The Greek Interpreter

During my long and intimate acquaintance with Mr.
Sherlock Holmes I had never heard him refer to his
relations, and hardly ever to his own early life.
This reticence upon his part had increased the
somewhat inhuman effect which he produced upon me,
until sometimes I found myself regarding him as an
isolated phenomenon, a brain without a heart, as
deficient in human sympathy as he was pre-eminent in
intelligence. His aversion to women and his
disinclination to form new friendships were both
typical of his unemotional character, but not more so
than his complete suppression of every reference to
his own people. I had come to believe that he was an
orphan with no relatives living, but one day, to my
very great surprise, he began to talk to me about his
brother.

It was after tea on a summer evening, and the
conversation, which had roamed in a desultory,
spasmodic fashion from golf clubs to the causes of the
change in the obliquity of the ecliptic, came round at
last to the question of atavism and hereditary
aptitudes. The point under discussion was, how far
any singular gift in an individual was due to his
ancestry and how far to his own early training.

"In your own case," said I, "from all that you have
told me, it seems obvious that your faculty of
observation and your peculiar facility for deduction
are due to your own systematic training."

"To some extent," he answered, thoughtfully. "My
ancestors were country squires, who appear to have led
much the same life as is natural to their class. But,
none the less, my turn that way is in my veins, and
may have come with my grandmother, who was the sister
of Vernet, the French artist. Art in the blood is
liable to take the strangest forms."

"But how do you know that it is hereditary?"

"Because my brother Mycroft possesses it in a larger
degree than I do."

This was news to me indeed. If there were another man
with such singular powers in England, how was it that
neither police nor public had heard of him? I put the
question, with a hint that it was my companion's
modesty which made him acknowledge his brother as his
superior. Holmes laughed at my suggestion.

"My dear Watson," said he, "I cannot agree with those
who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician
all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to
underestimate one's self is as much a departure from
truth as to exaggerate one's own powers. When I say,
therefore, that Mycroft has better powers of
observation than I, you may take it that I am speaking
the exact and literal truth."

"Is he your junior?"

"Seven years my senior."

"How comes it that he is unknown?"