221bcrow: (Default)



The Criterion Bar is the bar in which Dr. John Watson met Stamford and was thus introduced to Sherlock Holmes.

It was also a frequent meeting place for inverts (gay) men in the Victorian era.


‘A New City of Friends’: London and Homosexuality in the 1890s

History Workshop Journal, Volume 56, Issue 1, 1 October 2003, Pages 33–58,
https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/56.1.33
Published:
01 October 2003


"..Ives noted that the Criterion Bar on Piccadilly Circus was 'a great center for inverts' until it closed in 1905 ."



The Inverted City: London and the Constitution of Homosexuality 1885-1914
Matt Cook
https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/jspui/handle/123456789/1620


Mentioned in the quoted article above is George Cecil Ives, who was an LGBT advocate in the Victorian Era, and lead the secret society '
Order of Chaeronea'...
... He was also a friend and cricket teammate to Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle.


There are many bars in England and surely Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle could have chosen any one to have Dr. Watson have that fateful meeting with Stamford... of all the bars that could have been used (or invented), he chose one which was popularly used by gay men.


221bcrow: (Default)
A recent conversation occurred after sharing a post by Sherloki1854.

Holmes’s and Watson’s pet names

(How Holmes and Watson call each other)

Watson’s for Holmes
“My dear Holmes”: 16 times
“My companion”: over a hundred times (I’m refusing to count any further)

Holmes’s for Watson
“My dear Watson”: 94 times 
“My dear boy”: two times (this means exactly what it sounds like)
“My boy”: nine times 
“My dear doctor”: two times
“My Watson”: three times

There is an awful lot of possessive pronouns here, if you start to think about it…

Could they appear more married if they tried??
 

('My companion' shows up at least 146 times in canon. I'm not sure how many times it happens between who and would have to check, but confident that their count of it being at least 100 times that Watson referred to Holmes is likely accurate.)


(@kotoriih) discussed about how, in Granada, Watson calls Holmes by 'old fellow'.
https://twitter.com/kotoriih/status/1066184657530540032https://twitter.com/kotoriih/status/1066184657530540032

 
わたしここの"Night, old fellow."が好きです~。ホームズが「おやすみ」と言ってワトスンが「おやすみ、ホームズ」と応える、みたいな。名前は呼んでないけど日本語だとうまく該当する言葉が思い浮かばない…「おやすみ」「うん、おやすみー」とか、そんな感じもする(応答感




Old fellow does not appear as being used as a form of address anywhere in the Canon Sherlock Holmes stories. It is used when describing individuals that are old, but that is all.  'Old Chap' does appear, but only between casual acquaintances, like friends one would meet at the bar. Holmes and Watson also never refer to the other as 'Old Chap'. 

In both Granada 'Old fellow' is used while Rathbone uses 'Old Chap'.

I am not sure if Granada ever uses the canon correct term of 'My Dear fellow'.

https://twitter.com/kotoriih/status/1066184657530540032
In the Canon stories, both Holmes and Watson refer to each other multiple times in canon as 'My Dear fellow'.  

The Resident Patient:
https://sherlock-holm.es/stories/html/resi.html

The Reigate Squires: 
https://sherlock-holm.es/stories/html/reig.html


Holmes uses it for Watson more then the other way around, but Watson does use it a few times like in The Reigate Squire when consoling Holmes and asking him to take a rest.


It seems noticeable and significant to me that adaptions consistently soften the terms of endearment that Holmes and Watson canonically use for each other when speaking and referring to the other.  Instead of possessive terms frequently used 'My ---', more formal words and terms of casual friendship are used instead.

221bcrow: (Default)

snakeassassins:

one thing that’s always bothered me about most people’s depiction of Holmes’s usage of cocaine is that most people in Victorian England were only just beginning to realize how badly it affected people???

like tbh I feel like a better modern equivalent would just be Holmes dumping a five hour energy into his fifth cup of coffee while Watson, a trained medical professional, stares at him in horror
221bcrow: (Default)


The Stark Munro Letters
What the Heck is That?

The Stark Munro Letters is an epistolary (letter format) novel written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1895. It is “a thinly disguised account of Doyle’s experiences with George Turnavine Budd.”

Why Should I Care?

Because it’s arguably the strongest evidence that Doyle was bi. In terms of TJLC, the novel addresses the counterargument that Johnlock can’t have been Doyle’s intention because he was straight. In fact, I’d argue that the novel supports the fact that Doyle based Holmes at least in part off his crush.
 
So How Does It Do That?

That’s the clever part.
Doyle/Munro and Budd/Cullingworth
Doyle isn’t even trying to hide the fact that the novel is autobiographical. Like Doyle, the protagonist, Stark Munro, is an impoverished Scottish doctor just out of medical school. The other major character, James Cullingworth, is a brilliant but mad doctor. Like Doyle’s friend George Turnavine Budd, he is Munro’s friend and fellow rugby player from medical school. You can even find Doyle referring to Budd in his own memoirs as Cullingworth (chapter 4 of this).
Here’s what Budd looked like:
The plot of the story ostensibly centers around Munro/Doyle getting his medical practice started. Realistically, it’s an account of his falling-out with Cullingworth/Budd. Doyle seems…kind of obsessed with this guy. He can’t seem to stop talking about him, even to the detriment of the plot–he spends one entire letter just describing Cullingworth.
For example, he’ll be in a completely different city talking about a completely different mentally ill patient, and out of the blue: “Old Cullingworth has always had a very high opinion of lunatics for beginners. “ Nobody even asked???
OK, super obsessed.
Without even looking at the more gay telling quotes, it really does read like a fluffy love story, as Munro goes off to stay with Cullingworth and his wife and join his unconventional practice.
Cullingworth was the greatest genius that I have ever known.
And you would be swept along by his words, and would be carried every foot of the way with him, so that it would come as quite a shock to you when you suddenly fell back to earth again
He had a dash of the heroic in him…
Well, now, if, after all these illustrations, I have failed to give you some notion of the man, able, magnetic, unscrupulous, interesting, many-sided, I must despair of ever doing so.
“Come at once. I have urgent need of you. "CULLINGWORTH.” Of course, I shall go by the first train to-morrow.
Like.
It’s one of my many weaknesses, that, whether it’s a woman or a man, anything like a challenge sets me off.
He just.
By the way, an extraordinary card arrived from Cullingworth during my absence. “You are my man,” said he; “mind that I am to have you when I want you.” There was no date and no address, but the postmark was Bradfield in the north of England. Does it mean nothing? Or may it mean everything? We must wait and see.
Can’t.
Perhaps there is another Cullingworth behind the scenes—a softer, tenderer man, who can love and invite love. If there is, I have never got near him. And yet I may only have been tapping at the shell. Who knows? For that matter, it is likely enough that he has never got at the real Johnnie Munro.
Stop.
I am looking forward immensely to seeing him again, and I trust we won’t have any rows.
It is never slow if Cullingworth is about. He is one of those men who make a kind of magnetic atmosphere, so that you feel exhilarated and stimulated in their presence. His mind is so nimble and his thoughts so extravagant, that your own break away from their usual grooves, and surprise you by their activity.
I am much mistaken, however, if he has not fine strata in his nature. He is capable of rising to heights as well as of sinking to depths.
Even in Doyle’s memoirs:
In person he was about 5 ft. 9 in. in height, perfectly built, with a bulldog jaw, bloodshot deep-set eyes, overhanging brows, and yellowish hair as stiff as wire, which spurted up above his brows. He was a man born for trouble and adventure, unconventional in his designs and formidable in his powers of execution—a man of action with a big but incalculable brain guiding the action.
But, of course, it wouldn’t be a proper repressed Victorian love story without some audaciously gay quotes! The wonderful @yearofjohnlock has pointed out quite a few of these:
  • ACD on his letters: “some excisions are necessary; “
  • “I am looking forward immensely to seeing him again“ (”are you gonna see him again?”)
  • “When I woke next morning he was in my room, and a funny-looking object he was. His dressing-gown lay on a chair, and he was putting up a fifty-six pound dumb-bell, without a rag to cover him.“
  • a softer, tenderer man, who can love and invite love.
  • “ was, as you may imagine, all in a tingle to know what it was that he wanted with me. However, as he made no allusion to it, I did not care to ask, and, during our longish walk, we talked about indifferent matters. “
  • “Cullingworth waited until his wife had left the room, and then began to talk of the difficulty of getting any exercise now that he had to wait in all day in the hope of patients. This led us round to the ways in which a man might take his exercise indoors”
  • I was guarding with both hands for half a minute, and then was rushed clean off my legs and banged up against the door […] “look [Cullingworth], there’s not much boxing about this game.”
and I found:
Cullingworth came charging into the room in his dressing gown, however, and roused me effectually by putting his hands on the rail at the end of the bed, and throwing a somersault over it which brought his heels on to my pillow with a thud.
*sips tea suspiciously*
There’s also some of the language Doyle uses. The word “queer” had already started to gain the connotation of homosexuality by the time the novel was published. “Queer” is used 6 times to describe Cullingworth in the novel.
Hmm.
And the word “Bohemian” was also associated with homosexuality. What did we care, any one of the three of us, where we sat or how we lived, when youth throbbed hot in our veins, and our souls were all aflame with the possibilities of life? I still look upon those Bohemian evenings, in the bare room amid the smell of the cheese, as being among the happiest that I have known.
So What Happened?
Munro/Doyle frequently wrote to his mother, and he’d told her about Cullingworth/Budd. She thought he was crazy af and wanted her son to stay away from him; Doyle was like “No, Mom! He’s a great boyfriend!”
Shortly thereafter, Cullingworth starts being alternately pissy and pretending nothing is wrong whenever he’s around Munro, and eventually just throws him out. At the time, Munro just thinks he’s crazy.
Cullingworth promises to send Munro some money, which Munro definitely needs (he’s 100% broke). But instead, Munro gets a letter from him saying that Cullingworth read one of his mom’s letters that he tore up and left behind. Cullingworth took offense at how the letters disparaged him. Munro later reasons that Cullingworth must have actually been reading all his mom’s letters since he arrived, since he’d never left and torn-up letters. Cullingworth even sends a guy to spy on Munro later; Munro kicks him out pretty fast.
Munro is pretty ticked. The rest of the story alternates between explaining how he gets his practice going and comments along the lines of “Ha! Cullingworth thinks he can cut me off? Guess who’s the successful doctor now?” and “Didn’t he even read my letters to my mom saying how much I love trust him?”
He finally writes:
  • Well, I wrote him a little note…I said that his letter had been a source of gratification to me, as it removed the only cause for disagreement between my mother and myself. She had always thought him a blackguard, and I had always defended him; but I was forced now to confess that she had been right from the beginning.
It seems like Munro/Doyle is completely over it and hates Cullingworth/Budd. And yet…that’s not how he ends the story.
  • I never thought I should have seen Cullingworth again, but fate has brought us together. I have always had a kindly feeling for him, though I feel that he used me atrociously. Often I have wondered whether, if I were placed before him, I should take him by the throat or by the hand.
Cullingworth eventually moves to South America (the real-life Budd died shortly thereafter), and Munro decides:
  • I wish him luck, and have a kindly feeling towards him, and yet I distrust him from the bottom of my heart, and shall be just as pleased to know that the Atlantic rolls between us.
From the memoirs:
  • My mother had greatly resented my association with Cullingworth. Her family pride had been aroused…though my wanderings had left me rather too Bohemian…. But I liked Cullingworth and even now I can’t help liking him—and I admired his strong qualities and enjoyed his company and the extraordinary situations which arose from any association with him.
  • He was a remarkable man and narrowly escaped being a great one.
The queer reading? Doyle had a crush on this brilliant, larger-than-life man, and he tried to put it past him when Budd’s lunacy finally crashed down on him. Except he couldn’t move on, not yet.
Budd and the Basis for Holmes I
t’s generally accepted that the main basis for Holmes was Doyle’s professor Joseph Bell, who “ would often pick a stranger and, by observing him, deduce his occupation and recent activities.” Bell and Holmes have their similarities–both are thin and dark-haired, with aquiline noses and a shocking “cold indifference” to the feelings of their clients.
Yet Holmes’s energy and habits are a far better match for George Budd than for Joseph Bell.
Bell was a 40-something professor with a limp. But Budd was a young man with bursts of furious energy and a tendency to obsess over creating some brilliant piece of research, like Holmes. Budd is much closer to the “trained bloodhound picking up a scent” with “energy and sagacity”
In fact, a lot of the aspects of Sherlock Holmes match the Stark Munro letters closely.
@yearofjohnlock summarizes this admirably:
Cullingworth and Sherlock Holmes are known for:
  • boxing
  • sitting with feet up on chair
  • referred to as geniuses
  • lives in a flat above a grocer’s shop with - mrs. hudson and C’s wife described physically exactly the same – who bring them tea and are skeptical about their over enthusiasm but very sweet, though they are mean to her. he notes importantly that this old woman smokes.
  • tons of useless* facts which the POV writer mocks (John/Munro/ACD)
  • shouting, bursts of excitement to interrupt long silences
  • described as a hero by writer for jumping off a building to save a friend
  • written from the point of view of med student
  • long time absence between writing medical professional and the genius then return
  • didn’t drink much but did very powerful drugs
  • described by Doyle as “queer” constantly
  • theorised to have a hidden tender side though he does not show it
  • “a kitchen, a bedroom, a sitting-room, and a fourth room“, the sitting room has just two chairs facing one another, as he does not get many visitors
  • wears a dressing gown around the flat
  • “Come at once. I have urgent need of you. -Cullingworth.”
  • “when a man smiles with his lips and not with his eyes“
  • Moffatiss say it’s always 1895 but this is the only thing Doyle published in 1895
So Holmes must be at least partially based on Budd.

Timing

There are no Sherlock Holmes stories published in 1895. Instead, we have a handful of short works and The Stark Munro Letters.

Doyle got tired of Holmes and killed him off in 1893.Two years later, he wrote a novel explaining how he was totally over his med school crush, the one who inspired Sherlock Holmes.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

*sips tea suspiciously*

If I hypothetically had a crush on someone and hypothetically wrote a self-insert fic where we solved crimes together, then hypothetically I would want our inspired characters to get together.
 
And if there were a hypothetical TV adaptation of my story in a time when our characters could hypothetically get together without Victorian stigma, I would totally go for it.
 
tl;dr: It gay. It very gay.
221bcrow: (Default)
“So, I wrote this a bit cheekily last night, but now I want to expand on it with some actual facts. I see a lot of people saying, “Oh, back in the 19th century, Sherlock and John couldn’t openly be together.” And that’s true, but what’s at the heart of that sentiment is this one, “Arthur Conan Doyle couldn’t have written them openly together, because the general public would assume he was encouraging homosexuality, perhaps was even homosexual himself, and that would have been dangerous.” Here’s why.
 
In 1885, the British Parliament enacted section 11 of the he Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, known as the Labouchere Amendment which prohibited gross indecency between males. It thus became possible to prosecute homosexuals for engaging in sexual acts where buggery or attempted buggery could not be proven. Note that they didn’t have to actually catch you in the act, they just had to suspect that you did it. During this time period, many notable men were prosecuted with disastrous results; Lord Arthur Chilton committed suicide after being implicated in Boulton and Park trial involving two transvestites and Oscar Wilde was sentences to prison and hard labour after being found guilty.
 
Was there still a homosexual culture in England at the time? Yes, it was around this time that the movement began to flourish, with clandestine gatherings preceding the opening of the first gay pub, The Cave of the Golden Calf in 1912. There was even the beginnings of gay erotica and publishing, but it was still very much subversive and not opening distributed among the public.
 
The opposite of who Arthur Conan Doyle was; Sherlock Holmes increased subscriptions to The Strand magazine by 30,000. While Oscar Wilde, if not embraced, accepted, the consequences of his actions, Arthur Conan Doyle was not in a position to do that. He received a knighthood in 1902, he was involved in political campaigns and other civic work throughout his lifetime, and he had 5 children to support. He was not in a position to risk what an accusation of buggery would bring.
 
So, when you look at the situation, Arthur Conan Doyle was unable to go any farther than he had with Holmes and Watson in his original stories. Even if he wanted to. Even if he tried to fill it with as much subtext as possible, he would always have to be mindful of what would happen if he went to far.
 
This is why this argument bothers me so much. Were Sherlock Holmes in John Watson explicitly in a romantic relationship in the original stories? No, and no one is arguing that they were. Are we intended to imply, with the clues that were safe to include given the environment at the time, that it’s a possibility? That’s up to you to decide. But demanding that the only way a relationship could be legitimate is if it had been clearly stated by Arthur Conan Doyle is frustrating because it’s imposing today’s standards on a time period where they do not fit”
 
221bcrow: (Default)

(Commentary by Crow: I prefer for this blog to stay as strictly focused on ACD meta as possible. Unfortunately that can not be entirely the case as there are many useful metas about the original Canon stories that are also interwoven with bbc commentary. Please forgive their addition, as their notes regarding ACD Canon itself are useful.)

London and the Culture of Homosexuality – Masterpost

I’ve finished the book London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914 by Matt Cook. We’ve learned a lot along the way and now that it’s finished, I thought I’d compile everything into one post for easier access.
1) Empty train carriages, Molly houses, and moustaches on trial
2) “That’s not a sentence you hear every day” - how modern Sherlock incorporates Victorian-era facial hair code
3) Gay lit is gay, the Criterion bar is gay, Turkish baths are gay, green carnations are gay, button holes are gay
4) Homosexual men loved to liaise at the Criterion Bar
5) TJLC is Real: Carefully-Chosen Words and Public Opinion
6) Sherlock fits a case study of a period-relevant homosexual man
7) Anal violins
8) Gay graffiti worth writing about in your memoirs
9)
Cabs were helpful, Gothic romance was queer, literary gay subtext was criminal evidence, the male-on-male gaze was a stand-in for sex, and idealised male nudes were all the rage
10) Every Great Cause Has Martyrs - how language used in the TAB trailer mirrors that used by Victorian homosexual men
11) Did Victorian-Era Gay Men Think Sherlock Holmes Was Gay?
12) The closest thing I’ve ever written to a personal TJLC manifesto
Discussions/asks/misc with other people about the book: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here
Buy the book online
Thank you to everyone who read/commented/liked/reblogged posts from my little readalong liveblog. I loved doing it and I hope you liked it too.
Up next:
Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century by Graham Robb
image
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1)
Empty train carriages, Molly houses, and moustaches on trial

I am reading this book at the moment – London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914 by Matt Cook. First off, it’s brilliant and everyone should read it. Identifying as “gay” or “homosexual” was quite complicated during this era and Cook spends a lot of time discussing the idea of sexuality and sexual identity in London during these years. I’m just through the first chapter but have learned many things already:

1) Empty train cars (railway carriages) were quite popular spots for gay men to rendezvous and do the do
2) A gay man was often referred to as a “Molly” and a “Molly House” was a place where gay men could socialise together
3) A famous case involving two men (Ernest Boulton and Frederick Park) who were accused of homosexual activity and charged with “conspiring and inciting persons to commit an unnatural offence” was brought to court to great public spectacle. During their trial, one of the men (Park) GREW A MOUSTACHE to try to conform to the era’s expectations of masculinity (many men who were identified as gay were clean shaven).

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2) “That’s not a sentence you hear every day” - how modern Sherlock incorporates Victorian-era facial hair code

“That’s not a sentence you hear every day.”

image

Originally posted by gold-talisman

You’re right, John, it isn’t.
We’re all very familiar with the sort of cringe-worthy yet sweetly honest scene in TEH where Sherlock and John have this little exchange (and thanks again to Ariane DeVere’s transcripts):

SHERLOCK: See you’ve shaved it off, then.
JOHN: Yeah. Wasn’t working for me.
SHERLOCK: Mm, I’m glad.
JOHN: What, you didn’t like it?
SHERLOCK (smiling): No. I prefer my doctors clean-shaven.
JOHN: That’s not a sentence you hear every day!

