He was identified as the "Dear Ainslie" recipient of twelve letters written by Arthur Conan Doyle in 1895 - 1896, which were auctioned by Christie's in 2004.
[5] He also revered the Indian sage Sri Ramana Maharshi who taught the truth of Non-dualism ('Advaita") and visited him in 1935 at his ashram in Thiruvannamalai in Southern India.
His own translation is not distinguished either by literary elegance or by philosophical understanding; it is not always clear or even intelligible; and it too often ignores both grammar and sense with results which cannot be considered altogether happy.
One may derive some diversion from it, if one is acquainted with the original, but those who depend upon it for their only source of information will receive from it an impression not wholly devoid of perplexity.
'[7] Equally critical is the assessment of another Oxford scholar, Geoffrey Mure (1893–1979, Warden of Merton College, Oxford, 1947–63), who refers to Croce's 1906 Ciò che è vivo e ciò che è morto della filosofia di Hegel (What is Living and What is Dead in the Philosophy of Hegel ?, London : Macmillan, 1915) as 'translated (very unreliably) by Douglas Ainslie'.