Getting Blood from a Stone
Getting Blood from a Stone is an article written by "The Old Stager" published in The Sphere on 6 november 1926.
Getting Blood from a Stone
It is cheering to find that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can sometimes be seduced from the field of psychic research to the breezier field of literature. I remember the day when breathless schoolboys counted the hours till the new Strand Magazine might be on sale on the bookstalls, and hurried home with their copies for a glorious hour with Sherlock Holmes. The dingy Victorian lodging in Baker Street is Aladdin's Palace to scores of baldheaded, rheumatical grand-fathers alive to-day, and Dr. Watson, that type of all that. is Victorian and commonplace, still wields a magician's wand and opens for us the magic door that leads us to the Copper Beeches, the noble Bachelor, the Study in Scarlet, and the Speckled Band. But everything must have an end (do not scores of half-baked sequels to successful novels teach us the lesson ?), and even the creator of Sherlock Holmes must at last bid good-bye to his gold-mine. Long, long since the vein ran out. It was a Bonanza mine and has paid rich dividends to its deserving owner, but recent washings have revealed baser metal. Of the last thirty tales of Sherlock Holmes , two dozen at least have been unworthy of Holmes, unworthy of his creator. I don't know how Dr. Watson could have had the face to chronicle them, and indeed it is clear from the last narrative that he has put his foot down. "Holmes," he said, "my old wound is troubling me; I fear that the task of further examination of your note-books must devolve on yourself." And Holmes reluctantly complied, with lamentable results. I feel it deeply. In the last decade, Sir Arthur has struck a score of staggering blows at my idol.
THE OLD STAGER.
