Quotes Section 1
"And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom of Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a woman's wit. He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late. And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the honorable title of the woman."
"A Sandal in Bohemia," Arthur Conan Doyle. (Irene Adler had beaten Holmes, evolution of heartless detective.)
" It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position."
"A Scandal in Bohemia," Arthur Conan Doyle. (Detective has to be distant and unattached, culture is not to love, although he is getting more emotional.)
"I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature."
"A Scandal in Bohemia," by Arthur Conan Doyle. (Describing Holmes, Watson has moved on with his life and got a wife. Holmes is distant and has a drug addiction. "New Woman.")
"Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods (sometime indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation."
"Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allen Poe. (Double negative, putting himself in the eyes of someone else/ the criminal, identification.)
"The chances are ten to one, that he who had once eloped with Marie would again propose an elopement, rather than that she to whom proposals of an elopement had been made by one individual, should have them made to her by another."
"Mystery of Marie Roget," by Edgar Allen Poe. (Marie eloped twice, game of chances.)
"The corpse, being supposed at the bottom of the river, will there remain until, by some means, its specific gravity again becomes less than that of the bulk of water which it displaces. This effect is brought about by decomposition, or otherwise. The result of decomposition is the generation of gas, distending the cellular tissues and all the cavities, and giving the puffed appearance which is so horrible. When this distension has so far progressed that the bulk of the corpse is materially increased without a corresponding increase of mass or weight, its specific gravity becomes less than that of the water displaced, and it forthwith makes its appearance at the surface."
"Mystery of Marie Roget," by Edgar Allen Poe. (Physical evidence, physics and chemistry, dead corpse in the river by the jewelry shop.)
"Why dear me," said Miss Gannett suddenly, "I'm Mah Jong all the time, and I never noticed it. Caroline's attention was distracted from her own inventive exercises. She pointed out to Miss Gannett that a hand consisting of mixed suits and too many Chows was hardly worth going Mah Jong on. Miss Gannett listened impatiently and collected her counters. "Yes, dear, I know what you mean," she said. "But it rather depends on what kind of a hand you have to start with, doesn't it?" "You'll never get the big hands if you don't go for them," urged Caroline. "Well, we must all play our own way, mustn't we?" said Miss Gannett. She looked down at her counters. "After all, I'm up, so far." Caroline, who was considerably down, said nothing. "
"The Murder of Roger Ackroyd," by Agatha Christie (games and mystery fiction.)
"It was at length arranged that we should live together during my stay in the city; and as my worldly circumstances were somewhat less embarrassed than his own, I was permitted to be at the expense of renting, and furnishing in a style which suited the rather fantastic gloom of our common temper, a time-eaten and grotesque mansion,long deserted through superstitions into which we did not inquire and tottering to its fall in a retired and desolate portion of the Faubourg St. Germain."
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allen Poe (Decided narrator and Dupin should live together, lived in a scary mansion, and narrator would furnish it.)
"Pierre Moreau, tobacconist, deposes that he has been in the habit of selling small quantities of tobacco and snuff to Madame L'Espanaye for nearly four years. Was born in the neighborhood, and has always resided there. The deceased and her daughter had occupied the house in which the corpses were found, for more than six years. It was formerly occupied by a jeweller, who under-let the upper rooms to various persons. The house was the property of Madame L. She became dissatisfied with the abuse of the premises by her tenant, and moved into them herself, refusing to let any portion. The old lady was childish. Witness had seen the daughter some five or six times during the six years. The two lived an exceedingly retired life — were reputed to have money. Had heard it said among the neighbors that Madame L. told fortunes — did not believe it. Had never seen any person enter the door except the old lady and her daughter, a porter once or twice, and a physician some eight or ten times."
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allen Poe. (Getting information and news from informal ways, Madame L didn't know who she was subletting two, and she was the one who was killed.)
"He notes every variation of face as the play progresses, gathering a fund of thought from the differences in the expression of certainty, of surprise, of triumph, or chagrin. From the manner of gathering up a trick he judges whether the person taking it can make another in the suit. He recognizes what is played through feint, by the air with which it is thrown upon the table. A casual or inadvertent word; the accidental dropping or turning of a card, with the accompanying anxiety or carelessness in regard to its concealment; the counting of the tricks, with the order of their arrangement; embarrassment, hesitation, eagerness or trepidation -- all afford, to his apparently intuitive perception, indication of the true state of affairs. The first two or three rounds having been played, he is in full possession of the contents of each hand, and thenceforward puts down his cards with as absolute a precision of purpose as if the rest of the party had turned outward the faces of their own."
