Meekness grew more dramatic than madness.

Historic Christianity rose into a high and strange _coup de theatre_ of morality--things that are to virtue what the crimes of Nero are to vice.
The spirits of indignation and of charity took terrible and attractive forms, ranging from that monkish fierceness that scourged like a dog the first and greatest of the Plantagenets, to the sublime pity of St.
Catherine, who, in the official shambles, kissed the bloody head of the criminal.

Poetry could be acted as well as composed.

This heroic and monumental manner in ethics has entirely vanished with supernatural religion.

They, being humble, could parade themselves; but we are too proud to be prominent.