Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/41

26 Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” When all hope has fled, his superabundant activity rejects the very idea of self-destruction. He will not play the Roman fool, and die on his own sword.

Gashes look best on others.

In the last scene, in which the lying juggle of the fiend is unmasked, and he falls by the sword of Macduff, some re maining touches of conscience and of nature are shewn. At first he refuses to fight: “My soul is too much charg'd With blood of thine already.” When even fate deserts him, and his better part of man is cowed, he fights bravely to the last, and falls in a manner

which the poet takes care to mark, in the scene which imme diately follows, as the honourable end of a soldier's life. He descends from the light a fearful example of a noble mind,

depraved by yielding to the tempter; a terrible evidence of the fires of hell lighted in the breast of a living man by his Own act.

The character of Lady Macbeth is less interesting to the psychological student than that of her husband. It is far less complex; drawn with a classic simplicity of outline, it presents us with none of those balancing and contending emotions which make the character of Macbeth so wide and

and varied a field of study. It does not come within the scope of this criticism to enquire at length into the relative degree of wickedness and depravity exhibited by the two great crimi nals. Much ingenious speculation has been expended on this subject, one upon which writers are never likely entirely to agree so long as different people have antipathies and pre ferences for different forms of character.

The first idea of

the crime undoubtedly comes into the mind of Macbeth before he sees his wife ; the suggestion of it fills his mind imme

diately after his interview with the weird Sisters, and he