Category Archives: SHERLOCK HOLMES

One of the immortal statements made by the Insuperable Detective, Sherlock Holmes, was this: “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” This statement may be accurate in the conventional sense. However, I have observed that the following is also an accurate statement: All “truth” is relative to all other truth. Indeed, in the history of humanity have we observed that “One man’s truth is another man’s heresy”. Illusions, delusions, truth, reality, opinion, facts, history, fantasy and fiction all share an indivisible common denominator: The point of view of each individual. Therefore, reality may be nothing more than a subjective experience! You may discover a new “reality” in this adventure of a singularly ingenious investigation conducted by Sherlock Sherrinford Holmes, and his brother Mycroft Spencer Holmes.

SHERLOCK HOLMES: MY LIFE – CHAPTER TWO

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

(If you have not yet read Chapter One, read it here: https://lawrencerspencer.com/sherlock-holmes/)

CHAPTER 2: THE JABBERWOCK KEY

“I was most curious to discover the complete details of the case of Alice and her sisters from the perspective of Mr. Dodgson.  What had led this evidently intelligent and respectable man to become a target for slings and arrows of the London press?

Accordingly I sent a letter of introduction and inquiry to Mr. Dodgson by post.  Within several days I received confirmation through the post that an interview had been agreed upon. I set out upon a brisk, clear morning of the appointed day to meet the gentlemen in person. I chose to travel by road, rather than by rail through Bicester, so that I might stop along the way. As I passed along Marylebone Road in the coach I hired for this rather long journey to Oxford from London, I pondered whether or not my travels would be productive of anything more than a mild amusement.

When I arrived at his small, sparsely furnished quarters at Christ Church, I discovered a man about six feet tall, slender, with curling brown hair and blue-grey eyes. He carried himself rather stiffly, on account of a knee injury.

Initially I found Mr. Dodgson to be somewhat shy in his demeanor, which I attributed to the nature of my visit, rather than to his usual character. However, once I had made the intention of my visit perfectly transparent to him, he relaxed visibly and became a cordial host. Only a few minutes of our conversation were required to dispel the sensationalized newspaper report, which proved, in fact, to be fallacious in the extreme.

By the time we had taken our tea in the afternoon our acquaintance and conversation had surpassed that trivial incident and travelled into more relevant and meaningful subjects of interest.  I stayed through the evening meal, after which Mr. Dodgson was gracious enough to invite me to stay in his small quarters, so that I did not have to seek lodgings in the village.

This accommodation I found quite suitable as it afforded me leisure time with which to discuss a variety of matters and to become more well  acquainted with the gentleman.  Although we did not establish an abiding friendship or continuing correspondence my visit would prove to be a great good fortune to me in the course of time.

Our conversation, although charmingly absorbing, was slightly encumbered in that he was deaf in one ear and by his “hesitation”, or stammer, which he acquired in early childhood.

The most conspicuous features of his environment would lead one to assume instantly that the man was a photographer, rather than a mathematician.  The photographic paraphernalia, chemicals and chords from which photographs were suspended, together with various cameras and tripods, made an immediate impression that the man had more than a casual interest in the art. Indeed, one of the photographs he displayed was of the very girl, Alice, of whom the newspaper had written.

“Did you take this photograph during your recent excursion with the Liddell family?”, I asked him.

“No, the young lady came to the office which I use for indoor photography.  As you can see, the backdrop is staged to appear to be out of doors”, he replied.  He handed the photograph to me for so I might examine it more closely.

Photography was an awakening art form in Europe, one at which Mr. Dodgson was already well accomplished, in addition to his various other activities of teaching and writing.

After some preliminary discussion with Mr. Dodgson of the matter reported in the Times, I discovered, not surprisingly, that the entire issue had been dispensed with during the intervening several days since the publication of the alleged scandal.  Apparently, the entire family, including the three young girls and their mother, had traveled to the office of the editor of the Times, demanding a full retraction of the article, and a that a formal apology be published.

