Holmes and Watson

by June Thomson

  As well as work, Holmes became dependent on other stimulants in later life: tobacco, strong black coffee and cocaine, which itself can exacerbate the symptoms of manic depression, causing ‘high’ and ‘low’ states of mind. On occasions, he used morphine as well.

  His manic-depressive tendencies could also account for the complexities and apparent contradictions in his character, those light and dark sides to his nature. The brighter, more optimistic qualities found expression in his zest for life, his undoubted charm and energy, his enthusiasm and sprightly conversation, and even in more minor traits such as his enjoyment of good food and wine. The darker side to his character gave rise to pessimism, to feelings that nothing in life was worthwhile and to an ascetic, almost monk-like disregard for his creature comforts. Even his sense of humour had its darker element when the wit turned to sarcasm.

  Another contradiction is seen in his personal habits, in his extreme untidiness with his possessions compared with his ‘cat-like love of personal cleanliness’ shown in his care over his clothes and appearance.

  Holmes says nothing at all about his father, not even obliquely. The impression conveyed by this complete silence is one of absence, either through early death or physical withdrawal. His parents may have lived apart or his father’s profession, which Holmes does not specify, may have taken him away from home for long periods. Or, if present, he may have shown little interest in his sons. As they grew up, Mycroft, as the older brother, seems to have acted in some respects as a surrogate father, giving Holmes advice and taking on responsibilities on his behalf. His habit of addressing Holmes as ‘my dear boy’ has a paternal ring to it.

  Mycroft was also affected by his upbringing and the same lack of maternal love. Like Holmes, he never married and, while not showing his brother’s manic-depressive tendencies, was even more unsociable than Holmes. He had no close friends at all and his later life was restricted to his office, his club and his bachelor apartment. He also lacked Holmes’ driving ambition. In this respect, he appears to have inherited more of the phlegmatic qualities of his English forebears.

  It is not known where Holmes was educated, whether at a public school, where boys of his class would normally be sent, or at home with a private tutor, as some commentators have claimed. Certainly his sporting interests do not suggest a conventional school, where at that time only team games would have been encouraged. Superficially, his education appeared erratic. After their first meeting, Watson was to draw up a list in which he tried to rate Holmes’ knowledge of various subjects, giving him a zero mark for literature, philosophy and astronomy.

  In fact, Holmes was better educated than Watson’s list might suggest. He evidently spoke French like a native, for later he was able to pass himself off as a French workman. He may have learnt the language in France when visiting his French relations. He may also have been able to speak German, which he considered unmusical although ‘the most expressive of all languages’. He had certainly read Goethe, could quote from his works in the original and he knew ‘Rache’ was the German for ‘revenge’. His interest in languages was to persist all his life. For example, he formed the theory that ancient Cornish was similar to Chaldean and may have derived from the Phoenician-speaking tin-merchants who had traded with Cornwall in the past.

  His reading included the Bible, Shakespeare, Meredith, Carlyle, Poe, Boileau and Flaubert as well as the works of Darwin, Thoreau and the German philosopher Richter.

  As for astronomy, which Watson marked ‘nil’, Holmes had studied it in sufficient depth to discuss ‘the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic’ or, in layman’s terms, the alteration to the angle at which the sun’s circuit stood in relation to the equator. It is doubtful if Watson was as well informed about the subject.

  He studied Latin, a prerequisite in those days for boys of his class, and was familiar with such authors as Horace and Tacitus. He may also have learnt Italian. In later life, he once carried a copy of Petrarch in his pocket on a train journey.

  His ability to play the violin is well attested by Watson, who also states that he composed as well as performed. His interest in music was almost certainly formed in his childhood and reflects the more creative and intuitive side of his nature. He may also as a child have begun to develop those many other hobbies and interests which Watson mentions and which are too numerous to list in full. They included Buddhism, ancient documents, antiquarian books, miracle plays, guns, golf clubs and the effects of heredity, the latter possibly arising from his own family background. Other interests, such as in codes and cyphers and in tracking footprints, both human and animal, which were to prove useful in his later career as a private consulting detective, may also have begun as boyhood hobbies.

