[50]
The instruments of darkness tell us trams;
Win us with honest trifles to betray us
In deepest consequence.[1]—
This just and beautiful reflexion on the incautious entertainment of emotions which, though innocent in themselves, yet by their nature lead inevitably to guilty consequences, was never intended by Shakspeare for the flippant tongue of disregard.
Let us now attend to the predominating and painful effect which the truths told by these Instruments of darkness produce on the mind of Banquo: by day, his imagination is haunted with the recurrence of their
- ↑ Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 3.