Indeed, the reporter who contributed the article to the Times had never visited the site, nor had he spoken with any of the parties involved.  Rather, the report was fabricated entirely from a brief interview with a matronly passerby whose name was not revealed and whose identity is not known.

They demanded that the reporter in question be disciplined for submitting such an unjustifiable piece of slanderous gossip! After threats that legal proceeding would be filed against the Times, if immediate restitutions were not made, the entire matter was resolved.  Indeed, a withdrawal, and apology, were published in due course in the Sunday Edition of the following week.

Having satisfied myself that the allegations made by the press were unfounded, and indeed, wildly inflammatory, I was pleased to realize that Dr. Watson had inadvertently caused my introduction to a man who might become a profound friend, but rather proved to be the source of a series of most enigmatic revelations!

My new adventure began, innocently enough, with a fantastical story about Alice In Wonderland told by Charles to his young friends as an amusing pastime.  The superficial trappings of the stories of rabbits, caterpillars, dodo birds, mice, and mad hatters, proved to become far more fascinating to me when I began to discover, from their author, the intricate extent of their hidden, metaphorical meanings.

After we had taken our supper, I sat by the fire enjoying my Calabash pipe, due to the cooling effect it made upon the smoke while circulating through the gourd. This was my favorite amongst a small collection of pipes with which I traveled.  The majority of my pipes were of briar root.

As I searched the local newspaper for items of interest or amusement, Charles, pondered a notebook at his desk, upon which he wrote meticulously from time to time.

“Are you preparing lessons for your students”?, I queried, thinking these must be mathematic problems of some complex and obscure nature.

To my surprise he replied that he was indeed working on lessons, but not of the sort I would have ever imagined from a lecturer in mathematics at a prestigious university.

“Have you ever heard of portmanteau, Mr. Holmes?”, he replied.

“It is a French term, is it not? I believe it is a leather traveling bag”, I said.

“Yes, that is one meaning of the word. The definition I refer to is that of a portmanteau word.  It is used in poetry to mean a blend of two (or more) words, or morphemes, and their meanings into one new word. I have created a method of demonstrating to my students that there exists a relative or associative values of numbers, as in language.  It is a convenient tool for my class in Symbolic Logic.

The exercise of creating and deciphering morphemes stimulates them to “unlearn” the fixed concepts which they have incorrectly learned in early studies. My intention is not to train students in mathematical dogma, like tricks to a dog, but to incite them to create applications of mathematics to solving problems in life.”

I thought this a rather keen notion, though I did not quite comprehend what he was getting at as yet.

“For example, this is a portmanteau poem I am writing to demonstrate the concept to my students”, he said.  It is called “The Jabberwock”.

Mr. Dodgson passed a sheet across the desk to me.  It read as follows:

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.”

After reading this very odd poem, I passed it back across to him.

“I find it very clever, in meter and rhyme, but must admit that I don’t understand any of it.  What purpose would this serve for your students?”, I asked him.

I am working on writing down the “key” for the poem. The “key” defines the morphemes. This is precisely the point of the poem, and of the mathematical exercise: every word in our language can be assigned an arbitrary value.  Likewise, mathematical symbols are assigned an arbitrary value. If one employs the value of words or numbers previously defined by others, the extent of their ability to construct a new reality, or to conceive new ideas, is thereby limited.

The exercise is precisely this: create a set of words or numeric values, assign a definition or value to them, and from these, construct a problem and a corresponding solution.  In the case of “The Jabberwock” the words are arranged in a poetic fashion to which the aesthetic attributes of meter, rhyme and rhythm are added. My application of morphemes has been used to construct a poem with a hidden meaning.  However, it is obvious that many other applications of this simple mechanism might be contrived to serve mathematics, logic or literature.

A “key” is required as a component of the exercise in order to make the problem, or poem or “reality” understandable to others.  The key is a list of definitions of the words or symbols contained in the poem or a mathematical hypothesis”, he said.  As he spoke, Charles passed over his notebook for me to examine.

