“Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.”
These words he spoke, not with the bellowing declamation many players had given them, but in a low, firm tone tinged with sadness, a tone expressive of melancholy mixed with determination. As he came out of the fatal chamber backwards, with his hands recking, he did not see Lady Macbeth standing there in an attitude of intense listening, until he struck against her. They both started and gazed at each other in terror,—an action so true to nature that it always electrified the house.
Then at once began the dread reaction of sorrow, fear, and remorse. Forrest made the regret and lamentation of Macbeth over the crime and its irreparable consequences exquisitely piteous and mournful. The marvellous wail of his description of innocent sleep forfeited thenceforth, the panic surprise of his
“How is it with me when every noise appals me?”
the lacerating distress of his
“Wake Duncan with thy knocking: I would thou couldst!”
penetrated the heart of every hearer with commiseration.
Forrest gave Macbeth, in the first scene of the play, a cheerful and observant air; after the interview with the witches he was absorbed and abstracted; pending his direful crime he was agitated, moody, troubled,—
“Dark thoughts rolling to and fro in his mind