glory indeed, but sought it by labouring for the very
highest end--the moral welfare of men--not by vague exhortations, but by
striving to turn beliefs into energies that would work in all the
details of life.

"Everything that I have done," said one memorable passage, which may
perhaps have had its erasures and interpolations, "I have done with the
design of being for ever famous in the present and in future ages; and
that I might win credit in Florence; and that nothing of great import
should be done without my sanction. And when I had thus established my
position in Florence, I had it in my mind to do great things in Italy
and beyond Italy, by means of those chief personages with whom I had
contracted friendship and consulted on high matters, such as this of the
General Council. And in proportion as my first efforts succeeded, I
should have adopted further measures. Above all, when the General
Council had once been brought about, I intended to rouse the princes of
Christendom, and especially those beyond the borders of Italy, to subdue
the infidels. It was not much in my thoughts to get myself made a
Cardinal or Pope, for when I should have achieved the work I had in
view, I should, without being Pope, have been the first man in the world
in the authority I should have possessed, and the reverence that would
have been paid me. If I had been made Pope, I would not have refused
the office: but it seemed to me that to be the head of that work was a
greater thing than to be Pope, because a man without virtue may be Pope;
but _such a work as I contemplated demanded a man of excellent
virtues_."

That blending of ambition with belief in the supremacy of goodness made
no new tone to Romola, who had been used to hear it in the voice that
rang through the Duomo. It was the habit of Savonarola's mind to
conceive great things, and to feel that he was the man to do them.
Iniquity should be brought low; the cause of justice, purity, and love
should triumph; and it should triumph by his voice, by his work, by his
blood. In moments of ecstatic contemplation, doubtless, the sense of
self melted in the sense of the Unspeakable, and in that part of his
experience lay the elements of genuine self-abasement; but in the
presence of his fellow-men for whom he was to act, pre-eminence seemed a
necessary condition of his life.

And perhaps this confession, even when it described a doubleness that
was conscious and deliberate, real