I have been mucking my way through the quagmire of The Complete Illustrated Sherlock Holmes (Doyle, Arthur C. The Complete Illustrated Sherlock Holmes. First ed. London: CRW Publishing Limited, 2009. Print.) - if you care to know which edition exactly - for almost a month.
It's a huge book. Eight hundred and fifty-five pages, with font size 10 or 11 at most, and interspersed with penciled sketches averaging an eighth of a page, every second page or so. No space wasted, that's for sure.
It's interesting, but also a little tedius.. Sherlock Holmes is an amazing character and thinker, very round and in depth, but one can only read so many 19th-century mysteries before they cease to be exciting and fresh, and sink to the depths of mere melodrama. However, I've only 170 pages to go, and I fully intend to see it finished. I am and will always be devoted to the end.
Wait. Did that strike a chord with you? To the end. What does that imply? Nothing will stop the bearer of such words until his or her mission is complete.
Brazen, unabashed loyalty, that's what. A strong conviction and devotion to what one holds dear. Sherlock Holmes is chock full of it.
It seems like half the stories are either of spouses who were mistakenly identified as having been killed and had come to claim their better halves (who, of course are remarried and desirous to avoid scandal), or that the person was GOING to marry so and so but some vicious rival killed him/her and now said person has sworn revenge, and will stop at nothing to get it.
Loyalty, in any form - whether it be between a married couple, or a criminal to the rest of his gang - is quite impervious to me. Understanding eludes my grasp.. what makes a person so strong that they would face imprisonment, torture, a broken heart, or even death to save something or someone they were beholden to? Lovers do it, but so do soldiers. It can be choice, or it can be duty. It is a hard man whose soul betokens no loyalty to any object or personage - but what, dear fellows, is the cause?
Some situations exist where the reasons are easily perceived and comprehended. The previous example of a lover comes to mind. What about, though, those who are violated by the one they love and yet still hold the cords of love within their grasp?
Or, again, to the man of war. His duty it is to defend his homeland, but nothing save loyalty to the cause would charge him with staying in the line when every instinct screams for him to run.
I give you a personal and current example. I have often been called niave and too trusting of the people I am intimately aquainted with; many times it has resulted in my being the butt end of a joke because I erronously believed things said by my friends, even against my own better judgment. Why, you ask?
It is because I believe, in the very depths of my soul, that if I were not to engage my trust fully and explicitly in the ones I love, that I should dishonor our relationship. Even if a friend told me there was a piano "on the roof" (a truthful example), when we were indoors and I knew that it was an impossibility that a piano should be suspended from the ceiling, and yet I still turn to look, causing much laughter among the company; even then, when told a second time a half hour later, and even though I know such a thing is an absurdity and I certainly didn't see one the first time, I turn to look again.. it is because I hold trust, honesty, and loyalty in the highest regard.
I would not willingly believe that a friend would deceive me, even in fun, although it's happened more times than I can care to count. It seems to me the very epitome of disloyalty and repulsive behaviour if I were to disregard a friend as being untruthful, that somehow I've placed no stock in the depth of our relationship and aquaintance, that I should treat them so terribly.
Call me crazy - others have. But I can't do it. So I continue to serve as the punchline. And the question remains.. why?
Because. That is my picture of loyalty. I can't shake it; believe me, I've tried. But something is stronger and holds more true than the mocking of such a ridiculous person as I can be, and have been - and that is the love and regard of my friends, which only under extraordinary circumstances would I let slip.
What do you hold dear? What keeps you strong for that time when nothing else will? Why?
What does the word 'loyalty' mean to you?
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