The Midwinter Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes: Three Adventures & The Grand Gift of Sherlock (26 page)

Rising up a shelf, we come upon your classic black-letter editions,
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organized by date of composition.  The
Iliad
and
Odyssey
of Homer, both translated by Alexander Pope,
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is the obvious lead. Then the
History of the Peloponnesian War
by Thucydides
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in Jowett’s translation,
Elements
by Euclid,
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as translated by Todhunter, the
Odes
of Horace
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translated by Dryden,
The Thousand and One Nights
, translated from the Arabic by Sir Richard Burton,
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and the
Diwan
of Hafiz
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translated by Jones. This last work, I must protest, Watson, is strictly speaking not in its correct place, though I can perhaps see your honest mistake of wanting to situate it next to the
Nights
, while allowing the next three to naturally associate together. These are the great Longfellow translation of Dante,
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a pocket-edition of Boccaccio’s
Decameron
, which I believe you appropriated from the late Joseph Stangerson,
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and a pocket-edition of Petrarch’s
Sonnets
, which I know for certain that you appropriated from me when we finally decamped from Baker Street.
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Then, you move north to Germany for two other works of note,
Children's and Household Tales
by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm,
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and
Faust
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
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The shelf continues with some of the great modern poets of note. You admit one foreign work,
L’Art Poetique
by Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux,
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before turning resoundingly English with Milton’s 1645
Poems
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and Coleridge’s
Rime of the Ancient Mariner
.
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  The Restoration turns Romantic with
Don Juan
by Lord Byron,
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the
Complete Poetical Works
of John Keats,
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and
Marmion
by Walter Scott.
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The reign of Queen Victoria is commemorated by the collection
From Enoch Arden and Other Poems
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
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Finally, you turn to the great poet of the Americas, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with two of his collections,
Ballads and Other Poems
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and
Household Poems
.
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I must admit that the next shelf gave me pause. At first glance, it appears that there is no organization to speak of at all, just a jumble of tomes thrown up at random. However, a closer inspection soon disclosed a subtle method in the madness.
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First, we find the biographies, arranged alphabetically by the subject, starting with
The Life of Agricola
by Tactitus,
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the
Life of Frederick the Great
by Thomas Carlyle,
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the
Life of Samuel Johnson
by James Boswell,
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and
Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton
by David Brewster.
[438]

