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Feb. 10th, 2015 09:58 am"“Which is it to-day,” I asked, “morphine or cocaine?”
[Holmes] raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened.
“It is cocaine,” he said, “a seven-per-cent solution. Would you care to try it?”."
[Holmes] raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened.
“It is cocaine,” he said, “a seven-per-cent solution. Would you care to try it?”."
—
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four
1) Was he reading German? (German Gothic type is now called black-letter, but I don’t know if that was true ca. 1890)
2) Languid? Was ACD just confused about stimulants, or is he saying that Holmes is calmed by cocaine (consistent with the mind as a “racing engine” metaphor, maybe analagous to a modern diagnosis of ADHD)
3) There is something pitch perfect about Holmes trying to shut Watson up with his, “Would you care to try it?” Either he tries it (extremely unlikely) and then doesn’t have a leg to stand on, or he gets splutteringly mad trying to figure out if Holmes is just messing with him.