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue," by Edgar Allen Poe. (Reading others minds/faces, by what they are giving away to him. Players of a game.)
"To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer -- excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained teasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory."
"A Scandal in Bohemia," by Arthur Conan Doyle. (Only 1 woman in his life, not in love with her,but Irene was the only one who outsmarted him.)
I made no answer. She walked to the other end and motioned to me to accompany her. There stood a polished oak square table, on which lay an array of extraordinary-looking articles and implements--stoppered bottles full of strange medicaments, mirrors, plane and concave, brushes, sprays, sponges, delicate needle-pointed instruments of bright steel, tiny lancets, and forceps. Facing this table was a chair, like those used by dentists. Above the chair hung electric lights in powerful reflectors, and lenses like bull's-eye lanterns. Another chair, supported on a glass pedestal, was kept there, Madame Sara informed me, for administering static electricity. There were dry-cell batteries for the continuous currents and induction coils for Faradic currents. There were also platinum needles for burning out the roots of hairs. Madame took me from this room into another, where a still more formidable array of instruments was to be found. Here were a wooden operating table and chloroform and ether apparatus. When I had looked at everything, she turned to me. "Now you know," she said. "I am a doctor--perhaps a quack. These are my secrets. By means of these I live and flourish." (p. 59).
"Madame Sara," L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace. (Kind of like a mad scientist, makes her seem professional, yet questionable, producing false hood.)
"But whatever force there may still appear to be in the suggestion of Le Commerciel, will be much diminished when we take into consideration the hour at which the girl went abroad. 'It was when the streets were full of people,' says Le Commerciel, 'that she went out.' But not so. It was at nine o'clock in the morning. Now at nine o'clock of every morning in the week, with the exception of Sunday, the streets of the city are, it is true, thronged with people. At nine on Sunday, the populace are chiefly within doors preparing for church. No observing person can have failed to notice the peculiarly deserted air of the town, from about eight until ten on the morning of every Sabbath. Between ten and eleven the streets are thronged, but not at so early a period as that designated."
"Murder of Marie Roget," by Edgar Allen Poe. (How likely that she was recognized walking the streets at 9am --Marie-- ).
"My friend Hastings, he of whom I told you, used to say of me that I was the human oyster. But he was unjust. Of facts, I keep nothing to myself. But to everyone his own interpretation of them."
"Murder of Roger Ackroyd," Agatha Christie (Idk man Hastings was in the novel I guess.)
"Me, I know everything, remember that."
"Murder of Roger Ackroyd," Agatha Christie (It was Hercule Poirot saying he knows everything to the killer before he told her.)
"You are so self-contained, James," she said. "You hate speaking out, or parting with any information yourself, and you think everybody else must be like you."
"Murder of Roger Ackroyd," Agatha Christie. (Caroline talking to her brother.) no idea
"Not so did Hastings write," continued my friend. "On every page, many, many times was the word 'I'. What he thought-- what he did. But you-- you have kept your personality in the background; only once or twice does it obtrude-- in scenes of home life, shall we say?"
"Murder of Roger Ackroyd," Agatha Christie. (Literally no idea.
"Just tell me this, doctor," said Miss Russell. "Suppose you are really a slave of the drug habit, is there any cure?" One cannot answer a question like that off-hand. I gave her a short lecture on the subject, and she listened with close attention. I still suspected her of seeking information about Mrs. Ferrars. "Now, Veronal, for instance--" I proceeded. But, strangely enough, she didn't seem interested in Veronal. Instead she changed the subject, and asked me if it was true that there were certain poisons so rare as to baffle detection. "Ah!" I said. "You've been reading detective stories." She admitted that she had. "The essence of a detective story," I said, "is to have a rare poison--if possible something from South America, that nobody has ever heard of--something that one obscure tribe of savages use to poison their arrows with. Death is instantaneous, and Western science is powerless to detect it. Is that the kind of thing you mean?""Yes. Is there really such a thing?" I shook my head regretfully. "I'm afraid there isn't. There's curare, of course." I told her a good deal about curare, but she seemed to have lost her interest once more. She asked me if I had any in my poison cupboard, and when I replied in the negative I fancy I fell in her estimation. She said she must be getting back, and I saw her out at the surgery door just as the luncheon gong went. I should never have suspected Miss Russell of a fondness for detective stories. It pleases me very much to think of her stepping out of the housekeeper's room to rebuke a delinquent housemaid, and then returning to a comfortable perusal of The Mystery of the Seventh Death, or something of the kind.
