Canon Discussion: The Devil's Foot
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sherlock60This week we’re having a look at The Devil’s Foot. I’ve typed up a few thoughts and questions to get the discussion going—please leave your own ideas in the comments!
...my long and intimate friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes… There’s an odd contrast between present and past in this story. In the past, Watson and Holmes are acting domestically as a couple—Holmes is ill and needs a rest; Watson automatically goes with him, and is protective of him. In the present, they are barely in contact. Any thoughts?
Why not tell them of the Cornish horror—strangest case I have handled.
I have no idea what backward sweep of memory had brought the matter fresh to his mind… Any ideas?
It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that Holmes's iron constitution showed some symptoms of giving way in the face of constant hard work of a most exacting kind, aggravated, perhaps, by occasional indiscretions of his own. In MISS, which probably takes place in February 1897, we have: For years I had gradually weaned him from that drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable career. Now I knew that under ordinary conditions he no longer craved for this artificial stimulus, but I was well aware that the fiend was not dead, but sleeping… Has Holmes had a relapse with regard to the drugs? Or does Watson mean something else by “indiscretions?
In March of that year Dr. Moore Agar, of Harley Street, whose dramatic introduction to Holmes I may some day recount, gave positive injunctions that the famous private agent lay aside all his cases and surrender himself to complete rest if he wished to avert an absolute breakdown. Any thoughts on Agar?
From the windows of our little whitewashed house, which stood high upon a grassy headland, we looked down upon the whole sinister semicircle of Mounts Bay, that old death trap of sailing vessels, with its fringe of black cliffs and surge-swept reefs on which innumerable seamen have met their end. With a northerly breeze it lies placid and sheltered, inviting the storm-tossed craft to tack into it for rest and protection.
Then come the sudden swirl round of the wind, the blistering gale from the south-west, the dragging anchor, the lee shore, and the last battle in the creaming breakers. The wise mariner stands far out from that evil place. It’s perhaps a curious coincidence that the murderer should have been named “Mortimer”...
I glanced at the hastily clad clergyman, with the formally dressed lodger seated beside him, and was amused at the surprise which Holmes's simple deduction had brought to their faces. Here we have some evidence that Watson has indeed learnt some of Holmes’ methods.
"It won't do, Watson!" said he with a laugh. "Let us walk along the cliffs together and search for flint arrows. We are more likely to find them than clues to this problem. To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson—all else will come.” This seems to be a contradiction of what Holmes says in WIST: “My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built.” But in BRUC we do have: of the most remarkable characteristics of Sherlock Holmes was his power of throwing his brain out of action and switching all his thoughts on to lighter things whenever he had convinced himself that he could no longer work to advantage. BRUC takes place November 1895. It’s not clear when WIST takes place—Watson says March 1892 but that can’t be right. But if we do say that WIST comes before BRUC then maybe Holmes has learnt to control his mind better as he’s got older.
“...you will seat yourself near that open window in an armchair unless, like a sensible man, you determine to have nothing to do with the affair.” Stepping outside the Game, ACD obviously has Watson try the drug because he’s the narrator—it means we can experience the effects of the drug too. But playing the Game—why on earth does Watson agree to this? It would make more sense for only Holmes to try it, and Watson to watch from a safe distance so he can immediately help. Or if they really both have to take the drug, they could have done it one at a time. Moreover, it seems more likely to me that Watson would have put his foot down and said that neither of them should inhale the drug—it wasn’t worth the risk.
“Among other things I exhibited this powder, and I told him of its strange properties…” Why did Sterndale show such a dangerous chemical to a man he didn’t trust?
"Go and do the other half," said Holmes. "I, at least, am not prepared to prevent you." Was Holmes right to not turn Sterndale over to the police? And what happens when members of the investigation eventually read Watson’s story?
Next Sunday, 29th November, we’ll be having a look at The Red Circle. Hope you can join us then.
