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.
—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.