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when watson tells him he has to return to the hotel to console a dying englishwoman, & holmes knows this may be the last time they will see each other, his face softens into the slightest of wistful smiles, like he's seeing all the things he loves about watson, his kindness, bravery, loyalty, trust, and then he just turns to go! like he's already said his own secret little goodbye that watson doesn't know about & now it's time to move on to the next thing

[thegoodnessofprovidence]

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri, April 11, 1909

[thegoodnessofprovidence]

when watson tells him he has to return to the hotel to console a dying englishwoman, & holmes knows this may be the last time they will see each other, his face softens into the slightest of wistful smiles, like he's seeing all the things he loves about watson, his kindness, bravery, loyalty, trust, and then he just turns to go! like he's already said his own secret little goodbye that watson doesn't know about & now it's time to move on to the next thing

[thegoodnessofprovidence]

poor watson, hugging his blanket cuz he's convinced that his roommate's a serial killer

[thegoodnessofprovidence]

Santa Cruz Evening News, California, May 21, 1915

[thegoodnessofprovidence]

Ammonites muticus. Art-studies from nature. 1872. Cephalopod fossil.

Internet Archive

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[thegoodnessofprovidence]

I was seized with a fervor and could not rest until I illustrated one of my favorite scenes from Sherlock Holmes: the Adventure of the Devil's Foot. While Holmes and Watson take a holiday in the Cornish countryside for Holmes's health, multiple people in the nearby village are found driven mad or dead from horror. Holmes deduces a substance that was burned in their presence is to blame. With a bit of the mysterious powder and a gas lamp in hand, he proposes an experiment to Watson...

content warning for drug use!

I'm not sure if it's supported by the canon but in my mind this is the first time Holmes ever apologies to Watson and he is so overcome with emotion that he immediately makes it weird

Text under the cut:

"It is not for me, my dear Watson, to stand in the way of the official police force. I leave them all the evidence which I found. The poison still remained upon the talc had they the wit to find it. Now, Watson, we will light our lamp; we will, however, take the precaution to open our window to avoid the premature decease of two deserving members of society, and you will seat yourself near that open window in an armchair unless, like a sensible man, you determine to have nothing to do with the affair. Oh, you will see it out, will you? I thought I knew my Watson. This chair I will place opposite yours, so that we may be the same distance from the poison and face to face. The door we will leave ajar. Each is now in a position to watch the other and to bring the experiment to an end should the symptoms seem alarming. Is that all clear? Well, then, I take our powder--or what remains of it--from the envelope, and I lay it above the burning lamp. So! Now, Watson, let us sit down and await developments."

They were not long in coming. I had hardly settled in my chair before I was conscious of a thick, musky odour, subtle and nauseous. At the very first whiff of it my brain and my imagination were beyond all control. A thick, black cloud swirled before my eyes, and my mind told me that in this cloud, unseen as yet, but about to spring out upon my appalled senses, lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous and inconceivably wicked in the universe. Vague shapes swirled and swam amid the dark cloud-bank, each a menace and a warning of something coming, the advent of some unspeakable dweller upon the threshold, whose very shadow would blast my soul. A freezing horror took possession of me. I felt that my hair was rising, that my eyes were protruding, that my mouth was opened, and my tongue like leather. The turmoil within my brain was such that something must surely snap. I tried to scream and was vaguely aware of some hoarse croak which was my own voice, but distant and detached from myself. At the same moment, in some effort of escape, I broke through that cloud of despair and had a glimpse of Holmes's face, white, rigid, and drawn with horror--the very look which I had seen upon the features of the dead. It was that vision which gave me an instant of sanity and of strength. I dashed from my chair, threw my arms round Holmes, and together we lurched through the door, and an instant afterwards had thrown ourselves down upon the grass plot and were lying side by side, conscious only of the glorious sunshine which was bursting its way through the hellish cloud of terror which had girt us in. Slowly it rose from our souls like the mists from a landscape until peace and reason had returned, and we were sitting upon the grass, wiping our clammy foreheads, and looking with apprehension at each other to mark the last traces of that terrific experience which we had undergone.

"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 one's self, and doubly so for a friend. I am really very sorry."

"You know," I answered with some emotion, for I have never seen so much of Holmes's heart before, "that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you."

He relapsed at once into the half-humorous, half-cynical vein which was his habitual attitude to those about him. "It would be superfluous to drive us mad, my dear Watson," said he. "A candid observer would certainly declare that we were so already before we embarked upon so wild an experiment. I confess that I never imagined that the effect could be so sudden and so severe." He dashed into the cottage, and, reappearing with the burning lamp held at full arm's length, he threw it among a bank of brambles. "We must give the room a little time to clear. I take it, Watson, that you have no longer a shadow of a doubt as to how these tragedies were produced?"

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Holmes with Toby in SIGN :3

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[thegoodnessofprovidence]

let's play the game, how many scarves (and one dressing gown) can jeremy brett fit on one small circular mirror in the most theatrical manner possible? it's 6! although i'm not convinced the ones slightly off camera actually stayed on...

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St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri, January 7, 1895

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[thegoodnessofprovidence]

[thegoodnessofprovidence]

Beethoven Violin Concerto in D major III. Rondo: Allegro

Jascha Heifetz with the Boston Symphony Orchestra

this concerto was popularized in england in the nineteenth century by Joseph Joachim, the hungarian violinist & conductor, whose concert holmes & watson have attended the evening before resident patient begins

this is the piece that holmes is thinking of in the barbershop, which is played on the soundtrack and which holmes plays on violin at the end of the episode

[thegoodnessofprovidence]

[thegoodnessofprovidence]