Sherlock outs himself as a gay man to John.
John is surprised and focuses on the sentence rather than the meaning, the format instead of the content, as the viewer is supposed to do too.
Let’s back up a bit. Obviously BBC Sherlock Holmes was not created out of thin air in the 21st century – the original character was created in 1887 during the late-Victorian era. At this time it was against the law - a criminal act - to engage in homosexual activity and men who had sex and/or “improper” relationships with other men were under constant threat of being arrested and prosecuted in court, with some even sentenced to hard labour in prison.
During this time, however, many men who identified as homosexual (which in itself was a complicated concept and meant different things to different men) started to find unique ways to identify each other: for solidarity, friendship, support, sex.

I made another post talking about London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914 by Matt Cook, which is an incredible resource on queer history and culture at this time (though focuses exclusively on male homosexuality). In the book, Cook talks about various ways that men were stereotyped as homosexual: being effeminate, being a (confirmed) bachelor, a theatregoer, a dandy, wearing scent, living a “bohemian” lifestyle.

Oscar Wilde was called a bohemian repeatedly, in the press and elsewhere, during his trials. Who else was called a bohemian…oh. Sherlock Holmes was called a bohemian… by Watson himself. Here’s the quote, from A Scandal in Bohemia, published four years before Wilde’s trials:

“My marriage had drifted us away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings at Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition…”
Curious that you’re so happy in your marriage, Watson, yet you still refer to 221B as “our lodgings”. But I digress. We have a juxtaposition in the text: supposedly happy, hetero-married John Watson, master of his domain, describing confirmed bachelor Sherlock Holmes’ apparent depression, alone and gay in Baker Street, but clearly preferring that over the social and sexual demands of a homophobic society. For as much as he’s trying to draw the line between himself and Holmes here, Watson immediately drops everything to go out on another case with Holmes. Of course, this “bohemian” signifier is used in the story featuring Irene Adler, a woman who appears in the BBC modern verison in ASiB, an episode which focuses heavily on sex and sexual identity.

Anyway, back to the moustaches.

Being “bohemian” was just one way to identify men who were considered to be homosexual. Another was being clean-shaven. A man who was placed on trial for homosexual activity grew a moustache so as to conform to contemporary standards of heterosexual masculinity. As Cook says, “…though certainly not a definitive indication of sexual deviance, [being clean shaven] was a commonly noted feature of defendants in cases of gross indecency between men” and almost always reported in the press. He continues: “Facial hair functioned as a symbol of masculinity and respectability during…the late-Victorian ‘beard-boom.’ Those without it were associated with fashion, bohemiansim, and an avant-garde - but also possibly worse” – being a homosexual.
George Ives, a friend of Oscar Wilde’s and a gay man, shaved off his moustache on Wilde’s advice once he set himself up in the West End as an independent bachelor and decided to pursue sexual and emotional relationships with other men.
For Sherlock Holmes to be clean shaven at the end of the 19th century would definitely have signified something to the average reader who was at least slightly familiar with masculine culture in London.

Here’s some of the many Sherlock Holmes we’ve seen over the years:
image
All clean shaven (photo from x).
What does John Watson usually look like?
image

Originally posted by leavemealonewithmyvoices

MOUSTACHED TO THE NTH DEGREE. I can’t think of a Watson in any adaptation who is clean-shaven…except for our BBC John. (But do help me out if I’ve missed one).

In The Abominable Bride, Sherlock is clean shaven as usual, and John has a moustache, but setlock photos suggested that John has some scenes sans moustache (unless this was due to Martin just not having it on yet – we’ll have to wait and see).

The symbolism of facial hair and having it/not having it was a significant indicator of sexual preference during the era when Sherlock Holmes was at the height of his glory in late-Victorian London. Curiously, it’s also become a focus in the modern adaptation as well.
To return to that scene in TEH, Sherlock admits to John that he doesn’t like his appearance with a moustache (he doesn’t like John altering his appearance to change aspects of himself), and John admits it wasn’t working for him (can only keep up altered appearances for so long). Interestingly, he asks Sherlock to confirm “you didn’t like it”. John grew it when he thought Sherlock was dead and became engaged to a woman.

Sherlock plainly says he prefers his doctors clean-shaven. To the modern ear, this sounds weird and means nothing, really. To the late-Victorian ear, this would be nearly tantamount to saying that you prefer gay men, or that you yourself might be gay, according to popular contemporary trends and beliefs.

A clean-shaven John, especially one that does this
image

Originally posted by go-alan-run-you-hairy-bastard

is pretty revolutionary.
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3) Gay lit is gay, the Criterion bar is gay, Turkish baths are gay, green carnations are gay, button holes are gay

I’ve made some more progress on the book I’m currently obsessed with, London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914 by Matt Cook, and have made a couple posts about it here and here. Now I have my next longer meta brewing (!!)…but in the meantime, here are some updates:

(if you’re not keen to see more posts like this, I’ll tag everything related to this book “london and the culture of homosexuality” so you can avoid it if you like)

1) The Sins of the Cities of the Plain was a pornographic (homosexual) novel published in 1881. It follows the memoirs of a young male prostitute, John Jack Saul, who is “paid to set down his experiences by a client“, who just happens to provide an address in Baker Street, which was really the address of a friend called William Sherlock Scott Holmes Potter. The book talks about doing the do in Belgravia and picking up men in Regent’s Park, as well as the joys of having sex with guardsmen/soldiers. It did not mess around: one of the chapters is literally called “The Same Old Story: Arses Preferred to C*nts”. So. It was pretty gay.

2) The Criterion Bar on Piccadilly Circus attracted all kinds of men, including guardsmen, for meetings of a more intimate nature. According to Cook’s research, it was considered to have “a subcultural reputation for homosexual activity” and was a “great centre for inverts”, according to some 19th century contemporaries. (“Invert” was another derogatory term for homosexual.) I’m sure there’s no need to remind you that this is where John Watson and Mike Stamford meet up before Stamford introduces Watson to the love of his life Holmes. 

3) Turkish baths were considered to be very gay (many other homosocial spaces developed similar reputations).

4) Articles in popular fashion magazines like Modern Man “bemoaned the damage done to the fashion for buttonholes by [Oscar] Wilde’s penchant for green carnations”.

This, in an article titled: “Judging a Man by His Button Hole.

image

Originally posted by bumblebee-cuttlefish

WHAT COULD IT MEAN

----------------------------
4) Homosexual men loved to liaise at the Criterion Bar

Just liaising….

(from London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914 by Matt Cook)



221bcrow: (Default)
Do you ship Johnlock in the ACD canon? Do you think that ACD intended to write them as in love?

wsswatson:

I absolutely ship them in the ACD canon. I think there’s a lot of suggestion that Holmes and Watson were (very implicitly, of course) queer and in love in the canon, for instance:

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was way ahead of his time in many ways and loved flying in the face of convention. He has my faith.

-----------
how Holmes and Watson describe men







Holmes & Watson + so heterosexual

 

-------------------
how they distance themselves from attraction

it’s always interested me how watson gives extremely romantic descriptions of male physical beauty while acd avoids overt implications of homoeroticism by throwing in lines such as ‘very well equipped to steal the heart of a country girl' and 'which might easily hold an irresistible fascination for women

and whenever holmes comments on female beauty, he does pretty much the exact same thing but inverted - ‘a face that a man might die for’ and ‘no young man would cross her path unscathed’

like watson distances himself from attraction to men by denying that men can be attracted to men

while holmes distances himself from attraction to women by denying that he is a man

yet continues to refer to male characters as ‘incredibly dashing’ and ‘remarkably handsome’ and ‘attractive’ with no such distancing lines whatsoever

and people wonder why queer theorists have always loved sherlock holmes
---------------------------------
how Watson speaks about himself and Holmes in relation to bathhouses


beesandsussex:

The Adventure of the Illustrious Client

----------------------------------------------

the significance of bathhouses
 

History[edit]

Albrecht Dürer – The Men's Bath
Domenico Cresti: Bathers at San Niccolo

Records of men meeting for sex with other men in bathhouses date back to the 15th century. A tradition of public baths dates back to the 6th century BC, and there are many ancient records of homosexual activity in Greece.[6] In the West, gay men have been using bathhouses for sex since at least the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a time when homosexual acts were illegal in most Western countries and men who were caught engaging in homosexual acts were often arrested and publicly humiliated. Men began frequenting cruising areas such as bathhouses, public parks, alleys, train and bus stations, adult theaters, public lavatories (cottages or tearooms), and gym changing rooms where they could meet other men for sex. Some bathhouse owners tried to prevent sex between patrons while others, mindful of profits or prepared to risk prosecution, overlooked discreet homosexual activity.[7]


 

Early gay bathhouses[edit]

The American composer Charles Griffes (1884–1920) wrote in his diaries about visits to the New York City bathhouses and the YMCA. His biography states: "So great was his need to be with boys, that though his home contained two pianos, he chose to practice at an instrument at the Y, and his favourite time was when the players were coming and going from their games."[14]

When a friend with "little experience but great desire" confided his homosexual longings to Charles Griffes in 1916, Griffes took him to the Lafayette so that he could meet other gay men and explore his sexual interests in a supportive environment: the friend was "astounded and fascinated" by what he saw there. The baths also encouraged more advanced forms of sexual experimentation. Griffes himself had had his first encounter with a man interested in sadomasochism at the Lafayette two years earlier (he found the man "interesting" but the experience unappealing), and several men interviewed in the mid-1930s referred to experimenting in the baths and learning of new pleasures.[10]

— George Chauncey, Gay New York 1995

In London, the Savoy Turkish Baths at 92 Jermyn Street became a favourite spot (opening in 1910 and remaining open until September 1975).[15] The journalist A.J. Langguth wrote: "...[The baths at Jermyn Street] represented a twilight arena for elderly men who came to sweat poisons from their systems and youths who came to strike beguiling poses in Turkish towels... although they were closely overseen by attendants, they provided a discreet place to inspect a young man before offering a cup of tea at Lyons."[16] Regulars included Rock Hudson.[17][18]

In the 1950s the Bermondsey Turkish Baths were rated by Kenneth Williams as "quite fabulous" in his diaries.[18]

Steambaths in the 1930s: The steambaths that had been well known to me were those of East Ham, Greenwich and Bermondsey. In the first two it was frequently possible to indulge in what the Spartacus Guide coyly describes as 'action', but behaviour at all times had to be reasonably cautious. In the Grange Road baths in Bermondsey, however, all restraint could immediately be discarded with the small towels provided to cover your nakedness.[19]

— Anthony Aspinall, Gay Times

-----------------------------
the romantic parallel between Dr. Leon Sterndale’s behaviour in The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot and Holmes’ behaviour in The Adventure of the Three Garridebs

The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot:

In five minutes he died. My God! how he died! But my heart was flint, for he endured nothing which my innocent darling had not felt before him. There is my story, Mr. Holmes. Perhaps, if you loved a woman, you would have done as much yourself.’

I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved had met such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has done.’

The Adventure of the Three Garridebs:

‘In an instant he had whisked out a revolver from his breast and had fired two shots. I felt a sudden hot sear as if a red-hot iron had been pressed to my thigh. There was a crash as Holmes’s pistol came down on the man’s head. I had a vision of him sprawling upon the floor with blood running down his face while Holmes rummaged him for weapons. Then my friend’s wiry arms were round me, and he was leading me to a chair.

“You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake, say that you are not hurt!”

It was worth a wound–it was worth many wounds–to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.

“It’s nothing, Holmes. It’s a mere scratch.”

He had ripped up my trousers with his pocket-knife.

“You are right,” he cried with an immense sigh of relief. “It is quite superficial.” His face set like flint as he glared at our prisoner, who was sitting up with a dazed face. “By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive. Now, sir, what have you to say for yourself?”’
 

221bcrow: (Default)

What does Mary Morstan even do in the books?

NB: People argue that the Doctor’s marriage (at least one; to Miss Mary Morstan) is canon.

For the sake of this argument, it has to be assumed Holmes and Watson were two real people and Sir ACD merely their editor.

(The cases are sorted chronologically, by the way.)

 

 

The Noble Bachelor, 1887

It is set in 1887, but it is supposed to be “a few weeks” before Watson’s marriage. Either Watson was married before Mary Morstan, but that would mean that he married this potential wife in 1887, that she died in the course of that year, and that Watson remarries in early 1889 after meeting Mary in 1888. Which does not sound too logical. Or somebody just got the dates wrong (by no means unlikely, this is Watson writing). Still, it does not really “do” for a husband to forget the year in which he was married…

 

The Five Orange Pips, 1887

My wife was on a visit to her mother’s, and for a few days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker Street.

First, wrong year again. Secondly, the reason why Mary came to Holmes for help was that she was orphaned and thus alone in the world. So Watson does not only forget his wedding date, but his wife’s family relations as well. Or Mary tricks him into thinking that she is visiting a nonexistent mother and is instead having an affair. Which, again, shows how much Watson was paying attention (not): if it is an excuse, it is possibly the worst I have ever heard. Or Mary does not exist at all and Watson just invented a wife when he needed to remind the readers that he was married. Anyway, this does not bode well for Mary’s importance.

 

The Sign of Four, 1888

Mary Morstan, an orphan, first appears in The Sign of Four, where she is introduced as a client. She has lost her father in 1878 and is now appealing to Holmes’s help. In the course of the case, Mary looses a treasure she had claims on, but gains a husband instead; Watson almost immediately proposes to her.

Miss Morstan entered the room with a firm step and an outward composure of manner. She was a blonde young lady, small, dainty, well gloved, and dressed in the most perfect taste. There was, however, a plainness and simplicity about her costume which bore with it a suggestion of limited means. The dress was a sombre grayish beige, untrimmed and unbraided, and she wore a small turban of the same dull hue, relieved only by a suspicion of white feather in the side. Her face had neither regularity of feature nor beauty of complexion, but her expression was sweet and amiable, and her large blue eyes were singularly spiritual and sympathetic. In an experience of women which extends over many nations and three separate continents, I have never looked upon a face which gave a clearer promise of a refined and sensitive nature.

After the first interview:

I sat in the window with the volume in my hand, but my thoughts were far from the daring speculations of the writer. My mind ran upon our late visitor — her smiles, the deep rich tones of her voice, the strange mystery which overhung her life. If she were seventeen at the time of her father’s disappearance she must be seven-and-twenty now — a sweet age, when youth has lost its self-consciousness and become a little sobered by experience.

Now, if you do not believe in love at first sight, this might be interesting because a popular and by no means unlikely theory is that Watson invented a wife (or more) to keep the readers from wondering. (Good luck with that.)

 

The Crooked Man, 1888

One summer night, a few months after my marriage, I was seated by my own hearth smoking a last pipe and nodding over a novel, for my day’s work had been an exhausting one. My wife had already gone upstairs, and the sound of the locking of the hall door some time before told me that the servants had also retired. I had risen from my seat and was knocking out the ashes of my pipe when I suddenly heard the clang of the bell.

I looked at the clock. It was a quarter to twelve. This could not be a visitor at so late an hour. A patient, evidently, and possibly an all-night sitting. With a wry face I went out into the hall and opened the door. To my astonishment it was Sherlock Holmes who stood upon my step.

“Ah, Watson,” said he, “I hoped that I might not be too late to catch you.”

“My dear fellow, pray come in.”

“You look surprised, and no wonder! Relieved, too, I fancy! Hum! You still smoke the Arcadia mixture of your bachelor days then! There’s no mistaking that fluffy ash upon your coat. It’s easy to tell that you have been accustomed to wear a uniform, Watson. You’ll never pass as a pure-bred civilian as long as you keep that habit of carrying your handkerchief in your sleeve. Could you put me up tonight?”

“With pleasure.”

“You told me that you had bachelor quarters for one, and I see that you have no gentleman visitor at present. Your hat-stand proclaims as much.”

“I shall be delighted if you will stay.”

So, Watson is exhausted, but instead of joining Mary in bed, he is essentially hiding from her. And although he is supposedly exhausted and does not like the prospect of being kept up all night, Watson sees Holmes and although he has myriad experience with Holmes keeping him up all night (no pun intended), he is “delighted”.

 

The Second Stain, 1888

Although it is set in autumn, there is no mention of the wife. So I suppose her loving husband just forgot her.

 

The Boscombe Valley Mystery, 1888

Note: this is probably set just after the marriage

We were seated at breakfast one morning, my wife and I, when the maid brought in a telegram. It was from Sherlock Holmes and ran in this way:

Have you a couple of days to spare? Have just been wired for from the west of England in connection with Boscombe Valley tragedy. Shall be glad if you will come with me. Air and scenery perfect. Leave Paddington by the 11:15.

“What do you say, dear?” said my wife, looking across at me. “Will you go?”

“I really don’t know what to say. I have a fairly long list at present.”

“Oh, Anstruther would do your work for you. You have been looking a little pale lately. I think that the change would do you good, and you are always so interested in Mr. Sherlock Holmes’s cases.”

Translation: Let us assume Mary actually exists for the sake of this argument. Watson has been married for maybe a month, and he is already looking ill. Why? Because he is locked up with his wife instead of being with Holmes. Watson’s health is getting so desperate that his wife literally begs him to meet Holmes for what appears to be a romantic holiday in rural England. (“Air and scenery perfect” - really, Holmes?)

 

A Scandal in Bohemia, 1889

I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other.

Well, if you want to convince yourself so much… However, fact is that on his way back home from a patient, he just so accidentally ends up on Holmes’s doorstep (probably not for the first time) and is seized with a keen desire to see Holmes again. Make what you want of that.

 

The Stockbroker’s Clerk, 1889

Shortly after my marriage I had bought a connection in the Paddington district.

[…]

I was too busy to visit Baker Street, and he seldom went anywhere himself save upon professional business. I was surprised, therefore, when, one morning in June, as I sat reading the British Medical Journal after breakfast, I heard a ring at the bell, followed by the high, somewhat strident tones of my old companion’s voice.

“Ah, my dear Watson,” said he, striding into the room, “I am very delighted to see you! I trust that Mrs. Watson has entirely recovered from all the little excitements connected with our adventure of the Sign of Four.”

“Thank you, we are both very well,” said I, shaking him warmly by the hand.

“And I hope, also,” he continued, sitting down in the rocking-chair, “that the cares of medical practice have not entirely obliterated the interest which you used to take in our little deductive problems.”

“On the contrary,” I answered, “it was only last night that I was looking over my old notes, and classifying some of our past results.”

Long story short, a newly married man spends his time writing about his platonic best friend. Right. Watson is in a state because he cannot be with Holmes as often as he would like and so tries to evoke his “spirit” by writing about him. Does this sound like he married the right person?

 

The Man With The Twisted Lip, 1889

One night — it was in June, ’89 — there came a ring to my bell, about the hour when a man gives his first yawn and glances at the clock. I sat up in my chair, and my wife laid her needle-work down in her lap and made a little face of disappointment.

A patient!” said she. “You’ll have to go out.”

I groaned, for I was newly come back from a weary day.

We heard the door open, a few hurried words, and then quick steps upon the linoleum. Our own door flew open, and a lady, clad in some dark-coloured stuff, with a black veil, entered the room.

You will excuse my calling so late,” she began, and then, suddenly losing her self-control, she ran forward, threw her arms about my wife’s neck, and sobbed upon her shoulder. “Oh, I’m in such trouble!” she cried; “I do so want a little help.”

Why,” said my wife, pulling up her veil, “it is Kate Whitney. How you startled me, Kate! I had not an idea who you were when you came in.”

I didn’t know what to do, so I came straight to you.” That was always the way. Folk who were in grief came to my wife like birds to a light-house.

It was very sweet of you to come. Now, you must have some wine and water, and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it. Or should you rather that I sent James off to bed?”

