—­Henry Habland:  My Friend Prospero ("McClure’s").

We round a corner of the valley, and beyond, far below us, looms the town of Sorata.  From this distance the red tile roofs, the soft blue, green, and yellow of its stuccoed walls, look indescribably fresh and grateful.  A closer inspection will probably dissipate this impression; it will be squalid and dirty, the river-stone paving of its street will be deep in the accumulation of filth, dirty Indian children will swarm in them with mangy dogs and bedraggled ducks, the gay frescoes of its walls will peel in ragged patches, revealing the ’dobe of their base, and the tile roofs will be cracked and broken.  But from the heights at this distance and in the warm glow of the afternoon sun it looks like a dainty fairy village glistening in a magic splendor against the Titanic setting of the Andes.

—­Charles Johnson Post:  Across the Highlands of the World ("Harper’s").

Come on, sir; here’s the place.  Stand still.  How fearful
And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low! 
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce so gross as beetles.  Halfway down
Hangs one that gathers sampire, dreadful trade! 
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head. 
The fishermen that walk upon the beach
Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark
Diminish’d to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight.  The murmuring surge
That on the unnumber’d idle pebble chafes,
Cannot be heard so high.  I’ll look no more,
Lest my brain turn and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.

—­Shakespear:  King Lear

+123.  Implied Point of View.+—­Often the point of view is not specifically stated, but the language of the description shows where the observer is located.  Often such an implied point of view gives a delicate touch to a description that could not be obtained by direct statements.

In which of the following selections is the point of view merely implied?

1.  Thus pondering and dreaming, he came by the road down a gentle hill with close woods on either hand; and so into the valley with a swift river flowing through it; and on the river a mill.  So white it stood among the trees, and so merrily whirred the wheel as the water turned it, and so bright blossomed the flowers in the garden, that Martimor had joy of the sight, for it reminded him of his own country.

—­Henry Van Dyke:  The Blue Flower. (Copyright, 1902.  Charles Scribner’s
Sons.)

2.  There is an island off a certain part of the coast of Maine,—­a little rocky island, heaped and tumbled together as if Dame Nature had shaken down a heap of stones at random from her apron, when she had finished making the larger islands, which lie between it and the mainland.  At one end, the shoreward end, there is a tiny cove, and a bit of silver sand beach, with a green meadow beyond it, and a single great pine; but all the rest is rocks, rocks.  At the farther end the rocks are piled high, like a castle wall, making a brave barrier against the Atlantic waves; and on top of this cairn rises the lighthouse, rugged and sturdy as the rocks themselves; but painted white, and with its windows shining like great, smooth diamonds.  This is Light Island.