"Murder of Roger Ackroyd," Agatha Christie. (Making light of a serious situation.)
"My friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say--a foreigner--he can't even speak English properly...And so, you see, I put peopel off their guard--"
"Murder of Roger Ackroyd," Agatha Christie. (No idea what that means.)
"Everyone concerned in them has something to hide." "Have?" I asked attentively, "I think you have he said quietly."
"Murder of Roger Ackroyd," Agatha Christie. (The narrator is literally telling us that he has something to hide and that the detective knows that, aka he is the murderer.)
"Well," began Dr. Leslie, clearing his throat, "within the past year or two we have made a most weird and startling discovery in typhoid fever. We have found what we now call 'typhoid carriers'--persons who do not have the disease themselves, perhaps never have had it, but who are literally living test-tubes of the typhoid bacillus. It is positively uncanny. Everywhere they go they scatter the disease. Down at the department we have the records of a number of such instances, and our men in the research laboratories have come to the conclusion that, far from being of rare occurrence, these cases are comparatively common. I have in mind one particular case of a servant girl, who, during the past five or six years, has been employed in several families. "In every family typhoid fever ahs later broken out. Experts have traced out at least thirty, cases and several deaths due to this one person. [...] Last spring we had her under surveillance, but as there was no law by which we could restrain her permanently she is still at large. I think on e of the Sunday papers at the time had an account of her--they called her 'Typhoid Bridget,' and in red ink she was drawn across the page in gruesome fashion, frying the skulls of her victims in a frying-pan over a roaring fire" (p. 77).
"The Bacteriological Detective" by Arthur B. Reeve.
"But, as a matter of fact, another part of my trade too, made me sure you weren't a priest." "What?" asked the thief, almost gaping. "You attacked reason," said Father Brown. "Its bad theology."
"The Blue Cross," by G. K. Chesterton (Flambeau attacked his reasoning, knew he wasn't a priest.)
"No," said the other priest; reason is always reasonable, even in the last limbo, in the lost borderland of things. I know that people charge the Church with lowering reason, but it is just the other way. Alone on earth, the Church makes reason really supreme. Alone on earth, the Church affirms that God himself is bound by reason." The other priest raised his austere face to the spangled sky and said: "Yet who knows if in that infinite universe------?" "Only infinite physically," said the littles priest, turning sharply in his seat, "not infinite in the sense of escaping from the laws of truth."
"The Blue Cross," by G. K. Chesterton (The universe can't escape the laws of truth.)
"But exactly because Valentin understood reason, he understood the limits of reason. Only a man who knows nothing of motors talks of motoring without petrol; only a man who knows nothing of reason talks of reasoning without strong, undisputed first principles. Here he had no strong first principles."
"The Blue Cross," by G. K. Chesterton. (Flambeau was talking of odds things to be talking about to be a priest and he the priest knew that very well.)
"'How in blazes do you know all these horrors?' cried Flambeau. The shadow of a simple crossed the round, simple face of this clerical opponent. "Oh, by being a celibate simpleton, I suppose," he said. "Has it never struck you that man who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil?"
"The Blue Cross," by G. K. Chesterton. (The priest's commitment to reason. The priest is able to listen to people' sins all day so he knows true evil when he sees it.)
"Their clues are drawn from different level of reality; the medium is indeed the message. The diviner uses symbols ("object pregnant with meaning")-- the detective, empirical signs. Both articulate patterns of thought conditioned by particular types of social interaction. Techniques of divination are extraordinarily varied. Some seem very simple, others highly complex; they may be ranked in hierarchy (like courts of appeal), or be alternatives and equal, but even the superficially most simple and 'mechanical' are infused with the emotive and expressive quality of ritual. The diviner's selection of pieces (stones, roots, bones) is not arbitrary, and their positioning in a "throw" is not considered random or attributed to chance."
