To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind.- Arthur Conan Doyle (A Scandal in Bohemia, 1888) -- source link