Quote 1
"It is simplicity itself," said [Holmes]; "my eyes tell me that on the inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they have been caused by someone who has very carelessly scraped round the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence, you see, my double deduction that you had been out in vile weather, and that you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting specimen of the London slavey." […]
I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his process of deduction. "When I hear you give your reasons," I remarked, "the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours" (Bohemia.1.12-13).
Watson's response to Holmes's reasoning is like that of a man who's just had a magician's trick explained to him: it all seems so clear after an explanation… though otherwise you'd never be able to guess how it's done. Conan Doyle repeats this formula many times to remind the reader that Holmes is always many steps ahead of everyone around him.
Quote 2
"Then, how do you know?"
"I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been getting yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and careless servant girl?"
"My dear Holmes," said I, "this is too much. You would certainly have been burned had you lived a few centuries ago. It is true that I had a country walk on Thursday and came home in a dreadful mess, but as I have changed my clothes I can't imagine how you deduce it" (Scandal.1.8-10).
"Burned"? What? Watson appears to have just called his best buddy Holmes a witch. But his point is really that Holmes's thought processes are so beyond an ordinary person's that his deductions seem like witchcraft if you don't know his methods. It's like that Arthur C. Clarke quote about all sufficiently advanced technology appearing like magic? For Watson, Holmes's intellect is like a super-advanced machine, a subject of awe and admiration.
Quote 3
My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very capable performer but a composer of no ordinary merit. All the afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness, gently waving his long, thin fingers in time to the music, while his gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those of Holmes the sleuth-hound, Holmes the relentless, keen-witted, ready-handed criminal agent, as it was possible to conceive. In his singular character the dual nature alternately asserted itself, and his extreme exactness and astuteness represented, as I have often thought, the reaction against the poetic and contemplative mood which occasionally predominated in him (League.156).
Watson's close observation of Holmes's shifting moods proves just how much he admires the guy. But it's also a way of raising our admiration of Holmes through Watson. This passage about Holmes's love of music makes the detective seem like a complex person instead of just a brain on legs – he has thoughts and feelings that we can recognize.
Quote 4
I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbours, but I was always oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with Sherlock Holmes. Here I had heard what he had heard, I had seen what he had seen, and yet from his words it was evident that he saw clearly not only what had happened, but what was about to happen, while to me the whole business was still confused and grotesque (League.159).
Poor Watson, we certainly don't think he's "more dense" than his neighbors. But Holmes is so amazing, says Watson, that even he feels "oppressed" by his stupidity when Holmes is around. Watson repeats this reflection in nearly every story in this collection, subtly underlining for the reader that Holmes is a real cut above ordinary folk in terms of brainpower.
Quote 5
He laughed very heartily, with a high, ringing note, leaning back in his chair and shaking his sides. All my medical instincts rose up against that laugh.
"Stop it!" I cried; "pull yourself together" and I poured out some water from a caraffe.
It was useless, however. He was off in one of those hysterical outbursts which come upon a strong nature when some great crisis is over and gone. Presently he came to himself once more, very weary and pale-looking. [...]
"Drink this." I dashed some brandy into the water, and the colour began to come back to his bloodless cheeks" (Thumb.11-4).
We don't want to be overly dramatic, but here's one problem with Conan Doyle's public safety announcements: he can't ignore the medical possibilities of the stuff he's talking about. So he talks about the overall social and physical decline caused by alcohol (Henry Baker) and drugs (Isa Whitney). But Watson still uses alcohol in his own practice and, at least until Watson finally gets him to quit, Holmes is still buying over-the-counter cocaine.
Quote 6
It was not the first time that [Kate Whitney] had spoken to us of her husband's trouble, to me as a doctor, to my wife as an old friend and school companion. We soothed and comforted her by such words as we could find. Did she know where her husband was? Was it possible that we could bring him back to her?
It seems that it was. She had the surest information that of late he had, when the fit was on him, made use of an opium den in the farthest east of the City. […] There he was to be found, she was sure of it, at the Bar of Gold, in Upper Swandam Lane. But what was she to do? How could she, a young and timid woman, make her way into such a place and pluck her husband out from among the ruffians who surrounded him? (Twisted.11-2).
