Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1880-04-03

At the very first flash OF the idea
of sovereignty we are allowed to see
that there is a struggle, though a
suppressed one, between the shrink
ing from crime and blood character
istic of woman and the towering
ambition which overleaps all such
consideration.
She has read the letter in which
the half-ful6lment of the witches
prediction suggests the higher frui-
ton '.thou shalt be king hereafter"
She already feels herself in the
hands of fate, and rushing past all
intermediate steps grasps in mag
ination the foreshadowed crown,
but Immediately follow misgivings;
they take the form of a distrust OF
her husbands resolution, but from
what follows it is clear that they
also express latent feeling that her
own nature is
''Too full o. the milk of human kindness
else what the need of the terrible
adjuratiOn that follows. She does
not in fact realize in full the sea OF
blood and horror through which
she will have to wade until the
messenger tells her
''The king comes here tonight"
We must here notice an admirable
innovation Of Madame Janauschek.
The reply is,
''ThOurt mad to say SOL
All other actresses whom we have
heard (and we have heard the besO
utter this with a shout of exultation;
the expression with Madame J. was
that of dismay, and she uttered the
words with a shuddering whisper
she realized then for the first time
the dreadful crime that must inter-
vene between her and her guilty
aspirations. Then it is that almost
Immediately follows the fearful adj
ljuration--
''Come, you spirits st
That tend on mortal thoughts, unseX me
here" etc.
Let our readers study this speech
throughout and say whether the
woman who utters it is not conscious
of trembling shrinking from the
crime she has resolved upon, such
as only the dread inspiration she
invokes can overcome.
After this it would appear super
ficially that she is once and for all
resolved and that no relentings fol-
low; but here and there the woman's
nature will obtrude itself. Take
/ the murder scene, for instance. She
is so conscious of a stronger resolu-
| ton than that of her husband that
at first she intends to commit the
murder herself, and enters the room,
but with what result?
"Had he not resembIed
! My father as he slept, had done't."
After, however, her husband has
done the deed and is too paralyzed
with the crime and its hOrrid sur
TOundings to return and arrange the
room so as to throw the guilt on the
slaughtered grOoms, she sees that
she herself, if anyone, must finish
the work, and she braces herself to
! it. She dabbles in the blood of her
victim and returns with hands
reeking in gore, and to all appear
ance is inSenSible to horror callOus
! to all relentings of conscience-but
| is it really so? No indeed that
blood has sunk to the very center of
her guilt-stained being, and, spite
of her bravadO, we learn that sleep
! itself gives no rest to her polluted
soul, but that very blood haunts
her night and day. Listen to the
mutterings of her restless slumbers {:
"Out, damned spot! out, say! 8
| Who would have thought the old man to
! have so much blood in him? What!
will these hands ne'er be clean? q " {"
Here's the smell of blood still all the per-
/ fumes OF Arabia will not sweeten this little
hand"
And then such a sigh that the at
tendant says:
az would not have such heart in my
bosom for the dignity of the whole body"
The woman's shrinking, shuddering
nature here avenges itself in sleep
upon the hardness and bravado
which did violence to it in her
waking hours.
But the wOman's nature is still
more conspicuous when we observe
her love for her husband-their
love for one another, in fact. Each
is sensible of the burden Of their
common guilt, and each desires to
bear the others burden, though
neither can be relieved of it. When
Lady NJ. at first darkly proposes
the dreadful deed, sees Macbeth
overweight with agitation at it,
she says:
''You shall put
This nights great business into my dis
patch"
And when Macbeth has planned
the additional murder of BanquO,
he refuses to lay the additional bur-
den on his wife's conscience, but
answers TO her enquiries:
"Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest wife,
Till thou applaud the deed"
But all in vain; both have burdens
they can neither bear themselves
nor shift on other shoulders. We
cannot refrain here from one more
allusion to the wonderful acting of
Madame Janauschek as going even
beyond the text in illustration of
the authors spirit. The banquet
scene is over in which the troubled |
conscience of Macbeth had conjured |
up the spectre of the murdered Ban
quo, and the almost superhuman
self-possession of his lady had ar
rested the scandal of his distracted