Later, after he has found Whitney in that opium den and Holmes too:

It was difficult to refuse any of Sherlock Holmes’s requests, for they were always so exceedingly definite, and put forward with such a quiet air of mastery. I felt, however, that when Whitney was once confined in the cab my mission was practically accomplished; and for the rest, I could not wish anything better than to be associated with my friend in one of those singular adventures which were the normal condition of his existence.

Watson will spend the next night in a single room with Holmes somewhere outside of London and his wife will not get to see him for some time. Also, I could simply paste in what I wrote above; the upshot of it being that a tired Watson immediately stops being tired and listless as soon as he gets out of his wife’s company and sees Holmes. Well…

Oh, and has anyone noticed that Mary calls John Watson “James”? This is where they got the “Hamish” from (he is called John H. Watson, and he is probably Scottish, and “Hamish” was “James” in Scotland). Or Mary is cheating on our doctor with a man called James and Watson does not notice, for crying out loud.

 

The Naval Treaty, 1889

The July which immediately succeeded my marriage was made memorable by three cases of interest

[…]

My wife agreed with me that not a moment should be lost in laying the matter before him, and so within an hour of breakfast-time I found myself back once more in the old rooms in Baker Street.

[…]

Watson and Percy Phelps return to London, while Holmes investigates on. And they do not go to Watson’s, but to Baker Street, although Mrs Watson is in town. And on the following morning: It was seven o'clock when I awoke, and I set off at once for Phelps’s room, to find him haggard and spent after a sleepless night. His first question was whether Holmes had arrived yet.

First, breakfast-time with his wife does not seem particularly important to our dead doctor. Moreover, he is so engrossed in Holmes’s case that instead of returning to his own home and comfortable bed, he stays in the Baker Street living room or Holmes’s bedroom for the night because it is clearly stated that Percy sleeps in the “spare bedroom”, i.e. Watson’s old room. Either he cannot face his wife, or – as said before – he has by now forgotten that he created one. Which is by no means uncommon for Watson; he often mentions his wife in the first paragraph and then immediately forgets her, spending the after-case time with Holmes as well. (For an example, see immediately below.)

 

The Dying Detective, 1890

Holmes fakes illness for a case, and Mrs Hudson goes to warn Watson:

I listened earnestly to her story when she came to my rooms in the second year of my married life and told me of the sad condition to which my poor friend was reduced.

[…]

I was horrified for I had heard nothing of his illness. I need not say that I rushed for my coat and my hat.

[…]

And the ending of the case is such: Holmes suggests that When we have finished at the police-station I think that something nutritious at Simpson’s would not be out of place.

So Watson just runs off without remotely thinking about alerting his wife or anything, and then lets Holmes take him out on a date. Watson either is not married, or he does not care all that much. Which I personally would not believe Watson is callous enough for.

 

The Blue Carbuncle, 1890

It all starts with Watson coming to Baker Street on Boxing Day: I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes upon the second morning after Christmas, with the intention of wishing him the compliments of the season.

But the story ends with him staying for a Christmas dinner. Holmes says: If you will have the goodness to touch the bell, Doctor, we will begin another investigation, in which, also a bird will be the chief feature.

Do you not have a wife to return to, doctor?

 

The Final Problem, 1891

It may be remembered that after my marriage, and my subsequent start in private practice, the very intimate relations which had existed between Holmes and myself became to some extent modified.

[…]

“I must apologise for calling so late,” said he, “and I must further beg you to be so unconventional as to allow me to leave your house presently by scrambling over your back garden wall.”

“But what does it all mean?” I asked.

He held out his hand, and I saw in the light of the lamp that two of his knuckles were burst and bleeding.

“It is not an airy nothing, you see,” said he, smiling. “On the contrary, it is solid enough for a man to break his hand over. Is Mrs. Watson in?”

“She is away upon a visit.”

“Indeed! You are alone?”

“Quite.”

“Then it makes it the easier for me to propose that you should come away with me for a week to the Continent.”

“Where?”

“Oh, anywhere. It’s all the same to me.”

Watson’s nonexistent wife is nonexistent. The luck he has that she is always visiting random people… (And if you are interested, there is no reason whatsoever to go anywhere. Holmes only wants Watson on another romantic holiday, this time in the Alps.)

 

The Empty House, 1894

In some manner he had learned of my own sad bereavement, and his sympathy was shown in his manner rather than in his words. “Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson,” said he, “and I have a piece of work for us both to-night which, if we can bring it to a successful conclusion, will in itself justify a man’s life on this planet.” In vain I begged him to tell me more. “You will hear and see enough before morning,” he answered. “We have three years of the past to discuss. Let that suffice until half-past nine, when we start upon the notable adventure of the empty house.”

And that is the last we will ever hear of Watson’s wife.

Incidentally, it has been suggested that Mary 1) died, 2) divorced, or 3) was arrested. How could that be? Well, here is an interesting quotation from Holmes:

“My collection of M’s is a fine one,” said he. “Moriarty himself is enough to make any letter illustrious, and here is Morgan the poisoner, and Merridew of abominable memory, and Mathews, who knocked out my left canine in the waiting-room at Charing Cross, and, finally, here is our friend of to-night [Moran].”

I.e.: Ms are evil. Morstan…

 

 

The Norwood Builder, 1894

At the time of which I speak Holmes had been back for some months, and I, at his request, had sold my practice and returned to share the old quarters in Baker Street. A young doctor, named Verner, had purchased my small Kensington practice, and given with astonishingly little demur the highest price that I ventured to ask—an incident which only explained itself some years later when I found that Verner was a distant relation of Holmes’s, and that it was my friend who had really found the money.

No mention of his wife’s death – only of Holmes’s return. Which also suggests that Mary did not in fact die but was either killed off by Watson or they got divorced, depending on which theory you favour. And, by the way, it means that Holmes is prepared to spend a fortune on Watson’s return to Baker Street without telling him. This is very sweet.

 

The Blanched Soldier, 1903

I find from my notebook that it was in January, 1903, just after the conclusion of the Boer War, that I had my visit from Mr. James M. Dodd, a big, fresh, sunburned, upstanding Briton. The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action which I can recall in our association. I was alone.

This is Holmes speaking of a wife who will never be mentioned again and even though I will not enter into all the subtext that is in the two stories narrated from Holmes’s perspective, let it just be said that there are some real doubts regarding his retiring alone. (Big surprise.) The story has a huge gay subplot that I have explained already, which could hint at the gay plot that is also going on, although Holmes and Watson have to take precautions because they have got the people talking again…

In conclusion:  

There are two theories too choose from: That Watson was indeed married but that he was not interested in his wife at all, which enabled her to have affairs, lie to him etc, or that Watson invented Mary as a necessary plot device.

Personally I believe in the second theory for the following reasons: In the first story (A Study in Scarlet), Watson does not show much interest in women, and in The Sign of Four, Sir ACD (or the doctor himself) saw the necessity to establish Dr Watson as a heterosexual married man to avoid rumours about a potential “deviant” relationship between Holmes and Watson. So a wife was invented, presented as absolutely lovely during in The Sign of Four, and is then literally made to disappear. After her first appearance, she never so much as says more than three sentences in a row. The author clearly did not make much effort creating Mary Morstan’s character, which can be concluded from several facts, icluding the one that we do not even know how Mary dies. Or if.

But be as it may: do you really get the impression that the doctor cared at all about this wife of his?


----------------------

Watson is a unreliable narrator. And he isn’t even ashamed of it.

Charles Augustus Milverton, 1885-1888?

It is years since the incidents of which I speak took place, and yet it is with diffidence that I allude to them. For a long time, even with the utmost discretion and reticence, it would have been impossible to make the facts public; but now the principal person concerned is beyond the reach of human law, and with due suppression the story may be told in such fashion as to injure no one. It records an absolutely unique experience in the career both of Mr. Sherlock Holmes and of myself. The reader will excuse me if I conceal the date or any other fact by which he might trace the actual occurrence.

So Watson simply says that he will change any facts he deems necessary. Beautiful.

 

The Second Stain, 1888

If in telling the story I seem to be somewhat vague in certain details the public will readily understand that there is an excellent reason for my reticence.

It was, then, in a year, and even in a decade, that shall be nameless, that upon one Tuesday morning in autumn we found two visitors of European fame within the walls of our humble room in Baker Street.

“Somewhat vague”? If you read the second sentence, that is the understatement of the century.

 

A Scandal in Bohemia, 1889

You may address me as the Count Von Kramm, a Bohemian nobleman. I understand that this gentleman, your friend, is a man of honour and discretion, whom I may trust with a matter of the most extreme importance. If not, I should much prefer to communicate with you alone.”

I rose to go, but Holmes caught me by the wrist and pushed me back into my chair. “It is both, or none,” said he. “You may say before this gentleman anything which you may say to me.”

The Count shrugged his broad shoulders. “Then I must begin,” said he, “by binding you both to absolute secrecy for two years, at the end of that time the matter will be of no importance. At present it is not too much to say that it is of such weight it may have an influence upon European history.”

I promise,” said Holmes.

And I.”

Here, it is not explicitly stated that Watson is veiling the facts, but the mere fact that he writes the story should tell the reader that he is changing enough to make the characters unrecognisable. It has been speculated that the nobleman in question was the Prince of Wales himself. (Would fit his character, by the way…)

 

The Three Students, 1895

It was in the year ‘95 that a combination of events, into which I need not enter, caused Mr. Sherlock Holmes and myself to spend some weeks in one of our great University towns, and it was during this time that the small but instructive adventure which I am about to relate befell us. It will be obvious that any details which would help the reader to exactly identify the college or the criminal would be injudicious and offensive. So painful a scandal may well be allowed to die out. With due discretion the incident itself may, however, be described, since it serves to illustrate some of those qualities for which my friend was remarkable. I will endeavour in my statement to avoid such terms as would serve to limit the events to any particular place, or give a clue as to the people concerned.

Here, Watson masks the truth for more personal reasons, and everybody is fine with it by now. The summarised content of this paragraph is “I essentially invented the following story, enjoy reading about my friend”.

 

The Illustrious Client, 1902

The client’s name is not even mentioned. Just that it is “illustrious”. (Also, the damsel in distress is called Violet, another sign that…something was changed by Watson (see TJLC and 1895)).

 

And in the Christmas Special? Well, in the trailer we have all seen how “reliable” Watson’s writing will turn out to be…

Wonderful.

 

By the way, this works perfectly well on another level too: That Watson, the author, constantly lied is clearly canon. “Our” writers, Mofftisson, have to lie as shamelessly and as much to follow the “original”, canonical attitude to lying – in both cases to veil Johnlock (albeit with similar levels of success).

--------------------------------

Where Holmes and Watson were in 1895 - hiding from the Oscar Wilde trials

It is a truth universally acknowledged that [I should really stop quoting Pride and Prejudice immediately…] Holmes’s and Watson’s leaving London in The Three Students is connected with the Oscar Wilde trials. Yet 3STU is not the only story set in 1895. To conclusively say that they were in reality doing their best to avoid the public eye the other three stories have to be considered too. 31 of the 60 stories are set in Baker Street, which makes the setting of the 1895 stories interesting…

 

The Solitary Cyclist: late April

On referring to my note-book for the year 1895 I find that it was upon Saturday, the 23rd of April, that we first heard of Miss Violet Smith. Her visit was, I remember, extremely unwelcome to Holmes […]

I should be none the worse for a quiet, peaceful day in the country, and I am inclined to run down this afternoon and test one or two theories which I have formed.” […]

A rainy night had been followed by a glorious morning, and the heath-covered country-side with the glowing clumps of flowering gorse seemed all the more beautiful to eyes which were weary of the duns and drabs and slate-greys of London. Holmes and I walked along the broad, sandy road inhaling the fresh morning air, and rejoicing in the music of the birds and the fresh breath of the spring.

That is 1) ridiculously romantic and 2) proof that they were indeed quite keen on not seeing anyone (Holmes initially wanted to reject the client and changed his mind when it became clear that the case was going to be in the country, which then prompted several excursions there).

 

The Three Students: late April/early May

It was in the year ‘95 that a combination of events, into which I need not enter, caused Mr. Sherlock Holmes and myself to spend some weeks in one of our great University towns […] It will be obvious that any details which would help the reader to exactly identify the college or the criminal would be injudicious and offensive. So painful a scandal may well be allowed to die out. With due discretion the incident itself may, however, be described, since it serves to illustrate some of those qualities for which my friend was remarkable. I will endeavour in my statement to avoid such terms as would serve to limit the events to any particular place, or give a clue as to the people concerned.

Or to give a clue as to what really happened. In the year 1895 there were the Oscar Wilde trials, which caused a great many men who were more or less openly gay to “go on holiday” for a few months. Universities were supposed to be more progressive than cities: for example, Oscar Wilde met Robbie Ross at uni. The “painful scandal” Watson is talking about here is about three students who are meant to sit a Greek exam, but one of them cheats. That’s not a scandal: it is basically impossible to do perfectly in a Greek exam. This means this: they had to flee from London because of the public awareness the spectacular trials had caused and went to a friend of Holmes’s. But of course Watson could not say it like that, so he had to invent a virtually new case.

The fact that even though Holmes is clearly everything but thrilled at being anywhere but Baker Street, he is not in London anyway, is fairly obvious: My friend’s temper had not improved since he had been deprived of the congenial surroundings of Baker Street. Without his scrap-books, his chemicals, and his homely untidiness, he was an uncomfortable man.

This is important because 3STU is not the only case where Holmes and Watson leave London for a prolonged period of time. What are they doing in that “university town”? The given reason (research into old charters) is more than suspicious. Yet if you consider the circumstances of the Oscar Wilde trials in April and May it becomes clear that the best thing to do if the slightest rumour about you existed, was to flee. And given Watson’s writing, such rumours must have circulated.

Another suggestive quotation: The exercise consists of half a chapter of Thucydides. The exam papers that are left on the professor’s desk are taken from Thucydides, probably by his most famous work on the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides was a Athenian historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is known for being an analyst and “scientific” writer – he credits humans with their actions, not the gods. Furthermore, Athens (the most “glorious” city in Greece) was his home, but he was exiled for something that was not his fault. Does this sound like someone? Holmes, maybe? Here, Watson had to choose an author, so he chose one who mirrors Holmes.

Moreover, Watson will not identify the town even ten years later: a clear sign that they had to protect somebody – and their hiding place.

 

Black Peter: early July

It starts with a few clues of exactly how Watson sees Holmes: “I have never known my friend to be in better form, both mental and physical, than in the year ‘95.” and “Holmes, however, like all greatartists, lived for his art’s sake” (come on, sound even more like Oscar Wilde – oh, not possible, I understand…). He also calls the year “memorable”, which it must have been – Holmes and Watson spent a nice part of it most purposefully not in London, i.e. hiding somewhere.

The story is set in early July. Just as a reminder, Wilde lost his third trial against the Crown on May 25, and everybody involved who had not made his way to the country or continent yet or had returned like Holmes and Watson, did so then. Initially, Watson is at home in Baker Street, but Holmes is not: my friend had been absent so often and so long from our lodgings, which implies that even though Holmes has to be in London for some reason, he does his best in order not to be available or even findable. Watson even tells us explicitly that and exactly how Holmes is hiding: Holmes was working somewhere under one of the numerous disguises and names with which he concealed his own formidable identity. He had at least five small refuges in different parts of London, in which he was able to change his personality.

But what other 1895 cases does Watson refer to?

In this memorable year ’95, a curious and incongruous succession of cases had engaged his attention, ranging from his famous investigation of the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca (ITALY)–an inquiry which was carried out by him at the express desire of His Holiness the Pope–down to his arrest of Wilson, the notorious canary-trainer, which removed a plague-spot from the East End of London (UNSAVOURY PART OF LONDON, and according to Google Maps SIX MILES from 221b Baker Street). Close on the heels of these two famous cases came the tragedy of Woodman’s Lee, and the very obscure circumstances which surrounded the death of Captain Peter Carey (IN THE COUNTRY). No record of the doings of Mr. Sherlock Holmes would be complete which did not include some account of this very unusual affair.

He is never at home or somewhere reachable…

The whole thing ends with this line from Holmes: “If you want me for the trial, my address and that of Watson will be somewhere in Norway – I’ll send particulars later.” Apart from the pun on the trial, this mostly shows that Holmes is taking the chance of leaving the country, apparently “for a case”, for a very long time – he had virtually no case-connected reason to go to Norway (he could have sent wires to clear up the loose strands, as he always does, and anyway Norway is not important for the case), but Norway is far enough from London to be safe, is it not? To put it in a nutshell, the case begins with Holmes hiding and ends with Holmes and Watson leaving the country on a trip that will mean that they will not be traceable for a while – Holmes’s detective friend (and he does like Hopkins) only gets a “promise for later”.

 

The Bruce-Partington Plans: November 

Watson begins the narrative with a statement of the date: “in the third week of November, in the year 1895”, and goes on to clarify that he and Holmes have not left the flat for four days, asserting that this happened because of the “dense yellow fog”. Translation: it has been six months since Oscar Wilde’s trials, the waters have mostly calmed down, but it would still be unwise to be too noticeable to the outside world, and Holmes and Watson are hiding. Indeed, so much so that only Jupiter leaving his orbit (i.e. Brother Mycroft) can drag them out of Baker Street. This impression is reinforced by the association of the colour yellow with caution – they simply cannot risk being overly visible, but are in Baker Street because everything else (given Holmes’s famous habits) would attract even more attention.

 

In conclusion, Holmes and Watson do their best not to be where people could find them throughout the year 1895, starting comparatively “small” in The Solitary Cyclist, where the situation is not too dangerous yet and they thus still officially live in Baker Street, to the full-out flight in The Three Students, which is set exactly during the most important trial, over the slightly less conspicuous “I’m out working” of Black Peter, which ends with a long holiday in Norway for Holmes and Watson, to lying low in 221b in order not to avoid suspicion and trying not to appear in public at all. Watson, you are terrible at hiding evidence in your stories…
---------------------

Watson is not married to his work. He is married to Holmes.

Which explains why there are ridiculous inconsistencies. Watson’s whole behaviour is rather sweet when it regards Holmes is any way…

 

He mentions three different practices. However, there are only two different periods of time where he could have had them. I personally do not believe in his second marriage (after Holmes’s return) for more than a second, so I will examine the practice Watson says he he acquired after his marriage to Mary Morstan.

These two practices are located in Paddington and Kensington. (If you are interested, the later practice is in Queen Anne Street, but as Watson’s assertion that the practice is very busy completely contradicts his running after Holmes at a moment’s notice, which he does every time he mentions that practice, I will ignore that one.)

So in early spring 1889 Watson bought a rather run-down practice at Paddington and plans to work on it with much zeal to bring it back to success; however, instead of working, he spends most of his time writing up Holmes’s old cases (most of which were published between 1890 and 1892, which means he had started to write them in 1889) and running off with Holmes whenever he sent a telegram (still assuming that what Watson tells us is the truth, which I will repeat I doubt). In early summer, Watson says his practice is successful, a couple of weeks later it is essentially deserted, and then it will continue to be “quiet”, which gives Watson a marvelous excuse to go off with Holmes. When Holmes returned after his three years of hiatus, the practice had inexplicably moved to Kensington, which makes no sense as there would not have been the time to build up a new practice, and also, why would Watson do it, and Watson seems only too happy to get rid of it to return to Holmes.

It is also beautiful how Holmes spent a lot of money just to have Watson return to him, and it is a proof of how intimate they are that Watson accepts it tacitly when he finds out. The whole thing is rather sweet.

So he clearly invented them at random when he needed them. Like his marriages(s).

 

This is a list of every time his practices are mentioned:

The Stock-Broker’s Clerk, spring 1889

Shortly after my marriage I had bought a connection in the Paddington district. Old Mr. Farquhar, from whom I purchased it, had at one time an excellent general practice; but his age, and an affliction of the nature of St. Vitus’s dance from which he suffered, had very much thinned it. […] Thus as my predecessor weakened his practice declined, until when I purchased it from him it had sunk from twelve hundred to little more than three hundred a year. I had confidence, however, in my own youth and energy, and was convinced that in a very few years the concern would be as flourishing as ever.

