supplements his wit. If you analyse the picture that is now presented,
you find that it is not all the work of the personage whose vision the
author has adopted. There are touches in it that go beyond any
sensation of his, and indicate that some one else is looking over his
shoulder--seeing things from the same angle, but seeing more, bringing
another mind to bear upon the scene. It is an easy and natural
extension of the personage's power of observation. The impression of
the scene may be deepened as much as need be; it is not confined to
the scope of one mind, and yet there is no blurring of the focus by a
double point of view. And thus what I have called the sound of the
narrator's voice (it is impossible to avoid this mixture of metaphors)
is less insistent in oblique narration, even while it seems to be
following the very same argument that it would in direct, because
another voice is speedily mixed and blended with it.

So this is another resource upon which the author may draw according
to his need; sometimes it will be indispensable, and generally, I
suppose, it will be useful. It means that he keeps a certain hold upon
the narrator _as an object_; the sentient character in the story,
round whom it is grouped, is not utterly subjective, completely given
over to the business of seeing and feeling on behalf of the reader. It
is a considerable point; for it helps to meet one of the great
difficulties in the story which is carefully aligned towards a single
consciousness and consistently so viewed. In that story the man or
woman who acts as the vessel of sensation is always in danger of
seeming a light, uncertain weight compared with the other people in
the book--simply because the other people are objective images,
plainly outlined, while the seer in the midst is precluded from that
advantage, and must see without being directly seen. He, who doubtless
ought to bulk in the story more massively than any one, tends to
remain the least recognizable of the company, and even to dissolve in
a kind of impalpable blur. By his method (which I am supposing to have
been adopted in full strictness) the author is of course forbidden to
look this central figure in the face, to describe and discuss him; the
light cannot be turned upon him immediately. And very often we see the
method becoming an embarrassment to the author in consequence, and
the devices by which he tries to mitigate it, and to secure some
reflected sight of the