All Nature Is Our Satellite
Oct. 5th, 2005 10:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prof_pangaeaTitle: All Nature Is Our Satellite
Author: Professor Pangaea
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Disclaimer: Mr. Holmes is in the public domain, and I give thanks to both Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and to Henry David Thoreau for being such an inspiration to so many people, not least of all myself.
Notes: The text of Mr. Thoreau's journal entry used herein is not, unfortunately, from the fourteen volume 1906 edition published by Houghton Mifflin, but from the more recent Princeton edition. There are marked differences in punctuation in the two texts, but the words themselves are usually the same. Nevertheless, when and if I can locate a usable copy of the 1906 edition I shall be sure to emend the text of this story accordingly.
7 August 1908
How strange it seems, upon reflection, that I should still breathe the stale, heavy air of London while Holmes, who seemed always to have an almost symbiotic relationship with this city, lives the healthy and uncomplicated life of a gentleman in the country. I often pondered it when Holmes first settled in Sussex so suddenly; in fact, I did not think that he could possibly be serious, and every week expected to hear from him that he was coming back. As the weeks turned themselves into months, and then years, I must simply have got used to the notion, but I do not believe that I have ever really believed it, somehow.
My mind must turn to such thoughts because it anticipates seeing the man in question tomorrow. The first time in over a year -- what a ridiculous amount of time. Why don't I see him more often?
8 August 1908
'So how is Mrs. Watson getting along in Edinburgh?' Holmes said this as we walked to his house from the station this afternoon. What an infuriating man he is. I did have the good grace to look chagrined, at least, for not having mentioned it myself.
'Holmes, you know her trip was not the sole reason for my journey south; it merely gave me a convenient opportunity.' Holmes put up an innocent look.
'I don't recall making any sort of accusation, doctor.'
'You needn't say these things aloud, you know; you've got rather expressive eyebrows.'
With that he burst out laughing.
Once my things had been situated within Holmes' small cottage he took me out to his hives. I am not a good judge of these matters, but they seemed even more prosperous than the last time I had seen them. I watched Holmes as he tended to his bees. His movements were fluid, and his eyes intent as he studied the inner workings of each hive, and it suddenly struck me that he seemed -- well, content. Strange, but I don't think I have ever seen him actually content before.
The hives were followed by a long and rambling walk across the downs. Our conversation was irregular; for the most part we simply walked side by side, listening to our trudging footfalls and the breeze as it passed through the long, waving grass. We found ourselves (or perhaps Holmes had guided us) before the edge of the chalky cliffs, and I gazed at the seemingly endless water. I glanced over at Holmes, and saw that he was watching me.
'Holmes?' I said. I thought for a moment he might speak, but instead, he looked away over the cliffs, and a slight smile appeared on his face; a very mild expression, but it seemed to contain immeasurable volumes. Before I could think of anything to say Holmes turned his back on the water.
'You must be hungry,' Holmes said. 'What do you say to stopping at the village inn for a bit of supper? It's closer than my cottage, and you shall be able to get something heartier than I can provide.'
'A splendid plan, Holmes. Indeed, now that you have called my attention to it, I am quite famished.'
We sat in the inn, I over my roast beef and Holmes over his simple vegetable stew, and talked for a good many hours.
9 August 1908
When I woke today there was a delightful smell of breakfast in the air, despite the lack of meat in the household. Eggs, toast, potatoes, crumpets, and four different types of honey awaited me in the small dining area -- but not Holmes. He had apparently risen early and was already out and about, perhaps looking after his hives, or perhaps simply walking. After satisfying myself as to the special qualities of each honey (as a guest I saw it as a special duty to try each one) I decided against trying to follow Holmes. I did not care to find proof of my ignorance as to the workings of his mind by trying to deduce where he had gone from his left bootlace.
