Rereading my books, I found this piece. You may call it old-fashioned, but it is what it is. I enjoy others being passionate about their new versions and I wish them well. For me, with writings like this, I am and always will be an 1895 Sherlockian.
“Chips”
Sonnet on Baker Street
Quick, Watson, quick! (he says) the game’s afoot:
Perhaps it’s only Scandal in Bohemia,
Or maybe Speckled Band, or Devil’s Root,
Or famous sleuth who’s dying of Anaemia–
The Dancing Men, Chicago’s smartest crooks
Have given us the code: we’ll fool that party —
These are not merely episodes in books,
But the Crusade of Holmes and Moriarty.
So bring the fiddle and the dressing gown,
And Mrs. Hudson, and brave Scotland Yard,
And Watson by the jezail bullet lamed–
We rattle in a hansom back to town.
If this is fancy, history’s debarred:
If this is fiction, let fact be ashamed.
—Christopher Morley; On Sherlock Holmes.
Mr Morley is a bit like a Sherlockian Lincoln. He freed us all to be Sherlockians. This brief poem gives us all of the necessary elements to understand the Sherlockian World, the world of The Game and the World of 1895.
We all hope our contributions mean something to the Sherlockian future. But Mr Morley was a breed apart. He understood The Game as few have understood it since. At the top of the History will stand Morley and Starrett. Both bear constant refreshing, even today.