The Crooked Man, summer 1889

I have no doubt that Jackson would take my practice.”

Engineer’s Thumb, summer 1889

I had returned to civil practice and had finally abandoned Holmes in his Baker Street rooms […]. My practice had steadily increased, and as I happened to live at no very great distance from Paddington Station […]

The Naval Treaty, July 1889

I was going to say that my practice could get along very well for a day or two, since it is the slackest time in the year.”

Red-Headed League, 1890

My practice is never very absorbing.”

The Final Problem, 1891

The practice is quiet,” said I, “and I have an accommodating neighbour.”

The Norwood Builder, 1894

At the time of which I speak, Holmes had been back for some months, and I at his request had sold my practice and returned to share the old quarters in Baker Street. A young doctor, named Verner, had purchased my small Kensington practice, and given with astonishingly little demur the highest price that I ventured to ask–an incident which only explained itself some years later, when I found that Verner was a distant relation of Holmes, and that it was my friend who had really found the money.


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Watson’s wedding vows - for Holmes

In HLV, John tells Mary that “The problems of your past are your business. The problems of your future are my privilege.” While it is certainly under debate how truthful John is at that time, nobody can doubt that it sounds like a vow - in fact, much like a wedding vow. Long story short, John is telling Mary that taking care for her is his “privilege”.

Now, does something like this appear in canon?

“You know,” I answered with some emotion, for I have never seen so much of Holmes’s heart before, “that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you.” [The Devil’s Foot]

Huh. Another wedding vow. But it is addressed at Holmes this time. And it sounds so much stronger than the “prepared words” John told Mary. 

How can anyone still seriously doubt that they were married to each other?


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Holmes’s and Watson’s pet names

(How Holmes and Watson call each other)

Watson’s for Holmes

“My dear Holmes”: 16 times

“My companion”: over a hundred times (I’m refusing to count any further)

 

Holmes’s for Watson

“My dear Watson”: 94 times 

“My dear boy”: two times (this means exactly what it sounds like)

“My boy”: nine times 

“My dear doctor”: two times

“My Watson”: three times

 

There is an awful lot of possessive pronouns here, if you start to think about it…

Could they appear more married if they tried??


 

 


 

221bcrow: (Default)
devoursjohnlock

“By the 1770s, at the latest, queer women were often called ‘tommies.’ It was the female equivalent of ‘molly’.”

— Peter Ackroyd, Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day (2017)

sarahthecoat

hmmm.

messedupsockindex

lmao so that’s why this couple mirroring  john and sherlock were named molly and tom, of course.


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How Holmes and Watson appreciate male beauty

sherloki1854

Sorry for the awful title.

This is long and I know it – but it is the only way to show just how obvious it is that ACD canon Watson is attracted to both men and women, while Holmes is a lot “easier” to deal with.

 

When you learn English as a foreign language, the first thing you are taught regarding the use of “handsome” and “beautiful” is that the first applies only to men and the second only to women, “handsome” implying strength and a certain amount of ruggedness, “beautiful” needing regularity and…well, beauty. 

Of course, in reality the distinction is not so clear.

In the ACD canon, the word “handsome” is used 52 times; in eighteen of these instances, the word used, by Holmes or Watson, applies to men, eight times to women (sometimes, a woman is called “handsome” more than once), and the rest of the time to things. “Beautiful” and “beauty” appear 132 times, but more often than not as exclamations and as descriptions of things, not people. However, women are called “beautiful” about twenty times (by Holmes or Watson, although in the vast majority of cases by Watson as the narrator), and the word applies to men thrice, not counting Holmes using “beauty” as an ironical term for criminals (just why he does that is another question). “Attractive” is used three times; once about a man and twice about women, although in the second case, it is negated. Some other words are employed to describe good looks as well: “attractive” seldom, “dainty” once and once “natural advantages” are emphasised (great quote, that one).

NB: In the following list I will only count the instances where these words are utilised by Watson or Holmes, not by other people, and as I will say again below, only where it is relevant. I left about a dozen women who are characterised as  “beautiful” by Watson out, I am not trying to prove the point that he was never attracted to women, so please do not read this as me reading evidence only selectively.  

So…on to the ridiculously long list of evidence.

 

BOTH MEN AND WOMEN IN ONE STORY

A Scandal in Bohemia

  • Holmes about Irene Adler: Oh, she has turned all the men’s heads down in that part. She is the daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet. So say the Serpentine-mews, to a man.

This is important: he has never seen her: he is only quoting somebody else. So please do not come with “the woman” here… Especially as her fiancee is described very flatteringly by Holmes after he has seen him – and twice:

  • Holmes about Godfrey Norton: He is dark, handsome, and dashing
  • Holmes about Godfrey Norton: He was a remarkably handsome man, dark, aquiline, and moustached

Two important conclusions can be drawn: Holmes appreciates Mr Norton’s beauty, but not Irene Adler’s. And Holmes likes moustaches.

Examples of where both the man and the woman are called “beautiful” in the same story (and which are meant to prove the point that not only women were an attraction to Watson especially):

The Second Stain

  • Watson about Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope: Terror–not beauty–was what sprang first to the eye
  • Watson about Trelawney Hope: The other, dark, clear-cut, and elegant, hardly yet of middle age, and endowed with every beauty of body and of mind

They both are pretty desperate. Yet Watson appreciates his beauty and her distress. Huh. 

The Creeping Man

  • Watson about a man: tall, handsome youth
  • Watson about a woman: a bright, handsome girl of a conventional English type

They are both good-looking. And Watson says exactly the same thing about both of them. Who is he still fooling? 

 

Attractive”

Thor Bridge 

  • Holmes: Senator Gibson is an attractive person
  • Holmes: which was the more unfortunate as a very attractive governess superintended the education of two young children

However, the difference is that he has never seen the woman and is only quoting the senator while having met the senator in person.  

Holmes is not fooling anyone either…

 

MEN

Beauty”

  • The Illustrious Client – Watson about Baron Gruner: His European reputation for beauty was fully deserved
  • The Crooked Man – Watson about a Henry Wood’s face: [it] must at some time have been remarkable for its beauty
  • The Dying Detective – Holmes about himself: Three days of absolute fast does not improve one’s beauty, Watson. Implication: Watson has told Holmes that he is beautiful and Holmes now remarks that he will be so again after he has eaten.

Handsome”

A couple of examples of Watson’s appreciation of masculine beauty, more interesting examples will follow below:

  • The Valley of Fear – Watson about Mr Barker: He sat forward, his hands clasped and his forearms on his knees, with an answering smile upon his bold, handsome face.
  • The Reigate Puzzle – Watson about Alec Cunningham: his handsome features
  • The Greek Interpreter – Holmes asking a man for an identification: “He wasn’t a tall, handsome, dark young man?”
  • The Norwood Builder – Watson about the unhappy John Hector McFarlane: I looked with interest upon this man, who was accused of being the perpetrator of a crime of violence. He was flaxen-haired and handsome
  • The Dancing Men – Watson about Mr Abe Slaney: He was a tall, handsome, swarthy fellow
  • The Abbey Grange – Watson about Lord Brackenstall: His dark, handsome, aquiline features
  • The Second Stain – Watson about Trelawney Hope: His handsome face was distorted with a spasm of despair (He cannot shut up about Trelawney Hope, can he now?)
  • His Last Bow – The narrator (Watson?) about Von Bork: his keen, handsome face was flushed
  • The Bruce-Partington Plans – Watson about Colonel Valentine Walter: an instant later we were joined by a very tall, handsome, light-haired man of fifty […] there were the long light beard and the soft, handsome delicate features of Colonel Valentine Walter.
  • The Hound of the Baskervilles – Watson about Mr Barrymore: He was a remarkable-looking man, tall, handsome, with a square black beard and pale, distinguished features […] Already round this pale-faced, handsome, black-bearded man there was gathering an atmosphere of mystery and of gloom […] The second description sounds ridiculously like a romantic tragic hero. 
  • The Illustrious Client – Watson about Baron Gruner: extraordinarily handsome, with a most fascinating manner, a gentle voice and that air of romance and mystery […] He was certainly a remarkably handsome man […] Watson is a romantic who is attracted to the bad boy. Haha. And he cannot shut up about Gruner: see above. Must have been very attractive.
  • The Blanched Soldier – Holmes about Godfrey Emsworth: One could see that he had indeed been a handsome man with clear-cut features sunburned by an African sun […] And this is really interesting because who else was “as brown as a nut” when Holmes first met and moved in with him? 

 

It appears that Watson is attracted to both genders (I know, that is not news to anybody) and Holmes pretty much only to one.

 

And here is what everybody always wanted to know, whether consciously or not:

The Retired Colourman - Holmes about Watson: With your natural advantages, Watson, every lady is your helper and accomplice

Here we go: Holmes compliments Watson on his looks.

 

And now Watson about Holmes: Watson once admires aquiline features. Guess who else has them?

The Man With The Twisted Lip – Watson about Holmes: In the dim light of the lamp I saw him sitting there, an old briar pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the corner of the ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him, silent, motionless, with the light shining upon his strong-set aquiline features.

This quotation does not need explaining.

 

Anybody still wants to tell me that they were never attracted to each other in the books?
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Holmes and Watson holding hands. And being touchy in general. 

“Take my hand” happens only once, sadly… Canon is much more forthcoming. ;) Here just a few of the nicest instances from only two stories:

The Empty House, 1894

  • I gripped him by the arms. […]
  • Again I gripped him by the sleeve, and felt the thin, sinewy arm beneath it. “Well, you’re not a spirit anyhow,” said I. […]
  • There was no mistaking the poise of the head, the squareness of the shoulders, the sharpness of the features. The face was turned half-round, and the effect was that of one of those black silhouettes which our grandparents loved to frame. It was a perfect reproduction of Holmes. So amazed was I that I threw out my hand to make sure that the man himself was standing beside me. He was quivering with silent laughter.
  • Just saying that this all happens in a few hours.

 

Charles Augustus Milverton, 1885-1888?

  • He seized my hand in the darkness […]
  • Still holding my hand in one of his he opened a door […]
  • I felt Holmes’s hand steal into mine […]
  • I fell upon my face among some bushes; but Holmes had me on my feet in an instant, and together we dashed away across the huge expanse of Hampstead Heath. (Probably holding hands the whole time (Holmes first has to pull Watson up and then they run “together”) - fine, this interpretation is going quite far, but not too much I believe, considering the rest of the story.)

By the way, also belonging to the general theme of them being somewhat…touchy:

Holding another’s wrist is a sign of fear/excitement. There are two interesting and comparable instances where somebody grabs Watson’s wrist.

The Speckled Band, 1883

My God!” I whispered; “did you see it?”

Holmes was for the moment as startled as I. His hand closed like a vice upon my wrist in his agitation. Then he broke into a low laugh and put his lips to my ear.

The Sign of Four, 1888

He held up the lantern, and his hand shook until the circles of light flickered and wavered all round us. Miss Morstan seized my wrist, and we all stood with thumping hearts, straining our ears. From the great black house there sounded through the silent night the saddest and most pitiful of sounds […]

In the earlier story (according to when the story takes place), Holmes holds Watson’s wrist, and later, in a similar situation, Watson has his “love interest” (yes, right) do exactly the same thing. (Which is, I think, even more evidence for the theory that Mary Morstan is a fabrication of his imagination… Watson needed to make the scene more romantic/gripping, so he did a rehash of what had happened with Holmes in a similar situation.)

(I am not a touchy person. But I do know touchy people and even they would not behave in such a way.) 
----------

It was late that night when Holmes returned from his solitary excursion. We slept in a double- bedded room, which was the best that the little country inn could do for us. I was already asleep when I was partly awakened by his entrance.
“Well, Holmes,” I murmured, “have you found anything out?”
He stood beside me in silence, his candle in his hand. Then the tall, lean figure inclined towards me. “I say, Watson,” he whispered, “would you be afraid to sleep in the same room with a lunatic, a man with softening of the brain, an idiot whose mind has lost its grip?”
“Not in the least,” I answered in astonishment.
“Ah, that’s lucky,” he said, and not another word would he utter that night.
Sir ACD, The Valley of Fear, Part I, Chapter VI.

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devoursjohnlock

“The reader may set me down as a hopeless busybody, when I confess how much this man stimulated my curiosity, and how often I endeavoured to break through the reticence which he showed on all that concerned himself. Before pronouncing judgment, however, be it remembered, how objectless was my life, and how little there was to engage my attention. My health forbade me from venturing out unless the weather was exceptionally genial, and I had no friends who would call upon me and break the monotony of my daily existence. Under these circumstances, I eagerly hailed the little mystery which hung around my companion, and spent much of my time in endeavouring to unravel it.”

— Watson on Watson, A Study in Scarlet (Arthur Conan Doyle, 1887)
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Sherlock Holmes has a heart

It is always though that Holmes is “an automaton, a calculating machine”. That that is not true is obvious: Watson repeatedly says that he feels/sees/glimpses Holmes’s great heart, although he always tries to make it sound like it was a one-off thing. Which only works until you see a few of his statements together. :)  

  • The Devil’s Foot, 1897
  • You know,” I answered with some emotion, for I have never seen so much of Holmes’s heart before, “that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you.”
  • The Bruce-Partington Plans, 1895 
  • I knew you would not shrink at the last,” said he, and for a moment I saw something in his eyes which was nearer to tenderness than I had ever seen.
  • The Three Garridebs, 1902 
  • It was worth a wound–it was worth many wounds–to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain.

ALSO: Home is where the heart is – that is an old adage. And where is home? Baker Street, where Holmes and Watson spent the greater part of their lives together, is home, as both of them constantly call it. The rest – home=Baker Street=heart=Watson/Holmes – is easy…


---------------

“Cadogan West”, Oscar Wilde and Sherlock Holmes

(i.e.: Is it possible to stick more allusions into 1895 stories? It is.)

The Bruce-Partington Plans

In late 1895, Mycroft sends Sherlock a telegram that runs like this: “Must see you over Cadogan West. Coming at once. – Mycroft.” The first sentence is of extreme importance. It does not sound like Cadogan West was a name, more like code for something. But what could it mean? Another allusion to Oscar Wilde’s trials: in the course of the trials he was arrested while he was staying at the Cadogan Hotel, which was located in the West of London. This is important because it links the case, which is brought in by a person capable of manipulating the public order, with the scandal surrounding Wilde. Message: “we are not done yet, some things still have to be tidied up”. Here, it might also be interesting to note that the government originally wanted to hush the whole scandal surrounding him up, and not give him a prison sentence at all, but in the end the government had no choice but to accept the impending sentence because the public was set against Wilde very strongly.

There are a few references to discretion in the following paragraphs (“one has to be discreet”), and another emphasis on the fact that Mycroft must have an extremely valid reason for coming to Sherlock (probably because it is too delicate a matter for Mycroft): “Jupiter is descending to-day. What on earth can it mean?” (Holmes). He then continues wondering: “Who is Cadogan West, and what is he to Mycroft?” Holmes probably assumes Cadogan West is code for a person of some importance to Mycroft. Could Mycroft himself be in danger of getting tied up in a scandal?

Maybe not, but what this young man is believed to have done? He has stolen some secret papers from Whitehall (can be read as “Mycroft” - even Holmes clearly says this: “Government employ. Behold the link with Brother Mycroft!”), ten pages in total, but when ends up with his head smashed in on the tram tracks, and only seven sheets in his pocket, which leaves three sheets of potentially dangerous content somewhere Mycroft has no access to. So Mycroft needs Sherlock to bring those papers back. The claim that these ten sheets of paper are technical plans is nonsensical: the plans are supposed to enable the holder to build a Bruce-Partington submarine, which makes little sense given the technicality of submarines. No, this is ridiculous and Mofftisson know it: the Bruce-Partington programme turned out to be completely inconsequential in TGG. The only thing that this tells us is that somebody needed the original copies to achieve a certain goal. Well…

Now comes another clue: Cadogan West is engaged to a Miss Violet Westbury. This is the second Violet in a 1895 case, and as The Solitary Cyclist was published before The Bruce-Partington Plans, it can only be deduced that Watson recycled a name, hinting at the fact that most of this story is heavily…edited.

In conclusion: Cadogan West is a reference to Oscar Wilde. Mycroft fears the repercussions of the scandal and gets Sherlock to investigate the the theft of some highly sensitive papers related to the scandal/trial. And this is by far not the only allusion in the 1895 stories… (here the longer version)


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Sharing a room - always…

Most stories are set in Baker Street and London in general, and if they have to go to the country to investigate, Holmes and Watson usually return to Baker Street by the night train (interesting enough, that thought), but when they are forced to spend the night in a hotel, they manage to end up sleeping in the same room ridiculously often.

In Sherlock, Mofftisson made fun of this, I think:

Hounds of the Baskervilles:

GARY: Eh, sorry we couldn’t do a double room for you boys.

JOHN: That’s fine. We-we’re not…

So they are more open in the original canon that in the series, for crying out loud!

Here you go:

 

 

The Valley of Fear, chapter 4

Sergeant Wilson: There has been nothing like this that I can remember. There are some bits that will come home to you, Mr. Holmes, or I am mistaken. And you also, Dr. Watson; for the medicos will have a word to say before we finish. Your room is at the Westville Arms. There’s no other place; but I hear that it is clean and good. The man will carry your bags. This way,gentlemen, if you please.

 

The Man with the Twisted Lips

Now, Watson,” said Holmes, as a tall dog-cart dashed up through the gloom, throwing out two golden tunnels of yellow light from its side lanterns. “You’ll come with me, won’t you?

If I can be of use.”

Oh, a trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so. My room at The Cedars is a double-bedded one.”

 

The Speckled Band 

Watson: Sherlock Holmes and I had no difficulty in engaging a bedroom and sitting-room at the Crown Inn. 

 

The Missing Three-Quarter

Holmes to Watson: This little inn just opposite Armstrong’s house is singularly adapted to our needs. If you would engage a front room and purchase the necessaries for the night, I may have time to make a few inquiries.

 

The Priory School

Watson: Sherlock Holmes left the house alone, and only returned after eleven. He had obtained a large ordnance map of the neighbourhood, and this he brought into my room, where he laid it out on the bed, and, having balanced the lamp in the middle of it, he began to smoke over it, and occasionally to point out objects of interest with the reeking amber of his pipe.

 

The Boscombe Valley Mystery 

Watson: We drove to the Hereford Arms where a room had already been engaged for us.

 

The Beryl Coronet 

Watson: It was not yet three when we found ourselves in our rooms once more. He hurried to his chamber and was down again in a few minutes dressed as a common loafer.

(Baker Street rooms, but it is Waston’s room that is located upstairs! What was Holmes doing there? Has he moved in with Watson?)

 

Charles Augustus Milverton 

Holmes to Watson: We have shared the same room for some years, and it would be amusing if we ended by sharing the same cell. 

Exactly how closely are those two living together in the books? 

---------

Johnlock in canon

Holmes and Watson are very much in love with each other and together:

First of all, let’s hear what Doyle calls them: “Sherlock and his Watson”

After knowing Watson for a week: “my dear fellow”  (A Study in Scarlet)

“My friend and partner” the whole time (eg in Red-Headed League).

After knowing each other for three years, Watson once wakes up in the “morning to find SH standing, fully dressed, by the side of [his] bed” at quarter past seven (Speckled Band). Etiquette was exceedingly important, and Holmes openly flouts convention. It is one of his most interesting traits: he does not believe in the law (cf Charles Augustus Milverton) and therefore would not have any problems with anything that opposes jurisdiction if he is convinced it is the right thing to do.

“It may be remembered that after my marriage, and my subsequent start in private practice, the very intimate relations which had existed between Holmes and myself became to some extent modified.” (Final Problem) – if you ignore the past with the marriage (see below) the only thing that remains is the “very intimate” relationship between them.  

