...from Karen Anderson, recent new sign-up to WelcomeHolmes (Nov. 12, 2000)

Congratulations on gaining your hundredth member before the first year is out.

I'm not sure if this list's heading will display more than my e-mail address, so let me say that my name is Karen Anderson.

Susan Dahlinger said: > ... we used to ask newcomers to introduce themselves > and talk about their Sherlockian interests and backgrounds. Would > it be OK if we started that practice again? > I love hearing where everyone's been or is coming from.

You know these things already, my dear; but here's for the people I'm a stranger to.

I'm one of those invited over from the Hounds by Kritter and the Hawk; I've been active there since this spring.

I've been a Holmes fan since the Rathbone-Bruce radio shows of the early forties; founded the Red Circle of Washington DC as a high school student in 1950; having moved to Berkeley and married a fantasy/sf writer, he and I helped Tony Boucher revive the Scowrers and Molly Maguires of San Francisco. Poul's BSI Investiture is The Dreadful Abernetty Business; mine is Emilia Lucca.

I am also a member of the Clients of Adrian Mulliner and the Glencannon society, helped found the Society for Creative Anachronism (Karina of the Far West), and enjoy musical parody -- especially borrowing from Gilbert and Sullivan. I was responsible for "Hatty, or St. Simon's Bride," which is NOBL crossed with Patience; did the text and lyrics, formed the Doyle a la Carte Opera Company, sang (contralto) the role of Holmes, with one performance at a Scowrers meeting and the next a week later at a science fiction convention. Hence the nom signed below.

I'll be at the Red Circle's fiftieth anniversary dinner November 20th.

Doyle a la Carte (Karen Anderson)

I've always had a thing for the past. The times were better, lives simpler and everything was just different. Also, Holmes' personality draws me in. He can be cold, methodical and just plain harsh at times, and egotistical most times (though I don't blame him), but he's also kind and compassionate and soothing to distraught clients. I just can't figure out how those opposing traits can reside in the same person. I read more to find out more about his personality. To try and solve the puzzle of Holmes' personality.

The stories are also a challenge, linguistically. It takes some thought to figure out what some words mean or are meant to mean. Take "ejaculated," for example. The meaning intended is a verbal outburst, but some may take it in the way it is not intended, because it is no longer used in the old capacity.

Also, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is an excellent writer. He tells a fantastic story. He's very descriptive of the clients that pass through the parlour, male or female.

Finally, it's Holmes's gifts that draw me to him. I have a few talents myself, but I've always wanted to touch greatness. With Holmes, I can. Sometimes I just sit there, mouth agape, after He disclosed just what led him to his conclusion and think to myself that some kind of sorcery is afoot. No one is *THAT* good; but he is.

The Young Woman, Lindsy ><>

---

...from Catherine Hagemann,

Why am I still devoted to Holmes after many years of reading and rereading the canon?.

My grandfather was the one that first introduced me the the world of 221,B Baker street. And from that very first encounter, I have never strayed far from the environs of that particular address. I find that I still find it fresh, even after all this time.

I have belonged to two,excellent Sherlockian groups in my time. Collected just about every known reference on Holmes. Watched every film and television program that has ever existed. And I am still enthralled by Sherlock Holmes.

What is it about Holmes,you ask? Why has my devotion continued? There are so many answers to those questions.... I hope that I never succeed in finding the solutions to all of them.

Catherine

---

...from Ira Block, a.k.a. Trelawney Hope...

Because, like any other great historical character, one hopes to discover what made him great. Was it the times, his education, his parentage? What can we learn from such a person - how to be a better human being.

Holmes, at least did not start a war, try to conquer a continent, enslave millions for a philosophy or religion.

Trelawney Hope

---

...from Theodore Skinner (Ted), in Indianapolis...

As Christopher Morley once reflected, "Holmes is pure anesthesia."
What more needs to be said when we are all looking for ethical hedonism?

See Ted's essay on The Importance of Watson to the Canon

Ted Skinner
( see Mr. Skinner's page about Holmes illustrator, Sidney Paget, located on Chris Redmond's SHERLOCKIAN NET.

---

...from The fiddle which was thrown across his knee

I wasn't a "Piper" during your "First Encounter with Holmes" page days, so here's a sketch of my first encounter with Holmes and why I'm reading Holmes now.

At 14 I received a gift of "Une etude en rouge". I read it several times and loved it all - the youthful enthusiastic Sherlock with bandaids on his fingers, the fast friendship, the bohemian lifestyle, the commitment to excellence in his work, the violin playing in the evenings. I was so taken that I learned the violin so that I too would be able to play Mendelssohn's songs for my friends and family. Holmes became a hero figure to me, on a par in my eyes with Athos and Aragorn.

It wasn't until almost a year later that I began reading "Le signe des quatre". Within the first page I was horrified, crushed. The mighty had fallen and I stopped reading it. For me, at 14, there was only right and wrong.

Fast forward many years to a year ago and another gift, "The Complete Sherlock Holmes" Doubleday. I searched the internet for Sherlock Holmes and found the Hounds of the Internet, signed up, and am almost finished reading that fat book for the first time. I stayed with the reading this time because I understand more about human nature, I find beauty in the writing, and the adventures are a source of delight and fun. I've found again the striving for excellence in Holmes that so impressed me as a girl, and his enthusiasm shines through in every story.

---

[Editor Note: Some of our group take their canonical identity very seriously. Take for
instance our friend Ron Kritter, a/k/a Dr. Thorneycroft Huxtable, M.A., Ph.D., etc.]

The fiddle thrown across his knee asks, much like Virginia did one hundred years ago:

> Charles wins an autographed copy
> of SIDELIGHTS ON HORACE by
> Dr Thorneycroft Huxtable, M.A., Ph.D., etc.
>__kritter__

> Gael, I'll be happy to send you a copy, too --
> for $29.95 -- of course.

(Fiddler continues...) Please forgive my naivete here, but is this for real? Is there in fact such a book by this author? I feel like that girl Virginia... fiddle thrown across his knee *****************************************************************

Virginia...excuse me...I'll begin again..
.
Dear Fiddler, your little friends are wrong if they don't think SIDELIGHTS ON HUXTABLE exits. They have been affected by the scepticism of a sceptical age. they do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia...I mean, fiddler...whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia *and* Fiddler, there is a Santa Claus, and there *is* a SIDELIGHTS ON HORACE They exist as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus and no SIDELIGHTS ON HORACE It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias...or fiddlers. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus or HIGHLIGHTS ON HORACE! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus, and there is no sign that there's no HIGHLIGHTS ON HORACE.The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, and Ah, Fiddler, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No SANTA? No, SIDELIGHTS ON HORACE? Thank God they live and live forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, 10 times 10,000 years from now, Santa and SIDELIGHTS ON HORACE will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! and please send me an off-list message so that you can get a price list for either the autographed edition or audio edition or the new DVD movie version starring Mel Gibson.

Thank you, kritter

---

Created June 21, 2000 -- www.thehawk.net/3pp/ourstory.htm / Updated: 1 MAR 02
background from the ceiling of Radcliffe Camera, Britain's first circular library (Oxford, England)

HOME | Continue (Where We Are) | SITE MAP | NEWSLETTER