Upon Letters

There is a certain pseudo-nostalgia for the Victorian era that springs up in the mind of the serious Sherlockian. I say "pseudo-nostalgia," because in 1997, it is probably safe to say that none of us remembers anything of what it was like to live in England during Victoria's reign. Yet thanks to Watson's vivid chronicles,
most of us feel we have spent some bit of time in that era, and occasionally long to go back there.

Personally, I've never been one of the most nostalgic Sherlockians. I like my modern conveniences, feel that the Holmes I know would work just as well in 1990's America, and have yet to find a Victorian costume that will fit into my wardrobe. Yet in trying to come up with a name for the letters column in The Holmes & Watson Report (Bob and I promise to stop plugging that new and exciting bimonthly publication very shortly), I was forced to do a quick bit of research on Canonical quotes regarding letters. And in doing so, I was overcome by a wave of nostalgia regarding something I hadn't realized was gone yet... letters.

The written letter hasn't entirely disappeared from the world as we know it, but among those folk with computers and internet access, it is definitely on the decline. Sitting down to write a few thoughtful pages, then putting them in an envelope, stamping that envelope, and dropping it at the post office is a chain of events that doesn't compete well with sheer efficiency of raiding off a few sentences of e-mail and hitting the "Send" button. But as with so many time-consuming tasks of the past, letter-writing has a definite romanticism about it that is lost as well. Just look in the Canon.

Mary Morstan's letters from her father. The King of Bohemia's letters to Irene Adier. The daily correspondence between Miss Mary Sutherland and Hosmer Angel. Letters with ominous orange seeds in them. Neville St. Clair's letters from beyond his watery grave. This list goes on and on, all the way to Von Bork's letters tracked so carefully by Martha in "His Last Bow."

Holmes refers to Watson as "a man of letters," and we take it to mean that he's something of a literary fellow. But recall Watson's muddy-shoed trip to the Wigmore Street Post Office, or Holmes's jibe in "Retired Colourman":

"With your natural advantages, Watson, every lady is your helper and accomplice. What about the girl at the post-office..."

But regardless of his true relationship with that postal clerk. Dr. Watson was definitely a regular user of the postal service. We even have samples of his letters, included as chapters of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Watson's normal prose was, actually probably very close to his letter-writing style. Imagine how fascinatinghis letters to friends must have been — much like the Baker Street scenarios at the openings of his stories, with allusions to all sorts of wonderful cases, yet no real story attached. Just Watson's thoughts on Holmes, the on-and-off medical practice, or married life. He was definitely one fellow you wouldn't have minded hearing from. (Side note to pasticheurs: here's a splendid opportunity to quit digging up that tin dispatch box.)

Holmes, on the other hand, was not a letter-writer at all. He disdainfully pinned his unanswered correspondence over the fireplace with a jack-knife. He never wrote a letter when he could get away with just a telegram. He probably has a modem in Sussex at this very moment, letting terse e-mails fly to deal with his affairs in the most efficient way possible.

Which is why it's very hard to get overly misty-eyed at the decline of letters. The Holmes side of things sees no problem in the modernization of written communication. As nostalgic as we can get for that "simpler" time of the late 1800s, the whole appeal of the stories when they came out was the modern, scientific way in which the detective was solving crimes. Readers in Victorian London weren't thrilled to be transported through the magic of literature to Victorian London, Holmes got the job done because he was on the cutting edge of humanity, a humanity that was on the edge of big changes itself. (Funny how, after all those big changes, Holmes is still on the cutting edge of humanity.)

Yet, it must be admitted, there is still that Watson side of us that wants to sit around, nursing our war wounds, thoughtfully chronicling the day's events. You can send a long and thoughtful letter via e-mail, but it just doesn't have the emotional validity of that solid piece of paper with a signature, an actual pen-and-ink signature, at the bottom. Alas.

But one ray of hope does remain for that romantic Watson side in all of us, and that hope can be found in orange pips, severed ears, prussic acid, and little wooden boxes with infectious metal springs in them. Just try sending any of those through the e-mail! Sure, you can send some sort of computer virus, but what fun is that? You can't have true wrong-doing without the postal service!

As long as there is true evil on the Earth, we shall have a post office, and as long as we have a post office, there will still be the ability to send letters as the mood hits us.

We just have to remember to move the computer's pull-down menu to "Print" instead of hitting "Send."

(Printed in Plugs & Dottles, May 1997)