Watson certainly is very vocal in his admiration: “the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known” (Final Problem)

The story where Holmes comes back from the dead also shows Watson’s complete devotion: “I find myself thrilling as I think of it, and feeling once more that sudden flood of joy, amazement, and incredulity which utterly submerged my mind”, “When I turned again Sherlock Holmes was standing smiling at me across my study table. I rose to my feet, stared at him for some seconds in utter amazement, and then it appears that I must have fainted for the first and the last time in my life.” (Empty House)

Now to a very conclusive piece of evidence: they are being attacked by a criminal: “In an instant he had whisked out a revolver from his breast and had fired two shots. I felt a sudden hot sear as if a red-hot iron had been pressed to my thigh. There was a crash as Holmes’s pistol came down on the man’s head. I had a vision of him sprawling upon the floor with blood running down his face while Holmes rummaged him for weapons. Then my friend’s wiry arms were round me, and he was leading me to a chair. “You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake, say that you are not hurt!” It was worth a wound – it was worth many wounds – to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain.“ [Watson reassures him he’s fine] "He had ripped up my trousers with his pocket-knife. "You are right,” he cried with an immense sigh of relief. “It is quite superficial.” His face set like flint as he glared at our prisoner, who was sitting up with a dazed face. “By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive. Now, sir, what have you to say for yourself?”“ (Three Garridebs)

Do I have to comment on this? "Depth of loyalty and love”? He’s supposed to be “an automaton, a calculating-machine”.

Holmes has just drugged them with something that works exactly the same way as in “Hounds” (2.2): “The turmoil within my brain was such that something must surely snap. I tried to scream and was vaguely aware of some hoarse croak which was my own voice, but distant and detached from myself. At the same moment, in some effort of escape, I broke through that cloud of despair and had a glimpse of Holmes’s face, white, rigid, and drawn with horror–the very look which I had seen upon the features of the dead. It was that vision which gave me an instant of sanity and of strength. I dashed from my chair, threw my arms round Holmes, and together we lurched through the door, and an instant afterwards had thrown ourselves down upon the grass plot and were lying side by side, conscious only of the glorious sunshine which was bursting its way through the hellish cloud of terror which had girt us in. Slowly it rose from our souls like the mists from a landscape until peace and reason had returned…”

Aha. So he is dying, but what gives him strength is that Holmes is suffering? And the end is just ridiculously romantic.

Mere minutes later: “"You know,” I answered with some emotion, for I have never seen so much of Holmes’ heart before, “that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you.”“ (Devil’s Foot)

No comment.

They are breaking into a criminal’s house, and are in danger of being discovered: "I felt Holmes’ hand steal into mine…” (Charles Augustus Milverton) - So when there is a threat, Holmes clearly doesn’t care about propriety, but wants to reassure the doctor instead. What would any author who writes such a scene about a man and a woman very obviously “imply”?

“the man whom above all others I revere” (Thor Bridge) - Hmm… Watson can be quite eloquent.  

But the following quotation/situation is my favourite: “It was in the year ‘95 that a combination of events, into which I need not enter, caused Mr. Sherlock Holmes and myself to spend some weeks in one of our great University towns […] It will be obvious that any details which would help the reader to exactly identify the college or the criminal would be injudicious and offensive. So painful a scandal may well be allowed to die out. With due discretion the incident itself may, however, be described, since it serves to illustrate some of those qualities for which my friend was remarkable. I will endeavour in my statement to avoid such terms as would serve to limit the events to any particular place, or give a clue as to the people concerned.” (Three Students)

Or to give a clue as to what really happened. So… Explanation:

1. In the year 1895 there were the Oscar Wilde trials, which caused a great many men who were more or less openly gay to “go on holiday” for a few months.

2. Universities were supposed to be more progressive than cities. Oscar Wilde met Robbie Ross at uni.

3. The “painful scandal” Watson is talking about here is about three students who are meant to sit a Greek exam, but one of them cheats. That’s not a scandal. Even I’ve helped another student to cheat in a Greek exam (Greek can be a horrible subject), and I’m a model student.

4. They had to flee from London because of the public awareness the spectacular trials had caused.

5. But of course Watson could not say it like that, so he had to invent a virtually new case.

 

Do we want to know more?

“Partly it came no doubt from his own masterful nature, which loved to dominate (…) those who were around him.” (The Hound of the Baskervilles)

 

But why did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle create a character who would have been imprisoned if he had been a real person and had the authorities known about his illegal preferences? An important question, and more than one point has to be considered to answer this.

Sir ACD’s Sherlock Holmes was heavily inspired by Poe’s Dupin. Poe wrote three stories about Dupin, an amateur detective living in nearly complete isolation in Paris. These stories are narrated by an unnamed narrator, probably a Briton or an American. And their relationship is quite unequivocally a romantic one. Here parts of the first story, The Murders in Rue Morgue:

“Our first meeting was at an obscure library […] where the accident of our both being in search of the same very rare and very remarkable volume brought us into closer communion. We saw each other again and again […] I was astonished, too, at the vast extent of his reading; and, above all, I felt my soul enkindled within me by the wild fervor, and the vivid freshness of his imagination […] I felt that the society of such a man would be to me a treasure beyond price; and this feeling I frankly confided to him. It was at length arranged that we should live together during my stay in the city; […] I was permitted to be at the expense of renting, and furnishing in a style which suited the rather fantastic gloom of our common temper […] Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the world, we should have been regarded as madmen—although, perhaps, as madmen of a harmless nature. Our seclusion was perfect. We admitted no visitors. […] We existed within ourselves alone. It was a freak of fancy in my friend (for what else shall I call it?) to be enamored of the Night for her own sake; and into this bizarrerie, as into all his others, I quietly fell; giving myself up to his wild whims with a perfect abandon […]”

So… I do not think that I have to explain all that much. The so-called subtext is not even subtext here. Paris was – due to the Napoleonic Laws – known as a place where is was possible to have a homosexual affair in relative safety. So it is reasonable to say that Dupin and his nameless friend were indeed lovers.

Now, Sir ACD chose to take those two characters and their flat and – with some minor alterations – wrote his stories about Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson living at 221b Baker Street in London. His characters are based on two men having a physical relationship with each other, and although why he chose to do this, nobody knows, it is a fact. You could make more of this argument, but I think it is enough at this point.

Sir ACD, the upright Victorian moralist gentleman, hated Sherlock Holmes. He told an actor he may “marry him, murder him, or do anything he liked with him”, which not only shows that marriage and death are essentially the same for Sherlock Holmes, but also – and more importantly here – expresses his disdain for his own creation.

I said I was going to talk about Oscar Wilde. Wilde was born in 1854 (the year of SH’s birth – what a coincidence) and represents a type of decadent man known as the dandy. Holmes is a Bohemian, which was considered about as decadent as dandyism, and their lives follow similar patterns. Interestingly enough, Dorian Gray and The Sign of Four were commissioned during the same dinner by the same editor, and it can be said that the two authors were competitors. Wilde, however, was probably the more popular person, and I believe Sir ACD was somewhat jealous of him. Oscar Wilde’s trials are constantly alluded to in 1895 Sherlock Holmes stories, by the way… 

I mentioned above that he hated Sherlock Holmes. But how do these two things fit? Sir ACD wanted a good reason to hate Holmes. There is the expression “to laugh up one’s sleeve”, I personally I am of the opinion that is precisely what he did.


 


 



 
221bcrow: (Default)

How Watson Saved Holmes

That Sherlock Holmes takes drugs or has taken them is the one fact all people who have ever heard of him seem to know. 

But when and why exactly does he depend on drugs, and how does he win against his addiction? 

Might have something to do with a certain doctor. :) 

(NB: Nothing of this is actually new. I simply wanted to see what there is on drugs in the canon and try to sort it.)

 

A Study in Scarlet (1881), chapter 2

[F]or days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting-room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion.

In the beginning, just after having met Watson, Holmes does not have a very active practice yet. In the first week of living with Watson, he does not even leave the house or have a single client. The second week brings clients, but it can still safely be said that Holmes does not have enough material to go on to keep his mind challenged. From the description Watson gives it should be logical that anyone with eyes would notice that Holmes is prone to taking drugs, but Watson does his best not to notice. He is a doctor. He really should notice. But something in him refuses to acknowledge a “negative” trait in Holmes. Well, sweet.

 

The Five Orange Pips (November 1887) (November 1891)

“Yes,” I answered, laughing. “It was a singular document. Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the mud-stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime records unique, violin-player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco. Those, I think, were the main points of my analysis.”

I will not emphasise the fact that six years after the event both Holmes and Watson still remember that trivial conversation absolutely perfectly. However, the “cocaine and tobacco” bit is not in the list Watson will later publish. This can mean two things: either he realised that Holmes was an addict early on and just did not want to stress it to the public in his published version of A Study in Scarlet, or he is adding them here to “subtly” remind Holmes of the fact that he ought not to “poison” himself even though the cases are not exactly flocking in at the moment, as no account has been published yet and therefore Holmes is not as famous as he has to be to get more work. Both possibilities would explain why a doctor supposedly did not notice that his flatmate was on drugs. Which is unbelievably unlikely. Anyway, what Watson says is more serious than he would like to make it appear to the reader. But Watson is not really concerned yet, I think. Or the “joke” would forbid itself.

 

The Yellow Face (early spring 1888) (1893)

Save for the occasional use of cocaine, he had no vices, and he only turned to the drug as a protest against the monotony of existence when cases were scanty and the papers uninteresting.

A few months later, he is still convinced that Holmes only needs his stimulant when there is no interesting case, and I bet that the last months were pretty busy for them as A Study in Scarlet was first published in November 1887, which would have sent more clients to Holmes’s doorstep, so Watson probably thinks the “dark days” are over and is able to refer to his friend’s drug habit only in passing.

 

The Sign of Four (late autumn 1888) (1890), chapter 1

Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle and rolled back his left shirtcuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally, he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction.

Three times a day for many months I had witnessed this performance, but custom had not reconciled my mind to it. On the contrary, from day to day I had become more irritable at the sight, and my conscience swelled nightly within me at the thought that I had lacked the courage to protest. Again and again I had registered a vow that I should deliver my soul upon the subject; but there was that in the cool, nonchalant air of my companion which made him the last man with whom one would care to take anything approaching to a liberty. His great powers, his masterly manner, and the experience which I had had of his many extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and backward in crossing him.

Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the Beaune which I had taken with my lunch or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that I could hold out no longer.

“Which is it to-day,” I asked, “morphine or cocaine?”

He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened.

“It is cocaine,” he said, “a seven-per-cent solution. Would you care to try it?”

“No, indeed,” I answered brusquely. “My constitution has not got over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it.”

He smiled at my vehemence. “Perhaps you are right, Watson,” he said. “I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment.”

“But consider!” I said earnestly. “Count the cost! Your brain may, as you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid process which involves increased tissue-change and may at least leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon you. Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which you have been endowed? Remember that I speak not only as one comrade to another but as a medical man to one for whose constitution he is to some extent answerable.”

It seems that his practice has not taken off yet, or that it has lapsed after the “hype” after the publication of the first account. Watson’s attitude has changed completely: far from seeing Holmes’s use of drugs as an occasional occurrence only and taking it quite lightly, as he did before, he is now seriously concerned and unwilling that this should go on even one more day. Watson’s vehemence is anachronistic: after all, it was perfectly legal to take drugs, and it is not like Holmes was spending all his time in disreputable opium dens. Watson is concerned for Holmes’s physical and mental health here, as he has finally understood that Holmes is an addict (“three times a day for as many months”, not only sometimes), and not his reputation, which is the only possible explanation for the inclusion of this long scene about the drugs. Holmes, being Holmes, repeats his usual defence, but Watson does not believe it any more, and after the argument he is frustrated and angry at Holmes. It is not a coincidence, in my mind, that he will literally throw himself at the first client after this scene: enter his “love at first sight”, Mary Morstan. Or did Watson make up this “sweet” character as a antipole to the “cruel” Holmes he sees at the moment?

 

The Sign of Four (1887), chapter 12

“The division seems rather unfair,” I remarked. “You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?”

“For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “there still remains the cocaine-bottle.” And he stretched his long white hand up for it.

Ok, Watson has decided to leave Holmes (either he is really going to marry, or he needs some space, you choose), and it is quite sad to see that Holmes’s only way of escape are narcotics to numb the pain (reminds anyone of HLV?). A pity that the narrative stops here…

 

A Scandal in Bohemia (March 1889) (1891)

I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention; while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker-street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature.

[…]

He had risen out of his drug-created dreams 

First of all, as it has been pointed out before, Watson sounds far too happy to actually be it. It is a known fact that Watson likes to convince himself of it, and what does “my own complete happiness” sound like, exactly? It is just slightly unnatural, and not Watson’s genuine style. Anyway, Watson is still using the antipoles of “my sweet wife” and “Holmes on drugs”. It is also rather interesting to note that although Watson has not seen him since the marriage (let us just take his word for that, and not go into other theories now), he yet knows exactly what state Holmes is likely to be in, i.e. in a “drug-created dream”. Apart from the fact that Watson has been pondering over Holmes’s state of mind while supposedly living a happy life at his new home with his newlywed wife, this also tells us that Holmes really did turn to drugs as soon as Watson left.

 

The Man With the Twisted Lip (June 1889) (1891)

I suppose, Watson,” said he, “that you imagine that I have added opium-smoking to cocaine injections, and all the other little weaknesses on which you have favoured me with your medical views.”

The situation appears to have changed dramatically over the past few months. Not only has Mary Morstan pretty much disappeared (Watson essentially flees from her in this story in order to sleep in a “double-bedded [single] room” with Holmes), but Holmes’s practice is apparently going well. He does not need the drug at the moment, and to reassure his Watson, Holmes starts joking about it in addition to implying that he greatly values Watson’s skill/knowledge as a doctor. Which can only signify that they have managed to get over the fight of The Sign of Four.

NB: we will not hear anything about drugs any more until after Holmes’s return. This story was published in late 1891, several months after Holmes’s “death”. I do not know what to make of this yet.

 

The Missing Three-Quarter (1896)

Things had indeed been very slow with us, and I had learned to dread such periods of inaction, for I knew by experience that my companion’s brain was so abnormally active that it was dangerous to leave it without material upon which to work. For years I had gradually weaned him from that drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable career. Now I knew that under ordinary conditions he no longer craved for this artificial stimulus, but I was well aware that the fiend was not dead, but sleeping; and I have known that the sleep was a light one and the waking near when in periods of idleness I have seen the drawn look upon Holmes’s ascetic face, and the brooding of his deep-set and inscrutable eyes. Therefore I blessed this Mr. Overton, whoever he might be, since he had come with his enigmatic message to break that dangerous calm which brought more peril to my friend than all the storms of his tempestuous life.

As said above, this story is set in 1896. It was published after Holmes’s retirement to Sussex, maybe including this passage as an admonition to remind him of the fact that Watson strongly opposes this habit (and that it would the latter’s heart if Holmes started taking them again, in my opinion). But what is really interesting in this only direct reference to Holmes’s drug habit after his return is that Watson speaks of “years” which he spent weaning Holmes from his addiction. Wait a second, when? He takes drugs after Watson’s marriage, which means that the only “years” in question are 1889 to 1895. Watson was married from 1889 to at least 1891, and even if you do not subscribe to that theory, there are cases set in that time, so Holmes and Watson could not have gone somewhere to get Holmes to abandon his habit, which leaves only the years after 1891 – that is, the hiatus. The theory that Holmes and Watson faked the whole thing and then retired to the country to wean Holmes from the drugs is about as old as The Empty House.

Yet not all is well, and Watson still fears the ghosts of the past…

 

Conclusion:

Pre-Watson in 1881: Holmes does take drugs, but only occasionally.

1881 – early 1888: Still occasionally, at least not often enough for Watson to really worry.

Mid-1888 – spring 1889: Holmes takes drugs, first to escape boredom, which makes Watson distance himself from him, and then to escape the pain after Watson has indeed put a distance between them (regardless of which theory on Mary you favour)

Summer 1889 – 1891: Assuming that Moriarty is real, I would tend to think that Holmes is not taking drugs during this time as he cannot complain about lack of stimulus or clients, Watson having started publishing and Moriarty being delightfully interesting (if dangerous).

1891 – 1894: The hiatus. It might be that Holmes and Watson spent that time together to fight the addiction, and when they felt secure that they had it under control, they finally returned to London. This also fits in with the dates of the short stories that mention drugs set prior to Holmes’s return: Watson certainly had the drugs in his mind at that time and maybe even used the accounts he published to remind Holmes of fighting on…  

Post-hiatus: The fiend is not dead but sleeping. And yet, we only get one relapse (Holmes in The Three Gables is completely bizarre at best), and even that is not canonically confirmed.  

So, summing up: It’s incredibly sweet that Holmes has his worst period in life when left by Watson, and that Watson probably went into hiding for years to help Holmes, and that together they prevailed in the end…

------------------------

The Three Garridebs - the gayest ACD canon story?

It may have been a comedy, or it may have been a tragedy. It cost one man his reason, it cost me a blood-letting, and it cost yet another man the penalties of the law. Yet there was certainly an element of comedy. Well, you shall judge for yourselves.

Personally, I find this introduction odd. It is unlike what Watson usually does. Which means it is important: let us look for the “tragedy” and the “comedy” in this story: 

Tragedy: loss of “sanity”, “penalties of the law”
“Comedy” underwent a change in meaning: broadly speaking, it is a story with a happy ending (the oft-cited example is Dante’s Divine Comedy, which is not comic at all) story with a happy ending (cf definition; “humorous story” dates from 1877, so that meaning still lingers, and nothing in that case is actually really funny). What happy ending do we have here? “Loyalty and love”, of course, a declaration of love! (FINALLY)

in my position of partner and confidant I am obliged to be particularly careful to avoid any indiscretion
Yes, he really should avoid indiscretion in this case…

My friend here knows nothing of the details.”
Mr. Garrideb surveyed me with not too friendly a gaze.
“Need he know?” he asked.
“We usually work together.”

Again, Watson is more important than “the work”, Holmes being completely fine with Mr Garridebs (well, Killer Evans’s) hostility. Either the two of them, or none…

It was twilight of a lovely spring evening, and even Little Ryder Street, one of the smaller offshoots from the Edgware Road, within a stone-cast of old Tyburn Tree of evil memory, looked golden and wonderful in the slanting rays of the setting sun
This description is as romantic as the one in The Devil’s Foot. Much more romantic than anything Watson ever managed in a story connected with his wife (i.e. The Sign of Four). Huh.  

“This is a more serious matter than I had expected, Watson,” said he. “It is fair to tell you so, though I know it will only be an additional reason to you for running your head into danger. I should know my Watson by now. But there is danger, and you should know it.”
“Well, it is not the first we have shared, Holmes. I hope it may not be the last.
Danger-addict John Watson. No, seriously, “my Watson”? And “I hope it may not be the last.”?

There was one cupboard in a dark corner which stood out a little from the wall. It was behind this that we eventually crouched while Holmes in a whisper outlined his intentions.
Any reason why he had to whisper his ideas to Watson here in this room? I mean, other than being as close to Watson as possible under this pretext?

“You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake, say that you are not hurt!”
It was worth a wound–it was worth many wounds–to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain.

THAT QUOTE. No comment.

“By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive. Now, sir, what have you to say for yourself?
See above. They are both ready to die for each other – and to kill. Which is not good, but a sign of how much love there is between them.

I leaned on Holmes’s arm, and together we looked down into the small cellar which had been disclosed by the secret flap.
Just imagine them, arm in arm, looking expectantly into the unknown after a successfully solved case. Mwah.
---------------------------

TJLC in 1895 - already

I will focus on the Sherlock Holmes short stories that are certainly set in 1895. This has obviously something to do with the fact that the Sherlock Christmas Special has been announced to play in that year, but also with the important event of Oscar Wilde’s trials and their repercussions, which are quite blatantly alluded to or referenced in the 1895 stories. These stories are The Solitary Cyclist (late April), The Three Students (late April/early May?), Black Peter (early July) and The Bruce-Partington Plans (November).

