eing just the terrible choice."[B]

[Footnote B: _The Ring and the Book--The Pope_, 1235-1238.]

In all the greater characters of _The Ring and the Book_, this intensity
of vigour in good and evil flashes out upon us. Even Pompilia, the most
gentle of all his creations, at the first prompting of the instinct of
motherhood, rises to the law demanding resistance, and casts off the old
passivity.

"Dutiful to the foolish parents first,
Submissive next to the bad husband,--nay,
Tolerant of those meaner miserable
That did his hests, eked out the dole of pain ";[C]

[Footnote C: _Ibid_., 1052-1055.]

she is found

"Sublime in new impatience with the foe."

"I did for once see right, do right, give tongue
The adequate protest: for a worm must turn
If it would have its wrong observed by God.
I did spring up, attempt to thrust aside
That ice-block 'twixt the sun and me, lay low
The neutralizer of all good and truth."[A]

[Footnote A: _The Ring and the Book--Pompilia_, 1591-1596.]

"Yet, shame thus rank and patent, I struck, bare,
At foe from head to foot in magic mail,
And off it withered, cobweb armoury
Against the lightning! 'Twas truth singed the lies
And saved me."[B]

[Footnote B: _Ibid_., 1637-1641.]

Beneath the mature wisdom of the Pope, amidst the ashes of old age,
there sleeps the same fire. He is as truly a warrior priest as
Caponsacchi himself, and his matured experience only muffles his vigour.
Wearied with his life-long labour, we see him gather himself together
"in God's name," to do His will on earth once more with concentrated
might.

"I smite
With my whole strength once more, ere end my part,
Ending, so far as man may, this offence."[C]

[Footnote C: _The Ring and the Book--The Pope_, 1958-1960.]

Nor, spite of doubts, the promptings of mercy, the friends plucking his
sleeve to stay his arm, does he fear "to handle a lie roughly"; or
shrink from sending the criminal to his account, though it be but one
day before he himself is called before the judgment seat. The same
energy, the same spirit of bold conflict, animates Guido's adoption of
evil for his good. At all but the last moment of his life of monstrous
crime, just before he hears the echo of the feet of the priests, who
descend the stair to lead him to his death, "he repeats his evil deed in
will."

"Nor is it in me to unhate my hates,--
I use up my last st