an undue share of my imagination

"The handsome Walter [Paget] took the place of the more powerful but uglier Sherlock." Conan Doyle, Memories and Adventures

Despite what Conan Doyle wrote there, I believe he originally thought of Holmes as an attractive man.

Forget what Holmes looked like.  Now here's his face in 1887 from A Study in Scarlet:  "His eyes were sharp and piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision.  His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination."  The description could resemble this guy, who ACD wrote in 1889 was "the handsomest man in the collection" of the National Portrait Gallery.  

ACD’s head canon:  Holmes has a floral print dressing gown.  

When Holmes left on his counter-intelligence mission, Watson wrote to cope as he had during their last long separation 22 years earlier.  This time, though, he was mad as hell for a while.  

The Adventure of the Dying Detective, or That Time the Young SOB Didn’t Trust Me, made it to The Strand first.  Then there was The Valley of Fear -- Watson imagined another secret operative in danger -- in which Holmes’s cleverness only got another man killed.  Watson stuffed a draft of Creeping Man into the box.  He was a habit and an irritation.  But he had his humble role.  Still Holmes had ventured to America alone.  

As Holmes became more comfortable with Watson, he started teasing him.  A little.  That was what men did, wasn’t it?  At least that’s what boys did, in most of Holmes’s social experience -- his brother, fellow students, other fencers and boxers.  So, Holmes deployed more of his quick wit for his friend to appreciate.  Or, acted something like a schoolboy tugging a girl’s pigtails (though Holmes never had done exactly that).

“I believe that you are the devil himself!” he cried. Holmes smiled at the compliment.

“I believe you are the devil himself.” “Not far from him, at any rate,” Holmes answered with a polite smile.

“Why, you're a common burglar.” “So you might describe me,” said Holmes cheerfully.

“I know you, you scoundrel!  I have heard of you before. You are Holmes, the meddler.” My friend smiled. “Holmes, the busybody!” His smile broadened. “Holmes, the Scotland Yard Jack-in-office!” Holmes chuckled heartily.

“I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather”

In Mazarin Stone, Conan Doyle changed out the original, comic beginning of his Crown Diamond play (Holmes in drag) with a chunk of his Speckled Band play (nostalgic Watson, Billy, and a languishing Holmes).  So, as the Speckled Band was making it back to a theater in 1921, apparently Conan Doyle thought something like, “Oh, yeah.  That next-level, angst-iest thing I ever wrote about Watson and Holmes -- I can use that in The Strand.  Maybe tone it down a bit.”  

WATSON (rising): Good day, Ma'am.

WOMAN: You're not Mr. Holmes?

WATSON: No, Ma'am. I'm his friend, Dr. Watson.

WOMAN: I knew you couldn't be Mr. Holmes. I'd always heard he was a handsome man.