WORDS ON WATSON

An occasional feature of published pages about John Watson

“I sometimes think it a mercy that poor Violet is in her grave,” I overheard one of the maiden aunts say to the other after I had announced my decision [to go to sea rather than open a medical practice], which had had the effect of casting a heavy cloak of gloom over my grandparents’ household. “One son a scoundrel; the other an ingrate.”

“I told you there was bad blood in him, the first time she brought him to our hotel in Stranraer,” Her sister answered. “It’s him they got it from, not poor Violet.”

“I must say I am surprised at John, though. I believed him to be the steady one.”

“Still waters run deep, you know. The next thing we shall hear, he will be paying attention to women.”

—From The Private Life of Doctor Watson, Being the Personal Reminiscences of John H. Watson, MD by Michael Hardwick, E.P. Dutton, Inc., 1983, p. 208