with that of their employee, James Windibank. _Voilà tout!_"

"And Miss Sutherland?"

"If I tell her she will not believe me. You may remember the old Persian
saying, 'There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also
for whoso snatcheth a delusion from a woman.' There is as much sense in
Hafiz as in Horace, and as much knowledge of the world."





_A Scandal in Bohemia_


I

To Sherlock Holmes she is always _the_ woman. I have seldom heard him
mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and
predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion
akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly,
were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was,
I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world
has seen; but as a lover, he would have placed himself in a false
position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a
sneer. They were admirable things for the observer--excellent for drawing
the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to
admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted
temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a