Although Hamilton and Clinton had no liking for each other, they were far from being the furious principals in one of those political hatreds which the times were about to engender,--an intellectual cataclysm which Hamilton was to experience in all its blackness, of which he was to be the most conspicuous victim. He had by no means plumbed his depths as yet. So far he had met with few disappointments, few stumbling blocks, never a dead wall. Life had smiled upon him as if magnetized. At home he found perfect peace, abroad augmenting ranks of followers, sufficient work to use up his nervous energies, and the stimulant of enmity and opposition that he loved. It was long since he had given way to rage, although he flew into a temper occasionally. He told himself he was become a philosopher, and was far from suspecting the terrible passions which the future was to undam. His mother, with dying insight, had divined the depth and fury of a nature which was all light on the surface, and in its upper half a bewildering but harmonious intermingling of strength, energy, tenderness, indomitability, generosity, and intense emotionalism: a stratum so large and so generously endowed that no one else, least of all himself, had suspected that primeval inheritance which might blaze to ashes one of the most nicely balanced judgements ever bestowed on a mortal, should his enemies combine and beat his own great strength to the dust. But when Hamilton and Clinton approached the Court-house from opposite directions, on the morning of the 17th, they did not cross the street to avoid meeting, although they bowed with extreme formality and measured each other with a keen and speculative regard. Clinton was now forty-nine years old, his autocratic will, love of power, and knowledge of men, in their contemptuous maturity. He was a large man, with the military bearing of the born and finished martinet, a long hard nose, and an irritated eye. The irritation kindled as it met Hamilton's, which was sparkling with the eager determination of a youth which, although desirable in itself, was become a presumption when pitted against those eighteen additional distinguished years of the Governor of New York. That there was a twinkle of amusement in the Federalist's eye was also to his discredit. "The young fop," fumed Clinton, as he brushed a fleck of mud from his own magnificent costume of black ducape, "he is the _enfant gâté_ of politics, and I shall settle him here once for all. It will be a public benefaction."