The Holmes Brothers

I have to say that both Sherlock Holmes and his brother, Mycroft, have always interested me ever since I first read "The Greek Interpreter" by Doyle. When I first read the story I was nearly as shocked as Watson was when he found that Sherlock had a brother, who, Sherlock admits, is far superior in an intellectual sense than Sherlock, which seems almost impossible to visualize. I must say that I enjoy the interaction between the Holmes brothers in the story when Watson witnesses both Sherlock and Mycroft having a sort of battle of wits as they are looking out the window and analyzing and using pure inductive powers. I was just enthralled by the scene in the Diogenes Club and I liked how it also reflected how alike both of the Holmes brothers are. Both Mycroft and Sherlock share almost the same immense intellect and how they guess a man's profession and other details of a person from pure observation. So, with this in mind, I wondered what their signatures would look like.

 It is clearly stated in the story of "The Greek Interpreter" the natures of both of the Holmes brothers. Mycroft is basically very sloth-like and, my favorite line is, when Watson shakes hands with Mycroft he describes it as "shacking the flipper of a seal", or something around those lines. Mycroft sits in his chair most of the day at the Diogenes Club and observes the world from his room. Sherlock, on the other hand, is a great ball of energy that must be on the move every minute of every day. Mycroft himself observes that Sherlock is the energetic one in the family. I just thought that their signatures should reflect such an attitude with both of the brothers.

Mycroft's signature, the first one at the beginning of this post, is far more official, since Mycroft is a government bureaucrat, and is the signature that he would typically use when signing such forms. The second one, just below the ramble you are now reading, is the one that he uses on a typical, letter-writing basis, which reflects his pure laziness and sloth-like attitude with matters. Sherlock's signature, on the other hand, is more of a swooping signature, full of energy. The first one on this post is much like Mycroft's official signature, this signature is the one that Sherlock would possibly use for his "official" letter-writing, if he were writing to diplomats saying that he retrieved the Lost Diamond of the Maharaja

 or something of that sort. The second signature of Sherlock's is possibly one that he could use to write Lestrade or someone that he had found out the culprit of the crime or that he had found something.

I merely thought that it was an interesting experiment to play around with the Holmes Brothers signatures, basically to see what they would look like and how their signatures reflect their nature. Both signatures were written in blue waterproof ink with the use of a dip pen, sorry about the smudges, at least on Sherlock's, it was intentional with Mycroft's common signature.

Also, if you would like to see the scene with Mycroft and Sherlock, I have posted below a video of the Jeremy Brett version of "The Greek Interpreter" if you would like to take a gander. Sorry about the shoddy quality.

Until next time, keep a sharp eye out for my next post.