On the other hand, the contraction of plurals into singulars sometimes creates an appearance of great dignity; as in that phrase of Demosthenes: “Thereupon all Peloponnesus was divided.”[1] There is another in Herodotus: “When Phrynichus brought a drama on the stage entitled _The Taking of Miletus_, the whole theatre fell a weeping”--instead of “all the spectators.” This knitting together of a number of scattered particulars into one whole gives them an aspect of corporate life. And the beauty of both uses lies, I think, in their betokening emotion, by giving a sudden change of complexion to the circumstances,--whether a word which is strictly singular is unexpectedly changed into a plural,--or whether a number of isolated units are combined by the use of a single sonorous word under one head. [Footnote 1: _De Cor._ 18.] XXV When past events are introduced as happening in present time the narrative form is changed into a dramatic action. Such is that description in Xenophon: “A man who has fallen, and is being trampled under foot by Cyrus’s horse, strikes the belly of the animal with his scimitar; the horse starts aside and unseats Cyrus, and he falls.” Similarly in many passages of Thucydides. XXVI Equally dramatic is the interchange of persons, often making a reader fancy himself to be moving in the midst of the perils described-- “Unwearied, thou wouldst deem, with toil unspent, They met in war; so furiously they fought.”[1] and that line in Aratus-- “Beware that month to tempt the surging sea.”[2] [Footnote 1: _Il._ xv. 697.] [Footnote 2: _Phaen._ 287.] 2 In the same way Herodotus: “Passing from the city of Elephantine you will sail upwards until you reach a level plain. You cross this region, and there entering another ship you will sail on for two days, and so reach a great city, whose name is Meroe.”[3] Observe how he takes us, as it were, by the hand, and leads us in spirit through these places, making us no longer readers, but spectators. Such a direct personal address always has the effect of placing the reader in the midst of the scene of action. [Footnote 3: ii. 29.] 3 And by pointing your words to the individual reader, instead of to the readers generally, as in the line “Thou had’st not known for whom Tydides fought,”[4] and thus exciting him by an appeal to himself, you will rouse interest, and fix attention, and make him a partaker in the action of the book. [Footnote 4: _Il._ v. 85.] XXVII Sometimes, again, a writer in the midst of a narrative in the third person suddenly steps aside and makes a transition to the first. It is a kind of figure which strikes like a sudden outburst of passion. Thus Hector in the _Iliad_ “With mighty voice called to the men of Troy To storm the ships, and leave the bloody spoils: If any I behold with willing foot Shunning the ships, and lingering on the plain, That hour I will contrive his death.”[1]