Though his adventurous profession does provide a biographer with an excess of material, Holmes himself is not an easy man to write about. It is all too easy, rather, to find oneself writing about only one of his extremes, neglecting the other entirely, and so fail to give an accurate representation of the whole man. In point of fact, one does not often find Holmes at equilibria. Like a sinusoid, he oscillates back and forth between two poles – lethargy and action, ennui and vigor, mania and depression.
Light and darkness.
I portray him as the hero in my writings. Always, he acts on the side of justice, even when taking the law into his own hands. Though his manner is cold and aloof one sees, at times, that he feels compassion for the plight of his clients and anger at the injustices foisted upon them. He is a creature of the intellect, and not the heart – but he is a good man.
But this is one of his poles. Its opposite, of course, exists in him as well. One might argue that the capacity for wrong as much as good exists in every man, but Holmes himself makes me doubt this. I can see myself, for instance, in comparison to him as a man who lives almost solely at an equilibrium. If my polar opposite is to be found anywhere on earth, it does not exist as a facet of my own make up.
I wanted to believe, for a long time, that Holmes was not so different from myself in this way. But I have seen the times when he does not act on the side of justice, but as an agent of his own interests in an intellectual game, and nothing more. I have seen the cases in which the sufferings of his client mean nothing to him, and it is the work, and only that, which he wants. I have even found myself manipulated and used by him, when it served his purpose, though he counts me as his only friend. After so many years at his side, the duality of his nature grows only more difficult to deny.
"You have never asked me to be anything different," he says at last. He's been seated on the hearthrug with newspapers and his commonplace books spread out around him, updating them after his latest case, and I wonder as I look up at him what gave my thoughts away. He holds my gaze only for an instant before his sharp, grey eyes flick back to his work, and for once he offers no explanation. It is likely that he has deduced the question which is currently more prominent in my mind just as easily.
What if I were to ask him to be different? Would he try?
On the one hand I can imagine him remarking casually that it is just as well that I waited until now to ask as much of him, as both of us are financially solvent such as to no longer require a flatmate to split the rent. On the other the hurt he might feel at such an insinuation, and the conflict with his very self it might engender, come to mind with equal readiness. Which pole would I find him at, I wonder, were I to ask?
But of course, I acknowledge, as I return to writing in my journal, I never shall.
That, I understand very well, is what makes me different from all the others that know him.
That is why I alone am his friend.
A/N: From the Goethe quote in SIGN - "Nature alas, made only one being of you, although there was material for a good man and a rogue."