the same source.
This effect is strengthened by a multitude of small touches, which at
the moment may be little noticed but still leave their mark on the
imagination. We may approach the consideration of the characters and the
action by distinguishing some of the ingredients of this general effect.

Darkness, we may even say blackness, broods over this tragedy. It is
remarkable that almost all the scenes which at once recur to memory take
place either at night or in some dark spot. The vision of the dagger,
the murder of Duncan, the murder of Banquo, the sleep-walking of Lady
Macbeth, all come in night-scenes. The Witches dance in the thick air of
a storm, or, 'black and midnight hags,' receive Macbeth in a cavern. The
blackness of night is to the hero a thing of fear, even of horror; and
that which he feels becomes the spirit of the play. The faint
glimmerings of the western sky at twilight are here menacing: it is the
hour when the traveller hastens to reach safety in his inn, and when
Banquo rides homeward to meet his assassins; the hour when 'light
thickens,' when 'night's black agents to their prey do rouse,' when the
wolf begins to howl, and the owl to scream, and withered murder steals
forth to his work. Macbeth bids the stars hide their fires that his
'black' desires may be concealed; Lady Macbeth calls on thick night to
come, palled in the dunnest smoke of hell. The moon is down and no stars
shine when Banquo, dreading the dreams of the coming night, goes
unwillingly to bed, and leaves Macbeth to wait for the summons of the
little bell. When the next day should dawn, its light is 'strangled,'
and 'darkness does the face of earth entomb.' In the whole drama the sun
seems to shine only twice: first, in the beautiful but ironical passage
where Duncan sees the swallows flitting round the castle of death; and,
afterwards, when at the close the avenging army gathers to rid the earth
of its shame. Of the many slighter touches which deepen this effect I
notice only one. The failure of nature in Lady Macbeth is marked by her
fear of darkness; 'she has light by her continually.' And in the one
phrase of fear that escapes her lips even in sleep, it is of the
darkness of the place of torment that she speaks.[195]

The atmosphere of _Macbeth_, however, is not that of unrelieved
blackness. On the contrary, as compared with _King Lear_ and its cold
dim gloom, _Macbeth_ leaves a decided impression of colour; it is really
the