we remember that but for his nephew he was a lonely man; when we
see that he was both criminal and artist; when we observe his own
wheedling propensity, his false and fulsome protestations of
affection, his slyness, his subtlety, his heartlessness, his
tenacity; and when, above all, we know that the opium vice is
HEREDITARY, and that a YOUNG man would not be addicted to it unless
born with the craving; {5} then, it is not too wild a conjecture
that Jasper was the wayward progeny of this same opium-eating
woman, all of whose characteristics he possessed, and, perchance,
of a man of criminal instincts, but of a superior position. Jasper
is a morbid and diseased being while still in the twenties, a
mixture of genius and vice. He hates and he loves fiercely, as if
there were wild gipsy blood in his veins. Though seemingly a model
of decorum and devoted to his art, he complains of his "daily
drudging round" and "the cramped monotony of his existence." He
commits his crime with the ruthlessness of a beast, his own nature
being wholly untamed. If we deduce that his father was an
adventurer and a vagabond, we shall not be far wrong. If we deduce
that his mother was the opium-eater, prematurely aged, who had
transmitted her vicious propensity to her child, we shall almost
certainly be right."


WHO WAS JASPER?


Who was Jasper? He was the brother-in-law of the late Mr. Drood, a
respected engineer, and University man. We do not know whence came
Mrs. Drood, Jasper's sister, but is it likely that her mother
"drank heaven's-hard"--so the hag says of herself--then took to