And so the subject can only be reached through
Strether's consciousness, it is plain; that way alone will command the
impression that the scene makes on him. Nothing in the scene has any
importance, any value in itself; what Strether sees in it--that is the
whole of its meaning.
But though in The Ambassadors the point of view is primarily
Strether's, and though it _appears_ to be his throughout the book,
there is in fact an insidious shifting of it, so artfully contrived
that the 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.
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