Scott has left us the astonishing statement {184} that ‘I have generally written to the middle of one of these novels without having the least idea how it was to end.’ Mr. Skene, a true friend of Sir Walter Scott, tells us {185} that when Scott described to him the scheme which he had formed for _Anne of Geierstein_, he suggested to him that he might with advantage connect the history of René, king of Provence, in which subject Skene had special means of helping him. Scott accepted the suggestion, ‘and the whole _dénouement_ of the story of _Anne of Geierstein_ was changed, and the Provence part woven into it, in the form in which it ultimately came forth.’ Was Dickens in the same case when death interrupted him in his work? Was this an ‘apoplectic’ novel? Scott speaks frankly of _Count Robert of Paris_ and _Castle Dangerous_ being his ‘apoplectic books.’ Does _Edwin Drood_ bear the same relation to the body of Dickens’s work as _Count Robert of Paris_ and _Castle Dangerous_ bear to the Waverley Novels? Mr. Lang, whose views on this subject varied much, in one of his later writings takes the view that Dickens was deeply embarrassed. He says: ‘It is melancholy to think of this great and terribly overtasked genius tormented by fears that were only too real.’ He finds the story wandering on, living from hand to mouth, full of absurdities. He thinks that Dickens was very capable of changing his original purpose, and saving the life of Edwin. There is no doubt that Dickens was puzzled about the order of his chapters. Forster tells us that Dickens ‘became a little nervous about the course of the tale from a fear that he might have plunged too soon into the incidents leading on to the catastrophe such as the Datchery assumption (a misgiving he had certainly expressed to his sister-in-law).’ I have already expressed agreement with Dr. Jackson in his plan for renumbering the chapters. Unless this plan is adopted there is chronological confusion. Also there is no doubt that Dickens had been working under terrific strain. But the testimony of those who knew him best is that his faculties were never brighter and stronger than they were in his last months.