“Another lesser known use of a portmanteau I did not discover until I began my tenure here at Christ Church.” he explained.  “During one of my several visits to the Royal Academy, I had the privilege of reviewing several unpublished notebooks written by Sir Isaac Newton.  His studies of mathematics and optics have influenced my own study of photographic lenses.

However, I was most intrigued by Newton’s postulate of an invisible force able to act over vast distances. This notion led him to the criticism by his contemporaries that he was introducing “occult agencies” into science. However, he observed the phenomena implied a gravitational attraction though he did not indicate its cause.

As I am sure you are aware, Mr. Holmes, it is both unnecessary and improper to frame a hypotheses of things that are not implied by the observed phenomena. His expression for this was “Hypotheses non fingo“, which meant that he did not feign hypotheses.

In other words, for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena must be called a hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or based on occult qualities, or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophies. Propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction”, Mr. Dodgson concluded.

“I must agree thoroughly”, I replied. “I myself have discovered, through a series of practical experiments in criminal investigation, that it is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”

“Did you know that Sir Isaac also made an extensive study of alchemy and hermeneutics?” Mr. Holmes, he asked.

“Yes. However, I cannot say that I understand anything more than the rudiments of alchemy. And, of hermeneutics, I know nothing whatever”, I said.  I withheld from him the fact that I had spent many years of my life intensely studying the subject of chemistry, the empirical descendent of alchemy.

As he continued with his most intriguing diatribe regarding his studies of the works of Sir Isaac Newton, I reclined into a chair near the fireplace to refill my pipe.  He did not object to my smoking a pure mixture of my favorite black Latakia tobacco.  The odor is quite pungent, but the flavor is more delicious than the finest culinary delicacy.

“A subject of which I knew little” he continued, “in spite of my ecclesiastical training, was that of Biblical hermeneutics.  There are many similarities between this study, and the portmanteau. Indeed, the latter may be a derivative of the former.

As a student of the Bible myself, I was much intrigued by Sir Isaac’s application of hermeneutics which was emphatically aimed at attaining a supernatural communication with the spiritual realms of the occult!  Indeed, his study of alchemy was not that of the physical properties of chemical elements, nor the discovery of a process which would convert base metal into gold. I found this rather compelling, to say the least”, he told me, while rummaging through a drawer containing a jumble of papers.

“If his research was not intended to produce a chemical process, then of what use were his experiments?”, I asked.  My intention was to ascertain the extent to which Dr. Dodgson may have studied the subject.

“I asked myself that very question”, he replied, sitting down across from me with his arms crossed, deep in thought, as though choosing words that would communicate an exact meaning.

“I believe that Sir Isaac was searching for the essence of life. Not for the physical sources, but rather for the spiritual source of existence: life, the universe, and everything in it. His writings upon the matter do certainly seem to attribute a metaphysical, or spiritual, origin to our universe, which is shared by each of us as individuals, and collectively, rather than to that of a single Divine Hand”, he concluded, in a rather introspective tone.

I pondered this notion for a moment before responding, tamping the embers of my pipe firmly with an iron nail head, a common and useful tool for the smoker to ensure a thorough burning of the tobacco.

“I must admit that your study of hermeneutics is undoubtedly too esoteric for my limited understanding of the subject. Yet, I will admit that I am enchanted by the novelty of it.  It certainly fits aptly with the notion of “Hypotheses non fingo” in that, to my knowledge, there exists no definitive “proof” that a Supreme Being exists. The hypothesis that such an entity is the origin point and guardian of all existence seems unsubstantiated by anything more than personal belief or faith”, I said.

“Exactly so”, Charles said as he rose from his chair and retrieved a sheet of paper from the desk top.

“Here”, he said, handing the paper to me, “is a summary of the fundamentals of hermeneutics. One cannot escape noticing the decided similarities between these, and portmanteau”, he concluded.