Instead, I wandered over to his bookcase to find a volume suitable for browsing while sitting in the clear country air. There were quite a few familiar volumes from our time together in Baker Street -- I noticed the much battered Martyrdom of Man resting in an honoured position on the second shelf. One shelf below this was a collection that caught my eye -- the collected journals of H.D. Thoreau that I had sent Holmes the year before as a Christmas present. They appeared to be well-thumbed, which made me happy; Holmes had never mentioned wanting the set, but I remembered his interest in Thoreau from our early days together in London.
I pulled the first volume down and began perusing the pages. I saw that Holmes has continued his deplorable practise of dog-earing his place within the book. Also, there were innumerable notes scattered throughout the entries, sometimes long discursive thoughts, and sometimes short statements like 'Would that not prove impossibly trying on each succeeding generation?' and "bad poetry. very bad." Soon I came upon a dog-eared page with no notes of any kind, save at the beginning of an entry, one pencilled mark that I remembered well from Baker Street -- the same mark that I used often to see next to newspaper articles, clippings, essays, and agony columns, a simple mark that denoted interest.
Friendship-- Fall of 1839
Then I first conceive of true friendship, when some rare specimen of manhood presents itself. -- It seems the mission of such to commend virtue to mankind, not by any imperfect preaching of her word, but by their own carriage and conduct. -- We may then worship moral beauty without the formality of a religion.
They are some fresher wind that blows -- some new fragrance that breathes. They make the landscape and the sky for us.
The rules of other intercourse have quite lost their pertinence when applied to this.
We are one virtue -- one truth -- one beauty. All nature is our satellite, whose light is dull and reflected. She is subaltern to us -- an episode to our poem -- but we are primary and radiate light and heat to the system.
I am only introduced once again to myself.
Conversation -- contact -- familiarity -- are the steps to it -- and instruments of it, but it is more perfect when these are done, and distance and time pose no barrier.
I need not ask any man to be my friend, more than the sun the earth to be attracted by him -- it is not his to give, nor mine to receive. I cannot pardon my enemy let him pardon himself.
Commonly we degrade Love and Friendship by presenting them under the aspect of a trivial dualism.
What matter a few words more or less with my friend -- with all mankind -- they will still be my friends in spite of themselves. Let them stand aloof if they can -- As though the most formidable distance could rob me of any real sympathy of advantage. No -- when such interests are at stake -- time, and distance, and difference -- fall into their own places.
But alas to be actually separated from that parcel of heaven -- we call our friend -- with the suspicion that we shall no more meet him in nature -- is source enough for all the elegies that ever were written. But the true remedy will be to recover our friend piecemeal, wherever we can find a feature, as Aeetes gathered up the members of his son which Medea had strewn in her path.
The more complete our sympathy, the more our senses are struck dumb, and we are repressed by a delicate respect -- so that to indifferent eyes we are least his friend, because no vulgar symbols pass between us.-- On after thought perhaps we come to fear that we have been the losers by such seeming indifference -- but in truth that which withholds us is the bond between us.
My friends will be as much better than my-self as my aspiration is beyond my attainment.
I was struck once again by that smile the day before -- that slightest of smiles, the ocean in front of us and the ocean between us at that moment.
Just then the door opened and Holmes strode in, grey hair tousled from the wind, nervous energy radiating from his limbs. His eyes glanced to the book I was holding, and then back up into my face, and for a moment it seemed as though he must know to what entry the pages were open, what intimacy it had revealed to me -- but of course that was impossible.
I closed the book and replaced it upon the shelf.
'I may have to find a copy of this myself. He seems a very interesting writer.'
'Yes. He is very precise.' Holmes looked at me for a few moments. 'Would you care to go for a swim in one of the pools at the bottom of the cliffs? It looks to be an absolutely perfect day for such an exercise, and I promise to check thoroughly for any lurking jelly-like creatures.'
'Holmes,' said I, with a broad smile, 'that sounds like a wonderful idea.'
And so we went together.
Especially as this story is unbetaed, feedback and criticism shall be much appreciated and cherished.
