Sept. 12, 1884.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



209 



"■^ AN ILLUSTRATED 



AGAZINEofSCIENCE 



lYWORDED-EXACTUDESCRlBMii 



LONDON: FEJDAT, SEPT. 12, 1884. 



Contents op No. 150. 



Dickens's Story Left Half Told. 



By Thomas Foster 209 



The Entomology of a Pond, {lllui,) 



By E. A. Butler 210 



The Chemistry of Cookery. XLII. 



Stimulants and Condiments. By 



W. Matlieu Williams 212 



Ships' Liuhts 213 



The Earth's Shape and Motions. 



{nius.) By Richard A. Proctor... 214 

 British Seaside Kesorts. IV. By 



Percy Russell 215 



Notes on Coal. By Richard A. 



Proctor 216 



Novel Tricycles. {Ilhtt.) By John 



Browning 217 



The International Health Eihibi- 



Hon. XT. (.Ilbia.) 218 



Other Worlds than Ours. By M. 

 de Fontenelle. With Notes by 



Richard A. Proctor 220 



Editorial Gossip 221 



Renews 222 



Face of the Sky. By F.R.A.S 222 



Correspondence : — Shooting Stars 



and Meteorites, &c 22-i 



Our Whist Column 227 



Our Chssa Colimm 228 



DICKENS'S STORY LEFT HALF TOLD. 



k QUASI SCIENTTFIC IXQCIRY INTO 



THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DEOOD. 

 Bt Thomas Foster. 



IN reply to H. E., I note that the article on " The 

 Mystery of Edwin Drood," though republished in the 

 Kno^\t.edge LibrjVry (" Leisure Readings ") did not origi- 

 nally appear in Knowledge but in the Belgraria Magazine, 

 about five years since : I do not recollect the exact date. In 

 " Leisure Readings " the article is longer by about one- 

 fourth than as it first appeared.* Let me further explain 

 that in speaking of the ai'ticle in the CornhiU JIagazine as 

 " rather feeble," I was thinking only of the way in which 

 the writer presents as a mystery' which Dickens had been 

 careful to conceal, precisely that which Dickens had been 

 most careful to suggest. In this sense, also, H. E. appeared 

 to me decidedly to place himself in the rank of those 

 " commonplace readers " whose ways Dickens understood 

 so well. Dickens himself, though he may have led Mr. 

 Fildes to think that only " a keen reader " could " ever find 

 out who and what was Mr. Datchery," had as certainly 

 conveyed to Miss Hogarth his fear lest keen readers would 

 find out the real meaning of what he called " the Datchery 

 assumption," and that with that they would recognise the 

 course along which the story was to have advanced towards 

 its end. And Dickens himself, while he knew how much or 

 how little he had consciously left open to the keener among 

 his readers, did not know how much he unconsciously 

 left open to those whose ears could take in the music of his 

 prose poetry. I venture to say that to any one possessing 

 this power the general purport of the plot of all Dickens's 

 later novels was made clearer by unconscious suggestions 

 than by any of those indications which Dickens consciously 

 left open to his keener followers. 



Before entering on the consideration of what appears to 

 me most obviously to have been Dickens's purpose and 

 meaning in his last story, let me invite H. E.'s attention to 



* It will be found that the greater part of the reasoning pre- 

 sented in this and the following papers on the subject of Dickens's 

 last story is independent of the evidence — itself I think convincing 

 — advanced in the above-mentioned article. 



the significance of the passage which he quotes from the 

 article " How Edwin Drood was illustrated," in the Century 

 Magazine for February, 1884. It disposes in the first place, 

 utterly, of H. E.'s own views, if ho admits that the central 

 crime was " never intended by the author to be a mystery," 

 — which is precisely my contention. And certainly if the 

 true interpretation of Mr. Datchery is that " he is some 

 detective," then no great keenness would be required on the 

 reader's part, for Dickens tells us as plainly as possible that 

 Datchery is some detective, though assuredly not an ordi- 

 nary detective, as H. E. opines. If the character of Datchery 

 is " an assumption," and Dickens spoke of it as such to Mr. 

 Forster and to Miss Hogarth, then apart from all other 

 evidence Datchery cannot be a professional detective ; and 

 if the " finding out who and what Mr. Datchery was " be 

 important to the elucidation of the mystery, Datchery 

 cannot be Buzzard, the only other character in the 

 story who could possibly have assumed the part, 

 except Edwin Drood himself. H. E., I see, rejects 

 as I do the idea that Datchery is Buzzard ; and I 

 may remark on this point that any one who could suppose 

 for a moment that Buzzard is Datchery would .show such 

 an utter want of appreciation of Dickens's manner and 

 methods, that it would be idle to deal with him by 

 reasoning. Datchery and Buzzard are made by Dickens to 

 be altogether difl^erent men : Datchery and Drood are made 

 by him to be as unlike as possible in all outside features ; 

 and as the great trial through which he had passed would 

 necessarily have changed Drood much in character, Dickens 

 has endeavoured to make Datchery and Drood unlike in 

 manner ; but they are as obviously the same men, as 

 Hamlet after he has seen his father's ghost is the same as 

 the Hamlet of earlier scenes. There is a quaint humour in 

 Datchery which is seen in Drood and Drood only of all the 

 characters of the story. There is a kindness to old folk 

 and to childreu, and a power of understanding their ways, 

 which is shown only in Drood (and is in words attributed 

 to him, besides being indicated in action) ; and lastly there 

 is a wistfulness associated with Datchery's humorous 

 manner which Drood alone of all the characters in the 

 opening part of the story had shown. So that Datchery 

 being by Dickens's own statement an " assumption," could be 

 no other than Drood, even if Dickens had said in so many 

 words that Drood was dead (which in his earlier manner, 

 he would not have hesitated to do, expla ini ng afterwards 

 how that meant only that he was dead in men's thoughts). 

 But it will be noticed that Drood is never once spoken of 

 as dead, either by the author, or by Grewgious, or by Rosa. 

 We have passages suggestive of death, both before and 

 after the attempted murder. We are told that " he never 

 called Rosa Pussy more, never again." Again, after we are 

 told he purposed never to return to Cloisterham, come the 

 words, "Poor youth! poor youth! "and so forth, just as 

 Dickens says that " no such being as Richard Doubledick 

 remained in the world of consciousness," that Yendale's 

 " heart had ceased to beat," and so forth. He does aU he 

 can to suggest that the murder has been successful, and lets 

 us know, in fact, that Jasper is full sure it has been suc- 

 cessful (and surely .Jasper ought to know) ; but he had 

 been just as careful to impress on his readei"s the belief 

 that Jonas Chuzzlewit had been successful in murdering 

 Anthony Chuzzlewit, and he lets us know that Jonas was 

 full sure he had been successful : yet neither in one case 

 nor in the other had the murderer's plot succeeded, as he 

 imagined. 



With regard to the terrible grief which H. E. considers 

 that Drood unnecessarily caused Rosa, he wiU find if he 

 reads the story attentively the most remarkable avoidance 

 of any words suggestive that Rosa suflered such grief as she 



