Jan. 



1885] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



17 



but from Datchery's resemblauce to tbo missing mnu. Dickens 

 knew well bow easily a man may bo ilisjjoisod so tbat ovon his own 

 friends sball not know bim, — if ho is discrnisect in such a way tbat 

 attention is directed to peculiarities. Nolo how carefully even 

 the keen Cavaletto had to waich before ho detected the marked 

 features of Uigaud under a comparatively comtnonplaco disguise. 

 "Fancy Drood sauntering about Clois'ierbam with a largo grey wig 

 on I " says '* J. B." Well ! fancy Uigaud-Blandois sauntering before 

 his unondam fellow-prisoner disguised as an elderly man ! 



I contend, not that no one ever speaks of Drood as dead, but that 

 tbe whole toneof t^rewgious and lu>sa implies that they know bim 

 to be alive. But I cannot make '' J. B." catch tho meaning of this 

 tone, any more than a musician can show a person not possessed of 

 musical knowledge tbat sounds coming from a band contain such 

 and snch tones produced by such and such instruments. 



" J. B. "agrees with " U. L." tbat the illustrations on tho cover 

 prove nothing, for "Dickens wculd not have published them" if 

 they represent Edwin's escape and reappearance on the scene. 

 Would he not? Have "J. B." or " H. L." never, by chance, seen 

 the covers on the monthly numbers of "Martin Chuzzlowil" and 

 others of his stories, or noticed how much of the development of 

 the story was thus illustrated from the beginning ? Dickens knew 

 that readers not keen enough to see the working of his plot as be 

 went on would find no meaning in such sketches, suggestive though 

 they were to the keener sort. Bnt, fay,9 "J B.," Dickens feared 

 the story was being unfolded too rapidly. That fear was only 

 exprpssed to Miss Hogarth when Datcbery had already appeared 

 on the scene, months after Dickens bad instructed Fildes what to 

 show on tho cover (of course witliout giving Fildes the least inkling 

 as to the meaning of these little I'ictures). By the way, it was I 

 who called attention to tbe significance of Dickens's anxiety. 

 Perhaps " J. B." or "' H. L." can explain why Dickens should 

 have spoken of the " Datchery assumption," if Datchery were not 

 an assumed part, as the detective notion implies ; or why, if 

 Datchery had been .a detective only, Dickens should have felt the 

 least anxiety as to his plot being interpreted. If Datchery were ' 

 only a detective, or indeed were any one bnt Drood, the progress of 

 the plot might have been in any direction whatever; and certainly 

 no light would have been thrown on the mystery. But Dickens 

 knew that the detection of the identity of Datchery and Drood 

 wonld indicate the direction of the plot to the very end. 



Grewgious is at no time genial, " J. B." thinks. If Grewgions 

 was not a special favourite of Dickens's and meant to be as much 

 liked as Tom Pinch, or even better, I know nothing of Dickens's 

 ways. Tet I cannot recall a single instance in which, when reading 

 bis later novels, I have failed to see from the beginning what 

 Dickens meant each character to be. There were readers of " Our 

 Mntual Friend" so dull as to imagine Silas Wegg a genial character; 

 and such readers doubtless imagine Grewgious not genial : you 

 wonld never persuade them he was one of the kindliest of men. 



"J. B." and "H. L." both assume that Durdles and Deputy know 

 all about the plot according to my interpretation. On tho con- 

 trary, I doubt if Dickens meant that they should be found to have 

 known anything directly related to it. But Durdles was a secretive 

 person any way, and what be knew he could very well have kept to 

 himself "' for a consideration." 



"J. B.'s" last remark that Datchery reddened because he 

 stooped may be commended to all who know Dickens's way as an 

 exquisite jest. Dickens would as soon have thought of mentioning 

 that when Datchery stooped, the centre of gravity of his body was 

 displaced, as to have referred — without a special object — to tlie 

 circumstance that "a man of Datchery's age and build" (how 

 mncb is told us on either point, by the way ?) would " redden when 

 he stooped." The stooping and reddening were brought in for a 

 purpose, after Dickens's customary manner. But neither " H. L." 

 nor " J. B." would notice this. 



The real mystery, I fancy, in regard to " U. L." and " J. B." 

 (and a few others) is, how they can have overlooked ITie real inter- 

 pretation of the story, which once shown seems obWous. But 

 Dickens knew all about this. As he said when the fall of the old 

 house at the close of " Little Dorrit" proved so startling to many 

 that they supposed it was tuggestcd by an event which chanced to 

 occnr about that time. The story was full of indications from tho 

 very beginning that the old house was to fall, yet these indications 

 had been overlooked by most as if they had had no existence. This 

 carelessness Dickens came to regard aa customary, and he trusted 

 in it with confidence. 



Bat "J. B." wants the explanation of the mystery of Edwin 

 Drood to be "commonplace enough" for his comprehension, and 

 it was Fcarcely a part of Dickens's plan to mak.e the story quite so 

 commonplace as that. It is just such readers who repeat the 

 commonplace notion that Edwin Drood is an uninteresting story. 

