The topic of grouping appropriately introduces another aspect of Milton’s style which I shall refer to more specifically as systematic collocation. No one can read him with the object of forming some descriptive image of his prose without being impressed by his frequent use of pairs of words similar in meaning to express a single object or idea. These pairs will be comprised, in a roughly equal number of instances, of nouns and of adjectives, though fairly often two verbs will make up the collocation and occasionally two adverbs. It seems probable that these pairs, more than any other single feature of the style, give the impression of thickness, which is in turn the source of the impression of strength. Or to present this in another way, what the pairs create is the effect of dimension. It needs no proving at this stage that Milton had too well stored a mind and too genuine a passion to coast along on mere fluency. If he used two words where another author would use one, that fact affords presumption that his second word had its margin of meaningful addition to contribute. And so we find it: these pairs of substantives give his prose a dimensional quality, because this one will show one aspect of the thing named and that one another. It would require a rather long list to include the variety of aspects which Milton will bring out by his practice of double naming; sometimes it is in form and substance, or the conceptual and the material nature of the thing; sometimes it is appearance and meaning; sometimes process and tendency; sometimes one modifier will express the active and another the passive nature of the thing described. Always the practice causes his subject matter to convey this sensation of depth and realness, which is a principal factor in the vitality of his style. We shall look at some examples of this highly interesting method. The first is from the _Areopagitica_. I have italicized the pairs. Methinks I see in my mind a _noble_ and _puissant_ nation rousing herself like a strong man after a sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam, _purging_ and _unscaling_ her long abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of _timorous_ and _flocking_ birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble, would prognosticate a year of _sects_ and _schisms_.[142]