I studied the paper, and was impressed that the resemblance between the two subjects, as he had suggested, was inescapable. The document read as follows:

“Hermeneutics: the study of Biblical texts, with special attention to hidden interpretations which may be discovered through any or all of the following methods:

  1. grammar, and an explanation or critical interpretation of the text
  2. the interpretation of certain words and letters and apparently superfluous and/or missing words or letters, and prefixes and suffixes
  3. the interpretation of those letters which, in certain words, are provided with points
  4. the interpretation of the letters in a word according to their numerical value
  5. the interpretation of a word by dividing it into two or more words
  6. the interpretation of a word according to its consonantal form or according to its vocalization
  7. the interpretation of a word by transposing its letters or by changing its vowels.”

“By George — or by Newton — I should say, I think you’ve hit upon something quite extraordinary here, my good fellow.  How marvelous it must be to enjoy such a keen intellect and the ability to apply it skillfully”, I observed with genuine admiration.  “I flatter myself by observing that mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius”, I commented to him.

“Your praise is appreciated, but unfounded to the extent you might imagine. Personally, I am a novice when compared to so great a mind as that of Isaac Newton. However, I endeavor to enjoy and apply a few of his discoveries in my teaching”.

He scribbled several more items on the notebook he had continued to ponder during our discussion and passed it across to me for examination.

“Here, then, is the “key” to the Jabberwock poem. When you understand the definitions, the meaning of the poem becomes clear. Thence, the problem is solved and reality is revealed”, said Dodgson.

This is the “key” to the Jabberwock poem, written upon the notebook:

THE JABBERWOCK”  KEY

Bandersnatch — A swift moving creature with snapping jaws, capable of extending its neck.

Beamish — Radiantly beaming, happy, cheerful.

Borogove — A thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round, “something like a live mop”.

Brillig — Four o’clock in the afternoon: the time when you begin broiling things for dinner.

Burbled — A mixture of “bleat”, “murmur”, and “warble”. Burble is also a pre-existing word, to form bubbles as in boiling water.

Chortled — Combination of chuckle and snort.

Frabjous — A blend of fair, fabulous, and joyous.

Frumious — Combination of “fuming” and “furious”.

Galumphing — A blend of “gallop” and “triumphant”. Used to describe a way of “trotting” downhill, while keeping one foot further back than the other. This enables the Galumpheri to stop quickly.

Gimble — To make holes as does a gimlet.

Gyre — To go round and round like a gyroscope, meant to mimic the motion a dog makes while scratching.

Jubjub bird — A desperate bird that lives in perpetual passion.

Manxome — Fearsome. A portmanteau of “manly” and “buxom”, the latter relating to men for most of its history.

Mimsy — Combination of “miserable” and “flimsy”.

Mome — Short for “from home,” meaning that the raths had lost their way.

Outgrabe  — Something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle.

Rath — A sort of green pig.

Snicker-snack — An onomatopoeia referring to sharpness.

Slithy — Combination of “slimy” and “lithe.”

Tove — A combination of a badger, a lizard, and a corkscrew. They are very curious looking creatures which make their nests under sundials and eat only cheese. “gyre and gimble,” i.e. rotate and bore, is in reference to the toves being partly corkscrew.

Tulgey — Thick, dense, dark.

Uffish — A state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish.

Wabe — The grass plot around a sundial. It is called a “wabe” because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it, and a long way beyond it on each side.”

After half an hour of reviewing the “key” and comparing the words defined therein to those in the poem, my amusement and appreciation for the very clever literary device created by Charles soared to a new level.

“Capital, my dear boy. Capital!”, I said emphatically. “You have hit upon a very clever observation and application of it. I am sure I will find this method very useful in my own line of work as a criminal investigator although I am uncertain how this may apply, as yet. However, I will continue to study the device carefully.”

“When do you find the time and energy to study so many diverse matters? One would imagine that your duties at Christ Church would be quite absorbing”, I asked him.

