Twenty-Seven

Today is my twenty-seventh birthday. And so, I leave you with John Watson's encouraging reflection upon this age.

"She must be seven-and-twenty now,—a  sweet  age,  when  youth  has  lost  its  self-consciousness and become a little sobered by experience." -Dr. John Watson, reflecting on Mary Morstan (The Sign of Four).

Mary Mary Uncontrary

I found some amusing similarities between the primary romances featured in the Sherlock Holmes' adventures and the adventures of Richard Hannay. The former was written prior to the latter.

1. Both Richard Hannay and John Watson fall in love with girls named "Mary."

2. Both men are struck by her beauty and remark upon the fact that their male friend doesn't notice it.

Here Watson recounts his conversation with Holmes just after Mary left in The Sign of Four:

Standing at the window, I watched her walking briskly down the street until the gray turban and white feather were but a speck in the sombre crowd.
What a very attractive woman!" I exclaimed, turning to my companion.
He had lit his pipe again and was leaning back with drooping eyelids. "Is she?" he said languidly; "I did not observe."
"You really are an automaton -- a calculating machine," I cried. "There is something positively inhuman in you at times."
He smiled gently.
"It is of the first importance," he cried, "not to allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities. A client is to me a mere unit, a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most win- ning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor."
"In this case, however --"
"I never make exceptions."

Here Richard Hannay recounts his first encounter with Mary in Mr. Standfast:

Someone put a tea-tray on the table beside us, and I looked up to see the very prettiest girl I ever set eyes on....She smiled demurely as she arranged the tea-things, and I thought I had never seen eyes at once so merry and so grave. I stared after her as she walked across the lawn, and I remember noticing that she moved with the free grace of an athletic boy.
'Who on earth's that?' I asked Blaikie.
'That? Oh, one of the sisters,' he said listlessly. 'There are squads of them. I can't tell one from another.'
Nothing gave me such an impression of my friend's sickness as the fact that he should have no interest in something so fresh and jolly as that girl.

3. These excepts lead to the third point: both men watch their Mary walk away.

4. Both men get lost in reveries about her.

Watson:

 I sat in the window with the volume in my hand, but my thoughts were far from the daring speculations of the writer. My mind ran upon our late visitor -- her smiles, the deep rich tones of her voice, the strange mystery which overhung her life. If she were seventeen at the time of her father's disappearance she must be seven-and-twenty now -- a sweet age, when youth has lost its self-consciousness and become a little sobered by experience. So I sat and mused until such dangerous thoughts came into my head that I hurried away to my desk and plunged furiously into the latest treatise upon pathology. What was I, an army surgeon with a weak leg and a weaker banking account, that I should dare to think of such things? She was a unit, a factor -- nothing more. If my future were black, it was better surely to face it like a man than to attempt to brighten it by mere will-o'-the-wisps of the imagination. (The Sign of Four)

 Hannay: 

 In Charing Cross Road I thought of Mary, and the brigade seemed suddenly less attractive. I hoped the war wouldn't last much longer, though with Russia heading straight for the devil I didn't know how it was going to stop very soon. I was determined to see Mary before I left, and I had a good excuse, for I had taken my orders from her. The prospect entranced me, and I was mooning along in a happy dream, when I collided violently with in agitated citizen.
Then I realized that something very odd was happening.
There was a dull sound like the popping of the corks of flat soda-water bottles. There was a humming, too, from very far up in the skies. People in the street were either staring at the heavens or running wildly for shelter. A motor-bus in front of me emptied its contents in a twinkling; a taxi pulled up with a jar and the driver and fare dived into a second-hand bookshop. It took me a moment or two to realize the meaning of it all, and I had scarcely done this when I got a very practical proof. A hundred yards away a bomb fell on a street island, shivering every window-pane in a wide radius, and sending splinters of stone flying about my head. I did what I had done a hundred times before at the Front, and dropped flat on my face. (Mr. Standfast)

Yes, General Hannay, the career soldier, was so lost in thoughts about Mary that he didn't notice the air raid right away.

