Jan-. 



1685.] 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



AN ILLUSTRATED 



MAGAZINEofSCIENCE 

 PlainuWorded-ExactdtDescribed^ 



LONDON: FlUDAY, JAN, 2, 1885. 



Contents of No. 166. 



PXGB 



Dictens's Storv Left Half Told. Bv 



Richard A. i'roctor '. I 



The Entomolo^T of a Pond. (J//iw.) 



Bt E. a. BmW 2 



ParVnta a'^d Children. Bv Richard 



A. Proctor ' 3 



The Chemiftrr of Cookery. L. 



By W. Mattieu Williams 5 



Xeoded Star Sorrers. Bj R. A. 



Procter ." 7 



Chapters on Modem Domestic 



Economr. IX 8 



Electroplatins: In the Bath and Out 



of It. BjW. SUogo 9 1 



¥A61 



Chats on Geometrical, Measurement. 



{lUus.) By R. A. Proctor 10 



Tricyclinp in 1884. By John 



Browning 11 



Edirorial Gossip 12 



Reviews : Custom and Mjth— Some 



Books on our Table 13 



Fac." of the Sky. By F.R.A.S 15 



Correspondence: To oh]it,M Mr. 

 Kinns — Dickens's Hulf-Told Story 

 — Our Dual Brain — The lOye the 



onlv Colour-box, iV;-' 1(» 



Our inventors' Column 1J> 



Oar Chess Colomn 20 



DICKENS'S STORY LEFT HALF TOLD. 



By Eichaud A. PiiocroR. 



AN apology ia due to rc\y friend Mr. Foster, for the 

 introduction of " H. L.'a " letter about Dickens's 

 llalf-Told Story, among the articles in Kkowledoe for 

 November 28. It was open to " H. L." to reply in a letter 

 to ilr. Foster's criticisms, and had I been at home -when 

 his letter arrived I would willingly have found space for it; 

 but it was manifestly a mistake to treat the letter in such 

 a way as to convey the idea that Mr. Foster's careful and 

 elaborate investigation of Dickens's last work was intended 

 merely as a reply to " H. L." For this mistake, which 

 occurred in my absence, Mr. Foster has my sipologirs. 



Of course, Mr. Foster does not propose to enter into any 

 discussion of the suliject with " H. L," who takes so hope- 

 lessly prosaic a view of Dickens's melodramatic ttory that 

 controversy with him would be idle. Mr. Foster's inter- 

 pretation of the mystery was published seven or eight years 

 ago, and his recent papers in these columns were simply in- 

 tended to present the evidence afresh, with somewhat 

 greater fulness of detail as respects certain portions of the 

 story than had been possible in the pages of the Ikhjravia 

 Maga-Ane. 



The only points to be noticed in " H. L.'s" recent com- 

 munication (outside its rather truculent tone) are points of 

 detail. As to the manner of .Jasper's attack on Drood, 

 ilr. Foster has but an opinion, which is as likely to be 

 wrong as right. Dickens gives very little information on 

 this point, and guesses about it are as difficult as guesses 

 would be about the pattern of Edwin's waistcoat on the 

 occasion. A passage in Jasper's dreamy talk to the opium- 

 woman suggests that Jasper looked down on the body from 

 a height ; and the nocturnal climb up the great staircase 

 seems to suggest that .Jasper had some purpcse up there. 

 Unquestionably, if Drood had been killed in a fall from 

 the tower and Jasper had not been able to remove the 

 body to the tomb he had chosen, and to get rid ofall traces 

 of the murder, there would still have been no manner of 

 risk to .Jasper himself, for "dead men tell no tales," and 

 an accident would have Vjeen the accepted explanation. He 

 would simply have failed in bringing suspicion on Neville 

 as his full scheme, successfully carried out as he supposed, 



enabled him to do. As for the appeal to what " 11. L. ' 

 calls "human credibility," — meaning probably "credulity,' 

 — any one who has read " No Thoroughfare " will llnd there 

 precisely the same sort of appeal. A murderous villain, 

 very much of Jas|ier'» type, armed with a dagger, attacks a 

 \ictim so drugged as to be helpless, on tho edge of an ice- 

 bound piecipice. Yet despite the danger from tho [loison, 

 the dagger, the fall from the precipice, and the nnowp, 

 which last actually cause the poor fellow's death if it means 

 anything to say tliat "hi.s heart stood still" (not for a 

 moment but hmg enough to show that he was dead it' 

 he could be killed), this victim of Dickens's ingi'uuity conus 

 all right again, to confront his murderer as Drood was to 

 have confronted his. 



I studied with Mr. Fester, years since, tho cathedral 

 which was tho original of Cloi^terllam, and there can bo 

 no doubt of tho pi ssibility of such escape as Mr. Foster 

 has suggested. But neither he nor 1 regard the manner of 

 the attack on Drood as inferrible from the story. 



The writing of " crypt " for " churchyard," by which, 

 says "II. L." politely but vaguely, Mr. Foster " ha.s con- 

 victed himself" (of something not defined), was a manifest 

 slip of the pen having no bearing whatever on Mr. Foster's 

 views. 



I write so much, partly because my absence from London 

 led to the mistake for which I have had to apologise, partly 

 because I myself published in the columns of an evening 

 paper, a solution of the mystery of Edwin Drood which is 

 to all intents and purposes the sanu; as Mr. Foster's, — a 

 little before the appearance of tho article in the Jlefc/ravia 

 iVaga-Jne, if I remember rightly. 



i may add that during the last seven or eight" years 1 

 have talked over Dickens's last story with many (I should 

 suppose with hundreds) of readers and lovers of Dickens's 

 stories ; and I think I am not exaggerating in saying that 

 certainly nineteen out of twenty accept the identity of 

 Datchery and Drood, so soon as it is suggested, as obviously 

 the true interpretation. About one-tenth say that they 

 never had any doubt about Datchery being Drood from the 

 very introduction of the Datchery assumption, — my own 

 experience. I think no one who has really studied 

 Dickens's other stories, and learned his ways, can have 

 much doubt on the subject, even unhelped by suggestions 

 from others. Mr. Foster's experience has Ijeen similar. 



"H. L.'s" letter does not really touch on the true evidence 

 in the matter of the Mystery of Edwin Drood. He mis- 

 understands Mr. Foster's ideas, — as for instance in sup- 

 posing that Datchery reddened " with surprise " (which he 

 even italieis-ts) and that Datchery — i.e. Drood — did not 

 recognise the old woman at once. So when he asks " Where 

 did Mr. Foster learn logic?" he clearly misapprehends Mr. 

 Foster's remark that Neville, Drood, and Jasper were cer- 

 tainly to meet again. Mr. Foster is drawing an inference 

 from Dickens's well-known ways in regard to the headings 

 of chapters, itc. When Dickens heads a chapter " When 

 will these three meet again 'i " those who understand 

 Dickens know certainly that tho three will meet again, 

 and that when they meet the crisis of the story will have 

 come. Of course, one does not expect " II. L." to see 

 this. 



The ideas formed liy the more prosaic reaflers, including 

 "II. L." (who must by no means imagine that liis article 

 in the Cornhi'l Ifaf/azinc contained more tlian the infer- 

 ences from what Dickens intended to lie on the face of hia 

 story *) are somewhat as follows, — 



The quaintly humorous, gentlemanly, sympathetic, and 



* Miss Meyrick, author of tlic article in tlie (Vniu/i/ to whicli 

 " n. !,.■' refers frays that tho idea of Datchery being Prood will ho 

 coriccted hy a careless reading of the story: t'.iat is nearer I lie 



