—­Laura E. Richards:  Captain January.

+124.  Changing Point of View.+—­We cannot see the four sides of a house from the same place, though we may wish to have our reader know how each side looks.  It is, therefore, necessary to change our point of view.  It is immaterial whether the successive points of view are named or merely implied, providing the reader has due notice that we have changed from one to the other, and that for each we describe only what can be seen from that position.  A description of a cottage that by its wording leads us to think ourselves inside of the building and then tells about the yard would be defective.

Notice the changing point of view in the following:—­

At long distance, looking over the blue waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in clear weather, you might think that you saw a lonely sea gull, snow-white, perching motionless on a cobble of gray rock.  Then, as your boat drifted in, following the languid tide and the soft southern breeze, you would perceive that the cobble of rock was a rugged hill with a few bushes and stunted trees growing in the crevices, and that the gleaming speck near the summit must be some kind of a building,—­if you were on the coast of Italy or Spain you would say a villa or a farmhouse.  Then as you floated still farther north and drew nearer to the coast, the desolate hill would detach itself from the mainland and become a little mountain isle, with a flock of smaller islets clustering around it as a brood of wild ducks keep close to their mother, and with deep water, nearly two miles wide, flowing between it and the shore; while the shining speck on the seaward side stood clearly as a low, whitewashed dwelling with a sturdy, round tower at one end, crowned with a big eight-sided lantern—­a solitary lighthouse.

—­Henry Van Dyke:  The Keeper of the Light. 
(Copyright, 1905.  Charles Scribner’s Sons.)

+125.  Place of Point of View in Paragraph.+—­The point of view may be expressed or only implied or wholly omitted, but in any case the reader must assume one in order to form a clear and accurate image.  Beginners will find that they can best cause their readers to form the desired images by stating a point of view.  When the point of view is stated it must of necessity come early in the paragraph.  We have already learned that the beginning of a description should present the fundamental image.  For this reason the first sentence of a description frequently includes both the point of view and the fundamental image.

EXERCISES

A. Consider the following selections with reference to—­
    (a) The point of view.
    (b) The fundamental image.
    (c) The completeness of the images which you have formed (see
            Sections 26, 27).