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are. I am lost without my Boswell.
There is a wonderful sympathy and freemasonry among horsey men. Be one of them, and you will know all that there is to know.
fear that I bore you with these details,
but I have to let you see my little difficulties, if you are to understand the situation.”
Irene Adler, spinster, to Godfrey Norton, bachelor. It
“You don’t mind breaking the law?” “Not in the least.”
Women are naturally secretive, and they like to do their own secreting.
“I am still in the dark.”
door. He was searching his pockets for the key when someone passing said: “Good-night, Mister Sherlock Holmes.”
the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a woman’s wit.
putting his fingertips together, as was his custom when in judicial moods.
for strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.”
“the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be.
is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won’t speak to me for fifty minutes.”
this is a time for observation, not for talk. We are spies in an enemy’s country.
he was never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been lounging in his armchair amid his improvisations and his black-letter editions. Then it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come upon him,
there may be some little danger, so kindly put your army revolver in your pocket.”
but I was always oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with Sherlock Holmes.
he saw clearly not only what had happened but what was about to happen,
“John Clay, the murderer, thief, smasher, and forger. He’s a young man, Mr. Merryweather, but he is at the head of his profession, and I would rather have my bracelets on him than on any criminal in London.
an absolute imbecile in his profession.
is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true.”
“‘L’homme n’est rien, l’oeuvre tout,’
“life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.
that the little things are infinitely the most important.
It is true that you have missed everything of importance, but you have hit upon the method, and you have a quick eye for colour.
“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact,”
imbecile Lestrade,
the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner.
“On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your inferences.”
The events in question occurred in the early days of my association with Holmes, when we were sharing rooms as bachelors in Baker Street.
“These are very deep waters,” said he; “pray go on with your narrative.”
“Fancy his having the insolence to confound me with the official detective force!
it’s a wicked world, and when a clever man turns his brains to crime it is the worst of all.
“Yes; it struck me as being a little out of the common.” “They often vanish before the ceremony, and occasionally during the honeymoon; but I cannot call to mind anything quite so prompt as this.
I presume that they were hardly from the same class of society.” “No, I am descending.” “I beg pardon.” “My last client of the sort was a king.”
Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell. You have degraded what should have been a course of lectures into a series of tales.”
“Data! data! data!” he cried impatiently. “I can’t make bricks without clay.”
the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”
And if you ever put your foot over that threshold again’—here in an instant the smile hardened into a grin of rage, and he glared down at me with the face of a demon—‘I’ll throw you to the mastiff.’
