And the end of the dream be fair?
Ah! boy and girl, with the love-lit eyes!
Will the faith and the love remain
When only a crumbling ruin lies—
Your fallen castle in Spain?
Sydney Bulletin.
Major Namby.
By WILKIE COLLINS.
Wilkie Collins (1824–1889) was distinguished chiefly for his tendency to confront his readers with a startling and apparently inexplicable situation, and then by a process of analysis, which, at times, was worthy of Poe, effect a solution of the mystery in a manner that left one amazed by the very simplicity of it all. Shortly after the death of Mr. Collins, the London Spectator thus described his method:
“He was a literary chess-player of the first force, with power of carrying his plan right through the game and making every move tell. His method was to introduce a certain number of characters, set before them a well-defined object, such as the discovery of a secret, the revindication of a fortune, the tracking of a crime, or the establishment of a doubted marriage, and then bring in other characters to resist or counterplot their efforts. Each side makes moves, almost invariably well-considered and promising moves; the countermoves are equally good; the interest goes on accumulating till the looker-on—the reader is always placed in that attitude—is rapt out of himself by strained attention; and then there is a sudden and totally unexpected mate.”