Inescapably reminiscent of that fantastic painting of the judgment of Phryne

[cimorene]

I found this hilarious statement in one of the prefaces to R. Austin Freeman's Thorndyke mysteries:

In appearance he is handsome and of an imposing presence, with a symmetrical face of the classical type and a Grecian nose. And here I may remark that his distinguished appearance is not merely a concession to my personal taste but is also a protest against the monsters of ugliness whom some detective writers have evolved.

These are quite opposed to natural truth. In real life a first-class man of any kind usually tends to be a good-looking man.

Amazing. This is the guy responsible for the CSI subgenre of detective fiction: all his stories revolve around science, logic, trace analysis, etc. He's even got other forewords where he humbly explains that he made sure everything that happens is physically possible and all the clues are laid before the reader in the spirit of fairness!

He just thinks it's a scientific truth that the Ancient Greeks were right and people who are truly great at anything at all will just naturally happen to be beautiful. I guess there you have the state of Popular Science, late Victorian edition (his writing is Edwardian and ends around 1940, but this means, of course, that Freeman's worldview was mostly shaped by a late Victorian upbringing).

Comments

[flemmings]

Well, he taught me that quicklime preserves bodies rather than eating them, which I suppose is a useful thing to know.

[cimorene]

Lol. I'm sure in the Edwardian era he taught a lot of people a variety of useful facts like that. Who knows how many bodies have been successfully preserved in the last century thanks to this guy?