“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes”

“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes” is a maxim Christopher cites from Sherlock Holmes, and it captures why Holmes seems to him an ideal detective: noticing what others overlook is both a method of solving mysteries and a capacity Christopher recognizes in himself.

Source and Meaning

Christopher presents the sentence while explaining his admiration for The Hound of the Baskervilles. He says Holmes is highly intelligent and solves the mystery, then singles out the detective’s attention to ordinary but neglected details. The remark is not merely praise of cleverness: it identifies observation as a disciplined way of making sense of evidence.

Christopher’s Identification with Holmes

Christopher explicitly connects Holmes’s attentiveness to his own. He says Holmes notices things as he does, and describes becoming so absorbed in mathematics, books about the Apollo missions, or great white sharks that he may not hear Father calling him to supper. The examples make the connection concrete: close attention can reveal patterns, but it can also shut out whatever lies beyond the chosen subject.

Christopher extends the comparison to chess. He says he detaches his mind at will and concentrates on the board; while he maintains that focus, an opponent may lose concentration, scratch their nose, or look out of the window, then make a mistake. The maxim therefore links observation not only to discovery but also to strategic advantage: noticing another person’s lapse can determine the outcome of a game.

The Detective Ideal

The Holmes quotation sits beside Christopher’s account of the detective’s power to detach his mind and of Watson’s description of Holmes trying to fit apparently disconnected episodes into a scheme. Together, these details frame detection as two linked operations: attending to particulars and arranging them into an intelligible pattern. Christopher’s attraction to Holmes rests on this likeness, though his own examples also show that intense concentration has a cost: attention to one thing may mean failing to hear someone nearby.