“a smoke-laden atmosphere” [VEIL]
To imagine Sherlock Holmes without tobacco is impossible. While he is most famously pictured with a pipe (the unwieldy and uncanonical meerschaum, mostly), he also smoked cigars and cigarettes.
In fact, we dedicated a number of episodes of Trifles to various aspects of Holmes's and Watson's smoking habits:
But among all of those minutes of discussion, we didn't give one thought as to when each of them began "to indulge [their] filthy habits," as Holmes accused Watson in 'The Veiled Lodger.'
Might it have happened at public school? Perhaps their older brothers had a hand in it at home. Or time in the army (for Watson) or at university.
Needless to say, they each were men of the time and partook in various tobacco types when we knew them. Whether Holmes with his disputatious clay pipe [COPP] or Watson with his cigarettes from Bradley's in Oxford Street [HOUN].
Might they have picked up the habit at Baker Street Elementary? Who's to say?
Baker Street Elementary follows the original adventures of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, as they and their friends work through the issues of elementary school in Victorian London. An archive of all previous episodes can be viewed at www.bakerstreetelementary.org.
–
0 comments:
Post a Comment