Author: Professor Pangaea
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Disclaimer: Mr. Holmes is in the public domain, and I give thanks to both Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and to Henry David Thoreau for being such an inspiration to so many people, not least of all myself.
Notes: The text of Mr. Thoreau's journal entry used herein is not, unfortunately, from the fourteen volume 1906 edition published by Houghton Mifflin, but from the more recent Princeton edition. There are marked differences in punctuation in the two texts, but the words themselves are usually the same. Nevertheless, when and if I can locate a usable copy of the 1906 edition I shall be sure to emend the text of this story accordingly.
7 August 1908
How strange it seems, upon reflection, that I should still breathe the stale, heavy air of London while Holmes, who seemed always to have an almost symbiotic relationship with this city, lives the healthy and uncomplicated life of a gentleman in the country. I often pondered it when Holmes first settled in Sussex so suddenly; in fact, I did not think that he could possibly be serious, and every week expected to hear from him that he was coming back. As the weeks turned themselves into months, and then years, I must simply have got used to the notion, but I do not believe that I have ever really believed it, somehow.
My mind must turn to such thoughts because it anticipates seeing the man in question tomorrow. The first time in over a year -- what a ridiculous amount of time. Why don't I see him more often?
8 August 1908
'So how is Mrs. Watson getting along in Edinburgh?' Holmes said this as we walked to his house from the station this afternoon. What an infuriating man he is. I did have the good grace to look chagrined, at least, for not having mentioned it myself.
'Holmes, you know her trip was not the sole reason for my journey south; it merely gave me a convenient opportunity.' Holmes put up an innocent look.
'I don't recall making any sort of accusation, doctor.'
'You needn't say these things aloud, you know; you've got rather expressive eyebrows.'
With that he burst out laughing.
Once my things had been situated within Holmes' small cottage he took me out to his hives. I am not a good judge of these matters, but they seemed even more prosperous than the last time I had seen them. I watched Holmes as he tended to his bees. His movements were fluid, and his eyes intent as he studied the inner workings of each hive, and it suddenly struck me that he seemed -- well, content. Strange, but I don't think I have ever seen him actually content before.
The hives were followed by a long and rambling walk across the downs. Our conversation was irregular; for the most part we simply walked side by side, listening to our trudging footfalls and the breeze as it passed through the long, waving grass. We found ourselves (or perhaps Holmes had guided us) before the edge of the chalky cliffs, and I gazed at the seemingly endless water. I glanced over at Holmes, and saw that he was watching me.
'Holmes?' I said. I thought for a moment he might speak, but instead, he looked away over the cliffs, and a slight smile appeared on his face; a very mild expression, but it seemed to contain immeasurable volumes. Before I could think of anything to say Holmes turned his back on the water.
'You must be hungry,' Holmes said. 'What do you say to stopping at the village inn for a bit of supper? It's closer than my cottage, and you shall be able to get something heartier than I can provide.'
'A splendid plan, Holmes. Indeed, now that you have called my attention to it, I am quite famished.'
We sat in the inn, I over my roast beef and Holmes over his simple vegetable stew, and talked for a good many hours.
9 August 1908
When I woke today there was a delightful smell of breakfast in the air, despite the lack of meat in the household. Eggs, toast, potatoes, crumpets, and four different types of honey awaited me in the small dining area -- but not Holmes. He had apparently risen early and was already out and about, perhaps looking after his hives, or perhaps simply walking. After satisfying myself as to the special qualities of each honey (as a guest I saw it as a special duty to try each one) I decided against trying to follow Holmes. I did not care to find proof of my ignorance as to the workings of his mind by trying to deduce where he had gone from his left bootlace.
Instead, I wandered over to his bookcase to find a volume suitable for browsing while sitting in the clear country air. There were quite a few familiar volumes from our time together in Baker Street -- I noticed the much battered Martyrdom of Man resting in an honoured position on the second shelf. One shelf below this was a collection that caught my eye -- the collected journals of H.D. Thoreau that I had sent Holmes the year before as a Christmas present. They appeared to be well-thumbed, which made me happy; Holmes had never mentioned wanting the set, but I remembered his interest in Thoreau from our early days together in London.
