November 1, 1887.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



WATCHED BY THE DEAD.* 



X an essay on "A Novelist's Favourite Theme," t 

 the present writer has shown that in all 

 Dickens's novels except "Oliver Twist" (''Pick- 

 wick " was not a novel), he presented the 

 jucture of a villain or a hypocrite, watched by 

 one whom he despised or regarded lis;;htly, b'lt 

 by whom be was eventually brought to justice. 

 We might even have included " Oliver Twist," if it be considered 

 how little either Sikes or Fagin suspect the watch by which 

 Nancy defeats the projects of the craftier villain and of his 

 dupe Monks. However, the theme is so repeatedly worked 

 into the plots of Dickens's chief works that it was hardly 

 necessary to note a slighter use of it such as this, except by 

 way of showing that the whole series of stories, long and 

 short, is thus accounted for. No one can doubt, we think, 

 after he has examined all the evidence collected in the 

 mentioned essay, that there was something enthralling for 

 Dickens in this thought of a steadfast watch by an unseen 

 or unnoted enemy, a constant danger lurking where no 

 danger at all was suspected. 



It will have been noticed further, by those who followed 

 us through the survey of Dickens's works in search for this 

 theme, that repeated reference was made to the use of Dickens's 

 favourite idea in his last, but unfinished, work. There, it 

 seems to us, the theme was to have been introduced in its 

 most striking form, in that form which Dickens himself had 

 mentioned in '• Martin Chuzzlewit " as most terrible to 

 think of. Dickens had pictured in his latest completed 

 novel a man supposed to be murdered, but really alive, and 

 watching the ajssociates of the dead murderer of the man 

 mistaken for him ; and therein he had come very near to the 

 idea he had pictured as the most terrible of all forms of his 

 favourite theme. How he had enjoyed this embodiment of 

 his theme one sees in reading the scene where the inspector 

 proposes to arrest Harmon as an accessory in his own sup- 

 posed murder. Of all the strange experiences Mr. Inspector 

 had had, that he admits was the strangest. It had for him, 

 Dickens tells us, all the interest of a clever conundrum, the 

 answer to which he had been utterly unable to guess, and, 

 " giving it up," had been told. Here Dickens had come as 

 near as he had till then found it possible to come to the 

 supreme horror — that the dead should confront his mur- 

 derer — not onlv (as in " Our Mutual Friend ") some man 

 supposed to be murdered should confront the associates of 

 the supposeil murderer, nor even that a mau supposed to be 

 dead should confront a murderer, but that a man supposed 

 to be murdered should keep untiring watch upon the man 

 who supposed himself the murderer. Running through our 

 former essay will be found the idea that this supreme horror 

 was to have been wrought into the plot of Dickens's last 

 novel, and that there is sufficient evidence in the work even 

 in its incomplete state to show this. 



We propose now, not to examine the story in detail in 

 regard to the mystery of Edwin Drood's fate, which would 

 occupy much more space than could here be sjiared, but to 

 touch on certain features of the story which have hitherto 

 been little noticed, if they have been noticed at all, and to 

 consider certain general principles in regard to the interpre- 

 tation of mysteries such as those involved in this fine un- 

 finished novel. 



First, the author's idiosyncrasies must in all such cases be 

 considered very carefully. Some novelists like to disclose 

 the meaning of the events described earl}' in a story, so as 



* This article, tinder the title " Aftermath," forms the last 

 chapter of a little book presently to be pabli.shed by Messrs. W. H. 

 Allen & Co., under the title " Watched by the Dead." 



t Cornkill Magazine for March 1886. 



to leave the reader in no manner of doubt as to the real 

 position of affairs. Thackeray had few secrets from his 

 readers ; and accordingly the story which he left unfinished 

 leaves no more doubt as to the ending than if it had been 

 completed and the reader had turned to the last chapter 

 before he had reached the end of the first volume. Dickens's 

 method was difierent. He always left his readers — even the 

 keenest — in doubt as to the actual interpretation of mys- 

 terious matters introduced early in the story, and as to the 

 precise way in which the story was to end. But he was 

 careful, nevertheless, to introduce a number of little details 

 which were afterwards found to have been significant even 

 on these points, and to have been quite clear for clear- 

 sighted readers on some matters which the duller readers 

 supposed to be mysterious. For instance, while I suppose 

 no one guesses up to the last chapter of " Little Dorrit " the 

 nature of the plot in which Eigaud-Blandois, Flintwinch, 

 and Mrs. Clennam were concerned, or the v.^ay in which the 

 story is to end, yet every one of any keenness knows that 

 the old house is to fall before the story ends. Dickens not 

 only made that clear, he meant to make it clear. By a 

 curious accident, the fall of a house excited a great deal of 

 attention a few days before the last section of " Little 

 Dorrit " appeared, and sevenxl newspaper critics asserted 

 that Dickens had cleverly availed himself of the interest in 

 that catastrophe to add an effective scene to his novel. He 

 pointed out, however, that he had been at the pains again 

 and again to describe the premonitions of the coming fate 

 of the old house. And every attentive reader had known 

 that the house was doomed. 



We may faii-lv assume, then, that in like manner the de- 

 tails of "'The Mystery of Edwin Drood " were concealed; and 

 the actual end of the story was not revealed except to Miss 

 Hogarth, and in part to Mr. Forster, while, nevertheless, 

 the broader features of the mystery were not hidden from 

 the keener class of readers, whose enjoyment of the story 

 Dickens well knew would be enhanced by the i-ecognition of 

 the general character of the plot. Dickens did, indeed, 

 express to Miss Hogarth the fear that the Datchery 

 assumption had been so handled in the last chapter (written) 

 as to disclose too much ; but he could hardly have intended 

 it to disclose nothing. No one knew better than he the zest 

 with which those who really appreciated his work would enjoy 

 the humour and pathos of this assumption. He would not 

 have left his best readers to obtain this pleasure (the kind of 

 pleasure which is most noteworthy in the reading of all his 

 novels), from a second reading, after the plot was known, as 

 with the duller readers of his stories was commonly the case. 

 The keenest reader would have — or rather we must unfor- 

 tunately say, the keenest reader has — quite enough to 

 interest him in the way of unexplained mystery ; but the 

 general interpretation of the " Datchery assumption " cannot 

 be mistaken by any who have really studied Dickens's ways. 



Albeit we may pause here for a moment to ask how far 

 any novel, turning chiefly on a great mystery, might have 

 been interpreted if the writer's pen had been dL'-.abled ere 

 yet the work was completed. We have already done this 

 "with one of Dickens's own works, and we may find another 

 example in " Our Mutual Friend." Does any one from the 

 beginning doubt that Julius Handford, .John Rokesmith, 

 and John Harmon are one and the same person ? Can any 

 one imagine that Dickens did not mean his readers to note 

 the confusion of Handford under the inspector's questioning, 

 and to see even at that early stage that the body found by 

 Gaffer Hexham is not really John Harmon's. But if that 

 point had been overlooked, a number of others would have 

 been decisive that the whole plot of the story was to turn 

 on the " Rokesmith assumption," and that John Rokesmith 

 was no other than John Harmon. Mrs. Boflin's sudden 



