mad-men

Updated: June 12, 2025

Fear, in Shakspere as in the great murder scene in Macbeth is a pure passion; but in Webster it is mingled with something physically repulsive. Thus his Duchess of Malfi is presented in the dark with a dead man's hand, and is told that it is the hand of her murdered husband. She is shown a dance of mad-men and, "behind a traverse, the artificial figures of her children, appearing as if dead."

Henry A. (Henry Augustin) Beers - From Chaucer to Tennyson

But these mad-men preached Jesus and the resurrection to the people, and so convinced them of the fact, that multitudes believed them, and on this supposition we are now to suppose our religion was first established in the world! If we may suppose such things, there are no absurdities that we may not suppose.

Hosea Ballou - A Series of Letters in Defence of Divine Revelation