A Clinking of Toasts 2004: Doctor Watson
Doctor Watson is a toast written by Doug Elliott and published in the Canadian Holmes (Vol. 26 No. 3, Spring 2003).
Doctor Watson
We tell the uninitiated public that we are Sherlock Holmes fans. I say, rather, that we are Dr. Watson fans. I contend that the good doctor needs to be elevated once and for all above the modest role of second banana. The truth is, Watson is the reason we love the stories.
Everything we know about Holmes — his appearance, his words, his habits, his very existence — we know because Watson tells us. Remember that, though Holmes was undoubtedly a well-known figure in late Victorian London, there are, strangely, no other contemporary accounts of him. Holmes comes to life, for all of us, exclusively in Watson's chronicles. And in the hands of a lesser writer, those first few stories in The Strand would have faded quickly from memory and no others would have been commissioned.
We cannot relate to the eccentric, antisocial, genius detective, but we can certainly identify with his friend. Like Watson, we, too, are puzzled by Holmes's lightning leaps of logic and his unconventional investigative methods. We, too, are haunted by encounters with grotesque crime scenes and menacing villains. We, too, are terrified by nocturnal vigils and confrontations with evil. We feel what the good Watson feels.
And we can also relate to Watson's friendship with Holmes, who apparently has no other friends. "A fellow who's hard to know" is a phrase that we could readily apply to the great man. Watson could easily have pursued a separate life from his odd room-mate, and the friendship would have been still-born. Yet he persisted, in the face of very little encouragement, and so grew one of the great partnerships in history. It is a partnership that we long to partake in, for its comfort, its excitement, its occasional warmth, and its tendency to spawn unpredictable adventures.
If we discount Nigel Bruce's unfortunate portrayal and look to the original stories, we see a Watson who is intelligent, sincere, honest, loyal, self-deprecating, brave and, yes, long-suffering. He is a capable doctor, too, though he has a regrettable tendency to over-prescribe brandy. (1)
Anatomically speaking, Watson is not the appendix, a somewhat-useful organ that can easily be discarded. Rather he is the very spine and backbone of the canon. Or should we say, the heart.
In the end, Holmes simply could not do without him. And neither can we.
- Doug Elliott M.Bt. BSI
- Bootmakers of Toronto Annual Dinner
- 31 January 2004
(1) Watson, in fact, prescribes brandy as a restorative on only four occasions: "The Engineer's Thumb,", "The Greek Interpreter," "The Naval Treaty" and "The Priory School". It is far more common for others, including Holmes, to recommend it.
- Article courtesy The Bootmakers of Toronto.
