14 L. A. Sherman 



lost the use of his moral faculties, he has not forfeited even his 

 common sense. No such hallucination obsesses him as could 

 prompt him to accept as a confession of faith, ' Fair is foul, and 

 foul is fair.' It is the witches who have said that, and perhaps 

 feel that. Yet is he not, as our author has said, practically if 

 not utterly a self-seeker, and a murderer? 



Shakespeare's answer would be, ' No. No. I have taken pains 

 to show Macbeth as just a man, like you and me. I have made 

 him loyal when most of my audience would have had him disloyal. 

 I have made him shrink from lifting hand against Duncan, while 

 most of my readers have been crying out, in the dramatic spirit, 

 " Away with him." When he has for his part determined to 

 thwart the purpose of his wife, I bring her away from Duncan 

 (1. 28) to control him. Macbeth, with decision in his voice, 

 anticipates her censure : 



We will proceed no further in this business. 

 He hath honor'd me of late, and I have bought 

 Golden opinions from all sorts of people. 



" He has at least lately shown a disposition to reward me. I 

 have won the respect and confidence of every rank in Scotland, 

 and 1 am in no mood to cast all that away." This means that 

 he rules against the project, not only for to-night, but for good 

 and all. He has dallied with the idea, or rather he has set 

 Lady Macbeth at dallying with the idea, of being rid of Dun- 

 can. But at no moment since the opening of the play has he 

 been in thought consentingly an assassin. At the words of the 

 Third Witch, he started and showed signs of fear, not of king- 

 ship, but — since Duncan is securely enthroned again — of implied 

 measures, on his part, essentially foreign to his nature and his 

 will. Again, when at return he finds Lady Macbeth ablaze with 

 determination to destroy King Duncan almost at sight, he shows 

 (L V. 63, 64) such signs of fright as make his wife ask and ex- 

 pect only (11. 72, 74) that he clear them from his face. Were he 

 a murderer indeed, requiring merely less dangerous conditions, 

 she would have set him a task far easier, and less absurd. No. 

 I have really intended that Macbeth shall be the man that Lady 

 Macbeth (L v. 17-23) declares: 



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