Those who more or less strongly still believe that Dickens meant to spare Edwin rest their case mainly on a subjective impression. Says Dr. James: ‘On the other hand, whether the result would be a piece of “bad art” or not, I do think it is more in Dickens’s manner to spare Edwin than to kill him. The subjective impression that he is not doomed is too strong for me to dismiss.’ {122} It is difficult to argue against a subjective impression. The fact remains that Edwin Drood becomes superfluous. He has effected no lodgment in any human heart. Mr. Walters says that Drood is little more than a name-label attached to a body, a man who never excites sympathy, and whose fate causes no emotion. Proctor, who believes that Edwin Drood survived, admits that he lived unpaired. ‘Rosa was to give her hand to Tartar, Helena Landless to Crisparkle, while Edwin and Mr. Grewgious were to look on approvingly, though Edwin a little sadly.’ Mr. Lang in the Gadshill edition of Dickens wrote: ‘Edwin and Neville are quarrelsome cubs, not come to discretion, and the fatuity of Edwin, though not exaggerated much, makes him extremely unsympathetic.’ But in his book on the subject Mr. Lang changes his view and writes: ‘On re-reading the novel I find that Dickens makes Drood as sympathetic as he can.’ Thus impressions alter. Gillan Vase, in her continuation of the story would make us believe that on Edwin’s reappearance Rosa transferred her heart from Tartar to her old lover! But taking the story as it stands, we see that the sorrow for his death is not deep, and that no heart is broken by his disappearance. Rosa is consoled, and more than consoled. Helena grieves for her brother, and flings a shield over Rosa. Neville and Edwin have never been good friends. Grewgious has cheerfully acquiesced in, if he has not instigated, the breaking of the engagement between Rosa and Edwin. The appropriate explanation is: ‘Poor youth! Poor youth!’ That is all. It has been suggested that there is a parallel between _No Thoroughfare_ and _Edwin Drood_. According to Proctor it is suggested clearly in _No Thoroughfare_ that Vendale has been murdered beyond all seeming hope. Proctor’s real argument seems to be that Vendale is not marked for death, and does not die, and that Edwin Drood belongs to the same class. He says that Nell and Paul, Richard Carson and the other characters who die in Dickens’s stories are marked for death from the beginning, but that there is not one note of death in all that Edwin does or says. I believe that this is entirely contrary to the facts. There are some who like Edwin, but none who love him. He is hated by his uncle, and hated perhaps by Neville.