For the rest, Wilkie
Collins is these two elements: the mechanical and the mystical; both
very good of their kind. He is one of the few novelists in whose case it
is proper and literal to speak of his "plots." He was a plotter; he went
about to slay Godfrey Ablewhite as coldly and craftily as the Indians
did. But he also had a sound though sinister note of true magic; as in
the repetition of the two white dresses in _The Woman in White_; or of
the dreams with their double explanations in _Armadale_. His ghosts do
walk. They are alive; and walk as softly as Count Fosco, but as solidly.
Finally, _The Moonstone_ is probably the best detective tale in the
world.
Anthony Trollope, a clear and very capable realist, represents rather
another side of the Victorian spirit of comfort; its leisureliness, its
love of detail, especially of domestic detail; its love of following
characters and kindred from book to book and from generation to
generation. Dickens very seldom tried this latter experiment, and then
(as in _Master Humphrey's Clock_) unsuccessfully; those magnesium blazes
of his were too brilliant and glaring to be indefinitely prolonged.
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