  The picture which emerges of Holmes when young is of a highly intelligent but solitary child, the age gap of seven years between himself and Mycroft being then too wide to make them close playmates. Lively and energetic, he could at times be moody and withdrawn, apparently preferring his own company while secretly longing for affection and admiration. He may already have learnt to cope with the pain of his mother’s lack of interest in him by throwing himself into a variety of sports and hobbies and by avoiding any close contacts with others for fear of further rejection. It is therefore not surprising that, as an adult, he would shun any discussion about his family and childhood, preferring to keep those old emotional scars hidden even from Watson, his close friend and confidant. His Victorian upbringing, with its emphasis on keeping a stiff upper lip, would have further inhibited him from revealing his emotions.

  Watson’s date of birth is less easily established. For reasons which will be fully explained in Chapter Three, where Watson’s medical training is more closely examined, he was probably born either in 1852 or 1853 which would have made him a year or two older than Holmes.

  Little is known about his family background but it was apparently fairly well-to-do middle-class. Although his profession is not stated, Watson’s father was wealthy enough to own a fifty-guinea watch, the only fact known about him. Like Holmes, Watson had an older brother, whose name is not given although his first name began with an H. He was later to become the black sheep of the family, much to Watson’s deep embarrassment. This reaction suggests a conventional, respectable upbringing.

  Watson appears to have had a normal childhood, for he suffered from none of the effects of psychological damage which characterise Holmes’ personality. His reticence about his family background and early life is due more to a natural modesty and to his self-appointed role as Holmes’ chronicler, not as his own, than to a desire to repress unhappy memories.

  Dorothy L. Sayers has suggested he may have had Scottish connections.* Whether or not this theory is correct, Watson was clearly educated at an English school, possibly a boarding school, although this is not firmly established. Another commentator has suggested that, because of Watson’s skill at rugby, he may have been a pupil at Rugby, the well-known public school where the game was first introduced in 1823. This, however, is unlikely. One of Watson’s fellow pupils was Percy Phelps, the nephew of Lord Holdhurst,* the Conservative politician. Watson and the other boys bullied Phelps because of this ‘gaudy relationship’, as Watson terms it. Pupils at Rugby, or at any other of the famous public schools such as Eton and Harrow, where boys from an aristocratic background were the norm rather than the exception, would not have ragged Phelps about his noble connections. The attitude of Watson and his friends suggests the school was a minor establishment.

  The passage in which Watson reminisces about Percy Phelps is also revealing about other aspects of Watson’s schooldays. ‘Tadpole’ Phelps was an intimate friend of Watson, indicating that, unlike Holmes, Watson was capable of making close relationships. He was also apparently on good terms with the other boys, joining in the ragging of the unfortunate ‘Tadpole’. Phelps seems not to have borne Watson any grudge and later was to appeal for his help in persuading Holmes to investigate the case of the Naval Treaty.
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br />   In addition, the passage shows that, although about the same age as Watson, Phelps, a brilliant scholar who was to win all the school prizes, was two classes ahead of him, suggesting Watson was a pupil of average intelligence and attainment, an assessment which will be more fully examined in Chapter Three.

  Watson’s love of rugby, a team game, is also significant, indicating an ability to co-operate with others as well as to enjoy the rough and tumble of a highly physical sport. It also bears out his own statement about himself that he was ‘reckoned fleet of foot’.

  As an adult, he also prided himself on his common sense while admitting to extreme laziness, a judgement which shows a clear insight into his own personality, although in the latter estimation Watson was being a little hard on himself. Although he shows none of Holmes’ ambitious drive, when given the right incentive he was capable of aspirations and was willing to work hard to achieve them.