"The Diviner and the Detective" by Hilda Kuper. (Drawing from different levels of reality. More similarities between diviner and detective, seeing what normal people can't see.)
"Well, you can call it a decidedly successful operation. The Quarres and Hood dead; the bounds and I in your hands." "Not so bad," I admitted, "but will you do me a favor?" "If I may." "Tell me what the hell this is all about!" "All about?" he asked. "Exactly! From what you people have let me overhear, I gather that you pulled some sort of job in Los Angeles that netted you a hundred-thousand-dollars' worth of bonds; but I can't remember any recent job of that size down there." "Why, that's preposterous!" he said with that, for him, was almost wild-eyed amazement. "Preposterous! Of course you know all about it!" "I do not! I was trying to find a young fellow named Fisher who left his Tacoma home in anger a week or two ago. His father wants him found on the quiet, so that he can come down and try to talk him into going home again. I was told that I might find Fisher in this block of Turk Street, and that's what brought me here."
"The House in Turk Street," by Dashiell Hammett. (Jobs, money and gaining money through the work with bonds.)
"The Chinese are thorough people; if one of them carries a gun at all, he usually carries two or three or more. One gun had been taken from Tai, and if they tried to truss him up without frisking him, there was likely to be fireworks. So I moved to one side."
"The House in Turk Street," by Dashiell Hammett. (The Asians, killing, gory.)
"When I yanked Tai over backward by his fat throat, and slammed him to the floor, his guns were still barking metal; and they clicked empty as I got a knee on one of his arms. I didn't take any chances. I worked on his throat until his eyes and tongue told me that he was out of things for a while. Then I looked around. He didn't believe me. He never believed me. He went to the gallows thinking me a liar."
"The House in Turk Street," by Dashiell Hammett. (Very gory, actual violence in this story!)
"Then I made a discovery: something had changed in the room near her! I shut my eyes and tried to picture that part of the room as it had been before the two men had clashed. Opening my eyes suddenly, I had the answer."
"The House on Turk Street," by Dashiell Hammett. (Acute observation, it is detection through the eyes of the narrator.)
To me, this article appears conclusive of little beyond the zeal of its inditer. We should bear in mind that, in general, it is the object of our newspapers rather to create a sensation- to make a point- than to further the cause of truth. The latter end is only pursued when it seems coincident with the former. The print which merely falls in with ordinary opinion (however well founded this opinion may be) earns for itself no credit with the mob. The mass of the people regard as profound only him who suggests pungent contradictions of the general idea. In ratiocination, not less than in literature, it is the epigram which is the most immediately and the most universally appreciated. In both, it is of the lowest order of merit. "What I mean to say is, that it is the mingled epigram and melodrame of the idea, that Marie Roget still lives, rather than any true plausibility in this idea, which have suggested it to L'Etoile, and secured it a favorable reception with the public. Let us examine the heads of this journal's argument, endeavoring to avoid the incoherence with which it is originally set forth.
"The Mystery of Marie Roget," By Edgar Allen Poe (Dupin is the detective, and he only cares about truth and not the sensation. He is interpreting evidence, model of critical thinking. Says Marie.)
"...many a schoolboy is a better reasoner than he. I knew one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in the game of 'even and odd' attracted universal admiration. This game is simple, and is played with marbles. One player holds in his hand a number of these toys, and demands of another whether that number is even or odd. If the guess is right, the guesser wins one; if wrong, he loses one. The boy to whom I allude won all the marbles of the school. Of course he had some principle of guessing; and this lay in mere observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed hand, asks, 'are they even or odd?' Our schoolboy replies, 'odd,' and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to himself, the simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and his amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have them odd upon the second; I will therefore guess odd'; --he guesses odd, and wins. Now, with a simpleton a degree above the first, he would have reasoned thus: 'This fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed odd, and, in the second, he will propose to himself upon the first impulse, a simple variation from even to odd, as did the first simpleton; but then a second thought will suggest that this is too simple a variation, and finally he will decide upon putting it even as before. I will therefore guess even' guesses even, and wins. Now this mode of reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his fellows termed "lucky," --what, in its last analysis, is it?"
