From: Chuck.Lavazzi@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Chuck Lavazzi)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.holmes
Subject: As Promised: a Sherlockian paper
Date: 2 Oct 92 02:29:23 GMT
Organization: Extended Bulletin Board Service


	I thought it might stir up some discussion to actually post a
Sherlockian paper here.  One of the scion societies to which I belong here
in St. Louis (The Jefferson Hopes) requires at least one paper from each
member annualy.  Here's one from a couple years back.  The following is, of
course, copywright (c) 1992 by Chuck Lavazzi, but may be reproduced unedited
for non-commercial purposes.
	The paper was inspired by "The Solitary Cyclist".

"Somewhere That's Green"
(c) 1992 by Chuck Lavazzi

"Here's to the crabgrass, here's to the mortgage
 In fact, here's to suburbia.
 Lay down your briefcase far from the rat race,
 Where nothing can disturb-a-ya"
                              -- Alan Sherman, "Here's to the
                                 Crabgrass"
"Far from skid row
 I dream we'll go
 Somewhere that's green."
                              -- Howard Ashman, from "Little
                                 Shop of Horrors"
 
     There's no doubt about it; the exurban dream has been an
integral part of Western mythology ever since the industrial
revolution and the attendant growth of The City as a center
of trade, commerce, and exploitation.  For centuries, it
seems, popular literature, music, and art have promoted the
notion that life in the country -- or at least the suburbs --
was inherently superior to that of the city.  Or at least
healthier and less stressful, at any rate.
     Granted, there have been a few dissenting voices from
curmudgeonly urbanites; the rest of that Alan Sherman song I
quoted at the beginning is a good example.  And Sherlock
Holmes' contemporary, George Bernard Shaw, once exclaimed: "O
Lord!  I don't know which is the worst of the country, the
walking or the sitting at home with nothing to do."  But like
many of Shaw's opinions, this one was hardly popular.  In
Holmes' time, as in our own, most urban residents were
convinced that the grass was greener (or at least more
plentiful) out past the city limits.   And Holmes and Watson
seem to have been no exceptions to the rule.
     The Canon is, in fact, rife with examples of Holmes' and
(especially) the good doctor's admiration for country life.
In "The Dancing Men", for instance, Watson describes Hilton
Cubit as "a tall, ruddy, clean-shaven gentleman, whose clear
eyes and florid cheeks told of a life led far from the fogs
of Baker Street.  He seemed to bring a whiff of his strong,
bracing, east-coast air with him as he entered".  In "The
Priory School", Holmes tells the Duke of Holdernesse "This
northern air is invigorating and pleasant, so I propose to
spend a few days upon your moors".  And in "The Solitary
Cyclist", which takes place largely "near Farnham, on the
borders of Surrey", Holmes informs Miss Violet Smith that she
obviously teaches "In the country, I presume, from your
complexion".  When, in later years, Homes needed to withdraw
and convalesce from over exertion, he chose the village of
Poldhu in Cornwall ("The Devil's Foot") and he finally
retired, as we all know, to the downs of Sussex.
     Now to the cynic (which I most certainly am not) it
would appear that Holmes, the master of logic and reason, is
succumbing to the popular notions of the day in his
assumption that the very air of the country was inherently
superior to that which entered the lungs in the city, even to
the extent of assuming that it possessed medicinal properties
of some sort.  I submit to you, however, that if some of the
events reported in "The Solitary Cyclist" are an indication,
Sussex air could easily have been bottled and sold as a cure-
all on the streets of London.
     Let us take, for example, the singular case of Mr.
Carruthers' lacerated face.  According to Violet Smith, when
Carruthers happens upon the odious Woodley attempting to
force his attentions on her, "Mr. Carruthers came in and tore
him from me, on which [Woodley] turned upon his own host,
knocking him down and cutting his face open."  And yet there
is no mention of any stitches or any significant first aid at
all; indeed, the only subsequent reference to the incident is
a brief apology the next day by Carruthers.  Either Miss
Smith exaggerated his injury, which seems unlikely in light
of the clear, dispassionate nature of most of her narrative,
or Carruthers had remarkable healing powers.
     But he's not the only one.  When Holmes visits a local
pub in the area he stumbles upon Woodley and in the ensuing
fracas sustains "a cut lip and a discoloured lump upon his
forehead".  Woodley is less fortunate and ends up going home
"in a cart" thanks to Holmes' "strong left".  The implication
is that Woodley was, at the very least, unconscious.  And yet
within a few days he is energetic enough to pull off a
kidnapping and a violent assault upon a young and
(presumably) healthy groom.  Even more astonishing, however,
is his ability to survive what certainly seems, from Watson's
description, to be a mortal gunshot wound in the climactic
scene: "[Carruthers'] revolver cracked, and I saw the blood
spurt from the front of Woodley's waistcoat.  He spun round
with a scream and fell upon his back, his hideous red face
turning suddenly to a dreadful mottled pallor."  A severe
loss of blood would seem to be implied, at the very least.
And yet Watson is able to assure us within minutes that "he
will live".  The country air has turned Woodley into a
virtual Doc Savage.
     Finally, let's return to the young groom Peter, so
brutally attacked by Woodley.  When Holmes, Watson, and
Carruthers come across him, he is lying "upon his back, his
knees drawn up, a terrible cut upon his head.  He was
insensible, but alive."  And yet within a few minutes Peter
is well enough not only to walk back to the scene of the
confrontation between Carruthers and Woodley, but to make his
way back into town with a note for the superintendent -- all
this without any indication of medical attention for that
"terrible cut".  One must assume that in that invigorating
country air, it was already healing.
     So there you have it.  If Holmes and Watson sometimes
seem, to modern readers, to be overly enamoured of the
restorative powers of life beyond the city, it may be for
perfectly sound, empirical reasons, if the events chronicled
in "The Solitary Cyclist" are to be believed.  And they must
be believed, of course, for otherwise whither The Grand Game?
Obviously, the age of miracles has simply passed.  Q.E.D.

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