"Somewhere That's Green"

"Here's to the crabgrass, here's to the mortgage
In fact, here's to suburbia.
Lay down your briefcase far from the rat race,
Where nothing can disturb-a-ya"
-- Alan Sherman, "Here's to the Crabgrass"

"Far from skid row
I dream we'll go
Somewhere that's green."
-- Howard Ashman, from "Little Shop of Horrors"

There's no doubt about it; the exurban dream has been an integral part of Western mythology ever since the industrial revolution and the attendant growth of The City as a center of trade, commerce, and exploitation. For centuries, it seems, popular literature, music, and art have promoted the notion that life in the country -- or at least the suburbs -- was inherently superior to that of the city. Or at least healthier and less stressful, at any rate.

Granted, there have been a few dissenting voices from curmudgeonly urbanites; the rest of that Alan Sherman song I quoted at the beginning is a good example. And Sherlock Holmes' contemporary, George Bernard Shaw, once exclaimed: "O Lord! I don't know which is the worst of the country, the walking or the sitting at home with nothing to do." But like many of Shaw's opinions, this one was hardly popular. In Holmes' time, as in our own, most urban residents were convinced that the grass was greener (or at least more plentiful) out past the city limits. And Holmes and Watson seem to have been no exceptions to the rule.

The Canon is, in fact, rife with examples of Holmes' and (especially) the good doctor's admiration for country life. In "The Dancing Men", for instance, Watson describes Hilton Cubit as "a tall, ruddy, clean-shaven gentleman, whose clear eyes and florid cheeks told of a life led far from the fogs of Baker Street. He seemed to bring a whiff of his strong, bracing, east-coast air with him as he entered". In "The Priory School", Holmes tells the Duke of Holdernesse "This northern air is invigorating and pleasant, so I propose to spend a few days upon your moors". And in "The Solitary Cyclist", which takes place largely "near Farnham, on the borders of Surrey", Holmes informs Miss Violet Smith that she obviously teaches "In the country, I presume, from your complexion". When, in later years, Homes needed to withdraw and convalesce from over exertion, he chose the village of Poldhu in Cornwall ("The Devil's Foot") and he finally retired, as we all know, to the downs of Sussex.

Now to the cynic (which I most certainly am not) it would appear that Holmes, the master of logic and reason, is succumbing to the popular notions of the day in his assumption that the very air of the country was inherently superior to that which entered the lungs in the city, even to the extent of assuming that it possessed medicinal properties of some sort. I submit to you, however, that if some of the events reported in "The Solitary Cyclist" are an indication, Sussex air could easily have been bottled and sold as a cure-all on the streets of London.

Let us take, for example, the singular case of Mr. Carruthers' lacerated face. According to Violet Smith, when Carruthers happens upon the odious Woodley attempting to force his attentions on her, "Mr. Carruthers came in and tore him from me, on which [Woodley] turned upon his own host, knocking him down and cutting his face open. " (Italics added). And yet there is no mention of any stitches or any significant first aid at all; indeed, the only subsequent reference to the incident is a brief apology the next day by Carruthers. Either Miss Smith exaggerated his injury, which seems unlikely in light of the clear, dispassionate nature of most of her narrative, or Carruthers had remarkable healing powers.

But he's not the only one. When Holmes visits a local pub in the area he stumbles upon Woodley and in the ensuing fracas sustains "a cut lip and a discoloured lump upon his forehead". Woodley is less fortunate and ends up going home "in a cart" thanks to Holmes' "strong left". The implication is that Woodley was, at the very least, unconscious. And yet within a few days he is energetic enough to pull off a kidnapping and a violent assault upon a young and (presumably) healthy groom. Even more astonishing, however, is his ability to survive what certainly seems, from Watson's description, to be a mortal gunshot wound in the climactic scene: "[Carruthers'] revolver cracked, and I saw the blood spurt from the front of Woodley's waistcoat. He spun round with a scream and fell upon his back, his hideous red face turning suddenly to a dreadful mottled pallor." A severe loss of blood would seem to be implied, at the very least. And yet Watson is able to assure us within minutes that "he will live". The country air has turned Woodley into a virtual Doc Savage.

Finally, let's return to the young groom Peter, so brutally attacked by Woodley. When Holmes, Watson, and Carruthers come across him, he is lying "upon his back, his knees drawn up, a terrible cut upon his head. He was insensible, but alive." And yet within a few minutes Peter is well enough not only to walk back to the scene of the confrontation between Carruthers and Woodley, but to make his way back into town with a note for the superintendent -- all this without any indication of medical attention for that "terrible cut". One must assume that in that invigorating country air, it was already healing.

So there you have it. If Holmes and Watson sometimes seem, to modern readers, to be overly enamoured of the restorative powers of life beyond the city, it may be for perfectly sound, empirical reasons, if the events chronicled in "The Solitary Cyclist" are to be believed. And they must be believed, of course, for otherwise whither The Grand Game? Obviously, the age of miracles has simply passed. Q.E.D.