“To be frank”, he replied, “I have little else to occupy myself here during the year. I am unmarried and without children. My duties as a lecturer are discharged routinely and demand little of my time. Moreover, I am more infatuated with the pursuit of knowledge as a subject in itself, than with any other enterprise. I value wisdom and understanding above all things, as I deem that these qualities closely emulate those of God. Therefore,  the study of wisdom, to me, is the study of The Almighty Creator”.

I must admit that I had never conceived this point before, but upon hearing it agreed readily that there could be no more fundamentally noble activity for a man than to attempt to emulate god, whatever notion that may conjure for the individual, assuming that the god in question was  benevolent in nature.

Personally, I had never before considered the subject of “The Almighty Creator” for myself, and felt quite a strange sensation course throughout my being at the suggestion of it! For that matter, I could not remember having studied anything whatever of a philosophical or religious nature.  It seemed that those subjects had never existed for me.

Before departing, Charles was kind enough to give me a manuscript of the story he had told to the Liddell children titled Alice’s Golden Hour of which copies had been made by a female student.  His story was later renamed for publication Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

I read the entire manuscript during my return to London. Having spent many hours with the man, and learning of his esoteric scientific interests, which bordered on the occult, I surmised that the apparent children’s story held many layers of subtle meaning disguised in myriad forms. I later discovered that my intuition was correct, but I could not possibly realize, at that time, how dynamic were the extent of these subtleties!

Upon the following day I spent several hours composing my own versions of a portmanteau poem.  I found the exercise quite intriguing and challenging. I must admit that I am ordinarily disinterested in writing, except for an occasional letter or telegram regarding matters concerning my investigations.

Nonetheless, I felt strangely compelled, as by some unseen, external force of nature, to apply myself to the task of writing a poem about the state of affairs in England with which I maintained a daily familiarity through reading the Times and various magazines. My poem was doubly uncharacteristic as I am utterly disinclined, ordinarily, to expend any attention whatever to matters of politics much less write about it!

Disinclinations notwithstanding, the following is my attempt at a  portmanteau poem.  It is intended to express a general view of the situation in the Queen’s Realm: the incessantly greedy and arrogant global empire, which during the past several hundred years had turned the once “Great” Britain into a ruthless imperial power more to be distained than admired.

It is my observation that the lingering tradition of feudal rule throughout the British empire remains entrenched due to the long-standing relationships between the royal family, the church, aristocratic landowners, parliament, corrupt judges, military madmen, and greedy bankers. This is compounded, and made possible, by the singular credulity of the average citizen who languishes in the hope that their personal responsibility for the inevitable hardship they share will be diminished by the callous hands of their brutish overlords.

BEWARE THE CRIMPOLY CORLOBOR

“Beware the crimpoly corlobors plea,

ye worlassaxer econaves and stuvers!

Don’t heed the wicked pompars, please,

that serve the slizerly killmill slores!

Beware the kiltracts who are in league

with the landcrat and famroy who intrigue

with coilstring murdatics and ponthypidiots!

They defraud humanots in their conspiracy.

Life in a luxsive private domain,

the stuvers are by the pompars duped,

’tis the aim of the crimpoly game:

to never, ever speak the truth.

And do not the banvil and prepervs trust,

nor corudgeons and their crimdany.

The murdatic kiltract they won’t arrest,

but prosecute the humanot inovic!

Worlassaxers could make a society

for the Greater Good of All,

if we shun the slizerly crimpoly

that would make econaves of us all.”

And here, like the one provided to me by Charles, is the “key” to my own portmanteau poem, to better understand my less than subtle meaning.

The “Crimpoly Corlobor”  Key:

“landcrat” = aristocratic land owner

“banvil” = banker + evil

“coilsting” = covert killing + stealing  + venomous snake

“corudgeon” =  corrupt + judge + taking bribes

“corlobor” corporate + lobbyist + whore, i.e. a “consultant” who is paid handsomely to legally bribe law makers to give money or favour to the corporation who employs them.

