I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-coloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers when one has no field upon which to exert them? Crime is commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those which are commonplace have any function upon earth.
-- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four, 1890
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4 comments:
Conan Doyle's Holmes is a favorite character of mine-I love mystery. I also add the actor Jeremy Brett still and I think will always personify Sherlock Holmes. Let's have more of this. pgt
I'll get on that, ma'am
B
I often purse my lips and dramatically place my forefinger on them to give the impression of brainwork.
Don't we all?
I really like this summation of the master detective by Kenneth Tynan:
"An outsider - a user of many masks. A secret superior being. A dope addict. A master of esoteric skills. An upholder of no class and seemingly a member of none. A despiser of officialdom and established authority. A lover of music. In whom do all these attributes reside? In a composite portrait of the nineteenth century artist? No: you have guessed it: in Sherlock Holmes"
B
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