Chapter XXIV

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." 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.