I pulled the first volume down and began perusing the pages. I saw that Holmes has continued his deplorable practise of dog-earing his place within the book. Also, there were innumerable notes scattered throughout the entries, sometimes long discursive thoughts, and sometimes short statements like 'Would that not prove impossibly trying on each succeeding generation?' and "bad poetry. very bad." Soon I came upon a dog-eared page with no notes of any kind, save at the beginning of an entry, one pencilled mark that I remembered well from Baker Street -- the same mark that I used often to see next to newspaper articles, clippings, essays, and agony columns, a simple mark that denoted interest.
Then I first conceive of true friendship, when some rare specimen of manhood presents itself. -- It seems the mission of such to commend virtue to mankind, not by any imperfect preaching of her word, but by their own carriage and conduct. -- We may then worship moral beauty without the formality of a religion.
They are some fresher wind that blows -- some new fragrance that breathes. They make the landscape and the sky for us.
The rules of other intercourse have quite lost their pertinence when applied to this.
We are one virtue -- one truth -- one beauty. All nature is our satellite, whose light is dull and reflected. She is subaltern to us -- an episode to our poem -- but we are primary and radiate light and heat to the system.
I am only introduced once again to myself.
Conversation -- contact -- familiarity -- are the steps to it -- and instruments of it, but it is more perfect when these are done, and distance and time pose no barrier.
I need not ask any man to be my friend, more than the sun the earth to be attracted by him -- it is not his to give, nor mine to receive. I cannot pardon my enemy let him pardon himself.
Commonly we degrade Love and Friendship by presenting them under the aspect of a trivial dualism.
What matter a few words more or less with my friend -- with all mankind -- they will still be my friends in spite of themselves. Let them stand aloof if they can -- As though the most formidable distance could rob me of any real sympathy of advantage. No -- when such interests are at stake -- time, and distance, and difference -- fall into their own places.
But alas to be actually separated from that parcel of heaven -- we call our friend -- with the suspicion that we shall no more meet him in nature -- is source enough for all the elegies that ever were written. But the true remedy will be to recover our friend piecemeal, wherever we can find a feature, as Aeetes gathered up the members of his son which Medea had strewn in her path.
The more complete our sympathy, the more our senses are struck dumb, and we are repressed by a delicate respect -- so that to indifferent eyes we are least his friend, because no vulgar symbols pass between us.-- On after thought perhaps we come to fear that we have been the losers by such seeming indifference -- but in truth that which withholds us is the bond between us.
My friends will be as much better than my-self as my aspiration is beyond my attainment.
I was struck once again by that smile the day before -- that slightest of smiles, the ocean in front of us and the ocean between us at that moment.
Just then the door opened and Holmes strode in, grey hair tousled from the wind, nervous energy radiating from his limbs. His eyes glanced to the book I was holding, and then back up into my face, and for a moment it seemed as though he must know to what entry the pages were open, what intimacy it had revealed to me -- but of course that was impossible.
I closed the book and replaced it upon the shelf.
'I may have to find a copy of this myself. He seems a very interesting writer.'
'Yes. He is very precise.' Holmes looked at me for a few moments. 'Would you care to go for a swim in one of the pools at the bottom of the cliffs? It looks to be an absolutely perfect day for such an exercise, and I promise to check thoroughly for any lurking jelly-like creatures.'
'Holmes,' said I, with a broad smile, 'that sounds like a wonderful idea.'
And so we went together.
Especially as this story is unbetaed, feedback and criticism shall be much appreciated and cherished.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 04:31 pm (UTC)I was struck once again by that smile the day before -- that slightest of smiles, the ocean in front of us and the ocean between us at that moment.
is an absolutely gorgeous sentence.
