End of the month, and we don’t like to see one go by without putting up at least one new post. August has been tough; “thanks” to the merger of Verizon and Alltel, our internet connection has deteriorated to worse-than-dial-up, with only occassional short unpredictable bursts of acceptable speeds. It is supposed to get better as they work out their system problems, but it looks like up here in the thinly populated boondocks, we are probably not high on the priority list. Additionally, there are no decent alternatives for us to switch to, and we can be sure our service provider knows it.
So we decided upon a short and peculiar one for August. We have noticed that Doyle often provided imaginative descriptions of characters, and in four instances describes people as having “aggressive” facial features. In the Canon, we found two aggressive noses, one aggressive chin, and one aggressive red beard that seemed to change its hue in response to the owner’s mood. For what it’s worth, here they are.
In The Sign of the Four (SIGN), Johanthan Small’s face in repose was not an unpleasing one, though his heavy brows and aggressive chin gave him a terrible expression when moved to anger.
In The Final Problem (FINA), Colonel Sebastian Moran had cruel blue eyes, with drooping, cynical lids, and a fierce, aggressive nose, and a threatening, deep-lined brow.
In The Adventure of the Dancing Men (DANC), Abe Slaney strode up the path which led to the door. He was a tall, handsome, swarthy fellow, clad in a suit of gray flannel, with a Panama hat, a bristling black beard, and a great, aggressive, hooked nose, and flourished a cane as he walked.
In The Adventure of the Priory School, The Duke’s beard turned more aggressively red than ever against his ghastly white face. (It is possible that his beard did not actually change its hue, but merely appeared to do so as his face became pale.)
We wondered what the Internet thinks of aggressive noses, and looked up Google images of them. Turned out to be mostly automobile grilles, plus one California red wine. Had to go pretty far down the list to find a picture of a person with an aggressive nose, and it was some sort of silly-looking clay attachment to the face of a person in a Halloween costume, on Flickr.
So there you have it. We hope that we will soon be zapping bits and bytes into the ether at speeds never heretofore attained.
