Why, Seward, does not the poor devil-- SEWARD. Speak up--speak out? Is he afraid of the spiders? You know him, sir--you see through him. NORTH. Ay, Seward--reserved and close as he is--he wants nerve--_pluck_--he is close upon the coward--and that would be well, were there the slightest tendency towards change of purpose in the Pale Face; but there is none--he is as cruel as ever--the more close the more cruel--the more irresolute the more murderous--for to murder he is sure to come. Seward, you said well--why does not the poor devil speak up--speak out? Is he afraid of the spiders? TALBOYS. Murderous-looking villain--no need of words. NORTH. I did not say, sir, there was any need of words. Why, will you always be contradicting one? TALBOYS. Me? I? I hope I shall never live to see the day on which I contradict Christopher North in his own Tent. At least--rudely. NORTH. Do it rudely--not as you did now--and often do--as if you were agreeing with me--but you are incurable. I say, my dear Talboys, that Macbeth so bold in a "twa-haun'd crack" with himself in a Soliloquy--so figurative--and so fond of swearing by the Stars and old Mother Night, who were not aware of his existence--should not have been thus tongue-tied to his own wife in their own secretest chamber--should have unlocked and flung open the door of his heart to her--like a Man. I blush for him--I do. So did his wife. BULLER. I don't find that in the record. NORTH. Don't you? "Your face, my Thane, is as a book where men may read strange matters." She sees in his face self-alarm at his own murderous intentions. And so she counsels him about his face--like a self-collected, trustworthy woman. "To beguile the time, look like the time;" with further good stern advice. But--"We shall speak farther," is all she can get from him in answer to conjugal assurances that should have given him a palpitation at the heart, and set his eyes on fire-- "He that's coming Must be provided for; and you shall put This night's great business into my despatch; Which shall, to all our nights and days to come, Give solely sovereign sway and Masterdom." There spoke one worthy to be a Queen! SEWARD. Worthy! NORTH. Ay--in that age--in that country. 'Twas not then the custom "to speak daggers but use none." Did Shakspeare mean to dignify, to magnify Macbeth by such demeanour? No--to degrade and minimise the murderer. TALBOYS. My dear sir, I cordially agree with every word you utter. Go on--my dear sir--to instruct--to illumine-- SEWARD. To bring out "sublime flashes of magnanimity, courage, tenderness," in Macbeth-- BULLER. "Of every exalted quality that can dignify and adorn the human mind"--the mind of Macbeth in his struggle with the allurements of ambition! NORTH.