The creative power of Vergil is amply vindicated by Dido. One may feel that she is too vivid for her function, that she takes the stage, as actors say, away from Æneas, that through her the nice planning of the whole is quite warped. We shall doubtless never be able to judge this as Romans. Perhaps even they were more absorbed than Vergil intended in his tragic queen.[31] Perhaps Vergil himself was swerved by his own creation. But all this only reinforces the testimony to a compelling characterization. There may be difference of opinion as to Dido’s part in the story; there can be none as to Dido herself. But our estimates thus duly corrected, we cannot but feel that Dido stands out among the figures of the _Æneid_ because she is exceptional. We feel her to be drawn not only better, but often differently. And this should lead to scrutiny of Vergil’s habitual method. To begin with, it is everywhere apparent that he cares less than Homer for individuality. A certain expansiveness in Homeric dialogue often keeps the story waiting to give the individual his say. Vergil shifts the proportions. He rejects long dialogues because he is more interested in narrative economy than in personal expressiveness. Further, the speeches are often more reasoned than Homer’s, more orderly, less like conversation and more like oratory.[32] Sinon’s are very naturally elaborate pieces of special pleading, and the rhetoric of Drances against Turnus is appropriate in a deliberative assembly; but the making of successive points, and the careful adaptation of style not only to the speaker, but to the hearer, are habitual, as even in the speech of Allecto to Turnus. In this reasoned order, rather than in any mere elaboration, Heinze finds Vergil to be rhetorical. Instead of following the pace of emotional utterance, abrupt and disjointed, he sometimes holds even violent emotion to a steady course. By thus composing emotional expression he sometimes sacrifices directness of characterization.[33]