ABSTRACT
Mr. Wilkie Collins has the art of telling a secret at greater length than any one else, whether writer or merely speaker, that we have ever happened to come across. He wins his audience, as a clever child draws away her companions from their games, by the promise of telling them a secret; but when they are caught he does not quite so quickly let them go. The secret fills three whole volumes. We doubt, however, if it altogether repays the trouble of getting at it. Mr. Collins has done well in first publishing the story in weekly parts; for we should imagine any reader of common sense, when once he had the story in his hand, would save himself the labour of following the lengthy clue by going to the end by the shortest of all cuts. Mr. Collins perhaps has the same excuse as the sign-painter who, whatever was the name of the inn that he was hired to adorn, painted every sign a red lion, for the good reason that a red lion was all he had learnt to paint. So Mr. Collins tells secrets, for secrets are all that he has learnt to tell. Characters he cannot draw, and manners he cannot sketch. He can tie knots that are almost as ingenious as the knot of Gordius, and can form a puzzle that would be no discredit to a Chinaman. Untying knots and unravelling puzzles is at best but very dull work, though to people of a sluggish mind it would seem to be as pleasant as any other occupation. Mr. Collins begins to tie his knot in the first page of his story; he spends the reader’s time by giving him clue after clue, each of which turns out to be a false one; and does not let him unravel the mystery till the last chapter has been reached….