  Despite his criticisms of Holmes’ accomplishments, Watson was less widely read or educated than Holmes and his interests and hobbies were much more limited, being restricted in later years to billiards and horse-racing. His taste in books extended little further than the sea stories of William Clark Russell. This preference for an exciting yarn was probably established in boyhood and may well have bred in him a love of travel and adventure. It was a part of his personality which, as will be seen later, was to influence his subsequent career as well as form an essential factor in his friendship with Holmes. It was also to contribute to his later success as a writer. In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Watson was to say of himself, ‘The promise of adventure had always a fascination for me.’

  Quite apart from his talent as a writer, an attribute which will also be examined in more detail later, Watson showed this creative side to his personality in other ways. Although not a performer himself, he enjoyed listening to music, in particular to Mendelssohn, a romantic composer. He also possessed a deep love of the English countryside, which is frequently expressed in his writing, and a sympathy for other people, especially for women, in which that romantic quality is again seen.

  His attitude to women was normal. He was chivalrous towards them, admired them and enjoyed their company. He was to marry twice,* the first time very happily. His second marriage, about which Watson says nothing, will be dealt with in more detail at the appropriate time.

  As well as a romantic, Watson was an idealist. Of the few personal possessions he contributed to the shared Baker Street sitting-room two were portraits, one of General Gordon, the hero of Khartoum, the other of Henry Ward Beecher, the American preacher and supporter of Negro rights during the American Civil War. His choice could well reflect a boyhood admiration for men of courage, distinguished, in Gordon’s case, for physical bravery, in Beecher’s for the moral stand he took in the name of freedom and care for the oppressed. This tendency towards hero worship was to play a significant role in his friendship with Holmes.

  The sympathetic, idealistic side to Watson’s nature, with its concern for the underprivileged, may have prompted him to choose medicine as his future career, while his love of adventure would have drawn him towards the army with its promise of excitement and action.

  His upbringing, though stable, may however have been strict, with an emphasis on such middle-class virtues as good manners, modesty, loyalty, honesty and kindness towards others. Certainly Watson shows all these traits as well as the guilt which often results from such an upbringing when the child falls short of such high moral standards. As a result, Watson was to grow up to be a thoroughly nice man.

  If this sounds a little too dull and worthy, he could on occasions be short-tempered, impatient and forthright, prepared to stand up for himself and to express his opinions quite forcibly when the need arose. As he himself admits, he also had a tendency at times towards self-importance.

  Unlike Holmes, he was also willing to express his feelings openly and references to his emotional reactions are found throughout the canon, whether to the sympathy he felt towards some of Holmes’ clients, particularly the women, or his exasperation towards Holmes himself, as well as the horror, excitement or occasional fear his experiences roused in him.

  The impression one receives of Watson as a child is of a sturdy, sensible, nicely brought-up little boy, from a stable if conventional background, who was generally on good terms with other children. Although not scholastically brilliant, he was capable of average academic success when he put his mind to it. He may already have shown in childhood that more romantic and idealistic side to his nature in a tendency towards day-dreaming of exciting adventures in exotic places and, as he grew older, of aspirations towards making a positive contribution to the good of mankind.

  Much less complex than Holmes, Watson nevertheless possesses far more depth of character than he is sometimes credited with, even by Holmes himself who, in one rather backhanded compliment, suggests that he lacked luminosity.

  ‘It may be that you are not yourself luminous,’ he tells Watson, ‘but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.’

  Characteristically, rather than being offended, Watson was delighted by the remark.

  As a personality, Watson may indeed not glitter quite as brightly as Holmes, but nevertheless there is a warm, steady glow about him which was to illuminate their friendship as much as Holmes’ more pyrotechnic brilliance. Without it, it is doubtful if their relationship would have survived intact for all those years.

  * See Appendix One.

  * In ‘The Adventure of the Retired Colourman’ Holmes states that Amberley’s proficiency at chess was the mark of a ‘scheming mind’. As William S. Baring-Gould has pointed out, most Sherlockian students believe Holmes was not himself a chess-player although he used chess terms and expressions in his conversation.

