The disadvantages of this mystery-mongering have been pointed out by Poe
with his wonted acuteness in his criticism of 'Barnaby Rudge.' After
retelling the plot of Dickens's contorted narrative, and after putting
the successive episodes into their true sequence, Poe asserted that "the
thesis of the novel may thus be regarded as based upon curiosity," and
he declared that "every point is so arranged as to perplex the reader
and whet his desire for elucidation." He insisted "that the secret be
well kept is obviously necessary," because if it leaks out "against the
author's will, his purposes are immediately at odds and ends." Then he
remarked that altho "there can be no question that ... many points ...
which would have been comparatively insipid even if given in full detail
in a natural sequence, are endued with the interest of mystery; but
neither can it be denied that a vast many more points are at the same
time deprived of all effect, and become null, through the impossibility
of comprehending them without the key." In other words, the novelist has
chosen to sacrifice to the fleeting interest which is evoked only by
wonder the more abiding interest which is aroused by the clear
perception of the inter-play of character and motive. Poe suggested that
even 'Barnaby Rudge'--in spite of its author's efforts to keep secret
the real springs of action which controlled the characters--if taken up
a second time by a reader put into possession of all that had been
concealed, would be found to possess quadruple brilliance, "a brilliance
unprofitably sacrificed at the shrine of the keenest interest of mere
mystery."

Dickens was not the last novelist of note to be tempted and to fall
into this snare. In the 'Disciple,' and again in 'André Cornélis' M.
Paul Bourget was lured from the path of psychologic analysis into the
maze of mystery-mongering; but he had the tact to employ his secrets to
excite interest only in the beginning of what were, after all, studies