Secondhand Sight

[capt_facepalm]

Title:  Secondhand Sight
Author: capt_facepalm
Rating: PG
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (Gaslight)
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Lestrade, Dr Watson
Summary: A vignette
Warnings: (what, no dialogue?)
Word Count: 100
Author's Notes: July 24th prompt: (The Self Portrait of Horace Vernet, Holmes' great-uncle)

The 1885 London Vernet showing featured several of the artist’s finest works including many depictions of the French military.

Watson stood transfixed before one of the smaller paintings of a battle scene featuring a fusilier and a drummer boy tending to a wounded dog.

Inspector Lestrade, who had accompanied Mr Holmes and Dr Watson, made some inane comment about how dangerous painting during a pitched battle would be.

Holmes glanced at Watson, who had not moved, and assured Lestrade that although the painter’s work was done in studio, one need not see war first-hand in order to understand its horrors.

.oOOo.

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Recommended Reading/Viewing:
Ruutz-Rees, Janet Emily; Horace Vernet and Paul Delaroche; Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, London 1880.
Vernet, Émile-Jean-Horace; Le Chien du regiment blesse; 1819.

Comments

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

Thanks!
Holmes has come to face the fact that something is wrong with Watson. This was in the days before PTSD was invented, and his otherwise fine, upstanding fellow lodger definitely has a problem. In fact, neither of them understand it. Watson is sure that six months time and three continents distance would have relieved him of any war stress. Holmes is not so sure.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Poor fellow - imagine living at a time when the only name people had for PTSD was "cowardice." It's a good thing Holmes is smarter than the average Victorian.

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think this is a major crux for Watson. Not only that other people might think him a coward, but that he is uncertain what the problem is, and he is probably very scared. Not something you can talk about in those days. So, if Holmes is a very observant man, the one thing that he is sure of is that Watson is not a coward.