“Why, to be sure, oh Jacobite Selina, but one may read them without taking their æsthetics for law and gospel. I know that the dear man lectured Mrs. Humphry Ward about the ‘point of view,’ when she was writing ‘Elinor,’ and got, I fancy, rather a tart answer for his pains. But you are more intransigent than the master. For he admitted that the point of view was all according to circumstances, and that some circumstances—for instance, a big canvas—made ‘omniscience’ inevitable. What about Balzac and Tolstoy? Both took the omniscient line, and, as novelists, are not exactly to be sneezed at.” “Yes, but Gyp’s isn’t a big canvas,” said Selina, “and it seems to me _n’en déplaise à votre seigneurie_, that this precious story of hers called aloud for Josette’s point of view, and nothing but Josette’s. She is the one decent woman in the book, according to Gyp’s queer standards of decency” (Patty sniffed), “and the whole point, so far as I can make out, is the contrast of her decent mind with the highly indecent people round her. She is as innocent as Maisie, but a Maisie grown up and married. What a chance for another ‘What Maisie knew’!” “I only wish _I_ knew what you two are talking about,” pouted Patty. “That is not necessary, dear child,” I said, in my best avuncular manner. “You are a Maisie yourself—a Maisie who reads French novels. But, Selina, dear, look at your own Henry James’s own practice. He didn’t always choose his point of view and stick to it. He chose two in ‘The Golden Bowl,’ and three in ‘The Wings of the Dove,’ and I’m hanged if I know whether he took several, or none at all, in ‘The Awkward Age.’” “Well,” rejoined Selina, “and isn’t that just why those books don’t quite come off? Don’t you feel that ‘The Golden Bowl’ is not one book but two, and that ‘The Wings’ is almost as kaleidoscopic” (Patty gasped) “as ‘The Ring and the Book’? I mentioned ‘Maisie,’ but after all that was a _tour de force_, it seemed to have been done for a wager. If you challenge me to give you real perfection, why, take ‘The Ambassadors’ and ‘The Spoils of Poynton.’ Was ever the point of view held more tight? Everything seen through Strether’s eyes, everything through Fleda’s!”