Kids Free Souls - Brainy Stuff - Literature - Arthur Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes

The only things we know for sure about the man Sherlock Holmes are the things we hear in the four novels and fifty-six short stories about him written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In all stories, Holmes displays an ability to solve baffling crimes through clever observation and deduction. He draws amazing conclusions from minute details. His remarkable powers of concentration and broad knowledge of science also help him solve many mysteries. Holmes is assisted by his friend Dr. John Watson, who records most of Holmes's cases. The two men live in London at 221B Baker Street. Doyle described their quarters so realistically that many readers have visited Baker Street in order to search for the fictional address.

Holmes is a tall, thin man with a lean, narrow face, He is often pictured wearing a derrstalker hat and smoking a pipe. Holmes has many interests besides detective work. For example, he is accomplished violinist and an expert on bee keeping. Doyle has introduced Holmes in the novel 'A Study in Scarlet (1887). He modelled him partly on Joseph Bell, a Scottish doctor known for making brilliant diagnoses through observation.

For though Holmes ended up hating his own creation, we have loved and cherished it, idealizing each one of Sherlock's traits and even moulding some of ours to look like his. Now go forth and enjoy all that Sherlock Holmes has to offer on the fall of his birthday – 6^th January. Peek-a-boo into Kidsfreesouls to hook up to stay connected at Brainy Stuff and solve the Detective mystery cases too!
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Holmes – In his own Words…

"I get in the dumps at times, and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I'll soon be right."
- Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson: A Study in Scarlet

"My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. "
-Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson: The Sign of Four

I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather - that is, when the fit is on me, for I can be spry enough at times."
-Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson: A Study in Scarlet

"My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built."
-Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson: The Man with the Twisted Lip

From the page leafs of Sherlock Holmes…by Arthur Conan Doyle

"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius"
– The Valley of Fear (ch.1)

"You see, but you do not observe."
-Scandal in Bohemia

"Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult is it to bring it home.
-The Boscombe Valley Mystery (Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)"

"It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts..."

"They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. It's a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work. "

"I suppose I am the only one in the world. I'm a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is."

"Cut out the poetry, Watson."

"Everything comes in circles - even Professor Moriarty. It's all been done before, and will be again."

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth - The Sign of Four (ch.6)

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