Page:On the Sublime 1890.djvu/87

 XXVI 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. 

Equally dramatic is the interchange of persons, often making a reader fancy himself to be moving in the midst of the perils described—

and that line in Aratus—

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." 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