 

 

The first story is The Solitary Cyclist, published in 1903. The plot is such: the main villain schemes to marry a Miss Violet Smith, who unbeknownst to her will inherit a large fortune upon her uncle’s death, and eventually he forces her to marry him, but as she was certainly unwilling the marriage is void (she was gagged and the others were armed, also the priest was defrocked and thus not allowed to perform a marriage ceremony). In my opinion, this case is the only 1895 one that’s really completely genuine. The case is an “outside” one: a client appears and seeks help and advice, unlike in the other cases, where the cases are brought to Holmes by a friend, Professor Soames, a police inspector who has worked with Holmes before and whom Holmes likes, Stanley Hopkins, and Brother Mycroft. Moreover, unlike The Three Students and The Bruce-Partington Plans, it has a clear and “final” ending: Miss Smith marries her fiancee and “all’s well”, the villains being sentenced to prison terms. The Three Students and The Bruce-Partington Plans are much more “hush-up”. However, this case is of some importance because Watson drew inspiration from it for another 1895 story, in my mind. Additionally, it is the only case set in 1895 where Holmes and Watson are not in some way hiding, but that is explicable: the most important, last trial has not begun yet, and the second one is only starting.

 

 

On to The Three Students, published in 1904. I have already analysed the opening paragraphs in some depth before, this being a quotation from my general analysis:

It was in the year ‘95 that a combination of events, into which I need not enter, caused Mr. Sherlock Holmes and myself to spend some weeks in one of our great University towns […] It will be obvious that any details which would help the reader to exactly identify the college or the criminal would be injudicious and offensive. So painful a scandal may well be allowed to die out. With due discretion the incident itself may, however, be described, since it serves to illustrate some of those qualities for which my friend was remarkable. I will endeavour in my statement to avoid such terms as would serve to limit the events to any particular place, or give a clue as to the people concerned.

Or to give a clue as to what really happened. So… Explanation:

1. In the year 1895 there were the Oscar Wilde trials, which caused a great many men who were more or less openly gay to “go on holiday” for a few months.

2. Universities were supposed to be more progressive than cities. Oscar Wilde met Robbie Ross at uni.

3. The “painful scandal” Watson is talking about here is about three students who are meant to sit a Greek exam, but one of them cheats. That’s not a scandal. Everybody who has even taken Greek knows that knowing the translation beforehand is the one way to pass.

4. They had to flee from London because of the public awareness the spectacular trials had caused, went to a friend of Holmes’.  

5. But of course Watson could not say it like that, so he had to invent a virtually new case.

No, no, my dear sir; such a course is utterly impossible. When once the law is evoked it cannot be stayed again, and this is just one of those cases where, for the credit of the college, it is most essential to avoid scandal. Your discretion is as well known as your powers, and you are the one man in the world who can help me. I beg you, Mr. Holmes, to do what you can.

Taken out of context, this quote is suggestive.

The fact that even though Holmes is clearly everything but thrilled at being anywhere but Baker Street, he is not in London anyway, is fairly obvious: “My friend’s temper had not improved since he had been deprived of the congenial surroundings of Baker Street. Without his scrap-books, his chemicals, and his homely untidiness, he was an uncomfortable man.

This is important because 3STU is not the only case where Holmes and Watson leave London for a prolonged period of time. What are they doing in that “university town”? The given reason (research into old charters) is more than suspicious. Yet if you consider the circumstances of the Oscar Wilde trials in April and May it becomes clear that the best thing to do if the slightest rumour about you existed was to flee. And given Watson’s writing, such rumours must have circulated.

The exercise consists of half a chapter of Thucydides.” The exam papers that are left on the professor’s desk are taken from Thucydides, probably by his most famous work on the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides was a Athenian historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is known for being an analyst and “scientific” writer – he credits humans with their actions, not the gods. Furthermore, Athens (the most “glorious” city in Greece) was his home, but he was exiled for something that was not his fault. Does this sound like someone? Holmes, maybe? Here, Watson had to invent an exam, and he chose an author who mirrors Holmes.

But what is this story actually about then, if not the exam?

“The moment I looked at my table I was aware that someone had rummaged among my papers. The proof was in three long slips. I had left them all together. Now, I found that one of them was lying on the floor, one was on the side table near the window, and the third was where I had left it.”

Professor Soames, who has been harbouring two fugitives, has left some incriminating papers of his own lying around, and is now extremely anxious to recover them.

Another hint that the papers are not, in fact, exam papers can be found here: “For an instant I imagined that Bannister had taken the unpardonable liberty of examining my papers. […] A large sum of money is at stake” What this sounds like is – again – blackmail…

Professor Soames refuses to call in the police, saying equivocal things such as these: “Do help me, Mr. Holmes! You see my dilemma. Either I must find the man or else the examination must be postponed until fresh papers are prepared, and since this cannot be done without explanation there will ensue a hideous scandal, which will throw a cloud not only on the college, but on the University. Above all things I desire to settle the matter quietly and discreetly.

Of course Holmes takes the case, and starts to ask about the three strips of paper the supposed exam is printed on. “Let me see the three strips. No finger impressions — no! Well, he carried over this one first and he copied it. How long would it take him to do that, using every possible contraction? A quarter of an hour, not less. Then he tossed it down and seized the next. He was in the midst of that when your return caused him to make a very hurried retreat — VERY hurried, since he had not time to replace the papers which would tell you that he had been there.

This makes absolutely no sense if what the student was copying was indeed Thucydides. It is completely unnecessary to copy three sheets of densely packed Greek text, the student could have copied only the first and last sentences and looked up the text in the next library, for instance, or even only memorised the chapter numbers. The fact that he needed to copy the whole text shows that he had stumbled upon something that had to be in full – probably private correspondence or suchlike.

The three possible culprits – the three students who live in the building – are now described. The third is Scottish and supposedly “wayward, dissipated, and unprincipled. He was nearly expelled over a card scandal in his first year.” Lord Alfred Douglas? Wilde’s (Scottish) lover? 

Anyway, the story goes on, Holmes investigates, and at some point he starts joking with Watson: “What with your eternal tobacco, Watson, and your irregularity at meals, I expect that you will get notice to quit and that I shall share your downfall — not, however, before we have solved the problem”. This is a truth veiled in a joke… The public fall from grace was a possibility.

Next morning we get some more indication that the matter concerns more than a simple scholarship: “The unfortunate tutor was certainly in a state of pitiable agitation when we found him in his chambers. […] He could hardly stand still, so great was his mental agitation, and he ran towards Holmes with two eager hands outstretched.” Slightly exaggerated for a scholarship, right? Right.

Holmes of course identifies the culprit, who fully repents and begs for forgiveness, which is granted, and he embarks to Rhodesia. This ties is nicely with the theme of people who are not “real” criminals going into exile that can be found throughout the story: the “culprit” flees.

 

 

Now comes Black Peter, also published in 1904. It starts with a few clues of exactly how Watson sees Holmes: “I have never known my friend to be in better form, both mental and physical, than in the year ‘95.” and “Holmes, however, like all great artists, lived for his art’s sake” (come on, sound even more like Oscar Wilde – oh, not possible, I understand…). He also calls the year “memorable”, which it must have been – Holmes and Watson spent a nice part of it most purposefully not in London, i.e. hiding somewhere.

The story is set in early July. Just as a reminder, Wilde lost his third trial against the Crown on May 25, and everybody involved who had not made his way to the country or continent yet or had returned like Holmes and Watson, did so then. Initially, Watson is at home in Baker Street, but Holmes is not: “my friend had been absent so often and so long from our lodgings”, which implies that even though Holmes has to be in London for some reasons, he does his best in order not to be available or even findable.

In itself the story is rather unremarkable, although it does contain blackmail, which is always a red blaring alert: the murderer kills his “victim” after said “victim” had assaulted him, but the murderer had only been there in the first place because he though that Black Peter “could afford to pay me well for keeping my mouth shut.” Now, this has probably no bearing on the story whatsoever, but I still think it is interesting to mention that these events the murderer is meant not to mention happened on a ship. In Victorian times, sea-life and especially the London docks had a certain…unsavoury reputation: mostly because they were the place you had most choice in rent boys.

The whole thing ends with this line from Holmes: “If you want me for the trial, my address and that of Watson will be somewhere in Norway – I’ll send particulars later.” Apart from the pun on the trial, this mostly shows that Holmes is taking the chance of leaving the country, apparently “for a case”, for a very long time – he had virtually no case-connected reason to go to Norway (he could have sent wires to clear up the loose strands, as he always does, and anyway Norway is not important for the case), but Norway is far enough from London to be safe, is it not? To put it in a nutshell, the case begins with Holmes hiding and ends with Holmes and Watson leaving the country on a trip that will mean that they will not be traceable for a while – Holmes’s detective friend (and he does like Hopkins) only gets a “promise for later”.

 

 

The Bruce-Partington Plans is the last story that is “officially” set in 1895. It was published in 1908.

Watson begins the narrative with a statement of the date: “in the third week of November, in the year 1895”, and goes on to clarify that he and Holmes have not left the flat for four days, asserting that this happened because of the “dense yellow fog”. Translation: it has been six months since Oscar Wilde’s trials, the waters have mostly calmed down, but it would still be unwise to be too noticeable to the outside world, and Holmes and Watson are hiding. Indeed, so much so that only Jupiter leaving his orbit (i.e. Brother Mycroft) can drag them out of Baker Street. This impression is reinforced by the association of the colour yellow with caution (http://www.colormatters.com/the-meanings-of-colors/yellow) – they simply cannot risk being overly visible, but are in Baker Street because everything else (given Holmes’s famous habits) would attract even more attention.

Because of the mental stagnation following from this “exile”, Holmes is bored and much annoyed although Watson attempts to interest him in a few cases mentioned on the papers, and yet again we see Holmes regretfully speculating about his possible life as a criminal himself: “Holmes snorted his contempt. “This great and sombre stage is set for something more worthy than that,” said he. “It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal.”” This is significant because it proves yet again that Holmes would not have any problem with being one and openly flouting the law. Only Watson’s moral integrity keeps him from that side.

Holmes then gets a telegram from Mycroft, and it is again stressed that Mycroft is very strongly connected with the Diogenes Club. Now, there has been much speculation whether the canon Diogenes Club is not, in fact, a gentlemen’s club. Sherlock’s stopping to go there regularly upon meeting the doctor points in that direction, but this is not the place for this discussion (The Greek Interpreter is much more focused on the Diogenes).

The telegram runs like this: “Must see you over Cadogan West. Coming at once. – Mycroft.” The first sentence is of extreme importance. It does not sound like Cadogan West was a name, more like code for something. But what could it mean? It took me a while to decipher it, but reading up Oscar Wilde’s trials (again) helped me along. In the course of the trials he was arrested while he was staying at the Cadogan Hotel, which was located in the West of London. This is huge because it clearly links the case, which is brought in by a person capable of manipulating the public order, with the scandal surrounding Wilde. Message: “we are not done yet, some things still have to be tidied up”. Here, it might also be interesting to note that the government originally wanted to hush the whole scandal surrounding him up, and not give him a prison sentence at all, but in the end the government had no choice but to accept the impending sentence because the public was set against Wilde very strongly.

There are a few references to discretion in the following paragraphs (“one has to be discreet”), and another emphasis on the fact that Mycroft must have an extremely valid reason for coming to Sherlock (probably because it is too delicate a matter for Mycroft): “Jupiter is descending to-day. What on earth can it mean?” (Holmes). He then continues wondering: “Who is Cadogan West, and what is he to Mycroft?” Holmes probably assumes Cadogan West is code for a person of some importance to Mycroft. Could Mycroft himself be in danger of getting tied up in a scandal?

Maybe not, but guess what this young man is believed to have done? He has stolen some secret papers from the army (can be read as “Mycroft” - even Holmes clearly says this: “Government employ. Behold the link with Brother Mycroft!”), ten pages in total, but when ends up with his head smashed in on the tram tracks, and only seven sheets in his pocket, which leaves three sheets of potentially dangerous content…somewhere Mycroft has no access to. So Mycroft needs Sherlock to bring those papers back. The claim that these ten sheets of paper are technical plans is nonsensical: the plans are supposed to enable the holder to build a Bruce-Partington submarine, which makes no sense at all given the technicality of a submarine. No, this is ridiculous and Mofftisson know it: the Bruce-Partington programme turn out to be completely inconsequential in S1E3. The only thing that this tells us is that somebody needed the original copies to achieve a certain goal. Well…

Now comes another clue: Cadogan West is engaged to a Miss Violet Westbury. This is the second Violet in a 1895 case, and as The Solitary Cyclist was published before The Bruce-Partington Plans, it can only be deduced that Watson recycled a name, hinting at the fact that most of this story is heavily…edited.

A few clues about the importance of the case and the nature of the “papers” follow, but it get really interesting only when the next names are mentioned: the clerk who had the keys to the safe is called Sidney Johnson. It must be remembered that Watson chooses his names with much care, and this name can be taken apart quite nicely: “Sidney” could very well refer to the Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge, which Dorothy L Sayers suggests as Holmes’s college (where, incidentally, he met Victor Trevor, who has been argued was Holmes’s first love interest), while “Johnson” may allude to the Lionel Johnson who introduced Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie). (OK, this is a long shot. But.)

Holmes and Watson have to go out an investigate, even though the thick yellow fog remains, and find that a man responsible for the safety of the papers has died of broken heart, apparently: ““It was this horrible scandal,” said he. “My brother, Sir James, was a man of very sensitive honour, and he could not survive such an affair. […]” Taken out of context, this statement is so equivocal…

Watson is sent back home by Holmes, which gives birth to a few rather sweet sentences:

I will do nothing serious without my trusted comrade and biographer at my elbow.”

All the long November evening I waited, filled with impatience for his return.”

"I don’t like it, Holmes."”

"My dear fellow, you shall keep watch in the street. I’ll do the criminal part. It’s not a time to stick at trifles. Think of Mycroft’s note, of the Admiralty, the Cabinet, the exalted person who waits for news. We are bound to go.”

My answer was to rise from the table.

“You are right, Holmes. We are bound to go.”

He sprang up and shook me by the hand.

“I knew you would not shrink at the last,” said he, and for a moment I saw something in his eyes which was nearer to tenderness than I had ever seen. The next instant he was his masterful, practical self once more.

“It is nearly half a mile, but there is no hurry. Let us walk,” said he. “Don’t drop the instruments, I beg. Your arrest as a suspicious character would be a most unfortunate complication.”

Holmes is actually joking about Watson’s “un-virtues” again…

In the spy’s flat they have just broken into they find the spy’s correspondence with a certain Pierrot, who is the one who stole the papers. Remember what I said about names; a poem published by Olive Custance, who  married Lord Alfred Douglas in 1902, is called “Pierrot”.

Lestrade, who is clearly in on everything Holmes does, puns: “But some of these days you’ll go too far, and you’ll find yourself and your friend in trouble.

The story ends with the whole spy part of the murder (obviously) hushed up, and the man who stole the papers – although partly redeemed by helping Holmes to get them back – dies after two years in prison. Wait. Who else’s death was directly caused by a prison sentence of two years? Oh, yes, Oscar’s.

Quite a lot about one scandal in four stories – makes you wonder why exactly Sir ACD did that…

 

Oh, Mofftisson, please include some of this in the Christmas Special!
----------------

TJLC - gay subplots in canon

Just a few out of many instances where subplots or allusions point towards Holmes and Watson being together – mirroring is used very frequently to show the literal elephant in the room…

 

The Sign of Four, chapter 9

“In the early dawn I woke with a start and was surprised to find him standing by my bedside, clad in a rude sailor dress with a peajacket and a coarse red scarf round his neck.
“I am off down the river, Watson,” said he. “I have been turning it over in my mind, and I can see only one way out of it. It is worth trying, at all events.”
“Surely I can come with you, then?” said I.
“No […] "”

One of the code signs that gay men used were red kerchiefs, and which translates to Holmes’s red scarf quite neatly, especially given the thing I explained above with the docks. He goes off to investigate the docks, and Watson would accompany him, but Holmes is always one to “spare” Watson reconnaissance, and The Sign of Four is packed with angst anyway, so Holmes would not want Watson to come along. I suppose this scene is not exactly paramount. But the thought of Holmes possibly posing as a rent boy for a case is rather nice, is it not?

 

A Study in Scarlet, chapter 6

Inspector Gregson: “The young man volunteered a statement, in which he said that after following Drebber some time, the latter perceived him, and took a cab in order to get away from him. On his way home he met an old shipmate, and took a long walk with him. On being asked where this old shipmate lived, he was unable to give any satisfactory reply.”

What on Earth did those two shipmates (it is becoming a cliche and I am perfectly aware of it, but it fits too well) do in the middle of the night for several hours? It is repeated over and over that that particular night was extremely rainy, so the “walk” cannot have happened. Homosexual subplot number one – and in the first story already. What was Watson thinking when he decided to include this? Foreshadowing? After all, the story was not published until 1887.

 

The Priory School

The Duke explaining his son’s relationship with the main villain: “The fellow was a rascal from the beginning; but in some extraordinary way James became intimate with him. He had always a taste for low company.”

And his Grace clearly does not approve, and with a good reason in this case. Mr James Wilder will proceed to emigrate to Australia at the end of the story. Oh. Again?

 

The Gloria Scott

Holmes recounting his first case to Watson years later, and speaking for the first time of his only friend: “Trevor used to come in to inquire after me. At first it was only a minute’s chat, but soon his visits lengthened, and before the end of the term we were close friends. He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirits and energy, the very opposite to me in most respects, but we had some subjects in common, and it was a bond of union when I found that he was as friendless as I. Finally, he invited me down to his father’s place at Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I accepted his hospitality for a month of the long vacation.”

I am very sorry but this does not sound like an only-a-friend “friend” all that much, to be honest.

If anyone is interested, the story’s plot is that Trevor’s father is blackmailed (!) by a sailor (!) about something that happened years ago on a ship (!). Fine, let us just call it a trope. But really.

This is what Holmes tells us about the aftermath of the revelation of what his father did on that ship for Victor Trevor: “The good fellow was heart-broken at it, and went out to the Terai tea planting, where I hear that he is doing well.”

Does this flight/exile remind us of anybody in specific? No?

 

Wisteria Lodge

Mr Scott Eccles about himself and Mr Garcia:

“"I’m sure it must look very bad, Mr. Holmes, and I am not aware that in my whole life such a thing has ever happened before. But I will tell you the whole queer business, and when I have done so you will admit, I am sure, that there has been enough to excuse me.”
[…]
“I am a bachelor,” said he, “and being of a sociable turn I cultivate a large number of friends. Among these are the family of a retired brewer called Melville, living at Abermarle Mansion, Kensington. It was at his table that I met some weeks ago a young fellow named Garcia. He was, I understood, of Spanish descent and connected in some way with the embassy. He spoke perfect English, was pleasing in his manners, and as good-looking a man as ever I saw in my life.
In some way we struck up quite a friendship, this young fellow and I. He seemed to take a fancy to me from the first, and within two days of our meeting he came to see me at Lee. One thing led to another, and it ended in his inviting me out to spend a few days at his house, Wisteria Lodge, between Esher and Oxshott. Yesterday evening I went to Esher to fulfill this engagement.” ”

No need to comment much on this one; “one thing led to another” is pretty unambiguous.

