The Hounds of the Internet

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Comment by TheMadBlonde on November 3, 2009 at 8:06pm

Help the luddite, please? Am I even in the right place? I was told I could get a daily digest of posts & I'm blest if I can find anything like that. Suggestions, please?

Comment by Til Turner on April 29, 2009 at 8:55am

Michael,
This is a fine compendium. Great work. It is very helpful.

Comment by Michael Procter on April 29, 2009 at 3:18am

I cannot now remember how much, if any, of this list I produced myself and how much was taken off the Net, but it has proved useful for some things I am working on:

Philosophy
1. Why does fate play such tricks with poor, helpless worms? I never hear of such a case as this that I do not think of Baxter's words, and say, "There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes." (BOSC)
2. What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever. (CARD)
3. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.. . . They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside. . . .The reason is obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard's blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbors, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser. (COPP)
4. When one tries to rise above Nature one is liable to fall below it. The highest type of man may revert to the animal if he leaves the straight road of destiny. (CREE)
5. Consider, Watson, that the material, the sensual, the worldly would all prolong their worthless lives. The spiritual would not avoid the call to something higher. It would become the survival of the least fit. What sort of cesspool may not our poor world become (CREE)
6. Work is the best antidote to sorrow. (EMPT)
7. There are some trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height and then suddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity. You will see it often in humans. I have a theory that the individual represents in his development the whole procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line of his pedigree. The person becomes, as it were, the epitome of the history of his own family. (EMPT)
8. It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you. (FINA)
9. Intense mental concentration has a curious way of blotting out what has passed. (HOUN)
10. Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. (IDEN)
11. There is as much sense in Hafiz as in Horace, and as much knowledge of the world. (IDEN)
12. You may have noticed how extremes call to each other, the spiritual to the animal, the cave-man to the angel. (ILLU)
13. Stand with me here upon the terrace, for it may be the last quiet talk that we shall ever have. (LAST)
14. There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less and a cleaner, better stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared. (LAST)
15. There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion. It can be build up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers. (NAVA)
16. It is a very cheering thing to come into London by any of these lines which run high and allow you to look down upon the houses like this. Look at those big, isolated clumps of buildings rising above the slates, like brick islands in a lead-colored sea. . . Lighthouses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules, with hundreds of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wiser, better England of the future. (NAVA)
17. It is always a joy to meet an American, Mr. Moulton, for I am one of those who believe that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the stars and stripes. (NOBL)
18. The work is its own reward. (NORW)
19. Is not all life pathetic and futile? Is not his story a microcosm of the whole? We reach. We grasp. And what is left in our hands at the end? A shadow. Or worse than a shadow - misery. (RETI)
20. There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before. (STUD)
21. What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done? (STUD)
22. Everything comes in circles ....... The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all been done before, and will be again. (VALL)
23. The ways of fate are indeed hard to understand. If there is not some compensation hereafter, then the world is a cruel jest. (VEIL)
24. Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it. . . . The example of patient suffering is in itself the most precious of all lessons to an impatient world. (VEIL)
25. But there are always some lunatics about. It would be a dull world without them. (3GAB)

Comment by Til Turner on April 28, 2009 at 10:40pm

Has anyone else noticed the enormous number of errors in the subtitles of the Granada DVD series with Jeremy Brett? I have used several stories and respective videos in a reading class that I teach to ESL students. It was then that I realized the high number of mistakes in the subtitles -- names, adjectives, verbs, etc. These are often mistakes that relate directly to the canon, sometimes direct misquotes. Perhaps the newly boxed set has improved upon this. Is anyone aware?
All the best.

Comment by Til Turner on April 23, 2009 at 1:08pm

Thanks again Larry.

Comment by Larry Feldman on April 22, 2009 at 10:41pm

Til,

I recommend to you a book entitled, My Life with Sherlock Holmes: Conversations in Baker Street by John H. Watson, edited by J.R. Hamilton, ISBN 0-8015-5272-9. The book is basically an organization of Canonical quotes by Holmes on his feelings about an array of topics, such as his many comments on human nature and his own tastes and interests. If you have trouble locating a copy, let me know, but I'm sure you could pick up a copy on abe.com. There are other books like this as well.

Comment by Til Turner on April 22, 2009 at 9:25am

Larry,
Thanks for the help. I am using the term "philosophic" in the broadest sense. Any moment in which Holmes tends toward right brain, intuitive, irrational thinking is appropriate. There are many instances of this. But even with all the notes I've taken, it is great to have other friends help. The Ode to the Rose is a classic example. In my haste, I may have put down The Dancing Men instead of The Naval Treaty. I look forward to talking with you further.
All the best.

Comment by Larry Feldman on April 21, 2009 at 11:36pm

Here are two examples. I'll just give you the beginning, and you can locate the rest yourself in the two stories.

Holmes is at his most poetic and philosophical in "The Naval Treaty", standing by a window admiring a rose. "There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion," it begins.

My other favorite bit is in the beginning of "A Case of Identity" and begins. "...life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."

Any particular kind of philosophy that you are looking for?

Comment by Til Turner on April 20, 2009 at 12:13pm

Glad to be a member. I am compiling a list of adventures in which Holmes waxes philosophic, in order to develop a character analysis. Any insights would be greatly appreciated. So far I have "The Dancing Men", "The Hound..", and "The Empty House".