“The ways of fate are indeed hard to understand” [VEIL]
One of the most philosophical scenes in the Sherlock Holmes story takes place in "The Naval Treaty," when Holmes is reflecting on the existence of a higher power as he focuses on the natural beauty of a flower:
“What a lovely thing a rose is!”He walked past the couch to the open window, and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects.“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.”
It's probably made more vivid by the accompanying Sidney Paget illustration of Holmes admiring the moss-rose, with the caption "What a lovely thing a rose is."
However, there is another scene in the Canon — a more obscure one — that finds Holmes equally philosophical, although about aging, death, and the results of the way a life is lived.
In this case, we find Watson entering the sitting room at 221B Baker Street after Josiah Amberley made an exit in the opening of "The Retired Colourman." Holmes asks Watson his impression of the man, before pronouncing his view of life:
“A pathetic, futile, broken creature.”“Exactly, Watson. Pathetic and futile. But 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.”
This is a far less hopeful (dare we say "rosy"?) outlook on the universe. It's at the other end of the tales that Watson has penned: "The Retired Colourman" is the final story in the Strand. Could it be that Holmes was in one of his "fits of the blackest depression" that Watson told us about in A Study in Scarlet?
Perhaps he was feeling the effects of a stinging defeat in a case or considering what he might be leaving behind as retirement loomed.
Things are looking just as bleak at Baker Street Elementary...
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.
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