PASS [OX AX I) 1MAGIXATTOX IX POETRY 73? 



3. In the third place, we remark that, as Macbeth realizes with 

 such vividness and such emotion the qualities of everything that 

 appeals to him, so one thing is always suggesting another with sim- 

 ilar qualities : 



Then conies my lit again; I had else been perfect; 

 Whole as the marble, founded as the rock, 

 As broad and general as the casing air; 

 But now I am cabiri'd, c-ribb'd, confined. 



When the ghostly voice that he hears, the echo of his own imaginative 

 mind, suggests to him the terrible thought that he has murdered not 

 the king only, but Sleep, the greatest friend of man, he is at once 

 absorbed in the thought of all the wonder and mystery of sleep, which 

 he draws out into a long string of images; forgetting all about the 

 business he had been engaged in, and the bloody dagger in his hand, 

 until his practical wife in blank amazement breaks in with, " What 

 do you mean? " Xo one, again, is likely to forget the desolate images 

 under which he sums up his idea of the worthlessness and meaningless- 

 ness of human life: 



Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, 

 That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 

 And then is seen no more; it is a tale 

 Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 

 Signifying nothing. 



i. I would point out, further, as a frequent trait of the poetic 

 nature, Macbetlrs simplicity; shown partly by his interest in his own 

 moods; for example, in such saying? as ''"False face must hide what 

 the false heart dolh know;'' more curiously in his speculation why 

 he could not say " Amen :< when the groom he was about to murder 

 said, "'God bless us;'' most curiously in his irritation at ghost- 

 walking : 



The times have been 



That, when the bruins were out. the m;ui would die, 

 And there an end; but now they rise again. 

 With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, 

 And push us from our stools; this is more strange 

 Than such a murder is. 



~). Finally, though in this [ am trespassing on a subject which I 

 hope to discuss in a second paper. \ve cannot but observe Macbeth's 

 extraordinary talent for expression. I will give but one instance. 

 Shakespeare, whether bv design or chance, has reserved for him, per- 

 haps, the most remarkable presentment in literature of the phe- 

 nomenon of falling night - 



Lijjht thickens. 