“crimpoly” = criminal + politician + the typical behavior of any senator, parliamentarian, dictator, etc..

“crimdany”  =  criminal + defense attorney

“econaves” =  economic + slaves

” famroy ” = King, Queen, and royal family

“goldfaker” =  banker / money-mongering aristocrat

“humanots”= poor + homeless + humans + living in squalor + without basic services + displaced by greed, corruption, war caused by criminal politicians

“inovic” =  innocent + victim

“kiltract =  military + contractor

killmill = military + industrial + political killing machine

“luxsive” =  luxurious + expensive

“murdatic”  = mass + murdering + lunatic

” plarth”= planet + Earth

“pompar” = pompous parliamentarian

“ponthypidiot”= priestly (Pontificus Maximus) + hypocritical + idiot

“preperv” = priest + sexual + pervert, e.g. a parish priest who will only have sex with small boys

“slenxy” =  slinky + sexy

slizerly = sleazy + slimy + slithery

“slore” =  sleazy + whore

“stuver”  =  stupid + voter

“worlassaxer”  =  working + class + taxpayer

Charles graciously gave to me, as a gift, copies of two photographs from the collection of those he had taken personally, as a remembrance of our visit together.  One was a portrait of the British poet laureate, Alfred Tennyson, who wrote a phrase with which I heartily conform the habits of my own life: “I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.”

The second picture was a charming portrait of the young girl named Alice Liddell for whom the adventure story of Alice’s Golden Hour was named. I admit that my thinking and investigative methods were influenced, in a small extent, as a logical derivative learned during my brief association with Mr. Dodgson.”

_________________________

Copyright  © by Lawrence R. Spencer. All Rights Reserved.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO READ THE ENTIRE BOOK, CLICK HERE:  Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu.

WE’RE ALL MAD HERE

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

WE'RE ALL MAD HERE

“As for myself, I believe that what is true for you is true for you, although no other person may agree upon your belief. Regardless, a truth for you, may not be true for others. Is that not a fundamentally sound assumption?”, I asked.

“I suppose you are right Mr. Holmes. It is difficult, if not impossible, to stay apace of your ability to remain logical in the face of a situation which is so absurdly enigmatic. You are proposing that the philosophical paradigm of reality should be considered of equal importance with fiction. How can you ever solve a criminal case, your occupation, if every piece of hard evidence could be a contrivance of imagination on the part of the investigator or of the criminal?”, said Mr. Dodgson.

“Quite the contrary”, I said. “But rather than keeping to my methods alone, let me ask you what meaning you attribute to the following passage in your book”, I said, turning to the page which described in the encounter between Alice and the Cheshire Cat.

“Let me read your own words to you.”

“…she was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she

thought: still it had VERY long claws and a great many teeth, so she

felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

Sherlock-Holmes-My-Life_cover300‘Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know

whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider.

‘Come, it’s pleased so far,’ thought Alice, and she went on. ‘Would you

tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’

‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.

‘I don’t much care where–‘ said Alice.

‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.

‘–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’ Alice added as an explanation.

‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long

enough.’

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question.

‘What sort of people live about here?’

‘In THAT direction,’ the Cat said, waving its right paw round, ‘lives

a Hatter: and in THAT direction,’ waving the other paw, ‘lives a March

Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.’

‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.

‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad.

You’re mad.’

‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.

‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’

Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; however, she went on ‘And how

do you know that you’re mad?'”

“So, Mr. Dodgson, let me pose the same question to you that young Alice asked of the chimerical cat in your own story: how do you know whether you are mad or not mad? How would you satisfy yourself that I am not mad? How do we know that everyone is mad or not mad?”, I said, rising from my chair to place the manuscript upon the sideboard.

I refilled my pipe once again, in anticipation of the protracted debate that was sure to follow on the heels of these profoundly, absurd, yet existential queries and arguments.”

