Probably most people could justify a failed six-month project to themselves with, "you live, you learn". A decade of one's "most productive years" hurts quite a bit more. That decade looks a lot different in retrospect than it did when Holmes was selling it.

I'm not saying I would have done the same, in the same position. Then again, if I were the type to feel such a failure so keenly, I'd be more likely to be a top biochemist in the first place. Both parties were adults. The point of this thread is that Holmes ought to be treated as such.