have disproved my old objection that there was no reason why Drood,
if alive, should go spying about in disguise. There were good
Dickensian reasons.


A QUESTION OF TASTE


Mr. Cuming Walters argues that the story is very tame if Edwin is
still alive, and left out of the marriages at the close. Besides,
"Drood is little more than a name-label, attached to a body, a man
who never excites sympathy, whose fate causes no emotion, he is
saved for no useful or sentimental purpose, and lags superfluous on
the stage. All of which is bad art, so bad that Dickens would
never have been guilty of it."

That is a question of taste. On rereading the novel, I see that
Dickens makes Drood as sympathetic as he can. He is very young,
and speaks of Rosa with bad taste, but he is really in love with
her, much more so than she with him, and he is piqued by her
ceaseless mockery, and by their false position. To Jasper he is
singularly tender, and remorseful when he thinks that he has shown
want of tact. There is nothing ominous about his gaiety: as to
his one fault, we leave him, on Christmas Eve, a converted
character: he has a kind word and look for every one whom he
meets, young and old. He accepts Mr. Grewgious's very stern
lecture in the best manner possible. In short, he is marked as
faulty-- "I am young," so he excuses himself, in the very words of
Darnley to Queen Mary! (if the Glasgow letter be genuine); but he
is also marked as sympathetic.