The tone then shifts, and we find a jumbled mixture of history and philosophy, now arranged alphabetically by author. This starts with
Star Papers; or, Experiences of Art and Nature
by Henry Ward Beecher,
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On Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History
by Thomas Carlyle,
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but I admit that I was thrown by the positioning of the
History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England Begun in the Year 1641
by Edward Hyde
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before that of
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
by Charles Darwin..
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Then I recalled that Hyde was the first Earl of Clarendon, and you were calling him by his title rather than his familial surname. Next comes
Poor Richard’s Almanack
by Benjamin Franklin,
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Correspondence with George Sand
by Gustave Flaubert,
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and
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table
by the esteemed Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
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These are followed by
The Prince
of the Italian Niccolo Machiavelli,
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Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
by Sir Isaac Newton,
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An Essay on Man
by Alexander Pope,
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Martyrdom of Man
by William Winwood Reade,
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Excursions
by Henry David Thoreau,
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and
Out of Doors: A Selection of Original Articles on Practical Natural History
by John G. Wood.
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In the upper left we find some exceptional and unique books indeed. I am certain that there is no one else in the world, Watson, with quite such a collection.
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As they all have a certain relevance to our adventures together, you have chosen to display them in the order in which they were encountered. First, and in a place of deserved prominence, is that rarified tome of pure mathematics,
The Dynamics of an Asteroid,
by our great adversary Professor James Moriarty.
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Strictly speaking the next tome,
Atavism in Portraiture and Phrenology: A Study of Throw-backs & Reversions
by Dr. James Mortimer, is slightly out of place, though its delayed publication perhaps accounts for your choice of locale.
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There follows four of the five volumes that you retained from the burden of that poor old bibliophile:
The Origins of Tree Worship, British Birds
, the
Carmina
of Catullus, and
The Holy War
.
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Next we find
Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas
and
Three Months in the Jungle
, both by the late lamented Colonel Sebastian Moran.
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There are then two interesting tracts upon certain creeds,
The Fallacious Foundations of Revealed Religion
, Professor Sergius Coram’s magnum opus,
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and
Voodooism and the Negroid Religions,
by Professor Hans Eckermann
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Two greater contrasts in authors cannot be found in
Huxtable’s Sidelights on Horace,
by the excitable Dr. Thorneycroft Huxtable,
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and
The Eggshell Pottery of the Ming Dynasty,
by the vicious Baron Adelbert Gruner.
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And last we encounter that fascinating first novel by an original voice quieted far too soon, Douglas Maberley’s
The Vital City
.
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We come to the end, upon the upper right shelf, between the marble busts of Jupiter
[462]
and Napoleon,
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where I can see five volumes of some small merit. The first is a reprint of an article ambitiously entitled ‘The Book of Life.’
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Even after so many years, I still find it meritorious. The second and third are but slim monographs, printed for private circulation only, one regarding
The Polyphonic Motets of Lassus,
said to be the last word on the subject,
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and the other details
The Celebratory Practices of the Solstice: A Comparative Analysis
.
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The fourth is a small blue book with golden letters printed across its cover, a
Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen
, the magnum opus of my latter years.
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Finally, the ultimate volume is entitled
The Whole Art of Detection
,
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  which, along with much new information, collects into a single textbook my many monographs, including ‘The Influence of a Trade upon the Form of a Hand,’
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‘Two Chapters on Ears,’
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‘On the Uses and Limitations of the System of Bertillon,’
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‘Graphology: Deductions from Handwriting,’
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‘The Art of Tracing of Footsteps, With Some Remarks upon the Uses of Plaster of Paris,’
[473]
‘The Recognition of Tattoos and Skin Markings,’
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‘A Study in Smells: The Distinction of 75 Perfumes,’
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‘Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccos,’
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‘The Botany of Death: On Natural Poisons,’
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‘On Secret Writings: an Analysis of 163 Ciphers,’
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‘Upon the Dating of Documents,’
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‘The Elementary Distinction of Newspaper Types,’
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‘The Typewriter & Its Relation to Crime,’
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‘The Multiple Uses of Malingering,’
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and ‘On the Uses of Dogs.’
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I must admit, Watson, that I am touched to see your collection of my personal works – excepting only the French translations of Francois le Villard
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– for I will say with no false modesty that they pale in comparison to the various adventures that you have set down in ink.

I originally noted that there were three primary reasons for my success over the years, and I have yet to mention the last, and perhaps most important of all. In every one of the accounts which you have been so good as to recite my own small achievements, you have habitually underrated your own abilities and rôle.
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I believe that I once called you “a whetstone for my mind,”
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and “a conductor of light.”
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In retrospect, I was perchance a bit too parsimonious with my praise. For a man with a long-standing disinclination to forming friendships,
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it continues to elicit in my mind a great sense of amazement the degree of loyalty to which you have shown me throughout the span of our association.
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I can honestly only recall a modicum of selfish actions throughout the years, all of which were perhaps excusable for almost any man with a heart beating in his chest.
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Like some jovial Father Christmas, Watson, you have often bestowed upon me a gift during Yuletide. Though in thirty-seven years
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I have never once returned the favor, you have refrained from criticizing this inaction in your many recountings of our adventures together. You deserve better and I feel that the time has come to address this imbalanced tally. This is the reason for the wrapped package that accompanied this letter. I hope with this small token of my great esteem, you could just fill that gap on the second shelf.
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It is the 1623 printing of
Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, Published According to the True Originall Copies
, which you may find to be of some interest
.
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The age is changing, Watson,
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and the old guard is passing. We are not now of that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven.
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Do you recall the time when we caught the last two acts of Wagner’s ‘Gotterdamerung’ at Covent Garden after the incident of the Bloomsbury Lodger?
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After the horrors I have witnessed these last years during the Great War, I find that its final image of flames consuming the Hall of the Gods still lingers in my brain. I may have upon occasion disparaged certain of your writings as possessing a surfeit of emotion and romanticism.
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However, I did read with a certain pleasure what you once wrote of me in mistaken eulogy.
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In case I,
in veritas
this time, pass on to a humble corner of some Valhalla
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before you, I will not hesitate to share with you some wise words from that First Folio: “I count myself in nothing else so happy, as in a soul remembering my good friend.”
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Very sincerely yours and Happy Christmas,

Sherlock Holmes

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