darlingtonsubstitution:

tendergingergirl:

materialofonebeing:

thenorwoodbuilder:

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Resident Patient; The Adventure of the Cardboard Box 

A bit of information about 221b decor (and more)

So, one of Holmes and Watson’s clients entering their living room about 1886 would have found its walls decorated, most likely, by the reproduction of one of the above famous portraits of General Charles George Gordon, as well as by the reproduction of one of the above famous portraits of Henry Ward Beecher.

We can infer from the canonical quote above, that both were Watson’s contribution to the lodgings’ furnishing: Holmes says “YOUR newly framed picture of General Gordon”, and Beecher’s portrait stands upon WATSON’S books.
The fact that one of them was “newly framed”, while the other was still lacking a frame, indicates probably a recent acquisition on Watson’s part, even if, I think, not a simultaneous one, otherwise Watson would have had the portrait of Beecher framed, too, when he brought Gordon’s one to the framer’s. Besides, while Watson had already found a suitable place and hung Gordon’s portrait, from Holmes’ comment it’s apparent that he was pondering in that precise moment where Beecher’s one could better fit.

My personal educated guess (read: headcanon) is that Watson bought Gordon’s portrait not long after the news of Gordon’s tragic death, which occurred on 26 January 1885, and on the surge of public emotion caused by it. Some time later, maybe on the occasion of the following Christmas, maybe following the death of Beecher in March 1887 and knowing that Watson would have liked a memento like the one he had bought of Gordon, Holmes, remembering passionate conversations with Watson about his ‘heroes’ Gordon AND Beecher (also hinted at in the above quote), decided to present his friend with a portrait of the latter, which could be an appreciated pendant to Gordon’s picture. (After all who, if not Sherlock Holmes, should be able to deduce the perfect gift for anybody?!? And even more so for his best friend and co-lodger!)

That Watson was a huge fan of these two people tells us quite something about our good Doctor.

[WARNING: Biographical digression begins!]

Charles George Gordon, aka ‘Chinese Gordon’, aka ‘Gordon Pasha’, aka ‘Gordon of Karthoum’ was probably the most famous British general of his age and, at the time of his death, was regarded by the majority of British public opinion as an heroic, almost Christologic figure (even if many of more recent historians provide – quite rightly, according to me – a by far more critical appraisal of the man), probably reinforced by his well known strong and a bit mystical religious beliefs. Contemporary biographies had almost invariably a quite hagiographic undertone, and therefore that was his image about the British population in those years (and probably still is, to many, also thanks to Ardrey’s famous 1966 film).
Gordon firstly made his military reputation in China, where he was placed in command of a force of Chinese soldiers led by European officers. In the early 1860s, this army was instrumental in putting down the Taiping Rebellion (probably the first ‘total war’ of modern history, with estimated casualties amounting to 20 millions or more, and for the first time a prevailing civilian component amongst them), regularly defeating much larger forces. For these accomplishments, he was given the nickname “Chinese” Gordon and honours from both the Emperor of China and the British.
Back in England, following the death of his father he undertook extensive social work and donated the gardens of his official residence to the public, thus gaining a philantropic reputation.
But his properly ‘heroic’ image was built after he, in 1873, entered the service of the Khedive (with the British government’s approval) and then became Governor-General of Sudan, where he did much to suppress revolts and the slave trade.
Exhausted, he resigned and returned to Europe in 1880, where he spent a couple of weeks in the Hotel du Faucon in Lausanne, probably because there had lodges also Giusppe Garibaldi, one of HIS heroes (ok, forgive this moment of national pride…).
When a serious revolt exploded in Sudan, led by a Muslim reformer and self-proclaimed Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, Gordon was sent again to Khartoum by the British Government (January 1884), with instructions to secure the evacuation and then depart. After evacuating about 2,500 British civilians, however, with the rebels advancing against Karthoum, Gordon retained a smaller group of soldiers and non-military men. Besieged by the Mahdi’s forces, Gordon organized a city-wide defence, which lasted almost a year and gained him the admiration of the British public, AND embarassed and annoyed the government, which had not wished to be so entangled in the rebellion. Only when public pressure to act had become too great did the government reluctantly send a relief force, which, however,arrived only two days after the city had fallen and Gordon had been killed, at age 51. The public outcry and indignation was immense, and Gordon was regarded almost as a martyr. His death led to an “unprecedented wave of public grief across Britain” and, in the following years, portraits of him and romanticized pictures of his death became quite popular amongst the British public; several memorials were built thanks to public subscriptions.