____________________

— Excerpt from the book SHERLOCK HOLMES: MY LIFE by Lawrence R. Spencer

Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu.

THE DIOGENES CLUB

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Diogenes sign

“Watson and I gathered our things and a five p.m. set out in a hansom cab from Baker Street to arrive at the one place at which I was certain to locate my brother in the early evening each day: The Diogenes Club.

“There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubable men in town.

Sherlock-Holmes-My-Life_cover300No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the Stranger’s Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed, and three offenses, if brought to the notice of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. My brother was one of the founders, and I have myself found it a very soothing atmosphere.”, I informed Watson as we jostled our way through the streets of London in the cab.

Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu.

This very exclusive men’s club was named after Diogenes, the Cynic. He made a virtue of extreme poverty, begging for a living and sleeping in a large tub in the marketplace. He was notorious for his provocative behavior and philosophical stunts. He carried a lamp in the daytime, claiming to be looking for an honest man. He regularly antagonized Plato, disputing his interpretation of Socrates and sabotaging his lectures. After being captured by pirates and sold into slavery, Diogenes eventually settled in Corinth, where he was befriended by Alexander The Great.

Fundamentally he was a Western contemporary of the ancient Indian ascetics who abstained from worldly possessions and comfort in favor of poverty as an aid toward spiritual purity. He believed that virtue was better revealed in action and not theory. His life was a relentless campaign to debunk the social values and institutions of what he saw as a corrupt society”, I explained to Watson, having read several treatises concerning the life of Diogenes written by modern day Cynics.

Alexander the Great went to meet Diogenes because he was impressed that the philosopher was so highly admired despite having neither money nor power. However, while Diogenes was relaxing in the sunlight one morning, Alexander, thrilled to meet the famous philosopher, asked if there was any favor he might do for him. Diogenes replied, “Yes. Stand out of my sunlight.”

Alexander declared, “If I were not Alexander, then I should wish to be Diogenes”, I said anecdotally, as Watson absorbed my diatribe, as well as the scenery passing by the window of our hansom.

The Diogenes Club was apparently founded, in part, as a front for the SIS, which, as you may know, is the supreme and indispensable brain-trust behind the British government. This organization secures government secrets and advises the best course of covert action to enable Britain to intervene in the affairs of other nations without detection.”

~ excerpt from the book SHERLOCK HOLMES: MY LIFE, by Lawrence R. Spencer

______________________________

Diogenes of Sinope was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynic philosophyhe was born in modern-day Sinop, Turkey, an Ionian colony on the Black Sea, in 412 or 404 BC and died at Corinth in 323 BC.

— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes_of_Sinope

Excerpts from “An Open Letter From Sherlock Holmes”

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

A biography of Sherlock Holmes, with a Foreword by Mycroft Homes

“To readers of the accounts of my investigatory cases:

“I have undertaken to commit this autobiographical revelation of the factual events of my life to writing, at the suggestion and encouragement of my best friend in the world, my brother Mycroft Holmes.”

The written record of my adventures as conveyed by Dr. John Hamish Watson, rather than myself, as you will read herein, are a fallacious perversion of the reality of my own identity and activities.”

You may recall that, at the end of the first published story of my detectives adventures, A Study in Scarlet, Watson was so impressed by my elegant handling of the case, and so incensed by Scotland Yard’s claiming full credit for its solution, that he exclaimed: “Your merits should be publicly recognized. You should publish an account of the case.  If you won’t, I will for you.”

Owing to my utter disinterest in self-proclamation, and my propensity toward the incessant pursuit of new mysteries to solve, my response to this proposal was, “You may do what you like, Doctor.”

Hence, Watson proceeded to write the story, which was represented as “a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson”, or so I was led to assume.  None of the facts you will read herein have ever been surmised, supposed and imagined with respect to any of my adventures.  Indeed, the nature and identity of the dramatis personae on the stage of the intrigue I relate to you now have never before been revealed.

