Baker Street Elementary – Flowery Language

by I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere April 20, 2025

“What a lovely thing a rose is” [NAVA] 

Sherlock Holmes was not a fan of emotions, particularly when it came to his work. In The Sign of Four, he reacted to Watson's write-up of A Study in Scarlet:

“Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.” 

In "The Greek Interpreter," Watson tells us:

“His aversion to women and his disinclination to form new friendships were both typical of his unemotional character...” 

And in "A Scandal in Bohemia, he related just how foreign it would be for Holmes to feel deeply:

“Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his.”

So the famous "rose" speech in "The Naval Treaty" seems particularly striking in contrast, where we find Holmes getting sentimental, perhaps driven by intense contemplation and a philosophical mood.

“There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,” said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. “It can be built 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 all 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.”

Of course, Providence created all kinds of flowers — even those that don't smell quite a sweet as a rose. Does that qualify as "goodness"?

The Baker Street Elementary team might just be saying OMG...

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 the Baker Street Elementary website.