To find the mind’s construction in the face;
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.
This reflection is commonplace enough in itself, but is rendered eminently striking by his cordial reception of Macbeth the next moment; he hails as his deliverer, and enthrones in his heart, the man who is already meditating his destruction, and that very night murders him in his sleep. Thus precept and example concur in teaching the uncertainty of appearances. Again Duncan says:
My plenteous joys,
Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of sorrow.
He then declares his intention to confer appropriate honors on all deservers, and renews his expressions of confidence in Macbeth.
The subject is now presented in a slightly different aspect. Whereas the ambiguity of form or appearance has heretofore been insisted on, the leading idea is now the agreement of form with substance; the correspondence of appearances with the reality.
Macbeth writes to his wife, informing her of what has happened, that she may not “lose the dues of rejoicing,” but be able to conform to their new circumstances. Her reflections on the occasion abound with illustrations of the theme. She fears his nature; it is too full of the milk of human kindness to “catch the nearest way.” He cannot rid himself of what she considers mere ceremonious scruples; “what he would highly that he would holily;” whilst she thinks only of the end they aim at, she apprehends that he will stand upon the manner of reaching it. An attendant now informs her of Duncan’s unexpected approach; and she falls into a soliloquy which is singularly adapted to the theme. The “hoarse raven;” the invocation to night; her wish to be unsexed, and that her milk might be turned to gall, etc., etc. When Macbeth arrives, she says to him: