he reader may arrive at the end without suspecting the trick.
The reader, all unawares, is placed in a better position for an
understanding of Strether's history, better than the position of
Strether himself. Using his eyes, we see what _he_ sees, we are
possessed of the material on which his patient thought sets to work;
and that is so far well enough, and plainly necessary. All the other
people in the book face towards him, and it is that aspect of them,
and that only, which is shown to the reader; still more important, the
beautiful picture of Paris and spring-time, the stir and shimmer of
life in the Rue de Rivoli and the gardens of the Tuileries, is
Strether's picture, _his_ vision, rendered as the time and the place
strike upon his senses. All this on which his thought ruminates, the
stuff that occupies it, is represented from his point of view. To see
it, even for a moment, from some different angle--if, for example, the
author interposed with a vision of his own--would patently disturb the
right impression. The author does no such thing, it need hardly be
said.

When it comes to Strether's treatment of this material, however, when
it is time to learn what he makes of it, turning his experience over
and over in his mind, then his own point of view no longer serves. How
is anybody, even Strether, to _see_ the working of his own mind? A
mere account of its working, after the fact, has already been barred;
we have found that this of necessity is lacking in force, it is
statement where we look for demonstration. And so we must see for
ourselves, the author must so arrange matters that Strether's thought
will all be made intelligible by a direct view of its surface. The
immediate flaw or ripple of the moment, and the next and the next,
will then take up the tale, like the speakers in a dialogue which
gradually unfolds the subject of the play. Below the surface, behind
the outer aspect of his mind, we do not penetrate; this is drama, and
in drama the spectator must judge by appearances. When Strether's mind
is dramatized, nothing is shown but the passing images that anybody
might detect, looking down upon a mind grown visible. There is no
drawing upon extraneous sources of information; Henry James knows all
there is to know of Strether, but he most carefully refrains from
using his knowledge. He wishes us to accept nothing from him, on
authority--only to watch and learn.

For suppose him to begin sharing the knowledg