Note 74 — SUSPENDED ANIMATION.

Objection has been taken to the italicized words in the following passage from "No Thoroughfare" (one of the parts certainly written by Dickens and not by Wilkie Collins): "The cry came up: 'His heart still beats against mine. I warm him in my arms. I have cast off the rope, for the ice melts under us, and the rope would separate me from him; but I am not afraid.' ... The cry came up, 'We are sinking lower, but his heart still beats against mine.' ... The cry came up, 'We are sinking still, and we are deadly cold. His heart no longer beats against mine. Let no one come down to add to our weight. Lower the rope only.' ... The cry came up with a deathly silence, 'Raise! softly!' ... She broke from them all and sank over him on his litter, with both her loving hands upon the heart that stood still." It has been supposed that Dickens wilfully departed here from truth, in order to leave the impression on the reader that Vendale was assuredly dead. That he wished to convey this impression is obvious. He often showed similar care to remove, if possible, all hope from the anxious reader's mind (markedly so in his latest and unfinished work, where nevertheless any one well acquainted with Dickens's manner knows not only that Drood is alive, but that disguised as Datchery he was to have watched Jasper to the end). But in reality, it has happened more than once that persons have been restored to life who have been found in snow-drifts not merely reduced to complete insensibility, but without any recognisable heart-beat. Dickens had probably heard of such cases when in Switzerland.