Henry Ward Beecher was American, the son of a Calvinist minister and a clergyman himself, albeit, possibly as a reaction to his father’s stern religious views, he developed a theology emphasizing God’s love above all else, and a novel (and very successful: he basically supported himself and his causes by the high fees he charged for his lectures, being a very popular lecturer) oratorical style, in which he employed humor, dialect, and slang. Himself a famous social reformer, Beecher had several siblings, many of whom became well-known educators and activists, most notably Harriet Beecher Stowe, who achieved worldwide fame with her abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Beecher became involved in many social issues of his day, most notably abolition. In his essay Shall We Compromise, he attacked the Compromise of 1850, an agreement between anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces which banned slavery from California and Washington, D.C. at the cost of a more severe Fugitive Slave Act: Beecher argued that it was a Christian’s duty to feed and shelter escaped slaves, and that slavery and liberty were fundamentally incompatible, making compromise impossible (“One or the other must die”). When a conflict between anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces broke out in Kansas, in 1854, Beecher raised funds to send rifles to abolitionist forces, stating that the weapons would do more good than “a hundred Bibles”. The press subsequently nicknamed the weapons “Beecher’s Bibles”.
In 1863, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln sent Beecher on a speaking tour in Europe to gain support for the Union cause – and this is evidently the occasion referred to by Holmes in the above quote. Beecher’s speeches helped to turn European public opinion against the pro-slavery Confederate States and to prevent its recognition by foreign powers. Watson was only a child at the time, and it’s therefore unlikely – albeit not impossible – that he heard any of Beecher’s lectures in person, but he probably read about them following his keen interest in Beecher’s life and ideals.
After the war, Beecher also strongly supported the temperance movement (he was a committed teetotaller himself) and became a leader in the movement for women’s suffrage. On the other hand, he supported social darwinist ideas and preached strongly against strikes and strikers, believing that businessmen and captains of industry should be the leaders of society. He also was a quite renown womanizer, and ended up involved in an adultery trial which raised a scandal of national (and international: George Sand planned to write a novel about it, but never managed to begin it before dying) proportions, the so-called “Beecher-Tilton Scandal”, which alienated him from many fellow women’s rights leaders – included his sister Isabella Beecher Hooker.
He died in his sleep on 8 March 1887 (aged 73), having suffered a stroke some days before.

[END of biographical digression]

Now, of course, we cannot know exactly how much, and what, Watson shared with these two men with respect to their ideas – of course, he could as well have agreed upon some of them, and disagreed on others.

Nonetheless, it’s interesting to notice what they have in common:

• Both of them – albeit in different ways and different continents – actively fought against slavery and played an important role in taking it down.
• They had both strong, charismatic characters, were natural leaders, had very strong – albeit occasionally eccentric – personalities, and were basically born fighters, even if they fought in different ways.
• They had both, each one in his own way, a strong commitment to social work and social development (even if occasionally driven by questionable ideas…) and were, to some extent and with all their limits and all the due differences, ‘revolutionaries’.
• They had both a strong religious, spiritual drive and some messianic trait, in a way – they were certainly persuaded that God backed up their causes, and their faith inspired their choices and commitments.

So, what do all these things tell us about Watson?

Well, I’d guess they basically confirm some things we already knew about the good Doctor, and maybe suggest something more.
That Watson was a man who admired strong, leading personalities we know from his admiration and devotion to Sherlock Holmes. That he was, himself, a “man of action”, and thus couldn’t but admire other men of action, Holmes tells us more than once, and is also apparent from what Watson tells us about his role in Holmes’ adventures. That he was – just like his literary agent, Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle – a peculiar mixture of solid British conservativism and rebellious free spirit, all topped by a dominating chivalrous spirit which led him to run to the defense of the innocent, the weak, the defenseless, we can infer from the whole Canon. Whenever Holmes breaks the law to pursue what he deems a fairer output, a more just solution, Watson is with him; whenever there is a lady in distress, an innocent unjustly accused, someone who has suffered a wrongdoing, Watson’s heart (and arm…) go to them.
Can we also infer an interest, on Watson’s part, for religious, or at least spiritual, issues? Well, in the Canon there are not direct references to such an interest; and yet, we know that Watson read Carlyle (STUD) and Jean Paul Richter (SIGN) and had enough interest in philosophy to mark Holmes’ lack of interest in it as one of his top limits at the beginning of their acquaintance (STUD). More than this, I guess, we cannot tell – maybe he had a more active interest in religion than Sherlock Holmes, maybe, instead, he was just interested in the philosophical aspects of it, but I’d dare say that he, like his best friend, kept to some kind of spiritual (not spiritistic!) belief.

