The manner in which, in his fictitious rôle, in his interview with Tullia, the parricidal queen, whose prophetic soul is ominously alive to every alarming hint, he veered along the perilous edges of his feigned and his real character, the sinister alternation of jest and portent, was a passage of exciting interest, sweeping the chords of the breast from sport to awe with facile and forceful hand. The same effect was produced in a still higher degree in the interview with his son Titus, whose patriotism and temper he tested by lifting a little his false garb of folly and letting some tentative gleams of his true nature and purposes appear. "_Brutus._ I'll tell a secret to thee Worth a whole city's ransom. This it is: Nay, ponder it and lock it in thy heart:-- There are more fools, my son, in this wise world, Than the gods ever made. _ Titus._ Sayest thou? Expound this riddle. Would the kind gods restore thee to thy reason-- _Brutus._ Then, Titus, then I should be mad with reason. Had I the sense to know myself a Roman, This hand should tear this heart from out my ribs, Ere it should own allegiance to a tyrant. If, therefore, thou dost love me, pray the gods To keep me what I am. Where all are slaves, None but the fool is happy. _Titus._ We are Romans-- Not slaves-- _Brutus._ Not slaves? Why, what art thou? _Titus._ Thy son. Dost thou not know me? _Brutus._ You abuse my folly. I know thee not.--Wert thou my son, ye gods, Thou wouldst tear off this sycophantic robe, Tuck up thy tunic, trim these curléd locks To the short warrior-cut, vault on thy steed, Then, scouring through the city, call to arms, And shout for liberty! _Titus._ [_Starts._] Defend me, gods! _Brutus._ Ha! does it stagger thee?" The simulation had been dropped so gradually, the unconsciously waxing earnestness of purpose and self-betrayal were carried up over such invisible and exquisite steps, that, when the electric climax was touched, he who confronted Brutus on the stage did not affect to be more startled than those who gazed on him from before it really were. Finding his son is in love with the sister of Sextus, and in no ripe mood for dangerous enterprise, he turns sorrowfully from him, murmuring,-- "Said I for liberty? I said it not. My brain is weak, and wanders. You abuse it." When left alone, he soliloquizes, beginning with sorrow, and passing in the succeeding parts from sadness to repulsion, then to anxiety, afterwards to hope, and ending with an air of proud joy.