And next, still keeping mainly and ostensibly to the same point of
view, the author has the chance of using a much greater latitude than
he need appear to use. The seeing eye is with somebody in the book,
but its vision is reinforced; the picture contains more, becomes
richer and fuller, because it is the author's as well as his
creature's, both at once. Nobody notices, but in fact there are now
two brains behind that eye; and one of them is the author's, who
adopts and shares the _position_ of his creature, and at the same time
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.
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