doubt that, is to doubt of good being to be had for the seeking. He drew
pictures of the healthy Rome when turbulent, the doomed quiescent. Rome
struggling grasped the world. Rome stagnant invited Goth and Vandal. So
forth: alliterative antitheses of the accustomed pamphleteer. At last
her chance arrived.

His opposition sketch of Inaction was refreshed by an analysis of the
character of Hamlet. Then he reverted to Hamlet's promising youth.
How brilliantly endowed was the Prince of Denmark in the beginning!

'Mad from the first!' cried Clotilde.

She produced an effect not unlike that of a sudden crack of thunder. The
three made chorus in a noise of boots on the floor.

Her hero faced about and stood up, looking at her fulgently. Their eyes
engaged without wavering on either side. Brave eyes they seemed, each
pair of them, for his were fastened on a comely girl, and she had strung
herself to her gallantest to meet the crisis.

His friends quitted him at a motion of the elbows. He knelt on the sofa,
leaning across it, with clasped hands.

'You are she!--So, then, is a contradiction of me to be the
commencement?'

'After the apparition of Hamlet's father the prince was mad,' said
Clotilde hurriedly, and she gazed for her hostess, a paroxysm of alarm
succeeding that of her boldness.