1 6 L. A. Sherman 



denial this man has never exercised, nor indeed can exercise, of 

 his wife's demands. 



' So his defeat is sure. Lady Macbeth I make in fairness inno- 

 cent of the first proposal that Duncan should be sacrificed. It 

 was a reckless thought, bred of the king's unbearable worthless- 

 ness and presumption, and one that Macbeth could never have 

 executed of himself. After it was " broken " to his wife, Mac- 

 beth must surely have been the victim of cumulative importunity. 

 At some moment, goaded as now by the reproach that he is lily- 

 livered, Macbeth has sworn to her that, at the convenient time, he 

 will assert himself. I am not sure, though, that he ever did quite 

 this. Lady Macbeth is capable, in her present mood, of exagger- 

 ation. But she needs some further and more telling advantage 

 over her husband, and I create it for her. She has but to affirm 

 to him that, in a case like this, she for her part would have dashed 

 out her baby's brains as earnest of her fierce sincerity. Macbeth 

 knows that she could have done nothing of the kind, being power- 

 less even now to lift hand against Duncan, whom she hates. Yet 

 he will not ridicule, or gainsay. He lets her have her triumph, 

 though it means damnation to both her and him. So I keep the 

 sympathy of my audience with Macbeth, and make the play a 

 tragedy of devotion.'^" 



10 How fine it is that Macbeth does not here taunt his wife for having 

 promised to bring the deed to pass herself (I. v. 68-71), — while now she 

 naively presumes to shift the task to him ! How fine also it is later, when 

 the apples of Sodom have been tasted, that he permits himself no syllable 

 of reproach to her ! 



The author has thus of course consummated the enabling act of his 

 tragedy on the domestic rather than the epic plane. The gain has been 

 that he brings it home to the lowest comprehension. Every-day examples 

 bear out the history. The wife who, for social eminence, demands that 

 her husband find means, any sort of means, of doubling his income, is a 

 Lady Macbeth in kind. She is vaguely aware that the course proposed 

 will mar his credit, and his peace of mind. He for his part knows that 

 it will immure him finally in a felon's cell. But he jumps the immediate 

 life to come, and obeys her wish. 



As to the imagined truculency of Lady Macbeth's disposition, observa- 

 tion of outside incidents will restore perspectives. Once while trj'ing, 

 rather inefi^ectually, to explain to a class of students why it was not neces- 



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