reticent at
English translation: why did she say nothing (about her appointment with Sir Charles) at the time of his death?
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| 18:35 Mar 19, 2019 |
| English language (monolingual) [PRO] Art/Literary - Poetry & Literature / Expression | |||||||
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|  Selected response from: Charles Davis Spain Local time: 01:39 | ||||||
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| 4 +2 | why did she say nothing (about her appointment with Sir Charles) at the time of his death? |
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54 mins confidence: 
peer agreement (net): +2
peer agreement (net): +2why did she say nothing (about her appointment with Sir Charles) at the time of his death? Explanation: The obvious meaning is the correct one, but Watson is not referring to the fact that she failed to mention that she had cancelled the appointment, but rather to the fact the she failed to mention that she made the appointment in the first place, and more generally to the fact that she said nothing about her dealings with Sir Charles. This is crucial, because it is the reason why Sir Charles was out of doors at the gate at 10 pm, giving Stapleton the opportunity to kill him. This information — the fact that she made the appointment — has just been forced out of her by Watson, who found a fragment of the letter she wrote to Sir Charles and that he burned at her request. What Watson does not yet know, but we discover later, is that she made the appointment at the instigation of Stapleton, who had promised to marry her if she obtained a divorce. She made the appointment with Sir Charles to ask him for money to pay for her divorce. But she needed to keep this secret, since if it became known that she intended to marry Stapleton, it would have been very difficult or impossible for her to obtain the divorce. Later, when Holmes reveals to her that Stapleton is married and she realises he has deceived her, she tells the whole story. He told her to say nothing of the appointment on the grounds that she would come under suspicion herself, and she was not going to mention that it was Stapleton's suggestion because she hopes to marry him. Stapleton's motive for pretending to want to marry her was to use her to get Sir Charles out of doors at night. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 3 hrs (2019-03-19 22:31:24 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- On the contrary, I think it is what the sentence itself means. "Reticent" is defined in the Globe dictionary of 1873 as: "Inclined to keep silent; reserved; taciturn" https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zm8CAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA488&dq... Chambers (1903) defines it as: "concealing by silence; reserved in speech" https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EjhfDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT1287&d... And somewhat earlier, Dr Johnson (1750) did not include "reticent", but gave "reticence" as "concealment by silence", and nothing else. Therefore it meant either not speaking (keeping silent) or being unwilling to speak. Nowadays the second meaning is the usual one, but when this book was written it usually meant the first, and I think this is probably the intended meaning. But the difference is very slight, in any case: "Why did she not say anything?" or "Why was she so unwilling to say anything?" If you prefer the latter, you could be right. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 4 hrs (2019-03-19 22:37:00 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- The original and etymological meaning of "reticent" is "keeping silent". -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 8 hrs (2019-03-20 03:13:56 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- Ah, I see. Well, I don't think that's ambiguous. "The tragedy" certainly refers to the death of Sir Charles (what else could it be?), and "at the time of the tragedy" can only mean "at the time when the tragedy took place". Of course, to be precise, it must mean in the period immediately following Sir Charles's death; that's just common sense. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 9 hrs (2019-03-20 03:39:16 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- It cannot refer to her reticence during Watson's questioning. To mean that it would have to be "her reticence about the time of the tragedy" (or in connection with, with regard to, or some other synonym). But not "at"; linguistically, that reading is out of the question. At the time of Sir Charles's death she could certainly have been expected to volunteer the information that Sir Charles was where he was when he died because she had arranged to meet him. That is exactly the point, as I've said. It is obviously crucial information in explaining his death. Nobody can understand why Sir Charles, who was terrified of the moor at night and never went out of doors, did so on that occasion. If she had reported it, the crime would have been solved quickly, because it would soon have been discovered that Stapleton was behind it. Watson cannot understand why she didn't do so — it seems obvious to him that normally anyone would have done so — but of course he doesn't yet know about Stapleton's role. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 9 hrs (2019-03-20 03:45:41 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- Well, it's obvious to Watson that something stopped her from giving the police or the coroner this information at the time, but he can't imagine what could have been strong enough to prevent her doing her obvious civic duty and reporting this vital evidence in a murder inquiry, as any normal decent person would have done. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 10 hrs (2019-03-20 05:05:01 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- We have to start from the fact that, as I've said, "Why should she have been so reticent at the time of the tragedy?" can only mean "what made her withhold so much or such important information at that time"? Watson acknowledges that she has now accounted for (a) making the appointment and (b) cancelling it. But he senses that she has still not told him everything (and he's right: she hasn't told her about Stapleton). So even if your reading were tenable linguistically (which it isn't), he can't be mentally accusing her of being reticent about the tragedy during the conversation they've just had, because she's explained everything. It's quite true that no one (except Dr Mortimer) saw Sir Charles's death as suspicious at the time. But Watson is already well aware, because Holmes has told him so, that Sir Charles was murdered by being frightened to death by a hound that came over the gate, and so that the fact that Sir Charles waited at the gate, which is very hard to understand, is crucial to solving the murder.: "Then, again, whom was he waiting for that night, and why was he waiting for him in the yew alley rather than in his own house?” “You think that he was waiting for someone?” “The man was elderly and infirm. We can understand his taking an evening stroll, but the ground was damp and the night inclement. Is it natural that he should stand for five or ten minutes, as Dr. Mortimer, with more practical sense than I should have given him credit for, deduced from the cigar ash?” “But he went out every evening.” “I think it unlikely that he waited at the moor-gate every evening. On the contrary, the evidence is that he avoided the moor. That night he waited there." (chapter 3). You make good, logical points, but we have to accept that Watson professes himself puzzled that she kept quiet at the time of Sir Charles's death, because what he says here really must mean that; there's nothing else it can mean. Perhaps he doesn't have good reason to consider it strange, but that is what he says. I wonder if it's just a loose way of saying: "what is she hiding?" Actually what she is hiding (Stapleton) is crucial, though Watson can't know that at this stage. Perhaps the author is dropping a hint to the reader through Watson's musings. According to your arguments, it is perfectly natural that she said nothing at the time, and Watson knows it. But then he also knows that for the same reasons it is perfectly natural that she was reluctant to tell him about it too. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 10 hrs (2019-03-20 05:06:11 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- (Sorry: she hasn't told him about Stapleton, not her. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 11 hrs (2019-03-20 05:38:56 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- You are right that Watson connived at Sir Henry's suggestion that they should not betray the convict Selden. He did so after some soul-searching and with misgivings, motivated by compassion for the Barrymores. But what is at stake there is extreme, and it doesn't follow that Watson is routinely in favour of cover-ups for personal convenience. He has a conventional Victorian attitude to duty. I think it's quite likely that his attitude is that despite her understandable reasons for reticence, it was not justified. And indeed, when Holmes eventually confronts her about it, she makes it clear that she kept silent under pressure from Stapleton, not on her own initiative, implying that had it not been for Stapleton she might well have said something. What made her so reticent was not reluctance to reveal her private dealings with Sir Charles but fear of being suspected of complicity in his death. She had no reason to think his death was suspicious until Stapleton told her so: “And he made you swear to say nothing about your appointment with Sir Charles?” “He did. He said that the death was a very mysterious one, and that I should certainly be suspected if the facts came out. He frightened me into remaining silent.” -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 day 30 mins (2019-03-20 19:05:35 GMT) Post-grading -------------------------------------------------- Thanks, Lincoln. I concede that there are anomalies here, but I can assure you (once again), with complete certainty, as an English native speaker and reader of Conan Doyle, that on linguistic grounds "reticence at the time of the of the tragedy" can only mean being reticent then, when the tragedy took place, and cannot mean being reticent now in discussing the time of the tragedy. |
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