 

The Blanched Soldier

James M Dodd speaking about Godfrey Emsworth:

“There was not a finer lad in the regiment. We formed a friendship — the sort of friendship which can only be made when one lives the same life and shares the same joys and sorrows. He was my mate — and that means a good deal in the Army. We took the rough and the smooth together for a year of hard fighting. Then he was hit with a bullet from an elephant gun in the action near Diamond Hill outside-Pretoria. I got one letter from the hospital at Cape Town and one from Southampton. Since then not a word — not one word, Mr. Holmes, for six months and more, and he my closest pal.”
“Well, when the war was over, and we all got back, I wrote to his father and asked where Godfrey was. No answer. I waited a bit and then I wrote again. This time I had a reply, short and gruff. Godfrey had gone on a voyage round the world, and it was not likely that he would be back for a year. That was all. I wasn’t satisfied, Mr. Holmes. The whole thing seemed to me so damned unnatural. He was a good lad, and he would not drop a pal like that. It was not like him. Then, again, I happened to know that he was heir to a lot of money, and also that his father and he did not always hit it off too well. The old man was sometimes a bully, and young Godfrey had too much spirit to stand it. No, I wasn’t satisfied, and I determined that I would get to the root of the matter. […] Since I have taken it up I mean to drop everything in order to see it through.”

Speaking to Godfrey’s father: “I was fond of your son Godfrey, sir. Many ties and memories united us. Is it not natural that I should wonder at his sudden silence and should wish to know what has become of him?”

A love declaration to the father: “ You must put it down, sir, to my real love for your son.”

The father then speaks of “a delicate and difficult position.”

And guess into what direction James’s thoughts immediately go – he knows his friend very well: The old man’s words seemed to me to bear only one interpretation. Clearly my poor friend had become involved in some criminal or, at the least, disreputable transaction which touched the family honour. That stern old man had sent his son away and hidden him from the world lest some scandal should come to light. Godfrey was a reckless fellow. He was easily influenced by those around him. No doubt he had fallen into bad hands and been misled to his ruin.

Of course, there has to be a happy ending: the father mistook a skin disease Godfrey had for leprosy and locked him up with his consent, and this is the friends’ (lovers’) reunion:

“A man was standing with his back to the fire, and at the sight of him my client sprang forward with outstretched hand.
“Why, Godfrey, old man, this is fine!”
But the other waved him back.
“Don’t touch me, Jimmie. Keep your distance. Yes, you may well stare! I don’t quite look the smart Lance-Corporal Emsworth, of B Squadron, do I?"”
Nicknames? Comments on smart looks? Also, so much love and angst… This is not even a subplot any more. This is just a love story as a plot, and nobody noticed back then…
As said above, subplots are important because they mirror Holmes and Watson and they would not be noticed by most readers, especially, of course, when the stories are set.
I will leave you to draw your own conclusions.


 


 
221bcrow: (Default)

How Watson came back to life to save Holmes

In HLV, Sherlock’s heart starts beating again because “John Watson is definitely in danger”. In the ACD canon, Watson defeats certain madness and death in The Devil’s Foot because he realises that Holmes will die if he, Watson, does not save him. Else, that story is quite telling as well: it is far too romantic in its descriptions, Watson refers to “discretion”, a mirror to Holmes commits a crime in passionate revenge, and Holmes and Watson are living in an isolated cottage in Cornwall, for crying out loud! (And I think that there might be only one bedroom, by the way.)

 

My participation in some of his adventures was always a privilege which entailed discretion and reticence upon me.

 

It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that Holmes’s iron constitution showed some symptoms of giving way […][H]e was induced at last, on the threat of being permanently disqualified from work, to give himself a complete change of scene and air. Thus it was that in the early spring of that year we found ourselves together in a small cottage near Poldhu Bay, at the further extremity of the Cornish peninsula.

What follows now is a ridiculously long and romantic description of bleak but heartbreakingly beautiful Cornwall. Which would be entirely unnecessary if the story’s main point was actually to show a detective’s work and not to become the perfect covert romance.  

 

[They] entered abruptly into our little sitting-room on Tuesday, March the 16th, shortly after our breakfast hour, as we were smoking together, preparatory to our daily excursion upon the moors.

“Mr. Holmes,” said the vicar in an agitated voice, “the most extraordinary and tragic affair has occurred during the night. It is the most unheard-of business. We can only regard it as a special Providence that you should chance to be here at the time, for in all England you are the one man we need.”

I glared at the intrusive vicar with no very friendly eyes; but Holmes took his pipe from his lips and sat up in his chair like an old hound who hears the view-halloa.

First of all, they are so snug in “our” cottage after “our” breakfast, intending to take “our” walks. Secondly, Watson “glaring” at a vicar, trying to protect Holmes, is just a perfect image. He will not succeed, of course, and they go investigate.

 

My friend smiled and laid his hand upon my arm. “I think, Watson, that I shall resume that course of tobacco-poisoning which you have so often and so justly condemned,” said he. “With your permission, gentlemen, we will now return to our cottage, for I am not aware that any new factor is likely to come to our notice here. I will turn the facts over in my mind […]”

(If I were single and with a friend, I personally would not call a holiday cottage “ours”. Here it is done all the time.)

 

Finally he laid down his pipe and sprang to his feet.

“It won’t do, Watson!” said he with a laugh. “Let us walk along the cliffs together and search for flint arrows. We are more likely to find them than clues to this problem. To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson–all else will come.

"Now, let us calmly define our position, Watson,” he continued as we skirted the cliffs together.

Holmes is not getting anywhere with his theories, so what does he do? Take Watson on a romantic walk on the Cornwall coast.

 

I was shaving at my window in the morning when I heard the rattle of hoofs and, looking up, saw a dog-cart coming at a gallop down the road. It pulled up at our door, and our friend, the vicar, sprang from it and rushed up our garden path. Holmes was already dressed, and we hastened down to meet him.

“My window” sounds like there was one room with several windows to me, but that is not really conclusive. What is, though, is that Watson does not mention what Holmes was doing “already dressed” (implying he was not, before) in the same room as Watson, which is still shaving.

 

One realized the red-hot energy which underlay Holmes’s phlegmatic exterior when one saw the sudden change which came over him from the moment that he entered the fatal apartment. In an instant he was tense and alert, his eyes shining, his face set, his limbs quivering with eager activity.

I do not feel like I needed to say anything about this.

 

Another experiment which he made was of a more unpleasant nature, and one which I am not likely ever to forget.

No, you will not forget that experiment, and for a very good reason…

 

“[W]e will, however, take the precaution to open our window to avoid the premature decease of two deserving members of society, and you will seat yourself near that open window in an armchair unless, like a sensible man, you determine to have nothing to do with the affair. Oh, you will see it out, will you? I thought I knew my Watson. This chair I will place opposite yours, so that we may be the same distance from the poison and face to face. […]”

They were not long in coming. I had hardly settled in my chair before I was conscious of a thick, musky odour, subtle and nauseous. At the very first whiff of it my brain and my imagination were beyond all control. A thick, black cloud swirled before my eyes, and my mind told me that in this cloud, unseen as yet, but about to spring out upon my appalled senses, lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous and inconceivably wicked in the universe. Vague shapes swirled and swam amid the dark cloud-bank, each a menace and a warning of something coming, the advent of some unspeakable dweller upon the threshold, whose very shadow would blast my soul. A freezing horror took possession of me. I felt that my hair was rising, that my eyes were protruding, that my mouth was opened, and my tongue like leather. The turmoil within my brain was such that something must surely snap. I tried to scream and was vaguely aware of some hoarse croak which was my own voice, but distant and detached from myself. At the same moment, in some effort of escape, I broke through that cloud of despair and had a glimpse of Holmes’s face, white, rigid, and drawn with horror–the very look which I had seen upon the features of the dead. It was that vision which gave me an instant of sanity and of strength. I dashed from my chair, threw my arms round Holmes, and together we lurched through the door, and an instant afterwards had thrown ourselves down upon the grass plot and were lying side by side, conscious only of the glorious sunshine which was bursting its way through the hellish cloud of terror which had girt us in. Slowly it rose from our souls like the mists from a landscape until peace and reason had returned, and we were sitting upon the grass, wiping our clammy foreheads, and looking with apprehension at each other to mark the last traces of that terrific experience which we had undergone.

“Upon my word, Watson!” said Holmes at last with an unsteady voice, “I owe you both my thanks and an apology. It was an unjustifiable experiment even for one’s self, and doubly so for a friend. I am really very sorry.”

“You know,” I answered with some emotion, for I have never seen so much of Holmes’s heart before, “that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you.”

Finding a more romantic scene in any book whatsoever is impossible. At least, I am a book-addict and have failed to find any for years and years.

 

For a moment I wished that I were armed. Sterndale’s fierce face turned to a dusky red, his eyes glared, and the knotted, passionate veins started out in his forehead, while he sprang forward with clenched hands towards my companion.

Watson wishes for a gun because Holmes is threatened. It reminds me of Holmes swearing to Killer Evans that he would kill him if he murdered Watson. It goes both ways.

 

Sterndale sat down with a gasp, overawed for, perhaps, the first time in his adventurous life. There was a calm assurance of power in Holmes’s manner which could not be withstood.

Reading such statements is painful because they are so obvious…

 

“Should I appeal to the law? Where were my proofs? I knew that the facts were true, but could I help to make a jury of countrymen believe so fantastic a story? I might or I might not. But I could not afford to fail. My soul cried out for revenge. I have said to you once before, Mr. Holmes, that I have spent much of my life outside the law, and that I have come at last to be a law to myself.

Dr Leon Sterndale serves as a mirror for Holmes: he determines what is just, and Holmes understands him and lets him go. What is interesting is that Holmes’s mirror is a man who committed a crime in revenge because he passionately loved somebody. And we all know that Holmes would kill for Watson (3GAR).

 

Perhaps, if you loved a woman, you would have done as much yourself. At any rate, I am in your hands. You can take what steps you like. As I have already said, there is no man living who can fear death less than I do.”

[Holmes lets Sterndale go.]

“You would not denounce the man?”

“Certainly not,” I answered.

I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved had met such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has done. Who knows?

Two things of importance: a) Sterndale knows/assumes that Holmes does not “love a woman”, and b) we should not believe Holmes’s statement for a few valid reasons. Apart from the fact that we know that Holmes is perfectly capable of love, Holmes himself will take Sterndale’s stance in 3GAR, and moreover, what Holmes says is a verbal repetition of Sterndale’s assertion and really does not sound like something Holmes would say sua sponte.

 

And now, my dear Watson, I think we may dismiss the matter from our mind […].”

Please take a moment to appreciate the singular form of “mind”: they share their thoughts. Beautiful.

-------------------------------------------------

Code “red” in Sherlock Holmes

I know everybody has had enough of this reading of “red scarves/kerchiefs/collars=gay” in Victorian code, but why do they keep turning up?

 

Sherlock:

The Sign of Four, 1888

In the early dawn I woke with a start, and was surprised to find him standing by my bedside, clad in a rude sailor dress with a pea-jacket, and a coarse red scarf round his neck.

The Beryl Coronet, 1886

He hurried to his chamber and was down again in a few minutes dressed as a common loafer. With his collar turned up, his shiny, seedy coat, his red cravat, and his worn boots, he was a perfect sample of the class.

 

And Mycroft too:

The Greek Interpreter, 1888

Mycroft took snuff from a tortoise-shell box, and brushed away the wandering grains from his coat front with a large, red silk handkerchief.

The Final Problem, 1891

Holmes to Watson: “You will find a small brougham waiting close to the curb, driven by a fellow with a heavy black cloak tipped at the collar with red.”

(Again: red around the neck.)

 

(And if you want to have something to have fun with, am I the only one who thinks that Holmes is posing as a rent boy at the docks in that scene in The Sign of Four?)


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Badass John Watson is ACD CANON - Captain John Watson was never a goldfish.

Here the many times when Holmes asks Watson to bring his gun along and when Watson has to fight for Holmes’s and his own safety. 

Holmes always relies on Watson to see them through…

A Study in Scarlet, 1881: 
“Have you any arms?”
“I have my old service revolver and a few cartridges.”
“You had better clean it and load it. He will be a desperate man, and though I shall take him unawares, it is as well to be ready for anything.”

The Speckled Band, 1883: I should be very much obliged if you would slip your revolver into your pocket. An Eley’s No. 2 is an excellent argument with gentlemen who can twist steel pokers into knots.

The Sing of Four, 1888: “Have you a pistol, Watson?”/“I have my old service-revolver in my desk.”/“You had best take it, then. It is well to be prepared. […]”

The Hound of the Baskervilles, 1888: “I will come,” said I. / “Then get your revolver”

The Copper Beeches, 1889: “I tell you that he is a clever and dangerous man. I should not be very much surprised if this were he whose step I hear now upon the stair. I think, Watson, that it would be as well for you to have your pistol ready.”

Black Peter, 1895: I heard a click of steel and a bellow like an enraged bull. The next instant Holmes and the seaman were rolling on the ground together. He was a man of such gigantic strength that, even with the handcuffs which Holmes had so deftly fastened upon his wrists, he would have very quickly overpowered my friend had Hopkins and I not rushed to his rescue. Only when I pressed the cold muzzle of the revolver to his temple did he at last understand that resistance was vain. We lashed his ankles with cord, and rose breathless from the struggle.

The Devil’s Foot, 1897: For a moment I wished that I were armed 

The Six Napoleons, 1900: I was not surprised when Holmes suggested that I should take my revolver with me

Thor Bridge, 1900: 
Watson,” said he, “I have some recollection that you go armed upon these excursions of ours.”
It was as well for him that I did so, for he took little care for his own safety when his mind was once absorbed by a problem so that more than once my revolver had been a good friend in need. I reminded him of the fact.
Yes, yes, I am a little absent-minded in such matters. But have you your revolver on you?”

Lady Frances Carfax, 1902: Well, there’s nothing for it now but a direct frontal attack. Are you armed?

The Three Gables, 1903: It may have been the icy coolness of my friend, or it may have been the slight clatter which I made as I picked up the poker. 

 

And in addition to the physical side of defending Holmes (seriously, Holmes would have died at about thirty without Watson), Watson is his partner mentally as well, as I showed before.

--------------------------------------

John Watson is far too clever

sherloki1854

It always makes me mad when Watson is a bumbling idiot in an adaptation or pastiche etc. He is Holmes’s partner, not his pet! So this is meant to show that badass Watson is canon! (A birthday present for myself.) ;)  

Holmes is a drama queen not only in Sherlock: in canon, he shows off as much as humanly possible with his deductions, and particularly in front of Watson, who humours him and expresses his admiration. This led a lot of people to the (awful) assumption that Holmes essentially only wanted an idiot who would adulate him, and it is important to me to show that even though Watson constantly undervalues himself (Holmes even speaks of Watson’s “modesty” in The Blanched Soldier) and it is thus difficult to find evidence, he was, in fact, a perfectly intelligent man. But sometimes he does let through that he follows Holmes’s deductions – he knows Holmes and his methods. And he is able to apply it:

 

The Resident Patient, 1886
I was sufficiently conversant with Holmes’s methods to be able to follow his reasoning, and to see that the nature and state of the various medical instruments in the wicker basket which hung in the lamplight inside the brougham had given him the data for his swift deduction.

The Norwood Builder, 1894
Familiar as I was with my friend’s methods, it was not difficult for me to follow his deductions, and to observe the untidiness of attire, the sheaf of legal papers, the watch-charm, and the breathing which had prompted them. Our client, however, stared in amazement.

The Solitary Cyclist, 1895
“At least it cannot be your health,” said he, as his keen eyes darted over her; “so ardent a bicyclist must be full of energy.”
She glanced down in surprise at her own feet, and I observed the slight roughening of the side of the sole caused by the friction of the edge of the pedal.

The Devil’s Foot, 1897
Well, as you seem to have made the discovery, whatever it may be, and the vicar to have had it second-hand, perhaps you had better do the speaking,” said Holmes.
I glanced at the hastily clad clergyman, with the formally dressed lodger seated beside him, and was amused at the surprise which Holmes’s simple deduction had brought to their faces.

-------------------------------------------

Exactly how “intimate” Holmes and Watson are

This is a pretty pointless compilation of how “intimate” they are in canon. It’s my birthday tomorrow so I can post something just for fun. Actually, that is a terrible excuse. I would have posted this bit of nonsensical meta anyway. ;)

The Speckled Band, 1883

  • This is my intimate friend and associate, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before myself.
  • They have known each other for two years and are already that intimate? It would be a normal thing to say today, but this is 1883 and the Victorians were – let’s call it peculiar about this sort of thing.

The Yellow Face, 1888

  • For two hours we rambled about together, in silence for the most part, as befits two men who know each other intimately.
  • Read as: they did not have to speak their thoughts out loud because the both already knew exactly what the other would be thinking. Well, it is canon that Holmes can (and does) read Watson’s thoughts.

The Greek Interpreter, 1888

  • During my long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Sherlock Holmes I had never heard him refer to his relations, and hardly ever to his own early life.
  • Again, “long and intimate”; also he does finally refer to his family in this story. So basically, The Greek Interpreter is “meeting the family” (plus, obviously, another crime/date).

The Final Problem, 1891

  • […] the very intimate relations which had existed between Holmes and myself […]
  • And even more – “very intimate”? Watson, are you trying to say something?

The Devil’s Foot, 1897

  • In recording from time to time some of the curious experiences and interesting recollections which I associate with my long and intimate friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have continually been faced by difficulties caused by his own aversion to publicity.
  • See above; but now, a few years later, Watson has dropped all pretence of “acquaintance” and simply says “friendship”. This does not fit modern language/terms, but, for instance, Oscar Wilde referred to Lord Alfred Douglas as his “friend”, and Maurice and Clive are “friends”.

The Dancing Men, 1898

  • I gave a start of astonishment. Accustomed as I was to Holmes’s curious faculties, this sudden intrusion into my most intimate thoughts was utterly inexplicable.
  • And here, the mind-reading episode. It is a pretty impossible thing to do if you do not know somebody by heart. Even for Holmes it would probably be impossible on anybody else. But Holmes is not the only one who does it: Watson knows Holmes exactly as well. How about these two quotations: To me, who knew his every mood and habit, […] (A Scandal in Bohemia) and but it seemed to me, accustomed as I was to his every mood, […] (The Navel Treaty).

Watson, you are truly awful at keeping your secret, do you know?

By the way, just wondering, what exactly does “intimate” imply? ;)



 


 

221bcrow: (Default)

 

My Meta

General 

Sherlock Holmes as a potential “deviant”  

Sherlock Holmes - an “invert”?

Johnlock in canon

What does Mary Morstan even do in the books? 

Watson is an unreliable narrator. And he is not even ashamed of it. 

Where Holmes and Watson were in 1895 - hiding from the Oscar Wilde trials 

Single Short Stories 

TJLC in 1895 - already 

Gay “subtext” in CAM (Charles Augustus Milverton) 

The Three Garridebs - the gayest ACD canon story? 

How Watson came back to life to save Holmes  (The Devil’s Foot) 

Further Evidence

Watson is not married to his work. He is married to Holmes. 

Watson’s wedding vows - for Holmes 

Holmes’s and Watson’s pet names 

TJLC - gay subplots in canon

Even in “Scandal”, Holmes is gay 

Holmes is queer in canon 

Watson’s marriage(s) - proof of Johnlock 

What Holmes and Watson say about each other’s looks. Compliments ahead. 

How Holmes and Watson appreciate male beauty 

How Watson saved Holmes 

Sherlock Holmes has a heart 

Holmes as an artist - a somewhat “decadent” profession 

How Holmes and Watson react to each other’s “deaths” 

Compilations 

Exactly how “intimate” Holmes and Watson are 

Sharing a room - always…

Holmes and Watson and romantic walks 

Watson rushing to Holmes’s bedside - wherever he is

Holmes and Watson in various states of undress

Watson’s bedroom and Holmes’s regular invasions thereof

Holmes stalking his Watson

Holmes’s and Watson’s dates 

Holmes and Watson hiding together. Always pressed close. 

Holmes and Watson holding hands

Other 

“Cadogan West”, Oscar Wilde and Sherlock Holmes

Some thoughts on Mycroft Holmes 

Code “red” in Sherlock Holmes 

Sherlock’s Waters gang + parallels in the ACD canon 

Dupin and SH

But WHY did Sir ACD “do” Johnlock? 




