune to
learn the Lay of Horatius off by heart when I was a child, and it
stamped itself on my plastic mind, so that even now I can reel off
almost the whole of it. Goldsmith said that in conversation he was
like the man who had a thousand pounds in the bank, but could not
compete with the man who had an actual sixpence in his pocket. So
the ballad that you bear in your mind outweighs the whole bookshelf
which waits for reference. But I want you now to move your eye a
little farther down the shelf to the line of olive-green volumes.
That is my edition of Scott. But surely I must give you a little
breathing space before I venture upon them.
