"11, MELBURY ROAD, KENSINGTON, W. "_25th October, 1890._ "DEAR SIR, "The background of the drawing of 'Durdles cautioning Sapsea,' I believe I sketched from what you call A., _i. e._ The College Gate. I am almost certain it was not taken from B., the Prior's. "The room in the drawing, 'On dangerous ground,' is imaginary. "I do not believe I entered any of the Gatehouses. "The resemblance you see in the drawing to the room in the Deanery Gatehouse (C.), might not be gained by actual observation of the _interior_. "In many instances an artist can well judge what the interior may be from studying the _outside_. I only throw this out to show that the artist may not have seen a thing even when a strong resemblance occurs. I am sorry to leave any doubt on the subject, though personally I feel none. "You see I never felt the necessity or propriety of being locally accurate to Rochester or its buildings. Dickens, of course, meant Rochester; yet, at the same time, he chose to be obscure on that point, and I took my cue from him. I always thought it was one of his most artistic pieces of work; the vague, dreamy description of the Cathedral in the opening chapter of the book. So definite in one sense, yet so locally vague. "Very faithfully yours, "LUKE FILDES. "W. R. HUGHES, ESQ." The College Yard Gate (A) must therefore be regarded as the typical Jasper's Gatehouse, but, with the usual novelist's license, some points in all three Gatehouses have been utilized for effect. So we can imagine the three friends in succession going up the "postern stair;" and, further on in the story, we can picture that mysterious "single buffer, Dick Datchery, living on his means," as a lodger in the "venerable architectural and inconvenient" official dwelling of Mr. Tope, minutely described in the eighteenth chapter of _Edwin Drood_, as "communicating by an upper stair with Mr. Jasper's," watching the unsuspecting Jasper as he goes to and from the Cathedral. Chapters twelve, fourteen, and twenty-three refer to Jasper's Gatehouse, and its proximity to the busy hum of human life, in very vivid terms, especially chapter twelve:--