Each is Suggestive [DEVI]

Reading "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot" this morning gave me a couple different thoughts about this story.  So this week, I'm just going to ramble through my thoughts on one of the less popular stories in the Canon.

I feel like the stories from 'His Last Bow' get a short shrift.  We often dismiss the last two collections of stories either purposely or subconsciously.  And while there can be a good debate about 'The Case-Book', I think 'His Last Bow' isn't in the forefront of our minds because they weren't the packaged deal of 'Adventures,' 'Memoirs,' and 'Return.'

DEVI gives us this great Sherlockismus:
"I followed you."
"I saw no one."
"That is what you may expect to see when I follow you."

If you had asked me what story that quote came from, I wouldn't have been able to tell you.  Admittedly, I'm not as great at quotes as I'd like to be, but that's another story.

Dr. Leon Sterndale seems like a character that would be rife for a spin off full of his own adventures.  I can just see him meeting up with Professor Challenger or Sebastian Moran in his travels.

Do you think Holmes showed more emotion towards Watson in this story or when he was shot in 3GAR?  Either way, it's one of those rare moments when Holmes shows us just how important the good doctor is to him.

DEVI reminded me of a lot of other stories, too.  Mainly REIG and ABBE.  In REIG, Holmes is ordered to recuperate and finds himself investigating a local problem instead.  The end of ABBE shows Holmes weighing the justification of a criminal and allowing him to go.  Although the motive and murder weapon of DEVI are new to us, the beginning and the end can give the reader deja vu.

But what really got me thinking today were the following lines: 

"The ancient Cornish language had also arrested his attention, and he had, I remember, conceived the idea that it was akin to the Chaldean, and had been largely derived from the Phoenician traders in tin. He had received a consignment of books upon philology and was settling down to develop this thesis..."

There are just enough buzzwords in here to pique my interest, but I also immediately recognize them as words I don't fully understand.  Chaldean.  Phoenician.  Philology.

These have always struck me as vaguely theological words.  At least 'Phoenician.'  You hear of them in relation to the Israelites in the Bible.  A quick Google search shows me that 'philology' is the study of languages.  'Chaldean' comes up quite a bit in the Old Testament.

Like someone else once said, "My biblical knowledge is a trifle rusty,"  but those few sentences always spark something in the back of my brain.  There's something there related to my interest in the overlap of Sherlock Holmes and theology, I just don't have the knowledge to make it make sense.  Perhaps I need to do some more reading.  After all, "to let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine.  It racks itself to pieces."