    

5. Both men marry their Mary and then she's suddenly much less of a distraction. 

6. Both men are/were soldiers.

My favorite picture of Hannay

Inscrutable: Women and Sherlock Holmes

What did Sherlock Holmes think of women? There are a number of what appear to be incongruous reports in the canon, yet they're not entirely irreconcilable.  On some occasions he expressed approval of women, while Watson reported that he had an "aversion to women."  Here's a look at what I was able to untangle:

A Victorian Woman

Holmes really did respect women's intuition. On one occasion he remarked, "I value a woman's instinct in such matters" (The Adventure of the Lion's Mane, 1088)  On another, he praised Mary Morstan for retaining a piece of paper because she had an inkling that it might be important later, "You are certainly a model client. You have the correct intuition"  (The Sign of Four). The most astounding, and strongest statement of his belief in a woman's intuition/instinct is found in these words he said to Mrs. Neville St. Clair, "I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner" (The Man with the Twisted Lip).

While Holmes values a woman's instinct and intuition, he has no intention of  letting romance and marriage enter his life because he doesn't see emotion and reason as being compatible: "But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment"  (The Sign of Four).

Holmes said of Mary, "I think she is one of the most charming young ladies I ever met and might have been most useful in such work as we have been doing. She had a decided genius that way, witness the way in which she preserved that Agra plan from all the other papers of her father"  (The Sign of Four). The key word is "might have." She and Watson were in love, and therefore their reasoning was impaired according to Holmes, and she could no longer be of much use.

Yet, while this phrase communicates his disapproval of their marriage, it also expresses an appreciation for her faculties and that he thinks she possessed potential for being of assistance in crime solving. It is hard to reconcile this with Watson's report that Holmes had an "aversion to women" (The Greek Interpreter). In this situation it seems he is not averse to Mary, just to averse to her marriage to Watson since it will cloud their reasoning. So perhaps, his "aversion to women" was in a general sense: womankind as a whole, or specifically in regards to romance: he decided not to marry and so pulled back from women generally. It seems that while he was able to appreciate a woman's merits he never pursued a friendship with one beyond what was needed to solve a case.

Additionally, "Holmes had, when he liked, a peculiarly ingratiating way with women, and...he very readily established terms of confidence with them" (The Adventure of the Golden Pince-nez).  Holmes could easily befriend women when he found it expedient, yet I don't recall any mention of his having a close or prolonged friendship with a woman in the canon and he certainly had no intention of falling in love.

From Harper's Bazaar, May 14, 1898

Perhaps part of his "aversion to women" stems from the fact that he finds the reasoning behind their actions hard to predict, "And you must have observed, Watson, how she manouvered to have the light at her back. She did not wish us to read her expression...And yet the motives of women are inscrutable. You remember the woman at Margate whom I suspected for the same reason. No powder on her nose--that proved to be the correct solution. How can you build on such quicksand? Their most trivial action may mean volumes, or their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin or a curling tongs" (The Adventure of the Second Stain). This sentiment renders Holmes quite human and quite a man! He expresses the age old man vs. woman struggle for comprehension of the other, although based on his decision not to marry, his interest in this subject is entirely a professional one. --And, once again, he's an "automaton" as Watson called him in The Sign of Four.

Many people like to toy with the idea of a romance between Holmes and Irene Adler. Holmes was not in love with Irene Adler. "It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler" (A Scandal in Bohemia).

It's interesting to note that many of the women Holmes encountered throughout his adventures were brave, spirited, independent, emotional, and loyal. Most of them weren't silly, although sometimes over-run by passions.

Therefore, from the canon, it seems that while he is decidedly against romantic attachments, he is generally kind to women and values woman's instincts. 

Note:

The Sherlock Holmes stories were written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. There are many different editions and publications of these stories, and they are sometimes presented in part or as an entirety.

The first image is from Karen's Whimsy. Her website features collections of nicely sorted public domain images for free use.

The second is from Wikipedia. Due to its date, the image is no longer under copyright.