The layout of London itself contributes to portrayals of drug abuse by providing a physical location, an actual section of the city, for men to escape their family responsibilities and get high. You definitely don't see Conan Doyle representing opium use in the English countryside – this is a problem that belongs strictly to multicultural, cosmopolitan London. Something else that's striking about this passage is the appearance of Kate Whitney as an "Angel In the House" (see our theme on "Women and Femininity"): she's timid, domestic, and sweet.
Quote 7
[Henry Baker] had foresight, but has less now than formerly, pointing to a moral retrogression, which, when taken with the decline of his fortunes, seems to indicate some evil influence, probably drink, at work upon him. This may account also for the obvious fact that his wife has ceased to love him (Carbuncle.27).
Henry Baker is only a very small part of Holmes's chain of reasoning in "The Blue Carbuncle." Still, we're struck by this bit about his "moral retrogression" and "decline of his fortunes," because these two pieces of evidence are what draw Holmes to conclude "evil influence, probably drink." In other words, the inevitable endpoint of too much drinking is an end to your fortunes. These are stories about human observation, sure, but they're also about social observation – and the moralizing that can go along with it.
Quote 8
Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., Principal of the Theological College of St. George's, was much addicted to opium. The habit grew upon him, as I understand, from some foolish freak when he was at college; for having read De Quincey's description of his dreams and sensations, he had drenched his tobacco with laudanum in an attempt to produce the same effects. He found, as so many more have done, that the practice is easier to attain than to get rid of, and for many years he continued to be a slave to the drug, an object of mingled horror and pity to his friends and relatives. I can see him now, with yellow, pasty face, drooping lids, and pin-point pupils, all huddled in a chair, the wreck and ruin of a noble man (Twisted.1).
(Thomas De Quincey, by the way, is the author of an extraordinary memoir called The Confessions of an English Opium Eater.) In addition to being a vivid depiction of a man ruining his life through drug use, there's something else that's neat about this passage. Why is Watson – usually such an economical narrator – starting a Holmes story with this long bit about opium addiction at all? Here's where we're reminded that Conan Doyle was a doctor: this passage reads like a PSA against drug use. And considering that the British Empire continued to run a thriving opium trade right up until 1910 , you can see why this concerned doctor was trying to scare people into not taking it. While cocaine and opium may be over-the-counter medicines while Conan Doyle was writing, he still didn't want us to think that he likes them.
Quote 9
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 (Scandal.1.2).
You can really see the difference in the acceptability of cocaine when Conan Doyle wrote these stories as opposed to now. It's so matter-of-fact that Holmes spends about half his time taking drugs to relieve his boredom, as though cocaine were the same thing as Sudoku or a good crossword puzzle. Something else that's really key about Holmes's drug use is that it signals how far outside of society (as represented by Watson's "home-centred interests") he likes to live: "his whole Bohemian soul" alternates "from week to week between cocaine and ambition."
Quote 10
He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer – excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results (Scandal.1.1).
The equation here seems to be Holmes = rational and Holmes = passionless. So rational = passionless. To be a good detective, you can't feel the "softer passions" for fear of distracting yourself from correct "mental results." What does this have to do with women? This is Watson's explanation for why Holmes seems to avoid love relationships with the ladies. Holmes often helps women as clients, but anything more would be "a false position." With the notable exception of Irene Adler (see our "Characters"), Holmes's interactions with women seem really hierarchical: he's the brainy guy who's going to solve the emotional little lady's problems. But once her problems are solved, it's back to Baker Street with Watson.
Quote 11
I walked down to the station with them, and then wandered through the streets of the little town, finally returning to the hotel, where I lay upon the sofa and tried to interest myself in a yellow-backed novel. The puny plot of the story was so thin, however, when compared to the deep mystery through which we were groping, and I found my attention wander so continually from the action to the fact, that I at last flung it across the room and gave myself up entirely to a consideration of the events of the day (Valley.106).