I like very much. It almost makes up for the intolerable delay of your Holmes/Moriarty epic.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 09:07 pm (UTC)And it is intolerable. But it needs to be GOOD. And make sense! Damn it all.
*motions with eyebrows over at a tiny pennant in the distance, embroidered with the letters PGY, fluttering in the breeze*
no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 06:47 pm (UTC)Very nice ;-)
no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 07:28 pm (UTC)I saw that Holmes has continued his deplorable practise of dog-earing his place within the book.
Anyway. Were I not drunk, I could probably dredge up an applicable Thoreau quote; now, however, I'll just have to say that this gave me the warm Watsonian fuzzies. Thank you. :)
no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 09:10 pm (UTC)Were I not drunk, I could probably dredge up an applicable Thoreau quote
You could just make one up -- it would probably be even more interesting that way.
*envisions strange drunken Thoreau/Holmes photoshopping bonanza*
Or... perhaps not.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 08:39 pm (UTC)This line: I did not care to find proof of my ignorance as to the workings of his mind by trying to deduce where he had gone from his left bootlace.
had my giggling for a good three minutes.
And this: I saw that Holmes has continued his deplorable practise of dog-earing his place within the book.
made me blush, because I do that *all the time*, and I remember you scolding me for it in high school.
All in all I found this a very touching portrait of their great and unique friendship. Incredibly well written. Thank you for sharing it.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 09:13 pm (UTC)Wow, I totally forgot about that! I don't mind it nearly as much now, but it still strangely affects me and I don't know why, since I love when people write in books. Ah well.
And yay, thanks for the praise.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 09:29 pm (UTC)I really liked this story! Now, if I can only compel you to hurry up on that Holmes/Moriarty story you keep teasing us so mercilessly with...
no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 09:41 pm (UTC)Wah!! Because it is EVIL to do that to a book!! *glares*
Holmes/Moriarty is a LONG story, and I need to do some research liek wo. Thankfully, I now know someone who attends Oxford and who has directed me toward a few different sources for good Oxfordian knowledge, and is looking for more. That shall help things immeasurably. Plus, I need to brush up on 19th century biology. And... write an incredibly amount of stuff, so that it makes sense. BUT IT SHALL HAPPEN, never fear!
Plus, you know, I kind of also make art on the side.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-06 02:25 am (UTC)Isn't the word "Oxonian" rather than "Oxfordian?" I found this in a dusty corner of my mind underneath a stack of old car magazines and behind the winter clothes.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-06 06:56 pm (UTC)I believe you are correct regarding Oxonian. *hangs head in shame* I still say that it's more fun to say the other way.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 10:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-05 10:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-06 01:49 am (UTC)I don't know who Thoreau is, but I shall now go read up on him.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-06 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-06 09:54 pm (UTC)I especially enjoyed how sparse the narrative is. You've thrown the detail into tiny pieces of the story, and that puts the rest into such contrast... Um, I'm trying to find the adjectives I intend, and am failing.
...and talked for a good many hours.
Things like that you've made work very well.
Oh, that, and the sentiment of the piece. Lovely.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-08 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-10 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-10 11:08 pm (UTC)But yes, something about the incredible reserve, coupled with incredibly deep feeling, really struck me as Holmesian. Or perhaps at least soething that he would find interesting. I would definitely recommend Thoreau o anyone -- he's a great writer, definitely the best of the Transcendentalists to my mind, although, as Holmes states above, his poetry is mostly bad.<ahref="http://eserver.org/thoreau/civil.html">Civil Disobedience is a famous, and justifiably so, example of his essay writing, though.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-12 06:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-20 08:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-08 07:19 pm (UTC)Re: All Nature Is Our Satellite
Date: 2011-09-04 07:46 am (UTC)A nice note, that Sherlock is finally content.
Thoreau on friendship - how appropriate.
that slightest of smiles, the ocean in front of us and the ocean between us at that moment.
Lovely.