The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume II - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [462]
15 (p. 416) the most jealously guarded of all government secrets: Dry humor obviously runs in the family. The most jealously guarded of all government secrets is something Mycroft assumes everyone has heard of. Exactly what sort of irony this implies is open to debate.
16 (p. 430) Polyphonic Motets of Lassus: Orlando Lassus (1532-1594; there are lots of versions of both his names, but this one is the most common) composed more than 500 motets, musical compositions for two to twelve voices based on sacred texts and sung without accompaniment. Holmes’s achievement is the more impressive when one learns that these motets can’t be meaningfully recreated by other instruments. To study them Holmes had to “hear” them, to paraphrase Hamlet, with his mind’s ear.
17 (p. 483) Duke of York’s steps: The first-born son of the English monarch inherits the title prince of Wales; the second-born son is the duke of York. The steps mentioned are a series carved in granite on the Island of Herm commemorating Frederick, the second son of George III.
18 (p. 533) Negretto Sylvius: An Italian word for “black” and the Latin for “woods” together make the name literally “Blackwoods,” which was the name of a magazine that was a competitor of the Strand. Blackwood’s once rejected one of Conan Doyle’s early works. This, plus the too-cute-by-half address of “Moorside” for a black man, suggests to me that an editor at the Strand had a large hand in this story. Conan Doyle didn’t need any revenge after forty years of prosperity. It is more likely a relative newcomer to the magazine, feeling a rivalry with Blackwood‘s, thought this in-joke would be oh so funny.
19 (p. 539) the long-drawn, wailing notes of that most haunting of tunes: No one who knows this piece could possibly characterize it this way; although it’s a fine piece, it’s neither wailing nor haunting, and if a musical piece had legal rights, it would sue for defamation for being la beled a “tune.” It’s another reason to suspect the authenticity of the story. Conan Doyle mentions many composers throughout the stories, but this is the only specific piece cited, and therefore the only one characterized.
20 (p. 553) belle dame sans merci: This French phrase means “beautiful woman without pity”; originally the title of a poem by French poet Alain Chartier (c.1385-1433), it is better known from a poem of the same name by John Keats (1795-1821).
21 (p. 567) a queen in English history: Eleanor of Castile (c.1245-1290), wife of King Edward I (1239-1307), was reputed to have sucked poison from her husband’s arm; the story is most likely apocryphal.
22 (p. 617) surds and conic sections: Surds are sums of numbers at least one of which contains an irrational root of another number—for example, the sum of the square root of two and the square root of three. A conic section is the two-dimensional area obtained when a plane intersects a cone.
23 (p. 639) in the days of the Regency: The Regency was the period between 1811 and 1820, when the prince of Wales, later George IV, was appointed regent to rule England because of the insanity of his father, George III.
COMMENTS & QUESTIONS
In this section, we aim to provide the reader with an array of perspectives on the text, as well as questions that challenge those perspectives. The commentary has been culled from sources as diverse as reviews contemporaneous with the work, letters written by the author, literary criticism of later generations, and appreciations written throughout history. Following the commentary, a series of questions seeks to filter Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories through a variety of points of view and bring about a richer understanding of these enduring works.
Comments
RONALD A. KNOX
Any studies in Sherlock Holmes must be, first and foremost, studies in Dr. Watson....
If the sophists have been