ind himself at
liberty to choose which room he should be cognizant of, would depend
of course on whether he was maintaining the same point of view
throughout his story or was selecting it anew for every scene. In the
first case, the one character whom he could see would be determined in
advance: in the other, he should have to decide from the point of view
of which of them that special scene could be the more effectively set
forth.

The attitude of limited omniscience is more easy to maintain than that
of a god-like mind intimately cognizant of all the characters at once;
and furthermore, the employment of the more restricted point of view
is more likely to produce the illusion of life. In actual experience,
we see only one mind internally,--our own; all other people we look
upon externally: and a story, therefore, which lays bare to us one
mind and only one is more in tune with life itself than a story in
which many minds are searched by an all-seeing eye. Also, a story told
in the third person from the point of view which has been illustrated
from Jane Austen's novels enjoys nearly every advantage of a
narrative told in the first person by the leading actor, without being
encumbered by certain of the most noticeable disadvantages.

For the sake of concreteness, however, it is often advisable for the
author writing in the third person to restrict his point of view still
further, and, foregoing absolutely the prerogative of omniscience, to
limit himself to an attitude merely observant and entirely external
to all the characters. In such a case the author wears, as it were,
an invisible cap like that of Fortunatus, which permits him to move
unnoticed among his characters; and he reports to us externally their
looks, their actions, and their speech, without ever assuming an
ability to delve into their minds. This rigidly external point of view
is employed frequently by Guy de Maupassant in his briefer fictions;
but although it is especially valuable in the short story, it is
extremely difficult to maintain through the extensive compass of
a novel. The main advantage of this point of view is that it
necessitates upon the part of the author an attitude toward his story
which is at all moments visual rather than intellectual. He does not
give a ready-made interpretation of his incidents, but merely projects
them before the eyes of his readers and allows to each the privilege
of interpreting them for himself. But, on the ot