Memories and Adventures

I was born on May 22, 1859, at Picardy Place, Edinburgh, so named because in old days a colony of French Huguenots had settled there. At the time of their coming it was a villag...

I was in my tenth year when I was sent to Hodder, which is the preparatory school for Stonyhurst, the big Roman Catholic public school in Lancashire. It was a long journey for a...

When I returned to Edinburgh, with little to show, either mental or spiritual, for my pleasant school year in Germany, I found that the family affairs were still as straitened a...

It was in the _Hope_, under the command of the well-known whaler, John Gray, that I paid a seven months’ visit to the Arctic Seas in the year 1880. I went in the capacity of sur...

It had always been my intention to take a voyage as ship’s surgeon when I had taken my degree, as I could in this way see something of the world, and at the same time earn a lit...

I have now come to the temporary end of my voyages, which were to be renewed in years to come, and I have reached the time when, under very curious circumstances, I endeavoured...

What with cleaning up, answering the bell, doing my modest shopping, which was measured in pennies rather than shillings, and perfecting my simple household arrangements, the ti...

During the years before my marriage I had from time to time written short stories which were good enough to be marketable at very small prices--£4 on an average--but not good en...

It was in these years after my marriage and before leaving Southsea that I planted the first seeds of those psychic studies which were destined to revolutionize my views and to...

We set forth upon a bitter winter day at the close of 1890 with every chance of being snowed up on our long trek. We got through all right, however, and found ourselves in Vienn...

The impression that Holmes was a real person of flesh and blood may have been intensified by his frequent appearance upon the stage. After the withdrawal of my dramatization of...

The chief event of our Norwood life was the birth of my son Kingsley, who lived to play a man’s part in the Great War, and who died shortly after its conclusion. My own life was...

The wretched microbe which had so completely disorganized our lives, and which had produced all the sufferings so patiently borne, now seemed to be latent, and it was hoped that...

It is impossible to be near great historical events and not to desire to take part in them, or at the least to observe them. Egypt had suddenly become the storm centre of the wo...

When we returned to England I found that the house in which we hoped that the cure would be completed was not yet ready. It was a considerable mansion planned upon a large scale...

From December 10 to 17, 1899, was the black week for England. In that week General Gatacre lost a battle at Stormberg, Lord Methuen lost one at Magersfontein and General Buller...

Stand in the pass at Karee, and look north in the clear fresh morning air! Before you lies a great plain, dull green, with white farmhouses scattered here and there. One great d...

Military men are more full of jealousies and more prone to divide into cliques than any set of men whom I have met. South Africa was rent with their quarrels, and one heard on e...

One of the most pleasing and complete episodes in my life was connected with the pamphlet which I wrote upon the methods and objects of our soldiers in South Africa. It was an a...

I have twice stood for Parliament, though if anyone were to ask me my real reasons for doing so I should find it difficult to give them an intelligible answer. It certainly was...

When I returned from South Africa, I found that my wife had improved in health during her stay at Naples, and we were able to settle down once more at Hindhead, where, what with...

Years of peaceful work followed my marriage, broken only by two journeys to the Mediterranean, in the course of which we explored some out-of-the-way portions of Greece, and vis...

When I have chanced during my life to come in contact with notable people, I have often made some short record at the time of what they said and how they impressed me. It is dif...

Racing--Shooting--A Fish Story--Boxing--Past and Present--Carpentier and France--The Reno Fight--Football--Golf with the Sirdar--Billiards--Cricket--W. G. Grace--Queer Experienc...

In 1914, with little perception of how near we were to the greatest event of the world’s history, we accepted an invitation from the Canadian Government to inspect the National...

For a long time I never seriously believed in the German menace. Frequently I found myself alone, in a company of educated Englishmen, in my opinion that it was non-existent--or...

I can never forget, and our descendants can never imagine, the strange effect upon the mind which was produced by seeing the whole European fabric drifting to the edge of the ch...

I had naturally wished to get out to the British front and to see things for myself. And yet I had scruples also, for when soldiers are doing a difficult job mere spectators and...

Two days later I found myself, after an uneventful journey, at Padua on my way to the Italian front. The Italian front seemed to have politely come back to meet me, for I was aw...

When I got back to Paris I had a dreadful reception, for as I dismounted from the railway car a British military policeman in his flat red cap stepped up to me and saluted.

I find in my diary that the Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, invited me to breakfast in April, 1917. Some third person was, I understand, to have been present, but he did not a...

I have not obtruded the psychic question upon the reader, though it has grown in importance with the years, and has now come to absorb the whole energy of my life. I cannot, how...