During "The Boscombe Valley Mystery," Watson is left to his own devices for a bit, so he turns to a novel for a good time. A "yellow-backed novel" is a cheap, generally melodramatic book often sold in railway stations in days of yore – kind of like the Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs books we find in airport bookstores now. There's a neat bit of self-marketing here: Watson's disgusted with the plot of the novel when compared to the depth of the mystery he's right in the middle of. But that mystery is, again, a piece of fiction invented and sold by one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. So there's a lot of nod-nod-wink-wink self-referential joking going on in this passage. Does all of Conan Doyle's poking at fiction make his Holmes stories seem more realistic to you?
Quote 12
The story has, I believe, been told more than once in the newspapers, but, like all such narratives, its effect is much less striking when set forth en bloc in a single half-column of print than when the facts slowly evolve before your own eyes, and the mystery clears gradually away as each new discovery furnishes a step which leads on to the complete truth (Thumb.1).
Ah ha! Now here we get a neat argument from Watson about why it's important to include color and intrigue in a story. A newspaper article gives you all the facts at once, without suspense. But the process of the slow reveal is essential, says Watson, to create a "striking" effect for the reader. In other words, what makes Watson's narration memorable is that he chooses to withhold information from us until he's good and ready to let us in on the secret. That's some good suspense!
Quote 13
If I claim full justice for my art, it is because it is an impersonal thing – a thing beyond myself. Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell. You have degraded what should have been a course of lectures into a series of tales (Beeches.5).
So, we've had Watson make a case for his form of narration, the suspense story. Here's Holmes's rebuttal: by dwelling on the crime, Watson's ignoring what's scientifically important to Holmes's deductions. Sadly for Holmes, Watson is a first-person narrator, so the doctor gets the last word on how the story should be told. But what would a first-person Holmes story look like? Would it have suspense at all? Why might Conan Doyle choose to portray these arguments between Holmes and Watson on how their fictional adventures should be told?
Quote 14
It was close upon four before the door opened, and a drunken-looking groom, ill-kempt and side-whiskered, with an inflamed face and disreputable clothes walked into the room. Accustomed as I was to my friend's amazing powers in the use of disguises, I had to look three times before I was certain that it was indeed he (Scandal.2.2).
Holmes makes his living looking at other people and figuring out who they are from their clothes, their manners, what have you. And that works for him, like, 99.9% of the time (with notable exceptions Irene Adler and Neville St. Clair). But if everybody else is like an open book to Holmes, nobody can read Holmes himself. And it's not just the disguises, which make Watson look "three times" before he's sure that "it was indeed" Holmes. Watson also often can't figure out what Holmes is thinking even during the best of times. So why is Holmes so opaque to everyone around him? What gives him such skill at impersonating other classes and groups of people?
Quote 15
As [Jabez Wilson] glanced down the advertisement column, with his head thrust forward and the paper flattened out upon his knee, I took a good look at the man and endeavoured, after the fashion of my companion, to read the indications which might be presented by his dress or appearance.
I did not gain very much, however, by my inspection. Our visitor bore every mark of being an average commonplace British tradesman, obese, pompous and slow (League.13).
Watson has observed Holmes's techniques time and time again. So he knows that appearances figure into Holmes's work. But he still can't reproduce Holmes's effects. This is proof that making personal judgments ("average commonplace British tradesman" – harsh!) is not what Holmes does, or at least, not only. Holmes's work is intuitive and can't seem to be imitated by Watson or, by extension, by the ordinary reader. Have you ever solved a Holmes case before he's good and ready to tell you whodunit and how? Does Conan Doyle give you enough information, even if just small clues, to find his conclusions on your own?
Quote 16
I could see that Holmes was favourably impressed by the manner and speech of his new client. He looked her over in his searching fashion, and then composed himself, with his lids drooping and his fingertips together, to listen to her story (Beeches.21).
Even if Watson can't follow Holmes's mental deductions just by looking at him, Watson does have insight into Holmes's emotional state. After all, what are friends for? This is a nice, subtle piece of intimacy between the two guys: Watson really knows Holmes's mannerisms.