Storing and retrieving html tags in a variable

This doesn't seem to work:
  <xsl:variable name="doofus">
    <a href="doofus.html">click to go to doofus</a>
  </xsl:variable>
  <xsl:value-of select="$doofus"/>

The resulting output is just "click to go to doofus", not
"<a href="doofus.html">click to go to doofus</a>."

Any way to store html tags in a variable,
or to accomplish this by some other means?