In any case, Watson keeping posters of his idols on the walls of his lodgings and fangirling over them is so terribly endearing!

😉

Gordon also was a never-married lover of boys.  Beecher, a known adulterer.  Might also tell us Watson was willing to overlook some things about men he admired.

Good Lord of Heavens!! @darlingtonsubstitution I was actually going to theorize that perhaps what Watson saw in these men, additionally, was what he found not only in himself, but in Holmes also. I had remembered a canon quote about Holmes enjoying religious plays and studying Buddhism, so in trying to find it, I came across a very insightful article:

“In dozens of dialogues with Watson, Holmes attempts to awaken in his friend the skills and willingness to see things as they are, not as one wishes, believes, projects, or fantasizes they are. As the philosopher Wittgenstein said, in a Zen-like fashion much like Holmes’, “Don’t think. Look!” Indeed, many a case turns on Holmes’ ability to gaze at a crime scene and see it without prior theories or prejudice, to see what is present. Keeping perception clear is the opening to insight.

According to Doyle’s text, Holmes has only one clear religious interest: He’s an eclectic religious searcher, especially concerning the religions of the East. This interfaith curiosity is signaled early, in The Sign of Four, when Holmes is described by Watson as chatting away with casual brilliance on many subjects, “on miracle plays, on mediaeval pottery, on Stradivarius violins, on the Buddhism of Ceylon, and on the warships of the future.” Watson adds that Holmes spoke “as though he had made a special study of it.” That Holmes would study Hinayana Buddhism seems surprising, until one actually looks at the ancient sources of this rigorous minority branch of Buddhism. Then the attraction becomes quite clear. Hinayana Buddhism, which claims to be the oldest, most accurate account of Buddha’s teachings, presents the Buddha as cool, rational, and emotionally distant, a strict and intellectually rigorous instructor. (The Compassionate Buddha of Mahayana Buddhism had yet to be developed.)

In “The Veiled Lodger,” Watson describes his friend as sitting “upon the floor like some strange Buddha, with crossed legs.” What’s more, consider how Holmes spent his three-year “hiatus” when everyone thought him a dead man, at the bottom of Reichenbach Falls with Moriarty. Free to do as he pleased, Holmes spent two of those years traveling in Tibet, where, he says, he “amused myself by visiting Lhasa, and spending some days with the head lama.” Some Sherlockians have speculated that Holmes completed his Buddhist initiation during those years and became a Buddhist master, a guru of awareness and observation. Perhaps that explains why Holmes is never again seen using drugs to calm his teeming brain.” (!!)

So, this not only cements Sherlock as Charlie Welsborough, coming back from Tibet, and possibly intending to come out to his dad, (a John look-a-like, AND a British Conservative, just as you described Watson), only to be ‘burnt to a crisp’ before he can reveal himself, but there is a possibility that Holmes is a Buddhist! I am floored. That is an awesome theory, if true. An additional point, supposedly, he STOPPED using drugs, when he returned, so why did we get Shezza back, although, I could never regret the Henry IV speech.

Zen in the Art of Sherlock Holmes: Five ways in which the great detective teaches us to unravel life’s great mysteries (from UTNE, no less!)

@may-shepard @tjlcisthenewsexy @loveismyrevolution @monikakrasnorada @devoursjohnlock @loveinthemindpalace @possiblyimbiassed @artfulkindoforder @raggedyblue @fellshish

@tendergingergirl thanks for all the information! Although I’m guessing you meant to tag @thenorwoodbuilder about the awesome content of the original post and the description of Watson……?

Love your addition regardless 🙏