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ilarly 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] The poet then takes upon himself the narrative part, as being his proper business; but this abrupt threat he attributes, without a word of warning, to the enraged Trojan chief. To have interposed any such words as "Hector said so and so" would have had a frigid effect. As the lines stand the writer is left behind by his own words, and the transition is effected while he is preparing for it. [Footnote 1: _Il._ xv. 346.] 2 Accordingly the proper use of this figure is in dealing with some urgent crisis which will not allow the writer to linger, but compels him to make a rapid change from one person to another. So in Hecataeus: "Now Ceyx took t
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