YOUR no­tice of Dr. Fen­nel's "mite to­wards the clear­er ap­pre­ci­a­tion of a mas­ter­piece" tempts me to offer an­oth­er "mite." To un­der­stand 'Drood' we must con­sid­er Dick­ens's meth­ods in 'Great Ex­pec­ta­tions.' In 'Great Ex­pec­ta­tions' Dick­ens through about half the tale bluffed glo­ri­ous­ly and suc­cess­ful­ly. Had it been trun­cat­ed in the mid­dle of its ap­pear­ance, as was 'Drood,' every one would still be­lieve that Pip's in­come came from the strange old lady in the cu­ri­ous big house. Dick­ens built up a scheme of things for the sheer joy of shat­ter­ing it. He was le­git­i­mate­ly and splen­did­ly a gi­gan­tic bluffer of his read­ers. He took the same course in 'Drood,' with every like­li­hood of mak­ing an even more tri­umphant ef­fect. In 'Great Ex­pec­ta­tions' what till then had been the con­trol­ling idea of the tale was smashed in the mid­dle of the book.

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