"The Purloined Letter," by Edgar Allen Poe. (Game of even and odd, measuring the boys thought process and reading them.)
"They have no variation of principle in their investigations; at best, when urged by some unusual emergency --by some extraordinary reward --they extend or exaggerate their old modes of practice, without touching their principles. What, for example, in this case of D--, has been done to vary the principle of action? What is all this boring, and probing, and sounding, and scrutinizing with the microscope, and dividing the surface of the building into registered square inches --what is it all but an exaggeration of the application of the one principle or set of principles of search, which are based upon the one set of notions regarding human ingenuity, to which the Prefect, in the long routine of his duty, has been accustomed?"
"The Purloined Letter," by Edgar Allen Poe. (Their was no variation, but you need to be flexible in your methods. Different questions pose different methods.)
"Holmes the sleuth-hound."
"The Redheaded League," Arthur Conan Doyle. (Humans and animals, detectives are hunters, this is right after he talked about his violin.)
I did not gain very much, however, by my inspection. Our visitor bore every mark of being an average commonplace British tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy gray shepherd's check trousers, a not over-clean black frock coat, unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy Albert chain, and a square pierced bit of metal dangling down as an ornament. A frayed top hat and a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him. Altogether, look as I would, there was nothing remarkable about the man save his blazing red head and the expression of extreme chagrin and discontent upon his features. < 3 > Sherlock Holmes's quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook his head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances. "Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labor, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else." Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger upon the paper, but his eyes upon my companion. How, in the name of good fortune, did you know all that, Mr. Holmes?" he asked. "How did you know, for example, that I did manual labor? It's as true as gospel, for I began as a ship's carpenter." "Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger than your left. You have worked with it and the muscles are more developed." "Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry?" "I won't insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that, especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you use an arc and compass breastpin." "Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing?" "What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for five inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow where you rest it upon the desk." "Well, but China?" "The fish which you have tattooed immediately above your wrist could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of tattoo marks, and have even contributed to the literature of the subject. That trick of staining the fishes' scales of a delicate pink is quite peculiar to China. When, in addition, I see a Chinese coin hanging from your watch chain, the matter becomes even more simple." < 4 > Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. "Well, I never!" said he. "I thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in it after all." "I begin to think, Watson," said Holmes, "that I make a mistake in explaining.
"The Redheaded League," Arthur Conan Doyle.(Appearances to conclusions, looking vs. observing.)
"My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very capable performer, but a composer of no ordinary merit. All the afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness, gently waving his long thin fingers in time to the music, while his gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those of Holmes the sleuth-hound, Holmes the relentless, keen-witted, ready-handed criminal agent, as it was possible to conceive. In his singular character the dual nature alternately asserted itself, and his extreme exactness and astuteness represented, as I have often thought, the reaction against the poetic and contemplative mood which occasionally predominated in him. The swing of his nature took him from extreme languor to devouring energy; and, as I knew well, he was never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been lounging in his armchair amid his improvisations and his black-letter editions. Then it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come upon him, and that his brilliant reasoning power would rise to the level of intuition, until those who were unacquainted with his methods would look askance at him as on a man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals."
"The Redheaded League," Arthur Conan Doyle.(Holmes and his violin. Need both art and science, character/victim, character/detective.)
"There is no mystery, my dear madam," said he, smiling. "The left arm of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven places. The marks are perfectly fresh. There is no vehicle save a dog-cart which throws up mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the left-hand side of the driver."
"The Speckled Band," Arthur Conan Doyle. (The lady arrived at Holmes and Watson's place to uncover the mystery of her Step Dad and what he is doing.)
"his deep-set, bile-shot eyes, and his high, thin, fleshless nose, gave him somewhat the resemblance to a fierce old bird of prey."
"The Speckled Band," Arthur Conan Doyle. (The stepdad barges in because he knows his step daughter has been there and is pissed.)
"Restless, frightened eyes, like those of some hunted animal."
"The Speckled Band," Arthur Conan Doyle.(The woman shows up and is completely frightened that her step father will know she is here and her sister is dead.)
