"I AM REALLY VERY SORRY"

    'You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake, say that you are not hurt!'
It was worth a wound - it was worth many wounds - to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.-"The Adventure of the Three Garridebs"

It happened to me again today:  while working on one aspect of Doyle's Gothic story writing, I found myself crossed over into a question about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. I'm editing the manuscript for my Gothic tales book and one of the tasks includes removing every instance of the word 'very' from my writing wherever possible. My book includes six Doyle stories and I found out Doyle likes the word a lot.

He used the word more than 100 times in the course of the six stories. As I am easily distracted, I fell off into thinking about the use of the word in the Holmes canon. Very is an imprecise word. One would think Holmes wouldn't like to use it. So, of course, I wanted to know if he did.  I couldn't figure out how often exactly because there were so many instances of the word in the canon the search engine bogged down.

But, in that process, I came across something I had forgotten somewhere along the way. The point in 3GAR where Watson is wounded and he remarks he saw a glimpse of  Holmes's great heart "for the one and only time" is not the only time he catches a glimpse. It happens in DEVI too, after Holmes almost kills the both of them with the Devil's Foot. 

And not only does Watson see the heart, Holmes actually apologies for his behavior. I had no memory of Holmes apologizing to Watson, ever, beyond that back-handed one ('I owe you a thousand apologies') from EMPT. Watson is as gracious as always:

     'Upon my word, Watson!' said Holmes at last, with an unsteady voice, 'I owe you both my thanks and an apology. It was an unjustifiable experiment even for oneself, and doubly so for a friend. I am really very sorry.'
    'You know,' I answered, with some emotion, for I had never seen so much of Holmes's heart before, 'that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you.'-"The Adventure of the Devil's Foot"

Being a want-to-be-chronologist, I found it interesting that DEVI (the heart instance that was so easy for me to forget) occurs in 1897, long before the memorable one of 3GAR in 1902. I wondered why the 3GAR instance is seemingly talked about by Sherlockians so much more than the DEVI one. Is it because of the drama of Killer Evans or the gun fired at Watson? I don't know. I won't forget it again because Holmes actually apologizes. Not only is he sorry, he is "...really very sorry."

 

I thought about all this for awhile over a cup of coffee and had to smile.  Even now, after twenty years of reading the Canon, I'm glad these moments happen and I still enjoy them when they do. And, it certainly didn't hurt to be reminded  that I shouldn't trust my memory when it comes to making proclamations about how Holmes never does X or Watson never said Y. 

One bad thing happened though: my editing work stalled out for the afternoon. For that, I am very sorry.