Sherlock Holmes as a potential “deviant” in canon

The first words he is described with: “queer”, “bizarre”, “eccentric” (A Study in Scarlet). “Queer” is what the Marquess of Queensberry called Lord Alfred Douglas, his son and Oscar Wilde’s lover (i.e. not a “new” word). 

Here, Watson has known Holmes for a few weeks: “My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.” (A Study in Scarlet) 

In the beginning, Watson says that Holmes’ walks “appeared to take him to the lowest portions of the city” – this is the 19th century, and this is Dr Watson writing… (A Study in Scarlet).

Watson also has the impression that Holmes has “some strong reasons for not alluding to” why he does this – which, considering the terms of the Labouchere Amendment, is perfectly reasonable (A Study in Scarlet).

He considers the science of deduction as an art and is himself a musician (A Study in Scarlet) – Let it only be said that another literary virtuoso was Dorian Gray.

Holmes once says “To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure can be derived” (Cooper Breeches) – an aphorism worthy of Oscar Wilde.

He is a drug addict or at least bordering on addiction (The Sign of Four) until Watson saves him from his addiction (Missing Three-Quarter) – drug use was associated with homosexuality (being at home or in some other closed place with only one’s imagination (passivity) as opposed to being the one who works for his family (activity)). (Don’t ask. I actually researched this topic for weeks. Most of what people was both sad and hilarious.) 

He has the for a Victorian man rather untypical traits of being theatrical (The Hound of the Baskervilles) and a very fine actor (A Scandal in Bohemia).

Holmes says that “women” are not “an attraction” to him (Lion’s Mane).

Watson speaks of Holmes’s "aversion to women" (Greek Interpreter) and says that he “disliked and distrusted the sex” (Dying Detective)

And not only Watson knows this perfectly well. Somebody says to Holmes “If you loved a woman…” (Devil’s Foot) - Implication: it’s common knowledge he doesn’t.

 

And if anything on this list seems discriminatory: I’m very sorry but that’s what 19th-century cliches were like. As is my wording. I had to fit in the word “deviant” somewhere. (Personal joke…) (NO need to know.) ;) 

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Sherlock Holmes - an “invert”?

In Victorian times, a much used word for homosexuals was “inverts”, or for a single person “invert”, obviously. Now, Sir ACD never used the word “invert” in any of his stories (it was not exactly a code word – everybody would have known the meaning).

“Invert” comes from Latin “invertere” (participle “inversum”), which means “to turn upside down”.

The English word “inward” is phonetically nearly the same and also etymologically related to the Latin word: the “in” is identical and the second parts of the words, “versum” and “ward” are descended from the same Proto-Indoeuropean root.

Which is interesting. Could the use of “inward” be meaningful in any way?

 

Let us see how it is used:

“Inward” is used eleven times in canon. 

 

Twice about things.

Twice about women (The Sign of Four, Thor Bridge).

Twice about men - and one of them is certainly gay (the one in The Blanched Soldier, also The Three Garridebs).

And FIVE times about Holmes. 

 

The Valley of Fear, 1890

Sherlock Holmes’s eyes glistened, his pale cheeks took a warmer hue, and his whole eager face shone with an inward light when the call for work reached him.

The Hound of the Baskervilles, 1889

Holmes returned to his seat with that quiet look of inward satisfaction which meant that he had a congenial task before him.

The Engineer’s Thumb, 1889

Something in his tone caught my ear, and I turned to look at him. An extraordinary change had come over his face. It was writhing with inward merriment. His two eyes were shining like stars.

Charles Augustus Milverton, 1885-1888?

At last, however, on a wild, tempestuous evening, when the wind screamed and rattled against the windows, he returned from his last expedition, and having removed his disguise he sat before the fire and laughed heartily in his silent inward fashion.

The Second Stain, 1888

I could see from Holmes’s rigid face that he was vibrating with inward excitement.

 

(Incidentally, in one of the two instances where it is used about a woman the words “against her usual nature” are also used by a man who is in love with her. Hmm..?

Thor Bridge, 1900

And women lead an inward life and may do things beyond the judgment of a man. At first I was so rattled and taken aback that I was ready to think she had been led away in some extraordinary fashion that was clean against her usual nature.)

 

Was Sir ACD trying to tell us something covertly?

This is almost certainly overinterpretation. But I think it might be interesting.

----------------------
 

TJLC in 1895 - already

I will focus on the Sherlock Holmes short stories that are certainly set in 1895. This has obviously something to do with the fact that the Sherlock Christmas Special has been announced to play in that year, but also with the important event of Oscar Wilde’s trials and their repercussions, which are quite blatantly alluded to or referenced in the 1895 stories. These stories are The Solitary Cyclist (late April), The Three Students (late April/early May?), Black Peter (early July) and The Bruce-Partington Plans (November).

 

 

The first story is The Solitary Cyclist, published in 1903. The plot is such: the main villain schemes to marry a Miss Violet Smith, who unbeknownst to her will inherit a large fortune upon her uncle’s death, and eventually he forces her to marry him, but as she was certainly unwilling the marriage is void (she was gagged and the others were armed, also the priest was defrocked and thus not allowed to perform a marriage ceremony). In my opinion, this case is the only 1895 one that’s really completely genuine. The case is an “outside” one: a client appears and seeks help and advice, unlike in the other cases, where the cases are brought to Holmes by a friend, Professor Soames, a police inspector who has worked with Holmes before and whom Holmes likes, Stanley Hopkins, and Brother Mycroft. Moreover, unlike The Three Students and The Bruce-Partington Plans, it has a clear and “final” ending: Miss Smith marries her fiancee and “all’s well”, the villains being sentenced to prison terms. The Three Students and The Bruce-Partington Plans are much more “hush-up”. However, this case is of some importance because Watson drew inspiration from it for another 1895 story, in my mind. Additionally, it is the only case set in 1895 where Holmes and Watson are not in some way hiding, but that is explicable: the most important, last trial has not begun yet, and the second one is only starting.

 

 

On to The Three Students, published in 1904. I have already analysed the opening paragraphs in some depth before, this being a quotation from my general analysis:

It was in the year ‘95 that a combination of events, into which I need not enter, caused Mr. Sherlock Holmes and myself to spend some weeks in one of our great University towns […] It will be obvious that any details which would help the reader to exactly identify the college or the criminal would be injudicious and offensive. So painful a scandal may well be allowed to die out. With due discretion the incident itself may, however, be described, since it serves to illustrate some of those qualities for which my friend was remarkable. I will endeavour in my statement to avoid such terms as would serve to limit the events to any particular place, or give a clue as to the people concerned.

Or to give a clue as to what really happened. So… Explanation:

1. In the year 1895 there were the Oscar Wilde trials, which caused a great many men who were more or less openly gay to “go on holiday” for a few months.

2. Universities were supposed to be more progressive than cities. Oscar Wilde met Robbie Ross at uni.

3. The “painful scandal” Watson is talking about here is about three students who are meant to sit a Greek exam, but one of them cheats. That’s not a scandal. Everybody who has even taken Greek knows that knowing the translation beforehand is the one way to pass.

4. They had to flee from London because of the public awareness the spectacular trials had caused, went to a friend of Holmes’.  

5. But of course Watson could not say it like that, so he had to invent a virtually new case.

No, no, my dear sir; such a course is utterly impossible. When once the law is evoked it cannot be stayed again, and this is just one of those cases where, for the credit of the college, it is most essential to avoid scandal. Your discretion is as well known as your powers, and you are the one man in the world who can help me. I beg you, Mr. Holmes, to do what you can.

Taken out of context, this quote is suggestive.

The fact that even though Holmes is clearly everything but thrilled at being anywhere but Baker Street, he is not in London anyway, is fairly obvious: “My friend’s temper had not improved since he had been deprived of the congenial surroundings of Baker Street. Without his scrap-books, his chemicals, and his homely untidiness, he was an uncomfortable man.

This is important because 3STU is not the only case where Holmes and Watson leave London for a prolonged period of time. What are they doing in that “university town”? The given reason (research into old charters) is more than suspicious. Yet if you consider the circumstances of the Oscar Wilde trials in April and May it becomes clear that the best thing to do if the slightest rumour about you existed was to flee. And given Watson’s writing, such rumours must have circulated.

The exercise consists of half a chapter of Thucydides.” The exam papers that are left on the professor’s desk are taken from Thucydides, probably by his most famous work on the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides was a Athenian historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is known for being an analyst and “scientific” writer – he credits humans with their actions, not the gods. Furthermore, Athens (the most “glorious” city in Greece) was his home, but he was exiled for something that was not his fault. Does this sound like someone? Holmes, maybe? Here, Watson had to invent an exam, and he chose an author who mirrors Holmes.

But what is this story actually about then, if not the exam?

“The moment I looked at my table I was aware that someone had rummaged among my papers. The proof was in three long slips. I had left them all together. Now, I found that one of them was lying on the floor, one was on the side table near the window, and the third was where I had left it.”

Professor Soames, who has been harbouring two fugitives, has left some incriminating papers of his own lying around, and is now extremely anxious to recover them.

Another hint that the papers are not, in fact, exam papers can be found here: “For an instant I imagined that Bannister had taken the unpardonable liberty of examining my papers. […] A large sum of money is at stake” What this sounds like is – again – blackmail…

Professor Soames refuses to call in the police, saying equivocal things such as these: “Do help me, Mr. Holmes! You see my dilemma. Either I must find the man or else the examination must be postponed until fresh papers are prepared, and since this cannot be done without explanation there will ensue a hideous scandal, which will throw a cloud not only on the college, but on the University. Above all things I desire to settle the matter quietly and discreetly.

Of course Holmes takes the case, and starts to ask about the three strips of paper the supposed exam is printed on. “Let me see the three strips. No finger impressions — no! Well, he carried over this one first and he copied it. How long would it take him to do that, using every possible contraction? A quarter of an hour, not less. Then he tossed it down and seized the next. He was in the midst of that when your return caused him to make a very hurried retreat — VERY hurried, since he had not time to replace the papers which would tell you that he had been there.

This makes absolutely no sense if what the student was copying was indeed Thucydides. It is completely unnecessary to copy three sheets of densely packed Greek text, the student could have copied only the first and last sentences and looked up the text in the next library, for instance, or even only memorised the chapter numbers. The fact that he needed to copy the whole text shows that he had stumbled upon something that had to be in full – probably private correspondence or suchlike.

The three possible culprits – the three students who live in the building – are now described. The third is Scottish and supposedly “wayward, dissipated, and unprincipled. He was nearly expelled over a card scandal in his first year.” Lord Alfred Douglas? Wilde’s (Scottish) lover? 

Anyway, the story goes on, Holmes investigates, and at some point he starts joking with Watson: “What with your eternal tobacco, Watson, and your irregularity at meals, I expect that you will get notice to quit and that I shall share your downfall — not, however, before we have solved the problem”. This is a truth veiled in a joke… The public fall from grace was a possibility.

Next morning we get some more indication that the matter concerns more than a simple scholarship: “The unfortunate tutor was certainly in a state of pitiable agitation when we found him in his chambers. […] He could hardly stand still, so great was his mental agitation, and he ran towards Holmes with two eager hands outstretched.” Slightly exaggerated for a scholarship, right? Right.

Holmes of course identifies the culprit, who fully repents and begs for forgiveness, which is granted, and he embarks to Rhodesia. This ties is nicely with the theme of people who are not “real” criminals going into exile that can be found throughout the story: the “culprit” flees.

 

 

Now comes Black Peter, also published in 1904. It starts with a few clues of exactly how Watson sees Holmes: “I have never known my friend to be in better form, both mental and physical, than in the year ‘95.” and “Holmes, however, like all great artists, lived for his art’s sake” (come on, sound even more like Oscar Wilde – oh, not possible, I understand…). He also calls the year “memorable”, which it must have been – Holmes and Watson spent a nice part of it most purposefully not in London, i.e. hiding somewhere.

The story is set in early July. Just as a reminder, Wilde lost his third trial against the Crown on May 25, and everybody involved who had not made his way to the country or continent yet or had returned like Holmes and Watson, did so then. Initially, Watson is at home in Baker Street, but Holmes is not: “my friend had been absent so often and so long from our lodgings”, which implies that even though Holmes has to be in London for some reasons, he does his best in order not to be available or even findable.

In itself the story is rather unremarkable, although it does contain blackmail, which is always a red blaring alert: the murderer kills his “victim” after said “victim” had assaulted him, but the murderer had only been there in the first place because he though that Black Peter “could afford to pay me well for keeping my mouth shut.” Now, this has probably no bearing on the story whatsoever, but I still think it is interesting to mention that these events the murderer is meant not to mention happened on a ship. In Victorian times, sea-life and especially the London docks had a certain…unsavoury reputation: mostly because they were the place you had most choice in rent boys.

The whole thing ends with this line from Holmes: “If you want me for the trial, my address and that of Watson will be somewhere in Norway – I’ll send particulars later.” Apart from the pun on the trial, this mostly shows that Holmes is taking the chance of leaving the country, apparently “for a case”, for a very long time – he had virtually no case-connected reason to go to Norway (he could have sent wires to clear up the loose strands, as he always does, and anyway Norway is not important for the case), but Norway is far enough from London to be safe, is it not? To put it in a nutshell, the case begins with Holmes hiding and ends with Holmes and Watson leaving the country on a trip that will mean that they will not be traceable for a while – Holmes’s detective friend (and he does like Hopkins) only gets a “promise for later”.

 

 

The Bruce-Partington Plans is the last story that is “officially” set in 1895. It was published in 1908.

Watson begins the narrative with a statement of the date: “in the third week of November, in the year 1895”, and goes on to clarify that he and Holmes have not left the flat for four days, asserting that this happened because of the “dense yellow fog”. Translation: it has been six months since Oscar Wilde’s trials, the waters have mostly calmed down, but it would still be unwise to be too noticeable to the outside world, and Holmes and Watson are hiding. Indeed, so much so that only Jupiter leaving his orbit (i.e. Brother Mycroft) can drag them out of Baker Street. This impression is reinforced by the association of the colour yellow with caution (http://www.colormatters.com/the-meanings-of-colors/yellow) – they simply cannot risk being overly visible, but are in Baker Street because everything else (given Holmes’s famous habits) would attract even more attention.

Because of the mental stagnation following from this “exile”, Holmes is bored and much annoyed although Watson attempts to interest him in a few cases mentioned on the papers, and yet again we see Holmes regretfully speculating about his possible life as a criminal himself: “Holmes snorted his contempt. “This great and sombre stage is set for something more worthy than that,” said he. “It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal.”” This is significant because it proves yet again that Holmes would not have any problem with being one and openly flouting the law. Only Watson’s moral integrity keeps him from that side.

Holmes then gets a telegram from Mycroft, and it is again stressed that Mycroft is very strongly connected with the Diogenes Club. Now, there has been much speculation whether the canon Diogenes Club is not, in fact, a gentlemen’s club. Sherlock’s stopping to go there regularly upon meeting the doctor points in that direction, but this is not the place for this discussion (The Greek Interpreter is much more focused on the Diogenes).

The telegram runs like this: “Must see you over Cadogan West. Coming at once. – Mycroft.” The first sentence is of extreme importance. It does not sound like Cadogan West was a name, more like code for something. But what could it mean? It took me a while to decipher it, but reading up Oscar Wilde’s trials (again) helped me along. In the course of the trials he was arrested while he was staying at the Cadogan Hotel, which was located in the West of London. This is huge because it clearly links the case, which is brought in by a person capable of manipulating the public order, with the scandal surrounding Wilde. Message: “we are not done yet, some things still have to be tidied up”. Here, it might also be interesting to note that the government originally wanted to hush the whole scandal surrounding him up, and not give him a prison sentence at all, but in the end the government had no choice but to accept the impending sentence because the public was set against Wilde very strongly.

There are a few references to discretion in the following paragraphs (“one has to be discreet”), and another emphasis on the fact that Mycroft must have an extremely valid reason for coming to Sherlock (probably because it is too delicate a matter for Mycroft): “Jupiter is descending to-day. What on earth can it mean?” (Holmes). He then continues wondering: “Who is Cadogan West, and what is he to Mycroft?” Holmes probably assumes Cadogan West is code for a person of some importance to Mycroft. Could Mycroft himself be in danger of getting tied up in a scandal?

Maybe not, but guess what this young man is believed to have done? He has stolen some secret papers from the army (can be read as “Mycroft” - even Holmes clearly says this: “Government employ. Behold the link with Brother Mycroft!”), ten pages in total, but when ends up with his head smashed in on the tram tracks, and only seven sheets in his pocket, which leaves three sheets of potentially dangerous content…somewhere Mycroft has no access to. So Mycroft needs Sherlock to bring those papers back. The claim that these ten sheets of paper are technical plans is nonsensical: the plans are supposed to enable the holder to build a Bruce-Partington submarine, which makes no sense at all given the technicality of a submarine. No, this is ridiculous and Mofftisson know it: the Bruce-Partington programme turn out to be completely inconsequential in S1E3. The only thing that this tells us is that somebody needed the original copies to achieve a certain goal. Well…

Now comes another clue: Cadogan West is engaged to a Miss Violet Westbury. This is the second Violet in a 1895 case, and as The Solitary Cyclist was published before The Bruce-Partington Plans, it can only be deduced that Watson recycled a name, hinting at the fact that most of this story is heavily…edited.

A few clues about the importance of the case and the nature of the “papers” follow, but it get really interesting only when the next names are mentioned: the clerk who had the keys to the safe is called Sidney Johnson. It must be remembered that Watson chooses his names with much care, and this name can be taken apart quite nicely: “Sidney” could very well refer to the Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge, which Dorothy L Sayers suggests as Holmes’s college (where, incidentally, he met Victor Trevor, who has been argued was Holmes’s first love interest), while “Johnson” may allude to the Lionel Johnson who introduced Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie). (OK, this is a long shot. But.)

Holmes and Watson have to go out an investigate, even though the thick yellow fog remains, and find that a man responsible for the safety of the papers has died of broken heart, apparently: ““It was this horrible scandal,” said he. “My brother, Sir James, was a man of very sensitive honour, and he could not survive such an affair. […]” Taken out of context, this statement is so equivocal…

Watson is sent back home by Holmes, which gives birth to a few rather sweet sentences:

I will do nothing serious without my trusted comrade and biographer at my elbow.”

All the long November evening I waited, filled with impatience for his return.”

"I don’t like it, Holmes."”

"My dear fellow, you shall keep watch in the street. I’ll do the criminal part. It’s not a time to stick at trifles. Think of Mycroft’s note, of the Admiralty, the Cabinet, the exalted person who waits for news. We are bound to go.”

My answer was to rise from the table.

“You are right, Holmes. We are bound to go.”

He sprang up and shook me by the hand.

“I knew you would not shrink at the last,” said he, and for a moment I saw something in his eyes which was nearer to tenderness than I had ever seen. The next instant he was his masterful, practical self once more.

“It is nearly half a mile, but there is no hurry. Let us walk,” said he. “Don’t drop the instruments, I beg. Your arrest as a suspicious character would be a most unfortunate complication.”

Holmes is actually joking about Watson’s “un-virtues” again…

In the spy’s flat they have just broken into they find the spy’s correspondence with a certain Pierrot, who is the one who stole the papers. Remember what I said about names; a poem published by Olive Custance, who  married Lord Alfred Douglas in 1902, is called “Pierrot”.

Lestrade, who is clearly in on everything Holmes does, puns: “But some of these days you’ll go too far, and you’ll find yourself and your friend in trouble.

The story ends with the whole spy part of the murder (obviously) hushed up, and the man who stole the papers – although partly redeemed by helping Holmes to get them back – dies after two years in prison. Wait. Who else’s death was directly caused by a prison sentence of two years? Oh, yes, Oscar’s.

 

 

Quite a lot about one scandal in four stories – makes you wonder why exactly Sir ACD did that…



 

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