410 



♦ KNOWLEDGE . 



[Nov. 28, 1884. 



slightest hint of Dickens having remodelled big idea since 

 explaining it in covjidence to himself. Had Datcliery 

 been Edwin Drood in disguise, would not Forster (speaking 

 as be does here) have told how it was that Dickens had 

 altered his original design ? 



Which idea would an unprejudiced reader think the 

 more worthy of belief — that put forward by Mr. Foster, 

 or that supported by the testimony of Dickens's dearest 

 friend, and by Mr. Fildes, the illustrator of " Edwin 

 Drood," to say nothing of the evidence contained in the 

 tale itself ? 



However, it is only fair to examine some of Mr. 

 Foster's arguments, .since it is impossible to examine all in 

 the course of a necessarily short letter. He quotes the 

 heading of a chapter, viz., " When will these three meet 

 again t " and adds, "showing clearly that Neville, Drood, 

 and Jasper were to meet again." Where did Mr. Foster 

 learn logic 1 



He insists that the tone taken by Grewgious towards 

 Jasper, at their meeting after Edwin's disappearance, 

 admits of but one interpretation, which of course is his 

 own. But what was there to prevent Grewgious being 

 present when Neville was fir.st brought back to Cloister- 

 ham 1 If he did so see him, he might draw his own con- 

 clusions from Neville's demeanour whether he was innocent 

 or not. And if he concluded Neville to be innocent, on 

 whom should his suspicion fall but on Jasper, whose atfec 

 tion for his nephew is certainly overdone 1 The very fact 

 that Grewgious did net call on Jasper directly, and that, 

 when he iHtl call, his behaviour was almost brutal, admit 

 of the interpretation that in the interval he had learnt all 

 that Rosa and Neville could tell him, and had formed an 

 opinion which he kept to himself for the present. 



Mr. Foster has evidently a great belief in human credi- 

 bility. He asks us to believe thac Edwin is first of all 

 drugged by .Jasper (an expert in the art) ; then half- 

 strangled by the thick black scarf ; then thrown from the 

 top of the tower (albeit something conveniently breaks his 

 fall on the way); then placed in quicklime; and finally 

 locked up in the tomb in which the lime has been arrangfd. 

 Yet in spite of all this he asks us to believe that Edwin 

 (still half-strangled by the scarf) is able to shout loudly 

 enough to be heard and rescued by the drunken Durdles ! 



Is all this meant seriously, or is Mr. Foster laughing at 

 us 1 Why, cats with their nine lives are nothing to his 

 Edwin's one ! 



Again, what would Jasper's motive be in throwing 

 Edwin from the top of the great tower ? Mark the great .' 

 A body falling from such a height would to a certainty be 

 more or less mangled, and blood might be expected to 

 remain upon the ground, if nowhere else ; while Jasper in 

 the darkness would have no means of effacing any such 

 fatal traces. Supposing Mr. Foster's theory to be correct, 

 is it credible that a man like Jasper should run the risk of 

 leaving such tell-tale witnesses upon the tcene 1 Why not 

 strangle Edwin near the tomb, especially as he may be 

 supposed to have been drugged to make him less capable of 

 offering resistance ? 



" We may suppose that Durdles dragged the body out 

 of the tomb and out of the crypt." So says Mr. Foster, 

 who has here convicted him>elf. He has before said that 

 Edwin's body was placed by Jasper in Mrs. Sapsea's tomb. 

 Now, had he read the book as one would expect such an 

 appreciator of Dickens's prose poetry to read it, he would 

 have noticed that Mrs. Sapsea's tomb was not in the crypt, 

 but in the churchyard ; as is shown in two different 

 pa83age.s of the book. This error has, of course, led Mr. 

 Foster into others, especially in the concluding papers. 



Full half a year after Edwin's disappearance, Datchery 



is introduced, and ^Nlr. Foster invites — nay, bullies us to 

 believe, that Datchery is Edwin disguised. Disguised ! 

 but is it possible that in less than a year Edwin could have 

 changed so much that Jasper, the Topes, and others should 

 fail to recognise him 1 To completely disguise face, and 

 eyes, and voice, after so short an interval, would not be 

 easy ; and Datchery speaks in Jasper's presence. 



When Datchery meets with the opium woman, and 

 " reddens " as he stoops to pick up the money he has pur- 

 posely dropped, he reddens when she mentions the name 

 Edwin. From this, Mr. Foster deduces that Datchery and 

 Edwin are one and the same person. But were it so, the 

 woman's former words (before this mention of Edwin's 

 name) alone would have enabled him to identify her with 

 the woman he had befriended on that Christmas Eve ; and 

 therefore Datchery's reddening vntli gurprise at the name 

 Edwin seems to me to be the result of his suddenly 

 obtaining a clue to the mystery. The scene, to my mind, 

 helps to prove that Datchery is not Edwin. 



There are two or three questions that may fairly be 

 asked of Mr. Foster, viz : — 



Would Durdles be able to keep so momentous a secret 

 as that of having rescued a man who was locked in a tomb 

 and nearly covered with quicklime ? He could scarcely 

 have been so drunk as to forget, for he was sober enough 

 to effect the rescue ; and drunken men are scarcely the 

 ones to keep secrets. Would Deputy hold his tongue — 

 especially if a reward for information were offered ] 



How high is " the great tower " ? 



And, hardest question of all to answer satisfactorily — 

 How could Edwin in common fairness (if alive) have per- 

 mitted Neville Landless to bear for six months and more 

 the terrible suspicion of being his murderer 1 Also, would 

 not the reappearance of Edwin be somewhat of an anti- 

 climax, a mistake just as the bringing to life again of 

 Athelstane in " Ivanhoe " is felt to be a mistake ? 



Mr. Foster's conclusion does not add much to be com- 

 mented on. Grewgious's conduct about the missing ring 

 admits of another interpretation to that there put on it. 

 Knowing that Edwin had the ring, he waits to see if by it 

 Edwin's body may yet be found and identified. Jasper, he 

 argued apparently, did not know of the ring ; and to find 

 the ring is to solve the mystery ; therefore, he is for awhile 

 silent about it. In Mr. Foster's account of Jasper's re- 

 opening the tomb, he again places it in the crypt, which I 

 have pointed out to be wrong ; hence the idea of the flight 

 up the staircase is at any rate incorrectly introduced. 



The illustrations are certainly important evidence ; but 

 I fail to see that the figure in the tomb Tnust be Edwin. 

 The retribution would be terrible enough were it Neville 

 or anyone else, for .Jasper, in horrified surprise, could but 

 conclude it to be his victim brought to life to condemn him. 



Mr. Foster might write column on column to support his 

 theory ; but when coolly and impartially viewed, I cannot 

 see how it can be pronounced to be more than a highly 

 ingenious but highly unsatisfactory attempt to graft upon 

 the facts as told by Dickeus a conclusion as imagined by 

 himself. H. L. 



OPTICAL RECKEATIONS. 

 Br A Fellow of the RorAL Astrososiical Society. 



{Continued from p. 280.) 

 "1117E concluded our last article on pp. 278 et seq. with 

 V* some account of the optical effects produced by 

 the persistence of vision for a very short time after the 

 image of the object viewed actually ceases to fall on the 

 retina. We propose to-day to describe a very interesting 



