as a letter. But the disadvantage of the device
lies in the fact that it tends toward incoherence in the structure of
the narrative. It is hard for the author to stick to the point at
every moment without violating the casual and discursive tone that the
epistolary style demands.

Of course a certain unity may be gained if the letters used are all
written by a single character. The chief advantage of this method over
a direct narrative written by one of the actors is the added motive
for the revelation of intimate matters which is furnished by the fact
that the narrator is writing, not for the public at large, but only
for the friend, or friends, to whom the letters are addressed. But a
series of letters written by one person only is very likely to become
monotonous; and more is usually gained than lost by assigning the
epistolary role successively to different characters.

=II. Subdivisions of the Second Class.=--We have seen that, although
the employment of an internal point of view gives a narrative
vividness of action, objectivity of observation, immediacy of emotion,
and plausibility of tone, it is attended by several difficulties in
the delineation of the characters and the construction of the plot. It
is therefore in many cases more advisable for the author to look upon
the narrative externally and to write it in the third person. But
there are several different ways of doing this; for though a story
viewed externally is told in every case by a mind distinct from that
of any of the characters, there are many different stations in which
that mind may set itself, and many different moods in which it may
recount the story.

=1. The Omniscient Point of View.=--First of all (to start with a
phase that contrasts most widely with the internal point of view) the
external mind may set itself equidistant from all the characters and
may assume toward them an attitude of absolute omniscience. The
story, in such a case, is told by a sort of god, who is cognizant of
the past and future of the action while he is looking at the present,
and who sees into the minds and hearts of all the characters at once
and understands them better than they do themselves.

The main practical advantage in assuming the god-like point of view is
that the narrator is never obliged to account for his possession of
intimate information. He can observe events which happen at the same
time in places widely separated. Darkness cannot dim his eyes; l