e of the Point of View--Two Classes, The Internal and
the External--I. Subdivisions of the First Class: 1. The Point of
View of the Leading Actor; 2. The Point of View of Some Subsidiary
Actor; 3. The Points of View of Different Actors; 4. The
Epistolary Point of View.--II. Subdivisions of the Second
Class:--1. The Omniscient Point of View; 2. The Limited Point of
View; 3. The Rigidly Restricted Point of View--Two Tones of
Narrative, Impersonal and Personal: 1. The Impersonal Tone; 2. The
Personal Tone--The Point of View as a Factor in Construction--The
Point of View as the Hero of the Narrative.

=The Importance of the Point of View.=--We have now examined in detail
the elements of narrative, and must next consider the various points
of view from which they may be seen and, in consequence, be
represented. Granted a given series of events to be set forth, the
structure of the plot, the means of character delineation, the use of
setting, the entire tone and tenor of the narrative, are all dependent
directly on the answer to the question, Who shall tell the story?

For a given train of incidents is differently seen and judged,
according to the standpoint from which it is observed. The evidence in
most important murder trials consists mainly of successive narratives
told by different witnesses; and it is very interesting to notice, in
comparing them, how very different a tone and tenor is given to the
same event by each of the observers who recounts it. It remains for
the jury to determine, if possible, from a comparison of the various
views of the various witnesses, what it was that actually happened.
But this, in many cases, is extremely difficult. One witness saw
the action in one way, another in another; one formed a certain
judgment of the character of the accused, another formed a judgment
diametrically different; each has his separate sense of the train of
causation that culminated in the act; the accused himself would
disagree with all the witnesses, if indeed he were capable of looking
on the facts without conscious or unconscious self-deception; and we
may be certain that an infallible omniscient mind, cognizant of
all the hidden motives, would see the matter differently still. The
task of the jury is, in the main, to induce from all these tragic
inconsistencies an absolute outlook upon the real truth that
underlies the facts so differently seen and so variously judged.

Such an absolute ou