And even now I wonder if creation is both too beautiful and too horrible for a handful of perceptive souls, and if the realisation of this opposing duality can offer them few options but to take leave of their own accord.

If everything is really meaningless – then we should create the meaning for ourselves.

On my first evening in the back country, I skipped down the porch steps of the farmhouse-leaving my father inside and the radio playing and my small suitcase decorated with neon flower stickers unpacked-and wandered towards the upside-down school bus I’d spied from an upstairs window.

Lastly, it should be noted that the nostalgia which the reading public maintains for my former Baker Street address does not exist in me. I no longer crave the bustle of London streets, nor do I miss navigating the tangled mires created by the criminally disposed.

On my first evening in the back country, I skipped down the porch steps of the farmhouse-leaving my father inside and the radio playing and my small suitcase decorated with neon flower stickers unpacked-and wandered towards the upside-down school bus I'd spied from an upstairs window.

How amazing it was, Holmes mentioned, that such a powerful substance, the chemistry of which was still not completely known, could be produced by the pharyngeal glands of the worker bee –creating queens from ordinary bee larvae, healing a multitude of mankind’s ills.

You know, we bungled a number of important cases – regrettably. Of course, who wants to read about the failures? I certainly don’t.

I am afraid I never wore a deerstalker, or smoked the big pipe – mere embellishments by an illustrator, intended to give me distinction, I suppose, and sell magazines. I didn’t get much say in the matter.

But as of late, I have been consumed with the significant task of revising the latest edition of my Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, while alternately putting the finishing touches on my four volumes of The Whole Art of Detection. The latter is a rather tedious, labyrinthine undertaking...

Is that true? Are you really him?”“I am afraid I still hold that distinction.”“You are Sherlock Holmes? No, I don’t believe it.”“That is quite all right. I scarcely believe it myself.