"a writer who
had so little artistic sensibility, that he never hesitated on any
occasion, great or small, to make a foray among his characters, and
catch them up to show them to the reader and tell him how beautiful
or ugly they were; and cry out over their amazing properties."
This sweeping condemnation of the narrative attitude of one of the
best-beloved of the great masters sounds just a little bigoted. It is
true, of course, that the strictest artists in fiction, like Guy de
Maupassant, prefer to tell their tales impersonally: they leave their
characters rigidly alone, and allow the reader to see them without
looking through the author's personality. But there is a type of
literature wherein the chief charm for the reader lies in the fact
that he is permitted to see things through the author's mind. When we
read Charles Lamb's essay on "The South Sea House," we read it not so
much to look at the deserted and memorable building as to look at Elia
looking at it. Similarly many readers return again and again to "The
Newcomes" not so much for the pleasure of seeing London high society
as for the pleasure of seeing Thackeray see it. The merit, or the
defect, of the method in any case is a question not of rules and
regulations but of the tone and quality of the author's mind. Whether
or not he may safely obtrude himself into his fictions depends
entirely on who he is. This is a matter more of personality than of
art: and what might be insufferable with one author may stand as the
main merit of another. For instance, the greatest charm of Mr. J. M.
Barrie's novels emanates from the author's habit of emphasizing the
personal relation between himself and his characters. The author's
many-mooded attitude toward Sentimental Tommy is a matter of human
interest just as much as anything that Tommy feels himself.

Let us admit, then, in spite of Mr. Howells, that the author of
fiction has a right to assert himself as the narrator, provided that
he be a person of interest and charm. It remains for us to consider
the various moods in which, in such a case, the writer may look upon
his story. The self-obliterating author endeavors to hide his own
opinion of the characters, in order not to interfere with the reader's
independence of judgment concerning them; but the author who writes
personally does not hesitate to reveal, nor even to express directly,
his admiration of a character's merits or his deprecation of a
character's defect