Quote 13
If I claim full justice for my art, it is because it is an impersonal thing – a thing beyond myself. Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell. You have degraded what should have been a course of lectures into a series of tales (Beeches.5).
So, we've had Watson make a case for his form of narration, the suspense story. Here's Holmes's rebuttal: by dwelling on the crime, Watson's ignoring what's scientifically important to Holmes's deductions. Sadly for Holmes, Watson is a first-person narrator, so the doctor gets the last word on how the story should be told. But what would a first-person Holmes story look like? Would it have suspense at all? Why might Conan Doyle choose to portray these arguments between Holmes and Watson on how their fictional adventures should be told?
Quote 14
It was close upon four before the door opened, and a drunken-looking groom, ill-kempt and side-whiskered, with an inflamed face and disreputable clothes walked into the room. Accustomed as I was to my friend's amazing powers in the use of disguises, I had to look three times before I was certain that it was indeed he (Scandal.2.2).
Holmes makes his living looking at other people and figuring out who they are from their clothes, their manners, what have you. And that works for him, like, 99.9% of the time (with notable exceptions Irene Adler and Neville St. Clair). But if everybody else is like an open book to Holmes, nobody can read Holmes himself. And it's not just the disguises, which make Watson look "three times" before he's sure that "it was indeed" Holmes. Watson also often can't figure out what Holmes is thinking even during the best of times. So why is Holmes so opaque to everyone around him? What gives him such skill at impersonating other classes and groups of people?
Quote 15
As [Jabez Wilson] glanced down the advertisement column, with his head thrust forward and the paper flattened out upon his knee, I took a good look at the man and endeavoured, after the fashion of my companion, to read the indications which might be presented by his dress or appearance.
I did not gain very much, however, by my inspection. Our visitor bore every mark of being an average commonplace British tradesman, obese, pompous and slow (League.13).
Watson has observed Holmes's techniques time and time again. So he knows that appearances figure into Holmes's work. But he still can't reproduce Holmes's effects. This is proof that making personal judgments ("average commonplace British tradesman" – harsh!) is not what Holmes does, or at least, not only. Holmes's work is intuitive and can't seem to be imitated by Watson or, by extension, by the ordinary reader. Have you ever solved a Holmes case before he's good and ready to tell you whodunit and how? Does Conan Doyle give you enough information, even if just small clues, to find his conclusions on your own?