The challenges of this case were the most difficult I ever faced in my career.  Indeed, the formidable combination of investigation skills, information gathering, and persistence required the considerable energies of both myself and my dear brother, Mycroft, together with a legion of agents from the Office of The Chancellor of The Exchequer, as well as the Secret Information Services (SIS), whose resources were engaged upon the matter for several years.”

“Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence.”

I invite you to join this escapade, if you will indulge me, into my ultimate adventure.  Moreover, I trust that posterity will inherit some small benefit from these observations upon the volatile process, distillation and residue of my life.”

Sherlock Holmes

Sussex Downs, England”

___________________________________________

— Excerpted from “An Open Letter from Sherlock Holmes”, published in the book, “Sherlock Holmes: My Life”

SHERLOCK HOLMES SOLVES THE MYSTERY OF DR. JEKYLL

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

“I desired to keep this particular fragment of the case because of my interest in the alchemical experimentations performed by Dr. Jekyll, which were a means of physical and spiritual transmutation.  I esteemed that his experiments were very, very much akin to my own investigation into this subject.  I, like so many others, Sir Isaac Newton, foremost amoung them, have shared the dream and drama of a transcendental quest through alchemical methods. The agony and ecstasy of that quest are expressed eloquently, as follows, is this account of his own life:

I was born into a large fortune, endowed besides with excellent parts, inclined by nature to industry, fond of the respect of the wise and good among my fellowmen, and thus, as might have been supposed, with every guarantee of an honourable and distinguished future. And indeed the worst of my faults was a certain impatient gaiety of disposition, such as has made the happiness of many, but such as I found it hard to reconcile with my imperious desire to carry my head high, and wear a more than commonly grave countenance before the public. Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of me.

Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views that I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame. It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my faults, that made me what I was, and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man’s dual nature.

In this case, I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering. And it chanced that the direction of my scientific studies, which led wholly towards the mystic and the transcendental, reacted and shed a strong light on this consciousness of the perennial war among my members.

With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral, and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous, and independent denizens.

I, for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one direction and in one direction only. It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements.

If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were thus bound together — that in the agonized womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then were they dissociated?

   I was so far in my reflections when, as I have said, a side light began to shine upon the subject from the laboratory table. I began to perceive more deeply than it has ever yet been stated, the trembling immateriality, the mist like transience, of this seemingly so solid body in which we walk attired. Certain agents I found to have the power to shake and pluck back that fleshly vestment, even as a wind might toss the curtains of a pavilion.

For two good reasons, I will not enter deeply into this scientific branch of my confession. First, because I have been made to learn that the doom and burthen of our life is bound for ever on man’s shoulders, and when the attempt is made to cast it off, it but returns upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful pressure. Second, because, as my narrative will make, alas! too evident, my discoveries were incomplete. Enough then, that I not only recognised my natural body from the mere aura and effulgence of certain of the powers that made up my spirit, but managed to compound a drug by which these powers should be dethroned from their supremacy, and a second form and countenance substituted, none the less natural to me because they were the expression, and bore the stamp of lower elements in my soul.

 I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of practice. I knew well that I risked death; for any drug that so potently controlled and shook the very fortress of identity, might, by the least scruple of an overdose or at the least inopportunity in the moment of exhibition, utterly blot out that immaterial tabernacle which I looked to it to change. But the temptation of a discovery so singular and profound at last overcame the suggestions of alarm.

I had long since prepared my tincture; I purchased at once, from a firm of wholesale chemists, a large quantity of a particular salt which I knew, from my experiments, to be the last ingredient required; and late one accursed night, I compounded the elements, watched them boil and smoke together in the glass, and when the ebullition had subsided, with a strong glow of courage, drank off the potion.

 The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness. There was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a millrace in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul.

I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment braced and delighted me like wine!”- 

Excerpt from the book SHERLOCK HOLMES — MY LIFE, by Lawrence R. Spencer

Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu.