So Elementary ...

I just discovered Sherlock Holmes. How could this be?! How has no one introduced us before?! I mean, obviously, I had heard of Sherlock Holmes. But no one told me that I should actually read Sherlock Holmes. For that, I am mad at you all. Luckily, M. recommended it. A little sampling:

"I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilled workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones! 'But the Solar System!' I protested. 'What the deuce is it to me?' interrupted impatiently: 'you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.'"

So, I will be spending a few weeks with Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson. I should note however, that thus far I have only read one story in the collection, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle seems to have subscribed to the above theory ... the story I read included a plethora of outlandishly ridiculous (and thoroughly entertaining) ideas about Mormons ...