 Longfellow better understood bis fellow-poet's work when he pro- 

 notmced it the best thing Dickens had yet done. Thomas Foster. 



THE 7.0D1.VCAL LlGiri". 



[lolil]— The Zodiacal Light was seen hero for the lir.sl time this 

 winter on December 13, which is early. It is distinct, brighter than 

 the Milky Way. llAi.LYARns. 



lV)rni('. Loire Infi'riettre, Franco. 



OUIl DU.VL BRAIN. 



[l,")5t>] Your notes in these articles as to Ihe idea that part of 

 our lives have been lived before have interested mo nuieli, as [ 

 have often experienced it, and thought somewhat over tho pheno- 

 mena. In some cases I have been able to trace it to droams (1 

 dream very vividly, and every night), but only as to places, and then 

 not satisfactorily. The phenoiriena with me are asfollows; — Insteail 

 of jmying attention to what is going on, 1113' mind is oei'upied with 

 something else, and I only hear anrl see, but withotit really jiaying 

 any attention. On suddenly being compelled lo do so, 1 am, as it. 

 were, in a trance or nightmare, feeling that all has passed before 

 is known to me, aUluimjh 1 am unahle to tell wluit is coming. I 

 seem to know, and when come it is as I expected. I have not tried 

 to produce tho effect, but think I could do so. 



Often when reading, a similar phenomenon takes iilaee. I read, 

 my mind wanders; 1 know nothing of what I have read, but on 

 reading it again I remember 1 have reail it before. 



It seems to me now, after reading your reniai ks, that one por- 

 tion (tlie lesser, or weaker, or less intelligent) of my Ijniiii takes in 

 w-hat has passed, whilst tho other, which is the higher and more im- 

 portant, is otherwise employed. On the sudden mental exertion to 

 comprehend the matter fully, the lesser communicates to the 

 higher suddenly, like a flash of lightning. 



John Ale.x. Ollakd. 



POLITICS IN AMERICA— AM) KLSEWUERE. 



[1551] — Anent your remarks as to tho different lights in which 

 Americans regard their Pi'esident before and after election, might 

 I venture to draw your attention to the following extr.aot from Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer's last work, " Tho Man versus tho State" ? — 



Mr. Spencer draws attention to the change of feeling which 

 " comes over constituencies when, from boroughs and counties, 

 their members pass to tho Legislative Chamber." He then pro- 

 ceeds : — "While before them as candidates, they are, by one or 

 other party, jeered at, liinipooned, ' heckled,' and in all ways treated 

 with utter disrespect. But as soon as they assemble at West- 

 minster, thoso against whom taunts and invectives, charges of 

 incompetence and folly, had been showered from ])res3 and ])lat- 

 forni, excite unliTuited faith. Judging from the pr.iyers made to 

 them, there is nothing which their wisdom and their power cannot 

 compass." 



Human nature is alike all tho world over. No doubt the ovil is 

 far more apparent in the American Presidential election than in our 

 own Parliamentary election ; but I believe that if Englishmen had 

 to elect a President, all the abuse which is now divided among 

 hundreds of Parliamentary candidates would bo centi'ed upon the 

 few Presidential candidates, and that we should bo not one whit 

 better than our "American cousins." A. F. Osborne. 



Uxbridge, Dec. 19, 1881.. 



[Admitting fully the truth of what Mr. Herbert Spencer says, no 

 impartial man would contend that anything like the gross per- 

 sonal invective and intrusion into the privacy of a candidate's life 

 that characterises an American I'residential election has ever been 

 found, or would ever for ,an instant be tolerated, in England. — Eo.] 



THE EYE THE ONLY COLOUR-BOX. 



[155:i] — An interesting letter on this seeming paradox, from tbe 

 pen of Mr. Cave Thomas, appeared in the penultimate number of 

 Knowledge. In it Mr. Thomas expresses his surprise that meta- 

 physicians have hitherto made so little of this startling scientific 

 fact. It may not bo without interest to the readers of Knowledge 

 to be informed that for many years past I havo been elaborating a 

 system of life and mind, or its strict correlation — the world and 

 man — on tho same principles. This synthesis I term the brain- 

 theory of mind and matter, otherwise hylo-idecilism, hylo-phenome- 

 nalism, autopsism, egoism, or autology. Its stand-point is the old 

 JTC-Socratic Protagorean one which the sophist of Abdera formu- 

 lated in the terms, "Man is tho standard of all things and nothings 

 to man." I go a step further, and say " The univerna is myself," 

 no mind being able to transcend itself, and all the universe of 

 which it can have access to is that "imaginary" ideal or phono- 

 menal one created by its own self-consciousness. This theory, if 

 traced through all its ramifications, will bo found to bo of pro- 

 foundly vital itnportauco in the domain both of speculative and 

 practical science and philosophy. 