...my long and intimate friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes… There’s an odd contrast between present and past in this story. In the past, Watson and Holmes are acting domestically as a couple—Holmes is ill and needs a rest; Watson automatically goes with him, and is protective of him. In the present, they are barely in contact. Any thoughts?
Why not tell them of the Cornish horror—strangest case I have handled.
I have no idea what backward sweep of memory had brought the matter fresh to his mind… Any ideas?
It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that Holmes's iron constitution showed some symptoms of giving way in the face of constant hard work of a most exacting kind, aggravated, perhaps, by occasional indiscretions of his own. In MISS, which probably takes place in February 1897, we have: For years I had gradually weaned him from that drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable career. Now I knew that under ordinary conditions he no longer craved for this artificial stimulus, but I was well aware that the fiend was not dead, but sleeping… Has Holmes had a relapse with regard to the drugs? Or does Watson mean something else by “indiscretions?
In March of that year Dr. Moore Agar, of Harley Street, whose dramatic introduction to Holmes I may some day recount, gave positive injunctions that the famous private agent lay aside all his cases and surrender himself to complete rest if he wished to avert an absolute breakdown. Any thoughts on Agar?
From the windows of our little whitewashed house, which stood high upon a grassy headland, we looked down upon the whole sinister semicircle of Mounts Bay, that old death trap of sailing vessels, with its fringe of black cliffs and surge-swept reefs on which innumerable seamen have met their end. With a northerly breeze it lies placid and sheltered, inviting the storm-tossed craft to tack into it for rest and protection.
Then come the sudden swirl round of the wind, the blistering gale from the south-west, the dragging anchor, the lee shore, and the last battle in the creaming breakers. The wise mariner stands far out from that evil place. It’s perhaps a curious coincidence that the murderer should have been named “Mortimer”...
I glanced at the hastily clad clergyman, with the formally dressed lodger seated beside him, and was amused at the surprise which Holmes's simple deduction had brought to their faces. Here we have some evidence that Watson has indeed learnt some of Holmes’ methods.
"It won't do, Watson!" said he with a laugh. "Let us walk along the cliffs together and search for flint arrows. We are more likely to find them than clues to this problem. To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson—all else will come.” This seems to be a contradiction of what Holmes says in WIST: “My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built.” But in BRUC we do have: of the most remarkable characteristics of Sherlock Holmes was his power of throwing his brain out of action and switching all his thoughts on to lighter things whenever he had convinced himself that he could no longer work to advantage. BRUC takes place November 1895. It’s not clear when WIST takes place—Watson says March 1892 but that can’t be right. But if we do say that WIST comes before BRUC then maybe Holmes has learnt to control his mind better as he’s got older.
“...you will seat yourself near that open window in an armchair unless, like a sensible man, you determine to have nothing to do with the affair.” Stepping outside the Game, ACD obviously has Watson try the drug because he’s the narrator—it means we can experience the effects of the drug too. But playing the Game—why on earth does Watson agree to this? It would make more sense for only Holmes to try it, and Watson to watch from a safe distance so he can immediately help. Or if they really both have to take the drug, they could have done it one at a time. Moreover, it seems more likely to me that Watson would have put his foot down and said that neither of them should inhale the drug—it wasn’t worth the risk.
“Among other things I exhibited this powder, and I told him of its strange properties…” Why did Sterndale show such a dangerous chemical to a man he didn’t trust?
"Go and do the other half," said Holmes. "I, at least, am not prepared to prevent you." Was Holmes right to not turn Sterndale over to the police? And what happens when members of the investigation eventually read Watson’s story?
Next Sunday, 29th November, we’ll be having a look at The Red Circle. Hope you can join us then.
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Date: 2015-11-22 10:51 pm (UTC)Sterndale does freely admit his actions came from a wish for revenge as much as a wish for justice. And Holmes does seem to allow him to go out of a sense of "there but for the grace of God..." rather than because he thought Tregennis deserved what he got.
But I think justice should always be dispassionate and evenhanded. I wouldn't want to live in a society in which the victims' loved ones were in charge of giving out the punishments.