  * See Appendix One.

  * Like most personal names in the canon, this is a pseudonym, devised by Watson to hide the individual’s identity. Many places and addresses are also similarly disguised, including the location of 221B Baker Street.

  * See Appendix One.

  CHAPTER TWO

  HOLMES

  Oxford and Montague Street

  1872–1880

  ‘It is my business to know things. Perhaps I have trained myself to see what others overlook.’

  Holmes: ‘A Case of Identity’

  Holmes is more forthcoming about his life after his schooldays. Even so, there are gaps and apparent discrepancies in the information he confided to Watson, largely because it was given in a piecemeal fashion during the course of conversations and not as a straightforward autobiographical account. Watson himself has further confused the issue by his carelessness in recording some of the facts.

  However, it is possible to gather up the references and from them to piece together a fairly coherent account of Holmes’ life and career before 1881.

  He went to university, either Oxford or Cambridge. At that time, an upper middle-class family would not have considered sending its son anywhere else and the fact that Reginald Musgrave, the heir to one of the oldest families in the country, was one of Holmes’ fellow students puts the matter beyond doubt.

  Although Dorothy L. Sayers has opted for Cambridge,* the weight of evidence favours Oxford as the more likely choice, based largely on the references in ‘The Adventure of the Three Students’, a case which Holmes investigated in 1895 and which is clearly set in Oxford. Both Holmes and Watson speak of ‘quadrangles’, a term never applied to Cambridge where the equivalent reference is ‘court’. It is also quite evident that Holmes was familiar with the place. He knew, for example, that there were four stationers of any importance in the town and was acquainted with Mr Hilton Soames, a tutor and lecturer at St Luke’s College. As there is no evidence to suggest that Soames was ever one of Holmes’ clients, they must have met during their time together at university. St Luke’s is a pseudonym. Watson admits that he has deliberately altered the details
so that the college cannot be identified. It may also conceal the name of Holmes’ own college, although this cannot be proved.

  The whole subject of Holmes’ university career is fraught with problems, especially over the dating, and all theories regarding it are therefore speculative. It is not even known when Holmes entered university but, assuming he went up at eighteen, the usual age, he would have begun his undergraduate studies in October 1872.* It is not known, either, what he read, but in view of his subsequent knowledge of chemistry, which Watson says was profound, it was probably this subject. With his own medical training, Watson was in a good position to judge Holmes’ expertise.

  It is likely that Holmes was introduced to cocaine and morphine while he was at university. Both were rich man’s drugs, unlike opium which was considered a working-class indulgence. It should be pointed out that Holmes, in taking drugs, was not breaking the law. Until the Dangerous Drugs Acts of 1965 and 1967,† it was not illegal to possess or even to deal in such substances. Holmes was eventually to become an addict, regularly injecting himself three times a day with a 7 per cent solution of cocaine, or ‘mainlining’ to use the modern jargon. Its effect is to create a sense of euphoria followed by a relaxed drowsiness, the ‘high’ and ‘low’ states already referred to in Chapter One. He also occasionally used morphine, a narcotic and analgesic. It was to take Watson several years before he finally persuaded Holmes to give up the habit.

  Holmes gives the impression he found little satisfaction in his time at university, not even in his studies. Throughout his life he preferred to follow his own individual interests rather than to keep to a formal course of education, a tendency already seen in his childhood reading of sensational literature, certainly not part of any school curriculum or recommended reading list.

  As he acknowledges, when he went up to university he was already deeply immersed in his ideas about crime and its detection which, over the next few years, he was to expand into his theories of scientific deduction and analysis, based on careful observation of material evidence and its logical interpretation, not on mere speculation. However, this theory did not entirely rule out the application of intuition and ‘scientific use of the imagination’. He was later to criticise the police for their lack of ‘imaginative intuition’.